P4 before the Shattering is here.

Sadly, I have yet to see Azshara defend Thunderbluff. This event is already old.

On another note, I am now being informed of successful auctions! Since 4.0 hit, the message system failed to alert me when items I had for sale were bought. This pleases me.

It's been a while, some stuff has happened.

I apologize for the lack of new posts. My life has been pretty busy and I haven't been doing much in the World...of Warcraft. Seeing as Cataclysm is just around the corner, I thought it best to get back some solidarity of my characters. To do this, Drstamos transferred from Agamaggan back to Azshara...under the new name of Needleskane. For those of you who do not know, Needles Kane was the name of Sweet Tooth in the Twisted Metal series of video games. In my opinion, this name is awesome.

Now that all three of my level 80s are on one server, I expect to gain some profession synergy. Instead of vendoring greens, I can disenchant them. What sucks now is that I have two characters with Jewelcrafting and two with Blacksmithing. This redundancy in BS is a problem, as it is costly to level and offers only mediocre benefits. Thusly, Neutronstar needs a new profession. I believe Tailoring would be a good choice as it requires no gathering profession to fund. Cloth is always abundant and gets cheaper and cheaper as expansions wear on.

A fun little project my friends and I have been working on is a 19 twink guild where we participate in experience battlegrounds, but we never gain experience. To do this, one of us (usually Papasausage, the 1400 health warrior) gets the flag and holds it, never capping as it rewards XP. Seeing as we are twinks, we mow down alliance like they are nothing. It is not hard to one shot a level 11 with 200 health. As our teammates are usually morons, they can't be counted on to do anything, so epic battles of two on ten are frequent. This is very fun.

I now have all the necessary items to craft Sulfuron Hammer, I just need one more Ingot to be able to purchase the pattern. Hopefully the Eye will drop soon enough so the legendary will be mine.

Too cool to tank.

Since 4.0.1 came out, I have lost the urge to tank. While I pull even more damage now on Drstamos (sometimes upwards of 5k overall) it just isn't as fun. I credit this partially because DnD is now on a 30s cooldown instead of 10s, and also because I am capped in the Justice Points department. Therefore, I receive no reward for running an instance. Sure, I could buy some gems or gear (that I have no use for) but I'd rather just stay capped and skip tanking.

I have spent the majority of my playing time on Azshara where many of my friends have begun playing again. Los Chupacabras has been resurrected and will lead the Horde forces against Deathwing when the Cataclysm happens.

Neutronstar has gotten more playing time as well. While I don't want to drop the gold to regem or reforge her, I have spent the time to spec her Arms. Tearing up dungeons with Bladestorm is fun as shit. And yes, I do not care if I die from pulling aggro from tanks who now have no idea what to do. Heroic strike, heroic strike!

After running a 25 VoA on Saget, I came to the realization that I had forgotten to use my 20% extra damage ability as well as Backstab. This made me a sad panda, as using both would have rocketed my damage. Stamos was able to pull 13k in 25 VoA so there's no reason why Saget shouldn't be able to as well.

It's nice to see more players in the World...of Warcraft.

Well, 4.0.1 is here.

It's like Christmas except the presents being opened are broken and unbalanced. So far, I hate it. Homogenization sucks a big one. Kiss year(s) of muscle memory goodbye.

Vtskunk - Azshara

The problem: As Tuesday is raid reset day, VoA unlocked and I got into a 25 man group for it on my warrior. I will admit that I haven't spent much time researching how to play her (lol two button dps) but I can hold my own. There was another warrior in the group, Vtskunk, who had a little bit better gear than me. We both have Bryn'troll and the Battered Hilt weapon. Anyways, after the first wipe because the warrior tank could generate zero threat (wasn't using Heroic Strike at all) Vtskunk whispered me asking what weapons I had as I outdamaged him by quite a bit. Quite a bit is by 3k. "What weapons do u hav, Im jst wunderin why u did so much more dmg then me" are his exact words I believe. As using /inspect can easily obtain the information he requested, I replied, "Because I'm better than you."

