Blame it on the t-t-t-t-t-t-t-tank

Sing the above title when listening to Jamie Foxx's "Blame it on the Alcohol" and it will all make sense.

Now, I ran a Heroic HoL today. We had two wipes--not even on the last boss. In the first FIFTEEN MINUTES. Literally, we were going great, beat the first boss with his +35% damage boost up for the achievement, and cruised through the mass-of-slags before Volkhan.

Or so I thought. I tanked him up on the landing above the staircase, between the two packs of elites, like I had an easy dozen times before. Somehow, both packs of elite adds had been pulled. I can usually handle such a situation, and my group mates did admirably. I used Challenging Shout, rounded them up, and used Shockwave, which had just come off cooldown. The rogue used Tricks of the Trade on me and Fan of Knives, giving me loads of threat. Yet we still died.

Then, on a pull of 3 elites, a patrol of 2 also pulled. I taunted one and used Heroic Throw on the other, but it still went after the healer, who somehow had enough healing aggro to outdo the Heroic Throw. He died. Did I have other options? Maybe. I do believe that Charge was on cooldown, and I know Intervene was. I didn't use them. I expected him to heal himself, however. His HP wasn't dropping that fast. He's a mail-wearer with a shield and a moderately sized healthpool. I would expect a mage to drop that quickly, not a resto shaman.

So why did he die? He was well-geared, so it wasn't that. He was... moderately skilled, so it wasn't that.

He died because he was typing "i have aggro"--and I guess he wasn't that fast a typer.



Then I got a really annoying situation of this resto shaman trying to lead the group by saying really obvious things "pull that pack" while I'm charging into it, or "mob" as I've already taunted it towards me. Not to mention the OTHER shaman, elemental, literally did blame me for the issues involved. Both shamans were in the same guild, and spent the whole time talking about how they hated that people had come from another guild (incidentally, my old guild which disbanded) and had taken raid spots (specifically the raid spot of the Resto Shaman)

Now here is the opportunity I have to go on a rant about how my people were more skilled than their people and that it's concieted to spend a straight 5 minutes between bosses talking about how awesome your dps is (5.2k)* and how you always get 4th on the meters.


I won't, though. Instead I will tell all of you this:


PuGs are not fun. They are not fun to heal, they probably are not really fun to DPS. They are definitely unenjoyable to tank. WHY IS THIS?

• A) You've got jack to talk about. Unless you're in the same guild as someone else, whereas then you can just make the other 3 members of the group incredibly bored.
• B) It's a roulette wheel. You're taking a big chance whenever you tank one. You COULD BE LUCKY and get the rogue that knows when to Tricks you on an AoE pull and does a solid 3000-3500dps. You could be unlucky and get the annoying Elemental Shaman that talks trash about your old guildmates and complains that you're a bad tank (but still pulls a respectable 2.5k dps. You could also be lucky enough to get the retadin that doesn't say a single word the whole time (but is obviously a fresh 80 and therefore does less damage than the tank). There could be much much worse though (I've been top damage and dps by a pretty wide margin before)
• C) If someone elses sucks, it's impossibly difficult to get them to improve without coming off as a jerk.
• D) If you mess up: the group will
  1) Hold a grudge
  2) Threaten to leave the group (or say "You will never tank for me again"**)
  3) Probably die, because you cannot really rely on them to succeed like you can your guildmates or good friends.

Now: At the start of the instance, around the time of the first boss, I was about 95% sure the whole group hated me because I didn't want to be a jerk and refute the claims made against me.

Then: By the time Loken was dead at my feet, they knew I was good and the heals were bad.
HOW DID THEY KNOW THIS?
Because I said that we could heal through the 14k lightning nova. I figured a shaman's chain heal would be very effective--and I've done it with a shaman healer before, among many other healers. It's my strategy of choice, actually.
But everyone died. First both shaman--which meant it was just me and 2 dps. Then the retadin. Finally the rogue died to the aura that Loken has (it does damage based on how far away from him you are, and you have to be far away to avoid the nova).
THUS: I was the only one standing, and Loken was at 20%--about 100k hp.
I must give the shaman props though, for after I had used my cooldowns and loken still had about 30k hitpoints left, he used his self-resurrection and gave me some solid heals.. before dying. I would have preferred him to heal himself up first, but whatever. It gave me the boost I needed to kill the boss.



But after the deed was done and we all agreed that what had transpired was an amusing combination of Epic Fail and Badassery, the rogue whispered to me "scrub heals". He knew that it wasn't my fault--he knew that I was a skilled tank.
Additionally, I learned a bit (on how to solo bosses, on how to deal with annoying people, how to handle less-than-ideal healing) from the experience***.



