World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

[maxle]

I’m surviving heroics without having done that (and with comparable/worse quality ilvl) as a feral bear. It’s not about enchants. What it is about to a larger degree than folks seem to admit is how good your support is. And I’m not talking healers. DPS who interrupt and who do good DPS really reduce the damage you take. And of course some of it is learning the fight mechanics (for example, the most important thing you can do in grim batol trash is make sure you’re killing the right trash mobs in the right order: Fire casters/elementals first in the caster/elemental packs, azure dragonkin to avoid the AE elemental summons. Also make sure you pull crap out of the light pools which ups their damage by 50%…)

Huh. I’d been assuming the problem was me, since the group I was with are all multi-year veterans who, y’know, raid and stuff (I think both ten man raids our guild runs have Nefarion down now? I guess that’s good? Whatever), but now that you mention it…yeah, warlords weren’t cc’d, and then they weren’t interrupted (that’s at least partly on me. Skull bash moar), and then the adds weren’t AoE’d.

[ShivaX]

Huh. I’d been assuming the problem was me, since the group I was with are all multi-year veterans who, y’know, raid and stuff (I think both ten man raids our guild runs have Nefarion down now? I guess that’s good? Whatever), but now that you mention it…yeah, warlords weren’t cc’d, and then they weren’t interrupted (that’s at least partly on me. Skull bash moar), and then the adds weren’t AoE’d.

Dont feel too bad, when those little fuckers come out they can still kill the shit out of me at iLvl 352. Holy Wrath helps a ton since it’ll stun them all before they can begin the Arcane Rape, but if noone helps put them down I can still die almost instantly.

Generally warlords wont summon them if your dps is rolling pretty good, but if they’re an issue take them out early on. Of course it helps to stun/interrupt them when they’re summoning, but its a channelled effect - ie once they start casting adds start dropping. So even if you do it the second you see it there will still be a few of the little buggers rolling around.

As a tank you can only do so much really. Interrupting anything other than the kill target isn’t really your job. If you can roll over and do it, more power to you, but you can’t be expected to do it for the most part.

A good alternative is to roll with a DPS warrior. He’ll mop up those adds right quick for you. You can even praise his insane dps as you rez him after the pull. :)

Edit: What mouselock said is also true, but you have to adapt to what you have. If you have a ton of CC classes, runs can be smooth as silk, albiet a little slow. Or you can end up in ToT with 2 melee and a mage and people will have to work at taking down the first boss and the trash up to her. Ultimately those scenarios make you a better player, even if they can be frustrating. Learning to tank one thing and interrupt/stun a different mob is a great skill to have. Better to be the tank that suffers through to the bitter end and becomes better for it (or makes other people better for it) than be that asshole that bails on the group because there might actually be a challenge involved.

All that said, if people aren’t learning or at least trying don’t be afraid to leave a terrible group if you get in one. You have instant ques and they don’t, so after 15 minutes of the failboat you’re free to find a new ship. If you’re running with purely raiding guildies things will be easier since they can help cover your mistakes, but be careful they aren’t carrying you to an extent. Nothing sucks worse than hitting LFD and finding out you were doing a boss horribly and noone said anything to you (I’m looking at you Erudax and your kick o’ doom).

Reedit: Also don’t be afraid to kite things. I see a lot of tanks that stand in bad situations. Sometimes you have to run away (at an angle, don’t let em hit you in the back of the head). Its another great skill to have. In my above ToT example its the only way we survived some of the trash pulls. My dazing shield throw and kiting the melee bastards around till I could stand and take em down. If you see the little death turds popping out and you can’t AoE stun em, run the hell away and let the mage Ice Nova them or something. Its all about using what your group has. Well that and the people in the group knowing what they have and how to use it.

[Brian_Seiler]

So i decided (flipped a coin) to start my Cata questing by going through Vashj’ir. Damn, that area is about 80 quests too long.

EDIT: thinking back, i actually liked the area by itself. It’s just the quest pacing that was pretty bad.

It’s not just the pacing. I figured that I’d treat the 80+ zones the same way that I treated the low zones on my Warlock and let the quests lead me through. The structure is exactly the same, but there are approximately ten billion times as many quests total. If I were them, I would have cut maybe half of the middle stuff. I’m not shocked that nobody opened Throne of Tides without checking the internet first - I’m on the cusp of frigging 83 right now and this is the first dungeon entrance I’ve actually rolled over in the wild. I’m hoping the other zones are a little bit quicker, because I am sick of looking at under the ocean at this point.