This seems like a perfectly reasonable answer for me to give. It is true as well. It also got me ignored. The truth hurts.

The solution: Hopefully Vtskunk will read this as I am about to explain everything, well not everything as the list is probably endless, he can do to pull better dps. Firstly, his spec is terrible. He has zero points in Unbridled Wrath. Secondly, he was exclusively using cleave when the fight is single target. Thirdly, he is below both the expertise and hit caps. Fourthly, he is using the wrong Ashen Verdict ring. I think I'll stop there.

Gorregutzz-Wildhammer

The problem: With only Anub to kill in my random heroic, a dps left. The tank, Gorregutzz, kept queuing us to find a replacement. "Screw that," I thought, and ToT pulled. Of course he had to be difficult and kept canceling it, leading to my demise. It took some time, but they downed Anub. Afterward, Gor said, "Waiting five minutes for another dps would have been more beneficial."

Fail.

When it takes under five minutes to kill a boss, is it really beneficial to wait five minutes for a dps? No.

The solution: Die.

Criton and Yourlove - Kalecgos

The problem: Criton seemed to be in love with Yourlove, so they spent ten minutes jibberjabbering with each other in party chat instead of talking to Chromie and porting in to CoS. I was able to keep myself and the two other dps alive through three waves, but the fourth wave got us. Of course it took another five minutes for Yourlove to res me. By that time, I had started writing this blog post. Screenshots:

Pic1 Pic2

I seriously believe that these two players were mentally retarded.

The solution: Double assisted suicide.

I don't like the upcoming talent trees.

With the homogenization of talent trees, there is less room for "hybrid" specs. While this may benefit the WoW community as a whole (no 20/20/31 trash) it really hurts those of us who use our second spec to fulfill a niche purpose. On my death knight, my main spec is Unholy DPS. I will follow the optimal cookie cutter build when 4.0 hits. My off spec, however, aims to provide high damage while tanking. Survivability may suffer, but I do not need much survivability as all I tank are heroics, VoA, and old world raids. I had a go at creating a 4.0 spec to meet these requirements, but sadly the differentiation between a survivability tank spec and a dps tank spec hardly differed at all.

I believe that the changes to talent trees are yet another instance of the dumbing down of this game. I rest the blame on Ghostcrawler: lame.

Beeffodinner - Twisting Nether

The problem: Tonight, I decided to do play Drsaget on Azshara for a while. I joined my friend for heroics (he was tanking on his death knight) for some good, clean fun. Being on my rogue is quite different than being on my dk, I'm much more vulnerable and cannot heal myself. Anyways, we got into UP and did our thing, when after the first boss and a few trash pulls the druid healer, Beeffodinner, said, "Cool down rogue, you're taking a ton of damage." I hadn't taken much more damage than I usually do, but all I said was, "I've taken 91k this run." Apparently that was 91k too much for him. I then said, "Good thing the dungeon finder provides a healer with each group." He must have taken offense to this as his reply was, "ARE U THREATENING ME? DPS ARE A DIME A DOZEN" No, I wasn't threatening you. Being the dick that I am, when the second boss came, I used tricks of the trade on Beeffodinner, which killed him. That was satisfying.

The rest of the run I received no heals and only died once. I met my demise on the second to last trash pull of the dungeon. My friend and the shaman in the group told me that the druid had tried to get me kicked out. This brought me to initiate my own kick of Beef, which passed, ridding us of a useless tree.

The solution: If you are the healer in the group, heal.

DPS may be a dime a dozen, but so are healers in random dungeons.

Good evening.

Good evening Sir, my name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I used to be addicted to crack but now I am off it and trying to stay clean. That is why I am selling magazine subscriptions.

It has been a while since I got stuck with an idiot.

Perhaps this is because all the little kiddies are in school.

The Exalted probably isn't going to happen.

