Achievement Earned: Crit Cap
Over the weekend I attacked my little issue with not being Crit capped.
First off, I took the boat from Stormwind to Borean Tundra. Since I had not been to Borean on Honorshammer, I didn’t have any flight points over there. My goal was Coldarra and the small quest hub at the Transitus Shield. I banged out all the quests I could there and opened up a new daily, called Drake Hunt.
And this is where my quasi-role playing side pops up on one shoulder to argue with my Tank side showing up on the other.
The quest involves you capturing a Drake and taking it back to the camp where it is summarily executed to further the ‘research’ of the Reds. These Drake have committed no crime save the color of their skin. Because they are Blues and not Reds, they are being rounded up and executed. This is wholly different from killing the Blues actively attacking Wyrmrest Temple. I’m not sure a Paladin, especially my Paladin, would be comfortable with this mission. The quest giver is Raelorasz, a Red Dragon. He seems to sense the conflict and attempts to salve your conscious by telling you the deaths of these baby Dragons are really Maygos’ fault and not yours. Oh wait, let’s call them Drakes since slaughtering defenseless Drakes sounds better than slaughtering defenseless baby Dragons. Yet, it is not Malygos talon that fires the tranquilizing harpoon into their soft scales, it is your own.
But then there is another side, my Tankadin side that knows that it’s just a game, and doggonit, I need Wrymrest Accord rep. This daily is faster and easier than the one in Dragonblight and I need to do both anyway to get my Wyrmrest Accord rep up as fast as I can.
With the normal quests in Coldarra done and knocking out the daily I completed my goal of Honored with the Wyrmrest Accord. That meant I could go buy the Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions. I'd love to buy the Chest they have as well, but that requires Revered and I JUST hit Honored.
The next step was to find the friendly (and soon to be wealthy) blacksmith. I was in luck in that a Blacksmith friend was online. He helped me out and I replaced every single bit of my Burning Crusade epics except for my Tier 6 Chest, and my Exalted Hyjal Tanking Ring. I also dug my Scarab of Displacement out of the depths of my bank. This is a big reason why I really hate getting rid of gear and have a bank full of old tanking gear, especially trinkets.
A quick trip to Shattrah for Shoulder enchants, and a little jaunt down to the Caverns of Time for a head enchant and I had accomplished what I set out to do. I was uncrittable at 542 Defense. I was also over 20k armor. My health, however, was not where I wanted it, sitting at 19.2k.
I still need to enchant my Bracers and Cloak, and put a gem in my Eternal Belt Buckle, but I doubt even with all of those enchants done, I’ll hit the 20k unbuffed health I want to see.
I’m not sure that there is a terrible lot more I can really do about it at this point. Each upgrade has to be weighed carefully to make sure I stay above 540. But the bottom line is I’m there, Uncrittable and ready (with a good healer) to take on Heroics.
First off, I took the boat from Stormwind to Borean Tundra. Since I had not been to Borean on Honorshammer, I didn’t have any flight points over there. My goal was Coldarra and the small quest hub at the Transitus Shield. I banged out all the quests I could there and opened up a new daily, called Drake Hunt.
And this is where my quasi-role playing side pops up on one shoulder to argue with my Tank side showing up on the other.
The quest involves you capturing a Drake and taking it back to the camp where it is summarily executed to further the ‘research’ of the Reds. These Drake have committed no crime save the color of their skin. Because they are Blues and not Reds, they are being rounded up and executed. This is wholly different from killing the Blues actively attacking Wyrmrest Temple. I’m not sure a Paladin, especially my Paladin, would be comfortable with this mission. The quest giver is Raelorasz, a Red Dragon. He seems to sense the conflict and attempts to salve your conscious by telling you the deaths of these baby Dragons are really Maygos’ fault and not yours. Oh wait, let’s call them Drakes since slaughtering defenseless Drakes sounds better than slaughtering defenseless baby Dragons. Yet, it is not Malygos talon that fires the tranquilizing harpoon into their soft scales, it is your own.
But then there is another side, my Tankadin side that knows that it’s just a game, and doggonit, I need Wrymrest Accord rep. This daily is faster and easier than the one in Dragonblight and I need to do both anyway to get my Wyrmrest Accord rep up as fast as I can.
With the normal quests in Coldarra done and knocking out the daily I completed my goal of Honored with the Wyrmrest Accord. That meant I could go buy the Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions. I'd love to buy the Chest they have as well, but that requires Revered and I JUST hit Honored.
The next step was to find the friendly (and soon to be wealthy) blacksmith. I was in luck in that a Blacksmith friend was online. He helped me out and I replaced every single bit of my Burning Crusade epics except for my Tier 6 Chest, and my Exalted Hyjal Tanking Ring. I also dug my Scarab of Displacement out of the depths of my bank. This is a big reason why I really hate getting rid of gear and have a bank full of old tanking gear, especially trinkets.
A quick trip to Shattrah for Shoulder enchants, and a little jaunt down to the Caverns of Time for a head enchant and I had accomplished what I set out to do. I was uncrittable at 542 Defense. I was also over 20k armor. My health, however, was not where I wanted it, sitting at 19.2k.
I still need to enchant my Bracers and Cloak, and put a gem in my Eternal Belt Buckle, but I doubt even with all of those enchants done, I’ll hit the 20k unbuffed health I want to see.
I’m not sure that there is a terrible lot more I can really do about it at this point. Each upgrade has to be weighed carefully to make sure I stay above 540. But the bottom line is I’m there, Uncrittable and ready (with a good healer) to take on Heroics.
Comments
1 - Your a tank, and thanks to the combo of tabards, the tank shortage, and 30 - 50 minute heroic runs, getting rep is as fast or as slow as you want it to be.
2 - With just a bit more gear, you'll certainly be good to go for naxx 10. OS 10 and VoA 10. In short order you'll be ready for the 25 man stuff. The raiding in this game at this point really is almost trivial. Meaning the rep stuff will kind of be a moot point.
as you probably know they are about the same difficulty as normals were in tbc
Taking 9 k regular hits on trash mobs when you have 4 of them makes you and your healer a little nervous.
Also I'd check on the 540 def. as I believe that is vs. Boss level guys (83) and the heroic bosses will be 82 so you should be able to use a little less +def and a little more +stam in heroics.
Also work on getting your block value higher. Healers love it when they aren't healing spike damage and can more or less decide when to heal and which spell to heal it with.