Back off, DPS! A tank rant

I've seen a theme developing lately in blog posts and rants on the WoW_ladies livejournal community about tanks getting the short end of the PUG atmosphere stick and it hits me close to home. I've paid more attention to these kind of posts because I've started a lowbie tank recently myself and I find the complaints I'm reading about most often are ones I have myself.

Whether it's the anti-CC atmosphere of all of Wrath (I swear, you never see a sheep anymore unless you're PvPing) or simply the result of everyone overgearing every instance imaginable through badge and BoA gear, DPS have lost their restraint. Every fight is an AoE fight and if you aren't pulling as fast as the healer can keep up (if not faster), you are labeled a "fail tank" or told (usually by a ret pally) that someone else in the group can tank instead if you can't do it faster. It's enough to bring newer tanks (including me) to tears.

Now I could talk about DPS taking a lesson in patience, that everyone has to learn to tank somewhere. However, I've seen a lot of those kind of posts around, so I thought I would tackle it a different way.

Tanks need to learn to deal with these impatient, rude DPS.

First, take a deep breath. When they start in with "pull faster" or "I could do this job for you," as a tank you actually do have a few options. If you're interested in a conversation or think this person would actually listen to reason, you can explain to them that you're pulling at the pace you (or your healer's mana) are comfortable with. Or that you've found if you pull large groups, the DPS AoEing makes you lose aggro on too much of the pack and everyone dies because the healer has to heal, literally, the whole group at once. However, I've found more often than not that if a DPS player is going to start berating you for not turning each instance into a five-minute run (so they can sit around for their next 15-minute queue, heheh), they're not usually interested in listening to what you have to say.

An option that many young tanks (myself included) take is to just drop out of the instance. If the entire group seems set on negativity or you are completely outleveled by the mobs in the instance (it's amazing how little threat you can hold on mobs just two or three levels above you) or by the other DPS (this is especially bad with mages and ret pallies), it's sometimes better to take the debuff and not get caught up in the hate mongering. You'll have to wait a bit for the debuff to wear off, but I strongly urge you to wait it out and then get right back into the dungeon queue. In all likelihood, you aren't a bad tank. In all likelihood, you've been given a handful of bad DPS or been put in a situation that is beyond your control (mobs three levels above you only receive a third of the aggro you put out). Take a breather, quest some, talk to a friend who plays a tank and get some tips, and then get back on the horse. After that next dungeon, you'll feel a whole lot better.

If you think you can handle the instance or just want to be stubborn (we've all been there :P), there's always the ignore option. Not only does it completely negate what they're saying to you, it prevents you from queuing with them ever again. Both can be positive things. Check healer mana and move on. Most likely, the healer will follow your lead. And really, the DPS in any dungeon run are just there to make it faster. If pressed, a tank and a healer can handle a dungeon (especially a lowbie one) with just the two of them. I don't recommend telling the DPS that, but it certainly can help your own sense of self-confidence.

You notice that I refer to the healer and their mana situation a lot. In a dungeon, the healer and the tank have to stick together, and the healer is the person I always give the most respect to. They're the ones keeping my big bear butt standing and if they're not happy, then nobody's happy. Since I play a healer as my main spec, I know how tough it can be and I afford them whatever chances to drink that I can.

The last option is one that I seldom use intentionally, but for the most rowdy DPS it's necessary. Let them pull aggro and die. Well, it's really the healer's choice whether or not they die, but you can certainly let the pulls go to them. If the mage won't stop ice storming? Hold down the mobs that you can, use your taunts on a reasonable cycle, and if something is eating the mage's face then it's not your fault.

A huge part of tank burnout (and probably a contributing factor to why there are so few around) is that you feel very responsible for what happens in the run. And probably more than any other role, you are responsible. But that doesn't mean that heals and DPS are blameless. DPS players have skills to drop threat or can watch Omen and learn to stop DPS when they get too high. Or they can die and whine about it. Neither of those things are the responsibility of the tank. Take the blame for things that are your fault, but don't let others foist the blame for their own faults onto you.

We've all been in situations that make us feel really awful, especially as tanks. The important thing is to figure out what you can do to help move things along, both for yourself and for the group. Because tanks who can exude confidence in the face of negativity end up being more successful in the long run. 

Resto's getting better!

