Fight For Your Rights

Last night I logged back into WoW and was really happy to find out that the Kara group I was running with had left Curator alive on my off night.

While we were waiting for the group to get together, I went off to Shadowmoon to try to farm up some Aldor rep pieces. I'm about 1/3 of the way to being Exalted.

It was during this time, that I had a discussion with one of the raid members about our group. Apparently, he wanted to know if I'd bring my healing gear. (I ALWAYS bring my healing gear, btw).

I was understandably inquisitive. Apparently, his idea was to bring an extra dpser and only two healers. I would swing into the 3rd healer role for boss fights. I was less than totally excited about this idea.

What ensued was a long conversation of tells back on forth on the tanking hierarchy and how he used to do things in his old guild.

Looking back on it now, I may have overreacted. One of the bonuses of Paladin tanks is our ability to switch roles and provide healing when its needed. I know there will be fights in later 25 mans where I'll be needed to heal (not that I may ever see those fights, more on that later).

The reason I reacted the way I did, is that tanking is something I've had to fight for, to work at. If Mal Katai is going to base its tanking assignments simply on Class: Warrior versus Class: Paladin, I'm doomed. Sooner or later, I'll be asked to respec Holy.

So I was bit charged up as we zoned in. We killed the robots and moved onto some of my least favorite trash, the Syphoners. They had me out of mana so freaking fast.

We manage to get through the trash and Raydz, our Prot Warrior asks if I'll be tanking Curator. Apparently, the raid member with whom I had the discussion had not filled him on the master plan.

I know how much of a pain it is to chase flares, so I offered to let Raydz Main Tank and for me to take the flares. But he told me to tank it up, so I did.

The attempt was going well until the enrage. I popped an Ironshield, but I got burst down. I looked at my combat log and saw that I went 3 seconds without a heal. We were using two healers, a Paladin and Druid. I could see only the Paladin was healing me. I know the longest heal Paladin's have is 2.5 seconds, so I whispered him to ask what had happened. I figured he must have had a heal qued up and got interrupted by Flare damage.

Apparently, he took this as me questioning his healing. Ugh. That the last thing I was trying to do. For the rest of the night, the guy was questioning himself and his gear to the point that after a couple more unsuccessful attempts, he switched himself out for one of his friend's Paladins.

After another wipe, Raydz suggested he Main Tank and I chase flares, but help heal at the end. I kept wondering why our Priest, on his Hunter alt, didn't go back to his main. Maybe his main has everything he needs from Kara, but I had gotten enough people ticked at me for one night to question it.

We try it with Raydz tanking but he got burst down before the first evo. I checked the log and saw he took 3 Crushing Blows. Ouch. He asked me about being Crushing Blow immune and I told him about TankPoints. Unfortunately, I wasn't recording my combat log so I can't do an in depth analysis of why he got crushed.

It was at this point that our Holy Paladin switched himself out. I felt really bad for him. We went back to me Main Tanking, and Raydz offtanking. We kept Raydz on Curator as well because we seemed to have plenty of DPS, and that way Raydz could tank the last few percent if I got burst down.

Never happened. We were able to get through the enrage with no problem. Need I mention, the Legs I need from Curator did not drop. I have never even seen them drop, not one time.

After taking several shots to get Curator down, we called the Raid. I've hit all the major bosses I need for upgrades this week (Moroes, Maiden, Curator) except for Nightbane, so I'll have to wait until next week for upgrades.

Tonight, our guild is supposed to do Gruul's Lair.