Well, yesterday I put a post up and a couple of back-dated sales pages for a couple of the guides I've released recently, and then I must have done something else because my blog then spun out of control and I got my hosting account suspended for using too many CPU resources and probably crashing one of their Database servers.

Oops.

Whatever I did, the friendly support staff helped me get the site back up and working and fixed up after all that, but in doing so they had to roll me back to a previous version and therefore my most recent blog entry was nuked.

So, sorry if you've come to the site from one of the Twitter links out there, only to find the entry doesn't exist.

Recent Updates To WoWGrrl's Play

The biggest recent update to my personal play on World of Warcraft is that just over a month ago, the guild I've been in since 6wks before the release of WoTLK underwent a merger with a slightly higher-progressed guild that was experiencing some of the same problems as us: Namely, low attendance on H.ToTC25 nights that stymied progression for a few weeks before the merger was debated and then finalized.

Yay For Rocket Packs!

Most of the core group from our guild came across in the merger, but we did lose a percentage of the rest of the team - those who had lower attendance or had issues with the new guild or were too nervous about the merger and how they'd fare in this new group, left on their own accord and found new homes, mostly without complaint.

I'm sure there were other reasons as well - I know one of my ex-guildmates took a break from the game for familial reasons as well, but I expect when he comes back he'll get rave reviews on his app and will have little problem getting in.

The Guild Chosen For Merger

I don't remember how it all came down - being a member and not part of the Officer core of my previous guild, I wasn't part of the discussions until it was time for the membership to place a vote on the issue.

(Yes, we had a guild meeting about the topic and had discussions posted up on our forums for people to air their concerns in advance of the merger being finalized. My vote was "Yay! Let's do it", I'm with ya 100%")

However, the hilarious part of the merger is that the entire Officer core of our guild was once in that guild, pre-BC and perhaps during part of BC as well. The Guild Charter was *written* by a couple of the Officers from our guild, and our rules had been very very similar with just a few differences.

So, in other words, the cultural expectation of behavior in the guild and in the raids were so near to identical that the merger itself went very smoothly, at least from my perspective.

In terms of the new Leadership, the Officer core is now 50/50 Ours/Theirs, although as time passes of course, it all melts into one big "us", at least in theory.

First Raid With The Merged Guild

The first raid night was very interesting. About 37 raiders showed up on time, at the door of ToTC, completely repaired and stocked up for a night's worth of raiding.

With the transition, two of our main leaders (probably the ones who wrote the Charters of both guilds and have been in Leadership positions for a long time in-game) decided now would be an awesome time to step down leadership and be one of the members. The first raid night must have been a huge relief to them as a result.

"Aren't you glad you don't have to decide who gets to go and who doesn't?" - I asked on the old guild's social/alts line.

"YES!" was the response from one, and "It feels weird to not be involved" was the response from the other. I think they both probably felt the same mixed feelings but both were obviously relieved about their new positions within the team.

After Six Weeks

It's now been about six weeks since the merger took place, and believe it or not, we STILL have 30-35 raiders show up for each raid. One night we actually had FOURTY-TWO raiders show up - attendance had to be taken in two snapshots since they couldn't fit everyone in.

Some people who came across with the original merger decided the raid team wasn't for them anymore for various reasons - generally because of pre-existing bad blood with one of the other guild's members, or unfortunately, because some people don't like the thought of being put on Raid Overflow... taking it personally or otherwise feeling like their joy of playing is being threatened.

In terms of progression, this merger was FANTASTIC for the regular raiders coming from our guild. As a guild our progression fight was Heroic Northrend Beasts in ToTC25, and due to attendance or raid balance issues it wasn't very often that we were able to make proper progression on the fight from week to week. People had stopped showing up for Progression Night and after a while of that, others started to leave, looking for a guild that was still actively able to suit up for Progression Night.

The other guild was having the same problem after an internal clique left en masse.

The first raid night with the new team, which was about 50/50 in mix between the two groups that were merging, the group took down the first three sets of bosses in Heroic ToTC25, stopping to struggle for the end of the evening only on the Twins fight.

