10-mans = Failure

Kurn / / facepalm, gear, icecrown citadel, raiding, ramblings

I really do recognize that Blizzard wants to make WoW raids more accessible. That’s why we’ve seen raids go from 40-man to 25-man and 20-man to 10-man.

But I still think that 10-mans are the biggest headache to manage for guild leaders. When I was a GM, I was like, “You know what? Fuck 10-mans. Run them, don’t run them, I don’t care.”

They’re filled with drama. You organize them in-guild, officially, and people invariably end up getting saved to the wrong run because some people didn’t show. (See: Karazhan.) You let people run them freely and people invariably get hurt feelings because they don’t get to go “with the cool kids”. (See: Zul’Aman.) You encourage them to run on their own with pugs and people invariably don’t go because they don’t feel like pugging raid content and wiping.

I honestly believe that the introduction of 10-man raid content, starting with Karazhan, but becoming more pronounced with Zul’Aman and developing into the headache we now have with Wrath content, has thrown a wrench into the works of any decent raiding guild.

My personal stance on 10s is “fuck that shit”. I view 10s to be inferior in terms of time + energy = reward than 25-mans. Obviously, I’m right in the sense that right now, ilvl 251 stuff drops out of ICC10 and ilvl 264 stuff drops out of ICC25. Stuff that I have that isn’t tier is basically 258 at this point. Almost everything I have is 245 or 258. ICC10 is a marginal upgrade for me from TOC 25 and is probably a downgrade if the piece is from TOGC 25.

But the problem right now is that you have to do 10s for two reasons. One is rep and the other is Emblems of Frost.

Blizzard has come up with this insane scheme to force you to get 400+ Emblems of Frost in order to get your tier gear. You MUST buy the Emblem of Frost version of your gear (ilvl 251) in order to use the tokens that drop in ICC25, to upgrade your tier to ilvl 264.

Thus, because I do want to get the exalted Ashen Verdict ring and because I do want to wear my tier gear, I need to do the following every week:

– ICC10 (not organized formally by my guild)

– ICC25 (regular raid)

– Random Heroic Daily x7

– Random Weekly Raid x1

That gives me 35 Emblems of Frost a week. I currently have 72 and I should have 76 (I missed 2 days of dailies).

This week, my guild is attempting to set up 10s on the forums. So far as I can see, utter failure. I signed up before the other regular holy paladin did and I am, thus far, not on the invite list. Healer 1: resto druid, Healer 2: shadow priest, Healer 3: other holy pally.

WTF is that all about? If you’re going to post and ask for people for your run, you should take those who post first. If you want to set up a super-secret, ultra-uber group, then use the guild calendar or something else so that you can be assured of the people you need.

I don’t care about going with the cool kids or not and I really hate 10-man content with a fiery passion. So I’ll make my own arrangements or whatever and if I miss out on 8 badges and a chunk of rep this week, so be it. But this is indicative of a serious problem in WoW, I think. Any time you split up a raid group that is generally larger (25 in this case) and force them to do the same content on a slightly less difficult scale, you’re going to end up with people who either miss out due to scheduling issues, have hurt feelings because they’re not as good as those organizing the run or, like me, figure that it’s just not worth the headaches to get 8 emblems a week.

This is the first time I’ve aggressively pursued 10-man content because I recognize I need the badges and rep. And into the third reset of ICC, I’m already disillusioned and am counting down the days ’till I can reform my old guild. :P

Note: Should this nonsense continue into Cataclysm, where we need badges for tier, etc, I am definitely organizing groups for the guild as a whole.

Short form of above: Fuck 10-mans.

Definitely not perfect.

Kurn / / facepalm, mages, ramblings

So I’m standing there on my mage, frostbolting King Dred, when he does his bellowing roar.

“Man, I wish I had Every Man For Himself on this character,” I muttered to myself.

And then stopped.

And blinked my eyes (not my toon).

I DO have Every Man For Himself! My mage is human! It just wasn’t on my bars. >< Way to go, me. Way to freaking go. EMFH has been out for what, over a year? Goes to show you how often I play my mage.

Kurn's Guide on How to Behave as a Healer in Dungeons

Kurn / / druids, dungeons, guide, healers, healing, hunters, paladins, patch 3.3, priests, ramblings, shamans

Kurn’s Guide on How to Behave as a Healer in Dungeons

You’ll note that I don’t specify “random” or “heroic” or “raid” dungeons. That’s because I believe that my guide is good for any level healing class in any size of dungeon, be it 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 40. It was inspired, of course, by the fact that I’ve done more 5-man regulars and heroics in the last week since 3.3 came out than I have in the previous five months, but there are some good basics here of which all healers should be aware.

Why am I writing this? Because I’ve run tons of dungeons in my WoW career as all three roles (healing, tanking, damage) and every time I’m on one of my toons, there’s always at least one moron who doesn’t know how to appropriately behave in a group. Always. And those are the GOOD groups.

So, from someone who raids primarily as a holy paladin, who runs anything she can with her hunter, who will reluctantly tank as her paladin, who pugs raid content on her resto shammy, who plays a mage in the 70s and has a dual-specced resto/feral (tank) druid in the 70s as well, here’s my guide for healers.

1) Heal. This is a bit of a no-brainer, I know, but a long time ago, on a server far, far away, I used to group with the warlock officer of my guild. Awesome person. Great warlock. She had a priest alt. And she’d levelled the priest shadow. But when she got to 60, she went holy to heal us in 5 and 10 man dungeons. So there we are, in UBRS, doing the Father Flame event and someone dies. “Oops!” says the warlock-priest, “My bad! I forgot to heal! I was DPSing.”

<3 her all day long, but if you’re that kind of a player who primarily plays a DPS class and has a healer alt (or DPS main spec and healing offspec), remember what your role is for the group. If you’re a healer, you heal, even if you’re bored. (I get very bored at times on my paladin and my shammy. So I feel for you. But you still should pay most of your attention to the health of the group instead of what % the boss is at because Murphy’s Law will step in and kill your healing targets while you’re innocently DPSing away.)

2) Heal the pets. No joke, I’m not kidding, pets are an important part of the group’s DPS and rezzing/resummoning pets can be time consuming for the other players, so make sure that when you’re healing the group, you’re healing the pets, too. 3.3 means pets will be taking a lot less damage now, but it’s still important to keep an eye on them.

3) Prioritize. Basically, prioritizing is the key to healing. Your top priority in a 5-man is the tank — but don’t forget about yourself. If BOTH of you are in mortal danger and you don’t have Beacon of Light up or Binding Heal at your disposal, do what you can — Nature’s Swiftness for both druids and shammies is there for a reason. Remember the age-old saying:

– If the tank dies, it’s the healer’s fault.
– If the healer dies, it’s the tank’s fault.
– If the DPS dies, it’s their own damn fault.

