At first glance, Buffalo looks exactly like the default buff frame, with the important difference that you can move buff, debuff and weapon buff frames whereever you want them. I use three horizontal lines as display, right underneath my Fortress Data Broker blocks. All you get is an icon for the buff/debuff, and the time underneath it. Buffs that run out you can set to flash as a warning. Buffalo can be skinned using ButtonFacade, if you like eye candy.

My only request would be to have a more visual cue when a buff completely falls off, I keep running around without a weapon buff on my shaman way too often, but I am using TellMeWhen now, which btw is totally awesome as buff/debuff/proc reminder.

If highly flexible buff bars are more your thing, I still wholeheartedly recommend Elkano’s BuffBars. Caulle over at Tankspot has done a video tutorial how to set it up if you don’t like bars and including filters and the whitelist system, pretty nice.

WotLK has brought us many factions, offering rewards. I’ll try to take a look at rewards to help me decide what reputation to grind first, and hopefully that’ll help you readers too. I can’t really make any weighted decision yet as I don’t know what else is available per crafting and drops yet, so take this as what it is: an overview of neutral faction rewards. Horde and alliance specific rewards will be posted separately soon.

Argent Crusade:

The Argent Crusade has its quartermaster at the Argent Vanguard in Icecrown. Once you’re friendly with them, you can pick up their tabard to start the reputation grind via championing in level 80 instances.

• Special Issue Legplates - Available at Honored. Very solid piece with boatloads of def and hit. Reaching the new defcap of 540 won’t be quite that easy, so this will help.
• Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector - Available at Revered. This is going to be the head enchant of choice to get us capped, methinks.

And that’s it, so our target goal for Argent Crusade is a minimum of Revered.

Frenzyheart Tribe vs The Oracles:

This is WotLK’s version of Aldor and Scryers, on a smaller scale, I guess. Both factions live in Sholazar Basin, either you side with the wolvar or the gorlocs. If you go with cuddly widdle wolvar, Frenzyheart rewards is what you’re looking for.

• Giant-Sized Gauntlets - available at Revered. Dodge and hit, so avoidance and threat stats, but no defense. Still, not a bad choice.
• Stolen Vrykul Harpoon - available at Revered. While we get Heroic Throw at 80, it’ll still have a cooldown, and besides we need nice stats to fill that slot for us anyway. This thrown weapon seems to be catering to rogues primarily, but I also wouldn’t say no to it.

What do the toothy gorlocs of the Oracles have to offer, in comparison?

Absolutely nothing. None of the faction rewards does anything for protection warriors.

The Kalu’ak:

Our roly-poly Tuskarr friends are mostly known for their fishing pole of OP-ness and their penguin pet, but do they also have tanky goodness?

• Ivory-Reinforced Chestguard - available at Honored. This is available at level 76, so this might give you a jumpstart when it comes to the def-race. Not bad at all, and very easy to get.

Kirin Tor:

Does this faction of mages have anything to offer for us? Their quartermaster is Archmage Alvareaux in Dalaran.

• Fireproven Gauntlets - Pretty nice stuff. Worth the grind to Exalted? I can’t tell you for sure yet.

And that’s it, so don’t expect too much from guys in purple dresses.

Knights of the Ebon Blade:

Renegade death knights with a hold in Icecrown sounds a bit more promising than guys in purple dresses, so let’s see.

• Toxin-Tempered Sabatons - available at Honored. Promising start, very nice shoulders, I dig.

However, that’s all that’s notable for me as protection warrior, which is a bit of a let-down.

The Sons of Hodir:

Based in Stormpeaks, this faction of giants looks like it’s going to be everyone’s ticket to shoulder enchants.

• Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle - available at Honored. This is the same shoulder enchant you were able to buy at Exalted from the Aldor, so not a bad start.
• Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle - available at Exalted.

Again, that’s it, aside from two mammoth mounts. I want a mammoth.

Wyrmrest Accord:

• Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions - available at Honored. Very ironic name, fancy cloak to wear when you smack things with your shield.
• Breastplate of the Solemn Council - available at Revered. That’s what I am talking about.
• Sabatons of Draconic Vigor - available at Revered. Again, great stats, tons of defense, pushing us to the cap.

And that’s it for the neutral factions. I personally will go for Wyrmrest Accord first, followed by Argent Crusade and chasing it with Sons of Hodir.

Utgarde Keep

Utgarde Keep is a level 70-72 instance located in Howling Fjord. It’s low in difficulty, very linear, and easy to clear. Inside you will find three boss encounters, with three quests for the Horde and two quests for Alliance players.

