Meat Shield

A Moment of Silence

2009-10-19T03:45:00.001-07:00

Sinaura, the greatest tank in the world, is now retired. I would like to suggest everyone be open to counseling to deal with their depression.

In all seriousness, after 4 years I've grown bored of the game in all aspects other than raiding. And with current content, raiding can be done in 1-2 days covering 10 and 25mans. After finding myself only logging in for those 1-2 days a week combined with some RL goings-on, it's time to say adios to this addiction and move back to 40k, drinking and cigarettes.

Bye-bye.

For the Masses

2009-08-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

As an avid guide creator for my guild, I find myself wanting to share info with more than just the close friends within that guild. Whether it be to a friend on another server, my neighbor or my imaginary friend Dr. Gary Shipiwitz - I like sharing my work. As this space is meant for tanking information and opinion, I'll post my Tankadin guide I created for my guild, here.

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Disclaimer: This guide is up to date for patch 3.2.0. This guide has a lot of personal opinion in it based on my playstyle and experience.

Update Log:

08/09/09
Reference Guide - Created
Spells and What They Do - Created
Gearing Priority - Created
Glyphs - Created
Spell Rotation and Priority - Created
Avoidance Cap and Attack Table - Created

08/09/09
Talents - Created
Stat Values - Created
Reference Guide - Updated
Gearing Priority - Updated

08/14/09
I Just Hit 80, What's My Gear List? - Created
Gems - Created

08/15/09
Enchants - Created
Mods - Created
Gems - Updated
Glyphs - Updated
FAQs - Updated

08/21/09
Macros - Created
FAQs - Updated

08/29/09
Macros - Updated

Reference Guide

A list of abbreviations I'll be using in this guide and their meanings:

Shield of Righteousness = ShoR
Consecration = Crate
Hammer of the Righteous = HotR
Hammer of Wrath = HoW
Exorcism = Ex
Avenger's Shield = AS
Holy Wrath = HW
Sacred Shield = SS
Holy Shield = HS
Divine Plea = DP
Avenging Wrath = AW
Divine Shield = Bubble
Divine Protection = DS or Shield Wall
Divine Intervention = DI
Hammer of Justice = HoJ
Divine Sacrifice = DS
Cleanse = Dispel

Hand of Protection = HoP
Hand of Sacrifice = HoSac
Hand of Salvation = HoSalv
Hand of Freedom = HoF

Devotion Aura = DevAura
Retribution Aura = RetAura

Seal of Righteousness = SoR
Seal of Corruption = SoCorr
Seal of Light = SoL
Seal of Wisdom = SoW
Seal of Justice = SoJ

Blessing of Sanctuary = BoS
Blessing of Kings = BoK
Blessing of Might = BoM
Blessing of Wisdom = BoW

Judgement of Light = JoL
Judgement of Wisdom = JoW
Judgement of Justice = JoJ

Righteous Defense = RD or AoE Taunt(technically only taunts 3 targets)
Hand of Reckoning = HoR

Shield Block Value = SBV
Block Rating = BR
Block % = B
Dodge Rating = DR
Dodge % = D
Parry Rating = PR
Parry % = P

Stat Values

1 Stamina = 12.6 HP; .3 SP
1 Strength = 2 AP; .5 SBV
1 Agility = 2 Armor; .04% Dodge; .019201228878648233486943164362519% Crit
1 Intellect = (Of no use to us)
1 Spirit = (Of no use to us)

1 Defense Rating = .2032520325203252032520325203252 Defense
1 Defense = .04% Parry; .04% Dodge; .04% Block; .04% Miss

1 Dodge Rating = .022095238095238095238095238095238% Dodge
1 Parry Rating = .022095238095238095238095238095238% Parry
1 Block Rating = .061034482758620689655172413793103% Block

1 Expertise Rating = .12195121951219512195121951219512 Expertise
1 Hit Rating = .030497102775236352546508081732235% Hit
1 Crit Rating = (Of no use to us)
1 Spell Power = (See Stamina)
1 Spell Penetration = (Of no use to anyone in PvE)
1 Attack Power = (Of no use to us as a sperate stat)
1 Armor Penetration = (Of no use to us)

Spells and What They Do

Shield of Righteousness - a single target threat gain, oddly boosted by SBV.
Consecration - an AoE threat gain that is placed below the where the Paladin stood when using it.
Hammer of the Righteous - a 3 target threat gain (4 targets ifGlyphed) used on 1 target and 3 nearby enemies in front of the Paladin.Also applies SoCorr ticks if SoCorr is active on all targets that arehit.
Hammer of Wrath - a single target threat gain, can only be used when target is below 20% HP. Eventually inferior to ShoR with gear.
Exorcism - a single target threat gain that will always crit on Undead enemies. Has a cast time of 1.5secs.
Avenger's Shield - a 3 target (1 target if Glyphed) ranged pulling mechanic/threat gain that also silences and slows enemies.
Holy Wrath - an AoE threat gain and stun that can only be used on Undead.
Sacred Shield - a buff that has a chance to absorb damage after being hit. Can be cast on self or others.
Holy Shield - a buff with multiple charges that are removed when blocking damage. Increases Block % and deals Holy dmg on blocks.
Divine Plea - a mana gain buff that also reduces damage if Glyphed.
Avenging Wrath - Increases damage (and thus, threat) and healing by 20%.
Divine Shield - Immune to all damage for 10secs and drops all threat for the duration. More or less only useful to a Tankadin with a macro.
Divine Protection - Reduces damage by 50% for 10secs.
Divine Intervention - Kill yourself, save someone else. Items don't suffer a durability loss when this is used.
Hammer of Justice - Stuns the target for 6secs. Interrupts spellcasting for 3secs if the target is immune to stun.
Divine Sacrifice - 30% of all damage taken by party/raid members within 30yds is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin's HP).
Cleanse - Removes 1 poison effect, 1 disease effect, and 1 magic effect.

Hand of Protection - Immune to all physical damage for 10secs. Can be cast on self or others.
Hand of Sacrifice - Transfers 30% of damage taken by agroup/raid member. To the Paladin. Lasts 12sec or until 100% of thePaladin's HP has been used.
Hand of Salvation - Reduces total threat by 20% over 10secs. Can be cast on self or others.
Hand of Freedom - Removes any movement impairing abilities. Can be cast on self or others.

Devotion Aura - Increases armor of everyone in your group/raid if within 40yds.
Retribution Aura - Deals Holy damage back at the attacker when hit with a spell/range/melee attack for all group/raid members within 40yds.

Seal of Righteousness - Deals Holy damage to the target on melee hits.
Seal of Corruption - Creates a Holy DoT on the target when theyare hit by weapon damage. When stacked to 5, deals Holy damage witheach melee hit.
Seal of Light - Chance on hit to heal the Paladin.
Seal of Wisdom - Chance on hit to restore mana.
Seal of Justice - Chance on hit to stun the target enemy.

Blessing of Sanctuary - Increases Stam by 10% (this doesn't stack with Kings Stam increase.) All damage is reduced by 3%. Each Block, Parry and Dodge gives you 2% of your max mana back.
Blessing of Kings - Increases all stats by 10%, Stam increase doesn't stack with BoSanc.
Blessing of Might - Increases AP.
Blessing of Wisdom - Increases mp5.

Judgement of Light - Puts a debuff on the target. When struck by any attacker, the attacker is healed.
Judgement of Wisdom - Puts a debuff on the target. When struck by any attacker, the attacker gains mana back.
Judgement of Justice - Puts a debuff on the target. The debuff prevents the target from moving faster than normal speed and cannot flee.

Righteous Defense - Taunts 3 targets off of 1 target. Nearly useless/impossible to use with a macro.
Hand of Reckoning - Taunts a single target and deals Holy damage. Has zero effect if the target is already targeting you.

Except for Seals, Blessings and Auras, I have all of these abilities hotkeyed. And yes, it's a bitch. But you get used to it.

Gearing Priority

Most every experienced tank will tell you, when gearing up, gear first for survivability and second for threat. This holds true to the Tankadin. Here's how I believe all Tankadins should gear for raiding:

1) Cap defense(Don't go over 540 as avoidance comes easy and extra defense is HP you could have instead)
2) Cap avoidance (currently 102.4%)
3) Stack Stam as much as possible to increase HP pool and threat thanks to Show Me Where The Light Touched You.

Compared to the other tanking classes, that's really all we have to worry about. There is discussion of hit/expertise rating increasing threat on single targets, which is 100% true. But the problem is, thanks to patch 3.2 we only have 2 single-target spells for threat; Judgements and ShoR. Though it should be noted that SoCorr's change in 3.2 makes melee hits more important for single target fights so Hit rating may prove to be more important. It's Holy damage ticks still cannot be resisted.

As for the other spells:
Crate's initial tick is the only tick that can be resisted(missed), the rest cannot be resisted.
HotR's main target can be missed, but the 2-3 other targets it hits cannot be missed.
HS's reactive damage can never be resisted.

Also, it should be noted that during a single target fight, Tankadin melee physical damage hits from your weapon make up roughly 0.5-1% of your total threat, and this number decreases as stats on the Tankadin increase and/or the level of the mob decreases.

I Just Hit 80, What's My Gear List?

The gear list I used can be found HERE. Though it looks like it's been updated many times since the launch of WotLK, most suggestions on this forum are great advice. My personal suggestion (as Tankspot hasn't filled these holes) if you're a JCer is to make the Figurine - Monarch Crab and Figurine - Ruby Hare trinkets ASAP and fill the crab with epic gems (for gem recommendations, see the Gems section,) as you probably won't be replacing it anytime soon. You can get your hands on the Trial Trinket fairly quickly, which easily replaces the Rabbit.

With heroics providing end game gear, groups and upgrades shouldn't be hard to find. But if you're just starting out it's still best to go with Heroics that fit your level of gear. As an example, you dinged 80 about 20mins ago, don't jump into Heroic Halls of Lightning... It may also be a good idea to get upgrades from normal instances first, as this will get you the upgrades from Heroics while making it an easier task and less stressful.

Just remember. When you first start out; you won't be able to hold aggro. You won't have much survivability. And you will be frustrated. Just like DPS, skill and practice is a must for tanking. Unlike DPS, your role is VERY gear dependent.

Gems

With 3.2 came the implementation of epic gems. This is good for tanks already geared to the teeth, but the problem with this is for newer tanks:

"I just got a really nice rare gear piece from a heroic. Epic gems? Yes?"

Here's the typical game:
If you have a green, socket it with common gems.
If you have a blue, socket it with rare gems.
If you have an purple, socket it with rare gems as well.

Only when you get an upgrade that won't be replaced anytime soon should you be using epic gems. They're expensive and shouldn't be seen as expendable. This is completely up to the beholder, but if you're just hitting 80 I assume you have 0 Badges of Heroism, little honor and after that epic mount, little gold.

So what gems should you be going after? Follow steps 1-3 of the Gearing Priority section. First, get your defense to cap. Second, cap your avoidance. Lastly, stack Stamina. It's as simple as that. Eventually, you'll be at the point where you'll mostly or completely have Stamina gems in place.

"But, what about all those amazing socket bonuses?"

My rough estimation is that 98% of all socket bonuses for tanking gear are not worth socketing for. If you're using yellow, red and blue gems to cap your avoidance and defense - yes, get all the socket bonuses you can. But eventually, you'll mainly only be using blue gems and you'll find that most every socket bonus you see is not worth the loss of Stamina. The only socket bonus you should be concerned with is your Meta gem's requirements. The meta you'll more than likely be using to start is Eternal Earthsiege Diamond, but eventually you'll move on to something like Austere Earthsiege Diamond once you're Defense capped without a meta. Making sure you're activating your Meta is very important and should never be overlooked.

"So, what colors should I be using?"

For the Tankadin, it's simple:
Stamina(Blue), Defense(Yellow), Agility(Red) - These 3 types or any combination of the 3 is what you will use. Pretty simple.

Enchants

Head:
Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector - Best head enchant, hands down. Keep your Tabard of the Argent Crusade on until you have this, no exceptions.

Shoulders:
Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle - Will have to do until you finish out rep with Hodir to get the Greater below:
Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle - Best non-scribe shoulder enchant.
Master`s Inscription of the Pinnacle - This is by far the best shoulder enchant, but can only be used by scribes.

Back:
Enchant Cloak - Titanweave - If you're not defense capped.
Enchant Cloak - Major Agility - If you're not avoidance capped.
Enchant Cloak - Mighty Armor - Not that great of an enchant, but it's not bad.

Chest:
Enchant Chest - Greater Defense - If you're not defense capped.
Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats - If you're not avoidance capped.
Enchant Chest - Superior Health - Best chest enchant of you're defense and avoidance capped without the enchant above.

Wrist:
Enchant Bracer - Major Defense - If you're not defense capped.
Enchant Bracers - Greater Stats - If you're not avoidance capped.
Enchant Bracers - Major Stamina - Best wrist enchant if you're defense and avoidance capped and you're not a LW.
Fur Lining - Stamina - Leatherworker specific. Better than all of the above if defense and avoidance capped.

Hands:
Vindicator`s Armor Kit - If you're not defense capped.
Enchant Gloves - Major Agility - If you're not avoidance capped.
Enchant Gloves - Armsman - A great hand enchant that provides avoidance and threat.
Heavy Borean Armor Kit - A great enchant, but I personally feel pales in comparison to Armsman.

Legs:
Frosthide Leg Armor - The best there is.

Feet:
Vindicator`s Armor Kit- If you're not defense capped.
Enchant Boots - Superior Agility - If you're not avoidance capped.
Enchant Boots - Tuskarr`s Vitality - If you're into that sort of thing.
Enchant Boots - Greater Fortitude - In my opinion, better than Tuskarr's Vitality. Run speed can help in a few situations. More HP helps in all.

Fingers:
Enchant Ring - Stamina - The tanking ring enchant. Enchanter only enchant.

Shield:
Enchant Shield - Defense - If you're not defense capped.
Enchant Shield - Shield Block - If you're not avoidance capped.
Titanium Plating - If you're lacking on threat.
Enchant Shield - Major Stamina - A good HP boost, and personally I think surpasses Titanium Plating.

Weapon:
Enchant Weapon - Exceptional Agility - If you're not avoidance capped.
Enchant Weapon - Blade Ward - The damage is melee, not holy. If you're avoidance capped, the extra parry isn't bad, but also not fantastic. Expensive mats as well. I personally feel this is inferior to Blood Draining for Paladins.
Enchant Weapon - Blood Draining - Will give you a small safety blanket if your HP dips too low. It's by no means a great safety blanket, but I feel it's better than the alternatives. The mats for this enchant are all kinds of ridiculous, I would suggest saving them for a weapon you don't see yourself replacing for a long time.
~~Enchant Weapon - Lifeward~~ - A small heal with a horrible proc rate. Don't waste your mats.

