So, in my last blog, I covered that one thing that will make you a better thank is to put yourself in the healers shoes for about 20 levels. Now, lets move on to dps. Every tank should play two different dps classes. One should be a melee and the other should be a mage since you get the ability to CC at a very low level.
Like before, level up to 10 and run BGs to get a better feel for shooting things that want to kill you more then spiders in Elwynn do. However, don't take off your heirloom. In fact, you should have the highest and strongest possible enchants on that heirloom gear. As soon as you hit 15, queue for dungeons. This is again where you will learn some good information and help you out as a tank. You should have gotten Polymorph at lvl14 so every chance you get in a dungeon, CC something near the group that might be or was accidentally pulled. Watch how the tank tends to ignore your CC and either hit it anyway or after the group is dead, walks past it like there is supposed to be a sheep walking around in Ragefire Chasm.
Now, you might be noticing that you are probably doing crazy dps with your heirloom gear on at this point and pulling mobs off the tank may be a bit on the easy side. You are now starting to understand that you might be under the tank on threat but it only takes 1 good crit to blow past him to make you run from the giant earth elemental screaming like a little girl as it pounds you in the face (ok, maybe that's just me that does that, lol).
Remember, dps are usually not totally fail or dumb. They don't CC stuff to annoy you but rather to help out. They don't mean to pull off you, sometimes a abnormally high crit happens. Trust me, normal dpsers don't want to pull mobs off you and tank them. They know that they can't take a hit like you can and don't want to try. You can always tell the good dps from the crazy epeen maniacs by whether they pull off you all the time or not. You are always gonna run in to the epeen maniacs at some point or another, it can't be avoided. That's what the pick feature is for.
Keep up the good work tanks, the world won't get anything done out there without you. Keep your eye out for the next part of this series on how to become a better tank. Remember, no one is perfect and we all have room for improvement.
Seeing WoW though the eyes of a tank.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
A few things that will make you a better tank. Part 1
After a few runs I have had in the recent past, I have decided to cover a few things that will make a tank a much better tank. These are not your normal "get hit capped/more dodge/blah blah blah" stuff. This will make you a better tank in that you will find that your runs will be smoother and nicer, which makes for a much better experience. This will be a multi-part post that, by the end of the last post, you should have everything you need to make your life better in game.
The first this I recommend to EVERY tank out there is.......stop and roll a healer. Yes, you heard me correctly. Stop tanking and to roll a healer. don't respec or dual spec and get a healing spec. I mean start from square one and start healing. Put all your points in healing as soon as you get them and then, at lvl10, Take off ALL your heirloom gear, replace the removed items with normal green/white items you can find and queue for BGs. First, this will heal build healing skills. Good healers learn that you can't just stand there and heal, there are times you have to heal and run as much as you can. This is easily learned in doing battleground. A big orc warrior or little gnome rogue is not gonna let you just sit there and heal, you have to learn to heal and move to stay alive and keep people alive. Stay with the group, the only way to learn good healing skills is to stay with the group and heal as much as you can. Remember, don't get healer tunnel vision. This is where you are healing everyone so much, you forget to heal yourself. This happens far more then you would think.
Now that you have leveled to 15 in battlegrounds, KEEP your heirloom gear off and queue in for random dungeons. Now you learn some of the major tanking points in game. You will now see how often a tank runs in for the next pull before you are ready and have mana back. You will now see how often YOU are blamed for not keeping people alive, even though you were out of mana, siad you were out of mana but the tank went in anyway. Here is where you will learn that healers are not supposed to loot ANYTHING, you are just supposed to keep up and heal. You.....are a healbot. You will also find some groups that the tank will listen to chat. Will wait for you to get mana, will let you loot and will not go charging in if you have less them half mana. Learning this all first hand, you will see what the healing classes go through in almost every run they get in to.
If you want to become a better tank, both for your sanity and for the good of the group (since running a dungeon/raid is a GROUP activity), you will do this until about lvl20 or lvl30. It will only take you about 2 days to do this and you will learn just about everything you need to know. Remember, you will not truly learn anything if you run to the AH and twink yourself out. If you really want to do this, and I recommend you do, you will do it properly and do this in normal level appropriate gear.