So in the most recent beta build some (not all) of my issues with the resto tree have been resolved, or at least mentioned in passing by Ghostcrawler. I'm very pleased to hear that Rejuv will get a GCD-reducing talent, that Furor actually has something to offer the resto druid, and that the second tier of the resto tree is getting something that actually benefits the resto druid. I am intrigued by the extreme mana cost that hots are apparently getting and how they will play against the direct heals (and the carpet of Efflorescence). So color me pleased (though as GC says, they've still got a lot of work ahead of them).

Oh, and I want a moose...

So last week I ranted about what I don't like about the new talent tree builds for the beta in Cata. And after I posted it, I thought about how useful that post is to the devs, to any audience I might accrue, and to myself. And I decided that there is some relevance, but it's also missing something. After all, if you're going to point out problems, you need to point out solutions to those problems, too.

I'm looking forward to Cataclysm. Don't think I'm not. But I have specific things I want to see, both for my class and for the game itself. Some of them I have no doubt Blizzard will achieve. Others are a little more sketchy.

I want healing to stop having a rotation

On most fights nowadays I hit Wild Growth, then five to six Rejuvs, then Wild Growth. Occasionally I mix it up by keeping Regrowth on one or both tanks instead of one of my WG button pushes, but that's about it. If I'm not sticking to this rotation, I feel like I'm underperforming, not living up to my potential as a healer and potentially letting people in the raid die. I'd like to see raid healing as being more about choice and less about spam. And from what I've read about in Cata, that is entirely the case. So that's definitely heartening.

I want my tree form back

I know I'm not going to get it (unless it comes in the form of one of the medium glyphs that Blizz is implementing), but I'm still going to miss it. The tree form dance has always been my favorite and the distinct silhouette of it has always made picking myself out of the crowd easy (I've never raiding with more than two other trees in any raid, so generally it's not hard to find me on screen). Plus I just like the idea of a druid turning into a tree. It feels right that resto druids get a distinctive shape, the same as the rest of the druid pantheon.

And as for lore, one of the most holy and important sites for night elf druids is a tree, the proverbial tree of life. Its destruction signaled the end for immortality among the night elves. Trees and life are tied together in an extremely important way and I think representing the lifegiving form of druids with a tree is entirely accurate. I agree that tree form needed some overhaul and I think that the devs were right when they said tree form didn't feel much different from caster form, but I think removing the form entirely (or reducing it to a long cooldown with some pretty serious drawbacks) isn't really the way to go. Unfortunately, I wasn't asked and at this late date, I'm pretty sure there's nothing to be done about it anyway. Regardless, I want some form of a tree back in Cataclysm, even if it's only a shapeshift form that has no bearing on my playstyle.

I want interesting spell choices

I love how Swiftmend works, that it's dependent upon another of our spells to work and that, through a glyph, we can make it work even better. Similarly, I love how Nourish works, increasing its throughput as I have more hots stacked on a target. Again, I need a glyph to get fully there, but it still works. I want spells to be interdependent. I want to have to think about how the spells I've applied will affect the spells I'm about to apply. And I think that the way the new Empowered Touch works (reapplying Lifebloom to a target when Nourish crits) is a great step in that direction. But I wish there was more. Maybe the whole resto druid heal game would become too convoluted with another step, but I like the complexity.

When I played in vanilla, I was a one-button healer. So I am totally in love with all the shiny new buttons I've gotten since then. I want there to be a fine art to resto druid play, a game that takes time and willingness to fully master. That kind of challenge excites me and keeps me coming back to play every raid lockout.

I want talent choices out of the feral tree

Weird, huh? Balance seems to have all the great caster stuff, but I'm bucking for something out of the wrong tree. Maybe Feral Swiftness is meant to be a talent enterprising druids of the resto or balance persuasion can take, but is it really leading anywhere? I know that feral is already difficult to balance because of its own dual nature, but something in there for the casters to go for would be extremely nice. It seems like the other classes all have options in both their other trees, but resto druids only have one other way to go. And our own tree is cluttered with things meant for balance and feral druids to take at the top, so I feel doubly screwed. Embrace our feral side, resto druids! We're kitties and bears, too!

