Time to respec. again?

I think that over the past 4 months or so, I've respec'd a total of 2 times, and it was just minor changes here and there. When I slowed down on the number of heroics I did, I took out improved revenge and improve shield bash, and then recently took out improved taunt to put it into improved sunder and one point in Heroic Strike.

Now, I've gotten to the point with my gear and our guild progression that keeping me alive is never a problem anymore, but rather the focus is trying to clear Kara as fast as possible. Being that I'm also doing more PvP and Arenas, I've now thought about taking a few more points out of protection.

So here's the build I'm thinking about doing: Rage Efficient Tank.

Essentially, the main change is taking points out of Improved Defensive Stance, and putting it into improved Heroic Strikes in order to get Anger Management. Sometimes, Rage generation can be a challenge for me when I'm not tanking a boss, or, if I decide to OT during a fight (which is hardly ever). Comments? Suggestions? Does anyone think that putting one point in Deep Wounds would be better than putting my last point into Improved Bloodrage? I'm also curious as to what the dynamics are with Deep Wounds if you're dual wielding, and whether it comes from just your main hand, or both.

By the way....I'm now done with Kara with my gear. Our run on Tuesday and Wednesday was a pretty tank loving run. I picked up the Pocket Watch, the Eternium Greathelm, and then of course, after I fully gemmed up the Greathelm, the Tier 4 helm dropped off of Prince. Of course if I had not gemmed up the Greathelm, Tier 4 would not have dropped off of Prince, as is usually my luck.

So now, there's honestly nothing more I can do for my main gear wise, except get more DPS gear, until our guild starts hitting the 25 mans. I've seen some blogs comment that the Bonefist Gauntlets are better than Tier 4, but to me, the difference isn't worth spending all these badges on.

Now, I'll have to wait until 2.4, since there appears to be some pretty sweet loot that drops in the new 5-man Heroic.

Putting together a nice DPS set.

Because there is nothing more I can do to improve my tanking gear, I've been working on improving a DPS set. This is primarily because I still do Arenas, and I try to get the Daily BG in every single day.

So far, I have the following pure DPS items:

Gladiator's Plate Shoulders
1160 Armor
+22 Strength
+45 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +3 Strength
Durability 100 / 100
Classes: Warrior
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 23 (1.04% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 19 (0.48% @ L70).

Royal Cloak of Arathi Kings Binds when picked up Back 97 Armor +26 Strength +31 Stamina Requires Level 70 Equip: Improves hit rating by 16 (1.01% @ L70).

Bulwark of Kings
Binds when picked up

Chest

1595 Armor
+35 Strength
+55 Stamina
Blue Socket
Yellow Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Critical Strike Rating
Durability 165 / 165
Requires Level 70
Requires ArmorsmithEquip: Improves hit rating by 23 (1.46% @ L70).
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 37 (1.68% @ L70).
Use: Temporarily Increases Health by 1500 and Strength by 150 for 15 sec. (30 Min Cooldown)

Eternium Rage-shackles
Binds when picked up

Wrist

703 Armor
+32 Strength
+32 Stamina
Durability 55 / 55
Requires Level 70Equip: Your attacks ignore 150 of your opponent's armor.

Gladiator's Plate Gauntlets
Binds when picked up

Hands

967 Armor
+28 Strength
+42 Stamina
Durability 55 / 55
Classes: Warrior
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 26 (1.18% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 21 (0.53% @ L70).
Equip: Hamstring Rage cost reduced by 3.

Chain of Unleashed Rage
Binds when picked up

Waist

904 Armor
+34 Strength
+37 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +3 Hit Rating
Durability 55 / 55
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves hit rating by 14 (0.89% @ L70).
Equip: Your attacks ignore 154 of your opponent's armor.

Vanquisher's Legplates
Binds when picked up

Legs

1216 Armor
+36 Strength
+36 Stamina
Red Socket
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Hit Rating
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 23 (1.04% @ L70).

Eye of the Stalker Binds when picked up Unique Finger +31 Stamina Requires Level 70 Equip: Increases attack power by 60.

Ring of the Shadow Deeps
Binds when picked up
Unique-Equipped
Finger
+15 Stamina
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves hit rating by 13 (0.82% @ L70).
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 21 (0.95% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 24.

