Two down, eight more to go

It's been a busy couple of weeks for the team. Besides all of the Winter Veil stuff that's been going on (got all of the achievements except for the PvP one... bah), Solannis has been pushing hard to start tanking stuff. After a lot of questing, and a rested state that just never went away, he finished his training early yesterday. Once he picked up all of his new skills, I started scrambling to find mats to make some tanking gear for him. A new shield, a tanking neck from the auction house, and some quick quest rewards and he was ready to start tanking some heroics. Good thing too, since we pretty much threw him to the sharks that evening.

A druid buddy of mine was looking to get some badges for his chestpiece, so we formed up a group and I volunteered Sol to tank it for them. No tanking experience other than one regular Azjol'Nerub run, a bunch of crafted/bought pieces of armor, and some trigger-happy damage dealers in the group - this sounds like a recipe for success.

Surprisingly though, it actually worked out pretty well. For having a fresh-80 tank and one fresh-80 dps, they only had to retreat and regroup a couple of times. With a bit more work, it should go much smoother for the group. Of course it'll also help once he's replaced a few more of those old tanking pieces, like that Brewfest trinket of his.

Sol still needs a few more runs worth of practice before he's willing to really discuss paladin tanking, but so far it does sound a bit different than what I do as a warrior. Whereas my style of tanking is mostly "use A unless it's down, then B, followed by C, etc.", his is more of a rotation. Sounds pretty smooth once you get into it, but I can see that getting a bit bothersome once something requires you to break your stride and move or something like that. I could be wrong though; I'll let him discuss it a bit once he's had more time to practice.

Team Update: 12/18

Our resident engineers set me up with something called an "iPhone" (I thought about asking what a phone was and why this one has an eye, but questions like that just lead to headaches) and told me I can use it to post while I'm busy doing non-adventuring stuff. Personally I would've prefered if they'd built something to do my non-adventuring work for me, but I'll take what I can get.

Aside from that, everyone on the team's been busy in one form or another. Solannis is only 73, but he's been focusing on getting the jewelcrafting recipes from the vendor in Dalaran. He has taken a little break from that though to go try something incredibly reckless and stupid (pretty much the norm around here): he swam up the western coast of Icecrown to meet up with a priest friend of ours near a Scarlet Onslaught camp on an island. Their plan was for Sol to AoE down all of the Scarlets while the priest tossed him the occasional heal. As insane as this sounds, apparently it's quite efficient (and a decent amount of cloth for the priest) - Sol said it shouldn't be long before he's 74 at this rate.

Next up is our newest team member: Mordigg, the Tauren death knight. We haven't made quite as much progress as I would've liked due to other work that took precedence, but he did hit 70 last night. While he works on the rest, I'm gathering up the materials to make him a decent starter tanking set. If nothing else, he's got a Titansteel Destroyer waiting for him when he hits 80.

In the meantime, Mordigg has been gathering up plenty of herbs and leather. We still need to figure out what tradeskills he should switch to at 80, but for the moment it's giving the shaman the supplies he needs to level leatherworking and start making some tanking leg armor kits. As for the herbs, Sol's getting plenty of ink, but apparently Mr. Boomkin needs a bit more training before the alchemy trainers in Northrend will teach him any more. Not a high priority rightvnow, but I will have to light a fire under his feathered butt at some point.

As for me, it's been more of the same: do dailies, go dungeon diving, occasionally get called for an raid. I did get to go see Malygos the other day, but the group ran out of time before we could take him down. Shame though since the first two phases of the fight were going quite smoothly; it's just that "riding a drake" bit that was throwing them off. Oh well, hopefully they'll give me a heads-up next time they're going in, so I can write up another post about it.

I've been closing in one one of the items from my list of goals last month - Chef Ragar. I need three more achievements for the title: Dinner Impossible, Outland Gourmet, and Northrend Gourmet. Dinner Impossible I've been putting off because I hate the thought of wasting good food on people in battlegrounds (they're just gonna die anyways). For Outland Gourmet, the only recipe that I still need is Stormchops, then it's just a matter of gathering up ingredients. As for Northrend Gourmet, I've heard that the missing recipes are being tracked down, so it's just a matter of getting the last dozen or so cooking awards I need for the rest of the recipes.

I've got a few other ideas for future posts, but they either need: a) details, or b) to convince me that I'm not just stating the obvious. In the meantime, it's back to paperwork for me (why does the guy with an Intellect of 31 get stuck doing all of the team's bookwork?).

Raid Tanking: Sartharion

Alright, your class training is up to date and you've been making a bunch of trips into various dungeons to get yourself a decent tanking set. You finally managed to get nine of your fellow adventurers to sit still long enough to form a group. It's time for your first Northrend raid. The question is, where to first? Unlike Outland, there's no grullocs or imprisoned demons to fight. Your raiding days in Northrend are going to start out like they did for those of us raiding before the Dark Portal reopened: it's dragon hunting time.

The dragon you'll be hunting, Sartharion, lives with his three drake buddies in the Obsidian Sanctum below Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight. To get there, just follow the gorge from the north as it goes below the temple. You'll see a summoning stone and one open portal; no idea what the other portals are for, but right now they don't work so don't worry about them. Once your team is assembled outside, step through the portal into the Sanctum.

