Level 70 Double Update
Cordolvar reaches level 70. Tips for how to let your tank know you don’t appreciate them.
Quick Stats
| Since Last Update | Total | |
|---|---|---|
| Deaths | 2 | 33 |
| Dungeons Tanked | 7 | 74 |
| Dungeons Tanked Since Last Death | 0 | 0 |
| Levels Gained | 4 | 70 |
Progress Made
This update covers two separate periods, which is why there are more dungeons tanked than usual.
February 25th
Cordolvar started out with a few Burning Crusade dungeons. While I’m not in a rush to level, it just makes sense to do both Wrath of the Lich King and Burning Crusade dungeons in order to get the quest experience from as many dungeons as possible. So first up was Blood Furnace with a DPS member that just sat at the entrance until we kicked him. Two DPS are enough, but the fights take longer and are therefore more stressful. In addition to one of the DPS not showing up, Cordolvar did more damage than one of the other DPS—even on boss fights. I don’t know what it takes to out DPS a reasonably-equipped tank like Cordolvar, but it doesn’t seem like it takes much. Cordolvar is usually at around half the DPS of the party’s best DPS player.
Next was Underbog, where the entire party save the healer was lagging at over 200 ms. Playing with latency that high added stress because the game was less responsive than I’m used to. For example, it was strangely hard to time Intercept, and cooldown management was a bit scarier, because they were needed more often, and because they didn’t trigger immediately upon keypress.
The last dungeon of my evening was Violet Hold (yes, Cordolvar switched back to Wrath of the Lich King dungeons) where Cordolvar died on the boss Xevozz for no reason I could discern other than that the healer either lagged or fell asleep. Cordolvar did get upgraded gloves out of the deal though.
February 26th
My next play session found Cordolvar in Utgarde Keep for a pretty average run. One of the DPS was more interested in collecting quest items and mining than fighting, but at least I didn’t die. That seems to be a theme in UK, maybe it’s because it’s one of the first dungeons you can run upon reaching Northrend? I don’t mind collecting quest items or mining—I do it too—but while the tanka party member has aggro, you should be attacking back, right?
Halls of Stone was next and went smoothly, despite me missing a quest along the way.
Culling of Stratholme took a while, but the party included a great healer and three great DPS players, so it was a joy to work with them. Especially after having a number of sub-par parties recently. Also, Cordolvar got a belt upgrade.
The last run for the session was Utgarde Pinnacle, which was okay except for some crazy DPS-player pulls and when the healer fell asleep or something causing Cordolvar to die to trash.
Random Notes
If you want to let your tank know that you don’t appreciate them, spend all your time jumping and mining and getting quest items when the rest of the party is clearing trash (or fighting bosses!) Or if you’re a healer, just go AFK without saying anything. Okay, rant over. I love tanking, it’s the most fun I have in the game, but it’s too bad that there are so many inconsiderate players. I guess I need to remind myself that it’s just a game. Life happens.
Queue times have been sub-30-seconds, which is fine, though not as nice as the instantaneous queues of Classic dungeons. I wonder why the change? Do healers prefer to do Burning Crusade dungeons? Perhaps now, at level 70, it will get better because people tend to do Burning Crusade dungeons until level 70 despite the new scaling system added in patch 7.3.5? Or maybe the large wave of new allied races players has passed me up, and now queue times are back to “normal”?
- 👍 Cordolvar acquired two upgrades—belt and gloves.
- 👍 Level 70, and with it, faster flying.
- 👍 Enchant Boots: Minor Speed makes dungeon runs a little faster and less stressful (being able to stay ahead of the DPS means easier and more controlled pulls).
- 👎 I felt grumpy after experiencing more inconsiderate party members than usual.
UI Modifications
I’m going to turn off my Weak Auras progress bars for Ignore Pain and Shield Block. Now that I have the stock Personal Resource Display re-enabled, it shows buff durations, so the progress bars aren’t really needed.
I’ve also added Quartz so I can have my target’s cast bar in a static location, and that seems a little better, but I’m still not aware of it as I’d like to be. It might just need a bit more time.
Lastly, I tried to set up a weak aura to trigger when Berserker Rage could be used to free Cordolvar from a fear or other such effect, but what I have set up doesn’t seem to catch many of the effects to which it could be applied.