World of Warcraft XVIII: Draenor was merely a setback

[AgentPaper]

I don't really think you can blame Arthas' face-heel turn on his father. He had every opportunity to be a great guy, especially with Uther there to set an example for him, and from everything we can see he did a great job in raising him. It took the undead scourge and the death of huge numbers of people to drive Arthas into become so vengeful and enraged that he started taking the dark path. By the time he's picking up Frostmourne, any shadow of the boy Arthas is gone. He's truly insane, and I don't think you can link his upbringing to any part of what led him there. At best, you can blame him for allowing Arthas to become arrogant, but there's a huge difference between "arrogant prince" (which was largely inevitable), and "revenge-blinded mass-murderer".

[turbo164]

Another question!

I have the Weekly quest for Hellfire Citadel. It does not show up in the LFR dropdown for me.

I looked at wowhead, they said the raid required ilvl 650. I had a 630 necklace, everything else was 650 or higher, so I spent 5000 crystals on a baleful neck.

It's still not in my dropdown.

I did Silver proving grounds, completed multiple heroics, been doing Tanaan dailies... What am I missing?

[AgentPaper]

Another question!

I have the Weekly quest for Hellfire Citadel. It does not show up in the LFR dropdown for me.

I looked at wowhead, they said the raid required ilvl 650. I had a 630 necklace, everything else was 650 or higher, so I spent 5000 crystals on a baleful neck.

It's still not in my dropdown.

I did Silver proving grounds, completed multiple heroics, been doing Tanaan dailies... What am I missing?

What does show up? HFC is broken up into 5 wings for LFR purposes: Hellbreach, Halls of Blood, Bastion of Shadows, Destructor's Rise, and The Black Gate. It doesn't actually say "Hellfire Citidel" anywhere on it IIRC, but they do all share the same background. They should also all show up even if you don't meet the requirements, so if those aren't there, something screwy is happening.

[Typewriter]

Noob questions. I've tried finding noob guides and looking around for some help, but everyone has a different opinion on what being 'new' is, so I figure it's easier to just ask a group of people. The only MMO I've ever really played a lot of is DDO and it's a very different game than this one.

OK, so I played WoW at launch and got 2 characters to level 20 before quitting. About a year ago I played for about an hour before giving up. I'm back in again and this time I actually intend on sticking around for a bit. I'm playing a Paladin Tank and just have some questions.

1. I don't care about the story of WoW, I'm not reading any quest descriptions minus what's required. I would normally care about stuff like this but when my starting area alone had over 100 quests in it it's just too much to concern myself over. Is there anything important that I'm missing/ignoring?

2. I got to level 25 and then discovered the dungeon queue. Leveling this way is much faster and I enjoy it more than exploring, primarily because the game is so big and travelling is so freaking slow. I plan on getting to 60 (currently 45) and then flying around exploring. As a result of this I haven't really done many zone quests (I did everything as a Draenei leading up to Stormwind and that's about it). Are there any important quests or stories that I should take care of? Any special rewards for clearing zone(s)? I was going to explore and reveal all the map spaces - is there any reward to that?

3. I know at some point I can go out and collect cool stuff - like the chauffeur mount that's usable before level 20. Is there a list of cool/fun/rewarding stuff like this to do?

4. Related to 2 - I made it to Stormwind and got a new (level appropriate) quest that was going to take me three zones away. Two of the zones in my way were lower level than me, and 1 was higher. Was I really just supposed to spend an hour travelling to get to this zone or did I miss something?

5. What's with prices in the AH? It seems odd to me that a single piece of equipment that will probably be replaced within a couple levels sells for 200-1k (or more) gold. This seems insane to me or is 1k gold really just a small amount and I don't get it yet?

6. What is the etiquette for rolling on drops? A friend told me never to roll 'need' for crafting materials, only 'greed', but shouldn't 'need' be for people who use that skill and 'greed' for those who don't? If a two-handed weapon drops that would be great for my melee spec can I roll need even though I'm currently tanking, or is that rude?

7. Stats... this is the big one for me. This is what originally drove me away from WoW. I get D&D stats - I understand them. You tell me you have +2 STR on a D&D character and I immediately understand exactly what that does. WoW numbers feel... I don't know, foreign to me? Meaningless? Bigger numbers are better - I get that, but is there any simple calculation or meaning behind them? Does it scale, are the first 10 points of STR more effective than going from 90 to 100? I'm mainly just ignoring all of it this time around and aiming for bigger=better, but it annoys me not understanding.

8. Nobody talks in Dungeon Queues. Every now and then I mention that I'm unfamiliar with a dungeon and often I get crickets. Most of the time it's not a big deal as the dungeons are pretty simple and straight-forward but sometimes dungeons are confusing and/or not clearly laid out. It doesn't help matters that because I'm the tank people want me to take the lead. What is up with this? Do people just basically treat the social aspects of the game as optional at this point in time? I've had one very helpful guide take over in a complex dungeon when I explained I was confused. That's out of a lot.

