Something changed when I got close to level 70...

I remember how impossible it was to find a tank in the Burning Crusade. And I remember how hard it was to find healers early in Wrath of the Lich King. I remember how long the Dungeon Finder queues were for DPS when the Dungeon Finder was first introduced.

I remember how we worried that the Dungeon Finder made us too anonymous. That it encouraged players to behave like jerks. And that it was ruining the sense of community that you can just barely feel right now on your own realm.

Now I’ve almost leveled all the way to 80 on my Mage using the Dungeon Finder. And I’m starting it all over again on my Warlock. And I think like all things, the community will balance out all on its own.

ps. Lath is super excited and asked me to include this message: Vitare are currently looking for a second Resto Druid to join our raid team!

I could see a light at the end of the tunnel towards the end of the level 60-70 bracket. It wasn’t so much that my wait times as a Damage Dealing Mage were faster. They weren’t.

I remember how desperate we were for a tank when Pixii and I were stuck around level 50 running Sunken Temple. Not only were the tanks terrible tanks but everyone kind of put up with it simply because the time to replace a tank was horrendous. Thirty or forty minutes. This wasn’t much of a surprise, we had been inevitably waiting for tanks since we started way back in Ragefire Chasm through to Gnomeregan. Scads of damage dealers, quite a few healers and just not enough tanks to go around.

Around the time we started queuing the Burning Crusade dungeons, and as we got further towards level 70, there was a noticeable shift in available classes/roles. There wasn’t enough healers to meet demand. No longer did the tanks have absolute power over the group.

A part of me wonders if this drop off in available healers can be attributed to healer burnout courtesy of terrible Death Knight tanks that plague the level 58-65 bracket.

I remember running one of the Auchindoun instances, Mana Tombs perhaps, with a Shaman healer that just wasn’t coping. We barely got through the first half of the instance alive. I felt that every pull we were flirting with death. I think the tank did die a few times. Most interestingly of all, to me anyway, was that not one person complained about it. That is, not one person said anything until the healer typed “got to go sry” and left the party.

Even though we were stuck in a fairly long queue waiting for a replacement there was a silent sigh of relief going around the party. Eventually someone said what we’d all been thinking:

He wasn’t a very good healer anyway.

In the same way that we handled our Sunken Temple tanks with such care, treating them like special snowflakes, careful not to upset them in any way, we now treated our healers the same!

When we lost the majority of pugging players to the Random Wrath Dungeon queue at level 68 the pool of available players for Steamvaults, Shadow Labyrinth, Shattered Halls and the Tempest Keep instances shrunk significantly. The pool of available players was so small that every single member in every single five man dungeon I joined from level 68-70 was valuable. Tank, Healer of Damage Dealer: each was important. And not just to me – almost every single player in the group valued their teammates.

I joke to others that I sweet-talked my way to Outland Dungeonmaster. But the truth is, I’ve never been treated so nicely by my PuG teammates.

I spent almost 2 hours in a cross-battlegroup party that had fallen apart one pull into Shattered Halls. The healer left – this would normal force a group to disband. But we all teleported out of the dungeon, too reluctant to lose our group and requeue as individuals. And we chatted while we waited. I think I’ll always think of that party when I’m picking Fire Leaf (how I spent the queue time).

I remember the healer that I found in an unsuccessful Steamvaults run. I remember that we requeued at least six times in that night, slowly picking up extra party members until the final group of 5 of us ran about three BC dungeons back to back working on each other’s Outland Dungeonmaster achievement.

I remember the level 70 tank that was determined to replicate his old Druid’s reputation and gear set (Sunwell gear and all!) and ran Shattered Halls with us back to back. When the third DPS dropped out we just kept going. It took almost an entire SH run – 20 minutes perhaps – before we were able to find another Damage Dealer using the Dungeon Finder. Because even Damage Dealers for that instance are rare and valued.

The sense of community, that human connection, was definitely coming back into my Dungeon Finder runs.

I have stumbled across two or three Barthilas players in my runs that have made it onto my Friends list. Whenever we can Pixii and I try to invite them before joining the Dungeon Finder queue. And there are times that I really really wish I could friend players on other realms and even group up with them before joining the queue.