I believe I wrote in a previous post that my goal was to get Drstamos the title "the Exalted." This is unrealistic. Being in college, I only have so much free time. Grinding rep, though easy, is a major time sink. I'd rather spend my precious time doing something fun. However, the title "Ambassador" is well within reach.

Yeah.

Mr. Shaman tank: Nêmô - Moonrunner

The problem: With nothing better to do on a Tuesday afternoon, I decided to tank some randoms. PoS was assigned to me, which is very easy. The first boss has a bunch of adds that are usually dps'd down right away upon pulling. I pulled, lagged a whole bunch, and when the packets of information came through, I had found that I had nearly 15 stacks of the frost debuff...along with all the adds attacking me. I tanked the boss and spread my diseased to said adds, and once the boss was down a few adds were still alive. I must have been the only one to attack them, even though my group consisted of a rogue, a shaman, and a hunter. All of these classes have good aoe so there was no reason why the adds should have been alive. Anyways, I said in party chat, "Don't bother killing the wrathbones" which the shaman replied, "don't want to." That made me chuckle, a dps not wanting to kill things. Two can play that game. This same shaman, named Nêmô by the way, decided that he would be smart and ride his Celestial Steed through the pathway before the second boss...right into the pack of geists, whilst I lagged behind watching. His pet elemental tanked them all for a while while I studied what he was doing, but then that died and all threat went to the shaman, killing him. Not wanting the rest of the group to pay for Nêmô's stupidity, I dropped a D&D, sparing everyone from death. Evidently the shaman didn't enjoy dying, as he asked why I had just stood there. I replied, "Didn't want to." If he didn't want to do his job and dps, why should I have to do my job and tank, especially when he thinks that he can do it. I explained this to him, just in time for me to get kicked, mid-pull. But that's fine, they could continue without a tank.

The solution: Do your job and I will do mine, Nêmô. Don't be an idiot and run into a group of mobs on your Algalonesque horsey and think that I will spare you your life when I already think that you are an idiot. I bid you good luck in your WoW ventures.

Today was a good day.

I'm currently in 25 ICC and have obtained 264 tank bracers. An arms warrior received a nice 264 ring to replace a 264 ring and DBW. What a joke. Peculiarly, there is only one other death knight in here with me.

Bad rogue, bad Cyrist - Emerald Dream

The problem: After a lovely evening eating at Pair-O-Lakes with my family, I found myself at home logged into Azeroth and tanking some random heroic dungeons. Utgard Pinnacle was where Drstamos found himself, together with a retadin, mage, priest, and rogue. Through the first boss, the rogue was pulling a pathetic 900 dps, so I decided to inspect him. All I looked at was his spec and poison choice: 60 points in subtlety and crippling mh deadly oh. Such a sad, sad choice. I just had to say, "lol subtlety" in party chat and was informed that it was a "pvp spec." Firstly, subtlety is dead in all forms of the game, sans role playing maybe. Secondly, we were doing a dungeon which is pve. There is no reason for a rogue to have to dps in a pvp spec in a pve setting EVER. I let him know that, but of course the reply I got was, "it's only a heroic." Well shit, if it's only a heroic who cares what anybody does in it, right? I decided that I didn't want to tank the second boss, so I didn't, but who cares, it's only a heroic. Everybody in the group died, except me as I have the survivability of something that never dies. The rogue had some choice words for me just before he quit the group:

http://a.yfrog.com/img267/426/whatguild.jpg

To reiterate, the rogue said, "you r worthless, u fuck, go get run through to get all your gear, you worthless fuck, i hate people who r in guilds to get the geasr"

There is so much wrong with statement. Firstly, my guild has two active members, three if you count the guy who only logs on to do a daily. I haven't been in a raiding guild and actually attended a guild raid in over three months. My gear has come from grinding VoA, 4/12 trade chat pugs, Emblems of Frost, buying with gold, and other means that is not fun. In other words, I have worked my ass off for the gear that I have. I obviously am not in my guild to get gear. Secondly, since my guild consists of two players I cannot get "run through" to get all my gear. Thirdly, as you can tell by the screen shot, I was doing 34.1% of the damage while the rogue was doing 9.0% of the damage. Pretending I was a dps for a moment, who is worth more to a group, a person doing 34.1% of the damage or a person doing 9% of the damage? I believe the answer is obvious. Now factor in that I was the tank, the leader of the run who had to worry about positioning, aggro, and more. I believe this makes me far from worthless. Of course I was worthless when I decided not to tank and the group died, which just shows how valuable I am when I do choose to do my job, which is 99% of the time.