9. The game often seems very, very easy. The entire time I was playing solo I died once and that was from fall damage. 90% of the time my health never even dropped below 80%. Now I'm playing in dungeons and, even when we're a level or 2 behind the content, it seems pretty easy. There has been one wipe which was caused by a guy lagging and pulling a group of enemies when only half the group was present. I've seen only a handful of deaths beyond all of this. Is this normal? Is the challenge located in Raids?

10. When I try to pull an enemy with my taunt it almost always pulls his friends as well. Obviously this isn't a problem, but am I doing something wrong? Or is the taunt intended to pull a group?

11. When fighting a group of enemies I try to use a lot of AoEs to get the attention of the crowd - is this right? Am I supposed to be getting everyone focused on me? If an enemy breaks off to attack someone else should I try to get their attention back on me?

12. Tanking abilities feel very weird and/or short to me. As an example, once every several minutes I can reduce the damage I take for 8 seconds. I almost never use this because it's so situational and almost never comes up. The few times that it is needed it feels like a hassle to use since the benefit is so short (I usually use lay on hands followed by this immediately after).

I'm sure I can come up with more but these are the ones that are coming to mind right now. Thanks for any help all.

[Traab]

Noob questions. I've tried finding noob guides and looking around for some help, but everyone has a different opinion on what being 'new' is, so I figure it's easier to just ask a group of people. The only MMO I've ever really played a lot of is DDO and it's a very different game than this one.

OK, so I played WoW at launch and got 2 characters to level 20 before quitting. About a year ago I played for about an hour before giving up. I'm back in again and this time I actually intend on sticking around for a bit. I'm playing a Paladin Tank and just have some questions.

1. I don't care about the story of WoW, I'm not reading any quest descriptions minus what's required. I would normally care about stuff like this but when my starting area alone had over 100 quests in it it's just too much to concern myself over. Is there anything important that I'm missing/ignoring?

2. I got to level 25 and then discovered the dungeon queue. Leveling this way is much faster and I enjoy it more than exploring, primarily because the game is so big and travelling is so freaking slow. I plan on getting to 60 (currently 45) and then flying around exploring. As a result of this I haven't really done many zone quests (I did everything as a Draenei leading up to Stormwind and that's about it). Are there any important quests or stories that I should take care of? Any special rewards for clearing zone(s)? I was going to explore and reveal all the map spaces - is there any reward to that?

3. I know at some point I can go out and collect cool stuff - like the chauffeur mount that's usable before level 20. Is there a list of cool/fun/rewarding stuff like this to do?

4. Related to 2 - I made it to Stormwind and got a new (level appropriate) quest that was going to take me three zones away. Two of the zones in my way were lower level than me, and 1 was higher. Was I really just supposed to spend an hour travelling to get to this zone or did I miss something?

5. What's with prices in the AH? It seems odd to me that a single piece of equipment that will probably be replaced within a couple levels sells for 200-1k (or more) gold. This seems insane to me or is 1k gold really just a small amount and I don't get it yet?

6. What is the etiquette for rolling on drops? A friend told me never to roll 'need' for crafting materials, only 'greed', but shouldn't 'need' be for people who use that skill and 'greed' for those who don't? If a two-handed weapon drops that would be great for my melee spec can I roll need even though I'm currently tanking, or is that rude?

7. Stats... this is the big one for me. This is what originally drove me away from WoW. I get D&D stats - I understand them. You tell me you have +2 STR on a D&D character and I immediately understand exactly what that does. WoW numbers feel... I don't know, foreign to me? Meaningless? Bigger numbers are better - I get that, but is there any simple calculation or meaning behind them? Does it scale, are the first 10 points of STR more effective than going from 90 to 100? I'm mainly just ignoring all of it this time around and aiming for bigger=better, but it annoys me not understanding.

8. Nobody talks in Dungeon Queues. Every now and then I mention that I'm unfamiliar with a dungeon and often I get crickets. Most of the time it's not a big deal as the dungeons are pretty simple and straight-forward but sometimes dungeons are confusing and/or not clearly laid out. It doesn't help matters that because I'm the tank people want me to take the lead. What is up with this? Do people just basically treat the social aspects of the game as optional at this point in time? I've had one very helpful guide take over in a complex dungeon when I explained I was confused. That's out of a lot.

9. The game often seems very, very easy. The entire time I was playing solo I died once and that was from fall damage. 90% of the time my health never even dropped below 80%. Now I'm playing in dungeons and, even when we're a level or 2 behind the content, it seems pretty easy. There has been one wipe which was caused by a guy lagging and pulling a group of enemies when only half the group was present. I've seen only a handful of deaths beyond all of this. Is this normal? Is the challenge located in Raids?

10. When I try to pull an enemy with my taunt it almost always pulls his friends as well. Obviously this isn't a problem, but am I doing something wrong? Or is the taunt intended to pull a group?

11. When fighting a group of enemies I try to use a lot of AoEs to get the attention of the crowd - is this right? Am I supposed to be getting everyone focused on me? If an enemy breaks off to attack someone else should I try to get their attention back on me?

