The Mage Tank

Not a flag carrier

2009-04-27T16:19:00.005-04:00

So in the interest of becoming a better all-around warrior, I've spec'd arms for the time being, somewhat stacked toward PVP. Let's get something straight though. I don't have PVP gear, and I sure am not a master of my class. So it was amazing to me when I stepped into WSG today that no one else could carry the flag. There was a tank or two in the group, and plenty of healers to keep them up. I don't mind running the flag, because that's offense, but once it hits defense mode, it gets boring, and I don't need the glory of a flag cap, so I try to pass it off, but it ended up going like this.

Run to flag room, grab flag

Use ItemRack to throw on prot gear and then pop ER

Switch to def. stance and run back, meeting a healer at the door

Run back to our roof, ask who wants the flag, give it to a pally with about 28k health

Use ItemRack to throw on arms gear

Try to chase down their FC, but on the way our FC gets owned, and they cap.

Since I'm 1/2 way there, I finish the run to the flag room, grab the flag again, switch gear again, pop ER again, meet a healer again, who tells me I should hang onto the flag.

That's fine with me, but I'm sitll going to try to get our flag down.

In the process of trying to get our flag back, I get sidetracked doing things like killing healers, and our flag gets returned twice

Eventually I get owned (healers can only keep you up for so long)

I immediately log. I had other things I'm supposed to be doing today anyway, rather than be an idiot and contribute to BG losses (yes I realize by leaving I was contributing to the BG loss).

So all of this to say I think I could be a great FC, but as it is, I get too distracted, and end up making an idiot out of myself. Maybe it's something worth practicing though. It was kind of cool to have not a scrap of pvp gear and be able to survive just about anything they threw at me. Of course we did have a lot of healers.

it's been too long

2009-04-21T13:40:00.002-04:00

Unfortunately, I don't have much to update. I haven't been to Ulduar other than to take a quick look around. I'm still hoping for another 5 man or a troll raid sometime in the distant future, and still plugging away at 10 man naxx for those last couple of drops. I'm sitll in the process of moving, which is one reason I haven't been able to get into Ulduar, because of lack of free time, but hopefully next month we'll get there and start working our way through.

Why I'm a bad warrior tank

2009-04-08T16:35:00.004-04:00

So this is something I think all players should do occasionally. It's kind of like a job review, except without your pay relying on how you do, so you can actually be honest, and really figure out what you need to work on.

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.

A Break from raiding, though not by choice

2009-04-07T15:12:00.006-04:00

This doesn't have to do with gaming, just a brief intro

So this whole "life" thing people keep talking about, well, it's sucking me in too. Nothing amazing, just moving to a nicer apartment. One with a dishwasher (/cheer) and in stark contrast to my current apartment, which hasn't been renovated since the 1970s, this one is new construction. I realize both have their drawbacks, but I think I'll like the new one better than the old. Anyway, I say this to say I probably won't get my first look at Ulduar until most of you are already hacking your way through it, so I thought I'd give my first impression of it now, before I've even seen any boss fight, or even any trash mob.

On to the good stuff

So from what I've been reading on other sites, blogs, etc., here is my first impression of Ulduar, from a completely third person point of view. Or maybe more correctly, this is my first impression of other people's impressions of Ulduar.

Finally!

This is probably the most widespread reaction I've seen. Most of the hardcore raiders blasted through T7 content, and then got bored. Others moved a bit slower, still cleared it, and are just now getting bored. But in any case, people are ready for new content. I think part of the problem is the introduction of "hard mode" as a way to keep people interested. Sure, it's something different, and it's actually a pretty interesting solution, and it works to some degree, but if most people are anything like me (a stretch I know), the boss himself is the goal, and how you get there is slightly less important. Think about the first time you killed a boss you had a hard time with. Most recent for me and my guild is Grobbulus. When we finally got him down, and with excellent execution too, it was a great feeling. The next time was nice, to prove it wasn't a fluke, and now if we wipe on him, I wonder what went wrong. I haven't tried many "hard mode" bosses, not even Sarth+1, but I can imagine that after clearing Sarth+0 over and over, the satisfaction of killing him again is somewhat diminished, even if it is with a (few) drake(s) up. Many guilds are still working on Sarth10+3, and most of these are the same people who are bored with current content. However Blizz has released as much as they did for T4, a big raid, and two little ones.

Oh Noes!

