Conqueror of Orgrimmar
One of my goals before the expansion was to see the end of Siege of Orgrimmar. I could have done this in LFR by now, but I’ve bene concentrating on the legendary quest line and by the time I ran the last two wings of Throne of Thunder and the first two wings of Siege my week was pretty much shot.
I got offered an invite to the guild’s raid team, but it was with the understanding that the Tank spots were taken. I would be joining as main spec DPS with a tank off spec. I looked around various places like the Official Forums, Wowhead, Tankspot, Maintankadin, MMO-Champ, etc. There didn’t seem to be many (any) guilds recruiting Tanks. I decided my best chance would be to get established in a team and hope to get a role as a fill-in tank and eventually get promoted from within to a dedicated tank role.
The night before the raid, I got myself gemmed, and enchanted and read over the fights as best I could. Since I had been concentrating on farming Titan Runestones, I had only been up through General Nazgrim on LFR. The guild would be running Siege of Orgrimmar on Heroic (which was the old Normal). Through a combination of LFR and the Blasted Lands quests, I had gotten my iLevel up to 511 but I was still pretty under geared compared to the rest of the raid.
I was invited as they started on Malkorok with the understanding that I may have to step out if my low DPS caused the raid to get stuck. We pulled and I died on the first Breath of Y’sharrj.
That wasn’t exactly the first impression I was hoping to make.
We moved onto Spoils of Pandaria which was a little weird in that it was a SWTOResque raid event rather than a Boss fight. I followed my assigned group, but something happened with the other group, and we got overwhelmed and wiped. We pulled again and got it down on the second attempt. Next up was Thok the Bloodthirsty. This was a fun fight, and I handled the Fixate fine, but ended up dying to other mechanics.
They kept me around despite the fact I was considering a name chage to SirIDieAlot. We headed up to Siegemaster Blackfuse and one of the tanks had to go. They debated asking me to fill in. This was exactly the scenario I had hoped for, but my iLevel was still pretty low and they decided to bring in one of their alts. I stayed away from belt duty as I didn’t want to wipe the raid, and somehow I actually managed to survive the encounter.
Paragons of Klaxxi were probably the coolest fight of the night. It was sad to have to fight my old ‘friends’ but Korvan did warn me they would fight for Y’sharrj if the time came. I guess Garrosh was close enough. We had some close calls with Hungry Kunchongs but we managed to kill them. Finally, we came to the big guy himself, Garrosh Hellscream. I got the instructions from the raid leader and went to town. The first phase went well, but then we got transported up to what looked like the Terrace of Endless Spring. We start running and then *boom* I’m dead. I watched the rest of the fight and it looked pretty cool. I was nervous they wouldn’t have the DPS to down him since I was tanking the floor, but I was luck in that they have a very well geared and very skilled Ret Paladin and Warlock who were putting up some great numbers. Garrosh went down. I was a “Conqueror of Orgrimmar”.
I had selected Ret as my loot specialization so I got the two-hander heirloom. Most of the raiders had all the gear they needed, but I still tried to limit what I rolled on (they were using a simple need/greed system). If any of their regulars mentioned any interest in a piece I would defer. I managed to snag two tier tokens, one for gloves and one for shoulders and a Heroic Warforged Helm off of Spoils.
I was torn about which piece to redeem the tokens for. The guild was clear that they have their designated tanks. I’m now main spec Ret with a Prot off spec. With the change to stats, Ret and Tank gear should be very similar although the SoO stuff won’t change the set bonuses like the Warlords gear will. With the huge iLevel jump, even the Ret tier gear should work for tanking if I’m called upon.
I got offered an invite to the guild’s raid team, but it was with the understanding that the Tank spots were taken. I would be joining as main spec DPS with a tank off spec. I looked around various places like the Official Forums, Wowhead, Tankspot, Maintankadin, MMO-Champ, etc. There didn’t seem to be many (any) guilds recruiting Tanks. I decided my best chance would be to get established in a team and hope to get a role as a fill-in tank and eventually get promoted from within to a dedicated tank role.
The night before the raid, I got myself gemmed, and enchanted and read over the fights as best I could. Since I had been concentrating on farming Titan Runestones, I had only been up through General Nazgrim on LFR. The guild would be running Siege of Orgrimmar on Heroic (which was the old Normal). Through a combination of LFR and the Blasted Lands quests, I had gotten my iLevel up to 511 but I was still pretty under geared compared to the rest of the raid.
I was invited as they started on Malkorok with the understanding that I may have to step out if my low DPS caused the raid to get stuck. We pulled and I died on the first Breath of Y’sharrj.
That wasn’t exactly the first impression I was hoping to make.
We moved onto Spoils of Pandaria which was a little weird in that it was a SWTOResque raid event rather than a Boss fight. I followed my assigned group, but something happened with the other group, and we got overwhelmed and wiped. We pulled again and got it down on the second attempt. Next up was Thok the Bloodthirsty. This was a fun fight, and I handled the Fixate fine, but ended up dying to other mechanics.
They kept me around despite the fact I was considering a name chage to SirIDieAlot. We headed up to Siegemaster Blackfuse and one of the tanks had to go. They debated asking me to fill in. This was exactly the scenario I had hoped for, but my iLevel was still pretty low and they decided to bring in one of their alts. I stayed away from belt duty as I didn’t want to wipe the raid, and somehow I actually managed to survive the encounter.
Paragons of Klaxxi were probably the coolest fight of the night. It was sad to have to fight my old ‘friends’ but Korvan did warn me they would fight for Y’sharrj if the time came. I guess Garrosh was close enough. We had some close calls with Hungry Kunchongs but we managed to kill them. Finally, we came to the big guy himself, Garrosh Hellscream. I got the instructions from the raid leader and went to town. The first phase went well, but then we got transported up to what looked like the Terrace of Endless Spring. We start running and then *boom* I’m dead. I watched the rest of the fight and it looked pretty cool. I was nervous they wouldn’t have the DPS to down him since I was tanking the floor, but I was luck in that they have a very well geared and very skilled Ret Paladin and Warlock who were putting up some great numbers. Garrosh went down. I was a “Conqueror of Orgrimmar”.
I had selected Ret as my loot specialization so I got the two-hander heirloom. Most of the raiders had all the gear they needed, but I still tried to limit what I rolled on (they were using a simple need/greed system). If any of their regulars mentioned any interest in a piece I would defer. I managed to snag two tier tokens, one for gloves and one for shoulders and a Heroic Warforged Helm off of Spoils.
I was torn about which piece to redeem the tokens for. The guild was clear that they have their designated tanks. I’m now main spec Ret with a Prot off spec. With the change to stats, Ret and Tank gear should be very similar although the SoO stuff won’t change the set bonuses like the Warlords gear will. With the huge iLevel jump, even the Ret tier gear should work for tanking if I’m called upon.
Comments
I hope you're able to tank again in Warlords. If you're able to get leveled quickly I'm sure you could get a spot tanking for a group easy peasy. You'll be on even ground with everyone gear wise and guilds are always looking for tanks at the beginning of expansions and raid tiers.