Age and Experience

In our efforts to get everyone ready to down Magtheridon on Saturday for the Champion of the Naaru title, we had one large and one medium hurdle to cross, one that no one was looking forward to...

The timed heroic Shattered Halls and the heroic Shadow Labs runs.

But we decided to try the SH run tonight so if we failed, we would still have two more shots at it.

The lineup was Kathe as tank, Kyuushi as lazer-turkey, Boon as healer, Neshura as hunter and a S4 rogue that we picked up off the LFG channel named Tappout.

We roared through it, saved the Captain, with 13 minutes to spare. Our Unused Axe of the Executioner was really unused. We saved all three.

In the past, we could never get that far, that fast. It took too long, or too many deaths. Is it gear? Is it experience in knowing who to kill, how to kill, where to stand, when to pull?

Gear certainly plays a role, no one will deny that. But I think it's also experience! And kickassedness. (And this bear can't wait for improved swipe mechanics. Because AoE tanking those big pulls in both those instances SUCKS. Especially with trigger happy DPS!)

We completed it in an hour. We entered at 7pm. We finished at 8pm.

So we said... let's try to knock out Slabs!

And we finished that in just over an hour with only one wipe in Blackheart's room. Naturally, in Murmur's hokey-pokey, we lost the two DPS who had never been in Heroic Slabs before, Neshura and Tappout. We almost lost Boon, who had also never been in there before, but holy paladins are sturdy critters.

The rogue was too far in, it looks like the hunter died too far out. The paladin grumped, 'Just how far out do I need to get?'

It's easier for me as the tank. I just go one step past charge range. Then step in once. Similar to knowing how far out to be for melee. Go one step past lacerate/mangle range. Then step in once. It's surprisingly far out. As I always tell new melee to slabs (regular or heroic), his hitbox is much larger than his targetting circle. Too many new melee are standing INSIDE the boss and never get out in time.

(This is similar to my views on spacing melee DPS for Prince in Karazhan. One step out is too far, step in once. As long as you don't take forever responding to enfeeble, and don't run into an infernal, you'll live.)

The Fastest Shadow Labs Run EVER! (if only we finished!)

If you put a feral tank (Kathe) and add a healadin (Boon), toss in a hunter (Neshura), add a little mage (Tasogare) and toss in an enhancement shaman (Ookamioni)... go ahead and put them into Slabs and say to the tank, "Let's try to do this quickly". The resultis a 45 minute run to Murmur. (I know it was that long because right before the first pull, I used gift of the wild. It had 15 minutes left on it.)

Of course, then the server crashed and the instance reset.

Crowd control, though it is fun and at times warranted, is something that can be completely done without if you have a good tank that can hold aggro, a good healer that can keep people alive, and DPS that know how to do their job.

We had TWO instances where we had a massive pull, the mage accidentally shot something else (silly mage!) and in the room before Murmur, a chainer-mob spawned just as we pulled a group. That pull was fun. We didn't have much in the way of silencing multiple summoners, and we had three of them. So we had 8 mobs plus 3 summoned creatures. Thank God Boon is overgeared! :)

It was amazingly fun. I didn't stop pulling for anything. Everyone had to catch mana as they could, the only mana bar I watched was Boon's. It was absolutely wonderful. No wipes.

On a side note, I discovered a good way of getting aggro back on Blackheart. Since you're meleeing things anyway as your bear, and Blackheart runs even the ranged classes into something approximating melee range... just stay put when Time for Fun is over. Blackheart will run to you, or someone near you. Don't waste your feral charge unless you really want to -- it doesn't stun him and half the time he runs past you before you can get your taunt off, or he's behind you by the time you get there.

I haven't been updating recently. I'll try to do better!