Sacred Duty

Dear Ninja Disconnect Druid Tank Guy,

I know its not your fault.  Your hands must have a mind of their own.  They just wandered over to the Ctrl+Alt+Del buttons and hit End Task on the Task Manager.  Or maybe  they just unplugged the network cable from your computer.

I kinda felt sad for you and could almost predict this was gonna happened when your hands typed to me in a whisper, “Are you going to roll on Furnace Stone?  Its a really big upgrade for me!”  Of course, I responded that I would roll on it, which probably made them a little jumpy, but hey, there was still a chance your hands would /roll a high number.  They still seemed to excited about the prospect because they incessantly linked the item in raid chat for all to see.  “Look how awesome this trinket is!”

But, alas, the Furnace Stone did not drop and we moved on to Auriaya.  I could almost hear the pitter pat of your hands on the keyboard while they searched wowhead.com for druid loot from this boss during the pull in which they forgot to hit the taunt button, thus killing our DK that pulled and wiping the raid.

I think it was during the second wipe, in which only one thing went wrong, that they realized there isn’t any good drops for the druid tank and decided to pull the patented ninja disconnect.  I know this happened, because it happens all the time.  You are not the only one to suffer from this affliction.

Don’t worry, its not all your hands fault.  I think you can probably blame your balls for not being big enough to instruct your mouth to announce to the raid, “Hey guys, I have to go, sorry.” Instead, we all waited for 10 minutes for you to come back from your mysterious disconnect.

Chin up Ninja Disconnect Druid Tank Guy, its only a game.  The worst thing that can happen to you is that you are put on ignore lists as an “unreliable, loot whore“.  No big deal.

Sincerely,

Galyan

Most times when I look at hit rating on my paladin and think, “I don’t really need to do anything about this.  It will come with my gear.”  Then there are times like last night when I wish I would have focused more on it.

The Four Horseman encounter in Naxx requires the two tanks in the front of the room to swap each other’s targets after 3 stacks of the debuff the boss puts on raid members in range.  This strategy prevents the debuff from getting too high and causing a wipe.  The tank swap is a simple procedure.  All you have to do is run toward the other tank, taunt their mob and run back to your original position.  Easy right?

Well, I seem to have all sorts of trouble with this due to my taunts missing.  I guess the RNG just hates me.  I walked into last night’s Naxx run with 6.44% spell hit.  The cap is 17%.  So the chance that my taunt will miss is 10.56%.  Add Heroic Presence from the Draenei in our raid and that goes down to 9.56%.  I figure in most cases this is good enough.  Well, in the 4H encounter I always seem to miss my taunt.  For example, last night my taunt missed on the first switch.  Several weeks ago, my taunt missed 3 switches in a row!

Well, I believe there are several things I can do about this, and maybe you can comment on which one would be best.

Option #1 – Use Righteous Defense. Currently I use Hand of Reckoning to make the switch and if it fails, I fall back on RD.  This causes an issue where if RD is needed, I need to call out for the other tank to re-taunt due to RD’s AoE taunt effect.  This is annoying and can cause a taunt immune, which is a raid wipe.  However, if I change this to using RD first and HoR as a backup, it just might work.  I would need to communicate with the other tank so he knows to use his taunt after I use mine, thus eliminating the need for a re-taunt.  This leaves me with my single target taunt as a backup.

Option #2 – Option #1 + Glyph of Righteous Defense. Not only will this get the benefits of option #1, but will up the hit chance of my first taunt.  In the scenario I mentioned above, my miss chance for RD would be 1.56%.  I would hardly ever have to use a backup taunt in this case.  The only drawback of this option is that I would have to replace one of my current glyphs (GoSV, GoHR, or GoDP).

Option #3 – Elixir of Accuracy and Snapper Extreme. Combining these two consumable buffs would get my chance to miss down to 6.5% in the example I mentioned above.  This may be an acceptable risk and would still allow me to keep my glyphs the way they are and still use my single target taunt as primary.

Option #4 – Come up with more vile and heinous things to yell at the boss. I may have to do a little research on each boss just so I know the perfect thing to say to really piss them off.

I am currently leaning to option #3.  It seems to have the most gain with the least amount of effort.  What would you do?

