Warrior Tank Leveling

I've started to enjoy tanking more than ever since playing on my druid and warrior. I've been tanking heroics for a while now on my druid, and I liked it so much, I decided to level another tank. Since I found warrior to be the most similar tank to the druid (rage and charge), I have been leveling a gnome warrior tank. Aside from having to jump in order to smack my targets with me shield, tanking on my warrior has been one of my favorite ways to level.

Using the Dungeon Finder
Since I am a tank, queue times for finding dungeon groups couldn't be shorter. Combine that with a trusty healer at my side (Aerti on her priest), and we have near instant wait

Why It's So Fun
One major fun factor that comes with tanking the warrior is Charge. Being able to Charge so early (Level 20) thanks to Warbringer is a great addition to my tanks mobility. Starting a fight with Charge is a great way to generate Rage, and when loose mobs are across the room, using Charge allows me to keep the from causing a bigger raucous.

Another fun factor that I've found as I've leveled is the amount of abilities that I have at my disposal. I'm currently level 51, and my spell selection is already extremely diverse. I already have many of my core tanking abilities, and that has allowed me to not only deal a lot of damage (always fun) and become more familiar with my threat rotation.

What I look Forward To
As I'm closing in on level 60, I really look forward to the dungeons available in Outland. I enjoyed the content from The Burning Crusade expansions, so doing those dungeons again will be very fun for me. I am also looking forward to getting Shockwave. While Blood and Thunder greatly improves the Warrior's ability to keep threat on multiple targets, Shockwave is an added ability that will help me control mobs even more.

I really look forward to the 70-80 level range, and getting to level 85 is sure to be enjoyable. The look and feel that I get from playing the warrior, The armor and the shields cement the warrior in my top five for sure. But what do you think? What do you like about playing a warrior, and tanking for that manner?

Healing Sunday, When Things Go Well

Whenever I'm learning new fights and with a group of people I've found that I often run out of mana shortly before everyone dies. Running out of mana tends to be a big indicator for me that the fight is not going well. This often occurs because learning new fights means that people are taking damage from boss abilities that they should avoid. Having to heal through that additional damage means that I'm healing more than I should, and as a result my mana bar dwindles in the process.

This reminds me of my groups first attempts on the Lich King. I would constantly run out of mana before the first transition phase, and it was evident why when we wiped shortly thereafter. It took a lot of attempts before I became comfortable enough with my healing and the fight mechanics to slow things down and realize that I don't need to go all out. Slowing the pace of the fight down in my head means that I'm using my less expensive heals more often, and I'm not worrying as much when people are taking a lot of damage because I know that I have other healers to help me keep up.

Slowing the fight down makes me more efficient, and as the group gets better at dealing with boss abilities I can afford to be more efficient because they aren't taking as much damage. The two go hand in hand. With practice and becoming familiar with a fight the group takes less damage and the healing strain isn't as intense. This became more evident to me when my group recently downed the Ascendant Council from Bastion of Twilight. We would consistently die in the third phase, and when we did my mana was consistently running low. When we killed the boss, however, everything just seemed to click. My mana was around 30% when the boss died, and the group executed the fight better than any of our other attempts. These two outcomes did not happen by coincidence.

The group's performance has the biggest influence on your healing decisions, and those decisions impact your mana efficiency. If you ever find that you're running out of mana and just can't keep up with the healing don't be too harsh on yourself. Sure your gear, spec, and enchants are important, but if you're group is taking unnecessary damage it doesn't always matter how much mana regen or spell power you have. There are times when you can't keep people alive. But, if you're making sound healing decisions and your group is working well, then everything is going to be okay.

Dig Dug

Archaeology. The newest secondary profession added to the game with Cataclysm. This profession gives players the opportunity to dig up artifacts from the games oldest races, and put those artifacts together to recreate items from those races past. Through exploring the world (of warcraft) and persevering in the production of rare artifacts, players have the opportunity to gain powerful rewards for their efforts.

I like archaeology, and it is definitely my favorite secondary profession. I have been able to make a few epic items to help my characters, as well as gain some pretty neat vanity items that either transform me into a big Naga, or allow me to shine a green spotlight into the sky. I look forward to getting the Professor title (only two rare items away), and while making cool items is a grind, I have enjoyed putting together little pieces of Azeroth's history.

I haven't ventured into Outland or Northrend just yet, but the convenience of flying over Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms has been enough to outweigh the possibility for additional items. What do you think of Archaeology? Are you enjoying the grind for discovery, or is working for epic items too much of a pain in the butt?

What's Annoying me Wednesday

This week, I'm particularly annoyed by helpless players. Those people who never seem to know anything, ever. They haven't read the quests, they don't read the patch notes, and they don't want to look up information anywhere else.

Blizzard has made tons of guides to tell you what stats are the best for you, what your class should be doing play-style wise, and even made leveling just plain easier. Yet there are still those who constantly ask dumb questions. (Yes, dumb questions exist.)

