Tanking Prince

Well last night Mozul finished up a Kara run for this weekend. It turned out I main-tanked nearly all of the bosses in Kara! I have off-tanked Kara many times before on Mozul, but this was my first time main-tanking so many of the bosses.

The first night we did all the required bosses up to Prince, and we had many tries on prince but gave up for the night. Afterwards, I went and spent some badges and got the Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600 trinket (Equip: Increases the block value of your shield by 59, Use: Increases the block value of your shield by 200 for 20 sec, 2 min cooldown). This helps quite a bit when you are in a pinch. It dropped my defense rating a bit, but I was able to make that back over 490 by getting my chest enchanted.

With this trinket and a bit more learning I was able to succesfully tank Prince the next night. The key is to keep shield block up continuously while still executing the other moves to generate threat. On Phase 1 I tanked him normally, but on Phase 2 he seems to hit faster and harder. So at the beginning of phase 2 I activated both of my trinkets and really kept a close eye on my health. Whenever it went to low I did a pot, healthstone, last stand, or shield wall whichever was needed. I was very happy once we finally got him down.

After Prince we went on to Netherspite. This one was not too bad, I think we got him on the second or third try. It is a different fight since it takes two tanks to swap off on the red beam. I learned a bit easier way to deal with the beams. When you are tanking him you stand in the red beam. It gives you a debuff. At first you let 10 of the debuffs stack up and then you step out of the beam for a second and then back in. Then you step out of the beam for a bit after every 5 debuffs. At first I had trouble figuring out where to look for the number of debuffs, but then noticed that it was showing up in my Scrolling Combat Text. After that it was very easy. I just watched the number on the debuff go up and would step out for a second at the appropriate time. Between the beam phases there is a netherbreath phase. During that time I found that you can try to tank him, but keep running through him while you do it, in order to keep out of his NetherBreath. This will knock you back and do damage. You repeat these phases until he is dead.

Next was Terestian Illhoof. We had many tries on this one. The first several I tanked Illhoof the entire time, and we had a pally tank take Kilreck and all the imps with consecrate. We also had two Warlocks and a Mage for the imps. With a priest and Resto Druid healing and a Rogue and Elemental Shammy rounding things out. This method did not work for us. I dont know from others perspectives, but we seemed to be losing people a lot in the demon chains, and not enough dps on Illhoof. Finally we tried it with the Pally Tank taking Illhoof and consecrating to still get the imps and Mozul (warrior Tank) (me) taking Kilreck and the Demon Chains and Illhoof when those are down. This is the method that worked for us. I think we may have had the shammy throw in chain heals as well at certain times. From Illhoof I won the roll on the Gilded Thorium Cloak a good tanking cloak. It has 385 armor, 30 Stamina, and increases Defense Rating by 24.

Our final boss for the night was Nightbane. We didn't one-shot him, but I learned a lot on this fight and became a clicker. Nightbane has a ground phase and an air phase. When he lands, you have to get his agro real quick since he seems to target whoever has the least bit of threat. So to gain the threat right away I generated as much rage as I could ahead of time with a blood rage and a rage potion. This way I could get my Commanding Shout up and have plenty of rage to start with a Shield Slam. This does the most threat in one shot that I have. When he lands, you have to orient him so that his tail is in the building. Otherwise it will really wipe out your raid. Like the other aggro responding bosses, you have to keep Shield Block up the whole time. During this fight I figured out my best way to do this was to continuously press my key for shield block with my left hand while simultaneously clicking the other spells I wanted to cast with my mouse in my right hand. That way I was sure to get Shield Block back up as soon as the cooldown was up. In the past I had heard over vent our guilds main pally tank furiously clicking his keyboard while tanking things and I thought it was humorous. Well tonight I realized why he does it and I have become a furious keyboard clicker as well.

I am taking a trip for 24 days soon, and I have recently purchased a Belkin n52te Tournament Edition SpeedPad. While I am gone, I will be teaching myself how to use this speedpad in WOW. I think it will really help with tanking and regular play.

With the badges I earned I had enough to get another piece of tanking gear. This time I went with the Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx (703 Arm, 45 Stam, 23 Def Rating, 22 Expertise). It is the #2 on Tanking Tips.com's new 2.4 Badge Pick order. I am down to only 4 badges on Mozul now but I think I learned a lot and he is a lot better geared.

I also decided to move Mozul to my raiding guild, Distant Beliefs. He was my first character and was in the Band Of Righteous Geeks since I started playing WOW. They are a very small guild that includes some of my RL friends. However that guild is not raiding, and probably never will. I will always have a soft spot for that guild, but I thought it appropriate to bring Mozul over to Distant Beliefs since I am using him there so much now.

Well that's it. Sorry it has been so sporadic in posting here. But it is my blog.

Mozul Goes to Kara

Mozul was my first character in WoW. He is now a level 70 protection warrior. He is still in my first guild which is quite small and probably won't be going to Kahrazan for quite a long time. However, Hunzul and Dollah have joined a new guild that has a PUG (pick up group) Kara run every Saturday. Well today was the day for Mozul to go. I was the off-tank and had a great time. It is the first time I have raided with Mozul and as a tank. I think I did pretty well. At times I had to use bloodrage or a rage potion to generate rage if I was on the same target as the main tank, but other than that it was OK. Essy was able to come as well. One of the few times she is able to bring her rogue.

And Mozul got Loots. I got the Band of Impenetrable Defenses that dropped off one of the trash mobs. This will improve my defense armor set quite a bit.

The really cool thing I got was the Fiery Warhorse's Reins from Attumen.

