85 part duex

Status?

I guess I'm back playing the game. I worked hard and found a guild (YAY ME) that fits what I can and want to do in game. I'm going to be as soft as I can here when I say this but the talent is a tad on the lower side. The RL is good, the healers are decent, the other tank is really good and then there is me. I don't know where I fit in this situation. They are fun people and try hard. They are not incompetent. I can be patient and enjoy playing the game for a while.


D I N G!

Really early this morning after a case of insomnia I hit level 85 on my Hunter, Zumhug. It didn't take to long, aside from the last few grueling hours of level 84.

I'm not a patient person, in game or real life. I'm not a spaz by any means so I hit 85, did CoC in Twilight Highlands to get my weapon and headed to Org to get gear. I choose to buy my way into heroic level gear. It wasn't to expensive. I had honor points so I grabbed a ring and was still 3 small points away from 329ilvl gear. I broke down and made a major purchase ((( Dragonkiller Tunic ))) I only spent 5k on it. Sounds like alot but really it was a fair price. I will probably have it til 5.0. This put me at ilvl 333. I could que for a random heroic.

Why the haste in trying to get into a heroic? Back to the impatient part but on top of that I know all the fights and I was pulling 6k to 8k DPS at level 84 in my randoms. The second to the last normal I did I was still in 232 shoulders and 245 bracers. I wanted to prove to myself I could put out better DPS in my 1st heroic less than an hour after hitting 85, than tons of the other DPS I've been unfortunate enough to tank for.

How did it go?
I pulled Deadmines as my 1st. So um, ya...WOW lots of rep and I'd be CC'n right?

Nope, we just pulled and pulled and pulled. It was like Wrath all over again. I was doing ok on the trash. Staying about 7k DPS. Then came the 1st boss. I don't like tanking that boss, the room is small and he drops aggro and I still here "Tank, should I wait longer before I DPS?" or "Are you having aggro issues?" The boss drops aggro time to time every now and then during the fight. Anyway, tank pulls and DPS opens up. I got the achievement for "ready to raid" and we downed him.

Oh, how did I do. I checked the meters. We had a Warrior, Shammy, Me for the DPS and the Warrior and Shammy hit 12k I came in last but...I did hit about 9.2K DPS. Not bad for hodge podge gear. I was pretty happy, I got a 1h weapon cause I like to dual wield so when I get another I'll go away from the 2h I have. At the end of the run, my number were 7.8k DPS overall and 8.5K to 9K dps on bosses. This wasn't bad. I could do better but I'm not a hunter expert. I don't really like to DPS.

If anyone needs hunters info I suggest this: Hunters Union. They do a really good job add a little humor and help the noob hunter like me a ton.

Next blog: Prot PVP 1v1

Tanking Adventures

Onward to ICC-

I haven't been on alot since my last post. So, allow me a second to update what has been going on.

In the last post I talked about the guild I joined, i am just not in the position to raid in that style right now, so I thanked the guild I was in and bowed out. Not as a quitter but I didn't want to hold their raids up or sit on a lock out and not get an invite. It just wasn't a sound choice for either of us.

A spam came over trade "LFM, new guild looking to raid twice a week, in need of everything". I talked to the person about his guild, he told me they needed tank. I then informed him my gear was barely 5k and but I had 10/12 ICC HM experience just not on this toon. He said that would be great and sent me the invite. As soon as I arrived in guild I was told to sign up for the next nights raid if I could make it. I was the 3rd person signed up and had a free night. I was excited to make a raid and made sure nothing got in my way to give ICC a try w/a 39K hp tank and not the greatest avoidance.

I logged on half hour before the raid time, said high and did my daily heroic. While in the heroic, I looked at the raid make up, I seen we had 4 pally's, 3 warriors, a DK and a mage. Not the best group make up, I sent a tell to the RL and he said, we should be fine but probably wouldn't be taking everyone due to make up. As I finished up the daily, a new member got invited to the guild. I looked he was already in ICC and there were a few others as well. I asked in guild chat if invites were going out. No response. I sent a tell to the RL and he informed me that the new invite had experience and was going to be tanking with him tonite. I was taken aback.