My next blog will cover step 2 in becoming a better tank for you and your group. When all is said and done, you will be a far better tank then you are now. Trust me, I've done it.
The first this I recommend to EVERY tank out there is.......stop and roll a healer. Yes, you heard me correctly. Stop tanking and to roll a healer. don't respec or dual spec and get a healing spec. I mean start from square one and start healing. Put all your points in healing as soon as you get them and then, at lvl10, Take off ALL your heirloom gear, replace the removed items with normal green/white items you can find and queue for BGs. First, this will heal build healing skills. Good healers learn that you can't just stand there and heal, there are times you have to heal and run as much as you can. This is easily learned in doing battleground. A big orc warrior or little gnome rogue is not gonna let you just sit there and heal, you have to learn to heal and move to stay alive and keep people alive. Stay with the group, the only way to learn good healing skills is to stay with the group and heal as much as you can. Remember, don't get healer tunnel vision. This is where you are healing everyone so much, you forget to heal yourself. This happens far more then you would think.
Now that you have leveled to 15 in battlegrounds, KEEP your heirloom gear off and queue in for random dungeons. Now you learn some of the major tanking points in game. You will now see how often a tank runs in for the next pull before you are ready and have mana back. You will now see how often YOU are blamed for not keeping people alive, even though you were out of mana, siad you were out of mana but the tank went in anyway. Here is where you will learn that healers are not supposed to loot ANYTHING, you are just supposed to keep up and heal. You.....are a healbot. You will also find some groups that the tank will listen to chat. Will wait for you to get mana, will let you loot and will not go charging in if you have less them half mana. Learning this all first hand, you will see what the healing classes go through in almost every run they get in to.
If you want to become a better tank, both for your sanity and for the good of the group (since running a dungeon/raid is a GROUP activity), you will do this until about lvl20 or lvl30. It will only take you about 2 days to do this and you will learn just about everything you need to know. Remember, you will not truly learn anything if you run to the AH and twink yourself out. If you really want to do this, and I recommend you do, you will do it properly and do this in normal level appropriate gear.
My next blog will cover step 2 in becoming a better tank for you and your group. When all is said and done, you will be a far better tank then you are now. Trust me, I've done it.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Midsummer Fire Festival is upon us once again! So what's in it for bears?
I don't know about anyone else, but this is one of my favorite holidays in WoW, second only to Brewfest. Not only is there a ton of gold to easily be made by simply going around to all the zones and honoring your factions fires and desicrating the oposing factions fires, but there is Lord Ahune! Lord Ahune has been a giant loot pinata for several years now. Although we now get the extra fun stuff form a scatchel once a day, we can still grind out this boss fight for a shiny new cloak.
This is a good holiday for an easy upgrade for tanks. If you are a feral tank, you will want to keep you eye out for:
The Frost Lord's War Cloak
Binds when picked up
Back
604 Armor
+180 Agility
+270 Stamina
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 137 (0.76% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 91 (0.71% @ L85).
Although it does not have the perfect stats, a nice back up to grab if you have not seen the War Cloak drop would be:
Icebound Cloak
Binds when picked up
Back
981 Armor
+180 Strength
+269 Stamina
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 143 (0.81% @ L85).
Although it does have strength on it, which will no longer be a desired stat for bears after 4.2 hit, it does still have nice stam and dodge stats on it. So if you see this drop, grab it if you can and just keep grinding for the War Cloak. This way, if it doesn't drop, atleast you still got a rather nice tank cloak upgrade.
Lord Ahune also drops some items that would make a nice offspec addition. The Shroud of Winter's Chill:
Shroud of Winter's Chill
Binds when picked up
Back
604 Armor
+256 Stamina
+180 Intellect
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 120 (0.67% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 120 (0.94% @ L85).
would make a great Moonkin cloak and the Cloak of the Frigid Winds would make an excellent resto cloak.
Cloak of the Frigid Winds
Binds when picked up
Back
604 Armor
+256 Stamina
+180 Intellect
+120 Spirit
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 120 (0.94% @ L85).