As soon as you step into the Sanctum, you're going to notice something's a little different about this particular dragon's den: he's right there as you come in. If you wanted to, you could just charge in and fight him right then and there. Note that I said you "could", not that you "should". Maybe once you and your team have had a bit more practice working together, are familiar with what needs to be done, and are sufficiently equipped to survive everything that gets thrown at you, then you can charge in. There's certainly reason to try it that way: better rewards, a dragon mount, and the glory of achieving something only a handful of guilds have been able to pull off. However, assuming that you and your team are new to this place and you're not all decked out in top-of-the-line epic gear, I wouldn't recommend it. There's a reason there's an achievement, better loot, and a mount for just charging in: it's significantly more difficult.

If you look around the room, you'll see a drake off to Sartharion's left and right. Those two, along with the third one behind him (I don't believe you can see that guy from the portal) are the reason charging in is more difficult. If you rush in, all three drakes will join in the fight. This means you not only have a very large and angry dragon to deal with and all of his various quirks, but now you've also got three equally annoyed drakes to fight as well. So you've got you tanking the big guy and maybe one drake, your off-tank dealing with the other two drakes and the stuff Sartharion summons, another off-tank of sorts to go into the portals (I'll explain those later on), enough healing to keep up with all of that and the area effect damage in the portals - you can see where this can get very ugly very fast. Assuming that you'd like to start consistently knocking out the dragon and stealing his stuff on a weekly basis and will worry about achievements and extra loot later, let's walk through a "no drakes up" clearing of the Sanctum.

Alright, so we've got three drakes that need to go down before we take on the big guy. They've all got names, but to keep it simple, let's stick with position with respect to where you start in the room: left, right, and back. You'll have to deal with two trash pulls before each drake: a four-pull of dragonkin and a two-pull of dragonoids. The dragonoids are fairly simple "tank and spank" fights for you and your off-tank. The only annoyance is the curse that they do; it gives all attacks against them a chance to heal them, so if you don't have a decurser, it'll take a bit longer than normal. As for the four pull, it's pretty easy to split up between you and your off-tank, but there's a couple of things to bear in mind: 1) crowd-control the caster if you can (Hibernate for example) to cut down on raid damage, and 2) wait to kill the General until you're ready to pick up your CC'd dragons, since once he's down they cannot be CC'd any more. Once these two pulls are done with, it's on to the first drake.

All three drakes have the same basic mechanics as far as the main tank's concerned: they have a breath attack you need to aim away from everyone and they spawn little circles on the ground that you need to stay out of. Where they differ is in the off-tank and damage dealers' priorities. All three drakes will periodically create a portal nearby - everyone except for the main tank and his healer should enter this portal (one healer's all that's really necessary, he doesn't hit that hard). What you find inside the portal will depend on which drake you're fighting. If it's the left or right drakes, then it'll be one guy that the off-tank grabs while everyone else burns him down. If it's the back drake, then it'll be a bunch of whelp eggs. These eggs need to be dealt with quickly, otherwise they'll turn into whelps with a good deal more health and they'll start fighting back. While all of this is going on, everyone inside the portal will be taking some periodic damage, so the faster they finish up in there, the easier it is for your healers. Once everyone's out of the portal (everything's dead or it's timed out), have your off-tank grab any whelps that are left and your raid burn them down first, then switch back to the drake until the next portal opens. Repeat until the drake's dead, then loot your Emblems of Heroism and move on to the next drake.

Once all three drakes are down, you're ready for Sartharion. Gather everyone up near the edge of his little rectangular island to buff up, then charge in and position him. The picture to the right isn't perfect positioning (he moved a little funny and it was more hassle for the raid to move him than to just adjust to it), but it'll give you an idea. Ideally you should be a little past the halfway mark on the island from the portal (between half and two-thirds is about right).

Most of this fight is your typical dragon fight: he tail-whips and breathes fire, so only you should be in front of him and no one should be behind him. For the most part, your team will be on his side closest to the entrance. Occasionally he'll summon some fire elementals that your off-tank needs to gather up for your ranged attackers to deal with; melee can help if necessary, but they have a tendency to get in range just as the elementals are dying and that's lost attack time on the dragon. Everything is pretty simple until you start to see the lava on the sides of his island start to churn.

Every now and then Sartharion makes giant waves of lava come up from one side of his island and sweep across to the other side. If you get in front of one of these waves, you get swept into the lava and it hurts a lot. The waves will be coming from one of the larger sides of the rectangle, so from your perspective as main tank, it'll be either right in front of you or right behind you. If you hear the lava start churning but can't see the wave, then it's behind you. The rest of your team should all be staying together and having one person calling out sides for movement, so you can use that as a heads-up as well.

Each of those waves will have breaks in the middle where you can position yourself to not get hit. Aside from the normal incentive of "Lava hot! Lava bad!", there's also an achievement if your group can dodge each wave. Your raid will be moving as a unit to stay out of the lava and keep attacking; your job is not only to dodge the lava, but to do so while keeping the dragon in attack range and from tail-swiping or breathing fire on your team. This sounds a bit difficult, but it's fairly simple on your part.

