While I was writing the Survival of the Fittest article, I was thinking on something. Many people who play melee damage characters often comment about how often they spend time face down in the muck for half of the fight. Some have the luxury of plate or dodge mitigation, but it never seems like enough. Those familiar with ranged damage (more so in older instances than modern ones) will tell you to spec pure damage and let the healers keep you up. Maybe that works for them, but we’re in the fray. Some bosses make it really hard to keep at their side, and sometimes all it takes is a single spinny-roundy or green cloud you didn’t catch in time to put you out.
Thus, this article will be about focusing on keeping your fuzzy kitty butt alive. There are those who will disagree with my points of view here, and given my experience, maybe they’re right. Still, I think it’s a meleer’s responsibility to be as self-sufficient in their survival as possible, and that’s the attitude we’ll be going into this thing with.
Proper Attire
You’re a lucky sort. Almost all gear these days seems to come with Stamina. Most Critty Kitties will be using Rogue-ware, as its the latest trend in dominatrix fashion, so you’ll be getting primarily Agility and Stamina. You can actually afford to go balls-out offense. If you find you’re just not staying alive, you do have options, though. A wealth of tanking leather and druid weapons are available. If a few good ones fall to you for being the feral in the party, save them just in case. You’ll probably only have to compete with the Survival Hunter for them. Your group and your DPS may not approve of your clothes, but in an undergeared situation, it might just be better to go in doing less damage than spending the fight face down dealing zero damage.
Talented Survivor
While you do have a cornucopia of tanking talents to boost defense, many of them are Bear-only. Boo. Bear is greedy. But, all is not lost. Kitty comes equipped for the job too.
Improved Mark of the Wild – We’ll start off with a minor off-spec talent. You probably won’t bother if you’ve got a Resto tree in your usual raid group, but if no one else has it, this has good all-around bang for its buck. +2% more to all of your own attributes in addition to improving one of the best buffs in the game. More armor, attributes, and the ever-elusive resistances. If no one else in your group has it, you can’t go wrong with it.
Thick Hide – The Thick Hide vs. Feral Instinct debate is a raging, axe-wielding, possibly menstruating one. You’ll probably take one or the other, and when leveling, I always took Feral Instincts. But, the stealth element is somewhat underplayed in group instances, and whether Swipe (Cat) is worth buffing is arguable. +10% armor isn’t going to make Azeroth move, but it might be worth more than Feral Instincts to you.
Feral Swiftness – I consider this one mandatory. The speed buff gets you out of harm’s way and back into the fight. Your mobility is both extra damage and defense in a sexy little bundle of death. +4% dodge is an extra ounce of defense that the average platey has to spend 4 talent points to match.
Survival Instincts – Identical to the Warrior’s Last Stand, except that you don’t have to go down a different tree to get it. It can still be a stubborn beast to fit into a build, and I’ll admit, it’s often one of the first things I cut out. It’s more worth your while the higher your HP gets, since it heals based on a percentage (and thus will always be of more use to a tank than you). The other problem is remembering you have it.
Predatory Strikes – You’ll be taking this one anyways, simply for the raw attack power. But I tossed it in because of the instant-cast heals it makes available. They can be a life-saver.
Nurturing Instincts – There are those who refuse to take this talent. I refuse not taking it. I consider it irresponsible, really. They see the +healing, and go “*scoff*, I’m a DPS, not a healer, thank you very much.” But the part we want is part Beta: +20% bonus to all healing you take as a cat. A lot of small heals fall around a busy battlefield. The more often you’re topped off with quick or stray heals, the less attention you need compared to your party members. This also improves Improved Leader of the Pack, which may just keep you topped off on your own.
Survival of the Fittest – We discussed this earlier, we did we did. Crit Immune and +6% to all attributes. Probably your single best durability talent. You want this, you do you do.
Improved Leader of the Pack – Either the single best group buff you can offer, or worthless. If you have a Bear tank in your regular group, she probably took this, and yours doesn’t stack with hers. Since you can easily crit once every 6 seconds, this will be a steady source of small heals for you. Nurturing Instinct will improve that heal by 20% (but won’t improve it based on your +healing), giving you an extra 0.8% of your HP each time.