The oddest weapon though is the Frostscythe of Lord Ahune. Although it does give spell power, it also comes with a ton of haste, critical strike and a whopping 700 stamina! That's almost double what good tank staves have. This begins to make me think that if your stats are high enough, you could probably play around with this as a fun tank weapon, although I'd probably avoid using it in your next raid, lol.
Frostscythe of Lord Ahune
Binds when picked up
Unique
Two-Hand Staff
559 - 840 Damage Speed 3.20
(218.6 damage per second)
+700 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 207 (1.15% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 207 (1.62% @ L85).
Equip: Increases spell power by 1849.
Use: Let the Frostscythe's chill flow through you. (1 Min Cooldown)
So take your time, have some fun and enjoy the next two weeks of Midsummer Fire Festival. You can make easy gold and get some nice and fun upgrade here. Maybe ever get taht elusive pet Frigid Frostling.
This is a good holiday for an easy upgrade for tanks. If you are a feral tank, you will want to keep you eye out for:
The Frost Lord's War Cloak
Binds when picked up
Back
604 Armor
+180 Agility
+270 Stamina
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 137 (0.76% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 91 (0.71% @ L85).
Although it does not have the perfect stats, a nice back up to grab if you have not seen the War Cloak drop would be:
Icebound Cloak
Binds when picked up
Back
981 Armor
+180 Strength
+269 Stamina
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 143 (0.81% @ L85).
Although it does have strength on it, which will no longer be a desired stat for bears after 4.2 hit, it does still have nice stam and dodge stats on it. So if you see this drop, grab it if you can and just keep grinding for the War Cloak. This way, if it doesn't drop, atleast you still got a rather nice tank cloak upgrade.
Lord Ahune also drops some items that would make a nice offspec addition. The Shroud of Winter's Chill:
Shroud of Winter's Chill
Binds when picked up
Back
604 Armor
+256 Stamina
+180 Intellect
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 120 (0.67% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 120 (0.94% @ L85).
would make a great Moonkin cloak and the Cloak of the Frigid Winds would make an excellent resto cloak.
Cloak of the Frigid Winds
Binds when picked up
Back
604 Armor
+256 Stamina
+180 Intellect
+120 Spirit
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 120 (0.94% @ L85).
The oddest weapon though is the Frostscythe of Lord Ahune. Although it does give spell power, it also comes with a ton of haste, critical strike and a whopping 700 stamina! That's almost double what good tank staves have. This begins to make me think that if your stats are high enough, you could probably play around with this as a fun tank weapon, although I'd probably avoid using it in your next raid, lol.
Frostscythe of Lord Ahune
Binds when picked up
Unique
Two-Hand Staff
559 - 840 Damage Speed 3.20
(218.6 damage per second)
+700 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 353
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 207 (1.15% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 207 (1.62% @ L85).
Equip: Increases spell power by 1849.
Use: Let the Frostscythe's chill flow through you. (1 Min Cooldown)
So take your time, have some fun and enjoy the next two weeks of Midsummer Fire Festival. You can make easy gold and get some nice and fun upgrade here. Maybe ever get taht elusive pet Frigid Frostling.
Friday, June 17, 2011
"Smart Authenticator", smart move or the key to pissing lots of people off?
So, Blizzard has decided to take it security one step farther and start to keep track of where you log in to your account. By doing this, they have set it up to where if you log in from a computer you usually log in from, it will no longer ask you for an authenticator code. I've been checking the forums and wowinsider.com post about this and I must say, it seems that a large chunk of the forums population is completely against this.
This is what I see on the forums. Some people are happy with this because it was a hassle and took too much time to log in when you had to enter an authenticator code. If you got DC'd in the middle of a fight, it would seem like "forever" to log back in. They feel that they are still secure and that this is a welcome change.
On the flip side, I see people complaining that they don't completely feel safe anymore. They claim the Blizzards systems have had problems before and if a "glitch" happens when someone is trying to hack their account, and it does not ask for a code, Blizzard will simply say "Sorry, sucks to be you.". However, those that are not happy at all with this change all offer a simple fix to make everyone happy...an "opt out" option. Also, most comment about how they don't mind the extra 5 seconds it takes to enter in a code since it is only 5 seconds and they feel more secure.