Right now, we're still working on downing Anub'arak in H.ToTC25, but from what I heard the last set of attempts had him down to 2% (I was on overflow), so it's just about there!

Shammy And Racial Totems

Working On Changing Mains

This merger did put a bit of a damper on me at one point, but I'm a pretty undampable person overall - there are simply too many paths I could take in my life to beat myself up by continuing down the dampered one while it's actively being dampened for some reason.

In my case, I was working on advancing my Shaman to 80 and getting her geared up for the possibility of a Main Change.

Mainly, because I have tried Shadow a number of times and don't really enjoy it all that much, and as a result I'm a Discipline Priest with a PvP Disc offspec, and that's pretty restrictive in terms of being able to actually flex and bend like I believe a good raider should be able to do.

There are times, after all, where the guild needs a whole mess of healers. But then there are times later on in progression when the guild needs less healers and more DPS. I wanted to be able to contribute properly during both, while enjoying the whole experience.

So, I powered my Shammy from 72 to 80 then got into Heroics and Raids and geared her up as quickly as I could. Then the merger happened, so while I continued to advance the Shaman, I put her on the back burner until things settled down a bit in the new guild and I could see whether the Ele/Resto Shaman would be welcomed.

Since 3.3 came out, I've pounded through the Heroics and gotten enough Triumph badges to buy all the Elemental gear I could, plus a few pieces of Resto gear as well, and my gear is on par with the lesser-geared raiders on our team. I posted my app over a week ago but I'm not really sure what's happening with it quite yet.

I'll let you know once I find out what's going on! :)

How's Your Playing Going?

I'm sure there have been a lot of changes that have gone on in your play over the last couple of months - guild changes, guild splits, guild mergers, new toons to 80, trying of new roles... I'd love to hear how things are going in your world!

Tell me what you think about the new Dungeon Tool now that it's a few weeks old - is it working okay from your perspective, or is it annoying?

I'll write about my experiences in an upcoming entry!

Related posts:

1. Looking Back: From Social Guild To Raiding Guild
2. Applying For A Raiding Guild: What To Ponder
3. Why My Raiding Guild Rocks, Part One

Not only is it ugly as anything I've ever seen before in some cases (and yes, that's of value to me), but it goes a long, long way towards reducing the pain of hunting out gear upgrades every 10 levels like I used to do.

I know it's been out a while, but the fact that the weapon, both trinkets, plus the chest and shoulder pieces that I slapped on this character before she hit level 20 will last me all the way to level 80, and possibly even 85 when Cataclysm comes out.

That's a huge load off of an alt-o-holic leveler's mind. There are, after all, at least six other children in this online toon family I'm maintaining, and therefore anything that can cut out a lot of worry for a lot of levels is deemed "good" - nay, "Excellent".

Lowbie Locklier Looking Lovely

Orc Warlock Mid Cast

I mean, they all look so alluringly innocent and pure! And their dance is so delicate and again - alluringly innocent! (*wipes sarcasm from chin*)

I've got two Orc toons now, but this one is the only one I'm actively playing. The other one is currently Guildmaster of my Guild of One and I only log into her to perform gem transmutes and to move large quantities of money around (ie: anything over 1000g or so).

Since I played my Orc Rogue up to the level 65 that she's at, not much has changed about Orcs - other than the fact that the racial ability is much more use-friendly in group situations. Didn't the old ability increase damage taken and dealt but then reduce healing taken? Now the racial increases my spellpower by a certain degree for 15 seconds instead.

And yes, I use my racial ability all the time on this toon - in fact, on my Trolls and on this Orc I have the racial ability stacked with one of my commonly-cast spells so I'm using the racial whenever it comes off of cooldown.

A 30 Warlock's Dream Of Summoning...er, Raiding

My Wee Warlock recently hit level 30, thanks to some renewed vigor towards getting a Warlock up to raiding levels.

You see, I'm not sure what your realm is like, but our realm's raid PUGs (and even our own guild group) face a pretty regular lack of two classes: Warlocks and Shaman. I don't know why, but if there's a Warlock or Shaman available in a 25 player PUG raid, there's usually only one or at the most two, and a lot of time the Raid Leader has to search specifically for those classes in order to get them in-raid.

