I'm not dead.

I'm only mostly dead.

There's a big difference between mostly dead, and all dead.

"How's my gear?"

I get asked this a lot. It's frustrating.

Gear progression doesn't have checkpoints or milestones. There's no "I have X hit points and Y armor now, so I can tank boss Z." You can be undergeared, you can be overgeared, but there's a huge area in the middle where you're neither - you're just "geared". Whether or not you're geared adequately depends on a wide variety of factors. How are your healers? How is your DPS?

The fact is, every tank - just like any other WoW player - should always be looking to upgrade, until you have the absolute best items available to you. There's no stopping point before then. So stop asking me or anyone else for one.

Tell your friends,

I got loots.

No more healing shield!

(And yes, gusts of wind make me fly like a kite)

Warrior vs Paladin - Effective HP Gap

So the thought occurred to me, let's figure out just how well the 2k extra HP and 4% more physical reduction Warriors get compares to Ardent Defender. Math inc, pardon my dust:

Some base numbers -
Warrior max HP: 20k
2k HP gap puts the Paladin's HP at 18k
Ardent Defender threshold at 18k is 6300.

Let's start with an incoming hit of 5k. In the absolute worst case scenario that the Warrior can survive, he would be sitting at 5001 hp. So, Warrior takes 5000 damage, survives with 1 hp. Now let's look at what happens to the Paladin.

With a 2k HP gap and 4% more damage taken, the pally would be sitting at ~2400 hp. Again, pally takes 4% more damage than the Warrior, so the incoming hit is 5200. Ardent Defender is active, so 70% of 5200 = Paladin takes 3640 damage and dies. Effective HP gap: 1240

Let's try a 6k hit. Warrior has 6001 HP, lives. Paladin has 3440 HP, is faced with a 6240 pre-AD hit, 70% of that = Paladin takes 4368 damage and dies. Effective HP gap: 928.

Wow, so as the hit gets bigger, the gap actually shrinks rather quickly. It's cut nearly in half by the time you get to the AD threshold. Obviously as soon as the hit gets any bigger it's going to break the AD threshold and leapfrog, but if your tank is taking hits bigger than 6k he shouldn't have time to be hit a 3rd time before getting healed.

Post-Illidan relaxation

Had everything in BT and Hyjal down by 10pm Sunday this week, went and killed Doomwalker just for the hell of it, and had the rest of the night as well as tonight off. Pretty nice. I've been trolling forums, doing arenas on my Warrior, and generally just enjoying not being in a raid all night 5 nights a week.

Looking forward to Zul'Aman in 2.3, and Sunwell in 2.4, but in the meantime we're pretty much just killing stuff quick and then relaxing and enjoying things other than raiding. I'm planning on writing up a biography of Months Behind's progression, from Karazhan til Illidan, should be fun. In the meantime, if you don't see much out of me, it's probably because I'm busy enjoying life outside of WoW :P

We beat the game.

Illidan down!


Loots:

Chestguard of the Forgotten Conqueror (to Shylok)
Chestguard of the Forgotten Protector (to Stevez)
The Skull of Gul'dan (to Wit)
Bulwark of Azzinoth (to Float)

WTB 2nd shield drop!

Only one boss left...

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately, I've been busy murdering raid bosses.

Reliquary of Souls down last week, Mother Shahraz (aka Martha Stewart) and Illidari Council down this week. Illidan kill inc...

Archimonde down, Hyjal clear!

Aaaannd... I missed it ;_; Got stuck at a family Labor Day gathering and couldn't get back to raid. Just to add insult to injury, they went and killed Gurtogg Bloodboil too.

Oh well, at least our main Warrior tank got to spend some of his DKP. Belt dropped off Gurtogg.

Bit of a lull

Things have been kinda slow lately, on all fronts. I had hoped to see some more interesting stuff come out of the Liepzig convention. Oh well, it sounds like 2.3 PTR's should be up not long after 2.2 goes live (which in all hopefulness should be this Tuesday).

We put some decent attempts in on Archimonde last night, ridiculous fight but a lot of fun. Kind of underwhelming for an "end boss" encounter really. Only one tank though, and I can't break fears, so time to strap on the healing gear. Haven't messed with Gurtogg much, think we're probably going to stick to getting Archimonde down first. His loot's better.