12. Tanking abilities feel very weird and/or short to me. As an example, once every several minutes I can reduce the damage I take for 8 seconds. I almost never use this because it's so situational and almost never comes up. The few times that it is needed it feels like a hassle to use since the benefit is so short (I usually use lay on hands followed by this immediately after).

I'm sure I can come up with more but these are the ones that are coming to mind right now. Thanks for any help all.

Ok, in order,

1) Not really. If you dont care about the story, its not that important.

2) I think there are "achievements" and such you are missing. Nothing worth anything though. Any special gear you might get from zones gets replaced a zone or two later anyways. Once again, unless you care about lore, its not needed.

3) This I dont know. I wouldnt even know beyond searching for "cool things to do in WoW"

4)The thing here is, stormwind is the human starting area, so as a human player you would be slowly moving further out zone by zone as you leveled. By being a draenai you skipped the early stuff. Its a bit of a pain but not a huge deal.

5) The market is flooded with max level characters that have been farming cash for years now. The ah is totally unneeded for anything other than maybe bags and such. Honestly, this is the main reason for arguing in favor of clearing zones, they tend to give you a good cycle of gear and upgrades as you play. Dungeon runs are a lot streakier. Most people do the dungeon grind with a full set of heirloom gear (gear that levels with you and constantly improves in stats up to a certain threshold) so they dont have to worry about gear, just getting to max level as fast as possible.

6) If its an upgrade roll need. The problem with dungeon grinding is, im sure you noticed, noone wastes any time. Its a dead run from start to finish usually. So there isnt a lot of chance to talk about gear. Roll need for upgrades, greed for anything else. Cant talk for crafting gear though.

7) Bigger equals better is really all that matters. It has more of an effect at low levels because going from 2 str to 3 is a bigger overall increase than from 871 to 872. There probably are formulas out there to break it all down, but I dont suggest worrying about it. You have a couple primary stats, just make them bigger every chance you get.

8) Most dungeon runners have been doing it so long they could clear it blind folded. Its not about the group, its a dead sprint for the final boss. As the tank you are kinda screwed by this as they expect you to move it and you dont know whats going on. Honestly I would have suggested a dps or healer class as your first character because of this. You might get helpful people sometimes, but most of the time they will stay quiet and run for the enxt group of monsters to kill.

9) Yep, they basically made the entire pre end game raid material ultra freaking easy. Thats why dungeon runs are a sprint now. No need to form a strategy, just swarm everything and kill it then move on. You can solo to max level as any spec of any character and do just fine. Some are faster than others but meh, its all easy.

10) This I cant say, its been awhile since I paid attention to paladin tank abilities. It should say in your toolbar what the taunt does and if its single target or not. I do recall paladins having a number of good aoe options with high threat though.

11) Yes. As tank, keep everything hitting you at all times. Thats all your job involves at this point, making sure noone else gets hit.

12) Those abilities are meant for special fights where the boss has some mega powerful move that will insta gib everyone with a cast timer. You see them casting some ultra cleave of doom, pop your special survival technique, and live through it. So its mostly end game and "Oh crud!" moments.

[ryuplaneswalker]

5. What's with prices in the AH? It seems odd to me that a single piece of equipment that will probably be replaced within a couple levels sells for 200-1k (or more) gold. This seems insane to me or is 1k gold really just a small amount and I don't get it yet?

There is a system called transmogrification that allows you to make equipment look like other equipment, certain lower level items can sell for insane amounts if it has a skin that people want.

7. Stats... this is the big one for me. This is what originally drove me away from WoW. I get D&D stats - I understand them. You tell me you have +2 STR on a D&D character and I immediately understand exactly what that does. WoW numbers feel... I don't know, foreign to me? Meaningless? Bigger numbers are better - I get that, but is there any simple calculation or meaning behind them? Does it scale, are the first 10 points of STR more effective than going from 90 to 100? I'm mainly just ignoring all of it this time around and aiming for bigger=better, but it annoys me not understanding.

Bigger = better, what usually matters in terms of stats is the secondary stuff, Crit and Haste and the like.

8. Nobody talks in Dungeon Queues. Every now and then I mention that I'm unfamiliar with a dungeon and often I get crickets. Most of the time it's not a big deal as the dungeons are pretty simple and straight-forward but sometimes dungeons are confusing and/or not clearly laid out. It doesn't help matters that because I'm the tank people want me to take the lead. What is up with this? Do people just basically treat the social aspects of the game as optional at this point in time? I've had one very helpful guide take over in a complex dungeon when I explained I was confused. That's out of a lot.

For many people this is the 100th+ time of running the dungeon, most social aspects are at max level. Raids, PVP, ect.

9. The game often seems very, very easy. The entire time I was playing solo I died once and that was from fall damage. 90% of the time my health never even dropped below 80%. Now I'm playing in dungeons and, even when we're a level or 2 behind the content, it seems pretty easy. There has been one wipe which was caused by a guy lagging and pulling a group of enemies when only half the group was present. I've seen only a handful of deaths beyond all of this. Is this normal? Is the challenge located in Raids?

Solo it is quite easy, especially as a tank since very few things will ever be of real threat to you since for it to be a threat to a tank it will instakill any non tank with a critical hit.