Quest rewards for tanks:

Alliance: Woven Steel Necklace from the quest Disarmament, you obtain this quest in Wyrmskull Village
Horde: Tiled-Stone Pendant from the quest Disarmament, you obtain this quest inside the instance

None of the other two quests offer tank rewards, though the plate bracers from the Horde quest ‘A Score to Settle‘ are good for DPS sets.

Trash pulls:

Most pulls are groups of 3 Vrykuls, mostly 2 melee, one caster. Near the exit to the outer area you will have a couple four-pulls. If you want to use CC, try having the Runecasters, Spiritualists or Heartsplitters CC’d. Note that the Runecasters can be pulled without using LoS. Some Vrykul have worg companions which die very easily.

The second pull in the instance can get messy due to a pathing mob between the groups on the sides, and runners. I had no real trouble tanking two groups here at all, but if you’re not pimped out in TBC epics, be careful with pulling here.

You will encounter a few proto-drakes, those need to be tanked not facing the group because of their flamebreath, and don’t have your back to the next group as they do a knockback. Unless you like knockback pulling, which could be fun. The proto-drakes are the highest exp mob in the instance, so I would advise killing all of them.

Inbetween the first and second boss encounters you have a section where undead are digging a tunnel. Usually an elite Overseer will be with them. Have people stand close by to avoid their Charge and remind people to hold the AoE until you’ve gotten a solid Shockwave/Consecrate/Swipe in first.

Bosses:

Prince Keleseth:
Once you have engaged him, build solid threat on him. His spells cannot be interrupted nor reflected (that I noticed), which is sadmaking. Keep an eye on the doorway, not long after the fight starts, four skeletons will come running in, going straight for your healer. Pick them up, have DPS burn them in place and go back to tanking Keleseth. If people are on the ball and kill skeletons and Ice Tombs quickly, it’s an easy tank and spank fight.

Dalronn & Skarvald:
Skarvald is a melee mob, whereas Dalronn is a caster. Dalronn will randomly drop aggro and cast shadow bolts at party members, which makes this a very heal-intense fight. Skarvald has a charge, so people should stand as close to the tank as they can to avoid that. You have three options here.

1. Bring one of the bosses to 10%, then kill the other and burn the other one quickly.
2. Kill Dalron first, switch to Skarvald, have the healer heal through the damage the ghost of Dalronn causes until Skarvald is dead.
3. Kill Skarvald first, switch to Dalronn, pick the ghost of Skarvald up via taunt and keep him on you.

My recommendation would be either 1 or 3.

Ingvar the Plunderer:
Ingvar is the end-boss and stands on a platform chatting with a couple drake-riders. Don’t worry, they’re just there for flavor (which is a great touch), you only fight Ingvar by himself.

This is a two phase fight, in which he has roughly the same abilities, but they’re just a bit nastier in phase 2. All ranged DPS needs to be at max range to avoid the silence effect of his Roar. When he starts casting Smash, strafe to the left or right as tank to avoid the damage spike, then afterwards run back to him. Once you have killed him, he will be resurrected as undead servant of the Lich King. Same rules apply, but it will be incredibly useful to have a mage or druid for decursing the Woe Strike, so your healer won’t take shadow damage. As tank, it’s your job to run out of the Dark Smash, which is even worse burst damage than the Smash from phase 1. As always, minimize damage as much as you can, reapply Demoralizing Shout and Thunderclap whenever they have run out, and this fight is probably the only good time for using Shield Wall in UK.

Loot:

No specific tank drops in there. If you want to mess around as Arms or Fury warrior, Ingvar’s Monolithic Cleaver certainly deserves the name, and has lots of strength and hit.

Next up: The Nexus!

While powerguilds like the new TwentyfifthNovember have already cleared all WotLK content, I am enjoying my sweet and slow ride. I am actually leveling three characters at the same time. My main is Kadomi, she’s 73 now. My shaman is 71, to do instance runs with the other half who did indeed switch to her feral druid as new main. Tagging behind I will level my rogue, simply because I need her to pick herbs so my shaman can use them for alchemy and inscription.

Kadomi started out in the Howling Fjord, as I had hoped it would be less crowded. I wouldn’t say it was deserted, but it was totally manageable, at least in my prime playing time, which is well ahead of server time. Vengeance Landing is a very cool starting place, and the Forsaken of the Hand of Vengeance are all…interesting fellows. And so I did questionable things like working on plagues and dropping plague bombs on alliance ships. Good times. The quest rewards in the starting area weren’t that exciting for me, until I did my first Utgarde Keep run.

