Feeling Threatened?

Lately I've been hearing a lot about dps and threat management. There seems to be a theme running through all the podcasts I've been listening to so I thought I'd drop some lines about it.

I have had an opportunity to get a different perspective on the 5 man group. Since Blizz made it very easy to level I know that many folks have had this same opportunity to try something new. Either dps, tank or heals, melee or ranged, we've all gotten to see how the other side lives. Has this changed your perspective? Do you have more or less respect for the job others do in your group?

I have been playing my warlock now for nearly 5 years. When I began I was not a big add-on fan so I shied away from them. I played by feel. What that means to me is that I just began to get an idea of where I was on the threat meter by what I was doing. I knew that if I threw out one more shadowbolt I'd be over the top so I would back off. I got a sense of the feel for the dungeon and the mob I'm hitting and what it would take to peel it off the tank. I knew where my threshold was and it became instinctual, for lack of a better word. I now use quite a few add-ons one of which is Omen. I find I don't look at it very often. Occasionally I glance down to see where I'm at and how quickly my threat is building.

The first thing I do when I join a group is put the tank on focus. That allows me to always see what the tank is focused on. Most mobs are not marked, though some tanks do mark the first target off on occasion. I maintain single target dps. I follow the tanks target and build threat gradually. When that mob is dead I will usually grab the next one the tank does unless he's trying to pull threat off of someone else. My rotation begins with curses before I whip out my larger immolates and conflags. Once I know how the tank is working I may switch it up, or if the instance is something like VH where the targets are fast I might hit mulitple targets, again depending on how the tank is handling threat. If the tank is predisposed to run through the instance mopping the floor with every mob I may convert to AoE damage and bust out SoC, or during certain mob fights like the rock guys in HoS. I have found that pally's tend to do this. They have the ability to hold mob aggro much better than other classes and I can let loose. I get frustrated when I'm in a group where everyone is AoE'ing and its obvious mobs are flying everywhere and yet they don't stop. I don't believe AoE is the best solution in every fight and I don't think it benefits the group unless everyone can handle it.

 
As a prot warrior I don't generally put focus on any one member of the group. I use grid to help me determine if someone else has pulled threat. Being a warrior I don't have a particular rotation but do rely on some basics when first pulling a mob such as TC, SS and Shockwave. My ideal is to get them all into a nice neat package then stun them. I have a nice macro that will grab the next target and throw a few things at him, when I hit the macro again it will grab the next target etc. Being a warrior I don't have as much to throw on the floor to grab their attention so I do have to make sure I'm hitting everything. Cleave comes in handy here too and I tend to use that towards the end of gathering them up as it helps maintain threat and is a good rage dump. My biggest pet peeve as a warrior is AoE. No surprise there huh.




I remember back in the day (here we go) when we used to have the 3 sunder rule. Before everyone used Omen. I have kinda come back to this. Not necessarily waiting for 3 sunders, but waiting a little. Count to 1 or something. I realize that there is no reason to be in such a fired up hurry. Giving the mobs a little time to find the tank more charming than the dps. On both sides I have found that if I relax a little, give it a second, the results are much better. There is no reason for the dps to start banging away right off.

So who is responsible for threat? Everyone. We are all responsible for managing our own threat and for being aware of our threat. How it accumulates, what it takes to build and maintain it and what we need to do to dump it if needed. I see it as a line in the air. The tank is supposed to keep threat, keep that line up as high and as best as possible. This is it, this is the line don't go over it. I am the tank and I have said THIS is the LINE! The dps' job is to down the mob or boss without going above that line. Now we all wish we had uber tanks that could hold a mob just by staring them down. Everybody limbo now.

Reality is that is just not the case. Everyone is different. Not just classes but people. Everyone is at a different level/ability, has different gear, or has a different way of thinking. Everyone has an idea about what is best. How best to build a rotation as a dps or to build threat as a tank. If you think you have the only way you are wrong.

The fact is what I've been hearing and seeing around the interwebs these days about dps, is that they have gone mad. They believe that for a tank to be good they MUST be able to endure everything a dps can through at the mob as fast as possible.

Let me end with a personal experience. In trade chat just last week someone was bragging about how they got kicked out of a group because they continually pulled threat off the tank, and how they must be a great dps, and that tank just sucked. That person thought it was funny that they would be kicked for such a thing, and thought that trade chat would get a good laugh along with them. I was happy to see some people tell this guy he was full of shit and deserved to be kicked. So I know there are others out there who know what their jobs are. The problem is, they seem to be few and far between these days. Apparently that huntard that had no idea what he was doing in BRD is now in tier 9 and trolling LFG.

PTSD 3.3 and WTF Have You Been?

