Tankadin? Tankadin!

Well, raiding has ground to a halt: 25-man ToC, VoA and Onyxia only took a couple of nights, and we didn’t have enough tanks for our 10-man raid for two of the remaining nights.  So I finishing leveling my paladin.

Meet Binglerouse, level-80 tankadin extra-ordinaire.  Also tankadin very inexperienced.

I finished leveling her as I began; as prot spec.  Needless to say, it wasn’t the quickest of processes.  But. Once I picked up Divine Plea and Guarded by the Light, things became substantially faster.  (Yay for pulling a half-dozen mobs at a time, and finishing the fight with full health and mana)

The hardest thing has been finding information about how to gear, how to talent, and how to tankadin.  There are still some useful guides, but even then some of them are a bit out-of-date (such as the Item Enhancements page on maintankadin, which hasn’t been updated to cover epic gems).  I’ve been able to pick up enough ideas to give me a very basic understanding, now it’s a case of getting that chance to put it into practice.

And she’s pretty well geared (comparatively speaking), with the crafted titansteel helm and shield, the crafted boots and belt from Ulduar and crafted chest and wrist from ToC.  (Have I mentioned how lately how much gold I no longer have?  Well, I have now, and I can thank Bingle for it.)

Oh, and she’s had a haircut to go with her new gear.  I think it suits her.  And don’t you love our new guild tabard?  (I wanted a kitty, but nooooo…)

I might also gear her up as a healer – it’s early days still.

As far as the rest of my assorted alts…  Well, it’s a case of that vague ennui settling in during the dark period when you’re trying to choke down the dregs of the last content patch, with the promise of better things to come from the next patch.  Icecrown may await us, but not nearly as much as we’re awaiting it.

I tanked ToC10 on Dingle last week, but my performance was pretty awful – seriously, it’s was almost failpug level.  (It improved slightly after juggling some gear, but still, it wasn’t pretty…)

Hopefully things will improve this week – we’re really pushing things as far as attendance, and I can see it only getting worse before Icecrown and 3.3.  And it’s around time to get ready for tonight’s raid, so time to log over and get busy.  (Raiding or waiting, time will tell)

/wave

I Can Has More Dwarves?

I’m hoping the leaked information on MMO-Champion regarding the next expansion is accurate…  Goblins and Worgen are nifty and all, but I’m hanging on for the dwarf shamans and mages!  Yes!  More Dwarf classes!  (WTB more character slots – 10 might not be enough…)

And speaking of characters, meet my newest level 80.

Celebrating as Dwarves celebrate everything, with a mug in hand.

/wave

Ding 80! (Again)

Kringle has finally reached the hallowed heights of level 80, which leaves Pringle, Bingle, and Tingle to go.  (Having said that, I’m considering replacing Tingle, the underplayed druid in my lineup, with a new character on the Horde side – at least it would be something different to do)

25-man raiding has progressed yet again, with General Vezax falling before us after a single (surprisingly focused) session.  It was actually quite a fun fight from my perspective, and it’s been a long time since I’ve used my wand so much.  However, we were having lots of issues with interrupt-capable players failing to, well, interrupt (even our raid leader, a very capable prot warrior, was having trouble with that for some reason).

With this in mind, I’ve finally purchased dual-spec for Mingle, and have put together two slightly newer shadow specs to play with.  The first one has 3 points in Shadow Affinity (for those painful times I’m called to do AOE, and am paranoid about fatal aggro-pulls), and is closest to the one I’ve been raiding with until now.  The second one is mostly the same, but drops the threat reduction for Silence (and its useless prerequisite, Improved Psychic Scream), for ranged interrupts in a pinch.  Admittedly the silence spec is a bit of a reach, especially with the 45-second cooldown on it, but I’m curious to see if it’s actually useful (especially when we’re having issues as we did last night).

Previous build: link
Shadow Affinity build (13/0/58): link
Silence build (13/0/58): link

It’s actually a little embarrassing to go back and look at my current spec, and to see the holes in it (such as only one point in Improved Shadow Word: Pain)…  Well, hopefully I can learn from it.

Hopefully we can get our act together next week, and reach Yogg-Saron again for more frantic wiping at the end of the first phase.  (Seriously, that transition is insane – which is quite appropriate, considering where you are)

I’m getting Kringle a little more geared up (mostly with crafted epics), after which I’ll either work on leveling Pringle or see about rolling this mythical Horde character I’m considering.  I just wish we had playable goblins.  Or murlocs.

/wave