Tank like a girl

A couple months back, when Inscription was just a whisper in the wind, I did a post about warrior glyphs and my dream setup. Now that WotLK has been here for two months and we actually got to use those glyphs, I thought I’d revisit them. I’ll list all glyphs that could be remotely interesting to a prot warrior. Some of those glyphs are unchanged from my previous post, some are completely new.

Major glyphs:

• Glyph of Barbaric Insults: still useless to me.
• Glyph of Blocking: the glyph, IMHO. It rocks my socks. Who wouldn’t want big Shield Slams? Do not leave the house without it.
• Glyph of Cleaving: hot hot hot. They changed it from costing less range to affecting an extra target. Cleave on 3 targets is extremely nice in heroics. I recently switched to it, it’s great.
• Glyph of Devastate: actually, not bad at all. I don’t devastate a whole lot anymore at all, this could help to increase the DPS of your group by stacking more sunders. I can totally see its merit. I might ask an off-tank for my raids to have that glyph.
• Glyph of Heroic Strike: useful in low rage situations, which have become rare. Because of that, very low on my list of must-haves. Possibly useful for off-tanks with less rage than MTs.
• Glyph of Intervene: if you have to Intervene a whole lot, you’re doing it wrong.
• Glyph of Last Stand: if you have to pop Last Stand every 2 minutes, you’re doing it wrong.
• Glyph of Rapid Charge: probably awesome in PvP and for soloing, but I don’t have a lot of cooldown problems in groups.
• Glyph of Resonating Power: Reduces the rage cost of Thunderclap. See my comment about the HS glyph. Low rage situations are uncommon, so that’d be another wasted glyph slot for me.
• Glyph of Revenge: best glyph along with Glyph of Blocking. Get it now, get the macro, enjoy. Can’t imagine playing without it.
• Glyph of Sunder Armor: in the long run, Glyph of Cleaving adds more threat for me, but it’s still a good glyph. I just don’t use Devastate enough anymore to warrant its use.
• Glyph of Taunt: if you have to worry about Taunt resists, you’re doing it wrong.

Minor Glyphs:

• Glyph of Bloodrage: there are very few minor glyphs that do anything for us, so we might as well get no health hitting when popping Bloodrage.
• Glyph of Charge: increased range for Charge is <3, for me.
• Glyph of Mocking Blow: to get mileage out of it you have to use Mocking Blow a bit. I don’t. Do you?
• Glyph of Thunder Clap: increased range. Yes. Get this glyph.

The commentary in this list is very biased. What’s your set-up? I am rolling with Blocking, Revenge and Cleaving. Insert cleavage jokes now.

Bonus question: if you could create a glyph of your choice that we don’t have yet, what would it be?

Mine: Glyph of Heroic Throw. Minor Glyph. Reduces the cooldown of Heroic Throw to 10 seconds.

Do want.

How can someone have amazing luck and then lack it at the same time? Witness my past couple days!

First off, I need to mention the moment that made my week. I got a message from Vene to check out a link to a new warrior blog that I have started reading. I am terribly flattered, flustered and happy about the reaction. I get so much positive feedback from y’all, via comments and mails, and reading that blog post, icing on the cake. I am really happy people enjoy my blog so much.

I usually don’t get excited about in-game festivals anymore. I have participated in all events but when you’ve played four years now, and have done them multiple times, they’re not so important anymore. The Lunar Festival is different however! Every Coin of Ancestry is 75 rep with all cities of your faction. As I rolled Kadomi in vanilla WoW, she’s not even Exalted with Orgrimmar, and I have long wanted to get a kodo. Pre-WotLK I did catch-up with Thunder Bluff quests, but never got closer than 7k/21k through Revered.

Saturday morning I started doing Elder runs. Elders of Northrend was completed quickly, but as we didn’t hold Wintergrasp for most of the weekend, I had to finish it late. While doing Elders of Kalimdor I also grabbed the ones in Maraudon and Zul’Farrak, reminding me that I could finish Classic Dungeonmaster. I even got Big Bad Pauldrons, I love those shoulders. Once Kalimdor was done, I ran a couple of heroics, then started working on Elders of the Eastern Kingdoms.

