I think a good way to put it would be to say that it’s the DPS fault if they overaggro, and it’s the tank’s fault if the dps need to hold back on damage on fights they shouldn’t need to.
Even if the tank is generating too little threat, it’s still the DPS’ job not to overaggro on them. You do even less damage dead than while holding back after all, and overaggroing may end up wiping the entire raid instead of just killing you. I remember a few times on Vezax hard mode where a ranged dps overaggroing caused a melee mark/shadow crash, or caused the interrupters to be out of range.
However many fights require you to do as much damage as possible, and it should be expected for the tank to generate sufficient threat. If it’s a fight like Vezax or Hodir, it’s realistic to have at least some threat concerns. If the tank is having a lot of problems with normal fights, then the tank is probably the one at fault.
That’s fair, I was just objecting to the notion that DPS doesn’t need to watch their threat because its the tanks job to make sure that DPS don’t even need to bother with omen.
Got my Crusader title, and access to all the nice BoA bling from the Argent Crusade quartermaster. Bought Rumpole a nice +spellpower trinky.
Muz is sadly looking at another 24 badges ground out to get his Superior achievement. (60 badges for a bracer? Really? I pit the outrageous quartermaster prices.)
The Emblem of Valor bracers are so expensive because they’re actually Bind-On-Equip! If you value your badges highly (and if you still need Superior, I’d guess you do) then you can spend gold getting them from another player instead. Also, depending on how active your server is in raiding, some of the BOE pieces from Ulduar may be on sale as cheap or cheaper than the Valor ones. There’s also epic bracers available for any spec in the 5-man Trial of the Champion, either heroic or normal depending on which you want, and bracers are one of the slots (along with pants and belt) that’s guaranteed to have an epic in one of the original set of heroic 5-mans, also.
Interesting. I haven’t been looking religiously, but I’ve never seen any good high-end dps plate wrist armor on the AH (Cairne Horde-side). I could try asking around on chat. What kind of price should I be offering? 2k? More? Less?
Yeah, your best bet is finding someone with left-over Valor emblems that is willing to buy them for you. Or, you run a few heroics and down-convert your Conquest to Valor (60 emblems is like 12 heroics - so maybe 6-8 hours of runs, depending on the group and which ones you do).
If you’re paying gold the opportunity cost of 60 emblems of Conquest/Valor is between 3 and 6 epic uncut gems. At 200g apiece (price depends on your server of course - this is probably the high end) that’s like 1200g. That should give you some idea what to offer. The opportunity cost is higher for a JC of course… cut gems sell for more.
Also, as Mekhazzio said you can get Vambraces of Unholy Command from the Black Knight in Heroic ToC 5-man. Might be worth running it a few times to see if you get lucky.
Our DK was pretty surprised that I still had/have blue gear (shoulders, bracers, and rings) since he’d run as pally heals on a Black Temple pug that we were both in and got to see the damage I was putting out (by the end I was pulling about 4K).
No wonder BT is known as a guild killer – it was pretty rough in there especially with us not knowing the strats and poor communication. But we did get up to the 4 minibosses before Illidan. Dear good Og. :eek: I don’t know how you guys did it back then.
Unfortunately, I don’t often have the large blocks of time to do a lot of instance runs, and as a dps, and a death knight at that, it’s pretty hard to find a pug for anything but the daily and ToC. I did get 3 upgrades from the 5-man ToC over the weekend, though, so I’ll definitely be running it again as opportunity presents.
Yeah, DK DPS is certainly the hardest class to get a group for (or a guild invite for that matter). They have the reputation that I’ve heard hunters used to have… and I will admit that of all the poor playing, rude, annoying toons I’ve PuGged with, for some reason DKs far outnumber the others.
That said, BDL should have enough 80s to at least run the Daily Heroic, right? Maybe if you ask nice they’ll do the “other” dungeon that is nearby too (UP/UK, AN/OK, HoL/HoS, Nex/Ocu)?
I’ve seen a decent number of “LFM - chain Heroics” requests in trade chat lately (although not as many as when 3.2 first came out). You could always jump on one of those for a few dungeons (although if time is a problem, maybe not…).
Sounds like you’ve got it though - the Daily and ToC should be your #1 priorities if you’re trying to gear up.
We’re way short on tanks right now, though. I think just Reins and Rottingbird, and Reins isn’t on much. It’s to the point where I’m seriously considering picking up a tank set and spec even though I’m not all that crazy about tanking. (Or shelling out to transfer my basically-abandoned 80 prot warrior from another server).