When I first joined the queue on my level 17 Warlock I was surprised at how fast I was matched with a group. 20 minutes? Hell no. 6 minutes? (about the time Cassandri would get into a level 80 heroic queue as Shadow) Hell no.

Try 1 minute.

A 1 minute queue at level 17 for Damage Dealers. I’ve queued and completed about five or six dungeon runs since as my Warlock and the longest that I’ve waited has been 5 minutes. We had one player drop out of the group in Shadowfang Keep and had to wait a good 5 minutes or so for a replace. And they were DPS.

I think this is a sign. Way back before I started playing the introduction of battlegrounds forced faction population balance. Back when only world PVP existed players talk about the faction imbalance as though Alliance out-numbered Horde 2 to 1. When players, Alliance and Horde, joined the first battleground queues the system matched them up 1 to 1 (or 10 vs 10, 40 vs 40 etc). This meant that Alliance players had almost double the wait times of Horde players to PVP.

The Horde PVPers got twice as much game time, twice as much honor and twice as much gear in the same amount of time. So what did all the Alliance PVP lovers do? Rerolled as Horde of course!

I think we’re seeing the same effect in our dungeon groups now. If your chosen class can tank or heal why wouldn’t you? And classes at level 15 aren’t too difficult. It’s much easier to pick up how to tank/heal at level 15 than waiting until level 80. But even more than that, I think players are rolling alts in order to power level as a tank or healer.

A tank that Pixii and I played with in Zul’Farrak had reached level 80 about a week after our ZF runs together. While we were waiting for a group for Sunken Temple. Getting to max level so quickly is a strong incentive.

Give it another few months – perhaps around the time the first Cataclysm raids have been well and truly cleared and players are rolling new alts yet again – and I think the waiting time in queue for all three roles: Tank, Healer and Damage Dealer will be near evenly matched.

Perhaps it will take a minute or two to match up a good class composition (mixture of different armor types, different classes, some cleanse ability, some crowd control ability) but I think it will be that fast.

• 20% of players will queue as Tanks
• 20% of players will queue at Healers
• 60% of players will queue as Damage Dealers

And the more players who choose multiple roles (say Damage or Healer), and collect gear for multiple roles, the more likely we’ll find that perfect balance. Remember, once you reach level 40 you can purchase Dual Talent Specialization for your alts. That makes multiple roles even easily to fulfill. And it’s about at that point where you might find it difficult to heal with Shadow talents as a Priest, or tank with Fury talents as a Warrior etc.

What this means for end game I’m not sure. If 10 man raiding is the way of the future (and I believe it is) the balance is more like:

• 20% Tanks (2 out of 10)
• 30% Healers (3 out of 10)
• 50% Damage Dealers (5 out of 10)

We might be in for a slight healer shortage.

That said, I remain convinced that the next wave of players will be better hybrids and more knowledgeable about tanking and healing than I. And that’s exciting!

If I queue as a Healer my future group is going to miss out on this.

Sometime during the last month I stopped queuing as a Healer/Damage for the daily random Heroic. Now I just choose Damage.

Yes, now I have much, much longer queues to get into Halls of Stone (which I get about three times more often than any other dungeon). I was trying to pinpoint the moment when I unchecked that “Healer” checkbox. The long wait for a dungeon as Damage – 10 to 15  minutes – seems like a reasonable trade off compared to completing the dungeon as a healer.

I think I know when things changed: when I won Muradin’s Spyglass and, the following week, completed my 4 piece Shadow Tier 10 set. It was when my Shadow set suddenly became awesome.

My healing set is still a mishmash of +hit items with 2 piece Tier 9.

I started choosing Damage so that I could run Heroics and enjoy my new gear. To try out my new gear in a familiar setting to see how it performs – and after a Target Dummy, a Northrend Heroic which I’ve run a billion times is where I conduct my second test drive.

After a few days of patiently queuing as Damage I had a particularly busy day outside of WoW – one of those days where you leave the house and realise 12 hours later that you’re not getting home any time soon. I got home right before midnight, mentally calculating if I had time to do the random Heroic before the day “ended”. In Blizzard time I think this is at either 1.30AM or 2.30AM server time. To speed things up I queued as Healer/Damage and was dropped into – you’ll never guess – Halls of Stone to heal.

