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[Leinad]

Dude... wierd... Our GM was the dude and his wife was the main healer too... ok, this is a little odd.

[est]

It's not really all that odd.  When you think about it the MT and healer are the archtypical dad & mum of the guild.  Our main healer was the GM in EQ, only he was a dude.  He was an older chap with a very level head and it worked very well.  We burned through MTs though, because generally they tried to take over and either got knocked down a couple of pegs or left in a huff.

[Leinad]

Yeah, main tanks (I was one, so I should know) tend to develop very large ego's, but a lot of this is that in PUGs and guilds it is often the Main Tank who is willing to work the hardest and it just sort of draws a type of person; one who knows what to do and wants to be in charge. Lord knows I was like that. It was why I pushed towards making a second raid group in our guild so I could head it up and not have to off-tank and not be raid leader (which I hated).

[Statik]

I've always hated most dedicated tanker players I've ever had to deal with.  Most of the ones I've had the displeasure of dealing with seem to think that they are somehow gods gift to the game, and give absolutely no credit to the healer keeping their ass alive.  Every part of a group is important, from DPS to tanking, to healing, etc.  Everyone has a role. 

What interesting about that though, is that the best tanks I have ever played at are always the ones who weren't assholes about it.  Most of the assholes were things ranging from mediocre to good, but rarely excellent.  (And they all thought they were better than they were)

To be fair, my perception of such things may be tainted by the fact that I tend to loathe pve.

[Leinad]

Well I definitetly was not an ass-hole, and I basically always worshiped the ground that a good healer walked on, kissing every place they stepped. If you find this odd, you have not played as a tank trying to organize a raiding group.

As for DPS: Hah! No DUH they are important, but it is pretty easy to find a DPSer if you are willing to put up with people who make Terrel Owens look modest. The real challenge is finding a well-geared DPS who is not a douche-rag. My guild eventually ended up with a bunch of them, which was nice.

I don't have a huge amount of experience with other tanks besides this one guy I leveled with from level 10 and the other two tanks in the guild who were both really nice. The reason being is that I always was tank for an instance, almost never dpsing unless it was to help gear out a tank in the guild. What frustrated me most was trying to DPS with a warrior, they are just so goddamned gear dependent compared to other DPS classes I found it far too hard to actually gear up enough to raid as DPS.

[Alex C]

I've been in 5 raiding guilds in various games and in 3 out of 5 the guild leaders were married couples who played a tank and a healer and the other two cases it was a tank+healer combo who happened to be roommates. It makes sense really; if you're going to pair up in an MMORPGer then you may as well go for the most codepedent (but potentially most rewarding) combo in the game. Tanks tend to end up with a leadership role simply because they can't really help but learn how pulls and patrols go whereas a lot of other classes can often get away with just following his lead. The good players will learn how things go anyway, of course, but as long as aggro management is so important people will continue to defer to tanks when in doubt.

Anyway, I've never really had a problem with a tank. Some tanks get a li'l full of themselves, but I've never noticed it happen more often than with any other role. If I have a beef with any type of character, it's with healers, actually. A lot of them don't seem to feel any particular need to know anything about the instance or do much other than waddle around and make a half-hearted attempt to stay within casting range of the party. My guild was chock full of crappy healers who would happily disparage the dps classes despite the fact that we had to cover for them constantly by dealing stupidly high amounts of damage in a desperate attempt to minimize the amount of time we had to depend on their sorry butts. The funniest part was a couple of really high end guilds started raiding us for healers only to kick them out almost immediately when it turned out they sucked.

[Lines]

It just really depends on the person playing the character. Since I'm a druid and am building sets for everything, I don't mind healing an instance that my gear can handle. (I've got a balance druid.) The only thing I really refuse to do is heal hunter pets. Hunters have the ability to heal their own pets and I'm not going to waste my time if the tank is taking lots of damage. I've had several hunters get pissy about this, but I don't think all hunters are whiny, annoying, and don't know crap about cc. (Yes, multi-shot the freeze traps why don't you?) The former GM of my guild is a pretty damn good hunter, so I know not all hunters can be idiots.

But since I have a pretty good DPS druid and am bored with spending massive amounts of gold to respec, I'm building up a tank and a healer now, because waiting around for a tank on Feathermoon is killer. Maybe because it's an older server, so all the tanks that have been around are raiding endgame stuff or taking a break until Wrath, but it's silly.

