Tanking

0 words

5 entries. 1,973 words.

November, 2013

  • When WoW Tanks Go Rogue. 2013-11-05 8:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Tanking

    I had an odd, somewhat amusing experience in WoW recently. I’ve been playing a lot of dungeon instances lately, partly because I’ve never actually done any WoW dungeons before, and partly because I wanted to level a mage without going through the hassle of soloing. Almost every instance has been an enjoyable, workmanlike experience … until this tank decided to be an ass. So the random dungeon selector came up with the Scarlet Monastary. Or maybe it was the Scarlet Halls. I can’t remember. They all run together. It was the one that starts out with those piles of corpses and zombies which most people just run around, but the second we stepped into this instance we were beset by flaming zombies and fighting for our lives. That usually happens when somebody doesn’t circumvent that first area, so I figured somebody was trying to do a quest I didn’t know about, or somebody was panicking, or somebody just didn’t know what was going on. 667 words.
  • Is Chain-Pulling Harder?. 2013-11-12 2:41 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Tanking

    I was in a dungeon recently with a chain-pulling tank, and it got me thinking. I’ve always associated the chain-pulling tank behavior with a more advanced tanking technique, but is it really harder to chain-pull? Chain-pulling, if you don’t know, is where the tank runs at full speed pulling mob after mob after mob without stopping, until he gathers a big group of them together, and then he takes off again before the group is even dead. So he gets a big train of mobs following him around, and the rest of the party has to run full speed to keep up with him. 224 words.
  • WoW Tanks Are Top DPS??. 2013-11-26 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Tanking

    I realize nobody wants to read about WoW, but historically I haven’t played it much, and about 90% of it is still new to me. Well “new” isn’t the right word exactly-it’s more that WoW’s implementation of familiar MMO tropes is new to me. For example, I’ve made a shocking observation in my low to mid-range dungeon runs: The tank almost always does the most damage in the group. Sometimes by a very large margin. 339 words.

May, 2014

  • Rift – Trying Out The Arbiter in 2.7. 2014-05-12 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Reviews
    • Tanking

    I tried out the mage tanking soul Arbiter in Rift 2.7 on Thursday night. Overall I was pleased with its performance in Realm of the Fae, but I’m a bit worried that it will be “complicated” to play at higher levels. Take that with a big grain of salt though as I am far from an expert tank, and I have only seen low-level abilities. The "Arcanist" preset with the Arbiter, Stormcaller, and Warlock soul trees. 533 words.
  • ESO – Complete One-Eighty On Subbing. 2014-05-13 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status
    • Tanking

    So, yeah, I changed my mind and subbed for one month of ESO. I did it after I played the Arbiter in Rift for a night, and realized to my horror that there was no way that I would be able to fill all of my gaming time between now and the WildStar launch with Rift tanking. I sort of forgot to factor in my terror of tanking high-level dungeons in PUGs. There are only a handful of low-level dungeons that I’m comfortable with, so it won’t be very long before tanking becomes a hellish, stressful nightmare, regardless of what I think of the soul. 210 words.