Hybrid Theory returns after a month long hiatus. We could tell you a long and boring story about how Alex's computer suffered a horrible death during his relocation from Wisconsin to Michigan, but we won't. Just picture the battle scene from Braveheart, except replace the English with a PC. It was basically the same thing.
Last week, we were graced with a boatload of Wrath news. With the Wrath news came Death Knight news. With the Death Knight news came laments of, "my class is dead, noo!" from the WoW community. Yes, it is probably quite intimidating to add another class to the tanking niche for the tank classes, especially considering we've seen the incredible Death Knight abilities and not those of anybody else, but I think all of our classes will be quite safe come Wrath.
There are a few things that should be taken into consideration before we run in circles screaming of the apocalypse and mourn our forgotten not-Death-Knight-tanks. Head on past the jump to find out just what the heck I mean!
I'm getting back to WoW Insider after a month's real-life-related absence and have been spending some time playing catch-up on the site. One of the articles that caught my attention was Matt Rossi's popular "One reason tanks won't PuG," in no small part because I play a tank and my own PuG runs have been few and far between of late. My main, a Tauren Druid, respecced from balance to feral at level 69 because there were so few tanks on my server, and I literally spent months and months tanking PuG's to get experience and gear.
During that period I saw everything from rogues rolling on +healing maces to warlocks needing on tanking cloaks, and I learned that you never can tell what you're going to get from a PuG. Yes, you'll get hunters who can't trap, mages who never resheep, rogues who mistakenly believe they leveled a warrior, and priests who Power Word: Shield you straight off the pull -- but you'll also find people who know their class well, or are in the process of learning just like you are, and who are fun to be around. I have now killed Illidan with a contingent of people who showed up to my PuG's back when I was a wee lolbaretank in quest greens and Heavy Clefthoof, so as a matter of personal experience I think PuG's are a somewhat underrated way to meet people who will later turn out to play crucial roles in how you experience the game.
I don't PuG as frequently anymore due to time constraints and increased time spent leveling alts, but I still hang out in LFG from time to time for the pure enjoyment of meeting new people. Yes, it is often difficult to PuG tanks and healers (I would submit, as someone who typically tanks or heals in dungeons, that it is also difficult to PuG skilled DPS), but a lot of people could make it easier on themselves than they do. If you're having problems finding a tank or healer for your PuG's, try these.
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, the Big Bear Butt Blogger, brings you some choice tidbits of knowledge on level 70 consumables for the beary furry crowd.
We've talked about the gear you can get to build your tanking set up to Karazhan, but to actually tank in a raid, you need to bring along plenty of tasty consumables to buff you up to tip-top shape. And that's what we're going to cover today.
There are four basic types of consumables you can have active buffs from.
You can have active at one time;
Flask or Elixir buffs (One Flask, or One Guardian and One Battle Elixir effect)
Multiple scroll buffs (as long as the buffs do not overlap with player spell casting)
One Weapon buff
One food buff
Also, there are tons of potions and items that can be darn handy to use in the middle of a fight, especially when things are looking their bleakest, and with the changes to how Druids shift forms in Patch 2.3, there are some very simple macros that you can use to make your own 'oh no!' buttons. Use at your own risk!
What will help you in your fight is situational, but knowing what you have to choose from can make creating your own shopping list a lot easier.
Having had a few hours to sleep and then a few more to digest the new information on the Death Knights, I'm finally getting a clearer picture of what the Death Knight will be able to do and how they'll fit into the existing hierarchy of classes, and I have to say, I'm still just as excited. There's a lot of questions that have risen from a lot of corners, but new information has come to light that may answer at least a few of them.
First, let's look at some of the clarifications the CMs have been offering, and clear up some other questions from the comments of this morning's article about how creating a Death Knight will work:
The guild Shards of Existence on the Illidan server hasn't managed to down Illidan himself yet, but apparently that hasn't stopped them from having a little bit of fun with the other Black Temple bosses. According to their site, they've been having a bit trouble with tanks losing their computers, which has in turn frustrated their attempts to put Illidan on farm status. But just because they're still getting their replacement tanks geared up doesn't mean they have to sit back and wait.
Introducing Gaeowyn, The first Rogue to tank Mother Shahraz, the harem mistress of Black Temple. Notes Nihilum's news site, she pulled it off by stacking massive amounts of agility, while keeping enough expertise to cause adequate threat to keep the boss' attention. Raid buffed, she had 76.31% dodge, 12.16% parry, and 14.16% chance to be missed, meaning that she had 102.63% avoidance - just enough to take physical damage out of the equation.
If nothing else, that alone makes me wonder if I could pull that off on my Druid tank - It certainly would make tanking Prince Malchezaar's phase 2 easier. Of course, Bears cannot parry, alas, so I'd have to make up some major ground somewhere.
The video is a fun watch, especially at the end where it looks like Gaeowyn tries her hand at tanking Illidan. Is this a sign that we can expect Rogues to be fighting with Paladins, Druids, Warriors, and Death Knights for tanking spots come WoTLK?