You’re responsible for everyone in a 5-man, but the DPS has to take some responsibility for themselves and the tank has to take some responsibility for you.

4) Know which heals to use. I’m not going to go through the zillions of healing spells available to holy paladins, holy priests, disc priests, resto druids and resto shammies. But suffice it to say, your spec and class abilities give you lots of tools to heal with (yes, even paladins have lots of spells these days!) and you should know not to, for example, use Lesser Healing Wave on three separate people when one Chain Heal will do the job. You should not cast Healing Touch on each group member when one Wild Growth would have sufficed. Don’t drop a 20k crit Holy Light when a 4k Flash of Light would have been fine. Don’t cast Prayer of Mending when your target needs Penance or, gasp, Greater Heal.

But how do you know which to use? Practice. Get used to what your spells are healing for. Turn on combat text and get an idea of the ballpark. Then when you’re healing your group, if you’re using frames that show you the difference between current health and maximum health, you’ll have a much better idea of which heal to use. I strongly recommend Grid and Clique for raid frame addons, by the way.

5) Move out of crap/away from adds. Having said that, if you, as a healer, die because you wouldn’t move out of the fire, poison, void zone or whatever or you die because you let adds beat on you without trying to run to the tank (or bubbling or fading or even shadowmelding), that death is entirely your fault. You’re not a tank. Well, you might be, but not when you’re in healing gear in a healing spec. :P Healing is about being aware of the group and their health — that includes you and your environmental awareness. Don’t be that idiot standing in the fire. (I’ve been there and done that, myself. Not a lot of fun!)

6) Cleanse your group. This might seem like another no-brainer, but you should be dispelling/cleansing everything you can off your group. Your priority is to heal and you might have to heal through a lot of debuffs if they pile up too quickly, but as soon as you can, start getting them off of you, your tank and the group. (Cleansing Totem is probably the best totem in the entire universe.)

7) Buff your group. Prayer of Fortitude, Divine Spirit, Shadow Protection, Gift of the Wild, *Greater* Blessings and group-appropriate totems!

A specific note to shammies: Totems are always a little tricky. If there’s a DK in the group, you shouldn’t need to drop Strength of Earth and can drop Stoneskin instead (or Tremor as needed). If they have a few points into Frost (for Icy Talons), you shouldn’t need to drop Windfury. Otherwise, look at your group composition. If you have yourself and two or more caster DPS, go with Mana Spring and Flametongue, along with Wrath of Air. But if you’re the only mana user, consider Windfury instead (unless already covered by a DK).

Depending on the group, I typically drop Strength of Earth, Mana Spring, Flametongue and Windfury, so that both melee and casters get two of my buffs.

Basically, just be aware of what’s already covered by your group and don’t overlap buffs. :)

8) Use your defensive cooldowns. Priests have Guardian Spirit or Pain Suppression, paladins have Hand of Sacrifice and many have Divine Sacrifice. Use them. They are life-saving abilities. (Tip: Don’t use Hand of Sacrifice without bubbling first and you should still expect to have to heal yourself after Divine Sacrifice if you use it without bubbling.)

9) Inform your group when you need mana. If you actually say in your group chat that you need mana, then when the idiot tank runs in and pulls the boss before you’ve even had a sip of water or nibble of a mana strudel, at least you can be like “OMG WTF I SAID I NEEDED MANA”. Never assume that your tank is remotely considerate of you. And even if you do get a considerate tank, the DPS may not be.

Example: I was tanking Halls of Lightning with a RL friend of mine who was healing me on her priest. We were in the hallway with the statues on our way after the first boss. She hadn’t stopped to drink after the boss or the first wave of mobs in the hall or the second wave (since there was a fear and the hunter got feared further into the hallway for the second group). So, because I know that healer mana is not necessarily infinite, I waited for her to sit and drink as I watched the idiot mage in our group run full speed ahead to trigger the third group.

I almost didn’t taunt off the moron and then said, in party chat, “If we could possibly avoid pulling when the healer’s drinking because she’s out of mana, that would be appreciated.”

So the best way to avoid misunderstandings or bad pulls like that is to announce your status to the party. And I don’t mean by being annoying and typing /oom six times in a row. “My mana has waned!” can only be heard a few times before people start to go insane. :P (Yes, Kylon, if you’re reading, that’s a reference to you and that BRD run from when you apped to Fated Heroes. YERL! <3)

10) Be patient. Easier said than done, I know, healers. But even though you want to use a baseball bat to beat the people you’re grouped with (whether in-guild or a pug — it can happen either way), you need to take a deep breath and realize you’re not going to be stuck healing those morons forever. Dungeons, even the longer 5-mans, take about 30-35 minutes of your time. Raids obviously take longer, but generally have a fixed end time. If you’re sitting there, wiping on Anub’arak on heroic mode for the 38th time that week, take a deep breath, look at the clock and tell yourself you only have another hour or so to go.

11) Resurrect your dead group members after combat has ended and you’ve gotten a bit of mana. Period. No excuse not to. The only time you shouldn’t be expected to rez the dead is when you died. My philosophy is: if your healer has to run, so do you. Of course, if someone has to afk real quick, the benefit of the doubt should be given, but if the dumbass is chatting in group or whatever and isn’t running, tell him or her to start running their ass back to the instance. I have, in the past, back in Shadow Labs, I think, forced the group to wait on a rogue who died and didn’t run back instead of rezzing him. The entire time he was running back, he was arguing with me and I finally managed to get it through his thick skull that his resurrection is entirely based on my kindness and I don’t take kindly to people who don’t even make the effort to run back. (Tip: In a raid situation, rez healers/rezzers first and if you’ve been the recipient of Divine Intervention, ALWAYS rez the pally who cast DI on you first! It’s only polite.)

12) Don’t do too much. Okay, that’s not a specific thing for when you’re healing in a dungeon. But I had to mention it anyways because healers and tanks can burn out really, really quickly in this game. Why? There’s all kinds of responsibility on their shoulders and people are WAY too quick to judge. Both are thankless roles. In fact, if healers and tanks do their jobs right, no one should notice anything — because people lived and the tanks held aggro. And since healing meters are a terrible way to gauge your performance (unlike DPS meters for the DPS classes), it can often seem like you’re doing your job without feedback or encouragement.