At the same time, in Dal a Warrior from our guild was looking for ICC 10/25 w/a 5900 GS and 9/12HM experience. I looked the tanks up from that gulid i was in and seen the gear they had. I'm not the best geared on this toon either but both of these tanks were Pally's, poorly spec'd and didn't have the best gem/enchant set up. I sent a tell to the RL and thanked him for the invite but I excused myself from the guild.

Weekly-
The weekly was FL so I jumped in and got that accomplished. That went easy but of course someone talked to the wrong NPC and we needed to kill the towers. No big deal and that was an easy set of badges and quick gold. Back to dal to see about ICC...

So did I get in?
In trade a shammy pops up saying, LFM for ICC 10, probably only going 4/12 so bring alts but know fights. What?....Really?...NO GS requirement, surely this is fail, it has to be. Again, in trade....LFM ICC 10 need 1 tank, 1 heal. Only going 4/12 bring alts but know fights.

Why not, so I send my info and get the invite.

I zone in and I was actually excited.  I hadn't raided in a few weeks and hadn't been there for a while. I know I could tank it but would I get the OMG ur GS is suxors, plz leave. But to the groups credit I had none of that. My tanking partner....was decently set up but for the life of my I don't understand why pallys, don't have Crusade. Why in ICC would you not want 6% extra damge in a place full of undead? It baffles me.

Trash-
Not to brag but I seen after the 2nd pull who the MT was going to be. We were equally geared or close to it but I took lead right wasy, set the pace. OH WOW, did I take some damage! I mean horrible damge I was pinging off my low heath meter, over and over. My gear was going to be a problem.

Marrwogar-
I send a lil tell to the co-tank as I'll call hm and we agree on LRL for movement and the boss goes down w/o a problem. WoW this really is a face roll now. I mean walking in there with Chasey my 1st time, it was murder in there. Undergeared...alts and standing in icey fire, we didn't lose anyone AT...ALL. No loot :(

LDW-
Adds died very fast, bosses mana went down fast and w/three hunters in group and I still had to BoP one of them when she put touch on me. The Co-tank couldn't catch up fast enough on threat and the hunter grabbed aggro. Down she went, no loot.

Heroic loot ship-
We tried and wiped!
Round two- Normal loot ship-I jumped, we killed it fast and it felt really strange on the Alliance ship. Very fun, very fast and NO loot.

My goal is accomplished-
Sauerfang, Holy Jumping, the RP is soooo much less with the Alliance side. Its about a quarter of the RP. I had to use every ability n my tool box, I was not about to wipe here and have the group break up. The other tank, I just found out had never tanked ICC before, this was his 1st time tanking and his alt. OH WOW. I let him take boss 1st and had to yell in vent for him to taunt. I had to BoP myself to drop threat, Salv myself for threat and stun adds. I even had to taunt adds so they didn't get at our slow DPS. Did I mention we had 3 hunter? Guess how many traps were down? O N E! yep, only 1 hunter dropped a trap. We only had 1 mark pop thou.

On we went-
Yes with only 1 wipe, we moved to Rotface and festergut.
We did fester 1st, quickly explained the fight. My Co-Tank had never been this far in ICC, ever! We did one shot him, its really a face roll now w/the 30% buff, but I did have to LoH the priest healer who was about to die, and at about 5 stack after the switch the other tank died!. I Bubbled, and cancelled it and had good aggro. He was at about 10% and down he went. Again, no loot but I did now have the rep for my Ring. WOOT for me.

On to Rot, I did the kiting and just told the other tank move when he gets I get 5 big bubble. Well our DPS didn't understand getting to the kite tank. We wiped once. The second time, I died at about 25%, a hunter picked up kiting and we got him to 2%, there wen the raid, like a house of cards. The "I have to go" started and we called raid. I do have to say, for a "alt" group, it was pretty good. I got a guild invite, a ring and a bit of confidence.

My view-
Blizz accomplished what they wanted by allowing everyone to see the content. But I think they went overboard with this. Undergeared tanks, poor and low dps and healers that have no gems or enchants and we walked the 1st four. I can't wait for Cata to come out.

Tank adventures 8-6

DK
Group was a Me, druid heals, dps dk, shammy and hunter.

