Tuesday, May 25, 2010

How to! Warrior Tank - Level 75-76

Omg! There hasn't been a post about my poor warrior all of May! Well lets change that. I've finally dinged her 76, and the story continues.Actually, there isn't much new to add since last time. But still some so let's see what we can dig up.
You can continue the switching from the cobalt set to the saronite set. Some pieces are definitely better than others. Some are barely an upgrade, and therefore not that important to switch while others are big upgrades, it depends some on whether you've gotten some other gear through quests/instances too, so keep an eye on that.At level 74 you can do the quest "Wanted: Ragemane's Flipper". You'll find it in Light's Breach in Zul'drak. Be sure to read the quest text, it's awesome in itself. It awards your pick from a nice set of different tank weapons, so I strongly recommend you checking this quest out! Ragemane is a level 75 elite, and quite tough. At level 75 you get Enraged Regen though and that should help you solo him (I've done it twice so it's not that hard). Three of the rewards are good for a warrior tank; Crescent of Brooding Fury, Hammer of Quiet Mourning and Sword of Heartwrenching Slaughter (such nice names). They have some different stats and speed but they're all good. So which one to pick is really about what stats you like. I usually go with the Crescent, although it is really slow. Apparently alot of people recommend picking one of the faster weapons. There are mainly two reasons you'd want a faster weapon;
- More Heroic Strikes (since it's on swing)
- More auto attacks which generates more rage

I have no trouble with rage at this level whatsoever. If you feel like you do however, you should go with the faster weapons. The point with Heroic Strike is a good one, but having a slower weapon will instead improve the damage on your Devastate (in fact it is the high end damage on the weapon that matters, but slower weapons generally have more high end over fast weapons of the same level). To me Heroic Strike and Devastate felt about equally threat generating so I chose between the stats on the weapons instead. The Crescent has expertise, an offensive stat I really love for tanking. The mace and sword has dodge/parry instead, which are good defensive stats of course. So again, the choice is up to you. They're all about equally good so if you have trouble with survivability and rage -> fast wep. If you have trouble with being parried/blocked/dodged (and I do)-> slow wep.

At level 75 you can also get yourself a Deadly Saronite Dirk. It gives both hit and expertise! The Sun-fire Shuriken I mentioned last time has better survivability though, so yet again you'll have to choose between avoidance (or hp in this case) and threat.

Skills
We get one really nice new skill at level 75. It's not Heroic Throw unfortunately, we'll have to wait to 80 for that and I'm still angry that we don't get it sooner. It's Enraged Regen which is similar to the druids Frenzied Regen, but better actually. The druid skill requires alot of rage, whereas Enraged Regen only requires an "enrage effect". You'll probably have an "enrage effect" active 95% of the time when tanking because of Improved Defensive Stance. In the off chance that you don't, Bloodrage will do the trick. A nice hint to using Enraged Regen is to use Last Stand just before. Since Enraged Regen is affected by your total hp, Last Stand will increase its healing by 30%! Pretty dang nice when you need it.

Talents
Oh yeah, just as last time go on with what you're doing. I've finished Toughness and will now move on to Armored to the Teeth.

Instances
Two new instances again!Violet Hold
At level 75 you can grab a quests for the key to Violet Hold by a guy in the Violet Citadel in Dalaran. It doesn't have any nice reward, but well, you get the key and alot of exp. Violet Hold is a really easy instances with just one tricky pull. Actually the mobs come to you, but anyway.

- The only difficult packs of mobs in VH are the group packs. Not because they're many, but because they stun, teleport and knock back. Really annoying, so be ready for it.
- There is one boss in VH that can prove to be difficult. Definitely not the last boss who is quite easy but Xevozz. The two first bosses of the instances are randomized, so if you're lucky you won't have to fight this guy anytime soon. But you'll have to eventually. If you're group is good enough you can just nuke him down. On low levels, this is rarely a possibility which means he needs to be kited. He summons spheres of doom that you need to stay away from. He will pause every now and then, but just keep semi-back peddling and try to keep aggro on him.
- Violet Hold doesn't let you do the pulling. Like I said the mobs more or less come to you instead. That means that once the instance starts you have to be active and ready to do your job, until it ends.

There are some tank drops to be had in VH actually, so keep your eyes open. There's a shield, some pants and a nice back depending on which bosses you get.

Drak'tharon Keep
I really like this instance. As with every other instance I like it has a nice pace, interesting mobs and fun pulls. The only thing I don't like about this instance is the second boss. He only shoots frostbolts randomly so it's really tough to get any rage which annoys me -_- There are a few quests for this instance, all acquired in Grizzly Hills by doing some prequests. "Search and Rescue" gives a really nice tank ring, and "Cleansing Drak'tharon" has a nice story about it (which is continued in Zul'Drak).

- The mobs in Drak'tharon actually hit quite hard. So don't do too big pulls!
- The first, second and last boss are really easy. The third boss, the T-rex, however can e a little tougher. He fears and puts a nasty dot on you. The dot won't go away until you're fully healed, and I've died twice from it -after the fight ended- because the healer didn't react fast enough :(
- The troll packs just after the T-rex boss are fairly easy. The patrollers use silence and fear which in combination can lead to nasty results. Be careful about how you pull here, because they chain easily. Trying to get control over the packs before you engage the patrol troll (hihi it rhymes) is highly recommended, because that increases the chance that the mobs stay on you when you're silenced and feared.

There are no tank items in Drak'tharon. Muradin's Lost Greaves from the last boss have some nice stats (alot of expertise! But they are dps really) but no defense :/

(PS. Sometimes I don't have links for the items I talk about here. That is because Blogger sometimes screws its own links, when you also have pictures, and that consequently deletes a portion of my text, which makes me really sad panda. That has already happened twice to this text for example, and it takes quite some time to find the missing part and rewrite it. The more links I have to make the greater the risk, so when I talk about many items I prefer not to make any links. Let's say it has to be either pictures or links! ^^ If you're curious about the items I talk about just search for them over at wowhead.com!)

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