Riding the Pony Express...

The title made more sense in my head...

While I'm at work, I spend a portion of my time (or a good portion of my time, depending on the way they schedule appointments. Stupid work.) on the game.

I can't instance (having to go randomly AFK immediately tends to make groups go WTF?), so that leaves doing dailies, farming or leveling.

I've dailied myself out. Farming has never been my favorite chore (though the other day I did spend 2 hours farming! I wanted to tear my head off by the end of the last stack of Saronite..).

Now leveling on the other hand. I like the leveling game. I bet you couldn't tell that.

I've a few characters I can't level without Boon because I made a solemn promise I wouldn't (and that explains why my poor little mage is still sitting in Zangarmarsh!) but there are a few that aren't linked to any of his. And those... well, I TRY to pace myself because they have to last until the next expansion... I try, really I do!

Keiji, my death knight, has hit level 77. She is currently unholy and I have intentions on seeing if I can be an unholy tank.

Until the point in time when I decide to go instancing though, I've been leveling relatively slowly. I think she was 70? last week sometime. The way I've been doing this is I'm making sure to finish all the quests in the zone before I leave it. It's not optimal for leveling efficiency, but this way I'm forced to spend a little more time running around in a zone. So far, I've finished Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Dragonblight and the Grizzly Hills. My next step is into Zul'Drak. I'd like to get some instancing done, but I think I'll go in as DPS, considering it was just this last week I decided to be a tank with Keiji, thus I have limited tanking gear (and am not specced quite appropriately just yet).

I have a lot of work to do on her (yay!) in terms of figuring out gear, rotation, and all that fun fun stuff. :)

The bear dinged 72 whilst tanking Utgarde Keep today. I wasn't intending on leveling her, as she's paired with Isabeaux the Mage, but hey, the guild needed a tank for a run. What is a bear to do? Besides that thing we do in the woods.

The Bear is Back

(Contrary to popular (ie: Boon) belief, the following is not a squirrel.)


With Karika and Kvasira both sitting pretty at 80, my altisms has flared again. And Kathe is the winnar! I figured, with one DPS (Ret4eva!) and one healer, I really should level a tank.

And whom better to level than the lovable bear, sometimes-kitty, Kathe!



That's original artwork, done by me! I tried once to color it, in a photoshop thing. Still playing with it.

So, Kathe and Dhark-now-Moonkata (who knew beneath that masculine NElf exterior there was a slender female NElf just waiting to get free!) will be questing together in the Borean Tundra. We've done the Howling Fjord quests twice now, so we're due for a change of pace.

Of course, we would take two leather wearers who are both herbalists to play together... we're smart that way.

So hopefully more fun bear-tank exploits will follow.

The first thing I did? Besides sell all my blechy-healing gear?

Upgraded all my Solid Stars of Elune with Solid Chalcedonies and Delicate Bloodstones and some other 'grinding my JC up' gems.

Yeesh.

Hurricane + Barkskin = Druid AoE Tanking

So, my fangirl squeal the other day was due to BBB answering a question I had on the proper use of Hurricane for a druid tank.

I've read somewhere, probably on a BBB post or article somewhere, about the use of hurricane. The very few times I've run with another druid tank, I've seen them use hurricane. In very specific situations, true, but it was used.

Healers need to be prepared when a bear does this, because instead of lots and lots of health and lots and lots of armor, I have baby health and pitiful armor. Still uncrittable, but still taking more damage than they are used to! Granted, 20% less than otherwise due to barksin, but still more.

However, the benefits of Hurricane outweigh the negative of additional healer stress! At least in my opinion and the opinion of other bear tanks who use this method for threat generation.

Now, my take on Hurricane with nonelites is to use it until Barkskin runs out then shift to bear form (with the caveat that I have a hand hovering over the bear button in case the healers start to fall behind for some reason). This way I get the most out of my spell and barkskin. Bears don't have threat mitigation (especially not for their spells!), so this is a really nice way to get a lot of threat on a lot of mobs all at once and unless we have Uber-Lock or Insane-Mage in the group, even once the DPS open up, they tend to STAY on the tank. It may not do a ton of damage, but it gets the threat and that's what is important.

When a bear tank is AoE tanking without the use of hurricane (like say in a 3 or 4 elite situation...)... it's a lesson in swiftly targetting things, knowing what to hit to build the highest threat, and how to keep everything on you instead of the healer, and how to keep the current 'kill target' on you when all your DPS are throwing the kitchen sink at it. And often, with the eager beavers that all DPS are (MUST OUT DPS EVERYTHING!), you'll lose the main target when it's barely halfway dead. And the choice becomes - can the DPS kill it before it kills them and I don't have to go pick it back up, or do I need to go save their asses?