The solution: Cyrist should get a pve spec, instant poison, and a brain so he can pull at least 3k dps in a heroic. Then he should drop his prejudices about people in guilds, especially guilds with alternating lowercase and uppercase letters. Oh yeah, the Reins of the Blue Proto-Drake dropped and I won them.

Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros

Grinding rep has gotten a bit dull. There is very little challenge in killing level 65 ogres. What is fun is besting BC and Old World content. One of the first raids was Molten Core, a ten boss cavern which is quite fun to run solo and with a partner. The final boss, Ragnaros, has about a 2% chance to drop an item to turn a crafted 2H mace into a legendary. I want this. Obviously, this will not be easy, but all the necessary items to complete my goal can be found in MC. With the exceptional help of Kaboosh, a druid who just hit 80, we were able to kill the last 8 bosses in there in about two hours. There was a bit of a learning curve, but I reckon we could clear the place in under two hours. Doing that once per week should not be difficult at all.

Ballin.

Two idiot shaman in one group? Mongolito and Zuljoe - Twisting Nether

Lately, on Drstamos I have been grinding reputation. I think it would be pretty awesome to be Drstamos the Exalted. It will be a long road but will be worth it. Of course, I have to tank a random heroic every day to keep my skills sharp.

The problem: I got Azjol Nerub today, a faceroll dungeon that is pretty close to soloable, sans web rap. The first pull is two spiders that deal virtually zero damage, so the second I ported in I went to tanking them. This really disturbed the healer, Mongolito, as he yelled, "u stupid tnk im not redy, i hope u die, noob." Of course, I didn't die, I did 90% of the damage and healing that pull. After blowing through the first boss, the same healer fell off the walkway, aggro'd the mobs, and died. This made me chuckle. I piped up and said I was indeed a "noob tnk" and tanked the next boss without a healer. I like to rush in on Anub and see how many people fail to keep up and get locked out. I did this and Mongolito said, "i would loled, if u started it with out me, nub." To be honest, I would have "loled" too. I decided to just let thing mellow for a bit after I got 150k ahead of the next closest dps in threat, getting called a fail tank repeatedly. It was especially satisfying when Mongolito ran out of mana and died while I just stood there and /yawned. Up to this point, Zuljoe had been telling Mongolito to knock it off, but he decided to critique my tanking gear: "LOL he's tanking in wrathful and only one sanc, fail." This is true, I use a 264 pvp neck and a 270 pair of pvp pants. If I were to use the tank gear I have for these slots, I would be using a 226 neck with hit, bringing me to a whopping 340 hit, and a 232 pair of pants with 100+ less stamina and expertise, which ultimately does nothing for survivability. Of course the judgment came from a person who can't outdamage the tank, even though he just stands there for the final boss.

The solution: Don't talk or fall off walkways in dungeons.

Today, Drsaget /gquit Aeon.

I thought nobody would give a shit, but Knucklerot told me, "I should have kicked your worthless ass a while ago."

How did he know that I was worthless?

I have been contemplating leaving Aeon for a while now. Recently, a number of other players have quit, leaving the guild a mere shell of its former self. Galadryall was the only current member who I liked and respected. A thread regarding Knucklerot was posted on the forums; the first post was by Sensations about how terrible he (Knuckle) was and what a waste it was to get him Shadowmourne, as he is making his hunter his main. I made a post without reading the other twenty that basically told a story about how Knuckle got kicked out of an ICC pug for pulling trash and wiping us when he was on his hunter. Apparently, this touched a nerve and was removed almost immediately. I said, "Didn't like my forum post, eh?" in guild chat and quit a short while after.

