From Goat to Hero in Seven Minutes

The following is in no way meant to be a guide or a how to:
I was stupid yesterday and not paying attention and after getting a raid of 25 fully buffed and ready for an assault on High King Maulgar, I wandered a little too far away from the wall and a little too close to the High King. A big red AGGRO flashed across my screen and I won't begin to tell you the terrible words that went through my mind.

After a very quick and ugly wipe, I got some good natured ribbing and I made the offer to anyone who wanted, 1 gold for their repair, and 3 gold for plate wearers (no one took me up on it).

For the fight against Mulgaur, my other hunter in the raid and I were set the task of tanking Kiggler and although my companion hates it when we tank, I like seeing my name up there as an MT on the CTRA list.

Towards the beginning of the fight something goes a awry and my co-tank dies and I am left to tank Kiggler alone. Except the monster polymorphs his attackers and when morphed the tank loses aggro, thats why you need two. Fortunately, right after the other hunter died, I popped a Beast Within and that gave me a little time, after that wore off I got lucky then for the next 5 or so morphs, and for some reason I popped into and out of rabbit form, only losing aggro momentarily.

When the morphs finally did start to take, instead of going after my healer, killing him, then me and causing a massive wipe, Kiggler went after one of the healers who was healing the tank of the High King -- and when I was Polymorphed she did a great job of keeping herself and her tank alive, and then I could grab aggro back when I was myself again. I told people afterwards, I don't think I have ever spammed distracting shot like that before. When the group finally got the seer and the summoner down they all came to attack Kiggler and I could rest a little. Of course with about 10 seconds left in the fight, I drew aggro from the High King and died... but by then the whispers and the accolades were coming in about what a nice job I did tanking Kiggler alone, saving the group from a wipe, etc. I told them I had to, I had to make up for being such a terrible bonehead earlier in the raid.

Man, Gruul is a _______ ______.

Two nights in a row of late raiding (well late for me since I have to be up and at work early), has left the creative well a bit dry. Plus, it's my web space and does it always have to be about something? Does it have to be a long winded rehash of how stupid/scared/upset the game makes all of us?

Hell no!

So, lets talk about Karazhan and Gruul's lair and all the great loot I got! Man, there were some great drops for hunters on both runs and if I had rolled poorly and someone else had won the loot that would have been ok. If I had passed on the stuff, because we need to keep the team even, let everyone get loot, that would be ok too. But no... I had all the stuff already. Tier 4 tokens of the fallen hero dropped off both High King & Curator -- I've got 'em all the other purple stuff that I could possible use? Dupes.

On the plus side, in Kara we got to the Curator again in under 2 and half hours and one-shot him in 6 minutes and 4 seconds. And we had no Warlock, so they told me to head back to the bank and get all my arcane gear -- because you're the soaker baby!

And so 154 arcane resist unbuffed later (and a loss of 250 RAP (Ranged Attack Power for us n00bs who don't get the abbreviations -- PS there's a link over to your left to help with that.)) and I soaked up those bolts like a pro!

High King Mulgore went down on the second shot last night, may have gone down on the first, but one of his lackeys went bugging and started evading us.

Got Gruul down to almost 20% (at 3.4 million HP, that means we did 2.7 million worth of damage to him!) And where was the n00b on the damage meters? Well, combined me and Kulkinski were at 7.9%, the highest? A mage at 8%.

On a side note, on one of our many wipes, Gruul critted me for 26,000+ damage.

All in all a fun, if not lucrative, two nights and now I have to take a few days off from the game to avoid some serious spouse aggro.