Me being me, I'll often let it go and start sinking threat on the second mob. Hey... if you want the aggro, you better be able to take the hit or kill it before it hits you. It's the strategy I use when I'm warlocking! If I don't want the aggro, I watch Omen. If it isn't important, I just have fun. And take my lumps if I die.

AoE Bear tanking is fun, exhilirating and a massive headache!

Now to quote my email!

"Remember, the key reason a bear tank uses Barkskin/Hurricane is to generate threat on many multiple mobs to enable other classes to DPS/AOE without pulling aggro to them, especially healers. As such, you will be taking hits from all affected mobs, so it pays to use it only on non-elite groups.

As an aside, I have used it on 4-pull elites myself to generate initial threat, and was kept alive by a very good healer, but I was the only person doing AOE, and as soon as I shifted to bear one add was trapped, so it can be done, but BOY do you have to watch your health.

Having all your Druids do it just after you, especially Moonkins, also helps prevent squishie healers from pulling aggro and dying. Moonkins have some truly awesome tanking power, much better if they be the ones to inadvertantly pull aggro.

So get a jump on damage, make sure your other healers and DPS let you get a jump on generating the threat before they unload on 'em, and be prepared to shift to bear and Swipe, Swipe, Swipe as soon as your Hurricane runs out." -- BBB

Rawr Tank

Gauntlets of Malorne and Tameless Breeches are now mine.

Rawr.

The Merits of Gear

It has been the frustration of many a tanking druid that we seem to be s.o.l. for leather tanking gear, outside of 25 mans. Karazhan only has two T4 pieces for us.

Heavy Clefthoof only gets you so far.

Heroic drops only get you so far.

You'd have to run badge run after badge run in Karazhan and heroics to get the super-awesome-omg-I-love-you badge reward gear. Which is well worth doing and should be done.

But until then, I decided to plug my holes with PvP gear.

The nice thing about druid tanks is that we're the only tanking class where resilience works as well as defense... especially since not a lot of leather pieces have defense on it. :P We can't block or parry, so we dodge like Neo. And we can reach uncrittableness either through 415 defense(with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest) or 100 resilience... or some combination thereof.

But some of the pieces we need... like our T4 pieces, can only be found in 25 mans. Which makes your average, ordinary druid s.o.l.

Now, don't get me wrong, you can get very nice drops in Karazhan, without any badge pieces or other heroic gear. Helmet, gloves, neck piece, cloak, rings, trinket and boots.

Heroic pieces of note: Tree-Mender's Belt from H.Ramps
Barkchip Boots from H.UB
Feral Staff of Lashing from H.Bot -- if you're still struggling with defense and armor however, Earthwarden is still the weapon of choice.
Forestwalker Kilt from H.MT
Forestheart Bracers from H.Shattered Halls
Cloak of Blade Turning from H.MrT
Commendation of Kael'Thas from H.Dead Mines (what... shut up. He could be there. They brunch on Tuesdays.)
Yor's Revenge and Nexus Prince's Ring of Balance from a quest to summon Yor in H.MT

Crafted pieces of note:
Boots of Natural Grace is a BoP LW recipe.
Belt of Natural Power is a BoE LW recipe.
Resolute Cape is a BoE Tailoring recipe.
Hard Khorium Band and Hard Khorium Choker are BoE JC recipes.
Figurine - Empyrean Tortoise is a BoP JC recipe.

Everything else... is 25 man or PvP gear.

So, in my quest to finally get out of the Heavy Clefthoof Leather I've been wearing 4eva! I've been badge running Kara and heroics and PvPing until my eyes have bled and my admittedly limited patience for PvP has completely disappeared.

But, I was shocked and horrified to discover that my "upgrades" from PvPing ... were almost downgrades! Actually, in one case, it was!

The Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide Leggings have a lot less armor and a lot less stamina than Heavy Clefthoof Leggings. A lot less stamina because if you figure that you're gemming Solid Star of Elune's in two of the three spaces, that's .. a lot less stamina. Or even in all three. Or if you were crazy enough to socket Solid Empyean Sapphire or Eye of the Sea.

However, the Tameless Breeches, given that they're 100 badge piece rewards, are a much bigger upgrade than both.

So what's the problem, I hear you say. Just get the breeches. The problem is that I was PvPing to get the PvP pants, figuring they were better without actually checking. Because I can sometimes be an idiot.

So I go looking.. I have all this honor to buy something, and only 92 badges (so close to 100 piece.. must... instance... arrrgh!). So I can't get both the breeches and the Embrace of Everlasting Prowess that I was wanting to get.

However, the Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic, while not as good in terms of armor as the Heavy Clefthoof Vest is clearly an upgrade in all other attributes.

So I bought that, and have changed from planning on buying the 100 badge chest piece to planning on buying the 100 badge leg piece. Once I get 8 more badges.

And then I get to start badge-collecting.. all.. over.. again.

Netherspite down!

As those who follow the drama that is the Knights of Utopia, you may have noted that while we get Attumen to Prince on farm, the dragons continually give us issues.

