Shadow Priests

Why are priests, the dps kind, so low on the dps charts as I level through content?  currently, I am at my mid 40s with my shaman and I've not seen a shadow priest beat my totem in dps. 

This actually kinda start when I started SM:GY and for 15 levels, I've been noticing the same thing.  my magma totem gets dropped, it pulses. and, if I have enough mana and don’t need to heal much, will blow it up. once, I was top dps. but that was just once.  other times, I've usually been very conservative in using my nova. I would place my magma totem down and let it pulse.  at the end when everyone's about to die I would hit nova just to finish everyone off before they start running too far.  this happens a lot in SM.  everyone runs away in fear.  its so annoying.  but this helps. 

What I don’t understand is why the shadow priests (and its every single shadow priest I tell you) do so much less damage than everyone elses (not just me, although I do enjoy being second to last, I don’t mind being last on the charts)?  in fact, once I posted the meters and asked everyone to please do more dps than the healer, and the s.priest decides to tell me to stop dps-ing.  in which I replied, I wasn’t, it was my totem.  yes, the only dps totem I have. one totem… can beat your sorry ass in dps.  and when the instance was all over, everyone beat me on dps and total damage.  except for the s.priest. 

Now I want to know a few things about these shadow priests that maybe I never considered.  I played one a long time ago and got bored of it quickly.  although there are "dots" to apply and some dark beam with a ripple effect thingey you guys do, I figured that's really all that's needed for dps in level 40 content anyway, correct?  I don’t even see mindflay (which was their signature move years ago) but now I see Deviouring Plague, SW:P, then Mind Sear.  Shouldn’t that rock the dps charts?  perhaps these guys arent into the whole AoE frenzy.  but that's not the point.  the point is to do the most damage given the situation, correct?  so if you see four mobs together, you bust out your Mind Sear.  If you see one, you'd be stupid to pull out mind sear.  correct?

Just like me on my paladin, one boss, Seal of Corruption.  four adds? Seal of Command.  easy to understand. one mob or boss, cast lightning bolt.  four mobs, cast chain lightning, drop magma totem and nova. chain lightning on cd.  for mages, one boss/mob, cast fire/frost bolt or arcane missles.  more than two, arcane assplode, blizzard, fire ground thingey.

see?  its very easy to differentiate between single target, and multiple targets.  you just have to… erm…. COUNT.  and then adjust your rotations accordingly. 

Am I totally missing something?  is it because the s priest was going to use up all his time alternating SW:P that by the time he was ready to mindsear, everyone's dead?  maybe.  mobs do die pretty fast. but so adjust!  I do this often with my warlock.  there are many times I know that my dots will not last its full duration.  and what do I end up doing? I improvise.  I only use one dot, then switch to some AoE if I can (seed of corruption/rain of fire) and woot! dere it is.   

So I do not know.  someone please enlighten me to shadow priest dps.  is there no other AoE alternative than to use DP, then SWP on everything, then Mind Sear?  I know this does take a while to actually accomplish, but am I correct to say that Mind Sear would still do a decent amount of damage even if everyone isnt "swp'ed" up? Am I treating shadow priests unfairly?

screenshots or it didnt happen?

Leveling Pt. 2

From yesterday's post:

4. Looking for Dungeon: Randomizer. The best thing for leveling since sliced bread.  Actually, using the dungeon finder tool will get you leveled up a whole lot faster than doing quests.  And its no effort trying to get a group together.  Just queue, and eventually you're in.  While waiting, you can do quests. 

Random dungeons also give you extra experience and a bag which yield blue quality items that you can use to round out your gear.  Instance only drops cuffs and robe?  fear not! my awesome Satchel of Goods will give me gloves and belt.  yep, awesomeness. 

 

5. Heirloom Gear is purchasable by all 80s and can be sent to Alts.  Not only are Heirlooms gear pretty cool and sometimes offer stats that are superior to what you'll find in dungeons, the shoulders and chest piece give extra experience.  that’s 10% extra from the shoulders, and +10% extra from the Chest/Robe. Total is 20%.  Who can complain?  And since you're probably never going to switch out the gear, your enchants will stay on the item for a good while.  I mean where it matters most (level 1-60 anyway). 

I just wanted to continue today about leveling today as compared to leveling two years ago.  as you know, I've already gone through several of the changes that make leveling easier (less exp required, lowered level requirement for mounts) and those do have a significant impact on leveling both at level 20 and at level 60.  But what I think is probably the biggest boost to leveling has got to be the next two changes that I will be discussing:  LFD and Heirlooms.

Although we are able to do dungeons in our own server with random people we find in our level range, blizzard has added a nice little feature that allows us to queue up for dungeons and party with people from various servers.  The great thing about this is that there is no effort on our part to attempt to form any parties and entering dungeons requires a wait time. heck, you even get zoomed to the instance.

the old dungeon system had people sign up for various dungeons and wait.  if someone was willing enough to form the group, they would look at the signup list and find several (usually DPS) waiting for a group and would ask them if they would want to join the group.  The usual slowdown involed finding a healer or a tank.  of course, sometimes it would take too long to find a healer or a tank, or both, and one or both DPS would drop from the group.  This caused the party leader to have to find more dps as well.  Now this system worked somewhat, but it does fall to a lot of abuse and prone to fail.  

Oftentimes, myself included, I would have my own criterias for inviting people to join my own group.  when I used to play as a druid healer, I would make sure there are no other druids in the party, since I would like to eliminate any competition for certain drops.  As a dk, I made sure I was the only dk.  heck, I try not to include warriors or paladins as well since they would roll on plate gear against me.  I would also make sure I have two ranged DPS and one Melee dps.  I would always pick a ranged over a melee.  I would pick mages and warlocks over hunters because the chances of getting good dps from mages and warlocks are far better than for huntards.  I would always pick a shaman to join.  always.  but the picking is slim because at any given time, there's always a page and a half of deathknights waiting for an invite.  there may be a few rogues too, but that's because their class is often missunderstood (they're not great AoE specialists, so their dps may be lower usually).

Regarding LFD

Now, with the "Looking for Dungeon" or LFD tool, there is no need to profile.  Blizz already did that already.  Notice how every group has a good mix of people.  Two ranged, one melee, and usually there are no duplicates unless it’s they're playing two roles (ie. two warriors, one dps, one tank.  or two shamans, one dps, one heal).  I have been in parties where I guess blizz couldn’t find anything better and left us with five, yes FIVE paladins.  hey, we rocked the instance.   You'll hardly see a group with two locks, two mages, two rogues, or two of anything. 

Not only has the LFD tool taken cared of the whole profiling and selection of characters for you, it also has a bigger population base for these things.  being that each battlegroup (or cluster of servers) is about 10 to 15 servers big, there's plenty of people to match up with.  sometimes you'll get people from your own server in these random groups, but most of the time, you'll see people from different servers.  Not only does this help people in low population servers find groups fast, it also gives classes that are in low demand (ie dps) a chance to party as well.  although there's 3 dps per group, there seem to be an overabundance of dps in the gaming world.  I've played dps and I have to tell you, it really does feel like a double edged sword. 

So LFD makes it easy for people to find groups to dungeon with.  It takes care of the low population server problem, especially running low level instances and it takes care of the DPS abundance problem on all servers. but what it does best is this.  it gives you the sense of a true "one night stand", or "no strings attached" feeling when you zone in.  don’t like the tank? vote to kick.  you'll never see him again so who cares?  don’t like the dps doing crap damage? vote to kick.  don’t like the whole group? drop party.  are you vocal? voice your opinion that the tank sucks.  no one will bug you after the party because they're not on your server and most people wouldn’t care to make an alt on your server just to harass you.  you go into a dungeon, beat on things, roll on loot and get out. that’s it.  thank people and leave. that’s basically everything that goes on.  problem is, what happens when you actually find people you do like to party with because they're actually really good or fun to play with?  well we're all SOL. 

