The Alt-o-holics’ Casual corner.

The time comes once in a while for us all to reflect back on our past and present and realize the sort of player we are and what we wish to be.

Hello. My name is Wicked, and I am an Altoholic.

The game of World of Warcraft has made exponential changes and advances since its early origin’s in November 2004. While patch 3.3 was looming menacingly over our heads, some people were scrambling to get toons leveled up, geared up, and tweaked to be ready to Dominate the new instances.  With good reason, each expansion and big patch has changed the various classes and their roles in the game, and at times it can be learning the game all over again, some people hate it, I happen to like it. You see I am a member of the vast legion of players known as: The Altoholics.

Some players live to raid. They get a single character to level 80 then spend every single moment online devoted to getting it better geared. They endlessly grind reputation, earn badges, farm mats and all the other mayhem associated with obtaining better gear. Their out of game time is spent tweaking stats in spreadsheets at work trying to find the best combination or gear or rotations to dominate the next raid.

Other players just get in game to hang out with like minded friends, do a little questing, and just generally have fun. They often do not have any particular goal in mind for their playtime beyond that simple pursuit.

Then there are the Altoholics. We are those guys that seem to play all day and night for days on end, yet only have one or two quest geared 80’s to our names. No fancy epic or badge gear, maybe not even a single epic flying mount. We rarely raid, yet we are always online playing one of countless toons.

We are the people that complain to blizzard that 10 toons slots is just not enough. Seriously how can you have one of every toon and still follow Gavin’s Advice of having a banker and mule with only 10 slots? It’s preposterous!

A typical altoholic routinely spends no more than a few days or a week on the same toon. The reasons for this can be as varied as the character names. A few common ones are;

• Some people toon hop because they are following DYS’s advice of never leveling outside of rested XP. That is probably the BEST way to maximize leveling efficiency in the game outside of the RAF program, more on that little gem in another article.

• After a time toon hopping like this players often fall into another trap as it were, though it really is more of an addiction. Who doesn’t like to go ding as often as possible, it is seriously addictive!!

• Others just flat get bored very easy. A Few days playing the same toon and we run by another class and go “Oh I have one of those, wonder what his rest xp and trade skills are like?”

• Some of us hop toon when we find guild mates, or friends of almost the same level. Or We hop to and alt to help another player or guildie and stay on the toon for a while afterwards

However at the root of every altoholic is a true love of this game universe that Blizzard has created for us. It brings us back for more until we fall asleep at our keyboards, and then has us daydreaming about it all day at work/school. It is the reason we fork out $15.00/month regardless of the economy. The love of the game has us searching for the next toon to play when we feel the tingle of boredom creeping in. The love of the game has guilds like Dominate resurrecting and reinventing themselves as outlined in Agorg’s Lifecycle of a guild article . The love of the game has altoholics like myself paying $25.00 per toon to change servers and move all of our horde alts to Fenris to join Dominate. Their format for the guild just makes sense, and any true altoholic can’t ignore a good guild when they see one.

Keep your weapons handy and, as always, DOMINATE

Alts are cool, chicks dig scars, DOMINATING is eternal.

Wicked of Dominate
<Fenris>

(We’ve had some reports that this article didn’t come up properly so I had to update it)
“So i made it to 80 now what do i do?? I  am lost: HELP!!”

We hear it or read it in chat every day and once again it came up in the replies to Law’s wonderful article on Lore. Now I must admit: if it wasn’t for my fellow guildies at DOMINATE I would still be totally lost apart from all the new reputations to work for and daily quest for professions and the factions, you have all the other dailies for rep and the heroic dailies and all the new instances. And you can’t even get a group to do any of them.

You see in trade: “LFM HTOC” or “LF2M Heals+ DPS for H CoS (Daily)” or what ever and you whisper said person only to receive a whisper back 4 to 5 mins later: “Sorry, full” and you sit there thinking how do these others get their whisper in 1st? Don’t I type quick enough? Then you find out it is down to your gear score “Sorry your gear score is too low” and you don’t want to ask because you already feel as useful as a chocolate tea pot.

Whether you’re new to the game or it’s your 17th 80 these steps are a must for anyone that even remotely wants to raid.  Since patch 3.2 gear has become more and more easily available so we thought we’d publish a quick reference guide to Raid gearing. None of these steps require you to enter a single 10-man raid.

There are 5 things you should focus on:

Reputation with the right Faction for your Head Enchant:

This is one of those things that nobody can do for you, yet will be using for every single spec and every single head slot piece of gear you will ever wear.  Depending on what you choose to do,  you will need to raise your reputation for a different Faction: You need only hit Revered for the best Enchant. Go pick up the tabard of the appropriate faction and wear it in every heroic you do.

