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[Dakota47]

The problem you are running into has to do with heirlooms. When people are decked out in gear thats way better than what dungeons offer for the same level, the lower level dungeons are a cake walk. If you want to see real fun (sarcasm here) try Battlegrounds.

Very true. Yesterday I had a tank who had full heirloom gear and that meant I could basically switch from being a healer to doing damage. I had to give him a renew every now and then but that was it.

 

[TheYanger]

This is so true. I hate having people that suck and don't care that they suck in raids, but I hate having cocky/arrogant douche bags in raids, even more. It totally ruins the enjoyment factor. That aside, raid pugs seem to go really well on my server. I don't know if it's because I'm on an older server or what.

Oh man don't even get me started on the Exotic Treasures reward bag. Nothing like giving all the players who were already getting instant queues even more stuff. I know it's an attempt to make more people tank and heal, but the queue times on my server are hardly any better. If the bags gave gold, profession mats, or anything else (even a unique companion/mount reward specific to the exotic treasures bag), I'd be okay with it. But the fact that players are getting really, really hard to get mounts and companions is absolutely retarded in my opinion. Nothing like giving away stuff that takes other classes months to years to get, who were already the ones having to wait through 30-45 minute queue times. Genius...

It's a reward for you too. Your queues are actually fast now (they're seirously like half as long at worst compared to what they used to be), and even if they get the item and sell it...so what? that's a win for you too, it's more items entering the economy increasing your odds of buying one/finding one and decreasing the price because of the supply going up. It benefits everyone.

EDIT: Not to mention the bags are BoA, which means you can just make a tank/healer alt and send them to your main. This is totally another intended effect of the system.

 

[ToyMachine228]

So WoW lost 600,000 subscribers last quarter and 300,000 more this quarter. Does that not prove that they made the wrong decision and took too long to get Firelands out the door? All of you who defended that decision and said it wouldn't cause the population to drop because "only X% have done hard modes!"...You lose.

 

[half a moon]

Why does the simulationcraft gear summary have my strength value lower than the equipped value?

 

[Deputy Moonman]

It's a reward for you too. Your queues are actually fast now (they're seirously like half as long at worst compared to what they used to be), and even if they get the item and sell it...so what? that's a win for you too, it's more items entering the economy increasing your odds of buying one/finding one and decreasing the price because of the supply going up. It benefits everyone.

EDIT: Not to mention the bags are BoA, which means you can just make a tank/healer alt and send them to your main. This is totally another intended effect of the system.

My main has been a lock since vanilla and, even though it would have been nice if I had happened to roll a tank from the beginning, I didn't. I shouldn't have to roll a tank, or spend half of my time on an alt just to get easy access to hard to get loot. And I'm not seeing the noticeably shorter queue times that you are talking about, either. It's still around 30 minutes on my server and that's what it was when cataclysm came out.

The fact that people are being rewarded for tanking, for the purpose of speeding up queue times for dps, is not the problem. It's what they're being rewarded with... Tanks are getting crazy good rewards simply by running instances like they always have. On the other end of the spectrum are the people who rolled other classes and have spent their hard earned time, and worked their asses off to get the rare drops. Give tanks a ton of emblems/gold/profession mats/whatever, but don't just hand out rare mounts and companions like candy. I see it as a major slap in the face to other players. As a dps, I'm the one who has always had to wait on queue times. And while slow queue times are not fun, it pisses me off even more that tanks, who have always benefited a great deal already from being a tank, now get all this cool stuff handed to them like it was candy. That's not cool. No way.

The increase in people tanking has not been significant enough to really convince me that it's cool people are getting green protodrake mounts, raven lord mounts, baron mounts, and more when they were already getting instant queues and twice as much emblems/loot/gold from being able to run instances with no dead time. Obviously if you're a tank, you love the changes. But from my perspective it's totally retarded and that's coming from a dps who the changes are supposed to be benefiting. PFFFT. I'm the one waiting in the dungeon finder queue. So... getting MAYBE 5-10 minute quicker queue times is supposed to make me happy when tanks are now getting even more stuff than before? WUT? I'd rather be placed in a queue that says let people go before me so they can get the faster queues if it means that I get all this easy cool loot. That's a real sacrifice. Not some conjured up shit excuse to give tanks drops that I highly value in the game. It completely takes away any meaningfulness from the people who got the same drops the hard way.

