That patrol caused the second wipe of the night and prompted the priest to say in chat ‘tank you really have to keep these mobs off me’ I could only say ‘where did they come from???’ I was fighting 3 others at the time they turned up. I’m going to look up a guide and follow it as closely as I can and speak up more in chat, as I am newish to tanking I tend to keep quiet. But as one of my guild said last night when I asked about it never assume the other players know what they’re doing, you are the tank so let the group know what you want them to do.
Last week I was all set on going Holy in dungeons for a while but now I have to get this right, it’s nagging me. I apologise in advance to any other EU players who experience my learning curve with me if I get it wrong again…
Thanks SFG. 1-3 were fine but the other three need work, I’m going to use more than just the skull and ask for CC if we have it, consecrate is always on cooldown.
As to 6 b) I never thought to cycle through targets, I always thought it was a good idea to kill one mob as soon as possible? The idea is to spread the threat around a bit I guess.
End game Tankadins use the 9696 rotation which is using your 6 second abilities and your 9 second abilities alternately so you are always casting something. So it should go something like:
Pull->Judgement->Shield of Righteousness->Holy Shield->Hammer of Righteousness->Consecrate->Shield of Righteousness->Judgement
Rinse and repeat. This wowwiki page has more detail: Paladins as Tanks
Unfortunately many of these abilities aren’t available until the 70s so you have to make it up until then but that’s what you’re aiming for. I levelled as a Tankadin from Outland so as soon as I got a new ability I would try and mimic this rotation as closely as I could.
Back to my tanking fail in Nexus one of the mistakes I made it seems was to pull with Exorcism and not Avenger’s Shield. Stupid of me really but it’s a habit I got into while soloing, the Honors Code page linked above details why. Avenger’s Shield causes threat on many mobs and coupled with a Consecrate I should be able to hold aggro on a group. I feel a bit silly now one of the staple Tankadin talents and I wasn’t using it correctly.
Burning Dog Legion: Classic dungeon run tonight, 8:30 pm. If we get five guildies we’ll do the first half of Strat; if we need to pug I’ll put us in queue for either side of Strat or (if we all meet the level requirements) Ramparts.
I want to get LBRS out of the way, but given the length, we may just go back and pick it up later when we can tear through it more quickly.
I guess once we start doing Ramparts it’s no longer a “classic” dungeon run!
In the annals of tank fail, I think I’ve hit a new high: got myself a shiny new axe (Tyrannical Beheader, from Pit of Saron) for my DPS set, and Death Gated to add a rune to it; decided what the hey, as long as I was there, I’d drop by the class trainers and make sure I wasn’t missing anything.
Turns out, I hadn’t trained Howling Blast (the main frost AoE attack) or Frost Strike up from rank 1. Oops. That’s like running around with a fishing pole equipped for like three months.
I predict that I’ll be able to start playing again within the month. I got my W-2’s yesterday and finished my taxes last night. $1000-odd of refund plus $400 given to me by my mother for a Christmas gift (with the express command that it is to go toward a new computer) means that I’m getting a good one, too! I’m hoping to get something that will be guaranteed to run Cataclysm no matter how much the devs upgrade the graphics and memory requirements.
Congratulations. I remember, it was like pulling teeth to find quest-buddies for those Icecrown group quests when I was running Muz through there, not that long after Wrath launched; I can’t imagine what a PITA it must be now.
Yeah, this is definitely something you need to do until you get enough gear that AoE threat is no longer an issue. You’ll find even with everyone targeting just skull (for example) you will hold high enough threat lead that you can switch off to the next mob to build up some hate while they finish off the first one. This also helps in groups where the DPS refuses to not use their AoE (read: every random heroic you’ll ever run).
The hardest thing to get a hang of (at least for me, coming from a pure DPS class) is that my damage is meaningless. Just because you want to kill skull first doesn’t mean you personally need to be attacking skull until it’s dead - only long enough to be sure someone won’t pull him off of you (or if they do that the mob will be dead before it even gets to the DPS that pulled him).
Had to sit last night for ICC-25, which probably means I’ll be sitting again tonight. Not a happy camper. :mad: The RL promised I’ll get in for a full clear next week, and he damn well better live up to it, or… I don’t know what. But nothing good. On the plus side, I spent most of the night over on my Mage and picked up a new ring and belt with badges, a new trink out of H-PoS, and the Royal Moonshroud Bracer recipe off the AH.
