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Friday, August 6, 2010

An overabundance of tanks and tanking weapons

Here's an anecdote that you might find mildly funny but I also find it ironic. Whenever you queue as DPS there's a very long wait until a group is assembled due mainly to a scarcity of tanks. Well, a couple of nights ago the opposite happened.

I queued as tank/dps on my paladin for normal Pit of Saron. I wanted this dungeon specifically for a certain quest that needs to be done in there. Now, when you queue for specific dungeons, even if you go as tank, it still takes a while until a group is created. This time it went fairly quickly.

Halfway during the run one of the dps left. I re-queued the group but forgot that I still had the tank + dps boxes checked. After less than a minute we get our 5th group member and we continued to kill stuff.

At one point I realized that the guy, a druid, was fighting as a bear. When I look closely at his portrait I see the shield next to it and the sword next to mine. So I'm like LMFAO, we're both tanking! I ask the guy, "It looks like we're both tanking, are you okay with that?" He says sure, no problem. We finish the dungeon with 2 tanks. It was short and sweet. I recommend this setup.

From my point of view it looks like the dungeon finder kind of failed in this particular instance. Since normally there's a dearth of tanks, it would seem logical that because I was willing to both tank and dps, the system would keep me as tank and find another dps who are a dime a dozen anyway. The only conclusion I can draw is that at that time there was either an overabundance of tanks or the dungeon finder didn't function optimally.

Now let's talk a bit about tanking weapons. I'm referring specifically to 1-handed weapons that warriors and paladins use.

Up until a couple of days ago, my paladin sported the Teldrassil Protector, which is probably the easiest epic tanking weapon you can get at level 80 and you can obtain it from the Argent Tournament for a mere 25 seals. A real bargain.

In my quest to improve myself as a tank, I started looking at better weapons but these only drop in heroic dungeons or raids. Since I don't raid, I'm left with heroics. Eventually I set my eyes on Falric's Wrist Chopper which is (correct me if I'm wrong) the best tanking weapon you can get outside of raids.

Fate would have it that a few nights ago while dps-ing heroic Halls of Reflection as retribution, the axe dropped from Falric. Normally it's a dick move to roll need over an offspec item when there are other people in the group who actually need the item for their actual spec. This time I was really lucky because the tank was a death knight and there were no others who wanted that weapon. I told everyone I was needing it for my offspec and so I did. Seconds later I found myself in the possession of the most awesome tanking weapon my grubby hands could get their hands on.

Speaking of fate, the next night I won a greed roll for Lucky Old Sun from normal Forge of Souls. Great! Stuff always drops when you no longer need it!

Looking at the two weapons, the Wrist Chopper is definitely the much better weapon, but I really like how the Old Sun looks. I like its name and I've always loved its slightly goofy look. What the Old Sun also has over the Wrist Chopper is the bonus for expertise for humans. In fact that's the Chopper's only weakness as far as I'm concerned.

So there you have it: there's an overabundance of tanks and tanking weapons, except when you don't need them.

11 comments:

Redbeard said...

I thought there was a tanking version of Quel'Delar out there, but you're right. From what it looks like, Falric's Wrist-Chopper is the best tanking weapon out there for non-raiders.

Darth Solo said...

No, there's no tanking version of Quel'Delar unfortunately, which makes me sad :(

Gyldenfeax said...

Rimefang's Claw is another Level 232 tanking weapon from heroics. Not sure if it's more suitable than Falric's.

Darth Solo said...

Very interesting, thanks for pointing that out. I had no idea about the Claw. Here's a comparison between the Wrist Chopper and the Claw.

Darth Solo said...

Oh forgot to mention that from the comparison it seems like the sword will be slightly better, especially for a human and it even does a tiny bit of extra damage.

Unknown said...

I was rocking Old Sun and Rimefang on my DK tank until I could get my hands on the Nighttimes from HFoS.

I have Falric on my pally tank. I'm seriously wanting Nighttime on my pally for the extra dps.

Melfina said...

I think the dungeon finder just looks for the first available to fill a slot once a group is started and doesn't take the relative scarcity of roles into account. So that tank was just the first person on its' list of people in lfg who could dps or tank.

Pity it's not more intelligent.

Darth Solo said...

So you're dw tanking on your dk? Nice... I don't know squat about dk tanking but I was under the impression that frost tanking was done with 2H weapons (but I might be sorely mistaken).

Darth Solo said...

@Melfina yeah that's the only logical explanation.

Unknown said...

Dual wield DK tanking is alive and well. Works great in heroics for snap aggro. Not as good for raid tanking but still does the job for weekly raid quests. I do not raid with my DK. Here is the armory link: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Durotan&cn=Swampchicken

SwampChicken on Durotan

I have 2pT10 on him so I could switch to blood and go back to just rocking the Tyranical Beheader.I have two, one runed/gemed for dps and one for tanking.

I'll often swap out one of my trinkets for a dps trinket. Same with my sigil as you'll see in my profile.

I do the same with my pally. Lundigras on Durotan
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Durotan&cn=Lundigras

Check out my neck on Lundi. The Wrathful Gladiator's Pendant of Triumph obtainable with honor. This is a great way to get a little uncritability and a load of stam and dps stats.

Darth Solo said...

Hey I didn't know you could DW Nighttime. That's sweet. I also like your guild name :)