Trial of the Crusader, 10-player, 4 June 2010

Legga had the idea that we should be doing something to help the newer 80's get gear so we can aim for a second ICC 10-man, or perhaps an ICC25 at some point in the future. Enthusiastic approval all round. As often happens, suggesting the idea was taken as volunteering to actually organise it, a task that Legga threw himself into with relish.

Joy unbounded, Morticus is back! Judging by the greetings when he logged on he would have got the impression that we missed him. Turns out his computer privileges had been suspended for some prank or other. We told him not to do that again because we need him!

The usual prevarication about the critical roles ensues. We need two tanks and three healers, and while both V and I have alts that can fill any of the three roles (tank, heals, dps) we can only play one toon each at a time. The complexity resulting from "I don't mind; which toon do you want?" is probably not offset by the increased flexibility. Seliania offers to tank, hesitantly. Then Morticus says his brother could heal with him. Ok, that meant three heals -- hey, I can tank then! Seliania gave the distinct impression that they would prefer dps anyway so doesn't mind the change of plan at all, especially since the guild loot rules are relaxed for this alt run and they can still roll on tanking gear.

We zone in, and I stare at Barbarity's tool bars. She's tanked ToTC before -- exactly once. Some time ago. Her gear (all either crafted or gained through emblems) says she's ICC ready, her raid experience, not so much. Nil desperandum, the awesomely-experienced main tank sitting next to me informs me that the only button I need is TAUNT while he'll take care of everything else (I'm reliably informed that "everything else" in this context means SMASH!). Any actual dps from me is a bonus.

Someone starts it, and there are cries from next to me, exhorting me to move my toon to the FRONT. RIGHT to the front. Stack on Main Tank! I timidly hide behind Vehement. This is why I rarely tank: I don't like being at the front, where all the sharp pointy things the monsters are equipped with are so very close. In comes Gormok. I stab him a bit, being very careful not to hit TAUNT.

TAUNT! says Vehement. I press Dark Command. Gormok looks at me with sudden interest, and tries to bite my head off. When he fails, I'm starting to enjoy things and hit something approximating a dps rotation. We repeat the TAUNT tennis, and Gormok goes down. I'm sure there were dead dps, snobolds and other things but I didn't notice, due to the single-minded focus required to press TAUNT at the correct time. After all, even very confident pug tanks often get this wrong.

In comes Dreadscale, and now things get tricky. I get a whole boss all to myself. Acidmaw erupts from the ground and I hit my pre-prepared macro. He instantly showers me with Paralytic Poison. Received wisdom is that when you get PP, you run to the Dreadscale Tank. So I move. Screams from the rest of the raid. Apparently, if you're the tank you ignore PP -- the other tank will instead come to you, so that Acidmaw doesn't shower poison on the whole raid. Is tricky, tanking. Oh well, we have a druid to rez dead dps.

It all seems to take a very long time. I risk a glance at the dps meter. Ah. This explains it. Dps is dreadful. I'm fourth on the list and I know for a sure and certain fact that tanking complexities prevent me from putting out anything that could be described as dps. Eventually, the snakes go down anyway.

Still no respite -- in comes Icehowl. Apparently, this is a single-tank fight. Just do some dps, says Vehement. Don't TAUNT at all. The Icehowl fight is executed perfectly by everybody, nobody is hit by the stun, and he goes down easily. Loot, happiness, Arctic Fur.

On Lord Jarraxus, I get the tricky job: Gather up the adds. Unfortunately these are the sort of adds that have a very short attention span, certainly shorter than the TAUNT cooldown of six seconds. The fires are explained, especially when to run and when to stay. I do some half-hearted dps on the boss, carefully building runic power and avoiding expending any runes. A Mistress of Pain steps out of the Nether Portal. TAUNT, I go. She comes to me, then finds someone else more shiny, biffs them, then returns to me. She does that. It is most annoying for a tank. More adds turn up from those volcanoes, and the Mistress is still at half health. I try to get aggro on the entire lot, and fail. Wipe.