Sorry. I know it's only my opinion and I shouldn't even talk about it. I obviously get a little riled up when I think/talk about it. I know not everyone will agree, but the rewards for tanking are WAAAAAAYY too nice. It makes me want to stop playing, not roll a tank.

EDIT: fwiw I have an 85 prot warrior alt who, with a few upgrades, could start tanking heroics. I still think the whole thing is retarded. It's the principle, bottom line. It's similar to people's sentiments that wrath and cataclysm have made running instances too easy. Except this time, it's for rare drops and only tanks benefit. How is that fair?

so what? that's a win for you too

You'll never convince me that tanks getting free stupidly easy access to some of the rarest stuff in the game is a win for anyone but the tanks. So you're getting free rare loot that can be sold on the ah for lots of gold while I have the option of buying it off the ah? Sounds pretty fair... We both run the same instances, but tanks get instant queues and lots of gold and lots of rare stuff... for doing the exact same instance. How is that a win for me? You're a tank. I know you like the changes. But that doesn't make it a win for me just because I get a few minutes knocked off of my queue times. There's no way to even try to compare the benefits for both sides as equal. Blizzard failed on this one.

 

[Mairu]

"the rarest stuff in the game"

It's all vanity shit that you could easily still farm yourself if you wanted to and most of the time you just get gold+random flask or other stuff, just be thankful that there's more tanks queuing

 

[Bisnic]

lots of heroic whining

These mounts that tanks(and sometimes healers) get from these bags have been EASILY ACCESSIBLE AND SOLOABLE for years. Most people who wanted a Raven Lord or a Baron mount already have one, or can continue to solo Sethekk Halls or Stratholme on their DPS class. Why the fuck are you making such a big deal about this? It's not like these mounts have a 50% chance to be in the bags and its not like you're going to get a raid or arena frostwyrm either.

And my heroic DPS queues went from 40 mins back in december to 10 mins since the bags were introduced. So i'd say it's a pretty good deal for my mage. Troll heroics are 25-30 mins, but that's more of an issue of only having 2 instances, them being harder and that not everyone have access to them once they hit 85.

You really need to calm down about this, because it's not really an issue. Complain about the lack of content on this expansion? Sure, but this?

 

[TheYanger]

My main has been a lock since vanilla and, even though it would have been nice if I had happened to roll a tank from the beginning, I didn't. I shouldn't have to roll a tank, or spend half of my time on an alt just to get easy access to hard to get loot. And I'm not seeing the noticeably shorter queue times that you are talking about, either. It's still around 30 minutes on my server and that's what it was when cataclysm came out.

The fact that people are being rewarded for tanking, for the purpose of speeding up queue times for dps, is not the problem. It's what they're being rewarded with... Tanks are getting crazy good rewards simply by running instances like they always have. On the other end of the spectrum are the people who rolled other classes and have spent their hard earned time, and worked their asses off to get the rare drops. Give tanks a ton of emblems/gold/profession mats/whatever, but don't just hand out rare mounts and companions like candy. I see it as a major slap in the face to other players. As a dps, I'm the one who has always had to wait on queue times. And while slow queue times are not fun, it pisses me off even more that tanks, who have always benefited a great deal already from being a tank, now get all this cool stuff handed to them like it was candy. That's not cool. No way.

The increase in people tanking has not been significant enough to really convince me that it's cool people are getting green protodrake mounts, raven lord mounts, baron mounts, and more when they were already getting instant queues and twice as much emblems/loot/gold from being able to run instances with no dead time. Obviously if you're a tank, you love the changes. But from my perspective it's totally retarded and that's coming from a dps who the changes are supposed to be benefiting. PFFFT. I'm the one waiting in the dungeon finder queue. So... getting MAYBE 5-10 minute quicker queue times is supposed to make me happy when tanks are now getting even more stuff than before? WUT? I'd rather be placed in a queue that says let people go before me so they can get the faster queues if it means that I get all this easy cool loot. That's a real sacrifice. Not some conjured up shit excuse to give tanks drops that I highly value in the game. It completely takes away any meaningfulness from the people who got the same drops the hard way.

Sorry. I know it's only my opinion and I shouldn't even talk about it. I obviously get a little riled up when I think/talk about it. I know not everyone will agree, but the rewards for tanking are WAAAAAAYY too nice. It makes me want to stop playing, not roll a tank.

EDIT: fwiw I have an 85 prot warrior alt who, with a few upgrades, could start tanking heroics. I still think the whole thing is retarded. It's the principle, bottom line. It's similar to people's sentiments that wrath and cataclysm have made running instances too easy. Except this time, it's for rare drops and only tanks benefit. How is that fair?

