Should we pug a tank?

Heroics, love them or hate them they are without doubt the big topic of the moment. There is very little middle ground and it is the cause of lots of emotional outbursts in the SKF /g channel.

What I have noticed though is that the 2 camps are adamant that their view is correct and their belief is based on one thing. My take on this magic factor is unlike most theories I have seen paraded around the WoW blogosphere it is not dependant on the skill of the player, the class they play or indeed how hardcore or casual they are.

Cataclysm Dungeons: Clearing Heroics Quickly and Efficiently

Everyone knows that Cataclysm Heroics are not the faceroll that heroics were in Wrath.However, it is still possible to run any dungeon quickly and efficiently. The trouble that most people are having is because the Wrath method of achieving this goal is currently not viable and the method I am about to layout would have slowed down groups in Wrath. There are also some changes people need to make in the way they play and the abilities they use.

Magmaw down

Apologies for this post but it was a rapid replacement of the one planned. Last night was one of the proudest moments of my WoW raiding life. In only our 4th real night of attempts on Magmaw, Saturday Knight Fever killed him. The only better moments I can recall were my first kills on Nefarian, Gruul and Lich King. Sure for most progression raiders we're weeks behind but the point is we're not elite raiders we're a bunch of regular folks attempting content we're not really ready for.

Let me explain, our designated MT was healing, one of our top DPS was healing and 2 of our healers were DPSing. Confused? Well we took 2 pally tanks, a retadin, 2 DPS warriors, a resto druid, a resto shammy, a disc priest (me), a mage and a warlock into the fight and the Lava Worms were never gonna die quick enough with only 2 ranged DPS on them, sometimes you have to go with what you've got and use that off spec or respec entirely.

Its Over 9000!

This week has been a bit strange for me, not enough WoW time due to family visits, although to be honest I felt better for it and will probably take more breaks especially as I'm pretty happy with Evlyxx's gear levels right now.

However, the week has not been without some postworthy incidents. firstly I decided I had slacked enough and really should finish off the Deepholm quests and get my rep up with Therazane so I could get the latest and greatest shoulder enchant. I had been putting this off because while I am a bit of a rep junkie I don't like being forced into grinding for it.

Duane - Hates Cata

Duane has decided he hates Cataclysm.

Back in Wrath Duane loved Warcraft and has always been a bit of an instance junkie. He did change his main from the DPS God class of the week to the OP pally tank. Now to be fair, Duane was a really good mage and like myself just got bored of raiding on a mage because the rotation as arcane was the old 1,1,1,2 that you could macro so you could watch TV and raid, another guildie did this one ICC raid and let his 4 year old play while he was on the phone one a Lady Deathwhisper kill and still out DPS'd 6 others. He wasn't so good on his paladin at first but with practice and some gear he became a reasonable, if occassionally reckless tank who did specialise in chain pulling and actively encouraged the AoEing down of vast numbers of mobsvast numbers.

When Cataclysm launched, Duane levelled his paladin furiously capped mining and blacksmithing real quick and was 85 before most of us. We finally caught him up and went instancing and had a few teething troubles on the normal mode 85 dungeons because Duane didn't like CC as it slowed us down and refused to accept that slow steady progress was actually quicker than recovering from a chaotic pull.

Cataclysm Raiding: Opening Night

The guys and girls of Saturday Knight Fever ventured out this week with our first night of raiding in Cataclysm. OK we did visit Blackwing Descent on December 14th and got our collective asses handed to us as we failed to kill more than a single trash mob and Magmaw, he did lol at us as we ran away with our tails firmly between our legs.

But more than that I have been shown a harsh lesson, one that I've been expecting if I'm honest but it still caught me of guard. My step down from serious progression raid guild to a fun and friendly guild that has some people who want to raid has left me with a group that values their time more than the purple pixels dropped by slain Internet dragons.

Inner City Over-crowding

One of the refreshing things about Cataclysm is the return to life of the capital cities. I remember the days of "unknown entity" in Ironforge in Vanilla and the lag that was also in Shattrath. But with Wrath we were assured that the no fly zone would help prevent the lag in Dalaran.

Sadly even Dalaran was way too small to play host to all the citizens of Azeroth without causing major lag for most people at all times of the day and particularly around late afternoon/early evening rush hour. So bad was the issue that Blizzard had to change its plans for the Argent Tournament to be hosted in the Crystalsong Forest and relocated it to northern Icecrown (did you wonder why the pre-Qs were in Crystalsong?)

Smiting My Enemies

Happy 2011 to you all, a New Year and a new expansion (well it is less than 1 month old) and I'm full of hope for a cracking year in Warcraft and my plan is to bring you my news of what it is like playing a priest in Cataclysm on these very pages. I can't promise much in the way of theorycrafting but when anything noteworthy happens in game to Evlyxx, I'll post it here and my aim is for this to be done regularly each Wednesday and Saturday, there maybe times when I post additional "newsflash" type things in addition to the standard posts and today is one such post. I'd love your feedback so please leave a comment.

During a recent guild Heroic Blackrock Caverns run, I had an epithany moment. I was running with a group that was 2 pallies and 2 warlocks. The crowd control was good and on trash I was being under utilised as a healer and decided to help speed up the trash clearing by actually using my Atonement build (33/6/2) and smiting the main target.