A Song

Today I was running H-Halls of Stone and when we got the Tribunal fight, I composed a wonderful song. (Sung to the tune of Imperial March (yeah- try to figure that one out)).

Anyways, here goes nothing:

I hate this boss fight.

Lalala

I hate this stupid boss fight.

Lalala

This fight is really long.

I hate this stupid boss fight.

Lalala

Its four freaking minutes long.

I hate this boss fight.

Lalala

I go OOM all the time.

I hate this stupid boss fight.

Lalala

Everyone gets aggro.

I hate this boss fight.

Lalala

I hate this stupid boss fight.

Lalala

And this is my song.

It is a really wonderful piece- I think it shows that beneath our civilized exterior there is a crazed insomniac waiting for you to fall asleep.

You should try singing this sometime.

Puggerific!

Sometimes you have good pugs, sometimes you have awful pugs.

Some pugs are rote, some you actually do well....actually, scratch the second part.

Sometimes your tank can't and your healer is oom.

But there are stories that can be taken from these, stories and lessons.

In Utgarde Pinnacle, whenever we get to Gortok Palehoof, who has for trash mobs in front of him who are spawned in a random order (Furlborg, Worgen, Rhino, Jormungar (sp?)) I always shout out which one I expect to spawn first.

In Halls of Stone I pull to Krystallus without Divine Plea dropping off me. It lasts for 15 seconds. Then again it restarts every time I get hit and as a tank, well, I get hit a lot.

Then there are the less fun runs.

I'm in Heroic Halls of Reflection, easily the hardest five man in the game, possibly harder than Sarth, Naxx and the first few bosses in VoA. The priest (healer) asks that we don't use the LoS method where we hide in corners to pull the mobs. This is because he NEEDS to shackle one of them. Otherwise the tank will die. I was tanking and I have successfully tanked it before without any CC. I tell him this. He then argues that the LoS method will make him less able to heal because we'll be out of LoS of him. Note: we won't be. But he's the healer so I agree with him. Then the warrior goes AFK. In the middle of the fight. This being the first part of H-HoR, the mobs will keep on spawning. He's gone for three waves. At that point I ask if we should kick him. The healer says "He's my friend, if he goes, I go." Without the extra dps he would be offering, we would have a very hard time on the boss. In fact, we wiped.

I'll get it over with... finally...

Or not... Today I'll cover Ulduar: Halls of Stone and Ulduar: Halls of Lightning. I thought that it would finish the series of guides to Wrath heroics, but then I recalled H-VH and H-COT:COS which I'll get to in the future.

Halls of Stone

1. Maiden of Grief: I usually do this one second (if I'm not skipping Krystallus and/or her). It is a pretty easy fight as long as everyone stays out of the doom cookies (the big black circles she summons). When tanking, be sure to pull her completely out of the cookies so that the melee dps can still get behind her. For the achievement, just bring along some extra dps. If you are having trouble, bring some PvP trinkets along.
2. Krystallus: Another tank'n'spank. Be sure to have Krystallus facing away from any holes in the ground as he occasionally does a knockback. If the tank gets booted well... I'm gonna guess bad things happen.
3. Tribunal of Ages: An interesting and unique encounter (as far as I've seen). Protect Brann from dying. The thing is one very long trash pull. I've had some difficult as a paladin tanking this because I start to go OOM. Because they are trash I don't need as many heals so I get less mana from Spiritual Attunement and my Divine Plea wears off. For the achievement, have everyone use lots of AoE to grab aggro before the mobs can tag Brann.
4. Sjonnir the Ironshaper: These days, a very simple tank'n'spank. If you have low dps you may have to worry about adds coming from the sides, but generally they are easily handled. The achievement is one of the ones that takes immense coordination takes a long time. If one dps does not do their job correctly, then you may well fail. To get the achievement you have to bring Sjonnir down to 50%. At that point the random mobs stop spawning and a constant stream of oozes pours out. Every two or four will combine to create a sludge which you must then kill. If a dps does not hold off and wait for the sludges to be formed- either by continuing to attack Sjonnir or attacking the slimes, it is quite possible that Sjonnir dies, or the oozes take many more minutes to form.

Halls of Lightning

1. General Bjarngrim: A simple fight so long as you do not over pull and as long as you kill his Lieutenants first. To get the achievement, wait until he is charged- he turns on and off every other stop (I think)- and then attack. He does more damage, but any 200 iLv + tank can handle it.
2. Volkahn: (ic- as in Volacano) KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN! (I had to do that). Clear the mobs- the steam mobs have an annoying knock-back- so watch out for that. Again, the fight itself does not have any complicated mechanics. He will occasionally summon adds which can be a pain to pick up, but if you hit him hard enough and fast enough they shouldn't be a problem. Additionally, if you crush him very quickly you will get an achievement- for not letting him demolish his adds.
3. Ionar: (Ionosphere!) Another fight, if you get electricity on you- run, you do AoE damage to your teammates so you want to be out of range. When he begins to disperse- run away. He'll break into several electrical walking thingies that cannot be killed. He'll only do this once a fight now. When the walkers begin to disappear you can return to where he was, he'll reappear and you can kill him dead.
4. Loken: Definitely one of the hardest Heroic bosses of all time. In fact, he killed more players than any other mob in the entire game from the release of wrath until 3.1. He has three abilities that concern everyone. The first is his Aura. It deals damage to everyone- the farther you are, the more he does. This means everyone needs to be somewhat close to him or else the healer may be overwhelmed. He also has chain lightning. Again this has positioning requirements. If you stand close to each other everyone will be hit. If you stand far enough away from the tank, only they will be hit. Finally there is lightning Nova. It has an in-game raid-warning and a five second cast time. When it goes off it does about 12-15k. Previously, when 15k was a significant amount of health for a 80, this would wipe groups. Now, when everyone generally has about 19-22k hp and the many tanks have 30k+, it can be healed through. For the achievement, just like the others- DPS him down, in this case, under two minutes.

Thats all for this evenin folks- ciao.