Last night

[plonq]

I may as well post an update here while I wait for a massive data transfer to come across from the mainframe.

We ran Arcatraz on the weekend and even though we managed to clear through the end, it went badly. We wiped and wiped again. There were a variety of reasons for that (pulling aggro off the tank, bad class balance, pulling before the priest had mana -- the usual), but even with all of that, a couple of the wipes were because I just couldn't heal through some of the damage spikes landing on the warrior. I was blaming myself for that last part. Obviously I was going to have to revisit my talent balance, gear and mechanics if I planned to play with the big boys.

Around the time we were just wrapping up the painful adventure, the warrior let slip that he was not actually a protection warrior. Really? Gosh, that would have helped, like, only a huge amount. I don't know if he was arms or fury, but in either case he went with the talent balance he chose because playing a protection warrior limits your utility outside of a raid, and it just isn't much fun. For most of the time I've played this character I have been sacrificing fun for effectiveness, only to discover that others no longer seem to share that philosophy.

The next day I specced back to Shadow, and I'm having fun again. atara helped me get exalted with the Mag'har faction last night and I promptly bought myself one of those space goats for a mount! Huzzah!



(Except that mine doesn't have the silly head-armour.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Spaaaaace Gooooooat!

[(Anonymous)]

Spaaaaace Gooooooat!
-Shockwave

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

Devil's advocate here.

I'm 31/5/25 and I tank 5 mans just fine. I offtank Kara fine, and I can DPS on maiden of virtue :D

You don't need to be 41 points in the prot tree to do 5 mans, in fact I had a 15 point in prot fury/prot build for the longest time. I've also been told that my build is the level 70 extension of the mortal strike tank who MTed the world first nefarian kill.

It may be a gear thing for the warrior, unless he's a full DPS warrior. I found tanking challenging until I got my awesome tanking set worked out.

Also remember that arcatraz is a BITCH to tank. I've been there once and it was a wipe fest. I couldn't hold aggro on anything, and I confided in a druid tank friend and he said he has trouble holding aggro in arc, too. Now that I have my 490 defense and more points in prot I'm probably more likely to tank it again, but I have bad, bad memories of that place.

He's basically a DPS warrior

[plonq.livejournal.com]

At least you have 25 points in prot. I checked this guy's spec after the raid, and he's 35/25/1. This spec may work well in the battlegrounds and arenas, but you only MT raids specced this way if you really hate your healers.

Part of it is that I want a bit of a break from being a primary healer - and that Alcatraz raid was the final bit that pushed me over the edge into burn-out. We have no shortage of healers (or potential healers) in the guild, but we were a little short on shadow priests, so I figured I'd swap around my talents for awhile and enjoy the class again.

Re: He's basically a DPS warrior

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

Oh god, yeah. With that spec he should NOT be tanking at all.

I want to go with a DPS spec, but I don't like paying 50g every time I want to tank an instance. It just isn't worth it.

(FYI, so long as I watch my threat with the MT's threat, I can pump out 500-600 DPS in burst damage with only 31 points in arms. I usually do 350-450 on average when soloing. I'm crit heavy)

Re: He's basically a DPS warrior

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

And I realize compared to most DPS that's low, but I could NOT imagine farming 3k gold full prot.

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

You hit exalted in a single night? Tell me more of this Grind Machine Atara. :D

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I started from Revered, actually. I'd made it that far doing all the quests in the zone, but it only took me three evenings this week to grind from the start of Revered to Exalted. Those stacks of beads are worth 500 rep each, and the mobs are worth 10 each. It adds up quick.