Monday 26 January 2009

Mitigation/Stamina - tank

Although I already set this in motion last week, I am off the avoidance-principle for now. Mitigation and Stamina is what I am aiming for. That essentially means I'll use Defense and Block-rating to get to block-cap and stay there, and then stacking stamina and armor.

Doing this does means I take more damage, although every hit will be smaller, and I will have a more steadier damage-income which is easier to heal. Having healed myself, I know I rather have a tank that has: hit-hit-miss-hit-hit-miss, then miss-miss-miss-hit-hit-hit. The first is easier to heal, a steadily stream of incoming damage, the latter has a lot of damage incoming right after each other...which can be troublesome.

It all follow Murphy's law, if you avoid 50% off all attacks, the 50% you will not avoid Will be right after each other.

So what do you rather heal:

A: 10k-10k-miss-10k-10k-miss
B: miss-miss-miss-12k-12k-12k

Sunday 25 January 2009

Once in a while...

..you get a good PuG.

Well, after some hrash words that a cat-specced druid hasn't got mana-regen and really needs Wisdom, Scarlet Monestary went flawless. We only had one wipe (tankadin pulled a little too much :p), and I had fun healing.

On my druid I have Healbot, and I mostly used the instant HoT, and the one with a HoT attached (Rejuv and Regrowth..bad in names am I). Because I did put 2 points in the (70% of agility is +healing)-talent, my 12 Agility Polearm is a nice Healing Weapon. At level 35 I had (36 now) 2.1k mana and around 90 +healing. I added the paladin-tank to my friends-list (what is that with me and tankadins on friends-listst :p).

Another Old Friend joined the allie-guild this weekend, he transferred his 70-druid, and started a shammie-space-cow :p. That makes 2 Ghostlandians in the guild now. And I like to actually see the allie-part of the world. I already have levelled 3 horde-toons to 70 or over, so this is a brand new game ;p

And I ordered a game-pad, belkin n52te, or something. It will probably arrive later in the week, so if I have time this weekend (which I doubt), I'll be relearning playing I guess...

...and 3 more elders for my title....

Raid-Shortage

This is the biggest problem of Wrath of the Lich King.
Let's look at The burning Crsuade-expansion for a moment. When this was started in Januar 2007 the following Raids were included:

Karazhan
Gruul's Lair
Maghteridon's Lair
Serpentshine Caverns
Tempest Keep : The Eye
The Battle for Mount Hyjal
Doom Lord Kazzak
..that Fel Reaver outside Black Temple

That is a lot of content, maybe to many, but at least there was something after the Karazhan. Now Karazhan was hard, not only did you have to do a long quest-chain that took you through several heroics (and you needed to be exalted with the faction those days to do heroics), it was also hard even if you had the best non-raid gear on you.

So Blizzards descision to make Naxxramas an entry-level-raid is a good one, it gives the people a greater chance to do raids. But then?? Well you got 3 single-boss-raid, of which two are also entry-level, and only Malygos was a little harder, mostly because people had to ride drakes.

Wrath also introduced Achievements, but let's be honest. That's a poor substitute for having a new dungeon to explore. I know that Sarth3D is the hardest fight they ever made, but Naxxramas is already boring, and you'll probably do it twice a week (10 and 25 man - version). I pity the people who actually did the original 40-man raids in 2006. I think they were bored instantaneously.

On Ghostlands their are least 10 guilds now who have cleared the content, and 4-5 who also did Sarth3D. But there's no new Dungeon ingame to look forward to. If there was, Naxx would have been of the raiding-list already of several guilds. Even in 25-man, a lot of gear is already taken as side-grade, not an actually upgrade.

Somehow I have the feeling Blizzard took the easy way, and every crticial note is pushed into the 'now more people can play all the content'-basket. Well, 1.5 years ago, when I reached level 70, I looked into raids, and I saw a lot of content that I maybe would never see, but that didnt make me sad. I could set a goal to reach, get exalted with Lower City, so I could get another key-part, finally getting the 'Masters Key', maybe set foot in Karazhan some day.

