Cassie was looking for some leveling information, and came across a very nice compilation of Cataclysm information, arranged by zone, at Wowhead.com.

She was very impressed with the information, how it was arranged and how they attributed what source their information came from, and thought it would be a good place to bookmark while we wait for the final expansion release.

I know there are other places out there to find this as well, Cassie was just struck by how nice this was presented and how complete.

I’ve always been a personal fan of Wowhead, from the very first time they popped into the field. I think the professional layout, speed, attractive arrangement, the tools they’ve developed like the talent calculators and their willingness to provide silly tools like Tooltip addons for Bloggers (which I use gratefully), everything they do is of the utmost quality and usefulness.

Even if they never DID add my link to their “Bloggers who use Wowhead” page.

I’m sure everyone here is very familiar with Wowhead, but I think it’s hard to remember the old days when Thottbot or Allakhazam were our only sources for where an item could be found, or even what might be available to be crafted.

They were great tools, of course, wonderful databases carefully researched and documented… but they never seemed… professional. They were, much like my blog, projects that could be seen as coming from a fan rather than a skilled website design professional.

If you did play back then, in the time before Ten Ton Hammer, MMO Champion, Wowhead, okay I’ll say it, WoW.com… take a moment to contrast how it felt to play back then, with how these professional websites enhance the experience now.

I really do feel that these websites, and the skilled, artistic and mature touch they bring, helps to encourage the feeling that we are taking part in a hobby that can be respected as being the pastime of skilled, thoughtful, mature people.

A video game, no matter how popular or awesome, is usually only really known by the people who play it. Outsiders have no idea what we’re talking about.

With these websites, we have something we can point to and say, “This is representative of the game community, and it’s certainly not something knocked together by 6 year old script kiddies. Mock us for playing a game if that’s what tickles your fancy, but don’t pretend any idiot can master this or that it’s beneath you. Chances are good you’re not intelligent enough, flexible enough or dedicated enough in your life to handle ICC hard mode raiding, and you’d get owned in battlegrounds PvP, so shut it.”

And of course, it helps people who might be interested have a palce to go where they can find out more… and, okay, get scared by how damn complicated it all is.

Thus ends my little love letter to Wowhead. :)

When I talk about something on the blog, I do try and pick out those things that are entertaining moments, weird moments, or teachable moments.

There has to be a point to it, even if it was just “Well, it made ME laugh.”

Something that happened that was a fun story, something that happened that was out of the ordinary, something that happened that called to mind a topic of discussion many of us might learn from… if only to know what not to do.

And in thinking of blog posts as a teachable moment, thinking about what not to do and how to present it… my mind, inevitably, turned to evil.

A new reality TV show… “How Not to Tank”, with your host, BBB.

Yes, thats right, I felt struck with inspiration for a horrifying series of Youtube videos.

I could join a random pug, and then intentionally do something that tanks should never do, narrate it, and film the entire sequence… including the reactions of the unsuspecting party.

“Today, the Big Bear Butt will demonstrate what happens when a Bear tank tries to free himself from movement impairing effects during the 10 waves of trash in Heroic Halls of Reflection, by shifting out of and back into Bear form. Repeatedly. What will happen, and how will our unsuspecting party react? Let’s find out!”

Seriously, can you imagine how terrible that would be? To be on a run with unsuspecting, innocent folks and intentionally do stuff wrong or stupid, just to film their candid-camera type reactions and then post it?

I have achieved a new, galactic level style of asshattedness.

Even worse… the temptation to actually DO this, if only once, is strong. Now I know what is really meant by “Tempted by the power of the dark side.”

How has this concept not shown up as a regular reality show or on the internet yet?

Stay tuned next week, when our undercover main tank healer goes on strike with loud drama over Legendary item loot priorities right as the main tank pulls the last boss of a heroic Ulduar 25 run, and how the guild leadership reacts after the epic wipe, here, on “Wipe That Raid!”

I’m a sick, sick bear.

Normally, I present info from the uni-directional point of view of da tank, and tank alone.