[20 jazz funk greats]

k, low level hunters aren't that great at healing their pets.
so it's nice to get a bit of help with that occasionally!

[Leinad]

Low level hunters should not really need to heal their pets, TBH, because instances are not supremely difficult at that level. Once in Outland they can heal their pets fine and is the only time they might need help to do so.

[est]

Started playing this again the other day.  I am currently at level 54 on my new Warrior named Hadron.  I doubt any of you are on the Oceania server Dath'Remar, but if you are then gimme a message/in-game mail.

Trivia! I picked the name "Hadron" because it sounded Dorfish and also because a Hadron is a small particle that reacts strongly with other particles.  Sounded like a cool description of my Dwarf Warrior, so I went with it.  Later I told Han about my Dorf's name and she almost immediately laughed and said "ha ha, Hard-on."  So yeah, now I can't help reading the name as "Hardon" in whois lists and so forth.  Currrrseeeeessssss!

[20 jazz funk greats]

Low level hunters should not really need to heal their pets, TBH, because instances are not supremely difficult at that level. Once in Outland they can heal their pets fine and is the only time they might need help to do so.

they're not, but being low level and not that well geared (yet) i'd rather have attacks focused on my pet than on myself because my pet is more armored.  so i do need to heal my pet. maybe i'm doin it wrong. shrug.

and i have to giggle at est's bit of trivia because i'm immature.

[imagist42]

Well, in instances your pet should rarely be the one taking hits. Hunter pets simply cannot MT for instances. But, if you have to use your pet to take aggro off a squishy, then you're generally on your own because the healer will be otherwise occupied and/or be the one you're protecting, which would make it a supremely bad idea for him to continue healing his defender.

Outside of instances/groups you're probably going to have to heal your pet on a regular basis. I don't mean every fight, if that's true you are doing it wrong, but unless you run every time a fight doesn't quite go your way because of adds or whatever then yeah, you'll probably have to manage your pet's health or be halfway decent at kiting to survive. So yeah, get used to it there.

[Ozymandias]

I have been calling the LHC the Large Hardon Collider for months thanks to Jeffrey Rowland.

[20 jazz funk greats]

Well, in instances your pet should rarely be the one taking hits. Hunter pets simply cannot MT for instances. But, if you have to use your pet to take aggro off a squishy, then you're generally on your own because the healer will be otherwise occupied and/or be the one you're protecting, which would make it a supremely bad idea for him to continue healing his defender.

Outside of instances/groups you're probably going to have to heal your pet on a regular basis. I don't mean every fight, if that's true you are doing it wrong, but unless you run every time a fight doesn't quite go your way because of adds or whatever then yeah, you'll probably have to manage your pet's health or be halfway decent at kiting to survive. So yeah, get used to it there.

i have a dps pet. it only ends up being used as a sort-of tank if the actual tank ends up ditching.  and i don't see why i should keep healing my pet so my pet can protect a useless healer while they stand around not doing their job.

outside of instances it's not a problem at all. what is kiting?

[KvP]

Started playing this again the other day.  I am currently at level 54 on my new Warrior named Hadron.  I doubt any of you are on the Oceania server Dath'Remar, but if you are then gimme a message/in-game mail.

Trivia! I picked the name "Hadron" because it sounded Dorfish and also because a Hadron is a small particle that reacts strongly with other particles.  Sounded like a cool description of my Dwarf Warrior, so I went with it.  Later I told Han about my Dorf's name and she almost immediately laughed and said "ha ha, Hard-on."  So yeah, now I can't help reading the name as "Hardon" in whois lists and so forth.  Currrrseeeeessssss!

I also read "hardon"

hehe hardon. Wheee fever!

Anyways, this must be what it's like to be a jock listening to a bunch of DnD kids discuss spell tactics or whatever. I love it.

[est]

And of course if anyone makes fun of my name in-game I'll probably challenge them to a duel.

Dorfs don't play that shit.

[imagist42]

i have a dps pet. it only ends up being used as a sort-of tank if the actual tank ends up ditching.  and i don't see why i should keep healing my pet so my pet can protect a useless healer while they stand around not doing their job.

outside of instances it's not a problem at all. what is kiting?

If your pet is tanking the healer should be healing it. In that case the healer is retarded. But then again, if your tank ditches in the middle of the instance and you have to have a dps pet tank, well, all normalcy has been thrown out the window anyway. As I said, hunter pets can't really MT instances that well, especially if that pet isn't a boar with gore.