If the lava wave's coming from behind you, then the gap will be either right behind you (if you're right in the middle) or a little to the left (if you're closer to two-thirds in). Scoot a little to the left if necessary and your raid will collapse on his side to dodge the lava.






If the lava wave's coming from in front, you'll need to move a bit to your right; you'll be able to see how much since it's right in front of you. Here's why you should be a little further in than I was: I didn't have to move at all for the waves behind me, but if you look at this picture of a front wave, I had to move enough to my right that a couple of the slower melee guys got tail-swiped. If everyone's on the ball, it's fine, but better safe than sorry. If you're positioned correctly, then you barely have to move at all and your raid should be in no danger of any stray fire-breaths or tail swipes.

Once you've got the hang of moving for the lava waves, it's just a matter of repeating the cycle until the dragon's down and you're looting his stuff. I do want to throw out a word of caution though for main tanks and off-tanks alike, from personal experience. When gathering up the fire elemental adds, your off-tank may get overwhelmed a bit near the end. To save one of your healers or an overzealous attacker, he may use his "everybody hit me!" taunt. This is a fine instinct, except for one tiny little detail: Sartharion is tauntable, including by AoE taunts. This can catch your raid, and your tank, a bit by surprise (I know I certainly wasn't expecting it). Just be ready to taunt him back and try and fix your positioning as fast as possible and you'll be fine.

So many bosses, so little time

I had a post-in-process towards the end of last week, but that got kinda scrapped after this weekend. Some friends of mine were exploring Naxxramas, when they found themselves down a tank. I came in to help with one of the big guys, but when they got their main tank back, he just slapped on his fury gear and asked me to stay. It was a very long day, but we managed to take down everything. This is a picture of us on Kel'Thuzad's throne after we slapped him around for a while; his chair may look unpleasant, but it's surprisingly comfy.

The next day we got a group together to go play with Sartharion again. This time I actually remembered to take some pictures during the fight. That was a little more difficult than I thought it would be - you ever tried telling a dragon, "Hey, could you scoot a little to the side? I'm having trouble getting all of you in frame." Very few things make a dragon more mad than implying they're fat.

I'll try and get something written up in the next few days with where to stand, how to move, etc. I've also got some comments to make on the loot we found while all of these different boss-type guys were seeing stars, but that's for another day. For now, I've got daily quests to run around and cooking to do.

New Blog Name & Post Preview

First off, the blog's got a new name as everyone can see. One of the posters on Blog Azeroth pointed out that there was another blog out there with a similar name to the one I had and that it might cause some confusion. Since I was the new guy and wasn't particularly attached to the name anyways, I came up with another one. It might not be the best name in the world, but it describes my job as a tank fairly well. I actually got the idea for the title from something we did on Sunday, which brings me to the next part of this post.

This weekend we finally got enough people together to go explore the Obsidian Sanctum. None of us had ever been in there before and out of all of us, I was the only one who had done any sort of research beforehand. We were sorta under-equipped, borderline clueless about what was inside, and most of us should have turned in for the night before the group even formed. For our group, these are the conditions that bring about our greatest victories... and a few failures of legendary proportion. Luckily for us, it was the first one; we took out the three drakes along the sides, then the large angry dragon in the center, all in under an hour. Everybody got their emblems, a couple people picked up some shiny new toys - all in all, a good night's work.

The reason I call this a "post preview" is that I plan on making a full-fledged post about this fight: tank positioning, how to easily dodge the lava, details about the drakes, etc. However, a post like that would require pictures and I neglected to take any because I was:

1. Barely awake
2. Not entirely sure we would win

Now that we know what we're doing, we can return once the dragon's slept off his beating and I can get some proper pictures to go along with the explanation. I'll try and remember to get something to track some numbers for people too, just to provide a few details for anyone wondering, "Can I tank that and live?" All I remember is some unresisted flame breath attacks for about 9000, but that's it. The group I went with was excited about going back there and also making our way into Naxxramas, so it shouldn't be too long before I can write up the full article.

Quests for Tanks: Your First (of many) Spiky Shoulders

That title's not technically correct if you've ever gone spelunking in the Molten Core looking for your Pauldrons of Might (and probably a few other pieces that aren't coming to mind right now), but for now let's focus on Northrend. You've just come off the boat/zeppelin to Borean Tundra and you want to see what tanking gear you can get right away. A lot of us probably came into Northrend with something like Bold or Righteous shoulders (I swear Netherspite doesn't actually own any plate shoulders...) or perhaps a quest reward from somewhere like Netherstorm. The first thing you could look at is having a blacksmith make you a set of Cobalt Shoulders - more of a sidegrade for those wearing Bold, but upgrades for a lot of people that didn't get to spend a lot of time in Outland. These are nice and all, but the real goal for you here is over in Coldarra.

