On Friday night, we went into Tempest Keep for some Al'ar Training/VR killing. The Al'ar training went ok. Ulu was in charge of add-tanking for the fight and we were consistantly getting him to Phase two. At that point it's just a matter of keeping everyone alive and co-ordinated. I reckon we'll get him before much longer.
After about 3-4 attempts, with a half hour on the trash spawn timer, we decided to go farm Void Reaver to end the raid on a high. Void Reaver's a fun fight, since it's basically a case of all the tanks fighting for threat whilst the DPS goes nuts and tries to kill him before the timer. He'll periodically knock the main tank back, reducing his threat, which requires a second tank to be ready to grab him. This time I decided I wasn't gonna make it easy...
I assembled a spelldamage/threat set out of 4/5 of my Justicar Armor set and a few other items. Ended up losing about 1k health and some avoidance to block rating, but I ended up with about 500 spelldamage, and the 4-piece bonus. I was producing upwards of 1k Threat per second and the other tanks just couldn't get him off me. I ended up holding him from 100%-12% when I finally died (still not sure how that happened).
Saturday afternoon, I arranged one of my "Badge-azhan" runs. With the badge rewards in 2.4, there's actually some interest from people to run Kara with their main raiding toons. In fact I had a slight problem of too many healers signed (I normally prefer running with 2 healers to maximise DPS) and not a great variety of DPS.
Three of the healers signed were friends and I didn't wanna let any of them down, so I spoke to one of the Priests who is a great player and always up for mad stuff (She once solo-healed a Kara run for a laugh). I asked her to spec DPS for the run, but not to spec Shadow (which is, in my honest opinion, too much of a boring "big-boy raid" spec for a fun run like this. She came up with a Discipline/Holy mix that seemed to do the job. Horribly mana-inefficent in long fights, but fun in short ones with the ability to act as an effective off-healer when required.
From there, we proceeded to one-shot all the bosses and clear the instance in about 3 hours. Would have been less if not for some crappy wipes on trash, but it never stopped being fun.
On Sunday, I went back into Karazhan with Wulfsblood to help another Tank with his badgeazhan, another 3-hour clear. In the process, I got the rest of the badges required for the new cloak I mentioned in the last post. Whilst I've been giving the new badge reward Crossbow in 2.4 some longing looks with Wulf, I've pretty-much accepted that Wulf is now a PVP-only toon. Ulu's more needed in raids, and it's also generally easier to get a Heroic started with him than with Wulf.
I went for a nap after the run and ended up missing the Serpentshrine Cavern run that night. Luckily they managed to get Leotheras, Karathress and Morogrim down without me (an alt Tankadin handled Moro's Murlocs). As it now stands, CD are ready to train on Lady Vashj again this Tuesday. I've signed as a reserve for the run. It's a 2-tank fight and Ulu already has everything he needs from her (courtesy of a trial run he did with another group).
From next week, we're changing our schedule from 3 nights SSC/ 1 night TK to 2 nights SSC/ 2 nights TK to break out of the monotony of constant SSC farming. I'm looking forward to trying more of the fights in there.
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The Trading Post
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The one element of modern WoW which I don't understand is the Trading Post.
I stopped playing before it was introduced in Dragonflight, so I've only
intera...
2 weeks ago
3 comments:
What going wrong on Al'ar? Tanks dying, overwelmed with adds, or raid dying?
Like you I really enjoy VR, its a good fun fighting for aggro with your fellow tanks, I sit at around 550spell dmg fully buffed and have the Al'ar pally trinket that gives an extra +290 spell dmg for 15seconds about every 45seconds. Coupled with Wings + Destruction Pot = ALOT of spell dmg :)
At Al'ar, all of the above are going wrong. We just need more practise in that phase.
At VR, I have that trinket and I was tempted to equip it, but it would have required replacing my DM:V card, and I wasn't prepared to do that.
Ah if its a mix of problems then it would be a case of practise :) just going to throw in my 2pence (that you have prob already heard many a time but just in case).
Phase 1 tanking can be a pain, getting into position so they can still be healed, jumping down quickly and then getting back into postion as hes landing. We use ferals on platform 1 and 4 to charge up as hes coming back down, giving the slow warriors chance to get back to 2 & 3. I stand at the bottom of the ramp to platform 1 waiting for the adds to come down (healing aggro on someone), throw my sheild and then tank them with my back to the wall. What I have started doing is when the add from platform 2 is about to die I turn around to face the otherside of the room so I can get thrown to the next ramp and pickup add 3 & 4(Reckless but fun!).
Phase 2 is just abit mad, raid shouldnt be dying but it happens. DoT's must be stopped before phase1 ends otherwise that dotter will be 1st target when he spawns. Everyone should turn their spell detail up to max so they can see the firey floor and make sure they move ASAP (obvious). I stand in the middle of the room before the meteor with 2 ferals @ east and west. Watching for where its going to land I face they direction start hitting tab and soon as I have a target (before they appear) I throw my sheild at both of them, mark one for 1st DPS and a feral comes and takes the 2nd one off me so I am freed up to get ready for my next sheild throw.
MT's being on top of the molten armor is the only thing they need to keep and eye open for.
As for VR and Trinket... Hmmm hard choice, Could you drop your avoidance trinket? I suppose it depends how healing is, also a dodge trinket used just before knockback might save you from loosing that chunk of aggro :)
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