I certainly try and keep an open mind and look at things from different angles, but until I’ve been there, it’s hard to have specifics.

This time, I’ve got a few things that playing a new healer in heroics has brought to my attention that I thought would be fun to discuss.

First, I’m not really new to healing. I dual-specced my Druid quite a while back, got setup with Tree healing, and I love it. It is the absolute perfect accompaniment to the Bear tanking mindset; highly mobile, pre-emptive, heal them before they even know they needed it kind of healing.

As a Bear tank, one of our strengths is the mobile AoE. We like to run and gun. :)

As a Tree healer, our greatest strength (in my opinion) is the predominance of instant cast HoTs. We can also run and gun. We’re all about running and.. well, and leafing along. Why look… synergy.

As a Tank in instances, if I see I have a Tree healer, I know that I can remain mobile and healing can continue as normal. I’m not irritating the healer by always being on the move. I watch mana levels on the party as I pull, but I know that I won’t be leaving a swearing healer in my wake.

I’ve got a Priest that I had healed with a few times back in Burning Crusade before I went Shadow, so I know about that a little bit. And Cassie has a max level Paladin that she plays Ret and Holy in groups, and who has raid healed a few times, so I know a bit about that healing style from watching her and hearing her side of things. I know that being a healer whose main healing spells have relatively long cast times can be annoying, and even stressful if the tank doesn’t take that into account on things like Culling of Stratholme.

Now, I’ve just completed a slew of heroics as a new Shaman healer to give me a fresh perspective.

Here is the one suggestion I’d like to make when you go in to tank with an unknown healer; remember that not every healer uses instant cast spells.

Yes, every healer can follow along and keep up when tanks hustle through instances. Tree healers have an easier time of it than the others, but just taking the Shaman as an example, Lesser Healing Wave is pretty darn powerful, and with appropriate levels of haste on your gear, it’s relatively speedy. Riptide is a nice instant cast, and Nature’s Swiftness plus Chain Heal or Healing Wave gives you another big instant hit if things are moving fast and you just CAN’T take 2.5 seconds minus haste to get a normal Chain Heal off.

But the thing is, while all healing classes can heal on the run and do it very well, remember that there is a timing sequence here, and as has been pointed out by so many people, tanks set the pace of the run.

Everything flows from the tank. The tank runs fowards, the rest follow along. We’ll not linger overlong on DPS that run forward to attack before the tank does to hustle things along, okay? There is a special place in hell reserved just for them.

The tank runs forward, as I said, followed by the DPS who engage the mobs, followed by the healer, who catches up, stands still and remains poised to heal. Or immediately launches into healing and healing and healing.

If the healer has long cast time heals they want to use, they may begin pre-emptive casting, and then move at the last moment to interrupt their own heal so as not to waste mana.

Mana on a long cast is spent when the spell goes off, and not at the start of casting. As I’m sure everyone knows, you can begin casting your 2.5 second long heal while everyone is still at full at the start of the pull, and if the target just happens to take damage, you can let it go off looking like a healing genius… and if the target’s still at full, you can hop in place and break your own cast to save mana. No harm done, right?

I’m only bringing this up because if you, the tank, run up and grab mobs, then the DPS runs up and opens up on them, then the healer runs up and stops and begins casting… if the mobs are dead 2 seconds later and the tank takes off again, that 2.5 second cast time heal ain’t going off before your butt is out of range. At the very least, if everyone runs off the millisecond that the mobs are dead, and the mobs die like they have been from the uber-DPS people have these days, then sometimes not everyone is healed back up from party damage. Ya’all take off while the healer was still casting his second spell.

Now the healer has to start running again to catch up, not everyone is at full, and start falling back on super fast casts and instant casts only to try to get folks topped up before the next pause, or start out at a negative on the next group.

Does it matter? 90% of the time, no. But it can be stressful, and why should you stress the healer for nothing?

When it does matter is when the tank grabs tons of mobs because, oooh look, I’m a rock star, the DPS gleefully blows them up, and then the tank, at 50% health, Feral Charges himself directly at the next big pack, or packs, or even better rounds a corner and charges the boss when you were still trying to get your long cast off. 