Druids and Mages seem pretty scarce as well, but not to the same degree. (Good, because I'm waiting until I can be a Goblin Druid, nice and small)

Of course, with my Warlock only at level 30, I know there's a long ways to go before I could ever think about raiding with her. In fact, with the way I level characters (mostly using rest bonus) it's unlikely she'll even raid during this expansion at all.

Yet I still look forward to the future of being a big strong Warlock able to solo things 15 times my size just like some of the other Warlock WoW Bloggers out there :)

Feeling The 30s Crunch

Right now I'm kind of struggling in my advancement, however - the quests I pick up tend to be 5 levels lower than I am, or to spread out way beyond belief, or 4-5 levels above where I am.

Locklier And Her Blueberry

I'm thinking it might be time to trade some dungeon run-through favors with my friends... so I paid it forward the other day by helping out one of my regular dungeon-trade friends with his 36 Warlock - running him through Razorfen Downs and then all four wings of the Scarlet Monestary using my 70 Death Knight.

I might also jump into some regular dungeon PUGs soon with this character - I did a few at the RFC/Wailing Caverns level but then have been just questing since then.

My Warlock Leveling Spec Questions

Right now I'm stacking my points seriously into Demonology to support my Voidwalker's uberness as a blueberry tank, and that works great for solo questing, but my actual DPS when I don't have my Voidwalker doing damage is quite pathetic.

At what point should I think about switching some of my points more towards a different spec?

And if I were to dual spec at 40 (which is the earliest level one can dual spec I believe) to have a solo spec and a dungeoning spec, would I be better to go with Affliction or Destruction at a low level?

Related posts:

1. Cranking The Shaman Up To 80
2. Advancing The Lowbie Paladin
3. WoW Warlock Tips: Soulstone Etiquette – Who, When, Why

Mimiron in Ulduar

You'll find that the thought processes I apply here will strongly effect my viewpoint on many things to do with guild relations, and I'm sure you'll find that you disagree with me on many points.

That's cool! I'm glad for it, and I'm happy to hear your thoughts and views on the same situation. I'm sure other readers will appreciate it as well, seeing many perspectives intead of just the one I present.

Why I Raid

If I had to choose the top three reasons why I raid these days, I'd choose the following:

• To experience more of the World of Warcraft
• To challenge myself and my playing skills
• To participate in time-scheduled, high-quality play

Truthfully, when I was building that list, I realized that those weren't the original reasons I got into raiding, but that's a topic for a future entry (Why I Got Into Raiding, not yet written :) ).

I will, however, take time to go more deeply into the explanation of the above points:

Reason #1: To Experience More Of World of Warcraft

There is a limit that a player can do within World of Warcraft once one hits level 80, without setting foot into a raid:

If you plan to stay on one main character, you can do dungeons and heroic dungeons, you can skill up professions that had lagged behind your leveling process, you can grind reputation in a large number of factions (including ones that take you back to Outland and Azeroth) and you can farm for gold a lot more easily, or run friends through instances.

But after a while, that becomes boring. So then what do you do?

Depending on your ability to commit time to dungeon runs of questionable quality and length, and funds towards crafted gear with expensive components, you might choose to start up an alternate character instead, and begin leveling it up (in fact I do recommend it in a way, but that's another entry on its own).

But at some point, even someone like me with 3 Level 80s and 3 non-DK's at levels above 60... gets bored of advancing more toons through the same levels and zones that are "the grind" of leveling up.

At that point, even if we didn't want to commit to raiding, or get into a raiding guild in the past, now our mind starts to shift a little bit, and we start thinking about all the new content there is out there that we've never, ever seen.

And of course, when the new content comes out - it's rarely in Azeroth, isn't it??! Most of the new content that goes into the game goes into the "top end", extending it out further for every player of the game.

Obviously as a way to combat alts boredom, raiding provides a never-ending train of new fights and new dynamics to the new raider.

Reason #2: Challenging Myself, My Playing Skills

This is a point that has always been important to me, but what I consider "challenging" is a relative thing that changes with my own skill level.

