I AM IRON MAN!

Not really, nor do I intend to sign up for this challenge. Below are the rules for this contest (source) and they seem pretty steep. It really shoots at the hard core crowd wanting a challenge and allows those who don't want the end game to be everything.

Not sure if there is an official title, price or achievement. This seems like something that will keep you involved and make you work hard to finish and it won't be easy.

There is a huge thread if you click the source link up above, I'm sure like most WOW threads, there is plenty of bickering and nit wits placing their two cents in a conversation. It does however seem that there will be lots of people giving this a go to start with.

ENJOY THIS!

RULES below:

Players across Azeroth have recently embraced a new, very personal achievement: leveling a character "Iron Man" style. What started out as only a small movement, this bare bones, no-frills style of play has now transformed into a community-wide call-to-arms known as the Iron Man WoW Challenge, inviting World of Warcraft enthusiasts to see how close they can get to level cap with only the barest of necessities.
The goal of the Iron Man WoW challenge is simple: level from 1 to 85. The catch, however, is that you must accomplish this task without the assistance of talents, class specialization, stat-improved gear, professions, buffs, item enhancements, or other players. And if you die? Well, then it’s back to square one.
Here are some of the latest rules:

1. All gear employed must be White or Grey. Also, no Heirlooms of any sort.
2. No transfer of gear, items, or money from any other character (yours or others).
3. No gear enhancement(s), thus no socketed gems, enchanting or reforging. Exceptions exist for class abilities (example: rogue poisons).
4. No specializations, talent points, or glyphs. This restriction also applies to talent points for pets.
5. No professions or secondary skills. An exception is made for First Aid.
6. No potions/flasks/elixirs (except those labeled as quest Items).
7. No food buffs or other external buffs (this includes buffs from items and other players).
8. No grouping or assistance from other characters, even if not grouped.
9. No dungeons/raids. No battlegrounds/arenas.
10. No guilds. An exception is made for Iron Man guilds. No guild perks.
11. No Recruit-A- Friend activities. The intention of the challenge is that it be done without assistance.
12. No add-ons that assist in combat and/or leveling.
13. THE BIG ONE: No deaths. Character death for any reason disqualifies the character.

Permitted:
- All mounts
- All bags/containers
- All quests (including holiday and daily quests)
- You may train and use all your class skills (including your own buffs)

Interested? Awesome! To sign-up for the Iron Man WoW Challenge and discuss your progress with fellow participants (once you get started), head on over to the official forums. Additional rules and details can also be found on the unofficial Iron Man WoW website, hosted and moderated by players like you.

Hunter SOLO's Algalon!

I love my Starcaller title, it is bar non my favorite title I earned. My guild did it when it was still pretty relevant, in fact we were the 6th guild on server to do it. Yes, ICC was out but just barely. We didn't have ICC heroic gear. We rocked Ulduar hard modes in one night and went back to Algalon the next week. We set up a plan on how to do it, I was to second tank him. Out other tank who had a great DPS set ended up second tanking him and I 3rd healed. We spent the entire hour, pulled our last time with 7 minutes on the clock and killed him in ONE night. We were so excited and amazed. I was a great fight, one of the best I've ever been a part of.

So I want to send out a big BIG congrats to the hunter 5 tiers did something I never thought could be done! Amazing job man! Here is the link and the video...

Still around

Not a ton to say as I haven't been playing much. In fact I haven't played at all. I'm logging in as I type this to check on things and run some daillies. I'm still around.

I heard rumor that a new patch is launching this week. I guess I have to do some look as to whats new there.

Life has been crazy, school started and I have a huge milestone birthday. Life has been busy.

Introducing the GHoF!

A call to ARMS: Hello my fellow bloggers, I'm asking for your help, I'm looking to all of you to call out the very worst you see in this game.

This is not in a tattle fashion, not in a media way, not everyone who irritates you just a tad but...I'm talking about the worst of the worst. We all have posts about them, but with LFR and LFG putting an even bigger whole in the whole "community" of realms people act horrible, more horrible than they ever did before because there is no way to cal them out. Well, as bloggers, we get a few hits everyday and its just a few more people to see how GROSS the players have become and I see its only getting worse.