Glyphs

The 3 Major Glyphs I don't think any Tankadin can do without are:

Glyph of Righteous Defense
Plain and simple, if you don't have this Glyph you have no business tanking anything. Since patch 3.2, this Glyph now applies to HoR as well as RD.

Glyph of Divine Plea
Provides 3% less damage from all sources at all times, as your DP will always be active when you talent for it (and you will.)

Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous
HotR will hit an additional target which not only hits for Holy damage,but spreads your SoCorr which can remove the need to tab-target-rotate with 4 or less targets. If a Major Glyph needed to be removed, thiswould be your first choice as it is partially a convenience Glyph andprovides no survivability.

"What about all the other Major Glyphs?"

Glyphs were created to enhance a player's playstyle, and while there are some other good Glyphs out there, most are steps below the usefulness of these 3. Like extending the duration of Crate is neato, but not needed. Or increasing damage of your Judgements by 10% is super cool, but lackluster with it's cooldown and already smaller damage compared to other spells. Basically, half of the Major Glyphs for Paladins exist to save you mana, and as a Tankadin this is of little to no concern to you. The only Glyph I could see replacing one of the 3 above with is Glyph of Avenger`s Shield, which had its use in TBC with separate trash pulls so close together, but I have yet to see much use in WotLK raiding.

The 3 Minor Glyphs I use are:

Glyph of Lay on Hands
5mins less on the cooldown of LoH. For progressive raiding I think this is the best Minor Glyph to slot for obvious reasons.

Glyph of Sense Undead
Increased threat on Undead enemies. With the other choices available, this should be every Tankadin's second choice in WotLK raiding.

Glyph of Blessing of Kings
Honestly, the last choice is just personal preference. Any remaining Glyphs provide zero threat or survival. The reason I chose this one is because I find myself casting BoK more than any other Blessing.

There are a grand total of 6 Minor Glyphs for all Paladins, so your choices are limited. The other 3 I have not listed have little to no use for the Tankadin. And Glyph of the Wise, a mana reduction to a 30min buff, was a waste of time to whatever Blizzard developer that created it.

Talents

Talents typically give a player a freedom to express themselves through their own personal playstyle. Think of the Protection tree for Paladins as an anaconda squeezing that freedom to death:

THIS is the template for what talents any Tankadin worth his/her salt needs to take. Yes, that means you have a total of 5 points to "express yourself through your playstyle". Remember: anaconda. With these 5 points left, you have a few choices:

Judgement Cooldown Reduction
As discussed in the "Spell Rotation and Priority" section, if you're going to be using the Libram of Obstruction, it is important that at least 1 point be put into Improved Judgements to ensure server lag doesn't cause the SBV buff to fall off. A second point is just personal preference.

Crit Chance for your Raid
Another choice is to provide an extra 3% crit chance to your judged targets for the raid with the talent Heart of the Crusader. This should never be a choice if you are consistently running with a Ret Paladin as they should be covering this talent.

Stun, Fear and Disorient Duration Reduction
With 5 points, a popular choice in TBC was to fill out Unyielding Faith and Stoicism. This reduces the duration of Fear, Stun and Disorient effects by 30%. This will help survivability for the occasions where these abilities are used and is a valid choice.

Raid and Self Survivability
What I feel is the best 3 points spent out of the 5 is on Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian. Divine Sacrifice converts damage from those around you to yourself and can also be used at the same time as Divine Protection. The uses for this ability I find to be never ending. If healers are prepared, you can ease up a large chunk of damage on the entire group/raid. And with our new talent change that prevents death once every 2 minutes, you can afford to use it without Divine Protection in the right situations. Divine Guardian improves this Divine Sacrifices damage transfer by 10%, which is good. But the big deal with Divine Guardian is the duration increase and damage absorption increase of Sacred Shield. Making an already fantastic survival spell even better.

The choice for talents is yours, but the 4 options I've listed (some in combination) are all viable choices. Anything past these 4 either aren't worth taking or should only be used for specific fights.

My recommendation for raid tanking: 5/59/7

Spell Rotation and Priority

"Sin, what is the best/quickest way to get threat?"

If you've done your research, you might have found that there's a common Tankadin threat rotation called the "6969 Rotation". This name is given by the 6-9sec cooldowns provided by our spells. The pools are setup as follow:

6-Second Pool:
ShoR
HotR
HoW

9-Second Pool:
HS
Crate
Judgement

A common rotation for 6969 is as follows:

Holy Shield
Hammer of the Righteous
Judgement
Shield of Righteousness
Consecration
Hammer of the Righteous
Holy Shield
Shield of Righteousness
Judgment
Hammer of the Righteous
Consecration
Shield of Righteousness
And so on...

However, if you asked me before 3.2, "Sin, what do you think of this erotically named threat rotation?" I would have laughed, labeled it as 'as practical as a rain dance or voodoo' and then spat in someone's face. The problem with the 6969 rotation first, is that it short-changes the Libram of Obstruction's use by removing the choice to talent Judgements to have a shorter CD and in doing so reduces survivability and the threat provided by ShoR. Second, it leaves out key spells that are needed at all times, more specifically on undead mobs. Patch 3.0 included retarded amounts of undead mobs while raiding, and thus, brought Ex and HW back into tanking. Ex hits equally as hard on a single target as HotR on a non-undead mob, but is a guaranteed crit on undead. As for HW, it's a heavy damage output for 3+ undead targets that also stuns which means it's a threat gain that provides survivability which gives it some use on single target stunnable mobs. These 2 abilities combined with the Glyph of Sense Undead(a glyph any Tankadin that plans to ever raid Naxx should have) make for epic threat gains. Another ability which should be included on 2-3 targets at a time is AS which also has a slowing and silencing mechanic on it giving it threat and survivability as well.

With these 3 spells tied into my normal threat gain, along with HoW when permitted, I never find myself not using an ability where as the 6969 rotation will not give you the same ability and also takes quite a while to get used to.

But, despite all of this, in patch 3.2 Blizzard decided to return the 1.5 cast time on Ex - making it 100% useless to a Tankadin's normal rotation. It's only use now is for a pulling mechanic (which is still inferior to AS) or for a ranged attack if being struck is not an issue. Patch 3.2 also increased the duration of all SBV procs making 1 point in Improved Judgements arguably necessary, but 2 points dependent on preference.

"But, Sin! AS, HW and Ex all have crazy mana costs!"

For single target threat, which is mainly what the 6969 Rotation is used for, Crate has the most "mana waste" in it. The astronomic cost of this spell would typically have any Tankadin questioning pressing the button for it on a boss fight. But, here's the thing. On boss fight in most raids, your mana bar will always be full with the large amounts of dmg coming at you from bosses with or without DP being active. So mana cost will typically mean very little to a Tankadin, which makes almost every threat ability in a Tankadin's arsenal all about the cooldown duration and the threat it provides.

"So, you never answered my first question. What's the best/quickest way to gain threat."

For me, it's a priority system based on 2 different scenarios: Single target and AoE.

Single Target Threat Spell Priority:

Single target threat is first built around how you decide to use your Judgement spell. You can easily reduce the cooldown on your Judgements by 2secs with talents, but I would question doing so without having the Libram of Obstruction equipped. With it equipped pre-3.2 it was paramount that ShoR always be used within 5secs (or preferably immediately after) of using a Judgement to get the maximum threat from ShoR hits. However, all SBV durations from procs had their durations doubled so this Libram now provides the SBV increase for 10secs instead of 5. So now, so long as you're Judging every ~9secs or less your SBV buff will always be active and ShoR can be used at any time. So, here's is my single target spell priority list:

HS (Keep this up at all times.)
SS (Keep this up at all times.)
DP (Keep this up at all times.)
Judgement (Keep the SBV buff up at all times.)
ShoR (Highest single target threat ability)
HotR (Though mainly used for AoE, it still provides a good chunk of threat and gets another stack of SoCorr on your target to start)
Crate (If extra threat is needed)
AS (If extra threat is needed)

AoE spell priority can be a little more complicated as Crate is not as fantastic of a threat machine as everyone thinks. The main reason it's top choice is because it will hit more than 4 targets at a time unlike any other ability of the Paladin. If there is 4 or less target, Crate isn't always worth casting. For this list, we'll act as if we have 6 or more enemies we need to hold threat on:

HS (Though the buff has limited charges, try and keep this up at all times.)
SS (Keep this up at all times.)
DP (Keep this up at all times.)
Judgement (Keep the SBV buff up at all times. This still has 4th priority because of increased survivability when blocking.)
Crate (Hits an unlimited amount of targets.)
HotR (Hits 3-4 targets and spreads your SoCorr. I try to never use this on the same target more than once with 5+ enemies to make sure SoCorr is getting spread to everyone.)
AS (Hits 3 targets. I try not to use this on a target I've used HotR on previously so damage is getting spread out somewhat evenly.)
ShoR (With all the tab-target-rotation you'll be doing, keep an eye on Omen. If one of your DPS is sneaking up on one of your targets, toss out a ShoR on them to hop back up.)

You might have wondered why I sullied Crate's name previously, but still hold it as the top priority for AoE threat. The fact of the matter is Crate is a dumby-spell. It takes no concentration, no focus. You just use it where you stand. On top of this, as I mentioned before, Crate has no limit on how many targets it can hit, making it superior to AS and HotR in some cases. Of course, these are setups for a perfect situation. No movement, no tricks, just a tank and spank. Being able to adapt to situations is when true skill and experience is needed.

Avoidance Cap and Attack Table

What is the "Avoidance Cap"? The Avoidance Cap was a theory based off WoW's mechanics that was a must for all serious raiding tanks to understand. The idea is that every mob has a certain chance to get a full hit on a player. A player's chance to be missed (which will increase with every point of Defense), dodge, parry or get a partial hit with blocking will reduce/remove this chance. For TBC and WotLK, the total % needed to never be hit by a full hit was/is 102.4% total avoidance (to figure up how much you have, please see the macro section.) The extra 2.4% comes from the fact that all raid bosses in the game are set as 3 levels above the player level of that instance (Level 80 dungeon bosses have stats set for a level 83 mob.) For each level a mob is over a player's level they get an extra .8% chance to hit them. So, at level 80, a level 83 boss will have an extra 2.4% chance to get a full hit on you.

So why was not getting a full hit so important? Crushing blows. As long as a raid boss could get a full hit, they could cause a crushing blow that dealt roughly twice the amount of a normal hit. However, in the last patch of TBC, crushing blows were completely removed from the game. This is one of the reasons the Avoidance Cap has become somewhat of a joke to the tanking community and at best a preference. The other reason being that no class is realistically capable of reaching the avoidance cap except for Paladins thanks to our spammable spell Holy Shield, increasing block chance by 30%. Warriors previously had a similar ability called Shield Block, but with WotLK the ability's cooldown was increased and was no longer spammable.

"Sin, your walls of text mean nothing to me. I need a fucking visual you number whore."

The best visual for understanding the avoidance cap is the "Attack Table".

In Example 1 you'll see a rough sketch of what my current Attack Table looks like with Holy Shield active. With 15.6% Miss, 14.14% Block, 18.72% Parry, 21.89% Dodge and 30% extra Block from HS I can push myself over 100% avoidance letting raid buffs take care of the ~2% left to get past the 102.4% cap. (Realistically, you'll get an extra 4-5% extra avoidance from raid buffs.)

In Example 2 you'll see the use of Blackened Dragonfin, improving dodge slightly. This food still keeps me at the 102.4% cap but pushes some Block Chance off the table and replaces it with Dodge Chance.

In Example 3, we see what a Death Knight's Attack Table might look like. You'll notice to compensate for no ability to block they receive more Parry than other classes which comes from every point of Strength. Other classes will typically gem or enchant for avoidance as well. To compensate for not having a Holy Shield type ability, the other classes also typically have a lot more "WTF Buttons" than we do - abilities on long cooldowns that are saved for high pressure situations. The grey area you see in Example 3 is the mob's chance to get a full hit.

As you can see, Holy Shield gives the Paladin a pretty big advantage. Not only that we can reach an avoidance cap, but that because we can reach this cap we're less concerned about gemming or chanting for avoidance and can put in Stamina increases instead.

Mods

PallyPower - If you're a Paladin of any sort, you want and need this mod. It enables the user to see what other Paladins in the group are casting for their blessings, seals and auras and let's you display yours as well. Any Paladin that doesn't have this mod is hated by the other Paladins that do because it simply complicates blessing assignments needlessly. There are no exceptions, get this.

Grid or Healbot - "But Sin, I'm not a healer, why the hell would I want a raid frame mod?" That's very true. But all Tankadins need a raid frame for 2 reasons. First, you have a dispell button. Don't think because you're a tank you won't be tossing out short-buffs or dispels. You will, and you will often. Second, we have the single coolest taunt in the game when used with a raid frame. Our RD, even when using a macro, can be used to click on a raid member who has pulled aggro and taunt 3 or less targets that are on them to you. What raid frame mobs provide is an indicator as to when someone in the group or raid has pulled aggro. Both Grid and Healbot do this. Grid is what I use. A lot less complicated and buggy than Healbot, but also very basic in appearance.

Past this, most any other mod is just personal preference. But these 2 I see as a must.

Macros

This macro will calculate your Dodge, Parry, Block and Miss chance. Use Holy Shield right before using this macro to figure out close you are to the avoidance cap:

/run ChatFrame1:AddMessage(format("Unhittable at 102.4%% - you have %.2f%%", GetDodgeChance() + GetBlockChance() + GetParryChance() + 5 + 1/(0.0625 + 0.956/(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)/4.91850*0.04))))

This macro will enable you to use your RD spell on an enemy target rather than having to target a friend:

#showtooltip Righteous Defense
/cast [noharm] [target=targettarget,noharm] Righteous Defense

This simple macro, if hit twice, will pop your bubble and quickly remove it for bosses where you need to get rid of a debuff without losing threat:

#showtooltip
/cast Divine Shield
/cancelaura Divine Shield

FAQs

Q: Why would I ever use anything but Judgement of Light?
A: Judgements only overwrite each other if they're of the same name. As an example, a JoL from 1 Paladin will never overwrite a JoW from another, but a JoL will be overwritten by another JoL as they're of the same name. The Protection talent Judgements of the Just reduces the attack speed of any mob that has a Judgement debuff on them. If this debuff is overwritten by another Judgement from another Paladin (Holy or Ret,) then the effect will be removed creating more damage for the tank. As for having 2 Tankadins in a group/raid, overwriting Judgements is just wasteful when some melee would like both JoL and JoW. Also note that, while Tankadins provided the most HP back to the group/raid from JoL, 3.2 changed the mechanics of this spell from a fluctuating amount to a flat 2%. So any type of Paladin that uses this spell will provide the same healing as any other Paladin spec.

