A few nights ago, I set a personal best, in Heroic Utgarde Keep with 1776 dps, as a tank.

Then last night, UK was the heroic daily again! So I found  a group, let them know that I try to chain pull the whole place (unless my random pug healer needs mana) and that I try to finish the instance before I have to buff myself/them again. This pug seemed to like that. Last night, I destroyed my personal best dps from a few nights ago by a lot!

The first run is where I started trying to run the instance as fast as possible, with downtime only coming when I’m running to the next pull or when my healer needs mana. I forgot to loot on occasion while doing this. I spammed consecration on every pull, every cooldown, but I rarely used Avenging Wrath. I know I could increase my dps by a lot more if I could remember to use my wings. My dps increased greatly on my last two speed runs. I never really paid attention to my dps until I realized I was 2nd on recount. I was used to putting out about 1400ish dps when I would look at the meters. This is fun now. I’m looking foward to my first run where my dps is over 2k!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: dps, heroic, Tanking, uk

2nd in dps in 25man OS

Here are some other screenies of Dessara in her prot gear, with the Red Sword of Courage and it’s badass green glow (from Potency enchant).

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: heroic, obsidian sanctum, OS, prot, ret, screen shot, screenies

The 25-man Naxx/OS runs were very fun. I was the 3rd tank or the off-tank to the off-tank. Effectively, that means that I got to main tank Patchwerk (in Naxx) and pick up random adds in Naxx and OS! MTing Patchwerk was intense and full of awesome. Initially, a hunter misdirected him onto me and Patchwerk came running towards me. Something weird happened and he changed directions and began running to the dps and healer group. No worries, I just tossed an Avengers Shield and he was back onto me and the other two tanks. I blew every cooldown I have. Offensively, I used Avenging Wrath and Lavanthor’s Talisman on every CD. Defensively, Divine Shield and my Monarch Crab were my friends. I did die just as Patchwerk went down but other than that, it was a great fight.

My many hours in Heroic Naxx paid off as I ended up walking out of there with 3 drops! Some new hands, Gauntlets of the Disobedient, new belt (to replace the Emblem of Heroism belt that I’d only been using for a few days), the Ablative Chitin Girdle, and some new boots, the Inexorable Sabatons. I also walked away with 14 more Emblems of Valor. I tossed a few gems in there and I was good to go. I haven’t had a chance to re-enchant the gear however. For the gloves, I’m going back to Armsman and for the boots, Tuskarr’s Vitality (over Greater Fortitude).

Earlier in the day, I tanked Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle with my guild. The run was smooth until the last boss. I pulled the two mobs in the room and over vent, someone said “pull them back, they fear” and just as my finger touched the ‘S’ key to walk backwards, we get feared. The warlock’s felguard aggro’d the boss, who I taunted and picked up. The healer called for a wipe but I said “we can do it!” and we did! King Ymiron didn’t cast Bane once and I didn’t even have to kite him around the room like my first and only ever H UP run did. Best of all, I got my heavily coveted new JC meta-gem pattern, the Austere Earthsiege Diamond, and my Red Sword of Courage! I couldn’t believe the sword dropped on my first successful run through there.

Just yesterday, I MT’d 10-man Vault of Archavon. I was having issues knowing when to move him out of his fart cloud and also when I needed to taunt him off of the off-tank. As a reward for my role, I got my first tier 7 gear…the Heroes’ Redemption Greaves for my awesome holy set that I may or may not ever use.

I was also the lucky recipient of the Essence of Gossamer trinket from Heroic Azjol-Nerub. With the essence, my monarch crab and self-buffed with kings, I have just under 31,000 health!

After tanking so much lately, I have grown to really love it! I have noticed that I tend to watch my ability cooldown timers too much instead of focusing on the boss or trash. I need to change that. I have also gotten much, much better at keeping Holy Shield up 100% of the time (unless the charges run out before the CD is up).

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: defense, heroic, jewelcrafting, naxx, obsidian sanctum, prot, Tanking, trinket

Naxx

I raided Naxx with my guild on Friday and Saturday nights. On Friday, we did the Arachnid (achievement) and Plague (achievement) quarters. On Saturday, we did the Military (achievement) quarter and attempted the Construct quarter. On the Construct quarter, we downed Patchwerk and attempted Grobbulus a couple of times. We couldn’t get Grobbulus down since over 1/2 of the raid was lagging including our MT (who d/c’d on 2 of the attempts). We called the raid after the last wipe.

