Blackrock Tank Trinket Choices
Progression. It is like oxygen to the raid guild. Sometimes progression is taking down a new boss, but sometimes progression takes another form as Dirty Casuals learned on Tuesday night.
The night started on a positive note as a new Hunter, Savvy Mark, joined the raid. I always think of Jack Sparrow when I see his name, savvy? Mark responded to my recruitment post and it was great to have him aboard. I loved that he played the night as Beast Mastery. When I mained my hunter for a while at the beginning of Cataclysm, Beast Mastery was my favorite spec. I really need to go level that guy again. Ah well, one day.
We've anchored ourselves in Blackrock Foundry for a while. The Bosses of Highmaul had begged for mercy. Steel and I took the tanking duties. A one shot of Gruul made for a great start. We headed over to Oregorger already set to four healers. We are getting better about watching how much ore he has already gorged and we moved into position a little faster. The attempt went well. Boxes died, people avoided getting bowling balled for the most part. When he toppled over 2 seconds into enrage, I looked at the screen in stunned silence. Did we really just one-shot Oregorger?
Yes, yes we did.
A quick ride down the elevator brought us to Beast Lord. I use Glyph of Consecration for the fight but it makes Consecration feel quite clunky. I have to cast, then place the graphic on the ground. Steel and I traded off and Beast Lord toppled over without much fuss. Next up was Hans and Franz. Even though we really don't need our Holy Paladin to BoP one of us for the final Suplex, but he still does, mostly because he enjoys killing whichever hunter is slower on his Feign Death button. I wouldn't want to take that fun away from him.
Hans and Frans dropped a tanking ring and the trinket, Table of Turnbuckle Teamwork. We generally don't like to award two pieces of loot from the same boss to one person but Steel didn't need either piece and my other ring was a tank ring so I got them both.
4 bosses, 4 one-shots. Next up was Flamebender. We had a couple of people new to the fight and we had our first wipe of the night. It seems that as the fight wears on, I get further and further back toward the little fire pool thing in her room. It makes positioning tough for melee, plays havoc with out cameras and actually led to the line of sight errors on taunts I got last week. We made a concerted effort to move her back to the original starting position after each Firestorm AoE phase and that helped everyone with positioning.
In one night, we managed to down all of the bosses we previously killed. That leaves Thursday wide open to work on Kromog and/or Operator Thogar.
I now have to decide between the three trinkets I have: Tablet of Turnbuckle Teamwork, Heroic Pillar of Earth, and Stage 2 Knight's Badge.
Trinkets are not as straightforward as other item comparisons. You've got Mastery with a Bonus Armor on use (Tablet), Static stamina, versatility, and Bonus Armor (Pillar) and Bonus Armor with a Critical Strike (Parry) proc.
I asked Rhidach on Twitter
While the Badge has more Bonus Armor, would the static Stamina and Versatility on the Pillar make up for that? The crit on the Badge becomes Parry and while that is nice, wouldn't the Stamina and Vers give better TMI? The other angle is I only have the Stage 2 Badge so I'd have to use my bloods (thank you Ore Trader) to upgrade the Badge to Stage 3.
The night started on a positive note as a new Hunter, Savvy Mark, joined the raid. I always think of Jack Sparrow when I see his name, savvy? Mark responded to my recruitment post and it was great to have him aboard. I loved that he played the night as Beast Mastery. When I mained my hunter for a while at the beginning of Cataclysm, Beast Mastery was my favorite spec. I really need to go level that guy again. Ah well, one day.
We've anchored ourselves in Blackrock Foundry for a while. The Bosses of Highmaul had begged for mercy. Steel and I took the tanking duties. A one shot of Gruul made for a great start. We headed over to Oregorger already set to four healers. We are getting better about watching how much ore he has already gorged and we moved into position a little faster. The attempt went well. Boxes died, people avoided getting bowling balled for the most part. When he toppled over 2 seconds into enrage, I looked at the screen in stunned silence. Did we really just one-shot Oregorger?
Yes, yes we did.
A quick ride down the elevator brought us to Beast Lord. I use Glyph of Consecration for the fight but it makes Consecration feel quite clunky. I have to cast, then place the graphic on the ground. Steel and I traded off and Beast Lord toppled over without much fuss. Next up was Hans and Franz. Even though we really don't need our Holy Paladin to BoP one of us for the final Suplex, but he still does, mostly because he enjoys killing whichever hunter is slower on his Feign Death button. I wouldn't want to take that fun away from him.
Hans and Frans dropped a tanking ring and the trinket, Table of Turnbuckle Teamwork. We generally don't like to award two pieces of loot from the same boss to one person but Steel didn't need either piece and my other ring was a tank ring so I got them both.
4 bosses, 4 one-shots. Next up was Flamebender. We had a couple of people new to the fight and we had our first wipe of the night. It seems that as the fight wears on, I get further and further back toward the little fire pool thing in her room. It makes positioning tough for melee, plays havoc with out cameras and actually led to the line of sight errors on taunts I got last week. We made a concerted effort to move her back to the original starting position after each Firestorm AoE phase and that helped everyone with positioning.
In one night, we managed to down all of the bosses we previously killed. That leaves Thursday wide open to work on Kromog and/or Operator Thogar.
I now have to decide between the three trinkets I have: Tablet of Turnbuckle Teamwork, Heroic Pillar of Earth, and Stage 2 Knight's Badge.
Trinkets are not as straightforward as other item comparisons. You've got Mastery with a Bonus Armor on use (Tablet), Static stamina, versatility, and Bonus Armor (Pillar) and Bonus Armor with a Critical Strike (Parry) proc.
I asked Rhidach on Twitter
@HonorsHammer That's tough. I'd go for Pillar and Badge personally. Prefer max BA that I can get. The on-use is nice though.
— Matt Walsh (@Rhidach) March 5, 2015
@HonorsHammer Er, on tablet. Especially for a fight with a big burst of physical damage (like Hans/Franz).
— Matt Walsh (@Rhidach) March 5, 2015
While the Badge has more Bonus Armor, would the static Stamina and Versatility on the Pillar make up for that? The crit on the Badge becomes Parry and while that is nice, wouldn't the Stamina and Vers give better TMI? The other angle is I only have the Stage 2 Badge so I'd have to use my bloods (thank you Ore Trader) to upgrade the Badge to Stage 3.
Comments
The patch changes to 6.1 are going to make BM the spec to play as a hunter. The 2 piece bonus gives every Kill Command a chance at resetting Bestial Wrath. It brings RNG, but BM is already doing well (especially in the AOE department).
And one more thing, even though Conquest gear isn't itemized for tanking, it's hard not to look at 660 gear when a couple of hours in Ashran gives you enough points to get a piece.