Now, I should mention that I did very little classic level 60 dungeon content because she wasn’t my main at the time and TBC was just around the corner then. I had never run Scholomance nor Stratholme with her, though I have extensive knowledge and memories of many wipes and four hour runs of those places. Originally I only wanted to grab the Elder in Stratholme, but then I decided to wander over to find Hearthsinger and get a shot at the piccolo. It didn’t drop, so I decided to kill the Magistrate for my key. Once I had the key I just thought ‘what the hell’ and toodled over towards deadside to visit Baron Rivendare, who magically can be in Stratholme and Naxxramas at the same time. What happened then, my screenshots can describe best.

 

Reactions in guild chat were a mixed bag, lots of congratulations but also screams of outrage that I got it on my first Baron run ever. What can I say? It’s a lot less spectacular to have when you’re horde, but it’s still pretty nifty.

After Stratholme I went to Moonglade to spend coins, and an Omen raid was forming at the time. Holy crap, what a zergfest. As you get quest completion no matter who kills Omen, Alliance and Horde teamed up to take him down, but it was extremely chaotic, with little to no heals, and his Starfall AoE made just about everyone die at least 5 times before he was down. It fills me with horror to think what would happen if only one faction would get credit for killing him.

Yesterday I finished up Elders of the Eastern Kingdom, but I started the day with a Scholomance run. Hello, Dark Shades, I hate you. If you ever want to run Scholomance as prot warrior, the only method that worked for me to kill the Dark Shades (immune to physical damage) was to get the occultists to 45% health with auto-attack and then pray for a huge Shield Slam. If that failed I had to reset the mob by jumping into the water in the room right underneath. That certainly took a while. I got phat lootz for my efforts, a Helm of Valor.

Thanks to changes in the mechanics I was finally able to finish up Uldaman, and got to compare the Titan lore from then with the continued stuff from Halls of Stone. Interesting. I then only needed to complete Deadmines and Stockades and got my Classic Dungeonmaster achievement.

Now, I am saying ‘only’ Stockades, but that part sucked. Of the Elders in the Alliance cities, Darnassus was extremely easy, Ironforge was okay but Stormwind really sucks. The Elder is deep inside Stormwind in the Park, there is no way to avoid the heavily populated Trade District, and the jerks-ratio seems to be higher in SW. I had several alliance chase me from the Trade District, so I made the mistake and ran for the safety of the Stockades. That achievement was done in under 5 minutes (what a stupid instance this is) and then I faced the dilemma of how to get to the Park now. I killed all guards outside of the instance, but the people who had chased me to the Stockades were all waiting right outside. Thankfully, none of them were there when I made it back to my corpse. Of course not, because where were all those happy PvPers? Camping the Elder in the Park. Why chase horde around and not just let them come to you? I have to say thanks to the Death Knights, they gripped me right to the Elder when I arrived in the park, so it was just a quick click, and I had my coin and the achievement.

I am now 15k/21k through Revered with Thunder Bluff, which seems a lot more manageable. I believe I will be doing either Scholo or Strat runs for Runecloth and AD rep in the near future. It was really fun to revisit all the old content that I have done so extensively in the past. Blackrock Depths took the longest, but it sure was fun, and as prot warrior it feels like you’re built to go non-stop. Once I get all the Elders in the Northrend instances, I shall be Elder Kadomi, I dig that.

In a separate post I will have to share my sob-story of how I will likely tank raid content wielding my Crescent Axe of Brooding Fury, because everything else refuses to drop for me, and how we’re doing our first 10-man this coming weekend. I will be healing, however, most likely, but still, exciting!

It all began when I just couldn’t keep track of my weapon buffs on my shaman. I started looking for an addon that would give me a visual cue when Flametongue ran out, and that’s how I found TellMeWhen.

TellMeWhen is a visual reminder addon. What does it do? It offers you four different icon groups that you can configure to show as many buttons as needed. Every icon group can be scaled individually. Once you have set up a group, you place it where you want the reminders, then right-click on any button to configure them. On my shaman, I have one icon group with a huge icon in the center of my screen, which will only show up if there is no weapon enchant on my main hand. Handy!

However, that’s not all you can do with this addon, and by now I’ve actually configured it to be used by all my characters. Here’s what I use it for on my warrior:

 

 
An icon group of five. First icon shows when my Retaliation macro is available. Second icon is visible when my Recklessness macro is available. Third icon is visible when my Medallion of Heroism is usable. Fourth icon pops up when I have no Well Fed buff. Fifth icon shows me when Heroic Throw is available. In my sample screenshot all macros, the trinket and Heroic Throw are available, plus I hadn’t eaten, because I was fishing in Borean Tundra.