Here is what I think about this entire situation. I feel that Blizzard, having been dealing with the public for a good number of years now, seemed to have been totally blind to what people would think. It makes me think if they even gave any thought beyond the "This would be a great improvement to security, lets do it" idea. Anyone living on this planet we call Earth knows one simple fact about people in general. People feel far more secure if they have or feel they have control over a situation. By having people enter in an authenticator code at login, they feel that they are secure, that unless someone came in to their home and stole it, they don't have to worry about account security. By taking this away from people you take away that feeling of security, even if they are just as or even more secure then before. I'm surprised that Blizzard did not put thought in to this aspect. They made authenticators optional, I feel that they should have added an "opt-out" option to this feature too. I also think Blizzard completely and totally dropped the ball here in another way. We log in one day, everything is fine. We log in the next day, tons of people are not asked for their code. There was not even a "Breaking News" post on the log in screen for a god amount of time. This completely freaked out some people that were logging on. There was no warning or mention that was made clear to anyone that I'm aware of. If Blizzard had posted up info about this coming maybe a couple of days in advance, people would still not be happy, but it would not have caused people to freak out either when they didn't know what was going on for the longest time.
Come on Blizzard, you are business and deal with lots people everyday. How did you not see this coming, and if you did, you did a terrible job preparing for it. Humanity has this thing about feeling secure. All you would have had to do to keep EVERYONE happy....was to create an "opt-out" option. I hope we see it in the near future since I for one and not happy with this either. I don't mind the 5 seconds, even if I get DC'd in the middle of a raid, to entire the code in. I'm not happy with is though because you changed your security features while giving me the same options. Like it or ditch your authenticator, those are my choices and I'm not happy with it. If you are going to make changes, you need to give people options.
This is what I have found and how I feel. Feel free to post here about how you feel or comment on this post. I will reply to any and all comments here quickly
This is what I see on the forums. Some people are happy with this because it was a hassle and took too much time to log in when you had to enter an authenticator code. If you got DC'd in the middle of a fight, it would seem like "forever" to log back in. They feel that they are still secure and that this is a welcome change.
On the flip side, I see people complaining that they don't completely feel safe anymore. They claim the Blizzards systems have had problems before and if a "glitch" happens when someone is trying to hack their account, and it does not ask for a code, Blizzard will simply say "Sorry, sucks to be you.". However, those that are not happy at all with this change all offer a simple fix to make everyone happy...an "opt out" option. Also, most comment about how they don't mind the extra 5 seconds it takes to enter in a code since it is only 5 seconds and they feel more secure.
Here is what I think about this entire situation. I feel that Blizzard, having been dealing with the public for a good number of years now, seemed to have been totally blind to what people would think. It makes me think if they even gave any thought beyond the "This would be a great improvement to security, lets do it" idea. Anyone living on this planet we call Earth knows one simple fact about people in general. People feel far more secure if they have or feel they have control over a situation. By having people enter in an authenticator code at login, they feel that they are secure, that unless someone came in to their home and stole it, they don't have to worry about account security. By taking this away from people you take away that feeling of security, even if they are just as or even more secure then before. I'm surprised that Blizzard did not put thought in to this aspect. They made authenticators optional, I feel that they should have added an "opt-out" option to this feature too. I also think Blizzard completely and totally dropped the ball here in another way. We log in one day, everything is fine. We log in the next day, tons of people are not asked for their code. There was not even a "Breaking News" post on the log in screen for a god amount of time. This completely freaked out some people that were logging on. There was no warning or mention that was made clear to anyone that I'm aware of. If Blizzard had posted up info about this coming maybe a couple of days in advance, people would still not be happy, but it would not have caused people to freak out either when they didn't know what was going on for the longest time.
Come on Blizzard, you are business and deal with lots people everyday. How did you not see this coming, and if you did, you did a terrible job preparing for it. Humanity has this thing about feeling secure. All you would have had to do to keep EVERYONE happy....was to create an "opt-out" option. I hope we see it in the near future since I for one and not happy with this either. I don't mind the 5 seconds, even if I get DC'd in the middle of a raid, to entire the code in. I'm not happy with is though because you changed your security features while giving me the same options. Like it or ditch your authenticator, those are my choices and I'm not happy with it. If you are going to make changes, you need to give people options.
