On ohgodkillmenow:

Just got The Argent Dawn, Argent Champion, Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms, and  Somewhat disappointingly, it was off of Chromatic Mantle of the Dawn, and not In Dreams or The Battle of Darrowshire as I had intended. But hey, it's done, I'm finished and I don't have to finish...... the rest..... of the...... *twitch* quests...... there........ right? *twitchtwitch*

(Goddamn me and my completionist streak. It *will* be the end of me, one of these days.)

On the other hand, still wiping on Sindragosa. I had *hoped* that I would be able to carry it out without any Frost Resist gear, after seeing my co-tank resist damage like nothing else, I got suspicious that it really might be me that was holding everyone back. So, one quick trip to the AH, one quick trip to my local Leatherworker, one quick trip to the bank to fish that dusty mark out of the vault, one quick trip to the leather armor shop, and one short hop to Dun Niffelheim, and I now have a set of frost resist gear, and a Sanctified Lasherweave Headguard to go with it, gemmed with an Effulgent Skyflare Diamond. After today, I should also be able to pick up an Idol of the Crying Moon as well. (My sense of overkill, or lack thereof, will probably be the end of me, too.)

Yes, that's right. I plunked down 95 Frost emblems for a second Lasherweave Headguard, and then gemmed and enchanted it up as Sindragosa gear. Now, the new meta gem is nothing new. I have been seriously considering using it in place of the time-tested Austere Earthsiege Diamond, but intended to use it once I had gotten much closer to the armor cap. Now, however, appears to no longer be an option. Testing it during the rest of ICC this next Tuesday should give me the data I need to determine whether I should be using this full time, geared as well as I am. I'd also resisted getting the Frost Emblem idol, since the ramp-up is murder on trash packs, but against Sindragosa, I want to leave nothing to chance.

With apologies to Mary Schmich, Baz Luhrmann, and Lee Perry:

Ladies and gentlemen, tanks freshly 80:

Talk to your group.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, talking to your group would be it. You let them know what you're up to, they let you know what they're up to, and things generally go smoother that way. The rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own long-suffering experience. I will dispense this advice, now.

Look around you, and enjoy the environment. Oh, never mind. You will not understand just how awe-inspiring the dungeons that Blizzard makes are until long after everything's on farm status. But trust me, in 20 levels, you'll look around when retro-raiding and recall in a way you can't grasp just how fantastic the environment and atmosphere was, just how much detail Blizzard put into the game.

Don't worry about wipes. Or worry, but know that worry about wipes is about as effective as trying to /silly them to death. The serious wipes are apt to be the ones that happen when you go and one-shot Blood Princes, two-shot Blood Queen, and then bring Sindragosa down to 1% on your very first try.

Try to tank something more challenging each day.

/dance.

Don't be recless with other people's repair bills. Don't put up with people who are reckless with your repair bills.

Repair.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you win the loot roll. Sometimes some Elesham with a Resto offspec and no business in a Melee DPS trinket wins it. The path to BiS is long, and, in the end, loot comes and goes.

Remember the fun people when using the Dungeon Finder. Forget the insults from stupid ones. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old tank trinkets. Sell or DE your blues and greens.

Move out of the fire.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know if you want to keep tanking at 80. The best tank I know started playing WoW on a Warlock. She still plays that Warlock.

Run 5-man Normal Trial of the Champion. Get The Black Heart. I still use that trinket when tanking ICC-25, to this day.

Maybe you'll get A Tribute to Insanity, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll beat The Lich King, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll keep wiping on the last part of Heroic Halls of Reflection, maybe you'll PUG 25-man ICC and one-shot Sindragosa Hardmode. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your tanking is only one part of the equation. Healing and DPS are too.

Enjoy your insta-queues. Use it to help people out whenever you can. Guildies, friends, random strangers. They will appreciate it and you more than you'll ever know.

/dance, especially in the killshots when you first down a raidboss.

Read the guides to tanking on Tankspot, Wowhead, or Wowwiki, even if that one obstinate DPS doesn't follow them.

Do not read the sites of top raiding guilds. They will only make you feel inferior.