Kiting is basically running mobs around so they can't hit you, taking shots just often enough to keep them interestied while you whittle away their health. You'll generally use instant shots like viper sting and arcane shot, and for this you need to learn jump-shots. While running away from the mob, you jump, turn really quickly with your mouse just far enough (a little over 90 degrees) that it will allow you to shoot and not say "you are facing the wrong direction," get off the shot and turn back around before you land so that you continue running away. You can do interesting things like use concussive shot to slow them down then get off a bigger shot like multi-shot, or lay traps and kite the mob right through them, but the basic idea is if you have enough mana and enough space to move you could kite just about anything to death. That is, melee mobs, casters are annoying because if they get within a certain range of you they will stop and cast a spell which can damage or snare you, rendering your kiting pointless.

[Leinad]

Not nearly as interesting as kiting some of the world dragons to major cities before they patched it, or to get the debuff that if you lose all your mana you will detonate and kill everyone around you(also from a world dragon). Why is this amusing? Pally gets it, bubbles, hearths, runs into the Auction House on a saturday afternoon and performs Lay On Hands on nearest target and boom! Terrorist attack wipes out entire Stormwind Auction House!

[David_Dovey]

GODDAMNIT PEOPLE

SPEAK ENGLISH

FUCK

[20 jazz funk greats]

GODDAMNIT PEOPLE

SPEAK ENGLISH

FUCK

haha, even though i play the game there are still so many terms i don't understand. also sometimes people speak entirely in acronyms and that's kind of weird.

i do get that comic though.  so i'm not a complete noob.

[imagist42]

Gabe's face as he says it all in the second panel is what makes the comic funny.

[Leinad]

Or "GD nubs, we told you before the raid, TSR on the OT's target before DPSing, and MD on the MT and don't bubble the damn OT you fucking priest, save your bubble for your own lazy ass when you draw aggro off the MT's target cause you OH more than I thought was humanly possible. AoE the crowds, don't AoE CC, don't TT the CC, and jesus christ, let the MT break CC so you don't get one-shotted.

[michaelicious]

Or "GD nubs, we told you before the raid, TSR on the OT's target before DPSing, and MD on the MT and don't bubble the damn OT you fucking priest, save your bubble for your own lazy ass when you draw aggro off the MT's target cause you OH more than I thought was humanly possible. AoE the crowds, don't AoE CC, don't TT the CC, and jesus christ, let the MT break CC so you don't get one-shotted.

Overhealing doesn't generate additional threat.

[Leinad]

Yes it does. Each point of healing that you do causes threat, which is why a lot of tanks will take the battlemaster enchant to heal themselves not becuase it heals alot, but because the healing generates and extra few threat.

[michaelicious]

Healing generates threat, a fact that is widely known. However, overhealing does not generate any threat for any amount that does not actually heal. In the above example, the healer sent 3000 points of heal, but only 2700 points of heal were actually absorbed by the target. The extra 300 points of heal do not generate any threat at all.

This is important. Overhealing a tank does not make the tank's life more difficult or threaten the healer with aggro above and beyond the given situation. It is therefore often advantageous for the healer to constantly be casting heals in anticipation of incoming damage, and occasionally cancel the heal just before it lands if no damage has been taken (to preserve mana). But if damage has been taken, even if only half of the incoming heal value, the healer can safely let it land on the target, resting assured that no additional threat is generated.

[Leinad]

FUCK YOU FOR BEING RIGHT!1!!1!

[Alex C]

I've always been in that weird subset of players that wholeheartedly embraces overhealing. Smart overhealing is a very good thing and a great insurance policy, particularly if you're overgeared but the tank is facing high burst damage. Pre-BC druids are the best example, since Nature's Swiftness was their only way to really crank out clutch healing in a pinch. There was really only two ways of avoiding reliance on the cooldown: bringing another healer along to smooth things out (often hilariously overkill) or by intentionally using heals hefty enough to offset worst case scenario bursts. Plus, there's always those gear check high end mobs that deal so much damage that reactive healing is a recipe for abject failure.

The no threat from overhealing thing is also why it's usually positioning or undergeared people that is the problem when healers pull aggro. You could theoretically use infinitely large heals and never pull aggro provided the rest of your raid is cranking out enough threat to outclass the damage coming in from the target.

[Leinad]

The question is, Leinad, how long have you been playing under this assumption?