This is what I have found and how I feel. Feel free to post here about how you feel or comment on this post. I will reply to any and all comments here quickly
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Who will be Cataclysm's big bad guy in the end?
SARGERAS.......
Now, I know what some people are saying. Sargeras is dead. Medivh's mother killed him in the past and buried his body in the Maelstrom. And that his essence went in to her an then in to Medivh who was later killed by Khadgar. This is all completely true according to lore and what has been seen in game. However, when Khadgar killed Medivh, it freed his soul from the essence of Sargeras. This did not destroy the essence, it only detached it from Medivhs soul, freeing him. Secondly, His mother never killed Sargeras, she merely destroyed his avatar that was on Azeroth. He himself never came through and is still in the twisting nether. With his essence still in Azeroth, he could have been spending all this time gaining strength again and quietly building up an army on Azeroth to do his bidding
This name comes to mind time and time again as I take in all the lore and quests around me in the this expansion. Allow me to explain. There are several events that have happened so far in this expansion that point to Sargeras.
First, the Twilight Cultists refer to "The Master" when they speak if the person in charge, even Deathwing himself has referred to "The Master". People have speculated that the "head bad guy" in this expansion could be the Old Gods. I'm not so sure about that. First off there is the obvious problem in phrasing. Simply put, Old Gods can not me "THE" Master. But, if you were to take it down to just one of the Old Gods, then that would put them back in the running. But there is more information that pulls it back away form the old gods.
Next, what is the one race that stopped Sageras from coming through to Azeroth and were a main force in repeatedly stopping the Burning Legion over and over again? The Night Elves. What is one of the only places to actually take a massive hit in Cataclysm? The Park District in Stormwind. Now, yes, he has destroyed mountains in the badlands and re trashed the dame in Loch Modan, but The Park District is different. Deathwing swoops down, obliterates the Park District, roars around Stormwind for a minute or two and then leaves. Does not kill or trash anything else really. Sure he messes up the front gate area a bit, but nothing like sending an entire district to the sea. This is even spoken of by some of the guards in Stormwind. If Sargeras was "The Master", then Deathwing would be acting under instructions from Sargeras and would even be working to make his master happy. So taking out an entire area of Night Elves would be a good start.
Now, it is confirmed that we will be getting a new Caverns of Time instance. This in itself is not too big a deal until you find out that it is taking us back to the War of the Ancients. This is where the Burning Legion and Sargeras first start to come to Azeroth for its power and to take over and bring chaos to the world. Blizzard is literally bringing us back to the events that changed the world as we know it and the events that would lead to the Burning Crusade expansion. Seems a bit odd to go there if the head bad guy here is one or all of the remaining Old Gods.
Now, I know what some people are saying. Sargeras is dead. Medivh's mother killed him in the past and buried his body in the Maelstrom. And that his essence went in to her an then in to Medivh who was later killed by Khadgar. This is all completely true according to lore and what has been seen in game. However, when Khadgar killed Medivh, it freed his soul from the essence of Sargeras. This did not destroy the essence, it only detached it from Medivhs soul, freeing him. Secondly, His mother never killed Sargeras, she merely destroyed his avatar that was on Azeroth. He himself never came through and is still in the twisting nether. With his essence still in Azeroth, he could have been spending all this time gaining strength again and quietly building up an army on Azeroth to do his bidding
One other thing that I noticed that seems odd, Deathwing went almost straight for Uldum and recruited lackeys to help him get the power of the Origination Machine that is there in Uldum, left by the Titans. Now, how could he have know everything about that machine, that is was there and how it worked and what he needed his lackeys to go after? Well, if your boss was a crazy, insane demon version of a Titan that was once on the good guys team and helped to create Azeroth, you would know about the Origination machine and how to use it. And since, assuming he has no physical form at this point, Sargeras would have to recruit a lackey of his own to get get stuff done for him, enter Deathwing, who is already nuts and would be easily susceptible to the power that Sargeras could offer him.