I want it to be epic

This is less about my class and more about the feel of the expansion in general. With the sad patch that was ToC, all of WotLK felt large and intense. We're rushing to deter the Lich King's minions, but we've been detained from that by the rising of one of the Old Gods, who we must kill to avoid global destruction, and now we're all going to learn to joust, but we will defeat you, Arthas, and take back the Frozen Throne! /end scene

My point is that WotLK was superb in the storytelling arena. And I hope they kept the same writers for Cata, because I look forward to seeing far-reaching storylines, great drama played out on the world stage with the players either in the front row or as part of the action. I haven't heard a single person deride the Wrathgate cinematic as a waste of time, so take that as an example of the heights we can reach with the technology we have. It's worth it for oh so many reasons!

We have a really great game on our hands, no doubt about it here. But I want to see it move beyond even that in the Cataclysm era. I want to see healing become more dynamic and fresh, challenging and interesting. I want druid talent trees to be unique and fun, not locked into a static lump by role restrictions. I want to see the amazing stories I know that Blizzard has in store for us unfurl and take shape. This is not a list of demands, this is a list of wishes. So please, Blizz, grant my wishes!

The Silent Tank

My husband is a tank. It's a role he enjoys greatly and like me and healing, he's been doing his job since day one. I've always been the more social of the two of us; it's the same dynamic as IRL and it works. So in instances and raids, I'm far more likely to interact with the other people (whether we know them or not) than he is.

A month or so ago I rolled another druid (Horde side, so new all around :P) and decided to level her feral, since I've never done that before. And since the dungeon finder system is so easy to use when you have instant queues (as a tank), it's more convenient for me than questing in the small chunks of time I have when the baby is sleeping. In addition, it gives me great experience as a tank, so when Cata rolls around I actually have a clue what I'm doing when I switch my offspec from boomkin to bear. Good things all around.

So despite running with strangers most of the time, I expected to continue to be able to chat when others are in a chatty mood or at least talk to guildies and friends on RealID.

Boy, is that not the case.

Part of it is certainly my inexperience with tanking, but it's also because I have to pay much closer attention to things: the mobs' health, aggro on all targets, my health, healer mana, defensive cooldowns, rage generation, and more. I can barely keep up when people say something in party chat. The multitasking involved with tanking is way beyond what I expected.

Maybe my husband isn't avoiding socializing. Maybe he just doesn't have the mental GCDs. I know I sure don't :P.

Thankfully, it's gotten better. I had a macro outlining my tanking philosophy (I tank as fast as healer mana will allow, you pull it you tank it, etc) that I spammed at the beginning of instances, but it seemed to cause more chatting than it dampened. So now I just watch party chat for the healer asking for a mana break and pretty much keep my mouth shut the rest of the time. I'm in my mid-30s now, so it's not like people are saying anything more than "Pull faster!" anyway.

I like tanking and I'm glad I'm going to be an offspec tank in the xpac. But I'm also really happy that I have vent for raids. Beats the heck out of reading one more thing on an already-crowded screen!

Another beta build, another disappointment

From MMO Champion

At the start of BC, I was super excited to play a tree. We got tree form! We had a brand new spell to play with! Our old spells were getting buffs and we wouldn't just spam Healing Touch anymore! At the start of Wrath, I was similarly excited. Lifebloom got a nerf (it needed one), but tree form was losing its root effect! We were getting a flash heal, one that interacted with our other heals. I love heal interactions! But Cata's announcements and subsequent beta talents just haven't lit my fire this time around. I know the talent trees are still in flux, but right now they are really, really underwhelming.

I figure I'm probably jumping the gun in my negative reaction to the current resto druid beta talent tree, but it seems like nothing is changing and there really, really needs to be some changes made. The resto tree is generally lackluster, with very little in the way of talent choices. In fact, there's a tier or two where you don't really have a choice at all (and I'm not just talking about Furor). There aren't enough actual talents to make the choices meaningful, which Blizz has stated is their goal. Yes, there will be talents that every tree will pick up, but there will also be a few talents to add flavor to your build. Right now there's not much flavor.

The first and second tiers are the biggest offenders as far as talents you have no choice about. I think it's been said many times, but making Furor a resto talent, when it provides no bonus to a rest druid, is sorta silly. I can see that it's there to provide a hook for ferals and boomkin to get deeper into the tree, but I feel like it needs to offer something more than feral and balance options in order for it to stay in our protracted talent trees. Natural Shapeshifter is similarly offering us very little of interest in a world where our shapeshifting ability has a three-minute cooldown. It seems to me that Perseverence is more of a tanking talent, unless Blizz is looking to make healers more resilient. Which may be the case, but it doesn't excite me as much as a tree as it does as a bear. I think adding more ranks to Master Shapeshifter wouldn't be a bad way to make that tier feel less full of useless but mandatory talents. Likewise, Empowered Rejuv doesn't feel all that different from Improved Rejuv. I like talents that do things, rather than talents that push me toward using one spell over another (not that I don't like Rejuv; I'd still use it without talents that augment it).

