Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a…Warlock?

Muhammid Ali was reknown for his speed.  It wasn’t about the big one punch knockout.

Wait, what the heck does boxing have to do with playing a warlock?  Well, adopt this mindset and you’ll go far kid.

The two mindsets that I think young destruction warlocks fall into are either “Crit Big” or “Crit Often.”  And these are perfectly acceptable, until it comes time to do some real raiding.  There aren’t many fights in this game that allow you to just sit in one spot and cast continually until he’s dead.  You have to move out of fire, dodge fire, run away from fire…(the guy at Blizz in charge of designing boss mechanics must be a pyromaniac)  You get the idea, there are lots of things in this game that require you to stop casting.

So you need to make as much use of this limited casting as possible, and Spell Haste makes this possible.  The key to doing top end damage is consistency.  The reason that spell hit is so valued is that it makes all your casts consistent.  You know they’re going to land.  They may not crit, nor hit exceptionally hard, but it’s going to land.  And when you’re in a situation where you may only get 2-3 casts off before you need to move again, having one of those resisted will be devastating. 

Let’s compare 2 warlocks, one geared for spell haste, the other geared for crit.  Then let’s say we have a window of 30 seconds before we gotta move.  The crit lock is going to land 12 shadowbolts, whereas I’m going to land 14 in my haste set.  Sure, the other guy MIGHT crit (and I MIGHT crit too), but I know that I’m all but guarunteed to land 2 more shadowbolts than the other guy.  Gearing for crit is simply just praying that you get lucky, whereas with haste, you know exactly what you’re bringing to the table.

So if you’re looking to start pushing to the next level, you need to adopt an Ali-like mentality – “Hit Quick, Hit Often.”

New Look, New Focus

In case you haven’t noticed already, I changed my header image.  I kinda realized that writing about all my characters wasn’t going to really be possible.  So I decided to narrow down my focus to just mainly my warlock.  Every once in a while I may throw in something from my alts, but you can expect a lot more warlock stuff from this point forward.

Netherspite Apparently Has Been Working Out

Fooling around on my alt, I saw in trade chat “LF OT Kara.”  Having been bored of tanking for quite a while now, I figured this would be a nice easy way to score some badges.  Unless of course I get magically promoted to being the main tank because my gear is so good.  Fortunately, the other warrior was almost as geared as me, so they kept him the MT.  Let the Badge of Justice train begin.

It was great.  7 people from another guild were running this, the MT was from another guild, and I randomly ended up with an alt of someone from my own guild.  The heals were good, the DPS was better than average, and things were going smoothly.  The better part was that the MT took it on himself to tank multiple targets, whereas I was only ever assigned one mob at a time.  I was really digging the Effort per Badge ratio going on.

Then the MT needed to leave after Curator…  ugh.

We summoned in a druid OT and I put things into “Let’s get out of here” mode.  Illhoof was cake beyond the priest dying to chains because he had < 6k hp unbuffed…  Topped the DPS charts on Shade of Aran much to the chagrin of the rest of the raid. MWAHAHA.  But then this group continued a very disconcerning trend I’ve noticed in the PuG kara runs I like to do.  We skipped Netherspite to do him last.  And I quote one of the raid members talking about him, “That’s why he’s the last boss in here, he’s the hardest.”  WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN!?!?  Prince and Nightbane have ALWAYS shared that crown. 

It’s sad and disheartening to see the disparity in a real raiding guild (one working in HY and BT) and a Kara guild.  Talking to one of their officers, he said that they had been wanting to try Gruul’s Lair.  Sorry bud, but you might as well just take 50g and throw it away.  If these guilds are incapable of coordinating 10 people to move to just 1 of 3 locations, how in the hell are you going to get 25 people organized for Maulgar (a fight which can easily wipe a seasoned raiding guild if not done properly).

