As Cordolvar has now reached level 60 and is headed to Outlands and Northrend, I look back at what he’s accomplished so far and wonder about what it all means.

Evaluation Points

Way back in my first post, I listed a number of questions I wanted to answer:

Is the performance of easily purchased strength plate heirlooms adequate?
Yes. Without a doubt. I asked several healers that I ran dungeons with, and they all said they had no trouble healing me. While I did die a fair number of times, I have no reason to think the number of deaths experienced was unusually high.

To be clear, easily purchased to me means purchasable from either the vendors in Ironforge, Undercity, your guild’s vendor. Cordolvar has:

These were picked because of this Icy Veins article that is totally aimed at end game raiding, but no one analyzes leveling stats. This makes sense because whatever is optimal at any given level wouldn’t be optimal any more in a few levels and its not worth the time in analyzing it.

It’s certianly not hard to join a casual guild and achieve friendly reputation with them in order to buy the heirlooms. If you’re playing literally your first character ever in World of Warcraft, then finding the gold and guild might be a bit trickier, but then you’re probably not chaining dungeons on a tank either.

Which UI modifications help the most, and why?
  • Weak Auras
    My Shield Slam Weak Aura is definitely the most useful WA in in my setup. Using Shield Slam on cooldown is the best way to generate rage, and rage fuels everything else a warrior does.
  • Bartender4
    Arranging lots of powers on lots of bars that you can see when and where you want is a key part of any UI. Add in super easy keybinding setup and you have a winner.
  • Pawn
    Quickly knowing at a glance if anything is an upgrade is really nice. I could sit in game and debate whether having X amount of stat Y is better or worse than I amount of stat J, but really it just doesn’t matter, and Pawn takes the guesswork out of it all.
Does any of this even matter in 2018?
Probably not. However, thinking about this stuff makes the game more fun for me.
Can good tanking practices make runs go more smoothly?
Maybe? I haven’t tried ignoring good tanking practices (assuming I do any good practices), but anecdotally a few healers have given me kind words regarding my play, so I’m guessing it helps a little. I’ve also never been kicked from a group, though I’ve joined a fair number of groups in progress, at least a few of which had problems with their previous tanks.
Do you need to know fight mechanics at all?
No. Without knowing anything about the mechanics you can survive any fight. Not that you necessarily will, but you can. Not turning your back to mobs is a good idea. Staying out of the fire is a good idea. Paying attention to what the other melee players in the party are doing is a good idea. Interrupting heals or other certain spells is a good idea, but even if you do none of those things, you’ll probably be fine. I’m hoping this will change as Cordolvar’s level continues to increase.
Will I ever learn my way around all these dungeons?
Yes, though maybe not in a single character. I’ve become very familiar with a few dungeons, while others I’m still more or less clueless in. How long will I retain this comfort? Probably not long enough, but I’m pretty sure some of it sunk in.

Data Discrepancies

I pulled Cordolvar’s statistics from the Battle.net World of Warcraft API and found two discrepancies:

  1. I missed four deaths.
  2. I missed four dungeon runs.

Well, I guess that’s bound to happen when you chain dungeons for 99% of your game time.

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Trouble in Azjul-Nerub