Writing away with Blog.com

Well it’s been forever since I put anything on here.  It would be a whole lot easier if that whole “real life” thing didn’t get in the way so much.  I appreciate all of the people who have taken the time to read my posts, respond to my posts and actually advertise my blog.  It means a lot!

So lately there have been some changes going on in the guild that I’m currently in.  Personalities are all over the board in this game.  There is no denying it.  Some people have important jobs with exclusive titles and so they feel entitled to the same type of respect and importance in everything they do up to and including World of Warcraft.  Some people were the assholes that got beat up after school or snapped with a towel in the showers after gym class.  However, they hold a very important role to the guild they are in.  Others have the feeling that they are a nobody in the real world, so why would anything change in a virtual world?

It’s because if these different personality types that guild ranks can be the reason for major drama, heartache, tears, or chronic masturbation.  But here’s the real question…….how important IS that guild rank?  I mean, honestly, at the end of the day whether you’re the guild master or an officer do you think guildies walk past you in your major city and tremble in fear at your presence?  If you think that that is the case, I want you to know that I’m having sexual relations with your wife.  Because you’ll obviously believe anything.

Here’s the basics that I’m going to break down for you.  The guild is (or should be as closed to as possible) a well oiled machine.  Each component is important.  Whether it’s the person who does farming or craft leveling, or the raid leader.  Everyone has a specific role that they have to fulfill to make the guild a success and a fun/appealing environment to be a part of.  Again, ALL MEMBERS ARE IMPORTANT.  However within this personal society, as with everything, there has to be some sort of a rank structure.  That’s just the way of life.  Everyone has a boss in real life.  Everyone’s boss has a boss.  You get the idea.  At this point, the idea of being a well oiled machine goes right out the window.  EVERYONE wants to be the “important part” to make the machine function.  And when they aren’t that “important part” or “special snowflake”, here comes the drama.  This drama becomes significantly worse if the ranks were to ever change.  Some people get SO bent around the idea of being “an officer” or having the “officer” title attached to their name that it goes from a game, to a job.  The guild master now has to log in and juggle personality conflicts because someone feels more important or should be more important than they currently are.  The reason people feel like they should become more important in the guild is because in a short amount of time, they’ve become Mr. or Mrs. Popular.  Everyone loves them.  They are a RIOT in guild chat, awesome in vent, whatever.  It’s this “Everyone loves me so I MUST be an officer” mentality that kills guilds.  What these people don’t realize is that there are people who have been there LONG before they ever hit the scene.  Those people helped make the guild what it is and have asked for little to nothing in return.  They are core guildies.  It’s great that you may have joined the guild and because you decide to post your tits all over twitter or turn ANYTHING into a sexual innuendo which causes sweaty nerds across America to sweat profusely on their folding chair, you are owed nothing.  In the grand scheme of things, you’ve been here for 20 minutes and chances are you’re a flash in the pan.

So Twizz, dude, how do I fix a problem like this?  I have a solution that MIGHT work for SOME guilds.  Maybe if you’re a GM and reading this it might spark an idea or two.  Or if you’re a player looking to start your own guild, you may want to give this idea system a whirl.  As far as a rank structure goes, don’t give people ranks, give them labels.  I know what you’re thinking, “Good game Twizz!  Way to NOT make a lick of fucking sense!”.  Hear me out…

Everyone is at SOME stage of the game. Some toons are leveling.  Some JUST hit 85.  Others are raiding.  Chances are, if someone has a main character in your guild, they also have an alt.  I would make a label that identifies who they are, and where they are in the game.  There is nothing wrong with creating a label that says “Gearing Out” for people who are fresh to 85.  This label will let other players know that there is a good chance they might be able to hop in a LFG together and share the mutual benefit of Valor Points, shorter waiting times and god forbid getting to know a fellow guildie you may know nothing about.  Another label that could be used is the simple term “Raider”.  That could be identified with someone who has cleared or is clearing current raid content.  This may come with benefits such as the ability to ginvite and gkick people or bust them down in rank.  Why?  These are the people who are fairly serious (more often than not) about the game.  SOMEONE has to be around in case an account gets hacked and someone who is labeled as “leveling” is running around butt naked and cleaning the guild bank out.  Someone DOES need to be around for those instances since the GM WILL have to sleep at some point and will not be logged in.  The last label may go to alts.  I’d recommend “Gatherer” with a note that says “mining” or “herbing”.  If all works out right, and the guild is trying to be a well oiled machine helping itself out, these gatherers should be well stocked with mats for flasks, cauldrons, feasts, etc.  That being said, if you have an alt that’s labeled a gatherer, it’s YOUR job to pull your weight.  People will come to you for mats and be thankful that you have them just as you’ll be thankful to go to the skinner and get the mats for your leg enchant.  Do you kinda see what I’m doing here?  When everyone functions properly and the common goal is to help everyone in the guild progress on whatever they are doing, that drama is avoided assuming people are responsible enough to pull their weight.

Another label that just came to mind may be “Starting Out”.  It’s identified as a new guy in the guild.  You have to earn your way in and show initiative.  After that, you’ll be part of the cool club and running with your new guildies through all phases of the game.  But until that point, you only have the guild name above your head and nothing more.