Kinda starts you thinking, doesn't it? Well, keep in mind that this is all just ideas that I have though about for awhile now and could be completely wrong. But you never know, there are a lot of things going on that do seem to point to Sargeras. We will just have to wait and see.
If you enjoy these blogs, please become a follower and spread the word about Neo's Challenging Roar. Feel free to comment or ask any questions about this post int he comment section, I will respond to any questions or comments quickly.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Can you live in BC again?
I've been seeing people talk lately about "retro-toons" and was curious as to what this was exactly. It seems that there are people that are creating new characters, leveling them up to lvl70 and then.....*gasp*, capping their experience. At first I thought this was a bit of a crazy idea. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had so much fun back in BC that it might be worth a shot. So I leveled up a mage that I already had sitting as lvl62 and capped off my XP at 70. It was at that point that I had a huge rush of flashbacks from when I hit lvl70 on my druid back in Burning Crusade.
My first stop, Isle of Quel'Danas! Time to start knocking out my Isle dailys again. The more I started doing some rep grinding in dungeons and with turn ins, not to mention beginning to gather some better gear through quartermasters and dungeons, I began to have more fun than I thought I would. I figured it would be fun for a few days and probably lose it's interest, at which point I'd simply turn back on my XP and move on. But it's been well over a week and I haven't lost any interest yet. Maybe it's the fact that I know I can always turn on my XP and move on if I get bored. Maybe it the fact that Blizzard has, in the past, made changes to the over all stats in the game and even with the actual BC gear, I'm doing more damage now then I did then. Who knows, all I know is that it's become so much fun, I have 5 other guild member that have decided to do the same thing. Next thing we know, we'll have enough people at lvl70 to run Karazhan with all 70s, lol.
I must admit, it's has been really fun. Running some Cataclysm raids on my level 85 toons and then switching over and running dungeons and other stuff on my level 70 has been a blast so far. I hope that it doesn't get old or boring any time soon. One thing we, the people in my guild that are going to have toons stay at lvl70, have decided is no twinking. By this, we mean that you have to get gear from dungeons, heroics, raids, quests or quartermasters. Running battlegrounds to power through and grab all the super-high level PvP gear you can takes away form the fun of it and is somewhat frowned on. 1 or 2 pieces of PvP are ok, but full BG epics is a bit much.
If you have a level70 toon and are interested in having some fun on the Anvilmar server (Alliance side), cap that XP off and give me a pst. Just whisper Taeo (my lvl70) or Neotaeo, if I'm not on then just whisper anyone in <DunderMifflin> and if they can't invite you, they will let someone know that can that you want an invite. Come and have some fun, that is what retro-toons are all about!
My first stop, Isle of Quel'Danas! Time to start knocking out my Isle dailys again. The more I started doing some rep grinding in dungeons and with turn ins, not to mention beginning to gather some better gear through quartermasters and dungeons, I began to have more fun than I thought I would. I figured it would be fun for a few days and probably lose it's interest, at which point I'd simply turn back on my XP and move on. But it's been well over a week and I haven't lost any interest yet. Maybe it's the fact that I know I can always turn on my XP and move on if I get bored. Maybe it the fact that Blizzard has, in the past, made changes to the over all stats in the game and even with the actual BC gear, I'm doing more damage now then I did then. Who knows, all I know is that it's become so much fun, I have 5 other guild member that have decided to do the same thing. Next thing we know, we'll have enough people at lvl70 to run Karazhan with all 70s, lol.
I must admit, it's has been really fun. Running some Cataclysm raids on my level 85 toons and then switching over and running dungeons and other stuff on my level 70 has been a blast so far. I hope that it doesn't get old or boring any time soon. One thing we, the people in my guild that are going to have toons stay at lvl70, have decided is no twinking. By this, we mean that you have to get gear from dungeons, heroics, raids, quests or quartermasters. Running battlegrounds to power through and grab all the super-high level PvP gear you can takes away form the fun of it and is somewhat frowned on. 1 or 2 pieces of PvP are ok, but full BG epics is a bit much.
