Momma Mia!

We had already passed out the Mother gear, and Black Temple was going to reset the next day, and we had a little time left, so we figured we would go ahead and see what Mother’s trash looked like.

This time the door was well and truly open.
Our first issue was the Sisters of Pleasure and Pain. These are mobs that come together. On every pull we would lose at least one if not two tanks on these mobs. Is there some trick we didn’t know about to not get killed fighting them?

The whole Mother area is reminiscent of Maiden of Virtue’s area in Karazhan with similar Succubus type mobs.

Mother’s trash contains several AoE type pulls. The challenge is nearly every mob in these pulls has a stun. I would pick them up with Consecrate, and use Retribution Aura and Holy Shield to try to hang on to them, and then have to get the refresh of my abilities off in-between the stuns.

There was a scary moment when I went into pick up the group, but they got a stun off before I could get my Consecrate out.

“Honors, put your Consecrate down”, our new Holy Paladin (Welcome to Dominion!) said.
“I’m working on it!” was my calm and measured reply.

Yeah, a couple of mobs got loose on that pull. I might need to drop some gold on some Free Action potions.

My favorite trash mob had to be the mini Mothers. They look just like the four arm demons that walk around Blackheart’s room in Shadow Labs. What they do is put a debuff on your that has a chance of making you do 10% more damage and healing, and making your grow.

Huge Tree is huge.

I guess Fares wants Mother to pick on someone her own size.

It was funny to see our teammates suddenly the size of Boss mobs. It was nice break to the tension and pretty fun. Well done to whatever designer thought of that dynamic.

Finally we were ready to face down Mother Sharaz herself. A poster on the MainTankadin boards explained that Mother is a 2 Phase fight. The first Phase is gathering up literally hundreds of Hearts of Darkness to make resist gear for the entire raid. Phase 2 is actually fighting her. He felt Phase 1 was the more difficult phase to get through.

My job was to help offtank Mother by soaking Saber Lash. If you’ve ever done Lynx Avatar in Zul’Aman, you’ve seen Saber Lash, because he has the exact same move. Whereas Lynx’s Saber Lash is split over 2 tanks, Mother’s hits up to 3.

In between Saber Lashes, I would throw a Flash of Light or two.

Mother has a Chromatic Aura which gives here less damage from one school, for example Frost, while giving her more damage from another school, for example Fire. I would wait until she was taking extra damage from Holy, then I would drop my Consecrate, and hit her with Exorcism provided I wasn’t silenced.

Yes, every now and again she does an annoying Silence to everyone within 30 yards of her.

But that’s not her worst trick. From time to time she ports three people together, and they start doing Shadow damage to each other until they are far apart from each other.

We had everyone install a mod that would put symbols over their heads. What was described over vent was that arrows would appear to show you what way to run. That wasn’t entirely accurate. One person would get a skull over their heads. A skill is white and white means run west. Another would get a square. Square meant run south. The third person would get an X which would mean run east.

Of course everyone forgot what the different symbols meant and ran the same way, sometimes even towards the tanks.

We tried a couple of times, but ended up losing either the Main Tank or one of the offtanks.

Each time we improved. We went from 80% on the first pull to 30% on the second pull. It was getting late and our Raid Leader was concerned about pushing the raid, but we really wanted another shot at her.

So we pulled ‘one last time’.

The attempt was going well. I used every trick in my book. Moroe’s Lucky Pocket Watch, my Healthstone, and my Health pot were all on cooldown. At 20%, Vlad (Warrior offtank) switched stances and popped Recklessness. I made her my primary Flash of Light target. I kept Consecrate going as much as I could between silences. The damage from Saber Lash kept my mana pool nice and full.

And Mother Sharaz fell. 7/9 Black Temple.
Amazingly, we had gotten two progression kills in one night!

We checked the loots: 2 Conquerors and 1 Vanquisher. I felt really bad for my coTanks (both Warriors), however, I was really excited because I was about to get a Conqueror token.
Our loot system gives priority to our Main Tanks and Main Healers on Tier tokens. It means Vlad and I defer nearly every tanking upgrade to Kee, but at the same time we get our Tier tokens. The whole idea behind the system is to make future kills smoother so everyone gets any piece of gear they want.
I remember the drama caused when I received my Tier 6 gloves, but now we can't hardly give the token away.

As soon as the raid was over, I took the port to Shattrah and headed to Lower City and took the port to Caverns of Time. I grabbed two Empyrean Sapphires from the bank and cut them to +15 stam.

Compared to my Tier 5 Shoulders, it’s a nice increase in both Health and Armor, with a little added Spell Damage. I give up miniscule amounts of mana and spell crit from slightly less intellect. I lose less than a point of defense. The change in avoidance is from the gemming. I had Dodge and Stamina gems in my Tier 5 because of the Stamina socket bonus, but I went with pure Stamina in Tier 6 because I don’t care about a +3 dodge rating socket bonus.
So here is the new look Honorshammer.
Now it’s time for me to start reading up on Illidari Council!! I can't believe how close we are to the ultimate goal, Illidan Stormrage!

