Lack of Bag Space and DPS…

The value of Bag Real Estate is Increasing

Over the past few days I have picked up a few more upgrades / side grades for my tanking sets and I have begun to notice that the value of my empty bag slots is increasing dramatically as they become less and less prevalent. Currently, most of my bag slots are taken up by a plethora of gear, which I use to create different gear sets, however as you progress through the instances, you should technically replace gear in each of these sets, meaning that you shouldn’t really be losing any space. The hard part comes when you have to add a new set to the mix. Currently I have all 8 equipment manager slots taken up, each by a specific gear set, but some of those gear sets are sitting in the bank collecting dust (such as my healing set).

The sets that I carry on my at all times are as follows: My overall set, my threat set, my effective health set, my avoidance set, my Anub’arak set, and my ret set. In addition to these pre determined sets, I carry about 4 extra trinkets, a few extra weapons, and a few extra rings just in case the need arises to swap some gear around. What this does for me is give me the flexibility to gear specifically for any given fight that we see, as well as limit the number of things I can loot at any given time. When it comes to farming and making gold, its not really an issue as I do that on my hunter and deathknight.

What else do I carry around with me?

I always have each of the following on me at all times, and when i drop below my comfortable minimum, I restock them. I have 40 indestructible potions, 400 symbols of kings, 20 flasks of stoneblood, 20 flasks of endless rage, 20 elixirs of defense, 20 elixirs of mighty agility, 40 blackened dragonfin, 20 haste, mana, and health pots, a simple grinder, a Jeweler’s Kit, an alchemists stone, my chefs hat, and my argent crusader’s tabard. Honestly, I may be missing somethings, but that is what I remember having in there. When I get home tonight, I will post a picture of my bags.

When all is said and done, i usually have about 12 open bag slots using 20 or 22 slot bags. Compound this by the fact that you immediately pick up four stacks of biscuits and a healthstone and you don’t have much room for anything else. I am just really glad that we don’t have to carry any resist sets. Really this mini rant about bag space came from the realization I had last night when I looked at my bags. I am back to being a “real” tank. Back at level 60 when I was the main tank of my guild, I usually had around 6 open bag slots, with all 18 slot bags, and in those days you really didnt have the luxury of having gear sets, because you got your tier gear, and that was it. I had my tank set, my pve dps set, my pvp set (as I was an avid pvper, and made it to rank 12), my fire resist set, my nature resist set, and some novelty weapons that looked cool from BWL.

In the end, most tanks have a lot less bag space than others because of the gear that they have and the gear sets that the use on a daily basis. I find that for non progression instances (e.g. anything but Trial of the Grand Crusade) I swap gear sets on almost every pull, especially in a place like ulduar. From trash to bosses that hit “hard” to bosses that are dps checks, I am altering my gear sets to the encounters. Luckily in ToTGC, I have two gear sets, effective health for the first four bosses, and my unhittable set for Anub.

Tribute to Insanity…

Speaking of Anub’arak, my guild did two 10 man ToTGCs last night and I had my first opportunity to try out the set that I have been talking so much about for the past few weeks. Our first group got Tribute to Insanity, and the tanking cloak, which was good news because our other tank who will be on Anub for 25 man HM this week got the cloak. And although it is not perfectly itemized for that fight, as the armor is severely lacking, the stamina is there to completely compensate and it looks to be BiS. Our group was not so lucky. We got to Anub with 50 attempts as usual, and as usual, one of the interrupts was off and my holy wrath resisted that mob, the dumb luck was on our side. We were down to 9, but we got the battle rez off in phase 2. Everything was going smoothly, we pushed the boss to sub 30, I had both the adds off the ice, I got the shadowstep and they burrowed. Then something happened.

Our hunter died, which was our only source of MS. At this point we were hovering at about 5% hp on anub. If we had our best 10 in the raid, I wouldn’t have been the least worried, but we didnt. We had an off night for attendance and our group had a few people that were, shall we say, dps challenged. In the end we wiped because the dps was just not there, and the healers ran out of mana at about 3% hp on anub. It was really frustrating at first because I would have loved to see a double Tribute to Insanity, but then I checked the dps meters and really got pissed.

To clarify it was already a tense night because we had a bit of a quarrel in the officer forums as we were setting up groups, because (or i assume this is the case) of a misunderstanding from one officer to another. We got everyone back on the same page and calmed down, but the disruption and damage had been done. What was initially suppose to be a lovely 1 hour raid night, turned into a less that enjoyable night. I find it really weird that I am very frustrated with my guild at the current time, because we are easily and efficiently clearing all major content in a day and a half now. Tuesday rolls around and we one shot vault, ony, ToTC and all four bosses of ToTGC. All that was left were 10 mans and Anub in Hard Mode on tuesday at 10 pm. That is actually pretty incredible, and pays testament to the type of raiding core we have. In our guild, as it has been since SSC/TK, once a boss dies the first time, it is on FARM and usually gets one shot.

How can your dps be that low?

Back to the dps meters. When you looked at the meters, almost everything was in order, and looked as it should. Then I saw it. Our last place dps was below 3.5k dps, while everyone else was above 5k. Now I can understand if your dps is gear constrained, or if we are on alts, but there is no, I repeat NO NO NO NO NO excuse for pulling that kind of crappy dps if you are in 245 loot and alive the entire time. He had no other assignments, just dps the boss and do your best. Now in all honesty I think that is his best, he has a rogue and a shadow priest, and neither of his toons have probably ever broken 5k dps on a single target. This is just unacceptable for a guild of our level, and I for one really never want to raid with someone that plays that poorly. Needless to say, I had a little chat with this guy, and he pulled 1200 more dps the next fight and anub dropped like a sac of potatoes. All I can say is that I truly hate people who don’t give it their all every attempt.