Been kinda slow on the progression for the past month, kind of disappointing. We've had some attendance issues, but things seem to be clearing up. Doesn't help that we keep having to attune new people to BT and Hyjal, so we waste a lot of time in SSC. We've been able to buy cleared Kael'thas fights off of less-progressed guilds, but who knows how long that'll hold out. Hopefully I can get my BP off him before then, I really need an upgrade and I need to be careful with my T6 DKP.

My sword's getting upgraded once the patch hits, pretty happy about that. Free spell damage FTW, and it means I can save my arena points to see what S3 brings. In the meanwhile, I need to quit being a big fat failure:

New pants

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eredar&n=Lore

Whee!

Somewhat slow this week, due to the downtime. Pretty much just hoping to get all our farm content cleared. Next week: Gurtogg, maybe Archimonde!

Blizzcon Stuffs

Alright, as promised, here's my opinions on the stuff announced at Blizzcon.

Wrath of the Lich King
Dear god, I want this to come out now. New content sounds pretty sweet, some of the flyby's were pretty cool looking, and the expansion has a lot of potential to be far more steeped in the lore (LOL!) than The Burning Crusade was. In fact, come to think of it, the Burning Crusade was pretty disappointing in the lore department. Oh well, at least Khadgar was there.

Also, I want an Ashbringer. Gimme.

Death Knight
As stated previously, you bet your ass I'll be rolling one. I don't care if their tanking sucks, I don't care if their DPS sucks, I don't care if the rune system sucks... it's a new class, and getting to be one of the people theorycrafting everything out and learning how something new ticks is going to be so much fun. The rune system does sound really cool though; basically an energy bar, except different portions of your energy bar are used for different abilities. Lots of theory involved there, sounds like tons of fun.

No, I doubt I'll be quitting my Paladin, but eh, it's quite a ways out anyway.

Tournaments
You know, I didn't think they would be, but watching the SC/War3/WoW Arena tournaments was actually pretty cool to watch. The Starcraft and WoW Arena tournaments were the best, Tasteless and Leeroy make pretty good announcers. War3 tournament was mostly listening to whatshername and that one dude try to figure out what was going on, pretty bleh. Mostly I only watched them because Giga kept playing them instead of the panels.

Paladin stuff
Actually quite a bit less than I expected, and not much new. I was kinda disappointed. There was supposedly some interview in which they gave out a bunch of cool information, but I haven't seen it pop up anywhere yet. Probably was in some magazine or something where we won't see it for 3 months. Most everything seemed centered around Ret fixes. I liked when Tom Chilton said we could heal ourselves while AOE tanking though, that was pretty funny (and somewhat concerning).

I'm drunk
Yeah, so that about covers it.

Blizzcon...

No I'm not there, but rest assured I've been paying very close attention to the proceedings through sites like WoWInsider. Once all is said and done I'll be posting a full rundown on my thoughts regarding the whole issue, but even after day 1 I have to say I'm very much looking forward to WotLK and what's in store for the game from now til its release.

In the meantime, pay very close attention, especially to tomorrow's news. A little bird has told me there's some really good announcements on the way ;)

Also, you bet your ass I'll be playing a Death Knight come expansion. Jesus Christ that's a cool mechanic.

Oh by the way, Azgalor down last week, VERY good place for a Paladin tank. I can honestly say I am capable of pulling off some tricks that no Warrior or Druid could ever come close to there. I'll put a full writeup on the Maintankadin forums sometime next week.

Plowing through Hyjal too

Man, I am really loving BT and Hyjal. Both instances have a few nice and easy bosses to kick back and relax after Kael and Vashj.

Anyway, Anetheron down (Warrior tanking sword to Peauchute and Feral staff to Timber), as well as Kaz'rogal (BM Hunter shoulders to Seazon and Plate DPS belt to Tankos). Took a look at Azgalor's trash waves also, hopefully expecting a kill Monday. This is the last week we'll be putting both TK and SSC on the schedule also, which gives us another 1-2 days at least in BT and Hyjal. I fully expect to be putting Archimonde attempts in next week =)

Shade of Akama down too

Since Kaziel asked, here's a condensed version of the fight:

Easysauce fight, pally tanks very useful. Adds come out of the sides of the room for a while, a bunch get killed (most of them are the ones I tank), some get offtanked (druids), some just get burned down by specific people. After you do that for a while, Shade of Akama starts attacking
the real Akama, you've got about a minute to burn through the Shade's 1 million HP before he kills Akama. Adds stop spawning at that point so everything that's left just gets OT'ed and the Shade gets full DPS.

