Are Tanks the New Rogues?

Back in Burning Crusade, I have a very memorable experience of questing on my druid.  She’d just hit 68 and I’d sent her off to the Isle of Quel’Danas [IQD] to start the routine of dailies.  I started with the bombing runs and then moved to the Naga side of the island, whereupon I got overwhelmed due to some nasty spawns.  I remember that suddenly I was receiving heals and amazingly not dying.  I thanked my savior and moved on to finish my dailies.  After that I hopped over to my rogue to do dailies.  I decided to start with the Naga area this time and whilst running over there passed the person who’d helped my druid.  I cheered at him and saluted him with respect and in return got a /spit emote with a “rouges suck and are ninjas” comment.

I was a little floored.  I commented on the event in guild chat and got told “oh yeah, everyone thinks rogues are ninjas and you’re going to be treated like that if you play a rogue”.  I was a little dismayed because I’d always taken great pains to be honest on the rogue.  I rarely used stealth on the island and if I saw someone going for a mob, I went to another – just like I did on every other toon.  Nothing else had changed – I had simply hopped from a kitty druid to a rogue.  And it wasn’t an isolated incident either.

That’s what I was reminded of the other week in Tol Barad whilst running around on my tank.  I got blasted by a rogue, of all things, for being a ninja and a jerk because I wasn’t following his prescribed strategy that “everyone must pull one mob at a time”.  I laughed that off easily enough – because it wasn’t the first time I was blasted for “cheating in tank spec” or “lol tank spec” or “you’re fail to do dailies in tank spec” or “you take too long to kill stuff in tank spec – gtfo”.  In talking with other tanks, apparently these aren’t isolated incidents either.  It’s happening on other realms, to other tanks.  And from reading the forums [for what little they are worth], everyone seems to believe going in that “tanks are jerks”.

I’m not denying that there are bad tanks, jerk tanks, elitist a-hole tanks and the like… but to assume we’re all described by one adjective and a negative one at that?  That’s going a bit far.

What amused me further was that the rogue in question that jumped on me for doing dailies in tank spec, was sitting in trade not an hour later looking for a tank for his daily heroic and promising to be a model player and not give a tank a problem.  I admit, I couldn’t resist and replied that he’d already given me heck for doing my dailies in my main [tank] spec so why would I bother helping him?

He went off on his little tiff about how everyone should just pull one mob at a time and do their dailies as dps.  Trade laughed at him.

So ironically, at a time when tanks are at an all high premium in the LFD, we’re getting treated like dirt just for being tanks?  Ironic.

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Alt Update

Askevar is now 2h frost tank to collect souls for shadow’s edge.  Her threat actually seems a bit higher than in the dual wield build… not appreciably, but just a smidge.  I got just over 200 souls last week between a run of the first 4 bosses in ICC [6 of our 10 regulars were out so we snagged other random people and alts to fill] and ICC25 up through fester and rotface with a few shots at Dreamwalker – YAY ADDS!

Askalaphos – My hunter is now decked out in 4 piece t10, thanks to VoA 🙂  She’s a great example of toon in excellent gear doing mediocre dps.  On a stand and burn I can hit 5k…  with anything else I hover in the 3-4k range.  That’s fine for heroics… but yeah… the idea of raiding with her in this shape is not pleasing.  I may need to consider a respec.

Alika – My pallytank is coming along well.  I’m hoping to get her into an ICC run eventually… as either tank or dps.  I’ve snagged a couple failed pugs so far that either couldn’t clear the trash or wouldn’t listen to mechanics and wiped on Marrowgar.  But I’d love to replace her 219 tanking ring… and frankly her 219 shield as well.  Her day will come 🙂  I’ll get a pug that can hit lower spire eventually.  I’m saving up the badges for her tanking pants next.  Her ret set is pretty good, but it’s all crafted/ICC 5 mans drops.  Yes, I’m very aware that the NES isn’t the ideal trinket for her ret offspec.  Unfortunately, most of the ones she needs are in ICC…  not going to happen anytime soon and I darn well don’t need 500 hit… so the hit trinket is out.  And “facerolling” 4-5k in an offspec ain’t bad either in randoms.

Carlyn – is slowly gearing up.  I have several more things she needs via triumphs before she’s “complete” there, but she’s coming along well.  I actually managed to pull 5k on a heroic boss fight [I stink at trash – big shock I know] so maybe I’ve not forgotten too much of warlocking from back in BC.

Aulao – My mage is doing alright.  I’ve cannibalized most of her frost for saronite for Shadow’s Edge [and my poor shaman’s as well] so they’re both behind on gear, but still doing okay.  She’s been arcane for a while but I’ve been experimenting with fire – with mixed results.