And finally:
The Decapitator
Binds when picked up

One-Hand

167 - 312 Damage	Speed 2.60

(92.1 damage per second)
Durability 105 / 105
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 27 (1.22% @ L70).
Use: Hurls your axe in an attempt to decapitate your target causing 513 to 567 damage. (3 Min Cooldown)

I put Executioner on my Decapitator too for some extra armor penetration. When Executioner procs, I have a total of 840+150+154 = 1144 armor penetration. Throw on 5 devastates on a target (2600 reduction in armor), and most non-plate classes are looking at zero armor when I'm hitting them. Just blade to bone.

It's actually been a nice change to be able to dual-wield DPS while still protection spec'd. Although I may not do as much DPS as a pure fury spec'd warrior, I live a lot longer, and in the end, may out DPS because of that. Another advantage is I still have my concussion blow attack. What I've been doing in BGs is to pop bloodrage, intercept, hamstring, concussion blow, then spam devastate and heroic strike while popping whirlwind when it's up. It really is a nice change from tanking all the time, and a good way to keep things fresh.

So here's my wish list to complete my DPS set:

Vindicator's Pendant of Triumph
Binds when picked up
Unique
Neck
+35 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +3 Stamina
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 22 (1% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 18 (0.46% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 50.
Costs 15,300 Honor, 10 EOTS.

Vengeful Gladiator's Plate Helm
Binds when picked up

Head

1483 Armor
+39 Strength
+61 Stamina
Meta Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Critical Strike Rating
Durability 100 / 100
Classes: Warrior
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves hit rating by 12 (0.76% @ L70).
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 35 (1.59% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 25 (0.63% @ L70).
Equip: Your attacks ignore 84 of your opponent's armor.
Cost: 1,875 Arena points.

Dory's Embrace
Binds when picked up
Back
114 Armor
+34 Stamina
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 20 (0.91% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 20 (0.51% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 46.
Equip: Your attacks ignore 112 of your opponent's armor.
Cost: 60 Badges of Justice.

Vengeful Gladiator's Plate Legguards
Binds when picked up

Legs

1597 Armor
+51 Strength
+70 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Classes: Warrior
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves hit rating by 12 (0.76% @ L70).
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 47 (2.13% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 22 (0.56% @ L70).
Equip: Your attacks ignore 84 of your opponent's armor.
Costs 1,875 Arena points.

Vindicator's Plate Greaves
Binds when picked up

Feet

1255 Armor
+35 Strength
+49 Stamina
Durability 75 / 75
Classes: Warrior, Paladin
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 35 (1.59% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 30 (0.76% @ L70).
Costs 17,850 Honor, 40 EOTS marks.

Vindicator's Band of Triumph
Binds when picked up
Unique
Finger
+34 Stamina
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 26 (1.18% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 22 (0.56% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 44.
Equip: Your attacks ignore 56 of your opponent's armor.
Costs 15,300 Honor, 10 AV marks.

Veteran's Band of Triumph
Binds when picked up
Unique
Finger
+30 Stamina
Requires Level 70Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 22 (1% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 22 (0.56% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 42.
Costs 11,934 Honor, 10 AV marks.

So in total, here's what I need to grind to get the above:

60384 Honor points.
3750 Arena points.
50 EOTS marks.
20 AV marks.
60 Badges of Justice.

Looks like I'll be spending a good deal of PvP grinding this weekend.

Another one-shot night.

This week was the first week that IM has gone with two Kara groups. I didn't know what to expect going into this week, but I was certainly expecting slower progression through Kara. But last night, we had a total of one wipe, on one trash mob pull, and one shotted Curator, Shade, Chess (although it would have been embarrassing if we didn't one shot Chess) and finally Prince. We had a few new people in our group, and two healers who had never healed me before through these bosses. So I found it quite impressive how this group performed.

Our group makeup was the following:
Myself (warrior tank)
Enhancement Shaman
Shadow Priest
Combat spec'd Rogue
Beastmaster Hunter
Fire Mage
Frost Mage
Resto Druid
Holy Palidan
Destruction Warlock

Our DPS was pretty insane. Curator was only able to get through 2 evocations before taken down. Shade didn't get one polymorph on our group. And the only death we had during Prince was myself when Prince was at 1%...and he was killed before he even went after anyone else after I went down. My buffed HP was around 19.5k, so it was pretty nice.

So while I'm at it, I thought I'd go over my strategy for Prince.

There are only a few trash mobs to get to him, and nothing special is required except a lot of healing. Two of the pulls between Chess and Prince are two guys, and often times we have an OT around here so I'm not taking that much damage...but the healers were right on top of things and kept me up through all the pulls.