Pretty fun, very easy fight. And my bracers dropped!

[The Seeker's Wristguards]

DESTROYING Black Temple

Zoned into Hyjal tonight, 1-shot Rage Winterchill and attuned like 8 new people to BT, so we headed over there...

4-shot Naj'entus. Loots were:
[Eternium Shell Bracers] to Float (our Warrior MT)
[Tide-Stomper Greaves] to meeee!

Went on to Supremus, along the way we got a couple trash drops... physical DPS ring to Sophi (Enh Shaman) and druid tanking boots to Yajed (one of our Druid MT's)

4-shot Supremus. Loots were:
[Band of the Abyssal Lord] to Yajed
[Pauldrons of Abyssal Fury] to meeee!

Going to go in and look at Shade of Akama next week, he's a 60-second DPS race which is the type of fight we're generally best at, should be pretty good. Meanwhile I await when we finally head for Kaz'Rogal so I can replace my stupid Shield of Impenetrable Darkness...

How to Score a Raid Spot

Or: "MT or Bust, and other myths."

I originally posted this on the Maintankadin forums.

I see a lot of posts on these boards to the effect of "How can I get my guild to let me tank?" and "I'm backup tank #700, what should I do?" The responses given almost universally favor the "MT or bust" mentality that pervades a lot of Tankadin thinking, and very rarely seems to take in mind a few key tenets of raiding that I think are very important to the success of a raiding Tankadin. Being both a Paladin tank and my guild's tanking officer, as well as raid leader, I thought I'd give my input on the subject from a "both sides of the coin" approach. So, here's my quick (or probably not) guide to scoring a steady, enjoyable raid spot in a serious 25-man raiding guild.

Joining a New Guild
Whether you're just starting out or moving on from an old guild, the most important thing is to research the guilds you're applying to. If you're looking to join a guild on your server you may know most of the important information already, but there is nearly always more that can be learned. Look up kill shots for the guild if available, see who they had present, and then look them up on the armory. Guilds that allow offspec/hybrid classes such as Enhancement Shaman, Feral Druids, Fury Warriors, and Shadow Priests likely to be a lot more receptive to the idea of a Paladin tank than the typical min/maxing "primary raid role" guilds. Likewise, finding names from kill shots will let you be sure these hybrids are being brought for new content and not just dragged through farmed content as backups.

The recruitment forums can be a good source of potential guilds, but be wary of recruitment posts looking for "Paladins", as more often than not what they really mean is "Paladin Healers." Ideally you'll want to look at postings for "Tanks," although occasionally "Warrior" listings can be worthwhile with a little talking, which brings me to another point: Talk to potential guild masters/raid leaders/tanking officers/whoever else is doing the recruitment ahead of time. Speak directly to the person who will be inviting you if possible. Make it very clear from the start that you want to be invited as a tank, and with the intention of using you as such, and not just as a poorly specced healer picking up what the Warriors leave behind. Being upfront and honest with your new guild will remove a lot of the potential for drama and confusion down the line.

Do NOT join a guild as a healer with the hopes of eventually being allowed to respec prot, unless you are fully willing to remain a healer for the remainder of your raiding career should the opportunity to raid as Prot never arise. Raiding guilds recruit people to fill a role, generally because they have a need for someone in that role. There's nothing more annoying than recruiting a Holy Priest only to have them immediately start begging to respec Shadow, or recruiting a new Prot Warrior who only wants to raid on his Warlock alt. If you're recruited as a healer, you should expect to heal, and although making your desire to respec prot known isn't necessarily a bad thing, bringing it up too often just annoys people.

