Previously I had mentioned that I didn’t use Savage Defense much in the world or in dungeons. Happily, in Mogu’Shan Palace, there is more physical damage and an interesting encounter or two.

Xin the Weaponmaster is easily one of the most entertaining bosses Blizzard has ever produced for a five-man. Between the rings of fire, darts shooting out of the wall, a Blackhorn-like shockwave move and whirling blades threatening everyone, your group will have to be on its game and paying attention to reap the rewards. I had to use all my cooldowns, including Savage Defense, but maybe having a healer who didn’t lag horribly and die made this fight more difficult.

Forum posters seem divided on how difficult this fight should be on heroic at level 90. Some said it reminded them of the taxing Burning Crusade heroics (read: Shattered Halls, Magister’s Terrace) while others say that LFD pugs will have no chance to survive because people just plain don’t pay attention while cruising through dungeons. We shall see. I hope Blizzard doesn’t nerf Xin too badly. That would be a shame, I think.

There is an achievement in the beta files to hit a “defense mechanism button” to, theoretically, make the fight harder. This will be interesting, I think, if it’s anything like the Firefighter version of Ulduar’s Mimiron.

Beefy waits to get schooled.

Beefylawl breathes in the Travel Incense lit along The Burlap Trail, forgetting about the many thousands of bugs in the Mists of the Pandaria beta. His thoughts turn to clouds … iridescent wisps of imagination about armor, mastery, waffles and many HPs. He will be a huge bear — bigger than ever before — and certainly tougher. He falls asleep.

The moon and the mountains.

Wait, where were we? Oh yes, I am leveling the dream-filled bear you just read about, prancing all across Pandaria and felling droves of new monsters with names like Shado-Pan Warrior and Hozen Groundpounder. Despite the glitches that inevitably fill any beta test, I have had a great time playing with the new toys Blizzard has provided. Yes, some abilities are gone now, but once you try moves like Incarnation: Son of Ursoc or the new Frenzied Regeneration, you will probably never look back.

Yes, I started the beta better-geared than the average 85 bear out there (about 402 item level), so you might want to take that into consideration. But so far, I haven’t felt truly threatened by much since being overwhelmed by ALL THE HOZEN in The Jade Forest. The hardest part has been figuring out where the new skills fit in my “rotation” as a bear. Maybe things will get worse later on — like if the second boss in Shado-Pan Monastery doesn’t glitch out — but I still haven’t needed Survival Instincts or Might of Ursoc. The latter ability boosts our health by 30 percent for 20 seconds (or increases our health to 30 percent if it’s lower than that). And I’ve accidentally pulled my share of quest mobs while running around. Maybe these quest mobs that are no problem for me would be quite tough for a DPS toon. I don’t know, because as a Guardian druid, I don’t have all the tools to be an effective cat anymore. And I haven’t left The Jade Forest on my level 85 fire mage.

Ursol’s Vortex – which summons a large tornado to slow and control mobs – is great for when you have lots of trash or quest mobs. Alternatively, if you didn’t need it for a boss encounter, you would have Incarnation to reduce the cooldown on melee abilities like Thrash to 1.5 seconds and AoE all the things. Incarnation also slashes the cooldown on Growl, which makes me wonder if Blizzard will design encounters that require lots of pickups. Incidentally, Thrash also provides our attack-damage debuff we used to put up via Demoralizing Roar. You can choose between Faerie Swarm and Typhoon as well, though that will depend on whether you want a slow or a knockback. [The latter can be cast in all forms.]

Frenzied Regneration now allows us to convert up to 60 rage into a self-heal that I’ve seen climb up over 90,000. Fighting a normal 87 mob that has about 274,000 HP, my attack power rose to over 36,000 due to Vengeance. [FR converts up to 60 rage into our AP multiplied by 2.5, which in this case, comes out to exactly 90,000.] This has been insanely useful while questing and on the few dungeon bosses that have put a dent in my bear. Of course, my GM — who plays a resto shaman on live — wasn’t too impressed with his boredom.

I haven’t found too many instances where I needed to hit Savage Defense because it seems as if the truly dangerous damage so far has been magical. Therefore, the extra 45 percent chance to dodge (yeah, that DOES seem way too high) isn’t worth much against lightning and carrot breath. Yes, you read that correctly, carrot breath. I figure it will be more useful later, though I imagine it will be changed a few times before live. Our cooldowns, I suppose, are also subject to change based on healer feedback in beta.

