Trial of the Crusader 25 /Try 1

Yesterday, our raid went into the new 25man raid instance for the first time. There was some talk about the raid beeing too easy but I have to say that the raiders have not seen the instance in the 10man version, the bosses are quite challenging.

We had a little bit of trouble in beating the northend beasts encounter. The first one went smoothly after a few tries but our healers had some trouble in dealing with the damage spikes on our deathknight tanks. Both really went down almost instantly in some cases and it made us wonder if there are some ways to mitigate more damage that we have not thought about yet.

So, after a few tries we changed to a paladin tank and a warrior tank. Suprisingly the damage spikes did not seem to be as high on these tanking classes and so we managed to get through the first and the second phase of the encounter. The snow kobolds and the acid debuffs were still a small problem but our damaged dealers managed to get those little buggers down quickly and also to move out of the green clouds as well.

One small tipp would be to look for the shadow on the ground when one of the kobolds is thown. We were told that one can quickly determin which player will be hit by it this way and judging by the speed at which they were killed, that tip seems to work.

The third part of the beasts encounter really seems to be the most easy one. As long as everyone moves out of the way of the yeti when he charges all should be well. After he has charged he takes considerably more damage and during that time it is very easy to get the raid back to full health.

It is a different story if Icehowl manages to hit a player. If he does that, he enrages and unleashes a world of pain upon the unlucky tank standing in front of him. But gneraly it should be possible to move out of the way in time since the players receive a buff that makes them move faster.

So I would say that once you manage to get into phase three you should not have a problem to get the loot for the fight …

Tanking with PUGs

PUGs are something that almostall players seem to run across at some point. And, if you are not a member of a guild that has at least a moderate amount of active players, a pick up group is something you will have to rely on to get yourself into an instance.

Since my deathknight turned 80 I tried to get through some of the heroic instances to improve my gear. And since I am guildless at this moment I had to get some random players together to get going. Now, it seems like I hade a little bit of luck since most groups that came together really went well but I had my share of wild folks and strangeness. Which is why I thought I might share a few thoughts about how to PUG as a tank.

Fist of all I thing that it really is necessary to know your own limitations while tanking. If there is an instance that is beyond your skill or current gear, do not try to tackle it with a random group. It will only lead to a tremendous repair bill and to frustration on your part and among the other members of the group. For me the Occulus is such an instance at this moment. I really hav no clue how the last boss fight works and before I try tanking that instance I am going to learn how the flying boss fight is going to work.

Before you start an instance make sure that the others have a basic understanding about what you are going to do. For example, if you are marking the targets, let the group know which target is to be hit first and so forth. Also make sure that the damage dealers give you the time you need to safely grab aggro. If things go real smooth with the first groups, then its time to speed things up a little bit but I think that it is important to get a feeling for the group first.

The start of an instance is also a good time to check the loot rules. If you have an enchanter it is important that only the enchanter rolls on the stuff noone needs so that shards can be created. And how or if those shards are devided should also be briefly discussed to avoid some discussions later on.

Also I found it helpful to give some pointers before every bossfight so that the others know what you are going to do and how the fight will be going. Some fights can be won in different ways and knowing which tactic is going to be used mostly helps to get through a fight more easily.

One thing I have made a habit out of is taking screenshots of the group composition if things really went well or if they really really went wrong. Since I am not that good with names I wanted to keep a reminder about which players I had fun grouping with and also about players I wanted to avoid. The friend list ia also a good tool for building a network of players to group with but I really like the screenshots. I also place a summary of the Recount window beside the portraits so I also have some basic information about damage done and dps if I want to check that as well.

I am sure that there are more tipps that should be here but that will have to do for now. So, good pug-ing everyone …

Tanking DK in Azjol Nerub

Recently I was asked to tank Azjol’Nerub with my death knight. At level 76 I have about 20k armor and a defence rating of 477 so, even with my limited tanking experience as a death knight I thought it should not be a problem to get in there and hold aggro.

I am not really sure how the other dk tanks do it but since I am specced frost I tried to pull with my icy touch, leaving the death grip ability open to be used on casters when they do not run to me or if they decide to go after the healer.

Next was scourge strike to apply the second desease and pestilence to spread those two out to the other mobs that are beeing pulled. And now, to build some aggro on all of the mobs I used the howling blast. With frost feaver active I usually see about 2k damage on all of the mobs and usually that is enough of a head start to last me during the fight.

