Wednesday, April 30, 2008

25 Man Raid. /Boggle

YAY!

Finally Stuntyone loses his 25 man virginity... Does that sound as bad as I think it does?

Anyway the point is that I went to Gruuls Lair on my first 25 man raid yesterday, and boy was I nervous. I mean 24 other people to let down? Scary. I knew that being nervous wasn't helping me any, but I just couldn't help it. It's the same feeling I get when trying any new content for the first time, made worse by the fact that I was doing it in a completely unfamiliar set up. I remember the feeling from the first time I entered Karazhan, when seeing Moroes for the first time as a tank, and my first attempts on The Shade of Aran and Prince. Exhilaration and terror combined into one overwhelming emotion. I love that feeling, it's the feeling of personal progress.

I was third tank and thank goodness for that. I was the least geared and least experienced of the tanks there and had I been in any other position I would have had my doubts about the raid leaders sanity. As third tank here are a couple of tips I didn't find in any of the strategy guides, and it deals with the trash. I always maintain that strat guides and how-to vids are helpful, but until you've done the fights you know next to nothing about them. However this doesn't stop me from reading dozens of strat guides and watching any movie I can lay my hands on.

There are only two types of mobs in Gruuls Lair, Lair Brute's or Gronn Priest's, and all but the last of the pulls is a single or a double pull. As third tank I was informed you should be waiting in the raid for the Lair Brute's to charge a random raid member or for the Gronn Priests to fear everyone in melee range. As the raid progressed I found that the best way to do this is to position yourself close to the back of the raid group, but not right at the rear, as the Lair Brute's target seems completely random and your taunt only works when facing the mob. Positioning yourself here provides the quickest response time to taunting the mob off whomever he has just charged. If the pull consists of only Gronn Priests position yourself towards the front of the raid group, but out of their AoE fear range. This allows you to quickly pick up one of the mobs after the fear. A last tip is target the first in the kill order as they will use their ability first then target the second mob after the tank has taken it off you as the raid should kill the mobs before they can use their ability again.

Enough with the making myself look knowledgeable and out with the truth.

The Truth.

We did the pulls up to High King Mulgar with me learning my duties as third tank on the fly, but we get there without any wipes and everything is looking up. Then it's time for me to have some responsibility, uh oh.

To start with I'm on Blindeye the Seer and I manage to pick him up and tank him, but suddenly the MT is dead and Mulgar is whirlwinding through the raid killing all in his path. /wipe.

We have several other failed attempts, one caused by my pull shot missing and causing the MT to go splat as now Mulgar and Blindeye are beating on the poor person. Another was caused by the MT perfectly timing a DC with the start of a pull.

Yet another wipe was caused solely by me. I broke my personal record for killing people with a single body pull, I damn near got the lot of them. Let me tell you after I apologized to everyone on vent, I quietly took my headphones off, stood up and kicked my pc desk so hard the damn thing near broke. I was that mad with myself. I should have known by the distance everyone else was keeping that his aggro range was massive.

I mean what the hell. It was my first time in a 25 man raid and I cause a body pull wipe? Get a hold of yourself Stunty.

I even offered to pay a sum towards repairs for the raid, which was turned down, much to the relief of my wallet.

The next pull however we down Mulgar. By this stage I had been put on Kiggler and the MT had been changed due to an unreliable Internet connection. I go over and stand by the mage tank who will start the pull so that I can just taunt Kiggler and drag his sorry butt over to the raid. This however meant that I had to drag him right across the room, this may sound easy but let me tell you it's not when your being Deathcoiled what seams like every 5 seconds. Also the warlock wasn't setting the enslaved felhunter on him to reduce his casting. Eventually after being feared all over the damn place I die, I call it out on vent.

(yet again names have been omitted)

Me: I'm down

RL: S can you pick up kiggler. (more of a statement than a question)

Me: S is offline. (having DC'd again after Blindeye went down)

S comes back online and picks up Kiggler just as I accept my combat rez and we go on to down Mulgar. YAY.

Now everything is running smoothly, we trash the trash, and proceed to one shot Gruul. During this fight I just try to put out as much dps as I can while keeping Imp TC and Demo shout an Gruul at all times. I actually enjoyed the shatters which provide a nice counterpoint to the fight, and I only took a small amount of damage from it once. I even got my T4 Leggings , which I made a half hearted attempt to pass on for causing a wipe. I soon relented and won the roll.

Thus ends the story of my excursion in to the world of 25 man raiding.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gratz Stunty, great to hear both that you got your leggings and that you managed to wipe a raid all on your own-io!! lol
Also pleased to see you writing again, obviously i havnt checked for a while, but tonight i found a whole load of stuff to read, funny and interesting in equal parts.
Also good to see you doing so well, whether its in PvP or raiding! :)

Stuntyone said...

Thanks hoolie :)
Glad to see your still reading my cr@p, god knows why though.

Anonymous said...

Haha yes.. yes it does.

I know exactly how you feel though. My first time into Grulls (Or any 25man at all) we were doing it with another guild as neither of us had the people for it. So we pull trash and everything up to the High King. Then I hear over Vent via RL, "Hmmm, Conflict, you have a decent amount, come help me tank Kiggler". I noticed she was a hunter as well and better geared, I had to trust her judgement. It worked out flawlessly and is what got me to roll my Druid tank and soon after a Warrior.

So far I'm lovin your posts :]
Grats on the sexy legs to! Though probely way late lol