In any case, since LFD makes it so easy and almost painless to run dungeons at low levels now, I see a little less requests in trade chat to boost others.  Boosting is this.  when I low level asks a very high level (usually a level 80) to go to a dungeon with them and kill everything for them.  this is often compensated with gold or by returning the favor at a later time.  Low level characters are actually "playing" through their dungeons and actually contributing during the dungeons.  This does promote learning in some ways.  although most of the time I do see blizzard and rain of fire spams, I still see people doing well and learning to play their class.  sometimes different specs and spells are applied during the dungeon to test out how viable one spell is over another.  I see lower level paladins use Lay on Hands way more often now (and I do believe they should all know where their cooldown spells are anyway), but this is due to the tank running ahead and pulling large groups while the healer is trying to drink.  lessons are learned this way and I find that its much better that these lessons are learned at level 30 than at level 80. 

Overall, LFD has helped many who would otherwise be questing all day to run a few dungeons, thereby learning how to perform in groups and using some spells that they would probably never use in solo play.  this will lead to better performance overall in later dungeons and even raids.  although most dungeons will not punish those who "stand in bad" they will at least have developed some of the tools necessary to play in end game content.  Leveling is sped up, people are learning to play together, and the monotony of leveling has been reduced.  what more can you ask for with LFD?  oh yea, a buddy list that crosses servers.  yea.

And last of all, Heirloom Gear.

The mention of Heirloom gear will be shorter than LFD since there isnt much to say about it except that, whether they are the pvp variety or the pve variety, they're both viable for pve content as their stats will benefit the bearer.  resilience is just a bonus.  The easiest to attain would be those gotten from stone keeper shards, or pvp heirlooms.  although they might not have all of the pve stats, it does offer a better alternative than some of the quest or instance gear you might find while leveling up.

Whats most important about the gear is not that they offer better stats so that you can quest/instance easier, but that two pieces (shoulders and chest) offer a 10% bonus to your experience gained.  This means a mob who would offer only 100 exp will give the wearer 120 exp.  10 more if he wore the shoulders, and 10 more if he also wore the chest… totaling 20 more exp. 

as you can see, not only are you geared well as you level up, you're also getting buckets of extra experience points to go with it.  What's else? you're passing up on shoulder and chest upgrades that you'd normally "need" on.  instead, passing the items to alts who do not have great stuff. This helps everyone level, I guess.  but oftentimes I think that perhaps it helps us level way too fast and the end result is a person who only knows marginally how to play his class at 80 and will have to learn the rest when he does play more after level 80.

My Point

Ever since the change to experience points was given, I wanted to understand the path blizzard was taking and what their plans might have been at the time.  I figured this much, that old content, although not necessarily bad content, is outdated content.  meaning, although the stories, lore, and whatnot are fine, the execution of telling those stories through quests need improvement.  at level 60, we see less and less of those "gather odd mats from all over the universe, one at a time" quests to more of the "go to dude in the field, he'll have 10 quests for you, when you're done, I'll show you to another dude in another field" type questing.  this makes things much easier to deal with. 

not only do things make sense, traveling to get to your quest destination/objective requires less walking and more doing.  take, for instance, the warlock pet quests.  the simplest is the voidwalker.  however, the felhound requires several trips to various places and back again.  same with the succubus.  oh how annoying.  there's also the shaman water totem quest.  omg. did I mention this before? yes I did.  annoying as fuck.  in outland,  everything somehow made more sense.  I see whats going on in the environment around me and and not asked to go to three different continents in order to solve a problem that's right in front of me.  you guys rock!!  now someone fix the druid flight form quest… please?  oh yea, its trainable now.  nevermind.

Anyway, my point was that the execution of low level content needed an upgrade.  instead of changing the quests so that we don’t have to travel everywhere, gather odd materials, or do several unrelated dungeons, we're given many tools to allow us to skip some of these boring content.  HOWEVER, some class specific spells and items cannot be skipped like shaman totems, warlock minions, or warrior stance.   So there, blizz offered a solution to their very poor initial questing and leveling design.  of course, this was great when the level limit was 60, but now that the level limits have increased to 70 and then to 80, and soon to be 85, it would only assume that leveling from 1-60 be changed.  the content is dull, drab and boring.  the landscape consists of 50% desert.  if you include the barrens, I can list all the deserts: barrens, thousand needles, tanaris, silithus, burning steppes, searing gorge, blasted lands, desolace and that dam place where uldaman is.  some zones where its just as desert-like: westfall, redridge mountains, stonetalon, and maybe even the plaguelands.  arathi basin is like a desert, but green.  dun morogh and winterspring is like a desert, but white.  All of these zones need a makeover.  all of the quests require a change.  and frankly, most of us are sick of doing the same quest for the 10th time on the 10th character. 

So with all these changes to leveling, it actually has given the player quite a few options on leveling. we do not have to deal with looking at undeads in WPL to level up.  we don’t have to deal with running through the barrens to level up.  we don’t have to enjoy ganklethorn vale like we did before.  its completely optional!  and we learn to do instances along the way.  we actually learn to do that stuff!  neat!!

This leads to phasing out content.  it means that the low level "story" is no longer important.  MMOs are always changing; it is the nature of the beast.  so when I see changes like this, I feel that there's often something coming.  but I do realize that maybe its already been announced and I just needed to connect one and one together to make two.  its all to ready us for cataclysm.  I see the lower level content and I don’t like it.  blizz sees our desires and gives us options to level through it easier, faster, and with as little pain as possible.  and then blizz decides to make 1-60 just as engaging and up-to-date as outland and northrend.  how? by wiping everything out…. come cata, of course. 

The other idea is that blizz wants us to play together at 60-80.  out comes the death knight at 55 (funny how all of azeroth gets skipped? hardly) and he takes the forefront of this idea.  almost everyone makes a dk and plays outland and northrend content together.  at 60 and up, it becomes a lot harder to "boost" anyone through content. and with the LFD tool, everyone can easily find groups to join so that they can actually participate in the group. 

The game today is not Azeroth.  It is Outland.  It is Northrend.  It is NOT azeroth.  sadly, azeroth is just a barren place to farm herbs and minerals.  levelers do not want to level through it, well most of it anyway.  levelers want to play with all their friends as well. and what best place to play with their friends than at 80?  at 80 there's a whole slew of things to do together.  dungeons, rep grinds, profession mastering, pvp and raids.  why 80? because they cant level further.  of course, gear desparity may be present, but at least we're all level 80. 

right now, my girlfriend is four levels ahead of me in levels.  what this means is that there's very few instances we can do together.  I'll have to catch up.  she's currently doing SM:Cathedral and im still going through Library.  Cathedral is red to me while its yellow to her.  she wouldn’t want to queue for grave yard, and I wouldn’t want to queue for cath, so we're stuck with library and armory.  see how that limits us?  at 80, there's no real "limit" unless you want to consider gear.  but even at a high gear level, doing lower level content like heroics or naxx do yield useful items, so the geared do have encouragement to run with less geared people.

This is like killing several birds with five stones.  Though im sure there's more stones.  These are just the main ones I can think of.  Others include RAF and Exp in BGs.  RAF are special cases and EXP from BGs cater to only certain individuals.  Although BGs are great, leveling speed pales in comparison to dungeons.

So yea. Killing birds.  with stones. er… with rockets.  yea.  that’s better.

On Leveling and Progressing Pt. 1

I've been thinking recently about the whole leveling process as it is today compared to what it was several years ago and have come up with some conclusions that may very well be an optimistic view of leveling come the next expansion.  Now I know I havent talked about the expansion at all, and I really do not intend to based on two reason:  it is not expansion time yet so I wont spoil anything and there are a wealth of info on the net about the expansion already.  you are free to look elsewhere for people's blogs, reviews and videos on Cataclysm.  As for me, I am perfectly fine living dwelling in this current world we now live. 

So with that said, let me just list some of the major points in leveling that has changed the face of, well, leveling in wow. 

1. Experience points required to level has been decreased.

Needed a million experience points to level?  no, not anymore!  you only need 990,000 points instead!! yay!

2. Ground mounts are accessible at level 20 instead of 40.  Epic ground mounts are accessible at level 40 instead of 60.  All for much less gold than before.