Last night, after some shuffling of ranks, we hit Karazhan running with two PuGgers (one of whom isn't really a pugger, but rather a good friend returning!). We got a bit of a late start due to my being late home and us shuffling people around and finding our last few people... but we cleared Attumen to Prince AND Netherspite by 11:30pm.

Our lineup? Of this I was most proud. Kathe was tapped for Main Tank. It was my first time tanking Prince (not to mention the dragon). I was kind of nervous. We did the movable fight. Keeping my back to the wall while trying to move left during a bad infernal placement... sucks when you're a bear.

No really. It does. S-U-C-K-S!

Anyway... Morphos was our OT and spent his nontanking moments DPSing as a kitty cat. (The rationale behind him being OT/DPS and me being MT is that Morphos is a MUCH better DPSer than I am in kitty form, whereas in our tanking gear, I think we were ROUGHLY equivalent (health about the same, his dodge is higher). His gear is better, but...)

Morphos is an old guildy from way back in the day that left to have some RL time with his family. He's recently come back. Thus far, he has avoided our attempts to kidnap him and make him talk sexy to us... erm, I mean, come back to KoU, but that didn't stop him from saying, 'Sure, I'll come to Kara with you guys!' and talk sexy to us in Ventrilo.

He's got this accent... it's like Antonio Banderas, only I'm never going to really hear Antonio Banderas, but I can hear Morphos. *drool*

We pugged a shadow priest, Katsua (which is apparently not really her name, because I can't find it on wow-heroes!). From our guild pool, we took Leghumper and Harikin the mages, Absitively the warlock, Boon the holy paladin (he may or may not have respecced ret to pvp by the time you read this!), Shougeki the resto shaman, Neshura the hunter who was later traded for Wolfinme the hunter and Siiro the hunter.

Now, I hear you saying... where are your interrupts? What if you get Romulo and Julianne? What about Shade?!

We lucked out in Opera and got BBW. Which, by the way, I was the FIRST person Hooded. The tank... being the first person hooded. W. T. F. Luckily, I didn't die because I have awesome healers. But damn. It seems to happen to me every-single-time. I'm not sure if it's because there's a HoT or a Prayer of Mending that flips over or WHAT, but it's really annoying.

As for Shade.. we were all prepared to eat a Polymorph/Pyroblast. But we killed him before he got to that point. Our resto shaman shocked whenever he had a free moment (which wasn't often) and I feral charged (and possibly Morphos as well, not sure) whenever I could to interrupt something (almost always after dodging an arcane explosion. Got me to the boss faster). And we downed him before he drank. Not LONG before he drank, but before he drank. It was beautimous.

We did have a single wipe on Shade (someone accidentally moved during Flame Wreath) and one wipe on Netherspite (he got hit by the green beam once or twice as we were figuring out how to stand).

For Netherspite, the two tanks and the paladin stayed in for his banish phase. We had the others run to the windows so the tanks could easily avoid the netherbreath. This way, he didn't move around when he popped out of banish phase and we could more easily swap between green and red beams by simply running through the boss's belly. I had one scary moment when two pits opened up under my feet and I had barely an inch of room to try to dance in and out of the red beam in. But we prevailed! And he died. And it was glorious. (And seeing my life jump to 50k while in the red beam. Yummy.)

Go Knights of Utopia! Yay! Our first 'new guild' downing of Netherspite. :)

As for druid tanking... it's great fun. Unless your group doesn't let you actually HIT the mob first. That's not so much great fun. Then it's chasing after a mob that's running through your group. Silly DPSers.

The other fun thing to do while you're druid tanking? The nonelite group pulls in the room before Moroes? Yeah. Barkskin + Hurricane and then drop to bear form when your healer starts to scream, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? OMG!". It's great. :)

Change is scary...

But sometimes necessary. I'm going to be hounding Absitively to help me make my blog look pretty.

*stupid computer people. hate. loathe. abhor.*

In other news... played my restoration shaman a little bit last night. It's nice to be able to DPS and heal.

See, my altisms is bad enough that if you look at the sidebar, you can see how many alts I have. If you can count (and given the age of the internet, that is not an assumption one can make anymore, unfortunately) you can see that I have 9 alts. There are 10 character spots available. With my level of altisms, I hear you wonder... where is that 10th alt?

It's being saved, damnit. I have enough self-control to leave that spot as a name-holder for my death knight when the expansion comes out.

What I don't have is the self-control to NOT level my existing characters. However, I made a promise to my husband. I'm running out of things to play with him! By a lot. So... I can't level any of my characters without his, since all three of my lowbies are paired with one of his characters.

*whine*

So instead.. what I will be doing is trying to PvP my way to a set of shoulders with Kathe. I have been informed reliably that the best way for someone who sucks at PvP combat to go... is to go in as a healer. And unless I get the T4 shoulders, that would be my best upgrade possible. Right now, I'm using these and I don't like the fact that I can't find better purples in a heroic or badge vendor.