Kirin’Tor: Caster DPS

Argent Crusade: Tank

Knights of the Ebon Blade: Melee DPS

Wyrmrest Accord: Healing

Reputation with Sons of Hodir for your Shoulder Enchant:

Again this is another one of those things that nobody can do for you but are worth it since they will be applicable to every piece of gear you ever equip on that character regardless of talent choices.

It used to be that you had to complete the entire quest chain and do the dailies for a whole month to get to Exalted, then Blizzard saw fit to simplify the process and allow you to trade in the (Back then BoP) Relics of Ulduar for some Rep with Sons of Hodir. Next they made the relics BoE so you now could theoreticaly buy your way to exalted .

Recelty Blizzard has introduced yet another way to get faction rep with the only faction in the game that gives lvl 80 Shoulder enchant: Comendation Badge: Sons of Hodir. They can be obtained from doing the REGULAR Daily. This is fantastic since you can complete the quest while doing it on Heroic as well and pick up the Emblems of Conquest that every boss will be happy to drop for you.
(Note: Scribes (Character that level the Inscription trade skill) can do a much upgraded, self-only version to shoulder enchant but that’s another matter all together)

Crusader’s Coluseum: Trial of the Champion: Reg + Heroic

This new instance (since 3.2) is your easiest stop for level 200-219 gear. Regular ToC will drop level 200 gear from every boss. You can clear it on Regular, step out, reset the instance and do it all over again. In fact you should do your best to run through that place as many times as you possibly can and pick up all the drops that you can. If you run it often enough it’s also a great place to gear up your second spec.

Running the Heroic give you Ulduar-level gear from every boss, including weapons and shoulders. By far the easiest place to pick up 219 starter gear.

Doing the Daily Heroic for the Emblems of Triumph:

Every time you turn in the Heroic Daily quest you will be rewarded with gold as well as 2  Emblems of Triumph. These are your all access pass to Tier 9 and level 245 gear. They can be obtained at a rate of 2/day this way. Emblems of Conquest are the fringe benefit that doubles your payout for these runs along with the actual gear that may or may not drop for you. You can also obtain them from the fire bosses in VoA and Onyxia.

Running Heroics for the Emblems of Conquest:

At this point there is nothing stopping you from doing more Heroics and picking up Emblems of Conquest. Emblems of Conquest: Pick up ~250 of them to obtain 2-piece T-8 (Head and Chest), Neck, Waist, Hands, Pants and Ranged. All of the Conquest gear is level 226 and will contribute greatly to your cause (Gearing up)

Knowing where you stand:

With that being said, you should also have tools to tell you where you stand and what you still need to work on. For both of the web sites below: enter your time zone, your realm(server) and your character’s name and look yourself up.

www.WoW-Heroes.com for a very good overall picture of your current situation gear-wise (My personal favorite).

www.WoWHead.com/?Profiles For the same thing (slightly different) from WoWHead.

Do those 5 things and it really won’t talk long to get a 2250 gear score and more. Gear score is what quite a few people will judge you by when you ask to get into a raid. It is not a complete picture however since it doesn’t account for experience or knowledge of the game but it is here for you and you should take full advantage of resources at your disposal.

There are far too many items in each category to list them all: That’s what WoWHead.com is there for you. Hopefully this will give you a sense of direction to get geared up.

Now get out there and DOMINATE.

My personal choice for professions is based solely on what they bring to the fight. As a Tank you are expected to be the best you can be and nothing less. As much as I like some of these professions and most of them can be quite useful, they are not all equal for the role we play in a group.

This article will help you determine what professions are best for you as a Paladin Tank:

• Herbalism: a Heal over time every 2 minutes that will sometimes save you … but it’s a HoT and if your healers are on the ball it’s relatively useless.

• Alchemy: Twice as long potions/flasks and a minor effect increase: that’s nice

• Inscription: No farming Sons of Hodir rep for the shoulder enchants, “scroll of Recall” is handy but overall, lacks a little luster for my tastes.

• Skinning: Crit bonus: not exactly our most praised stat as a tank.

• Leatherworking: Utterly USELESS in a raid.

• Engineering: Handy and fun to tinker with, expensive to level, it had its uses when Palys didn’t have any ranged abilities, but now is not nearly as efficient as other professions.

• Enchanting: Extremely profitable if you’re using the AH Mastery Guide but useless to a Tank… better suited to Tailors/Cloth wearers)

• Tailoring: Even more useless then leather working, unless you absolutely MUST ride your flying carpet into battle!