This change actually makes sense.  Back in the days where level 60 was the highest level, getting an epic ground mount was useless for leveling, since you've already leveled already.  see how it makes sense now? kinda.

3. Flying mounts are purchasable at level 60 instead of 70.  The cost has been reduced as well.  Epic flying is also purchasable at 60.  Cost can be reduced based on reputation with Thrallmar or Honor Hold.  Cold weather flying can be purchased and learned by level 70s to fly in Northrend. Earlier flying always lead to faster questing.

4. Looking for Dungeon: Randomizer. The best thing for leveling since sliced bread.  Actually, using the dungeon finder tool will get you leveled up a whole lot faster than doing quests.  And its no effort trying to get a group together.  Just queue, and eventually you're in.  While waiting, you can do quests. 

Random dungeons also give you extra experience and a bag which yield blue quality items that you can use to round out your gear.  Instance only drops cuffs and robe?  fear not! my awesome Satchel of Goods will give me gloves and belt.  yep, awesomeness. 

5. Hierloom Gear is purchasable by all 80s and can be sent to Alts.  Not only are Hierloom gear pretty cool and sometimes offer stats that are superior to what you'll find in dungeons, the shoulders and chest piece give extra experience.  that’s 10% extra from the shoulders, and +10% extra from the Chest/Robe. Total is 20%.  Who can complain?  And since you're probably never going to switch out the gear, your enchants will stay on the item for a good while.  I mean where it matters most (level 1-60 anway). 

Now let me try to analyze all of these changes the best that I can.  After all, I am an analyst for a bank. I figure I can be an analyst for change in leveling for a game.

Less is More

The first change is the reduced amount of experience needed to level up through to 70.  This change allowed for faster leveling but did not offer a change in the game play as it did with other changes.  this simply made it so that several quests can be skipped, or zones even.  For example, at level 40, there are basically three zones where you can go to level up which included Feralas, Tanaris and Hinterlands. Now Hinterlands does have an area with level 50 mobs, but for the most part, these zones are all accessible for the brand new level 40 player.  Before the change to experience, I remember going through all three zones and doing quests in all three zones and still was not able to level out of those zones after having done everything.  yes, everything.  okay maybe.  first I was in tanaris and feralas with trips to hinterlands.  eventually, I completed practically everything in feralas, tanaris and half of hinterlands.  eventually, when I got the quest to kill preistess hex, I was level 48.  she was level 50.  it matched perfectly. almost.  but today, if I simply quested, I can completely skip feralas and just do tanaris and hinterlands and be level 50 by the time I am ready to kill priestess hexx. that make any sense? I hope so. 

Because we are able to skip zones, the leveler will then be able to decide for themselves which part of the content they actually want to play.  Some folks do like killing pirates and ogres in tanaris.  others prefer the lush green forests of feralas and hinterlands.  Others still, would prefer to finish out the late level 30 regions and try their luck at the early level 50 regions once they hit late 40s, but will try their best to drudge through hinterlands just to get there (Do people level in Burning Steppes anymore??).  Level 50s have the choice of going to Felwood, Searin Gorge, Blasted lands, UnGoro Crater or Western Plaguelands.  You'll only really do two of those areas.  Then at 55 to 58, you might just touch Silithus, Eastern Plaguelands, or Winterspring.  Then off we all go to Outland.  And then Half of outland is basically optional as well.

With the choices at hand, I am sure someone in the background is taking logs of the patterns each and every individual is exhibiting.  This will go well towards designing future content, im sure.  Although the general idea is clear, offer good rewards, don’t make us travel through five different zones picking up five different items and then going through 3 dungeons we don’t have interest in doing just to get us to do a quest, the players habits and choices in doing content speaks louder than words as to what we are willing to do.  We are basically telling blizzard that this zone and this set of quests are preferred over that zone and those types of quests.  see how that goes?  helpful, no?

So the side effect (by design or not) is that we end up with more choices in our leveling experience through level 70.  And even in Northrend, there really isnt one way of going through the zones.  Instead, many find that once they hit 80, only half of the zones in NR have been discovered.  I've played several characters to 80 and have still to exhaust all of the quests in all of the zones (albiet lately, I've been using the dungeon finder tool way more than before). 

Because Elwynn, DunMorogh, the Barrens and Darkshore are effin huge

Honestly, when I was a level 8 mage running to the tower of azora in elwynn, I was hating every minute of it.  the walk was ridiculous.  then I had to walk everywhere else.  it was annoying.  flight paths make things faster, but in all honestly, 50% of my gametime was consumed with walking.  exciting. I know.  especially when im trying to avoid mobs.  hey, that is a game in and of itself.  If I were a warrior, I would charge at critters to shorten the walk. honestly I would.

When I finally hit 40 I purchased my first horse ever.  I was on a human mage at the time and loved running around theremore with the slow ass horse.  yes, it was a slow ass horse but it was my horse!  not to mention the animation sucked, and it looked a little stupid riding on it, but still.  it was my horse and my level 40 "reward".   and then I stopped playing my mage.  it really felt like hitting level 40 was the highlight of the game.  end of game!  but nowadays, the reward is cheapened by the cost of the mount and the level in which it is attainable.  This doesn’t take away much from the game, because the real "reward" has shifted over a bit to the flying mount.  specifically, the epic flying mount.  

With this change I am able to travel back and forth to my quests a whole lot faster, especially when they want me to travel to three different places to get certain items that only exist in those spots (the water totem quest that I've done recently is a perfect example of a waste of time trave everywhere quest at level 20.  get a quest from the trainer to go to questgiver1. qg1 tells me she needs something that only qg2 can offer.  off I go to qg2.  she tells me I need item1, return to her.  then she tells me I need item2, return to her.  then she tells me to go to another contenent and get item3, then return to her.  then she tells me to go back to qg1.  qg1 tells me I have to return to the other continent and do a quest, then return to her.  I do the quest, return to her. then bam!! I get my effin water totem, tyvm. 

see all that running? I hope quests like those die in a fire.  I wanted to falcon punch qg2 so many times. why not just tell me all the ingredients so I can just get them all at once??? anyway, with mounts, traveling back and forth becomes a little easier and ridiculous quests like these (especially REQUIRED quests like these) can actually become bearable.  I got the quest at level 20 and didn’t even complete it until I was level 25 since it took so friggin long just to travel. 

I actually like this change.  I actually wanted shoe enhancements only for low levels that would help us run faster back when mounts were attainable at level 40.  I actually wanted something at level 20 (like a skateboard) that would increase my run speed by 40%.  but im glad we got ground mounts now.

Because Outland is just as big as Elwynn, Dum Morogh, Barrens, etc.

One thing I'd like to point out is that the change in level requirements for ground mounts does not change the style of play, or the "game" of leveling at all. it does make things faster, but it doesn’t change the game we play all that much.  When we reach outland and are able to purchase flying mounts, the game changes.

Because people are able to fly in outland at level 60, this makes questing infinitely easier, especially when everyone can skip mobs by flying over them and head straight to the quest mobs to kill.  I've done this with a character already, and although he only had normal flying, flying helped him to skip the riffraff and focus on getting to what he needed to get to.  I don’t have to fight my way through an area, hoping that I can kill the questmob without trouble. because if I die even once, I might have to deal with respawns on the way out.  dropping down to kill the questmob or grab some sparkley thing without having to go through the mobs protecting it makes the game quite different.  the challenge may be a little different, but the tediousness of having to get there has been removed. 

There are still quests where you do have to kill things, and quest objectives inside caves do require you to actually walk through the cave and kill things along the way.  This part of the game has not changed.  

I will have to make part two.  be back!

Updates Updates Updates Aug 23

General Updates

I have been spending more time on Ysondre than I have been in Ravenholdt because I have been leveling my shaman and priest with my girlfriend as of late.  This is not to say I have abandoned my old realm.  Ravenholdt is the perfect sized realm, "medium" population with a horde imbalance of about 3 to 1, that means 75% of the population is horde.  What this does mean is that world pvp is not too lively, as you'll find some horde outnumbering alliance.  but it also means that when alliance do find the time to harass a town, they will do it in force, 10 deep, with air support.  and usually in Thrallmar (of course, the lower level town).  It does have a pretty mature market, with gem cutters with all cuts, glyph makers with 20 of each glyph at all times and a wide array of crafting mats, not to mention the entertainment to be had in trade chat.