If you look at the map of Borean Tundra, Coldarra is the island to the northwest. Getting there is fairly easy - head north from Warsong Hold (northwest if you're coming from Valiance Keep) over to Amber Ledge. Once you're there, look for the large dragon just sitting in the grass. He'll give you two flight points: one for the ledge and one at the Transitus Shield on Coldarra. Next, just catch a flight over to the island. Once you get here, you'll see a bunch of people offering quests for you to do. Some of these lead into other quests, some of them are little one-shot jobs, and some even lead to where you'll be going next - the Nexus. If you want to take care of some of those chains first so you can get everything done in one shot, I suggest going over to reading Banana Shoulders' post on the quests you should focus on. However I know some of you are thinking, "I'll just have to do this place a dozen times anyways. Gimme my shoulders!" Good news - there's no chain for that quest.

At the Transitus Shield, look for a woman named Librarian Serrah. She'll have a quest for you called "Have They No Shame?" The gist of the story is she was borrowing a book from someone when a group of adventurers stole it on their way into the Nexus. Finding the book is easy: from the entrance of the Nexus, just keep taking the left path at each fork in the halls you come across. After a few hallways, you'll come into a room with a bunch of Alliance (I've heard some people say it was Horde, but that's what I saw) frozen in blocks of ice. When you get close to them, they start thawing out and they're looking for a fight. Once you finish knocking some sense into them, the book's lying on the floor about in the middle of all of the Ally-sicles. At this point, you can either finish exploring the Nexus or you can head out and pick up your new tanking shoulders.

Now that you've got your new spiky shoulders, take a good look at them. Do you like what you see? I hope so, because aside from some slight color differences, that's the style you're going to have for a long time. I don't know if there's just one guy who makes armor for everyone in Northrend or they're all just copying from each other, but that's what you're going to look like for quite a while. Works out for me since Tauren make spiky shoulders look awesome, but I suppose the look's not for everyone.

Team Update: 11/24

Still coming up with some more meaty post ideas, hence the silence. I figured no one wanted little snippet-style posts while I was working. I mean, I can start writing stuff like "Thursday: Hit 80. Working on smithing. Hungry." Doesn't seem like that would be all that interesting though. Regardless, it's been a while so I'll try and play catch-up.

Last week I hit 80, so I moved on to smithing and dungeon work. A mountain of saronite later, I was finally taught how to make my Titansteel Shield Wall. Now that is why I became a smith! Yes, I know that I'll just replace it with something from a dungeon later on, but it just feels nice to have a shield that you made yourself.

Later, my dungeoneering buddies and I gave the shield a proper warmup by exploring the rest of the smaller dungeons. We're still waiting for a couple of others to finish their training before we move on to the more heroic stuff, but there's still treasure left in those places we haven't taken. The downtime while waiting for the rest of the group to catch up also allows me to spend some time working on stuff for the team.

I found a death knight to recruit a few days ago. There's still some paperwork to fill out in Orgrimmar, so I'll have to introduce him later. In the meantime I've got him running around gathering materials in the Eastern Kingdoms; no member of this team is going to Outland or Northrend without having their professions caught up.

Lastly, I worked with Solannis to come up with a Protection spec and sent him out into the Howling Fjord to practice. It wasn't pretty at first (I think the last time he swung an axe was in Desolace), but after a while he was starting to get into the swing of things. I think the work will go faster once he starts working with a hunter associate of ours, but so far he seems to be having much more fun than just running around Holy Shocking things. I'll ask him to write something up once he's had the chance to tank a couple of dungeons and get some idea of what he's doing.

Quests for Tanks: Shiny New Weapons

There's still a lot of work to do over in Northrend, but I did come across something that I thought I should point out to my fellow tanks out there. Once you've had some time to get a bit settled in over in Northrend and have picked up a few new tricks (i.e. you just hit 74), I recommend you take a quick break from whatever you're working on, grab a buddy, and head over to Light's Breach in Zul'Drak. I know the temptation to stay and finish an area before moving on is strong, but just trust me on this. Light's Breach isn't that deep into Zul'Drak (I believe the wind rider master over in Camp Oneqwah will even send you there for free - don't know about Alliance, sorry) and this will only take about five minutes.

Once you're there, look for a wanted poster with the quest Wanted: Ragemane's Flipper. Apparently the local wolvar tribe had a pet lion seal that went feral after a run-in with some trolls, so you need to go over and put him down. As you can see from the picture, the lake where Ragemane is at is just to the southeast of Light's Breach. Once you're there, it'll be an easy fight. I could almost solo him at 75, so you won't have any issues with one or two friends backing you up. So far five minute's work, you've got a new flight path, some experience, and most important of all, shiny new tanking weapons.

If you're like me, you probably came into Northrend using the same King's Defender you've had for over a year now. It's a good weapon, but it does begin to show its age. From what I've been able to find, this is the first tanking weapon upgrade most of us are going to be able to find in Northrend. You even get a choice in what to pick up (unless you're a bear, then you're stuck with the kitty-type staff but I think even that'll be an upgrade). You've got the slow axe with defense and expertise, the fast mace with defense and dodge, or the fast sword with dodge and parry. I ended up taking the axe - I prefer fast weapons, but I wanted defense and expertise more than flat avoidance (not really an issue until we're ready to try some tougher dungeons). It's a personal preference though, so pick whichever one suits your needs.