Dungeons are very dependent on who you are running with, if one person has Heirlooms (equipment that scales as you level up, meant for alts) they will trivialize the content in some manner. Doubly So if the person bothered to enchant the heirlooms, with properly enchanted heirlooms people can solo dungeons at level.

10. When I try to pull an enemy with my taunt it almost always pulls his friends as well. Obviously this isn't a problem, but am I doing something wrong? Or is the taunt intended to pull a group?

No, but most enemies are "linked" into packs that pull all at once, best to run in and spam AOEs most times.

11. When fighting a group of enemies I try to use a lot of AoEs to get the attention of the crowd - is this right? Am I supposed to be getting everyone focused on me? If an enemy breaks off to attack someone else should I try to get their attention back on me?

pretty much spam AOE, if you tell me your Class I can give you a more detailed description of the usual stategy.

Oh you say Lay on hands, that says paladin to me, usual rotation is

Maintain Consencration
Avenger's Shield
Crusader's strike
Holy Wrath
Judgement

You also have two other powers, one is called Word of Glory the other is Called Bastion of Righteousness, they spend a resource called holy power, and act as minor mitigation/self healing tools.

12. Tanking abilities feel very weird and/or short to me. As an example, once every several minutes I can reduce the damage I take for 8 seconds. I almost never use this because it's so situational and almost never comes up. The few times that it is needed it feels like a hassle to use since the benefit is so short (I usually use lay on hands followed by this immediately after).

There are two types of mitigation ability, Active Mitigation which is your Bastion of Righteousness, for the most part you want to have it on as often as possible, since a stat you will get at level 80 called mastery affects those powers for most specs.

The 8 second 50% damage reduction is mostly for "OH CRAP" moments, where a boss is about to use an ability that will kill you without something big active.

[turbo164]

What does show up? HFC is broken up into 5 wings for LFR purposes: Hellbreach, Halls of Blood, Bastion of Shadows, Destructor's Rise, and The Black Gate. It doesn't actually say "Hellfire Citidel" anywhere on it IIRC, but they do all share the same background. They should also all show up even if you don't meet the requirements, so if those aren't there, something screwy is happening.

Ah, yeah I remember those being in the list. Thanks!

[Seerow]

7. Stats... this is the big one for me. This is what originally drove me away from WoW. I get D&D stats - I understand them. You tell me you have +2 STR on a D&D character and I immediately understand exactly what that does. WoW numbers feel... I don't know, foreign to me? Meaningless? Bigger numbers are better - I get that, but is there any simple calculation or meaning behind them? Does it scale, are the first 10 points of STR more effective than going from 90 to 100? I'm mainly just ignoring all of it this time around and aiming for bigger=better, but it annoys me not understanding.

Just going to go into a little more detail here since pretty much everyone else is just saying "bigger is better", and you clearly want understanding.


Primary Stats
First, Strength/Agi/Int are all Primary Stats. Str/Agi add Attack Power (1 attack power per point), Int adds spellpower (at the same rate). They used to also do things like Agi/Int increasing crit and Int increasing Mana, but that's been removed over the last expansion or two.

Attack Power/Spell Power are the primary force driving the damage of your attacks. Attack Power increases weapon damage linearly (I forget the exact conversion, since I haven't paid much attention in WoD and they changed a lot of the conversions there, but it's something like 1 weapon DPS per 5-10 attack power). Most physical abilities will either deal X% weapon damage, X% of attack power, or X% of spell power. So increasing Str/Agi/Int directly increases how much damage all of those abilities deal.

Stamina is the last primary stat, and it is basically constitution. It's a straight addition of something like 10-15 HP per Stamina. Again that exact number may be off, but it works by adding a straight value per point to your hit points.

Most gear comes with the relevant primary stats on it automatically. So if you get a piece of Plate, it has Strength, Intelligence, and Vitality on it. You will rarely find a piece of gear without primary stats at low levels, but at high level these are just there as a flat power boost in regards to item level.


Primary Stats
Critical Strike/Mastery/Haste/Versatility/Multistrike are all Secondary Stats.
Critical Strike - Increases chance of receiving a critical strike
Mastery - Provides a different benefit for each specialization. Mousing over on your stats screen should tell you what it does for you.
Haste-Reduces casting time, increases resource generation, and for some melee specs reduces GCD and cooldowns.
Versatility-Increases damage dealt and healing done, and reduces damage taken by a smaller amount.
Multistrike-Gives your attacks a chance of hitting 1-2 additional times for a lower damage.

Each of these secondary stats works on a rating system. So it's not a straight 1 critical strike rating = 1% crit chance. It's more like 110 crit strike rating = 1%. The amount of rating per % increase goes up as you level, so for example at level 90 it's 23 crit strike rating for 1%. This is how WoW is able to handle massively high numbers on secondary stats without hitting hard caps, every expansion when we level, secondary stats get effectively reset.

Most gear at higher levels comes with 2 Secondary Stats on it. Occasionally you'll find a piece with only 1, or with more than 2, but in the vast majority of cases you have your primary and two secondaries. A large part of the gearing minigame is getting gear with secondary stat itemization appropriate for your spec.