Healers just love it when you start a boss fight when everyone is still at around 50% health or less, and the healer has been chain casting to catch up.

Again, it’s not a big deal, no reason to whine, most healers will be bored if you slow down too much.

There is a lot of satisfaction to be felt in running at top speed as a healer, keeping everyone alive and near full all the time without needing a pity break. It’s something the healers I know take pride in, in not needing everyone to be waiting around on the healer.

But it’s something to be aware of if you’re the tank, and the only thought in your mind is “Gotta get the aggro. The aggro. Gotta get the aggro.”*

You may be having a great time running around grabbing lots of stuff, and holding aggro, and having a fast run. The DPS may be loving the pace.

But the healer may just be feeling a little stressed having to chain cast long cast time spells non-stop, and not getting a moment to catch their breath because if they ain’t casting, they’re drinking for two seconds before getting up and running along after you again.

Really, all it takes is saying, ”Hey, if my pace is too fast, just let me know, okay? I can hold off for a second for mana or heals. No problem.”

I bet if you say that, then again, you’ll almost never hear anyone say anything. But at least the healer knows you give a shit.

And it can also help you identify asshat DPS that throw a hissyfit at the very idea you might pause for anything, anything at all. I like to know who they are for my ignore list. :)

For the record, I’m not going to post my Shaman’s name or a link just now, because while it’s not any big secret (or all that hard to figure out), my gear right now ain’t anything anyone needs to see.

I ran a bunch of heroics, but I took most of yesterday off to do something else; level Enchanting on my Shaman from 0 to 315, on my way to 350.

I got stopped by the need for a gazillion Arcane Dust, but since none of my gear had been enchanted yet after just dinging 80, I just cast them on myself over and over.

I really don’t need somebody following a character link, and then being an asshat because I’ve got a +1 Stam enchant on my bracers, or a Mana Prime on my chest piece, ya know? I’ve been buying the big ticket end game enchants on gear that’s going to last, like my Zom’s shield, but that’s about it.

Once my enchanting is done, yes I’m sure I’ll replace those enchants. If I was in all epics, then I might leave them just to freak people out, but when my gear is all starter stuff, I don’t have any room to have stupid enchants as a goof.

Anyway, I did have a lot of fun healing on my Shaman, and aside from my very first run, they were all smooth as could be. Well, aside from a Drak’theron Keep run, bt that was mostly due to some mid-run sillyness and joking. :)

It was pretty amazing, how much of a difference there is in a tank’s pace. A little pause between pulling big groups of just a second or two, no more, makes a huge difference on a healer with long cast times in staying on top of everything without feeling too rushed.

Halls of Lightning, Oculus a couple times, Utgardt Keep, Utgardt Pinnacle, Gundrak a few times, Drak’theron Keep… I saw a nice range of places, and they were all fun. None of them were any problem at all, but tank pace and placement counts for so much in making the difference between a fun run and a stressful one.

More updates will follow… after my Enchanting gets better. :)

*For those that remember those old Dunkin Donuts commercials with the old guy that walked around in a daze waking up to go and make the donuts… “Gotta make the donuts, the donuts, zzzz”

I dinged 80 on my Shaman this morning, a bright new day for a completely different toon.

I arranged all my gear, set up my Glyphs and Vuh’do, got everything all set, and happily queued up for a random heroic. As a healer.

Lo and behold, I get for my first one, Utgardt Keep of course, thanks to the wonders of my not being all purpled out. :)

Went through, had fun, no problems at all. The recent articles in Totem Talk on WoW.com about Restoration Shamans have been very helpful in making sure I’ve got things straight.

After spending some time on other things today, I went ahead and logged back in for my second heroic as a healing Shaman.

This time, I get Oculus.

No problem, that’s not too bad. Sadly, my low gear score will mean squishy drake mounts, but everyone has to start somewhere, right?

Ah well… so much for my hopeful expectations. I found what can only be described as “situation normal, all selfished up”.