My guild, Chivalry, is not a raiding guild.  Most of our members join because of the friendly atmosphere, laid back feel and the idea that they can play how they want to without any guild pressure.  I guess you could say that Chivalry encourages people to “play how you want to play”.

Luckily for me, this fits my style perfectly.  I like to farm materials for my professions, pursue achievements, level alts and raid.  My play time is not consistent and the guild does not make any of these activities (especially raiding) mandatory.  I do however make most raiding nights and so do quite a few other players.  I think we have a very good group of core raiders and our raids are usually very professional and focused.  We set a three hour time limit on Tuesday nights and get through as much content as possible without the drama and fraying nerves.

Our loot system is Suicide Kings.  SK works perfectly for our runs and there has never been any drama associated with it.  I have heard horror stories about players exploiting this system by only “rolling” on items that others need because they know that the items they really want will be their’s because they are the only one’s eligible.  I have also heard some players working together to increase their chances at a particular item.  This does not happen in Chivalry.  Our recruiting focuses on the player and we hardly ever get someone with the personality type to exploit our guild and its rules.

The reason I bring this all up is because we typically only run 1 raid a week (sometimes 2).  We cannot clear a whole raid instance in 1 night (like Naxx) so we almost always leave bosses up that we can totally conquer if we had more time.  I know that I and quite a few other raiders in our guild would love to take on the rest of the raid instance on a second night.  However, due the casual nature of the guild, we can’t really fill a second night.

I have recently been pondering the idea of filling our last few raid spots on night 2 with PuGs.  We have our rules all laid out and would pre-screen the new raiders, but I am having trouble figuring out how to do loot fairly.  I would still like to use SK for loot since most of the raid will be guildies.  I think it would be unfair to them to switch to a random roll for night 2, especially if they have been saving their loot position for a certain item.  I also understand that the PuGs will need to be inserted into the system somehow so it is fair for them as well, but I can’t seem to figure out how.  I have googled relentlessly on solutions to this problem but have been unable to find a really good solution.

So, I guess I am asking you, my readers, what would be a good way to handle this?  I want to give our guild’s raiders the opportunity to progress further and get better loot, but I also want to be fair to the PuGs that fill our empty spots.  Please keep in mind that I want to use SK, so any suggestions you have about inserting PuGs into it would be very welcome.

In a previous post, I made fun of the T9 2 piece set bonus.  Well, now it seems my mockery was premature.  It has been changed to:

Paladin T9 Tank 2P Bonus – Decreases the cooldown on your Hand of Reckoning ability by -2.0 sec.

This bonus is much better than the previously stated 2 second reduction on Righteous Defense.  I think myself and most other paladins prefer to use Hand of Reckoning over Righteous Defense since it is a single target taunt.  RD can make mob swapping between tanks pretty interesting sometimes, but is a good backup taunt.

The 4 piece bonus was clarified somewhat:

Paladin T9 Tank 4P Bonus – Decreases the cooldown on your Divine Protection ability and reduces the duration of Forbearance by -30.0 sec.

I think the biggest question about this bonus was answered.  Now that the forbearance terminology was added, it seems that this is a definate 1.5 minute cooldown on Divine Protection, which is all kinds of hawt!

As promised, a Scholazaar Mining guide.  Here you go:

Don’t.  Mine in Icecrown instead.

Thank you, good night.

There has been a lot of blogging going on about the upcoming Emblem changes in patch 3.2.  You can read some of the opinions here and here.  Here is my official take on the changes, with a real world metaphor.

Let’s say you are hiring for a CFO position and you have three candidates you are interviewing for the job.  All three candidates walk into the interview with the same suit, same briefcase and the same resume.  Each of the interviews go as follows:

Candidate #1

This candidate boasts about his ability to handle the conditions of the job and cites past experiences to back it up.  He touts his great looking suit and his ability to accessorize his wardrobe.  He also shows that he is never late and always prepared for work.  You check his references and find that everything he said was true and that he is an exceptional worker.  You also find that he has done well for himself and did not need any help, sans his team to get where he is today.

