Do you know about the "minor" Glyph of Intimidating Shout?
Nope? Well neither did I.
Old time players have a love/hate relationship with Intimidating Shout--it was great back in LBRS--because it could buy your party the time it needed to kill some nasty pull. Unfortunately, using intimidating should was much like throwing a large rock into a pond. A sure as the tide, mobs frightened away would come surging back most of the time with friends.
In the cramped and tightly packed dungons before Cata, while a well time Intimidating Shout might buy a few precious seconds to kill some hard target, it almost always ended in a wipe.
Cata has enough room that there are at least a couple of places where Intimidating Shout can be used and send mobs scurrying.
Glyph it, though, and prot warriors can worry a whole lot less about the effectiveness of their CCers--any party can burn down a lot of mob in the duration of charge, shock wave and intimidating shout.
I haven't tried IS as a DPSer, yet. I know that fear traditionally generats a ton of agro so IS could keep a DPSing warrior uncomfortably high on a number of agro tables, but glyphed it can go along way to help "solve" the problem of warrior CC.
Showing posts with label Good Tanking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Good Tanking. Show all posts
Monday, January 17, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
In Defense of Lightwell
Cata has changed everything.
One of the biggest reminders of that is that Lightwell is one of the most potent heals in the game and a key heal that tanks should be aware of.
First a quick review of its behavior:
Its a Holy Priest talent.
It is on a 3 minute cool down.
It can be cast before combat--so technically it provides infinite healing per mana--because you shouldn't be pulling until the priest is back up to full. Even cast in combat it has a ridiculously mana efficient heal.
It has to be clicked on--but it has a HUGE click rage--15 yards. If you and your pack of mobs are anywhere vaguely near the Lightwell, everyone should be able to click it.
Lightwell has a limited number of charges (14 unglyphed I think, 18 glyphed) that apply a hot for 14k or so HP.
The HoT will stop if you take 30% of your HP as damage in a single blow--which is north of 35,000 HP in a single shot (after armor)--which is rare outside of raids.
When is the right time to click on the Lightwell?
Really any time you are taking damage is good. This is Cataclysm, not Wrath. Your HP pool is many times larger than any healers biggest heal. You will not be flash healed to full HP. I would say you are quite safe in clicking the Lightwell for a charge anytime you are down 50k HP (or 30kHP if you want to be aggressive).
I know the first couple of runs with the Former Horde Priest my situational awareness didn't particularly key on Lightwell and I underused it. Now I am quite aware of it and try and click a charge anytime it looks like it will help out the healer.
One of the biggest reminders of that is that Lightwell is one of the most potent heals in the game and a key heal that tanks should be aware of.
First a quick review of its behavior:
Its a Holy Priest talent.
It is on a 3 minute cool down.
It can be cast before combat--so technically it provides infinite healing per mana--because you shouldn't be pulling until the priest is back up to full. Even cast in combat it has a ridiculously mana efficient heal.
It has to be clicked on--but it has a HUGE click rage--15 yards. If you and your pack of mobs are anywhere vaguely near the Lightwell, everyone should be able to click it.
Lightwell has a limited number of charges (14 unglyphed I think, 18 glyphed) that apply a hot for 14k or so HP.
The HoT will stop if you take 30% of your HP as damage in a single blow--which is north of 35,000 HP in a single shot (after armor)--which is rare outside of raids.
When is the right time to click on the Lightwell?
Really any time you are taking damage is good. This is Cataclysm, not Wrath. Your HP pool is many times larger than any healers biggest heal. You will not be flash healed to full HP. I would say you are quite safe in clicking the Lightwell for a charge anytime you are down 50k HP (or 30kHP if you want to be aggressive).
I know the first couple of runs with the Former Horde Priest my situational awareness didn't particularly key on Lightwell and I underused it. Now I am quite aware of it and try and click a charge anytime it looks like it will help out the healer.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Cata Tanking Tips
Just a couple so far--only hit 85 last week and got Heroic qualified with Andrexxis yesterday.
5 man regulars may require some care here and there on trash pulls--but AoE isn't quite as dead as you may think.
