Def Spec -- Should I, Really?

[Guest]

Umm that was my point.
Sorry I didnt quote the name of the geek(No I am not saying you are geekier than me so dont go there either) internet rule.

[Tal]

Injecting the "gay" word  fight is just as lame as injecting the "nazii" word fight.
Get over yourself.
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You're reading what you want to read in my posts Ghostiger. I suggest you read my posts again for better comprehension.

As Bolty has asked I have stepped away from the discussion. Everything I have wanted/needed to make my stance known has been stated. If you desire further clarification we can take it up via e-mail or Private Message. If you desire to pick a fight with me by telling me to "Get over" myself - sorry to disapoint but I won't bite. :)

[Occhidiangela]

We could all be really careful and only communicate like were writing a text book. But that lame.

For some reason, I don't see you writing a textbook anytime soon. Me neither. Given the number of text books I have been subjected to over the years, posting in the textbook style (besides being over priced) might induce flames for its own reasons.

There is a very real difference in how the game is played on the 2 server types, and its reasonable that people can have some what low opinions of the server type they dont like. 

It is "reasonable?" to have a low opinion of others? I will disagree with you there. I think it is reasonable for folks to have varying opinions, but I don't hold it as reasonable that one form and hold an opinion on another based on their server choices. That sort of stereotyping is anything but reasonable, and the hallmark of a small mind.

Let's look at my opinions on PK's in DII. I hold a very low opinion of a lot of D II PK's who exploit cheats. I have a different opinion of the HC PK's who at least don't use hacks and cheats, and yet another opinion of the ones who call out a challenge before going hostile, and even another for those who respond in a civil manner when I politely decline a challenge. If found that most often, when I offered a "no thanks, not interested in a duel" I did NOT get the lamerspeak, trash talk from some of the latter forms of PK.

There is a difference between insults and personal attack and and a good natured barb.

Aye, indeed there is! Bolty's reference to some of us as Variant Scum is just such a good natured barb (flash to Mr Hyde) SO I"LL KILL HIM NEXT TIME HE SAYS THAT (Flash to Dr Occhi) that we bandy about on the forums. :whistling:

Also the PvE servers are universally refered to as "Carebear" on the PvP servers(or at least on mine). I dont see the term as beiing any worse than when PvP is refered to "Ganking". I use both words.
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Oh, I see, the guys at the country club sit in the men's grill and refer to the folks maintaining the fairways as spearchuckers, while the groundskeepers refer to the members as crackers at the caddyshack. Reasonable, by the standard you offer there. And if it slips out at the PTA meeting? Is it reasonable then? Bad example, unlikely in the same PTA.

How about this.

The guy baseball players shoot the breeze in the locker room and refer to the girls on the softball team as lezbo's. Also reasonable by your proffered standard. And when it "slips out" at the bus stop? Is it reasonable then? My guess would be that you don't approach name calling IRL from such a perspective.

I think the core objection being raised is that the Lounge is not one of the game servers but is more like neutral ground. It would be better to leave locker room talk on both the PvE and PvP servers, and treat this more like the bus stop. Or the PTA meeting.

EDIT: I apologize to one and all for possibly suggesting we treat this board like a PTA meeting. That would contravene the Geneva Conventions, or in some way be a heinous rupture of good conduct. What was I thinking? :blink:

Full disclosure: I've been guilty as hell of referring to bnet cheaters by the blanket insult of lamer, and worse. Name calling comes so easily . . .

Rather than view some of the objections as "oversensitive" perhaps we can recognize it as OK for a fellow Lurker to throw a flag now and again. I've gotten a few minutes in the penalty box, and a red face, for that foul before . . .

Occhi

Afterbirth, sorry, afterthought: You might say the Lounge is a PvE, versus PvP, forum as a reference to style, not WoW server preference. B) That is, when certain crotchety sorts aren't tossing out flames . . .

[Darian]

Man, I'd feel better about having started the second-longest thread on this individual board if it all related to my post... :P

[Kevin]

I've been meaning to reply to this for a bit, being the happy owner of a shiny little defensive spec warrior.