There is no such thing now, nothing to look forward to. Yeah, there will be a new patch, and we have fun for 2-3 months in a REALLY new dungeon. I just fear that this also will be too easy, with Achievements thrown in to make it 'hard'..

I suppose the second expansion, is the expansion of the Alts. If you can walk through all the dungeons 2 months after release, there is not much more then you can do then level alts...

Now, maybe if they put two 25-man-multiple-boss-raids in the new patch, that would be different, but I ain't seeing that to happen.

Saturday 24 January 2009

First week at trial.

I would call it achievement-week.

Let's see, the next few were all at once :p
Northrend Dungeon Hero, Champion of the Frozen Wastes (YEAH, title), Northrend Dungeon Master, Heroic: The Oculus, Ruby Void, Emerald Void

Ans some more :
Heroic: Drak'Tharon Keep, Might of the Dragonblight, Twilight Assist, The Spellweaver's Downfall, Heroic: The Spellweaver's Downfall, Heroic: Just Can't Get Enough, Heroic : The Hundred Club, Heroic: And They Would All Go Down Together, Our Daily Bread, 500 Fish.

And the Lunar Festival started today:
Lunar Festival Finery, Elders of Northrend, 50 Coins of Ancestry, Elders of Eastern Kingdoms, Elders of the Alliance, Elders of the Horde, Elders of Kalimdor Elune's Blessing, The Rocket's Red Glare, Frenzied Firecracker

And while doing some of the Elder of the Dungeons, I also picked up:
Zul'Farrak (like I didn't do that before), Maraudon

I only need to do the Elders in the Northren Dungeons for the Elder-title....

So how did raiding go, weel tuesday went fine, except we had problems with Sarth2D (10 man), we didn't had 3 tanks to try it with one more, and actually, you also need 3 tanks with 2drakes up. So in the end we went for one Drake.

Wednesday I was left out, and Thursday I was assigneed add-tank on Sarh3D (25man). I was not really happy with my performance. I had a hard time picking up the adds, mostly due to my UI-lay-out. well, I installed Bartender, and it went much better tonight in 10 man..although I had a problem with one fire-elemental, which actually was from one of the shamans...try taunting that... it confused me a little bit, so some adds went loose..but Sarth went down faster.

Because Friday and Saturday didn't had enough sign-ins/the right people for Sarth3D (25), the guild went into 10 mans.. I predict that within 2-3 weeeks, Blood and Tears Clears all 25-man content in 2 days...and there are not enough 10-mans for the rest of the week. I don't know what the plan is then, but we'll probably have a long wait till Ulduar.

I am getting to know the play-style, and getting back into my tanking-routine.
See All, Hear All.

Tuesday 20 January 2009

First BaT-raid

Last night I had my first BaT-raid, because BaT already clears all 25-mans before monday, monday and tueasday are 10-man-raids. I am assigned to group 2, but both groups are equal, and there seems to be a healthy competition with the 2 groups.

We didn't reach Kel'thuzad last night, sapphiron went down at 6 minutes past 23.00, so some people had to leave. We had 2 or 3 wipes, on trash :p. Actually not that strange. I was assigned Maintank, and Powerr (who apparantly has lesser gear) was assigned OT. We are both new to BaT, although Powerr already was in BaT before on a hunter I think.

But let's look at me, in XII, I knew the people behind me, and knew what they where going to do 99% of the time. In BaT, I just have to guess at the moment, and hope for the best. That needs to grow. Could the wipes last night be circumvented, maybe, I know where some hard points are now (they are on different places then in XII), so next time I'll be more carefull there. And then we can clear Naxx10 in three hours.

I was the first to die last night, on Faerlina, apparantly I got an unlucky string of hits, taking me form full health to zero within a second, I need to reinstall grim-reaper again, so I can follow that for myself.

And it seems I have a little problem at Thaddius, the same thing happened last night that happened with my last raid in XII. The moment multiple people are jumping down at the same time as me, I seem to get a little lag-spike. I know I hit the spacebar at the right time, but nothing happened...last week I had to retry 3 times, last night I just waited till my fellow miss-jumper was gone, and jumped alone, no problem.

