Raiding - Kyjenn steps up to tank with surprising results

Exray/Snowcaller had capped internet due to his sister, and had been unable to get data blocks to be able to play, so Kyjenn was chosen to tank.  After the last time Hwired and Kyjenn tanked (which was the first time we did normal Highmaul) I was ready for a challenge.

It was made even more challenging that we were healing with 3 druids and a priest.  Koda, myself and Yuuda were healing, and Bish was also healing.  Bish was having another lame night because he had to have his beauty sleep at 10pm so he could get up for an 8am conference call.  LAME.  Geez, I have to leave at 7am!

The trash at the start is always amusing.  Let's just say there were almost as many deaths there as there were... later.

Gruul, our easiest fight, actually turned out to be quite hard. Tanks were dying! Kyjenn was still getting the hang of doing the taunt and move.  One attempt he did it too early and the blue side took an Overwhelming Blow as well as an Inferno Slice.

But healing was not wonderful either. I was OOM and struggling to heal and that was with 4 healers - we normally do it with 4 healers!  I ended up asking Nok to help heal so that he could just focus on tank healing whilst the rest of us did the raid.  And on our 8th attempt, we got it.  Thank goodness.

It was nice that everyone was chill about it - I know Kyjenn must have felt awful about his tanking (or, maybe not) and we all knew that without him we wouldn't have been able to have a raid.

There was at least good loot going out.  Dragonray rolled a heroic warforged Inferno-Flame Staff, and Aza picked up the one that dropped in raid.  I actually can't remember what else people got.  I just remembered thinking that Yuuda needs to get some loot so he can keep up with us (and also, to keep encouraging him to come).

Onward to Beastlord and HK told Kyjenn that the trash was fun.  I have really noticed the trash on the way to Beastlord but apparently they stun you a lot and run away from you chasing other people. Xyn loved it. It was all new and fun, apparently :D

I was ready for more pain and gain with Beastlord and THIS time we started off with 5 healers.  By this time Bish had turned into a Pumpkin and so I had to get Crooked to heal.  And for once, we one shot Beastlord!

Sev still suffers from white swirl blindness.  He got pinned again, but then so did Aza, Crooked, Luxy, Dragonray and Koda.  I think if we ever do Beastlord and Kelthal doesn't get pinned I will go out and Only Koda died from the pinning but it was towards the end and so we tunnelled the boss.

Kyjenn found this to be rather encouraging and he was extremely proud of the fact that he had tanked and one shot Beastlord.  Yuuda actually got some upgrades and that made him (and me) happy - he won Flame Infusion Drape and Cannonball Loader's Grips.

After that it was on to Operator Thogar.  I was secretly excited.  I wanted to try and get the There's Always a Bigger Train achievement.  I had attempted it last week and failed, but then when I did a PuG of normal BRF with Scruff, I managed to get it and I had figured out the timing.  I was excited, thinking that I could secretly do the achievement without anyone noticing (because that was what I did in the PuG).

All I had to do was drop the train on the track, then drop the Wind Up train wrecker, and when he was enraged he had to get hit by the train.  Last time I did it too early.  This time I put the train down when the door was open on yellow and I was pooping my pants as I tried to get the Train Wrecker out before the bloody train came out and squashed me.  I got it out, and put him down and I could see the train coming!  He wrecked the Toy Train and he turned into an Exulting Wind-up Train Wrecker (enraged looking) and then the train ran him over.

The problem with me doing that is that there is a big white flash and then there is achievement spam. Everyone was wondering where it was from and I tried to keep my mouth shut.  However, as I was trying to position myself, I got hit by a train...

So I was pretty much busted.

But!  This is new.  On death there is a recap button and it tells you what happened to you.

So that was Xyn's first night tanking.  Hopefully not his last - he still needs some practice :) Luckily Exray was back on Thursday!

Thursday went very smoothly for the first 3 fights.  Exray was back and so we knocked off Thogar, Hans and Franz, and Flamebender.  They all went very smoothly.  Then it was back to bashing at Kromog.

With 6 healers it was better.  And then we tried the 3 tanking and we did well the first time but subsequent attempts were poor.  It felt like people were still dying, still not getting into hands, healer cooldowns weren't going off coz people can't hear me on vent (I kept taking my finger off the PTT button). People are still dying from funny things, and my position for Kromog is just pathetic. Because I was on tank heals I am on the far right and always the last to get broken out.  I love how people say you don't take much damage in the hand but if I don't heal you in the hand you will die. Seriously!  Especially if you stay in it as long as I do!

Anyway, I guess we'll look at it again on Monday.  I really need people not to die from easy stuff :( Hopefully with everyone fresh on Monday that will happen.