Asshats are ruining this game. We have a platform to let other know about it. Lets make a resolution to give a very brief and very special hello in written words to those who are so deserving of YOUR Gross Hall of Fame award.
If you look towards the top you will see the GHoF, click on it to read all about it. If you send me an email I will also add your GHoF winners to the page as well. judgingchaseyghof@gmail.com

My 1st inductee:
Endboss  - SKULLCRUSHER - My 1st LFR inductee. A very special kind of raider. I entered LFR after a boss kill. As soon as I arrived this guys is lighting up the screen. He was hammering the raids DPS. The boss was pulled and even during the fight, instead of healing he was sending out raid warnings telling others how bad they were doing. We went to the Spine fight, he told everyone he was kicking them if they didn't do a certain DPS. We one shotted Spine, but honestly it was low DPS. As we arrived to the Deathwing fight, all he did was complain, 4 people were put up to kick and none passed. He told everyone he wasn't going to waste his time and wipe over and over on this boss. Our DPS was to low and how bad everyone in the LFR sucked.

I had enough, I wispered him. "Listen man, its LFR give it a break. This isn't hard, lets give it a go and calm it a bit" His response "f&ck you baddie, I'm not wasting time with you f&cking suck ass players, you don't deserve to raid with me". In raid chat he said I'm leaving as soon as we get enough. He wispered me, "people like you are the reason this game is bad, how can you pull 18k on boss?" Me the bad one? He has people leaving the raid left and right. My DPS was slightly low but Spine on a lap top is a horrid fight. By the time I targeted an ooze, it was dead. My DPS was not even close to the lowest. He starts yelling (chat)  "Lets boot Chasey and a hunter in the raid for low DPS."

He did one of the most gross things I've ever seen, we filled up the rest of the raid. He talked to Thrall while we were buffing. He said a few choice words and he left group. We weren't quite ready but we were fighting.

We one shot Deathwing! Even with all that 'low' DPS and bad players, in spite of NINJA pulling we got him. Here was a shot even with all that low DPS. BTW I was 6th in DPS behind only rogues and DK's. Not bad for my DPS gear.


I did something I never do, he made me so mad I rolled a toon on his server and simply sent him 3 tells, "Thanks for the Ninja pull, that Ret Pally that was so bad you wanted to kick was highest non Rogue/DK in the raid and just so you know" "BTW We one shot DW" "You sir are everything that is wrong with this game, you make LFR/LFG unbearable and in general make the better people not want to play."

Gratz Endboss you are the 1st LFR Gross Hall of Fame entry.

The Year that Was, 2011.

Paladins -
Kind of a lack luster year for Pally's in general. We didn't get the big nerf, nor did we get a buff. All in all we got more nerfs than buffs but really we hold strong where we started the year, as a very viable tank who isn't a "face roll" (all tanking is kinda) and we aren't so strong that everyone wants only Pally's.

Blizz did take our walking heal away from the prot and ret tree's making WoG a 20 second cooldown. With this they also changed the way Holy Shield works, making it a slight cooldown and adding to the challenge for us to block cap. Ultimately Blizz didn't nerf any tanks Mastery which was good for all tanks. I think Mastery is pretty nice for all tanks currently.

The buff to threat was surely a head scratching moment! Why on earth would you buff threat making it a non factor in game? Oh, I know why, the game killer strikes again. LFG/LFR had long que's for tanks, people who join LFG forget what manners are and they berate the tank because they have attacked the mob prior to tanks saying hello. I wish there was a way Blizz could buff the player base's common sense instead of dumbing the game down.

What I would love for the new year is a quest line everyone must do prior to entering LFG/LFR - your class/spec must run an attunement chain before you can que for either. Not sure how they would do this but something along the lines of the elite bear quest in Grizzly Hills. That would much more of a help in knowing what your roll in a 5 man or raid is than ilvl.