Q: What about Judgment of Justice?
A: Though it is very seldom used, it will have it's uses in some Heroics with fleeing/fast-moving mobs as well as Prot PvP if you're into that sort of thing.

Q: Should I use a shield spike?
A: At 80, never. A shield spike does physical damage. Righteous Fury will provide 0 benefit to this damage.

Q: Spell damage weapons used to be a must have, what about now?
A: It's debatable, but most experts will tell you the same thing; times have changed. Hammer of the Righteous is based off your weapon's weapon damage. Spell damage weapons all have very low weapon damage, where tanking weapons usually have around twice as much weapon damage (and twice as much Stamina.)

Q: I thought weapon chains were a must-have for tanking.
A: You must be looking for the Warrior tanking guide... The only spell that's disabled when you lose your weapon is HotR. If you can't hold threat for 8 seconds without HotR, you're either still working on gear or you need more practice with threat. Also, the 15 PR given by Adamantite Weapon Chain is far inferior to the dodge provided by the 26 Agility from Enchant Weapon - Exceptional Agility.

Q: Is going over the avoidance cap a horrible idea?
A: Hell no! First, pushing block off the Attack Table in place of Parry or Dodge is not a bad idea. You'll just have some semi-wasted Block. Second, in your experiences you'll find that no matter the situation, everyone blindly believes you're the end-all-be-all God of AoE tank. Because of this, you'll find yourself taking on large amounts of AoE trash. So many mobs that your 8 HS charges every 8secs won't be enough to keep you avoidance capped at all times. Any avoidance over 102.4% is going to be wasted unless you're in this situation, but it still is by no means useless. Just don't go too crazy with your avoidance.

Taking A Dump

2009-05-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

Back so soon, you say? Well, at around 2:30am, something lit a fire under my ass. And after only 3 hours of sleep, that hatred has lingered into today's rant. This will not be tanking related, once again. But it will be something that everyone has had to deal with in some way or another - threat. More specifically, Warlock threat. Even more specifically Affliction Warlock threat. Even more specifically, still, MY Affliction Warlock's threat. I don't really care about anyone else's. So let's get down to business.

The Facts, Numbers and Other Things Perfect in the World

Almost every DPS class/spec has an aggro dump or reduction of some sort, either through talents or a spell. This wasn't the case in Vanilla-WoW, but aggro now days is typically an issue of the past. Tank threat being so high and aggro dumps being plentiful have created a PvE game that lets players loose into a freedom of doing whatever they want to enjoy the game they play, fully. Unless of course you're an Affliction Warlock that enjoys using said freedom to get as high a DPS as possible. Before I dive into the specifics on this class/spec, let me create an overview of the other classes:

Death Knight - Don't count, they're invincible.
Druid - Cower(10sec CD), medium% reduction. Balance talent, flat 30% threat reduction.
Hunter - Feign Death(30sec CD), true 100% dump.
Mage - Invisibility(3min CD), true 100% dump. Ice Block(5min CD), 100% dump.
Paladin - Divine Shield(5min CD), 100% dump. HoSalv(2min CD), 20% gradual reduction.
Priest - Fade(30sec CD), small% reduction.
Rogue - Vanish(3min CD), true 100% dump. Feint(10sec CD), small% reduction.
Shaman - Wind Shock(6sec CD), small% reduction.
Warrior - Umm... Yeah...

As you can see, Boomkins don't get an aggro dump, but a full 30% reduction with talents is more than enough as I have never seen a Boomkin put out enough threat to come close to my tank in threat these days. Also, you'll notice that Warriors don't have an aggro dump of any kind. Talents provide a crappy flat 10% threat reduction along with a 20% STR increase, which makes the talent a must have, but still provides lackluster threat reduction to a class with arguably the highest burst AoE in the game, Whirlwind (coming second maybe to Warlock's Seed of Corruption.) But (as I'm sure you already feel the same way,) a Warrior isn't a class that I play anymore, and thus, doesn't matter at this time. Moving on.

'Lock Talk

The point is, almost every class has either a semi-spammable (6-10sec CD) aggro reduction or a longer CD 100% aggro dump. So, now that we all have a pure hatred for the other class' in this penis-size contest, let's take a look at the Warlock's threat reduction.

Soulshatter
8% of base health.
Instant.
Reagent: Soul Shard.
5 Minute Cooldown.
Reduces threat by 50% for all enemies withing 50 yards.

I'm sure it's obvious to all of you brilliant people out there, but there are alliance players reading this, I'm sure. So let me spell it out. First, the good; Instant cast and a 50 yard range is pretty neato, I have to admit. It doesn't disrupt a spell rotation and most boss encounters require all enemies to be within 50 yards of the player. Now, the bad; 5 minutes. Really? Well, guess if it's a full aggro dump that's okay, I suppose. Oh look! It's not. A 50% threat reduction, cute. Very cute. Oh, this isn't a joke? Alright, cool, who do I get to smack around with a lawnmower blade first? Those 2 annoyances are pretty bad, in my opinion. But after 2 swift kicks in the Cojónes, there are a few more little flaws with the logic on this spell.

First, a reagent. Why? I really don't understand. Is it because it's called Soulshatter, and so, we are taking the action of shattering a Soul Shard? Again, very cute. But I'd rather be stuck with a name like "Dark Defecation" than be stuck with a group of adds in Naxx staring me down with my Soul Bag empty. Second, the health cost. It's not much health at all, I understand this. But the last thing I want to use for an aggro dump is a health cost. When you only have one aggro reduction in your arsenal that's on a ridiculous cooldown, there are time's you'll be waiting for a dire situation to use it. Again, is this cost because it kinda fits with the whole Warlocks-cut-themselves thing we've got going here? If so, I will kindly take an "aggro dump" on whoever thought that was a good idea. Thirdly, it's resistible. Logic set in place, a class with only one aggro reduction tool that shares the largest cooldown duration of all aggro reduction spells in the game, that costs a reagent, health and also doesn't wipe all aggro, but reduces it by 50% would at least have a 100% chance to hit. You might think this. But if you did, you would be wrong in the eyes of a game developer. Now, with WotLK came the removal of that ~1% no one could hit cap on bosses. And with 3.1 came the change to Suppression so it effects all spells. So, as long as you're hit capped, you should be fine. But it's little things like that that make me want to kick someone in the teeth.

So why is Affliction so much worse off than the other specs, you might ask? I'll tell you.

Affliction and DoT Addiction

As you may already know, Affliction's basis for damage is Damage over Time (DoT) spells. They're the reason you ran around that corner in Wintergrasp and died long after getting away from my range, Mr. Hunter. So why is this beautiful basis for DPS such a horrid position to be in? Bosses with aggro dumps. A somewhat-commonly found charade that bosses put on expansion after expansion. The term "Alright, stop DPS." comes up, and the Affliction Warlock urine comes out. You see, if a boss, or any mob for that matter, has what's called an "aggro dump" or "aggro reset", that set's everyone's threat back to numero uno. So while the Demo-Lock next to me can just stop spamming Shadow Bolt, my Corruption just crit for 5500 shortly after CoA hit for 1500. Alas, splat goes my face if my Soulshatter is on cooldown and our tank isn't quick enough.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Balthazar, this kind of situation is somewhat of a rare occasion. This guy should quit bitching!" To which I would say, "That was a statement, not a question, jackass." But you bring up a solid point, sir. It isn't an every-raid setup where bosses have an aggro dump. So what else crawled up my butt and died? Overall threat. It's like going back to the burning crusade on this character. If there's ever a reason my DPS is capping out, threat is it. During my normal spell rotation/priority I'll hit a point where I'll have to stop casting Shadow Bolt completely and do nothing but keep my DoTs and Haunt up on the target. This is a major decline in DPS. I've never not been in the top 2 DPS in 10mans or top 4 in 25mans, but while other classes seem to have limitless potential (save maybe Warriors, but again, I don't care,) I feel held back and frustrated. The "freedom" I mentioned earlier doesn't apply to my situation. And unless every tank on my server sucks at maintaining aggro, I don't feel it's my tank's issue. I don't stick to just one or two tanks, PUGing is a common routine on my Warlock - if tanks were loose women I would have 17 forms of herpes, easy.

Before I go, I'll touch on the final subject of Affliction threat problems. Our threat reduction talent:

Improved Drain Soul
Returns 15% of your maximum mana if the target is killed by you while you drain its soul. In addition, your Affliction spells generate 10% less threat.

First of all, any talent or ability that gives us more mana is 100% useless to me in PvE. I can't recall a time where I've been out of mana in a raiding situation. With Glyph of Life Tap, mana is (thanks to a new spell priority) infinite. And in dire situations, Dark Pact can bail you out. So there's no incentive to take this talent for the mana return. Secondly, 10% less threat is a joke. Always has been, always will be. There's zero reason for me to spend 2 talent points I don't have to spare on this shit. Give me the Boomkin's 30% threat reduction for 2 points and we'll talk. But 10% and some unneeded mana-gain isn't something I'm about to sacrifice talent points for.

In conclusion, I love my alt. But I'd like to be able to take a dump more often. Take that as you will.

Achievements: Chocolate Covered Poop

2009-05-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Welcome back to another installment of Meat Shield. It's Saturday afternoon at my workplace, and if you're as bored as I am, you're writing about your frustration with achievements. If you are, stop it - this is my post. Asshole. Continuing forward, let's take a look into this plague upon the MMO we know and love.

History

On January 17, 2008 there was a storm flying viciously over the Blizzard headquarters. This monstrous storm was a titan among any storm that the state of California had ever seen. During this time, the lead game designer at Blizzard known as Tom Chilton walked out to his car from the Blizzard HQ to hug his money. Despite the storm, this was an 8-times-a-day ritual that he was not about to break. On his way back to work after a "hug session" with his car-money, Tom Chilton was struck by lightning straight into his shiny, bald fucking head. This bolt should have killed the man, but luckily he was covered in a common 100-dollar-bill residue known as "Douchenikis" that can protect the body from many sudden harmful changes in the human anatomy (which includes lightning strikes, catching fire, drowning and sleeping with Blythe Danner.) Alas, Tom Chilton's brain was still damaged in the shock from what could possibly be the most powerful lightning burst on the planet. Tom, dusting off what was left of the ashes that were once the last traces of hair he had left, rushed back into the Blizzard building to seek out the other members of his staff - he had had numerous ideas to explain.

Having called an emergency meeting, the biggest Blizzard minds all gathered around a giant wooden-framed glass table, equipped with emergency hookers under each seating area. Tom stood, wide eyed and eager, with all he had come up with since his brush with death. The other team members stared in wonder as to why he smelled of charcoal covered chicken and why all of his clothes had been burned off. This mattered not, this is Tom-fucking-Chilton. An emergency meeting with this guy means something's up.

Despite Tom's very apparent insanity that was a product of his lightning hit, three major topics were covered at this meeting:

The new Death Knight class should be impossible to kill in PvP for, at the very least, 6 months after WotLK's release.
I like Giraffes.
Achievements.

The first 2 topics were discussed briefly, and concluded with, "Umm, you got it, sir." The third topic was a larger one.

First, what were achievements? And why did another element need to be added to an already massive MMO? After Tom discussed, with a chair, the different textures of palm trees for a brief moment, he dove in; he wanted to make it a top priority to have achievements be a complete waste of time for the mindless people that play the game. The interface for achievements needed to be brightly colored, and also needed to make a neato "SHWOOM" noise here and there, similar to that of when a player levels. With these 2 elements, Blizzard could con people into going through old and current content, and even plan for future content, keeping them in the game without Blizzard actually having to create new content!

"This seems very cost effective. But, why would they want to keep doing achievements?" asked a sane person.

"We'll give them ACHIEVEMENT POINTS!!!" Tom screamed like a prepubescent little girl.

"What can they buy with those points?" another non-lunatic pushed.

"Fucking...nothing! Hahhahahahahah! Now get on it or you're all fired!!!" Tom boasted as he danced the Macarina out the door to go touch Linda in accounting's face for 7 1/2 minutes.

Thus, the Achievement system was born. Through its slow construction and Tom's slow progression back into sanity, actual in-game rewards were implemented to be rewarded upon the completion of certain achievements. But points being spent is still something Tom is not willing to bend on. He also recently married his imaginary girlfriend, Priestess Bobo Cocoa. They have 1 child, it's a pineapple.

What's the point?

It's almost impossible to log into the game and not find some trace of moron looking to complete an achievement that has no reward but achievement points. People strive every day to get those points up, as high as possible. They are put in the spotlight for having their achievement points above others, and this seems very odd. I won't deny that some achievements are quite hard to accomplish, and those that do complete the hardest of the hard are nothing short of being really bored. I will never deny someone of this. Those that can push through a full 25man Naxx without 1 death are either very lucky, or nothing short of the definition of organized. The major issue here is these points that come along with achievements, and the lack of purpose in their existence. It's similar to someone giving me carnival tokens for peeing in the toilet without making a mess, only to find out the carnival that the tokens are for will never open due to management being hindered by a recent lightning bolt accident... I might be drawing too many connections on that analogy, but there you are. That's the reality - achievements are the easiest way to say you've accomplished something. Examples being:

Reach level 40!
Complete Wailing Caverns!
Defeat the Headless Horseman!
/love after killing an opponent in PvP

Honestly, peeing in a toilet is harder than some of these. And people pride themselves on these points? Really? Do they also pride themselves on being able to masturbate? Because with a little effort I can get a reward that keeps me happy for about 5 minutes upon completion - same concept.

The Reward

I've established Achievement Points being compared to a night on the town with your left hand, so what about the actual rewards?

Titles, mounts and pets. These seem to be the 3 key rewards that can be attained from completing certain achievements and none of these require achievement points, just actual achievements. While these rewards aren't things I'm particularly into, I understand why people strive for these. In vanilla WoW, a player would spend every second of every day PvPing every month just so they might have a chance at one of the top 3 ranks, and thus - the title that came with it. Mount and pet collectors have been a staple of the games player base for years, this is nothing new. This is the difference to me, actual reward. Achievement points are like getting badges from heroics and raids, but not being able to purchase anything with them.

The problem is, I truly feel like a madman when I explain this to others. I am seen as a lunatic when I speak ill of anything achievement related. So maybe I'm the idiotic one here. Maybe I'm the one who thinks he sees clearly, but in actuality is so hazed by opinion that he comes off as a self righteous ass.

