EoE: My First Look

So my guild got adventurous, now that we've downed KT a few times, and thought we'd try out Maly.  Let me tell you, we were not prepared.  I know I for one will be doing my Wyrmrest daily every day this week until we go in again on Saturday.  I had done it before, but apparently not enough.  After the first couple of tries, getting used to the fight, we pretty consistently made it to phase 3.  Phase 3 was pretty consistently a disaster.

Anyway, some things I learned from this:

1) Everyone was right.  Strafing is very important.  Now I'm not a noob when it comes to strafing, but I'm not really a vet either, so this did present minor problems for me.  It has definitely moved my boot re-enchant to get a little speed increase up on my list of things I need to do.  I'm probably also going to find some trash with decent HP and just strafe around in a big circle, keeping up my normal rotation.  This will also help with #3.

2) I still need to learn my left from my right.  There were a few times when I almost turned my back to the boss because I was using the wrong mouse button to look for the sparks

3) good DPS + damage buffs = threat cap.  Even with vigilance on the highest sustained DPS in the group, DPS was getting threat capped.  I suppose this means I need to up my threat game (read as: "get a new, not awful tanking weapon").  I keep waiting for one to drop from Naxx10, but I just need to bite the bullet and run heroics more.  UP isn't so bad, and I need that sword anyway, even if I get the Naxx drop, 'cause you can never have too much gear.  I'm sure I could use it at least to enchant differently and put in different gear sets.

4) My guild has awesome healers.  Seriously, they were keeping me up through more damage than I'm used to taking.  I don't know how many times I heard my low health alert, yet I only went down before the group on a couple of tries, mostly while we were still figuring out the encounter.

In conclusion, I hope we nail him to the wall on Saturday, so I can achieve my new goal, clearing all progression raiding content (10 man) before 3.1, unless they decide to throw a curve and drop 3.1 this week :)

So I think I may have passed from casual to addict

So I started a project recently that I believe pushes me out of the realm of casual WoW addict into the real thing.  I've made a spreadsheet of all my gear and then labeled it based on its strengths.  Then I've used that to put together different tanking sets (assuming best enchants and blue gems).  I'm sure I did something wrong, but check it out:

My Spreadsheet

You might note that my gear isn't really the best, but that's ok.  Some of it is pretty nice actually :)

Kel-Thuzad Down!

So it finally happened (I'm the short one on the left arm).  It was the craziest fight ever too.  We had a pally, a shaman, and a druid for heals.  Well the pally got frozen, and neither of the other healers caught it in time (no instant heals) so he went down.  Well we were doing alright until the Shaman went down.  Not a big deal, he popped himself right back up.  Well, then without instant heals our healers were missing the occasional frost blast, and down they were going, 7, 6, then the OT makes 5, it didn't look good, adds running around the raid doing their worst, but we were so close!  Just 50k to go, 40k, 30k, another one down, 20k, another one down, burn him with all you've got, 10k, 5k, 3k, dead!

That's right just 3 of us left at the end.  Me, a hunter, and a shadow priest.  Talk about a DPS race!

Anyway, now I guess I need to set higher goals.  My previous goal is now achieved, which was to clear out Naxx before 3.1

I guess my new goal is to clear EoE, which will mean for the first time since I've started playing I've cleared all current content.  Yes, it's just the 10 man versions, and no, I haven't killed Sarth3D, but I have killed Sarth, and my guild doesn't have the geared numbers for 25 yet (scheduling problems mostly), so to me it counts :)

For being in a casual raiding guild, clearing out current content is no small achievement, so to everyone else in that picture, if you happen across this: Thanks for helping me reach my goal, and let's move on to clear out EoE!

Multiple Gearsets

so one thing I should probably mention is that my main all through TBC was my mage.  My warrior was a product of getting bored with my guild's slow progression (we aren't a raiding guild, more of a social guild that raids), but now my Warrior is more or less my main.