Primal Tenacity – This is primarily a PvP talent, and probably won’t make it into your regular builds. There are bosses that make heavy use of stuns and fear, so you might bring it along conditionally. Probably not, though.
Predatory Instincts – Extra damage is always welcome in my home. You’re probably looking at maybe an overall +1% to 1.5% increase per point, depending on your crit chance. The focus here is the 30% less damage from AoE attacks. Sometimes, you’re going to stand in the fire briefly. Sometimes, bosses blast all the melee around them to knock them back. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that poor kitty is going to get caught in some mess. This applies to a lot of the damage you can expect to take, and 30% is no small dip. Don’t ignore this one.
Berserk – I’m posting this one mostly as a no-no. Berserk makes a great fear-breaking trinket in PvP, but if you save it for that in an instance, you’re wasting it. It creates a HUGE burst of damage, and should be popped off on each and every boss that can afford the aggro spike. I learned this one from experience. Even when the situation arises to use it to break fear, I have to spend a second or two of potential super-damage running back to the target. No bueno.
The Strat: HP > 0
I harp on this a lot, but I’ll say it again. As Kitty Kit Kitterson, you have two traits to hone to a razor’s edge: Awareness & MobilityTM. It’s really easy to get tunnel visioned when staring at those buffs and bleeds, but you’ve also got to find the backside of your target, get there, recognize threats, and get away when necessary. Your #1 survival tool is your own head. A few pointers to further the point:
Stay Out of the Green Sh** – It may be self-explanatory, but we all seem to forget from time to time. Those flames/fumes/tentacles on the floor hurt. You’re probably more resilient than many to them, but hurting yourself is still bad. Get out!
Optimal Attack Location – To get off your Shred and to improve your accuracy, you want to be behind your target. However, many many large enemies like dragons and giants have rear-attacks. Some also tend to do instant 180 turns from time to time, just to annoy you. The optimal spot is typically on the side, just slightly to the rear. They won’t hit you with their tails/back-kicks, and if they flip-flop facing, you’re a tiny side-step from being in position again.
Billy Don’t Be a Hero – More basic knowledge, but worth repeating. One of the worst things you can do for your own safety is to pull aggro. Attack the target that the tank is properly tending. Don’t feel its your job to pull things off of the healer, cuz you’ll just get in the way. Don’t rush the enemy healer in the back, just because you think you’re the only one smart enough to notice it. Call it, get the tank on it, then shred with the peace of mind that comes with not having your skull caved in with two blows.
Back of the Class – This is more a tanking issue, but it’s spelled my doom a time or two. A good tank should face enemies away from the group. One reason is so everyone gets the nice juicy backside exposed to them for the rocking and the socking. The other reason is because if there are more enemies ahead, they will be… well… ahead. A wandering patrol is far more likely to come in from the front. If you’re the furthest ahead because you had to go there to get behind the enemy, you’re the first thing they will see, and it won’t be pretty. It’s not something you have a lot of control over, but be aware of the situation and watch your own back.
Barkskin – You forgot you had it, didn’t you. Ah-aah-ah-aaah (yes, I am five years old) , I knew it! It’s not just for casters anymore. Barkskin works in all forms, doesn’t have a painfully long cooldown, doesn’t trip the Global Cooldown, costs nothing, and offers a short burst of very good damage reduction. If you can’t be bothered to remember you have it, I suggest macroing it to an ability you will remember, like:
#showtooltip
/cast Runic Healing Potion
/cast Barkskin
You’ll at least pop it every time you go to use a potion, which is probably an appropriate time to assume you’re freaking out. If you have any other defensive abilities, like Lifeblood from Herbalism, go ahead and macro it to that too. Basically, anything you already use to mitigate damage.
