WoW professions

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2008-07-14 01:37pm

Reckoning is probably a lot less damaging to you than a retarded hunters pet standing right next to you when you're tanking a mob.

I hate Hunters who set their pets to aggressive almost as much as I hate tanks who assign CC then rush into the center of a pull and spam AoE.

If you're tanking the entire pull, then don't ask me to waste time and a shard putting out a Succy to CC when you're going to break it instantly anyways. Just let me keep out the Imp so I have my invincible mana battery.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2008-07-14 04:04pm

Bear in mind that when I'm talking about the dangers of parry-thrashing, I'm not talking about five-mans and heroics. Basically anything you can tank in blues you don't need to worry about parry-haste. When you get into some of the heavier raid-tanking situations, it becomes more and more of a problem, hence why Expertise is a tanking stat. It's just one that's hella difficult for paladins to stack, with all the other crap we need to tank effectively. Warriors have it so goddamned easy.

Ayrix · Post by **Ayrix** » 2008-07-14 04:28pm

Bear in mind that when I'm talking about the dangers of parry-thrashing, I'm not talking about five-mans and heroics. Basically anything you can tank in blues you don't need to worry about parry-haste. When you get into some of the heavier raid-tanking situations, it becomes more and more of a problem, hence why Expertise is a tanking stat. It's just one that's hella difficult for paladins to stack, with all the other crap we need to tank effectively. Warriors have it so goddamned easy.

QFT, paladins have to stack alot of crap up to get uncrushable, way more then any warrior does. It's honestly a real pain in the ass and makes only really dedicated people go anywhere above heroic tanking.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2008-07-14 09:28pm

What's AoE, PuG, and CC?

Post by **Broomstick** » 2008-07-14 09:37pm

Area of Effect

Pick Up Group

Crowd Control

Jaevric · Post by **Jaevric** » 2008-07-14 09:43pm

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:What's AoE, PuG, and CC?

Area of Effect, Pick-up Groups, and Crowd Control (spells that disable a specific mob and are usually broken if the mob takes damage.

Sriad · Post by **Sriad** » 2008-07-15 02:52am

White Haven wrote:Here is the requested paladin tank spec, or at least the one I use. And yeah...I don't PuG. Pickups do such things as demand repeatedly that I mark targets for CC on a geared paladin tank in a nonheroic. And then I look at them funny, throw my shield, and that's that.

CC assignments: Skull is kill. X is consecrate. Star is consecrate. Square is consecrate. Moon is consecrate. Diamond is consecrate. Pulling!

Running Kara with a Hyjal tankadin is a great time.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:What's AoE, PuG, and CC?

More specifically, AoE (or AE) are effects that do moderate damage to everything in an area instead of high damage to one target, like flame strike, blizzard, etc.

A PuG (pick up group) is a group of people who don't know each-other trying to run an instance. Probably one or more of them will be stoned or just plain dumb and will drive the competent subset of the party mad. Once in a while, probability will throw together five people who all know what they're doing. They'll friend each-other and no longer be a PuG.

CC is crowd control, a spell or ability that takes enemies out of a fight until the party is ready to deal with them. Most CC only works on a fraction of enemies you fight, and will usually break if the enemy is damaged. Mage's polymorph turns humanoids and animals into sheep, Warlocks can banish demons and elementals, Priests can shackle undead... Fear effects can be considered CC, but are usually much too risky.

Civil War Man · Post by **Civil War Man** » 2008-07-15 07:21am

Sriad wrote:
Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:What's AoE, PuG, and CC?
CC is crowd control, a spell or ability that takes enemies out of a fight until the party is ready to deal with them. Most CC only works on a fraction of enemies you fight, and will usually break if the enemy is damaged. Mage's polymorph turns humanoids and animals into sheep, Warlocks can banish demons and elementals, Priests can shackle undead... Fear effects can be considered CC, but are usually much too risky.

And, for reference, spells you get as a Paladin that are crowd control are 1) Hammer of Justice, 2) Judgement of Justice, 3) Turn Undead/Evil. First is a stun effect that is one of the few that do not break with damage. The second prevents a mob from running away, which is crowd control in that it prevents it from pulling some of its previously uninvolved friends (Hammer of Wrath, which is designed to kill fleeing mobs, can also be used for this). Third is first a fear effect against undead, then a fear effect against undead and demons.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2008-07-15 08:25am

Warlocks have multiple forms of crowd control, including Seduction (dependent on having a Succubus pet out), the aforementioned Banish which only works on demons and elementals, Enslave Demon (which works against most non-boss demons, though there are exceptions), and for the oh-shit button, three different kinds of Fear.

