Gruul: A Deeper Look

First off, I'd like to apologize for spamming the recent posts. I really just wanted you guys to feel the excitement as I was feeling it, but I get the feeling that some of you just considered it spam. It was just Gruul, after all.

Anyway. This will be a deeper, more critical look at guild performance, and more specifically, my performance as the main tank on HKM and Gruul.

First off, the oddities of the group: We had four PuGgers (all DPS - a shaman, a warlock, and two ret pallies). We also had two guildies who are undergeared (both DPS - a warlock and a warrior). So, that's 19 guildies who were actually geared for the instance. Also, there were several of us in the same room... real life, LAN-party style, which was amazingly fun. We were playing on top-end iMacs, so there was no lag, and the graphics were amazing.

The PuGgers:

• The shaman (elemental), made it in to the top four in terms of damage dealt. He was quiet, and respectful (he opted out of the guild pics, as it was "our win" - his words). I should really add this guy to my friends list. If you get a chance to group with Tiaamat, do it.
• The warlock made it in to the top ten. I didn't hear much from him either. He seemed a good guy, and did solid DPS.
• The first ret pally also made it into the top ten. I don't recall hearing much from him either.
• I beat the second ret pally in damage dealt. He decided to give us all advice on the fights, and frankly, he got made fun of in guild chat.

The Undergeared Guildies

• OrangeKnight wasn't really planning on coming, but we called him in just to have another guild spot filled. He didn't do much damage, but props to him for coming along with us. I was hoping he'd get some upgrades, but there was no such luck.
• Bellatrexa did decently on damage, partly due to some recent upgrades from Kara. She picked up her T4 legs off of Gruul.

Big thanks to all of these guys and girls, as the run wouldn't have gone off without the extra bodies.

High King Maulgar:

The first pull, we made the mistake of having me pull. Which really didn't work. To all of those trying HKM for the first time, the main tank does not pull. Ever. There should be a misdirect on to the main tank.

We ended up with the mage tank pulling, and the misdirects and ranged attacks going off as his Pyro hit Krosh. Our positioning, as far as I can tell from the online guides, was non-standard. We put Maulgar himself in the sw corner, Kiggler to the north of that, Krosh on the ne wall, Olm on the south wall, and Blindeye at the entrance to the room. We had a little trouble with Olm running after me and fearing me, resulting in healer death, but we got it sorted out. In the end, I was staring at some shiny ogre crotch, as it was being lit up from all sides with all sorts of effects (hooray for full spell detail!).

Loot: (from memory - don't remember who got what)

• 2x [item]Pauldrons of the Fallen Defender[/item]
• [item]Pauldrons of the Fallen Champion[/item]
• [item]Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi[/item]
• [item]Belt of Divine Inspiration[/item](?)

My performance:

I think I did pretty well. Of course, the hard part of the fight was not on me. Everybody who was in on the pull did great on that fourth and final try, the DPS burned everything down very quickly, and the healing was awesome. Having basically stood around building up threat the entire fight allowed the DPS to go all out, and they did. It was amazing. My performance really was of no consequence to this fight. All I had to do was hit the big ogre in the nuts.

Gruul the Dragonkiller

As I mentioned in my previous entry, we got him down to 20% (or was it 10%? I don't recall). We seriously rocked the first pull. We avoided shatter very well, we moved away from cave ins, healing was great, DPS was solid, and I think I had some really good threat. Inevitably, as it was our first attempt, something went wrong, and we wiped.

For that first try, we were, unfortunately, slightly off the plan. We had planned for Kamei to be soaking the hurtful strikes. He is a druid, after all. What it ended up being was Baultar soaking them. After the wipe, we determined that Kamei should just let that happen, and switch to a DPS role.

The second attempt we didn't get him quite as far as the first, and the third attempt, we accidentally pulled Gruul. Still, we got him down to 20-ish percent, maybe lower. Try four, we were solid all the way through. One of our two in-guild shamans died about halfway through, and was looking over my shoulder for bit. At one point, he exclaimed "Are you even taking damage?" I was, of course, but not as much as expected, and our healing was amazing.

What was odd is that, after the first attempt, we seemed to get worse at avoiding shatter. There were a lot of deaths in that time, and we only had one battle rez (there was only one druid - in fact, only one leather wearer - on the run, which was fun for him on loot). Our healers could heal through any non-fatal damage without much trouble, so it wasn't too much of an issue. I attribute it to instinct versus knowledge. The first attempt, everybody managed to avoid each other through instinct. Once we knew what we were doing, I think we overthought it, and managed to get within 15 yards of each other. I know I dealt some friendly damage. I happens.

Another oddity on the fight was that, after Shatter, Gruul would run over to one of the ranged DPS Tarlimance, I think, and then back to me. Does that happen to anyone else around here?

Lastly, I noticed that one melee DPSer in particular was fighting right alongside me. As in, the front of Gruul. I wasn't particularly thrilled about this, but it didn't seem to cause too much trouble.

For the last 3-5% of our last attempt, there were a significant amount of the raid dead. Maybe about half. But we managed to pull it out, and the room exploded. Everybody was thrilled with our first 25-man raid, there were congratulations and thanks going around through guild chat, raid chat, teamspeak, and face-to-face.

Loot:

• [item]Leggings of the Fallen Champion[/item]
• [item]Leggings of the Fallen Defender[/item]
• [item]Leggings of the Fallen Hero[/item] (Grats to Bellatrexa!)
• [item]Cowl of Nature's Breath[/item] (Grats to Kamei!)
• [item]Gronn-stitched Girdle[/item] (Grats to Kamei!)
• (?) (Don't remember this one)

My Performance:

I think I did very well. I had a significant amount of threat for the whole thing, so I gave the ranged DPS a great cieling to shoot for. At one point, Tarlimance (who was in the room with us), said "I'm coming for your threat!", to which I replied "Do it!"

I do have some self-criticisms on this fight. I used Heroic Strike far too much. The reason I was feeling rage starved was because I was just spamming it. Tisk. Also, I sometimes found myself without enough rage to Intercept back to Gruul after the ground slam. Tisk. Lastly, my rotation was off. I looked at my WWS breakdown, and the ratio of Shield Slam to Revenge to Devastate was not 1:1:2. It was more like 1:1:4. In order to max my threat, that will have to change.

A Word on Consumables:
We took Gruul down within the space of one [item]Unstable Flask of the Beast[/item]. Two hours for our first run was amazing, in my opinion.

Other than the flask, I used Healthstones and a few healing pots (I couldn't find [item]Ironshield Potion[/item]s on the AH, and my alchemist doesn't know how to make them). In the end, my farming for [item]Charged Crystal Focus[/item]es was for naught, but I consider it good preparation anyway.

In Conclusion...
Six of us who were LAN partying it up went out to Applebees for a post-raid dinner celebration. It was pretty rockin'. We talked about who could do what better, our favorite moments of the raid, healing in general, why we like our preferred roles (tanking, DPS, and healing) so much, and other random crap not related to WoW. It was good times.

Grats to the Mageroyal Syndicate. If anybody sees one of us around Zul'jin, be sure to let them know you heard about our first 25 man raid, and our first Gruul kill. Even if they weren't in on the raid, they'll probably let us know in guild chat.

Thanks to everybody on this site for reading... there have been some great tips.