Personally I had a small rune problem with that rotation because I had to wait a bit until I could lay down death and decay since my runes were on cooldown. But what I did wrong here was that I should have layed down death and decay before the pull and that is an easy change that I can keep in mind when going into the next instance as a tank.

One other thing was that I was not really sure about my cooldowns for some of my abilities. Runic weapon, the ghoul, extra armor and the twenty percent damage reduction are all abilities that really can help and if you are aware of their cooldowns, they do not nescessarily have to be spared for the boss fights.

I learned some small things from this tanking encounter.

1. Know the instance

It really helps to know the instance you are tanking. Not only does it speed up the pace you can go through it but when you know when to expect more damage from mobs you can time your own cooldowns properly. And it can not hurt to know when certain mobs to special things.

2. Mark the targets

Even if your group will do a whole lot of aoe damage I found it really helpful to use the marks that the standard ui provides. For example we always mark the target that will be downed with a skull, the second one with the cross and so forth. We also have some symbols assigned for crowd control abilities so that the classes responsible for that know when to sheep, shackle or stun.

3. Talk

For me, it usually helps to ask some questions before the action starts. For example if everyone in the group has a basic understanding of how the instance works. Sometimes, players do have only limited time so making clear how fast you want to go through the instance can be helpful. You might think that this is not the job of the tank per se but keep in mind that the tank usualy sets the pace and that the tank has to react if one of the other players pulls a group because he is in a rush …

A run with two deathknights

As I am still leveling my priest to 80 I am doing quite a lot of instance runs at the moment. Some where with pickup groups and some with members of my guild. Yesterday we ran the Halls of Stone with a frost specced Deathknight tank another Deathknight who was unholy spedded as a damage dealer.

I have previously complained a bit about some of the deathknight tanks I have grouped with in the past but the only complaint that I might have this time was that healing this time was … well … a bit boring since there was not that much to do for me.

The tank layed down death and decay and then used her death grip to pull. Sometimes when there was more than one caster in the group the other deathknight also used his death grip to pull that on into the aoe as well. Since he is wearing plate and can interrupt casters, that was no problem as well.

Despite the fact that this was more a guild run I would say the difference to some of the other runs was that our tank knew what she was doing and had taken the time to assemble a decent gearset for tanking. She was not at the 540 defence cap but close enough so that the damage was mitigated very well.

To me, that proves the point that Deathknights can be very good tanks if the player puts in the effort to make it so. And with the armor pieces that can be crafted it is not that hard to get started. Sure, if you want to tank heroics and have to get over the defence cap, that takes more effort but since tanks are still in high demand I would say that it is more than worth it.

Deathknight tanking

I am currently leveling a priest through Northend and since I am in a very small guild I did some instance runs with pick up groups.

On our server finding a tank for a pickup group is quite hard. There are just not that many tanks around. We had the same problem even though we had two paladins and a deathknight in the group. After some discussion the deathknight decided that he would try to give tanking Utgarde Keep a try. So a few minutes later he had respecced frost and we had easily found another damage dealer.

Well, I guess the player was a bit young and inexperienced but after loosing aggro with every group and very nearly dying a couple of times the deathknight randomly had a disconnect and did not come on again. Luckily for us, one of the paladins stepped up and respecced. With most gear from Karazhan that player was very easy to heal and the instance sailed by very smoothly.

Two days later I was invited into a group for Ahn’Kahet and suddenly the same Deathknight was invited into the group as a tank. I raised my eyebrows when he immediately apologized to another member of the group for having a disconnect earlier that day but I guess that is a story for another day …

To make a long story short, he tried to tank the instance at level 71 without really having defence gear and without much experience as a tank. Suffice to say that we could not get the first boss down. This time, the deathknight left the group but we were very lucky to find a warrior who did an excellent job at holding aggro.

Despite these two experiences I have to say that Deathknight can make very strong and very good tanks. The problem is not with the class but rather with the players who pick the class and do not really look into what has to be done to be able to tank. There are some talents that are very helpful for tanking and that really should be used to mitigate the incoming damage. And as a tank one should try to get a decent set of tanking gear. I am not saying that you have to be at the defence cap to be able to tank but as a tank one should at least try to get as close as possible to that magic number. It makes tanking easier and it really makes the healer’s job a lot more enjoyable.

