Recent raiding adventures
I really wanted to post about our last Ulduar raid, just never got around to it. It was my first raid weekend where I didn’t tank, as we had enough tanks but not enough healers or DPS. On the first day we killed the standard program that we manage so far, FL, XT, Kologarn, Auriaya, and then wiped to Hodir. The next day we killed Razorscale, Hodir, and Iron Council after we gave up on Thorim.
Thorim was an interesting albeit frustrating experience. I am not sure how I would ever be able to tank the arena (which is why I am glad that I was blood DK DPS). Our protection paladin had issues picking up all the mobs, and we were just torn apart in the arena. The gauntlet team got the second boss down, so I think with a little practice, we’ll get through Phase 2 soon. However, I am thinking moving to Freya might maybe be a better option, but I am not 100% sure. She sounds a lot more complex, but maybe not as rocky as Thorim. We’ll work more on him next week.
Due to my work schedule, I have not really been able to run heroics much, and I still have the issue that I usually show up when the guild groups have already started running. I think that showed when I daringly scheduled a Trial of the Crusader raid. Our protection paladin has been running heroics consistently, so she has 2pc T8 and goodies.
First off, our Trial of the Crusader raid was very successful as we managed to down both encounters that are currently available. I found the difficulty on Northrend Beasts a lot higher than on Lord Jaraxxus. We had several issues on Northrend Beasts. I had an incredibly high fatality rate on Gormok the Impaler, and for the first time I felt like an undergeared tank scrub. We first started switching aggro at 3 stacks, but later moved to 2 stacks, because I would inevitably die, despite blowing all the cooldowns I had, using Disarm every cooldown, really trying my best. To add insult to injury, our paladin’s threat output is definitely superior to mine. This meant that after the Taunt wore off, Gormok would just go right back to her. Very humbling and disappointing.
Eventually we got that under control, and reliably made it to the blasted Jormungars. I was Dreadscale tank. We picked them up right by the door, and that’s where the problems started. How to kite Dreadscale so that the toxin people didn’t have to run far, but that I wouldn’t carry Burning Bile and poison rings into the raid? We tried the path around the wall, which didn’t work, then I led him around the Acidmaw tank behind her. That seemed to work a lot better, though it still felt like I was carrying death and destruction through the raid. In the end, I died just as Acidmaw went down and was able to watch Icehowl from the ground. I felt Icehowl was the fun reward the raid gets for having survived the Jormungars. Looked incredibly fun. The first time we got past the Jormungars, we had it.
For Lord Jaraxxus, I had the easy job. Pretty much a tank and spank with interrupts. I only had to move him when a volcano came too close. Originally, I had wanted to tank adds, but then we changed plans, so I could dispel his Nether Power with Shield Slam. The first try, we had people with Legion Fire go down, and then got overwhelmed by adds, and the second try we had it. As was the story of my life yesterday, I went down when he was at 4%, but our pally picked him up, and we got him. Really easy fight, considering it took us 10 minutes to get him down, after wiping on Northrend Beasts for more than 2.5 hours.
I got me a shiny, the very nice Dreadscale Bracers that I will gem nicely with a +30 stamina gem and slap the +40 stamina enchant on them. Nommy! On my to-do-list for this week is running more heroics for badges and giving the triumph list a long, hard look to figure out a gear priority. Expect a look at the Emblem of Triumph gear soon.
You probably figured this out since you got though it, but the tank not on Gormok should be helping kill snobolds until its time to taunt again. I set the other tank as my focus so I can watch his debuffs.
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I wish I was online more when you are, so we could both run more heroics. I felt like fail-lock in there myself.
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They apparently just hotfixed Paladin threat because it was overtuned for a bit after 3.2 hit. It wasn’t you, it was a balance issue – OTs were pulling off their MTs all over.
Maybe Jaxx is easier to tank than heal – it felt totally insane for us healers – 10 minutes of mana starvation. Not too hard, we two shot it, but definitely thirsty work for the heal team.
I will pay more attention this week to what we do with the worm kiting. Healer tunnel vision means I have no idea :X
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For Thorim we all stack RIGHT on top of MT in the middle of the arena and only single target. Even as a healer I barely heal at all except big single target heals when people need them. If you don’t pull aggro the arena becomes doable. I say stay on Thorim before Freya if you’ve already worked on him a bit cause you will get it soon as the arena group clicks.
