I tanked Ramparts a couple more times without seeing a single upgrade or the Hellreaver Polearm. I also had a go at Tanking Blood Furnace and the first time was not quite a PUG from Hell, but it did include a pushy Healer who berated me for drinking. "If you're standing still you're wasting my fucking time!" he said. Yep, he actually said that, and so I Pulled. Massive pulls, pulls when I was OOM, I just kept running and pulling all the way to the The Maker's Room where I rushed in and pretty much Aggroed the entire room. And we wiped on the bombs that those Mobs dropped. Now the Healer wasn't so happy with the constant Pulling and wanted to take it slow. There's just no pleasing some people.
This weekend I've been running PUGs not quite non-stop but I kid you not, I've almost run more PUGs these past few days than I did during my previous 3 years playing. I've run PUGs so much I was actually starting to get a little tired of Tanking.
That was when the BIL logged on so I asked if he wanted to run me through Ramparts once or twice to see if we could get Hellreaver, and it finally dropped. I think that was close to the 10th time I'd been in there. He also ran me through Blood Furnace again to see if we could get anything and I'm not sure I did, at least nothing memorable.
With Hellreaver in my hands I switched back to Ret, then to level my Polearm skill (& relearn how to be a Retadin) I ran Stockades a couple of times. It was quite fun tearing through Stockades and I was pulling around 650DPS by the time I got my Polearm skill up, so I queued up for a Ramparts Run as DPS. It took several minutes to get in, not a terribly long time but definitely a little longer than queuing up as a Tank.
And now that I had Hellreaver I started to see it everywhere. It didn't drop again, but after running a couple more Ramparts and two more Blood Furnaces I was now seeing it in other players' hands, too.
The PUG Moment of the weekend was after the second Pull in Ramparts when the Tank said "sorry gtg dinner time", then stood around for a minute or two chatting before DCing. He didn't leave the party, he just DCd.
One of the DPS dropped out, then the other, leaving me, the Healer, and the DC'd Tank.
As the Healer berated the Tank for being an ass and not quitting the game properly I donned my Tank gear and began switching to my Prot Spec. "I guess I'll Tank," I said.
I right-clicked the DC'd Tanks profile and Orion be praised I was able to initiate a Vote Kick! Naturally the Healer agreed to Kick so with 2 of 3 Votes against him our DC'd Tank was gone. The Healer then re-queued us, and if you're wondering how long it takes a Healer and a Tank to get three DPS, it is not long, not at all. I think I'd barely agreed to Tank when we had our new group.
We breezed through Ramparts (as well we should, I know the damn place like the back of my hand now) then the Healer asked if we wanted to requeue for another run. I think one of the DPS stuck around, I agreed to Tank again, and with our group already having both Tank and Healer we literally went from Ramparts to our...random Dungeon? The Healer signed us up for a Random Dungeon? Oh boy.
We landed in Slave Pens, which I was sort of familiar with but hadn't been in for over 2 years, so I made sure to let our group know that, and said any tips/advice would be appreciated.
Just pull and we'll kill them, was the reply, and so we did, and in spite of the random Fears used by the Naga guards it was a smooth, wipe-free Run. I didn't get any Loot that I could use, other than a Priest/Holy Pally mace, and while it seems good for Mana Regen it's otherwise inferior to my Rampart's Shadowrend Longblade.
And after those numerous Ramparts and Blood Furnace Runs I finally hit Honored with Honor Hold, but I'm now 65 and still doing Hellfire Peninsula quests. I'll probably end up missing half the Outland zones (if not more) and going straight into Northrend, but as I've already leveling multiple characters into their 60s, as well as two 70s, I won't be missing anything. In fact I'd actually be missing out by NOT hitting Northrend as soon as possible.
And if you're wondering how I got in so much WoW this Valentine's Day weekend, it's not been the only thing I've done. I was off Friday and took the family to Universal Studios. We were there pretty much all day until the early hours of the evening, then Saturday we visited Leroy's in Monrovia for a too fattening but oh so good breakfast. Prices are easily comparable to Denny's but taste-wise they're beyond compare. Leroy's does amazing tater tots, which are simply heaven, and which I get with a veggie omelet so I can kid myself I'm eating somewhat healthy. It's not so healthy when I polish off the boy's pancakes because he couldn't finish them ;)
After breakfast we dropped the kids with the in-laws and the wife and I headed to a nearby outdoor mall where she hit Nordstrom Rack while I popped into Best Buy and almost bought a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Not for the wife! For me! Duh! She does the laundry, I do the vacuuming. That baby would be mine! Yeah, how many guys do you know that get excited over vacuum cleaners? Sure, there's Kryten, but he doesn't count ;)
And so what if I get excited over a vacuum cleaner? It's not like there's anything wrong with that. It's not like I'm taking double Polaroids and showing them to my mates ;)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Red Dwarf reference for the win!
Glad you seem to be enjoying the pally tank. It is definitely my favorite class in WoW.
After finishing Hellfire Pen and moving on to Zangarmarsh I decided to grab the 'Lost in Action' quest, which required me to do both Slave Pens and the Underbog, and wouldn't you know it, when I got into Slave Pens I had the same Druid Healer from the previous night. What are the odds?