• Blacksmithing: Expensive to level, but adds 2 Prismatic sockets to your gear: extremely convenient and very useful.

• Mining: 60 Stam bonus when maxed along with the  ability to make Titansteel, and gather Ore.

• Jewel crafting: Finally the BEST (and arguably the most expensive) profession for a tank:  Jewelers’ gems baby … that’s what it’s all about. Especially at early levels this single ability can make the difference between sitting out a raid at 535 Def rating and picking up all the gear that drops in a single run just because nobody needs it. This will allow you to customize your character more then any other profession in the game, it gives you versatility and is an absolute MUST when upgrading gear since you may have to re-socket  2-3 pieces just to be able to wear the new whatever you just won.

For my money Mining and JC are the best. Some will argue Blacksmithing for the two extra sockets that will hold prismatic gems. All I have to say about that is: if you’re going to fill those up with Stamina (like you should) then Mining is a direct equivalent with the 60 Stam Mining bonus (2x 30Stam gems), it’s far cheaper to level, you’ll actually MAKE money with it and it will subsidize your other expensive profession: Jewel crafting!
For other classes that would like to add versatility or fill the need for a very specific stat (Druids & Armor Pen) then Blacksmithing and JC are the better (and most expensive) way to go.

Gems you want:

• Blue:  Stamina, Stamina and MORE STAMINA!
• Red:  Strength > Expertise > Attack Power
• Yellow: Defense Rating > Hit Rating > Crit.
• Orange, Green, Purple: Pick any of the stats above and get the corresponding mixed one.

Now let’s go over what enchants/Gems you want to have on your gear.

Head

• Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector: 37 Stam; 20 Def – Argent Crusade: Revered
• Arcanum of the Defender: 16 Def; 17 Dodge – Keepers of Time: revered

You’ll want to get to Revered with Argent Crusade as soon as possible since you’ll be putting that on every helm you will ever wear during your career as a tank.

Meta Socket

• Austere Earthsiege Diamond 32 Stam; +2% Armor from gear
• Eternal Earthsiege Diamond 21 Def; +5% Block Value
  

In the beginning you might want to consider the Eternal for the Def bonus but could easily migrate to the Austere as your gear gets better (2% of 25,000+ is nothing to sneeze at)

Shoulder

• Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle: 20 Dodge; 15 Def – Sons of Hodir: Exalted
• Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle: 15 Dodge; 10 Def – Sons of Hodir: Revered
• Master’s Inscription of the Pinnacle: 52 Dodge; 15 Def – Inscription (400)

Sons of Hodir are the only faction that sell Shoulder Enchants. You will have to grind that rep eventually, so might as well get the (super) long quest chain going while you’re making your way to 80. This is a must since you’ll need that rep for every shoulder enchant regardless of what you choose to do with your Paladin Character.

Cloak

• Enchant Cloak: Titanweave 16 Def
• Enchant Cloak: Major Agility 22 Agi
• Enchant Cloak: Mighty Armor 225 Armor
• Enchant Cloak: Superior Agility 16 Agi
• Enchant Cloak: Steelweave 12 Def

Agility is far from being the best stat for Tanking but it goes a long way when it comes to avoidance. In this particular scenario when you start having choices you can keep the Titanweave enchant and start changing out some of your Gems instead.

Chest

• Enchant Chest: Super Health275 Health (roughly equivalent to 21 Stamina for Paladins)
• Enchant Chest: Powerful Stats +10 to All stats
• Enchant Chest: Greater Defense 22 Def
• Enchant Chest: Super Stats +8 to All Stats
• Heavy Borean Armor Kit 18 Stam
  

Greater Def has most itemization and will definitely help with reaching the Def cap initially but you might want to consider Powerful Stats as your end-game raiding chest enchant since Paladins are one of the few classes that actually benefit from most of the 5 stats (Str, Agi, Stam, Int, and less from Spirit)

Wrists

• Enchant Brace: Major Stamina 40 Stamina
• Enchant Bracer: Major Defense 12 Def
• Fur Lining: Stamina 90 Stam (Leatherworking 400)

Here again Defense until you reach the Cap and then switch to Stam. You can never have too much Stam: Ask any healer.