You can set it up so that buttons will only show during combat, so you could use it as a Shout Reminder. As my example shows, you can configure it so that buttons either show when something’s off cooldown, or when a buff is missing. It’s flexible, easy to configure, gets my thumbs up.

To further demonstrate its strength, let me actually set up the Shout Reminder. You can click on some of the images for a larger version.

1. Activate an icon group in this menu. I’ll set it to 1 row, 1 column, because that one button is all I want. I can now drag this huge button wherever I want to have it, and then click in the lower right bottom corner to change the size.
   
    
   
2. Right-click on the button and pick a spell. In my case I will use Battle Shout. A questionmark icon shows up, that’s just a placeholder until you have told TMW what kind of ability this is. In my case, that’s a Buff. Bam, Battle Shout icon shows up.
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
3. Now we refine the settings. I only want to see this button when I am in-combat, and I am missing Battle Shout, and I only want it to monitor myself.
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   

    
   All done! Now whenever I am in combat and I don’t have Battle Shout up, this button pops up to nag me, and disappears while I out of combat. Set up Commanding Shout next to it, and you’ll never miss a shout dropping again.

Want to watch a debuff on a mob to keep it up, like Thunderclap or Demo Shout? You can set it up just like that. The possibilities are almost endless.

If you prefer an equally flexible setup for watching buffs/debuffs but really prefer timer bars, you should check out Runycat’s post about NeedToKnow over at Unbearably HoT. It’s by the same author, but provides bars instead of icons to watch effects on a target.

Ever since patch 3.0, machinima creators and bloggers who like creating character images for their postings were all afflicted by the same problem. Wow Model Viewer was deader than dead, and completely unable to handle the new model files. The only workaround was to create a second install of WoW, and not patching this version past 2.4.3. Not an option that worked for me, especially as there was no access to newer files.

Finally, months later, someone picked up the project. The first new versions required downloading 2 gigs of Visual C++ Studio, but now it’s finally in a version where you don’t have to do that anymore. There are a lot of subtle changes that make it nicer to use than the old version, and maybe it’s just me, but the quality seems better to me. But I might be wrong after months of having no WMV.

Grab the latest build, 0.6.3, over at the new site where it’s going to be hosted: www.wowprovider.com

As bonus feature, you get to meet my shaman Garande, freshly re-created in WMV. She’s very shy, unlike Kadomi, so she’s cowering in fear of so much publicity.

I wish I could say it’s been a hugely successful week in Kadomi-land, but I guess I’ll get there eventually. I didn’t PUG as much as I thought I would, it was mostly almost full guild-groups, as I mentioned. I managed to complete the easy heroics at least, with some blood, sweat and tears. I had a very good Nexus run with only two accidental wipes, and then a disastrous, called Violet Hold run. It makes me dread going back. The next day I grabbed a couple guildies and friends, and we ran Utgarde Keep and Nexus and it was ugly. Extremely wipetastic, so many tank-deaths, I felt like a noob again. Our healer had terrible lag in Nexus in particular and thus I went down so many times. It was a really low point in my tanking career, felt a lot like when I was an undergeared fury-spec scrub wiping the floor in Shadow Labs.

Nevertheless, I don’t give up easily, so the next day Drak’tharon Keep was the daily, I grabbed two guildies, managed to snag the PUG healer of the successful Nexus run, and had a smooth and easy run with no wipes. The Prophet kill was a bit messy, but all in all, excellent run. Some trash was so kind to drop Waistguard of the Risen Knight, which was a huge upgrade, and the final boss dropped Keystone Great-Ring. Wearing the ring and no def trinket my defense is down to 535, but that’s fine for heroics, and I am only waiting for 3.0.8 now to get fully enchanted for raiding. Today I promised to help the most-geared guildie who’s been pugging heroics and Naxx like crazy with Halls of Stone, so wish me luck.

Speaking of raiding, I just scheduled our first Sartharion/Archavon (if up) raid for the last weekend of January. Should give people some time to gear some more and get their stuff together. If we can make it happen, it looks like I’d be tanking, but that also means we might be short a healer. I’ll know more soon.

