Project Lore

Ever feel like your career choice is going nowhere? You’ve put in your time, and invested a lot in your job, but in the end you are just not getting enough out of it to make it worthwhile? You feel like you should stay out of loyalty, but in the end you just know you would be far happier doing something else?

Well I am at that point in life. While I have certainly served my tenure, I just see no reason to stay an engineer. Yes I’m talking about my WoW profession, what did you think I was talking about?

I have been an enchanter/engineer for as long as I can remember. I have been a perfectly happy enchanter, I get a nice boost from the ring enchants, and I feel like I am providing a valuable service to my guild (although I wish I could get a few more shards). Engineering on the other hand, has always been about one thing for me. The goggles. In TBC they were the first epic I acquired at 70 and I wore it all the way until I was leveling again. I loved the goggles, and they were worth the entire profession. Now things have been a bit different. I excitedly leveled my engineering again in Wrath, and crafted the goggles as soon as I could.

Then I ran Naxx 10, and found that that T7 helm would replace them for me. That’s right - the item that lasted me all the way into the Black Temple in TBC was replaced by an item from the first 10 man dungeon in Wrath.

So after spending thousands of gold and tons of time leveling engineering in Wrath I am seriously considering just dropping it all together. I’ve never been one to change my professions, and I’ve taken pride in the fact that I’ve had the ones I do for so long, but I just don’t really see the point anymore.

My thought is it may be time to pick up jewelcrafting. The stat bonuses seem much greater, as does the money making potential. I understand this will be an expensive prospect, but I think in the long run it will be worth it. I could really use a more profitable profession, and those special gems and trinkets look just awesome to me.

So what do you think loyal readers? I am asking for some advice here. Should I stick with engineering until 3.1 with hopes of some new patterns? Or should I drop it right away and stat my new career as a JC? Perhaps there is even another career choice I should consider? What do you think? I am in need of career counseling.

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So here is a little rant for you guys. I have no delusions about changing the world here, but there is a bit of a double standard out there in the World of Warcraft that I can’t help but point out.

I don’t think (dis)enchanters should have to roll against the group for the shards they collect off of the unused gear. I think they should get to keep them all to themselves. Given, I am an enchanter, so I am a bit biased on this one, but it seems right.

Think about it. When there is a mining node in an instance, do we all roll for the ore/gems? When a skinner pulls an arctic fur off of a slain foe, do we all roll for it? What about the leather? In the groups I run with anyway, the answer is always no.

I’ve heard the argument plenty of times. “But we all worked for that loot!” Well… we all cleared the trash to the mining node, and we all killed the mob that you skinned. How is this different? Because a need/greed box pops up? I have not problems giving out gear, even to off spec, but if the group decides to shard the gear. It should be my shard.

After all, I need those shards to buy my enchants. Why should I have a 1 in 5 chance at the shard I provide, when you all have a 1 in 1 chance at anything you get off of your professions in the instance. It just doesn’t seem right, but then again I have a sinking feeling it is never going to change.

What do you guys think? Am I being greedy? Or is everyone else? Do me favor, next time that blue gets sharded, at least think about passing to your friendly guild disenchanter.

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Welcome to part three of my tanking stats overview for Tanking 101. So far we have covered maxing out our defense and talked a bit about avoidance. So we know how to make critical hits impossible, and we know how to avoid hits altogether. Today let’s talk about how to reduce the damage that actually gets through. There are two basic ways to do this. We can block the attack, or we can reduce the damage with our armor.

Blocking of course is only for the Warrior and Paladin tanks out there, but it is an important and somewhat confusing topic, so here we go!

Block Rating: This stat increases the chance that you will block an incoming attack with your shield. You still take damage, but your shield will stop a good part of that damage. This can almost be classified as an avoidance stat, because you stack it much in the same way that you stack dodge and parry, in fact it all fits into the same equation to figure out your overall avoidance. You will find that this is the easiest to stack in terms of avoidance per point, but it also is the least effective due to the fact you are still taking damage. When it comes to avoidance dodge is still king, but BR is a great stat to stack, particularly if you are a Paladin going for the block cap (102.4 total avoidance)

Block Value: The difference between block rating and block value is a major stumbling block for many up and coming tanks. It is important to note that THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Where block rating determines your chance to block an attack, block value determines how much of the total damage is blocked. Block value basically says how much damage is going to be shaved off the incoming attack when you block it. So in review, Rating = how often, Value = how much.

