So I went crazy last night and gemmed myself up. (And got enchants for my new items) I picked up the Emblem of Conquest tank belt, and won an actual tanking neck in ToC (H)
The net result? (sorry for the periods, but blogspot hates lots of spaces)
..............Before....After
Str.............1290........1427
Agi ............139...........129
Sta............ 2112.........2758
Armor.......24632......24727
Def.............539..........548
Dodge........24.0%......25.6%
Parry.........20.7%......20.4%
Block..........12.6%......10.9%
Hit .............323.......... 323
Expert.......189........... 132
That took 8 new Stam gems plus a couple stam enchants.
In other news, we had an interesting Pit of Saron run last night. One guildie tanked, and three others of us DPSed. We had to PuG/LFG our healer.
We zoned in and groaned a little. None of us are huge PoS fans. We look for, and find our healer; a Priest.
With a 3190 gear score.
We were on vent where we commented on this, and we all agreed "give her a chance, but MAN that's really low gear for this run"
And we ran with it.
On a couple of the trash groups heading towards Garfrost, we had a couple semi-close calls, and the healer was practically OOM after each pull. (and the tank was being careful not to pull too much)
Just for caution's sake, I pulled Exorcism off my actionbar and replaced it with Flash of Light an instant cast heal. (I do this for Threat from Above, and it just puts FoL into my rotation, which makes for an easy solo)
We work our way to Garfrost, let everyone mana up, and start the fight. Fortunately we had Vent, because it saved our butts.
About halfway into the fight, our tank calls out "Oh shit, the healer's down! Guess we're gonna wipe."
One of our other DPS was down as well.
I called out "Ok, I'll pull back a bit and heal." If not for vent, I would have probably missed it, or would have noticed too late.
Anyhow, with a mana pot, Lay on Hands for the tank, a bunch of flash of lights and a bunch of Holy Lights, we dropped Garfrost. It was a VERY satisfying boss kill.
The sad thing about it was the healer simply wasn't up to the fight. I would really like to know how LFG put her in there. It wasn't fair to her, and it wasn't really fair to the rest of the group either.
We chatted with her a bit and she agreed to drop group. She was still on the "drop group and you get shit on" timer, so we kicked her to save her that trouble. That was not a fun vote. :( I know folks bash the whole gearscore mentality, and that "it's the player, not the gear", but there are times when you simply do NOT have the gear to handle the content, regardless of how good you are. I think she was "good enough" (though not great) if she had adequate gear. And since I was the only one in the group that REALLY over-geared the place, we couldn't carry her.
So, we re queued and got a Pally healer, this time with 3900 GS. We all cringed a bit, but it went well enough after that. She/he knew their class and spec, and had enough gear.
Well, except for the wipe on Ick & Crick. The pally was all "You guys all got one shotted. I didn't have time to heal..." trying not to get bitched at.
My response was "I didn't avoid the poison nova. You can't heal through that. Not a healer issue" and another guildie said basically the same. (I'm not sure what the deal was, but a couple of us had problems in that fight with not seeing any DBM notification. I'm not sure DBM was wonky, or what, and I *do* keep my game sound quiet, so I never saw/heard the cues)
The rest of the run went pretty easily. We took the ramp slowly, "pwned" Tryrannus and got our Frosties.
An interesting night.
Oh, and just in case you aren't a regular reader of the Pink Pigtail Inn, you HAVE to go over there and read TODAY'S POST. It's a great blog, and today's post (written by Tam from Righteous Orbs) is simply comedic genius. Truly!
Oh, and in the spirit of "Gnomenclature" I offer two comedic gnome gnames for anyone to run with:
"Gnomdacratch" (pronounced "nom da crotch") He's a gnome who was bitten by a Worgen, and got better. Mostly. He still has an unhealthy habit that shows up during melee combat...
And for our Russian gnome aficionados "Gnomenklatura". He's a Belf born in a Gnome's body, and he's making everyone around him pay for the indignity. Just remember; he's better than you are.
Do you feel more comfy on your tanky gear now? :)
ReplyDeleteI've been frustrated by the LFG system on my death knight. I know she's not ready for heroics as DPS OR a tank, yet I can queue in as either if I was feeling evil... and I don't even have sufficient defense as a tank.
However, I've also been on the flip side (running regular 80 dungeons) and getting griped at regarding my "low" d.p.s. My dps is fine for that level, I'm just geared as a fresh 80--give me a break!
Thank you for the shout out :)
ReplyDeleteI hate healing PoS, even with my 6k GS. I'm up to the task and all that but so much of those fights are dependent on the DPS behaving sensibly - dropping their stacks on Garfrost and, ahem, avoiding the poison nova ;) I hate the fact that most pugees won't take any sort of personal responsibility at all. Grrr.
@Windsoar - I tanked CoS the other day, and it went well enough (we all overgeared it), but I have no clue how to protect "weak" folks from all those dang skeletons. At least not at any kind of speed. Pally Tanks only have 1 real AoE move, and it's on a rather long CD and uses up a heap of mana.
ReplyDeleteAs for the performance of others, I almost never make a comment to anyone in group (other than Katt or a guildie, but only in private) This is probably the first time I can recall getting a single player that prevented us from being able to progress.
If it's a fail tank, I just equip my tank gear and run Ret in tank gear and Righteous fury, and pick up any lose adds (bascially just off-tank)
Asshole tanks I will occasionally get in their faces, especially since I can take over for them.
A simple swap of specs and gear, then I start pulling. What's usually funny is that they will almost ALWAYS step up and keep quiet.
Even with my limited experience, we can often 4 man most heroics, even with me tanking.
I have never, EVER, made a snide comment to a DPS person about their DPS. I might frop a bit of helpful info, but that's it.
If it's a substandard healer, I'll usually ease up and heal a bit, though a fail healer is VERY rare.
So, am I more comfortable? A bit, but my biggest issue is still not being at all comfortable with tanking and the implicit responsibilty.
@ Tam - PoS (even Forge of Souls) are buggers because there are so many different mechanics involved, and most folks running them don't outgear them enough to ignore them.
Which is complicated since many many folks don't even know the mechanics of them. Hell, I'm still not 100% sure the right way to do Garfrost. Take even more newbies in, and Ka-blowie!
(not sure why, but I have a devil of a time trying to avoid the Poison Nova)
But yeah, a lack of personal responsibility pretty much sucks the fun out of many pugs. And that's before you get any nasty jerks.