Ha, just kidding, it's you guys, not me.

The Link of the Day!
http://www.wolframalpha.com/

"Pulling Out" and using Protection

2009-02-12T06:26:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to the next installment of Meat Shield. This week we(meaning me) are going to be discussing issues with DPS, and even buff-happy healers. While the title of this installment might leave you confused, scared and slightly aroused - I assure you it will make sense as we continue.

I'll start off this happy-rant with some logistics and facts, as that is my favorite part of writing. This will be my sexual encounter, and my examples and opinions will be my cigarette. Quite a sexy post already, huh? Moving along, the leg this post will stand on is going to be threat and how it works. While most everyone understands that "having aggro" means "the big dude is going to hit you in the face", a lot don't understand the true mechanics of it. So first, the basics:

When pulling a mob while it's OOC(out of combat), the initial puller(hopefully the tank) will get a 30% headway on threat of whatever damage they do. As an example, on Patchwerk: A Warrior shoots an arrow to pull Patchwerk into combat, the arrow does 300 threat on contact. For anyone to pull aggro, they will need to exceed 390 threat(300*1.3) if the Warrior does not do any more damage. This headway was implemented by Blizzard as a buffer for initial pulls as they assume(and are correct) that DPSers will idiotically start DPSing earlier than they should.

Pulling a mob without doing any damage, but walking within their aggro radius(or "Face Pulling") will provide zero threat, but the mechanics work as if the puller has a 30% headway, even though 30% of zero is zero. Any threat provided by another player while the tank has a 30% headway of zero will result in the mob attacking said player.

Mana, Rage and Energy gain provides a small amount of threat: .5 threat per mana point gained. 5 threat per rage point gained. Energy approximation is unknown. This threat is only gained once you appear on the enemy's threat table.

Buffing any target on a mob's threat table will cause a small amount of threat. Example: Putting a Prayer of Fortitude on the tank after he/she face pulls will cause the priest to gain aggro.

During combat, the 30% headway stays put on whatever threat the tank puts out on most mobs. However this 30% headway is only for ranged DPS and healers. Melee range enemies to the boss only get a 10% headway. This makes aggro-watching far more important for melee DPS as they get 20% less headway on threat and also are within arm's reach of the mob. Before TBC, the headway was 30% for all ranges, this was changed in patch 2.1.

Effective healing provides .5 threat per 1 point of healing done to a target. This threat is distributed to all enemies with no range limit. Overhealing provides no threat.

Taunting a mob off of another player will put you at exactly the same threat number they are at, no matter what number you were at previously. The difference between both is that the player that taunted will have the 10%/30% headway over the player he taunted off of.

Taunting while you are above everything/everyone else's threat does 100% nothing.

Hunter pet's "Growl" and Warlock pet's "Torment", while they have a taunt-like visual, they are not taunts. They simply produce a large amount of threat.

And knowing is half the battle.. Here's the other half:

When DPS Attacks!... Too much.

Threat issues are on the verge of non-existent in this expansion. As an example; for single target pulls I always tell my DPS to start in as soon as I make the first hit with my sword. By then I've used Avenger's Shield, Judged, and the first sword swing will be accompanied by a Shield of the Righteous that was boosted by my Judgement with my Libram. At this point it's going to be hard for any class to come even close to me on threat with 1 or 2 hits. This is, of course, a perfect situation. I am able to set up and pull when I need to with little to no complications. The only problems with threat that happen in the game for myself are in 1 of 2 situations:

1) The mob in question has special threat rules. IE; random threat table, no threat table, etc.

2) DPS and/or healers are acting as if they possess an IQ no higher than what they can count on their fingers and toes.

The first situation is for the most part inevitable. To some extent, these types of mobs can be controlled, but typically aren't meant to be and thus won't/shouldn't be. The second situation on the other hand, this is what deaths are made of! I'll give some examples:

Face pulling. Now, other than a Death Knight sitting at 62, I have 1 of every class at level 70 or higher. I know how DPS and healers won't be necessarily focusing in on anything around them, but rather on their action bars, cooldowns and mods. However, taking notice of when a tank face pulls, or when anyone face pulls(on purpose or not) is what saves lives. Just because you see an enemy flailing about, does not mean you need to pummel the fucker in the face with a 10k Shadow Bolt. Take notice of what's going on first, listen to voice over, check mods, etc.

Which brings me to my next example. "I'm going to pull back." This statement has baffled the non-tanking masses for years. In Retardinese, it's roughly translated to, "Hit this mob as hard as you fucking can as soon as you can and don't hold back for any reason." But kidding aside. Please, DPS.. I beg of you. When a tank notes that he is going to pull a mob out or back, try to hold back that jumpy/shacking finger that is looming over your PoM/Pyro macro with sweat dripping on the key. Your DPS isn't going to be 200 higher just because you got that one Aimed Shot off 2 seconds sooner. For the love of god and all that is holy, stop doing that shit.

Hopefully this helps everyone understand the aggro and threat mechanics a little better, as it's not as simple as some might think.

Till next time!

Death Knight Tanking Revisited

2008-09-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome back, it's been almost a month since I obtained my beta key and I've put it to pretty good use. Namely in the realm of Death Knights. There is so much in this expansion, it would be impossible to discuss everything that is in it, so I'll stick to the most important part of the expansion for me: Death Knight tanking. This will go deep ladies and gentlemen, because I am PISSED. Not only with the class, but with the decision makers behind it. So I present to you:

The Death Knight:
Can't Raid Tank Worth a Shit

Obviously since there are no raids implemented yet, this is all pure speculation. However it's me, so it's awesome speculation.

You might be asking yourself, "Larry, why would anyone think the next "tanking class" wouldn't be viable as a raid tank?" Well, Larry, how about you shut the fuck up and listen. Through tanking philosophy, I present to you the 3 core elements of a tank - Staying alive, holding aggro and not being a total fuck up. While holding aggro is not in any way shape or form an issue for the DK currently, and not being a total fuck up is based on the kind of skill you have, I will skip both of these and head directly to the problem at hand: Survival.

Survival for a raid tank requires three things: Large health pool, large AC value and a lot of avoidance. While each class may have more of one than another, all 3 of these are a necessity for tanking end-game material. While Blizzard some how thinks that the DK will excel at a couple of these aspect, they do not. The DK lacks a large health pool and avoidance as they are lacking a shield. While Druid tanks are capable as end-game tanks with less avoidance than Warriors and Tankadins, the DK does not have a rediculously large health pool and AC value like the Druid tank does. Let's compare, shall we? Numbers don't lie, mainly because I punch them in the fucking nose if they try to. I will give the numbers present in beta:

Stamina Values:

Warrior:
(Protection) Vitality - Increases Stamina by 5%
While previously, Warriors were able to stack Stamina to a rediculous degree thanks to Shield Block providing 75% block chance, Warriors always had a very large health pool. Now that the New Shield Block seems immenent - Warriors health pools might be brought back down to earth.

Paladin:
(Protection) Sacred Duty - Increases Stamina by 6%
(Protection) Combat Expertise - Increases Stamina by 10%

Druid:
(Feral) Survival of the Fittest - Increases all attributes by 6%
(Feral) Heart of the Wild - While in Bear and Dire Bear form, your Stamina increased by 20%
(Feral) Dire Bear Form - Increases Stamina by 25%

Death Knight:
(Unholy) Shadow of Death - Increases Stamina by 2%
(Blood) Veteran of the Third War - Increases Stamina by 3%

While the DK gets 5% Stamina increase just like the Warrior, the Warrior has one dedicated tree for his tanking job, and thus doesn't have to work to reach those points. The DK on the other hand has to travel pretty far down the Blood tree to get that 3%, and in its current form, Blood is the worst tanking tree by a mile. The furthest plans for Blood talents for tanking are stopped at Spell Deflection, and that is if you're looking at a lot of caster-tanking, which may or may not be the case. In any case, the grueling task of reaching 5% Stamina increase will require 39 talent points, leaving you with only 32 points left to struggle getting other talents. In other words, you can fucking forget it at this point. Moving on.

Avoidance(wtf buttons not included):

Warrior:
(Protection) Shield Specialization - 5% Block chance
(Protection) Anticipation - 5% Dodge chance
(Arms) Deflection - 5% Parry

Paladin:
(Protection) Redoubt - (While passive, is a CoBH and therefor not always active, but the proc chance is 10% which is pretty hefty as a tank) "Damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 30%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks."
(Protection) Anticipation - 5% Dodge chance
(Protection) Holy Shield - 30% Block for 10secs, with 8sec CD(Duration > CD = Spammable)
(Retribution) Deflection - 5% Parry

Druid:
(Feral) Feral Swiftness - 4% Dodge
(Feral) Natural Reaction - 6% Dodge
(Feral) Predatory Instincts - 15% AE avoidance chance

Death Knight:
(Passive) Forceful Deflection - Increased Parry rating by 25% of STR
(Blood) Blade Barrier - (While it's possible to spam this proc, it probably won't always be up due to needing runes open at uncertain times) "Whenever you have no Runes active, your Parry chance increases by 10% for the next 8 sec."
(Unholy) Anticipation - 5% Dodge chance

These numbers seem a little more even in my opinion. Everyone seems to get at least 10% pure avoidance with no strings attached. To make an estimate for end-game on a DK tank, we'll say he/she has 800 STR. Here is how that would work out:

800 STR * .25 = 200 Parry rating
200 PR /23.6538461538462 = ~8.46% Parry chance.

A parry and dodge rating like that seems fair in comparison to the Druid tanks, if their health pools and armor values matched up closely. This isn't the case, however. So, how does Blizzard plan to deal with this penis-size contest? WTF-Buttons.. WTF-Buttons out the WAAAZOOOO!

The Death Knight as a tank is nothing but a fucking wtf-button bonanza. Let's write this out shall we?

WTF-Buttons(without improvements):

Warrior:
Shield Wall - 60% dmg reduction - 4min CD
Last Stand - +30% HP - 5min CD
Shield Block - 100% block chance/value - 1min CD

Paladin:
Lay on Hands - 100% Health restored - 40min CD
Divine Protection - 50% dmg reduction - 5min CD

Druid:
Berserk - + 30% HP - 5min CD
Frenzied Regeneration - "Converts up to 10 rage per second into health for 10 sec. Each point of rage is converted into 0.3% of max health." - 3min CD

Death Knight:
Ice Bound Fortitude - 50% dmg redcution - 1min CD
Anti-magic Shell - 75% Magic dmg reduction - 15s CD
Rune Tap - +10% HP - 30sec CD
Lichborne - +25% miss chance - 3min CD
Unbreakable Armor - +25% armor, +10% Str, +5% Parry - 1m CD
Bone Shield - 40% dmg reduction, 4 charges - 1m CD
Anti-Magic Zone - 75% party Magic dmg redution - 2m CD

As you can see, and this is just for avoidance wtf-buttons, the DK has 7. While in second place, the Warrior, has 3.. While I'm sure this is Blizzard's solution to "fun tanking", this isn't solid and leaves the class with some contradictions. Blade Barrier being the most obvious; to keep Blade Barrier up, you need to keep your Runes down. But with so many wtf-buttons, how are you supposed to be reserving these button's costs for dire needs all the whilst attempting to keep Blade Barrier up? That's a good question, one that has yet to be answered.

Case in point is that the DK is not by any means a solid tanking class. The whole thing feels very thrown together and wishy-washy. This is, of course, beta. Everything I've typed here could be irrelevant tomorrow. However, Blizzard has been on the fast train to Quick-solutionsville, and I'm not liking the direction things are going. On top of the problems with this "tanking" class, the other tanking classes are being stripped of what made a tank, a tank in this game. IE; time, calculations, planning and skill. The DK itself feels like a hit-random-buttons class, and I fear the other tanks are headed in the same direction... Direction! That's what Blizzard needs.

Don't Be Jealous.. Or Do..

2008-08-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

Today I received my Beta-Key in the mail, and I must say, "Hell yes, it's about time."

I will be updating soon with WotLK news! Stay tuned!

Paladin Changes, DK Tanking and More - PART III

2008-08-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

As the third and final installment of this WotLK round-up, I'll leave you with an overview of the info that has been released to the masses on the new expansion: WotLK.

New Proff: Inscription

As some of you might remember, I was a little dramatic on the new profession coming out in WotLK. Knowing what I did then, I still think I was pretty accurate with my claims. Knowing what I do now? Well, let's say I won't be leaving WoW because of Inscription, it'll be because of other things. But in any case I'm very pleased how Blizzard organized how this was going to work. In its current setup, you will be allowed 2 major spell enhancements, 2 minor and 2 lesser. Major enhancements being stuff like knockbacks, slows, and other effects, Minor being small changes like extra dmg, and Lesser being mostly made up of cosmetic changes. The only exceptions are Inscribers themselves, as they get an extra Major slot for having the profession. Overall I'm pleasantly surprised with what Blizz has done with this idea.

New Talents

This is a more complicated subject, but I'll try to be as generic as possible. In general(see what I did there?), I am excited by most of the new talents coming out. Exotic pets, more Fire AoE, Rogue teleporting and a number of other fun abilities are just that - fun. Though I may not agree with some of the changes being made to some classes, I am thankful for others, some were very needed. On a slightly whiny note, I'd like to make an observation that a ridiculous amount of 51pt talents were primarily designed for PvP. Ever since Arena was introduced, this seemed to be the case in a lot of areas of WoW, PvP bleeding into PvE's territory. Honestly, most changes these days are based around Arena. This is a rant for another day, but I'll just note that this is very sad. So, overall, I'm mostly pleased with new talents and old talent changes. We'll see how everything plays out.

New Zones

I haven't had the pleasure of seeing every nook and cranny of the new world, but there have been video posts of the new zones, and even the instances they contain. The level of detail on most of the zones is extremely impressive. I always felt like Hellfire was one of the best constructed zone in TBC expansion, as it was created with the feeling of involvement. There is a lot going on in Hellfire at all times, and Blizz had done this in a way that wasn't to a point of annoyance, but also wasn't the other extreme; boredom(Zang Marsh anyone?). From what I've read and seen, even the PvP zones will have something to offer those of us who just like to say "oooo" and "ahhh".

