Tank Hard!

According to a post by Drysc, patch 2.3 is scheduled to go live this coming Tuesday,

The start date for Season 3 is purposefully planned to be one week later than the release of patch 2.3, which is currently scheduled for November 13. We will be closely monitoring the testing of the 2.3 patch, and if it looks like it won’t make the November 13 date, we will announce a delay.

Are you ready?

If you have been planning ahead, maybe you have stockpiled Heroic Badges so you can pick up some of the new Badge Items. It will also be time to rip that Sunder Armor button from your action bar and permanently replace it with Devastate. And of course you could also have stockpiled the mats for the new enchant, [item]Enchant Weapon - Executioner[/item].

So what are you most looking forward to with Patch 2.3?

Honestly, I’m not an elitist, but boy do I hate pugs. Recently a friend of mine started playing wow, and leveled to 70. Being 70, it’s time to get keyed for Kara. It was late last night and not many guildies were on so me and my friend (a warlock) got together to run Shadow Lab for the first key fragment. The group was me (70 prot warr), my friend (70 lock), and 3 PUGs, rogue, hunter, paladin.

Now, I haven’t run a normal 5 man instance in forever, and I haven’t PUG’d a 5 man instance in … well … I can’t remember the last time. I had this faint memory that I disliked PUG’s but I thought, hey, I’m decked, how tough can it be?

At any rate, here’s a few notes for folks:

1. Hunters - Do not lay your trap at my feet. When I mark a mob for trap, you stand away from group, aggro said mob and pull it to your trap at your feet, away from the group. Keep said mob trapped as best you can until said mob is called to be killed.
2. Rogues - Do not stun the mob to be killed as it is pulled. This does 2 things. It deprives the tank of rage, and possibly prevents the tank from positioning the mob away from CC’d mobs so we can use AE abilities (see note #1).
3. Rogues - Do not open up with Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush right off the bat when a multi-pull is incoming. You are pretty much guaranteed to pull aggro from something.
4. Rogues - When you do pull aggro from #3 above, either hit evasion, or vanish.
5. Rogues - When you have a Paladin in your group, get might, not salvation. That’s what feint and vanish are for.
6. Hunters - Do not serpent sting mobs that are marked for CC. Kill the mobs that are marked to take down next.
7. Paladins - Heal the tank (one wipe on a 4 pull last night I went 20 seconds without a heal <3 Grim Reaper mod).
8. Rogues - When fighting Murmur, RUN OUT of the circle when he ‘draws in air’.
9. Paladins - When fighting Murmur, do not RUN INTO the circle because the rogue in back is out of range for heals.
10. Everyone - Come prepared. Bring water. Don’t sit at 40% mana and say you don’t want to drink because you’re ‘conserving water’.
11. Everyone - Do not roll Need on blues just for the heck of it, especially when it was announced beforehand that you have an Enchanter in group who can DE any unneeded items.
12. Everyone - Do not spread out a group of mobs in a multi-pull making it next to impossible for the tank to keep aggro on everything.
13. Everyone - If you are not sure what mob you are supposed to be attacking, assist the tank.

While the PUG didn’t go as smoothly as one would hope, we did manage to wrap up and get the Key Fragment for my lock friend. We then picked up a couple of guildies and hit Steamvault and Arcatraz for the 2nd and 3rd Key Fragments.

I think I have a renewed disdain for PUGs and it will likely be another very long time before I do another PUG, as I’m sure the pain will pass with time.

A good segway here, Kestrel has put up a nice 10 Commandments for PUGs that everyone should strive to follow.