The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
A whole new game
by Zasp
So my Rogue has gone on vacation to Azeroth and Mana Tombs. He’s pretty much retired.
My Paladin is going to be my main focus with the additional intent to level a Resto Shammy(2nd One) and a Feral or Boomkin Druid. Druid mostly because they are an awesome gatherer and I’ve always had this chip on my shoulders about Boomkins, because they are either simply amazing or simply horrible. I’ve yet to see a mediocre Boomkin and that intrigues me.
I’ve always wanted to try my hand at Tanking, I’ve just been unable to do so. When you level a Warrior and all your friends are more interested in goofing off or slacking theres only so much pugging you can do before you get fed up with it. At least thats how I feel.
Now that I’ve been blessed with the awesomeness that is Ego crew, I never have to look for a PuG and we just go do the instance, the 4 of us currently. I’m fairly confident we can 4 man almost any instance save Magister’s Terrace and thats only because of the 3rd boss, and the randomness and “PvP” factor of it. I’d still like to meet that Warrior who hits as hard as that NPC bastard does.
We’ve only just started running Ramparts and because we’re still looking for some drops out of there, have yet to move on to Blood Furnance. There are boots I could use, as they’d be a major Stam upgrade, since a lack of stamina on the tank has been the only hitch we have had so far.
And then its only on Nazan. That stupid Dragon with the fire that hurts! When the tank is short on life, I can imagine its not a lot of fun to heal for, considering there is pretty much 0 room for error. But we’re doing it just fine with our little 4 man crew. Currently not having to worry about any CC makes my job that much easier because I don’t have to do the dance for positioning yet. And while one day I’m sure I’ll have to learn it, nows not the time.
It’s all about how fast can we pull.
I have 10 more levels before I get all my toys and truly see how much threat I can put out. My goal is to be a threat monster, so much so I don’t have to give my DPS salv. I personally know how frustrating it can be for DPS to be threat capped and forced to hold back. I’ve been there and I’ve done that dance. Luckily a paladin tank cannot be rage starved, cannot suffer the same fates that plagued Aensu (when the random number generator would see fit to grant him a string of over-avoidance while simultaneously granting the dps strings of aggro gaining crits) And Aensu was always awesome in the fact less he was off on the day or the games random number generator rage starving him, I never had to hold back. Its an incredible feeling and I hope to be able to return it to him.
I’ve started plotting level 70 gear that I can get crafted and help us do heroics quicker. Because the normals, while fun, are nothing compared to the heroics in my eyes. I like the challenge. And I look forward to learning the instance completely, how pulls are managed, the pats, and how to position the bosses and what not. I’m sure you’ll see my frustrations or triumphs in the coming weeks and, possibly some posts on how I plan to gear in 5 mans. It’s like its a whole new game and I can’t get enough of it.
June 4th, 2008
A paladin tank *can* get rage-starved. Once you have gear that is a little bit above the level of an instance (for example, tanking tier 4 with bits of tier 5 in your set), you will start seeing your mana used be higher than your mana return from Spiritual Attunement, since you will be taking less damage overall (and therefore need less healing).
Glad you’re enjoying pally-tanking! I’d recommend setting a lower goal than tanking without salv, though. If a DPS’er is using the right skills, geared as well as the tank, and knows what he’s doing, he should *always* be able to out-threat the tank through normal rotations without Blessing of Salvation. It’s minus-threat talents and salv in conjunction with crazy tank threat that allow DPS’ers to go hog-wild - threat production is a 2-way street.
June 5th, 2008
From a purely selfish standpoint I think you should definitely level a Boomkin. I am slowly levelling mine and am feeling starved of good blogs about them - so to learn some good insights from the team at Ego Corp would be a dream come true!
June 6th, 2008
If you like tanking and want to play moonkin, keep an eye out for gear that will let you play a panzerkin. Im not saying a panzerkin is good for all situations but there is no reason you can’t tank a boss, specially with someone good doing heals (ie… ego)
I do like having a pally tank around when I’m responsible for AOE damage, there is nothing like a pally tanking grabbing everything that walks by and locking that agro in. Doing BM with a pally tank is a pleasure. To avoid pulling a mob due to focus fire I usually end up rotating through the mobs in that group, spending more time on the skull than others but rotating none the less.
People have to give a pally tank time to really make things mad when it comes down to a single mob/boss fight. For the dps classes that have little to no breaks you have to be patient. Rogues and Hunters I know have breaks, hunters a bit less so but still that fd cool down isn’t to bad. The poor mage and his iceblock .. sigh .. a string of crits is just a nightmare
I would really interested in seeing the numbers you have to get to so that your dps crew can just go hog wild on things. Im especially curious about things like the amount +dmg if +hit makes any difference.
Peace