Just before we freed Naturalist Bite someone in the Party asked if we had any quests. Oh yeah, I did. Doh! (Still a Noob ;) I opened my Quest Log, hit Share, and all 4 folks accepted my Quest. So after 'finding' Bite and downing Quagmirran I ran the group back to the dead Druid at the top of the Ramp. The Healer had already asked if anyone else was up for a second Run, and because it takes a minute or so to run back to the dead Druid from Quagmirran people were starting to get antsy from what they saw as wasted & unproductive time.
We only lost one of our DPS so the four of us requeued, this time for Underbog, and within seconds of confirming our roles we had a replacement DPS and were inside the Instance.
And this Run was Fun!
Because we'd already done Slave Pens together everyone was a lot more relaxed, and I was more than willing to trust my Druid Healer so the first part of the Instance was literally one non-stop Pull after another. I also discovered a trick to Pally Tanking is to use Seal and Blessing of Wisdom (unless you have a Shaman in the party whose Mana Regen Totem pwns your Blessing) to regenerate Mana faster than you can use it.
I went from stopping to drink almost every other Pull to running from one group to the next, sometimes even Pulling the next group as we were finishing off the first.
Egged on by my party to pull Big and confident my Druid Healer could keep me up I began Pulling a couple of packs at the same time, but the Pull of the Instance came (IIRC) about halfway in.
At the top of a ramp there's a small landing and a door leading into a corridor that runs off to the left. I don't remember exactly where it is in the Underbog but if you know the Instance you know where I mean. There are two packs in the corridor, one to each side of the doorway, and you can pull each w/o aggroing the other. The trick is to avoid aggroing the patrol that roves between them and a little further down into the corridor...unless you really want to :)
Standing in this doorway I warned my Party that there was a REALLY BIG pull coming up...and then I did a Leroy. I didn't actually say Leroy Jenkins but it was a Leroy-inspired moment that judging by my party's reactions both amused and horrified them as they imagined the ensuing Wipe.
I ran into the corridor and Aggroed both the left side group and the Pat, then headed for the right side group and the dead end of the corridor. I grabbed Aggroed on every Mob there. Grabbed it and held it and was more glad than ever that I'd dedicated one of my Hotkey bars to Tanking. Not just solo-Prot Grinding, but a Tanking Hotkey bar to help me get the hang of what will eventually be my 96969 Pally Tank rotation.
Consecrate, Holy Shield, Judgement, and Hammer of the Righteous. I ran through them all, and when their Cooldowns were up I used them again, and again.
For several very looooooong seconds it was chaos & fireworks galore as everyone unloaded with all the AoE abilities at their disposal. And through it all I held Aggro.
"That was FUN!" I said, as the last of the Mobs died, and the LOLs said my party agreed with me (probably relieved LOLs at surviving ;)
Damn! That comment is long enough to be a post of its own :P
What if I told you it only gets better? At level 71 you will gain an ability called Divine Plea. It is basically free uber mana regen. Whats more, in the protection tree you can spec into an ability called Guarded By The Light that not only reduces spell damage taken by 6%, it makes Divine Plea 100% unable to be dispelled and lastly it also makes divine plea refresh its timer whenever I hit an enemy.
That means that when I am engaged with a mob divine plea is always up and making mana for me. In fact, After a fight it done, you have like 15 seconds to run to another mob and hit it to restart the timer. However, usually by the time a group is down, the cast timer on divine plea is back up anyway.
To sweeten the deal even more, get a Glyph of Divine Plea and you will take 3% less damage from ALL sources when divine plea is up ... which is always. :)
Another talent you can spec into down in the prot tree is Spiritual Attunement. This sucker is a passive ability that gives you mana back whenever you are healed by someone else. The amount of mana give back to you is equal to 10% of the amount healed.
Right now you are probably thinking "Holy cow! I will NEVER run out of mana!" But ... there is more. Blessing of Sanctuary. This is probably the blessing you shoudl always have up. Why? Because not only does it grant you 3% damage reduction from all sources, it increases your STR and STAM by 10%, but the kicker is that while it is active, whenever you block you gain 2% mana back.
So if you pull a group of 5 mobs and throw up Holy Shield you become a blocking machine and you can watch your mana SKYROCKET back up.
I dunno what your prot spec is like, but you should have access to Blessing of Sanctuary if you have Holy Shield. Use that and you WONT regret it! When soloing you will have unlimited mana when fighting packs of mobs.
Keep consec down at all times, and use retribution aura if fighting easier things, or switch to divine aura if in a pug for the added defense for everyone.
If you wanna check out my spec look up Sylvian on the Dark Iron server.
I'm really looking forward to Divine Plea - right now with Seal of Vengeance replacing Seal of Wisdom as my goto seal, I'm ending up mana starved at the end of pulls.
I use Holy Shield, Blessing of Sanc. the whole bit.
I even have a point in the talent that gives me mana back when I'm healed - but I guess I'm just not needing heals as much as I think I am. I hate having to drink thanks to douche-bag-winners like that priest in Cap'ns group, but sometimes you just have to.
Post a Comment