The DPS was agonizingly slow. The tank and 3 DPS were all still in the gearing-up stage where Emblems of Triumph are the goal. We did a full clear. I didn’t complain. But I felt that this group needed me – needed me as a Shadow Priest. They gained a healer, yes, but at the cost of a significantly faster run. I tried to help out with the damage but I’ve never really mastered DPSing while healing as Discipline. It’s certainly not like DPSing once you’ve talented into the Shadow tree so I’ve never really been compelled to try.

There was once an argument covered on WoW.com: Who should heal in battlegrounds? And the answer was: anyone who can, should. Whether you think that’s true of PVP or not, I don’t think that’s true in PVE. Asking damage dealers to queue as their weaker/less geared Tank or Healer role does presumably get groups matched up and started faster. But you’re losing a whole bunch excellent damage dealers in the process.

Futhermore if it’s true that the Dungeon Finder evaluates you on the gear in you possession, whether it’s in your bank, bag or equipped, then I’m being chosen as though I’m a first rate ICC25 geared and experienced healer – which I’m most certainly not. Yes, I’m still qualified to heal a heroic. But there’s only so much “carrying” that I can do.

As my guild clears the Icecrown Citadel bosses my Damage and Healing gear sets will continue to get further and further apart. My DPS set is excellent. And why shouldn’t my future party members benefit from it? What’s the point in spending thousands of DKP to get Dislodged Foreign Object only to let it gather dust in your bags?

So now I queue as Damage only. It’s the role that I’ve perfected. I’m not one of these slackers who queue as Damage wearing full healing gear and request that everyone else passes on healing gear – if you’re one of those: get out of my party or start doing your “main spec” job now.

I have a new understanding for why so many Ret Paladins, DPS Warriors and DKs queue as DPS only when they could be tanking.

Plate is shiny

I’m currently in the process of putting together a list of Bind on Account, aka Heirloom, gear list for a baby Paladin. I’m thinking of leveling a Paladin, not because I have any intention of playing a Paladin at max level but purely for leveling fun.

I’ve been enjoying leveling the Mage using the Dungeon Finder but I’m getting just a bit tired of the lengthy dungeon queues. Time to roll a hybrid.

I’ve been doing some research. I want to make sure I buy the very best BoA items around for my Paladin. Eventually – around level 40 – I expect I’ll need a tanking and healing set. I won’t be queuing dungeons as Damage, so I don’t really intend to put together a high DPS Retribution set. If I go out in the world to complete a few quest, well, I’ll have to just wear my tanking/shield gear. I somehow doubt that there’s much difference between DPS and tanking items at lower levels.

In doing my research I was quite surprised to find a lot of conflicting opinions about the best weapon and best enchants. I think this is mostly because some of the newer weapons (the Maces in particular) were released sometime after Wrath of the Lich King. Anyway, here’s what I consider to be the most suitable items. I’d really love to hear what some more experienced Paladins think.

Both of the weapons are 1 hand weapons which frees up my Offhand item slot for an appropriate Shield. Is it worth purchasing a 2 handed weapon to equip if I need to complete a couple quests on my own?

Tanking set

I was surprised at how poor the trinket choice was for melee DPS and tanking characters. There is no Attack Power trinket. The Inherited Insignia would be somewhat handy to get out of nets and other movement impairing effects (although I think I’m going to be playing a Human, so there’s no need). The Swift Hand of Justice haste trinket is useful for all classes to some degree.

Would I be better off equipping the spell power trinket? Do Paladins benefit from equipping spell power for dps or tanking?

The enchanting options are quite interesting and I imagine the choice comes down to personal taste. Fiery Blaze Enchantment is a great option, I believe, but you need to complete a quest around level 40 to earn it. Until then you can either choose to remain enchant-less or you can choose one of the other options that I’ve listed. Most comments that I’ve found seem to favor Lifestealing over Crusader and then recommend choosing the flat stat gain from Agility or Strength after level 60 (the point at which Lifestealing and Crusader being to diminish in power).

I think I’m going to aim for the Fiery Blaze Enchant just because it’s something that I would never have thought of using. Furthermore, it won’t cost you any gold.

Healing Set

Fortunately for me I have both the Mail spell power shoulders and the spell power mace from when I leveled my Shaman. It may seem like a lot of effort to purchase gear for 2 sets but, to be honest, I have nearly all the items for my healing set already.

