Every week Matthew Rossi will be writing The Care and Feeding of Warriors, a column dedicated to the lumbering, clanking, mana-deprived folks who spend a lot of time yelling at monsters to ignore the people in dresses and that guy stabbing them a lot in the back.Introductions are always hard, especially when you're about do something ludicrously arrogant like presenting yourself as an expert on something. Still, it's better to do something all the way then it is to tenderfoot it, so here goes. I'm Matt Rossi, and I'll be writing about warriors for WoW Insider. I've played two to 70, have another to 68, a Draenei I'm letting rest at 51 for now and another who I left on an RP server at about 60. Basically, I love warriors, always have. Every time I play my pally or shammy alts, I keep muttering but where's my charge gone in my best Johnny Depp lamenting the loss of his rum voice. Warriors have had their ups and their downs... who can forget when we lost all rage on a missed execute? But I've played since my wife brought her copy of the game to move in with me, and all that time warriors have usually been my mains.
I wanted this first column to break the ice a little, so instead of writing a deep treatise on tanking basics, or the merits and drawbacks of various tanking specs, or how playing another class can help your tanking, or the mythology that's built up in players from other classes about how amazingly awesome plate armor is in game, I decided today would be a good time to humiliate myself in public with one of the biggest screw-ups I've made as a warrior. This way, we can all laugh at what a cretin I am together! Since I'm sure I'm going to post something that will convince you of that sooner or later anyway.
This story is about the very first time I got to tank a major boss, back when level 60 was endgame. I'd always been a DPS warrior for the guild I was in, down to having been awarded the Eye of Sulfuras when it dropped. As a result, I'd recently changed my FR set of armor to use the mace instead of my trusty Draconian Deflector, because who wouldn't? Anyway, upon going to the bank in IF, I used my wardrobe addon (good old reliable, not especially flashy ItemRack) to equip my FR set to make sure it was all there, and then switched to my PvP set for a little fun before heading to Duskwallow.
Some of you already see where this is going, huh?
Anyway, there I was in Duskwallow, getting ready to run Onyxia's lair. We'd done this run often. So often, that in order to make it interesting, the officers decided that we'd have two 20 man runs that would race each other to see who could kill her first. It was in this way that I suddenly discovered myself nominated to tank the second Ony run, and found myself staring the dragon herself in the face minutes later. I hit the key to switch my tanking set on only to discover that most of my tanking set wasn't there.
I'd left it in the bank. Specifically, when I used my wardrobe addon, it had treated my bank as if it was my inventory, and as a result it had put the sets I was cycling through into the bank. I didn't have my Deflector. In fact, I didn't have any shield at all. This is one of my only complaints about that addon, but ultimately it was my own fault, right? Don't answer that, I get enough grief for it already.
That's how I ended up tanking Onyxia in my PvP set with a two hand weapon in a 20 man raid. Amazingly, the healers kept me alive. Not amazingly, I got made fun of on teamspeak. In fact, I was known from this point on as "cheesey poof" because, as one of the paladins put it, I liked to tank things with my big Cheeto hammer.
The most embarrassing moment of Matt's life as a warrior was actually at level 40 when he realized that Sunder Armor won't work if a target has had Expose Armor applied first. He continues to start sweating madly every time a rogue asks in party or on vent if it's okay to use it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-15-2007 @ 2:38PM
Fishie said...
good and fun-to-read writing mate, I look forward to reading more from you :)
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6-15-2007 @ 2:53PM
Zor said...
Great concept:
gotta love these class forum entries
and more importantly
TEACHES non warrior party members exacly how a warrior works, and its usually the PARTY that screws up the 'tanks' role.
albeit w/o knowing (expose armor - rogues)
keep em coming.
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6-15-2007 @ 3:14PM
Paroxetine said...
this post was a breath of fresh air!
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6-15-2007 @ 3:15PM
annoula said...
Dude, this guy sucks and clearly doesn't know anything about being a warrior. Boooooo... hiiissss...
Hehe, had to get that out of the way. So far so good. I'm surprised they didn't heart you out to get your tank gear and resummon you. Even if it was before the portals a 20man grp is bound to have a lock somewhere.