Hands

• Enchant Gloves: Armsman 10 Parry; +2% Threat
• Enchant Gloves: Major Agility 20 Agi
• Enchant Gloves: Precision 20 Hit
• Enchant Gloves: Expertise 20 Expertise
• Enchant Gloves: Major Strength 15 Str
• Reticulated Armor Webbing 885 Armor (Engineering 400)
• Hand Mounted Pyro Rocket 1654-2020 Fire Damage on a 45 sec CD (Engineering 400)

Armsman is your best bet initially from a Defensive stand point, although you may want to consider the Strength (even if it is a Burning Crusade Enchant) for more DPS  down the line.

Waist

• Eternal Belt Buckle Adds a Prismatic Socket to your Belt

A must have for EVERY belt you ever buy. Being a Jewel Crafter this gives you Options.

Legs

• Frosthide Leg Armor 55 Stam; 22 Agi
• Jormungar Leg Armor 45 Stam; 15 Agi

The Jormungar Leg armor is far cheaper than the Frosthide, so if you plan to upgrade soon you may want to hold back if money is an issue.

Feet

• Enchant Boots: Greater Fortitude 22 Stam
• Enchant Boots: Tuskarr’s Vitality 15 Stam +8% Run speed Increase

Greater Fortitude if you have PoJ, Tuskarr’s if you don’t.

Weapon

• Enchant Weapon: Mongoose the Agility on proc is worth quite a bit of Avoidance.
• Enchant Weapon: Blood Draining The BEST enchant you can get (worth ~200 Stam)
• Enchant Weapon: Blade Ward Possibly the 2nd Best enchant
• Enchant Weapon: Accuracy 25 Hit; 25 Crit
• Enchant Weapon: Potency +20 Str
• Enchant WEapon: Titanguard +50 Stam
• Titanium Weapons Chain 28 hit; -50% disarm duration

As expensive as you think Blood Draining might be, an instant heal worth 2000 health that only procs when you need it (fall below 35% health) is about as good as it gets. It’s the equivalent of 200 Stamina … no other enchant even comes close.

Shield

• Enchant Shield: Defense 20 Def
• Enchant Shield:  Major Stamina 18 Stam
• Titanium Plating 81 Block Value

As with other pieces of gear, initially you’ll want the Def to reach the Cap but should switch to Stam or Block Value down the line. (81 Block value is far from negligible).

This should cover most of our bases when it comes to upgrading our gear and will show you most of your options. Knowing is half the battle, now you KNOW: get out there and Dominate!

Articles in this thread:

Part 1 – The Basics

Part 2 – Combat Ratings

Part 3 – Armor: Mitigation vs. Avoidance

Part 4 – Hit Table and Threat Generation

Part 5  – Abilities and Rotation

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades (you are here)

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear

In our first article we covered the Basics, in our second article we covered Combat Ratings and Values. Now it’s time to cover one of the greatest questions every tank has ever asked themselves since WoW is WoW … what gear should I get?

Before we go into that I’d like to go over the final combat stat, the one that is so ever-present even I forgot it.

Armor: Every piece of gear has it, everyone has been using it since level 1, it applies to clothies and tin cans (Plate Armor wearers) alike, yet few people actually know how it works. No more I say!

Armor reduces all incoming physical damage. It’s a passive ability that is always on whether you are incapacitated (stunned, feared etc) or not. The exact number of this reduction can be seen by mousing over the stat in your character page and the value is referred to as Damage Reduction (DR for short). There is a misconception out there that Armor is subject to diminishing returns (Not to be confused with Damage Reduction). Although it is true that beyond a certain point it takes more armor to gain more DR, the DR you gain is worth more:

Say your DR is 50% and you take 10,000 physical damage you will loose 5,000 life
Increase your DR by 1% to 51% and you will only loose 4,900 health … that’s 2% less health lost for 1% more DR

If your DR is 60% on the same 10K hit you’ll only lose 4000 health
Increase it to 61%and you’ll get smacked for 3,900 health that’s a 2.5% Damage Reduction increase.

On a side note when it comes to armor, your shield is your friend, it easily represents 25-30% or more of your armor. Also you should not select a piece of gear because of this stat, but knowing its effects will help you get a better picture of what’s actually going on in a fight. It also explains why a cloth wearer will take 10,000 dmg when the same hit will only cause 4,000 (or less) dmg to your favorite Tin Can.

Now that’s out of the way let’s take a look at the biggest issue there is for tanks, the one that sparks the most debate and the one is the most confusing:

Avoidance vs. Mitigation

We have the answer folks: Here it is … are you ready …

As far as I’m concerned as long as you haven’t hit the Def cap you should grab anything you can get your grubby little mitts on; you can start being picky once you have options.  The basic concept behind this argument is simple:

Avoidance is Mostly Dodge and Parry which lets you avoid the damage altogether but is more expensive to itemize.
Mitigation is reducing the damage you DO receive through Block Value and Block Rating which is far less expensive to itemize; and Armor value, which is passive (see above).