Game / Patches -
We have seen far to much glitz and glamor in game, to much reused stuff and nerfing of content way before its time. Cata hasn't been a great expansion for many, you can see that in the lose of subscriptions and negative feedback.

FL, ZA and ZG came out with a puff... I can't speak to the quality of the raid for FL, I've yet to walk into it and I never will...EVER! It put a halt to my days of raiding, well that and my computer.

ZA and ZG made a return to the floods of tear from everywhere, those that were geared enough knocked it out easy and told those who weren't geared they were bad for not having fun spending hours trying to finish it. I really liked ZA being back. I loved the original and for a brief while it felt like we were back in TBC.
The Troll heroics got old FAST and Blizz is putting out a poor business model, over promising and under delivering. Its supposed to be the other way around right?

Deathwing released and with it, they brought out three new 5 mans, a new raid and epic gems and patterns....oh, and one thing I forgot, a little thing called LFR. Looking For Raid, a puggable version...oh hell, you all know what it is, problem is no one knew what to expect. I don't think anyone thought you could walk in, push few macros and watch the raiders complain about everything and watch bosses fall. Its what we wanted, and its what we got. I didn't mention the loot, yes the loot.

The loot mechanic that was so poorly set up, it took a few of the top guilds down because they were allowed to roll on it. That is almost understandable, things happen. If the game allows you to do it, why not, right? Well the really nasty issue came when the ilvl greed bore its ugly head, you had classes rolling on weapons, just because it had a higher ilvl and they "could".

Blizz spilled the beans -
Now they are on MoP up duty, did you see what I did there?
At Blizzcon we all got to see the future of the game. A revised talent system, Monks and Pandarian as playable toons and the Far East theme.

My feelings on this? It is one thing I'm optimistic about with the game. So far, Cata  has missed the mark, or wait, let me rephrase that, Blizz keeps moving the mark on what the game should be. I do want to see the new zones, how the Monk works with the support and how many versions of "Sadpanda" run around zones or PVP.

2011 as a whole was a turning point, not only me but how I view the game. Now really, its a time sink that allows me to spend some time remembering the history I have with the game. I go quest, do dailies and view what I've missed in the past always wanting to raid.

My last post was a question "am I opening a goodbye" I can't answer that right now, I can say it probably won't be because SWToR blew me away, which it hasn't. I can tell you what is moving me out faster than anything...the people. The community is gone, the friends I once had have moved, cancelled, or don't raid. I have 3 people on my friends list. This game is ugly, its a virtual bar fight any time you sit in a city. The boredom of people brings out the ugly, and the simple fact that people will talk shit to you, then ignore is way beyond fun any longer. There is ZERO accountability about your actions or disrespect in this game. Blizz took that away from us with the LFR/LFG. It used to be if someone was a bone head,  your realm knew that and would run with him. Now, you can play with anyone and will probably never see that person again, so hey...why not just act like a total tool?

My next post will be another LFR hall of fame addition.

Everyone have an amazing new year and enjoy your time in game!

Am I Opening a Goodbye?

This is going to be a slightly somber day for me today. After I post this up I'm going to be logging on to WoW to do my set of dailies for the FL mount and it might be the last time I log on. See today is Christmas and I'm going to open SWTOR and I can't wait.

Over this past year WoW has grown very boring and, well, I don't know maybe I've moved past the game.

I don't have a ton of time to invest in a video game lately, so I won't have the time to jump on both and I know me, I'll be leveling as fast as possible.

Hopefully MoP will bring me back full time, unless the primary word on SWTOR is wrong by what most say.

I will let everyone know as soon as I have it figured out but I do know this if I start a tank on SW, I'll blog about it too. I really enjoy doing this.

Happy holidays to everyone out there. I hope this day finds you healthy and happy and be safe out there for the New Year.

Thoughts on LFR and a pug experience.

My gear!

Above is a shot of my Tier 6 retro gear!