Oh my, yes. Macros are wonderful and awesome. WoWWiki has a “Useful Macros for [Class]” page for every class in the game–not all of them are up to date, but a lot of them are at least worth trying out and playing around with. The syntax is pretty simple to figure out (especially if you’ve ever done any programming at all), so you can also break down posted macros to design your own.
Just a note: BDL is a bunch of great people (of course! since it’s mostly SDMBers), but it’s very casual.
With the new systems of gating and limited boss attempts, this is less the case that it was before. When you’re learning a particularly hard encounter, you get your X tries on it for the week, and then you’re done and off to something else. It was a little different with ToC, where you had *four *lockouts (the combos of 10, 25, regular, and Heroic), but for ICC, it’s just the 10 and 25 split, with individual Heroic toggles for bosses (which won’t even be available until Arthas is dead on normal, which won’t even be an option for weeks yet).
There are guilds dedicated to going into encounters blind and developing their own strategies. Again, they take more work to find, but they’re there, if that’s what interests you.
I solo’d my way through the earlier parts of that chain (with some judicious use of CDs and kiting), but for the final guy, you could only solo him on a class with a ranged nuke. I could have theoretically done it on Sleu, but it would have taken… I forget, something like five hours, based on the one-minute cooldown on Heroic Throw. What I ended up doing was advertising on the realm forums for someone to group with. So, something to keep in mind, if you’re ever stuck again.
Ideally, the way trash works in Heroics now is (a) the tank holds everything while (b) the DPS AOEs it down. Marking targets and using focus-fire DPS is (a) a crutch for when the tank is underexperienced and/or undergeared (either compared to the instance, and taking too much damage, or compared to the DPS, who’d peel off with AOE) or (b) a means of eliminating particularly dangerous mobs first (healers, high-damage casters, MCers).
Regardless, any time that you are tanking more than one mob, you need to be creating maximum aggro on the whole pack. The only way to do that is to cycle through targets (either by clicking on specific ones or by hitting the “next target” button, which is Tab by default), hitting them each in turn with one or two single-target high-threat abilities. Just AOE, even on a Paladin, won’t always be enough to hold them all. If you’re marking targets and focus firing, by all means make sure that you get a good threat lead on the current DPS target before you start switching, but once you have that lead, there’s no reason to not build more aggro on the other targets. It will also be good practice for when you’ve got the experience and/or gear to just have the DPS burn the whole pack down at once.
Woohoo! On the plus side… just think of all that sweet, sweet rested XP! And yay for tax season; I just got my W-2 and my 1098-E, so I should be filing mine very soon.
Yeah, we’re having a hard time even getting a single raid night together; if we got everyone who’s more or less active right now to show up at once we could probably fill out a 10-man, but practically speaking we rarely even have a five-man group together.
My first group starting going through HoR, no problem, having fun. Except that we wipe on the very first mob. No, while HoR is not an easy instance in heroic, it’s not exactly a nightmarish experience, either. I’ve seen a lot worse. And wiping on the first trio of mobs (which are actually the easy ones in that dungeon)… no. Somehow, the paladin tank mysterious d/c’d the very instant the mobs attacked, which made me very suspicious. I actually survive through Feign Death.
Fine, what ever, we try again. We wipe completely this time, even with a new tank (he fails at aggro, but whatever). The healadin made a comment I didn’t understand; he was the first down.
OK, I’m pissed, we go again. The Healadin does an epic fail and simply doesn’t bother to heal the tank. Apparently, he decided he wanted to DPS or something and just… didn’t cast any healing spells!
I leave.
A while later, I get into a new group, heading into ToC. Now, ToC is again, not an easy instance, but there’s worse. We do faction champs … except that several players had completely wrong orders to fight them in (this should have been my first clue). The tank mis-marked them until I corrected him. While I know that experienced groups can take down the Rogue, this requires two things: knowing group strengths and everyone knowing their own… and the Rogue actually being present. neither was the case here, so the cxalls to “kill the Rogue” didn’t go anywhere.