This was all brought on by some in guild drama that made me sit back and get nauseous.  Get off your “I’m so important” kick.  The world doesn’t owe you a damn thing because you’re a slut.  If you’re Mr. or Mrs. Popular, that’s wonderful, but if you can’t heal, tank or dps your way out of a paper bag, what makes you SO important to the guild?   There is no “I” in Team.  But there is a “Fuck you if you don’t like it” if you rearrange the letters and add a few more.

Twizz out.

Check out the podcast I share with Resident Evil!  “Rep Grind Radio” available on iTunes, Stitcher Radio and you can stream the show on http://Eviscerated.net

Follow me on Twitter:  @TwizzleTank

So I try to play the role of the concerned male.  You know how it goes.  Every once in a while you feel that spark to try to help out and “go that extra mile”.  The only place that it could EVER be ruined would be…..you guessed it…..World of Warcraft.

“OK, Twizz, seriously, what the fuck are you even talking about?”  Allow me to explain….

Since my latest post on this blog, a LOT has happened.  I covered some of the bigger things briefly in my last post and I won’t get into it again.  But lets just say I’ve been really busy in the WoW community!  I’ve been part of a guild now for a while on Kul Tiras (Horde side) with the co-host of Rep Grind Radio Mr. R9sid9nt9vil.  We opened up recruiting to our listeners and we’ve gotten a really good response!  One person in particular was nice enough to bring over his druid and be a bear tank.  Well…..he came to the right place.  His gear needed some work and I explained how to do the tank dance and what the meaning of cooldowns truly means.

After beating a target dummy completely bloody, I decided to give him a taste of the old Headless Horseman’s blade.  I walked him through how to do it, what abilities to use and his threat was great and I did little to no healing on him.  THAT is when I came up with my next great idea…..

“Lets go do a regular random dungeon.  Nothing super challenging and you’ll overgear it so you won’t have to worry about dps pulling threat or anything….you can concentrate on your cooldowns and rotation as well as the actual feeling of tanking”.   Those were famous last words.

Now, one little thing before I get too far into this.  Lets say that you’re…..uuumm….an 83 mage.  You land in a dungeon with a fairly well geared tank and healer and both are level 85.  I’d think to myself “SWEEEEEET!  This is going to be an easy run!”  Apparently some people forget that luxury and are more concerned with getting through the dungeon in less than 7 minutes because anything after that is a waste of their precious, PRECIOUS, FUCKING PRECIOUS time.

So we land in our dungeon and it’s got a fairly tricky pull right off the bat.  I’m explaining to him that his best bet is to just run in there and grab everything you can.  Now, I’m explaining this in vent so it took…..MAYBE……7 seconds.  That’s when the 83 mage (as previously discussed) decides to open his mouth and say “go tank!  god!  fucking GO!”.  I told him to chill out and I was explaining in vent to a new tank how it works.

Well I found out something that EVERYONE knows and somehow in my 4 years of gameplay I happened to overlook!  According to this dickbag, tanking is easy!  Run in, grab threat on everything and that’s it.  There is NOTHING else to do but that.

Well, I explained to him that there’s a little bit more than that and all I got was 100% attitude.  I told him he could put up with a slightly slower pace or he could go sit back in que.  I should have booted him, but for some reason, I didn’t.

Anyways, he proceeded to tell me about how he used to have a bear tank back in wrath and he “just gave it up because it was too fucking easy and boring”.  He also called me an elitist several times and it finally got to the point where I just typed “For the love of God….just shut up.  Please.  Just go the fuck away or shut up”.  To no avail obviously.

But the reason I type this post is because I’m seeing a trend.  Low amount of tanks available…….heals are available but not overflowing…….and then you have the dps.  The people who love to run the show.  The people who always know the most efficient way of doing things, yet they don’t do them themselves.  The people who have an 85 Ret Pally, an 85 Enhancement Shaman, an 85 Rogue and an 85 frost DK, however, they know how to tank everything better than anyone.  “It’s easy….you just run in and grab threat”.  No, you ignorant fuck.  Threat is the least of your worries now.  Staying alive in these dungeons is key.  Also, being a tank and dealing with a dps that refuses to target the same thing that everyone else is.  How does a new tank deal with that?  THESE are the things I’m trying to teach and have him learn and all you’re doing is making life harder.  I’m trying to make another tank available in the que.  You know, maybe lower your wait time by 30 seconds or a minute.  And this is what you say?  This is how you treat him?  I don’t blame him if he never wants to tank again, and he did a REALLY good job for his first go at it.

So therein lies the problem.  And I know some of you are going to say “Dude, I know tanks that are just as bad if not worse….”  Well allow me to retort….

Here’s a SMALL list of shit we have to deal with on a DAILY basis:

1)  A dps that just ignores the fact that skull goes first, then X, then whatever is CC’d.  “Fuck that, I’ll target what I want”.

2)  LOW dps.  That’s right, people who just don’t know how to play their class.  The healer can only keep my alive for SO long guys before I’m out of cooldowns and he’s out of mana.  You don’t know your shit, we all die.  You’re the “DAMAGE DEALER”.

3)  DPS thinking that everything is a faceroll.   They acquire a little bit of gear and suddenly all mechanics can be ignored and they just do what they want.  It doesn’t work that way.

4)  DPS that think that it’s their job to pull a mob because the tank isn’t going fast enough (or fast enough for their liking).  What YOU (Mr. DPS) have probably failed to see is that maybe the tank is waiting on a cooldown (ie: enrage, death & decay, etc) and needs that in order to generate threat.  MAYBE the fucking healer is out of mana!  I KNOW FOR A FACT that you didn’t look at the healers mana before YOU decided to pull the mob.  That’s things we learn to do as a tank.

