Random Question Thread

[Meko]

So, I need some help deciding on which "plate" toon I want to level to 85. I am just looking for an opinion and a little reasoning. My pally is 75, my warrior is 71 and my dk is only 59. With that being said, I have 2 toons already that I use mainly for pve so I'm looking for a plate toon to most likely tank with and then pvp with. Suggestions?

[Norellicus]

Paladin is arguably the smoothest tanking experience of the lot, but DK isn't far behind as long as you understand how to keep Blade Barrier up.

Fuck pvp.

[Dryr]

pld is pretty straight forward for tanking. Unlike most other, we (i just dinged 85) can just spam one aoe attack every 6 seconds or so and it applies our dot to all affected to keep threat. on top of that, we have a dmg on attack aura, aoe ground dmg, an aoe/stun attack and 3x -20-50% dmg reduction cd of 1-3 mins. It is a very easy/simple class to tank with. The only thing that still remains a mystery to me is if the shout/provoke-type ability stacks like in ffxi or if it just works for the 6 seconds or so that it says it does and then all threat from it is gone.

[Meko]

Yea, I've tanked with my pally a little up to 75 (although I know it's different 80+) but I'm really focused on pvp and bgs. I wanna get into that with a plate class.

[Norellicus]

pld is pretty straight forward for tanking. Unlike most other, we (i just dinged 85) can just spam one aoe attack every 6 seconds or so and it applies our dot to all affected to keep threat. on top of that, we have a dmg on attack aura, aoe ground dmg, an aoe/stun attack and 3x -20-50% dmg reduction cd of 1-3 mins. It is a very easy/simple class to tank with. The only thing that still remains a mystery to me is if the shout/provoke-type ability stacks like in ffxi or if it just works for the 6 seconds or so that it says it does and then all threat from it is gone.

Taunt works nothing like FFXI Provoke. When you Provoke, you're adding a set amount of threat via the CE/VE values involved. Taunt does two things:

1) Force the target of the taunt to attack you exclusively for several seconds, no exceptions.
2) Cause your threat to immediately equal 100% of the threat of the person on top of the aggro table.

The purpose of effect 2 is so that you (the tank) can then easily make up the 10% additional threat needed on the aggro table in order to retain the monster's focus.

Spamming taunt when you have max threat does nothing for you, because you're already at the top of the aggro table; no threat is gained. Spamming Provoke at least continually adds to your threat values.

Read: http://www.wowwiki.com/Threat http://www.wowwiki.com/Taunt_%28warrior_ability%29

[Correction]

Taunt does two things:

1) Force the target of the taunt to attack you exclusively for several seconds, no exceptions.

Unless I'm mistaken, Taunt does nothing (i.e. no Taunted debuff on the mob) if it is already attacking you. So it's not 'no exceptions' as much as it is 'forces a target not attacking you and isn't immune to taunt to attack you exclusively for 3 seconds.'

[Norellicus]

That line in the tooltip is a misnomer, if someone hits 129% threat at range and you taunt, you still get bumped to 100% of their threat, even though the monster is already attacking you. Similarly, the 3 sec fixate still applies no matter what (but is usually subject to DR so if you try to spam it you're gonna have problems).

[Kaylia]

So, I need some help deciding on which "plate" toon I want to level to 85. I am just looking for an opinion and a little reasoning. My pally is 75, my warrior is 71 and my dk is only 59. With that being said, I have 2 toons already that I use mainly for pve so I'm looking for a plate toon to most likely tank with and then pvp with. Suggestions?

Healer could probably give you a better answer, but in every raid I've done so far, I was told I was the "easiest tank to heal". As much as I would like to take this as a compliment, I suspect that world of glory spam and high block (+parry/evade) give the smoothest result.

With the incomming nerf, idk if it will change though.

The only thing that still remains a mystery to me is if the shout/provoke-type ability stacks like in ffxi or if it just works for the 6 seconds or so that it says it does and then all threat from it is gone.

Taunt matches your threat with the current highest, and turn the monsters for 3sec.

[Kaylia]

Is it still possible to farm occulus drake?

[Plow]

I suppose you both went on a Death Strike orgy? I've never lost so far against Blood DKs in arenas, it just doesn't work I feel. I can overpower their shield/healing pretty easily and they'll wittle down quickly.

Well, necro strike appears to not affect death strike healing, as I'd have it stacked like mad on him and he'd heal through it no prob. I tried bursting him with scourge strike a few times, but again with nothing to prevent his heals I just couldn't do shit to kill him.

As pvp blood, your basic rotation is heart strikes with blood runes, coi with frost, and necro with uh. But, since necro wasn't working, he went with the basic tank rotation of heart strikes + death strikes.

Basically he was scared and wanted to keep his dark succor active, if he was halfway intelligent he would have swapped to blood presence, ignored my pet, and smashed my face with rune strike spam.

On my side I knew I couldn't kill him, so yeah I was basically death striking, pooling rp for lichborne, saccing my pet whenever he was about to kill it, etc.