As a general rule it is better to completely avoid a hit rather than try to reduce the damage from it, that is true. You do, however, have to take into account the circumstances, that is to say: who is hitting you ? Patchwerk or the multi-mob trash pulls? In this the Paladin has an edge since he can keep agro on multiple mobs better then any other class in the game. Paladins usually end up on Add duty for that specific reason

My basic theory (Bear in mind I’m still experimenting) goes something like this: for multi mob trash pulls and/or picking up mobs during a Raid Boss encounters, Block is preferable since they don’t hit all that hard. Blocking 1600-2000 pts of damage out of a 4K hit is a 50% reduction is damage taken. Whereas avoiding 100% of the same hit 25% of the time would only be worth a ~25% reduction in damage taken.

When it comes to monsters that hit like a Mack truck on crack (Patchwerk’s Hateful strikes for example) avoiding those is by far preferable to blocking them – for now.  So, as of Patch 3.1.3 with Block value being what it is today: block the little hits and avoiding the big ones is the agreed upon philosophy almost everywhere.  The debate really picks up in speculation AFTER 3.2 goes Live. Here’s why:

In the previous article I made an obscure reference to Block Value being increased on gear on the next patch … here it is in detail (Quoted from WoWHead.com’s PTR patch notes)

• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.

• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren’s Lucky Coin, Levanthor’s Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier 8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier 5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier 5 warrior Shield Block bonus.

Paladins, however also get hit with this:
• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%.

This simply means a +100% block Value (not Rating) on all items (except shields) and -30% on a single ability.  That still translates to a massive increase across the board and a slightly less massive increase (~+70% ) in that one ability (Shield of Righteousness).

This shakes things up a bit since you would be theoretically be able to reduce the damage taken on big hits to the point where healers can keep up. On a side note here; your healers love steady damage like Auras and stuff . Spiky damage gives them heart palpitations (the bad “heart attack” kind … not the “I Love you” kind).

This is purely speculation but the idea is that if you can survive 2 Hateful strikes back-to-back (thanks to Mitigation) ANY healer worth his salt in a Raid can keep up. At that point mitigation through blocking actually becomes as-good-as, if not better than, the spiky avoidance. If you stack Avoidance you’re “gambling” that you’ll be able to avoid the hits – but you may not have enough Mitigation to survive 2 back-to-back Hateful strikes.

If that didn’t convince you that Block value is becoming OP, remember what we said about Dodge and Parry in the previous article – they are both subject to diminishing returns (Soft capped at 25% each), where as Block Rating and Block Value stacks to infinity.

I know it can get confusing if you’re new to tanking or to the paladin class in general but the bottom line is this: If you haven’t started building a second set yet (a Dodge set and  a Block set), you should. Paladins should especially heed this since they end up tanking Adds half the time and Bosses the other half.

One final word on this issue: the ONLY Judges here are your Healers! They are the ones that keep you alive and if you really want to know which is better ask them if you become “easier to heal” after switching a few pieces of gear around. Even if you take more damage overall with mitigation,  if it’s more evenly spread out and easier to heal through, you might consider updating your wardrobe.

Every Tank should really listen to their Healers … after all your life is in THEIR HANDS ultimately – not your own (Isn’t that Ironic )

Avoidance vs. Mitigation; the debate continues … now get out there and Dominate (the game .. .not the debate)

(This article will be updated with values from field experience after 3.2 is released)

Articles in this thread:

Part 1 – The Basics

Part 2 – Combat Ratings

Part 3 – Armor: Mitigation vs. Avoidance (You are Here)

Part 4 – Hit Table and Threat Generation

Part 5  – Abilities and Rotation

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear

This has been a long time coming and I wish it was there when I started – but due to popular demand, Here it is.

It’s not that complicated really … but it can be tricky if you’re new to tanking or to the paladin class in general.

Things you should know about the Paladin Tank:

This time it’s all basics, boring but fundamental; and fundamentals are rather important. If you have never played a paladin, or if you just got to 80, just know that tanking as a paladin is like discovering a whole new character, it’s unlike anything you have ever done before. While leveling your goal was to kill things as fast as possible. Now your sole mission in life is to put yourself in harm’s way and hope your healers are on the ball and the DPS is high enough. (Although any well played tank can make a healer’s job a lot easier).