Back at the start of my play time, there was enough challenge in simply questing and exploring and leveling within the game, but over time my play needed to expand in order to keep the feeling of being challenged to improve.

So, I got into dungeon runs with guildmates when someone was looking to run something, and tried to "softly" bring myself into the world of Grouped Play on World of Warcraft.

Truthfully, it didn't work very well. Guildmates were rarely wanting to run something when it fit my personal schedule, and as is pretty standard in a leveling guild, there were very few members who were in my level (and thus dungeon) range as well.

So, I made the emotionally scary journey into using Pick Up Groups for my dungeoning needs. I put on my nicest asbestos suit (you know, to protect me from the flames of so-called "better" players) and head into the world of PUGs where an extremely wide variety of folk can be met.

But eventually, even the novelty challenge of a PUG's natural skill and speed varieties wore thin, and I craved a new challenge once again.

Thankfully, in Burning Crusade when I hit this phase of "boredom", there were still plenty of challenges left, and the first one was named "Heroics".

And wow, Heroics were an eye-opener, at least to me. I grew excited at what I saw, because I recognized it as "the next phase" I was aching for in my challenge-hungry heart.

I learned quickly that Heroics, at least early in Burning Crusade, were a self-correcting system. By that, I mean that early BC Heroics were rarely time-wasters like Regulars were... if you were undergeared or underskilled for Heroics, it was crystal clear after the first pull. Groups tended to break up immediately, or progress through the dungeon at a respectable pace, and there was very little in-between.

Once I got into Heroics, I was in a whole new world. The friends I began to make were Raiders, more and more. They weren't available during the evening for Heroics runs during the week, because they were raiding.

And while I had no real intention to get deeply into raiding, when I received a random whisper from a raid guild recruiter one morning just before putting myself into LFG for the daily Heroic, I was pleased when the conversation ended not with a random guild invite, but with an invite to join a 25 man raid that evening, in Serpentshrine Cavern.

Moving from the challenge of a 5 person team to that of a 25 person team was insane, especially because I pretty much skipped over the 10 person raid of Karazhan until I was already raiding 25s 3x a week for over a month, and decided to actually make my first move onto the roster of a Raiding Guild.

From there, I was hooked on the level of challenge of play that's available in the Raiding World. Even with an awesome team, the personal challenges rarely cease.

It's great!

Reason #3: Time-Scheduled, High Quality Play

I left my first raiding guild after nearly six months of membership, once the guild environment changed enough that I no longer felt I really "fit in" outside of the raids themselves.

From there, I floated for a while, remaining unguilded and enjoying the pre-WoTLK TBC summer that brought with it so many raid PUGs at all Tier levels of play.

While I enjoying my freedom and lack of responsibility to any one raid team, I pondered my raiding future.

I made new friends in Heroics as I went through the gearing-up hoops with my second Heroically-geared character, and asked many of my current raiding friends more detail about the raid guild they were a part of.

As WoTLK drew nearer, with its 10 additional levels and complete reset of the gearing and raiding team environments, I made my move and began to pursue membership with a solid raiding team. I was especially looking for a team that was STILL RAIDING even after the official release date of WoTLK was announced.

That turned out to be a tough thing to do after WoTLK's release date came out, because a high percentage of our realm's raiders were raiding for gear progression, not for the experience of attempting or defeating the content, and as soon as it became apparent that any gear progression would be useless, many teams stopped Guild Raids out of lack of attendance.

That's what happened with the first raid guild I accepted membership into - my #1 choice (the guild I'm in now, BTW) rejected my app and gave me no indication about how I could reverse the rejection, so I went to my #2 choice and my website app (that included asking me how many of their raid days I could attend) got approved right away.

When I was able to get a guild invite, however, the Guild Message Of The Day read something like: "Gear up and get ready for the xpac. No raiding until WoTLK". My first response was "what? we're not raiding? uhmm...."

I left that guild within three days, because while the players seemed to be friendly and helpful and there were a regular stream of Heroics going every day, I wanted to see as much of the TBC content as I could before WoTLK came out, and I didn't want to have to PUG it.