My healers were good enough in raids I never thought to question them and I don't know where I got the notion that over-healing produced aggro... I think it was when I was helping one of our locks level an alt healer and he was all obsessing over his overhealing, so I just assumed that there was actually something bad about it besides wasting mana.

[Lines]

k, low level hunters aren't that great at healing their pets.
so it's nice to get a bit of help with that occasionally!

Sorry about the late response, but I was away for a while. I was talking about a lvl 70 instance (Bot), a rather easy one at that, and honestly, if the hunter is doing his role correctly, there is no reason why his pet should take enough damage to kill it. The one in particular I was talking about was generally NOT doing what he should have been doing, considering the other hunter who was in there had no problems with his pet. If someone doesn't know how to play their character by lvl 70, well that's their problem.

Also, for the overhealing thing, HoTs are awesome and so are threat meters. Also having a paladin in the group that has Salvation. Oh Salv, how I love thee. Also, supposedly there's some little mod (if you're a healer) that helps you know how much you are healing a target and will warn you when you are overhealing. I don't know what it is, though, as I rarely heal on my druid anymore.

[Leinad]

Linds, do you agree that Bot is the absolute best instance to run on heroic for a few quick badges? Cause I think so.

[3Z3VH]

Aggro meters are a crutch.  I was in MC before any guild had ever killed Ragnaros, and had been raiding nearly every night from that moment, till the Burning Crusade was released... and I was a Rogue.  We know what it is to pull aggro, and know the delicate balance of too much, and too little aggro reduction, because our "mana pool" was time limited, rather than gear limited, so we had to use every point to it's maximum.  If you raid enough, you really get a feel for aggro management, and know when you are going to aggro before it actually happens.  Aggro meters are not only overly conservative just so you can't yell at the maker saying they were wrong, but they just plain take you out of the game.  I didn't become the undefeated champion of damage on Vaelestraz (as in every time I was there for the fight, I did top damage in the guild, no matter what anyone else tried) by using an aggro meter

Also, the best time I ever had in a game of WoW was in a raid my guild started on the Crossroads.  Sure we had to kill some lowbies to get the Horde's attention, but once we did, more and more 60s from both sides kept rolling in until we had (literally) 60+ horde and 40+ Alliance in two big groups pushing back and forth.  Alliance finally got pushed against the mountains and wiped out, when we came up with The Plan (tm).  We had everyone wait as a corpse until our best geared tank-spec warrior spawned, all the horde immediately descended on him at which point we spawned a few healers for him, and EVERY AOE capable person all at once, and AOE'd all 60+ horde to death in a matter of seconds, while the rogues went around picking off the few who were outside the shitstorm of AOE.    Wiped out their entire faction in a matter of seconds.  My guild easily had 12-15 people with second accounts create a toon on the Alliance side to personally congratulate us on an awesome strat, and a well-played PvP session.  Sure, lowbie gankers suck, but many times they are just there to attract attention to pick a real fight

Anyway, on the PvP note, who is starting up Warhammer ?  I am so excited !!!

[teh pwn queen]

All that talk about PvP made me a lil nostaglic for Shadowbane.... now, THAT was the quintessential PvP game if I ever saw own ('course, I played it in it's prime, before it became a **gasp** free downloadable ^_^). You could do anything... kill a guild enemy, completely destroy a guild city, or if you were pissed off at a group member, you could kill them too.  I'm sure many of you wish you could kill someone on your side for being a complete dipweed in WoW.
'Oops...did I agro taht n kil teh enire grp??/??/ Sry mah bad >_< kk lol'
BITCH SMACK!!!!

[Noct]

As long as we're speaking of aggro...

I think the most fun I ever had in WoW was actually waaay back in MC on Golemagg (a very straightforward fight), long after we had the place on farm-mode.  Our kick-ass MT would usually take off a few pieces of armor so that he could get some good rage generation going, and I'd give him about 5 seconds of solid tanking time before laying in full throttle with my fury warrior.  The game was to see if I could draw aggro from the tank before the boss fell over, at which point he would turn around, splatter me into the ground, and we'd all have a good laugh.

I called this game Golemaggro.

[Lines]

Linds, do you agree that Bot is the absolute best instance to run on heroic for a few quick badges? Cause I think so.

Underbog is just as good, I think. Well, Slave Pens, Underbog, Botanica, and Mechanar all seem to be about the same to me. That and the first boss in Mech actually becomes a lot more fun.

