Thursday, February 26, 2009

Where in my tanking spec did you see "I'm DPS"?

Ragar: So Mordigg, how're the heroic runs coming along?

Mordigg: So far so good, I suppose. At this point I've acquired the belt, sigil, and neck pieces from the emblem vendor. I'm still working on the two tier pieces, though I'd prefer to save myself the trouble and just get back into another Naxx run with your guild.

Ragar: Ah yes, the first 8-man Naxxramas run. I think Sol went back with them later and they managed to pull it off; I'll have to bug him to talk about it later. How have the groups been so far?

Mordigg: The groups you and Solannis recommended have done admirably so far; we've yet to come across a challenge that we were unable to overcome. There was one strange run though, but that was an anomaly.

Ragar: Strange? What about it was strange?

Mordigg: Well, it started off with me being brought in to tank the run like usual. While they were filling out the group though, the leader said that the main tank for your raids wanted to come in and he asked if I could DPS instead.

Ragar: Ah yeah, those are always awkward times.

Mordigg: I mean, I did my job and according to the numbers they presented at the end, I believe I did an acceptable job with the equipment I had on hand. It's just that I was unprepared for the scenario. I've put in all of my time and effort to accumulate equipment to tank. All of the money the team has spent, all of my emblems, my enchants - everything has been focused on the task of staying alive and holding the attention of the team's target. When they asked me to DPS instead, I threw on my gear, but it just irked me because the state of my equipment made it appear as if I hadn't been trying to improve myself. Various blue-quality items from quest rewards, a green here and there, and some tanking pieces simply because I haven't found a better DPS piece anywhere. Yes, the majority of it had strength/hit/expertise on it simply because that's necessary for tanking, but compared to what some of the other members of the party were using, I looked like one of the fools they manage to drag out of the woodwork for Archavon pick-up groups. They made a joke at the end and I know they didn't mean anything by it, but it's still irksome. I do have my pride after all.

Ragar: Yeah, it's never fun to get asked to DPS instead as a tank. You spend so long perfecting your threat rotations that going to something else just feels weird. You do have an advantage over Sol and I though - all of your abilities work just as well in your DPS presences and gear as they do in your tanking gear. For me and Sol, we're built around using shields. Throwing on a two-handed weapon, or some one-handers in my case, kills most of our abilities, so most of the time it's just us standing with the other melee whacking the boss with a shield and trying to at least out-DPS the priests' Shadow Word: Pains.

Mordigg: Should I expect more of this in the future?

Ragar: Outside of raiding, not really. In raids it can't really be helped since some of the fights really only require one tank. Even with the multi-tank fights, there are a couple that are mostly one-man shows until you get to a certain point. Take Kel'Thuzad for example: until he summons those guards of his, me and the other off-tank might as well be taking a nap. In the meantime though, it wouldn't hurt for you to pick up some off-spec gear. I know you don't want to DPS, but at least you can DPS to some degree with your tanking spec so it's still a good idea. There's also some rumors flying around about us being able to change specs in the field, so bear that in mind.

Mordigg: Dual specializations, huh? Will you and Solannis be doing the same?

Ragar: Sol will either go Holy or Ret for his second, probably Ret given some of our conversations. I think he's still a little burned out from his days in the arena as a healadin.

Mordigg: And yourself?

Ragar: Double Prot. Probably a survivability build and a high threat one. I may have off-spec gear, but I wouldn't feel right without a shield on my arm. It's possible I might change my mind, but unlikely. You?

Mordigg: I'll have to do some research. Those notes you showed me suggest some rather radical changes to my abilities, so it's hard to make any concrete decisions now. Like you said, I can DPS to some degree with my tanking builds, so I may try something along the lines of what you're suggesting. Perhaps a single-target build and one for larger groups. Since everything is in a state of upheaval though, such a decision will have to wait for another day.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Sixth folder? That implies my pictures are organized

Apparently I've been tagged by TGAPGeorge for this "sixth picture in your sixth folder" thing that's been going around. Like the title says though, my pictures aren't exactly organized into folders - it all just gets dumped into one and the stuff I'm gonna post gets copied over to this computer, so it's just a subset of folder one. With that said, let's see what we can find.