I sent thank-you and sorry messages to the few people I connected with in that time, and sent one to the Guildmaster as well. All I heard back from anyone was that "you won't be able to find a guild that is raiding right now, nobody's raiding".

Aside from the ironicism that I DID find a guild that raided TBC content right until the night of WoTLK's release, there's this: After WoTLK came out and our server had high queues for a while, half of that "nobody's raiding" 25-man guild transferred to another server, leaving the guild on our server COMPLETELY unable to raid 25s until a month or two into 2009.

These days, I'm in a guild that has not only a solid raid schedule, but a solid raid team. We start raids on time (although getting set up in vehicles in Ulduar sometimes slows us down 5-10 min), end raids on time, and are consistently making progression on a weekly basis with our team.

This is my first guild that has "Official Raid Days" as well, and the first raiding team I've been a part of that records attendance and has an Officer-based Loot Council who make the ultimate decision on who wins a piece of loot when it drops for the team.

What's weird is that before I got into a "committed raid team" like I am now, I thought the commitment would be worse instead of better in terms of play time. After all, who really wants to schedule their life around a video game, right?

The thing I realized was this: Without the schedule, I was wasting a lot more time in-game in order to feel like I'd "accomplished" something. I'd sit in LFG for however long before getting an invite, then go into random PUG dungeon groups that could be excellent or incredibly painful. I'd spent a lot of time waiting for less-scheduled raid groups to get together and Git'r Done, and was stuck with my finger in my ear while people in these PUGs went AFK for 5-15 min at a time, usually holding up the whole group. I'd feel like I was stuck in a group out of loyalty, without ever knowing when the raid night would be over.

With the schedule, and with the combination effort of a solid Officer's team and Raiders who are interested in being part of a good team that does well, I was surprised how many problems vanished:

• Raid overflow is a great motivator:
  • If you ain't online 15 min before raid start time, the spots are filled, and you're on Overflow unless you're Really Special[TM]
  • AFKing too much? Not coming prepared with consumables? Hey, there's someone here who can replace you who ISN'T exhibiting these traits.
• People who commit to time schedules like to know not only when they start, but when they end, too.
• Setting official raid days and non-official raid days gives your raiders a break, and clarifies who makes the personal choice to raid more often.
• Once you know when your raids start and end, and what days are Official Raid Days, you can actually start to PLAY LESS because you're not wasting time in LFG or with questionable groups.
• Within a solid team of high-percentage attenders, Raid Applicants that join but are ultimately unreliable for raiding seem to guilt themselves into even poorer attendance, which makes the decision of recruiting someone new (and hopefully more reliable) a lot easier, sooner.

Why I Raid, Summarized

Yah, I know I just wrote a half a book up there about only three of the reasons Why I Raid, but really, I guess when it comes down to it...

I Raid Because It Brings Me Joy.

And ain't the best parts of life about the joys things bring?

Related posts:

1. Challenge Exists In Chaos
2. How To Get Into PUG Raids Without An Achievement
3. Summertime's Effect On Your Raid Team

AOE Questing

My Frost Mage was my Raiding Guild raider in Burning Crusade, whereas my Holy Priest was only a PUG raider, and my Hunter really only did heroics. But when it came time for deciding on what my Raiding Guild toon would be for WoTLK, a number of things came together to let me know it was time to release the Mage and embrace the Priest.

The Mage is now just a muck-around toon for me - he's not advancing very quickly, but has recently, at 75, achieved the status of Exalted with the Kalu'ak, so he too, now, has the fancy-ass Mastercraft fishing pole like my Priest and Hunter do as well.

Frost Mage Spec Is Awesome In Northrend!

Before WoTLK came out, I struggled with one thing with my Frost Mage spec - the fact that I couldn't have a good AOE spec while at the same time having a good Raid spec.

Even when the talent trees were changed in 3.0.2 just before the second expansion came out, I didn't have enough points to have a semi-decent AoE spec while at the same time doing decent raid damage.

Leveling up a few times in Northrend sure fixed that problem! It's great! Now I have my base 70s raid spec but I have extra points to play around with for AOE while I level, and since I'm not yet to a raiding level, I don't have to worry about perfecting my spec yet.