We did Attumen, Moroes and Maiden and got up to the Opera event before I had to leave for work. They got Oz for opera and tried it a few times, but just couldn't do it. We had a whole lot of melee class and no mage which makes the Oz event especially hard.

Lets hope I get Mozul into more raids soon.

Netherspite and Illhoof Down

Last night we had our clean up run of Kara for the week. This time we cleared Prince, Illhoof and Netherspite. Netherspite and Illhoof were firsts for us! Woo Hoo! I think I did pretty well. Only pulled inadvertently thus wiping us once.

Prince is often just a matter of luck as to where the infernals drop. We had a good luck on the third try.

When you do Illhoof, he spawns a ton of small demons. Our warlock worked on those while the two tanks worked on Illhoof and his co-hort. Occasionally someone in the party will be sacrificed with Demon Chains. It puts a big DOT on them so it is good to have a targeting macro to target the Demon Chains and get them out of that. We got him on the second or third try.

We one-shotted Netherspite. His fight is a bit complicated with the beams and all, but we used a new strategy this time and it worked well. We keep a non-mana user in the green beam, and healers just dash into it to get full mana, tanks alternate in red beam, and dps'ers alternate in the blue beam.


Here is a picture from our Netherspite downing. (the dragon disappeared too soon)


I got the Rip Flayer Leggings from Netherspite. (I used my one Need Roll for the night) That was the only piece of hunter loot to drop during the night.

Also over the weekend I got my shadow priest, Dollah, from 63 to 65!

Karazhan Walking Tour

I found a cool walking tour of the beginning of Karazhan on Flickr today. There are no mobs or bosses in the pictures, but it can be useful to familiarize yourself with the layout and help a bit from getting lost in the place.

Another Kara Run

I went to Kara with my new guild Asgard on Hunzul last night. No, I didn't get any purple drops. Most of them were healing or leather. The Beastmaw Pauldrons dropped again in the Opera event. I already had them. Another hunter took them. This time we got Oz. Oz was much easier this time I think since we had a warlock to fear the lion (Roar). So far for the opera event I have only gotten Oz and the Big Bad Wolf. On this first night of Kara we got through Attumen, Moroes, and Maiden. We will start up again on Friday.

I didn't draw aggro and cause a wipe this time at all. I was a bit nervous, so I would make sure the tank got a few sunders on the target before sending in my pet and attacking.

Deressy was very happy this night as she got three drops. She got the Ruby Slippers from The Crone, Idol of Avian Heart from Moroes, and the Shard of the Virtuous from the Maiden of Virtue.



Next time I am planning to bring a different pet though. One of the other hunters there has the exact same cat model. It makes it a bit hard to tell whether my cat is out attacking or not. I think I'll bring my battle-chicken.

My First Kara Run

Yesterday was my first Kara run. I was on vacation in Hawaii with my wife, we only had my laptop with us, but my wife encouraged me to sign up for the run even though I would be the only one able to go. She helped me with tips and stuff while viewing what I was doing.

I did all my farming beforehand and had full stacks of buff-food for myself and my pet and buffing elixirs for myself. I used Ravager Dog and Warp Burger's for myself. I used Kibler's Bits for my pet blue. (A cat). I used Elixir of Major Agility and Elixir of Major Mageblood as my elixirs.

As a nervous newbie I was able to cause two wipes during the whole thing. The first mistake was pulling the elite group when you get up on the second level after working the stairwell. I think this was caused by my targeting and attacking something that the tank was targeting. In general I set the Tank as my focus and my XPerl Unit Frames allows me to see whatever my focus is targeting. I move his target down near my buttons and use that as my target when I don't have anything specific that I am supposed to be killing. Unfortunately I attacked it before he did, and thus pulled the group and caused the wipe. Ooops.

The second time I caused a wipe was when we were setting up for the Maiden fight. During that fight, the ranged DPS are supposed to set up in the area surrounding the maiden and when I got into position I right-clicked on her instead of left-clicking to select my target. Unfortunately this caused me to shoot and pull her to me. I feigned death, and then she went after all the others who weren't ready yet. Thus causing another wipe. Oops!

We did Attumen the Huntsmen, the Maiden of Virtue, Moroes, and the Opera. Our Opera was Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. I never got turned into Red, mostly because I pulled agro off the tank and got killed by the wolf. Oops. I thought I Feigned Death in time, but no such luck.

We had two priests for shackles during the Moroes fight, so I was kind of relieved that I wouldn't have to chain trap on my first Moroes fight in Kara. That one wasn't so hard.

It turned out the Maiden fight was the hardest for this group. I think the tank may have been fairly new so they brought in another tank to tank her and it worked well.

I did get some loot. I got Beastmaw Pauldrons from the Big Bad Wolf, and Grips of Deftness from one of the trash mobs in Kara. Yes the grips are leather, but their stats were much better than the green mail ones that I was wearing previously. After the run I immediately added the Inscription of Vengeance from Aldor honored for the shoulders and a Enchant Gloves - Assault (+26 Attack Power)on the gloves.

I also picked up the Netherstorm Greaves of Power which have +84 Attack Power, but I am haven't decided yet if I want to replace my Fleet Refugee's Boots with them. Yes I gain attack power but I drop a lot of hit rating. My hit rating now is 94. This is about where I want it. Since I will be raiding I think the hit rating is probably more important to keep up now than a bump in Attack Power.

Overall I had a great time on my first Kara run. A bit overwhelming at first with so many people in the group, but I had a good time. I hope to do it more often and in the future I will be a bit more careful in sending my pet in to attack!