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Friday, August 27, 2010

Tanking sucks, healing rocks

Just an update on my tanking and healing career on my paladin and priest respectively.

First, I've been apprehensive to tanking heroics on my paladin, in spite of the fact that I spent a lot of gold on his tanking equipment. I'm running most heroics as retribution and I don't mind the long queue, which is actually useful to me because I can do some dailies in the meantime.

Last night I decided to try tanking midway through a heroic (I won't even mention which one) after the tank left and I'm ashamed to say that after managing to wipe the group twice through my blundering, I called it quits in disgrace. From now on I think I'm gonna stick to tanking normal dungeons only, just to get my tanking fix.

My priest, on the other hand, is a different story. Since I turned discipline, I've been having tons of fun healing. To my credit I've only had one wipe so far and it wasn't something I could control. The tank pulled more groups than he could handle and that was that. So far discipline has been amazing. I can handle any dungeon that's been thrown at me.

Not only have I found a lot of nice upgrades up to ilvl 187, but I am currently halfway between 79 and 80.

I've met the usual crowd of random people. Most of them are nice and courteous but there's also the odd asshat.

What warms my heart is whenever someone comments on how good my healing is. On one occasion the tank was amazed by my "mana efficiency". I guess he always saw me with almost full mana. That's, of course, thanks in part to my Mercurial Alchemist Stone and my Endless Mana Potion. And then again, discipline is a fairly thrifty spec. If things get really desperate on some boss for example, I can always use my Shadowfiend as a last resort. In fact I do use him on most end bosses, just to be on the safe side.

Next, I'm planning to heal heroics but I'm a bit scared here as well since heroic mobs hit harder and all that. On the other hand, heroic tanks are also better equipped so things should even out. My main plan is to try and gear myself up as best I can. Speaking of which, I've already got almost 40 Emblems of Triumph which will get me a ilvl 232 item as soon as I hit 80 and it'll most likely be a hat which I can gem nicely with a meta.

8 comments:

Redbeard said...

What was the heroic you tried tanking? Some of those heroics are much harder on a tank than others, like The Old Kingdom.

Your praise of the Disco Priest is making me think I'll want to dual spec from Shadow once my Priest hits L40. Mana efficiency alone is a great thing.

Darth Solo said...

Well... it's really pathetic. Suffice to say it's one of the easiest instances but there was a boss that I needed to kite and I got stuck in the environment (both times!) which got us all killed.

Of course, now I'm biased towards disco (and away from holy) so I would say go for it! But it really is an amazing healing spec. I hope they don't change it too much in Cataclysm.

Jason said...

Darth,
Love your comments on Disc priesting thus far. Color me intrigued too... Any chance of a quick run-down post on your disc build and current healing strategy? Seems like you are doing a very nice job without a lot of anguish. I've always loved healing, but hate all the blame games that go along with it.

Keep up the good work. See you in Cata!

--J

Jason said...

Ooops. nvm. Found that there was a link above. Thanks!

SACRISTAR said...

I can't speak from personal experience about pala tanking but from what I've seen, read and heard it's supposed to be the easiest tanking class in game so I think it's just getting used to it and nothing more. I've got an 80 pala but have only played ret and holy (fol spec, boring and underpowered even at my gear lvl tbh) but i've tanked with all the other tanking classes.

As to the priest, hc's are quite a step up from normals but in the end most instances aren't that big of a deal, your party on the other hand is. If they know what to and what not to do in the dungeon then it's all good but if they don't well then you won't have the gear to compensate for their stupidities but it'll be you they'll be blaming because that's the kind of people they are.

Darth Solo said...

@Jason thanks! I'm planning a permanent page in which I will showcase all my level 80s with their specs.

@SACRISTAR yeah you're right. Paladin tanking per se is not difficult (though it's the only type I've tried) but I am having difficulties sometimes with multiple mobs that aren't bunched together. Also, there are times when I simply can't see anything on the screen, everything is total chaos.

Unknown said...

Darth... I was disappointed with pally tanking initially also. I found it easy with my DK from the beginning.

I found hit rating was a big help here. Seal of Command is a must for me, the extra AOE threat is a big help. Glyphs are important also. Lot's of info out there are for RAID tanks. Tanking heroics is a different story. I run with some Ret gear on and buff myself with str food and potions for extra threat.

Blood Elf racial is a big help on getting casters to group up.

Darth Solo said...

My problem isn't rotation, or gear, or theoretical knowledge. It's just the fact that I fumble often and I can't grab aggro from multiple mobs occasionally. Then there's some special boss or other which gives me trouble. I'll have to see what Cataclysm brings to pally tanking before I decide whether to continue or give it up.