I don't have many original tanking ideas
This isn't just for tanking, this encompasses most of WoW. To some extent it bleeds into other parts of my life, too. For instance, my post isn't even an original idea. I have plenty of original thoughts in real life, don't get me wrong. It's not a problem of creativity, and yet it is. I have enough experience with programming to at least at the basic level understand that it's a game that doesn't really change. The bosses aren't intuitive (show me an MMO with intuitive bosses and I'm at least hooked for a little while. I can't imagine the coding though...ew), and so the strategies don't really change. I know that changing things up would result in my being a better player, but I tend to let other people do the testing for me, and just take their word for it when they tell me certain things about the game, which brings me to my next point.
I take other people's advice too easily
If I read something that seems to make sense from a trusted source, or, if I really trust the source, even something somewhat far-fetched (April Fools, anyone?) I'll probably believe it, and play accordingly. Many things that I've been told have been believed by the ones that told me, but they're still wrong, and even then, I don't know they're wrong except someone I trust more has gone back and refuted them.
I'm not exactly a serious player
I say that to say, sometimes in-game I don't really care about giving 100%. Sometimes I'd rather give 80% and use the other 20% to I dunno, chat in guild or something (hard to keep up a rotation while typing), and then my healer's yelling at me 'cause they had to bubble/shift/whatever it is shaman do because something was smashing their face in (this is primarily on 5 mans. I love raids, and am generally much more focused on them).\
I'm a noob
Many of the warrior tanks out there have been tanking since the open beta, and most of my improvements have been their habits for years. This shouldn't be an excuse, though, because I've had some great advice for learning how to tank from some of those very warriors.
So what can I do about it?
I don't think this post would be worth much if I just left it at the above. While the last thing I mentioned probably won't go away, I need to focus on the others to really get better, which is something I'd like to do. I would LOVE to out-tank a Pally on trash, or learn to add tank (something I have very little experience with). Sure, taking the boss hits is fun. You get to stand there and pound away at the boss while everyone cheers you on (or pushes you to hit harder/faster/better), but the Off-tank usually has so much more going on, and is by comparison looked at as "less important" even though without him the encounter just wouldn't be possible.
So I asked what can I do? I think the answer is going to end up being, at least for now, PvP. I have a fairly decent gear set, and knowledge of how my class/spec works, but what do I know about salvaging a bad situation? What do I know about enemies that adapt to my strategies? Sure it isn't directly applicable in raids, but learning how important intervene is will help when taunts are on cooldown and the healer just pulled aggro, or in general when a pull goes bad, and I need to try to keep everyone alive. It will teach me to think of things on my own. I know I can't think of new abilities, but new ways to use them that don't have to be spelled out for me. I think learning to think on my feet can't do anything but help me in pve.
Now if only I could find some other pvp noob to suffer the pain that is getting to your appropriate arena level (30 second losses are no fun) so we can learn how to work our way back up the ladder.
Oh, and no, that's not all I can do, it's just the most obvious thing right now. I'll continue to read warrior blogs and try to really think about what they tell me I should be doing to get better, but this seems like an interesting way to spend my break from raiding.
No comments:
Post a Comment