In heroics there are trash mobs with over 1,000,000 HP and bosses can be north of 5m. Last stand has a cool down of 2 minutes. Use it early, use it often to help with mana conservation. Adrexxis is a pure healer, having a disc and holy spec. I don't know if its just priests, but mana management for them is huge. As a tank anything you can do to help them save mana is a good thing.
Which also means using the lightwell when it is down. Which means learning to notice it as positioning the mobs so that both you and your melee can easily get to it. Oh and the limitation that you can't be hit for more than 30% of your HP...not much of an issue in heroics. With just a couple of heroic blues equipped and a GS just over 329 I sport 128,999 HP. Unbuffed. There aren't a lot (if any) times that I am hit for close to 40k in a single shot.
And I am finding tanking rewarding and far more mentally taxing than back in Wrath. 2 instances am ok for, after a 3rd I am toast.
5 man regulars may require some care here and there on trash pulls--but AoE isn't quite as dead as you may think.
In heroics there are trash mobs with over 1,000,000 HP and bosses can be north of 5m. Last stand has a cool down of 2 minutes. Use it early, use it often to help with mana conservation. Adrexxis is a pure healer, having a disc and holy spec. I don't know if its just priests, but mana management for them is huge. As a tank anything you can do to help them save mana is a good thing.
Which also means using the lightwell when it is down. Which means learning to notice it as positioning the mobs so that both you and your melee can easily get to it. Oh and the limitation that you can't be hit for more than 30% of your HP...not much of an issue in heroics. With just a couple of heroic blues equipped and a GS just over 329 I sport 128,999 HP. Unbuffed. There aren't a lot (if any) times that I am hit for close to 40k in a single shot.
And I am finding tanking rewarding and far more mentally taxing than back in Wrath. 2 instances am ok for, after a 3rd I am toast.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Breaking Gelvon
Gelvon over the Greedy Goblin has a despicable post on how break the social contract of WoW and act like a parasite, leaching time from other players.
He thinks the move is unbeatable by "government regulation" too--but even simple logic gives you a way to eliminate most false positives: the common traits for all queue jumpers is tank leaves before the first boss while having party members from the same server. Odds are low that any random group will have that happening.
Then there are the actions the players themselves can do. If you see someone in your group and has their same server tank leave instantly, vote kick them in 15 minutes (this particularly appeals to me as you get to work them for a while before banishing them before the last boss, and locking them out to that instance out of the RDF) and ignore them.
If you as the tank walking into the group notice that you are replacing a tank before the first boss, see if you can figure out who you bad actor is. Adding them to your ignore list is probably 3 or 4 times more powerful than having any single DPSer do that.
And the last thing you can do against the solo-parasite queuer--which unfortunately also effects the rest of the group--is never queue alone. Grab one other player and go. You will never fall into the hole being left for you by the solo queue jumper.
And never, as the tank, do you have to pull and enable them to get their badges--you can stop until they vote kick you or the drop.
He thinks the move is unbeatable by "government regulation" too--but even simple logic gives you a way to eliminate most false positives: the common traits for all queue jumpers is tank leaves before the first boss while having party members from the same server. Odds are low that any random group will have that happening.
Then there are the actions the players themselves can do. If you see someone in your group and has their same server tank leave instantly, vote kick them in 15 minutes (this particularly appeals to me as you get to work them for a while before banishing them before the last boss, and locking them out to that instance out of the RDF) and ignore them.
If you as the tank walking into the group notice that you are replacing a tank before the first boss, see if you can figure out who you bad actor is. Adding them to your ignore list is probably 3 or 4 times more powerful than having any single DPSer do that.
And the last thing you can do against the solo-parasite queuer--which unfortunately also effects the rest of the group--is never queue alone. Grab one other player and go. You will never fall into the hole being left for you by the solo queue jumper.
And never, as the tank, do you have to pull and enable them to get their badges--you can stop until they vote kick you or the drop.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Prot Warrior DPS
I have a more substantial post (or maybe even 2) talking about specialization--but it just isn't coming together well at the moment. The ideas are there, the words aren't.