Tsali – Enhancement/resto – but spends more time in healing gear than in dps gear ironically.  I heal so that I can buy her better enhancement gear…  Still having issues with resto shaman healing in some of the simplest places.  If the group is good, it all goes smoothly.  If I have jerks and people pulling for the tank… well.. we’re probably going to wipe.  I don’t have the instincts yet or the skill to do any amazing saves.

Arica – My kitty is about 20 badges from 4 piece t10 and she’s doing awesomely…  probably the best of all my dps toons.  I’m  pulling 6-7k dps on boss fights and typically end up with an overall of 4-6k.  I’m impressed and the “rotation” really clicks well with my playing style.  She’s my primary dps alt

Kintara – My primary alt and I love her so!  If I could walk away from tanking and Askevar I would be playing her as my main.  However, I still adore tanking and Askevar too much to give up.  Disc priesting is wacky bubbly fun :D.  Save for a drop in VoA25, I may never see, she’s as geared as she can be short of ICC10/25 gear.

Kalliana – Um… she’s there.  She does the weekly and is done with gearing from triumphs… just need a better ring [curse you HPOS!!]

Odyyn – He just got his first piece of t10.  I seem to fall in and out of love with warrior tanking… some weeks I like it and run his dailies… some weeks I don’t.  Of course, jerks in ICC 25 gear can test many a tank’s patience.

Now, how do I keep it straight?  I honestly don’t know…  I just do.  They are separate toons, with separate personalities… they’re individuals, so it seems easy enough.  I also have a list on rememberthemilk dot com of things I need/want/would like to do.  I mark them off when I get them done.

“But you’re making WoW into a chore!”

No, I’m not…  I have no deadlines set on the list… no requirement to get everything or anything done.  But hey, if I get in a mood to explore or grind rep, I can easily look and see who needs what, pick what I want and go.  It’s about efficiency.  Altoholic helps with that too.  But I try to make anything I do go quickly and easily.  Since I’m cutting back on my WoW time, that’s even more important.  And if I don’t touch the list for a week?  Who cares?!

The Alt Update:

First of all, my pally tank alt got in a guild Ony10 run last night.  I was kind of surprised they wanted us and I honestly didn’t feel like raiding but it was a LOT of fun!  The paladin def helm dropped and they gave it to me!  Totally not expecting that at all.  I was… well squeeing would be the best word to use lol.

Still need Classic Dungeonmaster on my shaman and priest [and upcoming mage and warrior as well].

Explored the Eastern Kingdoms on my paladin and outland on my rogue; and got the World Explorer title and achieve on my hunter.  Still got a lot to do with this for all my toons, but a little at a time is what I’m aiming for.  I should have plenty of time before Cataclysm.

Let’s see…  I’m working on collecting cooking recipes I missed/skipped on my alts right now.  I’m only a few recipes short on my priest, shaman and  mage [excluding the cooking daily only recipes of course – those add a few more].

I hit level 70 on my mage [yes already].  The battleground experience she gets is pretty insane.  I honestly haven’t worked on my warrior much of late, but eh, I’ll get him leveled eventually.

Experiments in Rogue-ness

Let me make this epicly clear – my rogue is an epic fail rogue. Until yesterday she was a very awful hybrid spec… and had like zero survivability. I HATE playing her with a passion. She was mildly fun in Burning Crusade but is HORRIBLE to play now. Her leatherworking comes in handy i must admit and her lockpicking is still nice, despite having a blacksmith and an engineer.

Well yesterday, I got one of my epic [success or fail I don’t know] random thoughts. Rogues CAN use 1h maces, but they don’t. I started searching rogues I know, top rogues, random rogues, none of them are mace spec. None of them use maces. I know there is a wow cultural taboo on a mace wielding rogue… I was blatantly told that when I first rolled her – NEVER use maces. Like, EVER. Maces are not a real rogue weapon. Heck, the lady in the inn in Shattrath will flat tell you that anyway.

So my next thought was, “Are rogues gimping themselves by refusing to even consider maces?” My main is a mace wielding dk. My shaman dual wields maces as well, and rogues use similar stats to an enhancement shaman. All these things I know. So I did a little bit of research…

Apparently mace spec was THE pvp spec at one time for the passive stun chance of mace attacks, which was removed in 3.0 and replaced with arpen [attacks ignoring as much as 15% of a target’s armor if you have 5 points in mace spec].

And I found a couple pieces of anecdotal evidence saying that maces were a decent way to go [aka blogs], so I’m going to take the rogue I’m not going to play anyway, and experiment a bit with maces and see where it leads. Eh, who knows… maybe I’ll enjoy the rogue again!  Worst case scenario, she continues to sit in Dalaran, waiting to be played and looks noobish!