Once we get to Prince, I always position myself in the same place. Along the right side of the wall there's an area that juts out, so I put myself there with my back to the wall so I'm never knocked back. Everyone else crowds right under the doorway so they're within range of myself and Prince, but out of range of the infernals that drop.

There are three phases to this fight. The first one is usually the easiest, because he isn't hitting as fast or as hard as the other two. This is where we take it nice and slow to give me an opportunity to build a huge lead with aggro. Phase 1 lasts until Prince is at 60%, and then from 59% to 35%, is phase 2 where he dual wields and speeds up his attacks against me. This is where we really pour on the DPS, because this is where I usually take the most damage. The faster we get him to 35%, the less big heals I'll need, and the more mana will be saved for phase 3. Once you get to phase 3, he slows down his attacks against me, but we still need to throw on some heavy DPS to down him.

When I'm the only warrior, I need to do more than simply shield slam, revenge, devestate devestate. Because of his crushing blows, and the speed of his attacks, thunder clap and demo shout need to be kept up at all times. And of course....spamming shield block every time it's up. If you don't have shield block up, you can be hit with some fairly large crushing blows that can take you out pretty quickly. If you're the kind of warrior that just hits the same three buttons over and over again...you really need to change your playing style for this fight.

For this fight it is imperative that you: Shield slam, shield block, thunder clap, demo shout, devestate, revenge and commanding shout. Just keep an eye on the debuff timer so you can refresh thunder clap, demo shout and commanding shout before they wear off. Keep this up....and have some good healers on you...and you're golden.

I find that Prince is one of those kind of fights where you really shine, since a lot of tanks simply can't stay alive for the fight. This is also your chance to really show how much threat you can build, because the higher threat you create, the more your DPSers can go all out during phase 2 and 3. This is your time in the spotlight...so show them why you're the tank!

We now only have Illhoof, Netherspite and Nightbane left. We'll probably take tonight off, since we've done so well. I'm still waiting for all the drops I mentioned in my earlier post....still no Tier 4 helm, no pocket watch, no King's Defender, no Eternium Greathelm, etc. But on the bright side, I don't think we've had to DE one item on this run. So for us to make the progression we've made...while still being able to gear up a number of party members, is quite nice. Hopefully we can finish up the last 3 on Friday night, and leave us the whole weekend to go back to ZA.

Bear Boss down!

So last night, since IM completed a full Kara clear by Friday night, we decided to take a peek into ZA. We were not sure whether our gear was up for it yet, but figured, worse case at least we get to see some new content and figure out where need to be to take down the first boss.

We start off with opening the door, and before you know it, there are a number of waves coming at us. We handled them all right....we were not expecting them, but our DPS was able to get them down. The next couple of mobs were nothing too hard...and it was nice being able to have our mages sheep, since there are no opportunities to do so in Kara.

The first challenge that we met before the boss were the bear riders. These guys hit hard! They have a cleave, so it's important that the tanks keep them away from each other so we both don't get hit by them. The tricky part here, is around 10% of the bear riders health, the rider dismounts, and you have both the rider and the bear to deal with. As a tank, you need to pick up aggro on the bear almost immediately. The first time around, I wasn't able to get aggro quickly enough, so the bear ran from me and started going after our healers. We got one down, but had a partial wipe, and had the group running towards the entrance. We needed to take them both down, otherwise we would have them reset and have to deal with them all over again. Luckily, CC works on them. We only had one bear left, so we had our mage keep it sheeped until a couple of us were able to rez and rejoin the group. Got the bear down no problem at that point.

Just one mob to go before the boss...two bear riders and two medicine men. The medicine men drop totems, so it's important to CC these guys first. We had a sheep on one, and a trap on the other. Focus fired my guy down, and then I went for the trap. However, our OT is usually a DPS warrior who respec'd just so we could have an OT. My medicine man was almost down until our OT died, still leaving a bear and a rider. Our group DPSed the rider down quickly, but I had to run to grab the bear before he started tearing apart the rest of the group. Threw up a taunt, picked him up, and the mob was down. Now, all that was left was the boss.