Right now, Beefylawl is level 88 on Lost Isles [H], and has about 280,000 HP with normal stat buffs. He has around 58,000 armor — which is affected by our new mastery, Nature’s Guardian — and just over 10 percent dodge. [Mists tanks need more dodge per point to achieve the same amount of dodge they have on live. We also don't have the dodge from the Feral Swiftness and Natural Reaction talents.] I am still using nearly all of the same gear I have on live, except for two 419 quest rings and a blue 419 quest helm. From what I understand, our stat priorities will be different in this expansion. We will seek rage-generation stats like Hit Rating and Expertise Rating over Mastery, though we will still value Crit Rating above those. [Put another way, it's Crit > Dodge > Hit = Expertise > Haste > Mastery.]

The one thing I worry about with our new set of cooldowns is another Heroic Hagara Situation. Death Knights and Bears shined on that fight because we both had an absorb mechanic for Focused Assault. In Mists, DKs are the only “absorb” tank left. If we have another Heroic Hagara, whose main attack cannot be dodged, then Savage Defense won’t save us at all. Sure, Frenzied Regeneration would help us heal up afterward, but that model  doesn’t feel comfortable to me. I am still having some trouble deciding between Cenarion Ward, Renewal and Nature’s Swiftness in our Tier 2 talents. I suppose that I need to have faith that Blizzard won’t leave tanks grossly imbalanced too far into the first tier of raiding.

As of this writing, I haven’t had a chance yet to test Mogu’Shun Palace yet. I will update you later after I’ve cleared the place (preferably with guildies, though they need to log on and level!) I also haven’t had much chance to test our level 87 talent, Symbiosis, though it was interesting getting Lightning Shield from a resto shaman. He gained Prowl, I think, which was very odd.

It will be interesting to see these bosses at level 90 on heroic mode. Then maybe all the tools will make sense for us bears. Until then, I will continue bearing All The Things and reporting back here and on the official forums.

What about you? What have your experiences been like as a bear on beta? How do you feel about the tools in the build-a-bear workshop?

We’ve all felt that way, huh? You stroll into an LFR run, thinking you won’t have much trouble obtaining something useful. Maybe you can get that trinket you’ve been after. Maybe you can just grab that 250 VP and be out the door. But as soon as the pull happens, you realize that all you’re going to get here is a very large, steaming dose of nerdrage, with frustration sprinkled on top. That other tank (despite his ilevel) has no idea what he or she is doing, aggro is a mess, and despite your efforts to correct things, the encounter is a disaster.

How did this happen? Whose fault is it? Is it the rest of us in the tanking community? Would we rather rage at the noobs who stand in the way of our pugging success than teach folks after this long? Do we blame Blizzard because five-mans don’t prepare tanks for raiding? Blizzard apologists say that LFR is for introducing players to raiding in general, so expecting raid-hardened tanks is crazy. However, as we all know, it’s never more obvious when someone makes a mistake as when a tank fails. People die, and they die fast. I should know; I’ve made my share of mistakes over the years. Ask anyone in my guild. In fact, last night I spaced out and forgot to use a cooldown on Ultraxion normal. I died. It was very embarrassing.

As you look at Dragon Soul, most of the tank goof-ups don’t really happen right away. I’ve never seen an LFR group fail on Morchok, what with the Crush Armor debuff being rather mild on this difficulty. Unless your pug tanks are horribly cheesing the ilevel requirement by using intellect plate or some weird PvP items, they can normally handle this fight just fine. Folks seem to get the tank-swap-then-run-out system. Warlord Zon’ozz doesn’t require much of the single tank, except for maybe a CD for Psychic Drain now and then.

You can have problems starting at Yor’sahj the Unsleeping. This not only requires tanks to pick up adds during dark phases, but they have to trade a much more virulent debuff in Void Bolt. [Disclaimer: I have taken up to 10 stacks of this on my bear, but I significantly outgear the average LFR tank.] I’ve seen some tanks run off chasing the targeted globule and forget to taunt back when the boss receives his buff. Other times they just zone out, and my healer has to save a barely geared tank after they eat five or more stacks. Not every tank with the minimum ilevel of 372 can survive that, obviously, and if they’re already zoning out they’re not going to use a cooldown appropriately either. Hagara the Stormbinder doesn’t really eat tanks unless they don’t: a) strafe out of Focused Assault; b) pop a significant CD if they choose to stay in; or c) lose track of Ice Wave. [Disclaimer No. 2: I didn't know you could strafe out of Focused Assault either, at first.]