Learning The AoE Farming Skill

I started practicing the AoE farming technique in Frost Spec around level 42, when I was in the Pirate's area on the shores of Tanaris.

I watched a level 42 Frost Mage and his Pally buddy gather up 8 Pirates at once, and while the Pally tried desperately to hold the targets in his Concecrate, the Mage did his AoE farming thing (blinking, blizzarding, frost nova'ing, cone of cold'ing, not in that order) and in no time flat those 8 Pirates, some 2-3 levels higher than the Mage, were dead.

Mage AoE Strategy: Iceblock

Then I got a whisper from the Mage: "Why r u not aoe farming them?"

My initial response: "Cuz, uh, I'd never thought about it..."

My next response was to finish our quest while I opened a browser window to look up this particular player's spec.

After our quest was done, I ported to a city and respec'd, using this guy's spec as a model, and then I headed back to Tanaris.

Practicing Mage AoE Skills

As it turned out, Tanaris with those Pirates was a little bit too much for me with my beginner AoE skills. At the time, I didn't even know ANYTHING about the technique at all, other than what I had watched, and obviously with the quick deaths I was experiencing, I was missing something key.

(feel free to check out a quick 54 second clip of me AOE farming the Rhino's in Borean Tundra through my Facebook Fan page)

After three quick deaths on three different attempts, I backed off and decided to take my practice to somewhere a little more reasonable.

Outside of Grom'Gol Base Camp is a great place, with the Raptor families hung out together in close proximity.

In Dustwallow Marsh there was a great place to practice, too, with more Raptors that were lower in level than the Pirates in Tanaris, but higher level than the Raptors outside of Grom'Gol.

How AoE Skills Help Now

Blue The Rhino Killer

For example, I refuse to purchase Rhino Meat for when the Dalaran Daily Cooking Quest is "Mustard Dogs!", despite the fact that I complete the quest on four different toons whenever that particular one comes up.

What I do instead is practice my Mage AoE skills by venturing to a well-populated area of the game (in terms of Rhino's), and mowing down everything in sight for about a half an hour. I end up with more than enough Rhino meat for weeks to come.

The only thing that would make it better was if my Mage or a friend of mine who could join me were a Skinner, and could benefit from the tons of dead Rhino's I leave in my wake as I keep my AoE skills up.

But ah well, can't have everything I suppose... :)

Related posts:

1. Practicing the Frost Mage AOE Grinding Strategy
2. Back With The Pirates Again – Frost AOE Grinding
3. Yay For Mustard Dogs!

One of the things that is unique about Northrend is that there are many more forms of travel available to a player than there used to be - while Outland had some flying/touring quests that put us on some neat flyers from which to see what it wanted us to see, and there have always been regular flight paths from place to place, Northrend takes it another step further.

In Northrend, there are Ferries and Lifts of various sorts, designed to make certain parts of your travel easier or quicker, or in some cases, just to let you enjoy the scenery in a more relaxed way than when you're actually "driving" your own character.

Turtle Ferry In Dragonblight - "The Half Shell"

The Half Shell - Parked Turtle Ferry in Dragonblight

The roaming Turtle Ferries are named Green Island and The Water Walker, and they roam from Howling Fjord on one end to Borean Tundra on the other.

My first contact with it was when I was roaming around Moa'ki Harbour, doing one of the Kalu'ak dailies. I had to laugh and take a picture when I realized it was, indeed, a big-ass tortoise chasing a dangling CARROT of all things.

The boat, however, is as slow as a ... tortoise, so if you're looking to take a ride, do it for the scenery, not for the quickness of travel. It's a great way to get from one Northrend starting zone to another once you've finished the first, however!

Ancient Lift In Howling Fjord

Riding The Ancient Lift in Howling Fjord

Players on the Ancient Lift are free-roaming, which is good at some points in your quests around there where you need to get to the top of a bluff but cannot climb the bluff from the ground. Hop on the Ancient Lift and hop off at the right time and you're all set!

The Very Coolest New Transportation In Northrend

Not getting into the player-built mounts which are a whole different topic, and staying on the topic of in-game transportation from one place to another which allows appreciation of the game scenery since one is not "driving" the transport...