As for the aggro meters being a crutch, I think it depends on the person. I never used one before I hit 70 and still sometimes I don't, especially if I have salv. I rarely do enough damage in the groups I'm in to get notice, unless I'm running newer 70s or lower chars through something.

[justlikeaphoto]

Underbog and Slave Pens are supposedly the best for badge runs because you can skip trash mob pulls if you're with a semi-experienced group.

I too prefer Bot and Mech though.

And all this talk of MC is making me miss Pre-BC raiding.  Makes me almost want to consider trying to get a group together for a run on Naxx, especially since they'll be relocating it in two months.

[clockworkjames]

UB is okay, slave pens is boring as shit, I refuse to tank it ever now. Not done heroics but done every instance you can LFG for at 67 and am sick of most of them honestly.

Respecced to Arms fury (from pretty much the same but messy) and just gonna arena at 70 :/

Hate being a warrior, I know they are not the best for DPS but tanking is boring as shit, either getting praise for being an awesome tank for an arms spec, or getting told I cannot hold aggro well enough because the 70 hunter/frostmage/furywarrior decides it is his turn to pull.

Don't get me wrong, I have caused wipes because of stupidity, but people who don't even try to work in a group are just pricks.

[Lines]

I have a friend who has a dps warrior. He says he knuckle bashes keys 123 because there's really no point in actually paying attention to what he does. I don't mind, because he's T5/6 and kills things quickly. Also, he has a resto shaman and is really funny when he's healing.

[clockworkjames]

9 revenge
0 sunder armour
- thunder clap
= taunt

Then spell reflect 7 shield bash 8.

Middle finger on 0 tap 9 when it lights up but mash 0 the most, - if for aoe or a new mob, = if a squishie takes aggro then shield bash if target heals or 7 if they cast on you.

Keep mashing tab to change targets regularly but don't hit sheep.

Congratz, you are now more competant as a tank than 70% of the tanks I have met.

Tanking is easy, doing it well is not so easy and also boring.

[est]

I haven't really experienced the Joy of Tank just yet, as I am still a level 54 Fury-specced RiP-type warrior soloing about.  Once I hit 60 I may re-spec and have a go at tanking for a bit, but my gut feeling is that I'll just keep playing the solo RiP game as is until it stops being fun (which may or may not even happen soon, because the new expansion comes out in November).

[justlikeaphoto]

Just stick with your Fury Spec for now.

There is a huge lack of Tanks on my server (and others I guess) because everyone and their brother wanted to go Fury and pretend to be a "good DPS" class, it'd only break the hearts of those playing to get you as a tank but then find out you wouldn't know how to fully play the class or possibly even play it competently.  I don't mean you specificly but man, that's about enough to make a person wanna quit playing.

I spent seven hours waiting to find a tank for Shadow Labs on Saturday.  Seven hours.

WotLK won't come out soon enough, hopefully the DKs will be able to tank in some half hearted manner.

[est]

I understand what you're saying.  At first I was offended because I have a brain and can generally work things out very quickly in video games so I kind of took umbrage with you telling me I wouldn't know how to tank.  However, I realise that you are more bemoaning the fact that there are no decent tanks around these days and also that in the back of my head I have a certain idea of how my conversion to tanking would eventually play out, which includes reading up on the finer points, maybe hitting up a few friends for some training & then doing some lower-level instances where the lower-level dudes would appreciate a higher-level tank to get a feel for things before jumping into the higher level stuff.  I didn't say that in the first place, so I guess you've got every right to assume I'd down axes, pick up a mace and a shield and think "I R tunk nows "

That said, I doubt I ever will go over to tanking.  Specialising in tanking would assume that I would be focusing on group play instead of solo, which runs directly contra to both the time I have available to me and my preferred play style which is "avoid depending on other people so as to minimise disappointment."  To that end I tend to avoid instances and PvP for the moment, so Fury is a good way to get by in the PvE game.  I am currently running around with weapons 10 levels below what I should and yet I've still carving up everything in my way due to the effectiveness of the build & most of my damage coming from fixed-damage skills.  That said, I really should look at some new weapons

[justlikeaphoto]

Hehe, yeah no personal attacks on you nor am I doubting your ability to research the roll a tank fills in group play.

Bottom line is we need more tanks and no one really wants to play as those any more.  At least not until WotLK comes out mainly because Fury does so well in solo play and PvP, and this totally bums me out.

There are few things worse then trying to get geared to do end game play and not being able to run the standard faire instances to do so.