I've been playing 39 levels with most of my points in the protection tree. I ran to concussion blow as fast as I could. I then got improved shield bash to silence casters. Since then I have maxed cruelty on my way to piercing howl. I have also put 2 points in deflection and wish I could get more in there because I want some tactical mastery and am thinking very hard about anger management for the passive combat rage generation which could be quite helpful sitting in defensive with a sword (well in my case an axe) and board.

So, I don't have the talents that work better in battle stance and berserker stance and I do have the quite handy concussion blow. But I've been testing playing a more damage dealing style and trying to hold aggro that way. I've been trying to not throw my dem shout and or sunder then drop to defensive. At first I simply could not hold aggro at all like this. I didn't have a feel for how to use the skills to keep aggro on me, and obviously my damage alone wasn't doing it. I was doing all this work with a holy spec priest who was also playing around with using shadow spells for more damage while giving me healing as well. So I was really thrown into the fire since I wasn't sure of what the best way to go was and I had a priest whipping out more damage without any of the threat mitigating talents.

I would curse the long timer on mocking blow, and I would always end up dropping into defensive and taunting or setting up a revenge so that I could get it back. I wish I could remember what I was doing better to know why it just didn't work. But the more I played that way the better I got at it. I know I use Dem Shout more than I used to (since it seems to stack effect) because I really didn't need dem shout to hold in defensive. I don't really worry about holding aggro if I am able to land an overpower since that seems to help a lot. Charge turned out to be a lot more critical to holding aggro than when playing my more defensive style. Dual wield which is surprisingly effective in defensive stance, especially with quick weapons so that you can get your conssuion blow of more quickly or use your revenge more quickly was a lot less effective than the big two hander that had less sustained overall DPS when just considering regular attacks with only the aid of sunder, because of how the skills work. Slam was used more, and turned out to be a pretty grab back if you weren't really getting hit. Rend turned out to be a huge help since it mitigated the aggro I was losing to SW:Pain, I found that I actually would lose aggro everytime if I didn't use it (well unless I went defensive and used my revenges and disarms and such and had my defiance benefit). I felt a lot more crippled without having tactical mastery than I do when I am playing in defensive stance since I have much less need to change stances to hold aggro in defensive. I really wanted to switch for whirlwind several times.

However I did get better and I can hold aggro better without relying on my protection tree talents (though I still made use of them because concussion blow and a silencing shield bash still work wonders for getting aggro). I imagine that with proper talent backing (sweeping strikes or the additional rage generators or whatever) I would be able to hold aggro even better and really without to many issues.

I also got the other benefits out of this I wanted to get. I got better in defensive stance as well because I'm better in the other stances. I would like to get to tactical mastery sooner, but I also want piercing howl soon too. However with improved bloodrage and now with a decent supply of rage potions, I can change stances a lot easier than I could before. Since I have a healer with me at all times neither of them is a real threat because I will end up in defensive with my shield on if the fan gets messy.

My playstyle has me more comfortable as more of a turtle. Taking less damage but still generating high aggro while not doing as much damage. Even with a respec I think I would prefer this play style and I think I will always tank better like that. I'm still building a fury/arms warrior for more knowledge and more immersion. But I really do believe you can tank with any talent build if you know how to use it and are comfortable doing it.

Of course I change weapons all the time. I swap in a two hander before cleaves and slams and overpowers and charges and even some sunders (you still have a crit strike chance). I will dual wield or one hand and shield. I will change which one hander is main hand (since that is the only hand you can use for specials) at times. I need to macro some more of it, but I still do pretty well doing it manually.

My one caution is that even with you killing quicker (hence cutting some of the damage you could have taken) my healer (Treesh) still tells me I take more healing in the other play style by a significant amount because I will need more than a HoT when facing multiple mobs, and even in some single mob situations. In defensive (with a few tactical switch outs) I can generally be healed with just HoTs even when dealing with 2 to 3 mobs. This would change with talents behind me to up the kill speed even more, but from what I have read and from what Treesh has said from healing a arms/fury warrior on a few occasions, I still think you will take more healing without protection talents. I know Blizzard seems to have tried to balance the numbers so that this isn't the case, but I'm not sure they got it right. Of course I would not be surprised either to hear that a skilled player using a fury/arms build took less overall healing than a protection spec. Many of the fury/arms talents are still very beneficial to have even if you are in defensive stance. I'm convinced aggro management doesn't really matter as to where talent points go as long your play style uses the skills right though.