So, where have I been what have I been doing? So much and its been way too long to enumerate.

I'd like to start with 3.3. A little late (ok a lot late) but there has been so much going on it's crazy.

I haven't done ICC raid but have done the 5 mans both on my lock and on my warrior. I am not to crazy about them. Mostly because everyone just zips through. It wasn't until the 3rd or 4th time in I actually had an opportunity to see/listen to Jaina and try to decipher what we were supposed to be doing. I think the dungeons are nifty in appearance but really lack some content. All 3 put together would make a great dungeon. Separate they drive me batty. 2 bosses and some crazy mobs. Lots of casters which suck for a warrior tank mind you. Not impossible but not easy to round up either. PoS is the most interesting. That was until everyone found the easy way to bypass most of the mobs and run through it. Sheesh. Folks slow down a little, would it fucking kill you?
I have heard a lot about the portion of the raids that are open from the podcasts I listen to. I'm afraid I have not experienced any of it. Sad to say.

My big gripe is the LFG system. Really thats where all my crankiness comes from. I have been in so many groups where they can't even say hello. I have been in so many groups where people were just asshats. I'm tired of hearing about gearscore and I'm tired of badges. I'm tired of looking like everyone else in Dalaran too. I ran my ass off the first couple of weeks and both my toons have pretty much tier 9 gear or equivalent. I think it wore me out. I got so excited about being able to run from dungeon to dungeon and getting badges and titles and pets that when I stopped to look around I realized I was missing the game. I wasn't playing anymore I was racing. When I stopped to take stock of what was going on it just pissed me off. Realizing that these random groups didn't even speak to each other was just making me more angry. Here we are in a social game and we can't even stop to say hello to the real people we're playing with. I don't think the LFG did anyone any favors.

So I took some time away from my mains. In fact I took some time away from my faction. I have some hidden Horde on another server. Ok so before you say I'm a traitor...I have heard said many times that if you just play one side you are missing half the game. My intent was to at least see what is going on on the other side. I do take issue with having Horde and Alliance toons on the same server, and I have no toon space left on Kael'Thas anyway, so my horde are all relegated to another server. My highest toon is now 55. I don't spend oodles of time there but since I have such an interest in the lore I thought it was a good idea to see how the other half live.

Between getting back to "playing" the game and the holidays and being sick AND the great washer fiasco of 2010 I just found it best to step back from everything and take a break from the "race" I was in.

Lately, I have found that I get on and do my thing. Daily JC, farming, cloth CD's etc. Do a daily H on Zab and Moon, or try to, and get back to playing my way and enjoying the game.

I do have to say that I'm liking the new gear though *smirk*. It wasn't all a waste.  lol

Tanked

I finally got up the nerve to do a Random H LFG PuG on my warrior.  I have realized that the fear of screwing up is keeping me from doing it. So I just decided to hit the button last night and give in and just do it (doo eeet!).  After I got passed the initial "oh shit! I'm tanking" syndrome it was fine.  Nice easy H VH, no wipes. I wasn't the greatest because I was more worried than paying attention, and there were definite times when the group saved my ass but I did it. Or more to the point I DID IT!!
I know what I'm doing I just can't get past the fact that I don't want to deal with people telling me I suck or something. Even though I really don't.

I visited Tankspot.com and picked up some hints from their prot warrior guide.  I backed out my view all the way which is weird for me, and set up vigilance and intervene with clique so I'd actually USE them and low and behold I'm making a better tank of myself for it.  Thank You Areidan where ever you are. Even those few tips about situational awareness helped.  One baby step at a time right :)