Monday 19 January 2009

[Accepted] Gowron - Protection Paladin

Oh-oh, for the very first time, I am on Trial. I have been officer the last 20 months, and have never been on trial. I always was the one who decided about initiates. So, at least I know what they expect from me :p

So after leaving XII, I had three choices.
-Go join a lesser progressed guild and help them progress. But somehow that was not something I wanted to do again.
-Stop playing Horde, and play my NELF Druid. This was actually what I thought that would happen, because I didn't think option 3 would be succesfull.
-Joining Blood and Tears, Horde Guild #1 on Ghostlands. Problem was, they weren't recruiting tankadins, actually, they didn't recruited tankadins for the last year.

So, saturday-morning, I sat down, and wrote an application to BaT, you can read that here. It took me around two hours to write.. and tomorrow I read the answer.

So, I am on Trial, and not seeing /o. I think I just entered a new game :p

Oh, and BaT killed Sartharion 3D last night. Good Job guys...and indeed, gief Ulduar.

Saturday 17 January 2009

Block Cap-macro...and bye XII

After 2 months, paladins again have a macro for the 102.4%

/script dr=function(x)return 1/(1/16+0.9560/x)end;DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 combat table coverage.
Currently at: "..GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance()+5+
dr(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)/122.962))

With kings and MotW, that puts me on 102.7%... hurray.

And I left XII this morning, my farewell-post is below, but there where other things that the officers now off. Sorry, but I ain't gonna print that here, I am not gonna start throwing mud.

Hello XII,

This will be my last post. I had fun with you, I am proud of what XII did last year. Ignore the trolls, and play the game we like the way we want. I raid-leaded you through the Caverns of Vashj, the Halls of Keal'Thas, the constant waves of Hyjal and into the Black temple of Illidan. It is something which I'll not forget.

But recently I am growing tired. Large reason for that I am an officer. And some of the descisons made the last few months, were not what I would have done. That in itself is not a big problem, there are 12 officers now, and there will always be descisions you don't like. There were however several things that where against my own principles. And now I am only logging in for raids, because I want to avoid conflict.

I have thought about just stepping back, and becoming a 'normal' member, but I know that wouldn't work. Stepping down means leaving, unless you are 60 years old, and your pension is almost there.

It has been one hell of a year. I saw friends coming, and friends leaving..and returning back. Thanks for the experience, but I'll be moving now.


Have Fun,
Gowron

Friday 16 January 2009

Malygos

Like predicted,

Malygos went down last night.

He stands now with the bosses we wiped most on.

1. Archimonde
2. Kael'Thas
3. Vashj
4. Malygos
5. Hogger (ok, kidding here)

Good Job Guild, now let's do 2 drakes up :p

(ps. I wasn't there, had to work late)

Thursday 15 January 2009

Diminishing Returns

The Bane of us math-tankadins, what is the number on miss?

Well, I found a formula on maintankadin/elitistjerk, and the conlusion seems to be:

540 defense will give you a little bit more then 4% miss, but use 4% to be safe.
every 5 defense ontop of 540 will give you ~ 0.09% extra miss

so my current 554 defense will give: 4% + 14/5 * 0.09 = 4,25% miss

The tooltip says it's 6.16%, so that's almost a 2% difference.

Luckily in raids you should have some buffs on you like kings and MotW, which will give you around 1% more avoidance (not counting totems, because they can disappear if the shammy dies)

So a formula would be something like: (for raids)

5+1+4+((defense-540)/5)*0.09+dodge+parry+block

That means my unhittability lies at 101.61%, that's 0.8 under blockcap..mmm
Time to run through my bank for some other gear :p

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Malygos and PuG's

Well, 4 evenings gone on wiping on Malygos, finally something is a challenge in Wrath. XII is getting is sometimes having trouble in phase1, phase2 is easy, and the last try last night was actually a very good one, evryone was flying with each other for at least 3 times, now 3 times more and he is down.