During the weekend, I mostly played my shaman, for several heroics, including one I hadn’t done on heroic, Halls of Stone. I think the tuning of the instance is like completely off. All bosses are a walk in the park, no challenge whatsoever, but the freaking Brann Bronzebeard event? Eight wipes, always at around 30 seconds til end of the event. The amount of mobs just got too insane at that point. Even in our successful try, most of the group was down, we got lucky. As a healer I felt the whole event was unbalanced. Searing Gaze starts at about 3:25 into the event, anything before that was easy to heal. There was not that much damage. Then you get Searing Gaze, people standing in it a tick too long, mobs everywhere, golems stunning you, etc. I know it’s supposedly easy-peasy tanking on the stairs, but that’s where mobs were tanked, and it still didn’t work out easily.

Speaking of the difficulty of heroics, it’s like back in TBC. The raiders are all saying ‘Yawn, heroics are caek, lol Blizzard we want more content’. The non-raiders who are just starting heroics, especially the ones with low DPS, they struggle. Blizzard recently started a poll asking which heroic is considered the most challenging, and the comments are full of ‘lol, where’s the option none’. Bothers me. But then, it’s the official forums, what to expect?

When I play WoW, I really prefer utility roles. I love to tank, and I have come to love healing. That said, I firmly believe that DPS is just as crucial. DPS can’t just coast along in 5-mans, they can make or break a group. DPS too low? Healer will go out of mana trying to keep the tank up, or group damage will become too much to heal. A tank will eventually run out of ‘Oh shit’ buttons the longer a fight lasts. This is not a grand revelation, anyone who enjoys group play in WoW should know this for a fact. A group with low DPS will fail frequently.

Why do I post this common fact? Because I stumbled over a statement from a DPSer I know that I so violently disagree with that it prompts me to post:

I have never given a shit about where I stand in the DPS meters. If the boss died, and I’m last on the meters, but THE BOSS DIED, who the fuck cares? Out of all the DPS, someone has to be last.

 
ORLY? Give me a group of 5 people, all of the DPS think that way, and watch that group fail fail fail. If you choose to play a DPS class in WoW, your character does damage. That’s the primary purpose. Improving your character means you improve your DPS. You do more damage, everyone benefits. If you do not care about your personal damage and do not want to push yourself to do more damage, what’s the point of playing a damage class in any group environment. I get that a lot of people play WoW as a glorified single player game. I have been there, when I started playing WoW I quested and avoided groups. But as soon as you move into groups, start discovering the fun of instances, raiding and shiny loot, it should matter to you how well you perform.

I am not saying that damage meters are the end all be all. I can’t stand DPSers who spam the meters after every pull or request that you report info repeatedly. But ultimately, you should look at Recount, see your personal DPS, and make sure that you improve and that you perform to the best of your abilities. If that’s not something you enjoy, why play in groups?

Remember my first shopping list for prot warriors? Wildly popular! Got everything you needed from that list and are eager to run your first heroics? Then let’s do that and check out where you can get the next best gear upgrades.

I am assuming that you have 535 defense, the value to be uncrittable in heroics. If it’s any less, go back to the older list and gear up some more, do your group a favor.

All gear listed will come from four possible sources: BoE crafted or drop, reputation rewards, heroic instance drops or gear you can buy with Emblems of Heroism. If you enjoy spreadsheets, check out the spreadsheet version of this list.

Head:

1. Tempered Titansteel Helm crafted by blacksmiths. Easy to get, this is still the top dog for me, because of the changes in 3.0.8. A meta and a blue socket? Yes please!
2. Arcane-Shielded Helm – Grand Magus Telestra in H Nexus. Meta and a blue socket, yes please! (Sense a theme here?) Also, very high dodge, this is the avoidance helmet of this list.
3. Ground Tremor Helm – Moorabi in H Gundrak. Meta and a red socket, sure! This is the threat helmet, with the red socket just asking for a nice threat gem like e.g. Guardian’s Twilight Opal, and the hit rating on it.

Neck:

1. Chained Military Gorget – 25 Emblems of Heroism. What a sweet piece of necklace. I am looking forward to buying this as the first thing I’ll buy with badges.
2. Titanium Earthguard Chain – crafted by Jewelcrafters. Until you can afford the badge necklace, this is still a fabulous piece. Befriend a JCer now.
3. Shadowseeker’s Pendant – Jedoga Shadowseeker in H Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. If neither of the epic necklaces are available to you, this is a very solid drop with avoidance on top.