Also, if you’re an excellent fisherman the Dread Pirate Ring awarded to the winner of the weekly Kalu’ak Fishing Derby would complement either set. But somehow I doubt I’m going to win this event!

Would you jump? My queues are quick, but they're not that quick!

In this modern age of Dungeon Finder, Dungeon Finder, Dungeon Finder I can tell you who holds all the power: Tanks.

I know we talk about instant (insta) queues. I’ve seen tanks prostituting themselves and their skip-the-queue in Trade chat for the price of 50g. I’ve heard all about “Tank Roulette”: a game in which the tank stands at the edge of Krasus’s Landing, queues using the Dungeon Finder as a Tank, jumps off the edge and either:

• (a) ends up safely in a dungeon before they die a horrible death from falling.
• (b) or – there’s a small chance – that they might hit the ground before they are matched with a party.

I laughed when I heard about Tank Roulette. And I started waiting a good 20 seconds before accepting my invitation… *evil laugh*

But I figure tanking isn’t probably the most fun job in the game so, why not? Let the tanks get some kind of bonus for all the crap they have to deal with. Every time you’re waiting in a queue what you’re really waiting for is for a tank out there on your Battlegroup to say “ok, I’m ready to tank something now”. And that’s power.

Deciding Vote

When you set the pace, when you are the reason that the group is a functioning group at all, that can lead to all kinds of bad behaviour.

A tank chooses what bosses, if any, are killed or skipped. And the group has little say in the matter unless they wish to spend another 5-10 minutes at the “front” of the queue waiting for a new tank. Lathere and I queued quite a few heroics when she was gearing up her level 80 Mage, and I my level 80 Shaman using Emblems of Triumph. We didn’t want a super quick, 2 Emblems of Frost, run. We wanted Emblems from bosses.

However, whenever we entered Halls of Stone or Old Kingdom the tank would often open up with “Not doing optional bosses, ok?”. Well Lath and I soon learned that the question mark was only there out of politeness. If we spoke up and asked to do a full boss clear for Emblems the tank would just drop party. Before we’d even started. We stopped asking and just started hoping not to arrive in those dungeons after our 20 minute wait.

I’ve been on the other side of course. When I queue dungeons as Cassandri I’m thrilled when I get to come in half way, or sometimes, just for the last boss. 5 minutes later and I’m done! But if the tank decides to do a full clear, or decides to do an achievement, that I’d prefer to just skip, I just have to go along with it.

And most interestingly of all, if other members of the party are debating whether or not to do an optional boss, or an achievement, the debate will continue until the tank either says “yes” or “no”. Once they put forth their opinion, the debate is over.

Abuse of Power

Perhaps the worst abuse of “tank power” that I’ve experienced so far occurred late at the end of a raid night. As we left Icecrown Citadel for the night a few guild members spoke up on Vent “who still needs to do their daily heroic?”. Two and a half parties formed. One full group, including our Feral Druid tank, and the group I was in: Lathere was healing, and we had 3 Damage dealers (including myself) but no-one able to Tank. I mean, we didn’t even have a Plate wearer: Shadow Priest, Mage and Moonkin.

We waited patiently for a Tank to join our group while the other group started clearing out Heroic Forge of Souls. We stayed to chat on Vent. Eventually we were placed in Old Kingdom with a pugged tank. They immediately dropped the group.

I found this pretty disappointing. Lath is an excellent and geared healer. The rest of us DPS in the group know how to play defensive and smart. But we can’t take the kind of hit that someone with a bit of defense rating, armor and a shield can take. We just needed someone who could take a beating. We wouldn’t have bitched about gear, threat or skill. But the tank didn’t give us a go, and left. We waited for a second tank as the other group approached the first boss in Forge of Souls.

Eventually we were paired up with a new Tank. We greeted him and buffed up, keen to get started. He picked through the first couple mobs slowly. Then, after standing around after killing the first Spellflinger group for few minutes we realised the tank had either disconnected or had afked. He wasn’t moving. I checked over my chat screen and he hadn’t said anything about going AFK. VuhDo didn’t mark him as Disconnected, either.

