Light’s Defender

And Attumen goes down!!!

Well, New Moon stepped into Karazhan for the second time yesterday and we finally took down our first TBC Raid Boss. With Barinath (Tankadin-extraordinaire) and me acting as human shields, we managed to down Attumen on the second attempt. I was on Attumen duty for Phase 1, but I never saw him pop up, so by the time I had him, we had lost a healer. Needless to say that caused Barinath to die and the party to wipe.

Ktarye reminded me of something I had actually read in the Maintankadin Forums. By consecrating near Midnight, I was almost guaranteed to pick him up. That worked the second time around. We split them up like planned and we brought each of their health down like they were Siamese twins. It was like perfectly synchronized swimming … um, I meant fighting. Before the mounting, they were at something like 23% and 25%.

Barinath and I agreed that whoever got aggro after they merged, would just tank them. To my surprise, the mounted Attumen spawned right next to me. A quick Exorcism and Judgment of Righteousness allowed for DPS to whack, whack, whack right away.

I found out afterwards that I had like 5 people healing me. Overhealing or not ( and let me tell you, we have the best healers there are), I lived and Attumen didn’t.

Huzzah for New Moon!!

So we hit Heroic Mechanar again last night. It went … okay. For better or worse, I suggested that we ignore most of the first floor and focus on the second floor. The 2 mini-bosses were pretty straight-forward. It got really depressing after that.

Nethermancer Sepethrea is a royal pain in the ass with her firey friends. We wiped on her twice. We wiped SO quickly that we choose to skip her and just go after Pathaleon the Calculator instead. Those waves don’t really give you much breathing room to regenerate health and mana, do they? Well, we wiped 4 times more before reaching the boss. Then we wiped again on the boss. We called it a night.

I’m the type of player that takes everything to heart in these encounters. What could I have done better? Where did I waste mana? What did I do the led to a wipe? I’m a perfectionist that never comes close. So what did I learn last night? I’m a crappy group leader.

On those 6 waves before Pathaleon, it was just a mess. I would normally mark the mobs so that the kill order was clear. I obviously didn’t have time to do that with 4 mobs running at us wanting a piece of me and my team. I consecrate and go after one of the two Astromages in the group. He whacks me upside the head and sends me flying into the air. He stays still while his 3 buddies run after me. I hit my Captain America shield, and wouldn’t you know it, our mage sheeps that same mob. Needless to say, I broke the crowd control. On another wave, we get another 4. I start hitting the Astromage. A few seconds later I hear “Sheeping Astromage”. Damn!! I couldn’t click away in time, broke sheep. I switch to the Engineer. I then hear “Sheeping Engineer”. Damn again!! I click off in time, but our Shadow Priest had just DoT’ed that mob. Crowd control broken yet again, with a very angry Frost Mage in our group to boot.

I’ve always know the importance of good communication in this game. We can’t see each other’s faces, so we can’t know what the other is thinking, so we just have to say it. I realize now that as Group Leader, communication doesn’t just mean marking targets. It means “leading” the group. I should have set the kill order and chosen the mob to sheep, not our mage. While I can’t tag the mobs, I can at least call it out so we are all focusing on the same mob. By not doing that, I led my team to wipe, and wipe, and wipe …

Next time, things will be different.

So, I’ve been keeping an eye out for these bracers for quite a while now. The problem is two-fold, they never seemed to be up on AH and I’m so gold deprived, that even if they did, I wouldn’t have enough to buy an epic off of the AH.

Last week, I saw them pop up for 750g bid/ 800g buyout. They were that was for a few days. I had 50g to my name back then. A couple of days ago, they dropped t0 700g/750g, with me only having like 500g. Then yesterday they dropped to 650g/700g with me only having 630g to my name.

So what did I do? What any self-respecting defender of the Light would do. I robbed all my alts of their gold (more like a loan I guess), and I put in a bid at 650g.

I’m now the proud owner of the Bracers of the Green Fortress … oh, and I now have 1g to my name. I better keep up those daily quests.

So, New Moon hit Karazhan for the first time last night. I think it went fairly well, all things considered. We killed some spiders, bats, and hounds. Oh my!! Then we killed the doggie mini-boss. It was a piece of cake (barring a couple of wipes due to pulling more trash then we could chew).

The frustrating part was all the “technical difficulties” we were having. It sorta put a damper on it for me. And to top it all off, I finally get back on as we’re getting ready to pull Midnight. And the horse get’s pulled and I start swinging and I then notice, I’m wearing the wrong armor … WIPE!!

Like I said, we’ll be back and I’ll have the thick stuff on next time!!

So tonight, I step foot into Karazhan for the first time. It seems only fitting that if I were going to start my little blog, I start it on this occasion.

I have come a long way from the days of Level 1 in Northshire. While I leveled my way up to the mid-60’s as a Retribution Paladin, I began to see some of the benefits of the Protection spec and decided to switch over and make a pitiful attempt at tanking. It did, in fact, start off somewhat pitiful; but with the help of my guild (especially Barinath who is another tankadin in our guild) and my friends at Maintankadin, I have become proud of my tanking abilities over the past couple of months.

So, today I enter my first real raid. This should be an interesting challenge as these mobs don’t take “whack” for an answer. They take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. I hope I can take more of a lickin’ then they can.

I’ll let you know how it goes.