This is a fight where you cannot in any way hope to defeat him, unless you have two tanks. The boss will periodically shapeshift from a troll to a bear. The bear does some major bleed effects, so the way I see it, it's better to have the higher effective health tank on the bear, and the higher avoidance tank on the troll. The troll does a mangle which destroys one tanks armor, but he doesn't hit that hard on his own. The problem is, the bear does, so if the same tank who's been mangled by the troll gets hit with the bear, he'll go down. So the trick here, is each tank has to taunt the boss onto him right when he shapeshifts. The other problem, is the bear does a aoe silence for about 2 seconds. As a tank, this can be killer, because it's 2 seconds you're not getting any heals at all, and still bleeding.

As a dwarf...I found stoneform to be a lifesaver. Since it removes a bleed effect, when our healers got silenced I hit it to remove the bleed. This saved me, since the only damage I was taking was from the direct hits, and not any bleed effects. We got the boss down to about 66%, but our OT died, which essentially means a wipe since I can't take both forms on me at once. We tried it again, and got him to around the same point again, but one of our hunters pulled aggro which threw things off.

Third time around, we got the boss to about 52% before we lost our OT again. We were getting better...and to be honest, I wasn't expecting that we take him down in our first night at ZA. We figured we'd go for about 1 or 2 more shots, or until the trash respawned. So we set up and go for it again. This time, everything was looking great. Got him down below 50%, and everyone was still up. There was one time I had the bear on me, I had used my stoneform already, and our healers were silenced. This was my "Oh crap!" time, so I popped every cooldown: last stand, health pot, and shield wall. Kept me alive until the silence was over, the healers got me back up....and we were looking good. He's down to 5%...and we're feeling it. Everyone still alive, but our healers in dire need of mana. We're at 1%...we're feeling it! Then, with our OT on the troll, he goes down, and the troll swings to me. I was still bleeding...and a few hits I was down. I'm thinking to myself "Not now! Not at 1%!" Both tanks down, and he starts going after our healers and casters. All DPS on him....and he drops! By that time, our healers didn't even have enough mana to rez either myself or the OT....but that was fine. We still got him down! Caster bracers dropped...but those Jungle Stompers would have been pretty nice.

Apparently, the Bear Boss is supposed to be the "Attunemen" of ZA. A gear check if you will. Because as we know...if you're wiping on Attunemen...you're not making it to Prince. Our guild may not be ready for some of the other bosses....but at least we know we can at least take the first guy down with the gear we have. This will be something nice and different to try on nights after we clear Kara to finish out the week. We still need more guys to start Gruuls....but we know we at least have enough guys to take on the first boss in ZA.

Great job everyone in IM!

What else can I do?

This past weekend, I finally got two nice upgrades to complete my normal tanking set:

First, I got the Panzar'Thar Breastplate from Nightbane: Panzar'Thar Breastplate

This is going to replace my Bulwark of Kings: Bulwark of Kings.

I'll wear my Kings when I need more threat/dps, but I figure that for normal tanking, i.e., most boss fights, I'll put on the Panzar for some pretty nice avoidance. I lost about 100 health with Panzar, and about 100 armor or so...but at this point, the avoidance is more important than the health. If I'm getting hit for about 4-6k from a boss, that 100 health is going to make that big of a difference, whereas that extra couple of percent chance to avoid the hit becomes much more important.

I also completed my Darkmoon: Vengeance deck: Darkmoon Card: Vengeance.

I think I'm going to use this to replace my autoblocker for most fights. First, it gives me 51 stam, which is absolutely fantastic. But even nicer, is it's fantastic for keeping aggro. For every ten times someone is hitting me, I'm dealing roughly 100 holy damage (which means armor doesn't matter) back to that opponent. And it doesn't matter whether I'm directly attacking them or not. One of my friends wondered why I spent all this gold to get this trinket, not fully understanding the aggro benefit of it. As a tank, I'm not doing my job if I don't have almost every non-cc'd enemy on me. The problem as a warrior, we have very few "AOE" attacks. Yes, we have demo shout, but that doesn't really keep them on for that long. Yes, we have thunderclap, but it only hits 4 targets at once. Anymore than 4, and we're not dealing any aggro to them. So with this trinket, I don't have to worry about that anymore. It's my own little quasi-retribution aura. Sometimes I have difficulty switching between multiple targets to shield slam/devestate while keeping aggro on the main target. With this trinket, that becomes less of a worry. If they're hitting me, after a little bit, they'll be hit back, without me having to actually switch to them.