Now, there's some classes (mostly pure DPS) that have a special advantage when it comes to respeccing: When they decide to change specs, they can mostly get away with using the same set of gear. They may want to regem a bit toward one stat or another, or switchweapons, but for the most part, they can change their spec and settle right into their new role with relative ease, not having to wait for certain gear to come along before they make a "final" plunge. Even if they do need to make a bigger stat change, their old gear can usually mostly suffice until they get a few more drops.
I've noticed this because I'm strongly considering switching two of my hybrids to another role full time soon, and it's been a lot more complicated, because gear enters the equation in a much larger way.
Today, in Arathi Basin, my Tauren warrior took on six Alliance and won.
This isn't me bragging: I fully expected to die. Usually when I do this kind of thing... in fact, in 99% of the times I've charged into a pack of Alliance or Horde when PvPing, I do die. It's usually a last ditch attempt to prevent a flag capture. I don't expect to live through it. But today, through some weird combination of skill, luck, and some poor choices and gear on the part of the alliance, I came out of it alive and they all died. (That rogue who showed up at the end helped, I admit it.)
I know it won't ever happen again, but for just that moment (long enough for a mage to ride up and fireball me down, since I had like 200 health left) I honestly felt like I'd learned something new, made a shift in how I PvP in World of Warcraft, and even surprised myself with how good I could actually be at a part of the game I've never really felt that I excelled at. Now, I still expect that the next time I try this I will die, but I won't go in thinking death is certain, and that changes the way the whole thing feels.
Almost certain death, slim chance of success, what are we waiting for? That dwarf knew what he was talking about.
There's been a lot of talk about tank shortages, especially in pick up groups or PuG's. And at times it can be hard to understand why tanks are so reluctant to run in such groups. Luckily, Primula, a mage on Rexxar decides to help explain this all to us by starting an epic thread on the forums. Sadly, Primula's original post was deleted (by Primula), but forum poster Montar helps us understand by quoting it in his reply.
Apparently Prim was upset at the guild Steady Hand (a horde guild on Rexxar) because after a heroic Magister's Terrace run they called her a ninja for rolling on and winning an epic trinket that dropped off of Priestess Delrissa (who I always call Princess for some reason). Now, you may be thinking "Hey, Timbal's is pretty good for fire mages" but let me stop you. The trinket in question wasn't Timbal's. It was, rather, Commendation of Kael'thas.
To paraphrase one of my favorite films, that sound you hear is the sound of ultimate suffering. I made that sound when the rogue outrolled me on The Sun Eater on my tenth heroic Mech. There is a tank on Rexxar who makes that sound now. Anyway, Primula decided to post on the forums about how the tank was awful, in all blues, and therefore didn't deserve the trinket and she was going to use it for PvP. And thanks to quick witted responses, and a fast tipster, I got to read the thread and lose my mind this morning. Supposedly Primula took the trinket for PvP. Well, I hope you're done PuGging, because I can't imagine a druid, paladin or warrior who'll tank for you on that realm for fear of losing some other bit of tanky goodness to your PvP set.
While I'm pushing through Black Temple and Mount Hyjal nicely as my guild's tank, I am still trying to improve my style and playing elements. There's not much more I can do to build threat – the Devastates, Shield Slams, Revenges, Heroic Strikes, etc., are all going off at the right time. Gear is fine, I can pretty much tank anything in the game at this point and succeed. So why am I still dying? Why am I missing that critical moment when I could put up my Spell Reflect and live a second longer?
I think I've found it.
It's all about eye movement. Try this: focus your sight to the upper left hand corner of the screen, and now move your sight down to the bottom of the screen. If you have a large enough monitor, you completely lose focus of the text and items near the upper left corner. This is problematic for tanking in that the unit frames (those things that tell you who's in your group and who you're attacking) are by default located in the upper left corner, and the action bars are located at the bottom. So if you want to make sure you're going to hit something – or even look at your keyboard for a moment – you're moving your eyes quite a bit.
Now that the patch is upon us, it's a good time for reflecting upon all the new badge rewards available to us in the near future. As a hybrid class with 3 main viable specs (healing, tanking, DPS), it's no wonder that there's a lot of new badge gear for paladins in this patch. Allison did a fantastic write-up of new badge gear for druids a few days back, so I figured I'd follow her format as it relates to paladins!
Holy
Itemization for Healing specs has been pretty solid when it comes to badge gear, and the new stuff is no exception. Just like the Pier 1 set that 2.3 introduced, you'll find lots of healing, spell crit and mana per 5 on the new gear... just more of it.
Warriors of all shapes and sizes have one thing in common, their need for a good shield. They are the life blood of any tanking strategy. They give us health, protection, and threat. For a protection warrior, the shield is often time the most important part of their inventory. This is both a blessing and curse. While a good shield can't help a bad tank become good, a bad shield can easily make a good tank bad.