In Ysondre the life is a little different.  There is much less going on in the AH, so mats are limited, especially mats to level professions.  people can easly control a market for a limited amount of time, buy up all the mithril and relist it for more (but always having to watch out for small time undercutters).   bags are limited as well, as are item enchants and enhancements.  bags are limited by the low amount of netherweave due to the low amount of people leveling through outland.  and those are the highest in-demand bags.  special enchants are hard to get as the supply is lacking. however, common enchants are lowly priced since there's a lot of supply and little demand.  things are quite skewed in ysondre.  so if you're looking to make some gold and don’t mind "farming" please go there and mine and herb.  seriously.  sungrass should not be selling for 40g a stack.  sungrass??

one thing I've noticed is that people do not know the value of some items.  I die a little inside when I see cut golden draenite.  why?  because the cut versions are trash, used only to skill up points and tossed while the uncut variety are used for tailoring.   yes, tailoring.  at 10-20g a pop.  why? because tailors need four of them to make their silly slow flying carpet.  not only are you tapping into a market with little or no supply (check the AH for fel iron ore or adamantite ore or even the gem in question, and you will see almost nothing, or something that's omg overpriced), you're about to provide the tailor (who's second profession is probably enchanting, and NOT jewelcrafting or mining) with something he is not able to produce on his own… ever. 

In any case, the difference in both servers cannot really be seen in the beginning levels, as leveling through the world can be a dry and lonely experience.  you will not find a lot of people questing to learn about the lore. heck, do people even read the quests anymore? or do they just pick it up and look on their map for the dots to tell them where to go?  im guilty of doing that but it is because I've already done those quests several times and do not need to be reminded of the story.  If cata is going to change the entire face of azeroth, I'd love to quest again through to level 85, just to see the lower level's updated story, from all angles (and that means, yes, I might have to roll a troll…. or a gnome now).  but yea, my point was that you will not see too many people leveling these days simply because there's the dungeon finder.  it makes leveling emmensly, immensely, whatevers, easy.  well not that easy. you still have to do "OK" and this teaches people how to perform in groups at an earlier level, and more often.  one complaint I had previously was that people do not know how to perform in groups because they simply never did it due to it being "too hard" to find groups.  well now you can easily do it.  and do it often!  so with repetition comes competence.  or at least I hope so.  no longer will a fresh level 80 walk into an instance for the first time because turning in quests was much easier to do.  no longer will we have to learn two different "games" when we play this game.  one at level 1, and the other at level 80.  although both are available starting at level 13-ish. 

On Leveling

What I noticed differently about this game is that I have been doing instances to level up way more than I do questing.  a couple of years back, I would be questing most of the time, trying to get my player to a higher level.  I did find that while questing, I was able to learn the little details of my class, but it wasn’t until I started playing with other people in instances that I really started to understand how my class played in comparison with others and how it can benefit others.  When playing solo, I learned my spells well and well enough to use the different spells in different situations in groups.  What I find lately is that everyone who parties with me knows quite a bit about playing in groups, especially post level 25.  but, they do not use all of their tools to their advantage.  somehow, leveling through instances requires knowledge of only several abilities.  It’s a great way of learning to play in groups, but I find that it doesn’t help people actually learn everything they need to know about their class. 

One Trick Ponies

What I see the most? People are not utilizing all of their skills, but only resorting to AoE style of play.  Because many tanks can simply group a bunch of mobs together, the dps usually busts out with their AoE type spells (blizzard, volley, rain of fire, etc) and try to burn down all the mobs at once.  this makes it easy, actaully.  although healing through it might not be as before (I'll explain that in a bit), things seem to work and we move on to the next batch to start the process all over again. 

What happens when people use their AoE all the time?

1. no one gets cc'ed. no one gets "crowd controlled".  no one is dazed, sheeped or forced to repent.

2. no one interrupts.  casters, with 3 second casts usually, do not get interrupted.  shield slam? no. hammer of justice? no.  wind shear? no. kick? no. silence? no.  counterspell? no.  of course not.  all of these spells are learned in raids or in arenas, of course, at level 80. 

3. no emergency spells.  what is this? a near wipe! oh lets just wipe.  actually there are many emergency spells that every class has that will help to live longer, and possibly to avoid a wipe.  im talking interrupts and cc's, but also those damage mitigation spells every class should have by now.  divine protection, last stand, shield wall, fears, frost nova, and so forth.  what usually happens is that the hunter or warlock's pet takes over tanking and no one really has to blow any of their cooldown spells.  one other thing is that mobs hit for less damage comparatively, so some healers will find it a lot easier to heal four people (each with one mob on them) than healing a tank with four mobs on himself.  sometimes I even prefer to heal four "tanks" than just one.  tis weird.

4. no synergizing.  This means no one is really talking about ways to improve their dps with other members.  should warlocks toss curse of the elements? which totems are best with this group composition? why are you giving me "dampen magic????" stop overriding my blessings! etc.

there might be more, but this is all I really wanted to talk about.  all of this should be learned during our play time leveling, if not through discovery, than its through being told by someone in the group (sometimes without an explanation).  but being told by someone in the group is often a matter of chance, so we leave it up to chance to learn how to best use our abilities?  sigh.  but whether or not we know how to really "play" our character, or why our character is doing crap damage vs everyone else, what matters most is that we learn how to work as a team.  the above four points kinda illustrate how, as a member of a team, we can help each other out.   

The Resto Shaman

I've been leveling up a shaman recently with my girlfriend's paladin.  he's been quite a blast to play actually.  What I've learned from having only one heal for 20 levels, and now having a second heal, that healing with a shaman is indeed, boring. but thank god we're not just limited to healing. no really, there are several instant attacks that you must utilize as a shaman.  must.  even at the cost of mana.  because you helping to kill things faster makes instances faster, even if you have to sit and drink a little.  here's my little bit of insight I want to share for those in levels 20-30. 

1. include the fire totem. magma totem over searing totem. blast it on cooldown.

2. save frost shock for runners.  if they don’t run, earthshock to reduce their attack speed (but if you have a warrior/druid doing demo shout, this becomes unnecessary).

3. target any caster and windshear their spells.  less damage taken means less you have to heal.  windshear is on a short cooldown so you can do it multiple times a fight.

4. always keep water shield up.  they are your mana resource.  glyphed water shield rocks too.

5. at level 30, always recall your totems.  this saves you some mana.

After level 20, you can easily contribute to the speed of many dungeons by adding a ltitle burst dps when needed.  just remember to watch your mana usage and hold off at certain times.  especially when the tank is taking heavy damage (but those are often the best times to dps.  oh so juicy).  but I always have to remember I signed up to heal and so I should heal first and foremost. 

The GF's Ret Paladin

My girlfriend has been trying to level up her paladin for over a week and has gotten her to her mid 30s today.  Not much to say except that she usually top damage meters.  Is that great or what?  well she tops dps.  im sure she gets it from me.  but I think what makes her dps high is that I mention several things about her fighting.  always judge on cooldown, and always use seal of command.  so she's rocking through the instances with very little problems and doing pretty good damage. 

Now that her paladin is about the same level as her warlock, we'll be leveling together.  all four characters.  her lock and pala with my priest and shaman.  I guess I'll have to check out the different combinations (theres just two, but hey, trying to see how they fit together) to see which one works best to boost our dps and healing.   you know, that synergy thing.

Guild Update (RH)

I just wanted to tell you about the awesome times i've had with my guild in ravenholdt.

I have done zero raids with them. although they have raids weekly, and oftentimes, 3 raids going on at various times of the week, i still am not able to get into a ICC10 with them at all.  this is mostly due to scheduling conflicts.  Although i do not know what's going on in raid scheduling in the future, i do see that there's plenty of activities going on (and planned).  Lets hope i can make it to one of these events. 