This is what makes Warlocks so useful in the Magister's Terrace, at the "arena team" boss and the 6-pull right before Kael. If the party knows what they're doing, then one Warlock can keep up to 3 mobs constantly CC'ed and still have two emergency fears for healer aggro.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2008-07-15 09:25am

God I hate that fight on my tankadin. I hate it so very, very much...

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2008-07-15 09:28am

but if a warlock doesn't know WTF he's doing he can also wipe the party Priestess Delrissa (the "arena" boss), as said encounter is extremly hard if not totally impossible without propper CC.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2008-07-15 09:30am

White Haven wrote:God I hate that fight on my tankadin. I hate it so very, very much...

you hate tanking to it as pally, try healing it (I don't like healing at MgT and I refuse to do that instance on heroic unless the group is really, really good (which ofc means I must know everyone in the group before hand)).

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2008-07-15 10:11am

Whoo, new patch!

Lvl 30 mounts, and finally, Warlocks are getting some HAWT Blizzard lovin!

Warlocks

Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.
Demon Skin, Demon Armor, and Fel Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.
Health Funnel: This ability will now cancel channeling when the target pet is Banished.
Ritual of Summoning: The mana cost of this spell will now be properly deducted when cast.
Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2008-07-15 10:25am

Mounts at 30 is a bit late when a game's been out as long as Warcraft has. Where was taht for any of my innumerable alts, you bastards! *shakefist*

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2008-07-15 10:49am

White Haven wrote:Mounts at 30 is a bit late when a game's been out as long as Warcraft has. Where was taht for any of my innumerable alts, you bastards! *shakefist*

Yeah, I've stopped my Priest at 26 (just doing the daily PvP when I can), since there's no point getting him past 30 at this point. But would have loved it on all my other alts.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2008-07-15 10:51am

Lancer wrote:Warlocks have multiple forms of crowd control, including Seduction (dependent on having a Succubus pet out), the aforementioned Banish which only works on demons and elementals, Enslave Demon (which works against most non-boss demons, though there are exceptions), and for the oh-shit button, three different kinds of Fear.

This is what makes Warlocks so useful in the Magister's Terrace, at the "arena team" boss and the 6-pull right before Kael. If the party knows what they're doing, then one Warlock can keep up to 3 mobs constantly CC'ed and still have two emergency fears for healer aggro.

The problem is though, if you have a Warlock doing that, he's doing zero DPS ... the best caster DPSer in the game is essentially taken out of the fight. And while I'm no stranger to Fear leashing/kitting in Heroics, it's a fucking pain.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2008-07-15 11:45am

It's not that bad. With proper use of macros, a warlock will only be out of a fight for the initial application and the time it takes to refresh CC.

If the rest of the group can't manage to survive for the 3-4.5 seconds it takes for the Warlock to apply the initial round of CC, then you've got more pressing concerns than taking a hit on personal DPS.

Ideally, you'll have every DPS applying some form of CC, but even if only one other player applies CC (poly, sap or frost trap), you've already reduced a 6-pull to a far more managable 2-pull.

Darmalus · Post by **Darmalus** » 2008-07-15 12:34pm

I think the weirdest bug I ever had the misfortune of experiencing on that fight was when the main priest lady with too many arms got "killed" did her death scream and whatnot not, but immediately went back to full health and mana, had infinite health and mana after that, and became an invulnerable heal-bot for all the other pulls in that fight.

Fortunately, it didn't last past the wipe, so we got our revenge on round 2.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2008-07-15 01:53pm

Ayrix wrote: QFT, paladins have to stack alot of crap up to get uncrushable, way more then any warrior does. It's honestly a real pain in the ass and makes only really dedicated people go anywhere above heroic tanking.

But once you are, you're better than a warrior. Holy Shield > Shield Block by far.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2008-07-15 08:29pm

The trouble isn't so much Holy Shield as it is Last Stand and Shield wall, of which we have neither. Ardent Defender is nifty...unless you get shanked clean past it, which is quite possible when tanking serious bosses. Not at all saying that Paladin tanks are bad, but while Holy Shield is better than Shield Block, you can't consider that in isolation.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2008-07-15 08:35pm

Heh, that's about what I was going to say.

I love Paladin tanks but there's a reason most MTs are Warriors.

Jaevric · Post by **Jaevric** » 2008-07-15 08:44pm

Druids or paladins for trash (or non-raid runs), warriors for raid bosses.

Druid and paladin tanking for large groups is just ridiculously easy, or was back when I was playing. Paladins even moreso than druids. But, yeah, it's hard to make a paladin uncrushable for a raid boss, and you may have to give up something else you desperately need to do so.