From my own server, Ayerox - Agamaggan

Because today was the day raid IDs reset, there were plenty of pugs to join. One of these was for 25 Vault of Archavon. I joined it intending to tank, hoping that the 264 pants dropped. Sadly, they didn't. Usually I just leave right after I see that there is no loot for me, as I have no time for Koralon or the other two now worthless bosses, but I stayed as the raid leader was insistent that we down the Flame Watcher. I moseyed onward to clear the trash before the boss. Once that was down, I noticed that the other tank was no longer online. I stood there as the raid leader, Ayerox, typed a few times for the tanks to pull. I got sick of his ignorance and said, "The other tank is no longer online" and proceeded to leave the raid group. As I was walking out, Ayerox whispered me, "Told u to stay for fire u stupid shit" to which I replied, "the other tank left." His next words astounded me" "Solo tank it? Duh?" The only reply I had to that was "sigh." Apparently, he did not know that Koralon has a little ability called Meteor Fists. This deals roughly 50k damage which is intended to be split between two tanks. Seeing as I have 50K health in a raid setting, expecting me to survive those strikes is pure idiocy.

Here's to you, Ayerox, a warlock who should not be telling tanks what to do.

The strong and silent: Flyswatter - Greymane

It has been a while since I wrote about a fail player I found, but today that will change. The player in question was a Fury Warrior by the name of Flyswatter. His armory is listed below:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Greymane&cn=Flyswatter

The problem: The random we were assigned to defeat together was Violet Hold, one of the easiest dungeons in the game. At first glance, he looked like he would be a good player, as all of his gear was 264. That turned out the be far from the truth. He was using Bryntroll as an offhand, which is not good at all. Proc weapons have no business being in the offhand for any melee class. Secondly, he had an inactive meta. He was using the crit + crit damage variety which requires two blue gems; he had only one. Upon inspection of his armory page, it turns out he has 506 hit and 38 expertise, which means he is over by roughly 370 and 10, respectively. He pulled a measly 4.2k dps overall. My warrior who's gear averages about 240 can easily pull over 5k. Flyswatter also did not use battle shout. I only brought up how bad Bryntroll is and how he had an inactive meta, to which I received no reply.

The solution: It would not be hard to fix him. All he would have to do would be to ditch the hit trinket, socket a blue gem, get some gear that didn't have hit and expertise, and learn to use cleave. Of course, that is easier said and done when you are a moron.

Clocks

A broken clock tells the correct time twice per day, but a clock set even a second off tells the correct time never.

Think about it.

Coinstar

This post will not be about anybody in particular or even about the World of Warcraft. What it is about is Coinstar, a company that manufactures and rents coin sorting kiosks that can be found in a variety of locations such as grocery stores, gas stations, malls, etc. People simply take their loose change and dump it into the machine which then counts it and prints out a receipt of the total and the customer takes the receipt to a cashier in the store and gets paid in bills. Coinstar keeps 9.8% of the total as a fee for using the machine. In 1999, shares of Coinstar were just above four dollars. Today, it closed at ten times that amount.

How did this miraculous surge in stock price happen? Quite simply, they targeted idiots with change. (They also own Redbox, the DVD rental kiosk which is doing quite well.) I say this because only idiots use Coinstar seeing as one can go to a bank and have them do the exact same thing...for free.

One may argue, "But Coinstar is very convenient." Chances are there is a bank within walking distance of every kiosk as they are located in high traffic areas, just like banks. Cashing in $30 dollars worth of coins could cost roughly three dollars using Coinstar, which is the price of one gallon of gasoline. If your car gets twenty miles per gallon, one should be willing to drive ten miles out of the way to avoid Coinstar. As most people get paid once every two weeks, the average time one would have to hold on to a full change jar would be seven days. It should not be hard to wait a single week to cash in your change when you have to go to the bank anyways.

