karathress
Latest
Tank Talk: The better (and lesser) angels of our nature
Tank Talk continues this week with one requisite "Why does my ingame life have to suck so hard?" story in deference to a point made by commenters on our first column. We will then take a look at the most fundamental decision you will encounter as a raiding tank -- and one you are likely to make, and then re-make, on just about every boss encounter in the game. There is a Druid on my server who messages me almost daily asking me to come tank his heroics. What annoys me is not being asked to tank per se, but that he, too, is a feral Druid. His gear isn't as good as mine simply because he hasn't raided past Magtheridon, but he's sitting on at least three of the better pieces of Tier 4, crafted epics, and several of the badge pieces that I'm still using to tank Tier 6. At a matter of fact, with the advent of two different badge vendors and badge drops from 10-man and 25-man bosses, his stats are significantly better than the ones I had tanking most of Tier 5. This guy literally has the gear to do just about anything in the game short of the more advanced content in Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau, and I used to point to him with no small measure of Druidic pride as proof of what a little elbow grease could accomplish.But he still wants me to come tank for him.I started getting irritated with the constant begging at one point and asked him, "How can you possibly have any difficulty getting groups? Everybody in LFG is looking for a tank, and your gear is excellent."At his computer, I'm sure he was shrugging. "You do it faster than I do.""I really don't. Just get some good DPS and you'll be fine."And then the truth came out: "Well, I don't really like tanking. I'd rather DPS." Ah.
Guildwatch: Open your face jellyfish
I know that image above is tiny, sorry about that -- click it to see the whole convo. Basically Mimszee got what he thinks is a bum deal out of a jewelcrafter (who he calls a "jellyfish" -- because he's too spineless to talk to Mimszee maybe?), and keeps telling one of the jewelcrafter's guildies to "open your face!" Your guess is as good as ours as to what that's all about. But that's not even the end of it -- there's more in this week's GW about Mimszee. A lot more.For other downed, recruiting or drama news from around the realms, click the link below. And to put your own guild's news here (or a particularly tasty morsel of drama about another guild), just drop us a note to wowguildwatch@gmail.com, and you could see it here next week. Open your face!
One Kara Leaves: Karathress vs. Kara Thrace wrap up
On Friday I asked you what would happen if Karathress, the minion wielding sub boss of Serpentshrine Cavern, went up against Kara Thrace, the like-named heroine of Battlestar Galactica. You voiced your opinions, you voted. And you chose Kara Thrace, by a vote of 81.5% to 18.4%.Some of the defining user comments made it clear why Kara Thrace would win. SweetPoison said, "Kara would just bomb SSC with her Viper." Pappagallo tells us that I missed one of Starbuck's key abilities, and I fully agree with him: at 20% health Kara would cast "Summon Adama" in which there's a 99% chance Adama appears in either his old or young form and goes on a rampage, or a 1% chance that Colonel Tigh appears drinking, saying "Kill her, see if I care."Quite the interesting results, and I'm glad everyone had a chance to vote. And just to revise my opinion on who the final Cylon is, I'm now going to say it's Felix Gaeta. We know it's not Billy anymore because Six said "The final five are close."Of course, I could just be frackin' out of my mind.
Two Karas Enter: Karathress vs Kara Thrace
Our weekly column "Two Bosses Enter" pits one boss against another in a do or die battle of force. You, the reader, decides who wins and who is banished to the pits of wowlolcats hell. However for today, I want expunge some of that nerd in me and do something different. Let's pit Karathress, the multi-mob boss fight from Serpentshrine Cavern again Kara Thrace, her namesake from Battlestar Galactica."Why on Azeroth are you having these two fictional characters fight each other, Adam?" you ask. Because tonight at 10:00 p.m. EDT the final season of Battlestar Galactica begins. There's a lot of fans, including the WoW developers, who are in love with this show. After a year's absence I think many of us are sitting on the edge of our seats to learn who the final Cylon is. (It's going to be Billy, by the way. You heard it here first.) But enough of my fan bois loving. Let's get down to these two bosses fighting it out.
When your fearless leader hasn't played your class
Back when I first started tanking 5-mans, there was a particular hunter who pulled off me with irritating regularity. This was partly because the early Druid tanking set at 70 is itemized more for mitigation than threat generation, but partly because he was a young guy, he was good dps, and he knew it. MM-specced Hunters actually do have a lot of control over mobs that get pulled off the tank, and I suspect on some level he made a game out of seeing just how long he could lock something down while the exasperated tank turned her attention elsewhere, usually after bellowing at him in party chat to "DISENGAGE! FEIGN DEATH! DISENGAGE!"Not having played a Hunter at that point, I had a fuzzy notion that Disengage somehow reduced threat and was highly affronted at any hunter with aggro spikes who wasn't using Feign Death over and over again. After starting to level a hunter alt, it quickly became apparent that: a). Disengage was a melee-only skill that still had to "hit" the mob, and b). Feign Death wasn't exactly a spammable ability and could be resisted no matter what you did. I am by no means an expert hunter player, but I have at least learned to bellow, "FEIGN DEATH ON COOLDOWN!" if they're not trapping (and just minding my own business if they are).I am still occasionally reminded of my days as a backseat hunter, and never more so than while listening to my GM trying to figure out what's gone wrong in a raid.
BigRedKitty: Ask not what your raid can do for you
Back from a firewall and Dr.Pepper addiction-induced hiatus, Daniel Howell is back to contribute BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. It is with no small sense of happiness that BRK returns to WoW Insider. We're thrilled that the executive muckity-mucks haven't nuked our account here into oblivion and that the editorial staff are being so kind as to help get these columns published. Without them, we wouldn't be back. As such, please direct all flames and hate email to their in-boxes, comprende? Sweet.(For those who've never read our posts here or on our personal blog, please note that we use use plural pronoun to refer to ourself. Why? Because we believe that the hunter and pet are One. That's just how we roll; don't panic.)Let's let the bells ring and the banners fly! Roll out the carpet and bring out the champagne! Let's start the first new column with an email question."Dear BRK, a month ago the raid leader told me my DPS was too low for the exploratory raid into Serpentshrine Cavern. Since then, I have converted to BRK BM spec, am topping the DPS meters for our hunters, am generally within the top three or four for the raid, and seeing lots of SSC. Woot and thank you so much! "I am seeing a big variation in DPS from boss to boss though, where my DPS can go from 900 to 1200, and I am not entirely clear on why. Part of it may be inconsistency in shot rotation and using my trinkets and such, but I wonder if a big chunk of it is from the group I get put in for that boss. "For Hydross and Morogrim I am doing a total of 900-1000, with Bloodlust, my cat, doing 300 of it. Lurker Below is crappy DPS because I can't get Bloodlust to attack him no way no how. That all makes sense. "We got moved to different groups for Karathress and suddenly I am up to 1200dps total, and Bloodlust is doing 500dps of it. Wow! How can I get more of that! "Checking the buffs on my pet for that fight, it looks like I was grouped with a feral druid and an enhancement shammy. Can the presence of specific class/spec combos in my raid group make that big a difference in my pet's DPS? "Do you have some guide somewhere on which class/specs help our DPS? Thanks, Kiya and Bloodlust." Bluntly Kiya, no we don't. And for good reason.