In the past, I have countered this, in general, by not doing 10-man raids. And not doing any 5-mans that frustrate me. Nope, my paladin basically did her 25-man raids and that was it. And then came Emblems of Triumph and I needed a bunch of Emblems to make use of the Trophies of the Crusade for gear. Suddenly, I was doing 10m VOA, 10m Ony and even the occasional 10m TOC/TOGC, in addition to 25m VOA, 25m Ony and the guild runs of 25m TOC/TOGC. Ugh!

Thankfully, Emblems of Frost are only attainable through the 10m and 25m versions of Icecrown Citadel — and the weekly raid quest. And daily random heroics. And there aren’t separate hardmode timers for ICC, so there’s only two raid lockouts for Emblems of Frost to drop. Whew.

So I’m doing four bosses in 25m ICC, four bosses in 10m ICC and the weekly raid quest. The daily random heroics? Well, I keep signing up as a tank *and* a healer, but I have tanked every single random heroic I’ve done thus far: Azjol’Nerub, Old Kingdom, Gundrak, Halls of Lightning, Trial of the Champion, Utgarde Keep, Forge of Souls… I’m losing track of them all, but it means I’m not healing nubs and I’m getting a lot of practice tanking.

So really, that’s not a lot of healing I’m doing on my paladin. Granted, I’m healing daily on my shammy, but she’s not doing any ICC yet and has, like the rest of my toons, stopped running Onyxia and VOA (at least until the new VOA boss comes out). I’m reserving ICC for my hunter and my paladin right now, so that’s not any extra healing.

I know someone who, I kid you not, was healing both Ulduar 10 and 25 on two toons every week, in addition to healing Sarth3D 10-man zerg attempts, plus VOA on both 10/25 on both toons. That was too much healing for her. Even half of that is too much healing for me and too much healing for most sane people. There’s just so much time that you can spend healing up other people in any given raid week, IMHO, and the further you stay back from that limit the more you’ll enjoy the time you ARE healing and the less likely you will be to burn out. Everyone’s limits are different and you should be aware of when things are starting to feel like an obligation instead of a fun part of a game.

Anyways, all of that said, healers, even you part-time healers who are discovering healing through the new 5-mans and random dungeons, thank you for your dedication, for being the ones who choose to clean up after everyone’s mess. There are never enough healers and *good* healers are extremely rare. So I hope that this guide has helped you out a bit and that you know that you’re appreciated in general for the choice you’ve made to heal through portions of this funny little game we play.

Kurn's Guide on How to Behave as a DPS in Dungeons

Kurn / / dps, facepalm, guide, ramblings

Kurn’s Guide on How to Behave as a DPS in Dungeons

You’ll note that I don’t specify “random” or “heroic” or “raid” dungeons. That’s because I believe that my guide is good for any level DPS class in any size of dungeon, be it 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 40. It was inspired, of course, by the fact that I’ve done more 5-man regulars and heroics in the last week since 3.3 came out than I have in the previous five months, but there are some good basics here of which all DPSers should be aware.

Why am I writing this? Because I’ve run tons of dungeons in my WoW career as all three roles (healing, tanking, damage) and every time I’m on one of my toons, there’s always at least one moron who doesn’t know how to appropriately behave in a group. Always. And those are the GOOD groups.

So, from someone who raids primarily as a holy paladin, who runs anything she can with her hunter, who will reluctantly tank as her paladin, who pugs raid content on her resto shammy, who plays a mage in the 70s and has a dual-specced resto/feral (tank) druid in the 70s as well, here’s my guide for DPS classes.

1) Don’t pull aggro. Okay, sure. It’s going to happen sometimes. You’re going to zone out and forget to watch Omen and accidentally pull aggro. Minimize the amount of times this happens or your tank is going to get very cranky. If it DOES happen, try to recover. Mages iceblock, hunters feign, rogues vanish, priests fade, warlocks soulshatter, pallies bubble, BOP or hand of salvation… any night elf can shadowmeld… If you can’t drop aggro (death knights, warriors, primarily), run to the tank or just stop attacking and blow any cooldowns you have to survive. DKs, icebound fortitude, warriors can slap on a shield, go defensive and shield wall. Both your tank and your healer will appreciate your quick thinking.

And if you don’t have Omen, log out of WoW and download it. NOW.

2) Don’t stand in stuff. Essentially, this game boils down to the following:

– Does the boss put something on the floor?
— If yes, don’t stand in it.
— If no, watch out for the adds or other environmental factors and move when needed.
— Note that the presence of crap on the floor does not mean there will be no adds.

3) Blow defensive cooldowns. In AOE-type situations, do whatever you can to lessen the healing required on you. For example, a hunter can blow Deterrence to prevent damage on anything from Loken’s Lightning Nova to, well, anything. And speaking of Lightning Nova, you know that’s nature damage, right? Flip on Aspect of the Wild to help boost the group’s resistance to it.

Iceblock, Divine Shield (heck, Divine Shield/Divine Sacrifice is awesome, too, if you’re specced for it!), Survival Instincts (if you’re kitty DPS), Dispersion… well, you know your classes better than I do. You get the drift. You may not get heals, because healing is a sort of triage event. You heal the tanks and healers first, then the DPS. Always remember:

– If the tank dies, it’s (usually) the healer’s fault
– If the healer dies, it’s (usually) the tank’s fault
– If the DPS dies, it’s their own damn fault

4) Be familiar with the fight. Numbers 2 and 3 are very much related to this one. If you’ve done the fight on another character, playing another role, you might not be entirely sure how to DPS the fight. So even if you’ve been through an instance 20 times as a tank or a healer, try to give the instance a once-over at WoWWiki or WoWHead and make sure you know how your class abilities and talents lend themselves to the situations you will be facing. Which leads us to our next point.

5) Be familiar with your role. Let me say that again: be familiar with your role. I don’t care if you have 200 days /played on your druid if you’ve only ever tanked and have no idea of how to DPS or how to heal beyond healing yourself after soloing an elite quest.

There are WAY too many people out there who are tanking and healing these days in 5-mans, who have absolutely no idea how to do so. But there are also those people out there who don’t know how to DPS.

Some tips:

a) AOE = Area of Effect. Typically only useful with 3+ mobs, who have less health than normal mobs. Don’t Blizzard or Volley a single mob.

b) Misdirection/Tricks of the Trade. Use them. On every pull, if possible. I have a macro on my hunter that is, admittedly, extremely simplistic, but it works. It goes like this:

/target [tank name]
/cast Misdirection
/assist

And before every instance starts, I edit the macro to insert the actual tank’s name. Then I put it on my bars and hit it prior to every pull and then it assists the tank so I know which target the tank was looking at, which is usually the mob I’ll open up on.