You'll never convince me that tanks getting free stupidly easy access to some of the rarest stuff in the game is a win for anyone but the tanks. So you're getting free rare loot that can be sold on the ah for lots of gold while I have the option of buying it off the ah? Sounds pretty fair... We both run the same instances, but tanks get instant queues and lots of gold and lots of rare stuff... for doing the exact same instance. How is that a win for me? You're a tank. I know you like the changes. But that doesn't make it a win for me just because I get a few minutes knocked off of my queue times. There's no way to even try to compare the benefits for both sides as equal. Blizzard failed on this one.

Yes, it does make it a win for you, for fucks sake. If they took this out of the game, your queues would jump to like 45 minutes (What server you're on makes no difference at this point you realize). It would have ZERO effect on your game, whether someone else gets an item that came from thin air or not. None. On the other hand, if they choose to sell it, now you're actually MORE likely to find said item. Why the fuck is that so hard to understand? Do you realize the ODDS of getting this kind of shit from the bags? It's like the same as actually getting the items to drop in the first place, 90% of the time you do them and you get like a mana potion or something equally stupid, and like 30 gold. OH BOY.

Queue times being shorter is not a reward for the tanks, it's nothing. Tanks finish gearing extremely fast because of them, and then have no need to run randoms except for their weekly VP cap, if the bags convince some of them to run a few more then it is only a good thing as far as your warlock-i-refuse-to-do-anything-but-dps mentality goes. Nothing that someone else gets takes anything away from you, and the fact that their incentive is something that helps YOUR process along, is completely lost on you.

The vast majority of good tanks STILL don't even queue for the shit despite the bags (as you've noted, queue times are still long) because it's just not worth dealing with the headaches and irritation. I look at the queue window, see the bag, and just ignore it, it means nothing. it contains crap most of the time, and it's simply more efficient to actually bring friends on runs. You have to realize, these tanks are people that are just as capable of instantly filling a group if they want to run a heroic, and not advancing your queue one iota. You give up a LOT to get a satchel of mysteries.

 

[zugzug]

Most people who wanted a Raven Lord or a Baron mount already have one, or can continue to solo Sethekk Halls or Stratholme on their DPS class. Why the fuck are you making such a big deal about this?

And my heroic DPS queues went from 40 mins back in december to 10 mins since the bags were introduced.

You really need to calm down about this, because it's not really an issue. Complain about the lack of content on this expansion? Sure, but this?

I call bullshit on the 10 minutes. I think your blowing things to suit your side of the argument.

This satchel of exoic was clearly a Bad Design decision by Blizzard developers who have lost the way. Admit that.

Being able to sell anything you find in the bag is bad design as well. I realize it hurts no one, its simply an example of profiting off of someone that was supose to be a personal boon.

In Short stop screaming and telling others to calm down when your comeback is written rather hastily.

 

[Bisnic]

I call bullshit on the 10 minutes. I think your blowing things to suit your side of the argument.

This satchel of exoic was clearly a Bad Design decision by Blizzard developers who have lost the way. Admit that.

Being able to sell anything you find in the bag is bad design as well. I realize it hurts no one, its simply an example of profiting off of someone that was supose to be a personal boon.

In Short stop screaming and telling others to calm down when your comeback is written rather hastily.

I'm not exagerrating. I can enter the queue for a random heroic on my mage and it will pop before i'm done with the Firelands dailies. Do i need to post a picture once i'm back home for you to trust me or what? Average wait time is between 8-12 mins usually. At worst, it gets to 15. Maybe its different with another class, maybe its different on another battlegroup, but i'm not lying.

And I am NOT talking about the zandalari DPS queues by the way. Those are still 25-30 mins.

 

[scoobs]

Id just like to announce that the blue proto drake finallty dropped after 6 looooong months, YES

 

[Dunlop]

So why don't you just change to a zone made for your lvl instead of staying in one where you don't get XP at all from kills? I don't understand you.

sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant more that the lower level tiers are absolutely pointless (and empty) as you can out level them almost within minutes.

I'm at the point where I think they should allow you to create characters at level 60 once you get your first 85. Still gives you enough time to not be completely fail by the time you hit 85.

Any priests do Balerock? In 10 man we took him out again last night, I'm QB'ing the healing rotation but I am so far behind in stacks that I was pretty much staying in to keep the DPS up and only tank healing when Devastation blade kicked in.