Now, this is where most groups mess up, because it is very easy to botch on Paletress if you’re ignorant. Sadly, after two tries, I realized that both other DPS were utterly failing. As in, we were being beaten down simply because the Nightmare outlasted us - and this requires pretty poor damage, since I am in the 4k range. And, let’s face it, the tank was at best only mediocre on the aggro.
After the second time, I say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” I emntion this on guidl chat. Some people have come available, and the Gm is working on his Pally alt, so we put together a group sans healer and head off. We get a healer. He does his job well…
Until he says that his add-on is being a total Jew.
Now, I must admit I have no idea what this means. I don’t deal in racial epithets or a whole lotta slang anyhow, but I usually know what people are talking about. I still have no clue about him. We finish the dungeon and dump him.
Anyway, that as one of the toughest and weirdest grouping days I’ve ever had.
It’s got a big ol’ hook nose and charges usurious interest. Probably also feasts on the flesh and/or blood of Christian children and infants. However, if you prick it, it also bleeds.
Question about the BoA gear: I know I can mail this stuff cross-faction, but can I mail it cross-server? If not, I guess those BoA shoulders my warrior is wearing aren’t going to be much use once she reaches 80 since my pally is already 80 and the only other plate-wearing toon I have on Lightbringer is my DK, and I just can’t get into playing him.
80 pally will be back up to 50 Champion’s Seals again today … I suppose my best bet is to buy the teleporting tabard this time? I don’t really need the pony for my squire at this point. I’m still not doing dungeons/raids, so I just make a single run to IF or SW once she’s through with dailies, take care of any AH stuff she needs to do, and then log out there. Then the next day I log her back in, repost any auctions that have expired (most of my auctions right now are Enchanting scrolls she’s made), and then hearth back to NR. So I can see the tabard being much more useful than the pony right now.
I got her tailoring up to 450 finally. A visit to the Emerald Dragonshrine got her up to 8 Moonshrouds, so I went ahead and made a Moonshroud Robe (whoa, the price of Frozen Orbs on the AH has really dropped) for that final point. I think when it sells I’ll go ahead and get myself that red dragon mount from Wyrmrest
Woot! Always a great milestone. And Outland and Northrend go so quickly these days.
There is currently no method to mail items across servers, although one has theoretically been under consideration and/or discussion (anybody’s guess as to if/when it will ever happen). The only way to get items from realm to realm is to do a character transfer. Unless you luck out with a free-transfer pair of realms (not likely), you’ll need a mule level 10 or higher and $25 (for a one-way trip; another $25 to bring it back if you really want to).
Personally, I leveled a mule to 10 and sent her from my main’s server to the server with my Undead Mage with the Heirloom Cold Weather Flying book, the Heirloom cloth shoulders, and a bunch of mats. IMO it was totally worth the $25.
If you don’t need the portable mailbox/bank/vendor, the tabard is a great choice (for anybody but a Mage, who can teleport to Dal anytime). It’s especially useful if you’re running a lot of ToC raids, but it’s great even for doing the dailies, questing in the area, or getting back to Northrend from the old world or Outland when your hearth is down.
Another BoA question: I saw somebody in one of the channels the other day was saying that you can send one of the Mail BoA items to a class that starts in leather and learns to wear Mail at lvl 40 (hunter or shaman, basically) and it will be treated as Leather until that toon hits 40, at which point the item will become Mail again. Likewise for Mail -> Plate classes with a BoA plate piece. Is this correct?
I just saw a protodrake I hadn’t seen before, ridden by one of the characters in my threat/cit group today - it was sort of a bright, purplish magenta; otherwise it looked exactly like my Green Protodrake. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the “Violet Protodrake” you get for What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been (that’s the darker purple one with the sort of misty streamers coming off its wings, and a different model from the “normal” protodrakes, right?) Anybody know what this protodrake is called and where you get it?
All the proto-drakes have the same model. There are also drakes and Netherdrakes with different models than the proto-drake, but they share models with other colors of their type.
If you’re ever curious what mount someone is on, target them and check their buffs. One will be the mount.
D’oh! Yeah, I went ahead and looked up “Violet Protodrake” and it turns out that is indeed what I saw. And now that I think about it, the darker purple drakes I’ve seen so many of actually look more like some kind of nether drake from Outland.
And yay for tax season; I just got my W-2 and my 1098-E, so I should be filing mine very soon.