Battleground Common Sense

So, I finished the weekend just dinging level 69 on Lirys. Last night, I decided to watch House M.D., so I only got a few battlegrounds in. I ended up doing two more this morning, before work, and hitting level 70. The rest of my “pre-work” time was spent flying out to Tanaris to talk to the Legacy Arena vendors, and getting outfitted in my Brutal Gladiator’s set. This evening, I’ll be doing enchants, gemming, etc., before I set out on the next leg of the my climb to 85.

The weekend was pretty frustrating at times. More and more, I found myself wanting to do what I despise, and go off on teammates because of just plain lack of common sense. If there’s one thing worse than someone who hasn’t a clue what to do in a battleground, and refuses to spend a half hour reading any one of the hundreds of posts on the subject, it’s someone who obviously has read those posts, and then turns off their brain.

Random Thoughts, and The New Arcane Shatter

So, it was a busy weekend. My wife was throwing a birthday party for her niece, and we had family in town as early as Thursday night. I had Friday off, as a result of holiday work schedules, and was expecting to get bogged down entertaining, but bless my wife’s heart, she arranged it so I had most of Friday to myself.

So, been fighting off the last dregs of a cold, and ended up waking at about 6:30 Friday morning, and after getting a pot of coffee going, jumped on WoW, and resumed my grind to finish off Hyjal, and then was off to Deepholm, where I eventually found myself in the good graces of the mother of the hottest babe ever to hit Wow. I think it says a lot for my determination, charm, suaveness, and the lack of sweating petty details by the WoW design team, that Therazane conveniently ignored the fact that Layjos has killed her lovely daughter at least twice. Oh, wait, that was when he was Lajos. Of course! It was the name change! Doh!!!

On a serious note, I repeat again, Blizzard does it right! I’ve taken a break from leveling alts now that Layjos is on the scene, but what I’ve seen of the revamping of the Old World quests has been very pleasing. The quest-lines make sense, they move along, with very few of the “kill endlessly until you get X number of items” type of quests. Even those tend to be fairly quick. The copious side quests don’t detract from the momentum of the main questline, and some of the questlines are downright entertaining. The John J. Keeshan lines in Redridge and Burning Steppes inspired me to grab First Blood for my son Nick to see, and he has declared it his current favorite movie.

When I finally decided to scratch the mage itch, and move Lajos/Layjos, I breezed through Hyjal, and Deepholm, with no real feeling of “grind”. About the only time I did a conscious “grind” was when I saw my experience bar close to the next level. I always make it a habit, if possible, to grind out those last few points on mobs, so the quest turn-ins launch me well into the next level. So, having gotten the Coming Down the Mountain and Deep into Deepholm achievements, I returned to Vash’jir to pick up there. Unfortunately, I’m not getting the big quest experience points, since I’m a bit above level, but the quests are still entertaining. Yesterday, after family left, I jumped back on, and decided to see how I fared in the battlegrounds.

Oh, incidentally, I gave Fire a try during all that. Not bad. The ability to cast Scorch while moving is interesting. Unfortunately, leveling the way I am, I haven’t been able to muster enough crit rating to really make it effective. I’ve been gradually replacing my Wrath epics, but even with abilities, I wasn’t finding Hot Streak proccing enough for my comfort in PvP, so I decided to return to Arcane.

Overall, battlegrounds went well. I killed more than I died, and even with very little resilience on my gear, didn’t find myself getting killed to fast when I got focused. I identified a few areas I need to macro, and shift my keybinds, but all in all, it went quite well. I didn’t dominate, but I didn’t suck, either. When I had a group that worked as a team, things went well. When I had a group that thought Eye of The Storm is all about capturing the flag, things didn’t go well.  One Warsong went really well, with me leading in HKs, and in the top four in killing blows. We had a good team, and I spent my time picking engaged targets, and hitting them with Arcane Blast, and destroying their health bar, while staying out of close up mismatches. Looking back at it today, that was probably my best battleground, and it highlights what I need to do – get myself in a good position, avoid short range mass crowds of melee, and focus on staying alive. In later battlegrounds, I forgot those principles, and while I didn’t do terribly, I was letting myself get focused, and not escaping effectively enough. It’s something I noted before. I tend to go for the goals, and dive into things, counting on my teammates to be there to back me. When they are, I rock. When they aren’t, I die. It all goes by fast, but I can clearly remember several fights yesterday where I had a healer backing me, or a couple melee-types keeping me from getting smothered. I felt comfortable, in control, and Horde were dying. I can also remember several times that I rushed in too fast, and then, when I went to escape, was still trying to do damage, instead of getting away, and I invariably died.