Armor: Armor can take a giant chunk of the damage we take in. In many cases it can be reduced by 60-70% if you have a lot of armor. Unfortunately there is really very little we can do to affect this. Armor comes with our gear's item level. So as you upgrade your armor will go up, it is not something to pay particular attention to. In my experience special items with extra armor are rarely worth it. Now I must apologize to the bears out there. I know that armor is a whole different game for you guys, I just can’t say I really know the ins and outs.

What is The Real World Raid Application? This one is pretty simple. Ever wonder why mobs can beat on you all day, yet if one gets loose they will once shot a clothie? They hit them a lot harder than they hit you because you have tons of armor to push take a bite out of the damage. After armor takes off its chuck, then you can block and take off even more. It is easy to see how this can really help, especially against multiple mobs. While many people tend to frown on mitigation as compared to avoidance, I remain a big fan. In many situations the difference between life and death can be a few thousand hit points. When that is the case, you are glad you pushed damage off the table to keep you alive.

So there you go! Now we have covered defense, avoidance, and mitigation. We are far from done however, as there are lots of more stats that play into being an effective tank. We will talk about some of those next time!

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So I am now proudly wearing the Merrymaker title over my head, and am still on track for my violet proto-drake. As I look back at the Winter Veil holiday event there is one thing above all else I am grateful for. There was not special holiday boss with a super rare mount drop!! Don’t get me wrong, new bosses are fun, seasonal loot is fun, but for my own personal sanity I am glad I didn’t have to put myself through the grinder this holiday season.

Yes I am the guy that killed Coren Direbrew over 200X during Brewfest, and no Kodo mount for me. Then I kill The Headless Horseman about 100X before I lost my sanity at not seeing the Horseman’s Reins drop, and swore off mount grinding (at least until the next opportunity).

See somewhere in those hours and days of praying for a mount to drop, I lost perspective on the whole thing. It stopped being a game and started being an obsession. Something about limited time only exclusive items just flips a switch in my head.

I would like to think I have learned my lesson, but I know that I haven’t. After all I did log every alt I have opening every gift under the tree for all the seasonal pets. Fortunately for me that was a 30 minute activity and not a 30 hour one.

All in all I am relieved. The event was fun, there was lots of to do, and great achievements to achieve. All this and I didn’t have to live in some obscure dungeon begging guildies to let me use their summon. It was a happy Winter Veil!

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Today I would like to continue the tanking discussion we started the other day and dive a little deeper into the world of tanking stats. Last time around I discussed defense, which is the first major stat you need to get capped as an up and coming tank. It actually carries over quite nicely into today’s topic. Once you have 540 defense and are “capped” you can keep stacking it to improve all the stats I am discussing today. In fact some argue “cap” is the wrong word as you continue to see benefit from additional defense. Now, I would like to talk a bit about avoidance. So lets get right into it!

Avoidance –

What is it? Just because mob swings at you doesn’t mean he has to hit you! In fact we generally prefer that he doesn’t. This is where avoidance comes it. When a mob swings at you there are basically 5 options if you are at or above 540 defense. He either a) hits you b) misses you c) you parry the attack d) you dodge the attack or e) you block the attack.

Our goal is to make it so that A is not an option. Miss is a built in game mechanic which we have little control over (defense will help some here), fortunately we have lots of control over block, dodge, and parry. We need to stack these stats so that we avoid as much incoming damage as possible. Block technically falls into the “mitigation” category where it only stops a portion of the incoming damage, so I will cover that next time, for now let’s talk about dodge and parry.

Dodge: This stat increases that chance that you will dodge the attack, avoiding the damage from the swing completely. That’s right, you take no damage if you dodge! This makes it one of the best stats for a tank to stack. This is obviously better than avoiding just a portion, and therefore all things being equal is preferable to block. It is harder to stack than block (less rating per point on your gear), but it’s well worth seeking out the gear to help with this.

Parry: You didn’t think it could get any better than avoiding all damage, but it can. When you increase your chance to parry an attack the tank benefits from the avoided damage. The swing timer on YOUR attack is sped up after a parry which results in more damage from you, and higher threat on your target. This stat is especially useful to warrior and death knight tanks (especially DKs). Bears can’t parry and Pallies see little benefit. It also happens to be the most difficult to stack in terms of points per overall avoidance percentage.

How Much Do You Need? It can obviously be bit of a balancing act getting all these stats straightened out. Overall a tank can become “block capped” at 102.4% avoidance. This means when dodge, parry, block, and miss add up to 102.4% every incoming attack will be affected by one of those stats. This is not easy to do, but remember to take into account class abilities. Paladins for example have a fairly easy time of reaching this because holy shield gives 30% extra block rating, and it is possible to keep it up 100% of the time. If you do reach the block cap then it is time to stop stacking block and replace it with the superior dodge. Ideally just stack as much avoidance as you can, because it rocks. Just strike a balance, some of it is more effective, some is easier to stack.