My fiance is my tank so I'll have to start passing these articles along to him. He could use some help.
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6-15-2007 @ 3:20PM
Matt Rossi said...
Actually, they couldn't port me back for the simple matter that we'd already cleared the trash (yes, I deliberately tanked the trash in DPS gear... it died fast enough that it was never a concern) and I realized my set wasn't in my bags about two seconds after hitting the button and two seconds before Ony saw me.
Yes, I'm an idiot. If I'd put on the set before running in, we would have been fine.
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6-15-2007 @ 3:31PM
jsg said...
I enjoy hearing people talk about the boneheaded things they've done ingame, but even better is the boneheaded things people have done and survived.
Great story!
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6-15-2007 @ 3:55PM
Nick said...
I bet you are a big fatso with a beard who wears a duster and indiana jones hat to social events.
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6-15-2007 @ 4:03PM
Matt Rossi said...
Well, I'm fat and I have a beard, but I don't own either a duster nor any hats at all, and I generally only go to social events with my wife, who wouldn't let me dress like that anyway.
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6-15-2007 @ 4:04PM
YPEELS40 said...
I already like him more than big red kitty.
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6-15-2007 @ 6:08PM
Nick said...
cool man, i'm fat too, and a warrior!!!
I liked your story btw. Cheers!!!
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6-15-2007 @ 6:11PM
Birthmark said...
Well it's good to have a warrior perspective on here I guess. I've always felt there was a bias on this site against warriors from the writers. They all seem to play clothies or hybrid classes like druids and paladins and they seemed to go out of their way to put warriors in a bad light.
I just hope you're not one of those types of warriors who thinks it's cool to ask for nerfs to your own class trying to make yourself sound leet.
Psst please make an article about the new gladiator weapons being 3.6 speed instead of 3.8 and how hard it is to tank now without being prot. Me will love you long time :)
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6-15-2007 @ 6:55PM
feadin said...
i have a warrior (NE 63) and i think that the warrior is one of the best classes of the game. too bad they are pidgeon holed into the tanking thing :/ (most ppl dont see the good thing of withe warrior dmg... i know it. i run ramparts with some RL friends( 4 warriors and a resto shammy go figure)) i tend to do a lot of alts to understand their mechanichs and such. so i can kill them easely with my lock. but my warr is my highest alt. good article! keep them cooming
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6-16-2007 @ 7:42AM
Dan said...
I once tanked the beast in UBRS with a 400-ish armour grey shield that dropped off a trash mob. It had the same icon as my shield, and I didn't notice until after...
Hope you do a better job than that moronic hunter column! Can I have one for my rogue too, please? ;)
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6-16-2007 @ 8:18AM
Rasnarok said...
Very funny article, can't wait to read more.
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6-16-2007 @ 8:33AM
Sleepysteve said...
I remember when I first learned about this small flaw of Itemrack, good times...
Great addon though, I can't live without it.
I loved the article, was enjoyable to read. Keep representing us meatshields with pride.
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6-16-2007 @ 11:36AM
Chris said...
how the f*** did you lvl 4 warriors i got mine to 70 and almost quit the game becos i was so bored of it :)
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6-16-2007 @ 4:39PM
Thomas said...
For RP purposes I never got my warrior Plate armor skill until level 53...and that was only because my guildies demanded I finally do so. "Is armor value all that important?" I asked...I'm sure you all know what the answer was - this was back when MC and Ony where the only end-game instances out there.
Love the column, love what Insider is doing with class columns now. Helps beef up the total posts here as well as make for some more interesting reading. Good work all around!
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6-16-2007 @ 4:54PM
Phillip said...
You think thats something. I didn't know until lvl 64/65 that there was a quest to get the defensive stance. Tanking things gets a little easier when you have sunder armor. :S
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6-16-2007 @ 8:39PM
Raynia said...
Hurray for warriors!! Hehe, it made me giggled when you mentioned your alts dont have charge! Thats the entire reason I cant get a paladin over level 4. I cant stand playing melee without my charge. My healer and caster I can deal with but Im a warrior at heart. Hope hear lots more!
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6-17-2007 @ 3:03PM
Kyle said...
Cool, glad they have a warrior column now. Keep it up!
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