Archive for July 28th, 2008:
The easiest of the Opera fights is Big Bad Wolf. He’s also one of the funniest. I have fond memories of this being my very first Opera experience. That said, he’s certainly not your average tank-and-spank boss.
As the Big Bad Wolf spends so much time chasing Little Red Riding Hood, it is very difficult to hold aggro on him. This will be your major obstacle as tank in this fight. This is a one tank encounter, as off-tank, you will provide DPS in this fight.
Positioning: As Big Bad Wolf will be in the center of the stage as grandmother, you can take your time to position the raid, which is very helpful. We tend to have all ranged DPS and healers by the entrance to the stage. This will give them, especially the healers, some extra time for running away from the Big Bad Wolf if transformed. The Main Tank will talk to the grandmother about how phat her lewtz are once everyone is where they are supposed to be, and she will change into Big Bad Wolf. As warrior, Bloodrage now and the moment you can attack him, Shield Slam to the face. In this phase of the fight, it is important that the only one doing anything is the tank. No heals, no DPS of any kind. As MT, drag BBW to the exit door of the stage. You won’t have much time to build initial threat because after very few hits, he will loudly announce ‘Run away, little girl’ and a random raid member will be Little Red Riding Hood.
Now you get to experience the fun of chasing BBW as he chases a gnome, trying to get some high threat moves in while he runs. At this point DPS still doesn’t do anything. I know, they will likely twitch and be restless. But it’s for the best! Eventually BBW will stop chasing the gnome, and try to tear you a new one, and once you have another Shield Slam (or any other big threat move of other tanking classes) on him, you can give the go sign.
As if you weren’t already running around enough as it is, BBW has a fear effect. If you’re awesome at stance-dancing (I am not) that’s one way to dodge the fear, otherwise, ask for Fear Ward or Tremor Totem, and if not available, you just suck it up.
DPS needs to be careful here. BBW hits hard enough to quickly rip squishies apart, so no one wants to draw aggro. Make sure people are aware of the difficulties of building threat here. Everyone here has to keep in mind that the tank losing aggro likely means a death, as he cannot be taunted back like all of the bosses in Karazhan.
BBW doesn’t have a lot of health, so if your Little Red Riding Hoods all run away well, if you can manage to keep BBW on you in non-running phases, then this is really not so bad at all. Be quick on your feet and try to keep the threat moves up even when he’s running, and you should be all good. Communication is essential, make sure your DPS knows when your TPS is struggling.
Drop-wise, none of the specific things BBW drops are very interesting for tanks. Warriors and paladins might enjoy Eternium Greathelm that can drop off any Opera boss. I still use it as avoidance helmet on boss fights.
The woes of being feared
This weekend was a Karazhan weekend in my guild. As we have an abundance of tanks, and too many people for one group, but not enough for two, I sat out on Saturday for the most part. One of the healers lost connection at Curator, and so the off-tank switched to her healer main and I was flown in as emergency tank. We only did Curator and Aran that night. Curator was easy as usual. I was amused to see that I actually took less damage tanking Curator than the off-tank did soaking Hateful Bolts.
Aran was not so cool, it took us several tries to actually get him down, but we had new people in the raid so it was all still good. As is usual, we have no one calling out people, no yelling, we raid as friendly as it gets.
That’s why it really hit me very hard when someone new in the raid apologized, professing that she had not fucked up before I joined the raid, really. She defended herself as if I had a reason to be mad at her. I was flabbergasted. Today I hear people new to the raid or less experienced were actually saying they were glad I wasn’t there for the raid because they were scared enough already. :((
This is a real dilemma for me. I lead most of our raids, and I think I am friendly, try to explain our strategies as best as I can. I never call anyone out personally. I actually make mistakes myself. I try to encourage everyone, say thanks to people who I think really rocked, try to keep the positive attitude up. Am I always super-nice and sweet to everyone? No. Do I voice my opinion when people do silly things (like replacing superior weapons with inferior weapons because of the look and sound effects of said weapon)? Heck yeah. Am I a perfectionist who tries to play on top of her game and tries to encourage others to do the same? Yes.
Apparently that turns me into the guild version of a nazi, which is a terribly politically incorrect term for a German like me. It really makes me unhappy, as I don’t want to be considered an asshole, don’t want to scare people. I just want to raid successfully, and have fun.
Has anyone here ever been in my shoes or has experienced similar? I could use some advice. :O
On a more positive note, I took my currently favorite alt, my rogue Ardraz, to Karazhan for the second day of the raid, for all later Kara bosses. It was her first Karazhan raid, she hasn’t got any Kara or badge gear, so I was worried if she was actually ready for later Kara content. I haven’t stopped grinning and giggling since I ran WWS:
Guess she was ready. So happy. Rogue DPS is my favorite playstyle aside from tanking, I swear. Awesome sauce. :))
