On to the fun stuff that's been going on in-game. I've been playing the living hell out of my druid. I've been doing heroics on him, gathering frost badges (not fast enough by the way), doing more heroics, doing a few raid bosses INCLUDING my first foray into ICC with him just last night! I was nervous about going into ICC as a tank for the first time, but I thought to myself "I know the first few fights pretty well. Shouldn't be too much of a problem." ... Well.. When I zoned into ICC.....
Sorry to interrupt.. Everyone worried about real names in forums for WoW and SC2... Your worries can now subside. Blizzard WAS listening. Now then, back to our regularly scheduled blog post, already in progress.
When I zoned into ICC a little notice popped up. "This raid is already active 9/12 bosses killed.."......... wait what? Is this still on 25 man? *checks raid difficulty* Hmm.. Nope... *clicks vent* "Uhm.. Guys... we're 9/12 down?" "Yep" "WTF.. no one told me? I've only ever done 8 bosses, NOT including Putricide, Sindragosa or Arthas.. i'm not GEARED for this" "Bah, you'll be fine" "*dead air..../panic*".
Now.. I'd done Valithria Dreamwalker before, but never successfully, and NEVER while tanking. Hell, I wasn't entirely sure HOW to tank that encounter. Turn out it was a lot like tanking a heroic. Mostly pick-up mobs as they come at you. Stay away from "Blazing" something-or-others and then let the healers do their thing.. Congrats! You just 1-shot Dreamwalker! "*buh*".. "Now on to Sindragosa".. "buh... */panic again*"
Sindragosa, for those of you who don't know is a BITCH. She's hard. We got her down to 6% and died.. /facepalm. "DAMMMITTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!" I'm not going to go into the specifics of the encounter, but suffice it to say, I felt like I Wasn't pulling my weight properly as an offtank, despite assurances from the MT, and the rest of the raid, to the contrary.
I meant to get a few screenshots, but I was too preoccupied with not sucking at OTing Sindy and making sure I didn't accidently iceblock the raid. Woof.. That isn't a screenshot I took.. I found it with my google-fu. >.> Anyway.. That's all for now. Thanks for bearing with me through the long absence. Real life got in the way and was tanking my ass against a wall for a while.
Sindragosa goes nicely when you get used to the frost tombs in phase 2. Don't envy you being a tank tho... I'd never go for that as I probably would scare the cheeses out of my guildies...
ReplyDeleteI kind of envy you that you still have stuff to see in WoW (or was it first as tank?). Personally I'm just waiting for Cataclysm and that the game gets more guild oriented (well, if they didn't throw that idea out already.. I hate reading up on things to come as I wanna enjoy it when it does).
@Silverhawk, while it wasn't my first time in ICC, it WAS my first time as a tank, and it was my first time on the Sindragosa fight. I took quite a substantial break from raiding somewhere around the time that ToC was released, and didn't get back into it until shortly after the Frostwing Halls were patched in. I think that allowed me to not suffer from the end of expansion burnout I am hearing about from a lot of players, but at the same time, I also feel like I missed a lot... Kind of a double edged sword.
ReplyDeleteSindragosa is so annoying to tank. I'm the MT and keeping her in one spot after her pull-in is like impossible. If you don't move she'll wander off and go behind you half the time, and when you do move you have to learn exactly how far to as to not move her too far off. Drives me nuts!
ReplyDeletePhase 3 when you have to switch tanks can be difficult as well. Because a lot of times I can't make it behind the ice blocks in time, or the ice blocks breaks too soon for the debuff to wear off and the OT eats extra damage getting the stacks too high. But eventually you get it right - if the debuffs end up being a problem, don't be afraid to ask your guildies to take it easier on the ice block dps when you have to get them off - that stage of the fight isn't a speed run, more about controlling your damage (and not getting everyone tombed hehe) :)