I’m sure rogues can edit the macro to work for Tricks of the Trade.

c) Relatedly, assisting the tank (or at least following the kill order — Skull is usually first, followed by X, I’ve noticed) will help you to get mobs down faster and will mean less deaths for you, because you know where the tank is going to focus his or her threat. In this day and age of AOE tanking, not all tanks are created equal and warriors, for example, don’t have a 360 degree aggro ability (like Swipe, Consecration or Death & Decay), so it becomes even more important to follow your tank’s instructions. (A good tank will make it clear what needs to die first, either via raid symbols, text instructions or whatever. If you’re not sure, ask. If there’s no time to ask, watch Omen and keep watching where your tank is focusing his or her threat.)

d) Learn what you need to do to achieve an adequate performance. That means, for example, having Serpent Sting up if you’re a Marksmanship hunter and you’re using Chimera Shot. Or having Black Arrow ticking on a mob for Lock and Load procs if you’re a Survival hunter. Or having Scorch up if you’re a Fire mage. Or knowing what poisons to use on your weapons as a rogue. Or knowing which seal and judgement to use as a paladin. How about making sure Flame Shock is up for that guaranteed Lava Burst crit as an ele shammy? Or that you make sure to cast Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning when you hit five stacks of Maelstrom as an enhancement shammy? Where do you find this stuff out? All KINDS of places. Blogs are generally a *great* resource, and you can find some amazingly high-quality blogs here:

WoW Blog List – Twisted Nether Wiki

So research your class mechanics. What “works just fine” while soloing is not going to cut it in groups.

6) Don’t be a loot whore. In this new era of Need before Greed/Disenchant, absolutely roll Need on what you *need*. But if you don’t *need* it, then ask your group if you can take it for offspec or whatever. If someone hits Need for main spec and it’s NOT your main spec, then pass.

Example: You are a ret paladin. Yet you would like to build up both holy and prot sets, because you’re a hybrid and you recognize that it’s your duty as a hybrid to make use of your ability to fill more than one role. Good for you.

DO roll Need on: Large 2H weapons with lots of strength, plate armor with strength and hit and crit (but not defense or spellpower)

Roll GREED on: Any 1H tanking weapon/shield or spellpower weapon/shield you can equip, any plate spellpower or defense gear.

In other words, do NOT roll need on a tanking axe, spellpower plate shoulders and a two-handed mace in the same run, or people are going to vote you off the island. And they’ll be right to do so.

7) Buff the group. How many DPS priests have you been in a group with who didn’t buff Prayer of Fortitude and Divine Spirit? Or DPS druids who didn’t buff Gift of the Wild? Or mages who don’t buff Arcane Brilliance? My guess is amazingly few. So why do DPS paladins think it’s okay not to buff the group at all? Or to just buff 10m versions of their buffs? Listen, guys, from one paladin to another, IT IS NOT OKAY. If you can buff a group, you’re going to need to do so unless someone has an improved buff. So buy some reagents — Symbols of Kings for paladins, Devout Candles for priests, Wild Spineleaf for druids, Arcane Powder for mages — and make sure you don’t run out. Further, ALL PALADINS should install PallyPower to coordinate buffs, period. You will thank me later, trust me, and so will your groups.

If you’re a Leatherworker and have access to Drums of Forgotten Kings, then the only time you shouldn’t use the kings drum is if there’s two (or more) pallies in the group. If you’re grouped with just one, tell your paladin, up front, before they waste any symbols, that they can do might/wisdom and you’ll do kings. If you have no paladins, go ahead and buff the group with kings anyways. No druid in your group? No problem if you have Drums of the Wild, but don’t cast it if you ARE with a druid, since it’s the equivalent to the non-improved ranks of Gift of the Wild.

If you’ve got Inscription and can do Runescroll of Fortitude, do so if there’s no priest.

Of course, the drums and the Runescroll are able to be bought at the Auction House, so if you plan on going after the Pug pet, you probably want to bring any of your own reagents plus both drums and a stack of Runescrolls to make sure you have all the buffs you want and to help ensure that the group goes smoothly.

8) Know how to crowd control. I know, I know. These days, crowd control is extremely rare. Gone are the days where hunters had to skillfully trap spam things using Feign Death because you couldn’t drop a trap in combat. Gone are the days where you have to crowd control at all, in most cases. (Never thought I’d say this, but I miss that back-right corner in UBRS. You know the one I’m talking about!) But that doesn’t mean that you can ignore your traps, your wyvern sting, your sap, your blind, your chains of ice, your sheep, your hex, your shackle, your fear, your succubus’ seduce, your banish, your cyclone, your entangling roots, your repentence, your turn evil or any that I might have missed. Just because you don’t HAVE to CC doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know how just in case things go to hell.

Example: I was running Heroic Halls of Reflection the other day on my hunter. And a DPS DK died on one of the waves. So on the wave before the boss, I kept a mob trapped while the DPS druid battle-rezzed the DPS DK. He was healed and buffed and we were able to burn the last mob down just as the boss activated. Did I need to know how to trap for that? Eh, that’s debatable. Did it help the group out? I think so.

Another example: I was running, again, Heroic Halls of Reflection on my paladin and I was healing. It was a pug group, wasn’t terribly strong and somehow, we’d made it to the “OMFG RUN IT’S ARTHAS” fight. We wiped at least twice because there was no focus fire, there was no crowd control and there was just too much damage going out for me to heal. So I selected a Witch Doctor (those casters can be brutal) and used Turn Evil on it. It ran around for a while and by the time the fear wore off, he was pretty angry with me, so he came running towards the group to be in range of casting at me, which was close enough for him to get silenced and then brought closer to us to get killed before the wall broke and we ran for our lives.

Still another example: I was running Gundrak with my mage the other day and the healer was about to die to a snake because he refused to move. Bam, sheeped him! (Actually, I turtled him, but whatever.)

Just about everyone in the game has *some kind* of crowd control, be it temporary (a warrior’s Intimidating Shout) or longer-lasting (a mage’s Polymorph can basically keep something under control indefinitely). Know how to use those abilities and, more importantly, know *when* to use them.

9) Run back. If you die and your healer has also died, guess what, buddy? You’re running back. If there’s been a wipe, I have been known to force the group to wait for the idiot rogue to run back as well. If you died but your healer didn’t, be patient, they’ll rez you when they have mana.

So basically, don’t pull aggro, know how to do your job, don’t expect heals if the tank or healer are in danger and buff the group with your class buffs.

Having said that, I know that DPS classes are the most popular and that it can be tough for you guys to find a group. But I have seen so many BAD DPSers these days that I feel compelled to say something to all you hunters who know how to trap, you mages who keep your sheep sheeped, those of you who don’t stand in fire or poison… thank you. You’re the types of players I always want to end up with when I’m tanking or healing. And for you new DPSers, welcome to group dynamics. Please don’t make me regret having a hunter or a paladin by being a noob when you’re in a group. I hope this guide has been helpful for you.

