Starting Heroics

So Herk got a group for the Heroic Daily of Utgaarde Keep. The following was the group make up… Boomkin, FRF Mage, Rogue, Resto Druid. We trounced that place. The fun thing is that with Heroic Throw and Charge, Warriors can now front load threat like a Pally tank. The Boomkin never even got close to taking aggro off of me. The mage tried to take his own targets away from me. Realizing it was the “Fold” doing it, I decided to show him he couldn’t no matter which target he chose. The story for this instance is really boring. We caked walked through all of it. No one died. I did nothing special to save the entire group because they didn’t need it.

Heroic Nexus on the other hand is a different story. They were 4 guildies who needed a tank. I had run several instances with this guild before and rarely every the same people twice. However, I have made a reputation with several guilds about being a really really good pug tank. Last night, I had to turn down 3 Heroic run offers because it was my wife’s turn to play. Still felt great to see the offers rolling in especially since they were from healers! Tanks, love your healers, take of your healer cuz the rest is filler sorta.

The guild had me log onto vent and because of a incident (my son ripped my mic plug in half) I am that guy who doesn’t have a mic. These guys are laughing and having a good time ribbing each other. They were pretty decent. Healer was a pally. Pally healers need some loving Blizz. Group make up was… S.priest, Holy Pally, Deathknight, Hunter and me. We went through the flower petals like nothing until I pull one tree guy back… and back and they party moves forward into the pat. Sigh. I charge get control of everyone and start pushing cooldown buttons to give the healer an extra moment.

An aside, Taurens are the best tanking race period. Why? Extra health? Somewhat. It comes from that whole extra AoE stun happiness called WARSTOMP. An extra second of not taking damage from 4 mobs in a heroic is HUGE when the smelly hits the fan.

You have to remember not hit all your O CRAP buttons at once too guys. If you pull 5 mobs to yourself in a Heroic then I suggest the following O CRAP sequence. Shield Wall, Wait for it go before hitting Block. Use Last Stand AFTER the block is up if you can as I think this gives the healer the most time to get up to speed. Now remember this the O CRAP sequence that is interspersed with the regular damage reduction sequence.

Thunderclap for aggro on all… back up and Shockwave em… Shield Wall… Demo Shout… Thunderclap, Shield Slam, Devastate, Revenge and what not but remember your main focus on the O CRAP is not DPS or trying to kill a target. It is damage mitigation and AOE threat. Also, after all the above, remember Concussive Blow for one, tab target to any caster for the a Shield Bash against their spells and if Heroic Throw is up then you Gag Order their ass again. You can chain stun casters without them getting a spell off. After all that? Warstomp their ass if you are a Tauren.

Tanking 5 oops pulled to many in a Heroic after they kill one of your party is awesomesauce in anyone’s book and will get you invited back. In this case, it got me a guild invitation for anytime I wanted.

I would love to say we finished the instance but we did not. We couldn’t get Anomylus down. There was too little DPS to drop the rifts fast enough. What was the DPS like you ask? I hesitate to say but according to recount… it was abysmal for a Heroic.

The hunter topped off at 1000
DK 900
S.Priest 850

So, does that make my tanking more leet?