A Commendable Performance

I logged onto my Hunter while I was waiting for Lakini to log in for our Arenas. I hadn't been on good when I saw someone paging guild chat for a group for Heroic Magister's Terrace. I had tried unsuccessfully to get a group Friday or Saturday night. The person asking happened to be my Raid Leader on her Mage alt.

My good friend, Aoesrus, was also in on the run. I haven't run anything with Aoes in what's felt like ages. I offered to tank it.

We needed a DPS and a healer. We managed to get Cfchief, one of our Raiding Shadow Priests, and Brightshade, one of our Raiding Rogues on his Holy Priest alt.

So basically you had 4 clothies and a Paladin tank against Heroic Magister's Terrace.

I figured it would be a quick run, an hour at the most. One of these days, I'll learn to not get into a Heroic Magister's Terrace run before I'm supposed to be doing Arenas with Lakini.

Vlad/Else marked up all the pulls. I paid close attention to what she was cc'ing and what she had me tanking. I need to get much better learning the pulls in this place so I can lead groups through there myself.

We had a death on the first pull when I lost my secondary target trying to finish off one of the enemy Imps.

We pulled to the first boss. At first we tried to DPS the crystals and had a sub 10% wipe. The next time we just continue to DPS the boss and had little trouble getting him down.

We continued to progress through the instance until we came to the 2nd boss. Our problem seem to stem from the adds that spawned. There wasn't much I could do except stand there and try to generate as much threat as I could while hoping the Priest could keep everyone up. It took us a couple of wipes but we finally managed to down him. Else picked up some new shoulders, so she was pretty excited.

Our group for the 3rd boss was MS Warrior, Mage, Rogue, and Engineer/Demon. At first we were sheeping the Rogue and the Mage but the Warrior was destroying us. I was in my PVE Healer gear, concentrating on controlling the Engineer/Demon and trying to throw heals were I could.

Our strategy proved less than completely successful so we changed it. We sheeped the Warrior and the Rogue. I feared the Demon after pulling him back towards us so he wouldn't aggro another group. The group was actually good practice for the Illidari Council encounter as there was plenty of enemy AoE damage to avoid.

We got the Mage and the Priestess down. Then we killed Demon and the Rogue. I ran in to break the sheep on the Warrior so he would intercept stun me and not the 'real' healer. He decides to do an Intimidating Shout instead. I start running in fear, right towards a group of mobs. If I had been thinking, I would have bubbled before I got to the group, but I didn't figure that out until later. I end up aggroing the group of mobs.

I still think like a tank, regardless of the gear you put me in. We had everything down but the Warrior. I had aggroed an additional group, so an wipe was inevitable, but if we kill the Warrior we win the encounter and get phat lewtz.

So I consecrate. It only takes a couple of seconds for the group of adds to wipe me out, but those precious seconds were enough for my group to down the Warrior, and for the Priestess to go all sparkly. The group of adds did wipe us out, but we had won.

Everyone rezzed, but I couldn't bring myself to loot the body. I've killed this Boss 7 or 8 times and never seen the tank trinket. Now Timbal's Focusing Crystal, that I've seen nearly every time. Random loot is random, I guess.

"Kael'thalas" I heard over vent. Both Aoes and Else/Vlad have a good sense of humor so I thought they might be pulling my leg.

You receive loot: Commendation of Kael'thalas.

WoW really needs a /feint emote. I couldn't believe it. I wanted that trinket soooooooooooooo bad, and now I have it!

So now when I dip under 35%, my Dodge goes up by 8%, and should an attack get though even with my increased dodge, it does 30% less damage from Ardent Defender. In addition, the trinket gives 60 more stamina than my Darkmoon Card Vengence. I can pop the Pocketwatch for even more Dodge.

Aoes had to drop, so we brought in one of our Raiding Shamans on her Hunter alt, Lauria (pretty name by the way).

We had one more trash pull and then onto Kael. It took us a couple of attempts to get our kiting down. I ended up having to eat a Pyroblast. It hit me for 45k. The next time I saw him winding that up, I ran away a little bit and POWER OF THE LIGHT! (hit Divine Shield) when the Pyro was in the Air. Immune!

Take that, Prince Sunstrider!

Kael dropped nothing but plate. I took the healing boots, but I passed on the DPS chest so one of the others would have something to sell.

The run was far from flawless, but after that first death, I think I did pretty good tanking. No one ever suggested otherwise.

It took us over 2 hours, so I ended up missing my Arenas with Lakini.

Afterwards, we blasted our way through Heroic Ramparts for the Daily.

I've kept pretty much to myself during my initial time in Dominion, but now I really need to start to get to know people. I think 5 mans might be the best way for me to start on that.

Comments

Ardent Defender said…
Gratz on the Trinket. I haven't gotten it yet, but then again haven't been really running MgT either due to having being leveling the Hunter for some time. Actually haven't been running heroics either until past weekend in Tempest Keep Botanica and Mech.

I know over on Maintankadin there is a thread in the Heroic section i think it is and im believing its stickied i think. However its a MgT thread if its not that gives a run down of the place. However what i find more of value is the abilities of the mobs listed that vital to know. From knowing what the mobs does then its much easier to know how you CC any the mobs or which ones to kill or leave based on ones threat outlook of the mobs.

Either way its a good thread to find as it has a good write up. Think i have it Bookmarked somewhere. I usually find if i know what the mob does then its much easier to determine what to CC or not.
Ardent Defender said…
Its the "Anyone CC in MgT" Thread in the 5man/Heroic section.

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/viewtopic.php?t=9072&sid=8c3033ee8c1ed2045078fa6f94642cc0
Shwitz44 said…
Grats on the trinky, Honors. Go forth and tank hard!
I couldn't agree more. Aside from getting to know guildies better, its great for just getting a good name on the server. I tank at least 3 Heroics daily, on non-raiding days. Its a great source of income, enchanting mats, and resources for future pugs fill ins for raids.
Superconqui said…
for the second boss what can be done is to get a mage to kill all the adds with wand since they have very little HP. What really kills everyone is the debuff that one gets from killing the adds. So the mage (or whatever range dps) will be the only one getting the debuff if they are the only one killing them. once the debuff stacks twice on them they can ice block out of it or you can bubble them to clear the debuff. This also puts less strain on healer. but really need to have a good healer for this instance

Gratz on trinket. I know the feeling of finally getting it. Farmed that place for 2 weeks before getting it.

-superconqui
BigFire said…
It only took me 14 consecutive days of grind to get the trinket. Needless to say, it's on my primary boss tanking set.

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