Battlefield: Tank

A quick story to begin:

Vastant unsteadily sat on a bar stool in the Slaughtered Lamb. She liked going there in her well-earned gear. It contrasted from what she felt were the unsavory goings on in the tavern.

One drink became two, then three, then more. Suddenly, she looked up and said, “Did… did I ever tell you how I learned  how to tank?”

Jarel Moor rolled his eyes. “Here we go,” he thought to himself. He glanced about the bar, seeing only the drunken mage passed out in the back of the room. Jarel sighed, then leaned on the bar with his elbow, resting his head in his palm.

Vastant leaned forward, as if she was sharing a deep secret. “I learned by being on the … hic … battlefield.”

Jarel shrugged. “That’s what I’d expect from a warrior like yourself; fighting the Horde, spilling blood.”

“Not as a warrior, you fool.” She started to slur her speech more. “I learned by healing… yesh, you should’ve seen me.”

Jarel arched his eyebrow. “But… you have no way with the healing arts, quit talking like an…”

Vastant swung her glass suddenly, knocking her hand into her shield, which clattered on the ground loudly. She didn’t notice the commotion. “‘course not… I was a druid. Green and flowers and all that damn stuff. Well, I’ll tell you one time…”

Jarel had about enough. “Just shut up, you’re not a druid!” He began to turn away from her. She spun him back around, and looked at his with half-closed eyes.

“Well, not as a warrior, yeah. Druids are shape…shifters. They can be all kinds of things, like bears and cats and…”

As she held him by his tunic, she wobbled and slumped back in her chair. Her head fell with a clunk on the bar. Jarel shook his head, looked at the pile of gold and silver, and deftly took the pile as a tidy tip.

—

My main problem with being a tank is that I find myself looking at everything going on, and being overwhelmed. As a healer, all I really focus on is my little space on the screen where my raid frames live. All I need to do when I’m running around healing is keep the boxes full and stay out of bad stuff.

When I’m a tank, I have to pay attention to where mobs are, where to stand and all of my attacks and cooldowns. This works out well if I’m encountering the pulls as I expect them, but when things go bad, then I feel like I’m in a Benny Hill skit where I’m being chased from all directions, with “Yakety Sax” playing in the background. Only thing is, there are no scantily clad women chasing me.

Oh Outland, and your conservative looking gear. *facepalm*

When I have chaotic pulls, even if I am able to save things and not wipe, I still am so stressed out and anxious that I typically take a break from tanking for a few days or years.

This is why I felt that if I really wanted to challenge myself during Waypoint’s Herald of the Titans project, I saw this as a way to up the ante. Not only could I get a great achievement, but exorcise some demons along the way.

Only thing is, I still was a bit shaky in dungeons. It still didn’t totally click with me, and many times it was more because of my set of BoA gear that would carry the day.

Moving away from Vastant for a moment, I’ve had a similar feeling to tanking as I did PvP. Whenever I’d try arena, or get involved with a scrum in a battleground, there was so much going on. I’d get flustered, forget what I was doing, and I’d be stressed out and discouraged.

One day, Cynwise asked in guild chat if anyone would be interested in doing some Arena. I had gotten to know him on Twitter, and he had moved Cynwise over to Waypoint. I was always in awe of his posts on PvP, but my PvP ineptitude always got in the way of my wish to jump in the arena.

On this day, I decided to give it a try. “Sure,” I said, marveling at how cool this was. I warned that I wasn’t very good, but he assured me that the main thing was to have fun.

Our first few 2s arena battles were me flailing about, and still being nervous and overwhelmed. Cyn was great, and he’s super calm and patient. He advised me to just relax, and let the fight come to me. Slow down. He was the original Panda Hipster.

So, I’d relax. Soon, I was finding I was able to pay attention to the entire fight. I was able to use all of my abilities, because I allowed myself room to think. We’d have fun. There were some epic battles we had. Half an hour fights that were so fun, but so tiring. I was having a blast at PvP, and I was getting good at it!

This brings me back to Vastant, sitting in the dungeon. A lightbulb went over my head, I yelled “EUREKA!” and ran out of my bathtub naked. Wait, no…

I realized that if I allowed the fight to come to me, to slow things down, I could control the chaos. I could be comfortable with the fight. So, I was thoughtful about how I set up my keybinds, I wrote some macros. I let the fight come to me.

I started kicking some serious ass as a tank. I was having fun being a tank. I smile when I think that I learned how to tank by learning how to PvP heal on my Resto Druid. Learning is weird.

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NOTE: I wrote this on Tumblr, but it was lost to the scrolling monster. This is a little piece I felt like writing. Cynwise and I are a great team, so I just wanted to flesh it out a bit.