THe fun part is ofcourse that people were giving my pointers how to tank :p. If I die after a vortex because I am out of reach of healers, then I know what to do next time. And I am moving the dragon, he is just damn big, and moves very slowly...

But I think Malygos will go down this raid-week. Enough members have been on the progression-raids, so at least 80% of our raiders now what to do. 1-1-wait till 85-2-1-1-wait till 85-2-rince and repeat :p


My druid has reached lvl29 in the mean-time, and had some experiences with PuG's. Why is it that people forget the normal instance-rules they learned at 60/70/80 everytime they are in a low-level-PuG. I healed a BFD, and everyone was pulling aggro, which is hard to heal, because low-level-druids have no mana-regen at all.

I know there's a feeling of 'this is easy'. But trust me, if you walk one step slower, you'll have less wipes, and it will be faster in the end. I am actually looking in the resto-tree atm, especially at the early talents which increase dps. But before I respec, I need to get 30g for my mount :p

Oh, and I joined a guild with my druid, a levelling guild. The benefits are nice, I can repair up to 3 gold a day from the guildbank, and tab1 is accessible for everyone. They seem to be nice people, so I think I'll be hanging around with them.

Miauw

Monday 12 January 2009

Full T7 and catform

LAst Friday, we again had to few sign ins for the raid, so Malygos was not possible. However, we had 20 people online, who actually could do the 'fewer than 21' achievement on Sapphiron. The quick kill gave me my last T7-piece, the hands. I know have 4 T7.5 pieces, and only the shoulders are from normal. I couldn't raid this weekend due to normal circumstances, so I'll see what happens tonight.

I did play during day-times with my Nelf Druid. She finally got cat-form, and she went Deadmines, well, we downed a boss, but quickly after that the new leader of the group (after a DC), kicked everyone..I tanked this run, but oh-boy, considering that most of those guys where twinks, they should know something about aggro...NOT. At least I got a nice stamina-hammer :p

An hour later, and a level higher, I was again in DM, this time spamming heals. And indeed, I had four tanks it seems, and mana-problems. But this run went to the end, and I got the Deadmines-achievement. I laso won a greed-roll on an Agility-polearm..didn't polearms became available for druids in the next patch?

Friday 9 January 2009

Are you a Healer?

Are you a Healer?

That was asked me last night, just after writing my previous entry. Would it matter? I am a lvl17 druid, what does it matter where I put my talentpoints? At this level I can either tank,dps or heal. Oh, wait, probably has something to do with drops, that you gonna trhow away anyway 5 levels later. Oh well.

The question is also asked sometimes to me on Gowron, yes I can heal, not very good with only 700SP, but I can do it. More humorous is when you are in a party, and someone asks who is tanking, while you are 8k health above the rest, mmm, let me think, I think the resto/shammie tanks, I´ll DPS, and the hunter puts on some spellpower/mail and uses his imba/bandages....

Thursday 8 January 2009

Druid-Class Quests

Druid-class-quests, yeesh, these take long. I skipped the lvl-14-quest for Cure Poison, so I could do it at the same time as the lvl-16-quest for Aquatic Form. Really, for aquatic you need to go to darkshore and westfall for some pendant-halves, and for the cure, you need to be in darkshore. First fill a vial, then get some plants, including 5 earthroot which I had to buy on the AH. And then you'll run around for 20 minutes trying to find sick beasts to cure.

It took me about an hour to get those 2 quests done.../sigh. Oh, and levelling a druid is not really fast. Day2 got me from 12 till 14.1, and day3 ended with me being 17.6, where all three nights I played about 4 hours. Well, I heard it will get faster if you get Cat-form at lvl20. I also have my first dungeon-quests, into the Deadmines...ohoh, now to find a low-level-PuG...that will be something :p

And one more thing, my bags are already flooding with different gear :p, som gear with more stamina if I need to tank, and some gear with more intellect if I need to heal. Very amusing are the agi/intel-stuff, needed for both dps and healing...

Wednesday 7 January 2009

Cooling Down

You have some of those weeks, where you just need to cooldown. Monday I got pretty pissed off with XII, we had a learning night planned on Malygos, and people didn't sign in, afraid of wiping? I don't know, but I was not happy and wrote a post on the forum venting my anger.

