First Attempt Tanking The Steamvault

Rockstar expanded his tanking experiences by entering the Steamvault last night. The group was composed of Rockstar (70 protection Warrior), Zadrun (70 holy Paladin) and Arkalas (70 Mage) of Fury, Nazca of Eternal Force (70 Shaman), and Shadowalkerr (70 Hunter). Everyone had done Steamvault numerous times, except for the hunter, who was on his initial run. Most of the group was looking for the second key fragment, and elected for the speed clear over the full clear.

The group was capable of plenty of damage. With sheeping and ice trapping at the group’s disposal, crowd control was not really an issue. We cleared up to the first boss without any problems. Zadrun has been able to keep up with healing and cleansing during the Bog Overlord fights.

The fight with Hydromancer Thespia was a nice opportunity to demonstrate that I could pick up the boss and two adds and retain aggro from all three. I wasn’t sure whether or not healer aggro would cause one of the elementals to peel off from the main fracas, so I tried rotating through all three mobs, putting 1 or 2 shots on each. The thought process behind my effort this fight, was tab target, hit once or twice, and make sure I’m not standing in the Lightning Cloud. I was never caught in the Enveloping Winds…I’m not sure if this was because I was never the recipient of this debuff, or if it was dispelled so quickly I didn’t notice. Hydromancer Thespia went down pretty quickly (and the adds subsequently despawn) and dropped the Scintillating Coral Band (needed by Arkalas).

Clearing to the second boss was very clean. I’m glad to be attempting the second boss fight as a tank finally; I’ve done it so many times as a DPS class. I was wondering whether or not I’d have to worry about the adds. At least with this group, the answer was yes. Early on in the fight I focused on Mekgineer Steamrigger. I earned plenty of threat on him early on (although not everyone was using Omen). In the later stages of the fight, the pace seemed to be dropping on DPSing the boss, so I started using Thunderclap and Cleave a bit more frequently to interrupt the healing performed by the adds. By the time it was finished, I was concentrating solely on the adds, using Heroic Strike and Cleave when possible. Mekgineer Steamrigger ended up dropping the Recoilless Rocket Ripper X-54 (needed by Shadowalkerr).

At this point in the instance, most of the annoying fights are finished. So I was feeling pretty good about things. We cleared towards the final boss. No deaths, things were going pretty well. When we started the fight with Warlord Kalithresh, I wasn’t sure how well it would go. I know what to do as far as the kiting goes, but I hadn’t decided about the aquariums. I figured I would target the aquariums as well, and give it one or two whacks, and then resuming attacks on the boss. And that’s what I did.

We were very close on destroying the first aquarium…I’m not sure what happened on that. I’m glad I hit the fish tank twice myself. My camera angle and my attention are too closely focused in on the boss, so I’m not able to tell how quickly the DPS guys were able to swing their attacks onto the tank. I’m guessing the Hunter was slow in the rotation. The second and third fish tanks were brought down in a much more timely fashion. I also attacked those tanks, but probably didn’t have to.

Arkalas learned about the Spell Reflection shield that Kalithresh uses. For caster types, this is a fight where you must occasionally back off spellcasting for a bit. Take a mana potion, or just let some of the mana regenerate, or just adjust your physical position to be ready to attack the next aquarium. I’m not if would be worthwhile to do any melee attacks. Just be patient and wait for the shield to wear off.

Warlord Kalithresh dropped the Breastplate of the Righteous (greeded by Rockstar) and the Fathomheart Gauntlets (needed by Nazca). Overall, this Steamvault run was a good one…the tank never died.

The damage output was the following:

The Hunter was a bit low. This may be partly due to gear (comparatively), and partly due to effort in keeping one mob ice trapped. With the group effort, it wasn’t a problem, and hopefully this run gave Shadowalkerr quite a bit of experience in this instance.

Rockstar is very close to Revered reputation with Cenarion Expedition at this point. The tanking necklace that would be available at that reputation level will be a nice gear upgrade.

January 3, 2008 | Filed Under Instances, Journal, Steam Vaults 

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