Last post I mentioned I hadn't got into the LFR system yet. A few hours later I jumped on, que'd up and gave it a go. This was literally 8 days after the LFR system opened up. I came in mid fight as a DPS and was in tank gear so I took off RF and put up my 9k dps (hey I tried, bad gear and lil vengeance doesn't equal good DPS in prot spec and gear). Down went the boss and I was thinking, I heard it was easy but wow. That was the final boss for the 1st part.

I que'd back up. Now sadly I'm on a lap top and it doesn't handle the 25's well as I learned in my first LFR.. So I went as DPS. We smoked the first group of bosses. The ease is amazing. My thoughts are that 5 mans are harder.

On to the DS, which I figured would be harder. Nope, in fact we wiped on the back of Deathwing and 7 people left saying this was a fail group and they don't group with bads. How did we wipe, no one listened to the 9 stacks the NPC must get or the tentacles spawn.

Of the 9 bosses I did in LFR (one twice) we wiped twice. Once because it seemed all the healers lagged on Hagarar. Deathwing was total FACEROLL and I did win the sword Gurthalak from ole deathy himself. I know I'm a tank but I was DPSing and that is my other spec. Every class that can use that can spec prot so I took a shot and won it. yay for me.

Pugging HoF-

I was chatting with a friend on RealID. He told me to come over and we could que up for the new 5mans on a DPS toon. I was excited because I don't like to que on my DPS, takes too long and I never get a good group. I was pretty happy that he was going to run me thru.

I went on my hunter Zumhug, I neglect him big time and his gear suffers for it. I waltzed into the new 5 mans in my broken MM spec and started doing 9k DPS on trash. The tank who was on vent told me it was a tad low but wait til a boss. Some how, some way ZIXIO a frost DK who was pulling a whopping 16k told me how bad I was and my DPS was to low to be in "this stuff".

Now in my defense (and excuses) I was low; my gear was bad, I think it was ilvl 351 and I'm playing on a laptop where I don't have use of my key binds and my bar add-on which leaves me on stock UI which is a bit clunky.

Our 1st boss was Jania, I went all out and since I was in vent with the tank I head a heads up on when it was going to start. I put everything I had into it. I pop'd cooldowns and tryed not to let a global pass, to my dismay, I hit a horrid 12k. Oh my I didn't hear the end of it. Then they started on my gear. My poor hunter got a beaten. I do have the rogue/druid agi trinket (Unheeded Warning) which isn't bad, it has nice Agi on it and well, I'm not raiding with this toon.

Since Zixio was a frost DK he did a pretty decent amout of damage and the the Rogue just smashed the charts. I was feeling shame and I heard over and over how bad I was at this game, I was a kid and it was my kind of player who was ruining the game for good people like him.

My response was, you are a DK and you think your DPS is good. It takes skill to play a frost DK and do good damage, am I correct in that?

Anyway, the last boss in our 5 man dropped the Agi and the healer (shammy) rolled and won it. Before leaving he ad sure to tell me my 17k on that boss was pathetic and left.

I won a few peices, bougth a trinket and paid for the crafted xbow. I hate being bad. On my next go round in those 5 mans, I hit about 20k on bosses and felt better.

My lord are people in LFG nasty. What a community wrecker.

Thoughts on 4.3, Deathwing Incoming!

I want to take a second to say sorry for my lack of posting lately. I wanted to make more effort at posting. I've had to deal with two pretty sick kids and a full schedule of finals lately. So as the year winds down I'll make more of an effort and try if even to short the post to give at least my 2 cents.

With the arrival of 4.3 Blizz finds themselves smack dab in the middle of cheating drama, while players are supposed to know how to play by the rules, being that this is a video game it must allow the cheat to happen. There must be a mechanism for it to happen or it simply wont. Never the less we see another top of the line guild take advantage and get busted. More on the happening here.

New gearzzzz
In less than 5 days playing I'm hitting 373 ilvl, just a reminder I didn't have on VP and did see one FL boss during T12. I did the three new five mans which I have to say were beautiful and provided a lot to take in but there is really no skill involved. I pugged them and had a few wipes due to mechanic etc...but all in all it lacked a challenge.