(And for those interested, I went ahead and bought the badge belt. It's better than the heroic and feh, I was tired of Hellfire Ramparts anyway.)

So yesterday I slapped on my set of patch-work healer gear, did NOT respec since I have to research some of that before I go spend lots of gold, and went into an AB. We lost (We're Alliance... we always lose), but I was 5th on healing (4th Alliance), got 11 honor kills (though I killed no one directly) and didn't have too bad of a time. Healing is so much less stressful than trying to kill people who are better at PvP than I am.

Hellfire Ramparts: Omor the Unscarred

I have been running my druid into Heroic Hellfire Ramparts to try to get the Tree-Mender's Belt out of the chest at the very end.

(By the way, Cartographer sucks in comparison to AtlasLoot for everything except node points. At least IMNSHO.)

So, yesterday while my husband was napping, I tried to get a group together. I drag Absitively into the group with me. Our makeup to begin with was druid tank (me), warlock, rogue, druid healer and a retribution paladin (because the group didn't want to take a sub-geared mage that may miss a sheep or two! Makes much more sense to bring a class that can't CC for longer than 12 seconds per fight and a class that can only sap when there aren't dogs around but not the mage who may miss a sheep or two due to resists... We wouldn't want to have to corpse-run.)

I had a bad pull at the start, and that was my fault. After that, we didn't have any true wipes until Omor the Unscarred. The druid healer stood inside of a group of dogs and died due to aggro that way once, but again, that isn't really my fault if he was standing on top of me. Oh sure, I could have moved, except that I wasn't aware that he had walked up to me when I pulled. So... right. Moving on!

I've gotten the strategy for heroic hellfire ramparts down and engraved into my head. I could recite to you exactly, pull for pull, how to do that instance. Right now. Without seeing a map. Without seeing the instance.

Yes, I'm nuts. I know.

So, despite the fact that I'm basically typing out what to mark, I'm not given leader. Whatever, fine. I have to keep changing the marks, because the leader kept trying to leave the MS Destroyers as not sapped or not killed first. And yeah, because I want that hitting me all fight long! No thanks.

I have to keep telling the retribution paladin to let me hit the mobs first, because I'll pull them in and as they're coming TO me, he starts in on them. And then I have to burn my growl, and then.. oy!

But we muddle on through to Omor the Unscarred, whom you can see if you follow that link, has two completely separate strategies for tanking him in heroic. There's the tank and spank and then there's the range-tank. I explain about the curse (which in heroic is nondispellable) to everyone, stress that our role as melee DPS is to pick up the felhounds and to NOT PULL AGGRO.

We go in. Everything is fine until the retadin pulls aggro off of the warlock. Wipe.

We go in. Everything is fine until the retadin kills us with the Bane, then pulls aggro off of the warlock. Wipe.

We go in. The retadin kills us with Bane. Wipe.

We say, okay, let's try tank and spank. Stop killing us with Bane of Treachery!

We go in. The retadin kills us with Bane. Wipe.

Are you seeing a pattern here? I can't quite figure out what's going wrong!

So the group leader (again, not me) kicks the retadin. Luckily the retadin doesn't do a stand-in on us and he does leave. Then the group leader, I kid you not, says 'Kathe, do you have DPS gear? I'm going to invite a paladin tank.', despite my saying 'I can get a nicely geared rogue in here', as my husband had woken up.

I kid you not. Granted, I was doing as much DPS as the retadin was, but still!

So, range-tank attempt. Fail. Tankadin kills us with Bane. Wipe.

Tank and Spank attempt. Tank gets mana burned and we can't get the felhounds off of him due to consecrate. Fail.

Tank and Spank attempt, sans consecrate. Fail due to the healer getting Bane and felhounds!

So we (okay, I) say 'Let's skip him for now and just kill Nazan!'.

We get to Nazan and I've been DPSing in my tank gear, because frankly, I'm just suspicious. Sure enough, the tankadin dies on Nazan. So I bear form it, pick up the dragon and live. Because I am just that awesome. Rawr. And my belt doesn't drop. F.U. Ramparts!

Then we go back and they want to do a tank and spank again, with me DPSing. Ok. Whatever.

I die to someone's Bane, can't remember who now. But we finally kill Omor.

It was just about the most hideous horrible slog that has ever taken place in Ramparts.

As near as I can tell, after reading the strats on Omor, we should have been fine, except for the Bane and people pulling aggro off of the warlock when attempting the range tank fight. Now, the other druid said that they had buffed Omor in Heroic Ramparts in the last mini-patch. I don't know how true that is, except that I don't think I've ever had that much trouble with Omor, ever. Granted, I'm usually in there with two ranged DPS and one melee DPS, but not always. And I've never had that much trouble range-tanking him. Someone would get over the warlock on threat (not me, I usually ravage once, rip once, then do nothing but kill dogs.) and Omor would become unhinged and go stomping off!