This series of articles is intended for the Protection Paladin who tanks in PvE content, and wants to clear 5-Man dungeons and/or 10-25 man Raids. Also note that the writer is of the opinion that Tanking is more of an art form rather than hard science and common sense and personal opinion weigh in as much as mathematical calculations.

Much of the content that will follow here and over the next few articles in the series,  is drawn in part from the following sources:
ElitistJerks.com for the most explicit and detailed WoW theory-crafting available on the net
TankSpot.com for the guides, videos and examples.
Aemaeth/Zmack for screaming at me until I got it right.
All the healers in the guild for bearing with me until I got the fights down.
The rest of the guild for suffering through my learning curve and still accepting to raid with me in the process…

Let’s get down to brass tacks: the approach to playing a level 80 Protection Paladin is a complete 180 from the Retribution spec that you used to get there. Here are some “No D’uh” basics that may seem obvious but still worth mentioning.  As a matter of fact, these basic rules apply to every tank, not just the paladin. Since I came from the ranged DPS world (lock if you must know), I won’t take it for granted that you know any more than I did when I started to tank.

Also, since there are so many people who just know this stuff already (and who like to scream NOOOOB) we figured it would be the best place to start for anyone who hasn’t tanked at all.  If you’ve never tanked, do a few runs in some regular Northrend dungeons with these things in mind.  And it sure wouldn’t hurt to take along someone who is an experienced tank to give you even more pointers (Zmack for instance).

• The Paladin is the Master of AoE Tanking since most of your abilities hit multiple targets.

• As a rule, you (The Tank) control the positioning of the mobs/bosses: always face mobs away from the raid – DPS goes UP when attacks come from behind mobs.  Don’t make the whole raid run around the mob, YOU turn the mob so that the raid is always behind what you’re tanking.  DPS will rise dramatically the less time they have to spend getting into position.  The joust move is the best way to get to the right spot.  Strafe through the mob(s) and then spin to face the raid.  You will be in front of the mob and the raid will be behind them – with as little wasted time as possible.  This is tanking 101.  Good tanks always turn mobs, stupid tanks don’t.  Don’t be a doofus.

• Since you control the positioning of the boss (and mobs): Move as little as possible unless the situation demands it.  You’ll get more out of the entire raid’s DPS if they can just sit there and face roll their rotation, (especially true for melee … think Patchwerk).  Again, don’t move if you do not absolutely have to.  It can make the melee DPS guys absolutely hate your guts if they are constantly having to get behind/closer/overthere/overhere/closer/behind – statue tanking is best, make the mobs come to you (There is an ability commonly referred to as “Taunt” for such situations).

• Try to keep your back to a wall and avoid knock-backs if necessary. Strafe through mob groups and then back up to a wall.  Mobs are programmed to try to get behind you.  Standing against a wall cuts that sort of nonsense out.

• When positioning, NEVER turn your back to mobs, you cannot Dodge, Parry or Block from behind. Instead Strafe, so that the boss or mob is never “behind” you.  If you need to move, always move backwards or strafe.  This is one of the most subtle differences between a good tank and a crummy one.  Once you learn to do this properly you will be able to tell who is a good tank in one or two pulls.

• It may look like I’ve already said this, but Strafe, Strafe, Strafe.  Once you engage mobs keep your face (or cheek ; ) to them, and if you must move, do NOT turn and run, learn to strafe in flat arcs (see figures below).  Good tanks will actually look a little drunk most of the time.  Running sideways and banging into walls all the time.  But what  a luscious sight for the rest of the raid – especially the healers.

• This may seem silly but Oh so important: Don’t get out of range of your healers … or Line of Sight for that matter.  This is easier for a paladin than a warrior.  Warriors like to charge and it can be a real pain for a healer to have to run to get in range.  Try to pull mobs so that you pull them into range instead of running headlong away from healers.

• Don’t engage the Boss until your healers have full Mana … you’ll live longer   A tank’s first priority is to make sure that he is behaving responsibly toward those responsible for him.  Annoy healers at your own risk.  It’s common courtesy to take a glance at your healer’s mana pool before you make some gigantic pull.

• It’s best if everyone is ALIVE when you start a pull, wait for the healers to rez your dead friends (who probably dies because you missed a mob on that last trash pull). Pulling early is the cause of more wipes on trash than any other single thing.  Overly aggressive chain pulls put too much pressure on healers trying to rez AND catch back up to the heals they could have been making if you weren’t being a knucklehead.

• Once you choose your talents in the Protection tree for the first time, remember to train them up … level 1 spells/abilities aren’t all that useful in Heroics, or anywhere else for that matter.  This seems stupid, but a brand new spec often can include a touch of forgetfulness when it comes to skills you’ve never trained before.