Looking back at some older posts from me (mainly the bulletins I write), it wasn't the first time I did that, it seems to be a recurring happening. So it will pass I hope. But I didn't log in to Gowron, and I am not planning to do that today or tomorrow. I'll miss the Naxx-runs, but other tanks can handle that I guess.

So what did I do, well, I logged into the server Khadgar. On Khadgar I have a lot of toons, all female, all alliance. Two years ago I played some levels with draenau there, to see their starting zone. I have a level 31 mage and a lvl 21 shaman there, and a lot of below-10 characters. So after looking at all the characters, I logged in on a lvl 3 NELF Druid, and started levelling.

Druids below 10 don't do that much, only spamming wrath with sometimes a starfire. But at level 10 comes your first reward... BEAR FORM. After 3 hours playing, I was running around with a level 12 Bear. Really relaxing. Because there where almost no other toons around, questing was fairly easy, although a lot of walking around darnassus. I will se how far I get the next 2 days, maybe I'll even become a Cat :p. And I have company of a Gnome Rogue :p

I now have 3 talent points, which I have put into that rage-reducing feral-talent (feral is best for levelling I have been told). No idea if that's the right place for it, but who cares, Entangle-Starfire-Wrath-Wrath-Bearform-Maul-dead mob... next.

(ps, starfire can also be moonfire, have to remember more spells now :p)

Monday 5 January 2009

Goodbye Ezrila, and some rants.

It has been fun

Well, I always knew I was just safekeeping her, and I did have fun with her. But I didn't updated my other account to Wrath, because I wasn't sure what to do with her. She was Blacksmith, which Gowron also is, and Alchemist, which Lurge, and my brothers character also is. I didn't want to change professions, because I felt, I was safekeeping her.

Thank you for the oppertunity old friend, to play a Paladin Healer in Tier6-content, and to make XII see that Retridins where raid-worthy. I made some 'raiding'-dps cry on some runs in Zul'Aman :p. But yesterday I got an ingame mail, she liked to have her pally back, and because I already didn't know what to do with it, that descision was quikly made.

By Ezrila, it has been good, and welcome back Gullvi. Thanks for the months palying her, and you'll have fun with her again, and I hope we can play a lot again, just like in the old days.


Good manners

I now have several dungeon-quests in my log on my lvl75-hunter, so I just put myself into the LFG, but I m gonna dislike you right away, if you, without asking, just pop up a 'X invites you to a group' in my screen. I always ask first if they want to join, maybe their time left is short, or they are almost in another group. But mostly becasue it's polite.

Those popping boxes in my screen, get normally a NO, even if it's from Guildies. Really, just saying DPS is easy to find, well, let me tell you, don't try to ask me to tank for you when you reach 80 then. The moment you use the 'invite to group'-button, without asking, you are put on my 'rude'-list. Where are your freaking manners.

Getting bored

At this moment, WoW is getting boring, apart from one Dragon (and I dislike 1-boss-dungeons), XII has cleared it all. There's nothing to look forward to. Essentially that means we probably have an ALT-Naxx25-run very shortly. Most members are leveling alts now, just because Heroics only give off-spec-gear, and emblems for off-spec gear...

Part of the problem is that Naxx is just too easy, I can understand that Blizzard didn't want to make another Karazhan, but this is just plain stupid and boring. And remember that for Kara, you used to do a questline involving some 'hard' heroics in TBC, which required you to be revered with a faction, so you probably were geared enough to start wiping on Attumen. Now freshly-dinged 80's can join, and we still steam-roll the place. I miss the challenge.

Let's hope Ulduar is a lot harder, and gives us more learning-wipes. There is no feeling like downing a new boss, after 2-3 hours of wiping, or even 2-3 weeks. The only boss which gave me that feeling in wrath, is sartahrion with one drake up. We needed to wipe about 6 times...not that much, but still. And Malygos, when we finally going to start that, will probably also take a day. Just barely enough...