I be the people who use Coinstar are the same people who buy bottled water.

Spoken like a true casual, Rahkwa - Baelgun.

The problem: Today as I was tanking a random, I noticed a death knight in full 232 tier, ungemmed and unenchanted, with blues in most of his other slots. I had just had to know why he had this beautiful gear but no shiny rocks and spells on it to make it even more powerful. At first, I suspected that he was too poor, but that turned out not to be the reason. The real reason was that he just plain did not care. He then went as far as to say this. Notice how I, as a tank, was pulling twice as much dps as he was and four times as much damage. That's utterly appalling, and it's not because I am so good, it is because he was so bad. Since he was just playing this game for fun, I hope that the run with me was the most fun Halls of Stone that he had ever done. Upon inspection of recount after we had finished, I discovered that this smart guy was using obliterate, even though his spec was blood. He used death strike a grand total of twice...at least heart strike was in his "rotation."

The solution: Gem your gear. Read up on your class at elitist jerks. Change your attitude so the amount of fun you have is directly proportional to how good you are at this game.

I do find it interesting how many players use "i just play this game for fun" as an excuse for being bad. It's like they think that if you are good at the game then you aren't having fun, that one can't possibly "have a life" and have good gear and skill at the same time. How do these people view success in the real world? Do they look at a doctor of medicine and think, "He has no life because he spent 12 years in school/residency. I'm glad i spent 11.5 years of my life having fun with my cool friends." (The .5 years difference was when he went to community college and dropped out after one semester.) I think that some people will rationalize this way, but most people would say, "That's stupid because a doctor makes a ton more money and can afford the best things money can buy." This is absolutely true. The difference between WoW and real life is in real life, people know what comes with success: money, prestige, opportunities, houses, cars, etc. but with in the World of Warcraft, morons don't know what exactly it is they are missing. They don't know how it feels to do 12k dps, battle the Lich King, win a sweet drake, etc. They will never be good enough to experience then endgame content while it is current. Perhaps once or twice they snagged a spot in a 25 ICC pug or half guild run but they were so bad that they got kicked after Lootship or they wiped a raid and got yelled at. They believe that this is what people experience to get good gear and be good at the game. This leads to the idea that getting gear and having fun are mutually exclusive. This is assbackwards in my eyes, but who am I to judge someone "just playing for fun."

It's official.

My tank gear is now better than my dps gear. That is all.

I was tanking. You weren't healing. You are bad, Sigg-Azshara.

The problem: Today I got thrown into a HoR run that had one boss already down. This means that the people in it had indubitably failed. Usually the blame is put on the tank, and obviously this was the case because I was now in the group. I decided to grit my teeth and tank the dungeon, which I did marvelously until the last ice wall. Actually, I tanked that "pull" marvelously as well...the only problem was the healer decided that keeping the tank alive was below running to the very end of the dungeon on his list of priorities. At first I thought the healer just knew a trick to being able to complete the instance without having to kill the last wave, but that was not the case. Because he was from Azshara, I said, "You can send the 8g for my repair bill to Drsaget." The response was "ok but it wasn't my fault, nobody tanks them there." Hmm......I am somebody....I was tanking them there....therefore, that statement is false. As the healer had two other friends from Azshara in the group, I was kicked. Awesome. It's no wonder this healer, named Sigg, was part of a guild of which I had never heard, Big Floppy Crits. I decided to confront him on Drsaget and of course I was ignored. An ignore is as good as saying, "You were right, I was wrong" in my book. Upon further inspection of Sigg, he is indeed a M&S. His welfare 232s aren't gemmed or enchanted properly, he has a dps trinket, and his professions are 233 engineering and 300 mining. He and his moron friends had most likely queued specifically for that dungeon so they could get some phat lootz to pwn Aruthz. Mission accomplished.