So now...the way I see it, there are not too many more items I can get to upgrade my tank without running 25-mans, and our guild isn't up to that point yet. By the way, if you ARE on the Hyjal server and would like to join our guild, the link is: http://dg-gaming.net/

For the most part, from here on out, Attorneylaw will be online to do dailies, and raid, with my other time spent leveling my new alt., Attorneylock.

Here's my new wish list to work on for my tank, until we hit 25-mans. Most of these will only be slight upgrades, but every day I'm always looking for a way to make him better.

1. T4 Helm: Warbringer Greathelm. - Drops from Prince. I have the Helm of the Stalwart Defender, which was nice to get me to main tanking Kara, but the T4 will not only have better stamina and defense, but gives me agility, strength, and a meta socket. And if I keep my T4 gloves on, I get the set bonus which would be nice. If I can't get the T4, I would like to pick up the Eternium Greathelm, which I lost last time it dropped in Opera to our Pally tank since he was still wearing a blue helm. Either one would be a very nice upgrade, mostly because the resilience on the Defender is pretty useless to me. Yes, it lowers my defense cap, but with the Gladiator Shield Wall, my defense cap was already lowered to 472. Defense adds avoidance stats anyway, so I'll always take defense over resilience.

2. King's Defender - Chess. This isn't THAT big of an upgrade over my Sun Eater . I'll lose about 1% to dodge, but, I gain almost 200 armor, an extra 6 stam, higher DPS, and nice hit rating increase. I lost some hit rating with my Nightbane chestpiece, so this would get me back to where I needed to be. I'm aiming to get my hit rating to 80, and I'm down to 53 I believe after changing chestplates. Overall, this is just better than the Sun-Eater, even if it has slightly less avoidance. I'd probably use this until I hit Hyjal Summit (IF, we hit Hyjal summit before the expansion.)

3. Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch - Moroes. This would primarily be a boss fight trinket. I'm using my Darkmoon trinket and my Adamantine Figurine as my main tanking trinkets, but for a boss fight, the +300 to dodge rating when popped (which comes out to an extra 16% to dodge) would be much better than simply having a bit more armor. The extra armor means I'm just absorbing more damage, but still taking it. The dodge means they're not hitting me at all, making it much easier to keep me alive. If I'm in a tight spot, and I need to give the healers some time to throw a heal up on me, I can pop this to hopefully keep me alive to avoid a couple of hits so they can throw a heal up. I think the reason I ranked this lower than the King's Defender, is that I'm already geared well enough to tank Prince and Nightbane....if I can generate more aggro, we can DPS faster, clear faster, and move closer and closer to getting a full clear in one or two nights. In the meantime....when I don't have to worry about sending gold to my alt., I'm going to try and get the Darkmoon Card: Madness . It's another +51 stam trinket, but the proc. on it isn't as helpful, since it requires me to land a killing blow. And as a tank...let's be realistic...most of the time I'm not the one landing the killing blow, and on a boss, that doesn't even matter.

4. Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall - Arena. I'm using the Gladiator Shield Wall right now, so this isn't that huge of an upgrade, but one nonetheless. The way I see it, the Merciless Shield is better than the one that drops in Gruuls, because of the Armor, Stam, and block value.

5. Bonefist Gaunlets - 60 badges. This one is a tough call. I currently have the Tier 4 gloves , and I lose defense with the Bonefist, but gain hit rating. I might use the Bonefist for when I need more aggro, and the Tier 4 when I need more avoidance. And if I get the Tier-4 Helm, then Bonefist will become pure aggro gloves for me.

6. Vengeful Gladiator's Plate Chestpiece . This would be a situational chestpiece, and maybe something I would play around with. The armor and stamina on this are sick. 1825 Armor, +39 Strength, +67 Stamina AND 3 Gem slots. The only thing is, it has zero avoidance stats. Yes, it has resilience, but that's about it. So I'd really have to play around and see what gets me better stats. At the minimum, however, I'd probably want to use this when I'm PvPing and doing Arenas, or just when I need more DPS, and less avoidance.

So that's pretty much everything I can get that would be some sort of an upgrade, without running a 25 man. I figure that if I keep on running Kara over and over again, and doing my arena teams every week, in addition to my dailies for the gold, I'll be able to complete all of this, and get to the point where there's nothing more I can do to improve my character without running a 25 man.

Well...there's always trying to complete my resist sets by blacksmithing...but it seems that I don't even need resist until I get to SSC....and that's still a loooong way off!