A few things to keep in mind are that there are diminishing returns on these stats, so taking one of them way above the others may not be your best bet. However when in doubt dodge is almost always your best option for an avoidance statistic. This topic goes pretty deep so feel free to read around for more info, I am just giving you the basics here.

What Is The Real World Raid Application? You can see how this would be very important in a raid. With raid bosses hitting as hard as they do, pushing some of that damage completely off the table is a huge plus to your raid. Looking at fights like Patchwerk, having an off-tank with high avoidance means some of his huge hateful strikes go away completely!

I would argue that avoidance is the most important stat for tanking as it has a profound affect on how much damage is coming it. You can have all the health in the world, but if you are taking lots of damage then you are still hard to heal, and are likely a big drain of mana on your healers.

That is my overview of avoidance, my personal favorite tanking stat. Next time I will go over mitigation, and how to take a chunk out of the damage that gets through!

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I got into a bit of an argument with Death knight tank in a PUG raid the other day that make me realize that tanking stats are often misunderstood. This particular tank was convinced that Stamina was the end all be all of tanking stats and that nothing else mattered. This is of course far from the truth, but it got me thinking.

With the introduction of a new tanking class, and the supposed tank shortage in general there are lots and lots of people playing a tank for the first time.

If that’s the case then there lots of people who need to understand tanking stats so that they can gear themselves to be the best tank they can be. With that said I have decided to do a series of blogs discussing the major tanking stats and saying what they mean. Hopefully this will give tanks and non-tanks alike an understanding of what tanks are looking for, and what to look for in a tank!

Today I would like to talk about the stat that everyone is talking about. Defense!

Defense

What is it? Defense is the one that you probably hear the most about. The reason for this is likely because it is the first major cap that up and coming tanks need to hit at level 80. Defense’s role is twofold. First it determines the level at which a mob can critically strike you. Secondly, it adds additional value to your avoidance stats (I'll get more into that next time).

How Much Do You Need? The reason that 540 is the defense cap is because when you reach 540 defense you can no longer be critically hit by a level 83 mob, and by level 83 mob I mean a raid boss. For every level you take off the mob, you can take 5 points off the max required defense rating to remain uncritable. If you are only running heroics then you really only need 535 defense because the highest level mob you will see there is level 82. If you want to be uncritable against a level 80 mob the you really only need 525 defense.

That being said if you want to raid, you need to push crits off the table. So your number one gearing priority needs to be reaching 540 defense.

You probably noticed during the leveling process that the higher your level, the less defense rating you are actually getting from your items. This is because defense scales with level, and you will need a tremendous amount to make sure you are at the cap at 80 if you are still leveling. Think ahead! Crafted gear is a great place to find defense for reaching that cap.

What is The Real World Raid Application? So we’ve pushed crits off the table, but why is that important? When you take a crit you are taking 200% damage. This is very high spikey damage that is unpredictable and hard to heal through. If a crit gets through and you are not topped of (or even sometimes if you are) you will likely die. Raid bosses can often hit for upwards of 10k on plate, it doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out doubling that damage is very bad. If you die the raid wipes and you are an unpopular person... please resist the urge to blame the healers.

So there is a taste of my first Tanking 101 column. This first one is pretty basic, but please let me know what you think. Next time around I will be covering Avoidance, so stay tuned!

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Sometimes I have to stop and think that I made the wrong choice as far as my professions go. Being a tank I have grown accustomed to always being out of gold due to massive repair bills, but if I had made the smart choice I would have picked a profession to help balance that out. I didn’t. I am an enchanter/engineer, so I have two crafting professions. This means I don’t gather up mats, I have to buy them to level my professions. So it is safe to say I have spent a fair bit of time trolling the auction house looking for good deals. With the expansion being so new, there are lots of spikes and valleys as the market settles on a price for these new materials, but there is one trend that holds true no matter what. You gatherers are making a killing selling your mats! Prices on some of the more sought after mats have been just mind blowing. I know prices vary highly from server to server. But I am guessing we are all seeing the same trends. Being an engineer I’ve had to buy up lots of cobalt, saronite, and titanium bars to level up high enough to craft my goggles. This was an expensive process for me. The prices were just sky high, early on I saw stacks of lower level bars going for hundreds of gold each. Prices for herbs and leather haven’t been particularly low themselves. I imagine that those that are supplying these mats are getting very wealthy from them. I have several gathering friends that have straight up told me they have more gold then they know what to do with. That sounds like a good problem to have? I am pretty jealous of you guys that have built in income everyday from smelting titansteel. I’m fully aware that enchanters don’t have it so bad, and that enchanting mats are fetching a small fortune as well. My priority was leveling enchanting with those mats. Perhaps now that I am at 450 I can start to get some money back there. As far as my engineering goes, I am looking for clouds and gathering eternals… but these income methods seem to pail in comparison to the true gathering professions. It’s clear that there is gold to be had in Northrend if you know how to do it. So how are you doing? Are you gathering up a small fortune? Or are you the one lining the gatherers pockets?