This is why PuGs are probably the best thing you can do to improve yourself as a tank. The daily heroic switches up every day. You might have to deal with the stationary-party (such as Violet Hold and Trial of the Champion), or you might have plenty of movement. You'll experience dozens of bosses with dozens of group compositions--and that means you can learn class strengths. PuGs are the best learning experience afforded to tanks because even if you're single-tanking a boss, the insanely good healers you have might cover for your lack of talent. The hunters and rogues with Misdirect and Tricks of the Trade might nullify your low threat generation. Even more so, if you're the offtank, the main tank can usually just cover you without even really realizing.

So here are some reasons why you should RUN PUGS:

1. A tank is more effective if he knows when to call for bloodlust, or army of the dead, or knowing which classes (Warriors--ugh) generate loads of threat with no way to get rid of it. PuGs provide exposure to all the different classes, all the different compositions, and put YOU in the leadership position to call for it, exactly like a raid leader.
   
   
2. A tank with a bad healer will learn how to stay more self-sufficient. I *aggressively* use lifeblood, endless healing potion, and enraged regeneration. I use shield wall at least once per boss fight, to spare the load on the healer.
   
   
3. A tank with shoddy dps will learn how to maximize their own dps, using recklessness or retaliation to cover for the inability of the groupmates. It's altruistic, yes, and some might say "You should just tell them to shape the heck up or get better dps", but once you've passed through these trial-by-fires, you'll always be able to do more damage. When you're in a very talented group, it becomes more of a contributing factor instead of a key factor, and makes achievements (like Volazj's Quick Demise or Gotta Go!) easier.
   
   
4. A tank that lucks into a group with insane dps will sink or swim: learn how to improve threat generation, or just revert to spamming taunt. Of course, threat is tied directly to damage done, but if you know when to call for Misdirect or Tricks (during a bloodlust is ideal), or to call for a Hunter's Feign Death, you'll be fine. That's not even mentioning vigilance: you'll learn which classes to do that to (Warriors. ugh. warriors)
   
   
5. Exposure to guilds. The two shamans, like I mentioned, are in a guild where some of my old friends are in. I might just get in that guild (if I wanted to) because they now know that I'm a good tank (at least, I hope they do--and I hope the rest of their guild isn't like them). I've definitely gotten offers to tank (or even main tank) for guilds. Right now I'm satisfied just cruising, and running raids with friends that need tanks (and some of those friends I met through pugs). I do have my eye on one guild--when it's raiding corps gets set in stone, Hype R. Iom will be their MT. I wouldn't have that opportunity if one of their officers didn't do chain heroics with me one day.
   
   

So regardless of the pain, if you run pugs and learn from them, good things will happen. You'll become a better tank, and people will know it, and people will say "Hey you wanna do hardmodes on Ulduar-10 with us?".



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I'm going to be a jerk and rant a bit, with the asteriks.


*Okay so this shaman got 5.2k dps in 25-man Ulduar. I don't know what elemental shaman dps is really like, and I assume it's pretty good, but suffice to say when I was doing hardmode ulduar last night, I was running with a warlock, a cat druid, a mage, and a paladin who all were doing 4-5k (ON TEN MAN!--and 2 hunters that were both doing 3.5-4.5) . Funnily enough, it's these exact people from my old guild that took the raid spots of the Annoying Resto Shaman.
I honestly do believe that the warlock that I mentioned is the best warlock (horde-side, at least) on the server. Not only does he do tops dps, he is one of the only casters I know that consistently run out of the fire. Most get tunnel vision and just hit their dps buttons--and then die. And yeah, maybe they do better dps-wise than him, but he gets higher overall because he lived the whole fight.

**LIKE I CARE. I don't. I don't care if I don't tank for you again. There's three or four thousand people on the horde side of my server... which is actually one of the lowest population servers. If you quit the group when you find out I'm tanking, then so be it. We'll find another dps.
====>That's actually another good thing about PuG tanking. You've always got a fresh start. You don't have a guild telling you "Well, you did poorly on Yogg last night so we're benching you in favor of Nubcake McNooblet"

***I'll admit, because I've done PuGs a billion times before, I didn't learn THAT much. But if it's a first time, yes you will learn a lot. I learned a bit though. Specifically group leadership, actually. I had to subtly take the reins back in hand once the shaman tried to establish control.

