Change Roles?

I think I might be done with tanking after 4 full expansions of doing nothing but that.

It's a weird feeling to say it out loud, and I've said it before, but honestly, I think I might be done with it for good. The question remains whether I'll stick with my class or swap over to a different one, but still, as things stand now for me, I'm done with the role of tanking as my main spec after Pandaria (since it's pretty late for me to change roles at this point.)

The reasoning behind it pretty much split evenly between a fewfactors.

1. I'm just bored with tanking, because honestly this is the second tier in a row where tanking is dumb and easy and with no real challenges or interesting mechanics to manage
2. Tanking is such a core mechanic to the game that like healing, once you take on that role, it becomes very difficult to do anything else but be stuck in the role
3. It is nearly impossible to find a tanking slot if you ever find yourself in a situation where you are looking for a new group, as most raid leaders will cut off their own fingers than have to recruit a new tank
4. I'm honestly looking for a role that's more interesting and fun and dynamic than tanking
5. Playing a DPS role also lets me be more flexible about my time. If a tank doesn't show up, raid doesn't happen. If a DPS doesn't show up, raid goes on

I thought about switching to Heals full-time but that's just not going to happen. Healing is something I enjoy occasionally, but it's never a thing that I love to do full time. And I also know it's very easy for me to fall into old roles too easily so I might wind up playing a class that's a pure DPS rather than a hybrid, simply to keep me on the straight and narrow, as it were.

My warlock has long been a dark-sheep favorite for me, often competing for my attention and even now she's my second-highest geared alt (which isn't saying much, but still.) But I'm a lover of melee overall, and would really love to play Retribution full-time, if not go dual-wield Frost (probably my favorite melee spec.) Choices!

I think it'll be good for me. Keep me playing the game longer, while switching to a more flexible role. Now, I just need to do something about pushing numbers and playing in a more competitive category...

First week of raiding in 5.0.4

Man, that raiding thing is a different animal.

I was churning out huge freaking numbers in dungeon all last week and then in raid, my output just plummeted, for any number of reasons. It has me pretty bummed out about my own performance, because nobody is a bigger critic of my numbers than me. I'm in competition with myself, and I have a certain expectation of what I want to see. When I fail to meet those expectations, the disappointment drives me figure out how I can fix the situation and perform better.

The reasons I came up with are the following:

1. My laptop just couldn't keep up with the add-ons and the 25-mode graphics. The first night was more or less a wash due to this - I couldn't just turn off all my add-ons as I had very specific bars setup and was trapped. Trying to run about and stay alive and keep DPS up at less than 10 FPS wasn't pretty. The second night was better, once I pared the add-ons down to, er, DBM, SUF, Hearkitty, FCFS helper and the loot system add-on, ran Fullscreen after turning all the bells and whistles down. But I do need to figure something out to keep 20 - 30 FPS going with graphics running at a decent level with the add-ons I want. If you have any suggestions or can offer any help in this area, please let me know. I'm running on a Laptop which makes it a bit more complicated.
2. I ran with Holy Avenger the first night as it's a net DPS gain but goddamn, it was so hard to find places where I could sit still for a long enough time to get good use of it for burst. Not to mention, I kept getting locked trying to get it to line up with Avenging Wrath. Argh. The second night I switched to Divine Purpose and that felt significantly better. I'm going to test with the dummy and if I can get the same damage out of both, I'll run consistently with DP instead.
3. This is probably a minor factor, but I didn't Reforge anything as I wasn't sure where our stat priorities lay. Next week, I'll throw everything I have into Haste because there were long stretches where I had nothing to press and got antsy and thanks to Sanctity of Battle, Haste helps with nearly every one of our HP builders. This should help out a bit. I was dismissing the Haste thing through the end of Cata as being irrelevant for Retribution, but I suppose I'll eat my words and my haste.

Those factors aside, my DPS was pretty dismal and I really need to work to elevate it.