We started gearing up for a clothy-style pull to fill the time. Full HoTs on our only Leather wearer, my cursor hovering over Dispersion, carefully edging back to give us room to maneuver. We did it, just. The tank still hadn’t moved, but he also hadn’t come up as Disconnected yet.

I typed “are you there?” followed by “maybe we should just kick him?” comment in party chat. To my surprise, he responded immediately afterwards “nah don’t do that” and proceeded to start clearing left towards the first boss. I guess he wasn’t AFK or disconnecting.

Then 2 pulls later, at the bottom of the stairs and half way to the first boss he stopped pulling. Again. Another unannounced, unexplained break?

By now the guild run has finished Forge of Souls and we’re starting to get pretty pissed off. Lath started dressing him down in Party chat. I think I made a comment to this effect:

You’re here to tank. We’re here to do our jobs and we can’t do them unless you start tanking.

I think his response was something like “jeez, whatever”. We decided to kick him over Vent when a guild tank offered to come in and replace him. Unfortunately we soon discovered that, even though we had lost our 15 minute Dungeon debuff, the tank still had 5 minutes still to go. At least he started tanking again. Slowly.

While all this had been going on the first group had queued a second Heroic, and after being placed in Old Kingdom too, had overtaken us.

The moment the tank’s debuff expired, we kicked him. Just because you’re a Tank doesn’t give you the right to waste the rest of your group’s time while you eat or Alt-tab out of the game. The same behavior in another party member – Healer or Damage – would get you kicked really fast. Don’t queue until you’re ready.

Corrupted

One night, bored out of my mind, I agreed to run a few heroics with a guildies’s fresh level 80 Ret Paladin. Not for the 2 Emblems of Frost – I’d already completed that daily chore. Just for kicks. And one of our guild main tanks was coming along. And since I was there for the kicks, I was queuing as Shadow (that is, Damage only).

Bam! Loading screen. Talk about instant queue.

I didn’t even have time to say my “not HoS today, please” prayer. I was already in Azjol Nerub.

We had a pug DPS (a Druid, I think) and a Holy Priest. I looked at that Holy Priest and had a slightly guilty sucks to be you thought and that could have been me immediately followed by a you never know, maybe he likes healing.

Now I’ve played with excellent tanks who are thorough. I’ve played with excellent tanks who like to lead and enforce a kill order. And I’ve played with tanks who like to go fast. Fast, as in, getting a good threat lead and then moving onto the next pull while the previous mobs trail behind screaming “hey, we’re not dead yet!”. Well that was the kind of fast run we were doing.

By the time we finished off the second boss the Holy Priest asked if they could DPS since they didn’t really need to heal and we both ended up completing the last boss in Shadowform.

Our tank announced that we were going to queue again and invited the two PuGed players to stick around. We were already killing the first group in Gundrak when I realised that the Druid has disappeared, a Shaman has joined the group and was back at the entrance (probably still waiting for buffs) and the Holy Priest was still in Shadowform.

I dropped Shadowform to heal off some of the poison and started to get a bit annoyed. That was his job. The Holy Priest was taking this “you don’t need heals” thing a bit far.

Then I scrolled back through my chat pane. Yep, the formerly Holy Priest had requeued as Damage only. The new Shaman in the party was our new, pugged, Healer. And it hit me: This Priest was as bad as me! He had queued as a Healer to get into a daily heroic. But the minute you pair us with a tank and our choice of role? With a guaranteed instant queue? We refuse to heal and switch to DPS.

And, oh my god, it’s so much more fun.

We treated our pugged Shaman healer terribly and barely gave him a chance to land one heal before we were off and running to the next pack. Half-empty health bars make for anxious healers, trust me, I know. We went off in different directions at one point. We asked him to switch to a DPS spec for the Less-Rabi boss and then didn’t give him a chance to switch back and drink. If I was that Shaman I’d have been pretty pissed off.

Meanwhile, I was having a great time. I didn’t need to worry about threat. Things were practically lying down in surrender as we approached. The formerly-Holy Priest challenged me to a DPS race (whatever that means) but I think we were both trying to dish out as much pain as possible, as quickly as possible.

Was I corrupted? Absolutely! If my Priest could tank, would I queue as a Tank? Absolutely.