Why should you have multiple gearsets?

so I'm pretty sure any serious warrior tank would laugh at this question, and even before I read what Vene posted about it, I would never have asked that question.  I know warriors need multiple gearsets because tanking is all about being the best you can for the encounter you're facing.  Unlike DPS, who can for the most part use the same gear and rotation for any boss encounter, tanks have to think about things like "How hard does this boss hit?" "Do I have to move a lot?" "Is there an excess of physical or magic damage?" and while simply knowing the answers to these questions will help you adjust your rotation, or perhaps help your healers know how/when to heal you to get the most out of it, as a tank you can take it one step further and set up your gear to match the encounter.

How many gear sets do I need?

This is a question that's better left up to you, but a good rule of thumb is, don't ever throw away tanking armor.  I'm not talking about that lvl 52 green chestpiece you have sitting in your bag.  Obviously you shouldn't ever need to make use of that.  But to use a current example, the crafted blue gear at lvl 80 (or lvl 78) has extreme amounts of defense on it.  Some pieces have upwards of 75 defense on one piece of gear.  While it's lacking in other stats, it's still worth hanging onto.  Let's say you're putting together your threat set, and you find yourself short on defense, well, sometimes it's worth it to put on that blue piece to round out your gear, rather than using an epic that means you have to trade out 3 or 4 other great pieces just to hit 540 def.

Personally I have 8 gearsets right now, and 6 of them are for tanking.  I have a generally balanced best in slot set, a block set, a boss threat set, an avoidance set, an EH set, and a Stam set.  I plan to put together a raid trash set and, if I can, heroic versions of some of those sets, so that I can use better pieces without having to worry quite so much about defense.

PTR Changes so far

So this is one of those rare times where I'll probably spend time talking about both classes.  I promise eventually there will be a normal post, but then again, maybe that kind of post won't end up being normal.  I haven't done this whole blog thing much in a while :)

Mages

Arcane Blast stacking effect is no longer considered a Magic effect and will not be dispelled.

Mage Armor: Now grants 50% of mana regeneration while casting.

Talents

Arcane

Arcane Meditation: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.

Fire

Ignite: The damage done by this talent no longer receives modifications from effects that increase or decrease damage done by a percentage.

Pyromaniac: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.

Frost

Improved Water Elemental: Renamed Enduring Winter. Instead of the Water Elemental increasing mana regeneration for the Mage’s party, casting Frostbolt now has a 33/66/100% chance to provide the Replenishment buff to up to 10 people in the Mage’s party or raid.

Glyphs

Glyph of Arcane Barrage: Reduces the mana cost of Arcane Barrage by 20%.

Glyph of Deep Freeze: Increases the range of Deep Freeze by 10 yards.

Glyph of Ice Barrier: Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Ice Barrier by 30%.

Glyph of Living Bomb: The periodic damage from your Living Bomb can now be critical strikes.

Glyph of Mirror Image: Your Mirror Images gain the Winter's Chill talent, granting their Frostbolt spell a 100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance spells will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

General

Added a new recipe for the Titansteel Spellblade.

Added a recipe for enchanting staves with spell power.

Thunder Capacitor again requires four charges.

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Warriors

Taunts: All player or pet-generated taunts now have a shared diminish category.

Battle Stance: Now increases armor penetration by 10%.

Berserker Stance: Now increases damage taken by 5%.

Charge: Duration of stun effect now lasts 1.5 sec. This effect no longer has diminishing returns.

Defensive Stance: Now reduces damage caused by 5%.

Disarm: This ability now disarms ranged weapons as well.

Heroic Throw missile speed increased.

Intimidating Shout: Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.

Shattering Throw: This new warrior ability, trainable at level 71, deals damage the same as Heroic Throw, but also causes the victim’s armor to be reduced by 20% for 10 sec. (stacking with Sunder Armor). If the victim is immune, it will remove that immunity instead of dealing damage and reducing armor. Costs 25 rage, only useable in Battle Stance, 5 min cooldown.

Talents

Arms

Blood Frenzy improved to 2/4% increased damage.