There will always be an ever widening gap between the raiding guilds and the kara guilds.  At this point in the game, it will be extremely rare to see a guild start fresh in kara and evolve into a BT guild.  I believe that PvP gear is largely to blame for this.  Players now are getting geared to Kara and even SSC/TK levels through PvP (read as: AFKing in Alterac Valley).  New players are learning absolutely nothing about how to play their classes and it shows, hard.  The overwhelming majority of these players will be forever doomed to experiencing the hallways of Karazhan.

But I guess the good thing about this is that there will always be openings to get your alt a slightly painful kara clear, and more importantly 22 … 20 badges.

Raid Leading 5: Slow and Steady

Well, our raid leader had to take another night off, so it was on me again to down Teron Gorefiend (a boss we only killed once prior) and to begin progression on Gurtogg.  I was pretty excited to get another opportunity to lead a progression raid.  I’d spent a lot of time already researching the Gurtogg fight, so I was pretty familiar with every aspect of it.  Did some researching on the trash mobs leading to him as well.  All set to go.

Then about 30 minutes before the raid, I realized something… I never really paid close attention to the trash mobs before TERON.  After giving myself a quick refresher on how to handle them all, it was time to get rolling.

On more than a few occassions I ended up alt-tabbing to check to make sure I was getting the right mobs CC’d.  It was a little slower than usual (okay maybe a lot slower) but they were impeccably clean pulls.  Hardly anyone died on trash the entire night.  Teron went down pretty smoothly on the third attempt after a few people got their first wipes…err…tries at the ghost game.

Now for the fun stuff.  Progression!  Having never done the trash leading to Gurtogg before, it was awesome to get through it with only like 1-2 people dying.  Time to explain the strategy of a pretty complicated boss.  *Deep Breath*

About halfway through the explanation, two of our main healers lost power.  Which would seem like a bad thing right?  In actuality, this gave me a lot of extra time to explain things more in depth.  We even decided to do practice runs of our Bloodboil rotations.  We looked good in practice, but how would it translate in the actual encounter when all hell is breaking loose?

The bloodboil rotations were flawless.  Absolutely flawless.  To do them perfectly on the very first attempt is unbelievably encouraging.  Maybe this guy won’t be quite the road block we perceived him to be.  Okay, so maybe every single person to get fel enrage died.  Details.  >.>

Gurtogg to nearly 50% on the second attempt ever.  Now thats progression

So what’d I learn from the night?  Well, I pretty much rehashed an old saying: “Practice does NOT make perfect.  Perfect practice makes perfect.”  I knew what my role was.  I wasn’t there to kill Gurtogg.  I was there to get the raid prepared for him.  I explained every trash mob on the way to him.  And every single aspect of Gurtogg’s fight as well.  We learned everything the right way, even though it may have slowed us down a bit.  Now when we come back in here next week, we won’t have to be worrying about dealing with scary trash mobs, but instead worrying about finding a good place to stand for the screenshot

Raid Leading 4: A Focus Lost

Our raid leader needed to take another leave of absence, and so once again I was given the reigns.  We were going back into Hyjal.  One of the officers decided to step out in place of another healer, leaving me pretty much by myself to lead the raid.  Now was my chance to really establish myself as a respected raid leader, to instill trust and confidence in my fellow raiders, to forge ahead in our progression on Archimonde.

…or it was a chance to establish myself as the “cool” raid leader .  (Hint: that’s the route I chose)  Our usual rule about swearing in vent was levied.  The atmosphere of the raid was light and we had a great time.  That is…until we wiped on Azgalor.  Chalk it up to our MT being out of LoS for the misdirect pull and start over.  One of our tanks had to go, so I switched to my warrior for my first attempts at tanking the trash.  After hearing such horrid recollections of it from other tanks, I was a little worried as to how I would do.  But anyways, I needed to get the raid refocused and ready to kill Azgalor.

