Mastering tanks, one boss at a time.
This is my particular brand of crazy — some may even call it a gift. The truth is, I can wipe many, many times without become too frustrated, at least before we score that first kill. (Wipes after that first kill…well no one’s patience can last that long.)
Since I am nearly done wiping in Cataclysm, here are my all time high scores, complete with recent pictures I’ve taken while wiping.
And expertise too. It’s no secret that I’m way beyond the expertise soft cap (as are many leather wearers this tier). But beyond this relatively new development, I just don’t like stats with definitive caps. I’d probably feel the same way about mastery if I was a shield tank. Stats that just stop working after a while are no fun.
When I first started playing World of Warcraft, I remember telling my parents it was simply called The Burning Crusade. Why? Because World of Warcraft sounds like one of those games that’s overflowing with unnecessary violence. As someone who grew up within 5 miles of the Columbine massacre, excessively violent video games were commonly thought to cause excessive violence in the real world. Sprinkle in some religious fundamentalism, a brother fighting in a real life war, and voila! You have a situation where a game with Crusade in the title is preferable to one that implies a world full of war.
Nowadays my parents actually encourage my gaming habits (well, they encourage my blogging habits), and it turns out my fear was a little unnecessary. They actively try to understand what I’m blogging and tweeting about all the time, though in reality they have almost no clue.
Continue reading “How Do You Explain WoW to non-WoW players?”
In 10 man, Heroic Madness is more difficult than Heroic Spine, and will probably remain difficult even after successive nerfs. Don’t get fooled into thinking that you’ll be done with this tier after just one or two nights of wiping, because it will probably take many more. Heroic Madness is very stressful for healers, but pretty straightforward for tanks and dps.
As with most my guides, this is intended for tanks because that’s the role I filled. I hope there are helpful things for other roles, but I am not an expert in those roles. I expect you to know the basic mechanics of the fight before diving into this guide. There are many solutions to complex boss fights like these, and the way we did it is not the only right way.
Continue reading “Heroic Madness of Deathwing 10 Tanking Guide”
This is a difficult fight for tanks and healers, and an extremely boring fight for damage dealers. Each phase gets progressively more intense until you finally reach the chaotic finish. It’s widely believed to be the most difficult fight in Dragon Soul because it requires highly focused dps, a lot of blood control, and lucky strings of avoidance while kiting. After all the nerfs it has received, I’d rank the 10 man version far below Heroic Madness and Heroic Warmaster, but it is still a difficult fight.
As with most my guides, this is intended for tanks because that’s the role I filled. I hope there are helpful things for other roles, but I am not an expert in those roles. I expect you to know the basic mechanics of the fight before diving into this guide. There are many solutions to complex boss fights like these, and the way we did it is not the only right way.
Continue reading “Heroic Spine of Deathwing 10 Tanking Guide”
I really hate this fight. Someone will probably die if you (or someone else) second guesses soaking puddles, and the adds need to be positioned precisely but they have such tiny hit boxes that it’s often hard to do so. Oh well, you have to get it over with sometime. It’s a big step up in difficulty from the previous bosses in 10 man.
Continue reading “Heroic Warmaster Blackhorn 10 Tanking Guide”
I have this thing for looking at recruitment posts, and this was especially relevant when I was looking for new guilds a few weeks ago. After a while you start to notice patterns and develop pet peeves. If you are in charge of the recruitment post for your guild, here are somethings you should or should not do (according to me).
Being in an end-game raiding guild means knowing your class and role inside and out. Your rotation is second nature, you fully understand the mechanics, and you know how to apply your class’s individual skill set to each unique encounter. You know the pattern to follow and, most importantly, you know when to break that pattern.
Being in an end-game raiding guild means being familiar the other nine classes. You know their strengths, so that you can use them in the best place, and you know their weaknesses, so that you can help compensate for them.
Continue reading “What Does It Mean to Be in a End-Game Raiding Guild?”
Upon reading Zwingli’s post on Nelflings, I began to wonder: what would worgen babies be like? Worgen are humans who have been cursed to a wolf-like form, so obviously the offspring of a worgen would start out human. Would they be inflicted with the worgen curse, too?
Last night I went to dinner with some of my boyfriend’s coworkers. I’m a quiet type, so when meeting new people like this I usually sit back and observe how everyone else acts. They were all fun people, though not the normal type of folk that I’m used to hanging out with. Eventually one of the girls piped up and admitted to playing Magic (the card game) last week. She had borrowed a deck from one of her friends and actually won once!
This led to the accusation that she had done another unbelievable nerdy thing in the past, playing World of Warcraft. She confessed that yes, she played up to level 35. At that point, she said, the game took too much of her time, so she quit.