So something about tanking and raiding. Monday was the first time I raid tanked since I became aware of the of the great tank DPS disparity. ICC10. And boy was it there. I haven't run the WWS yet and the DK was better geared (about a tier ahead), but I suspect by the end of the night he had 1000 more DPS than I did. Considering that we had 3.4% wipe on Lady Deathwisper and a 560 HP (yes 560 HP) wipe on Marrowgar, I really, really want comparable DPS--particularly when I am not being beat on.
In some ways, tanking is a role of sacrifice, giving away the big DPS numbers for survivability and allowing the raid to succeed. There is little more demoralizing, as a raid lead, than to realize perhaps the best thing you can do for your raid is not slot yourself or maybe your class and role combo. The DK above, had about 5000 more HP buffed (45k vs 50k) and while I am normally the lead tank, I stepped aside for him. I am glad I didn't have another tank like him that I could have slotted in my place.
So something about tanking and raiding. Monday was the first time I raid tanked since I became aware of the of the great tank DPS disparity. ICC10. And boy was it there. I haven't run the WWS yet and the DK was better geared (about a tier ahead), but I suspect by the end of the night he had 1000 more DPS than I did. Considering that we had 3.4% wipe on Lady Deathwisper and a 560 HP (yes 560 HP) wipe on Marrowgar, I really, really want comparable DPS--particularly when I am not being beat on.
In some ways, tanking is a role of sacrifice, giving away the big DPS numbers for survivability and allowing the raid to succeed. There is little more demoralizing, as a raid lead, than to realize perhaps the best thing you can do for your raid is not slot yourself or maybe your class and role combo. The DK above, had about 5000 more HP buffed (45k vs 50k) and while I am normally the lead tank, I stepped aside for him. I am glad I didn't have another tank like him that I could have slotted in my place.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Tanking: Barriers To Entry
Continuing my economic analysis of tanking in WoW (and it probably applies just as fully to healing).
A barrier to entry in economics are factors that keep you from entering a market where otherwise you could make a profit. They are the one time costs you a player has to pay (or overcome) to start tanking but that someone already tanking doesn't even notice.
Considering that MMOs have always had a shortage of tanks (and healers) its surprising that WoW's design has such high barriers to entry for tanks--higher than even EQ. The barriers are: class, spec, gear, knowledge, skill and psychology.
Lets say you're 80, on your first WoW character, and finally decide you want to tank. Chances are that you stuck right there. In WoW 6 classes can't tank (mage, rogue, warlock, hunter, shaman, priest) and 4 who can (warrior, paladin, death knight and druid). If you want to tank you have to give up your main character and start a new one. To add insult to injury, very little of what you have earned on your main will be useful to starting a new character (though more gets carried over now than before).
So lets say that our random 80 is one of the 4 right classes to tank--the next question is do they have a tanking spec? Do they have a talent spec that they can get to, to tank? Has this character gone back to the old world to train/retrain? Or have they spend the 1,000 gold to get their dual spec? In the log run, dual speccing is the better choice--so this barrier would be 1,000 gold and a trip back to the old world.
Ok now we have our random 80 with the right class and spec--but they still aren't able to tank: you need the right gear to tank: instead of damage gear, our player needs to have spent time and money to have a set of tanking gear. Even with defense out of the picture in Cataclysm, tanking gear will look significantly different than DPS gear: more stam, more armor, dodge and parry and it will be gemmed and enchanted completely differently. Mind you the optimal behavior--until you decide you want to tank--is to sell off or disenchant all that tank gear.
Ok now that our tank wannabe has passed the class, spec and gear we're ready to roll, right? Wrong--the player behind this tank needs knowledge. Everything from what his class skills are, where those buttons are on his UI, and what the cool downs are like to knowledge that leaks over into other barriers: do you know what a good tanking spec is? Do you know where to find one? Do you have enough HP? Armor? expertise? Hit rating? Resistances? (And more I am sure I have missed.)
Having passes all those checks--our tank still isn't ready: we need to know if this tank has the skills: does he know where his taunt button(s) is? (G9 on my keyboard). Does he know how to use his class skills in tanking situations? Does he know about pulling? Patrols? Looking out for healer agro on agroed ranged mobs? What about the pulling possibilities his group brings with it? LOS pulling? Staying top agro on 5 or more mobs? That he even has to stay top agro on most of the mobs? Does he have the situational awareness to respond quickly to changing situations?