So, yeah, play what you are comfortable with and what you feel you can tank best with.

[Guest]

My point about "gay" had nothing to do with the original topic or subtopic Bolty addressed.

I think its selfish when you(as in you specifically Tal) purposefully inject a loaded issue like that into a topic on which it has no relevence. The only reason you did it was an attempt to deraill the topic of obfuscate the issue.

The problem with the "word" we were argueing about is that its an insult that can offend the person its directed at.

The problem with "gay" being used as an insult is not that is so offensive to the person being called "gay". The problem is that using gay as an insult implies there is something wrong with being gay and thus insult all the people who are actually gay in the real world.


Those are 2 totaly different issues. Im guessing you well realize that, but ignored it because you wanted to muddy an issue.

[Darian]

I'm convinced aggro management doesn't really matter as to where talent points go as long your play style uses the skills right though.
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I'm thinking you're right. After this post, and without re-speccing, I spent a few days living in defensive stance (switching out for things like charge, whirlwind, intercept if needed), and while it wasn't ineffective, it just didn't suit me. What it did do, however, was very much the same thing as you described with your experiment -- it made me more comfortable with using those prot talents.

So what I've done now is a 31/11/9:

Deflection x5
Tactical Mastery x5
Anger Management
Deep Wounds x3
Improved Overpower x2
Improved Charge x2
Impale x2
2H Spec x4
Axe Spec x5
Sweeping Strikes
Mortal Strike

(completely bypassing improvements to HS, Rend, and TC, having found them to be mostly useless as far as damage goes now that I'm not soloing anymore; rend is merely another cheap aggro-inducer, TC is merely a slow/aggro generator, and improving HS just doesn't seem economical as I use it less and less)

Cruelty x5
Improved Demo x5
Piercing Howl

Anticipation x5
Toughness x4

If I find that I'm just not encountering situations where MS is useful -- thus far I haven't, but I have yet to do Strat dead side or UBRS and beyond -- I might respec again to drop a few points in arms and move them toward more aggro-friendly prot skills.

But with this build, as an example... I have now twice managed to get Ras Frostwhisper so pissed off at me that he blew me back into the corner, followed me, and then stayed on me the entire fight, completely ignoring everyone else. And if that ain't tanking, nothing is... ;)

One other observation, gleaned from a particularly frustrating night staging a guild event raid on Maraudon with a group that had way too many hunters: the most effective tool a tank has to manage aggro, regardless of his talent spec or play style, is the people he's grouped with. Both Scholo runs referred to above, the party was patient and allowed me a couple of seconds of private time (cuddling with the target to say my tear-stained goodbyes, of course) before starting to unload; on the Maraudon run, I had a hard time getting the hunters to not start shooting before I'd even engaged after charging. The difference between the two situations was so dramatic that my priest and I began commenting on it immediately. I don't think any tank, regardless of spec, is going to be able to hold aggro when high-DPS attackers start laying into the mob before you can even get a hate groundwork laid down.

[Tal]

My point about "gay" had nothing to do with the original topic or subtopic Bolty addressed.

I think its selfish when you(as in you specifically Tal) purposefully inject a loaded issue like that into a topic on which it has no relevence. The only reason you did it was an attempt to deraill the topic of obfuscate the issue.

The problem with the "word" we were argueing about is that its an insult that can offend the person its directed at.

The problem with "gay" being used as an insult is  not that is so offensive to the person being called "gay". The problem is that using gay as an insult implies there is something wrong with being gay and thus insult all the people who are actually gay in the real world.
Those are 2 totaly different issues.  Im guessing you well realize that, but ignored it because you wanted to muddy an issue.
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Edit 2: I see your point but maintain that my use of the word was an example of what is considered gaming slang that can be offensive but would not necessarily be tolerated at the Lurker Lounge. It was illustrative that the use of a word can be derogatory and offensive - after all I'm certain that somewhere, someone finds being called a carebear a good thing. My daughter would be one. I, however, find it derogatory and insulting way of describing my choice in servers. It implies that there is something demeaning and wrong with being a carebear. :)

[Treesh]

One other observation, gleaned from a particularly frustrating night staging a guild event raid on Maraudon with a group that had way too many hunters: the most effective tool a tank has to manage aggro, regardless of his talent spec or play style, is the people he's grouped with. 
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This is so true I had to bring attention to it by quoting it. There are some very strange exceptions to it (that I'll tell you about in a minute), but really, how the entire party manages their aggro is one of the biggest deals in the game. Now on to the weird glitch/exception that happened with GG and I in Stranglethorn Vale the other night.