I could give you reasons 5-50 but we all have a semi-limited amount of time

So, I debated about doing this or not and decided to go with it.  Here’s the douchebag…….

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/dragonmaw/Bonezs/simple

So anyways, as you sit in que for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20+ minutes…….I apologize if you’re a good person.  Because a few people shit their pants…….you ALL have to wear diapers now.

Twizz out.

Check out Rep Grind Radio on iTunes and Stitcher!  I host it with R9sid9nt9vil and we have a blast!

@TwizzleTank on Twitter

All-

Sorry it’s taken a while for me to update this or throw out any words of wisdom!  Sometimes real life gets in the way, however, I’ve had a few AWESOME things happen recently and that’s what’s been keeping me busy.

First, I’m a host on a brand new podcast called “Rep Grind Radio”.  You can hear me and my c0-host “R9sid9nt 9vil” talk about everything in game that we’ve done from questing and raiding, to excellent gold making tips and more!  This podcast is 100% free to download via iTunes.  It’s perfect for those long drawn out days at work or those car rides that seem to never end.

Secondly, I’ve become affiliated with Ask Mr. Robot and I’m looking forward to that journey!  www.askmrrobot.com will allow you to load your character and tell you how to gem/enchant and reforge your character for maximum output.  That’s right!  Put your mind on cruise control and let Mr. Robot do the thinking for you.  You just sit back and enjoy the survivability and the big numbers.

Lastly, I’d like to thank everyone who pays a visit to this site.  I see the site statistics and know that people make a regular stop to see what’s going on.  Again, I promise you new posts in the very near future for you to feast your eyes upon!

Until then!

Twizz out.

So there you sit in front of your character select screen.  You have your main guy.  You know, the one that is sitting with the full tier 5, 6, and tier 7 set.  He’s done a lot but there’s always time to do more right?  There’s a few achievements you haven’t gotten on him.  You’ve slammed down raid after raid and gotten a ton of achievements in that fashion, but you’re lacking severely in the PvP department.  But still, there’s something that’s stopping you from hitting that “Enter World” button.  What is it?  What is that itch you have?  No, it’s not the remnants of that special gift your ex-girlfriend gave you before she told you she cheated on you.  It’s the fact that you want to play WoW, but you want a change of pace.

Regardless of what you might believe, this feeling is alright.  Everyone gets it.  Their main is their baby and it’s what they want to spend time on.  It’s perfectly acceptable.  But it’s human nature to always be curious about what else is out there.  Is there a certain class or spec that you want to try out?  Are you afraid that you’ll like it so much that you’ll start neglecting that main toon that you’ve had since day one?  Don’t worry about all that shit!  Compared to a lot of other MMO’s out there, Blizzard has done a wonderful job at giving you SO many options!  You have 2 factions, 6 races, and 10 different classes to tide you over.  Starting an alt is a GREAT idea for the following reasons:

1)  It gives you a whole new perspective on the game.  Some different starting area quests (which is nice) and a chance to get a feel for your new toon.  You may go through the same old quests you’ve already just gone through, however, you have to kill the mobs a different way now.  The grind changes.  Before as a prot spec’d warrior you could go into a pack of 4 mobs and AOE them all down and live through it.  On the Mage you just started, it’s the kiting game.  It’s all about feeling out and getting total control of your character.  That’s when you learn the most effective way of taking down a mob and knowing when to use that big spell to bring them down for the count.

*on a side note, it’s because of that fact that I’m astounded when I get into a dungeon with other 85′s that don’t know REMOTELY how to play their class.  How the HELL did you level all the way to 85 and you have NO CLUE what your toon can do?

2)  This is your chance to make money!  The biggest gold making strategy in WoW is based on mats.  If you get your alt up to level 20 or 30, put him down for a little while and farm some stuff for him on your main.  If your alt is an enchanter, go run some lowbie dungeons, get the greens, send them to your alt, have him DE them and use the mats to level until he can’t level any more.  Then sell them!  There are SO many people out there who are too lazy to do something like that and they’d rather pay top dollar off the auction house for a mat as opposed to farming it themselves.  In the meantime, you’re making money AND skill points!

3)  As we all know, the two sides of the game that are specific to each faction are PvE and PvP.  I personally have always HATED PvP.  However, the start of a new toon with xp available in BG’s might just turn you onto that idea.  You may completely melt face with that shadow priest at level 25.  You may Fear the hell out of that Warrior with your warlock and love every minute of it.

The point of all of this is that Blizzard has really given us everything we need to keep ourselves occupied with this game.  And with content release being as slow as it is, you’re going to need some stuff to occupy your time until that new patch or expansion comes out.  People are very one sided.  When someone who has every class, and every race and every achievement says they are bored, it is THEN time for Blizzard to start listening.  I’ve yet to see that happen though.

Twizz out.

Follow me on Twitter @TwizzleTank or you can e-mail me!  TwizzleTank@gmail.com  Don’t forget to listen to me and @R9sid9nt9vil on Rep Grind Radio!  Rep Grind Radio is WoW’s newest podcast!  We talk about gold making, things happening in game and upcoming changes!  We’re available on iTunes and Stitcher Radio!