And the, having satisfied all those prior checks--you have to ask is the player willing to take on the awesome responsibility for taking the fun and time of 4 other players in his hands? Rarely, I am reminded of what it is like to tank for the first time and get a set of nerves when taking on a new instance or boss. I doubt that is comparable to what people think of tanking for the first time if they know the game already--and how fast you can get feedback.
A barrier to entry in economics are factors that keep you from entering a market where otherwise you could make a profit. They are the one time costs you a player has to pay (or overcome) to start tanking but that someone already tanking doesn't even notice.
Considering that MMOs have always had a shortage of tanks (and healers) its surprising that WoW's design has such high barriers to entry for tanks--higher than even EQ. The barriers are: class, spec, gear, knowledge, skill and psychology.
Lets say you're 80, on your first WoW character, and finally decide you want to tank. Chances are that you stuck right there. In WoW 6 classes can't tank (mage, rogue, warlock, hunter, shaman, priest) and 4 who can (warrior, paladin, death knight and druid). If you want to tank you have to give up your main character and start a new one. To add insult to injury, very little of what you have earned on your main will be useful to starting a new character (though more gets carried over now than before).
So lets say that our random 80 is one of the 4 right classes to tank--the next question is do they have a tanking spec? Do they have a talent spec that they can get to, to tank? Has this character gone back to the old world to train/retrain? Or have they spend the 1,000 gold to get their dual spec? In the log run, dual speccing is the better choice--so this barrier would be 1,000 gold and a trip back to the old world.
Ok now we have our random 80 with the right class and spec--but they still aren't able to tank: you need the right gear to tank: instead of damage gear, our player needs to have spent time and money to have a set of tanking gear. Even with defense out of the picture in Cataclysm, tanking gear will look significantly different than DPS gear: more stam, more armor, dodge and parry and it will be gemmed and enchanted completely differently. Mind you the optimal behavior--until you decide you want to tank--is to sell off or disenchant all that tank gear.
Ok now that our tank wannabe has passed the class, spec and gear we're ready to roll, right? Wrong--the player behind this tank needs knowledge. Everything from what his class skills are, where those buttons are on his UI, and what the cool downs are like to knowledge that leaks over into other barriers: do you know what a good tanking spec is? Do you know where to find one? Do you have enough HP? Armor? expertise? Hit rating? Resistances? (And more I am sure I have missed.)
Having passes all those checks--our tank still isn't ready: we need to know if this tank has the skills: does he know where his taunt button(s) is? (G9 on my keyboard). Does he know how to use his class skills in tanking situations? Does he know about pulling? Patrols? Looking out for healer agro on agroed ranged mobs? What about the pulling possibilities his group brings with it? LOS pulling? Staying top agro on 5 or more mobs? That he even has to stay top agro on most of the mobs? Does he have the situational awareness to respond quickly to changing situations?
And the, having satisfied all those prior checks--you have to ask is the player willing to take on the awesome responsibility for taking the fun and time of 4 other players in his hands? Rarely, I am reminded of what it is like to tank for the first time and get a set of nerves when taking on a new instance or boss. I doubt that is comparable to what people think of tanking for the first time if they know the game already--and how fast you can get feedback.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
A Quick Thought On WoW Healing And Tanking
People are talking, a lot, that tanking and healing in WOW (or probably any MMOG) is harder than DPSing.
Doing any of the 3 jobs well requires a high level of knowledge of the game, game mechanics, probably the instance, and good situational awareness. Good play is good play is good play.
The fundamental difference is tanks and healers have to take on responsibility--in full measure--that the DPS does not. DPS can choose to take on that responsibility--should they want to--but its not mandatory. And some facerolling PUGs won't allow it--everything just gets AEd down without regard to anything like strategy, execution or responsibility.
Doing any of the 3 jobs well requires a high level of knowledge of the game, game mechanics, probably the instance, and good situational awareness. Good play is good play is good play.
The fundamental difference is tanks and healers have to take on responsibility--in full measure--that the DPS does not. DPS can choose to take on that responsibility--should they want to--but its not mandatory. And some facerolling PUGs won't allow it--everything just gets AEd down without regard to anything like strategy, execution or responsibility.
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