I seem to on be able to build up my stacks with flash heal and penance (and penance only seems to give the stack from when it is first cast not when the channelling ends), I am getting roflstomped by the shaman and Pally who have some instant heals in their repertoire.

 

[SUPARSTARX]

I'm thinking if I should shop for a new server to play on until Diablo 3. Maybe thinking of raiding on weekends. I've got end game raids under my belt since vanilla. The only things I haven't cleared are basically Cataclysm stuff which I haven't given two rat's ass about since all my friends withered off and stopped playing 10 mans.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Yes, it does make it a win for you, for fucks sake. If they took this out of the game, your queues would jump to like 45 minutes (What server you're on makes no difference at this point you realize). It would have ZERO effect on your game, whether someone else gets an item that came from thin air or not. None. On the other hand, if they choose to sell it, now you're actually MORE likely to find said item. Why the fuck is that so hard to understand? Do you realize the ODDS of getting this kind of shit from the bags? It's like the same as actually getting the items to drop in the first place, 90% of the time you do them and you get like a mana potion or something equally stupid, and like 30 gold. OH BOY.

Queue times being shorter is not a reward for the tanks, it's nothing. Tanks finish gearing extremely fast because of them, and then have no need to run randoms except for their weekly VP cap, if the bags convince some of them to run a few more then it is only a good thing as far as your warlock-i-refuse-to-do-anything-but-dps mentality goes. Nothing that someone else gets takes anything away from you, and the fact that their incentive is something that helps YOUR process along, is completely lost on you.

The vast majority of good tanks STILL don't even queue for the shit despite the bags (as you've noted, queue times are still long) because it's just not worth dealing with the headaches and irritation. I look at the queue window, see the bag, and just ignore it, it means nothing. it contains crap most of the time, and it's simply more efficient to actually bring friends on runs. You have to realize, these tanks are people that are just as capable of instantly filling a group if they want to run a heroic, and not advancing your queue one iota. You give up a LOT to get a satchel of mysteries.

@The first bolded section: That's why my friend's alt warrior has the green protodrake, the baron's mount, the raven lord mount, and numerous rare companions... It may not be all the time, but the drop rate is obviously a lot higher. I didn't just make those up.
@The second bolded section: You can't be serious... That just shows that you've gotten used to what other people are highly jealous of.
@Last bolded section: WUT? All you did was run a heroic instance. What did you sacrifice?

The rare loot from those bags does have everything to do with my game. It devalues hard work that myself and other people have put into farming for rare mounts and companions. Those kind of things are special to people who work for them. It's pretty lame that I put X amount of time into getting some crazy hard to get mount, something that is special because of the fact that it's hard to get, and then tanks (who already have it super easy) have it handed to them. No hard work. No time sacrificed or anything. Tanks gearing up fast is something all other classes, besides maybe healing classes, would love to be able to do. Whether you think it's a bonus or not, it is. It's a huge bonus, one that warrants taking the time to level a tank on its own merit. Time is everything in wow. The quicker that something can be done, the more time you have to do something else.

Slightly shorter queue times at the expense of tanks getting all kinds of crazy rare loot for free is a joke, in my opinion. There is no way I can get around that. And like I said, they should/could have made a second dps queue option where if you're willing to wait twice as long, you can wait, but you are rewarded by the same rewards a tank gets. It would have the same benefit of shorter queue times and not make me feel like I have to play on an alt if I don't really want to.

I guess i just don't place a high value on queue times, because I'm used to it. No matter what dps queue times are, they're never going to be as fast as a tank's queue times. Perhaps queue times are quicker on other servers, but I'm still waiting around 25-30 minutes on average. If that is a contribution from more people tanking, I'd rather it go back to the old queue times, personally, rather than people load up on mounts and companions that it took me forever to get or that I still don't even have.

No one can deny that loot is what everyone wants in wow. It's why we play the game for the most part. Some people like getting armor, some people like collecting mounts and companions, and some people like getting both. You're arguing that tanks getting easy rare stuff is no big deal. I think that's crazy.

Anyway, I'm very opinionated, which doesn't help. I'm not saying it's bad that you like it. If my main was a tank I'd love it too. But it's easy for you to argue your case since you're main is a class that can tank. I am willing to tank on my alt, even though it disgusts me that the only reason I would be doing it is for easy rare stuff that would take months to years to get otherwise. Perhaps they should start giving rewards to underplayed classes simply because they're under-represented in the game. Are you going to level up a shaman and stop playing on your toon? It's easy for people to say, oh just level up another toon, but that still takes time, even with the major improvements in leveling. And it requires people to stop playing on their main which is what they probably prefer and what they enjoy. I'm totally cool with tanks getting rewards, but not rare loot. That is my whole gripe. It's not the end of the world, but it really does annoy me.