New Instances

This is somewhat tied in with the new zones. I haven't experienced any of the new instances for myself, and to a point I feel you have to do so to critic them. But gotta give the people what they want. The 2 instances I've watched and read the most of are Utgarde Keep and The Nexus. The major complaint on Utgarde is the ease of the of the whole thing, but let's keep in mind this is beta, and while the whole instance could be changed tomorrow, the people running these things currently have pretty amazing gear. The first instance has to have availability for both people who have been 70 for over a year and those who just hit the cap yesterday. Next, the Nexus. The Nexus is huge. Fucking... huge. If you have a spare 45mins to watch the video, I would suggest doing so. Despite the random and idiotic ramblings of some british guy from WoWradio, this video is pretty great. Blizz seems to be going to town with their "non-linear instance" promises. Though a promise they don't seem to be keeping is that of shortened time needs for 5mans. From what I can tell, and from the opinions of those running it, the Nexus is not, by any means, a 30min instance. Check it out for yourself.

The New Hero Class

I have to say I'm pretty torn(as you could probably tell) on the new hero class - The Death Knight. Some might say I'm being a little too critical of what this class is becoming, but I don't think there's a limit on how critical one can be when looking at 1 tenth of the class options available to everyone. I've rambled and ranted enough on the DK, so I won't continue my crass comments towards Blizzard's decision making, I will keep an open mind on the class until the beta-gods see that I am fit to hold a beta key in my hands.

Closing Thoughts

Overall I think this expansion will be great. And though I have a looming cloud of suspicion that this expansion could, in-fact, kill the game's player-base, I'm trying to stay positive. Hell; back in the day, your only choice for a tank was a warrior for the most part. And now we have a game where Paladins, Druids and Warriors stand side-by-side. Here's to hope!

/cheers

Paladin Changes, DK Tanking and More - PART II

2008-08-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

Welcome to part two of my constant bitching about the expansion I haven't even set a hand on yet(damn you beta-key gods!). Today is one of those days; a day where my attitude towards Blizzard and their 'we'll do what we want' style just completely annoys the living fuck out of me. This section is going to focus on the upcoming, epic hero-class - The Death Knight.

I could go into a few problems, that those with a beta key seem to be having, like being rune starved and RP capping too often. But I won't pretend to understand the rune system 100% as I've never touched it - and I'm a hands-on kind of guy. But I will discuss what I can 100% visually come to conclusions on as bad ideas. To begin, I'd like to start by saying I typically love Blizzard's inability to give into the whiners, noobs and children that play this game. Blizzard has always had a knack for doing things their own way, whether people like it or not. And... come on, has Blizzard ever made a game people didn't like? But I'm afraid this time they've made a mistake:

"Part of the reason we chose to add the death knight to Wrath of the Lich King was because groups seemed to have trouble getting tanks. We think tanking in general will be more popular if it's more fun. Improving the dps of tanks will certainly help, which is something we're trying to do to the 3 existing tanking classes through talents and gear changes.

With death knights, we are taking that a step further and trying to allow death knight with different specs to still be viable tanks. Maybe a death knight tank won't burn out if they can try a completely different tree without giving up their tanking role. Maybe death knight off-tanks can still contribute decent dps and utility when not tanking. Maybe it will just be more fun for everyone if you see different abilities getting used depending on who you bring along as a tank.

We admire the valiant attempts to come up with specs that cherry-pick every single tanking talent, but really that's not what you should have to do to tank. If Frost Presence reduced all damage by 95% and generated 200% more threat, it's pretty clear that a death knight could tank any boss in the game, probably trivially, with no talents spent at all. That is clearly a silly example, but my point is that there are lots of ways we can adjust the base class to be an exceptional tank without you having to be dependent on keeping Blade Barrier or Bone Armor up 100% of the time.

Should you get talents that help you tank? Absolutely. Will a paladin be a better Ulduar tank because she spent 20 talents on tanking and you only spent 6? There is no reason that has to be the case. Is that fair? I think it can be. The paladin will still be a better tank for some encounters and as long as she doesn't totally gimp her dps or healing abilities in order to take those tanking talents, we think the design can work."

Now I think it's very cute that Blizzard has the idea in their head that they can create a "tanking" class with not one tanking tree, but it is pure ignorance. And I'll explain exactly why:

Ignorance

Thinking that each tree will be able to tank is something that is 100% feasible, and from the way things are setup right now - you'll be able to tank with each spec, no problem. But to think that each tree can tank heroics and raids by going down only 1 tree is complete ignorance. To believe that people won't "cherry-pick" tanking abilities because they WANT TO TANK is something of a very nerdy fairytale. I fear that Blizzard's assumption is this: People only have fun if they're DPSing. This would explain their need to change every tanking class into something of a DPS/Tanking hybrid. I'm here to say whole-heartedly that DPS is boring as shit. On my mage, I'm #1 DPS every time we go into Kara with him. Is it hard? Is it interesting? Does it keep me on the edge of my seat? No, no and no; Scorching and Fireballing all night isn't the most intense of activities this game has to offer.

I've got news for the devs up there, some people just like tanking. Now this may come as a shock to everyone, but I swear it's true! I have a dedicated character for tanking, and I like that toon more than any others I have, he gets the most attention and has the best gear out of all my 70s. I am pretty sure I'm not the only person like this. But, Blizzard doesn't care. They strip the game of crushing blows, kill Shield Block, destroy Paladin tanking's uniqueness and now our ever-awaited "4th tanking class" doesn't even have a dedicated tanking tree!

The point is, every tanking class has a tanking tree. This class won't. And every 5/10/25man group wanting a tank will choose a tank with a tanking tree first. This won't change just because your cute ideas and hopes say they will.

In closing for this portion I'd like to state a few things specifically for Blizzard:
No, DPSing isn't the best part of the game for everyone. Yes, only the real tanks of any class "cherry-pick" their talents for their tanking role, and will continue to do so. And you're destroying the math, know-how, strategy and fun that tanking is currently. Some people have what it takes to tank, some people have what it takes to heal, and everyone else DPS's. Continuing down this road will take this game, simplify it, dumb it down, gut everything it is currently until none of your more adult players care to stick around anymore. This is quickly becoming a SWG fiasco.. Good luck to us all...

Paladin Changes, DK Tanking and More - PART I

2008-07-18T16:54:00.000-07:00

Obviously, WotLK is all the buzz - and honestly, the only thing anyone should be concerned with at this point in time. The more info that gets released, the more hype from all sources, even the most important source - my site. While beta info was recently released, excitement even from myself cannot be contained. But with this excitement, I have some concerns, and I wish to share those tonight.

Paladin Changes
To start I'd like to say I have a level 70 Paladin, Rogue, Warlock, Mage, Priest, Druid, a 55 Warrior, a 50 Hunter and a 40 Shaman. All of my 70's have had extensive amounts of time in raids. I say this to make a point, I have experience. And I don't mean, "That Mage really knows what he's doing." I mean, I'm well known on my server, and not as 1 character. The great tales of my awesomeness spread far and wide across my server. My ability to top the damage meters as DPS, be a very competent healer, am held in high standard for my tanking abilities and pretty much "pwn" at every class I touch(regardless of the fact that I just read theorycraft) is what gives me a good time in this wonderful game. It's not easy being the best, but I carry the weight well.

Back to my point, I know most of the ends and outs of every class, certainly the ones I have at 70. Out of every class I play, however. I feel that 1 class stands out very solidly, one class gives me far more entertainment than any other; My Paladin. Out of every class I play, this one feels the least "broken". I use the term as a dictionary reference; having the least problems. I cannot speak for Retribution Paladins and their yummy tears, but having played all specs and landing on Prot very solidly, there is hardly anything I would change about the way my character works.

To my concern, I found some changes that don't necessarily disagree with me, but worry me about where my class is going(as far as tanking goes):

1) Hammer of the Righteous
To sum this 51-point Protection Talent up - Sunder on crack. While a sunder-like ability is nice and cute, we certainly don't need it. And while I'm all for fun toys, I am concerned on where Blizzard is heading. This, among other things I'll discuss later, cause me to worry about this game becoming "EZmode". I can see this fitting in, as it is similar to our 3mob-taunt, but there's something about the Sunder-likeness that bugs the living crap out of me.

2) Judgements of the Just
Another copy of a warrior-ability. Our Thunder Clap, if you will... but you probably won't. And I'll ask once more, do we seriously need this? Isn't our threat better with faster-hitting mobs? I'd like to see anyone who can pull aggro off me with dual-wielding enemies. While this can be nice for endgame MT needs, who let's us MT these days? While my guild wants me to MT everything, I've joined other guilds for 25man-fun, and all are in the same old-skool mindset; Warriors are tanks, anything else isn't as good. But my point remains, outside of personal preference of roles, this is another tool I fear will stear us away from our special role as AoE tanks.

I'm almost off work and bored of typing. I'll finish later. Maybe...

I'm Original - Srsly..

2008-07-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

Recently WoW Insider did a piece on Things That Annoy Me. This post was a solid list about things that annoyed the author, in no particular order. And what better time to create this list than a few months before everything is changed completely. When WotLK comes out, the rules will more than likely take a 180 as they did when TBC came out. IE; Warlocks being the kings of AoE as apposed to Mages, Rogues throwing away their daggers, Paladin's being a sought-after tank, BM being the spec-of-choice with end-game hunters, Shaman healers topping the end-game charts, Crit becoming almost useless in PvP, 40mans being a thing of the past, Arms Warriors being feared in PvP, and so on.

Getting back on track, I too have had a mental list for quite some time now. Similar to my List of Issues with People in WoW I posted a while back, but this time it's issues with the game as a whole. This list is ongoing, building and building as time has collected since the last expansion came out. So I present to you:

Lantz's BETTER 'Things That Annoy Me' List v2.4.2

1.) The amount of tanking Paladins in the world that want to be Warriors. Any Tankadin that stacks STR should be given a 2H Axe, a free respec and a slap across the face.

2.) The boasters that claim "spell hit does nothing for me, but spell penetration... wowee! That increases my DPS 10fold!" Who only PvE, who don't scan over their damage meters and who think their DPS is amazing when people in greens are beating their epic-ass. This one is a bit specific, but I've been told this by 2 different people, so other morons exist; I'm sure of it. Spell penetration does NOT ONE DAMN THING for PvE, there is no possible way in existence I can stress this enough! Go read a website! Any caster that takes Spell Penetration over spell hit/dmg, Int, Stam, or Spirit(hell even Agi) deserves to be shot.

3.) Dwarves. I hate them so much. People normally hate gnomes, but if I was to ever level an Alliance toon, I would be a gnome. Something about a tiny tiny little guy kicking a giant guy's ass seems appealing to me. Stumpy Dwarves, on the other hand, are not my cup-o-tea. Maybe others like to waddle around, staring at Sleepy's ass all day. But not this man, Snow White was not that attractive.

4.) People who ask for advice, but don't really want it. If I'm doubling your DPS as the same class/spec as you, and you ask for my help, I assume you actually want my help. Maybe this is a crazy assumption, maybe the days of people saying what they mean went out with the successful-marriage rate for the US. But it seems to me that if you are wondering how my Shadow Priest is making yours look like a mana-battery that needs to be recharged, don't tell me where to put my talent points. I've said it before, I'll say it again; I know what's best - shove it.

5.) The Human dance-animation... Seriously...

6.) People who get ganked because they're flagged, then bitch about it. If you aren't on a PvP server, and you don't want to be ganked, don't flag. Simple as that.

7.) The Trade Channel.... still.

8.) People that say, and I quote, "Battlegrounds aren't real PvP. Arena is the only real PvP." That's like saying 25man raids aren't real PvE, only 5mans are. Even the other way around it sounds ridiculous. I'm sick and tired of Arena-fucks thinking that the only thing worth doing in this game is what they do. I hope you choke and die on your same-sexed life partner's private parts. The shear fact that a person 4-boxxed a 5v5 team and came out as #1 on his server makes arena enough of a joke as everything else in the game.

9.) Ret Paladins, with the exception of one, and only one I know that does fantastic DPS. Until you morons figure out that you should have rolled a Rogue if you wanted to mash buttons, no one will have any use for you. An extra blessing isn't as valuable as someone who can actually contribute to the group DPS.

10.) The in-game voice-chat... Does ANYONE use this?

11.) Locks and Mages that don't drop their respected cookies/food in BG's, ever. I don't drop them every single time, but I know of those who flat-out refuse to drop them ever. Get your head out of your ass and help the team. Every time a lock/mage doesn't drop a jar/table, god pisses on an infant. And no one wants that..

12.) How Warlocks are everywhere to be killed when on one of my caster toons. But when on my Rogue, the only thing that is flagged is Warriors.

13.) My tier sets looking really snazzy... until you see my oddly colored boots.

14.) Only two 10mans in the new content currently. This is obviously getting a massive fix in the expansion, but for the past 2 years it's kinda sucked.. Having 6(soon to be 7) 70's helps, but Attumen's face gets old after a while, whether you're in his face or at the back of the class chargin' your fiah bawl.

15.) Those not familiar with give and take.

16.) The mouth's on the level 40 riding Wolf. Seriously, my wolf looks like he's a fuck-stick from the south.

17.) Kids that play this game. All of them. Every fucking one of them.

18.) When I overwrite another curse over my CoD.... FUCK!!!

19.) How Outland, and all of its glory, will go unused once the expansion is out.. I realize that's the circle of WoW Expansion life, but it truly is sad. Where the old world sometimes felt thrown together, and not well thought out - Outland was simply well built.

20.) How after 2 years, I STILL don't understand the rules for Zang and Halaa world PvP.. Not that I've ever cared to participate or research what I should be doing, but it's still kind of an annoyance.

21.) STV. It's a love/hate relationship. At 30, you're pumped to be out in the jungle, but by the time you're 40 - you've seen your fair share of baboon ass.

Age of Conan

2008-06-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

I'd like to start off by saying, it's amazing how many morons will play a shitty game just to see a digital set of breasts. It's truly amazing.

That's.. actually about it.

Till next time!

Basically....

2008-06-04T11:01:00.000-07:00

Basically - as defined by the dictionary:
1) In a basic way; fundamentally or essentially
2) For the most part; chiefly

Some of you who know me might believe that I have a problem with this word. That when it is uttered, I fly into an exhausting rage to which I will rant continuously for more time than anyone is willing to listen, specifically people who have heard it before. I'm here to say that this is just not the truth. This word, is just that, a word. I don't have any issues with this word, at all. The word itself has done nothing wrong, and I don't want to scrutinize it just because others are incapable of using it properly. That would be comparable to some idiot accidentally killing someone with a lawn-mower, and then the lawn-mower getting blamed for the incident - just not logical.

My long and drawn out explanation leads me to my very simple point; don't make a word apart of your regular vocabulary if you don't know how to use it. And as a side note, don't use a word for said reason, just to sound smart - you're shooting yourself in the foot, and after this post, you will be shoving your bludgeoned, bloody, dangling foot in your mouth.