Arcane has some great control and escape features. Insta-Invis, PoM + Polymorph, and a 3 second speed burst after blinking. I used all of them Sunday, but not as effectively as I should have. Using PoM effectively is going to be a key skill in this spec. The two biggest uses are going to be Insta-Sheep, and Insta-Nuke. In the past, playing the old Arcane Shatter spec, I used Frostfire Bolt as my Insta-Nuke, since it was buffed by the Frost tree, and had the benefit of slowing the target down. Now, with Nether Vortex, Arcane Blast slows the target, and applies the buff, so it’s going to become my nuke of choice, with Presence of Mind making it instant when I need it. More on that later.

I ended up getting about a third of a level in the battlegrounds (gotta love that!) and made level 84 shortly after logging on this morning.  I’m going to finish up Vash’jir, then head out to Uldum. I’m guessing level 85 by no later than Wednesday.

And I’ll be respeccing this evening as well. I’ve already foregone Arcane Tactics, since I don’t plan to be doing much raiding early on. I’m going to drop Focus Magic, and putting that point in Shatter. My level 85 point will go in Shatter as well. “Lol-wut?!?” you say.

Arcane Tactics is a 3% damage buff on the raid. In a raid, over the course of a boss encounter, 3% is significant. In PvP, particularly when you’re not packing a buttload of spellpower, it’s not crucial. Likewise, with Focus Magic, a once-in-awhile 3% crit buff is significant, on a raid where you can make sure it stays on your partner. In PvP, it’s nice, but again, not particularly crucial.

However, being able to selectively apply a triple-damage crit in PvP is very significant, and very useful, especially when that allows you to tie it in with Arcane Potency and Arcane Power. PoM triggers the former, and Arcane Power just adds more goodness. If they’ve been pounding on my Mana Shield or Mage Ward, so much the better, as Incantor’s Absorption is  going to be buffing my damage. Get an interrupt on a caster? Woo-hoo, he’s silenced for 4 seconds, AND Invocation kicks in. Quick freeze, AP, POM, and nuke well.

Then of course, there’s Frost Ring, which has a significant range, which opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities, especially when you note that all the arcane tree goodies are worded “all damage”, “your damage”, “spell damage”, etc. Are Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt going to hit as hard as Arcane Blast? Of course not. But  they’re not going to start the mana ramp-up either, and against a frozen target, Frostbolt is going to get a 20% buff in addition to all the other spell buffs Arcane gets, including the mastery buffs. Not to mention, it has a shorter cast time, and also very importantly, if I get interrupted, I’ve only got Frost spells locked out, and I have most of my main guns still available.

Is it gonna pwn like the old Arcane Shatter spec? Probably not, and I suspect it will play significantly different, but we shall see.

The Joys of Killing Paladins

So, we moved Nick’s DK over yesterday. By the time I got home from work, he’d already headed out to Hyjal, and was over it because of the constant ganking. So we tried the Vash’jir heroes call, which started okay, but then was cut short because the first quest refused to complete for Nick. (He found out this morning how to fix it, yay!). We went back out to Hyjal, started questing, and immediately, a level 85 Horde pally named Arvalon, or something like that, started displaying his douche-bag-ness. We’re in the middle of a bunch of mobs, and he jumps in. With a level difference of 5, Nick couldn’t even hit him, and frankly, Nick’s a PvE tank, not an arena player. I fared a bit better, and I can testify that Improved Blink is the shiznit in PvP, but I also haven’t mage PvPed in about 5 or 6 months. We hurt him, and finally got him to drop an AoE, and got some guards on him. We died about 5 times to his 1, but I still count it a minor victory. He camped the questgiver, and laughed at me. I laughed right back at him, and even gave him a mock-salute. I find it amusing that someone can misses the stupidity of making fun of someone they’ve killed who can’t really even hit them back, and let’s face it, that sort of person gets their nut on thinking they’ve pissed someone else off. No worries, it’s a big world, I can go elsewhere to level, and yeah, fucker, what goes around comes around, and the day will come when I’m what comes around.  My son hasn’t really had that sink in yet, I’m hoping he can be taught.