Tertiary Stats
Avoidance, Indestructable, Leech, and Speed are all Tertiary Stats.
Avoidance-Reduces damage taken from AoE effects by a %
Indestructable-Prevents the piece of gear from taking damage
Leech-Converts a % of your damage dealt into healing received.
Speed-Increases movement speed by a %.

Indestructible is a bit weird because it's a binary thing, but the other three tertiaries all work on a rating system like secondaries. So you'll see an item with say +300 leech, which then converts to some % of leech.

Tertiary stats are randomly occurring on items obtained from dungeons/raids. They don't count against an item's stat budget, so they're just a nice bonus when you see them, but nothing you can really count on or try to build around.


Other Gear Stuff
First thing you may notice on gear is item level. This is just the gear's overall power, and determines the stat budget available for the gear. Two pieces of the same ilvl should have the same stat budget, more or less. The primary stat budget is almost always the same (so if you see two pieces of ilvl650 gear they should have the same Str/Stam), but secondaries can get a little more interesting. Sometimes an item will have more of one secondary than another (so you might see one item with 100crit/100 mastery, and another with 150haste/50versatility. Same total budget, but different values). Also stats with more than 2 secondaries usually have a bit extra budgeted (for example you might see an item with 70crit/70mastery/70versatility, which is a slight increase in itemization over the similar items). Generally these are balanced well enough that your main concern is over whether the secondary stats are good for your spec, but it helps explain a bit about why you see two different pieces of gear with the same stats and different numbers.

Now, remember the tertiary stats I mentioned appearing randomly above? Well on gear that can proc tertiaries, you can also proc two other upgrades:
1) Warforged. A piece of Warforged gear has a higher ilvl than normal. Usually it's 6 ilvls, but Blizzard's been experimenting with larger warforged numbers outside of raids lately so it can be more. Basically the Warforged gear is just straight up better all around than it would have been otherwise. The higher ilvl increases the stat budget, and so all stats are higher.

2) Socket. A socketed item can be equipped with a Gem, which provides a notable increase to a single secondary stat. This is both a flat power boost and some extra customization. A Gem is worth about as much as the 6ilvl Warforged, so it's a pretty nice upgrade to get.

Both of the above are considered more valuable than Tertiary Stats (which are typically pretty minor or purely defensive in their effect).


What does it all mean?
Simplifying it all down though, what gear is useful boils down to:
1) Find out your secondary stat priority, either via sims or a guide.
2) When you get a new piece of gear, if it is a higher ilvl and has the same secondary stats, equip it.
3) If it's more than 10ilvls higher than what you already have, it's probably better regardless of secondaries, go ahead and use it.
4) If the item is less than 10ilvls higher, check secondaries. Pick the item with the secondaries better suited to your spec.
5) If the item has a socket count it as ~6ilvls higher for that purpose.
6) If the item has a tertiary stat, ignore it. Possibly bank it if it is only slightly weaker and you want to have say a speed or leech set for soloing.

Anyway, that should cover just about anything you want to know about stats and gear. I hope it's been helpful to you.

[Typewriter]

Thanks all for the responses. The stat breakdown you gave, Seerow, makes a bit of sense and also lets me see why many people prefer the "Bigger is Better" approach. For whatever reason that's never worked well for me - I like to understand mechanics a bit better than that. I'll probably try to find the formulas you mentioned at some point just to see how everything ties together. Some of it is definitely maddening - especially the way things scale as you level the way you were describing secondary stats.

[Seerow]

Thanks all for the responses. The stat breakdown you gave, Seerow, makes a bit of sense and also lets me see why many people prefer the "Bigger is Better" approach. For whatever reason that's never worked well for me - I like to understand mechanics a bit better than that. I'll probably try to find the formulas you mentioned at some point just to see how everything ties together. Some of it is definitely maddening - especially the way things scale as you level the way you were describing secondary stats.

Yeah, the rating system is a little hard to wrap your head around. Honestly, as someone who is interested in that sort of thing, I highly recommend waiting until you hit max level and then looking up the conversions that apply to you. Trying to keep track of how it changes level to level will drive you crazy needlessly.

[Typewriter]

New question: Earlier I was doing a quest with a group. This was my second time doing the quest and the first time was incredibly easy. This time there were a few hiccups along the way, and I noticed a few times my health getting low but didn't think much about it. Eventually I get a PM that said something along the lines of, "Just so you know it's taking two healers to keep you up. You may want to try googling 'WoW' and 'Tank gear'. Not judging, just making a recommendation."

My initial reaction was to be annoyed by a troll, but the guy seemed sincere. When I asked him what he meant by my gear he told me that I should be using plate instead of mail. More than half my pieces are plate, I just haven't been getting many plate drops (plus I just unlocked plate 5 levels ago(this was at level 45)). Looking at my gear I can see where improvement would be needed - I do have a couple pieces of gear that are a little older than the rest, but nothing that should make that much of a difference, plus I'd already done this quest once before with zero problems. And I mean, the guy's complaint wasn't that I was failing to tank - it was that I was tanking too well / getting hit too much?