I wanted to cry. I kept apologizing to poor Absitively who turned down an OT position in Karazhan as his warrior to come with me into Ramparts. If my belt had dropped, I'd have been philosophical about the whole thing. But I got nothing out of it. Nothing. (a VC, that's it) It was a horrible horrible run in every single sense of the word!

In terms of learning something though.. I learned that day to watch my mana if I'm NElf pulling with moonfire or hurricane! I once had to keep running away while innervate ticked off enough mana to bear form! That was embarassing.

Countdown to Karazhan

Kathe has been tapped for my guild's Saturday Karazhan run, so I've worked overtime the last few days to get her ready for it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a few heroic drops that I've wanted, but I did get Slikk's badge cloak, then updated it with dodge. Got some 'chants and just a few gems, but I hit what's known as the 'minimum' for a druid tank in Karazhan.

415 defense (42o)
30% dodge (30.7%, 40% with trinket use)
12k health (11974 health, self buffed. I'm sure fort will pop me over.)
20k armor (21900 someodd armor, self buffed.)

I plan on eating warp burgers, drinking major agility and major fortitude elixirs and hopefully not needing to use my very pathetic healing gear for much!

The Fastest Shadow Labs Run EVER! (if only we finished!)

If you put a feral tank (Kathe) and add a healadin (Boon), toss in a hunter (Neshura), add a little mage (Tasogare) and toss in an enhancement shaman (Ookamioni)... go ahead and put them into Slabs and say to the tank, "Let's try to do this quickly". The resultis a 45 minute run to Murmur. (I know it was that long because right before the first pull, I used gift of the wild. It had 15 minutes left on it.)

Of course, then the server crashed and the instance reset.

Crowd control, though it is fun and at times warranted, is something that can be completely done without if you have a good tank that can hold aggro, a good healer that can keep people alive, and DPS that know how to do their job.

We had TWO instances where we had a massive pull, the mage accidentally shot something else (silly mage!) and in the room before Murmur, a chainer-mob spawned just as we pulled a group. That pull was fun. We didn't have much in the way of silencing multiple summoners, and we had three of them. So we had 8 mobs plus 3 summoned creatures. Thank God Boon is overgeared! :)

It was amazingly fun. I didn't stop pulling for anything. Everyone had to catch mana as they could, the only mana bar I watched was Boon's. It was absolutely wonderful. No wipes.

On a side note, I discovered a good way of getting aggro back on Blackheart. Since you're meleeing things anyway as your bear, and Blackheart runs even the ranged classes into something approximating melee range... just stay put when Time for Fun is over. Blackheart will run to you, or someone near you. Don't waste your feral charge unless you really want to -- it doesn't stun him and half the time he runs past you before you can get your taunt off, or he's behind you by the time you get there.

I haven't been updating recently. I'll try to do better!

Heavy Clefthoof and Heroic Underbog

More druid related stuff! I'm OBSESSED!

Actually, it's more that I've hit a ceiling with Kiki right now. My current guild had a setback (see previous blog!) and I don't think I'm going to get further with her right now. So rather than talk more about how awesome I am with my warlock, I've switched tracks.

I'm an awesome druid.

I completed the heavy clefthoof set yesterday. I ran BM twice and didn't get the shoulders from the Chrono Lord. I did get the cloak though and took it as an upgrade over the devilshark cape. Not ideal but...

Then we did heroic UB. No salvation on the insane warlock in the group (love you, Abs!), or on the epic'd out hunter (you too, Werenal!) or on the piddly little rogue (Boon's alt, Dhark, hate him) and I held aggro rather well.

I lost it on the banish's more easily than on the others, because I can't start on them while everyone else is still on the last one. I have to wait until the banish is up, but by that time, everyone is ready to unleash! But with rare exceptions, the banish's didn't get to hit anyone other than me, still. (I didn't play the lacerate game, I went ahead and taunted when they tried to eat someone else.)

Our first wipe was on the four-pull after Hungarfen. The X and the hunter trap decided to ignore everything that I or the hunter was doing to them and decided that the healer, an awesome shaman named Shougeki, looked far more tasty. We did get one down, so it turned into a three pull after that. My method of tab-lacerate-tab-lacerate worked decently even on heroic. I tried to get a mangle in on each, too.

We had a partial wipe on Ghaz'an. The rogue, though he wasn't by the tail, still got tail-whipped into the water, so we were down a DPS most of the fight. We still killed him because 1: he's slow and 2: we had a warlock and hunter kiting him after I died. The method I like to use is pulling him down the path to the wall. I ran up there, barkskinned, moonfired, cat formed, sprinted then turned into a bear when I hit the wall.