================================
Silly self-righteous asterik'd ranting over.

Hope to see you the next time
-Hyperiom

Achievement Runs!

Over the past few days, a few new friends and I have been doing achievement runs. Our group composition has been me--Protection Warrior, with Arms dps offspec; Survival Hunter; Blood DK, with unholy tank offspec; Boomkin, with resto offspec; and Resto Shaman, with Elemental offspec. We're all pretty skilled players, and between that and easy-to-get ilevel 226 gear (I acquired Gauntlets of the Royal Watch for 28 badges just yesterday), we've been able to roll through the achievements with minimal issues.

But now, I'll cover the ones that have been most difficult for us.

Special note: If I had a word count limit, this would have to be split up into multiple sections. I don't, so it's gonna be one long post. I've noticed that my posts have all increased in length. The first one was about 900 words, the second was about 1200... this will be big)
(EDIT: 2700 words whoo new record!)

Oculus:

Make It Count - Yeah, no. We attempted the instance with 5 ambers. But no. Just... no. I'll get back to you once we practice the instance more. I think a "normal" composition of 2 ambers, 2 rubies, and 1 emerald would make this a lot simpler. I think 5 ambers has potential once we get the fights down, though.

Old Kingdom:

Respect Your Elders - Okay this one was fairly difficult. The wowhead comments said something about kiting him far away, but then that you can't do that because he gets a +500% damage buff when you take him out of his room. Additionally, I was under the impression that the aura was LoS-based. So, this is what we did:

The DK went to his tank offspec. I tanked the boss where he stood, and the DK pulled the guardians into the field area that we entered from, and then around the corner. Thus, the healer stood on the stairs and was able to heal both me and the DK, even though there was a wall between his mob and mine.
=>THIS DID NOT WORK.<=

The aura, you see, is not based on Line of Sight but on DISTANCE. And it's a long distance indeed. SO, we did the following (positioning in italics):

In the process of fighting your through trash to the boss, you go down a fairly large flight of stairs into a field area. Going down the stairs, there is an alcove area between staircase and wall off to the right. This is where you tank the boss--and make sure none of your dps attacks him while you're moving him from his starting point to this corner! The boss will NOT enrage when you pull him here (I'm not sure where he does enrage, actually)
The DK tanked the guardians where they spawned, a bit less than 80 yards away. The healer stood equidistant between us, able to heal us both with long-range spells.
However, adds spawn under the effects of the immunity aura, and therefore are untankable--and therefore attack the healer. SO, about midway through the fight the DK popped a cooldown or two and the shaman ran over to where I was. The adds lost the invulnerability aura and the DPS let loose a quick hurricane/volley, and the shaman went back to his original spot.
We had a bit of a mishap where an add escaped the DK, who had to run over to me, deathgrip, and run back to the spawning area--but overall it was very clean and easy.

I believe our time was [1 minute, 37 seconds] according to deadly boss mods.

Volunteer Work - This is much much simpler to explain. Right before the pull, I used an Indestructible Potion, then went as normal. When she goes airborne, we all just sit around, top each other off, easy times. Then, as she landed and began to attack with +200% damage, I popped Shield Wall (40% damage reduction). Not too hard. Second time she went up and down again, I used Last Stand (+30% hp). Third time, I used Enraged Regeneration (30% HP HoT), Lifeblood (herbalist self-HoT for a few thousand) and also a runic healing potion. GG.
I do have a few notes, though:
1) I didn't know this until the fight actually commenced: She creates a lightning-disc-thing below people's feet randomly. This IS affected by her +200% damage enrage, so it can do quite a boatload. Obviously, DPS shouldn't stand in the fire, but she did it under the DK meleeing her, and we both got hit. The healer was freaking out at the damage I was taking, so he went into Heal-The-Tank overdrive. The DK died. Luckily, we battlerezzed him the next time the boss went Airborne. Remember that it's not just dps that has to stand out of the fire.
2) I called for bloodlust when she was at 95% or so, thinking "might as well". It wasn't a smart idea. She went up at about 75% (ie 5 seconds later) and we lost a good 20 seconds off of the buff. I recommend using it the third time she enrages, when the tank is out of cooldowns, so the healer has 30% faster heals and the dps can burn her faster (IF you need it at all. I'm 100% sure we could have done it without bloodlust just as easily. Like I say, we could only dps with it for about 15 seconds)