Caraway and I were talking at work, and he was marveling at the survivability of paladin’s in general, particularly prot. I was regaling him with tales of Hartbane‘s battle-healer spec in the good ol’ days, and as I told him, you don’t so much kill paladin’s so much as you dismantle them. Sort of like peeling an onion, and far more painful and full of tears. But hey, a Blood Elf pally died last night, so at least one new angel has a set of wings, and the day was a success.

My first experiments with Arcane PvP were interesting, though. I complete forgot to use things like Arcane Power (need to get that macro-ed in, dammit), but that really wasn’t a factor. As I said, Improved Blink rocks. I haven’t had time to evaluate the Glyph of Arcane Power (I’ve heard some discussion on how it’s supposed to work, but doesn’t). The biggest thing that jumped out at me was the lack of a really spam-able Arcane spell. Arcane Blast just isn’t suitable for quick use in combat. My initial cast with haste adjustmetns, is still like 1.9 seconds. In a battleground, with distractions, that’s probably doable, however, 1 on 1, or in Arena, that’s an eternity. Of course, there’s always Scorch or Ice Lance, but those really aren’t optimal for Arcane.  I sort of have visions of running along a freeway, throwing pebbles at trucks. Then again, Shatter is available on the first tier of Frost, for double/triple crit chance… and Arcane Blast has a 40 yard range, AND slows the target with Nether Vortex.

I’m having this vision of stacking AB a couple times at long range, then jumping in with a Frost Nova, and cutting loose with a PoM + AB that crits for what Christian Belt describes as “ also doing damage to his posterity down through seven generations, causing his children’s children’s great-great-grandchildren to speak in hushed tones about the time many generations past when a mage blew up his forefather”. Granted, Layjos is only level 80, and doesn’t have that kind of spellpower yet, but the principle is there, and yeah, I find it exciting. More research required.

All that said, I’m going to experiment with Fire and Frost as well, I think.

 

 

Ebb and Flo

So, yesterday, sitting at work, I was going through some old WoWInsider articles, and came across one from last June, an Art of Warcraft column talking about dealing with PUG battlegrounds. Most of it dealt with how to enjoy the experience, and not rage at it, and overall, was some really good advice. Most of it was redundant for me, things I’d sort of subconsciously realized and adapted to during the time where I was building my first PvP set, as it was the only way I could get any higher level gear, and that meant PUGS. It’s different in a battleground tho’, as there isn’t the rigid “this is how you handle this boss” attitude, and things are happening so fast, weaknesses of players (i.e., my own suck-age) are a lot less glaring, and so less likely to be commented on.

Looking back to then, I realized I’m in sort of the same situation. Back then, I was guild leader of a very small, tight guild, and raiding, even heroics, were beyond us. We were very PUG shy, when it came to instances, and my only real alternative was to do BGs, to get any sort of decent gear. Eventually, I ran into Repgrind, and found a high comfort level, and started getting into some higher level content. Eventually, my own guild fell apart, and I went to Crits, but left vs. right coast scheduling proved to make it extremely difficult to progress with them. Not long after, I decided to just take a break.

Now, I’m just a guild member, of a very casual guild, Moonlight Requiem, headed by one of the guys I work with. The guild is really just getting off the ground, but Caraway, the GM, is very good at getting people in. Most of the people I’ve met through the guild seem pretty cool, but I’m still finding myself soloing a lot. A big factor in that is the holidays. People have a lot of time off to play, and they’ve leveled at an insane rate. On the flipside, a lot of my play time has been sporadic, due to family aggro. It will be interesting to see now how it levels off, and what happens.

Doing a bit of introspection, I’m realizing that if I want company, I need to be more outgoing. LOL… not really my forte’, but hey, I’ll work on it. Looking at the big picture, Caraway has assembled what seem to be a really cool bunch of people, so in essence I have a “pre-screened” group.

Anyway, to get back to where I was originally going, I was musing on how far I’ve come. I started, unintentionally, on a PvP server, and used to gnash my teeth at the ganking. I moved to a PvE server, and once there, grew to really like PvP. Now I’m back on a PvP server, and while I still despise the random griefing, it’s more of a roll my eyes thing now, rather than real rage. And, full-circle, I’m back to taking refuge in the battlegrounds, this time for leveling as well as gear.