Ever notice how FREAING BIG your ass is in bear form? I mean, I always knew it was big (hence 'Big Bear Butt' blogger), but dear lord, it's impossible to SEE when you're in a corner. I had to ask the group to tell me if I was straight because I couldn't see anything but my own ass.

By the way... a warlock can SOLO that boss just by kiting him. (Because warlocks are teh aw3s0m3!)

We had a partial wipe on the first Underbog Lord, who after I died, immediately ate the healer then the hunter, and then was successfully evasion tanked by the rogue and killed by the warlock from 10% down. Apparently, my 23% dodge isn't better than a rogue tank. Why do you need me? Just have a rogue. ><

A wipe while we figured out how to handle Mussleman and Claw (I know, his name isn't really Mussleman, but can you recall how to spell it without having it in front of you? That's what I thought. You know who I mean.). We tried to down Mussleman first then Claw, but I couldn't keep Claw on me that way. He was all over the place. The second time, I had the hunter MD Mussleman on me and we focused on Claw until he went friendly. That worked.

(Kiting no longer works well because according to WoWWiki, Claw ignores the kiter and returns when Mussleman commands him to 'obey', and Claw is not hibernatable in heroic. The 'hug' method worked somewhat well, limited his charges a little bit, but was still on people. 8 yards is too small for most people!)

We had two wipes on Black Stalker until we figured out how to handle the adds. First try, we tried to ignore them and they wound up eating the healer. Well, not eating him, but electrocuting him to death. Though I don't know what the difference is... he still wound up dead. The second time we tried to have the rogue DPS them down and that didn't work either. The last time, I had all yellow gear and one red belt, and we ignored the adds again and this time we did it.

What was the difference between the first and last, other than I was down in armor and hit points due to a red item? No idea. The moon was aligned just right? Who knows.

(Or it may have to do with the hunter not being levitated out of the room and out of LOS, as he was in the first fight. The Stalker isn't very fair.)

And... two days after I get my heavy clefthoof boots... the epic boots drop off of the Stalker. :P

I also completed two quests! 'Oh, it's on!' to get the root from Hungarfen and 'Brain of the Black Stalker'. And I'm now 5900/21000 until Earthwarden!

To my way of thinking, this is a LOT of wipes. But Shougeki pointed something pertinent out. This wasn't a group of overgeared individuals (Owaru/Kikidas/Boon) going into heroic Underbog, this was a group of people in mostly blues, some greens and only one overgeared person (Werenal) going into heroic Underbog. And for that group, we did great.

I was awesome. As a group, we were great. :)

Bear Tank Basics, By K the Warlock

I have altisms disease. I freely admit it. But it isn't a problem. I can do my job well no matter what alt I'm currently afflicted with. Admittedly, some alts I do better with than others, but I still do a good job.

Lately, I've been afflicted with druidism. It's a nasty smelly disease that sometimes turns me into a cat, bear, bird or some odd sea mammal that I think is supposed to be a sea cow.

What? You've never read The White Seal by Rudyard Kipling? Either read the short story (which is good) or look up sea cow in a dictionary.

Anyway...

With my variety of disease, I sometimes become afflicted for short periods of time, during which I'll instance or farm or just have fun. This time, I've become afflicted with the desire to tank. Kathe, my druid, has been a tank since the early 60's. Before that, she was some resto/balance hybrid I think for solo-leveling. Don't ask me, I'm weird.

Without using any of Big Bear Butt's Druid Tank List gear (at least, not knowingly!) I was tanking Shadow Labs, Steamvaults, Shattered Halls. And doing it well. I wasn't uncrittable (defense in the mid 300's). I had somewhat lowish hit points (for a dire bear, that's in the neighborhood of 11k) and somewhat lowish armor points (13k). I had a good healer and good party members, which as in all things, can make up for my lack in gear.

But K, I hear someone ask in the background, you already have a tank, a warrior. Why a second tank?

Because it's different. Because druid is fun. Because I want to. Question answered.

It's true, I do have a warrior. She's all in blues. She's uncrittable. Not sure about uncrushable. She has good armor for a non-raiding-heroicing-Karaing-warrior, she has good hit points as well given the same caveat. But aggro management is so different.

With a warrior, it's all about the devastate and revenge and shield bash and stance-dancing and intervene and intercept and this shout and that shout. Which is hugely enjoyable, don't get me wrong. But so very very different from bear tanking.

With a bear, it's all about the lacerate. Oh, there are a few other things too, but lacerate lacerate lacerate... and omen of clarity. <3 Omen of Clarity. Oh, what's that? 100% reduction in rage cost? MUAHAHAHAHA! Warlocks need a skill like that. Instant cast shadow-bolt with 100% mana reduction and 100% increased damage. That's not asking much, is it?

(By the way, <3 is a sideways heart. Short for love.)