There are a few key stats in a shield to look at. First, the armor – one of the most important stats for a tank. It lets us take less damage from each hit, which means our health lasts longer and our raid survives more. Block Value is another important stat, and helps determine how much damage a shield will outright mitigate when an attack is blocked. Finally, stamina and defense are also always present on a shield, and are again, a key stat for a warrior.
While these stats are beautiful all in their own way, their infrequency in upgrades presents a problem for some warriors. To show what I'm talking about, let's take a look at what shields are available for the protection spec warrior at level 70.*
Every week, Shifting Perspectives is written by someone who is not me. Except for that one time. Rather an addictive experience, stealing this column. Does anyone even read the italicized portion at the top? Hello? Nobody? I'm just gonna sing. "My baloney has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R, my baloney has a [censored over copyright infringement] (ed. just do the column, please).
While I sincerely hope the rumors about the patch hitting soon aren't true because I'm sitting on all of 43 badges of justice right now (g@^#(*% mother-expletive piece of $%^@ fire resistance set), I am forced to admit that the times may possibly have caught up with me. I confess that for a long time I hadn't even looked at the new badge loot that will become available ingame, partly because things have gotten markedly busier with my guild of late and partly because I'd planned my 2.3 badge acquisitions very carefully and wondered if I could get away with keeping myself somewhat unspoiled for 2.4. That lasted until I found out just how expensive the 2.4 gear is actually going to be ("150 badges for a new weapon, Zach? Are you @*(#&#% kidding me?"). Noble effort while it lasted, though.
Well, no more. If 2.4 does hit next week, I'm going to be ready to stand in front of the badge vendor and know exactly what I can't afford to buy for all three specs.
This treatment looks exclusively at the new leather gear offerings available in 2.4 and assumes that you won't have access, or at least immediate access, to the new 25-man raid Sunwell Plateau. For my part I am still using six -- count 'em, six -- pieces of badge gear for various tanking purposes in Tier 6 content, which either says a great deal about the general quality of badge gear or says a great deal about how bad feral itemization is in endgame content. I'll be magnanimous today and say it's both.
Running 5 man instances is the bread and butter of gearing up any PvE character. There are some short instances, and some longer ones. There are some bosses that are ready for fun, and others that like to die fast. Many people consider it a universal truth that all you need to do these instances is solid crowd control. When you're faced with a pack of six or seven level 70 elite mobs, the last thing you want is one or two of them running loose.
But what can you do if you don't have any CC available? Are you just out of luck? Nope! There are a few tricks to running instances without CC, and if you pay close attention, you won't miss the lack of sheeps at all.
In fact, you might just start preferring to run without crowd control entirely.
Welcome to another installment of Hybrid Theory, wherein columnist Alex Ziebart assures the world that he does not, in fact, hate Retribution Protection Paladins. In fact, he raids with a Retribution Protection Paladin. Really. He does. Pinky swear.
Nearly every hybrid has felt the sorrows of lacking itemization at one time or another. Every hybrid has seen its ups and its down, has watched class balance fall into and out of order, and embraced their spec through the good and the bad. Throughout all of this, though, there has always been one ever-present issue. Completely unchanging. Viability and acceptance? Oh, no no no.
Bag space. The Blue Crew of Blizzard has made it very clear over the last few years that limited bag space is fully intended. It's viewed as an important aspect of game play. A mini-game, if you will. I must say, being forced into choosing whether you want to keep an item you enjoy or vendor it in favor of that new piece of resist gear that is mandatory for your raid's upcoming boss fight is the worst game ever. Sometimes little vanity items mean quite a bit, like your first epic. A lot of them are just plain neat, like the furbolg outfit maker.
Yes, indeed, after a short trip away from the podcast, I will be back on tomorrow afternoon, live on WoW Radio at 3:30pm EST. Turpster is supposed to be there as well, and both John Petricelli (the Big Bear Butt blogger) and Matthew Rossi (who, I hear, once wrestled a bear and won) will be on the show with us. It'll be a rip-roaring adventure as, I'm sure, we'll chat about all the recent changes in patch 2.4, as well as all the kerfluffle over tanking and protection specs, and why Blizzard is banning a famous Arena hunter. We'll also hit on when patch 2.4 might go live, and of course we'll be reading listener email (which you can send to us at theshow@wowinsider.com).
Should be fun, and I don't know about the rest of the guys, but since I'm in Chicago, I'll likely be celebrating St. Patrick's Day, so I'll bring green beer along (for everyone of age, of course). Tune in to WoW Radio tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm EST to join us for the WoW Insider Show, the best bear-related WoW podcast you'll ever find.
Now, there's some classes (mostly pure DPS) that have a special advantage when it comes to 
Today, in 
There's been a lot of talk about 
Running 5 man instances is the bread and butter of gearing up any PvE character. There are some 
Yes, indeed, after a short trip away from the podcast, I will be back on tomorrow afternoon, 
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