Originally, I’d planned on leaving Lajos over on Winterhoof, in Crits, but I’m starting to rethink that. I’ve got a perfectly good level 80 mage, well geared, sitting, doing nothing, and realistically, I’m not going to be spending much time over there. If I do, it’s not like I’m going to be in a position to run content. Basically, I’m just “keeping a presence”, and I’m debating whether it’s worth it. If I do a character move, I can bring money, heirloom items, etc. over that will make life a lot more productive on my current server, including leveling our guild.

And of course, I’ve got a guild bank over on Winterhoof, full of stuff that would be really useful. My DK sits as guildmaster, and the stuff languishes in an upper tab. Those people who stuck with the guild after the melt-down have given up and bailed, and I can’t say as I blame them. I just really lost my enthusiasm for WoW after the events of last summer. Now that I’ve rediscovered some of that enthusiasm, it’d be nice to profit from some of my labor.

Off To Battle

So, when I started my discipline priest, I told myself I was going to be leveling a lot in battlegrounds. Then I totally got carried away in some of the new quest-lines, and looked up, and I was at twenty, then thirty, then forty. Each time, I’d resolve to knock out about seven levels, then hit the BGs. Each time, I’d look up, and go “damn, I’m at level twenty-nine… and on a quest”, etc.

And then I found out, belatedly, about the new five-level brackets. Oh, REALLY???

So, at like level fifty-one, I started queuing up. With visions of Fiaked dancing in my head, I chuckled gleefully, prepared to enter battlegrounds, and wreak havoc…

… and in my first Alterac Valley, promptly got my havoc wreaked. Well, damn.

See, I knew the theory that a battleground healer has to avoid getting focused, hang back, etc. Well, a couple battlegrounds beat that theory into me very, very well. I didn’t realize that my guild tabard had a big bullseye painted on it. However, it apparently does, as I became a very popular target.

Ok, so time to regroup, and adjust. I did. It went better (relatively), and once I started getting a quick finger on Shadow Word: Death, I even picked up a few killing blows.  Those first few BGs, were just plain rough though. I’m getting better at picking a teammate, and just tagging along with him. Let me also say that while I was already something in awe of Fiaked, now I’m at the point of stuttering, remembering a particular WSG fight where he and I stormed the Horde flag-room, and commenced a 2-on-5-ish kill fest, him healing my mage. It ain’t easy, folks. Nothing prepares you for those first few waves of incoming red nameplates, all gleefully heading for YOU, and enveloping you in a constant wave of stuns, interrupts, and what-have-you, while you’re desperately trying to get off a Flash Heal.

Honestly, after PvPing as a mage, I know that in time, I’ll get better. I also know that I was sadly light on stamina gear (which I’m remedying).  And I’m sitting here at work plotting tweaks to my add-ons to give me better info. I’ve made it through three levels almost purely on battlegrounds. After that, I picked up wife-aggro, and had to adjourn to get caught up on Dexter. However, I expect to get 55 early tonight, and then it’s off to a new bracket. Since I’m (mainly) healing, I can still work effectively at the bottom of a bracket, since hit percentage doesn’t come into play. Now it’s a matter of getting to that point where things seem to slow down, and I can pay attention to things like cooldowns, dispels, etc. Time to start tweaking Tell Me When.

Oh, and yeah, I’ve noticed that things were tweaked in general in 4.0.x, so priests are still being dialed in. Whatever.  It will get better, and I’m going to just look at is as exercising with ankle-weights, so to speak. When things do get dialed in, I’ll be that much better off.

Moar PeeVeePee

So yeah, I’m a bit obsessive. I’ve tried leveling my lock a few times over the last week, but it dulled real fast. Right now, I’m immersed in mage PvP mode, and I keep feeling the compulsion to hit the “H” key and queue up for a random BG.  Why fight it?

With this weeks arena matches in the books, this weekend was a running mixture of heroics, an Ulduar 25 and 10 for the weekly, and lots of bgs. As RG mentioned, Saturday afternoon Fiaked, Hartbane, Kalyon and I teamed up on a string of random bgs, and while I wouldn’t put it in the “pwned” category, it is true that we won pretty much every BG we went into.