1 problem.  This is pretty hard to do when I don’t even have time to talk as I frantically try to tank the overlapping myriad of monsters on my screen.  The focus of the raid was lost well before we even started pulling Rage Winterchill trash.  Trying to win it back would prove to be impossible.  Last wave before Azgalor and about a half dozen people die.  We scrap our way through the wave, but Azgalor aggro’s before we can rez hardly anyone.  We start the fight with 4 people still dead.  We executed the fight perfectly, but we just ran out of bodies and eventually wiped. 

It was at this point where I realized I pretty much doomed that raid from the start.  Gave the raid some cliché lines about how it was just bad luck, and we’ll get him next time, blah blah.  Yet another lesson learned from failure: Save the fun for AFTER the raid.

Raid Leading 3: Hyjal with a Vengeance

With our usual raid leader taking another leave, it was up to me to take the reigns again.  This time it was Mount Hyjal.  This would be our 3rd attempt on Azgalor.  I would later find out that some of the other officers were very worried about even getting to Azgalor this time around due to a few raiders missing this time around.  But I had one thing on my mind: Archimonde attempts.  Thankfully this time around I had a few days notice that I’d be leading the raid so I could prepare, and boy did I prepare.

In my previous post about raid leading, I stressed that it’s all about preparation.  So this time around, I really did my homework.  In our previous 2 Azgalor attempts, I noticed that things were just really hectic, so I looked into the fight and what strats were being used.  I read up on a strat that was somewhat different than what we had been doing but would really simplify things, so I figured I’d try to implement it come raid night.  Then with the rest of my time, I began researching Archimonde.  Videos, strats, you name it and I was reading/watching it.  I wanted the raid to actually be able to learn something from what would likely be only 1 attempt on Archi.

Come raid night, I was excited.  I was in charge, and had the opportunity to lead the raid to downing a new boss.  First 2 bosses go down without any resemblance of difficulty.  But on the first wave of Kazrogal trash our pally tank dies.  AND one of our off tanks..  Honestly, my first thought was to just call it a wipe right there.  A few people just hit exalted with Scale of the Sands that night and it might’ve been a good time to go get our upgraded rings.  But my raiders had other plans   We scrapped our way through the rest of that wave and our fallen tanks began running back.  With the next wave being mostly gargoyles, we could afford being down 2 tanks as we tried to buy some time as they ran back.  Mid-wave they zoned in, rebuffed, and joined the ranks.  Needless to say, our healers were much more on the ball from that point forward   Kazrogal downed, and in record time nonetheless.

Azgalor time.  And time for me to explain my new strat to the raid.  Time for numerous interruptions and questions while I talked right?  Wrong.  I mounted up and began showing the raid the various tanking locations.  As I got to each location, I turned around to see 24 guildies facing directly at me, silent and still.  Perhaps some of my excitement carried over, because I could really feel the anticipation for downing a new boss.  The trash went relatively smoothly, and in no time it was time to see if we really could implement a new strat, with a different tank, and a different raid leader.  Perfection.  Everyone knew their roles.  Everyone communicated.  And everyone enjoyed taking part in yet another celebratory killshot.  The raid cheered, and I waited patiently for loot to be handed out.  The real test was still waiting for us.

Archimonde.  One person failing to do their job will wipe the entire raid almost instantaneously.  So I need to be completely thorough in explaining this fight.  And I need to say it so that everyone understands.  (This is where the extensive research comes in handy…)  Once again, as I’m explaining the fight to the raid, I can easily tell I have everyone’s attention.  They’re all bristling to start progression on the boss that will ultimately begin handing over our T6 helms.  We’re only going to have time for 1 attempt, so we NEED to make this count so we can start to learn the fight.  I’ve described the strategy perfectly, and it shows.  Most raids wipe within 10 seconds of the first time they attempt him.  But not us, we’re 2 minutes in on our first attempt and everything is going perfectly.  Then I find out very quickly that there was one tiiiiiny little detail of the fight that I missed: the tank can be feared…  Woops   Queue the ruthless slaughter of 25 innocent raiders.