Dear Paladins in my PUGs: A Letter from Kurn

Kurn / / dungeons, facepalm, paladins, ramblings

Dear Paladins in my PUGs,

Hi. How are you? Good? Good.

I’ve noticed a very disturbing trend among paladins in my random dungeons on the Bloodlust battlegroup: you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. And because I raid as a paladin, this makes me want to throttle you IRL until you reroll DK or rogue or quit the game entirely.

I don’t care if you’re specced holy, protection or retribution, your job consists, in part, of buffing people. You have Blessing of Kings, Might, Wisdom and possibly Sanctuary.

Nine times out of ten, you need to buff your group members in a random dungeon with Blessing of Kings. No, wait, let me rephrase that: GREATER BLESSING OF KINGS.

What is UP with all you cheap-ass retnubs out there? Seriously. Go buy three stacks of Symbols of Kings (300 symbols) and buff people with a half hour buff. And buff! If you didn’t want to actively buff anyone, you should have been a rogue or a death knight.

If someone says that they have Drums of Forgotten Kings, then buff the people in your group appropriately with wisdom or might. Tip: hunters, prot and ret paladins and enhancement shammies, despite their mana bars, will always want might over wisdom. All other mana classes will want wisdom. All melee classes will want might. It’s not rocket science.

Further, there is a BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL, FANTASTIC addon called PallyPower that is amazing for setting up your blessings, so you just set up the buffs and then you can see how much time is left on everyone’s blessing, if people are buffed or not, who’s in range and who isn’t… it’s a great little tool. If you’re going to pug anything, GET THIS ADDON.

Also, I know that most of you couldn’t care less about the spells in the Holy section of your spellbook, but you get Cleanse at level 42. It removes Magic effects, Diseases and Poisons. Bind it to a key. Use it on yourself if no one else. Your healers will appreciate it. Especially if you’re with a shammy, who can’t dispell magic, or a druid, who can’t dispell diseases, or a priest, who can’t dispell poisons. You can. You are totally obliged to make use of this spell.

And finally, you have this whole 12-second-immunity thing called Divine Shield. It’s the bubble. If you think you’re about to die, you may not be wrong. Use your bubble. Don’t be like “wtf y dint i get healz???”. Bubble and STFU and try not pulling aggro. Unless you’re the tank, in which case that’s what Divine Protection is for.

So, to recap:

1) Buy Symbols of Kings. Buff your group with Greater Blessing of Kings unless someone has a drum. Then give out Greater Blessing of Might or Greater Blessing of Wisdom.

2) Use PallyPower to organize your buffs.

3) Learn to Cleanse.

4) Use your bubble when needed.

And quit being such dumbasses in my pugs that you make me want to forget I ever rolled a paladin myself.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Me

Kurn's Guide on How to Behave as a Tank in Dungeons

Kurn / / guide, ramblings, tanks

Kurn’s Guide on How to Behave as a Tank in Dungeons

You’ll note that I don’t specify “random” or “heroic” or “raid” dungeons. That’s because I believe that my guide is good for any level tanking class in any size of dungeon, be it 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 40. It was inspired, of course, by the fact that I’ve done more 5-man regulars and heroics in the last week since 3.3 came out than I have in the previous five months, but there are some good basics here of which all tanks should be aware.

Why am I writing this? Because I’ve run tons of dungeons in my WoW career as all three roles (healing, tanking, damage) and every time I’m on one of my toons, there’s always at least one moron who doesn’t know how to appropriately behave in a group. Always. And those are the GOOD groups.

So, from someone who raids primarily as a holy paladin, who runs anything she can with her hunter, who will reluctantly tank as her paladin, who pugs raid content on her resto shammy, who plays a mage in the 70s and has a dual-specced resto/feral (tank) druid in the 70s as well, here’s my guide for tanks.

1) Know how to generate threat. This is the number one priority. Don’t even think about signing up for a dungeon as a tank if you don’t know how to generate threat. No kidding, I am serious. You will be voted out of the group if you can’t generate sufficient aggro to prevent mobs from attacking level-appropriate party members. This WILL be different than how you approach doing damage, it may require a different spec and will probably require different gear. I recommend you do some reading about your class if you’re not sure how to generate threat. TankSpot.com is one of the best tank resources out there, bar none, point-blank. MainTankadin is the best prot pally website on the internet. Big Bear Butt is an amazing feral tank site. And deathknight.info seems to be a good spot to learn stuff — don’t forget to visit the forums.

Probably the most important thing any tank should remember to do is turn on that ability for threat: Righteous Fury for a paladin (which I’ve forgotten more than my fair share of times), Frost Presence for a DK, Defensive Stance for a warrior and, well, if you’re trying to tank in moonkin, cat or tree forms, give up now.

2) Know how to tank more than one add at a time. One of the biggest, most obvious problems for newer tanks is handling more than one mob and having enough threat on all those mobs while your group kills them. It is NEVER acceptable to hold three adds and let a fourth go running off. It is NEVER acceptable to hold one mob and let three go running off. You NEED to hold aggro on all of them and be ready to taunt any free mobs off. Admittedly, paladins and druids have it easy — Consecration and Swipe are 360 degrees of threaty goodness. Death and Decay is great, except it’s not a constant thing like Consecrate — it lasts 10 seconds, but is on a 30 second cooldown. It’ll be great for initial aggro, but then it’s up to you to use your class abilities and talents to maintain that initial aggro on all those mobs. Warriors, we’re talking Thunderclap, Cleave, Shockwave, and you should have vigilance up on whoever steals aggro from you the most so that your taunt is being refreshed when you need it to be.

3) Know how to stay alive. Yes, you have a healer who is probably dedicating most of their time to ensuring that you don’t die. But there’s more to it than that. Let’s break it down.

a) Gear/Defense/Defense Rating:

No one is expecting you to go running 5-man regular dungeons with TOC-level gear. This isn’t about “gear score” or anything of the sort. This is about knowing how to itemize and enchant and gem and how to make sure mobs can’t crit you. Granted, you shouldn’t be tanking heroics in greens; try for good-quality blues or low-level epics, but the basics of it boil down to there being a lot of math involved. Since I am bad at math, that’s something I won’t get into, but the bottom line here is you need defense (or talents or resilience, although resilience provides much less benefit than defense) to ensure that your chance to be crit is reduced by 5.6% for any raid and 5.4% for any heroic. Skull-level mobs (bosses) are mathematically 3 levels higher than you as opposed to your regular level 82 bosses in heroics, so the math is slightly different.