The solution: This heroic is yet another example of how bad players fail to comprehend that the tank is the leader of the heroic. The tank chooses where mobs are positioned. It is the healer's job to stay within range of the tank and, I don't know, heal. Failing to do such will almost always result in a wipe, as it did in this case. A bad pull has a chance at success as long as the tank has aggro and is being healed. Any pull without heals has a much smaller chance at success. My positioning did not prevent the healer from healing, thus there should have been no reason for me not to have been receiving heals. I hope Sigg realized this, but I'm not holding my breath. It's funny, though, he seems to have completed the first wing of ICC on 25 man but not 10 man. Cough carried cough.

I also find if very odd how ranged dps and healers like to stand as far away from the tank as possible, then run even further away when mobs are chasing them. I believe it is just because of human instinct to stay as far away from damage as possible then run away in the opposite direction when you are being chased. At any rate, if I ever make a healer or ranged dps (excluding hunter) you will find me standing right on top of consecrate or death and decay.

My new heroic tanking setup.

Because I was lucky enough to get into a Handlebarz alt 25 ICC pug, (just happened to be in trade chat while they were looking for dps) I obtained three pieces of loot from the ten bosses that we killed. It should have been 11, but a one percent wipe on Sindragosa due to too many people dying in p1. Anywho, I received a tier token, Bloodfall, and Broken Ram Skull Helm. I used the tier token to upgrade my dps helm, but the tank helm is the favorite piece that I got as it was a big upgrade from the 232 helm I had been sporting. After looking through all the tank gear I had and rediscovering Wrathful Gladiator's Dreadplate Leggaurds, I figured that I no longer needed to use Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle but instead could use Rune of the Fallen Crusader. This is big as I can use my dps weapon which is this. I gained over 500 unbuffed attack power while staying defense capped. I did lose a bit of dodge and parry, but that really doesn't matter for heroics when my health pool is already very large. I just tanked H Gundrak and did 3.3k dps overall, not bad in my opinion, especially since a lock was at 6k and a boomkin at 5k. Needless to say, trash didn't live very long.

I've tanked a few heroics so far this way and I'm excited about it. This excitement has prevented me from telling anyone in the party off for being bad. However, last night I got the pleasure of tanking Oculus. Unlike most people, I don't mind it...except when people don't know how to use the drakes properly. We wiped once. It's frustrating seeing two different stacks of Temporal Rift at 10 and telling them to use Shock Lance and them not doing it. After the wipe, I hopped on the tank drake and proceeded to do 74% of the damage and was the only person alive after the kill. It really is sad that people don't know how the mechanics of a heroic work nearly two years into the expansion. What's sadder is when you try to teach the mechanics and they don't listen and continue to be bad. I guess you can't fix stupid.

Or can you?

Actually, no, you can't. Scientists proved it.

Bigbadbutton - Greymane

The honor of the first player critiqued goes to Bigbadbutton of Greymane, a fury warrior who would prove to be a moron.

Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Greymane&cn=Bigbadbutton

The Problem: The random we got was DTK, an instance with two optional bosses that can be completed in under 15 minutes. I believe that it should be up to the tank to decide if bosses should be killed or skipped. Right after we downed Trollgore, I stated, "Skipping the next to bosses." The warrior replied, "aw but i like the t-rex boss." After the trash in the next room was killed, the warlock in the group decided that he knew the way to bypass Novos and ran straight against the near wall instead of going around like you are supposed to. When he did that and then aggro'd the next room and brought them back into Novo's room, I said "Idiot" in party chat. I guess the warrior thought that I was talking about him because he started spouting off about how "badges are useful, skipping bosses only leads to trouble" while I proceeded to wrangle up all the mobs. I retorted, "Not knowing what to do, yet leading the way leads to trouble." According the Bigbadbutton, I "am no leader, just dillusional." He had already died as he blindly followed the lock so he had time to tell everyone to vote me out after the boss was down because I was an elitist for stating that I had better things to do than tank optional bosses. Of course, I'm smarter and better than him, so I quick ran and aggro'd the next set of mobs and proceeded to tank them while he was being resurrected and telling the healer to let me die so he can tank. I did not die. I soloed the next few packs up the stairs while he and the rest of the group narrowly killed King Dread. They joined me at the guys who fear and we downed the the Prophet to complete the instance. Again, the warrior started calling me "an elitist with a bad attitude who needs to play less wow" while I licked my chops at having my first subject to write about.