Rottingbird tanks on his mage??? Dude is even better than I thought.
I’ve seen Reins on quite a bit… maybe just not when you are. He’s often on his Druid though - I think he likes it better. Can’t blame him…
Yeah, picking up a tank spec will definitely get you a spot in PuGs, but might be more headache than it’s worth, especially if you don’t actually like tanking. The initial gear-up to tank heroics looks like a bit of a bother.
Cairne , at least Horde-side, has a dearth of tanks, both for PuGs and guilds. Healers are in much better supply.
Dude, tell me about it. Our bear tank added a cat spec just for fun, and immediately cranked out 3.5-4k DPS. Of course he had a lot of good feral gear already, and I guess bear gear and cat gear aren’t that different, but still! Making me work to stay on top of the meters on a brand-new off-spec is no fair.
Well, I’m already exalted on most of the Northrend factions, so I should be able to pick up a few gearz that way. And I can do my own enchants. And I’ve got about 6k in the bank that was waiting for Rumpole to need epic flying, but that’s a ways in the future yet, so I could pretty easily get tempered saronite to fill in any place I’m not already full of. But mainly I’m paranoid about my slow computer creating fun wipes every so often.
I’ve been in two hTOC runs this weekend that didn’t finish. The first one, we wiped three times on the Black Knight and gave up. The second one, different group comp, we wiped three times on the champions at the beginning, which I have never seen happen before. I’m better geared than I was last time I tried hTOC, though I’d never tried it with the groups I was with this weekend. The second group decided to run hDTK, which was the daily, and we did fine at that, so I have no idea what our problem was.
My friend sent me a link to WoW Heroes, which advises on gear, enchants, and which dungeons to visit for toons level 70 and above. I bought some new enchants based on it, though sometimes I couldn’t afford the top in the list and had to buy the next best. My guild had planned a Naxx 10 this weekend. I read about it on Wowhead and decided I probably wasn’t ready. I want to do as many heroics as I can, and it’s usually not too difficult to find a guild group since my guild is pretty big. We’ve had a few people leave recently. One couple changed to a more casual guild because they have a new baby, but they still hang around in our chat channel when they can. Another person left because he likes to type in chat with lots of abbreviations and leet-speak, and got angry because he was asked politely to stop.
Black Knight wipes are usually either folks standing next to exploding ghouls (they get a hunter’s mark on them when they are going to blow - run away!) or dieing in phase 3 due to insufficient group healing. You do know you can run back in during the encounter, right?
During the champs it was probably either folks standing in the poison, or the tank standing in the poison, or melee getting bladestormed by the warrior. It is very important that the tank hold threat on all three of them, and that all DPS follow the kill order (generally we tell PuGs not to AoE just in case).
It’s also possible that the group just wasn’t geared enough - H ToC is a step above the other heroics (as it should be, it drops very nice gear!).
Wow-heroes will give you an idea about your gear level but it’s just a guide. If you’re guild is well-geared, and you’re just DPS or an off-tank or something you can probably go along with no trouble as long as they know you think you might undergear the place. It’s a good place to get your feet wet in 10-mans - I’d say go for it!
I have my own gryphon, flying is wonderful isn’t it? Quests fly ahem by now. I have just realised that I never picked up one handed swords when levelling as a retadin though, doh!
Oh, yeah! I am SPOILED by early flying now. So easy to just drop straight down into the entrance of Shadow Tomb or Tomb of Lights, not having to deal with the guards and wanderers around them. Or dropping right into the opening of the Lost One huts for the burning quest. Or being able to just go into the big Hordish command centers (for areas like the fel orc encampment south of Allerian Outpost) from above and not have to fight my way to it to kill the chief/emissary/king/whatever. Or flying just above the enemies heads to try to find something without aggroing in one of the ogre strongholds in Bladesedge.
And then I go to Northrend and it’s ANOTHER SEVEN LEVELS until I can fly again…
Oh! And I got to do BABY MURLOCS again! Yay, baby murlocs! Murglegurglegurgle!
Just in case you missed it, in the patch where all the mount levels were reduced they also added a Tome of Cold Weather Flying. As long as you have a toon that is 80 and can fly in NR they can buy this book from the vendor at Krasus’ Landing (for the usual 1000g) and mail it to your 70-something toon. Reading the book teaches cold-weather flying early!