We’ve all used it.  Most of us still use it.  Recount.  The addon that is chalk full of information used to either stroke the e-peen or call out the idiots for not doing something right.  At some point throughout almost any dungeon or raid, you’re going to see a stream of numbers cycle up your chat box giving an in depth description of how everyone did with their damage.  Usually, it’s continuously spammed by the person who is at the top of that chart just so everyone in the group/raid knows that “THEY are the badass”.  But we don’t live in a game now where that is a huge deal.  Big numbers are always good to see and with the current stats on gear, like it or not, you’re going to see them.

Personally, on my shaman who is freshly 85, I’ve seen healing crits for 56K.  Even on my tank (which isn’t supposed to be a dps hound) I’ve seen 31K crits.  As a dps, you’re going to see big numbers all the time.  BUT, looking at how heroics and current raid content is set up, you’re constantly on the move.  As everyone knows, when you’re moving (for the most part) you’re not casting anything that’s not an instant spell.  When you’re not casting spells, you’re not doing damage.  What many players fail to realize is that when you’re dead, you don’t get to cast ANY spells at all.  Period.  I’ve been in heroics where a dps dies and then immediately posts recount.  Is he (or she) at the top of the list?  Yup!  But guess what you snot slinging reject, you stood in the fire and died because the healer felt healing the tank was more important than your dumb ass.  NOW, you’ve gone from the top of the charts, to zero.  Congratulations.  And you continue to wonder why you’re time in LFG is about 40 minutes?  Tanks and healers don’t want to put up with you, but really have no choice.

On the flip-side however, there are times where this addon can prevent a wipe fest.  A lot of the Cataclysm encounters require to you play the game by the mechanics and not just burn the boss down and heal through the damage.  There are things that have been thrown back into the game like interrupts.  Interrupting a bosses ability can do wondrous things.  It can prevent the boss from healing himself back up to full health.  It can prevent him from summoning adds and overwhelming the tank.  There are limitless mechanics that the interrupt ability puts an immediate stop to.  Recount will tell you how many interrupts were cast in a particular fight.  That’s right DPS!  You guessed it!  Recount tells things BESIDES how awesome you think you are!  Please don’t feel cheated…..  If someone doesn’t confess that they don’t know the fight, and interrupts NEED to be cast, that will tell you right away when the persons name doesn’t even show up on the list  for interrupts.  That is where the tool can be useful in preventing wipe after wipe after wipe.

The last thing that I would like to point out about recount is the fact that you can click on each player and see what their primary spell is.  If someone’s gear is very good, however they are pulling half the dps they should be, it’s an easy way to see exactly where the broken link in the error chain is.  I’ve seen mages who have 75% of their gear from raids and they are only doing about 6K dps.  Upon further inspection, they are only spamming frostbolt.  I’m sure you can see the problems.  If the rotation looks good, you can then question their “give a shit” level.  Again, after a 40 minute wait, you’d think that they want to go all out and add to the group as much as possible, but alas, so many stupid people in this game.

So I guess the overall point to this post is this:  Has recount ruined wow?  I personally believe it’s a 50/50 split.  When it’s apparent that dps is all someone cares about, then yes.  They are only stroking their e-peen and making life rough on the rest of the group.  You’re big numbers don’t do a single thing for the healer or tank except make life more difficult.  However, if you can actually spot why the boss isn’t getting killed or why someones dps output doesn’t equal their gear rating, you can offer the help which will in turn change their numbers and make you look like a hero.

I apologize if I was really hard on dps during this post.  It was a rough couple of randoms and they all had the same theme…….”look at how much dps I’m doing!”.

Twizz out.

Follow me on Twitter!  @TwizzleTank or you can shoot me an e-mail at TwizzleTank@gmail.com

Waggro, or most commonly referred to as “wife aggro” is one of the biggest causes of player deaths, missed LFG ques, and AFK ready checks in the World of Warcraft.  It seems like you could sometimes sit next to your wife or girlfriend for hours on end and very little is said or done.  However, within the first 15 minutes that you log into game, suddenly you have become the center of attention and a laundry list of 50 things comes flying out of nowhere and smacks you in the face.   And no, it never happens in the first 5 minutes you log on.  PSHT!  WAY too easy to leave the game where it sits to go and take care of the bag of dog food that’s been in the back of the car all week but MUST be brought into the house right NOW!  No way.  It’s actually an internal timer that women who are married to WoW players have.  It’s a sense that they’ve given you enough time to really get into making some progress on something, before they come strip you of that good feeling of accomplishment.

“Dude, Twizz, I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about!”

“What do I do about this?”

“I don’t know what’s worse, buck the system or give in and not play WoW?”

I don’t have all the answers, but I DO have some.  I will tell you a little bit about what has happened with my wife and I the past few months regarding WoW and hopefully this will work for you.  It may be stuff that you’ve heard of in the past that just won’t work, it may be something you’ve tried and it failed, but this is what’s worked for me….