I Will Survive
Melee damage has a bit of a stigma. People picture us primarily horizontal. It’s a challenging role and we get a lot of hate for it. But respect can be earned. Stand tall and proud. Or, er… As tall and as proud as a kitty can. Come to think of it, we are always horizontal…
Ugh. Long, wordy, potentially informative… where’s that delete button? Alright, alright, I’ll leave it, but under one condition! I want to see related posts for Death Knights, Ret Paladins, Rogues, Enhancement Shaman, Fury/Arms Warriors, and, heck, even other ferals. Lots of people talk about how to maximize your damage, but it seems somewhat glazed over in the area of staying alive. How do you keep your melee DPS alive? Then I can sit back and read them while posting random topics about how casual I am. Your challenge is posed!
Your fortune cookie:
As long as I know how to love, I know I’ll stay alive!
Edit: Haha, awesome! I have become the BlogAzeroth shared topic of the week! >>Forumeth Posteth<< Okay, so I did post it there, meaning I wasn’t exactly nominated for my blinding brilliance so much as I was the only person to make a suggestion for that week. (Running unopposed ftw) And as I hadn’t really planned to be omnipotent topic of an entire week, I hadn’t paused to consider that Melee DPS isn’t exactly a universal topic. Whoops. Still, the bloggers of WoW-land are resourceful, and so be sure to watch that space for creative individuals adapting the topic to their interests.
It’s Shared Topica Time again. I’ve been promising to do these, despite them always being topics to which I really don’t relate well. This week’s is from Jaedia and her topic of Looking Back to the Start of Wrath.
I’ve never been “in the prime” of WoW, so my take is going to be a bit skewed. Let’s tell a story.
Once upon a time, there was a little Skip. Skip had friends who played WoW, but Skip did not play. Skip was too busy sleeping with super models and going out to fancy restaurants with wealthy executives, or whatever it is Skips do. When the hallucinations ended and Skip realized he was actually just sleeping with his fluffy (and very comfortable) pillow and eating overheated pot pies with his cat, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to socialize with his friends via Intrawebz Gaming. By this time, all of his friends were level 70 and running Zulnaxamon solo with rainbow epics and being followed by ultra-rare Mikhail Gorbachev mini-pets that drop off raiding heroic socialist governments. Or so I’m told. I never got to run them myself.
But some were nice enough to roll alts and play and talk to my newblet druid from time to time and I pranced around, ignorant of the world outside of starting zones. Then the 3.0 patch came out. Some fancy-smanchy new expansion was around the corner and I had to get involved! I bought Burning Crusades and… realized I was level 40, and started over from 1 with a Draenei Hunter and Shaman.
Oh yes, I remember all the new Hunter pet abilities and trees. I remember the class remakes. I remember all of Azeroth going from near empty to void of all human existence. Not to be dissuaded from my quest of doing whatever I felt like in what I was convinced to be a single-player game, it took me about a year to fumble from 40 to 58, where I was introduced to Outlands.
I was excited. I was finally getting into material I’d heard people talk about. And as the game quickly propelled me to 60 and handed me my flight form, it was as if it were saying “sorry Mario, but our princess is in another castle”. Again, no one was there. I tried to slowly enjoy it, convinced I’d never see 80, but it was as if I was leveling up by accident. Outlands was rejecting me. In little to no time, I was tossed to Northrend.
And we reach the topic of our post, I think. Was I excited? Kind of. Was I let down? A bit. What was I doing? Rapidly leveling in an environment mostly devoid of players. It seems I still hadn’t caught up. But, I wasn’t going to let Northrend be another Outlands. There are times when you have to let the princess go for a while and sleep with Toad instead. I’ve explored, done quests, PvPed, gone collecting odd achievements and done everything in my power to enjoy my progress however I felt at the time. I’ve enjoyed Northrend, and now as I grace the precipice of 80, I’ve only completed most of Borean Tundra, Dragon Blight, Zul’Drak and Grizzly Hills. I’m told this is good, as I’ll make gobs of money doing the other areas as an 80.
But, I’ve not “experienced” it yet. I’ve not been through a part of the game as the rest of the world is exploring and learning it. I’ve never experienced a new dungeon without a team of experts familiar with every level 1 critter running along its walls. Everything I touch has been documented and passed by for about a year. Cataclysm will have to be my “new” experience. Maybe I’ll finally get my princess.
Your fortune cookie:
You have died of dysentery.
