Mastering tanks, one boss at a time.
The other day I was playing a console game and struggling with a boss fight. I’d been working on it for many attempts and failing miserably to get the boss anywhere close to dead.
After tolerating a half hour of raging, my boyfriend borrowed my controller and, after having never played this game, killed the boss in one try.
For the most part in this expansion, I’ve been able to use my monk and dh interchangeably. Sure, there have been some situations where one was a bit stronger than the other, but I could cover those weaknesses with some adjustments in strategy or toolkit and it worked out fine. But when we hit heroic Gul’dan this week, that was the first time I ever swapped out one character for the other for progression.
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
I’m not sure what the context of that quote is, but when I apply it to myself I find it funny. The whole reason why I maintain this blog is to teach myself, because I struggle with a lot of things. I struggle with learning and paying attention, with reaction times and memory, with verbal communication.
It’s true that once had the trappings of a competitive player, when I was in one of the first US guilds to clear Cataclysm raids. I attribute that to a) unemployment and b) tanking Dragon Soul wasn’t the most difficult thing in the game, and c) I lucked out in joining a guild that had three arcane mages with the legendary staff.
Whenever someone complains about bad tanks, I think “yeah, that’s me”. I pull too cautiously, I do terrible dps, I don’t communicate well verbally. I forget to use cooldowns, zone out, and get defensive (and not in the tanky way). I take forever to pick up on mechanics. I balk at spending gold of any magnitude on consumables.
But I’m okay with my mediocrity. There was a point in my life I wasn’t okay with it, and I got to experience being good at something. But I don’t need that anymore, and I’m having fun in a place where my mediocrity doesn’t hurt too much.
So when I adopt the tagline on my blog “Actually Terrible” that’s my way of just being honest. I don’t want people coming here thinking they’ll get good advice from a top raider. My hope is that average people will come here looking for average advice from an average raider.
Actually terrible, totally fine with it.
So far, demon hunters have been hard for me to master. That isn’t because of the class, it’s just me taking forever to learn how to intuitively play something new.
A while back I ran heroic Halls of Valor on my two tanks. My demon hunter was at about 850 ilvl, my monk barely above 810. And throughout the whole thing, I actually felt more confident on my monk than my demon hunter. Not for any class or balance reason, but because when bad stuff happens to my monk I intuitively know how to handle it. When my health becomes unstable, even if I don’t know why, I can probably put up an Ironskin Brew and I’ll be okay. I know to do that without even consciously thinking it.