So then, after a huge read up into bear tanking, gearing up, and making a phenomenal number of new macro’s, I’ve finally ventured into an instance. I decided to go for a level 80 normal instance, so that if anything went wrong, our magical guild healer could keep us alive till I got it back together.
After long debate of which instances we did and didn’t want to go to, Oculus, surprisingly was chosen! The first few pulls went smoothly, and we easily smote down drakelings left, right and centre. The first boss went nice and easily as well! I just made sure, that every time he pulled us all in, I backed off towards the cages, and then everyone knew where they should be standing very quickly J
The drakes, since we had all done oculus e.t.c. before, and there were no achievements for anything in normal, we decided to go for five amber drakes to make it go quicker, as opposed to going for the typical set up of one red and green, and three amber. We landed on the centrifuge ring, and I must say... There’s a lot of moving for a bear tank! Given that I have virtually no resistance to frost, except for the Frost aura our healer kindly donned, I had to get out of the blizzards sharpish. All said, as long as I mangled and lacerated two out of the three mages before they started to blizzard, I could keep aggro on them all simply by growling and IFF’ing the un-lacerated mob... The big guy was easy, as maul hit him, and a few swipes made sure he followed me when I moved from the blizzards.
Now... once that was complete, the next boss. He fell quickly, although there was a little slip, where I forgot to move from the laser. That’s right, I was nearly shot down by a laser! KFB (Kentucky-Fried Bear) isn’t that tasty, I guarantee you, but that big blue drake man seems to think otherwise.
The trash was easy getting to the next boss, as we had a lot of dps there. Only real issue I have with this boss, is that the mobs are just slightly too far away from each other. I did work out though, if I tag the boss with IFF, then he summons, and if I’ve enraged, I’ll have enough rage to charge in, then hit at least two out of the four mobs instantly. From there, I’m normally able to get a decent amount of aggro before anyone reaches the mobs. The boss himself however, isn’t too bad, I just have to be very careful about that empowered arcane explosion! All in all, a not too bad boss.
Now then... The big bad dragon. Was fine, as we simply had to do it as a dps race (given our drake set up) which, considering it was a normal level instance, was no issue. High dps, and a quick kill made for a very happy group!
Now that I’ve dabbled in tanking, I have to say, I really enjoyed it! It’s harder than healing by any means, but overall, feels a lot more rewarding. I’ll keep tanking, and keep posting to you all about how I’m going with it.
Just also want to say happy birthday to the blog Druid main! Well done Ice!
Vralk