Monday, February 11, 2008

The Challenge of Disappearing Targets

A very popular "disappearing target" is Moroes from Karazhan. This elusive skeletal figure will beat on the main tank for a period of time, then suddenly vanish to award some random party member with a garotte that is not dispellable. Moroes will then re-appear and return to the tank that has been working up his agro on him from the beginning of the fight. The fact that the agro is not reset makes him rather easy to tank as long as no one surpasses the main tank in agro drawing the boss to themself instead.
Imagine what it would be like if Moroes disappears, but has a complete agro wipe before he re-appears in some random location in the raid.. That is what the mob I was assigned to tank last night did. A druid was selected to tank it because we can easily charge the mob when it re-appears and maul or mangle it rapidly to rip the agro back onto our furry armored bodies..
Sounds rather simple.. but to make things more complicated.. occasionally, the mob will have a shield making it immune to phyiscal attacks. ... So a druid can pop out of bear and Moonfire it to try to rip agro back... So here comes this mob back over to a more squishy druid who has to be quick on the reflexes and pop back into bear, then quickly mangle again to keep agro...
The Mob I speak of is the challenging Veras Darkshadow (rogue) of the Illidari Council in the Black Temple.
I was ready for the task... I had my macros all set: Macro One: /targetexact Veras Darkshadow /cast (Maul rank 8), and Macro Two: /targetexact Veras Darkshadow /cast Feral Charge. I also set the sneaky rogue to my /focus, and had a /cast [target=focus] Moonfire all set for him... I drank my agility potions, threw on my Hit and Tank gear and got ready... Our brave Paladin steps in and gets a Blessing of Protection to avoid instant death from the initial pull of the whole Illidari Council, and I move in and hit Veras with a Fairy Fire.. He heads over to me and I Maul and Mangle him and throw on some Lacerates. (I have my Lacerate and Maul on the same key because they have no cooldown). Things are going well, and my dedicated Paladin healer Hiro keeps me alive easily as I dodge most of the rogue's attacks... La la.. fun fun.. and then **Vanish*** so I wait a few seconds and start to look for the sneaky devil to pop back up.. ~~come out come out wherever you are!!!~~~ And I get impatient.. so I start to hit my Feral Charge macro... and suddenly I charge in and hit one of the other Council members! Why didn't my /targetexact work? ZOMG.. so I back away and finally the rogue pops back up... How convenient.. Right in front of me!!! So here goes.. I hit my /targetexact Veras Darkshadow /Maul button... and Um.. it's not working... ZOMG I'm totally out of Rage!!! He runs off and kills some healers and the Main tank dies, and we wipe..
Okay well.. This is the learning curve right? I will not be rageless ever again.. I discover that Boss Mods has a nice timer for us to see exactly when he will re-appear, so next time I will be ready..
Bopstar heads in for the initial pull again.. He's BOP'd and I pull again with Fairy Fire, and run toward him to Maul and Mangle and OH wait... My enrage must have agro'd everything before Bopstar could engage them! Gathios the Shatterer (paladin) smacks me for about 8k, then my lovely target, Veras, comes over and procedes to destroy me for 4 sucessive hits of 3k each. Somehow I didn't dodge a single one... Curse you Enrage button!!!
..Okay so.. Try again..
This time I throw on more Tanking gear and less HIT gear...
The pull begins.. I'm dancing on my toes all ready to pull without my enrage.. I decide to Moonfire him instead, then pop into bearform and tank him. Moonfire hits, but he runs away to the other side of the room anyways as well as a few other Council members... We wipe again.
HMMMMMM... Why does something so easy end up being so complicated??
Anyways.. That was our first time setting foot into the Illidari Council room.
I learned that my Hit gear is more important than the tank gear because one missed Maul or Mangle could lead to the rogue running off and killing someone else. I will just save my Badge of Tenacity to dodge his attacks. I also learned that I can go and beat on some other Council member during the Vanish period to keep a lot of rage for when he re-appears. And finally I learned that .. if the moonfire is needed... pop into bearform VERY fast or else it's instadeath for my little furry self when Veras turns his evil eye back on me and pokes those sharp objects into something other than my armored bear fur!

One last thing I think helps out a lot... Veras Darkshadow is Stunable... so I call out when he is about to appear so that the paladins can be on the watch for him and Hammer of Justice him into place to buy me some time to charge in and maul and mangle him... Teamwork often is the key to making things work out... especially when your target just won't stay put!

1 comment:

Agnarian said...

You will get ma'bear :D just think in a couple of weeks we will laugh at this encounter as a joke much like we look at gorefiend as a joke. If at first you don't suceed bubble hearth out!