All kidding aside, Tanking is a High Stress job, if you wipe or people die, it’s usually your fault (usually).

Here’s a little graphical depiction of what we’ve been talking about:

This is a pretty typical pull in most 5 man dungeons.  This is a 5 man group with a Paladin (P/T), Rogue (R), Warrior (W), Warlock (L), and Healer (H).  We have a pull of 3 mobs coming up where the (P) is a patrol and there is also a Caster (C) and Mele (M).

At the pull the rogue is stealthed out in front near the patrol.  Wait until the patrol is moving away from the group.  As the patrol crosses the face of the caster, that paladin tank runs right up to the group and begins to generate aggro (more on this in another article).  The warrior follows along with the rogue – but since our tank knows exactly where to put the group of mobs, the healer and lock can just stand still and begin to DPS the caster (or heal, of course).

As soon as the tank pulls (where the straight line becomes a curve), he turns to his left and strafes left up against the wall and drops his Consecration.  This will pin the mobs to his face with their backs to the group in perfect position.  His back is to a wall so that the mobs cannot get behind him, and his melee buddies can stand in one place and hit all three mobs from behind without moving an inch.  Plus, the Lock and healer haven’t moved an inch since the pull began.  They can just noggin roll their keyboards or even AOE with no worries.

If something does go wrong and it becomes necessary to move, the tank can just make the flat strafe arc to the far wall.  (Let’s say the mobs drop a void zone or some other nasty thing).  Strafe left while turning right a bit will actually keep the rogue and warrior from having to move more than a few steps – keep the tank’s face to the mobs, and the ranged won’t have to move at all.  You run the long way around so that everyone else moves as little as possible and are always attacking from behind.  Plus, you get your back against another wall and keep the mobs in a nice tight little cluster.  Just remember to strafe in circles around mobs.

Now that you have the bare essentials in mind let’s move on to: Tanking Mechanics, Basic Stats, Combat Ratings, Gearing choices (Mitigation vs. Avoidance), Threat Generation, Professions, Enchantments and Gems, but I have a feeling that most of you want to see the Talent Build first.

So we’ll start with that and build the rest of these articles around this since it’s the core of the character.

My preferred Tanking Build as of patch 3.1.3

I’ll highlight the important ones and give a brief reasoning behind my choice, let you mull it over for a while and answer questions next time when we cover the next topic:

Divinity – Rank 5/5
Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 5%. (Makes you easier to heal.)

Improved Righteous Fury – Rank 3/3
While Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 6%. (Single largest threat generation tool available, you WILL lose aggro without it.)

Blessing of Sanctuary – Rank 1/1
Places a Blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 2% of maximum displayed mana. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. (Big mana boost and damage reduction.)

Spiritual Attunement – Rank 2/2
A passive ability that gives the Paladin mana when healed by other friendly targets’ spells. The amount of mana gained is equal to 10% of the amount healed. (OOM tank usually = wipe … )

Ardent Defender – Rank 3/3
When you have less than 35% health, all damage taken is reduced by 30%. (Gives your healers a chance to catch up, it has saved our raids more times then I can count.)

Redoubt – Rank 3/3
Increases your block value by 30% and damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 30%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks. (Block Value = DPS=  Threat=  Good!)

Guarded by the Light – Rank 2/2
Reduces spell damage taken by 6% and gives a 100% chance to refresh the duration of your Divine Plea when you hit an enemy. In addition, your Divine Plea spell is 100% less likely to be dispelled. (Divine Plea should be up on every fight that will last longer then 30 seconds, this makes it almost permanent and is more then 50% of your Mana regen)

Pursuit of Justice – Rank 2/2
Reduces the duration of all Disarm effects by 50% and increases movement and mounted movement speed by 15%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects. (This ability is Crucial for movement intensive fights, Heigan the unclean, Anub’Rekhan, Malygos, Ignis, Razorscale etc.

These are the more important talents and/or the ones that need an explanation.

Next time: Combat Ratings (Hit, Defense, Block value, Dodge, Parry etc). Start with the basic build and the fundamental tanking tactics covered above and before we’re through you might be able to say you DOMINATE!

Articles in this thread:

Part 1 – The Basics (You are here)

Part 2 – Combat Ratings

Part 3 – Armor: Mitigation vs. Avoidance

Part 4 – Hit Table and Threat Generation

Part 5  – Abilities and Rotation

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear

A few days back I wrote an article about Getting a Low Level character to Booty Bay.  Well the endeavor in question was Arbitrage.   I have been using almost every other trick in the AH Mastery Guide, so I figured why not maximize my efforts?

