Saturday, August 29, 2009

Why is this game so nice with it?

Quick hits I wanted to mention:
  • I only have one shaman in my crew (I know... what a fucking oversight) so for totems, as with the cup that holds the blood of Christ, I have to choose.. and choose wisely. In each totem slot I can drop either an offensive or defensive buff basically. I'm dropping Stoneskin (the DK buff Horn of Winter takes the place of Strength of Earth, something I only just found out... because I'm a fuckin noob), Totem of Wrath (you really have to... even in the blizzard-happy fight with Novos, you can't give up that buff on four casters for a little frost resistance), Cleansing Totem, and Nature Resistance Totem. Now, the first two don't really have better choices. The last two are questionable, right? I could have mana/health regen and Wrath of Air down instead. But having the Cleansing Totem down all the time has been invaluable. The number of fucking mobs that spit weird goo in my face is insane and I don't have time to micro-manage every fight. Always having this down and not needing to know before hand whether I'm entering into a plague bukkake has saved me a couple of wipes per instance run. The thing is, keeping your tank up is all that matters as long as he/she's got aggro. If that's true, everything else can basically be fixed. So I'm giving up a bit of DPS but my survivability has ratcheted up.
  • I made a purge/tranq shot macro. It's just a /stopcasting macro that's bound to one key. There are a lot of mobs that enrage in these Heroics. I know that most of you are steamrolling through all of these and there's no point to using cc or tranq shots. But I want to develop good habits for Icecrown so I can make pulls as easy as possible. When I see someone enrage, I start a heal on myself and then purge/tranq the mob and the fights suddenly become trivial.
  • Bloodlust is sofa king amazing. It's almost like coffee to me. No matter what obstacle I face in life, all I need is a little coffee. I could accidentally pull Yogg with my shaman and if I bloodlust, I'll suddenly feel like "you know what? I think I got a shot here!"
  • This brings me to my next point. My macro for "freaking out" (that's actually what I call it) basically /use's trinkets and longer buff cooldowns like rapid fire, icy veins, whatever. Use this every fight. I can't believe how short some of these amazing cooldowns are. 2 minutes for Power Infusion? Really? Although I have really long cooldowns like bloodlust on a separate button for boss fights. You want some things to always be ready.
  • Make sure your team has a disenchanter. Don't be like me.
  • When I started, my focus was simplicity. As I've introduced more complex play (utilizing more of each classes' specialities), my game has improved. Don't shy away from stepping your game up a bit. If you're failing, add CC, stop AoE tanking, decurse, drink elixirs, get enchanted and gemmed better. Basically, don't give up, do what it takes, and think and you should crush anything... anything that doesn't require you to move each individual toon too much, that is.
  • These last two bits are about my DK Tank. First, Army of Dead is fucking hilarious. This crew of morons that remind me of the weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (who does a tribute to the weasels in WFRR? I fucking love this world) pops out all around you. Sometimes you summon one in such a way that it aggros the boss you're about to pull (I know: only I'm this dumb). They taunt like Ocho-Cinco and for some weird reason, they'll have a boss surrounded and then the whole group will run like 20 yards away WITH the boss. Sometimes this takes the boss out of my DPS range. Sometimes the boss has an enrage timer. Sometimes I wipe. But there are a few times where it's great to have that many extra hit points taking random beatings for you. I still like to use it whenever I can.. if only for the hilarity.
  • My current DK build is pretty good. I've tried maybe 15 builds and all have been fine, to be honest. But there are a few things I took this time that I doubt any serious tank takes. First, lowering my deathgrip cooldown helps a lot. As I said already, as long as the tank is alive with aggro, life is good. Anything that let's me fix a fight spiraling out of control I like. This really does save my ass and when wipes are costing my group 100g a wipe (15-20g per guy, of course), I'm over it. I'm over wiping. In WoW, at least. Anyway, third, I love Master of Ghouls. Having the ghoul out perpetually is key for me because of the number of times I 'oh shit!' sacrifice it for the health. I could just try to bring him out a minute before I need to sacrifice him but the way I play, that's just not predictable and I'm too scatter-brained. I constantly play my shadow priest without shadowform after a wipe. I need all the help I can get.

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