On top of the resources blizzard has made, there are many many fan-sites with, in my opinion, have even better information. mmo-champion, wowhead, and wowpedia are some of the best that I have found, but there are many, many more. But when you tell someone to look there, they get pissed and say it's not real help.

I hate this type of mentality. WoW is just a game, but don't ask questions so that someone else has to find the answer for you. If you have a question, be independent enough to find an answer for yourself if someone else does not know the answer.

Do you hate answering those questions? Do you read the patch notes, or expect others to tell you what's going on?

Old world Loremaster

What now feels like forever ago, I did loremaster. It was incredibly hard to do. There was no way of knowing what quests you had finished, what zones you had more quests in, and no flying mount on which you could ride over quest hubs to look for them.

I felt really great when I completed all those quests and I had worked very hard for the achievement. Now that they have changed it, they do not even require you to finish every quest in each zone, there are many many quests you can skip in order to be a loremaster? That just does not seem as epic to me. 

I am working on Loremaster v2.0 now, and have found it to be much easier. Are achievements meant to be easy? Should blizzard be making purely vanity objects come easily to players, or make them hard and real accomplishments?

Healing Sunday, Learning to Heal as a Discipline Priest

Recently I have started trying to heal as Discipline on my priest. For a long time I would exclusively heal as Holy, but since I haven't been doing so hot with Shadow as my off spec, I decided to give Discipline a shot. I've always been intrigued by Discipline and how the spec utilizes absorption heals more than any other healer. The idea of using a bubble to heal by preventing damage is an interesting one.

So I tried it out. I changed my spec. I picked up Evangelism, Archangel, and Atonement, and into my first heroic I went. One thing that stayed the same as Holy is using Prayer of Mending on cooldown. This spell is a great go to, especially with the glyph for it. Another similarity that I noticed is the pace of healing is about the same. I didn't feel as though I was using more or fewer spells to keep up, and overall the effectiveness for both is about the same.

One big difference between the two is the ability to heal with Smite and Holy Fire. I think that the synergy between Evangelism, Archangel, and Atonement is very cohesive, and, while Chakra has improved greatly over the course of this expansion, I wish that Holy had something as fluid.

The absorption from Power Word: Shield and Divine Aegis is another big difference between the two specs. If someone is on the verge of death and I'm unable to cast a heal in time, I can use PW:S to save them. It essentially gives them an additional 30,000 health. Divine Aegis felt very similar to Holy's mastery heal, Echo of Light. If I heal and generate the heal over time from Echo of Light, then I can wait until the HoT has ticked before I heal again. Similarly, when the shield procs from one of my critical heals, I can wait until it is absorbed before I heal again. In both cases I can let the spells do the healing for me.

All in all, I'm happy with my decision to try Discipline healing, and finding that I enjoy it as much as I do gives another reason to love my priest even more. So what do you think? Have you tried out a spec that you ended up loving?

Top 5 classes ~Aerti

So The Dwarf Man talked about his Top 5 favorites, so I guess I should as well.

I'll start off by saying, I think I have already figured out I have a preference for ranged over melee.

Number 1 - Mage
A mage was my first character and I love how straight forward they are. They are the quintessential caster class, and while they can be a pain to quest solo on, without any Bind on Account gear that is, they are also very fun to play in groups. In my experience, I like every spec and if you really like being a caster, this is the perfect class.

Number 2 - Hunter
A hunter is pretty straight forward as well, but for me it is more the feeling of playing this class. It is great for soling, with your pet to help you, and it does great damage in groups. I have not been playing mine for long enough to talk about specs yet, but marks and survival have both been fun for me.

Number 3 - Druid
My druid is a healer, and I absolutely love the feel of it. I enjoyed it much more in wrath, when rejuvenation was your bread and butter, but it is still very fun now and I am still capable of keeping the tank alive, as well as making sure the whole group has health as well.

Number 4 - Priest
I do not have an 85 priest, but I have played one alot on the PTRs and am in the process of leveling two others. I am leveling as disc because I enjoy the healing, but am also a great dpser with that spec. I am able to keep the tank up, and most of the time am still number two on the damage meters.

Number 5 - Warrior
My warrior in wrath may have been ranked up at number 2, but since the change of Whirlwind, I feel as though my AoE damage and single target damage are so far apart I almost need 2 separate bars. I still enjoy this toon, but it is based mainly on how good the tank is and how much target chasing I end up having to do.

What is your favorite class? What role would you most prefer filling?

What annoys me Wednesdays

I hate Wednesdays. I already feel like I'm ready to be done for the week, but it's still going. Since it is the day I hate, I might as well talk about other things I find annoying. This week, it is that random show-off who likes to pop in every now and then.

Am I the only one who is annoyed by the people who really think they are great because of the gear they have? I don't think so. I really don't want to see someone's gear, and am not impressed by it. For me, WoW really is just a game, and the amount of stats you have does not make you better than any other player.