If you have a level70 toon and are interested in having some fun on the Anvilmar server (Alliance side), cap that XP off and give me a pst. Just whisper Taeo (my lvl70) or Neotaeo, if I'm not on then just whisper anyone in <DunderMifflin> and if they can't invite you, they will let someone know that can that you want an invite. Come and have some fun, that is what retro-toons are all about!
Friday, June 10, 2011
Healing is part of your job too.
Now I know that people think, "You're the healer. it's your job to heal, not mine!", or "I'm here to dps, not heal.". Well, for a feral tank, this is just not true. Healing yourself is part of your job and makes the healing easier for the healer and will keep you alive longer. Now, this is not something you have to go out of your way to do. Part of it comes totally natural from talent points alone:
Leader of the Pack
While in Cat Form or Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 5%. In addition, your melee critical strikes in Cat Form and Bear Form cause you to heal for 4% of your total health and gain 8% of your maximum mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.
This alone is a big heal in the long run. Any healing you do to yourself here is mana not being used by the healer and mana that can be utilized in a "crunch time" situation. I share this here as some people take a tank build that they see from a blog (I've posted mine here in an earlier post) or off the wow armory or from other places, which is fine. Problem, some people don't take the time to read the talents and why they should be chosen. This is one that should be.
Another thing you can do it use a glyph for your Frenzied Regeneration:
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
Major Glyph
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 52
Item Level 52
Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph.
While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 30% more powerful but causes your Frenzied Regeneration to no longer convert rage into health.
Now this is a big step for some tanks as this makes you put full trust and faith in your healer and takes some of your self healing abilities away from your. To me, this is a great glyph to have since it infact boosts the healing done to you by the healer AND by your Leader of the Pack talents. At the point you hit Frenzied Regeneration, you will want to do something very important. Keep your eye out for a Lightwell or any kind of AoE healing effect on the ground. If you see these, get in them. Some would argue that a Lightwell is really only for the dps so that the healer can focus more on the tank and not so much on dps. This could not be farther from the truth. Any and all healing you can do to yourself will help save the healer mana for use when it is truly needed to keep your bear butt up, lol.
Remember, tanking is part of the team effort. If you want to succeed, you need to think like part of the team and not as just the tank. Any and all thing you can do to help the healer must be high priority. The healer and dps will thank you for this. If the healer goes out of mana (oom) or dies, you will not be standing for very long after.
Keep up the good work tanks. Remember we all want to get through a run alive, working together will make that happen.
Leader of the Pack
While in Cat Form or Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 5%. In addition, your melee critical strikes in Cat Form and Bear Form cause you to heal for 4% of your total health and gain 8% of your maximum mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.
This alone is a big heal in the long run. Any healing you do to yourself here is mana not being used by the healer and mana that can be utilized in a "crunch time" situation. I share this here as some people take a tank build that they see from a blog (I've posted mine here in an earlier post) or off the wow armory or from other places, which is fine. Problem, some people don't take the time to read the talents and why they should be chosen. This is one that should be.
Another thing you can do it use a glyph for your Frenzied Regeneration:
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
Major Glyph
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 52
Item Level 52
Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph.
While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 30% more powerful but causes your Frenzied Regeneration to no longer convert rage into health.
Now this is a big step for some tanks as this makes you put full trust and faith in your healer and takes some of your self healing abilities away from your. To me, this is a great glyph to have since it infact boosts the healing done to you by the healer AND by your Leader of the Pack talents. At the point you hit Frenzied Regeneration, you will want to do something very important. Keep your eye out for a Lightwell or any kind of AoE healing effect on the ground. If you see these, get in them. Some would argue that a Lightwell is really only for the dps so that the healer can focus more on the tank and not so much on dps. This could not be farther from the truth. Any and all healing you can do to yourself will help save the healer mana for use when it is truly needed to keep your bear butt up, lol.
Remember, tanking is part of the team effort. If you want to succeed, you need to think like part of the team and not as just the tank. Any and all thing you can do to help the healer must be high priority. The healer and dps will thank you for this. If the healer goes out of mana (oom) or dies, you will not be standing for very long after.
Keep up the good work tanks. Remember we all want to get through a run alive, working together will make that happen.
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