So, with the new LFG there have been many many good pugs. There have been very few overall bad ones, but there are a few very...ahem.....gifted individuals who stood out.
The first one that I will mention is the 12 year old Deathtard. Mind you, their DPS was very good. We down the boss in one of the new instances that drops the sexy new melee crit trinket. He loses the roll to an Enhancement Shaman. He WIGS THE FUCK OUT.
" What teh fuk, Shaman dont need armor penetration" (Speaking about the on use perhaps).
Shaman: "Last I checked Armor Penetration is good for any melee class"
Deathtard: "I got played by a fuking pimp. You are a bunch of faggot. FUCK YOU."
*Vote to kick Deathtard has passed*
The second one is a Warrior tank that I ran DTK with. Last I checked, I know a few things about how to play a prot warrior. A few pulls in, he is pulling a paltry 1k dps. I look at recount.....and I look again. Zero Revenge. Zero Heroic Strikes. That is odd.
Me: "Hey tank, do you use Revenge at all?"
Tank: "I haven't used it since BWL".
/FACEPALM
1) Revenge is one of a warrior's best threat and damage abilities.
2) Heroic strike is our rage dump. If you are constantly at full rage you are doing it wrong.
We got through the run ok. Somehow, Shield Slam was only his third highest damage skill. Behind Devastate and Shockwave. I really hope that he was not actually a main tank for a raiding guild. Some people just amaze me.
The third one I wanted to talk about was actually related to me by a pug tank who was actually very good. I got thrown into a random HoR, and the tank starts talking about how he hates tanking this place. I respond that at least he has a sexy tree healing it.
Then he tells me about the last Druid he ran this instance with. The Druid proclaimed himself a "Healing Touch Druid". As in he didnt use hots. He just casted Healing Touch. This has to be a new kind of brain damage. I haven't used Healing Touch without nature's swiftness in like....well EVER. According to the tank, that was the only spell he used. Obviously, the instance did not turn out so well.
If you just want to nuke heal, roll a paladin. Healing Touch is fail.
All three of these three can be found in the wonderful town of Failsville.
16 comments:
I play a mage as a main, and have many alts. One that I love to play is my tree druid, who offspecs as a doomturkey critchicken. Anyway, I get pulled into an HOK run to heal after the first boss is down, some ppl left or whatever. We get to the second boss, and I'm still knocking the rust off my healing, so down goes the DK tank... completely my bad. I throw some hots on the next highest aggro guy and drop a Battle Rez on the tank. Tank comes back up, but in the process, the DPS dies one after the other. So, at this point the boss is maybe at 25% health, I know she's got another one of her lil "summon someone out of the crowd" tricks left. I HoT the tank, pop out of tree form and start spamming wrath, moonfire, anything that does dmg. WTF, wouldnt you know that between HoTing the tank and spamming my dmg spells, in no-hit healer gear, we're able to down the boss. Makes me wonder what the F the DPS guys were even doing. Props to that DK tank, I forget the name. Fail to the healer (me) who got the DPS killed, and fail to the DPS who's absence was only noticed in that it took longer to kill the boss.
Yeah that trinket is really a point of contention. I am a MM hunter and it is better for me then even my Greatness card and I mentioned early in the run that I was rolling on it (since it does proc off of ranged crits) and a rogue flipped out at me. I get that is good for him too but it is also an upgrade for me. Needless to say, he bailed on the group. I have yet to see that drop anyway (and have run the instance EVERY DAY!#$@!#$)
You know, if not for your blog I would probably be the spotlight of various people's fail tank blog posts.
I raid tanked as a Paladin in TBC, took a break from the game when Wrath it, and rolled up a Warrior awhile back. I'm in Northrend now, and with 3.3 specced Prot for the instant-queue goodness.
I've not ever tanked as a DK or Druid, but I can say without question that Warrior tanking is the advanced calculus to Paldin tanking's basic arithmatic.
Once you figure it out, it's not that big of a deal. But had I not read up on it first, I would have had no idea about rage dumping (when over 40 rage, I roll the mousewheel up or down depending on how many mobs are in front of me, thankyouverymuch for that tip). I would have had no idea that just going all out Devastate on mobs for the bonus damage with 5 stacks of Sunder wasn't as effective as using Revenge, or Shield Bash, even when S&B popped.
The situational awareness needed to be a tank I've got from experience, but the class knowhow I totally leeched from your blog.
The reason I'm saying this is to let you know that you have my full permission to link fail tanks to your blog posts on the subject of Warrior tanking.
lol...love this articles...Its good to know that others are experiencing the same thing as I am lol.
I wrote an article today that you will probably find funny that is on the same subject as this one.
Actually, on the prot warrior its not uncommon to use cleave instead of heroic strike to tank. Also since the devastate buff,devastate is the best thing since chocolate on peanut butter.
@ Anonymous:
I also use cleave all the time as I am glyphed for it. However, I still Heroic Strike spam on one target and bosses.
The devastate buff is wonderful, but it should not be your most common used threat ability.
@ Anonymous=But, what if devastate is the best thing since Peanut butter on chocolate? Hmmm?
I am a less fail tank because of Darraxus. I really fail though when a deathtard has their frost presence on the whole instance and refuses to take it off. Nothing like a mob going back and forth because of aggro. Deathtard fail...then he ninjas my tanking boots in Ramps. That dirty whore.
Healing Touch Druid? On ToGC25 Anub'Arak, maybe - is a nice way to manage the debuff in P3. Beyond that - it's retarded.
Maybe I'm just a dps or healer at heart, but I can't figure out tanking to save my life. I've only tried it on my Deathtard, who can't seem to hold aggro when grouped with better geared dps to save his life.
Might try it again on my paladin once I get him fully leveled, but for now, I think I'll stick with healing and dps. Hats off to you tanks! It ain't easy!
@ James: Thanks for the compliment. Glad I could help someone become a better tank.
Actually in a 5man I don't use revenge or heroic strike much either, for my rage dumps I spam cleave.
In 5 mans I run with imp cleave talents and the glyph of cleave meaning that cleave hits single targets harder than heroic strike plus it hits another two.
I use shield slam and devestate a lot and of course thunderclap and shockwave on cooldown.
After a few heroics today my main damage abilities were cleave - shield slam - devestate.
Just to add that on bosses/single target of course I use heroic strike and not cleave
I was in a Failpug with a Deathtard named Deathpain (I shoulda known better just by looking at the name). It was H ToC and he was busy rocking 700dps duel wielding the mighty Peacekeeper's Blade in both hands (ungemmed and unenchanted of course). I asked him why he was DPSing with ungemmed tank swords, he replied that people list weapons on the AH too high and he only has 27g. The party fell apart pretty quickly after that. I have since seen Deathpain organising some impressive trades in /2 such as "WTB [Battered Hilt] 400g pst me" or "WTS [Armor Plated Combat Shotgun] 3K g pst me". I take pity on him, but also marvel at the simplicity of his existence. I often wonder how he co-ordinated his braincells to a point where he could switch on his computer and log into WoW. Or how he even has access to a computer and the interwebs at all.
Great read. The LFG is a mixed blessing. It does save travel time. What kills me is the speed runs. I was in an instance for the first time. No time to buff or anything, it was Bear Tank full speed ahead. I didn't know about "the circle" around the last boss. The Warrior asked if I was retarded... There is no team unity with random PUGs IMO. Hopefully guild runs will be better.
Well, you've probably ran more pugs than me since 3.3 hit but in my dozen runs I haven't hit any snags. Only wiped twice, in the same dungeon, though the rest of the run was successful.
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