Not dead, just a little busy

Well, there goes that one-a-day streak. Things got a little hectic, what with making sure everybody got on the boat, remembered their equipment, cleared out their quest logs, etc. I've got a few minutes to write things down while I'm flying though, so I'll share a few thoughts.

Howling Fjord: I decided to enter Northrend from Vengeance Landing. It took a while, but I think I've managed to take care of most of the tasks all of the questgivers want out here (it popped up one of those Achievements so I think I'm close to finished). I've just got a quest to kill some giants, but that's gonna take a bit more firepower than I can provide by myself.

Dungeons: Some of my normal dungeoneering buddies finally showed up on the zeppelin, so we went off in search of treasure. Utgarde Keep, the Nexus, Azjol-Nerub, and the Old Kingdom. Lots of fun and some new shiny toys, but I think we might've been a little young for the Old Kingdom. We succeeded, but that one actually required some effort on our part. Gotta say I like the new layout the bad guys up here in Northrend are using. We can go in, loot the place dry, and be back to town in about 40 minutes. Very convenient for your treasure hunters and grave robbers on the go.

I'll post some more as time goes on, but there's still a lot of work to do so I'm gonna get back to it.

Northrend Goals/Wishlist: Ragar

The "Planning for the Trip" posts I did last week covered part of this, but there's not much new to talk about until the zeppelins get here (all I'm really doing is lighting a fire under the butt of Mr. Boomkin to catch up to the rest of us) so I'll go into a bit more detail today. This is mainly for my benefit since I work faster if I've got a goal in mind, but perhaps someone out there will see this and come up with their own list.

1. Get to 80. This one's kinda obvious, but it should still be mentioned.
2. Update tanking equipment. My gear right now is pretty good and should last me a fair ways into Northrend, but it's going to need some improvements before we start exploring dungeons in the heart of the continent. This goal is really a list unto itself, so I'll probably be making some posts about this after things have settled down a bit.
3. 10-man dungeons. If I have the opportunity to take part in some of the larger battles, I'll probably do so, but I'm honestly more excited about working with a smaller, more tightly-knit group of adventurers. The people we usually work with are capable of pulling off tasks that we really shouldn't be able to, so the more I can work with them the better.
4. Chef Ragar. Don't laugh, Chef is an awesome title. When we're setting up for a group photo after beating the tar out of a dragon or whatever other big mean thing is waiting for us in a dungeon, I plan on standing near the front with my title proudly showing. If only there was a chef's hat to go along with the title...
5. Get a motorcycle. I may not be an engineer, but we have two on the team so they should be able to cobble something together. When we show up in Orgrimmar after spending weeks or months in Northrend, I want to ride in those gates in style. Well, that and Midnight's starting to get a little whiny; you wouldn't think that an undead horse would have that much of a problem with carrying my plate-wearing butt around, but apparently so.

Do I get a yellow ! for this?

I've got a few ideas for post topics that I really want to get into, but with the zeppelins inbound from Northrend and all of the changes that they're bringing with them, I'll be postponing those for a bit. That's all fine and dandy, but I still need something to talk about in the meantime. Today I lucked out. I was reading this post from BRK and it reminded me of a story, so I'll be sharing that with you today.

Now for a little bit of setup: the Azeroth I call home is probably a bit different from the one you might be familiar with. I asked our resident engineers about it and they started rambling about parallel worlds and portals and some guy named Mallory; my head started to hurt after a while, so I forget the rest. Anyways, around here people sometimes do this "role playing" thing. Seems fine to me in concept - I like making up stories as much as the next guy (though the ones that hang out in the Ironforge tram are an odd lot). We don't see a whole lot of those guys because most of them tend to hide (both Horde and Alliance are a little triggerhappy around here), but occasionally they come out. We do however see our fair share of beggars, and for some reason they just love this warrior buddy of mine.

He'd get so many requests for his money that he decided to make this blanket response, just a card or something he could hand the beggar instead of talking to each of them. When he was working on this, he had a brainstorm: why just tell them to go away when I could have a little fun with them instead? He decided to his reply should be written like it was a quest. It went something like this: "The bears of the Hillsbrad Foothills have been a thorn in our side for far too long. Bring me ten Rotting Bear Carcasses as proof of their demise and I shall reward you with ten gold." It was brilliant! It would confuse beggars and serve to amuse my warrior friend. The real fun though came after someone actually brought back the bodies.

I believe this druid was in his 30s or so when he came back with the bodies. He said, "I've returned with the proof you asked for. May I have my reward?" The warrior thought for a moment, then decided to what he thought was one last bit of fun: "Okay, you can either have the gold or what's in the box." The druid took the gold and we thought that was the end. However, the next day the druid asked what was in the box. He was dying to know and even offered to return the gold, but the warrior said that the box was now beyond his power to open. The druid kept asking though, so the warrior turned to myself and a few of our other friends and said, "What do I do now?" We said that if he wants a quest that bad, then let's give him one.