Candidate #2

This candidate boasts about his ability to handle the conditions of the job, the same as the first but stumbles a bit on backing it up.  He touts his great looking suit and his ability to accessorize his wardrobe.  He dodges the questions about his attendance record and work ethic.  Upon, checking his references, you find that he only has some of the qualifications for the job and sometimes has attendance issues at work.  You also find that he recently got a small gift from Uncle Blizzard to look good for his interview.

Candidate #3

This candidate shows up late to the interview and asks to have his parking validated.  The little time you have with him, he touts his great looking suit but his watch is just terrible.  You ask about his attendance and work ethic and before you can finish the question, he has to leave because his Mom is calling.  Upon checking his references, you find that he has never held down a job past McDonald’s and he got fired from there because of all the “no call, no shows”.  You also find that his Uncle Blizzard left him a pretty hefty gift to prepare for the interview.

Which candidate would you hire?

In this real world metaphor you are the raid leader/guild officer, candidate #1 is the hardcore raider, #2 is the casual raider and #3 is just plain casual.  This is my way of showing everyone that the new badge changes will not diminish the accomplishments and desirability of candidate #1, but will only bring the weaknesses of #2 and #3 under more scrutiny.  Gear (or suit) does not make a quality player.  It is their team dedication, past achievements and work ethic that really set them apart.  So, if you are upset about these changes, just relax, everything will work itself out in the end.

By the way, I am probably most identified with candidate #2 minus the attendance issues.  Half my suit will be a gift from Uncle Blizzard, the other half will be earned from hard work.  Also, I am damned good at accessorizing.  I am not dedicated enough to the game to have the accomplishments of candidate #1.  Which candidate are you?

I saw this on WoW.com today and thought I would quickly share my thoughts.

Tier 9 2 piece set bonus: Decreases the cooldown on your Righteous Defense ability by 2 sec.

Sweet!  A 2 second decrease on a spell I hardly ever use.  Thats just what I was looking for!  /sarcasm

Tier 9 4 piece set bonus: Decreases the cooldown on your Divine Protection ability by 30 sec.

Wow! This is really cool!  No sarcasm this time.  This effectively puts DP on a 90 second cooldown.  Paladin cooldown buffs in 3.2 FTW!

Libram: Each time you use your Hammer of The Righteous ability, you have a chance to gain 200 dodge rating for 18 sec.

Woot!  I love the proc on this libram.  That is a pretty significant dodge increase.  Now, I am not gonna get too excited, since there is no information on the internal cooldown, but I still like it.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I joined an Ulduar pick up group (PuG) this weekend.  Being a PuG, my expectations were not high.  Factor in the fact that I (the Main Tank) was mildly intoxicated and it was 2 AM and you have a recipe for disaster.

Well, I realized that I got into a group with pro players thanks to Ereidivh of Chivalry!  Gear checks FTW.  Everyone knew their class well and most of the encounters.  When we faced something new, everyone was very quick to pick up the nuances and adjust, making for very few wipes.  I was also able to tank through the Guiness induced haze that was upsetting my vision and judgement.

We faced 4 new bosses that I had not see yet in my guild runs.  We managed to down 3 of them and they were so much fun.

Ignis

As the main tank, movement on this fight is the key.  My tanking method was to kite Ingis around to 4 different spots, each bordering the pools on either side of the room.  As I was doing this, I made sure he wasn’t facing the pools so as to keep his charred earth effect on land (the pools will extinguish it).  I got this down on the first pull because, honestly, it was easy.  Main tanking is easy most of the time, but that is for another post.

After wiping a few times due to being overwhelmed by constructs, I finally started helping out on them when the off-tank was in the slag pot.  I would just hold them until he could get out and taunt them off.  The third try was the charm as we killed him with no deaths.

Assembly of Iron

We jumped right to Iron Council after Ignis and decided to take them out Steelbreaker first and Brundir last.  I was assigned to tank Steelbreaker and baiscally caused the first wipe because I ate a Fusion Punch while he was standing in a Rune of Power.  It was unlucky really because the rune of power was placed under him 0.5 seconds before he used Fusion Punch.

The only other attempts we made, I only had to move him out of the Rune of Power once.  I guess you could say the RNG was nice to me.  After Steelbreaker was down, I taunted Molgeim and we burned him down.  It was pretty easy to avoid his Rune of Death so this part was cake.