Back:

1. Durable Nerubhide Cape – crafted by Leatherworkers. As long as you can stay crit-immune, this is an incredible cloak.
2. Tattered Castle Drape – BoE drop from H Utgarde Keep. Pretty much a sidegrade to the Wyrmrest Cloak but great for SBV sets, if you’re building one.
3. Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions – Honored with Wyrmrest Accord. Still really easy to get, and still a very solid cloak to wear until you can get a better one.

Shoulders:

1. Wapach’s Spaulders of Solidarity – World Drop. I hate it when world drops are the top of any list, but these are the best pre-raiding shoulders you can get. Wishing you the lucky break!
2. Pauldrons of the Colossus – Drakkari Colossus in H Gundrak. Unusually, they have shield block rating as second stat, and they have a socket. Pretty nice piece.
3. Iron Dwarf Smith Pauldrons – General Bjarngrim in H Halls of Lightning. Last in line with that item-level, they’re solid, though I prefer the flexibility of a socket. Also, prefer most other stats to parry, but beggers can’t be choosers, so I’d take them if I ever dared set foot into the heroic version of that instance.

Chest:

1. Heroes’ Dreadnaught Breastplate – 80 Emblems of Heroism. If you don’t want to wait for the lucky day that you get the T7 token into your hands, you can spend 80 emblems on buying it. Interesting approach to tier gear. The 2 piece bonus already sets my heart aflutter.
2. Breastplate of the Solemn Council – Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Do your dailies, grab this incredible chestpiece. It really is that good.
3. Sun-Emblazoned Chestplate – Sjonnir the Ironshaper in H Halls of Stone. I prefer the expertise of the Wyrmrest chestpiece, but if for some reason you’re really set on getting your hit up instead, this would be a good chestpiece for you.

Wrist:

1. Bracers of the Herald – Herald Volazj in H Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. This is one of those must-haves from heroics, the best bracers you will find. Let’s just hope you can brave the Insanity long enough to be able to loot it.
2. Bindings of Dark Will – Salramm the Fleshcrafter in H The Culling of Stratholme. Good bracers are few and far between these days, so if you don’t want to wear the Tempered Saronite bracers forever, these are a good bet.
3. Svala’s Bloodied Shackles – Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle. The state of the prot warrior bracers is so dire that I am listing this drop from normal UP. They’re still the third best.

Hands:

1. Heroes’ Dreadnaught Handguards – 60 Emblems of Heroism Got a socket, are very well-balanced, clearly the top of the pack, especially when you’re not raiding yet.
2. Horn-Tipped Gauntlets – Gal’darah in H Gundrak. Holy moly, look at all that expertise. Do want.
3. Fireproven Gauntlets – Exalted with Kirin Tor. If you’re not having drop luck to get the gloves from Gundrak, or simply do not care to run the instance (I have heard nasty stories), these gloves are almost as good, and just about the only reason for prot warriors to grind KT rep.

Waist:

1. Waistguard of Living Iron – 40 Emblems of Heroism. Very solid stats, so if you have nothing comparable and don’t want to run H Azjol-Nerub much, this is the belt for you.
2. Ancient Aligned Girdle – Anub’arak in H Azjol-Nerub. At least you have this ray of sunshine waiting at the end of one of the harder heroics out there.
3. Skadi’s Iron Belt – Skadi the Ruthless in H Utgarde Pinnacle. On your way to gaining your Red Sword of Courage you should be able to pick up this lovely belt that makes a great addition for any SBV set.

Legs:

1. Bolstered Legplates – Cyanigosa in H Violet Hold. Not much to say, best until Naxx, very good piece of gear and thanks to coming from H VH probably one of the easiest ones to get.
2. Ley-Guardian’s Legguards – Eregos in H Oculus. This instance is probably my least favorite because there are so many annoying factors in there, including vehicle combat. Nevertheless, there’s some fine tanking gear to get.
3. Legplates of the Infinite Drakonid – Chrono-Lord Epoch in H The Culling of Stratholme. The lack of socket puts it lowest on my pants totem pole, but they’re still pretty good stuff, until you get the Bolstered Legplates.

Feet:

1. Tempered Titansteel Treads – crafted by blacksmiths. They are easy to obtain, have the highest stamina and the highest armor. This is why I rank them highest. In reality, they’re really tied with the other two pairs of boots I am listing, which really makes this a tie between the crafted boots or the Wyrmrest rep boots, unless you’re a huge avoidance fan.
2. Greaves of Ancient Evil – Herald Volazj in H Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. Lots of dodge, for avoidance fans.
3. Sabatons of Draconic Vigor – Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Easy to get, excellent boots.