The one new type of transportation introduced in Northrend that I think is the very coolest is one you can only see by dying in certain places.

Dying in Icecrown will create this effect, which means returning to Halls of Stone or Halls of Lightning in Ulduar after a party wipe is a grand place to see this effect...

Ghost Gryphon in Icecrown

Related posts:

1. Getting the Deathknight Ready for Northrend Tanking
2. Battling Your Inner Turmoil
3. Northrend Alchemy Discoveries

71+ No Workie??

I just hopped onto my Mage to go and do some Invasion stuff (looking for more [Haunted Memento] for my alts), and took a peek at my [Riding Crop].

See what that thing says now? The tooltip has been updated recently, and now I'm left to wonder...

Will there be something at level 71 to replace my 10% mount speed buff that the trinket gave me?

Am I going to be sad that I got rid of my [Carrot on a Stick], or does that have a level restriction now too?

And man... this isn't like other items that work in the older zones but not the newer ones... this ceases to work completely! :(

Related posts:

1. Mount Speed Enhancer Carrot On A Stick a "World Drop"?
2. Big Bad Wolf / Red Riding Hood in Karazhan, Opera Event
3. Awesome Hunter Guide: WoTLK Consumables

I myself will not be rolling a DeathKnight for quite a while, figuring that there'll be enough of them out there that the other classes and roles will be easier to get a party with - and I'm all for less competition and more personal fun.

I'd like to say one thing about this whole DeathKnight situation, however:

Being A Tank Is More Than Leading A Party

I know that the introduction of the dual-wielding damage-dealing rune-using DeathKnight is meant to help address the "tank shortage" that is perceived in the game, but I personally don't think it's going to do a whit to help the "problem" that is perceived.

You see, according to what I see, the "problem" is that the role and responsibilities of a Tank are not what most players expect it to be, and when most players realize what is expected of a Tank, they decide it's not what they want to do, and viola, they're "dps, not a tank".

This is not to say that someone who is DPS geared and spec'd cannot act as a Tank in an instance, of course. Players "can" do anything they want, but they may find it difficult to find quality DPS and Healers who want to party with them on an ongoing basis unless they're way overgeared for the instance and essentially giving run-throughs.

Role and Responsibilities Of A Good Tank

Most of us are familiar with the basic role of a good tank - to lead the dungeon party's direction, and to be the object of the enemy mob's hate, taking damage and protecting the rest of the damage-dealers and healers in the party.

But the responsibilities of a tank aren't as clear (especially the more refined the tanking strategy gets), and there's a vast difference between a bad tank and a good tank.

Some tanking responsibilities include:

• Determining the quality of the group's healer
• Setting the pace of the party excursion
• Marking and communicating kill order of grouped mobs
• Making Good Pulls
• Explaining Boss fights
• Reigning in or replacing excessively poor groupmates

Quality Of The Group's Healer?

It's largely expected that for a group to be successful, the most important parts are that the Tank and Healer are solid. Having poor DPS can slow down a dungeon run in a severe way as well, of course, but having a poor Tank or poor Healer almost always spells doom for a party.

But having said that, know that we're all in a process of learning about how to play our classes as we're levelling through to the level cap, so "excellent" healing or tanking is not required. What is required is that the Tank can judge the quality of the group's healer, so the Tank knows how hard and fast the party can be pushed without having to spend time getting ready to go again after a wipe.

Setting The Pace

This is one of the toughest things for a new tank to learn - especially since World of Warcraft has been going for many years and it's likely you'll get at least one member of your PUG party who is high on knowledge about the particular instance, but low on patience for waiting for you to start the fight.

In short, a good tank will know that a DPS who is deciding to start the pulls is using a passive-aggressive, non-verbal way to say "let's go faster". A good tank will always practice setting up the marks and starting the battle as quickly as possible.

Marking Kill Order

Marking is a huge learning curve for a new tank, and is the primary reason why I've chosen the DPS and now Healer route before trying the Tanking route.