Great Beelzebub’s sweaty gym socks! 85 spam comments! With me it disagrees. PM and it discusses. Is it just me, or is Gollum posting to my blog? I may have eluded to having the one ring, but I don’t. I had one of those ones given to the kings of men the story sort of glazes over, but I pawned it for some gaming scratch. It’s been worthless since that Mordor incident.
Anyham, your time it wastes. We’re here to share a topic of topic sharing proportions. I tend to leave these things to the next best bloggers. I’ve deprived you of my insight, and for that I am sorry. I will try to do better. So, on with the show with:
Shared Topic: WCYIRM (pronounced Wikee-Urm)
It’s the end of the year, if you follow that Gregorian mentality, and a time for looking back. I have the memory retention of a cinder-brick sponge and am twice as dense, so details may be hazy. Round 1, Fight!
What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Everything past level 40, but before 80. Essentially nothing, with bigger numbers. Okay, that’s a lie. I branched out into the world of Battlegrounds, which I found intimidating before. I started doing some group material. I experimented in the world of guilds. I pretty much played the game, where as before it was a $15 a month chat room.
What was your favorite new place that you visited?
Canada. Wait, no, that wasn’t this year. It’s not really new, either. They put that in patches ago, I just wasn’t high enough level to go. I guess Northrend is kind of like Canada. It’s cold, full of cool stuff, not that far away, and yet no one seemed to notice it was there until all their friends were going.
Fair answer is I don’t have one. I was flooded with so much new content this year, dashing from my 40s to my 70s, I couldn’t pick just one. I’m growing partial to the Howling Fjords as we speak, though it really needs the Hill Top Zone theme from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 playing in the background to complete the feel. And a field of magma for no good reason. Everything is better with obligatory magma.
What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A raid. I’m not sure I’d actually enjoy it, but I want to try it. While we’re dreaming, a way to raid with my friends, despite lacking their work ethic and commitment.
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Numerous ultra-rare vanity pets. While everyone else was getting level cap and raiding, I was fishing and running around trying to catch ‘em all. It’s not that they’re my primary interest, per se. It’s that I am easily distracted and they’re shiny.
What was your biggest failure?
Still no level cap. With dedication, I could actually make it there by year’s end if I started now and made the effort. Effort? Psh. This here is a game, junior. I play for as long as it entertains me, then I pop in Cobra Triangle for the NES and kill sea monsters with a speed boat right out of Thunder in Paradise. That’s how Skip rolls, son.
What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The new Dungeon Finder had me jumping, and didn’t disappoint. BG XP had me hopping too. Anything that promoted me actually playing the game with another individual, rather than hours of solo. I have shelves of solo games. Gimme social!
What do you wish you’d done less of?
In game? Nadda. Gaming game is gamey. Whatever I did with my time was what I decided to do, for whatever reason. No regrets.
Okay, maybe I could cut back on the macro and addon crack. I’m hopelessly addicted to modding and scripting, to the point of tweaking my game for the sake of doing so. New Year’s Resolution: cut the fat, try to play a bit more vanilla. Just a smidge.
What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?
Unfair question. I read The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon by Ophelie and The Lazy Sniper by Jaedia because a) both are insightful and fun, and b) I know they read mine, and that makes it a social thing. Mmm, yes, I believe those will be my pimpage answers. Keep up the good work, ladies.
Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2009.
And the Skip, with his Skip-feet ice-cold in Northrend,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How do I ascend?
It came without addons! It came without gear!
“It came without ebay, macros or beer!”
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Skip thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe e-peen,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”
“Maybe e-peen…perhaps…means a little bit more!”
And what happened then…?
Well…in WoW-ville they say
That the Skip’s small DPS
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute his damage didn’t feel quite so weak,
He whizzed through the instance like a crack headed freak
And he topped all the charts! He mangled all into cubes!
And he…
…he himself…!
The Skip called his team all newbs.
Or… er… I learned compassion, or something fuzzy like that. I don’t know, I’m learning challenged. C’mon, let’s go stand in some fire and blame the healers.
Honorable Reader’s Fortune Cookie:
Thunder in Paradise. Lightning striking twice. Mess with Thunder. And you pay the price. *air guitar shred*