I’ve been playing WoW since the middle of BC.  I’ve never experienced Vanilla WoW or anything like that.  However, I’ve played long enough to have had some time invested in the game.  I’m an altoholic.  Always have been, always will be.  So with lots of alts comes LOTS of activities.  Leveling, professions, auction housing, dungeon running, pet collecting, achievement….ing?, etc. etc. etc.  It sounds like lots of fun and I’m sure that there are a lot of readers that know exactly what I’m talking about.  It almost sounds like a job, but a fun one at least.  Anyways, all of this started taking up my time quite a bit.  At that time though, I had no kids, it was my wife and I, what was there to worry about?  Well, everything went downhill fast.  It wasn’t until recently that we came to an agreement on how to manage my WoW time.  Here’s the rules:

1)  I play from 9:00 – midnight on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.  Occasionally on the weekends a little bit assuming there’s truly nothing going on.  That means I’m playing an average of 8-10 hours MAX per week.  I’m sorry, but that is a perfectly acceptable time frame for a hobby.

2)  I do the simple stuff.  I get home from work an hour before my wife does.  If I can clean up the dishes, pick up the crap around the house and make it look nice and neat, and possibly something else that I KNOW she would climb all over me for not doing, I do it (ie: mow the grass, bring the garbage cans in).  That way when she gets home, she can sit her ass on the couch or do whatever she wants to do and not be aggravated at a messy house that she feels she has to clean by herself.  When she feels that way, you’ll get hit with the 50 things she wants you to do just as your LFG pops (as previously mentioned).

3)  Getting back to playing from 9:00-midnight real quick.  Her and my little guy are asleep at those times.  So therefore there is little to no quality time I’m missing out on.  When she sees me around, I’m not playing WoW.  When she’s sleeping, I’m doing what I want to do.

4)  She needs a hobby!  SO many people will tell you to “find something you both enjoy doing and spend time together doing it!”.  Those people can fuck RIGHT off.  They can take that idea and stick it STRAIGHT in their asses.  Listen, YOU play WoW.  It’s what  YOU do.  SHE has to find something that SHE can do.  Just because she doesn’t have a hobby, doesn’t mean you have to give up MORE of your time to pick one for the both of you.  Once she finds that hobby, you’re WoW time will open up even more.

5)  Don’t talk about WoW in front of her.  It’s as easy as that.  If she hates the game, the last thing she’s going to want to hear about is the fact that you finally got your Tier 11 legs last night.  Be smart.  That’s only going to piss her off more.  The less she knows about your WoW involvement, the better off you’ll be.  Less guilt trips, less fights, etc.  I’m not telling you to hide anything, but if you want to avoid getting hit by a golf ball you’ll avoid walking out into the middle of the driving range now won’t you?

In conclusion, these are a few things that have worked out for me and allowed me to continue playing the game I love and not abuse or neglect my family.  I’ve found that it keeps me from not paying attention to my little boy or my wife and my house doesn’t turn into a shambles because I’ve neglected it.  We’ve all become a lot happier because of it.  Does she still dislike WoW?  Yeah, for the most part.  Are we building resentment towards each other because of this game?  Not any more……and thank God.

Twizz out.

Follow me on Twitter @TwizzleTank or e-mail me!  TwizzleTank@gmail.com

I’ve been tracking my website hits and most viewed stuff and it looks like every time I bring up the word “tank”, it gets the most views.  So, I figured I would take some time to talk just a little bit about that.

I’m going to be 100% honest with you.  I don’t know crap about being a DK tank or a Pally tank.  I’ve always been lost with Pally’s.  I started reading the spells that Pally’s have and it completely loses me.  I feel like their descriptions are “The Paladin is filled with Holy Light causing 2% damage to reflect back to the casters target’s target and reducing all damage taken from party members by 12% as long as they are all wearing pants”.  Ok, in WHAT situation would I possibly use that?  I’m sure people reading this are saying “Dude, Pally tanking is one of the easiest classes to tank with”.  I’m sure for you, but not for me.  DK’s are supposed to be THE tank.  The mastery all revolves around self healing and return healing.  It just helps out the healers a ton which is nice.  I have a 56 Warrior who is prot spec’d only and I have really enjoyed tanking him up through the dungeons.  But at 56, I have no basis to really tell you how to be an effective tank.

My forte’ is on the Bear.  You don’t see many of us around anymore.  The patch before Cataclysm really hit us hard and kind of made it no fun to be a bear.  Swipe was put on a 6 second cooldown which took any sort of AOE tanking away from us all together.  So….we had to tab target and try to keep aggro on each individual mob.  Keep in mind, this was during the wrath days so marking targets was non-existent.  AOE’s pulled mobs off the bears, we were all called “fail” and it left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.  Also Blizzard wanted to make all the tanks fall in place and be more streamline.  That meant a health nerf to us.  Bears have always been the ones with the crazy high health pools.  Now, we’re equal across the board.  I’m sure all of this information makes you want to go right out and start up a bear tank doesn’t it?  Well fear not.  Things have gotten better.

Level 1 – 18:

Here’s my recommendations.  Get comfy with your kitty spec and quest up to level 18.  At level 10 dump your first point into the bear tree so you can pick up mangle right away.  I chose 18 as the cap because at 18 you get swipe.  That’s going to be your best friend for a while so get ready!

First things first.  What are we going to stack?  Well, any leather piece that has stamina and agility.  Basically in the lower levels, if a rogue would use it, you want to use it too!  Agility gives you a number of things.  It gives you attack power as well as dodge and crit.  What’s the benefits of those three things you ask?  Attack power makes all of your abilities hit harder.  Dodge means that if an enemy or boss goes to strike you, you have a chance to dodge out of the way and either take partial or no damage.  That means you’re not dying and the healer isn’t worried about keeping you alive…..for a split second.  Critical Strike Rating is a good thing!  If you have a critical strike against an enemy, it will increase your threat and decrease the chances that some stupid dps is going to pull the boss off of you.  Things that you would want to avoid is anything with haste, parry or block.  Mostly those will be on plate items, however you might see them on the occasional ring or necklace.  They will do you virtually no good.