I have done several heroics and some alt runs on various 60-ish characters with some of them. they are a fun bunch. i am hoping to do more heroics with some guild pugs (oxymoron, i know) and hopefully do some lower level instances with the levelers.  Chantie, im talking about you and your hubby.

Although i do want to do more guild things, i find there's very little incentive for me to log in and do anything. My first half hour upon logging into my character is spent with me wondering if anyone is willing to do anything.  i do ask in guild if anyone wants to do anything, but seeing that most of the members are in ICC, my responses will be small anyway.  sometimes i do get a reply and the time i have there becomes a little more meaningful. 

So after a while of that, i felt i should just log on to my leveling toon and stay there to level.  its paired up with my girlfriend's toon anyway.  so we're leveling up together, on a different server, and that's our project.  i am really liking it so far.  well besides having to make several low level alts that has had it with level 1-20 zones, its been really fun just running around watching my gf learn the mechanics of the game and of her various characters.  i find its a bit more fun here, at least for now, until my guild actually has use for me. 

I am Rambling

I made a shaman, an orc shaman to be exact. His name is Rockdarr. He is a Rock... DARRRR!!!!!

Yes, battle cries after a person's name is awesome.  Take, for instance, my girlfriend's paladin Krisseven.  Wouldnt it be way better to add a battlecry after that name?  like... Waaaahhhhh!!  Krissevenwaaaah. yes.  it would be awesome.

Grrrrrrraaaaa!!!! *swings wildly with sword*


see?  awesomeness. 


Anyway.  My shaman.  Rockdarr.  DARRRRRRRRRR!!! getouttamaway!!!! will be a healer.  yes he's got give points in faster healing waves and some points in mana savings when healing. so im guessing he's a healer.

i'd so rather have an enh shaman. but what's the use of an enhancement shaman of nothing's enhanced? you got two clubs?  no.  you got mealstrom?  no... but i have windshear!!

rockbiter or flametongue?   rockbiter.  on your offhand?  what? i get an offhand?


yea so there's a few key elements to being enhance that doesnt come into play until level 30. or 40.  i've QQ'ed about this before. i know. but lets beat the dead horse some more.

So i've given up on trying enhance now that im healing.  actually having one healing spell and two totems rock my socks.  not only are every instance easy to heal (stoneskin totem, healing wave x1000), i find myself using windshear on every mob i can that's casting anything.  its awesome.  so much fun.  and yet i do jack shit in the group.  when priests are learning lesser heal, greater heal, renew and power word shield, im learning.... windshear? wtf?  how broken is the shaman class at level 18? how broken?  very.  although i realize that we wont be there long, and that much of our lives are spent at level 80, i still would like to get a few spells like the priests... to you know, help the group?

im sure shaman healing will be a little better when the levels increase, but i just would like to feel like i am a healer RIGHT NOW.  but right now, i feel like nothing that im doing is better than an elemental or enhance shaman.  of course, at lower levels, theres very little differentiation and the 5-10 talent poitns really dont do much noticable difference for any class.  but still.... i'd like to feel like a healer, dammit!!


im rambling, i know.  and i really dont have much to write about besides the aweful planning of the specs at the early levels. 

Basics for Understanding Seals and How they Work.

Imagine a Rifle... with a grenade launcher.


Seals are like a clip.

Judgements is like firing your gun's grenade launcher every 8 seconds while you do normal rounds every 3 seconds or so.

Your gun's grenade launcher takes about 8 seconds to recharge.

After 30 minutes, your clip needs to be reloaded or you get no magical bullets or grenades. NO GRENADES!!!

Different clips do different things. one shoots a 3-way shot. another shoots bullets with light infused for extra damage. and yet another shoots a round that causes the bad guy to bleed a little. and yet another clip, when shooting bad guys, will give you mana, whatever that is.

And the grenades that come with these clips... they do different things too. 


So when you use Judgement of Light, think... GRENADES. 
when you do your auto-attack... then normal magic-infused rounds.
when you do your auto-attack and forget to turn a seal on, think crap normal rounds with no special magic.


see how simple that was? magical guns ftw.

TL:DR
1. Keep your Seals up always.  a gun with an empty clip is a useless gun.
2. Use your Judgement of Light or Wisdom every 8 seconds.  EVERY EIGHT FRIGGIN SECONDS.
3. No seal? your auto attack sucks; Yes seal? your auto attack rocks.


Any questions?

Updates Updates Updates

Let me just say a few things about this Enhancement Shaman… it sucks at level 10.   let me tell you I spend all my time in melee range casting lightning bolt.  how enhancement is that?  and the totem quests are a bit out there.  I know I have to do a bit of legwork, but hell, it sucks having to run around back and forth to get something only to find out that I have to go find someone else to do something else and so forth and so on.  im not just talking about the shaman totem quests, but also the warlock pets quests where somehow, in order to summon up a feldog, I had to run around the world several times.  not fun when all I really want to do is play around with enhancement.  what? I don’t actually get to play enhancement until level 30? are you serious? 

That’s like the paladin not able to really "tank" until level 60.  or the ret paladin not getting a second attack spell until level 40. oh and the druids don’t get cat form until level 20.  annoying.  these are pretty annoying since, you know, the NON hybrid classes are what they are at level 1.  mages are mages.  warlocks are warlocks even without the pet, hunters are hunters.  rogues are rogues.  but shamans are elemental shamans and cannot specialize into restoration until at least level 10, and not into enhancement until level 30 when they supposedly get some good enhancement attack.  prot paladins don’t really get much to go by.  consecration at 20, avenger's shield sometime later.  then finally, at 60, you can get hammer of the righteous.  and then seal of command?  please, I'd rather have seal of command for tanking any day.  druids are balance druids.  they cannot be feral until 20.  feral bear at 10?  what? that’s the dumbest thing anyone's ever thought of really.  no one levels or even quests as a bear.  they only tank as a bear. useless for 5 levels at least until they're able to use the dungeon finder.  no really, cat form at level 5 would be awesome for the levelers, especially one who never really cared for the "balance" tree anyway.

Anyway, that is my rant.  I spent one whole day on totem quests and felhound quests.  also spent half the time traveling because there are no shaman trainers in SMC.  cant we have trainers in every city?  they can just be at an embassy.  I don’t care.  but come on, the world of azeroth is a lot smaller now and all the factions should have trainers at every other city, like when a paladin decides to level up in mulgore he should be able to train in thunderbluff.  heck, druids have a trainer in SMC, why not shamans?

So wifey decides to make a paladin.  she loves it now.  it seams that "Holy LIght" is an awesome tool.  indeed it is, and should be used often.  so now there's a level 15ish paladin and a level 31 warlock now.  Anyway, paladining seems fun to her and so sure, she's gonna level that and I thought it would be super cool if I leveled a shaman, since, after all, people have been saying how many of the buffs they have go well together.  I don’t know the details, but I guess so.  in any case, I'll probably level as elemental since I cant really do enhance at the moment.  or resto.  I did put some points into faster healing waves.  might as well heal right?

and that is basically what's been going on with me over the weekend.  upcoming this week will be a post (hopefully) about Vuhdo. I've been meaning to write about it for the logest time and even have a partial post under construction about it. 

Until then, peace.

Black Sheep Raging Here...

I remember when I started playing this game I made a frost mage because it sounded cool to have a mage that can freeze things in place.  I also made a marksman hunter because I thought that would probably be the best spec to play.  I did read up on a lot of things about the game and the classes I was interested in.  What I've learned then, and what I still believe now, is that I am happy to play whatever class or talent spec I like.  Now I say this because there are many people who have tried out many different talent specs in the end-game and figured out what the most optimal raiding spec is for their class.  Now that's great and all, and I do not disagree with the logic there.  what I do disagree with are the general following of people who follow into that thinking and change their spec to match the highest dps spec and then pass down this information to whoever else asks them the same question.

What is the best spec for mages? 

What is the best spec for warlocks?

What is the best spec for warriors?
What is the best spec for rogues?

The above classes have two or three different dps specs, each with their own strengths and weakness.  but what I find the most annoying is that people tend to rank these specs based on raw dps output only.  dps is the standard of which spec is the best, I guess. 