This means that your *defense*, not your defense *rating*, but your DEFENSE, should be 535 (or higher) for heroics or 540 (or higher) for raids. DO NOT BOTHER trying to tank a level 80 dungeon without being uncrittable by the mobs there. Granted, it’s a little difficult to always be defense-capped while levelling, but then you’re probably not going to wipe the group if you get crit once or twice in a regular levelling dungeon. You WILL wipe the group if you get crit a couple of times on a boss fight in a heroic or a raid setting.

Being “defense capped” (which isn’t a terribly accurate term — you basically can’t have too much defense. The proper term is “crit capped”.) is approximately 70 billion times more important than your health pool. So don’t worry if you have, you know, 25k health if you have 535+ defense. Take every opportunity to stack defense. +20 defense gems, defense to cloak and chest, defense helm and shoulder enchants… stack defense if you’re not at that cap. You will need 4.9 defense rating for 1 defense skill. ALWAYS round down when doing quick math, because if you end up right on the cusp, you could become crittable again. And, like I said, you can’t really have too much defense. Defense adds to your chances to dodge, parry, block and be missed. Clearly, defense continues to be great for paladins and warriors who can dodge, parry, be missed AND block, but it loses some oomph when it comes to death knights, who cannot block as they don’t wear shields. You think that’s bad? How about the druids? Apparently, despite the fact that bears in Ashenvale can parry me just fine, feral druid tanks cannot parry or block, leaving dodge as their primary avoidance stat.

And that is why, druids, you don’t have defense on most of your gear. That’s cool, though. Blizzard compensated you for that by giving you a talent that every tank would love to have — Survival of the Fittest. 3/3 in SotF and voila! You are now uncrittable by any mob who is up to 5 levels above you (although, you can be crushed by a mob four levels above you, so I recommend not trying to tank anything higher than 3 levels above you).

In short: Have 535+ defense for heroics and 540+ for raids.

b) Defensive Cooldowns:

– Ardent Defender (proc) and Divine Protection for paladins. (NOT DIVINE SHIELD. If you EVER bubble yourself as a tank when you have aggro, you *fail*. Of course, bubbling to remove awful bleed effects or such when you are NOT currently tanking the boss and right-clicking it off immediately is fine. The key is not while you’re tanking.)
– Shield Wall and Enraged Regeneration and Last Stand for warriors. If you have a bunch of rage, pop Enraged Regeneration and Last Stand to help out your healer when a boss enrages or starts hitting harder or you accidentally stand in something. Shield Wall is your real “OH CRAP” button.
– Icebound Fortitude, Anti-magic Shell and Anti-magic Zone (depending on spec) for death knights. Icebound Fortitude, with its 2m cooldown, should be used first and should be used whenever you can, basically, during a fight that does something “extra”. Lightning Nova on Loken, for example, or when Ormorok the Tree-Shaper frenzies in Nexus. Anti-Magic Shell should be used on any magical damage you can to mitigate that damage taken, and if you have 4pc T8 (though most people should be moving on to T9/T10 now), it’ll mitigate 10% of physical damage taken, too. If you’re Unholy and have Anti-Magic Zone, that’s a great party/raid-wide cooldown that should be used on magical damage effects as well.
– Survival Instincts, Frenzied Regeneration and Barkskin for bears. Barkskin is great, a 1m cooldown and usable ANY TIME. You can be stunned, feared, asleep, whatever, and you can pop it for a 20% damage reduction. Survival Instincts is always fun to pop to see how huge your health pool will get and Frenzied Regeneration, like a warrior’s Enraged Regeneration, will convert rage to health. Druids have some very nice cooldowns.

Also, if you’ve got Herbalism, don’t underestimate Lifeblood. It’s a small amount of health, but every point helps. Same with Draenei and Gift of the Naaru. Who doesn’t love instant-cast healing spells?

And don’t forget to use your tanking trinkets. Got one that increases your dodge rating? Pop it when the boss is super angry with you! Got lots of mobs on you and a trinket that increases your armor when you’re hit? Pop it then! A tank who knows how to use their trinkets (and which ones to equip for the encounters) is a good tank.

4) Know when to taunt. Something that bothers the crap out of me is that people taunt like crazy these days. So let me explain exactly the mechanic of a taunt. And by “taunt”, please take that as an umbrella term for: Taunt (and to an extent, Mocking Blow), Growl, Dark Command and Righteous Defense (and to an extent, Hand of Reckoning).

A taunt does not, in itself, cause threat. A taunt will match you with the highest threat on that mob’s aggro table. But it will not add threat if the mob is already on you, as the various tooltips say. This isn’t what I’ve noticed is a problem. What I HAVE noticed is a problem is this:

Tanks are taunting to pull.

WRONG.

Ten MILLION kinds of wrong! You do not taunt to PULL. There IS no aggro, so basically, a taunt to pull is a facepull. You’re getting on the initial aggro table and that’s basically it and it’s EXTREMELY easy for anyone to pull off you. If you had any kind of hot ticking on you, guess what? Your healer now has aggro. Or that overeager DPS is now dead. Either way, bad news.

Paladins, of course, are slightly different since Hand of Reckoning’s tooltip says:

“Taunts the target to attack you.  If the target is tauntable and not currently targeting you, causes [1 + 0.5 * AP] Holy damage.”

So when I cast Hand of Reckoning on a mob who isn’t looking at me, because we’re not yet in combat, that gets me about 8k threat off the bat in my current gear. But it’s still a lazy way to get aggro and should be avoided.

Warriors: Heroic Throw is a great ranged pull for you. If you don’t need to range pull, run on in and start producing aggro.
Death Knights: Death Grip is a great ranged pull for you, unless you’re pulling all casters/ranged.
Druids: Feral Faerie Fire (wow, try saying that three times fast!) will cause some nice threat off the bat if you want to range pull.
Paladins: Avenger’s Shield anyone? If you can’t use your shield for some reason and you NEED to range pull, go ahead and use Hand of Reckoning.

Also, if you’re grouped with a hunter, please make sure they’re using misdirection on you. It’s very easy for hunters to pull from range. And most hunters enjoy doing so. If a hunter you’re grouped with doesn’t like to MD you, they fail.

5) Know how to pick up the mobs. Should be pretty simple, right? There’s a group right over there, so you jog over and beat on them. Things aren’t always that easy. In Violet Hold today, for example, I saw a warrior who just stood back, waited for the adds to spawn at the portal and then charged in. Is this wrong? Not when it’s a single add (Portal Guardian). But when it’s a group of mobs that all scatter and charge for the door? WRONG. This idiot warrior refused to get close enough to the portal to get initial aggro because he (or she) was insisting that charging in was the best choice. No. It’s not. Getting initial aggro so that your healer doesn’t, or that your shammy’s totems don’t, THAT is the best option. Refer back to rule #1: know how to generate threat. Part of generating threat is BEING NEAR THE MOB.

