A Green Fortress

Last night PVPed in my Pants did our arenas. We seemed to fight the same teams two or three times. It was pretty apparent when we were fighting a better team, a worse team, or a team about our level. We went about .500 for the night. Not too bad.

My one big concern about Arenas is that I'm going out of mana. Arena matches are lasting longer as more and more players get more Stamina and Resilience, and as Protection spec'ed Paladin my mana pool just isn't cutting it. My druid team mates, Baconstrip and Lakini are really helpful with Innervates. Even though I have 0 spirit on my gear, I can get about half a mana bar from their innervates. I've taken to trying to find a player or a pet and using Seal of Wisdom to gain some mana. Most of the time it doesn't work. I either have to stop and heal, or the player runs away from me.

I think Arms warriors really need a review. They wear plate, they have the best PVP debuff in the game, and they can stun as good as any rogue I've seen. We fought a team two or three times that had one of these Mace spec Arms Warriors. He made my life very difficult because every time I tried to heal, I'd get stunned. Are Mace stuns somehow not affected by diminishing returns? Of course, even if they are, even a .5 second stun is enough to stop a heal. Not good.

My favorite match of the night was fighting a two Paladin team. I nearly had time to get out of combat to rez our Balance Druid, Lakini, but the match ended before I could finish the spell.

After Arenas were over, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I tried to work out a Heroic for Sevenn. He's the guild blacksmith who went in with me to buy the Bracers of the Green Fortress bracer recipie. We couldn't manage a Heroic so he turned in some Badges for a Nether and I gave him the mats, which I've had in my bank forever it seems and now I have shiny new bracers. I'm still not geared enough to switch out a defense trinket for a stamina trinket, but I'm getting closer. The bracers push my hit points to just shy of 11k while still being uncrushable.

Not long after he logged off, I got an invite for Heroic Mech. Now it was late, and I probably should have gone to bed. But it's a Tempest Keep Heroic. Badges. Sha'tar rep. Everything I need right now. So off I went.

It was me (Prot Paladin), an Elemental Shaman (Wichita) and 3 druids: Baconstrip (Resto), Origami (Feral), and Lakini (Balance). We had a definate lack of crowd control and it showed. There are some mobs in Mechanar that are really tough on Heroic. First, the drillers have this move called Pound which stuns the tank and they proceed to destroy your healers. Then you have the Destroyers. They have a self buff called Charged Fist, which makes them do quite a bit of damage. We were able to interrupt once or twice, but they'd get it off and take me down.

In my Heroic gear, I am wearing two Kara Epics, have over 11k unbuffed, and right at 13k buffed last night, and over 14k armor (buffed). I've got to believe that I am in the ball park of gear necessary to do these Heroics. We wiped so many times. We manage to down the first boss, plus the two mini bosses that give the key to open the Cache of the Legion. Wichita was looking for a special Totem that drops from there, but alas, cloth healing shoulders. At least the mini bosses give Badges. Although my main Badge reward is a helm, and I just got an epic helm from Kara. I'm a little over 10% towards Exalted and my Crest of the Sha'tar.

And the first boss dropped: Plasma Rat's Hyper-Scythe. Its a Polearm and one of the best pre-Kara Retribution Paladin/Arms Warrior weapons out there. I've actually got quite a little bit of Ret gear without even trying to. It is kind of ironic that I have so much trouble with Tank drops but the Ret gear just seems to keep coming to me. Probably because I KNOW every time a tank drop doesn't drop but its gravy when I get Ret drop. I should probably see what kind of stats I'd have in my Ret suit, should the need every arise for melee dps on a night when I'm not tanking.

It would be a nice too if I ever wanted to take a break from tanking, and do something different. Respec's are pretty cheap, especially with daily quests.

But for now, I'm one of, if not the best geared tank in my guild. So keep bringing on the big uglies, and I'll keep them locked down.

Comments

Bobby said…
Mace stuns don't have diminishing returns...but they are pretty random, in a lucky streak it can be incredible, in a drought streak, not very useful.

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