 

[th3dude]

So, more noob questions for you guys...

I'm a level 53 Protection Blood Elf Paladin (second spec is Retribution). I started as DPS, but for the last 10 levels or so I figured I'd better start working on tanking, since that's where I'll be most valuable.

Is there somewhere I can read up on how to tank, how aggro works, tips/tricks, etc? Or can you guys provide some insight? Also, are there any good addons that would help me?

I feel like so far I've been tanking well enough due to having pretty good gear for my level and doing pretty good DPS to keep the mobs on me and taking them out fast, but I figure there's a ton more to it that I'm not realizing and that I better figure it out before I start hitting some tough instances.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

The benefits of Dungeon Finder Call to Arms is short lived for a DPS toon.

After you level to 85 you'll probably do a lot of single queues to catch up, but it'll only takes a week to gear up to tier 2 level. At that point you'll probably/ideally do guild runs and eventually get a large chunk of your VP from raiding.

From then on, a few weeks after reaching 85 and getting all you can out of heroics gears-wise, you might single queue a few times a week to reach VP cap for months to a year. You can do something else, like dailies, during the queue time.

At that point, the majority of your time investment into the game on that character, it's 100% rewarding healers for being healers and tanks for being tanks under the same amount of time invested.

 

[Dunlop]

I can't remember the last time the perk was for a healer on my server. It is always the tank when I queue

granted it is rare now..I actually look for that specifically and then don't bother when I see it is not for me

 

[Bisnic]

I can't remember the last time the perk was for a healer on my server. It is always the tank when I queue

granted it is rare now..I actually look for that specifically and then don't bother when I see it is not for me

Yeah, i haven't seen the random heroic bag for my holy paladin for a while now... i guess since most healers are in T11 and 359/365/378 epics now, healing heroics aren't a pain in the ass anymore.

Tanks are still rare because dealing with retard, impatient teammates, no matter the gear, never gets better.

 

[Alex]

When I was actively playing, raiding, etc, I would always use my off-spec to tank heroics for myself and guild members and I'll tell you, you could make that bag have a 100% chance of dropping that shit and I still wouldn't take a gaggle of moronic PUG DPS through anything for it.

@The first bolded section: That's why my friend's alt warrior has the green protodrake, the baron's mount, the raven lord mount, and numerous rare companions... It may not be all the time, but the drop rate is obviously a lot higher. I didn't just make those up.

The droprate is exactly the same as it is when farming them normally. Some times people are lucky, I got Reins of the Raven Lord from Sethekk the first and only time I fussed with a mount run back when I finished my Shaman at the start of Cata.

It devalues hard work that myself and other people have put into farming for rare mounts and companions.

Walking into an old instance and bowling the joint over in 5 minutes isn't hard work. That'd be infinitely preferable to a PUG heroic to me, that's for sure.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Walking into an old instance and bowling the joint over in 5 minutes isn't hard work. That'd be infinitely preferable to a PUG heroic to me, that's for sure.

This is so true. I could do at least 2-3 old instances that have a chance of dropping a mount in the time it would take to drag a bad PUG through a heroic. Even with a good guild group, I could still do a couple of dungeon mount runs. I have most of the cool stuff at this point anyway...there's not too many compelling reasons for me to switch from Raven Lord or Zulian Tiger for a ground mount unless I want to match someone, or am in a BG or something want to use a PvP mount - I could change on a whim. As for flyers, I have a few protodrakes and stone drakes as well as a few others - I'd only upgrade to something that has to be earned like an Ulduar Drake (still just missing a few for this, ugh), Frostwyrm, Firehawk or is extremely rare (e.g. Ashes of Alar, Invincible.)

Once you have a few good mounts in your stable, you really don't need that many unless a specific design particularly appeals to you.

 

[Negator]

I have almost a hundred mounts, but I have some favorites like my White Hawkstrider and TB ghost horse. Too bad the 10 man heroic horse from the Argent Tournament chest for not wiping once looks so crappy and generic.