A moment for all the Prot Warriors out there to /flex

In the Burning Crusade, Lath, and other healers I’m sure, would occasionally confess that they preferred healing one tank over another. In Wrath of the Lich King, when I join a group, I like to be healing Protection Warriors over pretty much every other type of tank. Why? Let me explain.

Every unfamiliar tank/group you run with is a risk. And the truth is, in a 5 man dungeon, a good tank makes the biggest difference between a successful, fun filled hour and a horrible, keyboard-bashing series of spirit runs. I’ve played with Prot Warriors, Feral Druids, Prot Paladins and Death Knight tanks. And I like to PuG them in that order.

Protection Warriors are just the safest bet because 99% do a great job. Protection Paladins and Feral Druids can be hit or miss and Death Knights, well, don’t even get me started! I actually get a bit anxious the minute I realise a Death Knight is tanking.

There’s a lot of Warriors in Azeroth

This post was inspired by an argument on the forums about class population and how it relates to buffs/nerfs. The original poster:

[Protection Warriors] have been around and been capable of tanking effectively for longer than any other class… A warrior of four years won’t be as willing to reroll because another class is more effective at tanking and guilds won’t can their long time tank… most of the time.

Warriors as a class fascinate me because I think, more than any other class, it attracts both the brand new player and the very experienced player – and nothing in between.

Take a look at the level 1 Warrior on the character creation screen with fresh eyes for a moment. Lots of armor, lots of health, a guy who can take a beating. He’s blunt, straightforward, simple. He won’t do complex, fancy combinations. This is the type of character that makes sense to the guy who just picked this game off the shelf.

One poster on the thread explains his reasoning for rolling a Warrior:

I rolled a warrior because I like the idea of being the master of melee combat. I love the idea of being the big heavy brawler in the center of the battle, bloody and raging.

One forum poster summed up the class options as:

A sneaky guy, a strong guy, a magic guy, or a bear?

Warrior Tank

But once you’re in game, it’s a different story. You are a tank, you are a leader. You are expected to take on these roles.

How many people do you know who chose a Warrior as their first class? I can think of 5 people. 3 of them still play World of Warcraft and none play their Warriors anymore.

In the Burning Crusade, “the great tank shortage of 07/08″, many freshly minted level 70 Warriors were forced to tank because that’s what Warriors did best. And often the results were not pretty.

We make Caco tank General Vezax too, but I couldn't figure out how to get that screen capture

Over the last few years I have watched several of my friends re-roll a Warrior because they wanted to tank, and they chose the original tanking class to do it. These were very experienced players who knew not only what the community expected, but already knew how to play. Two of them turned their Protection Warrior into their main character with Wrath. /wave Cacophany & Expatriate

The leading guild on my server chooses a Warrior as their main tank but they are raiding with the same Warrior tank that they’ve always raided with. You’re looking at 4+ years experience there. Something tells me they’re pretty good at what they do by now.

Most Protection Warriors out there have not been tanking for 4 years. But it takes dedication to say “I’m going to tank, and level a character to 80 for that purpose”. It’s that kind of dedication that makes for a great tank.

Represent!

Class populations and representation mean very little to me. I hope Blizzard don’t put too heavy an emphasis on “statistics” like these when considering the abilities of a class versus their counterparts.

You could argue that because Priests are in pretty much every 3v3 Arena team, Shadow Priests can PvP just fine. Seems silly when I put it like that, huh?

But if Blizzard want more people to roll Druid and Paladin tanks, to spread out the tanking population across all four classes, they’ll need to convince the new wave of players who wish to tank. If you have a high level Warrior then chances are high that you are already attached to that character.

It’s also somewhat of a problem that you can choose to start a Death Knight and tank at max level a hell of a lot faster than as a Druid or Paladin.

Tanking on Multiple Characters

In conversation a talented Prot Warrior on Caelestreaz, who had been playing for less than a year, once told me that he had leveled several of the melee classes to 80 but was still learning how to play them. I asked him if he enjoyed tanking on each character and he said he had tried it but liked the Warrior the most and “hated tanking on the DK”.

On the flip side my brother can’t not tank and leveled a Warrior and Death Knight to compare them to his first love, his Protection Paladin. Yet he’s never been interested in Druids or Feral Druids. I don’t think he’s ever aspired to be a bear. Ever.