I was so happy, I got to run Nexus, finally I'm out of UK full time. I hit level 71 and had a group in mid fight when I zoned in. Group says last tank just left, I seen why after 1st pull. Really low dps. Got to 1st boss and it took like it felt like 5 minutes to down her. The adds were up so long it was crazy I used DG twice per split phase. Next pull after boss I was frozen and pat was face pull (probably my fault) but I couldn't taunt and we wiped. Heals left and so did the DK. I wanted to stick it up and they were replaced quickly w/some solid dps. Ret pally was level 70 and doing 1300 dps. I was pulling fast and the priest heals was keeping me full bar health. As we finished the 2nd boss the hunter got lost and kept screaming for a rez. He rez'd himself, caught back up to us and got lost again. Died and he was vote kicked. A boomchicken replaced him. The rest of the run was smooth til last boss when the boom did 300 dps. All in all it was fun and I was glad to get out of UK.

I guess the only question I have is how do you get lost 2x's especially in Nexus?

Lil pally

Multi runs and multi levels.

No issues at all. I can not stress enough how hard it is to tank at low level with out a mana return mechanic. WOW, no SA really makes it hard and yes, I do have Sanc but unless I have more than 3 mobs things die to fast to really have mana replenished that way. The lack of attacks is boring too but all in all I'm having more fun tanking while leveling this pally than I did with my main. Leveling goes fast too due to pulling mobs from everywhere.
Got the epic Parrot Cage to drop too. Never seen that drop before but I still haven't sold it.

Tanking adventures 8-1

Well, as I said earlier, I'd be posting from time to time about leveling my other pally and my DK miner. I'm tanking w/them both to level.
The DK,
I'm level 70 with her. I'm kinda stuck in UK, which is cool. I like UK. I've done it about 10 times. A few were bad groups and yesterdays takes the cake. On the 1st boss, he tomb'd me (the tank) 3 times and actually rez'd his mobs 4 times. I've never, even in TBC gear my first time thru there seen that many rez's. I was doing the most damage and DPS. There was a lvl 71 mage in there. That was shocking to me. We never got past the second boss, the healer didn't heal himself, ever! we wiped 3 times and the group kinda split.
The second time thru, I had a better group. Shammy heals, me, a mage, a rogue and a Boomchicken.
The boom was crazy w/AOE and it took some skill to hold aggro. I did ask he hold off a second before going crazy. He did good! He only pulled 1 time after I asked him to hold back. Not bad. I did die 3 times due to lack of heals. LOL but all in all it was ok. The last boss in UK was...um bad, I died on p2 and they were able to burn him down. Then the healer didn't rez and left group. That was a head scratcher. The druid did tell me I did good, he said "I usually die alot, you haven't let me" LOL.
The lil Pally-
I'm currently lvl 36 so I'm in SM Lib most of the time.
1st group was a dual boxer or actually a 4 boxer. It was kinda creepy but we got thru it. They were all druids, so they were either drinking for mana, healing, dps'n or looting. At the same time. I died once due to late hots. Oh ya, when I got hotted, I got four sets.
2nd group, no issues. Fast run and the epic ring fell. I asked (due to stam) if anyone minded me taking it. No on did. I got to say, a low level pally is not fun to play. Auto attack, exorcism and judgements. I can understand why people don't learn them well til late. Yes its simple but you are pretty high level or in the tree before you get cool attacks.
More later.

A case study of tanking, rolling alts.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to give my experience of leveling alts tanks.
Why?

Well, the DK is an easy explanation, I needed a miner for my main. I needed to get a miner to 80 fast so I rolled the DK and I'm not a huge fan of questing so I can tank to level. Not bad IMO. I'm actually liking my DK a bit, such awesome CD's.

And the other pally...well that one takes some explaining. I will chronicle that further later.

Do you remember...

I'm doing this for a few reasons, 1st to combat how overly bored I am with the game and the 2nd to take me down memory lane a bit. I want to level these to by grinding instances vs. quests. I want to see if I can tell a difference between gear and player attitude. I also want to relive the beauty of not being so over geared that an instance takes no thought.

Stay tuned...