I disagree completely.  I have a frost mage and I love playing her.  I have an affliction warlock and a demonology warlock and I love playing them.  I have a prot warrior that quests and levels.  prot warrior, leveling? yes.  and I have a rogue who is mixed up and cant decide between assassination and combat, because I think both specs are pretty fun (and different). 

As a priest, I am a disc priest.  and some fools mentioned to me that disc is for pvp.  no, disc is great at pvp. but it is not necessearily FOR pvp.  I heal groups wonderfully as disc.  sure, the holy priests are having a blast as well, healing and such, but I find my style of healing easy and powerful enough to not care what the healing meters say about my overall healing.

As a warlock, my affliction spells rock, especially with seed of corruption on trash.  My demonology lock will never see those big numbers on trash. but he'll kick my afflock's ass on boss fights any day.  destro locks theoretically do better, but are boring.  4 spells.  repeat. repeat.  who wants that?  oh the meter humpers.  that’s right!

Back in the days when I was a marks hunter, people would continue to say how great BM was then.  now the times have changed and marksman is awesome.  so is survival.  but some folks I know played survival back then and did well.  it was fun for them and no BM hunter would change their minds.  i liked that.

Now you cannot really do this comparision with paladins or druids or even shamans because, at least for druids and paladins, each spec is different.  now the druids do have two dps specs but they are completely different it doesn’t really fall into the "best dps" argument (ranged caster vs. melee dps).  The shamans have two dps specs as well and just like the druid, one is melee dps and the other is ranged dps.  the comparision is a little different, but since we all know enhancement spec sucks compared to elemental spec, everyone would rather go for elemental dps, correct?  for the most part, yes.  but there are a few melee dps shamans out there rocking the dps meters.

So with all of this said, if I ever go into a raid, I will see the dps like so:

Warriors - Fury

Mages - Arcane

Warlocks - Destro

Rogues - Combat

Death Knights - Unholy

Shamans - Elemental

Hunters - Marksmanship

These are all said to be the best dps spec for raiding.  Sure. 

But here is the proplem I do see with this list.  This list focuses on raw output but does not consider that there may be other benefits other classes/specs bring to the raid.  Not only that, most of these raids, if pugged, usually only go so far.  Without the utility of certain other specs, there may not be any easy way to run through content.  what I do see is that these cookie cutter talent specs do not account for skill, awareness, and overall knowledge of a person's class.  sure you get a mage to spec arcane. but does that mean the person is really good at playing that spec?  what if he's super awesome as fire or frostfire? or even frost?  what if the DK hates the boring unholy rotation? I've played with other blood and unholy dk's before, and with a lower gear level, I beat their dps as frost spec.  So no, there are many different factors in playing these different specs.  just because someone who is deeply in-tuned with their player/spec/style can produce awesome dps, it doesn’t mean that your local tradechat pug will be able to do the same thing. 

Here are my lists of characters.

Warrior - Prot.  because he's fun to play as prot.  I hear arms is just as fun. honestly, I leveled as fury and didn’t like one minute of it.  I changed to prot and love it.

Mage - Frost.  I find the utility and the ability to control my fights better invaluable.  less dps? sure. but im giving up a little dps for some control and I like control. 

Death Knight - Frost dps.  for those who don’t have a clue,since the introduction of DKs, and up until patch 4.0, all dk talent specs can tank and all dk talent specs can dps.  there are minor selections within each tree that is dedicated for tanking and or dps.  you decide.  now this is why I like frost dps:  1. I kick ass.   and 2.  procs.   its so much more fun than spamming several buttons over and over again.

Warlock - Demonology and Affliction.  because its fun.  and I rock the damage meters anyway. and there is some raid utility.

So what exactly am I trying to get at?

I am just ranting.  I am ranting at all the people who say, this is better than that. last night I was in guild chat and somoene was asking about what talents to choose in the demonology tree.  I asked her what spec she was (secretly hoping she picked demonology or affliction) and she replied with destruction.  So I would assume she uses her Imp a lot?  her reply was yes.  so why not improve imp?  good job!  I could have also told her to skip those and just sacrifice her succubus (cos who wouldn’t want a 15% increased damage for 30 whole minutes?).  but I don’t know if that's how she wanted to play. and I didn’t really care.  I got the gist of her style of play just by asking which pet she prefers and then, gave my input.  Same goes for when other people ask me questions in the game about talent choices.  I don’t want to tell them what will produce the best numbers because, honestly, it isnt necessarily the funnest spec to play.  usually, it isnt. sometimes people do like to see big numbers and that's all that matters to them.  for those guys, sure, if you get a thrill out of seeing big numbers, then its your game, who am I do dictate?  but when the focus isnt just on big numbers, then who are you to tell them to focus on damage only?

Not only do I find the problem in the answers given to these seekers, but I find the problem is in the seekers themselves.  more specifically, they don’t know what they're asking for!  How often does this come up… "Hey guys, whats the best spec for warlocks?"

do you see the issue?  what do you mean by "best"? what are you looking for? what style of play do you prefer? best is subjective.  best dps is not.  and if your only concern is the amount of damage you do, then you really need to rethink this game.  this is my strong opinion that best dps does not make for a successful raid.  sure, you might want this if youre pushing server firsts, but if your guild is 15th on the server and you're just about ready to take on Sindragosa, normal, in 10man, at this point in time, then I don’t think your problem, or your raid's problem is the dps spec.  I think there's much more to think about (rotations, compositions, execution, buffs, synergy, etc).  If the raid you're going to has the "best" dps spec and you're still having problems today, with the 30% nerf since ICC came out, then something is indeed, wrong.   Of course, with more dps, you can down the boss faster, meaning there may less chance someone will die from "standing in bad" and thereby wiping the raid (heck, with enough dps, you can do a zerg sartharidon THREE drakes run, yes you can) but how about stopping the bad dps from "standing in the bad" in the first place?  IMO, avoiding bad stuff takes precidence over raw dps any day.  as the saying goes, dead dps does zero dps.

the other saying also applies, or the mantra, actually:  its my $15, I'll play what I want.

BUT… if you do decide to go against the grain and be the black sheep, BE GOOD AT IT.  this will not only make me proud, it will shut the tools up who keep saying "x spec is best".

Stupid Tanks Make for Prissy Healers

This is in response to http://fallingleavesandwings.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/do-healers-have-a-bad-attitude/

To preface, I've started leveling up a healer with my girlfriend playing on her warlock.  We try to maintain the same level so we can queue together and party together.  The first 15 levels were a bit trying as she was just starting off learning the dps class.  although the warlock can be simply played, the learning curve is a bit steep.  once they get it though, they get it.   that’s the same with me.  it took me several deaths and many many self-contemplating moments running back to my body to actually devise solutions to my deaths.  

To be honest (and when have I not been honest? =p ) I have been having issues with healing as of late.  actually I've been to several groups from RFC to Stocks/BFD. I do have a priest already named Aquilla, healing as discipline spec (I just ran another AN instance on her and everyone rocks, no AN fails like before!!! woot!!) but my younger, level 23 self is having issues healing.  I do have an idea of why this is the case but I cant really say for certain. I mean it could be that I suck.  but lets look at the scenarios.

Scenario 1: SFK, druid tank, some dps and me.  When we zone in, the worgen aggros on us immediately (bad fucking design blizz?  please fix) and we're off fending off crap as best we can.  then we buff up, heal, drink, etc.  only problem is the tank decided to run off after he got his buff and forgot that I had just used up all my mana healing people (who should be eating anyway) and buffing people.  I ran to the jail room and found that the tank had pulled the mobs on the loft and has jumped down to take out the lower level mobs and, by default, the boss.  I spent the whole time playing catchup.  we barely made it out with me having zero mana left.  while the guy was opening the door, I had plenty of time to drink (but of course, this was the only time since it was a forced wait). 

