The 25-man Naxx/OS runs were very fun. I was the 3rd tank or the off-tank to the off-tank. Effectively, that means that I got to main tank Patchwerk (in Naxx) and pick up random adds in Naxx and OS! MTing Patchwerk was intense and full of awesome. Initially, a hunter misdirected him onto me and Patchwerk came running towards me. Something weird happened and he changed directions and began running to the dps and healer group. No worries, I just tossed an Avengers Shield and he was back onto me and the other two tanks. I blew every cooldown I have. Offensively, I used Avenging Wrath and Lavanthor’s Talisman on every CD. Defensively, Divine Shield and my Monarch Crab were my friends. I did die just as Patchwerk went down but other than that, it was a great fight.

My many hours in Heroic Naxx paid off as I ended up walking out of there with 3 drops! Some new hands, Gauntlets of the Disobedient, new belt (to replace the Emblem of Heroism belt that I’d only been using for a few days), the Ablative Chitin Girdle, and some new boots, the Inexorable Sabatons. I also walked away with 14 more Emblems of Valor. I tossed a few gems in there and I was good to go. I haven’t had a chance to re-enchant the gear however. For the gloves, I’m going back to Armsman and for the boots, Tuskarr’s Vitality (over Greater Fortitude).

Earlier in the day, I tanked Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle with my guild. The run was smooth until the last boss. I pulled the two mobs in the room and over vent, someone said “pull them back, they fear” and just as my finger touched the ‘S’ key to walk backwards, we get feared. The warlock’s felguard aggro’d the boss, who I taunted and picked up. The healer called for a wipe but I said “we can do it!” and we did! King Ymiron didn’t cast Bane once and I didn’t even have to kite him around the room like my first and only ever H UP run did. Best of all, I got my heavily coveted new JC meta-gem pattern, the Austere Earthsiege Diamond, and my Red Sword of Courage! I couldn’t believe the sword dropped on my first successful run through there.

Just yesterday, I MT’d 10-man Vault of Archavon. I was having issues knowing when to move him out of his fart cloud and also when I needed to taunt him off of the off-tank. As a reward for my role, I got my first tier 7 gear…the Heroes’ Redemption Greaves for my awesome holy set that I may or may not ever use.

I was also the lucky recipient of the Essence of Gossamer trinket from Heroic Azjol-Nerub. With the essence, my monarch crab and self-buffed with kings, I have just under 31,000 health!

After tanking so much lately, I have grown to really love it! I have noticed that I tend to watch my ability cooldown timers too much instead of focusing on the boss or trash. I need to change that. I have also gotten much, much better at keeping Holy Shield up 100% of the time (unless the charges run out before the CD is up).

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: defense, heroic, jewelcrafting, naxx, obsidian sanctum, prot, Tanking, trinket

Naxx

I raided Naxx with my guild on Friday and Saturday nights. On Friday, we did the Arachnid (achievement) and Plague (achievement) quarters. On Saturday, we did the Military (achievement) quarter and attempted the Construct quarter. On the Construct quarter, we downed Patchwerk and attempted Grobbulus a couple of times. We couldn’t get Grobbulus down since over 1/2 of the raid was lagging including our MT (who d/c’d on 2 of the attempts). We called the raid after the last wipe.

I walked out of Naxx with four drops, three of which are holy! The fourth drop was a cloak (that I will link when I am able to log into WoW) that is not any better than my current cloak. The holy pieces were Helm of the Corrupted Mind and two others that I’ll name and link when can log in to WoW.

Tanking

We were going to try and finish Naxx on Sunday night but couldn’t since one of our healers was having internet issues and couldn’t log in. We decided to split up into groups and do some heroics instead. Our MT has been wanting to respec ret and knows that I’ve been wanting to try my hand at tanking so we switched specs. I went with the most popular prot pally build (5/60/6) according to talentchic.com.

We attempted the first boss (Slad’ran) of Heroic Gundrak three times before skipping him in hopes of getting some emblems from two other bosses and then returning to him.

We downed the other bosses in the instance without a problem and went back to Slad’ran. We wiped on him once more before the freshly minted (read: very low dps) lock logged out and into his much better geared mage. After that switch was made, that boss was very trivial. Once attempt, one downing, altar switched and then it was onto the last boss, Gal’darah. The last boss was just as trivial as the others.

I got the achievement for completing Gundrak on Heroic. After reviewing the dps of my group (to myself), I commented that I should get the achievement for tanking my first heroic. Then I looted the boss and saw my achievement waiting: the Horn-Tipped Gauntlets! Those dropping was the icing on the cake for me.

The dps for the group was pretty low considering it was a heroic run. The top dps-er averaged ~1400 dps while the second was 1100ish. The fresh 80 lock averaged just over me, with 900ish dps. I rounded out the bottom with 823 dps (which I feel is extremely low for a WotLK tank).

I had a lot fun tanking that instance, despite the low dps of the group and the many wipes we faced. Tanking is a lot more hectic than dps but I’m ready to tank some more.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: epic, gear, gundrak, heroic, holy, naxx, naxxramas, raiding, ret, tank

I want my health to be 24,000 unbuffed.  I’ve been looking over the spreadsheet I made yesterday, trying to determine what I can get that will bump my health to at least 22k but much closer to the 24k mark.