The Solution: Bigbadbutton had a tank spec and set, yet he chose to dps. If you want to kill all the bosses in a dungeon, QUEUE AS A TANK! Not only do you have no wait, you get to lead the group. Yes, I said lead the group. This is why I now choose to tank. If you don't like that I'm just there for Frost badges, tough luck. Having better things to do than carry bad players through a dungeon is not being elitist, it is being efficient. Bigbadbutton was obviously a social who was there to help the less fortunate people in the dungeon obtain badges. The key to skill, though, is asocial behavior as detailed in this post by Gevlon. Read what he wrote and take it to heart, especially the part about the three ways the social behavior with peers drains all your resources.

I'm so happy he had a repair bill and I didn't.

The First Post!

To those of you who have stumbled upon this blog, I ask, "How the hell did you find me?" I would really like to know this. That being said, I will get along to what this blog is about and what purpose I hope it will serve. This blog is one man's perspective on random heroic dungeons in the MMORPG World of Warcraft. I began playing this game in January or February of 2009, so roughly one and a half years ago. Right now, I have three characters that have reached the level cap of 80: a rogue, a warrior, and a death knight. I would consider the rogue (undead) my main as I leveled him up first and he has the best gear out of the three; his name is Drsaget (just Saget or Bobsaget were taken.) The death knight (orc) is my main-alt; he began his days on the same server as Drsaget and was intended to be a saronite slave but I transferred him to raid with some real life friends. Continuing the Full House tradition, his name is Drstamos. Finally, the warrior goes by Neutronstar (troll) which was the lamest name I could think of so people would think I was a complete idiot and write me off. Saget and Neutron are both horde on the Azshara US server and Stamos is horde on Agamaggan US. Armory links:

Saget: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Azshara&cn=Drsaget
Stamos: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Agamaggan&cn=Drstamos
Neutronstar: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Azshara&cn=Neutronstar

All three of these characters are part of the Shadowburn battlegroup, which I like as I sometimes get queued with people I know from one server while I am on the other.

Because this blog is about my observations about bad players in heroics, most of these will come from the perspective of Stamos. Like I said before, he was originally intended to be a saronite slave, mining ore and running heroics to farm badges with which I could buy primordial saronites and sell them for profit. Because tanks are always in high demand and experience no waiting time for queues, I decided he would be a tank and farmed badges like a mo'fo' to get him 232 welfare gear. The problem with this plan was that I was not very good at tanking. I had not read much about death knights or understood how to play the class properly so I was the cause of a wipe or two. Because I enjoy being the best at what I do, I put together a dps set and Stamos the tank became Stamos the dps. When I transferred him from Azshara to Agamaggan, his tank set was at about 4.6k gear score and dps set at about 5.0k gear score, respectively. After about four months and many raids later, his dps gear got up to 5.8k and his tank set sat in the bank. Because I now had three level 80s, (Neutron was now level capped) I decided to save some time I would begin tanking again. Because I had gotten some offspec stuff from ICC and VOA, I was able to put together a pretty decent set. With my better gear, tanking heroics became much easier. Having two pieces of t10 combined with Glyph of Death and Decay ensures that trash is basically glued to me so rarely do I lose aggro. Another benefit of this setup is that I do quite a bit of damage, reaching 3k overall is usually attainable, which is good enough to lead damage done about half the time. This half of the time that I do this, it is usually because dps are doing something wrong which I will usually spot and voice my displeasure. This leads to interesting situations which I will detail in this blog. I will say now that I am a noob at times, I make mistakes but am man enough to say "my bad" when I mess up. Feel free to call out errors I make in critiquing the idiots that I will be commenting on. I do believe that now it is time to take out the Heroic Trash.