THE PULL!

Ok, here we are, we’re level 18 (maybe higher) and everyone is standing behind me waiting for me to go.  Usually you’re going to have a group of 3 or 4 that you’ll want to get a hold of.  This is where swipe comes in handy.  Stay on one main target and between mangle and swipe you should have enough to keep hold of all of them.  Tab every once and again and hit other mobs with a mangle.  ALWAYS hit swipe every time it’s available.  That’s just buying you insurance at that point.  At level 15 you will learn an ability called “Maul”.  This is NOT on the global cooldown and if you glyph into it, it will hit additional targets when you use it.  Yet another great ability to do damage to multiple targets and keep all the mobs ON YOU.  Another good thing to throw into your rotation is Demoralizing Roar.  This will reduce the damage from enemies by 10% and lasts for 30 seconds.  It’s not an offensive ability, it’s a defensive ability.  It’s you helping to keep yourself alive.

NOTE:  At 15 you’ve also learned an ability called growl.  Did one of those pesky dps pull a target off of you?  Growl at the target and hit him with a mangle to show him where he belongs!

So you’ve become comfy with all these things and you’ve just dinged level 24!  Congrats!  Now you’ve learned a spell called Faerie Fire.  This is something you can either throw into your rotation, or possibly pull a group with.  It decreases the targets armor by 4% (12% if you spec into it) which will make the enemies take more damage.  That’s a debuff that helps everyone in the group you are in.  Burning bosses faster=finishing instances faster=phat loots.

So you’ve ravaged your way through SM and ZF and various other dungeons and have now reached the golden level of 52!  Go head to the trainer and pick up the spell “Frenzied Regeneration”.  You’ll hear all the time in raid chats and other tanking threads “Blow your cooldowns!”  Well, this is your first cooldown you’ll get to blow in an “oh crap I’m almost dead” situation.  What this spell does is it boosts your overall health by 30% and starts converting rage into health.  It’ll buy you enough time hopefully for that healer to get his big heal off that will put you back up to full again.  If you glyph into it, you lose the ability to convert rage into health, however healing effects on your are increased.  So it’s definitely a worthwhile glyph to get especially at the end game raiding level.  You’re little bit of rage isn’t going to be enough to heal you through a big hit from a boss.  However the fact that heals are hitting you harder is going to help out a ton.

Ding! 58!  Congrats!  Speaking of cooldowns, here comes your next one.  Barkskin reduces your damage taken by 20%.  Again, it’s not an offensive ability, it’s a defensive ability that you can use to help keep yourself alive.  Add that to your hot bar next to Frenzied Regeneration.  Chances are, if you need to blow one cooldown, you’ll probably need to blow both at this point.

At level 66 you’ll learn your bread and butter ability for bear tanking.  Lacerate!  Now is when you’ll start doing the lacerate/mangle dance.  Ideally (depending on the situation) you’re going to want to stack lacerate 3 times and then mangle.  Mangle is going to hit harder and cause your bleed effects to hit harder as well.  So lacerate generates threat by putting a bleed on the target.  The more stacks you have (up to 3) the higher the damage is going to be.  If you mangle the target, with 3 stacks of lacerate up, it’s going to increase the damage even more.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  We’re not trying to out dps anyone here.  The more damage you put out, the higher your threat is going to be.  You ARE the tank and you have to have all targets on you always.

Right now you’re rotation should look something like this on a single target:

Faerie Fire (to pull) – lacerate – mangle – maul – lacerate – lacerate -mangle – maul

It doesn’t have to be that EXACTLY but I’ll explain why that will work for the time being.  Faerie Fire will automatically put the debuff on the target and pull him to you.  Lacerate puts the first dot.  Mangle increases the damage of that dot. Maul isn’t on the global cooldown so that’s another easy hit to throw in there and generate additional threat without having to go through a global cooldown.  Lacerate x 2 will increase the severity and frequency of the dots.  Mangle will also intensify the bleed/dot damage and your last Maul is used, again, because it’s off the global cooldown.  When in doubt…..lacerate and mangle.  If you don’t know what else to do, make sure you have 3 stacks of lacerate up all the time and you’re hitting mangle every time you can.

So you’ve beat down everyone from Northrend and it’s time to get into some cataclysm content.  A few things have changed.  Upon reaching level 80, you’ve now opened yourself up to reforging your gear.  Here’s my rules to live by.  Not gospel, but it’s never done me wrong:

Always reforge to Dodge.  Get rid of haste every time you can and switch it to dodge.  If you’re stuck with crit and mastery, keep the mastery and sacrifice the crit.  Some people may disagree with that decision, but if you understand what the bear mastery does, it will make sense.  I’ll cover that later.

Here’s some ideas I have regarding the 80-81 journey.  Don’t tank.  Get back into your kitty cat form and go questing.  Those shiny greens you get as quest rewards will far outweigh anything you get from Northrend.  It doesn’t matter where you quest really.  You’ll get similar gear from both 80-81 zones.  If you do try to go into any of the higher end 81-85 dungeons in your shiny purples from Northrend, you’re going to get your face stomped in.

