Substitution Run Yields Second Piece of Bold
Rockstar was invited into an in-progress run through the Shadow Labyrinth this afternoon. Apparently the tank wasn’t doing too well, and got the axe. The group was composed of myself (70 protection Warrior), Arkalas (70 Mage) of Fury, Craven (70 arms Warrior) of Fury, Healzer (70 holy Priest) of Keepers of the Faith, and Oceane (70 shadow Priest) of Emerald Knights.
I joined the group a few pulls right before the third boss. I grabbed the skeletons from the mounds of bones, and the Mage blew them down. I pulled Grandmaster Vorpil and kited him south…by the time I got to the southern point, I could tell the DPS was high, and the fight was going to be easy. We got ported one time, and I began kiting him north. He went down before the second port. That’s efficiency. Grandmaster Vorpil dropped the Blackout Truncheon.
We quickly cleared through the final hall. No deaths up to this point, I don’t even think dropping health bars were ever an issue. No one needed the key fragment (a good sign) so we prepared for the Murmur fight.
I didn’t have any issue tanking Murmur, but I did just miss the exit for one of the Sonic Booms and got caught. Luckily Craven was quick to charge Murmur to keep at least one party member in melee range. I’ve been thinking about doing what I’ve see other tanks doing…by the time Murmur does his first Sonic Boom, the Warrior usually has enough threat. As I’m running from the Sonic Boom, I could get into Battle Stance, and be ready to use Charge to quickly get back into melee range, then get back into Defensive Stance.
Murmur went down quickly, no deaths of our own to report. Murmur dropped the Tidefury Kilt (not sure who won the shard), and the Shoulderguards of the Bold (needed by Rockstar). The was a key piece on my gear list. I put stamina and defense gems into it, and now it’s part of my tanking gear.
Smooth Shadow Labyrinth Effort
Rockstar’s return to the Shadow Labyrinth wing of Auchindoun was a sucessful tanking effort. I think the technique for some of the trickier fights is coming along nicely. This group was comprised of myself (70 protection Warrior), Arkalas (70 Mage) and Salamar (70 moonkin Druid) of Fury, Svetac (70 holy Paladin) of MidKnights, and Bigbadshammy (70 Shaman).
To put it mildly, this was a fairly destructive group. Mages and moonkins are known for blowing up the threat tables. On the occasion I ran with 2 Shamans in the group, mobs seemed to bursting apart. Early in the run, we elected to do a full clear, with Arkalas marking. The first large room was cleared very quickly. The groups of casters in the second room were cleared very quickly, although I felt that some of my Shield Bash efforts were a bit late.
As a tank, I think my biggest problem in this instance is dealing with the Fel Overseers. With a Shaman in the group, the effects of the Intimidating Shout were somewhat mitigated. This time through, I did a lot better in switching to Berserker Stance and becoming reckless. I’ve moved the appropriate cooldown to an action bar where I can watch the 30-second cooldown expire, so I know when to pop back into Berserker stance. This is helping quite a bit.
Ambassador Hellmaw was a good fight. I keep trying to turn him away from the rest of the group, but with the Shaman whipping around, and the totems doing this and that, and the Corrosive Acid splashing area, it’s tough to see. I thought that the group might have surrounded the boss actually. Ambassador Hellmaw dropped the Platinum Shield of the Valorous (Svetac greeded it for his tanking set).
Clearing to the second boss was pretty chaotic, as it’s necessary for a tank to grab multiple mobs, and that’s the best case scenario (assuming the crowd control options go well). The fight with the second boss, Blackheart the Inciter, was a pain. We ended up wiping twice. On the first attempt, I charged him and he blew right by me out of melee range and headed for someone else. I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to land a hit on him…after the first mind control, I was slowed and spent more than 10 seconds trying to recover Blackheart. We went down fairly quickly after that.
Blackheart the Inciter wipes the aggro table when the mind control is complete. Usually the healer is throwing out heals immediately after the mind control phase, so it’s tough getting into position and dragging Blackheart back to the tank, where he is supposed to be. During the second attempt, I noticed after a mind control that I was in normal Battle Stance. I am not sure whether I did that by accident and didn’t notice it, or if Blackheart can chance a warrior’s stance in addition to all of his annoying tricks.
The third attempt was the charm, and maybe we just got lucky. I felt my Taunt seemed to be more successful in picking him up right after the mind controls. Maybe our positioning was better, but the strategy didn’t change. The intent was to keep him up on the platform with the warrior’s back to the door. Blackheart the Inciter ended up dropping Cloak of the Inciter. This is usually the toughest section of the instance.
Moving forward, the skeleton pulls and 4-mob pulls prior to the third boss were easy. I intended to move forward with my usual kiting strategy for Grandmaster Vorpil. Svetac and Salamar were a bit hesitant, as apparently they’ve never used that tactic before. (Wow, I can’t believe it myself either.) We explained it to them, and I guess they were on board with the idea.
We ended up wiping twice on the Grandmaster Vorpil encounter, before bringing him down on the third try. Arkalas died way too early in the first attempt…the group couldn’t make up for the lost DPS. The second attempt we did better, but I dragged Vorpil through one too many Voidwalkers I think. When a Voidwalker reaches Grandmaster Vorpil, they heal him for 4% of his total health, and also detonat, doing 1500 shadow damage to everyone nearby (a ten yard radius). On the third try, I recommended to the Paladin to initially position himself between me and the ends of the halls, because those are the directions I’m headed to. I think it’s easier to heal when you don’t have to keep moving. Grandmaster Vorpil dropped the Breastplate of Many Graces.
