Knock Knock Knockin on Kael's Door

Last night was yet another one of those nights. Raids started at promptly 7. I had spent most of the time before hand gathering the mats for my flasks, consumables, and ironshield pots for the evening. I was not sure if I was going to be main tanking Tidewalker or not, but I wanted to be prepared if I was. I acquired 37 [item]ironshield potion[/item]s to help mitigate more top end damage.

I'm not going to lie...when I found out that I was going to be main tanking Tidewalker even though we have two paladin tanks and one druid tank, I was a bit intimidated. I've not had to worry about a mob actually crushing me to death for a long time. That was prince back when first learning Karazhan those 9 months ago. I am only thankful that our healers are top notch. I had also asked one of our dps warriors to keep up demo shout for me so I could concentrate more on my own survival. I did not bother asking him to keep up thunderclap. I know how much of a pain it is to stance dance while dpsing, and I really do not like relying on others for such a key aspect of the fight. If it falls off and I die to crushes, then I want it to be my fault and not someone else's fault. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the fight. It wasn't me taking crushes that caused us to wipe on our first attempt, it was the raid and paladins trying to work out the strategy for for murloc. I did take an 8K crush on our first attempt with 25% of the raid dead which finished it off for us. Our second attempt, Tidewalker was licking the dirt. (Better than popping his own fart bubbles I suppose!)


At this point, we started clearing trash to Fathom Lord. I decided now was as good of time as any to take a quick afk to order my pizza. (This comes in to the story a bit later.) We clear to fathom lord after learning how the bog lords work, and put in our first attempt. No one healed the Paladin on the hunter and the pet, so he went down. I picked up the hunter, but the pet nuked people. We reset it. (Kinda surprised the hunter and fathom lord hit like a sissy. I only had one resto druid healing me at this point and keeping my head above the water without much worry at all.) We regrouped, move our placement around a tad bit, then made the pull a second time. Our dps just destroyed all three adds. I was honestly disappointed when our group killed the shaman. Fathom Lord did not hit hard at all, even with his windfury. The hardest part was moving him with the totems, which was trivial as I had told the raid where i was going so the healers could move with me. (And by healers, I mean the still single resto druid that kept me alive by himself until the hunter died as well.) At 55%, my doorbell rings... Yeah...perfect timing. I had to stand up, yell out the window to the pizza guy, and have him come upstairs so I could sign the paper while just spamming my shield block button on my mouse. (This is why I was disappointed. From 50% til 20% I was just hitting shield block with dps no where near my threat level. Such an easy fight ) I gave the guy a 7$ tip and thanked him for bringing it upstairs, then watched people get excited over their loot. Another boss in the bag. Oh look! My black temple attunement quest! Perfect timing since Al'ar is tonight and Rage might be this weekend!



We slacked off a bit from here. We even managed to wipe on a trash pull we had already cleared. The raid leader did not see a mob, so it went unmarked and killed a few healers, then one of the tanks pulled the patting bog lord as well. It was the entire raid's fault, mostly the tanks' faults. The raid leader took the blame though, and put himself in our detention rank, which means no loot for the next boss downing unless we are going to DE the item, then they can get it. We cleared the back way to Leo first, wiped again on trash. (We were getting sloppy) We decided it best to move back to the front side of Leo and come in from the other direction. This was probably the best idea, as it made the trash alot easier rather than guessing what is around the corner and trying to fight an entire 7 man pull against a wall as to not pull Leo. Our first attempt on Leo, I found this to be just as hard on testing my tank skills as Tidewalker and Lurker were. (Yes, Lurker was a test of my tanking ability because I did not just sit in the water to fight him. I was jumping in and out, dodging and weaving, having to keep up my own shouts, claps, SB, threat, etc. It was definately one of the harder tests in tanking I have had for a while!) To be honest, Intervene is the best thing you can use as a warrior to pick this guy up. It only messed me up once or twice, as I intervened someone just as he switched to a different target and went the other direction. We had 4 tanks fighting over agro on him, and I only saw three times where someone besides me was the first to pick him up. Our first attempt, we got him to 6%. Most of our melee got wrecked by whirlwind JUST as he split at 15% because the timers fell unlucky. The second attempt we burned him hard. I almost wiped us the second attempt as I tabbed and hit the demon with my shield slam (crit for 1400 ftl :[ ) instead of leo. This allowed me to receive a nice death. A quick battle ress, and whirlwind, and I was back picking Leo up. Leo down... 2nd attempt.


I can honestly say that I feel like I earned my tier5 gloves. It was the only item in all 5 kills that I took that other people might have needed. It is one of three items in all of ssc/tk that I even need...so I dont feel so bad about them autolooting them to me. I will be in here quite a long time tanking these mobs for them, so every little bit will help. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I belong in a guild...

All in all, however, I was disappointed. SSC was extremely easy. Short of the Vashj fight, we honestly struggled more on Lurker than anything else.... If that makes any sense. Tonight is Al'ar, VR, and Solarian. We'll hit Al'ar first as we dont skip bosses, then finish the night with Solarian and VR. I am somewhat intimidated again by Al'ar. I've not seen the fight, short of the video, and I know it relies heavily on the tanking. Its the kind of nervousness that gets your adrenaline pumping knowing that you and 3-4 other people are the ones that can mess up the raid the most. I cannot wait! Kael'thas, we're coming for you my friend. I hope you geared into spell haste since 2.4, because our DPS is going to nuke you

ALSO!!! I would like to thank all of you in shoutbox for all the advice you have given me in the past few days. Thanks so much guys! It was a tons of help and helped me to be sure I knew the small things that you cannot see when researching and watching videos.. Thank you!