The random ramblings of a casual tankadin

Monday, February 6, 2012

Seasonal bug

There is, or at least was, a problem with collecting items for Love is in the Air. If you're hunting Lovely Charms, be sure that you're not also hunting down Grisly Trophies for the Darkmoon Fairie Test Your Strength quest.

See the official thread for more information.

PVP tank nerf in action

So, I've had almost a week to try out the changes since they removed vengenace from PvP.

The result is, hardly surprising, that our damage has become insubstantial. This, in itself, created less than a problem from one point of view than I was afraid of. Competent enemies still bash the healer when we're carrying a flag or defending a base, and under those circumstances our damage was already pitiful to begin with as we received very little damage for vengeance to scale from.

More problematic are the situations when we participate in a general large scale mayhem. Our low damage makes a difference, but what hurts more is that the selfhealing we have from WoG also falls into the basement. In other words, we're much less able to make a difference when defensively defending a last stand position. Think bosses in AV or IoC.

On a positive note, however, quite a few pet-look-alike abilities still give us vengeance. If this is an error to be removed or not I don't know, but as long as it remains I'll continue to taunt pets, be they hunter pets or other classes' temporary pets.

All in all we stillfunctoin as decent flag carriers and defenders of bases. The latter case sees us shine a little less than before since dimishied damage output sometimes enables a shielded enemy to shake off our AoE damage and cap the base anyway.

Taking on another payer one on one, however, is fairly pointless now. At least if they're geared in proper PvP gear. Our pitiful damage is still more than sufficient to wear down someone in PvE gear, and since our mitigating effects haven't been diminished in any major way (WoG shield lowered) we're very hard to kill for a single oppoenent.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Lunar festival

This has pretty much nothing to do with tanking in any form, but it's a minor heads-up for those of you who haven't done this seasonal achi yet.

The world elders are just a boring grind, and should be handled according to tips on, for example, WoWHead.

The elders in the dungeons are also mostly attributed with correct information. However, all elders are perfectly reachable by a soloing tankadin.

Remember that at 85 our aggro range is really minor, so a lot of mobs, and indeed a few bosses, are easiest bypassed in a way that would have been impossible at lvl 80. The only theoretical problem, Skadis gauntlet, turned out to be a joke. Just shoot the dragon down while pushing AoE damage. The mobs are vitually unable to hurt you anyway.

Another side trick: If you're running random BG:s, queue up while inside the dungeon you're slaughtering your way through. Join the BG after having honored the elder. After the BG you'll get ported to the outside of the dungeon, thus removing the need to backtrack your way out of it.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Tank nerf PvP

It would seem we'll be relegated to running random as FC only. With the upcoming removal of Vengenace from player attacks we should expect to get stuck at around 4 - 5k dps dummy-style.

The main problem with the change is that we won't even be theoretically able to defend our healer as splash damage doesn't increase our own damage output.

Long gone will be the days when we poured out damage as a result of unskilled players attacking us in groups and allowing our healer to concentrate on healing like there was no tomorrow.

The primary change to battlegrounds should be FC lasting much shorter. If noone wants to come as a tank, then a squishy will have to do the job. In all likelyhood we'll see more healers running with flags as they're the only ones who have a decent chance to survive the onslaught.

As for those of us who tanked our way through BG:s. It's either respeccing dps, and getting that big two-hander, or hoping that at least pets still give us Vengenace. Some taunting should give us the answer post-patch.