 

[TheYanger]

@The first bolded section: That's why my friend's alt warrior has the green protodrake, the baron's mount, the raven lord mount, and numerous rare companions... It may not be all the time, but the drop rate is obviously a lot higher. I didn't just make those up.
@The second bolded section: You can't be serious... That just shows that you've gotten used to what other people are highly jealous of.
@Last bolded section: WUT? All you did was run a heroic instance. What did you sacrifice?

First: Your friend is lucky. That's a fucking difficult concept to grasp. He probably queues a LOT of heroics too. The drop rate IS exactly the same.
Second: Gotten used to? TANKS DONT NEED FUCKING HEROICS. They are literally doing it for nothing if not the satchel.
Third: the sacrifice was running it with entitled assholes like you. Terrible pugs, terrible players. I can run a heroic with ANY four people any time of day, I'm a tank, it's easy to get full groups. If I REALLY want a heroic, I can finish it in probably 1/2 to 1/5 the time without dragging you through it, so yes, it is a sacrifice.

 

[ch0mp]

So, more noob questions for you guys...

I'm a level 53 Protection Blood Elf Paladin (second spec is Retribution). I started as DPS, but for the last 10 levels or so I figured I'd better start working on tanking, since that's where I'll be most valuable.

Is there somewhere I can read up on how to tank, how aggro works, tips/tricks, etc? Or can you guys provide some insight? Also, are there any good addons that would help me?

I feel like so far I've been tanking well enough due to having pretty good gear for my level and doing pretty good DPS to keep the mobs on me and taking them out fast, but I figure there's a ton more to it that I'm not realizing and that I better figure it out before I start hitting some tough instances.

You probably want to get a threat metre of some kind - omen is popular.

I've never tanked any end game content so I can't really help you, but there's some decent guides to get you started on the wow forums.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1866357128
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1020823291

 

[Negator]

You also may want to look up the protection paladin 939 rotation and scale it down to the abilities at your level. There is a YouTube video that I would link to but I'm posting from my phone.

 

[th3dude]

Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

 

[Deputy Moonman]

The droprate is exactly the same as it is when farming them normally. Some times people are lucky, I got Reins of the Raven Lord from Sethekk the first and only time I fussed with a mount run back when I finished my Shaman at the start of Cata.

Walking into an old instance and bowling the joint over in 5 minutes isn't hard work. That'd be infinitely preferable to a PUG heroic to me, that's for sure.

You're probably right about my friend being lucky, then. But the hard work comes from the amount of time it takes overall, not the instance itself. Most instances that have a rare chance at dropping just one thing, something like a mount, the difficulty has to be on heroic and can only be run once a day. The green protodrake is a 3 day wait and some people have been waiting years trying to get some of these things rare. Obviously the Baron mount is different. But being able to get a bag, that can drop all the loot, after each random dungeon finder heroic, does increase your chances a great deal, whereas other classes have to do Sethekk Halls, Magister's Terrace, Utgarde pinnacle, the dailies in northrend, etc. and only can do them once per day. Can we honestly say that taking the time to do all of those once per day is no different than running endless heroics through the dungeon finder bags that can drop everything?

Not only that, there are 7 different mounts that can be found in the bag. Maybe each mount only has a small percent chance to drop, but your chance of getting something is that much higher because you're not just waiting on one specific item. There are many things that can pop up. I guess I'm alone in my thinking, but running repeated heroics, which people do all the time (including tanks... Yanger ) is pretty flippin easy compared to going to each individual instance once per day and doing the specific dailies, once per day. One bag to account for all the rare drops is crazy imo.

First: Your friend is lucky. That's a fucking difficult concept to grasp. He probably queues a LOT of heroics too. The drop rate IS exactly the same.
Second: Gotten used to? TANKS DONT NEED FUCKING HEROICS. They are literally doing it for nothing if not the satchel.
Third: the sacrifice was running it with entitled assholes like you. Terrible pugs, terrible players. I can run a heroic with ANY four people any time of day, I'm a tank, it's easy to get full groups. If I REALLY want a heroic, I can finish it in probably 1/2 to 1/5 the time without dragging you through it, so yes, it is a sacrifice.

I'm not entitled to anything. I just think the loot rewards that can come out of the satchel are outrageous. And if tanks don't need to run heroics, then nobody needs to run heroics. What you said doesn't even make any sense. Why does anybody run heroics, then? People do it to kill time, to have fun, to make money, to get badges, to get profession mats, to level alts, and the list goes on. :-/

 

[Bisnic]

Just so you know, the egg for the Green Proto Drake is now on a 3 days cooldown instead of 7. Been like that for a while.