I play a game with my druid tank. If I lose aggro or don't have aggro on something, I don't taunt it. I know, I should. But I see how many lacerates it takes to pull it off of something (with the caveat that I'm in the neighborhood of their threat. If I was tanking against my own warlock, I wouldn't be trying the lacerate-game. I'm assuming an 'on par with me' group.). My average is 2 lacerates and I have aggro back. Without taunt. It's much fun. Of course, you do need to have a decent healer for this lacerate-game, because depending on what is hitting said poor-punching bag, they may not last two lacerates. But usually they do regardless of healing, otherwise they probably don't have any business being in a regular instance. (Mind you, I am not talking heroics).

So... the basics. I'm 0/47/14. The 14 in restoration include the 5 points in furor, 5 points in naturalist, 3 points in intensity and 1 point in the above-mentioned omen of clarity.

With intensity, I have the ability to instantly generate 10 rage with enrage. So, if for some reason I'm in bear form and I don't want to switch out and in again (because I have the nifty ability to generate 10 rage instantly when I transform into bear), I tap enrage and boom, instant 10 rage. Sure I take a hit in armor when I do that, but when it's needed, it's there. With omen of clarity, I build threat faster because I don't need as much rage to lacerate the hell out of something.

(It's also useful in cat form for those times I'm killing something solo. You pounce to stun, mangle to increase your damage from the cat-backstab ability, and then hopefully at some point in time, Omen's popped, which means you can usually backstab immediately, before the stun effect of the pounce wears off.)

The other 47 are in, naturally, feral combat. Obviously, anything that pertains only to cat-form, I have 0 points in. I'm not a DPS-feral. I'm a tank-feral. I won't go down the list of what points I put where, since those are probably pretty self-explanatory.

So, the average fight starts. If I have adequate crowd control and I have only one mob to worry about at a time, I charge. Charge has the bonus of getting me there faster and stunning the mob in place for a few seconds. So even if I have DPS that opens up before I have a chance to hit it, the mob isn't going to be running all over the place just yet. (Caveat is that it's in safe range TO charge, if it's too near other mobs, I don't charge, I faerie fire, back up, THEN charge.)

Since the mob is hitting me (as I'm right there), and I'm hitting it (because I'm there too!), I almost immediately have enough rage to lacerate twice. Then I usually mangle. Everytime the cooldown for mangle is up, I mangle. I lacerate until I have stacked 5 lacerates on the mob. If the CC isn't up by me, I then add swipe and maul into the mix. Swipe, though not as much threat/damage as maul, has the benefit of being instant. I lacerate when it's up. I mangle when it's up. Even though I have 5 lacerates stacked on the mob, I continue to lacerate. It doesn't continue to stack, but it does continue to generate threat.

Usually BEFORE the first mob is dead, I turn, find the next mob I'm killing, and feral charge it. Chances are, unless the first mob is a healer, it will be dead shortly. (I do this when the first mob is about 5% alive). If it's a healer, I stay on it to make sure.

The benefit of charging the 2nd mob in the line before the first is dead is that my aggro-whoring DPS group members have to finish killing the first mob BEFORE they can switch to the second mob. This gives me adequate time to be able to land a few lacerates and at least one mangle before they start in on this mob. This allows me to hold aggro better. This strategy works with my warrior too (sans lacerate and mangle, she has to do things with a weapon and shield, not just teeth and claws). I don't worry about losing aggro on mob #1 in the last few pathetic moments of it's life. If my DPS is adequate, (by that, I mean group DPS, not MINE in particular), it will die before it 1: switches off of me and onto someone else or 2: before it reaches said someone else.

(On the flip side, I do this with DPS as well. If I'm DPSing, in the last few (10 and lower) percentage points of it's life, I tend to up my DPS as much as I can. If I pull aggro off of the tank, no big deal. It's dead before it hits me anyway.)

So, feral charge #2 and lacerate-lacerate. I should have more than enough rage that this is immediately doable. The feral charge locks it in place so it can't go after whomever CC'd it, and since no one else was hitting it (or should have been hitting it), I gain immediate aggro control.

#3, #4, etc. on down the line!

Now, there will be times when I have to multi-tank targets. No problem. A little dicier, but that just adds to the fun!

So, I have X and Y. (I picked Y because Y is easier to type than Skull.). X is second, Y is my skull so it dies first.

I'm in caster form. I make sure everyone else is ready to pick up their charges. I then starfire the X. While I'm casting starfire, I change target to the Y. As soon as starfire casts, I moonfire the Y. Then I go furry. This is when tapping the improved enrage can come in handy.