Make sure to do the research on your tanking role as well. Guild masters/raid leaders are GOING to ask you questions to the point of "What benefit would recruiting you bring to the raid?" and you should be able to respond quite solidly what you're able to do, in what encounters, on what trash, in what instances. These forums are a goldmine of information of that sort. In addition, when they say things like "No endgame guilds use Paladin tanks," you should be able to point out the successes of people like PsiVen, Jensaarai, Mortehl, and the many other Tankadins who peruse these forums. At the same time, however, it would be a horrible mistake to expect the phrase "Paladin tank" to earn you a raid spot - make them know that you're going to be a good raider, even aside from your class choice.

What if I like the guild I'm in?
Starting from scratch in a new guild isn't always the only option, or even the best, especially if you happen to like the people in the guild you're in. If you're already in a raiding guild, perhaps as a Holy spec, there's many things you can do to try and convince your raid leaders to allow you to start raiding as Prot instead.

First off, be good at what you're doing already. This may seem counterproductive ("Why should I let you respec prot, you're the best healer we have"), but you'll find raid leaders a lot more receptive to your desires if you've proven you're capable of playing well. Make a real effort to performing well in your existing role. Even if you're Ret DPS currently, know how Ret DPS works and do the best Ret DPS you can. Be able to carry on conversations about not only tanking, but every aspect of your class.

Second, talk things out with your raid leaders/role officers/whatever else. Don't come with an attitude of "If I can't tank, I'm not raiding anymore." Just ask politely if such an opportunity is available. Your reputation as a raider comes into play heavily here, you're going to have to be a very solid player to convince the higher-ups to let you switch roles.

If you're already in a tanking role, and get delegated to nothing but a backup position, ask your raid leader why this is. Quite often, frustratingly so, tanks that I have in backup positions think that the other tanks get invited first because I think they're bad tanks. That hasn't been the case - if I think you're a bad tank, I'm not even going to give you a backup position, and the same goes for most raid leaders. More often I just have more tanks than I have raid spots for, which means the people who were there before and/or are more consistent get the spots first. Don't let that get you down though, spots have a way of opening up even when no one thinks there's any chance of it happening. Talk to the other tanks and whoever does invites for the tanks, see about coming in for farmed content that the other tanks don't need, give them a bit of a break.

Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot
I've heard too many stories of happy Tankadins, giddy with glee at their first chance at endgame tanking, only to get absolutely destroyed by whatever mob they happen to be after. It doesn't matter how prepared you are, it doesn't matter how much you know about the class: If you don't have the gear, you can't tank, plain and simple. Tanking is absolutely the most gear-dependent role in the game, and going up against Lady Vashj in your 5-piece Righteous Armor with questing blues and greens isn't going to do anyone any good. Fortunately, one of our class's greatest weaknesses can play to your benefit here: there really isn't much itemization available to us in SSC and TK, so Karazhan gear is about as good as it gets - as well as being a lot more accessible. If your guild doesn't run Karazhan regularly, see about getting some people together on off times to run it, or hook up with another group that runs Karazhan exclusively. So long as they'll let you loot tanking gear, you'll be able to get your gear up to where it needs to be. If your guild is already in BT and Hyjal, there's lots of Paladin-specific tanking gear available, talk to your guild leaders about letting you loot it at no or discounted DKP prices, perhaps by compensating the guild bank in some way for the loss of a void crystal.

DON'T just loot T4/5/6 pieces and go "Whoops, I got the tanking piece instead!" The people in charge tend to frown on that, and the last thing you need is another reason for them to say no. If you want to pick up tanking gear from those sets, talk it out with your raid leaders. We share T4 and T5 sets with Shaman and Rogues, so there's a fair chance that at some point everyone will have their primary piece of a particular drop. Talk to your raid leaders about picking up a second.

Secure Your Position
Once you've demonstrated that you're capable of tanking, you need to demonstrate that you can do so reliably. You should always come fully prepared to every raid. Have weapon buffs, food buffs, flasks, everything you need to last the entire night and then some. Know the encounters, know your role in the encounters, and all in all just be a good raider. I've said many times to the other officers in Months Behind, raiding is 50% playing your class and 50% preparing for and executing the encounter. It doesn't matter how well you perform one half if your performance in the other half is lacking, and I don't care how good you are at standing still and pressing buttons in the right order if you can't kite Thaladred, or can't pass a Tainted Core, or don't spread out properly for Shatters. Each and every encounter is played differently, knowing and understanding that -- and adapting appropriately -- is going to go a long way.

