Crowd Control: The List.

So, hey, Cataclysm brought tactics, crowd control and caution back from the dead! Hurrah for proper tank work, with marks and interrupts and dancing around angry flayer claws. But, uh, all these new crowd control moves can be a little confusing. In fact, even the older ones are a bit dusty after spending the whole of Wrath loitering, unused, on people’s action bars. So here’s the list:

DRUID

Cyclone. This is only a six-second effect with diminishing returns, so you’re not going to be using it as a fight-long CC effect. The target is immune to damage for the duration, however, so at least it won’t break when your boomkin goes Hurricane-happy.

Entangling Roots. This spell doesn’t incapacitate a mob: if they have ranged moves, they will use them, and if any of your party runs too close, even melee mobs will take a swipe, irrespective of that person’s threat. Make sure you mark a melee mob for roots, and pull the rest of the pack away from it.

Hibernate. The mob is incapacitated with this spell, so you just need to make sure no damage is going to hit it and wake it up. The limited types of mob this can be cast against is important to keep in mind: while Hibernate shines in Grim Batol, it’s useless in those instances that operate a strict no-beast-no-dragon employment policy (Throne of the Tides, for example).


HUNTER

Wyvern Sting. A straightforward incapacitate effect. What you need to keep in mind is that this skill is a talent in the survival tree, so your hunter won’t necessarily be specced into it.

Freezing Trap. The hunter’s trademark CC (usually indicated with the blue square when you’re marking, by the by). Trapping has been made much easier for hunters with their Trap Launcher, which propels their trap wherever they want. A trap doesn’t work directly like Wyvern Sting, though: there’s an instant between the trap hitting the ground and the mob freezing in place. This is important to know as a tank because the trap won’t necessarily go off in time if you pull as the hunter fires the trap – the mob may leg it out of the way.


MAGE

Polymorph. Probably the best known CC skill, usually marked with moon and often referred to as sheep – even though mages turn mobs into anything from cats to tortoises. A Polymorphed target wanders, as the tooltip states. This doesn’t mean it’s going to meander all over the battlefield, but a Poly’d target can occasionally edge into the range of Thunderclap, so watch out. Additionally, Polymorph heals its target to full. This is important in Grim Batol, where you’ll want to avoid asking your mage to sheep a target you’ve already burned to low health on a dragon.

Frost Nova. Another short-duration skill like Cyclone. I’m mentioning it because it has the potential to be the bane of your existence as a tank. Nova applies the same root effect as a druid’s Entangling Roots, which means the mob will go for whoever it can reach if a mage freezes it a couple feet away from you. This can be hard to see in the middle of a crowd – it looks like they’re all on you, but ho, that rogue is taking damage. A mage’s instinctual reaction to pulling aggro can be to Frost Nova as well, and if a mob’s rooted, it won’t run back to you when you taunt. Beware.


PALADIN

Repentance. Another straightforward skill. It can be cast on pretty much everything other than elementals, so it’s very versatile. Only retribution paladins will be specced into it, however.


PRIEST

Mind Control. There are some very neat tricks a priest can play with Mind Control. If they pull with it, for example, the other mobs have a habit of beating the CCed target to death so you don’t have to. They’re nice like that. Mind Control also affords the priest use of the target’s different spells. Using it on a high-damage target won’t just take that damage off you, it’ll turn that damage around and aim it at the mobs. The downside of Mind Control is that it incapacitates the priest. If your party needs to dodge fire, goo or whirlwinds, asking your priest to MC can be problematic.

Shackle. Incapacitates the target neatly, but only works on the undead.

Psychic Scream. Glyphed, this is essentially a short-term AoE stun that breaks with damage. Unglyphed, it has everything running every which way. It’s important to know the difference. The long CD also makes this ineffective as a proper CC skill.

ROGUE

Sap. This cannot be used on a target that is in combat, so make sure you give your rogue time to stealth over there and apply the effect before you pull. It can’t be reapplied after the pull, either, so if you see Sap break make sure you pick it up. Sap’s range isn’t as horrendously short as it once was, but the rogue still needs to get moderately close to use it. If you have the choice, try to mark targets close to the front for Sap, rather than those hiding behind layers of friends.

Blind. This is only a ten-second effect, but you may see your rogue using it when another form of CC wears off. The target wanders like a sheeped mob. Glyphed, Blind will actually remove DoTs from the mob, so it can be very helpful in re-CCing mobs that have been freed with an accidental DoT (hello, Thunderclap and Rend).


SHAMAN

Hex. Works just like sheep on mobs (unable to attack, but wandering about – in this case, probably ribbiting), with the added bonus that Hex can take a few hits before breaking. Can is an important part of that statement, mind you. Hex might be a bit more durable, but it’s not going to hold up for too long.

Bind Elemental. The shaman’s newer ability, Bind Elemental looks like it’s a root effect when cast, but it actually incapacitates. It’s in the name, but I’ll say it anyway – only works on elementals!


WARLOCK

Banish. A very strong CC that works on elementals and demons. Banish incapacitates the mob and makes it immune to damage, so it can’t be broken. Your warlock can remove it by recasting.

Seduction. This is a tricky move to use as it involves the warlock’s succubus. She needs to be summoned, then needs to run into range to seduce. While seduce is active, the succubus is stuck in place and can be killed by splash damage if you tank the mobs right up near her. She is channelling, so damage will also reduce the duration of the CC.

Fear. Thanks to this glyph, Fear is now a strong CC choice for a warlock. It incapacitates the mob for the duration, and will break through damage.

P.S. Too much 'incapacitate' hurts the typist's brain, oh yes.