After Molgeim went down, we finished off Brundir.  They raid did a great job of interrupting his Lightning Whirl and getting out of Overload and Lightning Tendrils.

The Assembly of Iron was down after 3 attempts.  One thing to note is our healers had to heal through the Lightning whirl mostly since we had a bear tank on Brundir the whole time.  Great job healers!

Freya

First of all, I love the fact that Freya has mini-bosses.  The extra emblem drops were welcome and will allow me to get my new boots sooner.

Freya herself was quite complicated for our group.  During the wipe, we had a few issues with taking down Eonar’s Gift and it kept healing the adds.  We eventually got overwhelmed and died.

The second and third attempt, we simply could not down the Elemental Adds at the same time so they respawned and eventually overwhelmed us again.

The fourth attempt is when everything came together.  We were able to handle the adds like pros and get to phase 2, which is pretty easy.

During the fight, I was assigned to off-tanking the adds, which is difficult but really is where the pally class shines.  I loved the challenge and rounded up as much as possible.

After Freya was dead, I rolled a 100 on the T8 gloves.  Hax!

Hodir

We came back the next night to try Hodir, since most of us had not a lick of Frost Resist gear the night before.  I built up a 3 piece set and was sporting 417 resist with the aura up.

I tanked Hodir at first without really moving him.  I had no idea about what each of the runes did on the ground and what the spotlight effects were for.  All I knew was to keep moving to prevent a stacking debuff.  I have to admit, I was not prepared for the fight.

After the 3rd wipe, I took a break to watch the TankSpot video.  I realized, that I should be moving the boss around to keep myself and the melee DPS out of the falling snow and to give the melee DPS and opportunity to stand in the spotlights for the haste buff.  I also realized that even though I had frost resist on, I should be blowing trinkets and cooldowns for Frozen Blows.

We managed to get Hodir to 60%, but decided to call it since no-one besides the tanks was wearing any resist gear and the healers were just plain having a hard time keeping everyone up.

Chivalry plans to make attempts at Hodir and Freya tonight so I am glad I had the opportunity to see these bosses and hope it gives us a higher chance for success!

I was reading Kyrilean’s and Larisa’s rants today about the news of a group players using their skill and intelligence to down Flame Leviathan with 4 players.  From what we can tell, there were no shenanigans by the players just straight up awesome use of the available tools that the game gives us.  They were ultimately banned, with one being permanent.  This got me thinking that I should probably be banned as well.  My list is quite long and will continue to get longer until I do get banned, because I like to push the limits of my skill (How dare I!?!).  Here is what I have done wrong:

1. I successfully killed several bosses in MC at level 60 with 25 people in the raid.
2. I successfully killed Onyxia at level 60 with 30 people in the raid.
3. While leveling in Zangarmarsh, I did group quests by myself.
4. I 2-manned some of the 5-man group quests in Icecrown.
5. I solo’d some of the 5-man group quests in Icecrown.
6. I did all of the group quests in Northrend with less than the intended amount of players.
7. I 9-manned OS10.
8. I used the stand in the doorway “exploit” on Prince Malchezaar.
9. I have 3 or 4 manned a 5 man instance at the appropriate level (Can’t count how many times, I’ve done this.)
10. Tanked Xt-002 between trash piles on the sides to reduce the number of adds.
11. I have solo’d Onyxia.

This list will continue to get longer as I remember more terrible things I have done to exploit this game.  Why don’t you guys chime in on the fucked up shit you have done.  I would love to hear it!

Sincerely,

The Cheating Bastard, Galyan

Last night I joined an Ulduar 10 PuG at about 1AM EST.  I just got home from the bar and was not exactly at the top of my game.  After filling the pug we rolled in (literally) and downed FL, XT and Razor in quick succession.  Kologarn (or Lologarn as I call him)  took us a few tries but was downed pretty quickly.  I love this guy because he drops 3 pieces of tank loot and last night the RNG was good to me as this and this dropped from his chest.  Our DK won the roll on the neck and I won the roll on the weapon.  Hooray!  I am now sporting a new sword:

I echanted this puppy with this and equipped my defense trinket to stay defense capped.  I am super happy!