How not to be an Asshole Tank: LFR Version

It has now been a full expansion plus the preceding raid tier (Dragon Soul) that we have had access to LFR. Generally I am not a fan of LFR. I prefer normals or the spiffy new flex. I want to raid with my guildies, who are skilled and fun to raid with. However, the Wrathion legendary quests have required some LFR and I have done some in general for gear and valor points. When I zone into any instance I have a few expectations. No matter if it is a scenario, a 5man dungeon, or a raid, I expect that the people there have made some sort of effort to learn and equip their class. I still have these expectations in LFR, though my standards are a bit lower.

Wear appropriate gear. If you are a tank that gear is likely to have some combo of mastery, dodge, and parry. With haste for pallies and crit for bears and monks.

Make sure that the gear you will be wearing is gemmed and enchanted. It doesn't have to be perfectly optimally enchanted; some of the weapon enchants are expensive, and this is just LFR we are talking about. But you really, really need to have gems in all your sockets.

Check your reforges (in combination with your gems) and try to get the correct amount of the right stats. Ask Mr Robot is helpful for this, as well as several auto reforge addons. If you don't like Mr Robot's stat weights at least use something else to make sure you're hit/expertise capped.

The important thing (and what sparked this post) is that when you queue for LFR you're signing up to be there until the last boss of the wing is dead. Right now in Siege of Orgrimmar the queue is tank blocked. So if a tank queues and then drops after one or two bosses the rest of the raid is left sitting there twiddling their thumbs waiting and waiting for another tank. When you click that tank check box you're saying you'll be there for the wing. You're not saying that you'll flake after the first boss doesn't drop the loot you want.

I thought that the above expectations weren't excessive, but my experiences in LFR recently have proven me wrong. The dearth of tanks in LFR seems to be caused by a large number of tanks randomly dropping after a single boss or a single wipe. Some of them left the raid after being embarrassed when they were called out for dying too easily and it was pointed out they had no gems or enchants. In the five LFR I've run over the past two weeks I've not completed a single one with the same two tanks that it was started with.

Bear Kyrie

Over the past few days I've swapped one of Khyrie's specs from cat to bear. She kept her other spec as resto so she now has dual specs of healer and tank. If I wasn't already used to questing in the world as a tank from Mornara it could be problematic but between that and usually running around with one of DraNgNon's toons it shouldn't be an issue.

Khyrie's old cat spec was handy for dailies and a bit of questing, but I have come to realize that I am just not a fan of playing melee characters. Of course, I used to say that about anything other than playing mage, so we will see if that stays true in the future.

Anyway, over the weekend I did a bit of reading on the Elitist Jerks druid forums. And in an unsurprising turn of events the gear for bears and cats is pretty similar, so all the cat gear I'd been picking up from Timeless Isle stood Khyrie in good stead when she went bear. I did have to swap a bunch of gems and enchants and reforge pretty much anything. Because I'd only been doing dailies as a cat I'd kept that gear with only enough hit to deal with a level 92 mob, not a level 93 boss.

I also had to get a whole bunch of glyphs from Ikoli. With four druid specs I'd been slacking and hadn't picked up all of the bear glyphs. Of course once I had them all I needed to figure out what to actually use. Khyrie currently has some actual bear glyphs, but I am not sure if there aren't better ones for her. And I'm sure that I'll want to swap them out on a fight by fight basis if I ever take her into a normal mode raid.

Once I had glyphs and gear and talents sorted out I set up Khyrie's ability bars for bear. I've tried to keep the same sort of abilities in the same place as I have it for Morn's blood spec. Of course it can't be an exact mapping, but I have her basic single target attacks on my left hand, aoe and interrupts and debuffs on the right, and CDs on the left hand shift. My hope was that even if I wasn't sure about what abilities to use when I went into a dungeon I'd still hit roughly the right thing just by muscle memory flailing.

So then Khyrie was set up to bear tank. I'd even visited the barber shop to keep from being Christmas Bear. It was time, time to actually queue up for a heroic. I made DraNgNon bring Kuan along, just in case Khyrie totally was squishy or unable to hold aggro.

I ended up doing two instances as bear, one with Kuan healing and one with Ikoli healing. It wasn't too bad. I will say that it is a whole different kettle of fish to tank when you're outgeared by 30 or more ilvls. This is not an issue for Morn, but it was difficult to figure out the correct sequence while struggling to hold aggro against some well geared dps. At least their gear kept them from dying when I failed to have enough taunts or aggro to keep the mobs on me.