Conversely, when I was running 5-mans with my druid or paladin, crowd control tended to be strictly optional if the issue was numbers and not nasty abilities. My warrior OTOH had a hard time holding aggro on more than a few mobs at a time (of course, it could just be I'm lousy at playing warriors).

Civil War Man · Post by **Civil War Man** » 2008-07-15 10:23pm

So last night I was in a group running some guild members through Blackrock Depths quests. It consisted of a level 70 (Protection Warrior), myself (62 Protection Paladin), a 52 Enhancement Shaman, a 52 Shadow Priest, and a 57 Holy Priest. Since I'm trying to gear myself up to be one of the big tanks for our guild, I was quite pleased with how often I was able to pull aggro off of the warrior. A well placed Avenger Shield or Consecration with Improved Righteous Fury does wonders for threat generation.

As for tanking large groups, during this run we naturally stopped at the Grim Guzzler, did a few of the quests. We pretty much were going to stop for the night after that. Killed Hurley and Ribbly without turning the whole bar hostile, maybe one or two patrons got pissed. So we're about to all leave when someone says "Hey, there's a hostile NPC in the corner back there. Let's kill him."

So we stand there, waiting. Three hostile NPCs, one named and two labelled as his bodyguards, surrounded by a rather large number of patrons. Then, the shaman says "Would one of our tanks wish to do the honors?"

So I think to myself, alright. Let's do this. Hit the NPC with a Judgement of Wisdom. Now, all of those patrons surrounding the guys? Apparently they saw me and thought "Judgement of Wisdom? Did that Paladin just call me stupid?" So now instead of fighting three people I have one to two dozen charging at me flailing drunkenly at me.

This is the point where I said "Fuck this shit" and proceeded to make that corner of the Guzzler so holy that a Naaru wouldn't be averse to eating off the floor. In the end, the warrior, myself, and I think the Holy priest were still alive, with the rest of the bar little more than vaguely curious as to what all the ruckus was and me cackling madly over the guild channel.

I make the other Protection Paladin in the guild cry. He has called me the most evil Paladin he has ever met, and the worst excuse for a Draenei, simply due to my enthusiasm when I cleanse a room of all life. I just remind him that he has not yet met my Paladin's twin brother, the Draenei Death Knight.

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD NAARU!

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2008-07-15 10:41pm

Heh, I just tried my hand at SM Graveyard and Library as a lvl 33 Prot/Ret Pally tank. The group composition was three pallys, a rogue, and a mage. One of the pallys and the rogue were 33, while the third pally and mage were both 29. Some of them had some bad luck with AFK's and DC's, so it got to the point where we were doing 4-pulls of lvl 33-34 elites in Library, and yet we didn't notice that we had lost two players.

Also, Omen works perfectly again! I was getting clean threat reads from party members who weren't running it, and I was able to hold aggro most of the time. When I couldn't, it was either because the group was focus firing on a target other than the one I was slicing and dicing, or the other pally was stealing my off-mobs

Two of the people dropped though, so I ended up switching to my Warlock and running the other guys through the Library in maybe 5 minutes. What's funny is that both times we ran GY, and the speedrun through Library, all the blues that dropped from the final bosses were mage gear that she couldn't wear yet.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2008-07-16 04:06am

Lancer wrote:It's not that bad. With proper use of macros, a warlock will only be out of a fight for the initial application and the time it takes to refresh CC.

If the rest of the group can't manage to survive for the 3-4.5 seconds it takes for the Warlock to apply the initial round of CC, then you've got more pressing concerns than taking a hit on personal DPS.

Ideally, you'll have every DPS applying some form of CC, but even if only one other player applies CC (poly, sap or frost trap), you've already reduced a 6-pull to a far more managable 2-pull.

It's not that. Seduce is maneagable with a Macro (I've got one), even Banish/Enslave are (although you can't use them in conjuction with a Seduce macro due to only having one focus). But while Fear kiting can work, it is entirely random. I've been in a situation where I'm swapping Curse of Shadows with Curse of Recklessness so many times trying to get the mob to run in the right direction, when by the time it actually did the original Fear affect timer had already run out. That's 30secs of me doing nothing but swapping curses on 1 target trying to not let it aggro adds.

It's workable, something that I've done to save a wipe, and can do, but it isn't Poly or Freeze trap.

Seduce is by far the easiest with my focus macro (I'm 100% Destruction on a PvP server, me and my Sexybust leveled together, so I'm no stranger on seduce nuking), until you hit Heroics, where she has zero spell hit (Curse of Shadows helps) and fuck all mana. If your group isn't focuses and/or geared you're causing yourself a headache.