I work ~60 hrs/week; and when I get home the last thing I want to do is work some more. I would much rather get to PLAY WoW instead of “working” (Farming and such non-sense) again. If I can buy something for 100g and turn around and sell it for 200, that’s 100g PROFIT in 5 minutes, that’s 1 whole night of raid repair bills (Ok, not quite … but you get the picture).

Arbitrage is Buying something from one faction and selling it for a profit to the other faction on the same server. To do that you need to use the Neutral Auction houses (Booty Bay: StrangleThorn Vale; Everlook: WinterSpring; Gadgetzan: Tanaris).  Booty Bay in Stranglethorn Vale is the quickest, hands down.  Especially since we’ve already covered how to get a level 1 Alliance toon down there with no sweat.

The most important thing to know about Neutral Auction House: They will take a 20% cut on your sale. So … you’ll want to list the item for 1 silver (or less) and buy it right away.

On Fenris, there are far more Alliance players then Horde, and that is the case with most servers.  One faction will almost always have a much larger auction house than the other. Plus, prices for most items will vary between factions which means lots of opportunities for killer profits (you’ll have to use Auctioneer to get your server’s prices for both sides).

For Instance: Book of Glyph Mastery sells for 50-100g on Horde but on the Alliance side they list for 150-200g each.  When I see things like this here’s what I do:

• Buy the Item with your Horde Bank toon and send it to your Horde Mule, sitting at the auction house in BB.
• Have the Mule List the item for 1 silver.
• Buy out that auction with your Alliance Mule in BB. Once the Alliance character has picked up the item out of the mailbox he can then …
• Send it to your Alliance Banker (sitting in Exodar of course) post that sucker for sale at the AH and voila … instant profit!

The way we set up Auctioneer you can find out what items are profitable for Arbitrage with one click of a button.  That’s the true power of Gavin’s system.  You can also turn right around and repeat the process with the Alliance toon selling things on the Horde side.  In a matter of a few weeks you can have an enormous bankroll on both factions.

Now that you know – get out there and DOMINATE both sides of your server.

P.S. if you haven’t purchased the AH Mastery Guide for whatever reason, this is just one of many neat little tricks that it explains in far greater detail. Learn to EARN your money the smart way.  Farming is for Farmers … I’d rather  be a PLAYER not a Farmer.

How To Get A Level 1 Alliance Toon To Booty Bay In 15 Minutes Or Less

So there I was 53 minutes and 17 corpse runs into my attempts to get an Alliance character to Booty Bay, just about to give up the whole idea when a guildie heard my plea on Vent and mentioned this tiny tidbit … It was so good that I can’t help but share it with you folks.  Ok, I exaggerate a bit.  But if you’ve ever tried to get all the way to Booty Bay before level 20 you know it can be a bear – or at least a monkey.

There is a really good reason why I wanted a low level toon in Booty Bay, but you’re going to have to wait for that part.  But this tip is so good it couldn’t wait at all and I didn’t want it getting buried in the reason I was trying to get to Stranglethorn in the first place.

You can use this technique to get just about anywhere between Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms at even level 1 with absolutely no worries whatsoever, and you’ll be moving faster to boot – so here is the killer low level travel tip from the folks in the Dominate guild.

(This is certified to be working as of Patch 3.1.3)

As a side note – it’s not that we forgot about the horde (they can use this too)it’s just that when it comes to getting to Booty Bay, the Horde have it easy: Orgrimmar to Ratchet and on to Booty Bay.  But for the Alliance … Good Grief! … until now. . .

So here’s how this goes:

• Create a Human (shortest distance to run from start zone)

• Die (Yes …  get killed, anywhere will do)

• In spirit form (50% speed increase)  Walk/Run south, out of Elwynn Forest, across Duskwood (you can even run on the river between Westfall and Duskwood if you want) and down to Stranglethorn Vale.

• Stand next to the Spirit Healer outside of Booty Bay (if you follow the road you can’t miss her)

• Log out and exit the game while still dead

• Log back in and accept the rez (No sickness because you’re level 1  ) It seems that exiting the game resets the location of your body to the closest Spirit Healer

Now you can get your new level 1 character almost anywhere in Azeroth in record time. This is just as valid for the Horde as it is for Alliance. You can get your level 1 Tauren to Orgrimmar if you like, or your Night Elf to Ironforge faster then you ever could before. No more begging for a portal, or trying to buy an escort.

Here is why this particular trick comes in handy in one word: Arbitrage

Now that you know, Get out there and DOMINATE.