I'm a holy specced priest with no talent points placed into any of the talents that reduce aggro when doing damage and GG's Gnolack is mostly defensive spec. We were fighting the level 40-41 gorillas in Stranglethorn when we were 37 and we were kicking some butt despite them being orange and occasionally red (some 42s snuck in occasionally). We hit 38 while fighting and continued to fight the critters on our way back to Booty Bay without any problems. Got to Booty Bay, flew to get some training (my renew, flash heal, and smite were the only things upgraded), went back into Stranglethorn Vale to continue beating on the gorillas. Gnolack would charge, Aleri would throw on a shadow word: Pain. Despite GG hitting with charge and the next attack, as soon as Pain went off, I'd pull aggro. No healing done by me and I waited until I saw he hit with charge before paining. Same routine as when we were level 38 but didn't go back for training, but now instead of him holding aggro, I'd pull it with just a pain.

More testing. He'd charge, attack until he got enough rage for a sunder, then I'd throw on pain. Even with sunder armor on, the split second my pain did damage, that monkey would come after me. Still never threw out a heal either. Ohhh-kaay. Let's see about a wand shot on the next monkey and no pain, no heals, nothing but damage from the wand. Wait for Gnolack to charge, sit until I see dem shout and sunder on, throw out a wand bolt. Monkey charges me. By this time, I'm telling Tal about this wonderful little encounter; GG's confused, I'm confused, and Tal is confused. On the next monkey I decide, what the hell, the monkey's going to hate me no matter what, may as well just start throwing out as much damage as I can. The 100 health per tick I get back with renew and having shield, I can play tank to one monkey. I start the fight with smite, follow with a pain and then a mind-blast. Little did I know, GG had switched to defensive stance instead of the battle stance that he had been using when the monkeys were acting normally, but had a bad miss streak. The monkey is stuck to GG like glue. So I smite again (which crits), mindblast again (which crits) and follow with another smite. Dead monkey, never even looked at me through all that. So we stand for a minute saying, "Ummm, what?!" GG went back to battle stance, charged the next gorilla, and on that next gorilla things went back to normal - he was able to hold aggro against my pains and heals just like before we went to train, but the monkey would try to get to me if I hit him with a smite or mind-blast.

We have not seen this behavior repeated since then and hadn't seen it before that little deal and we just don't know what was going on. Don't know what triggered the weird behavior and can't get the weirdness to occur again. Just one of those really, weird deals. And so ends my post. ;)

[Artega]

But with this build, as an example... I have now twice managed to get Ras Frostwhisper so pissed off at me that he blew me back into the corner, followed me, and then stayed on me the entire fight, completely ignoring everyone else.  And if that ain't tanking, nothing is... ;)
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/golfclap :)

You can't get Deep Wounds without maxed Improved Rend, I'm afraid. I think you wrote your talentset down incorrectly ;)

I think your talentset looks pretty good, though I've never been overly impressed by Improved Charge.

[Darian]

/golfclap :)

You can't get Deep Wounds without maxed Improved Rend, I'm afraid.  I think you wrote your talentset down incorrectly ;)

I think your talentset looks pretty good, though I've never been overly impressed by Improved Charge.
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/headslap

Good catch. I did indeed post it wrong (I was working off memory, trying to remember how I'd slid through the tree as I was re-speccing it).

Unfortunately, the thing I was looking at while doing so was missing the prereq for Improved Rend... and god knows I wouldn't waste my time with it unless it was required.

Having logged in and actually LOOKED at my damned tree... ;)

+Improved Rend x3
-Improved Charge x2
-one point of Improved Overpower.

[Ruvanal]

...  Now on to the weird glitch/exception that happened with GG and I in Stranglethorn Vale the other night.