So... thoughts? Dismiss as a troll, consider what he said, was he just a crap healer? My main in DDO for years was a cleric so I know a lot about healing from that games perspectives and don't really see his perspective here. But on the flipside I'm playing a role that is sort of central and I don't want to be screwing over the 5 other people in a team.

[otakuryoga]

lemme guess..dps was pulling mass #'s of mobs expecting you to tank em easy breezy?

people are spoiled
they have ben conditioned to expect that everyone else in dungeons is just like them..full Heirlooms and doing it for the 1200th time on alt #5
they really don't know what to expect from an actual first time leveler

[AgentPaper]

By not using heirlooms, you are basically by nature holding the rest of your party back, since they all have heirlooms and can handle a pace much faster than you are. A lot of them are probably even close to, if not more "tanky" than you just by having larger health pools, more armor, or just by using their abilities better than you, and can handle a bit of heat.

I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't tank without heirloom gear, but it's something to keep in mind. You probably would actually be better off not tanking every single mob, but letting the DPS take a hit or two to help spread the load, but I wouldn't suggest trying to do that, either. Your main goal here is to get good at tanking, and a big part of being a good tank is knowing how to manage enemies properly to keep your party safe.

What I would suggest, though it might not be possible, is to find like-minded and like-geared friends to group up with. Having groupmates who also don't have heirlooms yet to play with, even if it's just a healer, will help a lot. Communication and teamwork are essential in this game, and though the player roles make most of that pretty easy, being able to talk to the healer and learn how to really excel at your roles is essential. By having the same, not-overgeared healer with you all the time, you'll also get a better feel for when things are going well or poorly, and be able to learn to deal with those situations.

My main is a protection warrior, and tanking has been my main way of experiencing the game basically since I started. I've tanked everything from heroic dungeons (back when they were hard) to end-game raids, but nothing taught me how to be a good tank better than playing with my brother (a priest at the time) back around level 30-40, going through Scarlet Monastary's various wings (pre-revamp) far earlier than we were intended to, with whatever random DPS weren't scared away by our crazy antics. By being in constant communication with him (though still just text chat) and having him as a known value that I could work around, I was able to really push my limits as a tank, pulling more and more mobs and surviving - sometimes by just a thread - not by having the best gear or OP teammates (this was pre-heirloom days), but by using my abilities - all of my abilities - to manage my enemies and reduce the damage I was tanking. Not just defensive abilities like Shield Block, but also stuns, debuffs, slows, movement, taunts, and damage abilities applied to the right target (important since many times we didn't have reliable DPS to kill things for us). For all the crazy stuff we pulled, often running headlong into large groups of enemies, or encouraging the DPS to pull more mobs at random (who I then needed to scramble to pick up and save them from), we actually didn't die very much. It was also some of the most fun I've had playing WoW.

Unfortunately, dungeons have been nerfed a bit (or rather, players have been buffed) since those days, so you might have a hard time getting exactly the same experience, but just finding a few like-minded people, especially if you can find other people who are playing through their first characters for the first time, is something I highly recommend.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Thanks all for the responses. The stat breakdown you gave, Seerow, makes a bit of sense and also lets me see why many people prefer the "Bigger is Better" approach. For whatever reason that's never worked well for me - I like to understand mechanics a bit better than that. I'll probably try to find the formulas you mentioned at some point just to see how everything ties together. Some of it is definitely maddening - especially the way things scale as you level the way you were describing secondary stats.

Well, 99.99% of the time, bigger item level is better. Primary stat gains from higher item level gear usually trump better secondary stats.

[Typewriter]

By not using heirlooms, you are basically by nature holding the rest of your party back, since they all have heirlooms and can handle a pace much faster than you are. A lot of them are probably even close to, if not more "tanky" than you just by having larger health pools, more armor, or just by using their abilities better than you, and can handle a bit of heat.

I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't tank without heirloom gear, but it's something to keep in mind. You probably would actually be better off not tanking every single mob, but letting the DPS take a hit or two to help spread the load, but I wouldn't suggest trying to do that, either. Your main goal here is to get good at tanking, and a big part of being a good tank is knowing how to manage enemies properly to keep your party safe.

I was actually already starting to lean towards switching to DPS and/or doing a bit more exploration/questing based leveling. This is the first time I've had this issue and normally I fly through content at a quick pace (as I said, the time previous I did this dungeon was super easy and easily twice as fast), but it's just not something I want to open myself up to until I know the game a bit better.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I was actually already starting to lean towards switching to DPS and/or doing a bit more exploration/questing based leveling. This is the first time I've had this issue and normally I fly through content at a quick pace (as I said, the time previous I did this dungeon was super easy and easily twice as fast), but it's just not something I want to open myself up to until I know the game a bit better.

Ignore him, keep tanking in dungeons he was an idiot.

DPS that pull in dungeons should never be listened to, especially that one as there is no "tank" gear at that level, the only gear that is relevant for your specialization are Neck, Cloak, Rings and trinkets because that is where a stat called Bonus Armor is, and Bonus armor is -the- tank stat.