We went in, and the luck of the draw gave us a Bear tank with a really cute name, “Cutebearbutt”, and I thought, “Well, cool. With a name like that, it’s probably a pretty nice person playing. This ought to be neat to see someone else bear tank for a change.”

So much for having my judgment clouded by false expectations. You’d think I should know by now not to judge a player by the names they choose.

Although I stick by my practise of shunning any elven Hunter named a variation of Legolas. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere, damnit.

Right off the bat, I get kept busy with spam heals, as the idiot mage blows stuff up with AoE outside the Bear’s range of Swipe, and takes massive damage from all the little whelps that, /shock, only pay attention to the one person doing threat to them. They sit there and shell him from a distance.

While I’m trying to nuke heal the Mage and keep him alive…. the Druid proceeds to keep on trucking, running all the way around and aggroing the entire ring. Of flying things. That she can’t keep aggro on. Many of whom she doesn’t even get a single tag on, since as soon as I start healing her, they’re all over MY ass from healer threat. And I can’t NOT heal her, because she’s taking massive damage and dropping like a stone. I gotta heal her and hope we get through this.

I keep her up, and me up, but with all the incoming damage on everyone, I can’t heal everyone else through it, and the Mage drops, then the Paladin, and then the Rogue and the rest of us follow. Honestly, I doubt my fully epicced-out Tree could have done any better.

I say, politely, that I’m a new healer, and I can’t handle healing through pulling quite that many mobs yet, and suggest that if that’s going to be a problem, I can step out so they can get someone else. I made sure I was very polite, and not snarky, because hey, I know how everyone is used to a high level of gear by now. If they want to run fast, I won’t get in the way, I’ll go look for a Nexus.

Tank quits the group without a word, followed by everyone else. Not a single word is said.

Not a “My bad for pulling a hundred whelps and leaving everyone else back there to fend for themselves and not bothering to actually establish aggro”, not a “oops, maybe I should have let the tank get aggro first” from the DPS, nothing.

Not a word. I entered the instance to retrieve my body alone.

Honestly, my first thought?

Screw you all very much, too. Screw you oh so very much.

My second thought WAS snarky; “Awwww, did’ums not have a healer to carry your asses through being stupid? Did’ums fear you might have to put forth some effort in playing properly?”

“Poor babies!”

Such are the moments of excitement and anticipation for newly dinged 80s in heroics.

I guess my meager 1500 spellpower unbuffed was a bad idea. Maybe I should go back and keep doing regular instances for a while. At least there, they don’t expect Icecrown raiders in all their pugs.

I think I’ll just put together a little drop list from regulars and see what happens.

Ah well… what did I expect, a welcome? Courtesy? Consideration for a new healer just getting started? Patience? ROFLMAO!

What am I smoking over here? Don’t I know it’s all about getting what each individual wants for themselves, and to hell with everyone else? 

Geez, what game did I think I was playing, anyway?

I had a very nice email earlier today, and after the crazy day I had, it was the perfect capper.

I was gonna talk about my crazy nutso kooky day, but what the hell… this question is about Bears, and the guy really hit the right chord with me, so I guess you folks that hate anything that isn’t about Druids on the blog win out.

This time.

Don’t push it. :)

Here is part of the email, from Stratus on the Darkspear server;

Hello Big Bear - 
 
Anyway – have a question for you.  Myself and another geared bear tank were discussing gemming.  I essentially stam stacked my gems.  Had some expertise in there because mine was so low, but would otherwise go +30 stamina gems – no matter what the color called for.  Anyway, he basically stated I was a moron.  I laughed of course (but inside I was like, damn, maybe I am a moron – lol). He went on to say by me stam gemming I am gaining health at the expense of damage mitigation.  True, I replied, but I am counting on my gear to do that.  I look at gemming for health power mainly.
 
I could not find any specific BBB blogs on this although you mention in one of your side articles about a blog on that – but I could not find.
 
Any words of wisdom or articles you could shove my way to look and ponder with regards to high level tank gemming?

Looking forward to your response whenever that may be.
 