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Unless you are living under a rock, you are undoubtedly familiar with the new achievement system Blizzard added with the latest expansion. I’ve touched on how much I enjoy the new system before, but I wanted to take a moment and dive a little deeper into it. I think it is no secret how much I like achievements, a lot. I am currently sitting at #2 in our guild for overall achievement points behind a certain draenei shaman who will remain nameless. During the lull between 3.0.2 and Wrath I really dove deep into these achievements, exploring the lands, running lowbie dungeons, and doing everything I could to knock them off my list while there was nothing better to do. Now that I have progressed past the initial stages of Wrath I am finding that they are filling a new void and giving me something else to go after. Now that I have finished all of the level 80 dungeons on regular and heroic, other than farming badges, there would typically be little reason to go back. Now I am finding myself wanting to run them over and over again, hoping that I can knock off some of those special achievements off the list during the boss achievements. I am finding myself responding to people asking me to tank with “only if we go after all the achievements.” Typically the response is “of course!” Some of the achievements I have recently knocked of are Lodi Dodi We Loves the Skadi, Intense Cold, and Chaos Theory. I am trying to figure out where to go next, to me the achievements in AzN seem tough, but I like a challenge and think I will be trying for those next! It seems lots of people are really digging these new goals inside of our heroics. I know I can list a few personal faves. What about you, are you enjoying the new carrots? Or do you see them as just another time sink? Which ones have you got, and which ones seem impossible?

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So I felt like I was in a pretty good groove; I hit level 80 in stride, more than one achievement for finishing off zone quests, and my trade skills were leveling up nicely. I really felt I was closing in on the end-game and getting back to where I was before this whole expansion thing. Then it hit me. I’m not even close. I was just flying around Storm Peaks, questing away, when I came into a collision course with the Sons of Hordir quest line. On this surface it didn’t seem so bad, it was long (33 quests), but not altogether unenjoyable. I’ll try not to get into too many details, but at a certain point you realize that this is a reputation grind, and a big one. After a quick visit with their quartermaster, I realized these guys were the source of all my new shoulder enchants. These are definitely a must for raiding. So I pick up a few dailies, and look at my rep bar… I need exalted, and I am just barely friendly. There is no championing, just dailies, dailies, dailies. Yikes. This is going to be a BIG project. After coming to that harsh realization, I dove into raiding in hope of picking up some of these free loots I have been hearing so much about. No dice. In my experience raiding isn’t the walk in the park everyone made it out to be. Sure there are some easier encounters. The Vault of Archavon wasn’t very demanding, and The Obsidian Sanctum (with all the adds down) wasn’t too bad, but I found plenty of challenge in Naxx. It is clear that progression will be a bit slow and there will be lots of gearing that needs to be done. I haven’t forgotten all these dungeons have a heroic mode either. Just like at level 70, I am getting the feeling this game begins at 80… and there is a lot of game ahead of us.

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If you haven’t been over to the Armory lately, you should definitely check it out. Blizzard has just done a major update which displays all of our achievements and game statistics along side the typical gear and reputation information. Reviews have been a bit mixed on this. I, for one, think it's great, but there are those that would argue there is now a bit too much information available to anyone interested enough to look it up. For me the armory has always been an invaluable tool when deciding if it is worth my time to go along on that PUG heroic. You can check out the groups gear and see if they are up to the task. It can also be very useful when filling out raid slots. I remember a few slow raiding nights where we almost took a few people in quest greens into The Eye because they claimed to be “geared.” A quick Armory can usually let you know really quickly what you are dealing with. Now the new Armory goes a bit beyond that; not only can you check out a persons gear, you can check to see if they have cleared that heroic before, or any heroic, or if they have ever earned an emblem of heroism. You can even see if what raids they’ve done, how much gold they’ve earned, and how much their biggest heal has been for. It’s all amazing really. I’ve heard arguments though. Is it really good to have the amount of gold you have earned out there? Doesn’t this make you a target for gold farmers, or beggers in Stormwind? While I personally like it, and don’t feel like I have much to hide. It still begs the questions. How much available information is too much? What do you think? Are you digging the new armory, or wanting your privacy back?

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