MINS! This isn't ZA!

Before getting side-tracked by last week’s topic, I’d wanted to talk about the new troll heroics and their propensity to drown hunters in poison and decapitate healers. If you can’t tell yet, I’ve had some bad experiences with these places, even with a full group of Hachi Scouts. This is precisely why you should do these new heroics. “But Hachi!” you cry. “I’m clearly not as good or as sexy as you!” And how right you are! That doesn’t mean, however, that you shouldn’t attempt these places, especially when raid leaders create a prime opportunity for you to do so (like Flaeta, cough). In fact, I’d even tell you to do these if you got no valor points and no 353 epics. Yes, the harsh lessons in coordination you’d learn doing these properly are enough of a reward without any other incentive. Why? Because with the exception of a select few raid bosses, they require a higher degree of overall skill to execute properly. This is doubly true of tanks and healers. If you can’t hack it here eventually, you won’t make it far in raids. So go on, PUG the new heroics, come back to me with your tail between your legs when you’ve wiped on Kilnara for an hour straight, and then run away back to the boss as I give you a sternly disapproving glare. Tanking ZA has honestly been an exhilarating experience. The panther and dragonhawk bosses have been true tests of my ability to control adds (much like Lubu clones running amok in Disneyland) and soloing Daakara a show of DK’s overpowered self-healing skills. These places will tear you a new one, so don’t stress over it, have fun, and learn.

In other news, I hit 85 on toon number 6 (rogue), am beginning work on number 7 (hunter), and have begun healing heroics on my shaman. Leatherworking is the last profession I need capped and I have great sympathy for you poor bastards who had to suffer through it. It feels weird, not only is my account almost entirely self-sufficient, I can field my own 5-man and then some. I doubt the servers could handle that much sexiness.

Have stories on Zul’Aman or Zul’Gurub? Your own experiences with alt leveling? Leave me comments, I liked having last week’s discussion! Also there is a button on the top right of the blog that will take you directly to comments.

Liberi Fatali News

Anal Corruption

-Group 1 downed not only Cho’gall (I still have nightmares about the tentacles), but Chimaeron as well! We’re going to start pushing Atramedes and Al’Akir, but for this leaves us on at 9/12 on the GET ME A DARK PHOENIX MOUNT DAMNIT International Units of Measurement.

-The new site is still new and still receiving tweaks. Make use of it!

-Lubu has returned. Handle with care, he still has that nasty tendency to get your top off when he’s tanking.

-Riot is engaged. Again. Taking bets on how long this one lasts.

-Rated BGs are being put together on the weekends, no set times as of yet. Contact Tif for approximate times, and remember these are for fun, if you want a competitive group, this may not be for you. We got steamrolled last week but had a blast.

Hachi’s List

-Hey, you guys can’t maintain your Hachi Fan Club membership if you ignore my decrees. I said I wanted Poseidus. Where is he?

-Andra is almost finished with her legendary mace, we still need more people to help out with this and getting Lubu a Shadowmourne. Because these two CLEARLY deserve legendaries more than me. How much did you bribe DR again?

-We are looking for more weak-willed and subservient flesh bags to sacrifice to Halion for a heroic kill…I mean valued and respected guild members.

-Recruiting a ranged DPS, with preference for the cloth variety. Please forward any potential recruits to an officer or to our shiny new apply now button at the top of the page!

Hachi’s Cup of Tea: Misdirect and You!: Advanced Threat Techniques to Kill Your Healer

I....wonder how much threat that caused. DR can you tank the Sunwell off me?

So last week I covered some basic threat issues. Here’s a recap. IT’S A NUMBER STUPID. Remember, that’s all that it is and it can be manipulated. Bosses won’t screw around with your threat, only you have control over that (unless the boss specifically uses a threat mechanic as part of the fight). This week, I’m covering just how you can manipulate threat for your own purposes, allowing you to either be a tank’s dream or the healer’s nightmare. Keep in mind that while I call these advanced threat techniques, they will seem extremely basic; it’s how you use them in conjunction with other players that make them useful. Play nice or I’m bribing the hunter to misdirect to you.