Utgarde Keep itself is breathtakingly gorgeous from the outside, and insanely dull on the inside. The design is very intricate, the level of detail is great, but that doesn’t change that it’s dark, dull and probably the most linear instance I have ever run. You cannot even take a wrong turn. The pulls are all incredibly easy. I think my favorite part of the instance is the series of jumps you take from the top to the exit once you’re done. All negativity aside, the bosses are interesting, and it’s a fast run for good exp.

The quest rewards are pretty nice. Vambraces of the Vengeance Bringer are now my new DPS bracers, and Tiled Stone Pendant finally replaces my Maiden necklace. Note, horde necklace reward > alliance reward IMHO, huzzah.

 
The scenery in Howling Fjord is incredibly pretty. The amount of detail is pretty amazing, there are just so many fine touches, like the Shoveltusk stags fighting with each other, but once you run in, one of them runs off, e.g. The quests are all pretty fun. Few drop quests, interesting touches with hints at the Titans, and I loved having my own pet tauren in Skorn or a pet giant at Giant’s Run. Soloing as a protection warrior is a dream. I find myself having absolutely zero downtime. I don’t have to eat, I rarely ever have to use a bandage, I find myself having to pull larger mob groups for some rougher action. So far I have done all group quests on my own, the only one that wasn’t quite so easy was the March of Giants, as the giants have a nasty DoT. Still, with spell reflect it’s possible to survive those guys too. Northrend elites are such pushovers.

I love the new models on most mobs, even though I heard that people hate the new wolves. I think they look cool. The new yetis are the best though, they look really pissed. Speaking of yetis and wolves, I really enjoyed the quests with them. Running around as a worg was tons of fun. That’s just it, most quests are pretty much just pure fun. Notable exception: the buggy Twisted Glade and its spores of permanent Evade bugs. That was the only quest I gave up in frustration and went back the next day when it was deserted there.

On Saturday, I then ran the Nexus for the first time, and thought it was a huge step up from Utgarde Keep. Not in terms of difficulty, but the whole design of the place. It’s easy to get lost because you can pick the order of the bosses however you please. I heard it described too much like Botanica, but I don’t agree at all. Sure, there are angry flowers, but we’ve had those as far back as Dire Maul East or Maraudon. All four bosses are incredibly fun, from tentacle lady to icicle guy, and the end boss must be an homage to every non-stop jumping nightelf rogue you’ve ever seen. Jump to stay alive, how cool.

 
Also pretty cool, wait, scratch that, make that amazing, are the quest rewards. I was flabbergasted to replace -three- pieces of purple gear with the Nexus quest rewards. I really expected my Pauldrons of Stone Resolve to last me longer than they did, but I replaced them with Tundra Pauldrons. I am pretty happy that they look wicked at least, very orcish if you ask me. My Bonefist Gauntlets also went bye-bye to be replaced by Gauntlets of the Disturbed Giant. As a sidegrade I picked up Boots of the Unbowed Protector. I have no idea if I’ll need avoidance gear anytime soon, but if yes, they are most certainly better than my Boots of Elusion.

Hopefully I can get a replacement for my chicken head soon, because without all the other Zul’Aman style gear, it just looks silly now.

I just started the quests in Dragonblight yesterday, hit 73 there, and think I fell in love with the zone even harder than with Howling Fjord. My shaman is doing Borean Tundra, so I am skipping that with Kadomi. Lore-wise, it just feels great playing horde now, Warsong Hold and Agmar’s Hammer are really giving you the feeling that the Horde is serious about this war business. As a nice touch that I really appreciated, my shaman got a really rough greeting from Garrosh Hellscream, formerly known as emo-boy of Nagrand, but when I showed up in Warsong Hold with Kadomi to get to the Nexus, he was just a little bit friendlier, telling her he remembered her deeds from Nagrand. Yay recognition! After all it was me who brought Thrall to Nagrand, or he would still be standing moping by the campfire in Garadar.

I am looking forward to the two instances in Dragonblight, but it might be until the weekend until I actually get around to them, due to stupid work schedule this week. Azjol-Nerub is bound to be fun!

And that’s it! Blog-wise, I will do my best to actually keep a schedule now: Monday is story-time, Wednesday I’ll try to write instance guides, starting with UK, and Friday will be addon-time. Sounds good, let’s see if I can make it happen.