The warrior told the druid that while he was unable to open the lock, there might still be a way. He spoke of a guild of thieves that may have the skill necessary to pick the lock, but that he would have to earn their trust. The druid was directed to one of our priest friends who said, "I can put you in contact with one of their best rogues, but you will need an offering. They're not fond of the Syndicate, so that should work. Acquire twenty Marks of the Syndicate, then I'll set up the meeting." The druid proceeded to go out to Arathi and brought back every single Mark we requested. A rogue friend of ours was brought in for the next quest. I think he picked a lockbox he had lying around for effect, then said to the druid, "Alas this lock has become jammed and cannot be picked open. Looks like you'll have to try a less delicate approach." The rogue directed the druid back to the warrior that started the whole thing, who decided to let me join in all the fun. The next quest: "If you want to break this box open, you'll need the right tool and the right hands to use it. The warrior Ragar possesses the strength you'll need to crack the lock, but you'll have to provide the means. Travel to the Hinterlands and acquire the Mallet of Zul'Farrak. With the mallet in hand, Ragar will be able to smash through the lock in no time and retrieve your prize."

True to his word, the druid came back and showed me the mallet. We decided he'd been a good sport in playing along with us for so long, so I rewarded him. I gift-wrapped a couple of blue-quality items I'd found while traveling through Outland (a ring and some leather piece, I think) and told him that was what was in the box. Everything worked out in the end - he got some shiny new toys and some experience, and we got some entertainment. Apparently he must have enjoyed the quests too, since he was asking us for more. We'll have to do that again; it was fun, not to mention a good way to find homes for some of the random stuff I accumulate in my bank.

Solannis: Back to the Front Lines

Greetings, allow me to introduce myself. I am Solannis, a Blood Knight of Silvermoon and second-in-command of the motley crew my associate Ragar has assembled. As he mentioned earlier this week, I have served primarily as the team's combat medic and resident jewelcrafter/scribe. I've dabbled some with the other specializations during my training, but my primary focus has always been to support the team from the rear ranks with blessings and healing as necessary. However, as of late I've begun to think that I should broaden my horizons and take up another role in the fight: that of a tank.

This isn't to say that I want to stop healing altogether, mind you. I do enjoy the work and there is a sense of satisfaction in knowing that you played a pivotal role in the group's success and survival. There are three main reasons that I've considered switching over to the tanking side of things: job availability, variety, and a preferable path of gear progression.

I'm not claiming anything as ludicrous as "there's no jobs out there for healers." However, I have to consider the group that our team typically works with for questing and dungeon excursions. They have plenty of competent damage dealers available and even a fair number of healers who I've worked with and can vouch for their skill. For tanking however, the options are a bit more slim. Due to some bizarre restrictions in the rules Ragar agreed to when he got our team's charter, we're only allowed to field one representative per battle (ah, the wonders of bureaucracy - I wonder if the Alliance has the same problem). Given that restriction, Ragar is usually picked for most of our field work. If I were to switch over to a tanking role, then we could split the workload and hopefully make better use of our time and any equipment that's acquired.

Variety is probably the main reason I'm looking at this switch. With my recent trip to the healing trainer, I received some modifications to my existing spells and one truly new ability: Beacon of Light. Beacon is definitely useful, so I'm not speaking poorly of it. I could definitely tell the difference from having it around when I went with a group to explore Zul'Aman recently. Allowing heals on the rest of the team to also heal the tank does cut down on the amount of bouncing around between targets that my job usually entails. The problem is that, besides this "my heals do double duty" spell, my job is for the most part unchanged. I cast Flash of Light 90% of the time, with the occasional Holy Shock or Holy Light for large spikes of damage. I believe the trainer mentioned a new somewhat reactive spell they were researching, but that's probably not going to be ready until we're ready to head into Icecrown. For the moment, it's more of the same, perhaps with a Judgement or two as time and mana permit. Looking at that, I think my desire for a change of pace is understandable.

My third reason may not be quite as applicable as we head into Northrend, but given the equipment choices I've had up to this point, I'll mention it anyways. As a healing paladin, I have a handful of traits that I look for in all of my gear: spellpower, critical strike rating, and intellect. With the dungeons that I was able to explore in Outland, most of the equipment would possess plenty of spellpower and intellect, but it would lack the crit bonuses that I desired. Instead it usually provided me with a trickle of mana regeneration every five seconds; helpful, but nowhere near as useful. As someone who regains their mana on critical heals, this equipment doesn't really fit my needs, so I had to turn to a less desirable source: *shudder* Arenas. I did not particularly care for the Arena experience or the effect it had on my mood of my teammates (I think you would be hard-pressed to find a quicker way to make someone go from happy to murderous), but it was a necessary evil because the Arena gear all possessed each of the traits I desired in my equipment. As such, we trudged through it until we got what we needed. Now if I was a tank, then this situation need not repeat itself. All of my desired equipment would come from crafting or from the treasure troves of our fallen foes, both of which are far more palatable options to me.