This is part of what I'm talking about that the talent choices aren't meaningful. Yes, these spells increase HoT ticks and Rejuv ticks, respectively, but what about making Rejuv act differently in different situations? A cooldown that spreads Rejuv to everyone in an Efflorescence, for example, would be interesting and add something to our healing toolbox that's not just more healing. I recall that one of Blizz's stated goals for the new talent trees is to remove or enhance the talents that were just +damage or +healing. There are a lot of talents still in the resto tree that are just +healing and that's not exciting. If I'm only getting a talent point every other level, it should mean something. I'm willing to get behind the concept if Blizz is willing to make talents more fun.

Even the balance talents we can reach aren't all that great. Nature's Splendor doesn't seem to exist at all anymore. I am dearly in love with this talent, giving us a very solid purpose behind taking balance talents while still providing moonkin with some utility. Now the only reason to get into the balance tree is because nothing in the feral tree is useful. In the second tier of balance, we have to choose between increased healing or reduced mana cost. We can't get both because they're both three-point talents. Or we can spec into hit. Personally, I'm not loving those choices, either.

Now, this rant is pretty ranty, especially since what I hear coming out of beta is a LOT of unfinished content and talents and broken quests. It doesn't sound like a complete, or even near-complete, product. But we've gone three or so rounds of new talent trees and I'm not seeing big changes happening to resto. And I think big changes are needed, or at least enough small changes to seem big. Playing a tree is awesome, and I'm willing to give Blizz a shot at this new lack-of-treeform thing so long as they're willing to give me stuff that makes me excited to play again, the same as I've felt at the beginning of each new expansion.

Not a morning person!

And so my beginnings are usually pretty meh. I'll start with a manifesto of sorts, just so I, at least, can remember what I'm here for :).

 I want to go back to work eventually. That's a good number of years away but I still need to be working toward that goal. To that end, I'm adding skills to my old set, as the old set will probably be a little out of date. The skills I'm adding are all web-based, like web site design and maintenance. First off they're easy to jump into in this day and age, and second they're pauseable, so I can go chase after my daughter or feed her or whatever in the middle of something and not lose anything. This blog is my first step in that direction, to force myself to write and keep up with something online on a regular basis (shooting for three posts a week, minimum, to start). It's also going to be a place for me to try out my burgeoning skills, so there will probably be freaky changes after a while!

As it says on the side there, I also identify as a tree, which if you play World of Warcraft you know it means I play a restoration druid. The next expansion, Cataclysm, is slated for release this year sometime, which I'm excited about. I've been a raider almost as long as I've been a player, and I've played since launch. Always as a resto druid. It's my niche :). So a lot of this will probably be talking about resto druid stuff, though I do love my death knight just as much, so she'll probably get some love :). I like to theorycraft as a hobby, which means I'm not big on math, but I like to speculate. Fortunately, the info coming out of the Cata beta leaves me with much to speculate upon :D. Like new tree form graphics! I'm not an autumn, Blizz, I'm so much more a spring :P.

Covering all the bases here, I'm also a writer. I've participated in NaNoWriMo for three or so years (maybe four? I can't remember anymore :P) and I won twice. The second novel is actually something I'd like to publish. I think it has potential. Anyway, when I got pregnant, it was like my muse left town and she hasn't gotten the memo that she can come home yet. I've got a few ideas simmering that I will hopefully have time and inclination to write (practicing writing blog posts will maybe unstick the gears in my head?) and I may decide to post them or parts of them. Might be password protected if I want to reserve the right to publish them. We'll see! Writing is one of those old working skills that's gotten rusty. I need to move those muscles!

I save the best for last. I'm a very proud mom of a four-month-old baby girl, Vivi. She's sweet, especially since she started sleeping through the night! I love that I get the opportunity to stay at home and take care of her, watch her learn and grow. I know I'm extremely lucky and I never forget that.

So that's it for the first post. Beginning, middle, end and some graphics in between. See, it's almost like I know what I'm doing :). With luck this will get easier as I learn to streamline the process. It's all about learning, really: web design, writing, WoW, babies. Each step improves on what I've done before :).