Remind you of anyone? You betcha!

Now back to your regular WoW while I sit restlessly at work, eager to get home to plaaaaaay.

First time tanking a BC instance: I was fury/arms until 60. When I hit Outland I decided to try a hybrid build, going 0/40/21, sacrificing Rampage for Concussion Blow. My first instance was Ramparts, and it felt really epic surviving the Nazan and Vazruden fight. I was hooked for good.

Admitting defeat: My turning point as warrior was when my guild group (a core of 5 people who had hit 70 first) was unable to get past Vorpil in SL and got slaughtered repeatedly in Mechanar. Time to buckle up, create a gear plan and go full protection.

Turning point: Our first look at Murmur. Standing in that hallway and seeing him for the first time was super-impressive. It felt awesome. And then he dropped the Shoulderguards of the Bold and I was in tank-heaven. I wore those forever.

Keyed and ready: The other half and I and our pockethealer Yasura pugged our way to the Karazhan key. I clearly remember her having her turning point in another failed Black Morass run, and she went holy from shadow. It would be another 5 months until we actually set foot into Karazhan.

The first heroic: It was Slave Pens, and it was a three hour wipefest. We had no epics whatsoever, so the first couple badges felt like incredible achievements.

The amazing sword: Once I got a handle on heroics, I started pugging Mechanar almost daily, for the sacred grail of my tanking career, The Sun Eater. When it finally dropped, I squealed like a little girl and scared my cats to hide under the bed. I still use it on avoidance fights and will keep it forever.

First visit to Karazhan: Five months I fought with myself, was ready to quit, was ready to transfer off to a more Euro friendly guild, just to set foot into Karazhan. I never thought we’d be able to go, but we finally had 10 people, the right balance, the right minimum gear. Exactly one year ago, we first set foot into Karazhan. Our first raid night ended at Big Bad Wolf, and a day after we ended at Curator. We got our first raid epics, and it felt awesome!

Karazhan cleared: It was the Christmas week, we scheduled 3 raid days instead of two, and that was the first week we killed all bosses but for Nightbane. In total, this was only our sixth raid ID, and I was so freaking proud of my girls. Nightbane was killed the next raid ID when the stalwart three Yasura, me and the other half had acquired urns for summoning him.

Champion of the Naaru: At first a hare-brained idea that I thought I’d never be able to pull off. First the obstacle of the most challenging heroics at the time. Then the two 25-man raid bosses. I suffered from setbacks when our allied guild decided to stop T4 raids and went T5, but then I made a dedicated push, set up my own raids and did it. An awesome moment.

Who needs a paladin tank? I think my proudest tanking moment was when we successfully downed Jan’alai in Zul’Aman. We were stuck on the first 3 animal bosses for the longest time because we just couldn’t do Jan’alai. Everywhere you looked they suggested a paladin tank for the dragonhawk adds. I got a Furies Deck, a Sporeggar shield with shield spike, and we finally did it. Several times even. Pre-patch and pre-nerf that was a real achievement as prot warrior.

So what were your biggest, your greatest moment? Name me your one most memorable event. Let’s all wax nostalgic before we move on to higher goals.

• finish leveling my shaman to 70. Done!
• power-level alchemy on my shaman as my warlock won’t be leveled for a while. Fizzled out at alchemy 355, but the last 20 points aren’t far away. As second profession I power-leveled Inscription on her, sitting at 336.
• grind out the last 17 points of engineering on my rogue. Almost. She’s at 373, two repairbots away from the final destination, but it’ll be easier to just do new WotLK schematics to continue.
• build the roflcopter, because I wantssss it. Done!
• grab my bestest girls and tank H OHB and H M-T to complete my heroic experience. Done and done and did Crypts as well, completing my Outland Heroic Dungeonmaster achievement. Crypts was annoying, but scored me the possibly most disgusting weapon ever, Claw of the Watcher. It twitches, blinks and drools!
• lead another Gruul/Mags raid and this time won’t pass the T4 shoulder token to another warrior. Done! Though technically I didn’t pass the shoulders, I actually lost the roll, mwah.
• clear ZA. Done! 1.5 hour clears, all chests, the nerfed ZA is a pushover.