Volazj's Quick Demise - Really, not so difficult. We used several tricks to get ahead.
The first one: Have everyone stack up tightly, so when Insanity is cast, the adds all appear within melee range. Thus, you can volley/shockwave/hurricane them down very quickly (unless the hunter uses Deterrence, which was annoying)
The second one: Bloodlust at 70%. He starts to cast the first insanity at 66%, and it's about a 5 second cast. We took him down to ~45% before we went into our little dreamworlds, with a good 30 seconds left on Lust. We finished the first insanity in about 15 seconds, brought him down to 33%, he started casting--and we got him to about 20% before the second insanity took hold.
The third one: When the DK entered his first Insanity, he used army of the dead. This killed his adds with superlative speed. Remember, when you break out of your insanity you can help others break out of their own. Therefore, while I was finishing off the Shaman and the DK, both of them were suddenly overwhelmed with a swarm ghouls that popped out of nowhere.
The fourth one: Spell Reflect his mind flay. According to wowhead, it ticks on him for something like 18k per hit. I tried to do this, but alas... Spell Reflect's effect lasts 5 seconds while the cooldown is 10, and if you try to Spell Reflect midway through the channeling, nothing happens. He only Mind Flayed two times, and SR was on cooldown the first, and I was late the second.

However, the fourth one was not really needed. His Quick Demise was carried out about a minute and thirty seconds into the fight.



Azjol-Nerub

Watch Him Die - This one can be a toughie. It requires strong dps, heals, and tanking. I attempted this in mostly ilevel 200 epics a while back, and it failed miserably. Now, with mostly 219-226 gear, it was much simpler. I've heard strategies with 2 tanks, but I think that reduces overall dps by a bit too much. Here's what we did:

Slow and steady wins the race. First, we pulled the leftmost boss+adds. Killed the two adds, did nothing to the boss. Then, we went after the middle group, knocked down the two adds. Went on further, got the rightmost group, killed the adds.
NOW, I pulled the boss. Three or four seconds to give me aggro, then Bloodlust, cooldowns, the whole shebang. He died fairly quickly. I THINK the mini-bosses despawn on the death of the main guy, but I'm not 100% sure.
Here are some keys to the fight:
1) Face the bosses away from the group so they don't get hit by the cone of poison.
1a) A druid with abolish poison on the tank trivializes that aspect of the fight. Also a paladin with Cleanse, a Totem of Cleansing, etc.
2) Dps priorities are on the webwraps, at all times. If a tank gets wrapped, it's probably a wipe. If a healer gets wrapped, it's a wipe. If a dps gets wrapped, it's likely a wipe due to the nature of this dps race.
3) Like on "Volunteer Work" (Or Mimiron Phase 1) Chaining cooldowns is the way of the future. Shield Wall, followed by Last Stand, then Enraged Regeneration + Trinket... and then you pray and/or envy Death Knights.

If you can do this, you know that you've got good tanking ability, strong heals, and great dps.


Hadronox Denied - I only know how to do this with a hunter. I suppose it's doable without, but then deaths may ensue. I have some theories on how to do it without the reset strategy, which I'll talk about after we go over the way that I did it.
After you kill the first boss, you encounter a bridge over a web. Below, on the web, is a small group, led by an "Anub'ar Crusher".
What you want to do is have the group just chill, up on the bridge. Have your hunter run down, aggro the pack, and Feign Death. Everything will despawn.
Now, everyone needs to run down onto the web. There is a tunnel off to one side leading further down (the tunnel to the hole to Anub'Arak himself). Enter this tunnel, and go into the room at the bottom. Look up. Above you, through the web, you should see the Anub'Ar Crusher group respawn. More importantly, you will see Hadronox respawn. Then, fight her as normal. No problem.
When she dies, some adds might run down the tunnel you entered through. They are not elite, so just aoe them down.
NOTE: I'm sure this (exact method) can be done without a hunter, but whoever goes down there has to die. If they've got itemrack (or use blizzard's built-in one), they should take off their gear before they run down so they'll have no durability damage, then hit the button for that specific gearset to put it all back on. Conversely, they could just suffer the durability damage.
HYPOTHETICAL WAY OF DOING THIS ACHIEVEMENT: Kill the Crusher, as normal. Kill the next two Crusher groups, as normal--but do all of this quickly. Run down the tunnel and just pull the boss, who will probably have a ton of adds attacking her. AoE down the adds, and then just have a dps (preferably a ranged dps) kill the adds as they come out of their holes at the top of the staircases.