[Ronnoc]

New question: Earlier I was doing a quest with a group. This was my second time doing the quest and the first time was incredibly easy. This time there were a few hiccups along the way, and I noticed a few times my health getting low but didn't think much about it. Eventually I get a PM that said something along the lines of, "Just so you know it's taking two healers to keep you up. You may want to try googling 'WoW' and 'Tank gear'. Not judging, just making a recommendation."

My initial reaction was to be annoyed by a troll, but the guy seemed sincere. When I asked him what he meant by my gear he told me that I should be using plate instead of mail. More than half my pieces are plate, I just haven't been getting many plate drops (plus I just unlocked plate 5 levels ago(this was at level 45)). Looking at my gear I can see where improvement would be needed - I do have a couple pieces of gear that are a little older than the rest, but nothing that should make that much of a difference, plus I'd already done this quest once before with zero problems. And I mean, the guy's complaint wasn't that I was failing to tank - it was that I was tanking too well / getting hit too much?

So... thoughts? Dismiss as a troll, consider what he said, was he just a crap healer? My main in DDO for years was a cleric so I know a lot about healing from that games perspectives and don't really see his perspective here. But on the flipside I'm playing a role that is sort of central and I don't want to be screwing over the 5 other people in a team.

They were probably pulling to fast however you should know that since Cataclysm there has been a system called armor affinities. These affinities give you a five percent increase to your primary stat if you are wearing exclusively the highest class of armor that you can (plate in your case). By wearing mail you are effectively sacrificing 5% stamina.

[ryuplaneswalker]

They were probably pulling to fast however you should know that since Cataclysm there has been a system called armor affinities. These affinities give you a five percent increase to your primary stat if you are wearing exclusively the highest class of armor that you can (plate in your case). By wearing mail you are effectively sacrificing 5% stamina.

Stamina is generally unimportant for tanks, unless you are getting one shot with mitigation up more HP is not going to help your life out too much.

[Seerow]

Stamina is generally unimportant for tanks, unless you are getting one shot with mitigation up more HP is not going to help your life out too much.

Stamina is unimportant for tanks when you have level appropriate gear. If you're running around with level 20 gear at level 45, the lower HP is pretty noticable. Especially when you're using mail instead of plate in several slots, which results in lower overall mitigation on top of the lower HP making you feel pretty squishy.

I always take a break from dungeoning somewhere around level 40-50ish to go quest through a zone or two, or go AHing, to get a full set of plate gear asap. (I used to do this at the start of each expansion because the jump between level 59 dungeon gear and Outland dungeon gear was huge. But since the stat squish that's not as big of a concern).

[Traab]

Yeah, if it keeps happening, I suggest you go find the nearest yellow/orange quest zone and go complete the entire place. Or at least keep doing it till you have a full set of plate gear. This is the biggest downside to dungeon grinding. The gear drops suck because you level up so fast doing it you are unlikely to see each dungeon often enough to get the loot from it that you need. Its the suggested leveling path for experienced players because they have the heirloom gear that levels up with them and is pretty much always better than anything you could loot from level appropriate encounters, so all they care about is experience. I tried doing the dungeon grind path and made it to 50ish before giving up because I had gear stretching from 25-50 on my character due to flying through levels so fast I often didnt even get any gear drops at all before hitting the next set of dungeons. I had a couple heirlooms, so it wasnt terrible, but it was bad enough to be kind of embarrassing. Luckily as a dps in a dungeon blitz group it didnt show so much. As a tank it would have been brutal.

[Icewraith]

Yeah, if it keeps happening, I suggest you go find the nearest yellow/orange quest zone and go complete the entire place. Or at least keep doing it till you have a full set of plate gear. This is the biggest downside to dungeon grinding. The gear drops suck because you level up so fast doing it you are unlikely to see each dungeon often enough to get the loot from it that you need. Its the suggested leveling path for experienced players because they have the heirloom gear that levels up with them and is pretty much always better than anything you could loot from level appropriate encounters, so all they care about is experience. I tried doing the dungeon grind path and made it to 50ish before giving up because I had gear stretching from 25-50 on my character due to flying through levels so fast I often didnt even get any gear drops at all before hitting the next set of dungeons. I had a couple heirlooms, so it wasnt terrible, but it was bad enough to be kind of embarrassing. Luckily as a dps in a dungeon blitz group it didnt show so much. As a tank it would have been brutal.

This is probably less of an issue for him since he doesn't have the huge XP bonuses from having a ton of heirlooms, so he'll need more runs through a particular dungeon. However, the guaranteed dungeon bags only tend to drop certain slots (such as shoulders and boots), so keeping your gear and especially weapon reasonably up-to-date, especially right after the mail-to-plate transition at 40, is still important. One of the first quests in a new expansion zone (Hellfire Peninsula, Howling Fjord/Borean Tundra, Vashj'ir/Hyjal, Jade Forest, Draenor (not Outland) Shadowmoon Valley/Frostfire Ridge) usually gives a weapon, or if you're at an awkward level you can hop on Wowhead or similar and see what quest chains in the zone or level you're appropriate for reward a good weapon or trinket.