Speaking of dismal DPS, last night my old guild was looking to go do some mix of normal  and heroic DS so I hopped onto my Warlock that I hadn't played in a while, let alone prepared post patch. I stuck with Affliction as it seemed the least changed on beta, and quickly assembled a UI and read up the rotation while we zoned in. It took me most of the night to realize some basic things like, oh, I don't know:

• Don't let Agony drop off, clip it to keep the 10 stacks ticking!
• Drain Soul returns Shards at any point for Haunt!
• A Soul Burned Soul Swap puts all 3 DoTs on the target immediately!
• I should be using Grimoire of Sacrifice every time, even though Grimoire of Supremacy is more flashy!
• Burning Rush actually needs to be canceled!

My performance was even worse there. At least I got 3 items of gear, including the Madness staff and I bought another 2 with Justice points so my iLevel jumped up to 389. Yay? Yay.

I'm hoping that by fiddling with my UI and cleaning up my WTF/Interface folders, I can squeeze some more performance out of my laptop for next week. And

Mists of Pandaria pre-raid Retribution DPS gear

As the expansion gets closer, I'm swimming in one of my favorite things to do - running filter after filter on WoWHead to generate interesting lists of gear I might want, and while the Raid gear is the best stuff that I'm drooling over, it'll take me some time to collect it all, and besides, I need other gear just to get started raiding. So I thought I'd make a list of potential stuff I want, where to get it, how to get it, etc.

Show me the shinies!

This list should apply to any Strength using class. It just shows the PvE gear, I didn't include any of the PvP stuff, as, well, I'm not a fan of using PvP gear in PvE, and it's easy to build those lists anyway.

There we go. Good? Good.

Okay, maybe not, here is the full list as an open Google Doc (just copy it to your Google Drive or to a local spreadsheet if you want to modify it), and here are the different lists at WoWHead:

• Justice
• Quests
• Crafted
• Valor

The WoWHead filters aren't complicated enough to let me do complex And/Or query-strings, though I imagine that would probably churn for a while on the server.

I didn't include the Heroic Dungeon gear as that gear will come on its own pace and is subject to RNG, but there is no doubt about this gear - you can get every item here with some effort. I know those crafted chest and hand pieces are calling my name, as are the quest rewards. That's some easy picking right there.

But where are my weapons?

The best I could do was this list.

Unfortunately,  it looks like we're stuck with Heroic dungeons to grind out the weapon - thankfully there are quite a few options. In case one has the absolute worst luck with drops, there is a craftable sword with the same iLevel as the Heroic Dungeon gear and it looks fairly cheap to make, but that depending on how common Spirit of Harmony winds up being (remember it's, ugh, BoP.)

And for Retribution, I'm still not sure what our stat priority is going to be - either Mastery or Haste - but we can split the difference and settle on this kind-of badass looking mace: Mograine's Immaculate Might as being best for us pre-raid.

I'm no brawny plate-wearer (or Dude, Where's My Dress?)!

Just click the lists on WoWHead above, toggle the strength field to Agility, Intellect or Spirit, the armor type to your chosen type, and either remove or filter the Dodge/Parry into something you'd rather avoid (like Spirit, for instance) you can easily build more lists.

Just keep in mind the filters are all on an AND conditional - the OR conditionals are finicky at best, and only useful with two parameters.

Easy! Right? Erm.

Well, what's next?

I'm not going to make any BiS lists or anything till our stat balancing gets finalized, but maybe I'll give that a poke. I've been thinking about actually getting into some serious theorycrafting and building my own Retribution DPS simulator but that involves a lot of development time... but maybe.

It seems like a fun project, and as I'm getting back into C++ again, maybe I could use the project as an excuse to learn the new 2012 IDE...

I bring the fire and fury of heaven!

So. Having about equivalent damage done and DPS on the meters as a Rogue and Shadow Priest, both wielding Legendary weapons, is kind of awesome.