 

[Alucrid]

Yay, I'm now the only hunter in the PuG FL raid I've been running. C'mon mail drops, c'mon...

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Anyway, I wish I could pull out the 'I feel very strongly about this, so I must be right' argument, but I know that's stupid. I'll just agree to disagree and let it go.

Just so you know, the egg for the Green Proto Drake is now on a 3 days cooldown instead of 7. Been like that for a while.

ah thanks. I didn't know that.

 

[Dunlop]

Yay, I'm now the only hunter in the PuG FL raid I've been running. C'mon mail drops, c'mon...

9/10 drops we've had in FL has been for a hunter, it is actually hurting our overall raid as we are at the point were we need to DC stuff. We are beating a lot of bosses too close to the enrage timers because our DPS needs better gear (aka actual drops they can use)

 

[Upper_Management]

So, more noob questions for you guys...

I'm a level 53 Protection Blood Elf Paladin (second spec is Retribution). I started as DPS, but for the last 10 levels or so I figured I'd better start working on tanking, since that's where I'll be most valuable.

Is there somewhere I can read up on how to tank, how aggro works, tips/tricks, etc? Or can you guys provide some insight? Also, are there any good addons that would help me?

I feel like so far I've been tanking well enough due to having pretty good gear for my level and doing pretty good DPS to keep the mobs on me and taking them out fast, but I figure there's a ton more to it that I'm not realizing and that I better figure it out before I start hitting some tough instances.

I'm on my phone as well so I can't post up any links but I can toss out a few addons that really helped me out as a fledgling tank and made tanking alot more fun.

I think someone has already mentioned Omen, so check that out for threat purposes. Threatplates is another that I find invaluable, it shows threat on the nameplates so it is super easy to see what you have threat on and which mobs you don't.
DBM is good for notifying you of boss abilities at certain times.
CLCProt is good for helping out with your rotation, not sure how much of a rotation you have at 53 but it'll give you a guide. It also will let you move the holy power bar around your screen (which is what I use it for) so you can easily see how much power you have instead of trying to eyeball it up in the left corner of your ui.

Last but not least if you can stomach it is to check out the paladin forum at elitist jerks, there is alot of info which can be overwhelming at times but if you just check out the protection thread it should give you some helpful tips. I'll try and get some more addon info once I'm back on my comp but hopefully this will give you some helpful info!

 

[Alucrid]

9/10 drops we've had in FL has been for a hunter, it is actually hurting our overall raid as we are at the point were we need to DC stuff. We are beating a lot of bosses too close to the enrage timers because our DPS needs better gear (aka actual drops they can use)

*shakes fist*

I'm running heroics on my cat druid now and..well, getting used to melee is weird.

 

[Nugg]

9/10 drops we've had in FL has been for a hunter, it is actually hurting our overall raid as we are at the point were we need to DC stuff. We are beating a lot of bosses too close to the enrage timers because our DPS needs better gear (aka actual drops they can use)

Same for us, but with Paladin loot. We feel your pain.

Spoiler

Except our Paladin.

 

[Einchy]

9/10 drops we've had in FL has been for a hunter, it is actually hurting our overall raid as we are at the point were we need to DC stuff. We are beating a lot of bosses too close to the enrage timers because our DPS needs better gear (aka actual drops they can use)

The top three best geared raiders on our server are all hunters.

 

[th3dude]

I'm on my phone as well so I can't post up any links but I can toss out a few addons that really helped me out as a fledgling tank and made tanking alot more fun.

I think someone has already mentioned Omen, so check that out for threat purposes. Threatplates is another that I find invaluable, it shows threat on the nameplates so it is super easy to see what you have threat on and which mobs you don't.
DBM is good for notifying you of boss abilities at certain times.
CLCProt is good for helping out with your rotation, not sure how much of a rotation you have at 53 but it'll give you a guide. It also will let you move the holy power bar around your screen (which is what I use it for) so you can easily see how much power you have instead of trying to eyeball it up in the left corner of your ui.

Last but not least if you can stomach it is to check out the paladin forum at elitist jerks, there is alot of info which can be overwhelming at times but if you just check out the protection thread it should give you some helpful tips. I'll try and get some more addon info once I'm back on my comp but hopefully this will give you some helpful info!

Thanks!

Also, another question for everyone: What do I need to know about threat level and stuff when tanking? Do I need to keep it at a certain percentage, or just keep it as high as I can?

 

[Bisnic]

Thanks!