It is being pointed out that the Mistress should be dead by the time adds spawn. Next time around, more focus is brought to bear on the Mistress, and she dies more promptly. Then the volcano spews out an elemental kind of thing. I hit it with Icy Blast, and it comes to me. Excellent. Another elemental spawns, some distance away. TAUNT, I go. It comes over to me. Awesome! A third one, and I'm out of taunt-like buttons -- they are immune to Death Grip. So I run over and hit it with my axe. Good, picked that up too. I turn around, finding the first elemental trampling all through the raid, having lost interest in me. I run over to remind it, then the second one does the same thing and, coupled with dps distinctly on the low side, the adds just run all over me. How precisely does one pick up and hold three adds with attention spans shorter than that of a microbe? The Main Tank is no help here. He has somehow managed to avoid the less prestigious but more complex jobs that off-tanks keep getting asked to do.

Why can't I tank the boss, I ask over my shoulder, having carefully ascertained that the microphone is currently off. Do you have a reliable interrupt every 12 seconds, I get asked in return. Well, sort of, I say. If I have enough runic power. So we stay with the existing roles. Last attempt, since people have to have dinner etc. More or less a repeat of the previous attempt, except that luck and skill smile on us in fortuitous combination, causing enough people to stay up to eventually kill the boss, whereupon all the remaining adds despawn. More loot and happiness. Some people have to leave, the rest of us decide to have a go at VoA.

Vault of Archavon, 10-player, 4 June 2010

We grab Sapphrina, swap for some alts, fill the rest of the raid with some pugs, including a top healer we had run with before, and head for VoA. Somewhere in the reshuffle Vehements ends up with the Raid Leader role again. How did that happen again?

Toravon is not a pushover (after all, he drops Frosties and ilevel 264 gear) but Barbarity has the gear, and she never tried tanking him before, so I decide to give it a go. V says "stack on me, taunt every four stacks". Pretty easy. What about the ice circles etc? Ignore them, ranged will take them out. Oh good. But first, trash. Rather big and dangerous trash, but I have lots of trash tanking experience -- all those heroics to get badges... We reach the boss with little trouble. We pull Toravon, and I learn about monitoring the stacks and taunting at the correct time. I pay little attention to anything else, so the wipe comes as rather a surprise to me. What happened, I ask. Look at the dps, says the Main Tank.

Back inside the instance, the Main Tank unceremoniously announces that some people need to improve their dps before they can do this, and proceeds, with apologies but firmness, to kick everybody who did less dps than either tank. This catches a guildie who shall remain nameless, and a pug. Two replacement dps get plucked from the Raid Browser and we try again. This time, everything goes to plan, the adds die appropriately, Toravon keels over. Achievement, flashes my screen. Yay. No usable loot but two frost emblems.

Koralon next, for giggles. Tanking this is even easier. My job is to stand serenely next to the Main Tank and soak up some of that shared damage thing he does. This turns out to be not quite as easy as I thought, V goes left, I go right on a fire patch, then I run around it to get back into a stack. Recriminations off-lin: How was I supposed to know which way you're going? Why didn't you come straight back to me? There was a fire patch... You ignore the fire patches! You're the TANK! That's why we have HEALERS! Ah well, that latter statement explains a lot... Despite the distracted tanks, Koralon falls over -- Achievement! This is fun.

Some people want to try for the rare mount, so Archie it is. These days, nobody takes Archie seriously any more, I mean, ilevel 200 loot says it all. I play the supporting role again, meaning I'm just there as a safety valve in case something happens to Vehement. I know perfectly well that nothing is going to happen to Vehement so I concentrate on stabbing and biffing. Suddenly Vehement says, TAUNT. I taunt -- and lose orientation of where I am. I can't see myself any more. Then I look closely at Archie: A star (my raid symbol) is just peeking out from his enormous fist. Giggles erupt next to me. That was funny, says V, laughing, while Archie throws me half-way across the room. Apparently he does that to his current threat target. So, making me taunt ensured that he picked up me, rather than V. Mean, that was!

Archie goes down soon after he let go of me, meh kind of loot, no reins. Fun though!

While all this was going on, the pug that got kicked kept whispering V, indicating that they wanted to get better, and what should they do to improve? We like that attitude in this guild so they get a guild invite. Welcome, Corahofpan, and we'll help you gear up and improve your dps.