Stratus, Darkspear

Thanks for the really nice email, Stratus. The whole thing was very nice, and I hope you’ll forgive me for just excerpting the parts relevant to your question.

The question about choosing between Stamina and Agility is a great one, because it touches on the part of the game where judgment intercedes against ’set in stone’ guides.

The short form answer to your question is, no, you are not a moron, because clearly you have given thought to your Bear and grasp the basics of mitigation (and I assume you’re lumping avoidance in with it) and health pools, but yes, you could be doing a little better in your gemming selection criteria.

Lemme ’splain.

As a Bear tank, when choosing between Stamina or Agility gems, you are making a choice between either a higher health cushion to eat the damage and last longer before healing is needed, or increased avoidance to do the “sidestep bear butt boogie” and avoid the damage entirely.

There is a fine line between having just enough health, and an overabundance of health as compared to Dodge.

Let’s start with increasing health. We’ll slip some Dodge tank in afterwards.

What your intent is with increasing health, is to have enough health to ensure that your healers are never drastically rushed in trying to get in that desperate last second heal to keep you from taking a dirt nap. When you increase your health pool, it appears that the more health you have, the more reaction time you are giving to the healer to respond to your incoming damage.

Healers these days are frequently responsible for healing the main tank, and also a bunch of other people too. If your health is consistently too low, the healer has to focus on healing you to the exclusion of everyone else just to keep that next blow you take from being your last.

Some of those other players may take damage, especially in fights like Ick and the ramp before the tunnel run immediately after in Pit of Saron, and die from lack of healing if the healer has to be all over you.

The more health you have, the safer the healer will feel in letting you get your face beat in while he or she is busy popping some much needed heals on the rest of the party. Right? That seems reasonable, amiright?

From hearing me talk, you might think that there is no better thing than having a huge health pool. After all, I’m implying that the more you’ve got, the more time the healer has to react, right?

Well, that is true, IF you have balanced your health with avoidance.

For the long time theorycrafters out there, please realize that I’m not speaking about armor caps and mitigation, or Defense or Dodge Rating, or comfortable Critical Strike levels for Savage Defense. We’re talking the basics of Stam vs Agi.  It’s okay, trust me, I know you got this already. :)

Back to health balanced with avoidance.

You have been a dutiful bear tank, you have gotten new gear upgrades through drops and Emblems while following my lists, and along the way you have stacked Stamina like a madman. Er, bear.

You pop into Heroic Pit of Saron, and you are surprised to find that you feel very squishy. You have lots of health, that’s true, tons and tons and gobs and oodles of health.

Problem is, when the big hits come in, you go down like a… umm… wow, okay, for the adults, pretend there was a Navy shore leave joke there, and a good one at that. For everyone else, let’s say you go down like a stone dropped in a still pond. A pond with aerated water.

You have the big health numbers, but you’re taking massive damage, and that health pool is disappearing fast.

Now, if your healer is from a pug, or is generally unfamiliar with you, they might have seen your high health and assumed you were well balanced in gear. With that thought in mind, they might have given you scant attention, and focused more on keeping the party alive.

Suddenly, your health plummets, they abandon the party in a panic to spam mana-intensive big, fat, fast heals on you, and by the time they started you were already below half and dropping fast.

You’ve got a massive health pool. The healer is used to getting you topped back off to full and then going back to the party.

Low and behold, you’re NOT getting back to full, because you keep taking damage. The healer is trying to fill an infinite well with a thimble, the party members are yelping and trying to find the Potion or *gasp* Bandage buttons, while the DPS are frantically fending for themselves the damage going outbound slows down, and the fight takes even longer.

The healer quietly has a nervous breakdown while wondering what *they* are doing wrong.

I think you get the overdramatized point.

This is where Agility, and the avoidance it brings, comes into play.

As your Dodge (and Dodge Rating, Defense Rating, Armor, all the avoidance and mitigation stats) increases, the rate of speed of incoming damage slows down.

Mitigation is already reducing damage taken, and your Dodge is causing some attacks to be avoided entirely. As you increase Agility, the better your Dodge score becomes, and the more attacks that just go whizzing by your cute furry ear.