Strap On the Healing Gear
"Wtf?" I hear you say. "I just did all this work to become a tank, and now you want me to stand back and heal?" Put bluntly, yes. You're a hybrid. Not every encounter calls for multiple tanks, and a lot of the time your crappy healing as prot spec is going to do a lot more good than the Warriors' crappy DPS as prot spec. At the very least, try to get ahold of a decent healing weapon, shield, and libram, and swap between those and your tanking weapon, shield, and libram when necessary in combat. A good player pushes his class to its full extent, not just to the extent they most enjoy. You'll find yourself a lot more raid worthy if you're willing to step back and toss some heals out when another tank is dying instead of whacking away at something's ankles doing "sick" Prot DPS.

Ultimately, being a good raider is every bit as important as being a good Tankadin when it comes to holding a secure position in an endgame raiding guild. In addition, talking things out with people before making rash decisions is always the best option. "Find a new guild" is not only a poor answer to "They won't let me tank," it's also very rarely the only one. Holding a position as an endgame Tankadin is just as much in your hands as it is in your guild's, make the most of every opportunity you can and you'll find it easier to achieve than you may have thought =)

Kael Down!

Wheee! Got him finally, we had a GM watching us to make sure it didn't bug out again.

Drops:
Defender/Champion chest
The Nexus Key
Twinblade of the Phoenix
Verdant Sphere

We went straight to Hyjal and promptly killed Rage Winterchill, easy bosses FTW.

SO CLOSE...

Kael at 17%. Would have been a kill, but we didn't kill Capernian, and it turns out if she's still up in phase 5 she evade bugs and resets every time Kael does his gravity thing. Even with her stomping on us the whole time we managed to get him that low. He dies tonight.

Closer and Closer...

Getting ridiculously close to Hyjal and its sweet, sweet tier 6. Had some awesome attempts on Kael this week, should have him down next week if all goes well :D

Three things of note this week:

#1: On the Kael'Thas encounter, I noticed that the weapons don't drop aggro when you DS. Paladin tanks with an advantage? No way!

#2: Also on the Kael'Thas encounter, I managed to survive for 31 seconds while tanking Devastation (the axe) without getting a single heal other than an Earth Shield, a Bottled Nethergon Vapor, and a Healthstone just by keeping myself just under the 35% hp margin. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason I died was because the healthstone put me just above that margin, and then I took a 5k whirlwind. Note that this was before I discovered that DS wasn't dropping aggro. Pretty hot.

#3: On a somewhat more ridiculous note, since we get nothing but Hero drops, my warlock now has two-piece Tier 5. It goes very well with his Necklace of Bloodied Feathers.

I got a new hat

:D :D :D

Turns out, we're both right.

Or "How Warriors Are Better Tanks Without Actually Being Better Tanks."
(posted on the official WoW-US Paladin forums as well)

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a Tankadin. My guild, in which I am the tanking role officer as well as assistant raid leader, is doing fairly well on progression, having recently downed Vashj and currently working on Kael'Thas. As a break from the heavier raids, I do Karazhan outside of raid hours on one of my alts. I generally play my Warlock for most of the instance, but as the little group of friends that I run with has no Warrior tank, I brought my Warrior in for Nightbane when we tried him for the first time this last week.

Now, my Warrior has terrible gear. He sits at about 14k HP fully buffed with Commanding Shout (and that's with the Tauren 5% bonus as well). He has a whopping 11% dodge and 15% parry. Hell, he doesn't even have 490 defense. I really have no business tanking anything bigger than a low-end heroic with him (most of which he's not even keyed for). And when I put him up against Nightbane, it shows. On the first pull, I died in about 12 seconds flat.

However, there's one oft-overlooked skill available to the Warrior class that no one really thinks about: Thunder Clap. If you're unfamiliar with the skill, with talents it's a 20% reduction to attack speed, usable on just about any mob in the game. Given that most bosses' primary source of damage output is melee attacks... that's a pretty huge reduction in damage taken. On our second pull, I hit thunder clap right away and made sure to keep it up for the rest of the encounter. Second attempt ever for most of the people in the group. We downed him flawlessly.

