Ability Meet Brick Wall

First, my Rogue.

I ran a few more normals last night and it seemed more of the same.  I am having no luck with trinket drops and no luck with a wrist or gun.  Outside of them, my other gear is starting to look heroic ready.  I'm up to a 334 items level now and (as long as the tank is not moving things all over the place) I am doing solid DPS on boss fights.

It might be time to move up to heroics even if I do feel I still have a lot to learn.  Had one run yesterday where I pulled over 9K on all bosses and 7.8K over all for the run.  My trash DPS sucks big time.  Maybe I will have some luck getting those 4 gear spots filled in heroics.  I am just so afraid of not being able to pull my own weight in them.

I even spent time on the dummy while waiting for the random working on timing.  I am almost to the point where I no longer even think when I do the rotation.  I've even gotten to the point where I am, mentally at least, redesigning my bar.  I want to move backstab to a more prominent place, even more so for normals being things die so quick I can never get two mutilates off on anything, doing a mutilate and then a backstab I think would be a trash increase.  Not that trash matters.

I am thinking that I might actually do better in heroics with things lasting longer.  I've noticed when I was on the dummy that my DPS would always start really low, I mean like 2K low and it would keep climbing fast until around 6K and then it would keep moving up slowly to about 7K.  Meaning that a Rogue is really one of those characters that needs a fight to go on for them to get the most out of the rotation. 

On my hunter, unless I open with cooldowns, the DPS I do right at the start will be the DPS I do over all.  It is the same all the time.  There is something to be said about always knowing where you are because your DPS is always stable.  My Rogue does not seem to have that benefit.  Maybe my heroic DPS will take a step up because things will last longer.

While I know a really skilled Rogue can pull more out of my item level I am not really skilled and I think based on my ability I have reached a brick wall in normals.  I might still do a few for the hell of it but I know it is time for me to move on. 

I am going to miss those fantastic normals I've gotten so used to do.  I pulled 12K on a boss yesterday and was last of the three DPS.  One was 18K and the other was 13K.  Do you know how rare it is to get 3 DPS that could do numbers like that and move from the bad at the same time in a heroic?  Really rare.  I'll miss normals where good players play.

Normals are where people that care about how they play learn.

Second, my Warrior.

My Warrior is sitting at item level 347 but it is really not 347 it is probably 344 or 345.  I crafted a bow to keep in my bag to get to 346 because I am still rocking a 318 bow.  All you warriors out there can probably name that bow I am sure.  Unless you get a drop in a heroic it is the best bow.

That coupled with my relatively limited skill as a tank means that I really need to step up my game when I try to do a Zul.  I only run with guild if they need a tank and then if I am having issues I bow out.  Nothing wrong with admitting you can't do something.  I've tanked many bosses in the Zuls but have yet to finish one.

I end at the cauldron boss in ZG because it always seems someone makes some sort of mistake and it all goes downhill from there.  I did the oops I stood in the fire thing a couple of times but once you do that 2 or 3 times you learn and never do it again.  Perhaps my gear and/or ability is what starts to make it harder on the healer.

Last night I got ZA, first time ever on this character.  I fear the dragonhawk guy as a tank.  I know the other fights I can do with ease but that guy was enough to give me fits on how I would do it.  So we did that guy last.  No problems up until there.  A few trash wipes but oddly enough the only trash wipes we had where wipes of over confidence.  We handled the harder of the pulls, the ones up to the bear, without any wipes or incidents at all really.  Even in a group that had no CC except for a poly.  I've healed and DPSed that and it is rare to see no wipes there.  I was impressed.

Other bosses, no problem.  A few wild pulls, no problem.  A scout that snuck up behind us and called help, no problem.  Three mobs that we just rushed into, wipe.  You know, it made for some fun laughing on vent.  How is it we can do all the pulls I see wipes on in pugs as if they where no problem at all yet something simple we wipe on?  It is not an original event just meant for us.  I hear a lot of stories from people that end up wiping on easy stuff when the hard stuff is no problem.  I'll blame over confidence so mistakes are made.