Another possible benefit to this switch is that it would allow Ragar and I the opportunity to compare and contrast the various nuances of tanking with warriors and paladins. Currently our only source of information on paladin tanking is an old Alliance associate of the team, but there's problems getting accurate data from him. Mainly it's that his equipment is horribly out of date. We'd ask him about his past tanking experience, but those conversations usually degrade into, "Back in my day I had to tank Blackrock Spire with a broken Seal of Fury, and we had to walk uphill in the snow to find upgrades just to lose the rolls to Arms warriors and Ret paladins." Looks like I'll have to find another source of information on this while we bide our time waiting for the Northrend zeppelins to arrive.

Planning for the Trip: Leveling & Specs

Took care of the rough profession planning yesterday, so now it's on to the more difficult job: getting the team from here to Icecrown with as few casualties as possible. I'll admit that I've only planned this out a bit in advance; with the size of our group, I've got some time to flesh out the rest of the plan.

I'll be leading the way into Northrend like I mentioned yesterday. "A real leader leads from the front," or some such nonsense. I think the guy that said that never had to pay plate repair bills. Regardless, I'll be blazing the trail and I'll be doing it protection-style. Any other spec would just feel awkward, plus the new tricks I picked up from the trainers should make this a bit smoother of a trip than previous adventures. I've had the chance to practice for a few weeks with everything, so I'm excited. I get to go see new places, meet new unhappy people/things with sharp pointy teeth, and Shockwave the daylights out of them.

After I've gone in and cleared a bit of a path, it'll be Solannis' turn, our resident healadin. Now here's where we've got a bit of a dilemma. On the one hand, Sol's been a healer for ages. It's what he's geared to do and it's what he knows best. On the other hand, he says he wants to try tanking. Personally I have no issues with this; I'm always one to welcome another tank to the fold and it would be nice to have his insight on paladin tanking for some pally vs. warrior tank discussion. The only issue I see is that his gear isn't exactly great for tanking. It should suffice for some early dungeon work, but it could definitely use some help. Guess I'll have to smith some more tanking plate while I train.

Third on the list is actually going to take some work on my part. Along with all of the news of Northrend, we've also heard about a group of the Lich King's death knights that have defected and are looking for a little payback against the big man himself. Assuming that this is the case, I'll be recruiting one of these death knights for the team. I'm sure some of the people on the team might take some objection to this, but honestly - we have a paladin who was originally trained to steal power from a Naaru and a warlock who's out of his damn mind. As long as people do their job and don't reflect poorly on the team's image now, I don't really care what your past looks like. I want someone who can give me another tanking perspective besides Sol's and my own, so we're getting one. Man, I'm gonna have to make a lot of plate...

Once the three of us have gotten settled in Northrend, then I'll have to figure out where we go from there. Do I push the warlock or the hunter so we've got a damage specialist available? Do I make Mr. Boomkin go bear so we've got all of the tanking bases covered? Do I let the shaman keep having fun zapping things or do I tell him to strap his healing gear back on? Or do I head back to Orgrimmar and tell the mage and priest to get off their asses and do some work?

Planning for the Trip: Professions

There's only eight days (seven if you're already in line for the zeppelin) before most of the adventurers in Azeroth, including myself and the rest of my team, head over to Northrend to see what Arthas has been up to while we were off playing with the Burning Legion over in Outland. There's also some stories about mad dragons, giants, and undead the likes of which are worse than anything we've ever seen before. Because, you know, regular zombies and abominations of nature just weren't cutting it any more. Considering what the scouts have told us and what my own research has shown, we're gonna need a plan before we go in there.

I'll be the first one to go ashore and start exploring. The group we regularly work with will need a tank for their initial work, and I think it's written somewhere that the leader is supposed to go into the dangerous places first to show his men there's nothing to fear (gonna punch the scribe that started that nonsense...). Regardless, this works out with the plans I've got in place for the team's tradeskill work. I'm the blacksmith and only miner left on the team, so I'll be able to start smithing some plate armor for myself and Solannis, our resident paladin. From what I've read, there's a few pieces of equipment from the new trainers that should compliment my current tanking gear quite nicely. There's also some caster-type plate for Sol, so that should help him.

Once I'm a fair way into my smithing work, then Sol can pick it up from there with his jewelcrafting. I wish I didn't have to split the effort, but I think the smithing work will pay off more for us while we make our way to Icecrown than cutting some slightly shinier gems to put in whatever random pieces of equipment the questgivers decide to pawn off on us for their errands. I might also get some help with materials from some friends of the team, since our little group has kind of become the local one-stop shop for most crafting work.

After those two skills are out of the way, that just leaves inscription (either need someone to send Sol herbs or to yell at the hunter/druid to get to work herbing), engineering (hunter and lock are on their own for this one for a while), leatherworking (I'll work with the shaman on this one eventually), and alchemy (need to drag Mr. Boomkin's butt through Outland first). There's also enchanting, but right now the only enchanter we've got is a mage who hasn't managed to learn how to ride a slow mount yet, so I'll have to call in some favors for that stuff.

I suppose that will suffice for a plan for profession work. Now to just figure out how exactly to get everyone from here to Icecrown in one piece. That's gonna be a bit more work.