This reaction is more in line with some of my friends, and some more casual bloggers that I read, because to us, T7 wasn't as easy as it was to the hardcore raiders. We're in guilds that don't boot you from the raid for dropping a poison cloud in the middle of the room, or being on the wrong side of Thaddius, or anything like that. We're in a guild because we like the people. Raiding is fun, but only if it's with our friends, and, well, some of our friends might just not get it sometimes. Ulduar is supposed to be tuned much harder than Naxx, which isn't necessarily bad, but for some of us, it will make it harder to bring along our friend who forgets sometimes to pick up buff food (I've done it before) or the one that can't fly a drake and fight at the same time (that's 1/2 my guild lol), or the one that drops the poison cloud in the middle of the room. Despite us not being the best raiders, we still want to see new content, so we're all anxious about the new raid. Will it be too hard?

I don't even raid, why should I care about 3.1?

This is a small group, but I can understand their frustration. No new 5 mans, no new badge loot, nothing interesting at all for PvE players that just love running heroics. All they can do is grind out the same old badges, buy BoA items for their alts, and level up more alts, to work on being the most well-rounded 5 man player around. I'm kind of hoping 3.2, or 3.1.x, comes with a new 5 man, a hard one, that has a "hard mode" on some (or all) bosses that causes them to drop valor emblems. That might be fun, especially if the "hard mode" includes an ilvl cap, as Klepsacovic has suggested for old raid achievements. That would prevent people from overgearing and just blasting their way to emblems of valor. They can do that in Naxx25 or Ulduar10 if they want to be that way.

Well, time to go pack up some more boxes.

Trial By Fire...er, make the Trial OF Fire

2009-04-04T09:53:00.005-04:00

(Bored at work = new post)

So I decide to respec my mage to Fire/IV. I accidentally over clicked one of my talents, so I have one misplaced talent, otherwise I think I spec'd pretty well. I didn't want to pay 45g to fix one talent point though, especially while I'm still leveling.

Anyway, I haven't really done much testing (RL, always getting in the way of my WoW time), because I haven't been able to get any pugs going. My mage's guild is small, so it's hard to get guild runs that aren't level 80. With arcane I've been fairly steady at 1k-1200 or so, and it hasn't really changed much while leveling either, due to rarely getting upgrades for my T4/SWbadge gear. Of course it doesn't help that I'm 76 and questing in Dragonblight. LFG channel and working on quest achievements tends to put you behind on questing at appropriate level. Oh well. I'll have time for upgrades once I hit 80, and work my way through the higher level questing achievements.

Anyway, my initial feelings on fire are kind of lacklustre. It's not bad, but for soloing, it's not really good either. I'm hoping that when I get into a 5 man, I'll really get a chance to burn some things. I know most mages are either FFB/ToTW or full Arc, or for PVP maybe full Frost, but I tend to like the dark horse specs. I still have a special place in my heart for Arcane mages, because, well, that just seems right to me. Mages should be masters of the arcane. I can't ignore the other specs though, and the idea of Fire is fun because, well, let's face it, it's fun to play with fire.

I'll update again once I've had a good chance to play around with fire spec, I just felt like my Mage was getting kind of ignored on here so far, so I thought I'd dedicate a post to him.

Rage: love it, hate it...change it?

2009-04-02T18:15:00.005-04:00

It seems like everyone is talking about changing rage lately, since it seems Wrath widened the gap between trash/heroics and bosses.

I agree that the rage mechanic is seriously messed up in current content, but if you follow the advice of some posts I've seen, it starts to look a whole lot like energy. Personally I like how it starts low and goes up as you deal/receive damage. It creates opportunities to show off your skill at keeping up your rage bar, as well as allowing you to pull as quickly as your healer can go. What I don't like is that, as many have mentioned, the better your gear, the harder it is to tank (after a certain gear threshold). What if rage had a slow regen up to maybe 20 or 30, and above that, a slow decay. If that's not good enough for you, the regen could be sped up perhaps by some secondary tanking skill like AP. Let's face it, if I'm preparing for combat, it's because I'm already mad, so it doesn't necessarily make sense to start at 0, but I'm not nearly as crazy as I am once the "battle" begins, so from a logical standpoint, this approach makes sense (to me anyway).

This would keep our unique mechanic, which is part of the reason I enjoy my warrior, while giving us a small part of what all the other classes enjoy, starting out with resources.

EoE: My First Look

2009-03-31T09:08:00.003-04:00

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

2009-03-28T23:57:00.004-04:00

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!

2009-03-24T10:59:00.006-04:00

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

2009-03-20T13:09:00.005-04:00

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

2009-03-11T20:58:00.003-04:00

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...

2009-03-07T15:25:00.001-05:00

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.