Amazing night of raiding.  My first opportunity to lead the raid into progression content goes nearly flawlessly.  And again, it’s all about preparation.  When you’re completely prepared for what’s in store for you, the positive effects extend to other areas as well.  My preparedness put me in a great mood, which rubbed off on everyone else.  It gave me a ton of confidence.  Considering our raid was without our usual main tank, there was plenty of opportunity for doubt as to whether we’d progress anywhere that night.  But I had no doubts, and wasn’t about to let anyone else have them either. 

Tanking with a Warlock Mentality

Through the expansion, my warlock has been my main.  And then I turned my warrior into a tank who became my “main” alt.  I feel like I’ve taken my warlock mentality and applied it to how I tank.  Allow me to elaborate:

Trash Mobs:  When doing trash mobs on my warlock, I have one thing in mind – Crit big, and crit often.  Trash mobs usually die in 30 seconds or less, so you need to get as much damage out as quickly as humanly possible.  This usually means that I don’t cast any DoTs and stick solely to shadowbolt spam.  I’m more than willing to drop my hit rating down below the hit cap for the mobs if it allows me to increase my crit.

So then it came time for me to start tanking those very same trash mobs.  And I realized that the damage-meters-obsessed DPSers behind me probably have the same exactly mentalility that I do on my warlock: “Threat is of no concern to me while I DPS!”  So threat has to become my #1 concern when I’m tanking trash.  So how do I maximize my trash mob threat generation?  Shield Slam big, and shield slam often…err just make sure you don’t miss.  Dodge and Parry rating?  No thanks.  I’ll take whatever Block Value, Hit, and Expertise Rating I can find.  I’ll take more consistent damage (to provide that constant stream of rage I so dastardly desire), but my threat is going to be through the roof.

Boss Fights:  The keyword here is Efficiency.  I max out my spell hit rating, then the next priority becomes maximizing spell damage.  When I cast a spell, I want to make sure it’s doing damage.  I make sure that my dots are up from the moment the fight starts to the moment it dies.  But also, I need to be pumping out as much damage as possible.  The only difference here is the fights are much much longer, and it’s important to make every action count.  Having a spell resisted is just like throwing away mana.

The same thing goes for tanking as well, except I’m not worrying about MY efficiency so much as I’m worrying about my healers’ efficiency.  I want to reduce the amount of damage I take and try to limit how much it spikes.  The best way to do this is maximizing my armor and HP.  Threat is no longer my #1 concern, but for many fights it still is a major concern.  So how do you find balance between survival and threat generation?  Again, the keyword here is efficiency.  The goal is to max out expertise and hit rating (albeit this is something that requires an intense amount of gear) so that your attacks are no longer dodged/parried/missed.  A majority of the enemies in this game have a mechanic called parry haste, in that when they parry your attack it greatly speeds up their next attack.  Stacking your expertise through the roof is essentially a double-edged sword of awesomeness.  It greatly boosts your threat generation because now all your attacks are landing, and you also reduce the damage you take from the enemy’s parry haste mechanic.  The idea is basically the same as playing my warlock, I don’t ever want to miss.

So those are just a few of the smililarities I noticed between playing my warlock and playing my warrior.  Now if only Bloodrage didn’t have a cooldown…

PvP’in – The Prot Edition

Unless you’re in like a BT guild, you’re probably going to find yourself doing PvP for PvE upgrades.  And that’s the situation I found myself in on my warrior.  With season 4 approaching, the season 2 shield will switch to just honor, and I’ll need to pick that up.  So rather than respec, I just head into the BGs as prot.  When doing this, you have to understand that you’re not an offensive killing machine, but much more of a defensive player who’s amazing at controlling your opponent.  Think about it, when it comes to melee opponents, they’re going to do hardly any damage to you, while you can keep hamstring on them and stunning when necessary to allow your allies to pick them apart.  But against casters is where you can truly shine.  Throw on a full block value set, and you can really do some damage.  Last night, I ran into a poor little mage who didn’t have any PvP gear at all, and I shield slam crit him for nearly 2500.  But more importantly, you have the ability to interrupt spell casts and spell reflect.  Also, shield slam can remove important buffs like pain suppression and blessings.

