Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Tanking, DPSing, and Titans Whiffing in Kara

So.... basically... we ran Karazhan on Saturday night. The bosses were going down in under 2 minutes for the most part, and we didn't even have our A-team there for the most part. We had one wipe, on Shade (of course) and other than that, the night ran smooth as can be.

I began the night running as fury with Titans Grip. Now, I have better-than-entry-level gear for Karazhan. In my fury set, I'm over 1700 AP unbuffed, with 300 armor ignored and 40 expertise. What am I missing that you need for a titans grip build?

Hit rating. Admittedly, I was running with two blue 2 handers, no purples, but every other piece of my fury set is purple (aside from a ring).

After opera, I respecced back to prot, and ran around still dpsing in my fury gear, but as prot spec. I did more dps. Not just a little more. I jumped from 400 to 500 dps. Do I think Titans grip is broken? No, not at all. It just takes a different approach to gearing than I've taken for my DPS set in the past. I always had enough hit rating to keep me in rage. No more, no less. With Titans Grip, I would need WAY more hit rating to keep me in rage. To have my specials not miss.

Now, as for tanking?

Ohmigosh. Its FUN now. I mean, it was fun before, to tank that single big mean boss and yell at the DPS to stop DPSing because I only did 600 TPS in my full-evasion boss suit -- Yes, I have a threat set and a boss set -- Well, all of a sudden, here I am pulling AOE groups, tanking 4 mobs at once (heck, 10 mobs at once!) and watching the mages cackle with glee as they unload their aoe's.

Boss fights went from toeing that threat line on a boss like Prince, to the DPS just unloading and showing what they've got. Gruul, for example, was never really a threat issue as there's so much time where people aren't DPSing.

Instead of it being me constantly watching omen, and worrying about who was doing what and generating too much threat... it became me tanking. Worrying about positioning. Where to move the mob.

It was fun!

Plus, as an offtank, I finally felt like I could "hold my own" by adding a bit of DPS when needed.

So, 3 more posts on the horizon, which do you want first?
1) Warlocking
2) Tanking in instances
3) Prot Talent Review

2 comments:

neshura said...

My vote: instance tanking.

Boon said...

Instance tanking!