Main Hand:

1. Red Sword of Courage – King Ymiron in H Utgarde Pinnacle. The Sun Eater of a new generation, we are all facing running this instance whenever we can (and get past the Skadi gauntlet) just to get our greedy hands on it.
2. Infantry Assault Blade – Prince Keleseth in H Utgarde Keep. No luck in UP? Visit the easier instance downstairs and the first boss might have a sword for you. Unfortunately it’s slow, but still quite nice.
3. Cloudstrider’s Waraxe – Varos Cloudstrider in H Oculus. As discerning orc, this axe would make a shiny toy for me until I get that sword, but sadly, it just has to drop in Oculus of all places. Boo!

Shields:

1. Crygil’s Discarded Plate Panel – 35 Emblems of Heroism. As badge competition is high, you might wish to pick up one of the other shields first and burn badges on this very nice one later. All the top shields are pretty nice.
2. Royal Crest of Lordaeron – Mal’ganis in H The Culling of Stratholme. Such a beautiful model, though there are silly cries that use horde tanks should not use it. Pfft, I say. Stat-wise, ahead of the Titansteel one, so if I get my hands on it, it’s mine!
3. Titansteel Shield Wall – crafted by blacksmiths. Easy to get, so still top of the line.

The next two categories, rings and trinkets, are not listed in order of priority, I just picked six very good candidates for those slots. Your own mileage may vary. Rings and trinkets are best for rounding your character, to fill stat gaps and such.

Rings:

• Titanium Earthguard Ring – crafted by Jewelcrafters. It’s awesome, it has a socket, it can be bought for gold from any jewelcrafter with the design. Win!
• Keystone Great-Ring – The Prophet Tharon’ja in H Drak’tharon Keep. Screams druid, but if you’re above the crit-limit defense-wise, this is very tasty.
• Band of Torture – Drakos the Interrogator in H Oculus. Much armor on this ring, which makes it pretty attractive.
• Nerubian Shield Ring – Elder Nadox in H Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. Lots of armor rings available, looks like. The differences to Band of Torture are minuscule.
• Ring of Earthen Might – crafted by Jewelcrafters. Armor, dodge, str/sta and a socket, and reaaaaally easy mats.
• Woeful Band – Maiden of Grief in H Halls of Stone. I don’t care too much for parry, but that’s what this ring offers aside from the staples of str/sta and defense.

Trinkets:

• Essence of Gossamer – Hadronox in H Azjol-Nerub. 111 stamina? Hot diggity damn. A mitigation effect proc? That’s some fine trinket to me.
• Valor Medal of the First War – 40 Emblems of Heroism. My, you look a lot like Moroes’ Lucky Pocketwatch, don’t you?
• Darkmoon Card: Greatness – Darkmoon Nobles’ Deck. So much strength. Of course you can also get the agility trinket, for extra mitigation and crit, but I would go for strength, most likely. The proc would be strength for prot warriors. There’s a reason cards of the nobles deck are insanely expensive atm. Befriend a scribe.
• Seal of the Pantheon – Loken in Halls of Lightning. Wot, a normal instance drop, listed? Yup, because it’s still the only defense trinket, and defense is awesome. The on-use is also nice. Never dropped for me, of course.
• Offering of Sacrifice – Gal’darah in H Gundrak. Your basic armor trinket that offers an extra Last Stand effect. Combine with Enraged Regeneration to save your ass.

Also see:

• WotLK Shopping List for Protection Warriors, Part I: pre-heroics
• WotLK Shopping List, Part III: 10-man raids

I managed to get the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement plus my first heroic under my belt since I posted I would start doing PUGs. Kudos to WoW Armory, a wonderful plugin for WordPress. *points to her sidebar*

Normal Utgarde Pinnacle was alright, but I felt that I wasn’t on top of my game in the gauntlet. I was incredibly rage-starved and the fight lasted forever. Normal Oculus was just as painful to tank as it was to heal, and I don’t think I’ll want to go back on heroic anytime soon. Both of these runs were full guild-runs.