I walked out of Naxx with four drops, three of which are holy! The fourth drop was a cloak (that I will link when I am able to log into WoW) that is not any better than my current cloak. The holy pieces were Helm of the Corrupted Mind and two others that I’ll name and link when can log in to WoW.

Tanking

We were going to try and finish Naxx on Sunday night but couldn’t since one of our healers was having internet issues and couldn’t log in. We decided to split up into groups and do some heroics instead. Our MT has been wanting to respec ret and knows that I’ve been wanting to try my hand at tanking so we switched specs. I went with the most popular prot pally build (5/60/6) according to talentchic.com.

We attempted the first boss (Slad’ran) of Heroic Gundrak three times before skipping him in hopes of getting some emblems from two other bosses and then returning to him.

We downed the other bosses in the instance without a problem and went back to Slad’ran. We wiped on him once more before the freshly minted (read: very low dps) lock logged out and into his much better geared mage. After that switch was made, that boss was very trivial. Once attempt, one downing, altar switched and then it was onto the last boss, Gal’darah. The last boss was just as trivial as the others.

I got the achievement for completing Gundrak on Heroic. After reviewing the dps of my group (to myself), I commented that I should get the achievement for tanking my first heroic. Then I looted the boss and saw my achievement waiting: the Horn-Tipped Gauntlets! Those dropping was the icing on the cake for me.

The dps for the group was pretty low considering it was a heroic run. The top dps-er averaged ~1400 dps while the second was 1100ish. The fresh 80 lock averaged just over me, with 900ish dps. I rounded out the bottom with 823 dps (which I feel is extremely low for a WotLK tank).

I had a lot fun tanking that instance, despite the low dps of the group and the many wipes we faced. Tanking is a lot more hectic than dps but I’m ready to tank some more.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: epic, gear, gundrak, heroic, holy, naxx, naxxramas, raiding, ret, tank

This happened to me again last night! I ran two heroics and got some new gear, so the draft post I had needs to be modified, yet again!

This is a filler post basically saying that I plan to recreate my gear wishlist with heroic gear as well as showcase what I’ve gotten and how I have gemmed and enchanted it!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: attack power, enchants, gear, gems, heroic, Paladin Blogs, ret

It started out with a very fast run through regular Halls of Lightning (HoL). I got two very good dps upgrades, hands (Fists of Loken) and shoulders (Pauldrons of the Lightning Revenant).

The tank asked if we’d like to get some easy Emblems of Heroism. He said it was one of the simplest heroic instances in the game. I figured why not, I’ve gotten some decent gear and I’m dps is pretty high (IMO). Since my two new items had gem slots, I asked if they would summon me after I went to Orgrimmar to get some gems for them and they agreed, so off I went! Since the items were only blues, I didn’t want to put any really good gems in them, so I settled for some uncommon (green) gems, Perfect Inscribed Huge Citrine for the gloves and Bold Bloodstone for the shoulders.

We finally zone into heroic Utgarde Keep and the entire instance ran was very smooth (and simple). We finished in about 30 or 40 minutes, which is fantastic for a heroic. I remember heroics from the last expansion taking between 60 and 90 minutes. We downed the final boss in UK (Ingvar the Plunderer)  and he drops some epic plate legs, the Staggering Legplates! There are three plate wearers in the group (me, the tank and a dps death knight) who all rolled need on them and I won them! My first heroic and I’m walking out of here with some badass pants!! Woot! I went back to the auction house in Org and bought an epic leg armor kit, Icescale Leg Armor and a couple of new gems for them, Perfect Bold Bloodstone and Perfect Inscribed Huge Citrine.

I got achievements for my first Emblem of Heroism and also for completing Heroic Utgarde Keep.

I also ran Heroic Violet Hold with another group and got a couple more achievements, Defenseless and Heroic: The Violet Hold. That run went very smooth, despite my low weapon skill in maces, but I had to keep using my new Titansteel Destroyer. I believe I started the instance doing 1200 dps (weapon skill was 350/400). By the end of the instance, my weapon skill only rose to 385!

Last night, I ran the same two heroics again, both with different groups. I didn’t receive any new gear upgrades but I was gaining rep and getting some more Emblems. Now that I’m comfortable doing heroics (and now am farming Emblems of Heroism), I need to update my gear wish list to include heroic instances!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2008. | Permalink
Post tags: drop, heroic, pally, ret, utgarde keep, violet hold