The Burning Dog Inn

[jayjay]

One thing for priests to remember (and it took me a month or so before it became 2nd nature on my old toon…and it’ll probably take another month to get back into it with Romero) is that Fade is your friend. If you take aggro, Fade. Every time you accidentally draw aggro, either through healing or by not giving an avoided nest of mobs a clear berth, hit Fade. I can’t count the number of times I wiped the whole party in Wailing Caverns by not Fading when the groups of raptors got enraged by my healings. Like I said, it took me about a month to remember it was there every time…

[Skammer]

@jayjay

One thing for priests to remember (and it took me a month or so before it became 2nd nature on my old toon…and it’ll probably take another month to get back into it with Romero) is that Fade is your friend. If you take aggro, Fade. Every time you accidentally draw aggro, either through healing or by not giving an avoided nest of mobs a clear berth, hit Fade. I can’t count the number of times I wiped the whole party in Wailing Caverns by not Fading when the groups of raptors got enraged by my healings. Like I said, it took me about a month to remember it was there every time…

As a priest myself, I’ve been trying to remember to use Fade and Powerword: Shield when I draw aggro. I’m getting better; at least now when I’m attacked I call for help and don’t try to run away I know ideally I should run toward the tank, but that’s not instinctive yet. I have to practice: Shield, run to the tank, Fade, and then run away (when the tank gets aggro back)!

[Athena]

@Verminary

I’m slowly learning which abilities generate the most threat, when to change stances, how to kite and how to pull as a tank, but this is the one thing it’s been really tough for me to do. Is there a technique or a macro or even an add-on that makes switching targets easier? So far I have been tabbing back and forth between targets when I try holding multiple mobs, but that can get confusing pretty fast and more than once I’ve lost one in the shuffle.

At what point is it worth it to think about a respec? I am doing a hybrid build now for solo PvE, but I wonder occasionally (especially if lots of instances are in my future) whether I ought to go for a more tank-oriented build.

I just use tab. That’s not to say there’s not add ons that might help, but I’m not a huge add-on user so I don’t know. But to me, that was part of the challenge of playing a tank - generating aggro on ALL mobs. If you’re having trouble with multiple mobs, invest in a few AE bombs. That’ll bring 'em all back to you.

There is a mod that shows the group’s aggro. I forget what it’s called, but someone will come along and remind us I’m sure.

Also, remember to use your AE abilities. Get used to watching the refresh and redoing any AE aggro-building ability you have every time you can.

Keep an eye out for what the other players are doing as well. If you’re constantly losing aggro to a mage, for example, chances are the mage is being over zealous in dpsing. There’s not much you can do about that. If I’m in a group with a char who is obviously more interested in being top of the DPS meter than actually progressing through the instance quickly with few deaths, I tend to just let them die.

Above all, protect your healer. You should always know where your healer is, and be prepared to pull any mobs off of him. In a tight fight, you need to make quick decisions; always have a trick up your sleeve to save the healer if you need to.

Respeccing: Ultimately this is the biggest pain about being a warrior. I’d suggest staying a hybrid if you like it until you start having problems tanking - which probably won’t be until 60 or so. After that, you have to make a choice: tank or dps. It’s extremely hard to solo as Prot, and it’s extremely hard to tank when you’re not Prot.

Plus you have to carry around gear for the various situations. It’s not like Warr is the only class with this problem, but for me it took a lot of enjoyment out of the game.

[Words_on_the_Interweb]

@Athena

Actually, that’s another tip for the warriors - get used to changing targets to get aggro on all of them. If there’s 3 mobs on you and you’re only hitting one, the other two are gonna decide to eat your healer & dpsers.

It did used to be necessary to tab/sunder/shield slam to maintain aggro on multiple targets, but that’s less the case now. I’ve found Thunderclap (now it can be used in Defensive stance) to be very effective at holding multiples (up to four). It just takes a bit of conscious effort on the part of the tank and CC classes to ensure CC targets are positioned away from the main pack.

@Verminary

Is there a technique or a macro or even an add-on that makes switching targets easier?

