Tank like a girl

Here’s the 2nd and for now last part of the Formspring mailbag, but once questions pile up again, I will answer them again. As a reminder, you can go here to ask me any questions, anonymously, or leaving your name, whatever you want.

1. If you play(ed) Dungeons and Dragons, what class would you pick? Also, if you have played or still play, which version do you prefer? 3.0,3.5,4.0 etc.

It’s actually been years since I last played D&D. The last version I played was 3.5. As for characters, I’ve always leaned towards playing melee classes, so either ranger, rogue or warrior. Rangers are probably my D&D favorite.

2. How do you generate AOE threat with disparate mobs? I’m thinking about (for example) the waves in HoR. DKs can taunt, DG, and silence to bring in ranged mobs. How do you do it as a warrior?

As a disclaimer, I am not the best HoR tank. I tank it for friends only, and even then I will curse a lot. The waves in the last part get increasingly more difficult to tank as warrior. Heroic Throw has a 1 minute cooldown, so you can use it once in the 2nd wave and once in the last wave and have to figure out other means to handle those mobs in the first place. Definitely spec into Gag Order so that Heroic Throw will silence and then bring the casters to you. You can also Charge/Intercept the casters, but you do risk that the abominations will vomit all over the melee in your group.

Ideally you have people with interrupts. Taunt casters, spell reflect to gain aggro on them, and if you then have someone help you with an interrupt, they should wander over into your Thunderclap/Cleave range. If you do not have interrupts in the party, you will need to head there yourself and Shield Bash a cast, then cluster the mobs together again.

Another example for disparate mobs that I have seen tanks struggling with would be the two large groups of casters in Forge of Souls. As warriors this is actually easy to tank for us, as long as you can grab initial aggro. Charging the Soul Horror in the Center, Thunderclapping and from thereon using Spell Reflect every cooldown will let you tank this fight comfortably. If you lose one of the casters in the back, you can taunt, Intercept, Heroic Throw or head over for Shield Bashing. Mobility is our advantage, so don’t be shy with charging from mob to mob, interrupting as you can and send those shadow bolts right back at them. Yes, unlike HoR I actually love tanking FoS.

For further writing I have done about clustering a pull, see this entry of mine.

3. When someone writes an e-mail to you, do you prefer being addressed as “Kadomi”, or is using your real first name permissible?

I am not hiding my name, it’s mentioned on my About page, but when it comes to WoW I mostly identify with my name as Kadomi. It’s just who I am in WoW.

4. I would imagine that you’ve been fluent in English for some time now. Even so, do you ever encounter a piece of English slang that confounds you for a moment when you first hear it?

I pay for my WoW subscription as staff of a bilingual helpdesk, so I am surrounded by all sorts of native speakers who work in my office, mostly Brits. They will regularly use terms that I do not understand, so it’s always an experience here. It doesn’t even need to be slang to confound me. My SO has a huge, extensive vocabulary and in her verbose description she will use terms I have never heard before. So yeah, my English’s definitely not perfect.

5. How easy would you say you are to be friends with?

That’s a can of worms! I would describe myself as an extremely loyal, caring friend, but I do need time to warm up to people. I am blunt and do not have the ability to sugar-coat my words convincingly which has often led to headbutting with people. A diplomat, I am not. If you can deal with all that, it’s definitely not that hard to be friends with me at all.

6. Xtian913 wants to know: Kadomi, I know you said in your blog that your SO stopped playing WoW, but… why? I know everyone needs a little time off from the game, but so many years of enjoying it, why just stop?

When I read this question to my SO, she thought I was shitting her and that I set her up, but no, it’s a real question! Her answer remains the same as it did when she quit: ‘I got bored of pressing the right buttons in the right order for hours.’ She says she doesn’t think WoW sucks, but that she is just bored of it. I’ll continue to woo her back for Cataclysm, but chances are really really slim at this point. I think she said only riding snails could bring her back. Hello Blizzard, think you could use those snails models for mounts instead of non-combat pets? I would love you forever!

And that covers all questions for now. Hope you enjoyed.