Sixth picture... hmm, the sixth picture's not particularly interesting. That and pictures two through five are just profile shots of Sol I was using for a sketch that was never finished. I could post that, but that seems like a bit of a copout. Let's see what we've got with those cut out.

Now we're getting into pictures I've already posted. Reruns are no fun, so I'll cut those out too. Third try's the charm, so let's see what I find.

Ah, here's a good one I'd forgotten about. It's me and Sol next to each other on top of the Scryer's bank. It's the only time we've ever been able to get this camera's timer thingy to work right; normally it'll go off too soon, so it'll be just me or Sol in the shot. Unfortunately Sol forgot to turn off the extra display stuff on the camera, so it's a bit cluttered.

Friday, February 20, 2009

A Voice From The Past

Nothing real eventful from Sol's raid yesterday, so I'm still coming up with something a little more substantial to write about. In the meantime though I do have something everyone might enjoy. Before I came along and got put in charge of this operation, this was actually an Alliance-only adventuring company. The guilds the team had contracts with fell apart, so a Horde office was opened up and I was put in charge. Communications between the two groups has fallen to the wayside over the years due to all of the work moving over here, but we did manage to get in contact with one of our people over there. I'm still looking for wherever that dwarf we had ran off to, but here's the second member of the team and my warrior predecessor, Tuknir:

What the... By the Light! People! You've gotta help me! I've been stranded here alone for years now. The dwarf was with me for a while, but then he vanished and I think the gnome's gone feral or something cause he's long since disappeared. I yell out at the other people in Ironforge to get there attention, but it's like I'm a ghost or something. I've had nothing to eat but Silverleaf and Peacebloom for ages now. I'm pretty sure that stuff isn't healthy after this long. Please, for the love of Lordaeron, help m-

Oops, looks like we lost the connection. Oh well, wouldn't want to take up too much of Tuknir's valuable time so we'll let him get back to whatever it was that he was doing. See you folks next time.

(Alright, Sol, Mordigg, which one of you smartasses thought it would be funny to not tell me the human lost his mind? And what was he wearing? Valor?! Man, it really is like he's lost in time or something.)

Monday, February 16, 2009

A Tale of Two Naxxramas

Ragar: Most of this past week was spent farming or working with the team's rookies (I'll get to them later on once I'm convinced they won't get eaten by something in the Barrens), but there were a couple of raids we can discuss. Solannis had his typical Thursday excursion into Naxxramas with 24 of our guildmates and Mordigg made his first trip into the necropolis as well. So Sol, how'd your run go?

Solannis: It was a pretty standard trip for us, though not one of our better nights. We had more deaths on the trash pulls than usual and a couple of the boss fights could have been smoother.

Ragar: Anything stand out that might have explained the extra deaths?

Solannis: I don't think the pull frequency caused it - I was pulling fast, but the main tank and I usually go at a pretty fast rate. We had a new off-tank, but he seemed to be doing a fine job keeping up. Mostly I think it was due to positioning (i.e. melee dying on whirlwinds) and getting adds after a pull due to people being too close or too far away. I think it was mainly just an off night and it'll be back to normal this week.

Ragar: Adds, huh? You mean like getting one of those shades after a pull, or maybe a patrol?

Solannis: More like we managed to get four of the 4-6 packs of death knights between Gothik and the Four Horsemen. It wasn't pretty, but we got through it.

Ragar: How about you, Mordigg? Was your first Naxx run quite as exciting as Sol's?

Mordigg: Yes, but for different reasons. The group was made up mostly of members from your guild and I was brought in as their off-tank. Most of the members of the group were well-equipped with the various pieces they'd found on the larger scale Naxxramas excursions with Solannis, so the main tank/raid leader decided to make things more "interesting".

Ragar: Interesting, huh? Knowing him, that's another word for expensive, but go on.