Deep Wounds: The damage done by this talent no longer receives modifications from effects that increase or decrease damage done by a percentage. The base weapon damage used in the calculation will still be modified by those effects.

Taste for Blood: Will now proc 33/66/100% of the time with a 6 second cooldown.

Protection

Last Stand: Cooldown reduced to 3 min.

Glyphs

Glyph of Bladestorm: Reduces the cooldown on Bladestorm by 15 sec.

Glyph of Enraged Regeneration: Your Enraged Regeneration ability heals for an additional 10% of your health over its duration.

Glyph of Last Stand: Now reduces the cooldown of Last Stand by 90 sec.

Glyph of Shield Wall: Reduces the cooldown on Shield Wall by 3 min, but Shield wall now only reduces damage taken by 40%.

Glyph of Shockwave: Reduces the cooldown on Shockwave by 3 sec.

Glyph of Spell Reflection: Reduces the cooldown on Spell Reflection by 1 sec.

Glyph of Vigilance: Your Vigilance ability transfers an additional 5% of your target's threat to you.

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General

Increased the health granted by the Flask of Stoneblood.

New Advanced features for quest tracking are now available. Players will need to activate this option within the Interface panel.

Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 min. down from 60 min.

Thunder Capacitor again requires four charges.

So what does it mean to me?

This is an exciting time to be a warrior, but first I think I'm going to look at mage changes.  I can't be as in-depth about them, because I'm only 74 on my mage, but you can have my thoughts anyway.

Since starting the grind to 80 on my mage, I've learned that it's a big no-no to use Mage Armor in groups, but I have to admit even in kara/badge gear from BC and around a 13k mana pool, I can easily go oom on trash even, just ABing my way ot oblivion.  I mention this because if I'm reading this correctly, Mages can now have 100% mana regen while casting.  Maybe this will help me not oom myself out of the DPS charts in groups :)

Fire seems tobe getting a closer look, though not many changes have been made for them yet.  That will be nice, since they've flown under the radar since 3.0.  I've always loved the Arcane tree, and I'm happy to see it finally be an accepted spec, but I hate to see how fire just kind of disappeared.  Who knows, I might even try out fire again, if they don't mess it up by taking a close look.  I'm still in a wait and see mode on that.  Personally, I'll leave frsot to the PvP group.

I'm kind of excited about the titansteel spellblade.  I can't recall having seen a blacksmithing pat for mages until now.

Warriors, I'm not forgetting about you.  I don't think I've seen Blizz buff a class so definitely in a while.  Despite all that buffage, only a little love for the prot tree.  It's a nice change, though, 5% of our damage is given back to us.  I'm not concerned about the taunt, since it has been stated that it's only a 15 sec. DR, so it's more like a bug fix, preventing people from trivializing encounters by passing the boss around and rarely getting hit.

Overall I'm excited about the changes coming with 3.1, and look forward to seeing what goes live.

Welcome! A brief introduction...

So this post won't be a normal post for this blog, but a little about me and what I want to do with this blog, for those that might be interested.  This blog is about World of Warcraft from my perspective.  I'm not a serious raider, but I'm not sure I can call myself a casual player anymore either.  This blog will be about 2 of my characters on Uldaman server, Sygvox (mage) and Chet (warrior).  I hope to make it useful for any Warcraft player that happens upon it, not just mages or warriors, even if its use rarely extends beyond "Oh so that's why..."

I was encouraged to start this because of a few warrior blogs I've been reading pretty regularly:
Vene's TankingTips.com

Yakra's Mirror Shield

and of course sites like tankspot.com

So I hope that if you happen across this blog you'll find it useful.  Sometimes it will be from a tanking perspective, and sometimes from the DPS side of things, or sometimes comparing the two.  Sometimes (usually) it will be specifically about one class or the other's playstyle and advantages/disadvantages, or discussing class changes either as they will be or the way I think they should be.  Anyway, this is long enough, especially for not really saying anything.  Hope you find something interesting, and decide to come back.