I'm by no means a scholar, aside from Allakhazam.com. But the overuse of this word, and the overuse of incorrect use of this word is enough to drive me mad. An example of a correct sentence with the word 'basically' in it might be, "...His trip involved him getting kidnapped and tortured, so he basically went insane." See? I used the word to bring things down and sum them up. To take a longer story, and simplify it. Since most of the anger that stems from this subject is from a couple people I know in World of Warcraft, I will use a good and a bad example involving the game:

Correct, you're awesome:
"...he will turn and charge people randomly, but you don't have to worry about this, just stay where you are and the healers will get you. So basically, this is just a tank-n-spank."

Incorrect, die:
"Basically, when we start he will spawn these portals that shoot beams out to the boss that will buff him if they touch him. So basically we need to stand in them one at a time, to the people that we assigned to them."

Notice the difference? One of them needs to die and the other deserves a cookie. Now there are obviously different uses for the word, but the one that is misused the most is simplification. You don't sit there and explain something long and drawn out and slap 'basically' at the beginning of your sentence, you're a fucking dumbass and you should die by spiky-dildo. By not waiting a minute to use that word you're so god damned fond of, you are now an ignorant fool and thus have now succumbed to an anal penetration by way of a sharp and piercing dildo, congratulations.

That is all for now.

Inscription Will Be The Downfall Of WoW

2008-05-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

It's true. So very true. Now I know you're asking yourself, "Frank, how would this guy know how the single most addicting entity(stick with heroin) in the world's end will come to pass?" I'll tell you sir, not only did I just read your fucking mind, but I can tell the future. Don't believe me? I'll prove it to you later you unresponsive shit-pickle. For now, let me explain how this will happen exactly.

If you're a complete nerd as I am, you find certain hobbies contain a climax within their life-cycle, no matter how big or small. This is then followed by a large, sudden decline in "awesome". And yes, I've made awesome a noun. This can be seen in a variety of different popular items. Magic the Gathering, D&D, SWG Online, 2girls-1cup, etc. Some of these seem to be unexplainable. They're at their height in awesomeness, then suddenly, without warning - it's lame. I for one am not as sexually aroused by women drinking their own vomit and fecal matter as much as I used to be, no sir-ee.

In the case of some it is quite obvious, especially in the eyes of the consumer. Let's take a look at Magic the Gathering for instance. This card game has existed for many years, being the anti-lame cousin to the Poke'mon card game. The downfall? Planar Chaos, and "chaos" is right. This game took a turn into Lame-town, 2 miles east of Stupidville, which is right on the outskirts of Retardington. This expansion turned unspoken rules into useless times of yesteryear! Blue was suddenly direct damage, morphing was turned into a pastime of laughter, and I died a little inside. As soon as a franchise goes kinda "crazy" with their current setup, it's doomed to failure. Star Wars Galaxies - when they brought in the Jedi class for anyone and their grandma to have; who didn't stop playing?

So I submit to you, all of you. When a Mage's fireball has a knockback on it. When a Hunter's Serpent Sting has a Stun on it. When a Warrior's Dem Shout has a DoT on it... What game will you start playing?

Issues with People in World of Warcraft

2007-12-15T15:39:00.000-08:00

The title speaks for itself, so lets get on with it:

Lantz's Issues with People in World of Warcraft

I want to first state that these are not issues with game mechanics, classes, zones, talents, PvP, PvE, visuals or anything in between. This is about the people in game and why I hate them.

1) People that beg for money
Money begging is like saying, "Can I have what you've earned?" Now I'm okay with shelling out a few gold to one of my friends who just started in the game. But beyond that the answer is no. And I'm certainly not beyond saying, "Sure!" Opening trade, listing 1000 gold and then logging out. What can I say? I had a cat as a child, I like to dangle hope and rip it away.

2) People that beg for quest/instance runs
You know who you are... Whether you're passive aggressive about it or you have a low enough IQ to think the question "Who wants to run me through SFK?" is an honest question - words cannot explain my hatred for you.

Yes yes yes please, let me run you through an area that is 50 levels below me, so you can get a back item you'll replace in 5 levels! I have NOTHING better to do than to spend my time gaining nothing at all while you AFK repeatedly! Of course I'll help! And while I'm at it, I'll go rub my balls in shards of glass! Fuck you.

3) People that use trade chat for Chuck Norris jokes
Die.

4) People that invite to group, without a group
On many occasions I see, "Just need a (enter role here) for (enter activity here)". So I say to myself, "Hey! I have a (enter role here)! And I need to do (enter activity here)!" So I whisper, let them know, get invited. I look at the group and there's me, and the one person who said they "just need" said class/role. Obviously you didn't say you needed just ONE more, but the "just" in "Just need a tank" for instance, insinuates that you only need a tank and you're ready to go. So, nice try, I will not be sticking around when you trick me into a group. Peace.

5) People who talk about politics in-game
As if the people at your work didn't get enough ear bleeding advice on why Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ, you feel the need to explain your loose points further on a game. Obviously you don't know what the majority of people that play video games care about; nachos and boobs. Now I realize Hillary has boobs... but eww. Save it for your friends and family sir, they'll at least pretend to care.

6) People who can't take a hint
It's simple. If I tell you you suck at your class, you obviously do. There's no need to argue the point. I've done the research - you blow. You're welcome.

7) People who keyboard-turn
Don't try and convince me you're just as good as I am when you take more than a half a second to turn around. YOU are the reason Subtlety specced Rogues still exist asshole!

8) People that are intoxicated while raiding
I don't care if you drink, do drugs, slit your wrist, masturbate with your dog or even kill people in your free time. I really don't. But don't do it during the 9-24 other people's raiding time. I have yet to see a competent player that was intoxicated/distracted. I know that your girl friend giving you a blow job during a boss fight is quite invigorating, but leave it to the professionals to multi-task, son.

More to come, it's go-home time.

Looking Back

2007-12-15T06:40:00.000-08:00

Not very often do I post something personal on this site, but today is an exception.

Before diving into myself personally, I want to let it be known what has brought this post on. Lately, for no noticeable reason, I've been looking back on my childhood. As some know it's not something I enjoy looking back on, I've mainly been looking back at the good times rather than focusing on the bad.

One thought has stood out more than any, memories of my best friend growing up. Her and I lived across the street from each other throughout our childhood, and she was the best. The main thing I remember, right before my parents divorced and I moved a few blocks away, she had asked me out. We were just kids, but the what-ifs will never fail to torment the back of my mind. I said no to her, to this day I have no idea why. If I said yes, would that mean we'd be together? Doubtful, but I can only think of 3 people in my life I think I might have been happy with for the rest of it, she is one of them.

Does that mean I love my girlfriend any less? Not by a long shot, I've never been so happy with someone in my life. It's just my mind working through the motions of regret. This didn't come out of the blue, it started last week. I haven't seen her in over 2 years, but she added me as a friend on this myspace-ish website my girlfriend made me join. We had been talking some, apparently she is married and about to have a kid. Normally that is a good thing, but she is married to a guy that not only made my life a living hell in highschool, but had also hurt her really bad in school as well. She'd told me all about their previous endeavor back in school, how he had been a complete ass while they were together and after. I remember sitting in the hall as she told me all about it, then I had been regretting the same thing.

Why do I destroy my mind with repeated thoughts of regrets from the past? Couldn't tell you.. Though I do know where this specific scenario stems from. I just have this need to save. I don't mean coupons, money or time. I mean people, namely women I am attracted to. Is she happy with said a-hole? She says she is, but in my mind, because I don't know any better, he is still the asshole he was back in highschool. And from my experience, not many people hold the capability to change for the better. So I find myself asking this question; if I had said "yes", if I could have muttered the words together as a scared little boy; could I have saved my best friend?

Writing stuff down doesn't always make it easier.

Ozzy Osbourne is a Deluded Fuck

2007-08-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome. Not much to explain on this one. I think the title says everything. So do feel free to read on, deeper into the mind of a cynical bastard. Or do what you morons do best look away from the truth. The truth today being: Ozzy Osbourne is a Deluded Fuck.

Now I know John isn't ever fully conscious or fully aware of his surroundings and is thus not able to defend himself due the acid and pot being an actual part of his anatomy now, but I feel I must boast of the ridiculousness of his existence.

It really comes down to the facts: People that don't deserve to breathe oxygen fall under a few categories. A few of which include; people who are on "reality" TV, people who are constantly intoxicated, and people who bite the heads off animals. With these facts present, it's obvious that people such as Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Ozzy shouldn't be alive today. If you haven't caught my drift, I mean to say I hope Ozzy chokes on a dooby, as his existence is meaningless. And now, over a decade later he's making music once again. And by music I mean whiny emo bullshit that makes me want to cut out my scrotum and shove the pieces in my ears. With catchy lyrics such as, "I'm not going away" "Why don't they ever listen to me" and "I don't wanna live in yesterday, cross my hear until I die." Please... for the love of god quit encouraging him! Not that Ozzy's lyrics were ever that great, but now the black makeup around his eyes has a meaning.. But enough about whiny brats, let's continue on.

Next I come to an issue very similar to whiny little children, and is of equal annoyance. Bikers. If you're unsure as to what I mean, please join me on Wednesdays when a plethora of spandex-wearing anorexic douche-bags proceed to irritate every driver outside of my workplace on a fairly busy(car-wise, and now bike-wise) street. No need to obey the laws of the road sir! Or at the very least have some moral disposition to bring yourself to the conclusion that you might be pissing EVERYONE off that has more than 2 wheels on their mode of transportation.

Secondly, what is with the outfit!? You are incapable of going the set speed limit of 35mph, so why strap yourself in a skin-tight one-piece wet suit that grabs your testiculars for all the world to see? Your paper framed bike, spandex nighty, and "streamline" helmet are gonna get you what? Maybe; 12 miles an hour total? Woop-dee-fucking-doo sir! I still have to slam on my breaks in an attempt to scare you shitless which is an attempt to see if you will magically pedal for your life and thus get up to 30 miles an hour; a speed low enough to still piss me off, yet fast enough for me to not cut out your very large and noticeable ball-sack. So why not go with some shorts and a T-shirt? I don't know.. I have an IQ greater than that of Mr. Osbourne, so I am incapable of thinking like an idiot.

That's all for now, I'm too pissed off to not kill someone. My girlfriend is here, and she'd kill me if I killed her. I will go, so as to see the light of the sun for another day(which also irritates me to no end, why the hell is that thing so bright!?)

Later days

Mother's Day!!! So I'm a little late..

2007-05-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

On this fine cloudy, rainy, fantastic morning I will be going in depth into the day of our Mothers so cleverly named as Mother's Day! The day that should remember how much their mother has done for them. From the excruciating pain of pushing your wiggly little body out of theirs, to your birthday cakes, to laundry, and beyond! Join me as I make no conclusions what so ever on a post I should have done a few weeks ago, but will prepare anyone for the next 11 months ahead.

**DISCLAIMER**

For those of you without a Mother, please leave now. This is an exclusive club and you're not invited. This may seem harsh, but if we let everyone in with a young grandmother or an extremely feminine father, things would just go haywire. And nobody wants that..

*****************

To go back in history, I'll reveal the origin of Mother's Day. Or as the French called it, Donateur égoïste fâché de naissance which roughly translates to annoyed egotistic giver of birth. Back in 1782 the men of France were stupid crape-eating little girls who did nothing but sleep and drink wine and smell stinky cheese. The women of France did not like the lack of attention their husbands were giving their families, namely themselves. So, they decided as a single unit to rebel against their disgusting husbandry they were receiving. All wives marched into the streets, cooking supplies in hand, frantic, and quite pissy. Moving as one, they chanted their words loud, "Nous voulons des choses! Un bon nombr'et un bon nombre de choses!" Roughly translated this means, "We want things! Lots and lots of things!" The cry so great, the destruction of France so monumental, the men of France came out of the taverns, and in response flooded to the nearest gift stores buying anything they could. They couldn't fight back! They were French men! This continued all day until the chanting had diminished and the men were sober. From that point on Mothers Day was born. And ever since that point, men have boughten useless crap on this day in an attempt to tame the beast that is our mothers.

I realize that this is a load of crap, but it makes for good reading. Truth is, I have no idea how Mother's Day came to be. And I don't really care. I just abide by the rules of I'm lazy and I don't give a fuck, good rules. Just to clarify, I don't dislike Mother's Day.

Everybody's Doing It

2007-05-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

Hello hello, once again I have returned from my cave to bring to you all, more insight on the world that we live in. Today I'm going to discuss something that all of us experience of every moment of our life, popularity. We will discuss the popularity-lifetime, and what it takes to make something popular or unpopular. This discussion has been deemed, "Everybody's Doing It".

Just to start, there are 6,711,220,600+ people on Earth and counting. All of these people have opinions, characteristics, and probably an embarrassing scar or mole somewhere on them that they just aren't too fond of. My point is with so many people in the world, it's always been whatever the majority likes is what is popular. This might be quite obvious, but I'd like to point out if there was only 5 people in the room and 3 of them agreed on one thing and the other 2 agreed on another thing, the 2 would just stab the other 3 in the fucking face. Keep this in mind.

The definition of Popularity is; The quality or state of being popular, especially the state of being widely admired, accepted, or sought after. This definition to me is not completely accurate at this day and age. It seems to me that(at least in America) the social world is based on "clique". At age 20 I still, sadly enough, see "groups". How this ties in is this; if someone is in a group of people that love the movie Sin City, but said person hates that movie. My guess is 60% or so of the time, that person will say they like that movie. Though this might be a lousy example, as Sin City is one of those movies, like A Scanner Darkly, that no one understands and the movie really REALLY sucks, but at the same time gives you a hint that the movie has this really deep meaning. So in an attempt to feel like you're "above the rest" or "the shit" you say you loved the movie. Regardless this is an example of how what's popular, is not even good sometimes. Sometimes everyone hates something, but in order to fit in and not be judged agrees with the majority. In conclusion, Sin City was a horrible movie that didn't go anywhere, had no meaning, had a horrible production value, lacked plot, and I want my 2 and a half hours back.

Moving along, I will now divulge how something popular takes on its roll in others lives. In my opinion, the Popularity-Lifetime of Metallica is by far the best example of how popularity of something occurs. Metallica is one of the most popular bands in the world, whether it be popular to hate them or love them, they've left a money-grubbing footprint in history. Metallica had their first album out for the consumer in 1983, then steadily became popular for a while, but reaching a peak in the 90's, then slowly drifting into not being popular to flat out being popular to hate(St. Anger being very vacuumise). This is what the majority says, and as I've stated majority rules.. Unless there are only 5 people, because then the people with the switchblades win. This is a similar pattern with a lot of music actually. Bands such as Linkin Park, Papa Roach, Nirvana, and Godsmack don't change much. They sound good, and a majority likes them, but once they get to their peak of popularity, it is then popular to be "different" and hate them with a fiery passion.