Many Warriors find it helpful to create a mouseover macro for abilities. Turn on the floating health bars (“v” by default), hold your cursor over a bar, and activate the macro (works on mobs you do not have directly targeted). Some useful Warrior macros can be found here, including mouseover styles. As a non-Prot at 70, I found a fast weapon and Heroic Strike to be more effective at generating threat than Sunder; depending on available weapons, you may want to use a mouseover HS macro over Sunder.

With more than four mobs, you can Thunderclap, then look at their feet to see which don’t have the telltale glow - pick those targets for individual attention. Generally, spamming Thunderclap when it’s available, and using Heroic Strike/Sunder on the primary target will allow you to control aggro fairly effortlessly. Just remember to always be in Defensive stance when tanking; the innate threat boost helps a great deal.

At what point is it worth it to think about a respec? I am doing a hybrid build now for solo PvE, but I wonder occasionally (especially if lots of instances are in my future) whether I ought to go for a more tank-oriented build.

Soloing as Prot makes for slow and painful levelling… I’d stick with the hybrid build, even if you’re instancing a lot. If you find you have difficulty generating threat, you can put 13 points in Prot to pick up Defiance, which will help a lot. As for respec’ing Prot at all… don’t feel obligated to do so unless you really enjoy the spec or are MT for high-end raids. I tanked Heroics and Kara as an Arms/Prot hybrid with only 15 points in Prot.

[jayjay]

@Skammer

As a priest myself, I’ve been trying to remember to use Fade and Powerword: Shield when I draw aggro. I’m getting better; at least now when I’m attacked I call for help and don’t try to run away I know ideally I should run toward the tank, but that’s not instinctive yet. I have to practice: Shield, run to the tank, Fade, and then run away (when the tank gets aggro back)!

Heh! My very first non-bow/salute/wave macro was one I could hit to /p They’re on me!

I was SO proud of myself for actually doing that…

[Words_on_the_Interweb]

@Skammer

As a priest myself, I’ve been trying to remember to use Fade and Powerword: Shield when I draw aggro. I’m getting better; at least now when I’m attacked I call for help and don’t try to run away I know ideally I should run toward the tank, but that’s not instinctive yet. I have to practice: Shield, run to the tank, Fade, and then run away (when the tank gets aggro back)!

When healing, stand ~20 yards back from the tank; being outside melee range means you can build up more threat without drawing aggro, plus you have time to see if something starts coming for you. If anything moves towards you, hit Fade first; THEN if it doesn’t double-back to the tank, hit PW:Shield and run up. It takes time to get used to, but it’s better to not need a Shield at all.

[Skammer]

I’m already good at standing as far back as I can but thanks for the tip about using Fade first, I’ll practice that.

[Lazlo]

@Athena

It’s basically impossible for a tank to hold aggro if a dps class is doing all-out damage. The trick for DPS classes is to do as much damage as they can without drawing aggro, while the warrior uses his/her tricks to generate aggro.

I, among many others, have a fond saying: If a 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.

The nice thing about lower level dungeons is that if a dps pulls threat, it’s not a big deal. In a raid setting, however, it usually kills the entire party. We rely on a little addon that broadcasts everyone’s threat in relation to each other. It also shows the threshold at which you’ll pull the mob off the tank. The caveat is that everyone in the party needs to have it, especially the tank. If you’re interested, here’s a link to it (intentionally broken due to it being a direct link to a .zip)

http://files.wowace.com/Omen/Omen-r65765.zip

With this threat meter, dps classes can see when they need to stop casting or special attacking before they pull something off the tank. It also lets the astute tank know that he needs to save his taunt if the priest is passing him on threat.

wonderlust, It’s a game and it’s meant to be fun, so don’t be overly critical on yourself. I’ve seen people in Karazhan (10 person dungeon near endgame) forget to turn pet taunt off, so it happens. Relax and enjoy playing with a good guild of people!

I’ve been having fun leveling up this Sedna so far (got her up to 25!). Unfortunately with the new Sunwell Isle patch today, I’ll be having to spend more time on my main Sedna. I’ll still be logging on during the wee hours though.