Then, Bear pulls half the courtyard.  Misses a wolf or two who decides to run to me because I put shield on the bear.  Bad Bear.  mass pull but don’t know the basics of aggro or… if I pull too much I need to get healed NOW instead of when I stop to finally get everyone together.  so he's down to 50% health.  of course, I can heal him easily, but not with two other mobs attacking me.  Whats bad is he didn’t notice to pull them off of me. I even jumped down from the stairs to run to him (as any good healer would do when they pull aggro) but time spent running is time spent NOT casting.  see the problem?  so the tank dies because he left some mobs for me to deal with, figured he can pull half the courtyard (which he could, but at the expense of me healing him, and only him, nonstop) and still be okay. 

We wipe and he decides to pull more judiciously.  Good stuff right?  for a while.  im usually on half my mana bar when he pulls more.  ugh.  sure.  thanks.  we kill the butcher then kill the baron.  it was quite annoying.  then we go upstairs and kill things along the way to the captain's room.  sure, it was going ok.  I was having mana issues because the tank needed nonstop healing.  I couldn’t stop for a second, and this guy kept pulling like healers didn’t need mana.  I did get to mana up before the pull in the captain's room.  so off he went and pull most of the room, besides the boss.  I can heal through this, sure.  I'll be OOM by the time the fight is over, and that's only if the dps is able to kill everything before I go OOM.  what happened was…. I got silenced.  so any time the healer gets silenced, sleeped, or whatever other spell that puts me out of healing for more than 3 seconds, the tank will die.  he will.  just because he pulled way too much.   And he did die and we did wipe.  We rezed and argued for a few minutes before the tank decided to drop group and wished everyone luck with "the awesome heals".  After he left, I get a few comments from the dps about how the tank should have pulled less.  well then speak up will ya? thanks for backing up the healer, btw /sarcasm.

To be honest, I could have just not healed him constantly, pretend to not know my healing spells, and then maybe that would have caused him to slow down.  but it wouldn’t help the next group since he probably would just think that this current run has a newb healer and so he should slow down, but for subsequent runs, he'll continue to pull the same "mass pull the Hobbs way" stunts.  in a way, my healing encourages him on and informally states that its ok to do mass pulls.  after all, no one is dying if all things go well.  but in every case of mass pullage, nothing goes as intended.  usually, a dps will be disoriented or a healer is silenced.  then we die.  that’s basically it. they leave zero room contingencies when contingencies happens quite often.  So I'll be damned if I tell him to slow down and I'll be damned if I don’t. 

End result, he left and we got a fairly decent druid tank.  he waited for me and asked questions.  he stopped to make sure all mobs were in front of him (per my suggestion) and made sure to use swipe a lot (per my suggestion also).  We got through the instance with zero wipe. Thanks for being the tank that's actually careful and don’t assume we overgear everything. good luck with everything!

Scenario 2: Dead Mines, Druid tank.   We started off doing okay, with some random mobs coming from all directions.  However, it appears that the tank was in some kind of a hurry and left me behind to drink while he moved on.  For some strange reason, he also required non-stop healing.  we continue on to sneed and it was a mess.  bear pulls, dps paladin pulls, I pull with my shields, hunter pet pulls, warlock pet pulls.  I honestly had an easier time healing the rest of the group than the tank.  imagine that.  it was actually easier to heal the voidwalker and the cat pet who's tanking than heal the tank who's supposed to be tanking.  after the fight, the tank missed sneed as well. he jumps off his shredder and the pets pick him up immediately. 

Now after sneed/shredder is the forge.  and we all love the forge.  on our pulls down the forge, the tank does not know how to pull mobs BACK and forgot that the created robots should be given a nice swipe unless you want the healer to be running back and forth with aggro problems.  the dps was having problems finishing off runners.   Honestly, the dps was everywhere on this one too.  one helping the tank but the others helping me because the tank couldn’t get the mobs off of me.  I also non-stop healed in this case.  the tank didn’t die but I took care of everyone.  once I was out of combat (meaning, the battle was over), I sat down to drink.  the tank, however, charged an unaggroed group.  dumbass.  the whole scenario happened again. robots were created and made a beeline for the healer.  runners werent slowed/killed so they got some reinforcements (the tank could have pulled them all back to a safer area to avoid this, but no, we're leet or something and heals can heal while OOM just fine.  OOM= Out of Mana).

So I called the tank out on why he pulled the next group while I was still drinking.  We started arguing about a few things and he decided to leave and said "good luck with your awesome heals".  that’s odd, last I remembered awesome heals usually means people stay.  oh well.  our next tank, also a druid, pulled slow.  and although up the scaffolding to the top of the boat, someone pulled captain greenskin unintentionally (that meant about 10 mobs on the tank) I healed through that just fine.  The new tank then said I was amazing heals.  I had to chuckle at that point.  but I did notice that the new tank, although a level lower than the previous, took a lot less damage than the one before.  I had zero mana issues.  and we ended the dungeon with no hiccups (except when the hunter, poor Manders, feel off the scaffolding and into the water, then proceeded to die).

Scenario 3:  Stockades, or just Stocks for short. DRUID tank (do you see a pattern here??).  Runs into the first room (yes, with the mobs in the hallway in tow, and decides to stand in the middle of the room (and yes, with mobs behind him stabbing at him) and therefore, takes a buttload of damage.  I tried to heal but was out of LOS for a bit.  also, tho his credit, there was a paladin who had righteous fury on and didn’t really know how to play (5/5 seals of the pure, 5/5 toughness, 1 pt in anticipation) dps too well.  I had aggro, warlock had aggro, some other dps had aggro, and tank was in a room all by his lonesome. 

So here there isnt much question as to the problem. DPS wasn’t focused, actually, dps sucked except for the warlock, who decided to go AFK after we rezed. The tank was ok pulling 1 room at a time.  but just 1 room.  he did ask me if it was that hard to heal him, and I listed the issues.  yes tanks, you guys are supposed to analyze the situation and lead.  but clearly, you're not.  we're all somehow playing support roles to you. you're the star, of course, because the battle is between you and the mobs.  after all, they're all focused on you, right?  /sarcasm.

So we wait for a while to kick the AFK warlock.  but to no avail.  slowly but surely, everyone leaves.  so I left and gave group leadership to the lock (which I probably shouldn’t have since he may have been able to queue and skip the line since he's already inside the instance).  I queued up for another dungeon and got BFD.  and no, sadly, this time it was with a paladin tank.  OMG the joy.  I was thrilled.  it was soooooooooo easy.  I barely had to heal him.  it was Shields all the way.  although I did have to heal the other dps at times (you know, the lifetapping lock and the melee taking collateral damage), healing that instance wasn’t a problem at all.  we also had a great dps who kept kicking mobs that would cast mana burn or heals.  I loved that rogue.  top dps too.  he made my healing days pretty easy and I made sure he was healed as much as the lock (since the lock soul stoned me on cooldown).  The tank?  Shield.  maybe a flash heal here and there.  and in big groups, I finally pulled out a big heal, maybe twice.  and that's it.  This is how healing/tanking should be.  Thanks miss paladin for giving me hope in level 23 tanks.

Deductions:

So what exactly can I deduce from the three scenarios?  That druid tanks suck.  That tanks at level 20s suck.  That people are just learning their class and they do suck.  True dat. 

But really, what I find most probable are two major things. 

1. Everyone thinks they're in Triumph Badge type gear doing heroics. 

Let me explain this a little for those who don’t automatically understand.  You see when Wrath of the Lich King first came out and people made it to level 80, they had the choice of playing regular instances at their level (there were four at 80) or do "Heroic" versions of all of the instances (these include all of the northrend level 68 to 80 instances, tuned for level 80s who want higher difficulty).  And yes, it was difficult.  Actually, it was so difficult that we spent a good 40 minutes in each instance each time we run a heroic.  and what did we get?  level 200 gear.  this gear was considered better gear than what we got leveling. 

to give you an idea, outland rewards start at roughly level 140 and end at around level 180.  to get level 200 gear, you had to do heroics.  even normal level 80 instances gave you level 185 gear.  so doing heroics was necessary to get into raids.  For raiding Naxxramas (THE raid at the time), people needed not only gear, but skill.  it took 6 hours for my 10man group to finish naxx.  it was rewarding nonetheless. 