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Any advice on how to do the worm kiting would be helpful. I have no idea what in the world we were doing there, and it seems we only downed them due to the pure awesome of our healers.
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I didn’t respond to your Twitter on Thorim further because it would be a bit to fit into 140 characters.
What I was trying to say is that the tank in the arena should stand closer to Thorim than anyone else. This is DURING the arena event, before he jumps down. Just stand outside the middle circle. Apparently whomever is closest to Thorim gets initial aggro from the adds. I didn’t know this the time we got him down in 10-man and I was in the Arena, and I wondered why certain party members would get aggro first. Our ever-moving rogue often got one-shot or close to it. I think that was why…he moved closer to Thorim, and I didn’t know about it.
When I healed it on Saffron, I told our tank in Arena to do that, and we NEVER had aggro issues. In fact, it was insanely EASY to heal (though the druid who was healing with me probably did most of the work, honestly).
Freya is only hard with one add phase, but it’s the thing that frustrated the raid to no end. The 3 adds are the killers (though having people continue to AOE on the lashers really pissed me off … stop BLOOD BOILING, DKs!!), and you need focused, quick DPS (the fewer dots, the better) who can quickly swap to another add when called for. I haven’t gotten her down on Ruana yet, but with Saffron healing, we surprisingly had an IC first by 2-shotting her with about half the raid who had never even seen her before (and others who had gotten her down with other raids).
I say keep on with Thorim!
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Congratulations on downing Jaraxxus <3
He's easier than Jormungars, IMO; but both encounters are healing intensive.
Best of luck trying the Keepers next. You'll get them for sure
.-= Phix´s last blog ..Double Jaraxxus. =-.
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Congratulations on both kills! On the Northrend Beasts (Gormok) encounter, I haven’t done this fight yet but a brief perusal of wowhead suggests the following:
1) Bear in mind that Gormok gets +15% damage every time he gets taunted, so a strategy with fewer stacks before taunting is likely to lead to him hitting very very hard later on. If you are having MT death issues I suggest starting off with maybe 3 or 4 stacks and then as the damage on you gets higher you can ramp up the taunting later on to move to two or three stack taunts.
2) You might also be able to chain a few cooldowns together to reduce the number of taunts you need – say hit shield wall, then last stand/regen, then disarm and see if you can go for say 5 or 6 stacks without getting a taunt. You’ve then reduced the number of taunts needed by 1, and reduced boss damage by 15% later in the fight. Your fellow tank could do the same and with 2 minute cooldowns you will have both available again later on.
I had a look at your gear, and it’s quite similar to mine really, and not too far off for Coliseum. All I would say is that you are trying to do ilevel232 content with your most important gear pieces (head/chest/legs/shield) at ilevel200. There isn’t that much you can do about this really since all the really good tanking pieces are quite late on in Ulduar, but you might focus your emblems on the T8.5 chest, since it drops from Yogg and you are a few bosses away from him/her/it at present. The legs and shield drop from Auriaya I think, whereas for the helm you’ll want Mimiron (who is not as hard as people make him out to be).
I would also suggest binning your enchant on your weapon and getting blood draining. Agi conversion into dodge took a nerf in 3.2 I think, and you will be amazed and happy the first time (and there will be many times) you see blood draining save your life – any time your health drops to 2k and you don’t die, basically.
.-= Everblue´s last blog ..Some Thorim tanking tips =-.
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Congrats on your new bracers! And the boss kills.
/envy!
And I have an idea! >.> *heads off to the contact form*
.-= Naissa´s last blog ..“You’re not geared enough” =-.
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Woo! someone else in the club with the bracers. On the 2 wyrm things, when we did the hardest bit we found was getting the DoT over to the kiting tank but when i did it, it seemed like intervene removed it (?) so i was intervening a member furthur up (away from the raid, so he didnt run in and breathe everyone) rather than having the other tank run to me since it removes movement inpairing effects with warbringer. This might not of been true and it could of glitched but, seemed to work quite well.
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Ah…I miss my DotHies! Maybe I should move Jas over there. She’s doing much better DPS wise and has been going on more heroic ones. One day I want to see that content too!
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