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.

VoidReaver Down

Last night my guild went to TK to try to kill VoidReaver. We did it! It was by no means a one-shot, but we killed him on our first night trying it! If you try this with your guild I highly recommend that you have all your guild install VoidReaverAlarm. This addon will help your ranged people avoid being blown up by the arcane balls.

This time I went with Dollah, my Shadow Priest. I had been encouraged to bring her up to raiding-ready since there are so many hunters in my guild. We farmed a lot last week to get all the lvl 70 crafted items that a shadow priest wears and now she is over 1000 bonus shadow damage. It is pretty fun playing her. A lot different than a hunter. I like it.

Dollah Hits 70

Well now I have three level 70 characters. Hunzul is a beastmaster hunter, Mozul is a protection warrior, and now my third is Dollah a shadow priest. I had been working on leveling her up on this business trip and yesterday I hit 70. Woo hoo. She already has her first fragment of the Kara key, now on to work on the next and gearing her up. I really like playing her in the instances. It is similar but different from my hunter. Not as much CC needed since she can only shackle undead. Controlling aggro is different too. She has fade, but that is not as good as a hunter's feign death. I have to watch that a bit more.

I am working on her frozen shadoweave set. I already have two of the pieces, just have to finish the robe and then gem them.

An interesting thing about Dollah is that during her leveling at times I leveled her by simply grinding on mobs. So Dollah hit 70 without ever going to Blades Edge mountains or Netherstorm. I did start the quests in Shadowmoon Valley however. Now she can do all those quests for the gold. Which she will need for her epic flyer. I had enough to buy her the regular flyer right away. I am also thinking of doing the quest chain to open up the Ogrila daily quests before I start the Blades Edge quests. It should make those ogre quests easy.

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!

Try Try Try Again

Last night my guild and I tried to cleanup what was left in Kara. We began with Netherspite. And ended with him too. We learned a lot but just couldn't pull it off. I'm not sure if we are undergeared, inexperienced or uncoordinated. After several attempts we called it.

Then 5 of us jumped on our lvl 35ish characters and did the Library and Armory in Scarlet Monastery. That was fun. I brought my feral druid and was the tank. Only the second instance that I have tanked with him. I really haven't played this druid in many many months. It was a challenge to re-learn him and hold aggro with a bunch of raiders on their lowbies!

Not many deaths and I think we did well.

Hunzul's Possible Badge of Justice Item list

Here is a temporary list of the items I am thinking of buying with my badges of justice for Hunzul. It is in priority order.

1. Shifting Camoflage Pants - 75 Badges (my new Rip Flayer Leggings are better than these.)
   
2. Steadying Bracers - 35 Badges
   
3. Ring of Arathi Warlords - 25 Badges
   
4. Gauntlets of Sniping - 60 Badges
   

Items I have already gotten from my BOJ

• Bloodlust Brooch - 41 Badges