Agility also improves your Critical Strike Rating, and as your Crits become more frequent, your Savage Defense passive ability procs more often. Savage Defense, of course, causes the next incoming physical attack that does damage to be lessened by 25% of your attack power. It can proc as fast as you can crit, and your Swipe has the potential to cause an individual Crit from every single mob hit. That’s a lot of chain crits when swarmed, and that’s a whole lot of mitigation.

That is why stacking Stamina gems to a lower health level than you might think, and balancing the rest with Agility, can be such a powerful combination for your runs.

The healer may be taken aback by your seemingly low comparative health. Say, 40,000 health. A mere pittance, you think.

And then, as the fight begins, the effects of your 50%+ Dodge come into play.

Attacks will still strike you, but the frequency of successful attacks is reduced, you take damage at a slower pace, and the healer has a lot more time to react to the damage you HAVE taken. Time that can better be spent ignoring your invulnerable silly bear butt and paying attention to those DPS that forget to hustle their tushies out of the green fire. Again.

That is the point to balancing Agility and Stamina. Having the health to survive the big single blows and rapid damage spikes, and the avoidance and mitigation to slow the rate of incoming damage overall way the hell down.

So, how much should you take of both? What are the limits?

It depends purely on your understanding of how health and Dodge affect your role in your groups, and then basing your decision on the content you are trying to prepare to run. 

I could link you to my character on the armory, Windshadow, assuming she is logged out in Bear gear (I have no Cat gear, I either tank or heal. No middle ground.) and let you see the choices I have made based on 5 person Heroic/no raiding gamestyles. But it’s not important, what is important is where I’m at just from non-raid stuffs, and how effective it can be.

In current gear, my health totally unbuffed is 36,587 and my Dodge unbuffed at rest is 43.39%.

That Dodge seems low, doesn’t it?

But wait, there is more than is immediately apparent that I’ve factored into my gear plan!

First, I have The Black Heart, for a frequently procced increased physical damage mitigation buff. You’d be surprised what an extra 7k armor can do against physical damage.

For increased Dodge aside from gems and enchants, I have factored in Darkmoon Card: Greatness (Agility), the Mongoose weapon enchant and the Idol of the Corrupter.

So, unbuffed base of 43.39%.

• Add 1.66% when Lightning/Mongoose procs (and it procs a LOT on group swipes).
• Add 3.89% when Darkmoon Card: Greatness procs.
• Add 2.02% when the Idol procs.

When all three buffs are up, which does happen quite often, I’m running around with 50.96% Dodge. Unbuffed.

Mongoose is damn near always up, and at least one of the other two is usually with it.

Add in Mark of the Wild, Kings (I carry Drums of Forgotten Kings, of course) and Agility food buffs and it just goes up from there.

That health probably seems a bit low even after you’ve read all this Dodge gunk, but I always carry Runescrolls of Fortitude, so I know that when the Big Bear be tanking, I’ve got a Fort buff guaranteed. :)

The final result?

I cannot play without having any healer at all… but there have been plenty of times when the healer has gone down, and I have lasted a truly ridiculously long time without heals on a boss fight or against multiple mobs, because although my total health pool at start is lower than most tanks, if I am suddenly on my own, I have the option of popping Survival Instincts, Frenzied Regeneration and Lifeblood, and becoming a full-on energizer bunny, with the avoidance and mitigation to slow down the rate of incoming damage to a crawl.

The lesson to be learned as a Bear tank is, if you intelligently balance health and avoidance against the content you are running, throw in a well timed powerful self-heal and a temporarily increased health pool as needed, and use Barksin and Crit like a banshee, you’re going to be a favorite tank for healers… at least, the ones that like to know at least ONE idiot in the run won’t be driving them nuts.

Stratus, I sure hope this helps you gain a bit more insight into the considerations you make when looking at gemming.

At the very least, thank you for a nice, polite, friendly and well written letter. I hope you and your friend have plenty of fun chewing on all the things I intentionally left out. :)

Take care, everyone!