But as patches came out, and new raids were introduced, people got a "shortcut" to the latest raids.  how? due to heroics dropping better tokens (basically money used to buy better gear).  these tokens allowed for people who used to only be able to run heroics normally get better gear to help them gear up to do raids.  Now, the problem happened when Blizz decided to add a third and fourth set of emblems to buy even better gear.  now this gear rocks and is vastly superior to anything Naxx can drop.  

Now the problem is this.  They allowed heroic bosses to drop better tokens, but they never changed the difficulty of heroics.  Not only that, they encouraged raiders to run heroics in order to get these updated tokens in order to fill buy gear they lacked.  So when people slowly collected enough tokens to buy more gear and are "encouraged" to run low level content, they end up doing heroics in 15 minutes (as opposed to 40 minutes).  All heroics become a cakewalk.  Honestly, each time I step into a heroic, I feel that I outlevel the instance by 10 levels.  TEN LEVELS.  This is why my last three level 80s have zero triumph gear.  they're all in dungeon gear.  some are in the later ICC5 gear, which is kindof like cheating, but still, its useful for the content.  and yes, only the three ICC instances and maybe the ONE, yes ONE ToC instance seem to be marginally difficult for people with decent gear. 

But the point remains.  These triumph emblem drops are casuing everyone to treat heroics with little regard.  indeed, they make it really easy to farm tokens to turn in for gear.  it is so easy in fact, that people have this mentality that if they have emblem vendor gear, they can walk through anything.  This, coupled with the constant heroic run mindset, has cause their alts to think they also outgear the instance because 1) their mains can do it and 2) their gaer is vendor bought heirlooms. 

This is a psychological issue here.  We have come to the point where content is trivialized and nerfed enough to merit no consideration when it comes to leveling.  Any dummy can level.  no seriously.  and im not trying to insult anyone.  but it takes zero skill to level from 1 to 80.  even if it takes someone 6 months to do it, they'll be able to do it.  but when it comes to instances, where cooperation is required and planning is needed, people tend to fail at that more often than not. 

2. out of instances, the druids are cats, the paladins are ret and the warriors are fury. 

These are all DPS telent specs.  but when they enter an instance, the druid turns from cat into bear the paladins put on a shield and the warrior does likewise.  although they have zero talents to help them tank better, they think that adding a shield or going bearform will allow them to tank an instance with ease.  okay, sure at this level they may be able to tank decently.  but as the tanks level up, things will change.  and especially when they are primarily dps  with tanking form/stance (not even tanking spec), they think that somehow they're awesomer and run off into a group of mobs "mass pull the Hobbs way" and die (for Hobbs references, look on youtube and search wowhobbs).

For an opinon on doing multiple roles, please see http://redhawksgaze.blogspot.com/2010/08/rookie-druid-part-3-class-versus-player.html as well.  The person here is talking about switching roles at level 80, but I also think it applies to leveling as well.  especially with druids.  On a tangent, I really don’t think someone should level as  dps all the way to 80, then at 80, switch to healing because that was their whole reason to level up a paladin/druid/shaman/priest in the first place.  if someone's going to learn to heal, at least start at level 60 and heal through all that.  buy the dual talent specialization so you can have to specs to switch between.  don’t level to 80 as a boomkin and switch to tanking or healing.  there are certain skills that all healers should know about their class, and learning it at 80 isnt really the best way to do it.

I am starting to tire of writing this post, so the rest will be rushed together and ended. but you will get the jist of what im trying to convey.

3. Hierloom gear means they cant die.  

A lot of people think that getting heirloom gear makes them uber.  or at least, makes questing and stuff a whole lot easier.  true, it does add a lot to solo play. but in groups, when roles are specific, espcially tanking, it does squat.  Survival? whats that? I have leet dps as bear!  Now my warrior has heirlooms and he tanks decently with them, but he only has two, yes two pieces of heirloom gear.  the mass of mcgowan and the pvp shoulders.  nothing too special about them at all.  so when I see others with heirloom gear, I think to myself, they have an equivalent of the gear they want from the boss, and that’s it.  when I see a bear cancel form and jump back into tauren form, I usually see them holding the heirloom gear with heirloom shoulders.  I feel a little annoyed because I figured this is some guy who's been through this before, so how come he cant figure it out now?

4. They are the star. 

The first two deductions are pretty logical.  The third is quite an assumption.  But this one is pretty stupid, I know.  But what more can you do when the responses to wipes are, "heal?" "you should use greater heal to heal me" "am I that hard to heal?"  This is basically their response. it wasn’t a matter of what happened, or how did this happen, but rather a matter of why didn’t the tank get healed enough. 

So I consider myself a pretty intuitive kinda guy, and am able to cut through all the bullshit questions and cut straight to the point.  because, after all, I know their motives and perspective based on just the response, "heal?"  that tells me right there that they obviously know the problem. but it also tells me that they ignore everything else in their environment.  tanks who do not have situational awareness should not be tanks.  they need to know what happens and they also need to ask questions before jumping to conclusions.  often, they're not even doing their job right in order for me to do my job right.  going out of LOS, pulling too many that requires me to constantly heal them (constantly as in, not a single pause, im always flash healing, always refreshing shield and renew) and not having the ability to grab stray mobs so they don’t attack me.  cos if they attack me, or any other party member, we're losing some dps, and we're gonna lose the party too if the dps cant handle killing the 15 mobs you just pulled.  my mana bar is only so large at this level.  So when I get a response like "heal??" I reply with "tank better."

And this will be my segway into relating this post with Beru's link above, in the beginning of the post.  Here I will have to clarify that I am NOT a prissy healer.  I am just a healer who's not gonna put up with bullshit.  that's basically it.  after several attempts to heal through what the tank (usually a druid, of course) thinks is appropriate, especially since they're in heirlooms and cannot err since they have other level 80s feeding them "on par" gear, I think I am not going to deal with this any more. 

I don’t zone into an instance, check out the tank's gear and then leave if it doesn’t meet my standards.  I zone into the instance, buff everyone up, then drink.  I don’t want to deal with the tank's gear.  why? because I have other and better things to deal with.  I don’t need to be babysitting a tank and schooling him on his gear choices.  then I will have to school him on his tanking performance.  I do because I tanked on all four tanking classes already.  I know the ins and outs of the druid, the deathknight and the pally the most.  the warrior… not so much, but I have tanked half of outlands to know enough about warriors.  but here, in a level 25 dungeon (which used to be 27-30, but nerfed to death so level 23's can run it easily), please know your role.  please know your gearing choices and please know how to tank.  I know we're all learning the class. but I have faith in tanks that they are able to read up on things before the decide to tank.  they should also know that tanking isnt simply about them running into a whole room, pull everyone and then hope the healer can keep them alive.  that's NOT tanking.  that's Hobbs way of pulling.  that's having gear 10 levels above heroic runs.  but when they do that and they're on the same level with the mobs in the instance, it becomes obviously clear to everyone that the tank is stupid.  

And again I say… I've had it.  when things go wrong, im usually the first to point out shit.  I will not be polite.  this is my time they're wasting because they're stupid. and I cant really heal stupid.  I try tho.  but its difficult.  and at least for the first 10 seconds, before my mana depletes, I can heal stupid just fine.  but after that, they're on their own.  I have no trouble dropping group if the tank pulls a room and decides to let half of the stab him in the back (you cannot dodge/block/parry attacks from behind, morons).  I will not heal a tank if he decides to pull half a room and expects me to heal them through it while the dps is trying desparately to dps the mobs down before I go OOM.  I will not heal a tank especially when, after a wipe, he decides to blame me for not keeping him up when he wasn’t doing his job to begin with.  and if the tank cannot mind my mana.  if im drinking and you're pulling?  no.  you're a dead tank.  and when the tank fail to realize that the mobs can actually do other things besides attack, like silence, curse, disorient or whatevers… if the tank cant figure out that he's giving the healer absolutely ZERO leeway to deal with those things, then don’t tank.  I'll drop group if you don’t drop group first.  thanks. im not a prissy healer, mind you.  im just a fed up healer.