[ShivaX]

Doing the dungeons requires either a group or me to go healing,

Que for a dungeon.
Pick DPS.
DPS in dungeon!

Your wait times will be longer, but you can definately go into a dungeon as a Shadow Priest if you don’t want to heal.

It’s not just the pacing. I figured that I’d treat the 80+ zones the same way that I treated the low zones on my Warlock and let the quests lead me through. The structure is exactly the same, but there are approximately ten billion times as many quests total. If I were them, I would have cut maybe half of the middle stuff. I’m not shocked that nobody opened Throne of Tides without checking the internet first - I’m on the cusp of frigging 83 right now and this is the first dungeon entrance I’ve actually rolled over in the wild. I’m hoping the other zones are a little bit quicker, because I am sick of looking at under the ocean at this point.

Vash’jir is the longest of all of the zones by quite a long shot. Then again its more like 2 and a half zones. Most of the instances are actually in Uldum, so its pretty easy to discover them in short order. Grim Batol you’ll probably have to fly out and discover (assuming the patch doesn’t hit soon and make that unneccessary).

[Balasarius]

Interest falling fast. If I have to do another fucking Lost City heroic, I’m going to lose it.

I really want to get the violet proto drake for doing all the festival achievements, but I don’t know. My interest is so low I’m not sure I can grind out the 120+ love trinket things required.

[Arson]

But violet proto drakes are pretty!

[sinnick]

But violet proto drakes are pretty!

Yeah, but imagine that buyer’s remorse.

[Andre_Costa]

It’s not just the pacing. I figured that I’d treat the 80+ zones the same way that I treated the low zones on my Warlock and let the quests lead me through. The structure is exactly the same, but there are approximately ten billion times as many quests total. If I were them, I would have cut maybe half of the middle stuff. I’m not shocked that nobody opened Throne of Tides without checking the internet first - I’m on the cusp of frigging 83 right now and this is the first dungeon entrance I’ve actually rolled over in the wild. I’m hoping the other zones are a little bit quicker, because I am sick of looking at under the ocean at this point.

The amount of quests would be fine if you could do like 6-8 quests ‘at the same time’ like in Zangarmarsh, which is the area that Vashj’ir reminds me the most. Except that here you only do 2-3 quests and then have to go back to the quest giver to maybe do another 2 or 3…or maybe just 1. I spent more time travelling back and forth than doing the quests.

[Arson]

I have two 85’s and I’ve never set foot in ToT…

[Jag]

Really don’t know what I could have done differently. Be a bit more aggressive about protecting my back, but mostly I think it’s a gear thing; 114k base health is not enough. I did reforge literally every item I have to dodge afterwards, which basically dropped my mastery by half a point, my crit by a few percent, and boosted my doge from 24 to 30. Hopefully that will help.

Unfortunately, if it is a gear thing by far the fastest way to fix it, AFAICT, is to take my lumps in heroics until enough stuff drops that I don’t drop quite so fast. Er. I guess some basic enchants would help too. Possibly different gems. This is me.

I geared up a feral alt without really running heroics and use my Bear to tank raids on alt nights. I think you are really close to where you need to be. One thing that stands out is a lack of stam gems. While Stam is no longer king, you still need a decent base of health which you just don’t have yet.

I would also suggest buying the Silver Inlaid Leaf relic which Scribes can make. It is a fairly common item that you could gather the mats for and have someone craft for you. Also the first boss of Heroic SFK drops leather tanking feet and the first boss of Heroic Halls drops nice tanking hands. So use that insta que and grab both of those! With those 3 upgrades, you will notice a big change in your ability to stay alive.

I also don’t see any professions on your armory which is a huge loss in terms of benefit to your class. I love JC on my druid for tanking, but really any profession is going to give you a strong buff and help tanking.

Unfortunately for heroic pugs, I find that tanks just need to have a bigger edge than dps which can usually coast on the tank/healer keeping the fight going.

[jeffd]

Interest falling fast. If I have to do another fucking Lost City heroic, I’m going to lose it.

I really want to get the violet proto drake for doing all the festival achievements, but I don’t know. My interest is so low I’m not sure I can grind out the 120+ love trinket things required.