I managed to not screw up the final hallway pulls with mistimed shots. Being a Hunter with a selection of instant cast shots is nice. Being a Warrior with a gun that takes a couple seconds to fire isn’t so nice. So timing is more key with the tank’s gun. At the end of the hallway we swapped out Arkalas with a Hunter from Fury (named Dorin) who wanted his key fragment. He came in and I inspected his gear…he could certainly benefit from some smarter selections. We did the final trash pull…everyone did well except for Dorin, who ignored his frost trap target. When I went to pick it up, I was Dazed because he left his Aspect of the Pack on. The group’s experience made up for his lack of experience, and we easily recovered the fragment for him. I’m not convinced giving him this handout is doing a favor for him or his guild.
Arkalas swapped back in for the Murmur fight. Per my previous attempt in Shadow Labyrinth, I was able to execute all of my adjustments to positioning and running. We slew Murmur, and he dropped a Primal Nether (needed by Arkalas), the Leggings of Assassination (needed by Salamar), and the Silent Slippers of Meditation (greeded by Bigbadshammy).
It was a decent run, though I would have preferred no wipes. I think some of us have a better idea how to fight Grandmaster Vorpil now, and probably Murmur as well. I learned that Dorin is probably a Hunter I won’t group with in the future. At least for say, a year.
The damage output was the following:
- Arkalas was at 40% (806 dps)
- Salamar was at 26% (476 dps)
- Bigbadshammy was at 18% (355 dps)
- Rockstar was at 16% (235 dps)
First Attempt Tanking Shadow Labyrinth
Rockstar (70 protection Warrior) served as the tank for this run. The healer was Zadrun of Fury (70 holy Paladin). The rest of the crew was composed of Silvanya of Milldynasty (70 Hunter), Snipeat of The Stedding (70 shadow Priest), and Arkalas of Fury (70 Mage).
This group was able to do a lot of damage, which relieved some of the pressure on me. Executing a full clear up to Ambassador Hellmaw posed no problems resulting in deaths, but I once again confirm an issue with my ability to avoid or escape the Fear effects from the Fel Overseers. I’m also bothered by the trapping ability of Silvanya; all too often a mob would be ice trapped (sometimes a bit late) successfully, but the second trap wasn’t set in time such that the Hunter would avoid a couple of hits from the mob. In other words, I think Silvanya should have used the spacing of the room to properly setup the chain trap and position herself such that she could avoid being hit by the trap target.
The fight with Ambassador Hellmaw went pretty well, given that I’m susceptible to Fear when Fear Ward isn’t up. I was able to get into berserker stance and pop Recklessness at least twice successfully during the fight. I’m never sure it’s the right thing to do, especially if the healer is feared as well. Ambassador Hellmaw dropped the Platinum Shield of the Valorous (needed by Rockstar). I was able to use the shield right away.
Clearing up to the second boss was pretty easy as well. I’m extremely good with understanding line-of-sight and pulling groups of mobs containing multiple casters. The fight with Blackheart was pretty trivial for me. Most of my activity is specifically threat-building (I focus on Revenge and Devastate versus Heroic Strike and Rend), so I was able to remain Blackheart’s target for the majority of the fight. It’s really a case of how fast DPS can bring him down before he does his mass mind control. Blackheart the Inciter dropped the Cloak of the Inciter (needed by Silvanya).
There were no deaths as we cleared up to the third boss. With Paladin and Mage AoE, I wasn’t able to get too many Cleaves off against the small packs of skeleton undead. I’m not really complaining. The fight with Grandmaster Vorpil is pretty fun for a tank, I think. I used the typically strategy, by kiting him south, and then kiting him north after we were ported to his platform. We were able to slay him after only 2 ports. Grandmaster Vorpil was targeting me for the entire duration of the fight. Grandmaster Vorpil dropped the Breastplate of Many Graces (Rockstar won the shard).
The short clear leading up to Murmur was flawless. The Cabal Summoners were able to get 1 summon off, but with the DPS so high, the group was able to handle it pretty smoothly. I’m comfortable with my speed of rotation from skull target to cross target. I’ve also been practicing at picking up aggro from skull and cross in the opening seconds of the fight, to ensure that both targets are attacking me. As this becomes easier (and faster) to do, I continue to need to practice turning both targets such that they face away from the group, and so that I can see the ice trap target, to make sure business is being properly handled in that direction.
The fight with Murmur resulted in 1 wipe, thanks to my inability to avoid the Sonic Boom. I actually survived (thanks to the power of the healer) the Sonic Boom three times, and died on the fourth. The problem boiled down to two factors. The first was, I was too close to Murmur. I fixed this by making range-finding my primary task in our second attempt against Murmur. The minimum range is right where his graphic starts; a warrior’s melee range is equal to the distance from Murmur’s origin to his polygonal face (his polygonal “radius” if you will). That should be easy to remember. The second was, I was having problems running out from him in a straight line because when a tank turns away from him, the Murmur graphic obscures everything on the screen. I was wasting “flight time” running away from him in a diagonal path. I fixed this by zooming in my minimap and watching my orientation on the minimap…I was able to run away from him using the most efficient path possible without having to worry about my vision being blocked. Again, that should be easy to remember in the future.
Murmur fell on the second attempt, once I was able to properly adjust to a new technique. Murmur dropped the Hallowed Garments (needed by Snipeat) and the Harness of the Deep Currents.
All in all, my first attempt tanking the Shadow Labyrinth went very well. Rockstar was able to retrieve the first fragment of the key to Karazhan on this run. Apparently I forgot to capture the damage output metrics for this run.