6) Know how to Line of Sight (LOS) mobs. I’m pretty sure that I notice this because I’ve been a hunter for four years, but people don’t know how to line of sight pull. What does that mean?

a) You are looking at a bunch of mobs, probably casters.
b) You have a section of wall or a hill or some place you can hide from the casters nearby.
c) You aggro them somehow.
d) You run behind the wall or down the hill and wait for the casters to catch up to you.

That’s it. Pretty simple. A lot of people are doing this obsessively in Halls of Reflection, which is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of, but that’s another rant entirely. No mob can hit you if they’re not able to see you because you ran around a corner. So what do they do? They chase you. Casters (and other ranged mobs) will start casting again as soon as they have a clear line of sight on you, so being right at that corner or being prepared to run up that hill when they arrive is a good idea.

Corollary: Do NOT LOS your healer. That’s to say, always make sure your healer can heal you. Don’t go up on top of the stairs when you can fight on the steps themselves and your healer is below you, or else they’ll have to chase you up. Chasing you means they’re not casting, which means they’re not healing, which means you or someone else could die.

7) Know how to position the mobs. There are a lot of mobs in this game that do frontal cone damage or cleave damage. What’s that mean? A frontal cone means there’s a triangular area of damage from the front of the mob, extending out to the sides. If you’re the tank, you’re expected to take the brunt of this, but you’re also expected to turn the mob so it’s not facing the group. Cleave damage means that the boss has a frontal attack that will hit ANYONE standing in front of it (in range) very hard. Melee DPS is supposed to DPS from behind anyways, to ensure their attacks aren’t parried, dodged or blocked, but as the tank, it’s your responsibility to turn the mob to ensure there’s no damage hitting your group. It’s usually a good idea to get aggro and then turn the mob, strafing and stepping backwards as you go. Mobs behind you can be a bad thing, because players can’t block or parry attacks from behind, so you’ll want to step back a couple of paces if you have that issue.

8) Be aware of your group’s status at all times. Okay, I’m primarily a healer, but even before I was a healer, I was a hunter and I was a raid leader and the number one thing I learned by leading Zul’Gurub and Molten Core runs was to be aware of the healer mana bars and whether or not people were dead. So while I heal with Grid, I also tank with Grid. I refer to it to see if I need to wait to make sure my healer has mana before pulling. I have various debuffs coded into my Grid so that I can see if my healer is silenced, for example, so I can pop a cooldown. If I’m being healed by a priest and there’s no shaman with a cleansing totem down and I’m poisoned, I’ll also cleanse myself and even other party members if need be. I also have Grid showing me who has aggro and you better believe that if the healer has aggro, I’ll right-click on them on my Grid and that’ll use Righteous Defense on that player, meaning I just saved the healer’s butt without even turning around and targetting the mobs. Granted, I’m a paladin and that’s total hax, but I’m sure there are other abilities or macros other classes can use in a similar fashion. A warrior’s Intervene comes to mind.

9) Be at least somewhat familiar with the fights. So maybe you’ve run Utgarde Keep 1000 times as a DPS or a healer. Does that mean you know how to avoid Ingvar’s Dark Smash ability? What about Anub’arak’s Pound? Do you know how to position Gluth in Naxx? What about how many stacks you let Impale get to on Northrend Beasts? Even if you know the fight inside out from another perspective, doing it as a tank completely changes things, so read up on the fights you’re planning on doing as a tank over at WoWWiki.com to make sure you understand what’s happening in the fight from a tank perspective. It’ll allow you to know when to pop those cooldowns, when to expect new mobs, when to move away from the boss (like during Dark Smash or Pound) and other handy tips like that.

10) Run back. If you and your healer have died and there is no other rezzer in the group, guess what? You’re running back, pal. As a healer, I have totally held up a group while a pug DPSer has finally released to run back, five minutes after the rest of the group did. The rule of thumb is: if the healer has to run, so do you.

I’m absolutely positive I’ve left out a bunch of things, but these are 10 things that I expect of my tanks in general — and expect of myself when I’m tanking. Am I perfect? Hell no. But I know how to generate threat on my tanking toons, both of them are uncrittable for their levels of content and I’m reasonably good at holding aggro on many mobs at once, plus I know how to avoid most boss abilities that are avoidable and I can pull because that’s what I did for the first year I played. ;) Those are probably the basics, but if you manage to follow through on all the points I mentioned, you’re a good tank — doing the little things and big things right. And it won’t go unnoticed by a healer or DPS who know what they’re doing.

Having said that, thank you for taking on what is probably the most challenging of all roles in this game. You may not have known what you were getting into, but if you keep doing it, I’m guessing it’s because you like it. Tanks (and, to a lesser degree, healers) are a rare commodity in WoW and a *good* tank is the rarest of all. Except, you know, a female dwarf rogue.

So thank you for what you bring to the table, tanks, and I hope that this was at least a little helpful for some of the newer ones out there.

LFG, ICC and other assorted acronyms.

Kurn / / dps, druids, dungeons, facepalm, healers, hunters, icecrown citadel, paladins, patch 3.3, raiding, ramblings, tanks

As I write this, I’m waiting for a random Lich King Dungeon for my mage, who is now 75, thank you very kindly, and I’m amazed by how long it takes to form a group.

Compared to, of course, level 80 instances that I DPS on my hunter.

Or any level instance when I queue as a healer or as a tank.

Hell, queueing up as a healer AND a tank means you’re never going to ever, ever wait. It’s hilarious. I’ve done the random heroic every day (from Wednesday on) on my paladin, queued as both a healer and a tank and so far, I have tanked: Nexus, Forge of Souls, Azjol-Nerub and Trial of the Champion. I have healed nothing.

Ooh, VH for my mage!

…Interlude for discussion of VH-related fail…

… the DK tank just wiped us on the first boss. Granted, it was the kite boss. But, the DK tank hasn’t dropped death and decay once and he had no presence up WHATSOEVER, much less FROST presence, until wave 5.

By the end of the second boss, the DK tank seems to have learned to drop D&D, has been in Frost Presence and has hauled ass to portals in a reasonable manner.

And yet, by the end of the instance, it appears that the DK tank did not learn from his mistakes. At all.

Happily, the healer was also from Proudmoore, so we queued up for a random dungeon together, with her in her tank spec (she’s a druid) and got the same ele shammy as in VH, plus a priest and a ret pally. We ran DTK randomly and VH (not randomly). How is it possible to reset a dungeon from within the cross-realm LFG interface? We couldn’t seem to reset DTK.

