Vanishblock and you.

So, you may be wondering why exactly I'm writing an article on Vanish here in Guardian Spirit. Two reasons, one, it needs to be written since I can't find lore on Vanishblock anywhere, and two, I don't have a 'general purpose' blog.

So, what is Vanishblock? It's a feature of Vanish (and to a lesser extent, Invisibility) that can allow a skilled Rogue (or an insanely skilled Mage) to entirely avoid any one attack for the price of their aggro reset cooldown. The Vanish page on Wowhead makes a reference to the Vanishblock ability in the first comment: "[Vanish] can be used to avoid both physical or magical damage if timed properly." This is, unfortunately, the only reference I could find to Vanishblock anywhere when I went to try and look it up for a Rogue friend; if I hadn't already known more-or-less how to do it, I wouldn't have been able to teach him the secret forbidden lore of the Vanishblock.

We eventually met outside Orgy for some duels to practice with, and it worked exactly as I expected, he could block Pyroblasts, Flamestrikes, Mind Blasts, basically anything he could see coming, either in midair or via my cast bar. When blocked, he would avoid all damage, all associated debuffs, he would prevent me from gaining stacks of Shadow Weaving or healing from Vampiric Embrace, and if the spell had no travel time, it even prevented me from stacking up Eye of the Broodmother. It was as if the spell never happened. What happens outside Orgy stays outside Orgy, I guess. Notably, he could not use it to protect someone near him from an AoE, however if he was the primary target of a spell like Chain Lightning, the entire spell would fail. Targetted healing spells would also fail if blocked, assuming the caster wasn't in the same party or raid.

So, now that I've stated what it can do, I'll post how to gain this amazing ability (and why it's so rediculous). To preform a Vanishblock, simply hit Vanish 0.33 seconds before the ability that you want to block would land. For mages, you want to hit Invisibility 3.33 seconds early (you want to go fully invisible on the same timing as the Rogue's Vanish.)

Now, why is this worth taking the 30 minutes or so to practice with a caster friend? It works on PvE effects. Mark of the Fallen Champion targetting you? Nah, you can just reset your blood meter, thanks. Tear Gas so the raid can pay attention the to RP? Screw that, have a free 20 seconds to stab the old fool, just hit Vanish as the bottle is about to hit the floor. These are the most reliable effects in ICC to block, but I've seen Bone Spike, and Gaseous Bloat blocked too. Since you can't see the target of those in advance, it's a matter of luck, and causing these abilities to fail may wipe your raid.

So spread the word, send your small stabby people here, and let's force yet another Rogue nerf.

The tank is not a tank.

"Did I mention the tank is a tank?"

"Sold!"

But seriously, for those who may have been chain running Heroics to gear up their alts, nothing is more annoying than the 5-10% or so of "tanks" that are not tanks. I'm not talking about bad or new tanks, I'm talking about the really crappy DPS that queue as Tank for a shorter wait and then hope someone either: drops group so they can requeue as DPS, but be in a group of 3-4 and so get in sooner anyway, or takes over tanking with their offspec. Do not do this. Wait until you can kick them, and do so. Taking over for them and not kicking them is exactly what they want, and dropping out of the group (if you're not the healer) is a really close second. Don't give them what they want and they'll stop doing it.

Nerf Incoming: Discipline and Saurfang

As some of you may be aware, Icecrown Citadel (henceforth ICC, as it's called on Windrunner) has been out for a while, and I haven't posted about it yet. The reason is real life reared its head, and blogging got pushed aside to make room for studying for exams, spending time with family and Assassin's Creed II.

To recap, the guild roared into ICC10 (yes, 10, I'm in a 10man guild now, we pug some 25s, but rarely make up more than 3/5 of one) towards the end of the first week, all of us having had a crack at it in a pug or two and failing miserably, and cleared through the gunship battle in a couple hours. We wiped for another few hours on Saurfang, and called it a night. I and one of our tanks poured over the World of Logs data, (which, by the way, is amazingly useful for debugging new raids) and designed a new strategy with which we came back and two-shot Saurfang the next night, and our kill was so perfect that Saurfang died without getting to cast Mark of the Fallen Champion at all. At first, we just assumed a few things: we're pro, the stars aligned, World of Logs is distilled awesome, we're pro, etc. Now, however, I know why it worked so well.

Disco is OP for that fight.

Quick crash course on the Saurfang fight (spoiler warning? Not sure anyone but me likes to go in blind, but w/e): Saurfang starts with zero Energy. Whenever he hits anyone with anything, he gets +1 Energy. Each Energy makes him hit 1% harder. When he gets to 100 Energy, a random raidmember gets horribly raped, and his Energy resets to zero. His AoE and pets all need to be managed so that he gains as little energy as possible.

Why is Disco OP, and why do I see a nerf incoming?

Fully absorbed hits (most notably DoT ticks and pet melee swings) don't trigger an Energy gain. This means that simply by having a Disco priest healing your raid, Saurfang is deprived of 2-5 Energy from every Boiling Blood cast, and you can cover the add-control team's fuck-ups.

Side note: Yes, the Boiling Blood tooltip says it hits for 5k per tick, which would lead one to believe that you can only absorb one, maybe two ticks, but it's physical damage. After armor, talents, and Renewed Hope, it's more like 1.5-2k on plate DPS, 3k on everyone else.

So, enjoy it while you can, my priestly bretheren. Get yourselves into failing topguild runs, save the day, make off with the loot, and get asked to come back next time, all because of some slight healing class imbalance.

(But don't worry, we're boned for that green dragon encounter that's coming up in a few weeks.)