Basically, just know your role.  While doing AV late last night, I found myself tanking every NPC in sight.  The cool thing about that is they become your little rage batteries.  I grabbed two or three NPCs and ran into the crowd looking for unsuspecting clothies.  I ended up tanking Vandar and a marshall and we breezed to a 500 bonus honor victory.  But the real surprise came at the end when the scoreboard came up.  Maybe I was wrong… maybe prot warriors can be offensive killing machines:

 

Raid Leading 101

In the last post, I left you with the question of “What did I learn?  And what makes a good raid leader?”  Let’s start with what I believe to be qualities of a good raid leader.

I think it takes a lot of preparation.  One of the most difficult things I ran into was the actual marking of targets.  You need to understand basically what every mob is capable of doing, and how you can deal with them.  And of course, this all changes according to your raid make-up.  Thankfully, I had enough experience with the place that I could mark most of the targets from memory.  But when you’re going into progression content, you need to do your homework.  Something that I didn’t do with the Black Temple raid I failed at.  One thing that I wish I would have done better while leading the last raid was just being more authoritative.  I kind of asked people what assignments they wanted rather than just giving them out.

But a topic of recent debate has been over what class is the best raid leader.  Veneretio, our guild’s raid leader, claims that tanks make the better raid leaders in his article here.  While many of his readers have claimed that people other than tanks are more suited for raid leading because they can get a broader perspective on the fight at hand.  Well, I’ve been fortunate enough to lead 25 man raids as both a tank and as a ranged DPSer.  And honestly, I felt much more comfortable doing it…as a tank.

I feel that actual tanking requires less attention than DPS’ing does.  As a warlock, I am constantly watching dot timers, threat meters, if I need to move, and then trying to watch the rest of the raid on top of that.  As a tank, there aren’t too many fights where I need to be incredibly aware of my surroundings in case I need to move or do anything special.  You don’t worry about threat, that’s the job of your DPSers.  And with only a little bit of experience tanking, you can keep all shouts, debuffs, and abilities going without even looking at cooldowns.  So basically, the only thing you have to do sometimes is just watch what the rest of the raid is doing.

So it may seem like it’d be easier leading a raid while standing 40 yards from any danger, but I’d much rather do it while helplessly slashing at the ankles of some out of proportion monster

Leading the Raid – Take 2

My first real shot at leading the guild’s Black Temple raid didn’t go very well.  Okay, so maybe it was a complete disaster.  A lot of very unfortunate events led to us not downing a single boss, in a place in which we’ve killed 3 thus far.  First off, a bunch of our regular healers didn’t show up, and I was forced to hop on my priest and respec to a raid build, and heal.  Something I have only done ONCE before with this guild.  And I was asked to go Circle of Healing, a spec I have never raided with.  And on top of all of that, this was a last minute decision.  I was literally choosing my new talent points about 5 minutes before we were scheduled to begin pulling.  Did I mention this was my first real shot at leading an important 25 man raid?  Needless to say, I was more focused on remembering how to actually heal, than trying to lead the raid.  We meandered our way to Najentus and then proceeded to wipe horribly 3-4 times before calling it a night.  Fun times.

But our usual raid leader needed to miss another 25 man raid this last week, and since I was deemed the back-up raid leader for some unfortunate reason, it was my chance to restore some faith in my fellow guildies.  This time it was Tempest Keep, a place I knew inside and out.  And I was bringing my warlock, a toon I could play with my eyes closed.  Barring the one unexpected wipe on Alar, it was smooth sailing.  Plenty of good drops, and lesser geared guildies getting the loot they needed led to a very fulfilling night of raiding.  But in addition, it also restored a lot of the confidence I had lost from the 2 hour repair bill of a raid I had tried to lead a few weeks earlier.

So what did I learn?  And what makes a good raid leader?  Stay tuned