Get to know your guild officers. You never know when they'll retire from the game. Be nice to your guildmates. They work just as hard at content as you, and you need them to progress.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Try to bridge the gaps in geography and work and school for raid times, but understand that a game is a game, and real life takes first precedence, even if you're the main tank or the fight-gimmick-enabler.

Play a healer to 80 once, but stop before it makes you bitter. Play a DPS to 80 once, but stop before it makes you soft. Tank.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Epic BoEs are expensive. Raids will wipe. You too, will get tired of tanking. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, epic world drops were cheap, raids never wiped on Professor Putricide, and Children's Week quests weren't bugged.

Respect your elders. The internet does give you free rein to be rude, ya whippersnappers.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a rich guild. Maybe you've cornered a market on the AH. But you never know when either one might vanish in a puff of smoke.

Don't mess too much with your spec, or by the time you figure it out, you'll have blown more gold than a goblin competing against a gnome trying to build a better death ray, only to come to the same conclusion that Elitist Jerks did five patches ago.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of looting a crystallized element from a trash mob, mailing it off to an alt, running it through a few professions, then crafting a BoE and putting it up on the AH for more than it's worth.

But trust me on talking to your group.

-BearTreeCat

On Achievement Spam:

I have been a *very* busy BearTreeCat lately. We one-shot Blood Princes, which was a complete and utter stumbling block for us for AGES now, two-shot Blood Queen, three-shot Valithria, and then brought Sindragosa down to ONE! FREAKING! PERCENT! on the first try. And then we wiped it the next four times. But no matter, we'll definately get it next week! And then.... The Lich King!

I'm cooking an article right now, though. Trying to figure out the legend and mysteries that are Feral PVP. I shall record my findings here for all to see, a testament to the ages.

-BearTreeCat

If I Had To Write Another Blog: Healing Edition

I like healing.

And yes, if I had to write another blog, I would write a healing blog. You may have seen the kind of criticism that sites like World of Matticus get, but when it all comes down to it, I like healing, and people like it when I heal. It is very rare when I play a game where I *don't* do some form of healing.

It's my stated goal to have one of each flavor of healer, at some point. I already have a Shaman, which I've mothballed due to my dislike of everything degenerating into Chain Heal spam when the going gets rough. I have my BearTreeCat, which I love, even despite the massive overheal numbers. I have my priest, which I am considering mothballing for now, because I just can't stand doing any low-level content, unless it's for my Druid's Loremaster achievement. The Paladin healer won't come until Cataclysm, though, because I can't stand Blood Elves. Which means yes, I do intend to make it some flavor of either Holycow or Retbull. (Yes, those jokes are old. No, I'm not going to stop using them.)

But I like healing. It's why I originally started this blog, alongside my Tanking. DPS didn't come until much later.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

-BearTreeCat

On Cataclysm changes:

Did you guys have a good weekend? Happy Mother's Day to any and all mothers out there. I'm pretty sure that's not the only thing that happened to you guys over the weekend, though. Because, y'know, there's just a tiny little thing called a "Cataclysm Friends and Family Alpha Leak" that happened over at MMO-Champion...

...and I'm not going to cover it. I'm not. Just flat out, plain not going to cover it. It's an Alpha build, plenty of talents have not yet been implemented, not all of the boring talents that need to be pruned have been pruned, and I don't care to have to revise things every time a new alpha build comes out. Maybe once it hits closed beta, definitely once it hits open beta, but not at the alpha stage.

I hear there are some pretty screenshots to be looking at, though!

-BearTreeCat

Completely Unrelated:

Because there is something oddly compelling about Hugh Jackman dancing his ass off, in a Japanese hotel, with ninja gardeners, and leading everyone, staff and tourists alike, in a giant dance number, all set to French funk.



-BearTreeCat

Hrm.

No news is good news, right? Nothing of real value on the Druid front, really, aside from some squawking over Resto spells that got blue responses back.

Our guild changes their raid schedule this week, and, given that I am going to be trying as best as I can to kill a flag carrier in WSG, things.... are probably going to be rather quiet for a bit.

