Back in Karazhan

Remember how I always complain about express certain unfriendly views on people coming to raids unprepared?

That was me yesterday. Unprepared. (Well, in my defense I must say that I had not planned to start raiding again so soon, and going to Kara that night was not something I contemplated at all.)

I was playing my little warrior Dizzie (still guild-free), grinding out a few more rep points with the Wintersabre Trainers (sloooow going), when a friend of mine from my new-found old guild whispered and asked if I wanted to come raid with them with my warlock Paynne.

I told him I hadn’t signed up for the raid, hadn’t updated any of my addons, and I was pretty rusty and unprepared so it was probably not a good idea.

He told me aww, come on, you are pro, you don’t need addons!

Turned out they were trying to get two Kara groups going and didn’t yet have enough people to fill them, so I said I’d relogg my warlock and see what came up.

Said and done, Dizzie out, Paynne in.

I got a whisper immediately from one of the raid leaders, asking me if I wanted to join for Kara. Told him the same thing, no add-ons and no time to start downloading updated versions, no TS, rusty and unprepared, but if they wanted someone to get the raid started I could join and they could replace me when someone else logged in.

Ka-bam, raid leader invites me to a group.

I managed to enable Deadly Boss Mods, but my Omen and other usual raid add-ons were dead, and my TS acc was not accessible. So the raid leader went on WoW-voice with me so I could at least hear him, if no one else.

Paynne was in Stormwind, and as I took her to the weapons dealer to repair her I got asked if I could bring Joaq instead since a tank was sorely needed for this group.

Woot? Not only do you want me to do my first raid in months without the help of any technological constructs or even me having time to think about it, you want me to tank it as well? Although I knew my old guildies would probably forgive me for being a nab tank, there were many faces that were new to me and I didn’t want to make a complete fool of myself the first time I ran with them. (This since the first rule of instancing/raiding is: When wiping, blame someone else, usually the tank for not keeping the pain away from you.)

Ah, well, why not? Attumen and the Maiden ain’t that hard to tank, Moroes could be a little trickier though, and depending on which event, the Opera could be a killer, but let’s try to have a little faith in myself, right?

Only as I was summoned to Kara I found out that those bosses were already dead, killed off yesterday, and we were going to start with Nightbane.

Nightbane? The skinny dragon that does a shitload of different AoE damage and fears, that needs to be positioned very carefully, that spawns a zillion skellys that needs to be kept away from the healers and dps? That Nightbane?

I was beginning to regret this. Luckily (for me) I didn’t have to re-start my raid tanking career by showing everyone how out-of-shape I was, because no one in this group could summon him ;P

So we went for the Curator instead.

Easy pulls along the way, once one mob was down I ran for the next, going fast.

The Curator is a dead easy fight for a tank usually, and so it was this time as well. Down he went, and he dropped a pair of shoulders that I got for my healing set since noone else wanted them. Nice!

And I got Exalted with the Violet Eye as well when the over-sized mechanical hit the floor. Yay! Finally I get my Violet Signet of the Grand Protector!

Onwards we went, clearing the room full of arcane watchmen and then the circular one with mana aberrations and stealthed undeads. I was even given the task of marking them, which I managed to do without too much hesitation.

We snuck into the room of the Shade of Aran, and I put on my kitty-cat gear to maximize my dps. Got one of the scattered tomes, The Legacy of the Mountain King, from one of the group members, which I thanked him for and promptly proceeded to completely forget to use it. (Which he merrily chided me for later, but come on! I was totally focused on trying to not fubar the spells I use in my ordinary playing, and now you want me to remember using books as well? :-)

The Shade went down fast, I used my Tranquillity once while standing at the wall, waiting for his Arcane Explosion, but I don’t think it was really needed.

Onwards, brave soldiers! We were ahead of the other group, since they had stopped to kill Nightbane, and things were looking good.

Got a whisper from another one in the group, telling me I had Blessing of Salvation on. Ah right, I hadn’t even looked to see which buffs I had on, there being twenty-plus or so of them, and I agreed with him, BoS is perhaps not the best choice of buff for a tank, so I clicked it off and asked for a Blessing of Might or Light instead.

This same group member whispered me again some minutes later when we were clearing the rooms leading up to the chess even, this time telling me I was in dps gear. Right, so I was. Forgot to change gear after Aran. Ah well, imba healers had kept me up without problems in my very much crittable 16 k-armor catsuit. I swapped outfits as soon as I got out of combat.

Chess event went without a hitch, a group member had to go afterwards and was quickly replaced, and we went to kill the big boss, the Prince Malchezar himself.

And here we wiped for the first time.

I tanked the Prince in the usual spot, bear butt to the wall, the rest of the raid clustered up in front of the door, and the first Infernal that spawned choose to do so just slightly behind the Prince, on the far side of the raid. Its Hellfire AoE was hitting me heavily and I was asked to move a little away from him. This did unfortunately take me too close to the raid, so the Enfeeble and following Shadow Nova killed off a lot of us, and then I died and we wiped. Sorry about that, guys.

Next try, usual tank spot, and the first damn Infernal that spawns does so in the same location as before, just behind the Prince. Bugger this, I thought, I am not going to kill off my fellow raiders again by moving closer to the raid to avoid the Hellfire. So I dragged the Prince with me out into the Hellfire-free space in the middle of the stone terrace, and tanked him there.

The raid was a little surprised by my move but quickly adapted and followed. I kept tanking him there, using my Feral Charge to get back to him in a fraction of a second when his Shadow Nova kicked me back. (Unlike warriors, bears can charge while in combat.)

Was going pretty well, and then another blasted Infernal spawned close, making me drag the Prince closer to the stone railing of the terrace, but I was safe from the Hellfire waves there, the rest of the raid were out of range of it too, and they had enough manoeuvring space to get out of Shadow Nova range while enfeebled.

10 Infernals in total spawned, but most of them were far away and didn’t hurt us, and we killed the huge ugly bastidd on this second try!

People were nice and polite and patient with me for being a bit slow sometimes (at least I think they were, might have been swearing at me and calling me all kinds of nasty names for all I know since I wasn’t on TS with them, but somehow I don’t think they did) and I was enjoying myself a lot. I was having fun :-)

I was a bit tired mentally from having been focused for so long, my fingers were all sweaty, but all in all I think I managed to do a not-too-shabby job on this my first raid for ages, both on the bosses and on the trash pulls in between them.

And kudos to everyone in the raid for managing your threat so well when I, the tank, was probably the shittiest geared of us all and the only one who didn’t have a threat meter.

So, to conclude, I did not plan to go raiding when I logged in that evening, but I did go and it was a fun and fast raid with fun and nice and cool players, even though I Was Not Prepared!

(And sadly enough I never even once remembered to take a screenshot.)