...  We hit 38 while fighting and continued to fight the critters on our way back to Booty Bay without any problems.  Got to Booty Bay, flew to get some training (my renew, flash heal, and smite were the only things upgraded), went back into Stranglethorn Vale to continue beating on the gorillas.  ...

...

We have not seen this behavior repeated since then and hadn't seen it before that little deal and we just don't know what was going on.  Don't know what triggered the weird behavior and can't get the weirdness to occur again.  Just one of those really, weird deals.  And so ends my post. ;)
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Sounds like a situation that was arising frequently in one of the beta phases. Some of the flights would cause a character to become bugged. While they could attack mobs or even other players as much as they wanted, the mobs did not put the player on their hate list and the other players could not target the bugged character. This state would persist until the character logged out of the game and was cleared when re-entering the game. Another way to clear that state was to switch to different server on the same realm (such as the travel between continents).

Although it was supposed to be corrected by now, it would not surprise me that at times a state like this could still occur. This state was usually reached when the beta server was laggy and something odd occured on the flight. This odd occurance usually resulted in th character suddenly teleporting to the end of the flight instead of coming in for a normal landing.

[Malakar]

That reminds me of a bug I found in another game that was similar. Yes, I was cheating scum when I was younger. :blush:

It was the same thing, mobs would not aggro you no matter what, though triggered differently. There was a client side restriction of only being able to use attack spells on others. If you circumvented that restriction, the server would allow them to be used on yourself. Useless for the most part, except for one thing. When you used a life leech spell on yourself when your hp's were low enough that it'd take your life to 0 before restoring it, you could become a dead man walking. Most actions checked if your hp > 0, while other things like mob aggro checked your death flag.

During the time I was abusing this, I had also discovered another vulnerability that meshed interestingly with this one. Essentially with a little packet editing, the server allowed you to buy any item from a shop that could be sold. The one particular item that worked well with the other bug was a wand that created mobs. I could buy unlimited amounts of these wands, and spawn screens of mobs.

Then there was this one spot where you could spawn mobs, and they'd all be stuck on one tile. So I'd spawn mobs until I got tired of clicking or my screen started lagging, then kill them with AOE spells while they wouldn't hit me.

[Chaerophon]

if someone calls you a carebear, just smile and nod. Not a big deal. They have demonstrated that they have little respect for others and belong on their server where they can't bother you.

Bolty,

I know that you're just trying to keep the peace, but I can't help feeling that those who are sufficiently offended by a relatively good-natured joke about their server to start a flame war should probably take a month or so off of gaming... I just don't see the 'little respect for others' bit in Artega's post. In fact, in this particular circumstance, I don't think that that was the case, at all. The initial comment certainly didn't warrant this response from lurkers, and there is a strong case to be made that the flames in response outweighed the initial joke - particularly given Artega's tone in subsequent posts.

I don't like it one bit. Some folks need to take a deep breath and relax - this isn't a forum troll, it's a regular poster who should be given the benefit of the doubt.

[Treesh]

Sounds like a situation that was arising frequently in one of the beta phases.  Some of the flights would cause a character to become bugged.  While they could attack mobs or even other players as much as they wanted, the mobs did not put the player on their hate list and the other players could not target the bugged character.  This state would persist until the character logged out of the game and was cleared when re-entering the game.  Another way to clear that state was to switch to different server on the same realm (such as the travel between continents).

Although it was supposed to be corrected by now, it would not surprise me that at times a state like this could still occur.  This state was usually reached when the beta server was laggy and something odd occured on the flight.  This odd occurance usually resulted in th character suddenly teleporting to the end of the flight instead of coming in for a normal landing.
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Interesting, but I could target GG and the thing would occasionally hit him for damage, just didn't want to stay on GG. It still may have been something with the flying for training though, just a slightly different version of the bug. I didn't hear about this one in beta. Thanks for mentioning it.

[Ynir]

I asked a similar question a while ago, and got much substantive help. I posted a summary of Spangles' experiences upon switching from fury to defense.

It is unfortunate that this thread was derailed.

Word meaning = denotation + context + intent

Two of the three variables are not always known so it is best to avoid words that have been hijacked by politics.

I don't like pvp, and if that makes me a carebear I can live with that. Seems a bit precious to complain about it.