[The_Jackal]

This is probably less of an issue for him since he doesn't have the huge XP bonuses from having a ton of heirlooms, so he'll need more runs through a particular dungeon. However, the guaranteed dungeon bags only tend to drop certain slots (such as shoulders and boots), so keeping your gear and especially weapon reasonably up-to-date, especially right after the mail-to-plate transition at 40, is still important. One of the first quests in a new expansion zone (Hellfire Peninsula, Howling Fjord/Borean Tundra, Vashj'ir/Hyjal, Jade Forest, Draenor (not Outland) Shadowmoon Valley/Frostfire Ridge) usually gives a weapon, or if you're at an awkward level you can hop on Wowhead or similar and see what quest chains in the zone or level you're appropriate for reward a good weapon or trinket.

Honestly, just spec for DPS and get carried. Tanking lowbie dungeons in a group of 4 players wearing full Hierlooms isn't going to prepare you for anything anyway.

[Icewraith]

Honestly, just spec for DPS and get carried. Tanking lowbie dungeons in a group of 4 players wearing full Hierlooms isn't going to prepare you for anything anyway.

Well yeah, we already told him that would be an issue but since he's already doing it, why not give him some useful advice on how to do things better instead of just telling him to stop? Also, it's useful to know where the gear upgrades are lurking while leveling.

Edit: Also come to think of it, if he's going to tank at high levels, this probably is useful. Which would you rather deal with- a new player who's leveled as tank, knows the spec, has been in the leveling dungeons, understands how trash mobs and patrols work, etc and knows where their survival cooldowns are... or a new player who got carried for 75+ levels as dps and has now decided to tank dungeons at 90+?

[The Glyphstone]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/199...iew-12-16-2015


I don't PvP at all, but for people who do this might be interesting.

[turbo164]

So, weird thing happened this weekend.

I was leveling my rogue in SMV, and find Pathrunner (rare spawn that drops a mount), awesome! I'm level 92 and it has 600k hp, less awesome!

I ask for help in guild chat, crickets.

I ask for help in general chat, crickets.

I start a group in Group Finder. Someone joins, leaves after about 5 seconds. 3 other people leave after 5-ish seconds. I assume they were realmhopping for non-Pathrunner things. While this happens, Pathrunner fades out of existence momentarily?

I get a whisper from someone who saw my /1 message and joins with a friend. This time, Pathrunner fades and does not reappear. We spend about 20 minutes flying around, trying to see if he wandered into some scripted quest instance thing, or teleported to a new spawn point, or what. We give up, they leave...AND HE INSTANTLY REAPPEARS. I reinvite...he instantly fades.

So, apparently, even though I'm the group leader, it's taking me out of MY mount-containing realm to join theirs.

We experiment with me hosting in group finder, them hosting in group finder, changing leadership, changing to raid, etc. I also try aggroing Pathrunner (gogo Evasion!), then joining the group. That time, we successfully became a party, and could see each other's healthbars. But, they could not see me or Pathrunner, and I could not see them. I Vanish (still can't solo the thing), Pathrunner fades out, my party fades in, and they can see me now. We disband again.

Guild member finally agrees to come (but is on another planet), right as a Horde player starts soloing the thing. I desperately send one last invite to the people I've spent the last 45 minutes with...AND IT FINALLY BRINGS THEM TO MY REALM.


So, TLDR, inviting people to my realm failed over a dozen times until I invited someone from my realm *before* inviting the aliens. Maybe being 92 vs 100 had something to do with it, I dunno.

[The Glyphstone]

Cross-realm zoning/groups are weird.

[Wayac]

From my understanding, when you do a regular party invite the party goes to the realm of the highest level member with no regard to who the actual leader/party creator is.
My guess is that the people you invited were higher level than you and thus you were pulled to their realm. Then your guild member must have been equal or higher level than them allowing you to stay in your own realm.

If this wasn't the case for you, please ignore this post

[The_Jackal]

Yeah, CRZ is le terrible. Did you wind up trying to solo the mob? A rogue with half-decent gear mashing every cooldown should be able to pull it off.

[turbo164]

From my understanding, when you do a regular party invite the party goes to the realm of the highest level member with no regard to who the actual leader/party creator is.
My guess is that the people you invited were higher level than you and thus you were pulled to their realm. Then your guild member must have been equal or higher level than them allowing you to stay in your own realm.

If this wasn't the case for you, please ignore this post

Yeah I was 92, others were 100.

Yeah, CRZ is le terrible. Did you wind up trying to solo the mob? A rogue with half-decent gear mashing every cooldown should be able to pull it off.

After my Prep'd Evasion wore off (and Adrenaline Rush and Killing Spree and glyph'd Cloak of Shadows and...), it was still about 50% to my 30% :/ Didn't have full heirlooms.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I was leveling my rogue in SMV, and find Pathrunner (rare spawn that drops a mount), awesome! I'm level 92 and it has 600k hp, less awesome!

/4 Looking for group would have solved all your problems