———-

I was running through the open field, sprinting towards the base. Suddenly, I see a red banner running towards me.

“Help me!” the desperate rogue gasped.

I grunted, spun and followed him, healing him while he was surrounded by enemies. Suddenly, he burst forward, and I was temporarily stuck.

“You fool! Stay near me!” I growl.

I see orcs, blood elves and who knows what else pounce upon him. I streak forward, only to hear him gasp his last breath. My mouth curls in a grim smile, my teeth gleaming.

“Sorry, m’boy. Allow me to get back to my business at hand.”

I spring forward, darting through the fog of war. Blades slice at me, I feel the burn of magic upon my body. I grimace, and pour healing energy into myself. The more they attack, the more I enjoy it, I’ve found.

I peer up, and there she is, 30 yards away, if it was a foot. She was running about, casting spells as carefree as a gnome in a junkyard. I leap forward, sensing that she is weakening. I quickly heal her, and she glances my direction.

“How was your tea and cookies, m’lady?” She clicked her tongue.

“Shush, you. I was trying to save a fool from an early grave. He was too thick to realize it, so here I am.” I feel the heat of a blast of fire upon my fur, and I cringe. “Bloody hell, get them off of me!”

“I will do that, just as soon as I am finished making smoke monsters in the sky,” she said in a calm tone. She then laughed, and suddenly my attacker falls in a tremendous burst of fire.

There is a brief moment of calm, and we survey the room. It’s a dreary place, still smoldering from Cyn’s antics. I sniff.

“Would you stop that damnable sniffing?” she said.

I start to sniff again, but then stop, being aware of who I am. I look down for a moment, but then chuckle.

We sit in silence a few moments, when suddenly, we are surrounded by the enemy. We stand back-to-back, and nod. Suddenly, we unleash an attack, and the enemy is attacking us with all of their powers. I think to myself that this may be the time we won’t make it, but I push that aside as I feel the comforting sting of a sword slicing at my leathers.

I spin around and deeply curtsey. “A dance, guv?”

The orc Death Knight roars, and attacks. I dance away from him, making sure I do not stray to far from my partner. I continue to keep my and her strength up while the orc furiously attacks me. His compatriots join in the fight, I hear something that does not sound very polite, and it makes me laugh out loud.

I continue dancing, and watching as Cyn continues to pummel our dance partners. I’m jumping, biting, casting spells and annoying everyone. Well, everyone but Cyn and myself.

I get into a frenzy of attacking and healing, that I suddenly look about for an attacker, but I find the room silent. We stand amongst the fallen, and we smile a tired smile. The battle has been won.

We’re sitting in the common room in Sliverwing Hold, having a well-earned drink.

“That was quite a scrap just before, you’re lucky I was there to save you from those horrible, smelly Horde,” I say. I grin at Cyn, exposing my sharp teeth, still stained with the blood of the enemy.

“You are disgusting at times,” Cyn said, wrinkling her nose. “Ain’t anything going to die without me around, mind you.”

I laugh. “You can’t deny me a little bite now and then. It’s only for the best reasons.”

The clarion call goes out. I hoist myself up, look over my leather, all nicked and stained. I grin.

“Let’s get back to work, my friend.”

We step out onto the battlefield.

RNB, resurrected? (I hope)

At the end of last week, I was messaged by Rilandune on Twitter and asked if I’d like to be a guest on The Twisted Nether Blogcast.

My first response was, “Sure, but why would you want to talk to me?”

After he talked me down for a bit, I figured that it didn’t hurt to sit down and yak it up with Fimlys and Hydra about social media and my extensive blog resume.

The discussion did get to the blog, and we had a discussion why I haven’t written more. My reasoning is that I felt I didn’t have the time. I didn’t want to put out a bad product. Great reasons. Right? Right?!

It was a great talk, and afterwards, as I was winding down from the excitement, I had a lightbulb go off over my head. I promptly turned it off, because do you think my house is made of electricity? Sheesh!

The thought I had really came from when I was talking about my blog name. Fimlys was mentioning the diary part was a logical thing, and that was it! I realized I was approaching my writing all wrong.

I don’t need to write super-long posts. In the interview, they said I was really good using the 140 character limit. I didn’t deny it. I am HILARIOUS.

However, why not apply that concept to here? I may have a seed of an idea, so why not jot it down here.

So, I hope to pop in here, write an entry, and go about my day. Sometimes, it’ll be about me being a noob. All right, most of the time it will be about me being a noob.

… So, hey, what about that rez? WHAT? WALK BACK? Fine. *stomps*