The Nexus

Chaos Theory: This achievement was very hectic. What we did was very, very rough, so here I'm putting down some mild improvements. We got it down the first time, but we didn't REALLY know the strategies involved. All we knew was "Don't kill rifts" and someone mentioned "Stand over 15 yards behind the tank when he goes invulnerable".
Preparation: You must clear out the platform before his, and also the land area north of that lower platform. You need room to kite him.
The fight: As normal, pull and dps the boss. He does arcane damage and spawns Chaotic Rifts. At 75/50/25% he will go invulnerable for 45 seconds and Charge Chaotic Rifts, which spams lightning on the group.
75%, First Invulnerability: The whole group runs down to the platform below. The tank stands at the top of the ramp to Anomalus' platform (still within LoS of the healer, but close to the boss). The adds that spawn from the Chaotic Rifts most likely will not aggro the tank, and they'll just stand on the upper platform, floating around. Lightning will strike the closest member to Anomalus (the tank) quickly and constantly for about 500 damage a tick. If any group member gets within 15 yards of the tank, they'll get hit by lightning too--as will anyone within 15 yards of that group member, and so on and so forth.
When the invulnerability fades, Anomalus will go to attack the tank, who will tank him on the lower platform. Again, this is as normal--EXCEPT when anomalus goes to attack, so will the adds that have been spawned (10 or so of them). They are non-elite, so aoe them down. Then bring Anomalus down to 50%. (Note: We didn't aoe down those adds. I just picked them up while the group stayed on Anomalus. This came back to bite us later).
50%, Second Invulnerability: The whole group runs down to the land below, and only you will stand up on the top of the ramp. Nobody but you should be hit by chain lightning, and adds shouldn't aggro you (if they do, DPS is free to aoe them down from range).
When the invulnerability fades, MORE mobs will come with him. Kill them, kill him.
25%, Last Invulnerability: Anomalus is gonna be at the bottom of the ramp to the lower platform, you'll be standing near-ish him, the rest of the team >15 yards away.
When it fades, there will be more adds. Just go for Anomalus, then mop up the adds.

You might wipe during this achievement--we did...

Now, my group did a shoddy way of not really pulling him far from platform to platform to land, and not really killing the adds. So, after the last invulnerability, there were about 30-40 mobs attacking every single person, AND to top it off, we didn't clear the trash north of the platforms, so there was a chaotic rift BEHIND us, spawning mobs (you cannot kill chaotic rifts, even if they were not spawned by Anomalus). But we got it, even though the healer (and then very rapidly the dps and myself) all died in succession. I was the last alive before he died and as he did, I did. The cheers in vent were awesome.


Utgarde Pinnacle:

Lodi Dodi We Loves the Skadi AND My Girl Loves to Skadi All the Time
These complement each other very well, so we completed (and therefore I will explain) them together.

This event is a good one, and fairly easy (especially with good aoe). Our method involved a reset.

First, we did the event as normal, up to a point. We ran down the hall, aggroed the mobs, etc. Two of our folks were assigned to grab 3 harpoons each. When that happened, we ran back down the hall from whence we came, back into the Trophy Room.

The moment the mobs chasing us despawned, we ran BACK to the end of the Skadi Hall, by the harpoon launchers. Skadi respawns but does not aggro when we're this far behind him, so the DK ran to pick him up. Thirty or so mobs spawned but were dispatched with Shockwave, Volley, and a Hurricane from the druid (who got 5500 dps that fight!). Once Grauf, the protodrake, got within range, the two dps launched their harpoons. Skadi landed and I picked him up, while telling the DPS to take down the remaining add or two.


Almost immediately upon landing, though, Skadi did his devastating whirlwind. DISARMING SOLVES THIS (be it a rogue's dismantle, a warrior's disarm, or that one shadow priest ability, and whatever other disarms there might be)
Additionally, while he chases a random target with his whirlwind, remember that it slows him down to about 50% run speed, and that you can taunt him. Thus, if he attacks the Hunter, I can taunt him away so he just attacks my plate-covered self.

The shaman used bloodlust the moment Skadi dropped the ground, and we polished him off quickly. Overall, these two achievements are easy--the hardest part is the moment he takes flight, when many mobs pour out of the hall stacked up on each other. A pally or dk with aoe threat trivializes that aspect (as well as a druid spamming swipe). For warriors, however, the best bet is to use Vigilance on the top AoE dps, and shockwave as early as possible (so it comes off cooldown as early as possible).

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Well! There you have it! A mountain of achievements--here's hoping you all get Glory of the Hero and a shiny red protodrake!

Tomorrow: Ulduar and how I hope Blizzard keeps with the style of it.

-Hyperiom