Classic Raider (just a couple years behind)

I'll continue with introduction-type stuff soon, but this happened recently so I figured it would help break up the dry "this is what we're about" kind of stuff. A few weeks ago when everyone got their new toys and all of the stuff our trainers taught us was completely changed, we also started getting these Achievement things. They serve no combat purpose whatsoever, but man did everybody want them and I'm no exception. There were achievements for all of the people who like butting heads with the Alliance, ones for people like me who do a lot of trade skill work, and even some for dungeons (both new and old). In particular, there was a set of achievements for all of the old 20- and 40-man dungeons that people used to run before the Dark Portal opened and we found out that the green garbage the natives dropped was better than the stuff Ragnaros was holding onto down in his house. When the achievements came out, we all got credit for some of the stuff we did before. In this case, I got credit from working with my old raiding guild for everything but Zul'Gurub (apparently a couple dozen times isn't enough if you don't take his heart as a souvenir) and the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj.

I'll be blunt: I hate the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. I hated it back when we were taking a trip there every week, and I'm still not too fond of the place now. Part of it's because there was really only decent loot there if you were a DPS-type person (I'm a tank though so I'm a bit biased for "decent loot"), partly because I was sick of fighting bugs and that's pretty much all that's there, but there was one reason above all others that I didn't like going there: it just wasn't fun to tank. That's a long discussion though, so I'll save that for another day and get back on topic.

So I'm sitting in Shattrath looking for more achievements to work on when I get a message from an old druid buddy of mine. His guild decided they were gonna go back to the Temple to play with their new toys and he asked if I wanted to come along. I was still testing out some of my new stuff and decided I could use more practice, so I agreed. I was curious though - yeah, we had new skills, better gear, and a lot more experience, but a lot of these guys had never seen the Temple before. Just how much repair money is this achievement going to cost me?

I joined the group right before they went in for the first optional boss, Viscidus. Easy enough, though he did sit at 1% or so for a while before people remembered that you have to shatter him to win. Next up was Princess Huhuran - I'll admit it was satisfying to watch her explode as fast as she did. Part of that might just be me being vindictive from when I used to fight her and my guild's plan of attack was "Operation: Let the First Tank Die". Believe it or not, the first tank had issues with this course of action.

The Twin Emperors were next on the list. My old guild never did get past these guys; 30% or so was as close as we got before we went to Naxxramas and the guild went kaboom. The Emps went down just fine, but the whole time I'm looking at this and going, "Man... we would've been dead like 10 minutes ago if this was the old days." I think they healed each other to full four or five times before the fight was over. I started helping the MT move the melee guy away from the caster when they teleported after a while, since it seemed like there wasn't really anybody holding the caster in place so he was doing his own thing.

After that was Ouro and the trash on the way to C'Thun. Ouro was nothing special, but the trash was... interesting. I don't think fear-chaining and fighting half of the room in one pull is the normal way to do that fight, but I suppose it worked. Once that was out of the way, all that was left was the big eyeball himself, C'Thun.

I'd never seen C'Thun before, but I'd done a little bit of reading beforehand, just so I could do my job. Seemed like a simple enough fight - don't clump up, avoid the red beam, hit the big thing in the middle when you're outside, stab whatever's inside if you're swallowed. First charge: ZAP! All but like three of four people got chained from one beam in the door. Okay, take two. After everybody patches up, my druid friend and I decided we were gonna hang back a bit just to be safe. Success! We got in position and started to attack, while desperately trying to avoid standing next to people for the beams. Apparently someone must've passed around a note telling the other melee people that I had candy or booze though, because a handful of rogues kept following me. Once one of them got beamed, it was over and I got to stare at the floor for the remainder of the fight. Not quite how I wanted to get that achievement, but I'll take my victories where I can get them. I was now a Classic Raider, but more importantly, I never have to go play with those bugs ever again.

Gotta start somewhere

I suppose I should start off with an introduction, in case someone got lost trying to find TankSpot or something. Name's Ragar, but my friends call me Rags. It's probably obvious from the title, but for those who haven't guessed, I'm a tank. A protection-spec'd warrior to be specific. My job is to make sure that the dragon/giant/"insert large unpleasant thing with sharp teeth here" is beating the tar out of me instead of the squishier people in the group. I've been prot for a long time (the last time I was another spec, I think Ice-Barbed Spears were in style and warriors longed for the day they could get an Unstoppable Force). I've got nothing against my Arms and Fury comrades, but it just doesn't feel right without a shield in my off-hand.

I've been meaning to start one of these blogs for a while now, and with everybody packing up to go say hello to Arthas, it seemed like as good of a time as any to start. Still have to come up with the exact material that I'll be talking about, but that'll come with time. Most likely it'll be a little bit of tanking discussion.

Oh, one last thing before I wrap this up. Although the title of the blog is focused on me, don't be too surprised if folks of the non-tanking persuasion put a post or two up here. Some of the folks I work with occasionally have things to contribute, so I might ask for their assistance every now and then. It usually doesn't hurt to know what the people doing the healing or DPSing are thinking.