 
On Friday, we had our monthly PvP day in the guild, but BGs were so unfun and wackily out of balance for us casual girls in non-PvP gear that a bunch of us decided to go back to what we’re decent at, PvE. In a strange turn of events, we decided we wanted to feel like we did when we first hit 70, were undergeared and struggled through 3.5 hours Shadow Labs runs. We ran it almost naked! The rule was to just keep your pants/skirt on and wear your normal weapons/shield. So there I went, down to under 10k health, 10k armor, just like back in the day.

 
The run itself was tons of fun, but even almost naked we were so OP. Even with pulling carefully we blazed through. Blackheart didn’t have much time for fun, Vorpil didn’t port at all and Murmur did one Sonic Boom before he disintegrated. Still, it was really cool to do this with really low health and casters drinking every pull, just like back in the day.

I’ve been running tons of heroics. Possibly the greatest fun in post-patch world until Thursday. Very fast-paced, full of prot warrior awesomeness. Our holy paladin went retribution because I asked her, she wanted the chest off Kael’thas in H MgT, so we got that for her. From running all those heroics, I went from having 10 badges to 103 badges in like no time. As my final shopping tour for badges I got me the Sunguard Legplates after all. They have a lot more def than my previous pants, so I was finally able to ditch the Adamantine Figurine as defense trinket. Or so I thought.

On Saturday we did a ZA clear, and the shield of my dreams again never showed up, but Zul’jin decided to drop Cleaver of the Unforgiving. I wouldn’t be an orc if that axe didn’t make me drool. Recipe for success: enchant the weapon you’ve had forever with an expensive enchant like Executioner, and for sure an upgrade will drop within days. Good for me that all those heroics already saw me with more shards in the bank to have the axe enchanted as well. Also, the price for shards in general has gone rock-bottom on Bronzebeard, which is very nice.

Bye bye King’s Defender, you served me well! The axe should carry me to whatever upgrade I will get for it in WotLK. I had to gem for defense so that I was able to be capped for our Sunday ZA clear without going back to using a def trinket, but it worked out. The Sunday ZA was strange because most of the bosses dropped exactly the same items they had dropped on Saturday, including the axe. Again, no shield, but that’s alright. I am a blacksmith, so at blacksmithing 390, I am going to make myself a Saronite Defender. Not too shabby!

My worries that I would get a late start to WotLK seem unfounded. I had to order my US version at Okaysoft who specialize on imports and they informed that the shipping date for US WotLK is Nov 11. I should have my copy early, go figure! I can sit in front of my computer, hugging the box, waiting for the servers to become ready. I will be there, live, for any Northrend world server crash, huzzah.

I am sort of anal-retentive when it comes to WoW, so I’ve contemplated all last week which starting zone I will level in. I think I’ll be going with Howling Fjord, just so I can hop into Utgarde Keep as quickly as possible. I am so ready for WotLK.

 
You may start mocking me now, as I was fumbling my way through the English language and demonstrated my lack of knowledge about Arms and Fury in general. I think it’s time to respec some time to be a more versatile warrior. Nevertheless, I hope some of you will enjoy.

Thanks for having me, Leala and Rae, and everyone else should check out their website for more podcasts.

But things have changed, and it’s not unusual to see the main tank really up there. In my last raids, I have been number 3 in ZA several times, and was number 2 for our last Kara run, with a DPS high of 751 on Maiden (where I provided the highest damage on that fight). In 5-mans, I usually top the DPS by a good margin or end up second at least. A couple posts back I be-moaned the lack of the threat mini-game, but you know, I am liking the DPS game by now. I am not an exceptional tank. I know my stuff, but what I do every tank should be capable of. I am not running around in T6 or insane SBV gear sets.

And yet, I see protection warriors who are not doing so great on DPS since the patch. Protection warriors of the world, hear my words: don’t be satisfied with being lowest DPS as in the old days. You can put out competitive DPS and still tank like a star.

The single target rotation:

Here’s where the first mistake happens. Forget about the rotation of the past. Push it from your mind. Remap your keybindings if necessary. Don’t think in SS -> RV -> DV, DV anymore. That rotation is dead. If you still use it like this (and my fingers will still wander that way at times), you are sacrificing DPS and ergo threat. The threat you don’t notice at the moment, but by the time 80 rolls around, the threat game might see a comeback.

Instead you must prioritize. A good sequence would be to pull, Charge, Shield Slam and then take it from there. If Revenge lights up, great! Use Revenge every time you can and Shield Slam is on cooldown. Getting a Glyph of Revenge is an absolute necessity. If neither Shield Slam nor Revenge are available, Devastate. Watch for Sword&Board procs, you don’t want to miss them. Seriously, I mean it. If you are not keeping an eye on procs, you are not playing in the most optimal way. Being a protection warrior is not about the perfect threat rotation anymore. It’s become a lot more reactive.

