Shouldering A Load

(Incoming Hunter Post)

As I was finishing up Heroic Magisters Terrace, I got a tell from one of our Paladins who was sett ting up a Gruul's Lair run. I told him I would help out if needed.

When I got into the raid, we had 2 other Protection Paladins plus a Protection Warrior plus a Feral Druid.

I politely offered to bow out, but when the Raid Leader saw we only had one other hunter, he asked me to come in on Hummer. Sure, no problem.

The Raid was 80% Dominion, 20% PuG so it took a couple of minutes to get organized. One of the PuG Shamans said he'd give 20g to anyone who pulled.

Misdirect is fun!

And he actually paid me the gold.

We do finally get going and before long we are at High King Maulgar. I gave what tips I could to the Protection Paladins in the raid and got ready to Misdirect High King to the Main Tank. I targeted High King and moved to get into range. Certainly Blizzard wouldn't have made his aggro range larger than my range, right?

"Crap, who pulled?!"

I should ask BRK where I apply for my Huntard card.

After a couple of misfires on the pull we got High King down. He dropped a leather head piece, 2 Champion tokens and a Hero token. I'm used to looking for Champion and pretty much ignoring Hero so it didn't really click until the Raid Leader said for all Hunter, Mages and Warlocks to roll.
Wouldn't you know it, I actually won the shoulders with a 97. I must be one of the few toons to have Tier 4 shoulders and 0 rep with Violet Eye (I've never set foot in Kara on my Hunter). I went from Sylvanaar Defender's Pauldrons to Demon Stalker Shoulderguards. Just a minor upgrade.

We moved onto Gruul, where the Protection Paladins were turned into healers and a Druid was designated to the be Hurtful Strike tank. I whispered an unheard 'Thank You' to Doraeallian of Mal Katai. When we got to Gruul, she gave this Protection Paladin a chance to be the Hurtful Strike tank, even though 'everyone knows' that Warrior/Druid is the way to go.

It reminded me of a line from Men In Black:

"1500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow"


Neither Tankadin seemed to mind, or at least didn't want to argue. I felt bad for them, but I also wasn't in a position to do much about it. It does give me concern for what will happen is there's a 2 tank fight in the Expansion.

Most of the tanking I've done in Dominion has been in 3 tank fights and sometimes I don't even tank on those.

We managed to get Gruul down in one shot. He dropped some Hunter gloves, but the loot rule was 1 epic for the run so I didn't roll.

It was pretty cool raiding on my hunter. I was doing almost 600dps until my pet died, then it dropped down to around 500. I was between 12th and 15th on the meters and doing about half the DPS of the other Hunter.

The one problem I had was my pet kept dying. He died on High King and he died on Gruul. I need to redo my UI so I can see his health better and throw him a Mend Pet or pull him out of harm's way.

Comments

Unknown said…
I sometimes have issues with my pet on HKM/Gruul runs.

On Gruul, you're spot on that you just need to keep any eye on him (its the cave-ins that do it, and DBM/BigWigs doesn't give the nice warning as it does when the cave in is 'on you'). I actually find it easier to recall your pet then send him back, by the time thats done the cave in is usually over. Mend pet will sometimes also struggle to keep up with a cave-in if you don't hit it quick enough).

As to HKM, this can be a pain especially if you're tanking the Shammy who does AOE so you have to either a) send your pet to another target (bearing in mind that you may not be able to see whats happeneing to him, he may be out of mend pet range and you may be polymorphed) or b) just keep him by your side until the Shammy is dead and you have a bit more control over the situation.

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