Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The speed of sound

So... a groveling apology.

I did not mean to insult Arms and Fury. I meant to do a post on early quirks in tanking and theat for WotLK.

According to WoWInsider, quoting Ghostcrawler, most players (read casual) aint yet to 80.

Unbound is about at the end of the heroic grind. Tho I would like to thank GeeGolly for raining on my parade, and pointing out that the immense amount of time I'm gonna be spending in raids will be completely useless for gaining faction...

Damn.

Anyway. I've done all the Heroics at this point. And most of that has been with PUGs. And, considering that the first people to reach 80 should be slightly above the curve... it's been a mixed bag.

Look. Tanks and healers have better gear than anyone else. Cuz tanks and healers have less grief finding groups than anyone else. We haven't quite reached the point where dps is outgearing anyone. And... tanks are havin a little bit of a problem.

90% of it is that we got lazy and stupid after 3.0 hit. The tank could easily hold aggro as, in the words of A&F, every class found their AoE button.

Then we ran through normal dungeons in Wrath in gear that wouldn't be replaced until level 80. Is it any wonder the first dungeons were cake?

But then the wall. No one is running level 80's in normal mode. The jump to heroic was made with both feet, and no one is looking back. And, quite frankly... some people aren't ready.

PUG after PUG... no cc, no caution, dps jumps in even before the mobs get pulled. We're having to relearn game skills.

As an aside... here is why you should not depend upon your resto shammy to Hex... I have *zero* plus hit gear. My chance to fail is usually around 10-12 percent. It has a range of 20... you do NOT want me that close to a mob pull. That being said, I will try.

But while doin HoL, I got tasked with a hex, and while waiting for the hex target to get into range, one of the other mobs charged me and punted me back 20'. It was a long run.

Anyway... back to the post. I did not mean to insult Arms and Fury. I merely wished to point out how a tank of some reputation is struggling with the new world order. And wishing he could run 80's level dungeons in normal mode to get some of the gear he needs to excel in heroic 80's.

After Burning Crusade hit, the first people in end instances found something very disturbing. Healer aggro was out of freaking control. Tanks could not, for the life of them, keep stuff offa healers in early Kara. It took a coupla patches for Blizzard to return equilibrium.

This should be obvious... healer threat, tank threat, and dps threat scale differently. It is irrational to expect perfect balance even with as extensive testing as Blizzard did in the beta. We all know Wrath shipped with issues placed on the back burner. (Dual specs, trap mastery... etc, etc...)

I'm worried about tanks. My pally tanks are takin weird spikes in damage. Warriors seem, again, to be heads and shoulders above the rest. My one feral experience was a nightmare. And DK's... well, it seems they're really awesome offtanks, but can't mitigate damage long enough to main tank. Blizz has said they're looking into this.

And even with a warrior tank... I got dps pullin theat by attackin the wrong mob, I got tanks not marking clearly enough, and no one seems to understand what the word "back" in the sentence "pull them the hell back" means.

Sigh. Anyway, back to the original point of the post. I meant no offense to Arms and Fury, and am sorry he took it as such.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Try asking your struggling tanks how much Defense (skill, not rating) they have. You need 535 not to be uncrittable in heroics.

I've taken a poll at Maintankadin, and it sounds like most of them (and they are a higher than average caliber of player) are dinging 80, making sure they have 535 Defense (again, SKILL), and then jumping directly into Heroics.

I'll ding 80 tonight. Dunno if I'll get any Heroics in; once I do, I'll let you know how it is. It may just be that you are seeing PUG tanks who don't pay much attention to stats and gear. A good tank is a fanatic about that stuff.

Fedaykin98, Tankadin

Anonymous said...

Err, to be uncrittable / not be crit. You know what I meant. Oops.

Fedaykin98

Kelmar said...

I run at 542 Def but it is on my site :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I read that on your site, btw. I was throwing that out there because he was dissing pally tanks, which SHALL NOT PASS. XD

Fedaykin98

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I read that on your site, btw. I was throwing that out there because he was dissing pally tanks, which SHALL NOT PASS. XD

Fedaykin98

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I read that on your site, btw. I was throwing that out there because he was dissing pally tanks, which SHALL NOT PASS. XD

Fedaykin98

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I read that on your site, btw. I was throwing that out there because he was dissing pally tanks, which SHALL NOT PASS. XD

Fedaykin98

Anonymous said...

Wow.

Fedaykin98