Mordigg: At the time there weren't enough guild members on for a full 10-man group, so rather than waiting for others to check in or delving into the horrors of Trade chat for filler, our leader decided to try 8-manning the dungeon for the achievement.

Ragar: I haven't tried to 8-man that place yet. How'd that work out for you?

Mordigg: It actually worked fairly well, considering we had a less than ideal group composition and didn't really come up with a plan beforehand on how to underman some of the fights. We cleared the Arachnid Quarter, the Plague Quarter, and almost cleared the Military Quarter. In the end we just couldn't get past the Four Horsemen. We had a very melee heavy group and I don't believe we had a ranged DPS that could heal themselves for the back, so our two healers were spread very thin. We did try a few different ways of doing the fight, but they ended up calling the run and said we'd try again later. Haven't gone back yet though since everyone got distracted by candy and love fools, so we may just have to start from the beginning this week.

Ragar: Pick up any new equipment?

Mordigg: A few pieces - some boots from Noth, a pair of gloves from Grand Widow Faerlina, and I'm five emblems away from a new belt now. Unfortunately the boots and gloves are sidegrades from my old gloves from Gun'Drak and the boots you crafted. The bonuses are a bit better distributed than my old pieces so they're still worth using, but not quite as big of a jump as it would have been if I'd replaced one of my non-epic pieces.

Ragar: So any impressions from the 8-man run? I know you've never seen the place in a full raid, but let's hear your thoughts.

Mordigg: Well it's hard to compare it to something I've never done before, but I did think the difficulty was rather enjoyable even with the associated repair costs and extra retreats/deaths. I'm not saying that I'd want to do something that hectic every time and I'm certainly not advocating that we leave someone out of the run that could use equipment from there just so we could go for the achievement, but if it comes up again that there's only eight of us available and nothing is happening, I'm all for trying it again.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Our hunter sucks at naming his pets

Ragar: Since Mordigg and Daikaja are waiting to do heroics and build up their gear (or in the shaman's case, remember what a healing spell is), I figured it was time to send one of the DPSers off into the field. However unlikely it is that one of the groups we run with will be short on DPS instead of tanks or healers, we have to be prepared if that's what someone asks for. There's plenty of options available, but I settled on one of them. He's half of our engineering team, our original herbalist, and quite possibly the worst person at naming pets I have ever met: Lokaja the hunter.

Lokaja: Thanks, I... HEY! What's wrong with my pet names?

Ragar: I'm just calling it like I see it. You have horrible taste in pet names.

Lokaja: Gimme one name that isn't great.

Ragar: Okay, let's start from the beginning. Your main pet is a battle wolf, decked out in spiked barding. One might expect that such a beast would have an intimidating name so that he could strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. You however decided that he should be named Kibbles.

Lokaja: First off, don't talk bad about my wolf. There are fewer surefire ways to piss off an orc than to say something bad about our wolves. Secondly, Kibbles fits him. Sure he looks mean and all, but he's really just an overgrown puppy. One with spiky armor and very pointy teeth, yeah, but still a pup at heart.

Ragar: Speaking of teeth, that brings us to your next pet. You tamed a ravager, one of the most exotic-looking beasts in Outland. Your choice for his name? Bitey.

Lokaja: I'll admit it may not be fancy, but it's descriptive. He loves to bite things. Little guy damn near bit off my hand when I tamed him.

Ragar: And last, but certainly not least, is Cat.

Lokaja: What's wrong with Cat? Plenty of hunters out there have a pet named Cat.

Ragar: Yes, but theirs are actually cats. Let's take a look.

Lokaja: ...

Ragar: Does that look like a cat to you?

Lokaja: Well, in the right light, if you squint a bit -

Ragar: I'll ask again, does that look like a cat?

Lokaja: ... no...

Ragar: What does it look like?

Lokaja: A devilsaur...