Where I Came From

Introductions are in order here I think. I began playing WoW about 5 or 6 months before Burning Crusade came out. I hit 60 almost exactly 30 days before its release. I can't remember when that was, I think July 2006. At least that sounds right. which means I'm going on 4 years.
I was down, very down in the bottom of the dredges of the dumps. I was going through a nasty time in my marriage and was simply not a happy person. A very good friend of mine had been playing and invited me to her house where she pulled up World of Warcraft, loaded up her toon and said here, sit down. I now realize she was in Tanaris and even what quest she was doing at the time (yes I'm crazy, see previous post plz). She was in Gadgetzan and she got on her mount and said pulled up the map and pointed. "We're going here" she said. She showed me how to steer and told me to head in that direction and just don't run into any monsters. That was it, that's all it took. She let me make a character on her account and play around for maybe half an hour or so. In the process I saw this wonderous thing! A flaming horse! That was how I decided to play a Warlock. It was all about the flaming horse, lol. I think within the next 2 days I had bought and installed the game.
I got her on the phone and she helped me through the installation and got me on the correct realm. I joined the guild at level 1. She trotted down to Elwynn Forest and gave me 3 gold for training and I was off and never looked back.
You must understand, I have always loved video games but never played an MMO before. I am a bit (she would laugh at "bit") of a co-dependent, and for me to go out and just buy a video game with a huge commitment like a monthly subscription without first talking to my husband was unusual for me. Quite unusual. I needed something that was mine. That I enjoyed doing by myself but could still interact with others. Something I started on my own. It was awesome. I had control, I had power, I had autonomy. I could take out my agression on small animals! lol
I made wonderful friends and some not so wonderful friends. You know how WoW is, just like life its full of every kind. I think I found them all at one time or another.
Zab was my first toon I rolled that day and I've not had another main. Loved her from the minute I created her, not knowing a damn thing about warlocks. She wears a permanent scowl. A fine testament to her moment of creation I think. And she forever represents to me the unyielding, fiery, I'm gonna kick some butt mentality I couldn't find anywhere else in my life at the time.
I loved leveling and still do. I take my time, I read the quests and I go out on my own and seek adventure. I love it. To this day I love taking a new toon and just leveling by myself. This is my altoholic hook. It sounds very RP to me, but to wander out into this world and look around is the most facinating and riveting part of the game.
Needless to say this little game I was playing didn't go unnoticed by my husband. I think he started playing when I was around level 25. He went out and bought and installed it. He didn't want to join the guild. In fact he had a hard time with the game. I found it so easy and it just made sense to me. He fought it. We didn't play much together then. He got a toon to 50-something I think. She did eventually join the guild too. One day he lost it, deleted his toons and uninstalled the game. Ok no biggie. We didn't play together so to speak. We would play at the same time in the same room, but rarely did we group or play together. I kept playing. hahaha! I wouldn't give up my new addiction.
He returned to WoW not long after. Maybe a month or so. We started playing together. We made Draenei and leveled together. Now, years later we are happier than we've ever been with each other. WoW didn't have anything to do with it. That was therapy lol. So no, this isn't a WoW brought us together story. We now have a few toons, some are dedicated to playing together only. We've swapped a few and have created new duo's. The last was my warrior and his priest. We put them together about level 77 and hit 80 together and have been having a blast. We are a perfect set and can get an instance in a heartbeat with that team. It rocks.
I have a gazillion alts both horde and alliance now. I don't have them on the same server, it doesn't feel right to me. LOL. Yes you'd think I'd be on an RP server with all that talk.
My first love, Zabine, is still my favorite. I have a unique affinity with her I think. Born out of a bad time in my life she kept me going, along with all the wonderful people in-game that have lent me an ear and a shoulder over the last few years.
Yea I guess it's a bit sappy, but thats me :)
I am now the guild master of the very guild I joined at level 1. I think that is a great accomplishment these days and a testament to my friends and the guild they began. On several occasions I have thought of moving her on. We are not big time raiders. We raid 1 night a week and it is currently spent in OS, Nax and an occasional try at some others. We aren't great but we have fun. There are times I hook up with friends and run larger raids. I have the gear and sometimes I yearn for the challenge.  In the end I will never pull her out of KG. Even if I relinquish the Leader spot, which I've also contemplated, I don't think I could move her out. I am far too committed and too co-dependent. But then, we've established that.

So much to say, so little time.

Over the last week or so I've come up with so many topics I wanted to discuss and haven't gotten here to post them that I'm lost for what to write about. I get stuck in wondering if I would have anything useful to say. My strong suit in WoW seems to be my unwavering memory. I have an uncanny ability to remember quest chains, locations, names of cities, towns and flightpoints and other useless information. Well, ok. Not useless. Perhaps useless here in a blog but definitely not in-game. If you need an answer on how to find something I can usually spout it off in chat without missing a beat. Many times I'm concerned that I come off as a know-it-all. Recently I have tried to slow down my responses and give others a chance to speak up. Then I notice an great uncomfortable silence in gchat and I am back to my old ways, expounding on the many different places you can go and how you can get there. Giving names, times, flight paths and in some cases NPC's.
The question is, how does that help me here? It doesn't at all. Unless I'm going to start taking questions from people (highly unlikely), I don't feel I have a bunch of information to contribute in this format.
Lately though I have found that this interesting yet annoying memory of mine has come into play in a terrific way. I have started tanking a bit more with my warrior. Remembering all the encounters and pulls has come in quite handy. Perhaps I've found a new niche in the game hmmm?
On that note lets start there. My warrior. Hmmmm....I feel I should step back and talk about my main here too. See, I'm just a crazy person when it comes to topics. Easily distracted...oh look something shiny!