LFR
I don't have anything to report here other than the rave reviews I've heard about this. Being so busy in RL I haven't raided at all. I intend to give that a go tomorrow and I can't wait to see this new tier of raiding.

Darkmoon
I'm not too sure I know all the quests there but the games are fun and they go quick. I still have a few more time to finish up the FL dailies so I'm doing those as well. Good news is I'm making gold.

Its the time of year to give thanks, I thank my wife and kids for putting up with me all the time. I'm also very thankful for the people who come here and read my babble.

The art of the pull!

Pulling a pack of mobs or a boss is the first step of any fight. The first time you put on the shield and 1h weapon and que to tank, making sure you handle your pulls runs thru your mind more than once. For some its second nature and for others they never quite get the handle on it.

Just a few ideas to make the pull easier and help those who are worried about that contact with the mobs you are going to say hello too. This simple act is and can be the biggest issue on how others perceive you as a tank. If you don't nail it PUGs will torment you. If you don't pick up your target fast enough it can lead to a wipe and if someone can prove (on any given fight) that they can do it, you might lose your spot as the tank.

This comes from a Paladin POV and the reason why is because its what I know best. I have dabbled in Warrior and DK pulls but I'm not nearly as good or as comfortable with either of these toons to want to raid or speed pull. I would rather take the 5 extra seconds in setting up the pull with my non main toons than wipe and cost us minutes to corpse walk, buff and bio after the wipe.

First allow me to give you a tad of background on how I learned to pull. The very 1st pally I played with was tirelessly slow and methodical. He could make a 1 hour H-Botanica run into 2 hours. Learning to play in TBC ---> A L.O.T. of your success was dependant on your pull. Ave Shield (AS) was a 1.5 second cast, didn't silence and in general Pally's were not pull friendly at a distance. Now...consecrate would gather EVERYTHING up then but if you had a caster...oh my how it sucked. Til this day I'm a tad uncomfortable running and pulling with my pally because of my early play time. When Wrath came out I thought I was good at the pull. Shortly after LFG came out, I que'd with my hunter and seen a world class player pull H-UP in 258 ilvl gear pull and finish it in 8 minutes. Now as ICC gear came out and 277 ilvl gear was all the rage, this was easy. As I watched this dude pull this place with precision and grace I knew I had alot to learn. I worked at it, it took some time but after a bit I got better. Here are some tips...

This will help with bosses or trash. It might even help you when a pat gets you are you have a tab targeter who like to help speed the run up.

Pre pull things:

• Is Rightous Fury on because you switched spec's?
• does the healer have full or near full mana?
• Know your enviroment, if this is your 1st time in this place DO NOT speed pull.
• Watch you pats (caster or melee) is it a watcher who will summon more?
• Pull the healer 1st, other casters 2nd and melee last. If you have a ranged (hunter) CC them.
• Will pulling this set pull the next set or special mob?
• Can LoS help you make this pull easier?
• What is the first thing this mob does? stun, cc healer etc. Pre-pop CD.
• Put second caster or secondary target as your focus, this makes switching fast and easy.

On pull:

• Mark a target, let the group know who needs the DPS 1st. Mark CC's and make sure who CC's who.
• NEVER PULL with HoR, if you do that ability is on CD, it does ZERO damage if someone pulls mob or boss off you, get top aggro until you can fix that. Its never good. just. don't. do. it.
• Exorcism or AS from range. On Boss or Melee, Exorcism is great and allows As and hammer to be used for more snap. On casters go with AS it silences them and brings them toward you for that extra bit of space in close quarters fighting.
• KNOW how your shield bounces, if there is more than one caster, did it them all? If not silence, CC or Rebuke on caster that is blowing you or your healer up.
• Plan what o do before the pull in case you miss with AS or you get a pat that is too close.

Directly after pull:

• Are all mobs on you? If not, you can HoR or RD them.
• How fast did your primary mob die? Do you need to get extra aggro on your secondary target?
• Do you need to lesson damage so your healer can keep you up?
• Can something bad happen now or in the next few seconds? Have CD ready.

As you see the last of the health leaving the last mobs bar, look to the next group, pat or room.