Comments

Its INSANE how happy I get when you get loot. GRATS!!!!!!
Shwitz44 said…
Congrats on Mother/RoS and your t6 shoulders! Welcome to the ranks of bearable-to-look-at paladins with Lightbringer shoulder graphics! GOSH I hate Crystalforge.

A few pieces of advice for the road ahead:
Insist on tanking Veras, the rogue on Council. Get a Decapitator (if you don't all ready have one) and you can use it as another way to pick him up after he reappears post-vanish. Threat isn't a problem, he isn't a DPS target.

Don't bid on t6 legs for your tank set. They aren't any better than your badge legs. Hold out for a chest-piece for your t6 bonus, unless you really really desperately want the 4pc right now now now.

Start prepping the fire resist set, make sure you can hit 365 with your aura up! You might be flame-tanking vs. Illidan in a week. If your healers can handle Gurtogg, they can handle Council. It's just a matter of people staying out of Flamestrike, Blizzard, and Consecration, and interrupters being on the ball vs. the priest.
Honors Code said…
Our healers are amazing.

@Council: I don't have a Decapiatator, but I do have a Linken's Boomerang if that would help. I know we will have our 2 regular Warriors on the Priest and the Paladin and either myself or a Druid (maybe both of us) on Rogue duty.

@FR: I have 4/4 of the Badge Gear Fire Set and the Quest FR Neck. I never did the TK attunement quest, so I don't have that ring. I haven't seen a Fel Barrier drop.
BigFire said…
Regarding the Sister of Pain and Pleasure... Have 1 tank tank Sister of Pain and the tank's healer healing that tank. NO ONE ELSE even looks at them. The tank dies because some one decided to DPS Sister of Pain and that multiplies the damage dealt by her. Once she kills the tank, she'll go after whoever else on her threat list, most likely the DPS that just killed the tank and the tank's healers.

Concentrate on DPSing only Sister of Pleasure.
Ardent Defender said…
Yeah I can agree with "The Distracting Shot" above. I get excited knowing you downed a progression boss as well as get the gear upgrades. I'm not sure why that is entirely. I guess I been reading your blog so long I know your advancement in it's twists and turns better than I even know the people in my own guild and guess it matters. Imagine that.

I guess you have 2 more to go. When illy goes down I'm cooking a steak.

Anyway some when you can for a blog post can you re-explain that loot system your guild uses. I do understand it in a way. But can you re-explain it entirely and give the perspective being in it the pro's and cons either way as you see it for an advancing guild. I would find that post interesting either way.
Anonymous said…
It is quite amazing how much difference in looks shoulders make.

Even with all of the same t6 loot as you have (minus the shoulders), with my t5 shoulders, I still look like a t5 paladin, wtb t6 shoulders!
Anonymous said…
Contrats on the snoozefest that is Mother for us Tankadins. The loot gods are with you I see. We have the hardest time getting Conq tokens.

Anyhow, good times are infront of you as well. COUNCIL and ILLIDAN!

Council fight: As far as the fight goes Josh mentioned that we're about the best class to tank Veras. Don't worry about a decapitator though. It helps in the "oh shit" situation, but it's not needed. I've never used it once and never caused a wipe because I couldn't get him back. Hell I've never had anyone die from him getting free. The Tier 6 pants are nice, but a sidegrade for you I assume since you have the 100 badge legs. Since you use DKP save it for later when you're looking at Shield/Chest/Helmet from Illidan. Then again the 4 piece set bonus is super sexy!!

Illidan: Anyone that tells you a Paladin can't / shouldn't tank Illidan is demented. We take less damage then any other person tanking him and we're "unshearable". Let the Druids/Warriors tank the flames. I tanked him for our progression kill and I get whispers when I have been gone and we've killed him saying it's easier healing a Paladin from all our healers in the raid. That and our threat is insane since he's a Demon. Go Exo!

A side note regarding mother trash. Those sisters, grab the sister of pleasure and go ALL OUT on her Honors. Nobody will match your threat on her. Have your MT take the other one and split them apart. One healer on the MT and everyone else on your target. Burn her down. They share dmg so by the time yours is dead the other one will be near kaput. Anyone who damages sister of pain with her debuff up will get dmg back. One-shotting most people :) It's a beautiful trick. Silly shamans....

Again, congratz!!
Anonymous said…
Yes, its amazing how quickly you can all of a sudden start downing progression bosses just coincidentally after you pick up T6 ex Bloodsky members. it has nothing to do with the fact that they are topping your Healing charts
Honors Code said…
@Anonymous:

I guess if one healer was enough to put us over the top, we must have been pretty close anyway. ;-)

In any event, these players are part of Dominion now. We succeed or fail as a guild.

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