Rockstar Tanks Botanica

It was time Rockstar to head into the Botanica in order to obtain a fragment for his Key to the Arcatraz. The group was composed of myself (70 protection Warrior), Arkalas (70 Mage) and Zadrun (70 holy Paladin) of Fury, Mortena (70 Shaman) of Acheron Keeper, and Mardonis (70 Rogue) of Aggro Nation.

Since it was my first time through, I was trying to learn a little bit more about the mobs as we went along. I’ve gone through Botanica so many times as a DPS class, where the main thing that matters is DPSing through the kill order. You don’t think about the rationale behind the markings so much. But as a tank, I find that I’d like to learn why the kill order it set the way it is. Between the high DPS level and the impatience of Mortena, this run would not be very good for that.

Clearing to the first boss was pretty trivial, although some of the pulls weren’t as clean as they should have been. The group was veteran and the healing was good, so this made the pulling and fighting very forgiving as far as making mistakes was concerned. Commander Sarannis was pulled and we blew her down very quickly. Commander Sarannis dropped the Towering Mantle of the Hunt (greeded by Zadrun).

Mortena was already getting impatient and was warning us that we didn’t have very long, so we pressed ahead. I figured the second boss wouldn’t be a huge problem. We began the encounter with High Botanist Freywinn. The DPS was excellent as expected. During the first Tranquility, three of us moved to a position out of line of sight…Arkalas was a bit slow on the rotation. These DPS-happy mages…sheesh. But it wouldn’t matter, as Freywinn was burned down before a second Tranquility could occur. High Botanist Freywinn dropped the Stormreaver Warblades. I don’t think anyone really needed them, and as we were leaving, Mardonis quietly picked them up.

Clearing towards the third boss wasn’t bad. Unable to crowd control demon adds, I attempted to get aggro from all four in the pull. These were messy pulls, with healer pulling aggro and Shaman pulling aggro, but we all lived through the fights. I only keep a single piece of gear with any fire resistance on it (about 10 FR), so I tanked the third boss in my normal tanking set.

During the fight with Thorngrin the Tender, I never got sacrificed…which is fine with me. I’m not sure whether I have time to run out of the Hellfire, or whether I’m supposed to stand firm and tank him in the Hellfire. I tried both, and it feels like I should tank him right in the Hellfire to keep him stationary. Maybe it depends on the ability of the healer. We dropped him pretty quickly. Throngrin the Tender dropped the Dreamer’s Dragonstaff. No Druids in the group, so we moved along…Mardonis quietly picked up the staff. It’s funny how loot sticks to the hands of Rogues.

As we cleared Laj’s room, the Shaman was complaining about time again. We pulled a pack of Mutant Fleshlashers and Mutant Horrors…my temper flared so I chain pulled the next pack while there were still a couple clinging to me. Let the Shaman burn his mana out. After the monsters were killed, everyone had an empty mana bar but I had a full rage bar, of course. I asked if we ready for the boss pull (I should just have pulled), and this time, the Shaman needed a rest. What do you know. The Shaman took the left add and the Mage took the right add, and we burned Laj down. Laj dropped the Mithril-Bark Cloak (needed by Mortena).

In Warp Splinter’s room, we pulled both trash pulls at the same time. The AoE was a bit messy, and resulted in some running around with several AoE attempts. No one was endangered, and everything died, so that’s what really counts. I decided to tank Warp Splinter near the bridge and the plan was all-out DPS. It worked. Warp Splinter dropped the Beast Lord Cuirass (greeded by Arkalas) and the Greatsword of Forlorn Visions (needed by Rockstar). It should make a nice DPS toy.

The damage output was the following:

January 17, 2008 | Filed Under Botanica, Instances, Journal 

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