I've really grown to love playing a damage role recently, and it feels a lot more visceral in terms of having a direct impact on the encounters. You can see that when you're given a task, there's a real, active process you can apply to it and whittle down the enemy - especially when you're assigned a particular target like working down the Mana Bubble on Heroic Yor'sahj, a specific tentacle on Heroic Zon'ozz or the pylons on Heroic Haggara.

It took me a while, but I've gotten over the whole, "I need to save my cool-downs for Heroism." The fact is some of my cool-downs are very short, and even the long ones will get used twice in most fights (though Morchok died in ~3 minutes this week just as he cast the second pool, which was hilarious).

So, if I hit Guardian, buff Inquisition with 3 HP, hit Wrath and Zealotry, right at the pull, over a 6.5 minute long fight, I will get to use Guardian twice, Wrath and Zealotry 3 times, twice along with the Guardian buff if I wait just a bit for the 3rd use. That is awesome, and it really makes an impact on damage throughput. Having trinkets that buff me either through stacks from swings or from an ICD rather than on-use is also great because that's one (or two) less things to worry about (though I tend to just use those with a macro on Crusader Strike anyway).

Both our tanks are quite good at threat output (Death Knight and Warrior) so I give a two second count before exploding into a gibbering rabid animal, and I've never come close to pulling off of them. Even if that was an issue, that's what we have Hand of Salvation for, and the few seconds of decreased threat will give tanks the time to build up Vengeance and get their lead and after the first 10 seconds, threat is just not an issue anyway. We'll see how that holds up in Pandaria.

Now that I've gotten used to Retribution, the play-style has gotten rather simple. Keep Inquisition up, build up to 3 HP and spend it on Templar's Verdict. Hit Wrath and Inquisition more or less on cool-down except if Guardian is within a minute or so of coming up. With 4 piece Tier-13, we build Holy Power through Judgments so fast, those Templar's Verdicts just keep going out.

It almost makes me consider picking up Selfless Healer as it wouldn't be hard to setup a macro to throw a heal on the tank on a press just to keep that extra 3% damage done buff rolling. But it probably isn't worth the trouble. Very rarely do I use Holy Power to self heal except maybe on Zon'ozz and Haggara.

Warlocks are looking like so much fun on Beta that's all I play when I log in, but I should spend some time running some dungeons as Retribution just to get used to it and see what's changing. It doesn't seem like Retribution has a lot of changes but the 2 extra HP buffer and the new Talents might make a difference and I'm curious to see how weaving those into the game will change the rotation.

My off-sepc is still Holy and I'm running dungeons and LFR now and again to keep that in shape, as our 3rd healer slot was filled by an actual healer and not a pretender to the throne like me, so I can focus hard on keeping my number up.

At first, I was intimidated by the two legendary-wielding DPS in the raid - one of whom frequently lands on the WoL top 100 rankings for Shadow Priests on certain fights - would I embarrass myself in front of them? But their numbers have become my benchmarks instead.

It's not like I'll be ranking anytime soon, but hey, I'm going to play like I'm about to!

The Woes of a Hybrid

Maybe not woes so much as indecisiveness.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've gone ahead and removed my Tanking spec to slide into a healing spec and geared myself up reasonably quickly. We have lacked a solid third healer for some time, and this way I can fulfill the raid needs and learn a new spec at the same time. But it has led to other difficulties.

Last night was a good example of this as we finally killed Heroic Zon'ozz while I was healing and it felt damn good to be helping the raid overcome this fight that has held us back for some time.


The boss had close to 5 million health left when enrage hit, but we just kept pushing, as people were dying one by one, and my ineffectual heals did little to help the massive output of damage, I just bubbled, judged, and began to exorcism spam, hoping the dots would do the trick, and they did. There were only 2 or 3 of us left alive but the beast was dead and I released a breath I didn't realize I was holding.