No one should need to make themselves feel better in an online virtual reality by trying to put others down, or by having prettier pixels. The pixels could be gear, mounts, or just achievement points, but none of them matter much if your personality sucks.

If you really want to impress people, I recommend being nice. That is something I always find impressive and extraordinary for the mmo-universe. And it will definitely make you stand out.

What do you find annoying (I will have many more things for sure)? Do you have those show-off experiences?

My Top 5 Favorite Classes

After playing just about every class to at least level 20 and testing out most classes at level 85 on the Public Test Realm, I think that I have a pretty good handle on which classes I love to play the most. So, let's jump into the countdown!

Number One Paladins
The first character that I ever made was a human paladin, and ever since, I have always enjoyed playing all three specs. On top of the fun play style, I really like the lore and feel of the paladin more than any other class.

Number Two Priest
I know that I'm going with two holy classes in a row, but I've come to enjoy playing this class very much since I began healing during the WotLK expansion. Once again, this class has interesting lore behind it, and I enjoy the feel of healing with my priest almost more than my paladin.

Number Three Druid
I've spent most of my time as a Feral druid, but I have really enjoyed tanking that the class gets the nod over others. Shape-shifting into the various forms is definitely unique, and who doesn't like mauling your enemies in the face.

Number Four Warrior
While I haven't leveled a warrior to 85 yet, I have played numerous warriors to combine for more than 85 levels. Charging in and hitting bad guys with shiny weapons is always fun.

Number Five Rogue
This is another class that I haven't leveled to 85 yet, but I seem to have very much fun sneaking around and stabbing people in the back (after I've taken their things first, of course).

Well, there you have it. My top 5 favorite classes. I'm going to go into more detail about all of these classes, and describe what makes each of them so great. I'll also talk about the other five classes because, while there is a reason they're not in my top five, they are still fun to play.

Healing Sunday, My Approach to Healing

Every Sunday I'm going to write about something healing related. It might be about my most recent healing endeavors, an in depth look at a healing class, or ways to help out your healer. Today I think I'll start with my overall healing philosophy. It's what I try to keep in mind whenever I'm healing, and I think that it's helped me feel more confident when I'm healing.

Avoid Overhealing
To me overhealing is any amount of healing that heals for more than my target's health pool. If someone only needs 7,000 health and I heal them for 8,000, then I just overhealed for 1,000. I avoid healing people, so that I reduce my total amount of overhealing done as much as possible.

Balancing Overhealing
So, while I try to avoid overhealing at all costs, that does not mean that avoid keeping people alive. For me, I like to keep a nice balance reducing deaths and reducing wasted mana. This is where making good choices comes into play. I could spend all of my time healing with my smallest and least expensive spell, but I probably would let a lot of people die that way. Instead, I try to choose the right heal for each situation. It's about deciding when to use the Big Heal, the Fast Heal, and the Cheap Heal, and that decision depends on the situation.

I'm Going to Overheal, and That's Ok
No matter how much I try, I am going to overheal. For my paladin healer, I have three abilities that are going to heal whether I want them to or not. For my priest, certain spells are going to critical when I don't expect it, and heal over time spells are going to keep healing whether the target is topped off or not. Those mechanics are apart of healing. They come with the territory, and knowing that helps me make sense of the numbers when I look at my overhealing. The meter might say that 20% of my healing done was overhealing, but I know that more than half of that amount was from abilities that I can't avoid. They are free bonus healing, and I'm not going to complain about that.

Overhealing and You
I have taken this approach to healing because it is what has worked for me, and I find it to be the most fun for my play style. I am not proclaiming my approach to be the only way to heal, nor am I suggesting that if you have a differing approach then you're wrong. This is merely the perspective that I will be coming from when I write about healing, and I thought it best to get that out of the way first.

With that said, what do you think of my approach? More importantly, what do you think of overhealing? Do you avoid it, ignore it? Let me know.

An Introduction

I'm Sev, and my co-author is Aerti. We've been playing World of Warcraft together since 2006, and our play-style ranges from raiding with guildies, leveling a slew of alts, farming for achievements, and everything in between. We are going to share our experiences and insights about our favorite aspects of the game.

Some background info about us: We started playing shortly before the launch of The Burning Crusade expansion. At first, we were playing very casually and still learning, but eventually we managed to level to 70 and  enjoy dailies, heroics, and Alterac Valley. When Wrath of the Lich King came out we made our way to level 80 on my paladin and her mage. Once at level 80 we enjoyed heroics and got into a raiding guild. After joining another guild, we killed the Lich King, and then we took a break from the game until we moved to different realm. Since swapping servers, we've found a wonderful guild that we helped level to 25.

Now we're just enjoying playing with a casual group of friends that we've met. This blog will be our outlet to discuss our time playing, both past and present.