Missed Opportunity

Tuesday night, we were headed back to Mount Hyjal.
Our goal was to take out the first 4 bosses and spend the rest of the week on Archimonde. As this was Mount Hyjal trash, I was once again front and center, battling it out with the Scourge.
My Raid Leader showed me a nice trick to help on the Necromancer waves that I'll pass along to any other Tankadins who might read the blog. Your Warriors are not always going to be able to spell reflect. Sometimes they won't be in position because you are killing a mob from the previous wave and sometimes they will have lost all their rage because you are waiting 30 plus seconds to get the next wave.
You position yourself so you are the first enemy the Necromancers see. As Necromancers have a general dislike for you, you know, you being alive and all, they will wind up their good ole Shadow Bolt. Yes, just like the Locks in your guild, even the mob Locks only know how to spam this one spell.
As soon as you see the message AGGRO FROM SHADOWY NECROMANCER (you DO have a mod that puts that up for you, right?), you run out of line of site. In the Alliance camp I generally tuck myself right behind the wall to the right. But before you run, leave a little present in the form of a a max rank Consecrate for the Ghouls and Crypt Fiends that might be coming with them.
The timing on this can be a little tricky. Usually only one or two got a Shadowbolt off before I was out of line of sight. Since the line of sight mechanics work the same for mobs as they do for players, they can't hit you. So they have to stop and wind up another spell. Now if your melee DPSers are anything like mine, by the time they wind up that next spell they've been kicked, pummeled, shield bashed, pounced, gouge, garrotted, and pretty much turned into paper mache.
We got to Rage Winterchill and I managed to get myself killed on the first Death and Decay. Way to go, Hammer! I got hung up on the hill. These little dwarf legs just don't climb at that well. I thought I was out of it and turned around to fire off my Avenger's Shield. I guess I wasn't out of it, because it ticked again and it killed me.
Luckily, my death didn't seem to have an impact. I was soulstoned from the trash so I popped back up and we downed Rage without a problem. Our DPS Warrior finally got the Plate DPS Bracers off Rage that he's been waiting for. Everyone was quite happy for him.
Next up is Anetheron. My job in Antheron is to grab Infernals and bring them to the Fire Resist tank where they are killed. I had found a macro that made picking up Infernal much easier.
/cleartarget
/target [nodead] Towering
/cast Exorcism
The first line makes you detarget what it is your are targeting. The second line will target the closest Towering Infernal that is not dead. The last line casts Exorcism on it.
I run around spamming this macro and usually pick it up just fine. Then I drag it back to the FR Tank. The problem last night was that I kept dying. I died on the first Infernal, and then after I received a Battle Rez, I died again on the next Infernal.
I usually run with only the Fire Resist Aura, and it's usually pretty touch and go with the Infernals. I talked with the Raid Leader afterwards and decided that I'm going to pick up a little FR gear for the job, to make it easier on the healers.
We tried him again (trash and all) and got him the second time.
We headed over to the Horde Camp and got ready for Kaz and his crew.
It was during the preparation for the Horde camp, that one of my guildies revealed he was a daily reader of the blog. I didn't know anyone in my guild even knew I had a blog. I would later find out that my Raid Leader had also found the the blog and she told me she read the last 6 months or so of entries. My mind raced trying to remember what I had said about her or the guild. I tend to be a little freer with myself on the blog than I am in Guild Chat or the Guild Forums. The blog is a place to express the full range of my feelings about the game and my progress through it. Sometimes I'm having a blast and pretty upbeat, other times I pretty upset or angry. That's all going to come out in my writing, and even in the style and tenor of each piece.
Both of them were very complimentary of the blog. /blush
So /wave to all the Dominion readers.
It was right during the middle of Kaz's trash that one of our Holy Paladins had to leave with an emergency. At that point, the Boss fight seemed like a very minor deal. I can only hope that she and all those she cares about are okay.
Of course, this is Mount Hyjal, and the timers are still running. It must be something akin to how football players must feel after one of the other players is carted off. You are worried about him, you hope he's okay, but you've got to get back on the field for the next play.
We decide to go ahead and try to 24 man Kaz. Our Warrior Main Tank gets into position and I swap into my PVE Healer gear. This gear is loaded with Intellect and Mana per 5. My main contribution is to keep Judgement of Wisdom up, and not die near the melee. The Judgement of Wisdom provide massive mana per 5 to everyone hitting the boss, but Hunters benefit more than anyone else. JoW is worth about 140mp5 for hunters.
The past few weeks, I've actually been able to make it the whole fight without dying.
Our Hunters misdirected Kaz onto our Main Tank. I got into position to give him a Blessing of Freedom. The next thing I know our Main Tank is dead.
Well that will never do. The Raid leader instructs me to pick him up. Almost on instinct, I start unloading my threat moves. Then it dawns on me. I'm in healer gear. I managed to get Kaz's attention and with one swing of his giant sword I was a dead dwarf.
For most of the rest of the night, I was kicking myself. If I had ONLY stayed in tank gear, I could have picked him up, main tanked him and saved the day. I could have shown everyone in that raid what I can do as a Main Tank. But I missed that opportunity.
We ended up wiping and having to repeat the encounter. We grabbed another Holy Paladin and summoned him in.
When it came time to pull Kaz, I stayed in my tank gear. It has about half the mana of the PVE Healer set. Of course this time, the pickup is flawless and our Main Tank did the awesome job he always does.
I stayed in as long as I could, using some tricks I had been given by Cathmor. He's a former Tankadin, now a Ret Paladin, who write a terrific blog.
He didn't drop the Shield again. I need it to drop two more times. I for the Main Offtank and Raid Leader, and then once again after that for little old me. I've gone emo over a Shield before, I'm not going to do that again. As a Tank, it really is your most visible piece of armor. DPS may go gaga over their weapons, Tanks dig their shields. Of course now I can't go 2 feet in Shat without seeing 17 Warriors, Paladins and even the occasional Shaman with ALD. Seems kind of silly to me how emotional I got over not getting it, then finally getting it months later.

Looking Back

This time last year was the start of my 3rd week in Karazhan. We downed Attumen and the Bat Boss.

Comments

Lethario said…
Thanks for the macro, I'll be using it now if you don't mind ;)

Some run with zero FR, I find ~250FR and as much armor as I can muster with my remaining slots to be a nice balance (~19000). These stats have shown in WWS to reduce incoming damage from both melee Fire by about half, making life much easier on the healers.


Good luck.
forthus said…
True about the shield being our favorite bit of gear

I ran with my guild in UBRS and a skullflame shield dropped and being the offtank and the maintank already having said shield the million to one shot was mine needless to say i loved it

might not be practical due to the CC breaking proc but every time we had a resistance fight i cracked it out oh and hakkars shield was pretty sweet too replaced the somewhat boring immovable object

Anyway don't worry about proving yourself if your good enough they will find out eventually just run 5 mans with them etc and after time you will be noticed

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