Personally I do not think that the class will solve the problem with the tanking shortage. Sure, in theory every Deathknight has the potential to be a viable tank. But that does not make the player be suitable to be a tank. One problem is that in general, the tank is the one member of the group deciding the pace at which the group goes through the instance. He decides the order in which the mobs are taken down and mostly when and how to use crowd control. When a damage dealer or the healer grabbs aggro, the tank has to react and get the mob back under control. And last but not least he has to know the instance and the bosses. All in all, it is a position with more responsibility as the rest. It is easier to play a damage dealer where you basically can focus on your own skills and your own rotaion. So it is no suprise that most of the Deathknights on our server are played as damage dealers.

What to do

Yesterday our raid was canceled. Not because there were not enough people online but rather because everything was done for the week. Naxx was clear, the sanctum was cleared and even Malygos was down for the count.

So, I was wondering what to do. I settled on playing one of my many twinks who I am trying to get ready for the heroic instances and ultimately for raiding. But if I only had my main character I think it might be somewhat of a problem. There are not that many raiding instances around and if you have cleared all the 25 Man content there is not that much need for the heroic instances anymore. And since the gear get better as the raids go on it becomes more and more likely that the raid will clear naxx in a quick run and even sartharion and malygos on the same night.

There still is the arena and pvp but some people do not find that all that enjoyable anymore so the question what to do becomes more important. I myself have always enjoyed twinking so I have options and I am not completely through with all factions on my main so the heroic instances are still a must for me. But I guess Blizzard will have to come up with something to keep players busy. And I doubt that one new raid instance will do the trick …

Malygos cleared

Yesterday the raid I am with managed to down Malygos for the first time. That means that we have cleared the available raid contend that Wrath provides thus far. Sure, there still is that Sartharion thing with the adds but I guess that it won’t take long to get that done as well, since already most of the gear from Naxx is going towards the enchanter.

I really hope that the raid keeps going and that there soon will be some new raid instances that we can explore. With all the blogs and sites being full with comments about the lack of things to do ingame, Blizzard should really consider giving some more content to their players.

Hodir daily quests

For me, some quests are really a pain and these daily quests belong in that category. The qeuest chain leading up to the point at which you can start doing the first daily quests is really fun. You get to do some quests disguised as a female vrykul, do some battle on dragons and get to control giants. But then the daily quests start and for me the fun is over.

The problem is that every player who wants a shoulder enchant and is not doing inscription needs to do these quests. And since raiding has become a lot easier, it seems that a whole lot of players are doing the quests at all time. So since you need to kill specific mobs for almost all of the quests it can turn out to become a real battle to tag the mob first. Of course, that causes questing to take quite a lot of time. I really hope that this situation will improve, now that one can turn in the fragments for reputation.

On the other hand Blizzard has done many quests in the expansion in a sligthly different way. There are a lot of quests where you have to use something to make a quest mob spawn for you. Would it not be possible to make some of the daily quests more like this? It would certainly make those Hodir quests a whole lot more appealing to me …

Ding – now what?

My hunter reached level 80 last night. So, naturally I have to decide what to do next with this character. For me that is not as easy. I already am reading heroic Naxxramas as a druid healer. Since I am a member of a small guild, most evenings we only have enough people online to do a five man instance and there I am mostly tanking with my paladin. Raiding and tanking the five mans is great fun at the moment, even if some players claim that it is to easy.

While leveling, I have tried to have the group search interface active but as one can imagine, damage dealers are not really the classes that are in big demand. And since the next steps now that the levelcap is reached are upgrading the gear and grinding reputation I am a bit worried for the hunter.  I really hope that there is more left at the cap than doing a bunch of daily quests over and over and over again …

Patch 3.0.8

WoW-Insider called the latest patch a disaster. I would not go that far. Sure, there were some bugs left but there were also a ton of changes. And some issues like the lag were there before the patch. I personaly did not have that many problems yesterday when the patch hit here in germany. We went to raid Naxx and were able to start on our scheduled time. The plan had been to start later to give everyone a chance to install the patch and get their addons updated and running again but since everyone was on time it was not necessary.

There still seems to be a lag problem in instances and so we stopped at one point and moved over to Sartharion. There, lag was not an issue and when we went back to Naxx after that, it went a lot smoother. My guess is that a lot more guilds are raiding nowadays than were before and that is causing the lag problems. But if that was the case, could Blizz not just add another server or divide the instance servers by faction?

Aside from the raiding I had only little time to experience all the other changes that the patch brought. As a miner, I certainly enjoy that I now have to spend very little time on one node before moving on. But on the other hand I had the feeling that there were less nodes available since the other miners are now also able to cover more ground in the same time.