Anyways, it’s nice — my mage made a friend. And is 3 bars from 76!

Right, so, where was I? Oh, yeah, queueing up as a tank AND a healer.

So those are the two roles for my druid, right? So I’ve taken to doing this before I queue:

– check spec.

– put on opposite-spec gear.

– queue for whatever I want.

– get called in to tank or heal and, once zoned, only have to change EITHER spec OR gear to match the role I’m in.

Basically, I’m sitting there in tank spec with healing gear on, but my queues generally go like this:

Tank, tank, tank, tank, healer, tank, tank, healer, tank, tank, tank, tank… tank.

There ARE no tanks out there for lower level instances and so very few at higher levels.

In other news, thanks to some gratuitous trash-farming, Kurn has the Ashen Band of Vengeance while, due to a guild ICC25 and a pug ICC10, Madrana has the Ashen Band of Wisdom. Kurn has yet to kill a single boss in ICC (though not for lack of trying on Deathwhisper 25), whereas Madrana has killed them all twice already, once on 25 and once on 10.

My thoughts on ICC:

– Trash is icky unless you know what you’re doing.

– The first four bosses are basically a review of Black Temple with a hint of SSC and just a sprinkle of Hyjal.

– Marrowgar might be a little overtuned in 10s, but seemed like a pushover in 25. I worked HARD in that 10-man pug, which was mostly some guild’s run. They’re not amazingly geared, but they’re good enough that they shouldn’t have had to struggle as much as they did. This fight steals from SSC’s Leotheras the Blind (whirlwind), Hyjal’s Archimonde (the fire, although it doesn’t chase you) and BT’s Naj’entus.

– Deathwhisper is a little overtuned in 25m, I think. The big Death and Decays are fine, the deformed fanatics/adherents are fine, the resistance to various forms of damage based on mob type, all fine. The MC + the Curse of Torpor need to go or at least  be nerfed on 25 or else your cleansers/CCers HAVE to be on their game. 10m is a freaking pushover in comparison. This fight steals from the Shade of Akama fight, in that you deal primarily with adds until the boss comes out.

– Gunship Battle is HILARIOUS. I love it. The guild one-shotted it, I believe, and the 10-man only took four attempts or so. Got it by the skin of our teeth, mind you. But we got it anyways. :)

– Deathbringer Saurfang. 3 tries on 25m. 2 tries on 10. And I even got this on 10m:

stormingmess10

That’s I’ve Gone and Made a Mess, which was originally a reference to our good ol’ buddy Moroes in Karazhan, because Saurfang originally Garrotted, the way Moroes did.

– The best item in the ENTIRE GAME, hands-down, drops off 25m Deathwhisper: Zod’s Repeating Longbow. I haven’t seen it, but it’s in the drop table at wowhead and OMG. Reference to Superman II? WIN. “Kneel, son of Jor’El! Kneel before Zod!” God, I love that movie. If Kurn can get this bow, ever, I may never replace it. Okay, so I probably would in Cataclysm, eventually, but it would sit in my bank right next to my Rhok’delar.

Other achievements I’ve recently gotten include the BEST-NAMED ONE EVER.

retreating

That’s “We’re Not Retreating; We’re Advancing in a Different Direction.” I got that with my RL friend, the resto druid and three of “our” guildies, although I was on my hunter which not everyone knows about. I laughed my ass off when I got it.

I’ve also been getting a lot of rep while doing the new dungeons. Madrana got these:

mad15

And Kurn got:

kurnknights

Both Kurn and Madrana have gotten:

lfm

Which brings us back to LFG and the dungeon tool.

There I was. Level 71. Tanking, on my druid, in Azjol-Nerub. (As if I don’t deal with Anub’arak enough as it is!) I’m in with a 74 rogue and a 76 DK, as well as a 73 mage and a 72 priest.

I can’t keep aggro off the 76. And have trouble with the 74 at times. And because I’m always taunting off of them, it’s tough to get aggro back from the healer. So I basically stopped worrying about them and worried about the healer. Because, as we all know, if the tank dies, it’s the healer’s fault, if the healer dies, it’s the tank’s fault and if the DPS dies, it’s their own damn fault, right? :D

So the DK is all like “wow tank how come you cant hold aggro?” And I mention that he’s never on my target, so yeah, he’s going to pull aggro. And then I say:

Me: “I’m trying to taunt off the priest and so my taunts aren’t up for you.”

Him: “thats what im doin waht ddid u think i was doin to boss” (I think this was referencing keeping on my target.)

Me: “Watch your Omen. If you don’t have it, get it. Better, run an instance that’s suitable for your level.”

DK: “funny mate funny”

Me: “True, I can’t keep aggro from a level 76. I’m not supposed to.”

DK: “still ur a tank”

Healer: “a tanks job is to keep aggro off the healer, a dps job is to keep aggro off himself now lets stop arguing”

DK, to me: “u cant ever hold agro off all us so stop telling me what to do”

Me: “You really don’t understand the mechanics of this game…”

DK: “what fuck u talkin about now”

DK: “what u think im doin”

Of course, this was all happening during the trash and boss fight for the second boss in Azjol-Nerub. So as soon as we were done:

votekick

I’m going to write three how-tos, I believe. How to Behave as a Tank/Healer/DPS in random dungeons.

The overriding rule to them all is, of course, don’t be a fucktard dick.

Haha!

Kurn / / hunters, ramblings

3.3 gets the thumbs-up from me thus far, even if I have yet to get loot from the end of Halls of Reflection yet.

That’s okay, though. I got Orca-Hunter’s Harpoon from Halls of Reflection (the beginning) and Felglacier Bolter from Ick in the Pit of Saron.

1) FINALLY, I have replaced the stupid Staff of Trickery, which I have been using since shortly after 3.1 launched (I guess?).

2) I HAVE A BOW AGAIN. Okay. It’s a crossbow. But that’s okay. I don’t have these stupid explosions in my ear while playing my hunter again!

Also, I win at this game.

There we were, my heroic Pit of Saron group from earlier this morning.

Everyone died.

Except me.

I think they were standing in poison and crap. But anyways.

They were like “omg kite!”

And I did. I kited Ick all the way over towards the enclave where Jaina and the freed slaves are. My pet had long-since died, but Explosive Shot and Kill Shot and Disengage are for the win.

After what was surely only about 15 seconds of kiting, Ick was down, but for me, it was all kinds of epic. And my group was cheering. “YOU RULE!” “THAT WAS AWESOME!” “OMG YOU’RE NOT A HUNTARD!” and such.

I feel huntastic today.