At 81 you’ll learn a bear ability called thrash.  This was the AOE gift we had been waiting for from Blizzard.  Thrash puts a dot on everything around you and it ticks pretty hard so combined with swipe, you’ll have a good hold on everything around you.  That is really the last tanking ability you’re going to learn all the way up to 85.  By now you should be able to see the effects of how everything works.  Swipe and Thrash keep mobs on you while lacerate and mangle keeps the mob that everyone else is burning down, attracted to you.  Glyphed maul is strictly insurance in your back pocket.

Ok, so you’ve seen all of the abilities and how I recommend how to use them.  I understand, different strokes for different folks however and my style may not work for you.  That’s perfectly alright.  I know that I don’t have aggro issues for the most part.

So lets talk about one of the hardest things to understand and successfully pull off…….THE TAUNT!

There you are in a raid and you’ve got another tank that is just PUMPING out the threat.  Now you have to taunt that target and KEEP him on you even though the other tank is just going balls out.  Here’s my rotation:

Just before I have to taunt I make sure I have 3 stacks of lacerate ticking away.  Then taunt – Mangle – Pulverize (it’s in your talent tree and you MUST spec into it) – thrash – lacerate x 3 – mangle.  Be sure to throw a Maul in there if you have the time.  Basically what you’ve done is you’ve set yourself up to be able to put out a bunch of burst damage.  After that rotation, you should be able to look at the threat meter and see a good lead on the other tank.  Some new tanks think that as soon as they taunt the boss, the boss is just going to start attacking him.  WRONG.  The boss attacks he who has more threat.  So make sure you are….he. 

Here is a link to my build and you can view my glyphs and equipment.  You’ll also be able to get a good feel on how I have gem’d enchanted, and reforged my gear.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/emerald-dream/twizzl%C3%A9/talent/primary

There is a TON of threads about bear tanking out there.  This is just what has worked for me and the raiding guild that I’m in.

Twizz out.

Questions?  TwizzleTank@gmail.com or you can follow me on Twitter @TwizzleTank

So, first things first this morning.  Get up, get my 8 month old out of his crib and set him up with his bottle.  Wander into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and I sit in front of my computer to catch up on the latest happenings of WoW.  This morning was kinda of a shocker, but not really.  As I read the top post on www.mmo-champion.com I see how Blizzards subscribers are down 5%.  Apparently it’s because everyone is “racing through content” a lot faster than anticipated.  Personally, I think that Blizz needs to open their eyes and see that releasing 4.1 5 months after 4.0 is a LITTLE on the unacceptable side.  I can speak from experience when I say that if I give my son a toy, within 5 minutes he’s bored with it and wants something else.

There’s also other things that play into this situation.  How many people have multiple accounts?  Now that the BOA items are account bound and you can transfer them to another account…..why keep that other account?  Put all your goodies in one spot and forget that additional $30 game card you have to buy every month.  It’s a no-brainer!

One of the biggest problems with this game is the Nerd “E-peen”.  Yup, I said it.  It’s the fact that someone out there has to have the best of the best at all times so they can walk around their city and have the noobs tremble in fear.  Guess what Blizz?  Those are the guys who are going to clear the content the fastest and THOSE are the guys that are going to cry the most on the forums about how they have nothing left to do.

So all of this having been said it made me wonder this……

If Blizzard announced that 4.2 was the last patch to ever be released (no expansions or anything….basically, WoW is over) would you continue to play for a little while?  Would you try to see all the content you could or would you lose the motivation knowing that nothing else was going to come out?  I would think you’d see a huge drop in server population therefore making it harder to get people to group together to clear old content/current content.

Let me know what YOU would do!

Twizz out.

Follow me on Twitter @TwizzleTank  or drop me an e-mail!  TwizzleTank@gmail.com

So it was an exciting night last Thursday night.  We downed 5 of 6 bosses in BWD.  As some of you know, my raid leader is one of the hosts of the Stopcast podcast.  It’s a very good podcast that pretty much sorts out views on upcoming WoW things as well as a good discussion regarding what the hosts have done in game throughout the past week.  Just before I logged off, Ryar (said raid leader and podcaster) asked if I and the main tank would be willing to guest host on the next podcast episode.  He had received an e-mail from a listener and wanted us to attack it.  I ended up being too ill to actually make an appearance on the podcast, however I e-mailed a pretty good response.  Below is the e-mail and my response when it comes to wanting to become a new tank:

Dear Stopcast,

Have a few question for your next podcast:

1) I want to start tanking ( and wanna be good at it) (have prot specs on my 84 pally, 83 warrior and 85 DK)….haven’t tanked anything since LK on 10 man NAXX as a OT. I know what stats i need for my gear however is Mastery one those?, ie in the line with Stamina, dodge parry etc etc…also any other tips would be great.

Again thanks for the game and keep up the great work on the podcast.

My personal response:

O-M-G.  Did he just say….”gold farmer”?  The lowest of lows in the WoW community!  I can’t believe he would even address such a subject of wrongness and theft!  Seriously, Twizz……are you going to talk about this?

Yes.  Get ready.

