In The Nick of Time
Friday night Mal Katai set our collective sites on Hydross the Unstable. About 30 minutes before start time, Doraelian, the Guild Master of Mal Katai whispers me to tell me they want to try me on Frost.
I hearthed to Shattrah where I was given the Iceguard Helm, Iceguard Breastplate, and the Iceguard Leggings. Guildies searched their banks, and their alts to provide me with the materials to make The Frozen Eye and the Pendent of Thawing.
The decision to give me this gear and use me as the Main Tank for Frost was never question once (at least where I could see it). Even if it had been questioned, Dora is the type that once she's made a decision, she's going to stick to it.
This is what my prepull paperdoll looked liked. I had 377 Frost Resist, and 473 Defense. This is well under the Defense cap, but I have the Resilence from my Merciless Gladiator's Gavel. According to the WWS Report, I only got Crit 1 time the entire night.
Since our initial attempt, I've obtained some defense kits so I can get my defense up a little bit in this gear.
I had 15k hit points in my gear fully buffed.
Of course, I looked rediculous!
The fight itself has to be the most technically challenging fight I've tried to tank thus far. I opened up on Hydross and tried to build as much threat as I could, as fast as I could so we could really burn him during the initial pull. This would be the only time we could DPS him without having to worry about adds.
Then came the transition to his Nature Phase. I would run towards the raid and Brindall, our Nature Tank, would pick him up.
Once Brindall had him and the offtanks had picked up the Adds, I would judge Crusader on Hydross and try to build a Seal Vengence stack. I've never been quite so accutely aware of how difficult it can be to get a stack up and maintain it.
During the next transition, I would walk with Brindall up to the platform where the fight started and Judge as soon as he changed color.
This is the most sensative point in the fight. If anyone pulls aggro before I establish it, he moves towards them, changes form again and we've got too many adds to deal with.
We made several very good attempts on Hydross, each time getting him down further and further. One attempt we even managed to hit the Enrage timer.
We had cleared trash twice, and we knew we weren't going to clear again. We wanted to make one more attempt but the respawn timer was very low. We ran in, and buffed up as much as we could. I quaffed my Invisibility Potion and moved into position. The conversation on vent was something to the effect of:
Me: "Ok, 15 seconds on invisibility"
Trelic: "Click that *bleep* off, we don't have 15 seconds on respawns!"
So I pulled. The attempt was going well, but we were just barely ahead of the Enrage timer.
We made a couple of nearly flawless transitions, and got him into single digits, but had less than a minute on the Enrage timer.
Then Brindall decided we would not try another transition. He blew everything he had. Last Stand, Shield Wall, Dodge Trinkets, everything. We called for all heals on him. I switched the Judgment from Crusader to Light to try to help out. It was now a race. Could we DPS Hydross down before the damage on Brindall became unhealable. By keeping him in Nature at least we had the "DoT 'em up and Run" strategy in our back pocket.
It wasn't needed. We won the race, with seconds to go on the Enrage timer.
Mal Katai was now an official Teir 5 guild!
I hearthed to Shattrah where I was given the Iceguard Helm, Iceguard Breastplate, and the Iceguard Leggings. Guildies searched their banks, and their alts to provide me with the materials to make The Frozen Eye and the Pendent of Thawing.
The decision to give me this gear and use me as the Main Tank for Frost was never question once (at least where I could see it). Even if it had been questioned, Dora is the type that once she's made a decision, she's going to stick to it.
This is what my prepull paperdoll looked liked. I had 377 Frost Resist, and 473 Defense. This is well under the Defense cap, but I have the Resilence from my Merciless Gladiator's Gavel. According to the WWS Report, I only got Crit 1 time the entire night.Since our initial attempt, I've obtained some defense kits so I can get my defense up a little bit in this gear.
I had 15k hit points in my gear fully buffed.Of course, I looked rediculous!
The fight itself has to be the most technically challenging fight I've tried to tank thus far. I opened up on Hydross and tried to build as much threat as I could, as fast as I could so we could really burn him during the initial pull. This would be the only time we could DPS him without having to worry about adds.
Then came the transition to his Nature Phase. I would run towards the raid and Brindall, our Nature Tank, would pick him up.
Once Brindall had him and the offtanks had picked up the Adds, I would judge Crusader on Hydross and try to build a Seal Vengence stack. I've never been quite so accutely aware of how difficult it can be to get a stack up and maintain it.
During the next transition, I would walk with Brindall up to the platform where the fight started and Judge as soon as he changed color.
This is the most sensative point in the fight. If anyone pulls aggro before I establish it, he moves towards them, changes form again and we've got too many adds to deal with.
We made several very good attempts on Hydross, each time getting him down further and further. One attempt we even managed to hit the Enrage timer.
We had cleared trash twice, and we knew we weren't going to clear again. We wanted to make one more attempt but the respawn timer was very low. We ran in, and buffed up as much as we could. I quaffed my Invisibility Potion and moved into position. The conversation on vent was something to the effect of:
Me: "Ok, 15 seconds on invisibility"
Trelic: "Click that *bleep* off, we don't have 15 seconds on respawns!"
So I pulled. The attempt was going well, but we were just barely ahead of the Enrage timer.
We made a couple of nearly flawless transitions, and got him into single digits, but had less than a minute on the Enrage timer.
Then Brindall decided we would not try another transition. He blew everything he had. Last Stand, Shield Wall, Dodge Trinkets, everything. We called for all heals on him. I switched the Judgment from Crusader to Light to try to help out. It was now a race. Could we DPS Hydross down before the damage on Brindall became unhealable. By keeping him in Nature at least we had the "DoT 'em up and Run" strategy in our back pocket.
It wasn't needed. We won the race, with seconds to go on the Enrage timer.
Mal Katai was now an official Teir 5 guild!
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