I realize now that this was a complete waste of my afternoon, but I stand by it. Being popular isn't liking what you actually like, it's not having an opinion of your own and letting your "clique" or friends decide what you like and you don't like. You're all lemmings, good job. I suppose that is it for now. Bapa booy, Bapa booy, Howard Stern's penis.. The End.

Wow... Too Much WoW

2007-02-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

Good day to the few that read the meniacle truth. I am back from exactly a year's hiatus for another short period to write not about Jesus, Valentine's, or what makes the world go 'round. But something very similar to what makes the world go 'round. I speak of a different world though; the World of Warcraft. Yes yes, even I am not immune to it's amazing and worship-able greatness. The game that has been the cause of death by 3 Koreans and 1 very idiotic American 10 year old. The game that is played by over 8 MILLION people. The game that seperates the Gnomes from the Tauren(Horde FTW!). But my segment is about something much more important, not what makes this game so amazing, but what happens when you think this game is so amazing. So, I bring to you; Wow... Too Much WoW.

Over the past year or so I have been playing this game like a religion. Come home from work... play. My day off... play. Skip work... play(I've only done this once). Grandma's funeral... mourn some, then play. This game is one of the most addicting things on earth! And for most of us who play, we don't take a step back and look at the fact that we are addicted. As an example I have pulled an article from blogs.guardian.co.uk from their ever popular GamesBlog:

Chinese boy jumps from building - parents blame WoW?

By Keith Stuart / Real World 04:55pm

Here's another strange story of fatal online gaming addiction - this time from Tianjin in China. According to several news sources, the parents of a teenage World of Warcraft addict are suing Blizzard after their son jumped to his death from a building - allegedly while 're-enacting an event' from the successful MMORPG. Clearly, game addiction is a serious problem in China, but this is a puzzling case. I can't recall hearing about any WoW quests that have involved leaping from great heights. The story is everywhere on the net, but vital facts and primary source data are missing - as is often the case with these tragic tales from the Far East...
'http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2005/11/22/chinese_boy
_jumps_from_building_parents_blame_wow.html'

Though there is, in fact, a quest in WoW that has you jumping from a cliff(in the Thousand Needles area), that does not mean you can sue a video game company!!!... You have to be in America for that! Further more the fact that this child has the IQ of butter for thinking he can't die because he played a video game he liked doesn't really help his case either. Ladies and gentlemen, that is exactly what people do! This is why everybody sues everybody for everything! After losing someone, that costs money. After they spend the necessary money, they're poor. When they are poor they have nothing to lose. So here is the scenario:

"This is just horrible." "I know." "And now we don't have anything, even our son." "We wasted all that time letting him play video games!" "You know, he did play them a lot." "What are you saying?" "Well, in video games you can't die, couldn't we sue for that?" "Wow, but which game?" "Well, that worlds of warcraft game is popular." "Yes! It's settled, we'll sue because of our son's stupidity!" "Right on!"

While this might not be the exact scenario(give or take the chinese language), this isn't too far from the truth. People in all countries, not just America, sue for the most stupid and ignorant things. A fine, non-gaming, example of this would be the McDonald's vs. Stupid Bitch case in which Stupid Bitch poored coffee on herself and went to the hospital for 2nd degree burns. While laying in the hospital, she thought to herself, "Wait, was there any warning on that cup?.. There isn't! My friend Stupid Bitch Leader sued IHOP for being traumatized by her cold pancakes last week and won! Oh, I'm so goin for it!"

This woman purchased that cup of coffee for $0.59, and in the end was granted 2.7 million US dollars from the case. God Bless America. Where grandpa can sue for being old, and Uncle Sam wants YOU to destroy other countries because the hick-in-office" said so... and then played a round of golf... Go Texas.

But, as I usually tend to do, I'm getting off subject. The point here is that people that have addictions usually don't realize they do, or are so far in denial about it that it's too late by the time someone smacks them up-side their head and tells them "HEY! Smoking made you look really kool when you were in your twenties, but now you give me oral through your throat and that's just plain nasty missy!" So here is what I propose; we put heroin in carrots! It's genius! Let this continue for a year and people will then be hooked on carrots. Then, we take the heroin out and people will still need the carrots. We'll knock out the obesity issue as well! Sure a few million rabbits will have died for man kind, but what animal hasn't, ya know?

Well, I'm tired of talking about WoW and not playing it, and my McDonald's is getting cold. Peace

-Lantz

'Some Tall Guy's' Random Webpage of the Day:
http://forums.illidrama.com/showthread.php?t=1826

2006-02-15T16:43:00.000-08:00

Ah Valentine's Day... A day of love, depression, happiness, and other feelings with words to label them. This day is also a chance to start a new post! So I present to you:

Lantz's Guide To A Successful Valentines Day
(For Those Who Think They Need One)

1.) Plan Ahead:
There is nothing worse than noticing that it's 11:59pm on February 13th, you're doing a line of crack, and realising that the last "relationship" you had was with the unconcious hooker that was found asleep in your bathtub last friday night. That's no way to plan. Instead, lets take a step back about 8 years and stop idolising Snoop Dog(or at the very least back to when you picked up the hooker). Now that we are crack and herpes free, and it is infact February 10th, we now have a clear mind and are ready to take on V-Day.

2.) Finding Your Soul Mate, And Fast!:
The key to Valentines Day(for a loser like you) is not to be picky. Keep in mind, you would have been with a hooker tonight if it wasn't for me. The next step to take at this point is to find where would be a good place to look for your date. There is always the library, but this might be risky; as most women here are much smarter than you, and won't fall for the "one liner" of, "Did it hurt?" "When you fell from heaven?"
Another choice you might think of might be a bar. This facility is full of women that play pool, drink, party, put out on Valentines, etc. But again, be very weary of this choice. In most bars, behind every scary, sexually exhausting woman there might also be a very scary man that won't typically hesitate to beat your face down to your knees on a wim that you're even looking at "his woman".
In my opinion, the best choice on short notice is Trixy there on the corner. Remember, we're not being picky, and she's only 20 dolla!

3.) Getting Made:
Now that you have a day or so, and your whore.... err.... Trixy, you are ready for self improvement! Now, if you live in Johnson County, you may already think you are god's gift to man. But I'm here to inform you, shut the fuck up. And so we tread on to the mall or other clothing store.
Knowing your woman Trixy, we won't really need to care about our apearance(so long as we bring the joints). But just incase there might be someone else in the room you would want to catch eyes with, you want to make sure you look your best. Buying something that accentuates your own personal flair is what is mainly important. So case in point here is simple list of facts about dressing properly:

fat = no tight clothing
skinny = no baby clothing
grandpa = long sleeves
Michael Jackson = nose
short = tall shoes
tall = shoes
dark skinned = light clothing
pale = no white clothing
men = condom
women = bring a condom anyway
shemale = umm, yah... nevermind

Though this list is short, it may have saved a few lives. But let's move onto something equally as important: hair.
Through shaving, spiking, muousing, mohawking, or even curling every step taken to cranial perfection is as important as the last(Though with shaving there is, uh... one step... But it's VERY important). Be sure to take great care and precision in every moment, or just have some chick at the mall do it for 15 bucks. Either way, if you're balding, for god sakes don't do a comb over! Everytime a bald man thinks a comb over looks good, god smites an unsuspecting suicidal teenager.

4.) The Upcoming Night:
Now that we look better dressed than Courtney Love, you are now ready to make the preperations for the evening of her/his dreams(not here to judge). Though some of the employees might get a giggle or two out of it, we don't want to make resurvations at a McDonald's or Taco Bell. Instead, you might want to choose something slightly more exuburant. No no, not IHOP. Let's think a little bigger here. There yah go! Denny's! Be sure to use Step 1 to your advantage, and plan ahead.
Now that you've made your reservations, don't forget to ask your mom(and yes, if you have read this far; I know you still live with your parents) to borrow her car. It's no limo, but your beat up Toyota isn't going to impress anyone at Denny's.... Or, actually, yah they probably will be. But regardless, you are going to need some class if you're going to open Trixy's eyes.

7.) (or 6 or something, I don't know. This has been a longer post than expected) The Date:
Tonight's the night, your big chance. Turn off the computer, put on your pants, brush your teeth for the second time this month; it's time to get with it champ. Now that we have completed the following steps above, you're ready to pick up your date for an eventful and memorable Valentine's Day.. Night, evening.. thing. Whatever. And now that it's February 15th for me, I leave with this guide. Remember Step #1, we now have 364 days to plan, good luck and good night.

l8uz

-Lantz

-----------Today's Random Page------------
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/wowworld.html
--------------------------------------------------

Blogs: Minor But Serious Annoyance

2006-01-12T05:28:00.000-08:00

Yes yes. Let's get the laughs out before we begin. I am on a site called Blogger.com that provides free blog hosting so then other people can see others blogs, and comment on other peoples blogs. Now before I say that word again 4 times in one sentance, I must propose that my thinking is not that this, and by this I mean my webspace here, is not a blog but just another webpage. The reasons for this thinking will present itself later on, but for now you'll have to trust me on this just like you have about Santa Claus, Gearge W. Bush, and cashews. So read on if you dare for a look into the mind of me: Some Tall Guy

A History In The Making

Blogs have existed in this world ever since the very first emo came out of their home dressed in black clothing and eye shadow, and said to the world, "World, you're one big ball of depression." Now to this day we still point and laugh at these people, no matter how true that might be(the world being depressing, not expressing yourself through black lipstick and spiked chokers). And in an ironic twist, laughing at these "non-conformists" brings a little light into each of our lives, but I am getting slightly off subject. The point is you can't hurt an emo kid's feelings by laughing at a screen that displays their whininess, and there for blogs make there first mark as annoyances.

But since the creation we have seen ample time for these to develope with the masses, namely teenagers:

That's right teenagers! From the people that brought you infants, they've done it again with the same whining and bullshit that has been proven so annoying before, now you can own your very own teenager! Some assembly required.

Now days, if you take one look at a Xanga, Live Journal, Dead Journal(so clever), Bolt, My Space, or most other blogs you will more than likely see one of the following: Giggles, Slut, Emo, Moron, Nerd.

Pick Yer' Annoyance Here!

Out of all of these different genres of annoying teenager, we will start with the most annoying first, Giggles. Giggles is the most noticable stereotype, mainly because he or she(usually she) has the brightest, loudest, pinkest, giggliest blog out there. Their writings or posts consist of the following: lol, haha, yay, omg, duh, she said, :) , and i love you all. Reading these same things over and over and over again can be quite frustrating. I simple way of handling this is easy; whenever you see a blog, leave.

The next insecurity earns the title of slut, and I use the term earn loosely. This teenager is also pretty easy to spot, but usually not through text. This teen shows his or herself with small amounts of clothing/no clothing with a big giant picture of themselves as the background. When visiting this site, the masses usually jack off while visiting this page(which was its intention before hand) and then scroll donw the list to our next cretin.

Emo! Yes emo, the the beginning of BLOG, the plague starters, the depressed squirrel that starts the 10 car pile-up. Also very easy to spot as well. The loud blairing sound of Evanescence, (the new)Green Day, or Good Charlette in the background whilst reading about cutting ourselves and how the world is just one big ball of depression, of course, makes us giggle. But in the long run, this is a very serious problem. These people are ruining the value of Evanescence and Good Charlotte! But I digress, they might have started this line of retardation, but they certainly won't finish it. Since the dawn of the first emo kid when he put on the eye liner of representation for pain and suffering, they have in-turn, provided me with pain and suffering. Not the best note to end on, but I like it.

Now "Moron" is more of a title for most of the idiots I've mentioned already. It is more of a broad horizon of mindless dribble. This is just easier to classify a larger amount of people with blogs. I.E. "Did you read that moron's blg the other day?" "Hellz yayah!" "Dude. You're a moron.." "Yayah!"

The classification of Nerd is something a little less frustrating. Nerds' main focus of stupidity is the fact that they have so many toys on their blog that attempting to load this page will cause your computer to crash. You make one click and suddenly their music player starts, then the flash program for displaying a ton of pictures, then the moving background, then the option to play a music video as well, then a java mini golf game in the corner, and then *BLIP*. And there goes the computer. It's great that you're a nerd, I am myself. And we get that you can do all these amazing things! But seriosuly! Give it a rest, and stop at the music player! The chances of me watching a music video, while listening to another song, while flipping through photos, and scoring a hole in one at the 18 mini put corse are slim to nada! Jesus tap dancing christ!

Well, this post has taken way to much of my time. I can't just sit here and blog about bloggers all day! Geez!

Still bored after reading my thoughts? Didn't think so, but just incase - http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=2703&display=photoshop

New Years, New Changes

2006-01-01T19:59:00.000-08:00

With a new year, brings a new post. And in this post I highlight the things that should be changed for the year 2006. I believe this list will solve the major problems of 2005 such as Republicans, floods, war, and 24 hour fast food places. So now I present to you...

LANTZ'S CHANGE TO 2006 LIST! 7.3

*Caramel and Carmel will now be referred to as 'shit'
*Cities that are on the coast of an ocean and are given warning of a hurricane are FORCED to move to a safer location.
*Racist comedians will be shot
*Blondes shall be put into work camps and released upon a thorough IQ test
*MTV shall be forced to play music
*Anyone with the name 'Bush(except the band)' shall be put underwater until the bubbles stop
*Persons wearing a Superman shirt shall be shot in the chest to test their "super strength"
*Rap songs involving booty, cars, whores, bling bling, pimping, or laffy taffy shall be gathered into a rocket and sent into the sun(along with their artists)
*Any male blaming anything on ADD or ADHD without a doctor's diagnosis shall be punched in the face until they have these disorders
*The programs Norton, Zonealarm, McAfee and the Operating Systems MacOS(ANYTHING), WinME and below will be forever shunned from the world
*Nerds and Geeks will forever be the most attractive males on earth
*People with an IQ below a certain point(around 90 or below) will be sent below the Tropic of Capricorn to fend for themselves
*People with an IQ above a certain point(around 130 or above) will be sent above the Tropic of Cancer in structures built for these people to make the world better
*The previous 2 bullets will make the world a lovely place for the people between these 2 mental borderlines or "Normies" as they will be named from then on
*McDonald's will be forced to put the name '77% Soy' on the beginning of anything they sell with meat
*There will be more jelly in the peanutbutter-jelly mixed jars
*Any ideas from my previous posts will be put into practice by the gov't
*Bands including Stabbing Westward, Good Charlotte, Evanescence, Slipknot, Breaking Benjamin, Crossfade, Daft Punk, Dashboard, Junior Senior, Modest Mouse, Soil, Avril Lavigne, Saluna, Tatu, Trust Company, 3 Days Grace, and Hikaru will be forced to play music again
*Bands including Aerosmith(just die already), Metallica(they had their chance), and Kiss(enough said) shall never be heard from again and be forced into early retirement
*Bands including Green Day, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Eminem, Jewel, and the Beastie Boys will be given one more chance not to suck
*Sports players will be forced to do other meaningless tasks other than throwing a ball and get paid a lot less for it
*An eye for an eye will be instated as the country's new basis for law breaking punishments, for example: a man who has raped a woman will be sent to a cell with one very large homosexual man named Bubba and he will be raped
*The KKK will be renamed to the SFA or Shit Fuckers Anonymous
*Free health insurance for anyone who likes being alive
*3 Muskateers Bars will be increased in size by 49%... Damn those things are good
*Everyone will be forced to believe the truth: Atkins doesn't fucking work

vote Lantz for President!