Socialising, Paladins and the Skinny Alt

Recovering from nearly a month offline has proved a bit difficult for me. While I still love Aelys and the warrior class, the radio silence on Moonglade whenever I log in has been depressing. And yes, yes, when I first got back to her I was new to the Horde side of the server and happy to hurl myself into things, but now I have epics and they feel hollow without the people who helped me gain them beside me.

Yes, I openly admit it. I'm a sentimental nutcase. I would be happier with my current situation on Moonglade if I had shitty blues and was fighting for respect once more. Thus is the mind of the raving madwoman.

Actually, I'm probably being a little hard on myself. See, while I enjoy the gameplay in WoW and I appreciate the pretty little details in Northrend and the interesting questlines and the overarching lore of the whole shibang, I mostly play to have fun with other people. People geographically distant, with a spread of ethnicities and hobbies I'm hard pressed to match IRL, even now that I'm back at uni and rocking with a whole load of nifty students. I like making friends I know I wouldn't meet if not for the game, and logging onto a whole list of alts made by people who transferred to other servers in my absence, knowing I may as well just remove the whole lot, makes me melancholy.

Again, yes, sentimental nutcase.

Well.

It just so happens the WoW Ladies were in the midst of starting up a new version of Daughters of the Horde on the European servers when I was getting back, and naturally this caught my attention. “Why not?” thought I. “I can roll a new character and hang out with them, and if it seems to be going well, I can transfer Aelys over and hey presto, new home.”

I rolled an orc shaman to start out with, because orcs are hot and I've never levelled a shaman past forty. She, uh, didn't stick. A stick, however, did. Oh yes, my new alt is a blood elf. A blood elf paladin.

The immediate response to this from a fellow warrior tank was "I now class you as scum", which wasn't very nice. I reassured him it was all in the name of research, to which he said "I now class you as lab-coat-wearing scum." He is lovely like that.

Nevertheless, I do count little Allévansis as something of an experiment even now that she's sitting at 60, a high level for an alt of mine. I find that, in gameplay terms, I enjoy playing her for the opposite reason I enjoy playing Aelys: it is incredibly easy to be a very solid player as a paladin without really knowing a great deal about the class.

I have not researched my role as retridin like I did with warrior, but I cleanly top the charts in every instance - and that's not including trash, where Consecration and Seal of Command cleave things into oblivion. I've had to tank a lot in instances while levelling up, as well, which has proved very easy. As a retridin I hold aggro even when I forget to use Righteous Fury, so god alone knows what threat generation must be like for someone actually specced to tank, complete with shield of pwnage. There is little challenge in survival and threat generation, so I can focus most of my efforts on the little things. Speedy marking, snagging patrols, seamless pulling, my healer's mana and, of course, idle banter. For someone used to mashing Heroic Strike every second and generally being rendered mute during combat, it's all relaxing and refreshing.

Obviously this is all low-level stuff. I have not played paladin at eighty, let alone tanked a raid as one, so I really can't comment on end game at all, yet the difference between off-spec tanking as a paladin and off-spec tanking as a warrior while levelling up is extremely clear. Paladin is just effortlessly better; a warrior would have to be very skilled indeed to compete.

This doesn't make me resentful, however. Yes, a paladin can have one tanking spec that covers both high threat talents and high survivability talents; yes, they're more durable than us at the moment; yes, they can be decent tanks even in the hands of the foolish and noobish; and yes, they're fun. But the differences between their static, glowing variation of tanking and our active, gritty one don't undermine or cheapen either side. I believe we complement one another nicely, and am simply glad to have the choice of going either way when I log in nowadays.

Anyway, I'm aware I've gone through tangents like Simon Cowel through tooth-whitening treatments. My main points are:

1. I'm still alive.
2. Other people are cool.
3. Aelys should soon have a new home and I will be posting about her again.
4. Interclass orgies are go.

Much love, thine recently absent skinny tank,

An Aside Concerning Parries

So, after some encouraging comments by Askevar at You Yank It, You Tank It, I healed my first dual-wielding death knight tank the other day. He was no more difficult to heal than he had been while using a two-hander.

What does this have to do with warriors? Well.

As a healer, I was most concerned that my death knight fellow would be more prone to the dreaded parry gib (in which a boss parries an attack, speeding up the next swing, and smacks the tank in the face) or at least take more damage from parry-hasted strikes. This did not prove to be the case, which got me thinking: is a death knight tank the one who needs to worry about parried strikes the most?

Although I have yet to acquire any numbers to back this up, I think the answer is no. Why?

Well, it's because I think we warriors actually hit faster, meaning more frequent strikes and more potential parries. I come to this conclusion for two reasons. The first is that the bouncy thing to the right is, in fact, what my character looks like while tanking, with the odd pause for Shield Slam's animation (although the yellow numbers never slow in their scrolling). When tanking a boss we don't massively outgear we have the rage to attack on every global cooldown, with further attacks occurring every melee swing (be that white damage, Heroic Strike or cleave, they can all be parried). That's a lot of potential parries.

Of course, the death knight is swinging fairly frantically themselves as one-handed tanking weapons are naturally quick and these guys are using two. Like the warrior, they have a melee-swing replacing attack - Rune Strike - but we differ in that skills such as Death and Decay, Icy Touch and the frost tank's Howling Blast are spells. Spells cannot be parried. While I definitely do not mean to suggest that all of a death knight's skills are spells - they're not - I do believe there may be enough of a difference between the number of a death knight's GCDs spent on physical attacks and the number a warrior uses to mean parrying is definitely not a DWing death knight-specific concern.

That said, I haven't found it too problematic for my warrior. Seems boss parries just aren't that consequential anymore, mayhap.