• Start this whole process again. Before the next set of pulls do  you need CD's to come up?
• Does the healer need mana? If not...go.
• If they do, wait a until what you need to come up.

I hope this helps those who need a bit of help on the pull, pull smoother. If you have any comments or questions. Let me know.

You too can be Better.

The party  you are with deserves it!

This is in response to a wonderful post to a brilliant blog. Vosskah over at Sword and Board is a brilliant blogger, well spoken guy and just by his hints, tips and ideas he must be a hell of a tank and WoW player. Please go check out his blog and I know you'll be back after reading once.
I'd like to in a way, mirror Vosskah's  post and make suggestions to fix someone you know that could do the job better. This probably isn't for a pro tank, raid tank or tanking officer but I guess it could be.

What can you do to help your tanking?

• Gem - Right now superior gems are a must! Mastery is KING! Put a gem in that empty SLOT!
• Enchant - if you don't have an enchant on it, go do it.
• Glyph - Why don't you have your glyph slots filled?
• Spec - Learn to spec. Bad placement = unspent points. As tanks we can now add to dps, TBC is in the past. DO IT! um, most specs are cookie cutter but once you your mitigation talents....add to the group dps.
• Gear - you have to know EVERY tank must have more than one set of gear. Switching trinkets and other types can go a long way to helping others in your group for a fight.

Those are the basics. As tanks we get an insta que, please go spend 10 minutes finding out the info on the above if you don't know it or send them to Righteous Defense, Sword and Board or Maintankadin.com, or have them email me. ----> there is a ton of great blogs to the right!

We all know every tank MUST generate threat. Even with the buff to tanking threat, you still have to work if you are outgeared by DPS. To me, if a DPS passes me I want to know why. You have to make sure your threat talents are in place. Make sure RF, Defensive Stance, Blood Presence or bear form are where they need to be. Next look to spec, (only pally) Rule of Law, Wrath of the Lightbringer and Crusade are almost a must. If you don't have them, GET THEM. If you are still getting passed in threat, you need more (as a pally, warrior or DK) Expertise, if you have to go this route, you might be playing with people that way outgear you or you need to be more aggressive.

You have to know how and WHEN to use Cool-downs. Here is a marvelous post from Mel on how and when to use cool-downs. As a pally, with trinkets and HS, we can almost have some cool down going all the time. NEWS FLASH WOG is no longer an acceptable talent cool-down at the 5 man heroic or regular raid instance. You don't need it, lose the talents and the glyph. If you need it your healers are not regular healers and don't know how to play the class. Just saying...

The one most important rule for any tank in a busy fight is preparation! (thanks Ciderhelm)
If you can answer these questions, you know you're in good shape:

• When is the bad thing going to happen?
• Who is the bad thing going to happen to?
• Where is the bad thing going to happen?

Know your weaknesses, fix them. Vosskah mentioned kiting, if you are a bad kiter, go find a mob that can harm you and kite it. Any good tank needs to move, if you have issues moving work on it. Here is a great video and post about kiting. I was once a clicker, I worked hard at keybinding and button pushing. That was my biggest weakness. If one of your weaknesses is not doing something someoone tells you because your way is "fine" thats lazy and unacceptable. If you are just coming back into game or not a regular raid tank, take the advice of someone else. Give it a shot, who knows those wasted talent points you put in a worthless talent might help your raid or even that brutal heroic you are in as a pug.

Work on your strengths and make it work. I hate to DIE, omg do I hate to die. I solo tanked Arthus from P2 to the end of the fight. I was determined to kill him. I will do anything I can not to die, including not mess up two times in a row (fixing a mess up). I'm also a great chaos tank, when things go to hell,  I'm at my best. I take pride in not dying, I take pride in trying to out DPS my DPS. Sorry this was all about me but I'm just trying to give examples.

If you are unsure of these, ask someone, get some feedback. As your raid leader, tanking officer or take the advice of a blogger you trust. I'm going to be they'd bet willing to have a long conversation about how to make your runs just a bit better.