I did try to kill him a fair amount of times, but really just couldn't make any progress and it put me at huge risk. At about the 40 minute mark I got away from him and he just stood back like he was going to wait it out... so I waited for all cd's and went in to try for a kill 1 last time... I got him to like 80% and he got me to like 20% and I had to save my own ass lol.

But, yeah, with a frenzy + trinket garg, transformed pet, using gnaw and strangulate, etc etc., absolutely everything I had, I couldn't push him below 70-80% 1v1. He could have killed me extremely easily if he was worth a shit, but he was really, really clueless. So yeah, most of it was just a death strike spamfest, with some DA kiting here and there.

cool story, no?

[aurik]

They removed it from the drop table, it's back to malygos10 only I think.

[Boyiee]

I asked about al'akir earlier this week I think. Holy crap was it easier to do P3 starting from the top instead of the bottom. It made all the difference for our retards.

[Kaylia]

How do you beat chogall without frost trap? We can beat it just fine when our hunter is around, but when he isnt on, the blood slimes just overhwhelm us on the 3rd and 4th wave.

Our dps are: mage,rogue, warlock, dk, shaman. Our warlock aoe stun them, but it doesnt last long enough, the mage do blizzard (or w/e), but they move out immediatly, earthbind totem range is so freaking short...

[Plow]

How do you beat chogall without frost trap? We can beat it just fine when our hunter is around, but when he isnt on, the blood slimes just overhwhelm us on the 3rd and 4th wave.

Our dps are: mage,rogue, warlock, dk, shaman. Our warlock aoe stun them, but it doesnt last long enough, the mage do blizzard (or w/e), but they move out immediatly, earthbind totem range is so freaking short...

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=64300
+
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=50041

?

[The Stig]

Plow: hahaha. I know the feeling when that happens. They suck but they just won't let you win, and you gotta win. Come patch 4.1 the Blood Shield won't work unless you're in Blood Presence so ... should be easier to win against them later

How do you tell if Necrotic Strike stacks anyway? If I spam it, it refreshes the "debuff" on the mob, but there's no visible stack number on the icon to tell me it's stacking. Or is it like Blood Shield stacking where if you hover mouse over the debuff it tells you how much it is absorbing (and increases per strike, within the tooltip?); I've never hovered mouse on it yet.

Meko: For your tanking question, with the exception of Bear I have tanked in all 3 plate classes:

My preference goes: DK[85] > Warrior[45] > Paladin[85]

I love DK tanking in that it is Fluid and I love Death Gripping mobs to my face, especially casters. And pissing off (guild) melees for when they all run to the ranged mob and I grip it to my face =p --> everything just feels so powerful. If I had one major wish it is to move Anti-Magic-Zone from Unholy to Blood to make myself seem more tank-ish. I like being able to call up a Ghoul, or a small army of them, and shooting green fireballs.

I like Warrior tanking in that I love using Charge and thunderclap. It feels powerful! And charging + being able to use a gun (I love guns) also upp'd the fun factor for me, as insignificant as it is; I can't wait until I get that leaping move and shockwave. Stance changing is also fun, I can use the buttons I would never normally use in other stances. This may be a bad idea at level 85 heroics but I'm not there yet, so I'll milk this as much as I possibly can. But Charging at a mob that's ran to a healer/ranged and then taunting/stunning/thunderclapping, it's all like ... rawr! XD

I find Paladin tanking dull unfortunately. I do feel very robust though, given the shield, self heals, but I find myself just hitting the same buttons more often than not, although this is true for the other 2 classes as well, I find it more noticable on Paladin that I haven't got much in terms of buttons to play with, so i'm consistently waiting for my 3 buttons to lit up (Wrath, Shield, Crusader/Hammer) which is probably contributing to my boredom of it. But the fact I can't rush at something, or pull something to me, it just doesn't feel like I have an impact on anything I am tanking, or I am very "powerful"

[Plow]

Plow: hahaha. I know the feeling when that happens. They suck but they just won't let you win, and you gotta win. Come patch 4.1 the Blood Shield won't work unless you're in Blood Presence so ... should be easier to win against them later

How do you tell if Necrotic Strike stacks anyway? If I spam it, it refreshes the "debuff" on the mob, but there's no visible stack number on the icon to tell me it's stacking. Or is it like Blood Shield stacking where if you hover mouse over the debuff it tells you how much it is absorbing (and increases per strike, within the tooltip?); I've never hovered mouse on it yet.

You can hover over it and see it, but I was judging it just by the fact that his health would go up, and he'd gain a strong blood shield, without necrotic strike dropping off. In theory for his health to go up, it should have to drop.

[Siniroth]

Not sure about the health going up part, but Blood Shield is entirely unaffected by healing mods, it takes the base healing that Death Strike would have done without said mods, and applies that with the mastery you have to get the Blood Shield.

[Slott]

@Cho'gall, your rogue can fan slow the adds too

[aurik]

Mage cone of cold should work as well.

[Dakk-Siren]

Have your dk go frost using the EJ frost build taking out the 1 point in buchtery and 1 point from virulence for chilblains. Also taking both points out of On a pale horse for endless winter works great for free mind freezes. The dk slow should be enough for all the adds.