When we get to the dragonhawk guy I say I want to tank it by where the hawks will be coming from, the same way every tank I ever saw doing it has done it.  After they are released I start grabbing them up and then a few start squeezing through.  We have no hunter or rogue to send them my way so it is on the DPS to either kill them or the person they are on to come to me so I can drag them off.  Neither happens and we wipe.

Two more attempts later and I tell everyone that this standing by the gate is not working. I need more room to bounce around and if something gets past me and I am in the middle I can get it off of the person a lot easier then if I am by the gate and it is now across the entire platform.

We go with me pulling him dead center and it goes so much better. I am grabbing them as they come out because they need to pass me to get to anyone.  A few get away here and there, but a quick move over, clap, move back, and I have them back.  Sure, there is one or two here or there but things are going much better.  We have almost all the first side down when the second side comes and I do the same thing, grab them up, try to pick up the ones that snuck by, and people start going down.  Wipe.

Again, wipe, once more, wipe.  I could place the blame on the DPS, one pull one of the DPS that usually is good for 15K is doing 5K, but it is not all that.  I could blame the healer for not keeping me up but when I died I still had 2 cooldown left (a life and a dodge trinket on use) and that makes it as much my fault as his.  I could blame people for not moving from the fire ball thing but I got caught by one in our first attempts to and it is hard to fault someone else for something you did yourself once if it is something that only happened once for them too.

Maybe it was a series of unfortunate things that happened.  Everyone only got caught once, but everyone seemed to get caught in different attempts causing us to be undermanned in a few attempts.  Before we moved to the center tanking position I was not doing as well picking up the hawks so that was all on me.  The first guild healer, that had to leave, would always run away when he had the hawks on him instead of running to me, which made it impossible to get the damn hawks back. 

There are a lot of things that went wrong but in the end it was all on me.  I could have done better picking up the hawks.  I got hit by the fire only once in all the attempts but once is too many.  I got hit by the fire ball only once in all the attempts but once is too many.  I could feel down on myself about it, we tried for an hour, about eight attempts and we got him down to less then 30% in five of them.  The healer said I should not feel bad, he has done this 18 times since it was released and said he has yet to see any warrior tank that has been capable of doing this boss.

Challenge accepted.  I know I can do it. 

By the last attempt I was snagging 90% of the hawks right away and the other 10% could have easily been dragged over to me.  I had worked on the timing for when to use my AoEs to grab them, even used some engineering tricks to help out.  Those few that got away and are on the healer on the bone pile, well, here, have a saronite bomb.  They all came to me.  Ah, the joys of using all your tools when you play, some people forget they even have those.

I know I can do it.  Better DPS would have made it easier.  A rogue or hunter to help send strays my way would have helped.  Having all the first pack of hawks down before the second pack started to come out would have helped.  Hell, having better gear on my own would have helped.

Be it gear, be it ability, be it the people I was with, one of which had never been in there, I hit a brick wall.  Sometimes you have to wonder, it is not the perceived difficulty of a battle, it is the battle itself.  I tanked Chimaeron the other day filling in for someone yet I can't tank some stupid heroic boss with annoying pets.  Difficultly has nothing to do with tier of the content, it is all about your ability to handle the content.

I know I can do it.  Each attempt I got better at my timing and picked up a greater amount of hawks.  That is a case of my ability was getting better.  For the moment at least, after those attempts, my ability hit a brick wall.  I do not think there is much more I can do.  By the last attempt I was picking up nearly everything, not getting hit by anything and using my cooldowns when I knew the healer needed to tend to other wounds that where not my own.

A warrior can do this, just not this warrior, yet.  Give me a few more tries and maybe a group with 2 ranged and one melee instead of 2 melee and one ranged or a group with better DPS so all the adds are down before the second batch comes and I got this baby.  I could tell my DPS where getting tired of trying.  They all started out in the 13s and 14s and by the last attempt only one was in the 10s.  Maybe if I where better at the start when they where doing better it would have went down on the first try.  For now, I sit back and plan my revenge.

I am going to look over my engineering stuff and see what else I can use like those saronite bombs, they really did wonders to pull packs off the healer.  One bomb and he healer was all alone again.  Almost makes me think that a warrior tank has to be an engineer and not just for those dead sexy goggles.