Grinding these is trivial. Go to the starting area in Hyjal - the elementals die fast, spawn quickly, and there’s nobody else there.

[Charlatan]

Grinding these is trivial. Go to the starting area in Hyjal - the elementals die fast, spawn quickly, and there’s nobody else there.

Dude, that’s the prime spot for the Jewelcrafter daily Elemental Goo quest!

I would say the best plan to get the drops for the bracelets would be to just start doing daily quests. If you do 5 or 6 dailys a day you should get enough doohickies to make your 12 bracelets without any worries.

[Brettmcd]

Dude, that’s the prime spot for the Jewelcrafter daily Elemental Goo quest!

I would say the best plan to get the drops for the bracelets would be to just start doing daily quests. If you do 5 or 6 dailys a day you should get enough doohickies to make your 12 bracelets without any worries.

Heh I just realized I havent gotten the goo quest for a couple weeks now. I prefer to farm the air elementals in uldum, as volatile air drops are always profitable. :D

[jeffd]

Dude, that’s the prime spot for the Jewelcrafter daily Elemental Goo quest!

I would say the best plan to get the drops for the bracelets would be to just start doing daily quests. If you do 5 or 6 dailys a day you should get enough doohickies to make your 12 bracelets without any worries.

No wai; the drop rate on them is too low. :( Or at least that’s been my experience. Getting 40 of them took me about 30 minutes of grinding elementals. No way do you kill that much stuff in 5-6 dailies.

[Balasarius]

I would say the best plan to get the drops for the bracelets would be to just start doing daily quests. If you do 5 or 6 dailys a day you should get enough doohickies to make your 12 bracelets without any worries.

I did 12 TB dailies (with the wife) and only got about a dozen. Assuming she got half the doohickies, that’s only two per quest.

[jeffd]

The doohickeys are not split; everyone has their own RNG based chance to get one.

[maxle]

I guess I must play a lot more than you folks, because I got two or three days worth of those love charm drops just doing the wildhammer dailies and some dungeons in one night. Or, I dunno, the RNG loves me.

I geared up a feral alt without really running heroics and use my Bear to tank raids on alt nights. I think you are really close to where you need to be. One thing that stands out is a lack of stam gems. While Stam is no longer king, you still need a decent base of health which you just don’t have yet.

I would also suggest buying the Silver Inlaid Leaf relic which Scribes can make. It is a fairly common item that you could gather the mats for and have someone craft for you. Also the first boss of Heroic SFK drops leather tanking feet and the first boss of Heroic Halls drops nice tanking hands. So use that insta que and grab both of those! With those 3 upgrades, you will notice a big change in your ability to stay alive.

I also don’t see any professions on your armory which is a huge loss in terms of benefit to your class. I love JC on my druid for tanking, but really any profession is going to give you a strong buff and help tanking.

Amusingly, I have 10k more health and 5% more dodge than I did when I made that post. I literally had no enchants at the time. Can only imagine what you would have said then ;)

Gloves I’ll be getting with 2k more rep from Wildhammer, which will happen tonight. Professions…I dunno, man. Everything I’ve heard anyone say about them ever has sounded unbearably tedious. Suppose I can give them a try and abandon them if I hate them.

I’ll keep the gear in mind, and thanks.

[SpoofyChop]

I just want to complain (again) that cooking has been completely and utterly broken.

It is now extremely difficult and annoying to level it as you play because you simply do not get enough ingredients to keep up. Then you have to either buy the ingredients at king’s ransom pricing on the AH or else grind it out doing the stupid ass boring cooking dailies.

I f@#$ing hate those dailies. They’re moronic and boring and everybody camps the spawns.

WTF?

This is a secondary skill…it’s not supposed to require any real dedication or grinding. Cut me a break.

NERDRAGE!

[idrisz]

This is a secondary skill…it’s not supposed to require any real dedication or grinding. Cut me a break.

Archeology…Fishing…

[markv]

This is a secondary skill…it’s not supposed to require any real dedication or grinding. Cut me a break.

NERDRAGE!

It’s also not needed. Don’t like it, don’t do it. They made primary profession skills extremely easy to level up compared to how it used to be, and honestly, cooking is a complete joke to skill up. The only complaint you could possibly have with cooking dailies is (if you’re horde) killing the thieves to get rations, otherwise they all take a whopping minute to do.