All was well and good, loots were handed out, everyone was happy. But it got me thinking. Thunderclap literally just meant the difference between life and death for my Warrior. That also lead me to wonder -- just how often do the mobs I'm tanking on my Paladin have thunderclap up? I kept an eye out for it all through this week in SSC and TK: the answer is "almost never."

So what can be done about it? Well, the immediate conclusion would be to have a Warrior thunderclap for me. That's not as simple as it might sound, however. First and foremost, the mob I'm tanking isn't always the mob being DPS'ed, which means there probably isn't a Warrior nearby to hit thunderclap. Secondly, DPS warriors (who spend most of their time in Berserker stance) are typically loathe to ditch all their rage to switch to Battle stance, thunderclap, and switch back. They certainly [i]can[/i] do it, and by all rights they probably should, but it just doesn't always happen. There isn't always a warrior available either, particularly in 10-man content. The end result? Paladin tanks (and Druid tanks as well) end up taking about 20% more damage than they need to -- and it's 20% damage a Warrior tank would not be taking. So in that respect the Warriors are right; Paladin and Druid just plain take a lot more damage than them, most of the time.

At the same time though, it's a debuff that CAN be on the mob I'm tanking. So obviously, the different tanking classes have to be balanced as though the debuff is ALWAYS on the mob being tanked, or else the pendulum would swing the other way. If a Paladin tank can do as well without Thunderclap up as a Warrior tank can WITH it up, what happens when the Paladin tank has Thunderclap up? So if you remove Thunderclap from the equation entirely, the gap between the Warrior and Paladin tank narrows dramatically - leaving things about where the developers believe them to be. So in that scenario, Paladin tanks are just fine.

If you're not convinced, have your tank try it sometime. Go fight Maulgar or Curator or something and have him take Thunderclap clear off his bar. You'll notice he seems to be taking a heck of a lot more damage than usual, and you'd be correct. He IS taking more damage than usual - about 20% more.

So back to the earlier question: What can be done about it? Probably the most immediate answer would be "Nerf thunderclap." I'm not a big fan of that option, and I don't believe the developers are either (besides, then they'd have to nerf Thunderfury again). Another possibility would be to make Thunderclap usable in Berserker Stance. It still wouldn't be up all the time, but at least when DPS warriors were nearby it wouldn't be as big of a deal. There could also be some sort of non-stacking debuff ability given to Paladin and Druid tanks, but that seems a bit involved and against Blizzard's typical methods of dealing with things anyway.

Honestly, I'm not sure how it could be fixed, but it's a pretty big issue that needs to have some attention paid to it. Thunderclap gets swept under the rug in all too many "Warrior vs. Paladin" debates, and since it's twice as effective as defensive stance for reducing boss white damage (and over three times as effective as improved Righteous Fury), at the very least I think a lot more people need to be aware of it.

I has blog.

So I was in the middle of a post on the Maintankadin forums, and I thought to myself, "Gee, I'd really like to write something up as a guide to this topic we're discussing in this here internet thread, but it'd be awful pretentious of me to just post a guide there and go THIS IS FACTS LOL." So I made a blog.

Guess I'll introduce myself a bit. My name is... well, debatable. I started playing WoW (that's the mighty World of Warcraft, if you're an AdSense bot) in beta, preordered the Collectors' Edition along with a copy for my wife, and made a Tauren Warrior named Sledge on the Eredar server. Most people still know me as Sledge. About a year after that I leveled a Warlock on Maelstrom (who I later transferred back to Eredar) named Cor. I also played a Priest named Clutch, who was my first entry into the disgusting world of endgame raiding. I eventually switched from raiding as Clutch to Sledge, where I got a large amount of my endgame tanking experience. Come BC, I leveled a Paladin, Lore (LOL!), with the express intent of tanking. I now raid 5 nights a week (sometimes more if you count the Karazhan runs I do on my alts), and at the time of this writing my guild, Months Behind, has downed Lady Vashj and is looking at a Kael'Thas kill sometime in the next couple weeks.

I do a lot of theorycrafting, hence this blog, so you can expect quite a bit of that nonsense here when I feel like writing something particularly long-winded. I'm also quite likely to throw a post up here when I manage to make some exciting tanking achievement, or I manage to lay my hands on some piece of gear I've been lusting after.

Enjoy!