Priority:

> >

After every GCD, you quickly need to check which ability you should use next, and still weave in stuff like Shouts, Thunderclap, Cleave etc.

Addons can be a great help when it comes to being aware of cooldowns and procs. I highly recommend Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text for awareness of S&B and Revenge procs. It comes with triggers for warriors without having to set anything up. I moved the static area for cooldowns to the center, to be more aware of them (though no cooldown popped while I was taking screenshots).

Works great. Another addon I love for keeping track of class-related buffs and debuffs is Classtimer. In the latest version it will track both Glyph of Revenge and S&B. At a glance I can see when it’s time to reapply Shouts, TC, and other such things. I use the All in One bar, but you can freely place timer bars for yourself, target and focus.

The AoE rotation:

Veneretio has posted about this not too long ago, how to approach AoE tanking and the best ‘rotation’ for that. I won’t repeat what he’s said, go read it yourself! He nicely illustrates what you should do to build threat on multiple targets without sacrificing survivability skills. His overall point is that we should remember we’re tanks, not DPS and do our part. I agree with this, but also think that if you disregard your damage output, you’re doing your group a disservice.

I basically use the same abilities he describes, but make sure that my primary target gets Shield Slammed whenever the ability is available. If you have rage, there is no reason why you shouldn’t add Cleave to the mix. Do not neglect your defensive abilities, but do not forget your offensive options either. Concussion Blow does great damage now, and minimizes your damage taken, e.g.

At the end of the raid when I look at my abilities, Shield Slam is the vast bulk of my damage output, at 25-30%. This is followed by white damage at 13-15%, Revenge with the same percentage, and if there were a lot of trash pulls, Thunderclap and Damage Shield are usually up there as well.

If Shield Slam is not your top damage ability, then you’re not reactive enough. If your white damage far outweighs any other damage you do, then you really should try to step it up. Our new priorities for ability use should be clearly reflected in the damage breakup.

In the end, it’s not about topping the meters. Successfully tanking and keeping mobs away from the raid while staying alive is still the highest priority of any protection warrior. Providing good DPS is just another perk we’ve received in 3.0 and it would be a waste not to use it.

I actually did not tank this time, as I was still sick and felt like facerolling again. Besides, I wanted to see how well my moonkin does now. In a fit of sickness, I actually didn’t wear any hit gear, or I would have done better, but I broke 1k DPS on Nalorakk, which is very nice.

That was the first guild raid where I wasn’t main-tanking. I feel like I am maybe hogging the spotlight too much. The tanks did just fine without me. The only real difference that I saw was the other warrior not being anywhere near my damage output. She was at the bottom of the charts, where I usually end up being 3rd in ZA. This inspired me to another post about prot warrior DPS, sometime later this week.

Loot-wise everyone but the druid tank scored something. The warrior tank got Ancient Aqir Artifact, which is pretty neat but not high on my priority list. The only thing I really still want from there is the shield off Dragonhawk. Which he’s never dropped for us. We got Arrow-fail Chestguard for the third ID in a row. One more chance for me to get the shield, then I think we’re done with TBC raiding.

After Zul’Aman, I had the tank itch that DPSing can never fulfil, and as H OHB was the daily, I grabbed a guild group and off we went. Besides, I needed to give my new Executioner enchant a spin. Zomg, it’s so bright, it burns! Looks very cool though. Only two of us had ever been to H OHB, the pockethealer and I, and I never managed to complete it. It went very well, though we had one wipe. The last wave of dragonkin hit me with 2 mortal strikes for 4k each, and then I was done with fairly quickly. The second time I used Intimidating Shout and all was well. Best part about the heroic? I was number one DPS and did 31% of the damage, haha. Glyph of Revenge, how I love thee.

I need to mention that at the beginning we killed Don Carlos, and I won Don Carlos’ Famous Hat. So fashionable that I need to add a screenshot. Oh Model Viewer, why dost thou forsake me still!

Two heroics left to go that I have never done, Crypts and Mana-Tombs. Shouldn’t be any problem whatsoever. I will definitely get my heroic dungeon achievement done before the expansion. I know that a lot of you are raid tanks by passion and do little else, but for me, the heart of the game is 5-mans still. Everything I know about tanking and pulling and responding when the going gets tough I have learned from 5-mans.