Heroic Nexus was done with 3 other guildies, plus a tree druid we pugged. Instance went fine, though I still want to strangle the hunter who had less than optimal pet control and pulled Commander Stoutbeard early. Full of confidence, I went into Heroic Violet Hold right afterwards, this time we pugged a paladin healer. I came out again with shattered confidence and one emblem of heroism.

As first boss we had Ichoron, whose mechanics overwhelmed most group members completely. It just didn’t work. There were gazillions of adds, I took so much damage, and it was frustrating as heck. It took us four tries to get Ichoron down. On one of the tries, the instance bugged out on us and we had multiple portals open at the same time. Even before the first boss we already had 7 portals open. Eventually we got Ichoron down, fought down waves and what second boss do we get? Zuramat the Obliterator. Again, no one (including me) knew how to deal with him and we wiped spectacularly. When we went back in and it started at portal 1 again, I just folded, as it was past 2 am my time, and I had been in the instance for well over an hour.

Very frustrating, as my last visit there as healer saw us out of the instance in 25 minutes, with Ichoron and Lavanthor as bosses. I will say I believe DPS was a huge issue. 1k DPS just doesn’t cut it in a heroic, no way. Is it that common to come out on top as prot warrior or am I still running with DPS that’s not quite there? Okay, likely a rhetorical question.

Summary: Fail guild groups are more soul-crushing than fail pugs.

I discovered AutoBar when I was looking for a better way to set up consumables aside from having a whole action bar devoted to consumables and such. I was looking for something more dynamic. Enter AutoBar. It’s a dynamic popup bar. It will only show the buttons you want it to show. I use Hearth, Healing Pot, Healthstone, Battle Elixir, Guardian Elixir, Buff Food, normal food, Quest items, etc. as example. In case of healing pots and bandages the best ones will be shown in the button. To use an old example, if I went into Tempest Keep, it would show the Nethergon pots, and outside would switch to normal pots instead. If you move your mouse on a button, a menu will popup and show what else you have got in your inventory.

I just find it extremely handy to have access to all consumables with a quick click.

AutoBar also offers the same concept for class bars. I don’t use that at all as warrior, but on my shaman I have a classbar for all my totems, for specific shaman buffs, for the elementals. Incredibly handy. For warriors you get buttons for stances, shields, Charge, and an emergency macro which I haven’t looked at yet.

You can use keybindings for every single button, and as I am a keyboard-heavy player, I have most of the important buttons bound.

All in all, it’s one of my must-have addons, I feel it makes managing consumables and even class-specific tasks a lot easier.

I had a fabulous WoW weekend. Really tons of fun. As usual I did not have luck with the Hyldnir spoils, and my Mysterious Egg got me nothing but Aged Yolk, but there’s always the next spoil bag or the next egg. Kadomi is oodles of fun to play, and I enjoy pushing the DPS in my group to bring it. At least in guild groups I usually end up 2nd if not 1st, with my Deep Wounds build. Eternally Folded Blade is a myth. If my luck’s like that when I start doing the H UP runs, then woe is me.

But back to my weekend. I ran my very first couple of heroics. As healer, that is. In fact I managed to get 29 Emblems of Heroism this weekend, and my shaman bought her first piece of new badge gear. I had a blast! Healing is fun. Being the tank-healer team with someone right across from you is great. But it does not solve the dilemma that I have an epic-geared alt and a neglected main. This must change.

This place will continue to be ‘Tank like a girl’ because you can read everywhere else how to heal. My passion is for tanking, for being a meat shield, and for being pretty darn good at it. I will follow the current trend and will learn to love the PUG, just like Drug from Shields Up! and Namthe from The View from Down Here recommend to people. A ret paladin friend has declared she’ll help me and will come along, and soon the pages of this blog will be filled with entertaining tales of PUG adventures. At least that’s the theory.

In truth, I can absolutely see the merits of PUGs. Back in TBC when I first started tanking, I ran PUGs extensively. Almost all experiences were positive, and you sure learn a lot. I know a lot more since then. It’s not as if I don’t get a lot of whispers to tank this and that heroic. Instead of categorically saying no, I will embrace them, if I cannot get a guild group. I am done with all the basic rep grinds for gear and stuff like enchants, as I’ll be Exalted with Sons of Hodir later today. It’s time to try all the easy heroics. Hell, if I can heal all the easy heroics, I sure will be able to tank them.

There, it’s posted, now I will have to do it. Hopefully I can entertain you with great stories soon.

What’s your take on it, do you PUG, do you never PUG?