Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom

Before you start, be sure to pick up the extra daily quest outside the instance near the meeting stone. When you enter the instance, the first mobs you come across are the Ahn’kahar Watchers, they’re a carbon copy of the Ahn’kahar Slashers, who have three abilities: cleave, Enrage, and Triple Slash. Triple Slash seems to have an infinite range, which under normal circumstances doesn’t matter, but hey, now you know. Upon death the Watchers will drop a Ahn’kahar Watcher's Corpse, which if you were paying attention, is needed for the quest. The Deep Crawler’s have two abilities: Glutinous Poison, which causes all abilities to cost 25% more, and Fatal Sting which is a dot that they will cast when they get low on health.

Azjol-Nerub

The first group you’ll run into is a Anub’ar Webspinner and a Anub’ar Warrior, the Webspinners will cast Web Wrap on a random party member, DPS can attack the web once it’s formed to break it, but the member is rooted until that happens. The next pull will have a Anub’ar Skirmisher, they have a Fixate attack which causes them to lock onto a member of your party, increases their attack speed by 50%, and makes them immune to taunt for 8 seconds, which, unsurprisingly, will insta-gib a clothie. If you have a rogue or hunter ask them to use Tranquilizing Shot or Anesthetic Poison. If you don’t, stun, stun, and lots of stun, most DPS know to kill them first, but throw up a skull anyway.

Utgarde Keep

Immediately in front of you when you enter the instance will be the first pull, which is two Dragonflayer Ironhelms, nothing spectacular, they do have Second Wind though. Beyond that you’ll see 7 mobs, a mix of Dragonflayer Metalworkers and Dragonflayer Weaponsmiths, there will be two metalworkers at each anvil, and the 3 weaponsmiths will walk around, crossing between the two anvils, and going back behind the anvils to the weapon racks, pulling these can be a bit tricky depending on where they’re standing, don’t be ashamed to take your time. The Weaponsmiths can stun and disarm, and the Metalworkers have an enrage.

The Nexus

First off, head down the left corridor, somewhere in that corridor will be either an Azure Magus or an Azure Warder. Reflect the Frostbolts the Magus’ cast. The next set of mobs is two Mage Slayers with one Mage Hunter Ascendant. The Mage Slayers are demon dogs who will cast Draw Magic, which increases their damage by 50%. If they both cast it, you can get some “What? I died?” moments. The Mage Hunter Ascendant will be one of three different kinds of mob, arcane, frost, or fire. The Frost Variety will cast Freezing Trap which will cause you to lose aggro, so try to avoid the trap. They all will cast Aura of Arcane Haste, which should be removed.

I just hit or am about to hit 80: Now what?

First things first: the magic number to hit as far as defense is 540 or 535, note that there are combinations of Resilience and Defense that can add up to the required crit reduction, you’re looking for a total of 4.39% or 4.35% crit reduction, depending on if you’re doing heroics or raids. Before you step foot into PuG heroics you’ll want to get a few normal instances under your belt.

Mob Positioning Woes

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed that since 3.1, mobs seem to just be more difficult to position, and then keep in position. By this I mean they either freak out when I take a step to the left, right, or backwards or they randomly walk behind me for no reason whatsoever. Infact, one time I did Nexus and the last boss kept walking behind me, I was constantly walking backwards the entire fight, and when she froze me, I just had to spin in circles to keep her somewhat in front of me for the duration. For groups of mobs, a couple things I’ve determined to help this situation are simply stunning them, normally after they get out of a stun they’ll just take a step to position themselves and stay put.. or what I've been callign sidestepping. Sidestepping is simply taking a step backwards while rotating to either the right or left, I’m not sure why it works, but it does. What are your thoughts, am I just crazy?

Update: I'm just crazy/experienced a bug, since making this post I haven't noticed any other oddities in the way mobs move.

Update 2: Patch 3.3 introduced the same issue with mobs, and I noticed this post actually got a few hits on it from Google. I can't remember if I played/tanked the first week after 3.2, so I can't say if the issue was present after 3.2 went through. I think it's either lag due to people coming back to play the new content, or problems with the new patch's coding, or the servers rejecting it for some reason.

Blogging, the start

Hey, everyone. Welcome to my first blog, which is all about the tanking aspect of World of Warcraft. For now I'll be using Blogspot to host my blogging entries, but I think I'll eventually switch over to Wordpress or some other blogging software. Maybe then, I'll have some time to think of a more creative name for my blogging site—but we'll worry about that later. :) Anyways, I'll be releasing some entries in the near future, which is going to be less about theorycrafting and numbers and more about playing style, guild relations, the emotional points of tanking—maybe a few numbers and whatever once in a while. I'll also focus more on heroics and Naxxramas than the end-game content. Lastly, I'll try to keep this mostly about the beginning phases of tanking, which is a very rough time because, speaking from experience, you're constantly being told you don't have enough of XYZ stat to tank. In case you're wondering, I have an Alliance warrior—Vivilros on Lightning's Blade—which isn't necessarily the best geared, in the best guild, or doing the best content, but I enjoy her all the same. Anyway, enough talking, and let the tanking discussion begin!