So, my party members, because they are wonderful people, have control over their CC mobs. The X and Y are by me. Depending on whom gets to me first, I lacerate them at LEAST once. I then switch targets to the second mob and lacerate it, too. While I'm doing this, I'm looking around at where I am and where my CC'd mobs are. I back away from the CC to a place where I can swipe without breaking anything. By this time, I'm back on the Y who is the main target. I've tossed a few more lacerates and mangle's on it. With 1 (or 2) lacerates on the X, swipe should keep it on me and off the healer. As soon as (or slightly before) Y dies, I've switched to X and I've started to up my threat on it, the same way I've done on anything else. Then feral charge #3, etc.

Occasionally, you'll have multiple-multiple mobs to tank, such as the large pulls in SH. Provided I don't have a rogue to worry about (or even if I do), I use hurricane. This gets everyone pissed off at me IMMEDIATELY. If I have a rogue sap, I try to position the sap to the edge of the group, so I can position my hurricane such that it WON'T hit the rogue sap but will hit everything else. (Depending on how close you are to said mobs, barkskin helps with this maneuver.)

I tell people to wait on DPS for a minute while I sink aggro on 3 mobs. I do this in roughly reverse order. The second or third (whomever) I lacerate, then the second or third, whichever I didn't get first, I lacerate. Then I switch to the main target and go to town. This shouldn't be an issue with rage, because I should be getting hit by three mobs. At the SAME TIME as I'm doing the above, I'm backing away from any CC and swiping, otherwise the healer is going to be getting a visit soon. Other than initial sinking of aggro on the second and third mob, it isn't much different than two-mob tanking.

If I have to tank 4 mobs, that one... is a bit tougher. Namely because swipe only hits 3 mobs. However, lacerate the main target that everyone is hitting 3 times, then toss a lacerate or two on everything else. I try to go -- main target-maintarget- offtarget1-offtarget2-offtarget3--main target a few times to maintain -- off1-off2-off3-main if it's still alive.

If you discover that your healer is pulling too much initial aggro on those big pulls because they have to heal your non-dodging-sorry-ass, rejuvinate and refresh yourself immediately before starting your pull. This should 1: lessen initial healing aggro since they don't have to heal you massively at the beginning 2: sink more aggro on you since you're healing and fighting! Look at you, you can multi-task! and 3: cause the shaman in the group to complain that they never get to heal because of earth-shield, rejuvination and refresh .. by the time all three are out, everything is dead. It's great fun!

For mobs that are being CC'd. Always make sure your group knows if they're having trouble, they CAN TELL YOU! And they should. You're a BIG FREAKING BEAR! If you can't handle one more mob hitting on you, then you suck. They're a clothy or a leathery or a something else that isn't a BIG FREAKING BEAR! Go ahead and feral charge their target -- don't worry, your main target will follow you. Unless it's a 'I can't CC this anymore for some reason -- ie: warlock succubus is down' do NOT mangle or lacerate this target if you can avoid it. Otherwise the ticking damage will not allow it to be CC'd again. This is mainly an issue with hunter's traps being resisted or accidentally used on something else. You just need to keep it off the hunter long enough for them to lay another trap.

(sometimes the fastest way to get to a loose running around crazy mob is to BACK UP, so you can charge it. Benefit #1 you aren't chasing it like a loon with it always just out of reach as the person it's hitting runs away from you because they're a frantic dummy (RUN TO THE TANK! PLEASE!), #2 if you charge it, it stops running around due to the effect of feral charge, #3 uh... hi? But seriously, if it's too close or you're chasing it, either back up or stay still so it gets into range to charge at it.)

Unless I've still got two (or three) loose mobs to control, I tend to just ignore the no-DoTing rule and add it to the things that I'm currently tanking. You should be on ventrilo with your group or some other way of talking to them, so you can tell them that the new CC-now-tanked mob is next on the list before any other order you may have previously been doing.

And that's it. It's fun. :)

By the way, hunter trap targets you may have to do more than feral charge and lacerate. You may need to *gasp* taunt those, mainly due to the way that hunter's have to trap. The other CC types don't do any damage to their target (unless they're a warlock, then they may be searing pain'ing their target to keep it off of their succubus), so you can pull aggro easily. A hunter has to shoot it a few times (or more!) to get it into their trap. So you're working uphill on those fellows.

As for gear ... I'm less than 40 thick clefthoof leather from my chestpiece. I'm halfway along the quest lines that BBB lists in SMV. I have my stylin' hat. I have my deep necklace. I have one good defense ring and one mixed-stat ring (Ogre Slayer's Band). I'm at uncrittable (425 defense), I have, when fully buffed, between 14-15k life (depending on what constitutes fully buffed!), I have 17k armor, I'm at 20 or 22% dodge. I'm feeling furry and frisky!

Which, by the way, ever notice when you're out in the world and you're trying to play as your bear instead of catform for killing stuff, your rage generation is sucktacular? It's because you dodge too much in the world and they don't hit hard enough when they do land a punch. Isn't that funny? I find it amusing. You spend all this time going -- need more dodge, need more dodge! and then later on you go, 'Damnit! I'm dodging too much!'.