There are two primary methods of jury-rigging your threat to suit your needs: threat boosts and threat dumps.

Threat boosts

-Threat equalizers (or “taunts” for the uncouth). These belong primarily to the four tank classes and are why you’re still alive after you auto-ran into that pack of mobs. Asshole. The basic concept is that it brings the taunter’s threat up to whoever is highest on threat for that mob. This comes mostly in single-target form; the AoE versions are unreliable as the equalization is temporary (just like your life in this case). Those taunts are pretty basic stuff though. The more interesting threat equalizers are hunter’s distracting shot, shaman’s rockbiter weapon/unleash elements combo, stoneclaw totem, and earth elemental (seriously, screw you shaman); and DK’s army of the dead. These work exactly the same as tank taunts, however, you have to be more creative to make effective use of them. The majority of the situations you’ll use these in are if the tank goes down or a healer decides to have some happy fun time (very nice!) with adds. Typically, only hunters will get the job of add positioning via taunts. Remember, pet and totem taunts won’t work on boss-level mobs (only found in raids), so while that army might look big and impressive, your healer won’t be very satisfied when you only last a few seconds for her.

-Permanent threat boosts. Unfortunately, I only know of one ability that does this: glyphed dancing rune weapon. Pretty cut and dry, it puts an additional threat modifier on DK tanks, giving them significant snap aggro. This can help compensate for the lack of a threat transfer. If I missed any permanent threat boosts (that are NOT passive threat modifiers), leave it in the comments.

-Threat transfers. Oh, how I love these little things. These include tricks of the trade and misdirect. Using these abilities transfers all threat generated while active to the target, great for helping with initial threat. The downside (there must always be…a downside) is that the threat gained from these is temporary and disappears after 30 seconds. A decent tank should still be able to make good use of the threat or you’re about to make a visit to the floor boss.

Threat dumps

-Permanent threat dumps. These come in two flavors, full and partial dumps. Full dumps (vanish, feign death, invisibility) reset your threat all the way down to zero and makes Hachi a jealous bastard. These are obviously the most powerful threat dumps and in actuality need to be used sparingly. Being high on the threat table can be beneficial and prevent someone of a more delicate nature from dying. Partial dumps are honestly fairly useless for the most part. These come in varying strengths such as feint and wind shear (which are extremely weak and will almost never be used for the threat reduction) or the stronger soulshatter and unglyphed hand of salvation. The latter are what useful threat dumps look like, the first drops a whopping 90% threat, the latter 10% over 10 seconds.

-Temporary threat dumps. These can be great in their own way; however, they don’t provide the benefit of permanent dumps. Fade, mirror image, glyphed hand of salvation, and shadowmeld all fall under this category. The first three will allow a player to continue whatever they were doing without being in any danger of pulling threat. For all intents and purposes, the player is invisible to the mob while under these effects. A common and popular misconception (at least during Vanilla) is that fade effects prevented the player from generating threat while active. This is FALSE, as my many deaths due to inattentive DR’s can testify to. You will still gain threat but it won’t come into play until after the effect fades. These are best used at the beginning of fights, when new adds spawn, or when your tank isn’t on the ball and loses threat. Shadowmeld is…different. You’ll still be invisible to the mob, but you won’t be able to move or do anything else really. Any AoE damage will also knock you out of it. All of these should be used regularly unlike the permanent dumps. Helps me hold threat off your sorry ass when you backpedal into that group of cats and….FUCK MINS HEAL ME.

This concludes this week’s guide! Join me next week for either a quick and dirty guide to the troll heroics or a rundown of one (1) of the raid instances. Vote for the one you want in the comments that right down here (be sure to pick a raid if you vote that way), and as always, I am your glorious leader and everything sunny all the time always, good time beach party.