Despite a bit of initial grumpyness I had a pretty good time bear tanking. The basic bear tools seem to be pretty decent. I don't feel familiar enough with them yet to really compare bear vs. DK. However, I'm sure that familiarity and some comparisons will come with more tanking. I'm also sure that DraNgNon will drag me into a LFR. It should be amusing to have Tylara and Khyrie tanking together.

Ildiavolo's Ruby Panther

Sandbox Tiger

Unborn Valkyr!

I was wandering around doing pet battles while I ate breakfast this morning and on a whim I decided to take a short break from leveling up Chi-chi to check if there was an Unborn Valkyr in Northrend. I had stationed Kairon, my level 74 hunter, out in the back of beyond of Storm Peaks. And just like with the Minfernal I log him in occasionally and see if there is a Valkyr spawned.

Imagine my surprise when I checked this morning and there was an actual Unborn Valkyr sitting there waiting for me. I was so worried that it would cast Unholy Ascension and kill itself before I had a chance to actually trap it.

Fortunately my fears were unfounded and the Terrible Turnip captured it!

Sumprush Rodent

I spent some time killing Alliance soldiers for fun and profit down in Krasarang the other night. I had twin goals: reclaim two bag slots and get a Sumprush Rodent. Being able to gather and then aoe on that beach by the Alliance fort is really handy. It took a lot less time than I was expecting to get the last 750 Alliance Insignias that I needed.

Even better the second pet I fought was blue:

Celestial Tournament: Week Three

The third week the first round of Celestial Tamers are: Blingtron 4000, Wise Mari, and Shademaster Kiryn.

Wise Mari
{Crow, Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling, Eternal Strider}
The crow is faster than Wise Mari's first pet so lead off with Alpha Strike. Second round Call Darkness, third round Nocturnal Strike. Alpha Strike until Wise Mari's first pet dies then swap to your Pandaren Dragonling. Decoy and then Flame Breath until you kill the second pet. Bring in your Strider then Pump, Water Jet, Heal, and then just Pump until you win.

Blingtron 4000
{Sea Pony, Electrified Razortooth, Fel Flame}
Start out with your Sea Pony, or any water strider pet. Pump, water jet, and pump, and the first of Bling's pets will be dead. Swap to your Razortooth, or any other elemental pet with beast attacks. Bleed, Blood in the Water, Water Jet, refresh Bleed, the second pet will die pretty fast. When Bling's last pet (Lil'Bling) comes out put up bleed, and hit Blood in the Water if it's up again, then Water Jet until your pet dies. Swap to your Fel Flame and toast Lil'Bling until he is dead. I had a nice combo of Immolate, Conflagrate and then Burn to fill in until I needed to refresh Immolate or Conflagrate was off cooldown.

Shademaster Kiryn
{Flayer Youngling, Terrible Turnip, Amber Moth}
At first I tried an undead pet against Kiryn's first pet, however that stupid yeti has a critter attack so that failed miserably. I swapped over to the Flayer Youngling so that it would take less damage from the Yeti's main attack. Just kick every time it is up and hit Blitz otherwise. Once the yeti is dead switch in your Terrible Turnip, change the weather to sunshine, and then Tidal Wave to make sure the Turrets die. Leech Seed if you have a chance, but only if you won't take an extra round of turret damage. When your Turnip dies swap in the Flayer to finish the second pet and to whittle down the third pet as much as possible. Kick and deflection are pretty nice against the third pet. Finish off with your moth, cocoon is handy vs the prowled attack from Kiryn's wolf.

Chi-Chi
{Corefire Imp, Silkbead Snail, Festival Lantern}
I changed up my Chi-Chi team this week as well. I got a snail leveled up and used that instead of the previous Vicidius Globule. Ooze Touch and Acidic Goo are pretty much all you need, but Dive is good to use when Chi-Chi has his dodge ability up. So still lead off with the Corefire Imp with Immolation and wild magic, but then bring in the Snail for Acidic Goo and Ooze Touch. Because critters take less elemental damage I never even needed to bring in the Festival Lantern at all this week. If I level up another snail or two I'll swap my Chi-Chi team to be entirely snails.