Of course, the most infamous instance of tank fail comes on Ultraxion, the Super Bowl of “Can You Hit This Button?” And that’s not even mentioning the special tank treat of Fading Light. It isn’t so bad to put a one-shot mechanic like Fading Light on the fifth boss of the instance, but I guess word spreads slowly via YouTube and various forums about how it works. I say this because at least 50 percent of tanks don’t know how the mechanic works in action, causing them to die and an “innocent” DPS to get aggro and eat floor. I would mention Hour of Twilight, but that damage on LFR is kind of a joke and won’t kill the average tank. This all causes much raging in raid chat.

Warmaster Blackhorn and Spine and Madness of Deathwing don’t have very difficult tank mechanics, per se, but you do have to pay attention. The only big errors I’ve seen on these three encounters are not picking up elites fast enough on Lootship; failing to gather bloods and position the Hideous Amalgamation correctly on Spine; and knowing when to use CDs on Madness.

With all this said, when The Great Derp happens in LFR, where do we look for change? Who do we blame?

A rather upset European player asked Blizzard this:

Now one would ask, why do you do it then? Well, I want to raid. I do not hate LFR, I think its wonderful idea, but my oppinion is that it is created for apes. New target audience for Blizzard? Monkies, Gorillas, Chimps… you know em all. Because when I do LFR I feel like it is made not for human players or has humanity sank that low?

A Blue from Europe responds:

We actively encourage feedback on things such as the LFR, because we want to make it fun for everyone. Fun isn’t wiping over and over because you have people in the group who are new to the raiding environment, or perhaps aren’t up to speed on the latest tactics as you might expect from someone attending, say, an organised guild run. As we’ve said on numerous occasions, this is why we’ve designed LFR to be easier than normal raids, to enable a range of players — including less-experienced people or those with less-powerful gear — to see the content and gear up a little before perhaps trying it on normal, then later possibly heroic difficulty.

So if LFR is supposed to be the lowest rung of raiding — meant for people who are “new to the raiding environment” — then how do we as players or Blizzard get tanks ready for it? There aren’t any five-man dungeons that would prepare someone for, say, the Heroic Will mechanic on Ultraxion or where to position Amalgamations. Most people I know personally watched YouTube videos of the fights, but there’s one problem with that: LFR mechanics are slightly different. On Yor’sahj, for example, it’s better on LFR to kill the yellow slime, whereas people often choose the green on normal difficulty. That doesn’t necessarily apply to tanks directly, but people often look to us to call things out and know what’s happening. And it’s always our job to know when to use CDs accordingly.

You don’t really learn any of those things by leveling, either. Faster leveling and BoA gear have made low-level dungeons a horrible joke. If a DPS pulls off you, it’s really no big deal. And honestly, most tanks do top DPS anyway. If someone goes from 1-85 never stepping in a raid, then I honestly don’t see how they will learn raid mechanics. And even if they do pop into, say, Karazhan or Icecrown Citadel along the way, you can bet they will have some of their level-capped buddies tagging along and trivializing the encounters.

My guild learned LFR by doing it. But we did it first without pugs. Obviously the hate-chat is a lot less vicious in that environment, and people are more forgiving of mistakes (sometimes!). We all of course hope that everyone else reads as much as they can about these encounters, no matter what role they have. There are, indeed, tons of resources out there, from the official Tanking forums, to specific class forums and unofficial bibles like The Inconspicuous Bear. I try to learn everything I can from tanks who are far, far better than I am. Then I can pass on that information to others.

I’ve vowed in 2012 to try to be a more patient person, more of a teacher than a finger-pointer. I’m working on it. It’s not easy. You will never see most of the people you teach ever again. I guess you just have to hope that TankBot will use the information and use it well. I am sure Arielle and Reesi, TheIncBear’s leads, are tired of me pestering them with my billions of bear questions.

But is all of this pointless? Are we expecting too much here? If LFR isn’t a “real” raid, then should we really be expecting “real” play? Is it right to get mad at someone in ilevel 380 gear when they completely flub up a core mechanic? People most certainly do get mad about that, and LFR doesn’t check for the achievement except as a gate for the last four bosses.

Does this mean it’s far too easy to get to ilevel 372 without learning basic mechanics about your role and class first? Or is that all on the player? How much time should a player put into developing his or her character for a “fake” raid? We’d like to think that TankBot is guiding a character through LFR on his or her way to normal and heroic raids, but who knows?

Let me know what you think!