After about an hour, I have created yet another spreadsheet that notes how I can almost reach my goal. I’ve found 197 extra stam, 41 extra defense and some other stats as well. I have a net increase of every stat across the board (I believe). The mats for these upgrades are very cheap in my opinion, especially for what I’m getting in return.

Notice that none of the gear I’ve listed includes either of the major stamina trinkets that jewelcrafters can create! Once I get that, I should be over 25k health!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 20000, 20k, gear, health, heroics, jewelcrafting, prot, stamina, tank, trinket, upgrades

I have a very decent set of tanking gear (including the Bolstered Legplates from Heroic Violet Hold). I just got the 16 expertise JC pattern,  the Precise Scarlet Ruby and I have enough JC buy the 41stam Dragon’s Eye pattern, the Solid Dragon’s Eye. I can make the stamina oriented trinkets as well.

Right now, my biggest problem with my tanking gear is that I was still under 20k health! Now that I have my JC up and can make all those wonderful things, my health should be fine.

My defense might suffer a bit since I’ll have to drop my two BC defense trinkets (Dabiri’s Enigma and  Adamantine Figurine) but I have the Argent Dawn head enchant (Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector) and the Son’s of Hodir shoulder enchant (Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle) to help make up for it. I can also put on some defense enchants/gems if I fall below the 535 defense rating required for being uncrittable by Heroic bosses – level 82. You need a 540 defense rating is required to be uncritabble by raid bosses – level 83.

My most immediate gear goal will be a tanking weapon. Right now, I have the Warsong Punisher, which has very little stam (36) and some dodge (and no defense rating). My immediate choices are from running heroic Utgarde Keep (which is ultra easy) or from the last boss of heroic Utgarde Pinnacle (which I’ve run once – as ret, got to the last boss and proceeded to wipe over and over again). From H UK, I can get the Infantry Assault Blade. From H UP, I can get the Red Sword of Courage.

In regards to the focus of this blog, I’ll still be talking/posting about being ret, but will post more and more about being prot specced in the future.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: dual spec, jewelcrafting, pally, prot, ret, staminna, Tanking

A LOT of people told me that I was stupid for doing that. Some pointed out that I should have waited until I accrued enough money to level JC from 1-375 in one day. I can agree with that last statement, I probably should have waited.

But I was excited about jewelcrafting! The exciting part for me is the JC only gems and trinkets. Being a ret pally, I was very excited about equipping the +27 strength gem (Bold Dragon’s Eye). When I go holy, I’ll very excited about the +27 int (Brilliant Dragon’s Eye) and +32 spell power gems (Runed Dragon’s Eye). If I ever go prot again, I’ll be even more ecstatic about the stam bonus from equipping the JC only trinkets and slapping on some +41stam (Solid Dragon’s Eye) and +27 defense (Thick Dragon’s Eye) and +27expertiese (Precise Dragon’s Eye) gems.

The excitement faded though. I spent a lot of gold leveling it from 1-285. I got stuck at 285 for a long time because I was being pig headed about buying the Azerothian Diamonds off of the AH for 25g. I needed a bunch and didn’t have the funds to support it, mostly because of all of the gear upgrades that I was getting from running heroics needed to be gemmed and enchanted. I am unable to complete a bunch of dailys due to having a wife and two kids, both under 5 and one is only 9 months old.

Since I was stuck at 285 for so long, JC became a major drag for me. I took a few days off from running heroics and started questing again. I amassed a small fortune in gold and off to the AH I went, buying the Azerothian Diamonds and the Huge Emeralds that I needed. Now that I was over that hump, I started to get excited again! I had a few green gems saved up from back in BC.

I used those gems to get me to where I am now, happily sitting at 337. The next milestone for my JC is 350. At 350375 (see update below), I can begin doing the JC dailys and start buying the Dragon’s Eye raw gems from the NPC in Dalaran, Tiffany Courtier. As of patch 3.0.3 (current version of the game as of this writing), I have to wait until my JC is at 375 to begin using the Dragon’s Eye gems. When patch 3.0.8 is finally released, I can begin using the Dragon’s Eye gems when I get JC to 350!

3.0.8 is turning out to be a nice patch (read: buff) for my ret pally!

Update: Your JC skill has to be 375 in order to start the JC daily. I learned that the hard/disappointed way this morning. I have my JC up to 350, but now I need 375…unless the patch is released today while I’m at work!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, dailys, dragon's eye, gems, jc, jewelcrafting, pally, patch

Solid Majestic Zircon = 30 stam blue gem, epic quality.

Solid Sky Sapphire = 24 stam blue gem, rare quality.

JC Only Trinkets:

Figurine – Monarch Crab
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+63 Stamina
Blue Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Requires Level 75
Requires Jewelcrafting (400)

Use: Increases dodge rating by 300 (10.99% @ L75) for 10 sec. (1 Min Cooldown)

+63 stam +41 stam +30 stam (or 24 stam) +9 stam from this trinket ALONE = 143 stam (or 137)

Figurine – Ruby Hare

Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+62 Stamina
Red Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Requires Level 75
Requires Jewelcrafting (400)

Use: Increases speed by 30% for 6 sec. (3 Min Cooldown)

+62 stam +41 stam +41 stam +9 stam from this trinket ALONE = 153 stam

Total stam from both trinkets = 296 stam (or 290)

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2008. | Permalink
Post tags: gem, jewelcrafter, pally, prot, Tanking, trinket