Oh What A Night

*...late December back in 63...*

I logged in at my usual time last night and found the raid formed up. There had been some discussion among the officers about which raid we would do Lurker in SSC or Gruul.

I wanted to run Gruul for another shot at Aldori Legacy Defender. Brindall wanted to run Lurker for the Mallet of the Tides. I joked that regardless of what we ran, neither item would drop.

They had opted for Gruul and some people were already inside and discussing buff assignments. I asked in Officer Chat if there was a spot available for me, and as it turned out, there was.

We have changed Gruul from a "farm" raid to a "preparation" raid. A "farm" raid would mean bringing our Core people and slamming through Gruul's to farm the bosses for drops like T4 tokens.

Most of our raid has everything they need from Gruul, so instead what we are doing is taking our "next generation" raiders. These are either alts, or rerolls, or fresh 70s. There are also several Core people in the Raid who may still need a drop from Gruul (such as your humble author), or who fulfill a Role that the raid may need (like Mage tank).

Everyone gets buffed up and ready. Raistilan, who is our Mage Tank, gives the countdown to the pull. Lanorah (Warrior) was on High King, I was assigned to Olm the Summoner.

Almost immediately, Lanorah was killed. This happened two pulls in a row. So our GM (Doraeallin) and Priest Class leader jumped into the raid. But Lan got one shot again.

Basically what was happening was Lanorah was taking a Crush, then an Arcing Smash and a normal hit. At first, we thought all those hits were coming from Maulgar. As it turned out, that wasn't the case.

This raid was unusual for Mal Katai in that we only had 2 hunters. Both of them were assigned to Kiggler. That meant no misdirects for any of the other tanks. What was happening was that Lan would be Death Coiled from Olm, or hit by Blindeye as the tanks moved into pick their targets. The hits from Olm or Blindeye would eat up Lan's Shield Block charges leaving him open to Crushes.

Lan is an Avoidance tank, and runs with over 30% dodge. Unfortunately, he got an "unlucky" streak and didn't dodge any of the attacks.

It took me a while to figure this out. In the raid, people were asking him all sorts of very embarrassing questions like "Did you have Defense Stance on?" or "Are you in farming gear?". This raised his ire a little bit. Lan fancies himself a good tank, and he does an awesome job, so I can understand him getting upset as people (who were not any type of tank class) questioned him.

I tried to offer some explanations (attacks from the rear, lag causing the game to think he wasn't where he thought he was, etc). I thought I was being helpful on and "on his side", but he was full defense mode, and couldn't see it so I just stopped commenting.

The tanking team conferred amongst ourselves in whispers to be get faster on the pickups. Saisuke, who was tanking Olm with me would intercept and I would toss my Avenger's Shield once the other adds moved away.

We finally got the pull down and we were able to kill him. One of our Core mages, Arugula, got his T4 shoulders. He was still using some blue drop from Black Morass.

After HKM, we went and got ready for Gruul.

Right after the first Ground Slam, I pulled aggro from Lanorah, who was main tanking. I think part of the reason I pulled was that I use Seal of Vengeance on this fight. Vengeance is very mana efficient once I get the stack up, and Vengeance is also a DoT. So while we are chilling out stoned, it is quietly ticking away and still doing threat.

Omen did not show me as having passed Lanorah, but Gruul was looking at me and not in a good way. With him hitting me, my threat generation increased, so I went to town and thought maybe I will finally main tank this guy.

He was down around 15% when we caught a perfect storm of bad circumstances. A Cave In spawned right on top of the tanking and melee group, so I started to move out of it. We were at Growth 11 or 12 at this point. Then we got a silence. The combination of a Cave In and silenced healers turned out to be more than I could handle. I may have eaten a Crush as I tried to move out of the Cave In, but I'm not sure.

Lan picked him back up and one of our DPS Warriors, Saisuke, swapped to a sword and board and defensive stance. They were able to finish him off.

So after 3 shotting HKM, we 1 shot Gruul.

And IT dropped. My Precious. Aldori Legacy Defender.

I check the MKP status. (MKP is what we call DKP). As far as tanks go, I'm second to Lanorah. He had me by about 3 points. It might as well have been 30.

I asked him if there was any way I could convince him not to outbid me.

He tells me that if I won't outbid him on first Boots of the Resilient drop, he won't outbid me for ALD. Boots of the Resilient are the tanking boots that drop from High Astromancer Solarian.

We had an accord.

He says in raid chat, "Rofl at Aldori Legacy Defender, that thing is awful."

Then he tells me he didn't want the shield anyway. That's okay. I've got Sabatons of the Righteous Defender. I didn't want the boots.

I received the Aldori Legacy Defender.

/cheer /dance /faint

I cut a Falling Star (+18 Jewelcrafter only gem) for the blue slot. Yeah for the farmers, we had a stack of 7 Stars of Elune in the bank!

Here is ALD compared to my previous two shields.

First to the Shield of Impenetrable Darkness.

Next to the Merciless Gladiator Shield Wall.

And here is Honors, standing in Shattrah with his new shield. It just looks so RIGHT on him.

And I broke the 16k hit point barrier. Unbuffed.

After Gruul, we put together our Core group for Lurker in SSC. Our first attempt, we lost some people due to Spout. They reported the graphic was off from the actual location so you'd pop back up out of the water after it passed over you and then get hit by it. Then Brindall, who was tanking Lurker went down.

The adds were acting really weird. Normally what I do to pick up my Guardian, is lay a Consecrate right were he will spawn on the inner island. Then I que up Seal of Righteousness and bang away on my judgement key until he becomes targetable.

The first time Lurker submerged, my Guardian despawned almost as soon as he got on the island. He reappeared halfway across the map and owned one of our Priests. I got him back and dragged him back to the island where we killed him.

Next round of adds, Raistilan pulled aggro and the Guardian ported out to the island. I quickly taunted him back.

After this, the first thing I did when the Guardian spawned was to stun them with Hammer of Justice. At least then, they would stay put for more than two seconds.

With Lurker at 2 or 3% life, he did his spout. I had gotten distracted by something, though at the moment I can't remember what, and didn't see the raid warning for Spout. I popped Divine Shield. Raistilan waved at me as I flew over his island. I was confused. I got hit by Spout even though I was in the Bubble.

Fortunately, I didn't die but Lurker did.

He dropped the tanking mace again. Brindall had been wanting that mace almost as much as I had been wanting the ALD. He got beat out on MKP by Lanorah on our very first Lurker kill. No one bid against him this time.

Somehow both of us managed to get our upgrades in one night.

Comments

Farmer Rob said…
Grats man..great read too!!!
Ardent Defender said…
Yeah. great read. Also good when the tank corp can work out among themselves to each can get what they really need and not be hostile about it.
Raydz said…
Grats on the shield !
BigFire said…
Congrat on your new shield. I still have yet to get one of those (my last defense shield is Nightbane shield, and I'm now using ZA blocking shield).
Bacon said…
Grats on a fun evening Honors.

Popular posts from this blog

Cataclysm Profession Bonuses

Raid Comp Tool

Back To Basics: The 969 Paladin Threat Rotation