If marking were merely about slapping a Skull, X, Moon, Square, etc on whatever mob you pleased, then marking would be easy, and I wouldn't be writing about it. But it's not easy - the tank needs to know which attackers are ranged, and which are melee, which will heal or mind control or aoe-bolt the party, what types of crowd control can be used on normal mobs, and what mobs are immune to any type of crowd control.

I strongly suggest that any tank get an addon to help quicken the process of applying Raid Icons, because the marking and pulling process can be one of the biggest time-wasters of any PUG I've been in.

Making Good Pulls

In my opinion, LOS (line of sight) pulls are one of the signs of an excellent tank.

Knowing first to communicate to the party that a LOS pull is being executed, and then knowing exactly where to stand to be out of LOS for the mobs they've just pulled is amazing to me.

But in general, a good pull, whether it's using Line of Sight or not, is one that is executed with control and allows for the pulling back of a group of mobs far enough that the endless number of patrols that are found in instances above level 45 can be avoided until they, themselves, are pulled with control.

Explaining Boss Fights

A good tank knows that while the players in the party may be competent, they may also be brand new to the particular instance at hand, and may not be at all familiar with the boss fights you're about to jump into. A good tank will confirm that everyone knows the fight, and if someone doesn't, will be able to give a quick, succinct explanation of what that player will need to worry about.

For the most part, it's been agreed that the biggest piece of advice a player could get in a boss fight is this: "Stay out of the fire"

Maintaining A Good Group

A good tank has likely been playing as a tank for a while, and is a good tank out of experience in tanking. What comes along with this is that they probably have a pretty good Friends list, or have buddies in their guild they can turn to to fill a last spot in a dungeon run, or can look at the LFG tool and recognize a few good players from past experience.

Thus, a good tank is usually quite able to maintain a good group, even if it's a completely random group of players in a PUG. Good tanks will know how to quickly and politely communicate to a wild player that they need to hang back a bit or settle down a little, and ultimately will be able to replace a tremendously poor player instead of forcing the entire group to suffer through the bad experience.

Note, I said "politely communicate" there. A tank who will abuse a poor player instead of being polite will find themselves being used as a Tank as long as there is no other choice, but over time will continue to be forced to play with poor players with poor attitudes while the good players with good attitudes form stronger friendship bonds and play together more.

Why Most DeathKnights Won't Be Tanks

Most Deathknights won't be tanks because Tanking takes a lot more knowledge than any other role, and knowledge takes dedication, interest, time, and repetition repetition repetition.

Many players who pick up the DeathKnight class will be doing so because it's new and interesting, and they're "bored" of their other characters. This doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me... do we really think that someone who would re-roll due to boredom would put in the time and energy to truly learn how to be a good tank in that class?

Sure, there'll be some excellent DeathKnight tanks that come out of this introduction, but won't it end up like the rest of the tanks, where a large majority of the good ones are snatched up by guilds and then have so many quality choices of regular play partners that they rarely have to turn to the LFG tool to fulfill their needs?

Related posts:

1. LFG Tanks: Don’t Screw Your Healers!
2. For DPS Specs: How To Drive Away Healers And Tanks
3. Re-learning The Fights As A Healer

Put on your Murlock Suit and Dance!

Why not come back to World of Warcraft for a few months just to see what's going on, and to catch up with old friends?

Did You Play World of Warcraft, But Cancel?

Do you want to play again, with no obligation beyond a 10 day free trial, while still using YOUR characters that you know so well?

No starting over.

No requirement to stay.

What do you have to lose?

This works for BRAND NEW World of Warcraft accounts too! (but let me know you're setting up a new one, as I have to send a different invite)

Leave me a note, and I'll send you a Scroll of Resurrection which will give you that 10 day free trial. Only an active player can give you this scroll.

But PLEASE only do this if you're serious, because I only have 10 scrolls per month I can give out.

When you do come back, be sure to poke over to Zul'jin to leave me a message of hello, or send me a comment on Twitter like JP from Hong Kong did below:

Commentary from others I've helped...

Related posts:

1. All I Do These Days Is PUG
2. What I’ve learned playing World of Warcraft the first couple days…
3. Five Days of Burning Crusade