[Jragon]

@wonderlust

I apologize. I realize that I must have sounded critical, which I didn’t intend. I was terribly disappointed in myself, not the group, for not instantly knowing everything about WOW in two weeks’ time, and not being as useful as I could have been. I’m still not even clear on the roles that other classes assume, and just keeping track of what’s happening around me is a challenge, especially as I’m supposed to play at a distance. I don’t recognize the sounds and symbols of spells cast and abilities activated in other players. Hunter is also new to me, and may seem easy to you folks, but I’m still getting used to the interface, commands, other’ class descriptions, etc. while tending/sending pet, switching back and forth between tracking humanoids and stealth, trying to set traps, trying to pull, and doing dps as well. Clearly, falling into water was a problem for me. :smack:

I made some big mistakes, forgetting to turn up the gamma so I could see better in a lit room - I was playing in a dark room where I was typing blind and made lots of mistakes because of that. Also, while I did have my pet on passive, I forgot to turn off growl, which may have confused things. The mechanics of pulling are clearly different from the other game I played, and I have a lot to learn there.

I love Verminary’s idea of experienced players tutoring new players. In my case that would be really useful. That kind of generous impulse to help is what makes this guild so amazing, and I hope I can do the same for others in some way.

I did return the damp note and got the quest, and I went back and got the rest of my crystals, too. It was fun clearing out the mobs so other players could get their crystals safely.

I’m busy tonight and probably tomorrow night too, but it’s fine with me if you guys go ahead without me. Thanks for the huge pool of experience being offered to me, and the good leadership which I can learn from.

I’m not a noob to hunters but I’m not the absolute best there is. I’m not bad though so i’ll give oyu any advice you need. My old sub guild-leader was a hunter too and I learned a lot instancing with her as well that I could give you pointers on. That was the first hunter I’d ever actually seen use traps in an instance (to a good effect at least) and knew how to crowd control, most just straight out DPSd. Learning all of that from her was really amazing as I had no clue of the utility hunters really had when played well, and trust me what I THOUGHT was a well played hunter is easy what she was doing took some work for me to learn. We’re not mad at you for anything and you did a good job. I was pushing a little, like the freeze trap thing and how i wanted you to pull etc was a little confusing (which I apologize for) I was just trying to nudge you in the right direction. Always tell me if you don’t think you’re ready yet or I’m confusing you, because this stuff isn’t always easy and I’d rather you learn at a comfortable pace and have fun rather than worry about learning Advanced Technique 14 v1.2B Contingency 7 while beating yourself up over not pulling it off correctly.

@Athena

One thing that helps a lot in group instances is to designate a target. I haven’t been on instances with you all, so maybe you’re doing that already (apologies if you are). Use the in-game markers to mark the target that everyone is supposed to be killing, and make sure people are on it. Do not target whatever the warrior has targeted; if it’s a warrior with any skill at all, he/she is changing targets all the time in order to generate aggro on all the mobs, not just the one that everyone’s trying to kill.

I don’t know if they did it in SFK, but in the BFD run we used symbols, skull was main target, red “x” was sap, blue square was freeze trap etc. It made it go quite smoothly (except for one mishap near the end where we got blindsighted, where wonderlust talked about falling in the water, we ended up getting some damage done to us there).

@Lazlo

I, among many others, have a fond saying: If a 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.

The nice thing about lower level dungeons is that if a dps pulls threat, it’s not a big deal. In a raid setting, however, it usually kills the entire party. We rely on a little addon that broadcasts everyone’s threat in relation to each other. It also shows the threshold at which you’ll pull the mob off the tank. The caveat is that everyone in the party needs to have it, especially the tank. If you’re interested, here’s a link to it (intentionally broken due to it being a direct link to a .zip)

http://files.wowace.com/Omen/Omen-r65765.zip

With this threat meter, dps classes can see when they need to stop casting or special attacking before they pull something off the tank. It also lets the astute tank know that he needs to save his taunt if the priest is passing him on threat.

wonderlust, It’s a game and it’s meant to be fun, so don’t be overly critical on yourself. I’ve seen people in Karazhan (10 person dungeon near endgame) forget to turn pet taunt off, so it happens. Relax and enjoy playing with a good guild of people!

I’ve been having fun leveling up this Sedna so far (got her up to 25!). Unfortunately with the new Sunwell Isle patch today, I’ll be having to spend more time on my main Sedna. I’ll still be logging on during the wee hours though.