So there I am.  I’m on my level 56 warrior tank surfing the auction house for the newest buff food to tank with since I am in another tier of cooked goods that I now qualify for.  MAN ALIVE!  Has anyone seen the price of Tough Jerky these days?  It’s GOT to be magical because I saw 4 stacks of 5 going for 4200 gold on the auction house!  Now, unless there’s a new Tough Jerky mount in the game that got introduced with 4.1, I’m thinking the seller is simply waiting for his real life order to pay out in game.  It’s funny really.  You hear ALL sorts of things from Blizzard about how you shouldn’t buy gold and such.  There’s even a huge post that they put out talking about how it upsets the economy and is the DIRECT CAUSE of all the orphans during childrens week.  You can go to just about any forum and read posts that pretty much say “Buying gold leads to account theft!”.  After seeing all these signs of the apocalypse you would think people would get the hint.  BUT, they don’t.  I challenge you right now to surf around on your server (or multiple servers if you have toons elsewhere) and look at the low level things going for astronomical amounts.  You’ll see it at some point and if you don’t see it right away, check again a little bit later.

SO, knowing that it’s happening and knowing that it’s going to continue to happen…..is there anything that can really be done?  Lets say that someone does get their account hacked because of a gold farmer.  I think it should be Blizzards right to say, “Well, we looked at your account activity and you received 15,000 gold shortly before you logged off.  After an hour or so, you logged back on and vendored your gear and  mailed that 15,000+ gold to a level 10 on the server.  That level 10 transferred off the server 20 minutes after he received the gold.  Yeah….you don’t have an authenticator that we’ve all but GIVEN to you and you want us to jump through hoops to get your account back?  Start a new account and don’t be a total moron.  Have a nice day.”.  Lets be honest, what’s going to take more time?  Finding out the gear that was lost, reprogramming it to get into your mailbox, reset your password and make sure that the password gets to the TRUE owner of the account.  OR, investigating some of the causes as to how the account was lost and making a judgment call?  My dad always told me “Twizz, if it looks like poop and it smells like poop….chances are….it’s poop.”  Blizzard is so accommodating to the people who break the rules that were set forth.  “We’ll give you gold and badges and stuff until your account gets back to normal!”.  Yeah, there ya go, give more rewards to the people who least deserve them.  Those rewards should go to people who have an authenticator on their account and someone found a work around.  In which case Blizz, your system failed.  I’d be willing to bet that the time spent on retrieving hacked accounts due to someone beating their authenticator would be more worth while and could lead to further security measures than the ones that had no authenticators and ignored the warning signs.

This is quite the twisted web though!  On the flip-side of the coin, a person who buys a large amount of gold really has nothing left to try to make money.  That person could win the roll on a random epic that falls off of raid trash.  He takes it to the AH and sees 3 other identical items at 8K gold.  Well, he’s richer than God at that point, so he’ll probably undercut them by 50% just to be a d-bag.  That just made a piece of gear that I was looking at VERY affordable now.  So did Mr. Gold farmer just become my friend?  You betcha!  So again, Mr. D-bag decides he wants to level his leatherworking.  He hasn’t TOUCHED it since Cata launched and now that he has the money, it’s time to get that to 525 and be even more of a pimp.  Guess what?  Because he has the money, he’s going to buy up EVERY single Leatherworking mat you’ve been trying to get rid of for weeks.  You want 350g for the latest blue quality leather piece?  No problem!  Because I spent $75 with Mr. Goldfarmer, I think I’ll take ALL 10 that are for sale.  Thank you!  At this point Mr. Gold farmer just made my Christmas card list.

SO, with these two scenarios in place, is it truly a bad idea to buy gold?  Lets be honest, surf around for a few minutes and you’ll see all sorts of wicked deals on gold.  $75 can get you 50,000 gold on one site.  $.50 can get you 1,000 gold on another one.  It’s almost too good to pass up!  Are you going to affect the economy of Blizzards auction house?  Yeah, but that’s not your problem to keep under control is it?  Shouldn’t that rest on the shoulders of Blizzard?  You know Blizzard right?  They charge 5,000 gold for epic flying.  They charge 16,000 gold for a mammoth with a repair dude on the back.  You know who I’m talking about right?

SO, I know everyone is out there saying “But gold is SO easy to come by now!”.  We’re human.  We’re greedy.  If we made 300 gold off the auction house, we’re not satisfied.  Especially when we see epic gear going for 14,000-16,000 gold.  What’s that 300 gold gonna do for me?  That’s barely repairs at the end of raid night.  Making money in WoW is easy, if you have the time to sit down and think everything out, come up with a strategy on your next move and then attack.  But as a casual player, we don’t want to do that.  We want to log in to WoW to play the game.  I want to raid or do heroics or something.  Sitting in front of an auctioneer with a calculator for an hour and a half is a waste of my night.  I won’t get that rep mount from crunching numbers all night.  As a very casual player, here’s what happens.  You log on.  Check the guild roster to see if your buddies are on.  You go out, do a couple daily’s to bump your skill points up and net a little bit of easy gold that way.  You could go to TB and do the dailies out there, but unless you want to spend twice as much time trying to fight past a 12 year old on a rogue who’s just massacring you, that’s not a good use of time.  You might be able to farm for just a little while.  Scoop up some ore or some herbs and sell them.  All in all, at that rate, you’ll make a few hundred gold in a week…..assuming you do that ALMOST every day.

So no matter how you slice it, there’s pro’s and con’s to all of this nonsense.  I’m sure there are MILLIONS of arguments in my theories and whatnot.  But….this is just WoW according to Twizz.  It’s not gospel.

Twizz out.

Follow me on Twitter! @TwizzleTank