Ragar: And that's why we're gonna take votes for any other pets you find that need names.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Team Update: 2/8

Not a whole lot to update with myself or Solannis. He's still doing the 25-man runs with the guild we're working for (I think the main tank's got a crush for Blessing of Sanctuary or something) and apparently Sol's out of Emblem of Valor pieces to buy for tanking. The boots and bracers are sidegrades to stuff he's found in Naxxramas, so right now it's either sit on them or pick up holy/ret gear. As for me I've done the occasional 10-man run and heroic in addition to cooking and fishing, but I'm kinda in the same boat as Sol, though at the Emblem of Heroism level. I've grabbed everything other than the Valor Medal of the First War, but I'm really not all that impressed by it. If avoidance gearing was the better option right now, then I'd be all for it, but everything me and Solannis have fought seems to fit effective health gearing over avoidance. Since that's the case, I can't really justify dropping my Seal of the Pantheon (lets me socket for Stam) or my Essence of Gossamer for the Medal.

Mordigg's made some strides in getting his tanking gear. He grabbed his Sigil of the Unfaultering Knight the other day and a few random pieces out of heroics. He even managed to tank the Culling of Stratholme under the 25-minute timer first try (won the drake to boot), so I suppose his gear isn't too terrible. There's still plenty of room for improvement though, so hopefully I can get him signed up for one of the 10-man Naxx excursions at some point here.

The main focus of the last few weeks though has been our resident shaman/leatherworker, Daikaja. Lately the group we've been working with has been running into the problem where there weren't enough healers to go around. Daikaja and Solannis were our official healers back in our Outland days, but since Sol's taken up tanking, that leaves it to the shaman. Dai was a resto shaman back in the day, but since he'd be running around on his own to train, we figured that a new spec was in order. He tried elemental, but it just wasn't clicking. Now enhancement on the other hand, that was working just fine. He'd leveled as enhancement back before Outland, so he was already used to that, and the new abilities the trainer showed him seemed to make fighting a bit more fluid. When I last checked, he was 78 and running around in the Storm Peaks doing errands for goblins and Brann Bronzebeard - nice enough dwarf, though I think he's a bit crazy which might explain why I like him.

Once Dai's finished off his training, he, myself, and the rest of the team should be able to cobble together some sort of starter healing equipment for him. Dai's got a couple of leatherworking pieces he can work on, Sol can knock out a few glyphs for him and maybe a couple gems, and I can work on a decent mace to get him started. Admittedly we can't do quite as much for him as we can for a tank since that's our specialty, but it'll be enough to get him into a dungeon and back to practicing his healing techniques. Hopefully he'll be ready soon so I can start posting some of his exploits. Well, that or poke fun at him for being rusty - one of the two.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Tools of the Tank: "Which piece of gear is better?"

Got the idea for this post from a conversation I had with a death knight friend of mine who's trying to build a tanking set. After discussing what bonuses he should be focusing on, I asked him what his combined mitigation/avoidance was just to get a feel for what it looked like compared to mine or Solannis'. He didn't know how to check that quickly, so I gave him a macro I found about a year ago in this article on Veneretio's blog. He seemed pretty happy about it, so I thought I'd share it again in case anybody missed Vene's post or the Tankspot article that he got the macro from (I'd link it, but the link he had doesn't appear to work for some reason).

To start with, here's the macro I'll be talking about:

/run local a,b=UnitDefense("player") a = (a+b-400)/25 ChatFrame1:AddMessage(format("Need 102.4%% combined (miss+dodge+parry+block). Currently at %.2f%%", 5+a+GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance()))
For those out there who aren't into macros, I'll summarize what this does. When you create this macro and hit it, it'll give you a little message that says "Need 102.4% combined (miss+dodge+parry+block). Currently at [your combined mitigation/avoidance]%." Originally this macro was used by tanks to find out whether or not we were uncrushable/unhittable. Essentially once you got enough gear that the sum of your miss/dodge/parry/block percentages was 102.4% or higher, no regular hits or crushing blows would be able to hit you - everything would either be avoided or blocked. For warriors, it wasn't as big of an issue because we would just use Shield Block whenever it was up; you only needed a minimal amount of combined avoidance/mitigation to go with that to be past the magic uncrushable/unhittable number whenever Shield Block was up. Paladins got more use out of it because they could actually maintain uncrushable/unhittable with Holy Shield. They would focus on getting their gear to 72.4% mitigation/avoidance, then as long as they were good about using Holy Shield, they were golden. Bears... well, they had miss and dodge, so this macro wasn't as useful for them.