So, a couple notes on the incessant whining on Winterhoof that “Alliance sucks in Wintergrasp”, and on the Whirlwind battlegroup in general that “Horde dominate bgs”.  None of these is particularly new or earthshaking, but I’ll repeat them here anyway, if for nothing else than to display the fact that I get it.

1. Battlegrounds in General – Know the objectives. If you don’t know, ask. If you’re too timid to ask, shut up, listen, and stick with the crowd. Even if they’re “not doing it right”, battlegrounds are about coordinated effort, and while you learn, you’re much better sticking with a group. Curb your heroic tendencies, you’ll live longer.
2. Bases are King – Particularly in Eye and Arathi, but the theory applies in some form to pretty much all battlegrounds. In those two in particular, if you consistently control 3 bases, you will win. The flag in Eye is only of use when you can only hold 2 bases, and need an edge, or when you hold 3 bases, and want to speed up the victory. If you’re going for the flag with less than 2 bases, you’re doing it wrong.
3. Think Logically – If you have 3 bases in Arathi or Eye, and half a dozen Horde show up to attack one, that means one of theirs is going to be lightly defended.
4. Don’t Road Fight – This is a reflex that’s really hard to overcome, but it must be overcome, nonetheless. The only time you want to road fight is when you have a numerical base advantage, and you can tie up a significant number of the enemy on the road, so they can’t attack your bases. Guess what? This is what the enemy has been doing to you in all those BGs you lost!
5. In Wintergrasp – If you keep throwing your forces at a single point, the enemy will mass there, and unless you outnumber them drastically, you will be stopped. If you ignore your towers, they will be destroyed, and you will run out of time.
6. Moar Healerz – To all those healie types who come to bgs and heal me… I love you, no shit, let me buy you a beer. That’s why paladins, druids, and priests can be such terrors in battlegrounds… they bring their own healer.
7. Communication and coordination – a group of 4 or 5 people who are on the same page can dominate a battleground.

Case in point… on Saturday, in Warsong Gulch. While Kalyon and Hartbane were back on defense, Fiaked and I went on the offensive. We ran into 3 Horde outside the upper tunnel, 2 of them mages, and took them out, then got some cooldowns, and rushed the flagroom. Five enemies in there, with TWO resto druids. Neither was well geared, and it showed. We burned both of them, and held out long enough for a few other teammates to show up, and a flag cap soon followed. None of it was particularly due to MY skill. I played my class, we communicated on Vent, I got heals, and good things happened.

Like the arena, being on Vent is huge in actual fights. But I did a lot of battlegrounds solo over the weekend, and invariably, when people played as a team, and paid attention to the objectives instead of just “see Horde -attack Horde”, we did well.

Wintergrasp is tough for Alliance on Winterhoof, because yes, we’re generally hugely outnumbered. That’s only going to change if we encourage more people to come out. It’s still possible to win, though, even when outnumbered, if people play smart, and coordinate. Even outnumbered, you have to spread out to attack from Broken Temple, and Sunken Ring simultaneously, and to defend the towers. When you get right down to it, it’s the “Bases are King” principle. If you control all the bases, the enemy has to dispatch forces to take them back, and to do it effectively, they have to send a larger force. So, effectively, 2 people on a base can keep double, triple, or quadruple that number tied up. That’s X number of fortress defenders that aren’t up stopping siege vehicles. That’s the numbers game that allows a smaller force to win on attack.

Defense is another matter altogether. Realize, from the start, that Blizzard didn’t design Wintergrasp to be defended effectively. They WANT it to change hands. The best bet there is to build catapults to go out and kill siege vehicles as fast as possible, and to send out squads to kill towers. Only after towers are down should defenders try to cap Sunken Ring and Broken Temple.

Anyway… a good tally this weekend. I was able to upgrade a ring, so I’ve got Relentless and Wrathful rings on, and I’m only a few WG marks short of being able to swap my PvE Bloodmage shoulders for the Titan-Forged Shoulderpads of Salvation. When my arena points come up for this last week, I should be able to swap my Hood of Fiery Aftermath for the Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Cowl. I might even manage another upgrade as well.

Tendencies to State the Obvious

So, yeah, I’ve been hearing “You suck!” more than I’d like to lately. Ok, so tell me something I don’t know – like how to not suck.

