Tank like a girl

Three weeks ago, my guild had its first trip into Ulduar, as a farewell present to our raid officer who’s now in the frozen north until August. As I am in her footsteps now, I decided to return to Ulduar, after our failed attempt at killing Malygos two weeks ago. I didn’t really post about it, because phase 3 is full of fail. He’ll die soon enough.

Last time, we managed to kill 3 bosses in Ulduar, Flame Leviathan, Razorscale and XT-002. Ignis was more than we could handle. But that was then, and this is now!

Flame Loothiathan actually took us two tries, because the first try we waited too long with the turrets and the vehicles got demolished. The second try was a smooth operation though, so all was good. We then moved on to Razorscale who was 2-shot. The first try we had waaaaay too many adds for us tanks to handle, but the second try was a lot better. I actually like phase 1 better than phase 2, it’s more dynamic. Stressful, but good. Phase 2 is ugh. I hate Grobbulus, I hate Gluth, and phase 2 Razorscale is like that, only on crack. It was messy in the end, with a tank death, but we got her down.

We moved on to XT-002, and that fight was fun, and a flawless kill. I seem to struggle a bit with actually locating the Pummelers, as I was on adds duty. I would find one and miss the other, but Misdirect saved the day. Not only did we kill XT flawlessly, we all got us a fancy achievement as well. Good times.

I decided to skip Ignis and move on to Kologarn instead. Gosh, he was easy. I didn’t really expect him to be that easy. I had read up on him and believed that we had to swap aggro as tanks, but the debuff never stacks in Ulduar-10, so all I did was tanking adds, while running from crazy eyebeam pew-pew. That was exciting. I have to say, Kologarn showing up when you enter his room, that’s pretty fabulous. Another very nice one-shot.

We moved on to Auriaya, which took a godly time, because her trash? Sucks. Just two trash groups, but they kicked our asses and laughed at us. And I loved it. Because lame trash like the trash in Naxx is boring. I would have preferred not wiping so much, but getting those two groups down felt like it would deserve its own epic loot. On Auriaya herself, we managed to mess up that pull. Her kitties pounced, tanks were pretty much dead from the start. Ouch. We were running out of time as one of our healers had to go, so we decided to give it one more try. The second time the pull worked like charm, the kitties went down, and from there on, I tried to gain the Feral Defender’s attention (didn’t work) and popped Berserker Rage when she feared. Not too hard when the pull works.

Amount of tank loot on day 1: zero

The next raid day, I thought it was time to re-visit our nemesis from our initial raid, Ignis. Last time, none of our strategies worked out, but even in our first try, we were already better. It was doable, I knew it. The second try was full of bad luck (adds tank in slagpot), but on the third try, we nailed it. It was very intense, less for me as Ignis tank, but for the add handlers. Our pally tanked the adds, my partner was a boomkin instead of bear that day and rooted them in the Scorch, and our warlock brought them to the pool and shattered them. Felt absolutely awesome to get him down. In my screenshot, you can see that I had to pull out all the stops at the end, and having a 49k health pool there, makes me giggle a bit. Also, whatever that golden glowy stuff is, it’s pretty.

From there, we moved on to Assembly of Iron. Originally, I had slotted myself as healer, but changed that because I wanted to do that fight, and we had no interrupts but me. It took us quite some time to figure out the fight. The first tries were wipes learning to deal with Fusion Punch and Overload on the tanks. Then we had some tries where Fusion Punch would not be dispelled even though it was spammed. The first time we got Steelbreaker down, we quickly learned how to deal with Phase 2, giant green runes of death and positioning. We wiped again, but it was educational, and the next try we got all three of them down. Looking at my WoL report, I have really subpar threat, way too much white damage, but I was so focused on interrupts. I had to set up a giant glowy icon for my cooldowns on interrupts, it was intense. Stormcaller Brundir is definitely made for warrior tanks, with three stuns and two interrupts (if you have Gag Order). The only part I had problems with was dragging him out of the Runes of Power. Those often happened right after I silenced him, aargh.

We then proceeded towards Hodir. I am not sure I can call it proceed. Raid Leader who doesn’t know the trash, plus snow mounds plus pathers with big aggro range = carnage. I think it took us at least an hour to clear to Hodir and we were running out of raid time. That’s some interesting trash there alright. We then tested the waters on Hodir, and we have our work cut out on him. But just like on Ignis the previous raid, I now have the time to analyze our mistakes, and work out a more cohesive strategy. I am full of ideas already.

Damn, it’s fantastic to be a tank. Be it as main tank, as caster tank, as adds tank. My one true love in-game. I will soon speak about my thoughts of Ulduar in the eyes of a tank, later this week. I have more to say that doesn’t fit in this story-time post.

Oh, btw. Tank loot on day 2: zero. Cry with me, tanks of the world.