But then, I stared at the heroic bracers that dropped, and wondering, do I bid and loose my spot on the Suicide Kings list? Do I wait for some Retribution gear to drop? Should I be passing all tank gear so the two dedicated tanks can get some gear?


I didn't know what to do. Being the only paladin meant the plate would go to me anyway, but it wasn't fair to everyone else in the raid for me to just gear up without sacrificing my spot - so which is it? What's my main spec?


So began my journey of self-discovery.

At this point, the only fights among the first 6 bosses that we 3-heal are going to be Zon'ozz and Warlord. Last night, we got Heroic Haggara down to ~40% with 2 healers and I think we'll kill her tonight with 2-healers once we clean up Lightning phase and we already 2-heal Morchok, Yor'sahj and Ultraxion.

Spine and Madness will need 3 heals, but that's some time away for us. In the mean time, I'm Retribution for 4 out of 6 heroic bosses that we're working on or killing right now, and I *think* that should be my main spec. If you count the two Deathwing fights, I'll be healing for half the bosses in the raid. Fine. So it doesn't matter, really, which spec I gear up first, I'll need the gear on both. I just need to pick one.



Except.

While my DPS is respectable, it isn't close to what one of the two tanks does as Frost. Her DPS is frequently up there with the Legendary wielding Shadow Priest and Rogue, and it feels more productive for her to be DPSing than me. And I enjoy tanking so much and she enjoys DPS (we refer to DPSing as "being a rock-star" in my raid for some reason) so much, we would both be happier doing the other job.


But.

There are many fights where a Blood Tank is just vastly superior to shield tanks. Yor'sahj, Zon'ozz and Hagara all benefit greatly from Blood Shields and Anti-magic Shells, making the fight much, much easier to heal. So much so that I feel like while I *could* tank those fights with glyphs and trinkets, it would just be easier to have her tank it and keep our progression on a faster pace.

So it seems like my decision is more or less made for me here, I *have* to go DPS for the 4 fights we 2 heal and I'll switch to heals for the other 2 fights. Which means, Retribution is my main-spec and Holy is my off-spec, and I'm sure I'll be geared up for the 2 Deathwing fights by the time we get there just based on off-spec bids.


Which leaves my Protection spec - the best geared of all my specs, the spec I've played non-stop for two expansions - in the dust.


It's an odd feeling but a good one to know that I can do this - that I can switch roles, and help the guild as necessary, be a hybrid class for real instead of just pretending to be a solo-spec class and tanking all the time. We started this expansion with 2 Paladin tanks. We're ending it with a Death Knight and a Warrior. Both of whom are extremely capable and are not holding us back in progression - in fact, it's my lack of experience as a healer that's holding us back right now, if anything. And I love a challenge.



It all feels odd. But good.

Raid Respec

Firstly, I have a guest post up at MMO Melting Pot about how I use audio clues to supplement visual information while gaming. Very kind of them to host me today!

Right.

Having worked on the current raiding tier for a few months now, I have grown pretty comfortable with most of the fights except for the 3 end-wing bosses. Cho'gall still gives me a bit of heartburn, our two hours on Al'akir this week were productive, but frustrating, and we haven't really even spent any time on Nefarian. But the rest of the content? It's pretty much on farm, and I can yawn my way through it at this point.

So, last night, when we were going in for our second night of Al'akir pulls, we had a last minute drop out, and no one to take his slot except for a pretty under-geared tank in the guild. Rather than go through the frustration of having two people re-spec to accommodate this tank and train him on the fight, we decided to skip the good Caliph.

Since we had this tank and a recently picked up healer who were both a little bit behind us in gear, I thought it wouldn't be bad for them to gather some gear, so off we went to Blackrock to farm some bosses. I also went ahead and swapped to Retribution and let the new guy take my spot in the raid while Issacc continued his duties as per usual. And let me tell you, it was a completely different experience.