Let me touch on human nature. Most people who are expert at something do a lot of little things that they don’t even think of. They assume knowledge on someone else’s part of things that are second nature to them, because, well, those things have become second nature. I know this. I do it myself. I’m terrible at teaching, particularly at work. Usually it’s quicker and easier to just do it myself, than to go through the process of breaking knowledge down to the lowest common denominator. It takes a special personality to enjoy breaking things down and teaching people.

Now add to that the environment. In a pickup practice arena, people have no vested interest in helping their partner get better. Add to that the fact that usually, they’re playing a different class, so they may not have any helpful knowledge concerning how to play my class. I get that.

Okay. So what is “You suck!” based on?

Is it because we lost? So it’s my fault that we lost? Tell me why.

Were you disappointed that I wasn’t good enough to carry you, and therefore, I must suck?

Did you see things that I was doing wrong, or things I just wasn’t doing? Tell me!

Saturday morning, I jumped on to do a couple practice rounds. Had a mirror matchup, with a druid and a warlock. We won, after about 5 minutes, mainly because the other druid left. I simply could not put out enough damage to take either the warlock, or the druid (and I tried both! ) down more than they could heal. I tried fearing the tree, and focusing on the lock. I tried fearing the lock, and focusing on the tree. I tried fearing both. Until my teammate was able to start throwing damage onto the lock, it was futile.

So, since my teammate was from my realm, I whispered them, saying “So, okay, I know I suck. Any pointers?” No response.

So, it’s pretty much up to me. One thing I found was I was unable to keep track of my DoTs, and their remaining time on a target. So I got an addon that shows my DoTs on the nameplate. And I’m watching video. And reading. I’ve been lurking on ArenaJunkies non-stop, it seems. And in game, I’ve been playing mostly with my lock, getting used to the keybinds. We’ll see what happens.

It’s A Lock

So, the Grumpy Mage has gotten really grumpy. Even more than usual. So RG messages me a week or so ago. It went something like this:

RG: hi!

me: Howdy

RG: I have a question for you

me: Okie. I probably have an answer.

RG: would you have any interest in the arena tourney?

me: I haven’t done much PvP in quite awhile, very little arena period. I’d get eaten alive in a tourney. lol

RG: we’re all going to get eaten alive. but you get a pet for playing 50 games … and we need a warlock

me: Hmmmm… but my lock is only level 48

RG: on the tourney realm, you get to create up to 3 toon, level 80 and with the best gear

me: ohhhhh

So, long story short, I’m now registered for the tourney. Liris, my now level-53 gnomie warlock is incarnated as a Lirith,  level 80 affliction warlock. Yes, the mage has turned to the Dark Side, reveling in the pain and misery of his – now her – enemies, cackling with glee as she sucks the life and very soul from them.

Er, well… sometimes. I’ve never played a level 80 lock before. Most of the time, I’m concentrating on keeping moving, and remembering all the things I’m supposed to be doing as a lock. So far, I’ve just been doing practice 2s, and even won a couple. The problem is, I have no way of knowing a) if I screwed up, b) how I screwed up, or c) what I should have done. I simply don’t have any background to use as a reference. I’ve just come to the conclusion that I’m just going to have to keep butting my head against it until I get better.

I’ve taken Liris into to the BGs, and done fairly well; I’ve usually wound up in the top two in killing blows. One thing I have determined I need to work on is situational awareness, and survivability, and hopefully, that will carry over to arena. Getting used to the higher level spells is a challenge, but it’s coming slowly.

I’d love to see a really good PvP guide for warlocks. I’m reading all over the internet, but too many times, the writer starts using PvP slang, and I haven’t a clue what they’re talking about. I’ve tried looking at videos, but typically, I have no idea what’s going on in the video beyond some guy jumping around the screen, and most videos aren’t really created for educating n00bs, they’re for showing off the player’s talent. Guys, it’s great that you’ve got a good soundtrack, but that doesn’t tell me what you did, or why you did it, or why I should do it. Most of the time, I can’t tell what spell your casting from looking at the screen, either because  it’s lo-res, or because it’s happening so fast.

Right now, I would pay money for a small series of well-done videos from a rated affliction warlock, with no music, but good commentary. (and I only specify rated because to give some insurance that the author would know what he was talking about).  Here’s an example of the kind of videos I would love: Paladin Tanking from WowWiki. The author did vids, then did a nice, clear commentary on what he was doing, how it works, why you do it, etc.