Nowadays though we don't have to worry about crushing blows, but 102.4% is still the unhittable mark. For warriors, this is kind of an unrealistic goal with how our Shield Block techniques have changed. Paladins can still do it pretty easily with Holy Shield, so they still look for getting to 72.4%. Death knights and bears aren't getting to unhittable without some ridiculous gear and gems, but this macro does still serve a purpose regardless of your choice of class.

While most of us aren't concerned about being unhittable now, a high mitigation/avoidance is still useful. When you're swapping around gear, you'd prefer that your survivability go up. This isn't always easy though given that a lot of gearing up involves getting sidegrades that drop as many of those percentages as they increase. Some sidegrades are pretty obvious in nature because they'll make up for a shortcoming we've got (i.e. Hit Rating or specific Dodge/Block Rating in early tanking gear) and only take away from something we've got a surplus of (i.e. Defense Rating in early tanking gear). With others though, it's helpful to have a tool to help look at all of this info.

I'll use me for an example and swap around one piece of gear (rest of my equipment is in that armory link, so I won't show it here just to cut down on clutter). Let's start with the Titansteel Shield Wall, my first 80 shield with an 18 Stamina enchant on it. With that shield equipped, I'm at 543 Defense skill, 28047 HP unbuffed, and according to that macro I've got a combined 69.64% mitigation/avoidance. Now let's swap that out for my Skull of Ruin with a 20 Defense Rating enchant on it. Looking at the numbers now, I'm at 27927 HP unbuffed (down 120 health mostly from that enchant), 540 Defense skill (still uncrittable), and 70.75% combined mitigation/avoidance. So in this particular case, I'm down 12 Stamina and I know I lost some spread-out avoidance from the Defense Rating, but my combined mitigation/avoidance is higher. Here's where you would go into the individual numbers to see where you're increasing and decreasing; in this case I'm losing 0.09% Dodge and Parry with the Skull, but I'm gaining 1.41% Block and 60 Block Value. I can then apply that information to what I already know about my equipment to decide which shield I would rather use. For me it's the Skull due to how AoE heavy everything is now and the fact that my Block Value took a hit from some recent upgrades; depending on the state of your gear, you might have opted to stick with the Shield Wall.

All this macro talk does leave out one important detail: how do you know if something is an upgrade when it's still on the boss' corpse? The macro does you no good in this scenario since it only works with items that you're wearing. For this we need to turn to an outside source. You could try sites like Tankspot or TankingTips and look at their equipment lists. You could do your own research. These are definitely useful and I'd recommend them, but their information is sort of in a vacuum - whatever lists they have won't take the stuff you're wearing into consideration. For that we'll need another tool: RatingBuster. I found out about this from reading BigRedKitty's blog and it provides a lot of context to the numbers you get from the macro; the macro honestly becomes kind of secondary to RB's info, but it's still helpful to have a one-button "how squishy am I?" macro for quick reference. Once you open it up, it should be preconfigured with most of what you need, but you might make a few tweaks just to get the details you want. For that, just enter this and you'll get the configuration window:
/ratingbuster win
Once you're in here, you can make whatever changes you want. Rating will let you pick whether to break down ratings into their specific percentages. Stat Breakdown lets you choose what derivative values to show (i.e. Strength = Attack Power and Block Value for warriors). Finally, Stat Summary lets you change what sums you'll show (check off whatever individual values you want to see). Once all that's set up, every time you look at a piece of gear, it'll tell you what you're gaining or losing compared to your current equipment.

Hopefully these two tools will be of use to people out there. It's all stuff that involves quick math we could all do with the time, but when you've got quest rewards to choose from and a cranky raid leader that's yelling at you to roll or pass on the loot, it's nice to automate some of it.