Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:52 am
RAF - Tank And Heal (2 x Pally)
I've just run a pair of characters from level 1 to 60 in WoW over the course of 2 days and 8 hours - and given I lost quite a few hours to either making a cup of tea or simply standing around fiddling with my configs / keys I think it was a pretty decent result.
I used RAF (Refer a Friend) to invite an imaginary friend, linking our accounts. This provides triple XP, grantable levels (which are actually useless unless you want another char on the primary account), and the ability to summon each other. All this stops at level 60, but that's a good chunk of the way to 80 and IMHO it's the worst content, so speeding through it is preferable.
For my team I used two pallies, one specced to tank and one for heals. I didn't bother taking any solo talents since they were always together and always running instances. I loaded both up with some bags, a bit of cash for training, and parked them in Stormwind, close to both a trainer and repair guy + mailbox.
You have to get to level 15 the usual way, by questing, and this part went really nice and quickly. I set their keys so they both would auto-attack the mobs, and cast judgement together when they got that. They needed no healing, no mana, no downtime at all. Pallies are embarrassingly easy to play at this level, to the point of being boring but that would pay off later in the game.
At 15 I queued them for their first dungeon runs after ensuring Clique and Grid2 were up and running the way I expected. With Flash of Light on left click and um, that other bigger heal on right click I walked through instances with relative ease. Rarely I needed to cast another spell, which required a SHIFT or ALT combo, but 99% of all healing up to level 60 was those two spells.
I was in my tanking window most the time, with a few swap outs to deal with those times I hadn't noticed my 'pocket healer' was 100 yards behind me ;P Swapping out to loot from time to time was also an irritation, which was helped by 'send next click' but never entirely to my satisfaction. I left a lot of bags un-looted on the dungeons floors just to keep the pace up.
My tanking was done with literally 4 keys for 95% of all situations. Judgement, Shield, Consecrate...then finally Avengers Shield. Pally tanking mechanics are both powerful, and extremely simple. I'd had to taunt every so often, but since everything for tanking was mapped out on my G13 there was plenty of room even for little used skills.
I've since leveled to 62 using the pally tank, but swapping the pally healer out for a 60 priest (last 30 lvls were granted to her by the first healer) - since the priest was the goal all along - the pallies were just used to get her there quickly. With a priest I prefer to keep Renew up, shield in emergencies, greater heal for most things, and flash heal where I need results fast or mana doesn't matter. This doesn't map so neatly to the standard two button mouse I have (using middle click to jump...meh...which given it has an odd 200ms or so delay seems a good use). With renew on left I only have greater heal available without moving a hand off the G13. It's a pain, but less painful than leveling one char at a time
I had a few people along the way work out I was dual boxing - maybe the similar names and the way one always trotted behind the tank gave it away. Some asked if it was hard, some accused me of cheating.
It's not hard, or perhaps not as hard as some people might imagine. Once you're comfortable dragging the pocket healer along - or parking them as needed it's really just simple tanking with wild clicking of heals in between
I used RAF (Refer a Friend) to invite an imaginary friend, linking our accounts. This provides triple XP, grantable levels (which are actually useless unless you want another char on the primary account), and the ability to summon each other. All this stops at level 60, but that's a good chunk of the way to 80 and IMHO it's the worst content, so speeding through it is preferable.
For my team I used two pallies, one specced to tank and one for heals. I didn't bother taking any solo talents since they were always together and always running instances. I loaded both up with some bags, a bit of cash for training, and parked them in Stormwind, close to both a trainer and repair guy + mailbox.
You have to get to level 15 the usual way, by questing, and this part went really nice and quickly. I set their keys so they both would auto-attack the mobs, and cast judgement together when they got that. They needed no healing, no mana, no downtime at all. Pallies are embarrassingly easy to play at this level, to the point of being boring but that would pay off later in the game.
At 15 I queued them for their first dungeon runs after ensuring Clique and Grid2 were up and running the way I expected. With Flash of Light on left click and um, that other bigger heal on right click I walked through instances with relative ease. Rarely I needed to cast another spell, which required a SHIFT or ALT combo, but 99% of all healing up to level 60 was those two spells.
I was in my tanking window most the time, with a few swap outs to deal with those times I hadn't noticed my 'pocket healer' was 100 yards behind me ;P Swapping out to loot from time to time was also an irritation, which was helped by 'send next click' but never entirely to my satisfaction. I left a lot of bags un-looted on the dungeons floors just to keep the pace up.
My tanking was done with literally 4 keys for 95% of all situations. Judgement, Shield, Consecrate...then finally Avengers Shield. Pally tanking mechanics are both powerful, and extremely simple. I'd had to taunt every so often, but since everything for tanking was mapped out on my G13 there was plenty of room even for little used skills.
I've since leveled to 62 using the pally tank, but swapping the pally healer out for a 60 priest (last 30 lvls were granted to her by the first healer) - since the priest was the goal all along - the pallies were just used to get her there quickly. With a priest I prefer to keep Renew up, shield in emergencies, greater heal for most things, and flash heal where I need results fast or mana doesn't matter. This doesn't map so neatly to the standard two button mouse I have (using middle click to jump...meh...which given it has an odd 200ms or so delay seems a good use). With renew on left I only have greater heal available without moving a hand off the G13. It's a pain, but less painful than leveling one char at a time
I had a few people along the way work out I was dual boxing - maybe the similar names and the way one always trotted behind the tank gave it away. Some asked if it was hard, some accused me of cheating.
It's not hard, or perhaps not as hard as some people might imagine. Once you're comfortable dragging the pocket healer along - or parking them as needed it's really just simple tanking with wild clicking of heals in between