Also, another question for everyone: What do I need to know about threat level and stuff when tanking? Do I need to keep it at a certain percentage, or just keep it as high as I can?

Just keep attacking with all the good offensive spells you have, it should usually keep your threat higher than anyone else and you shouldn't worry about it unless you have a DPS that have much much better gear than you. Never forget about Righteous Fury either, i've seen some prot paladin trying to tank the first groups without it.

 

[th3dude]

Just keep attacking with all the good offensive spells you have, it should usually keep your threat higher than anyone else and you shouldn't worry about it unless you have a DPS that have much much better gear than you.

Thanks!

 

[Bisnic]

It's a good thing too that you keybind something to a skull raid mark for your main target so you don't have 3 DPS attacking different monsters right at the beginning of a fight.

That won't stop idiots to ignore your skull target, but it still help most of the time.

 

[Dresden]

You're a prot paladin, just hit Hammer on cooldown and Avenger's Shield.

 

[th3dude]

You're a prot paladin, just hit Hammer on cooldown and Avenger's Shield.

Ok, one term I hear a lot is 'on cooldown'. What does that mean, exactly?

 

[Bisnic]

Ok, one term I hear a lot is 'on cooldown'. What does that mean, exactly?

Whenever its available, or not affected by a cooldown if you prefer.

 

[Alucrid]

How come arcane mages can do 20k dps just by using one spell? (Arcane blast)

Whenever its available, or not affected by a cooldown if you prefer.

You mean the opposite? When a skill is on cooldown it means that you need to wait a certain amount of time before you can use it again.

 

[Aeris130]

How come arcane mages can do 20k dps just by using one spell? (Arcane blast)

That's just how it works. Check their 'dmg done' instead. Our guild has been plagued by shitty mage recruits that gets surprised when you tell them they're barely trailing above the tank, just because their dps is so high.

 

[Bisnic]

Yeah, i tried playing arcane mage since some people said its the best, but i grew tired of spamming 1 spell, so i went back to frost. I'm no raider and frost is great DPS when i do heroics, beating almost everyone i see in pugs, and im not plagued with the "lol 20k dps with 1 spell" reputation arcane has.


As for the guy the other day who said my "10 mins DPS queue for heroics" was bullshit, here's proof :

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

^^ Better than the 30-45 minutes I saw earlier in Cataclysm if I queued as DPS.

 

[Qwell]

Just to give an example of what a tank has to give up in a PUG, I got a call to arms and popped into the last boss of ZG, the one with the chains and spirits. I spent over an hour on the last boss, 6 wipes later I left to run a heroic with my guildies. I know DPS would suffer the same fate if tossed into a random group like that, but again as the other person was saying Tanks are rare and needed for heroics, so if this tiny incentive helps get more tanks running heroics than its win / win in my book. BTW I have 2 tanks that I run heroics with regularly, and I have yet to get any mounts of companions. Only thing I have ever gotten was gold, potions, and I think 1 flask.

 

[Alex]

Arcane is pretty annoying outside of raids anyway, it has to burn gigantic amounts of MP in order to do any real damage, so it makes it fairly inept on trash due to it's design. Trash may be fairly meaningless in a raid, but it's what sets the pace in a 5 man and it's no fun to either drink after every pull while people run ahead or sit in conserve phase every single pull.

Still, I like it's DPS model, it's unique and it isn't just another priority system, I've never seen anything like it really. I do think it should be a little less confined in it's phases and it should have more buttons to push, though, as it is indeed fairly boring.

 

[TheYanger]

That's just how it works. Check their 'dmg done' instead. Our guild has been plagued by shitty mage recruits that gets surprised when you tell them they're barely trailing above the tank, just because their dps is so high.

That doesn't actually make sense. Dps is a metric of damage done in a given timeframe. If you do less damage, you do less dps as well. The only time this isn't true is if you're using some kind of meter that locks someone's dps in when they die and they die early, otherwise the two correlate perfectly.

 

[Alex]

It makes sense, things like recount only track your DPS within current activity, meaning it stops parsing your DPS when you stop doing damage, effectively "pausing" it.

Arcane Mage, which has no DoTs, etc, passively ticking away can often wind up with higher DPS but significantly lower damage done than something like...say...a Frost DK that may have meek DoT's ticking during an airphase or something but then do considerably more damage on the ground.

On Atramedes that was often the case, I'd crush our ranged in damage done but would always be behind in DPS.

 

[Morn]

lol:
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/tch/2532285180.html