Customer Service Do's and Dont's

2005-12-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

"Thank you for calling the internet helpdesk, my name is Lantz, how can I help you tonight?" This opening sentance that I use in my work place on a regular basis is what today's post is all about. The customer service do's and dont's that should be used on a regular basis, but are never really seen. So once again we step into the text based wonderland I like to call: Trials and Tribulations of Some Tall Guy - Customer Service Do's and Dont's.

I love subtitles.

"Whatchoo Talkin' Bout Representitive?"

America! The land of the half-of-us-speak-english, and the home of the lazy sons of bitchs'. Now, me being one of the lazy sons of biznatchs, I must complain about the first part of the second sentance of my second paragraph. Yah... I'm talking about the problem with customer services speaking English! The other day I had called into a customer service line for a phone problem, and who do I get; Miss Thang. This lady in a very strong ebonics say-so opens the call with, "Sprint, can I help you?" Now I realise that that isn't as rude as this woman could be but this is still very unprofessional. The majority of the problems came from me grinding my teeth from the over usage of words like; baby, hun, yayah, you jus' need tuh, and so on... Now I also realise that our society now relies on words like; booty-licous, my boo, rollin in my crib, and get yo ass ova here nigga to get our voices heard and to gain respect with one another. But, there are a small few of us left that refuse to put spinners on our "rides" and slap our "hoes", and for that small section of Americans left, we should have customer service representitives that don't refer to cell phones as "bling rings."

Another problem with customer service is when the customer service in question provides it's employees with camels to ride into work with. I'm talking about cheaper pay for people that worship Allah! Working with computers everyday is something that is my job, and as many people who have Dell computers and have spoken with their helpdesk(no matter how well of English I speak), I am constantly asked if we're in India or anywhere out of country. It's just something that is automatic when someone calls for help on electronics. I believe this should not be automatic thinking. So here's what we do! Take the homeless, mindless, less fortunate, and sports players and let's actually make something out of these people! Give them a chance! Give them a way to earn money to have a place to live, to go to school, to give them nice things, to get the sports channels to die forever! English lessons, a few weeks of training, a customer service motto of "Ebonics is fo' duh birds" and these people are set. And they will work for less than the "more qualified" of us.

I am not a bigot, I just believe I would be a shitty internet technician for Indias fine people.

"Can you hear me now? Good!"

Just like the fine folks at McDonald's one of the most annoying things to hear on a call is nothing at all. When someone is whispering in the phone and you must press the phone so hard to your ear that you're getting their computer problem coming out of your ass. Now typically I will ask if the person in question(whether I am the helpdesk or the person calling in) if they can turn up the mic just a little. This is not a harsh question. This is not an insult, and because I've asked this I have done all I can to fix the hearing issue I have. Now, if anyone is in the position where the person on the other end feels this is a terrorist attack on their personal lives you can do one of two things:

1.) If you're calling in to customer service, ask to speak to their manager. This will get their mic turned really far up really fast.
2.) If you're the person who is helping the other person out, do what I do! "Sir, if I can't hear the issue I won't be able to solve it. Please give us a call back when we will be able to work together."

Fun stuff huh? Now the other issue I have with the volume control is when someone is way too loud! Pick up the phone, say the intro, and suddenly Chewbacca screams his email address and all I can hear is the beating of my heart as it slows and so does my vision. If I am still concious at this point usually turning down the volume myself solve this issue, otherwise, my phone is broken and for some odd reason I can't take the call. Darn.

Patience is Key, and I am a Lock

In this last section I must anounce the most annoying part of helping others: stubborness. People who will sit there and either decided it was a good idea to call into a helpdesk and want something fixed, but won't do anything to help their own problem. Sentances like; "Ooohhh no, I'm not doing that." Or; "This problem is on your guys' end!" Or even; "I don't want to do that. What else can we do?" It isn't that much, but I would hope that anyone that calls in for help would be willing to work with the person to solve their issue.

"I help those who help themselves"

-Lantz and Jesus

Though this has probably been less than helpful for anyone who has been so bored their last resort was to read some blog by a guy that believes wild and crazy ideas like Bush is the biggest idiot in power to date, 2006 should be the dawn of killing off anyone with the name Carrot Top, or every Tuesday should be "Throw Bricks at BMWs Day"... I hope this has made you think differently about calling into customer service. Thank you.

-Lantz

What Is More Insulting? A Politically Incorrect Look at Life.

2005-12-18T19:47:00.000-08:00

Hello again and welcome. This is once again a post to further annoy, frustrate, and cause migranes in other peoples minds. This week, a look into the "politically correct" and the not-so-nice according to the moronics in power known as the Republicans and Christians of America. Once you have been inlightened by the truth(also known as my opinion), you will not only feel better about yourself but you'll feel worse about the world around you! So step forth, into the known for a post I like to call: What Is More Insulting?

Who are you calling a pipsqueak!?

Little People. No no, I don't mean that punk ass Mexican outside smokin' a doob and shankin' pigs who is only 5 foot nothing tall. I mean the teenies, the nomes, the stars of MTV, the vertically challenged, midgets! They are all around us! But seriously, let's quit the name calling.

Not sure when this one was started or where it will end, but it needs to stop. Just think, if you were only 3 feet tall and you wake up one morning to waddle down to the kitchen table. You take your booster seat out of the pantry closet, drink some orange juice out of your sippy cup, and get ready to enjoy your little morning when you read it in the news paper, "Little Person Killed in Tragic Elevator Shoes Accident." What is a little person, you wonder, as you read on you discover this is the new "politically correct" way of saying midget. But why? No one wants to be called a "little person," not even Tom Cruise! So why do we do it? Well, if you have a heart, you don't. But if you are a Bush minion, you just do it without thinking, which is also why you love war, hate blacks, and feel so damn good about paying taxes!

~~"Merry Christmas!"~~ ~~"Happy Hanukkah!"~~ "Good Times with a Day of Special Rememberance for a Person, God, or Reigion!" Yeah, that sounds right.

Moving right along to my next subject which seems to feel just right for this time of year. The Holidays. This is a debate that has been going on since Jesus did magic tricks and people shouted, "Houdini was better!"(which was around 31 A.D. to be exact). The most celebrated holiday in the US of A is, infact, Christmas! For those of you who have had their hearts stop from hearing the word "christ" please pickup the pace maker, put down the bible and read along.

I must set something straight first of all; people who are Christian; not that bad of people(as soon as they stop trying to convert others), if you believe in everything the bible teaches, more power to yah(as impossible as that may be in my opinion). But if anyone stands up and says that they celebrate Xmas(also known as Christmas) for the soul purpose to celebrate Jesus, I truly call bull shit on that one. How you take a man that was, and I quote, "sent down and died for our sins," and get a waffle maker wrapped in cheesy, sparkling, gift wrapping paper sitting underneath a tree that is lit up by copper wiring, with other gifts left by a fat man in a flying sleigh pulled by Bambie is beyond me. So unless you spend your holiday sitting around doing nothing but talking, reading, thinking, and breathing about Jesus, please, sit your holy ass back down and enjoy your waffle maker.

Now that the churchies have their waffles let me move on. I was informed yesterday that the White House spent an ass load of moola on holiday cards they sent out to the "less fortunate" and a news show decided to have a debate over this. How you ask? No, they weren't discussing the ridiculous amount of money they spent to send these cards out. No, they weren't discussing how the "less fortunate" are doing SO much better off now that they have a card from old Bushy, no no. And they most certainly weren't talking about how it shouldn't have taken that much money and it was possibly a ploy to push more money towards the war without us noticing(because it was FOX). They discussed for an hour(holy shit) how horribly, politically, incorrect it was to send these out with the words, "Merry Christmas." GASP!!! Oh Noes! Not the word christ!? Anyone melting? Didn't think so, 99% of the people that celebrate this holiday claim it as Christmas! It isn't immoral! No one is trying to push their religion on others with the name of this holiday(I'de be the first one to yell that out loud). Even I say Christmas when speaking(FYI, I use Xmas when typing because I'm lazy)! So if someone ever tells you that Christmas is not politically correct, slap them in the face like a little girl and tell them Lantz sent you. Unless of course that person is much larger than I, and in that case tell them Santa sent you(nobody f***s with Santa).

Lastly I would like to say that this whole buying for others shit is really getting old. There are only a hand full of people I would really want to buy for for such a retched holiday yet I am buying for so much more... And we all think the same thing on that morning all around the tree; "What did they get me!?" Not, "(enter loved on here) is going to love the pasta strainer I got for a buck fifty and thought, 'Hey, now I've got their gift covered.'" So wake up and smell the waffles!... or pasta... So let's all get a grip on reality and realize that the world would be better off without the stress and yule tide bullshit.

hWo Neds To Be Crrect?

There are many different things in this world that need to be politically correct in order for things to work smoothly. This; I understand. But there are some "politically correct" phrases and labels in this world that are not needed. Reasons might include:

-gay is shorter than homosexual
-black is a color and african american isn't
-midget is more fun to say
-mexican should only be the name of a food genre
-Special Ed can't be used because it's the name of a doll by Matell
-hobo is a much more fun word to say than homeless
-cripple rhymes with mipple, handicap doesn't

While all these points are clearly valid, not everyone might agree with me on this. And in that case, you are infact a Jew.

*end post*

A License for Certain Folk

2005-12-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to the next blog that has been created by yours truly, some tall guy. Some call me Lantz, some call me that Orange Kid, some call me "get the fuck out of my way." But in any case this is the newest way for me to get my opinions out there to annoy a completely new set of people. But, I digress, this post is about certain people in the world that don't diserve this or that or aren't responsible enough for that matter, and how to solve this quick and simple. IE: the title, a license.

"Kick the baby!"

Baby sitters. At some point or another in time if you have a child you will need a baby sitter. But for those of you who didn't know this, you aren't with your child during the time period of baby sitting. So before you decide to go with the Bubba that has a scar on his eye and a tattoo of Ozzy bighting the head off a baby just because he charges $10 less than Marry Sue, think about the desicion you're about to make.
And so I bring my next point, baby sitters should be required to take a test and aqcuire a license from the state to be able to do the job that they wish. This process will not only weed out Bubba, but also the lazy people that don't want to take this test and would probably end up forgetting that your child requires a diaper change, sleep, attention, and probably food.

Time to take a little dose of vitamin responsibility!

Now if this question has popped in your tiny little head or not let me answer it before I get too ahead of myself. No, I don't have kids, I am 18 and with as rambonxious as I am with my girl friend I might in the near future, but at this point in time ~~I have money~~, ~~I have a life~~, ~~I sleep well~~, I don't have children. But for those of you who do have "little bundles of crying joy," shame on you! Unless of course you are a good parent, in that case thumbs up! *thumbs up*
It is my stern belief, and has been for a year or so, that any and all people who want to have a child should have to pass through a massive screening process in order to obtain a license to give birth, adopt, or create a child in a test tube. This process will have many different levels, first, the written exam on certain situations on how to care for a child(no true or false). This will, again, weed out Bubba and his baby eating religion, along with the lazy parents that will, more than likely, forget that they have a child and instead of feeding them will be shootin' coons out in the back yard. A sample question might possibly be "If my child were to ask me a question I would: (a) stare at them until they go away. (b) hit them for openning their mouth. (c) tell them no because they touch themselves at night. (d) yell at them for being an open minded idiot." The good parents would be stopped at the door as they were walking out of the testing room and brought to the next level of the screening process.
The next level will be a little tougher. The test will be what to feed the child on a regular basis. The choices might be a 5 lbs. steak, a box of cigarettes, a wooden table, or a box of applejuice and mashed pees. Now the first three if chosen will get the testee sent away, but the 4th option will give the person an electric shock, this will happen for two reasons. This shows they care about the child's health and that they will do anything to make sure their baby doesn't eat a table.
The third level will require both parents to be in one room alone. They will be put there with a warm 3 lbs. turkey with stuffing and mashed taters! They will be left in this room for 3 days with the following information: treat the delicious turkey and sides like your child-to-be. This process is to weed out Bubba just incase he walks out on the written exam because the word 'question' is too hard for him and he has a high tolerance for pain in the second test. If by the end of the 3 days we find the parents holding the uneaten "child" they have passed!
The rest of the tests will be mixture of eating cow penis and walking on high wires so that this video footage will be sent to CBS. This is how the licensing company will make it's money. Other than all of that it's just maintenance.

Let's get technical

Every working day I go into the office and fix people's computer and internet problems. This is my job, and I enjoy it. But there are somethings I believe people should be required to have in order to even obtain a computer; drum roll please! A license! It's nothing too harsh, but when I get calls where the person doesn't know what a modem, email, and/or a right-click is, it needs to stop. So, from this point on, anywhere computers are sold there will be an exam to take to own one! Questions, again, will not be that difficult. Such as;
"What is ram? (a) an animal with horns (b) mar spelled backwards (c) memory (d) kick ass football team! WOOO!!!" Another question might be; "What will be my ISP? (a) probably someone in my area (b) I'm sorry, I don't have the ability to read minds (c) I haven't decided, but it won't be AOL (d) AOL!" Or even; "What should be my operating system? (a) Windows XP (b) my operation what? (c) my new computer heehee! (d) Mac OSX."
If answer (d) is selected on any of these questions the people will be dropped into a pit of battery acid... Macintosh my ass. After a computer owner's license is sent after 12 business days through mail, the recipeint will be able to buy a computer anywhere they'd like. This will solve questions like, "My computer won't turn on. Did my megahurtz get stoled?" And finally with the solution of a license to protect life, bear life, and own a PC all will be good with the world!
I could fix this world. I really could.

-Lantz