Ragar: Last night the guild did another one of its 10-man Ulduar excursions. This time they requested Mordigg instead of Solannis. Well, technically it was "send whoever you want", but when I mentioned that I'd like to come, it's "anyone other than you". You can almost feel the love.
Mordigg: Yes, nothing to do with the fact that every other tank your guild has is a warrior. It's all out of spite.
Ragar: Yeah, yeah, you and your logic. I'm well aware that from a tactical perspective, it makes sense to mix up the tanking classes. I'd just like a break from doing paperwork. That's enough about me though. How was your first trip into Ulduar?
Mordigg: It went fairly well - cleared the first floor and Kologarn in under two hours. We wiped a few times on Assembly of Iron for some reason. The raid leader called it after that and we'll reconvene during the weekend to finish up. There was one other issue where I wanted to strangle -
Ragar: That's normal.
Mordigg: But I didn't even say who.
Ragar: You don't have to. There are people Sol, Med, and I tune out, but there's only one person for whom "strangle" comes to mind.
Mordigg: Okay, just making sure it's not just me. It's always a little bit of a concern when thoughts like that come up as a death knight.
Ragar: So out of curiosity, what'd the loudmouth do this time?
Mordigg: Well, first off he questioned whether I was crittable after the first Kologarn atttempt. That's just flat out insulting, especially from someone who thinks they know tanking because they know a guy that tanks Naxxramas once in a blue moon. Kologarn is a giant whose hands are taller than I am and who puts a stacking -25% armor debuff on the tank. I'm going to get hit really hard, especially if the other tank's busy with the Rubble and can't taunt off of me when I get a second stack.
Ragar: Yeah, -25% armor hurts, especially since high armor is kinda your thing along with druids.
Mordigg: The other major thing was during Assembly of Iron. When you're fighting Steelbreaker, the other tank has the two other guys off in a corner. Every now and then, the middle one, Runemaster Molgeim, will put a Rune of Power on the ground that bumps up the damage done by anyone standing on it by 50%. Great for us, bad when they're standing in it. Occasionally he'll put one underneath Steelbreaker so I'll have to move him. No big deal, right? First one shows up and loudmouth starts yelling, "MOVE HIM! MOVE HIM! MOVE HIM!" I'll admit I could've handled it a little more tactfully than yelling back, "I can $&*#ing see!"
Ragar: Alright, you've had your first taste of Ulduar and now Sol and I know you're still sorta normal based on the fact that you can still be angry. Any other notes?
Mordigg: Well, there was one point during an Assembly attempt where a feral druid pulled aggro off of me near the beginning. After talking to the other tank, he said, "Yeah, he's kind of a beast. I usually put Vigilance on him, but I forgot." How does Sol deal with that?
Ragar: Don't ask Sol about building threat. His survivability build is the same as his threat build. Infinite Divine Plea made his threat generation kinda ridiculous.
Mordigg: Yeah, well that's not the case for me. My Frost tanking build has decent enough survivability, but threat's always been the thing that it's been weak about. For trash pulls, it's fine - Howling Blast is awesome for stuff like that. For bosses, it's always been a little too dependant upon Rune Strike, which keeps me from using Frost Strike as much as I should. There's always the concern that I'll accidentally use the runic power before Rune Strike goes off and I'll lose a good chunk of threat from that. Not to mention the fact that the changes to Blade Barrier makes Rune Strike come up less already.
Ragar: Yeah, I can see that being an issue, what with your heavy threat attack being the weird love child of Heroic Strike and Revenge.
Mordigg: Regardless it should be less of an issue with the new spec, though I still need to field test it.
Ragar: Okay, walk me through the spec. What's the theory behind it?
Mordigg: Well, it's less runic power dependant than my Frost build, so there's less likelihood of clipping my Rune Strikes. As Unholy I'll be using Scourge Strike instead of Obliterate or Howling Blast for my double-rune attack. Since it's shadow damage, it'll ignore armor and in theory deal more damage than using Obliterate on bosses like I've been doing. The glyph also gives me the potential to refresh diseases on the target, which would let me get a few more Scourge Strikes in before having to refresh diseases.
I still need to see if it's got better or worse AoE threat than my Frost build. Frost has Howling Blast with the occasional one being free, whereas this build has Unholy Blight, Wandering Plague, and Corpse Explosion. Both have the Death & Decay glyph and reduced cooldown, so that's not a consideration.
Ragar: Corpse Explosion?
Mordigg: I had a spare point I needed to spend to go further into Unholy and the other choices weren't that appealing. Besides, I'd heard that it was a little better these days. We'll see when I get the chance to test it.
Ragar: How about survivability? I know this is mainly a threat build, but does it have any extra tricks?
Mordigg: Actually it does. It's got Bone Shield and Anti-Magic Zone along with a better Anti-Magic Shell, so it's really more of an anti-caster survivability build than the other. I'll admit I'm not fond of losing the extra 3% miss from Frigid Dreadplate, but hopefully the mitigation from the glyphed Bone Shield should balance out in the end. We'll find out when the group starts back up this weekend.
Ragar: Well, you have fun with that and try not to kill the loudmouth. I'm not sure our contract covers that.
Mordigg: I make no promises.
No comments:
Post a Comment