Though I agree DPS needs to know how to scale and not pull aggro, be too aggresive etc the tank is still a fundamental part of it. Lower levels you definately need to watch it, but my old guild elader (who had five or so maxed warriors) was REALLY damn good, to the point where I could freely immolate, corruption, curse of agony, unstable affliction, siphon life etc any random secondary target and he’d keep aggro on all the mobs at all times. The last run I did on my main with a PUG quite a while ago was in the same instance, the tank just couldn’t, it barely took looking at the mob to pull aggro much less casting DoTs on it. It’s a group, it’s all symbiotic. Chain is only as strong as its weakest link etc etc.

Also note I’m not saying anyone not that good isn’t a good warrior, as I said he had tons of high level warriors he was an exception I’m just saying it’s not 100% the DPS fault if they end up getting aggro, especially if they’re used to a really good tank.

[jayjay]

Okay, as long-time WoW players know, any major patch will break most of your mods into itty-bitty little brittle pieces and toss them to the floor. I’m still downloading the patch, so I don’t know exactly how badly my setup is going to be decimated, but I do have a link to the WoWInterface 2.4 Survival Guide. Looking at the mods that HAVEN’T been updated yet, I’m wondering if I should wait mod developers out or just overhaul my whole setup to try some new stuff…

[Athena]

@Jragon

Though I agree DPS needs to know how to scale and not pull aggro, be too aggresive etc the tank is still a fundamental part of it. Lower levels you definately need to watch it, but my old guild elader (who had five or so maxed warriors) was REALLY damn good, to the point where I could freely immolate, corruption, curse of agony, unstable affliction, siphon life etc any random secondary target and he’d keep aggro on all the mobs at all times. The last run I did on my main with a PUG quite a while ago was in the same instance, the tank just couldn’t, it barely took looking at the mob to pull aggro much less casting DoTs on it. It’s a group, it’s all symbiotic. Chain is only as strong as its weakest link etc etc.

Also note I’m not saying anyone not that good isn’t a good warrior, as I said he had tons of high level warriors he was an exception I’m just saying it’s not 100% the DPS fault if they end up getting aggro, especially if they’re used to a really good tank.

A lot of this is gear as well; tanks are very gear-dependent. If your old leader was a raiding tank, chances are his/her gear was pretty good. The best technical warrior in the world is going to look bad if you’re used to a tank in raid gear.

[Jragon]

@Athena

A lot of this is gear as well; tanks are very gear-dependent. If your old leader was a raiding tank, chances are his/her gear was pretty good. The best technical warrior in the world is going to look bad if you’re used to a tank in raid gear.

The Guild’s first Kara run was the night after the instance run I mentioned, though he was a raiding tank he wasn’t close to raid geared yet.

[FlightlessBird]

Well we fell off the first page, so I’m here to bump us back up.
Lich King on Amazon
Nov 30th!
Is it true? Who knows?

[Demo]

If they’re projecting Nov 30th of this year we can expect to see it released in June of 2009.

[jayjay]

@Demo

If they’re projecting Nov 30th of this year we can expect to see it released in June of 2009.

I was tempted to snerk at that, but then I realized that you’re probably right…

[wonderlust]

Thank you to those who helped with the tabard. You did a great job! Here’s a screenshot of how it looks on OomBipBipYah.

[Lazlo]

@wonderlust

Thank you to those who helped with the tabard. You did a great job! Here’s a screenshot of how it looks on OomBipBipYah.

Looks nice! I just spent several gold working on a new toon. Laslo the cowtank is on the rise.

I’ll pick up a tabard as soon as I can.

ETA: by several gold, I mean 2g. It’s a lot for me at my level

[Skammer]

@wonderlust

Thank you to those who helped with the tabard. You did a great job! Here’s a screenshot of how it looks on OomBipBipYah.

Nice! I’ll get a shot of Kene wearing his and post it tonight. My outfit is quite colorful.

[Runestar]

I had Thursday off, and spent it leveling my DruidCow (Hawkstaff). Went from 9 to 13. Things go faster once you get the Bear form I think; no longer need to spend as much time between mobs regenerating mana. Still not high enough for instances yet, sadly. Hope to spend more time on the 'toon this week.

[jayjay]

@Runestar

I had Thursday off, and spent it leveling my DruidCow

I call those Mooids.