As a Warlock (wait for the sighs and disapproving head shakes...don't worry mages, even though you're finally getting that buff you've been crying about for the last two years, we're still going to be a more effiecent DPS class) the best gear to stack before hitting Kara and other end game raids (such as Serpent Shine Cavern, Zul Aman, Tempest Keep, blah blah blah) is the Oblivion set, the Dungeon three set specifically for Warlocks.  Of course getting said set requires a minimum of four runs on four different instances (non-heroic mind you) and that would be if you're really, really, really, REALLY lucky and had the Robes and Shoulders both drop from Murmur in the Shadow Labs (I only had the robe drop but that's a good start).

Not only do you need to run Shadow Labs at least once (probably more like five to six times because you rarely see the drop you want on the first try) but you're also stuck running Shattered Halls numerous times, The Steamvault, and The Arcatraz, bearing in mind this is just to get you decently geared for Kara which is nice little bump into Tear 4 raiding gear.

But I digress, we need more tanks.  Simple as that.  Healers too.  WotLK should help fixes some of this, everyone is going to want to play as a Death Knight and according to the beta testing and information Blizzard has released on the class it should be able to tank about as well as a Pally can right now.  So that's good, and hopefully there will be an influx of tanks.  I'm still worried we'll be short handed on healers though.  There are few things worse then running and instance with a Druid or Shammy healer who ends up no being able to keep up because they aren't either specced or geared properly.

On a side note you should really check out group play, find a good guild or something.  I used to be like that too but if you can find the right people group play is so much more fun and rewarding then grinding out solo quests.  And don't worry about buying new weapons.  Once you hit Outland you'll be re-geared so quickly you won't know what hit you.

Something else I can gripe about will be getting Tier 4 and 5 epics replaced by Green Starting Zone Quest Rewards in WotLK.  Hehe.

[clockworkjames]

Apparantly Deathknights are going to be capable of tanking with no shield.

I would love to go full prot again, but at 68 rite now all I do is quest grind mobs in Nagarand so it would take too fucking long. This is my reason for there being no tanks, it takes too long to get a group for one shitty instance/raid unless you don't need a pug, this being the only way to level as using a shield to solo is slow. Safe, but slow.

Arms fury spec for now is a mix of PvE and PvP but I feel a PvP respec coming at 70

[justlikeaphoto]

Woot.  As much as I hate to admit it, I'm sure I'll end up rolling a Death Knight along with my Warlock and my Priest, not totally sure if I'll set him up to roll as a tank or possibly one of the two DPS based classes but it should be fun.

The fact that you get to start out at 55 is fantastic, and then tack on the fact that with patch 3.0.2 leveling from 60 to 70 in the Outlands will be easier and quicker I'll be running around in Northrend in no time.

By the way, has anyone heard anything as far as an official implementation date goes for the WotLK Pre-Patch 3.0.2?

*Edit* Also on a side note if you wanted an endless stream of love as a Pally, forget rolling Prot, roll Holy.  Everyone loves a Pally healer because of their blessings, I'm still crying over the impending removal of Salve.

[Lines]

I am never tanking on my druid again. And if tanking with a druid is similar to other classes, then I probably won't ever have a tank. Maybe I'll finish leveling my pally some day or start a death knight, but I get too bored with tanking and I'm never going to have a warrior, because I hate rage. (Mana is so much better and so is energy.) DPS is more fun and sometimes healing is, too.

[est]

My Warrior's at 56 at the moment.  With the expansion supposedly making Outlands content a little easier I will probably take a break from him next week once I hit 58/59 and muck around with an alt for a bit.  I have a Rogue and a Wizard I haven't played in forever as well as a low-level Priest I want to check out. 

[clockworkjames]

56? My warrior was smacking helboars upside the head at that level, it is so damn fast to level in outland get there asap.

I went at 54 and rocketed to 60, if you have friends you can go there in a group at 50 and easily bang mobs one by one for mega xp but wait till 55 if you are going to be solo.

There is no point wasting time in Azeroth past mid 50 any more and when you get to 58 your quest items are insane compared to lv 60 blues and even some epics.

[est]

How could you go at 54?  It's level-limited to 58.  Or is that a recent development?

[Covetous]

Force/Lure/pay/ask a mage to do a portal to shat and then start walking.
Alternativly I guess you could ask a warlock to summon you.

[est]

Nuts to that.  I'll be 58 in a couple of nights play anyway