All I have to say is: Two cats working in conjunction to take out targets is absolute murder. And I'm all for murdering Alliance. *AB win-flex*

-BearTreeCat

Point Break

Um... new blue post is up. And I dare say it fills me with trepidation. Still, I'm going to keep the "woohoo!~" in the holster.

Basically, the point is this: Instead of Emblems, you rack up points instead. Hero points (low-end) and Valor points, (high-end) like how we have Honor points and Arena points. (Arena points are being converted to Conquest points, earnable from both the rated BGs and Arena, but that's a different matter.)

When a new tier of raiding gear or PVP gear is released, everyone gets their high-end points converted into low-end points. Fair enough, it'll keep the bloat of different flavors of emblems down to a minimum. (I'm up to 195 EoF, by the way. I think I might just hold onto them all until I can buy the head and chest T10, and the Corroded Skeleton Key all at once. This way, I can keep renting the Skeleton Key from the ICC vendor in the meantime.)

Also according to the devs, there's a cap on high-end points earned weekly:

"To explain the reasoning for the weekly cap on points for the higher tiers, this is to provide flexibility in how players choose to earn the points without feeling like they have to do all of the content as often as it is available. If your Valor income from raiding is sufficient, you may not feel the need to run Dungeon Finder every night, or perhaps even at all. Likewise, a PvP player could choose to participate in a lot of Rated Battlegrounds but no Arenas, or focus on both, and still be able to earn the points they want."

Now, I am *all* for rated BGs. If there is one thing that has consistently irked me, it has been that Arena just doesn't fly for me at all. Either my 3v3 isn't all on, or we suck to much, or whatever, point being, PVP weapons are consistently Top 5 in terms of PvE tanking thanks to the overinflated Stamina and Agility numbers on the weapons. Also,

"We're removing personal rating requirements on almost all items; they're definitely removed for weapons"

There is no guarantee that future seasons' gear will remain overinflated with Stamina and Agility once everyone's stats are revamped, but if they remain even somewhat in-line with their current state, you can bet that you will see a LOT more Ferals in PvP, gearing themselves for raid content.

-BearTreeCat

On Raids in Cataclysm

Well, this was certainly unexpected. I certainly didn't expect things to change in such a drastic manner. And frankly, I'm not entirely sure I approve.

Take whatever side you will on the 10/25 divide, but while I primarily raid 10-man, I learn mechanics in 25-man. I feel that it's easier when you have additional people to pick up the slack when execution fails, and to have the full set of raid buffs/debuffs at hand allows for greater tolerance in... well, greater tolerance in fail.

I'm not completely against these new changes? And I won't make any judgments regarding smaller loot tables = less betterer itemization, because itemization is changing for everyone. But it's an interesting thing that they've put here.

Still, though. Temper your reactions, this is still Blizzard telling us stuff without actually telling us anything, again.

-BearTreeCat

Queuing as DPS

It's a guilty pleasure of mine. And honestly, I don't know why I didn't start doing it sooner. Yes, it's queuing as a Cat. (Argh, the more I look at the word 'queue' and 'queuing', the weirder it looks, and I keep thinking that I'm spelling it wrong.)


But there are problems with Cat DPS in heroics. Given the long start-up time required for our DPS to start rolling in, you really do have to change your priority list to do things well. Here's what I've been doing so far:

1. Rake if it isn't up already.
2. Savage Roar as soon as possible after engaging, even if you only have 1 point. Keep it up at all times.
3. If there are 3 or more mobs within your 180 degree frontal cone, Swipe. Even if you bottom out on Energy, you still do more damage-per-energy with one Swipe than with a mangle on each mob.
4. Mangle to build CP.
5. If a mob is going to cast a WTFtanksplode, Maim it.
6. If a mob is not going to last much longer, and you have 3 to 4 CP, Savage Roar and switch.
7. Ferocious Bite, and always on a bleeding target.
8. If you bottom out on Energy, and your Nature's Grasp is ready, use it to give yourself an extra shot at an OoC proc.

Now, I don't claim to be a priority theorycrafter, but this seems to be working well when doing heroics. I might need to tweak it here and there, but this seems to be working well enough.

-BearTreeCat