Maiden

Trash - After we take down Moroes, we usually head back to the stop of the stairs. From there, we'll start pulling the groups to the right of the stairs. There should only be one big non-elite mob, and then one lonesome non-elite sitting in a chair. When they're down, head to the right back corner. From there, you can pull the next AOE mob, and then the elites to clear the doorway. There's usually one elite that's patting there, but it's not a big deal if you accidentally aggro him...as I did last night while trying to figure out where he was. Once he's done, head into the doorway, and up the stairs. Some groups like pulling down to the mid-way landing...I personally like taking them at the top. There are a total of 3 patting elites around. I'll wait for them to clear, then pull the AOE mob in front. Once that mob is down, I'll pull the individual elites, one at a time. There are also 2 elites at the door way, which you'll need to clear...shackle/trap/double tank, whatever you need to do.

From there, you'll see just one more big AOE mob close to the doorway. I know they usually don't aggro when you enter the doorway, but I like to clear them anyway, especially because we do Opera right after Maiden. If you have a Rogue or any other stealth, have them go into the doorway, and check to see where the pats are in the hallway leading to Maiden. There is mainly one pat you need to worry about, that usually pats all the way to the end of the hallway. Once they're clear, have the whole raid go into the hallway and then to the left to group up. From there, you can safely start picking off the pats. The only thing you need to be aware of is that these mobs sometimes charm when they turn into a succubus, and also summon a non-elite hound, which any of your DPSers can pick up. Clear all the way to the end of the hallway and then start setting up for Maiden.

Maiden - Without Pally's...this fight can be much more difficult. However, our main healer Tokidin throws up a Blessing of Sacrifice on myself through the fight. The BOS will "place a Blessing on the party member, transferring X damage taken per hit to the caster."

The reason why this is so important, is that she has this ability called "Repentance." Repentance: Deals 1750–2250 holy damage and incapacitates the whole raid for 12 seconds. 30 second cooldown, not dispellable but broken by damage. In other words, she can stun every single party member (except the Main tank) for 12 seconds. If you're a main tank, and you're not getting any heals from a boss for 12 seconds, that can be deadly. However, when your pally throws the BOS on you, the second she hits you after Repentance will break the stun on the Pally as it will transfer the damage to him. The Pally can go back to healing the tank and all is good.

We one-shotted Maiden last night doing this, and with 3 melee classes. We were considering whether or not to have one of our hunters switch to his holy pally for the fight, but we thought we'd give it a shot without him....and we turned out fine.

Honestly, this fight requires little from you as a tank except to just keep aggro up. This is all about the healers, and having them keep everyone else alive. She'll cast a holy fire on random party members that will kill them if they're not healed or dispelled. Just make sure you keep your shield block up, since she does crushing blows.

As a tank, she drops a pretty sweet necklace if you don't have the Brooch of Deftness yet.

Barbed Choker of Discipline

This dropped last night...but...since I already had the Brooch, I passed this to the other tank who still had a blue.

Here's the Brooch of Deftness:
Brooch of Deftness

The 48 stamina is nice...but most importantly?
Equip: Improves hit rating by 22 (1.4%).
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 21 (5.3%).

21 Expertise Rating = 5 Expertise Skill
= 1.25% Parry Reduction
= 1.25% Dodge Reduction.

First and foremost, this is huge for generating aggro on bosses. Less parries and less dodges mean more of your special attacks, i.e., devestate and shield slam, are landing on your target and that means more aggro. More aggro/threat means your DPSers can increase the damage they do without worrying about stealing aggro, which means shorter fights, and less mana problems for your healers.

There's also a mitigation aspect to this. When an enemy parries one of your attacks, he gets a 40% on his next swing timer. If you're doing a boss that's throwing down crushing blows fairly quickly, this means your shield block's use will be up before you can pop it again. A few crushing blows, and all of a sudden you're dead. BUT....with expertise, bosses have a decreased chance of parrying.

To be honest, I keep my expertise items equipped for every fight that I'm in, no matter what the situation. Heck, I'll keep it on for PvPs and Arenas.

So...the point here....if you don't have the Brooch and Maiden's necklace falls..clearly...take her necklace. However....if you already have the Brooch, you're probably not going to be using the Maiden necklace for many fights. If it's just going to be DE'd, clearly you should still grab it just to have for some situations. But overall...the Brooch is better, even if it's not measured in tankpoints.

Moroes

Firstly - you need two tanks going into this fight. Without two tanks: fail.

Trash leading to Moroes - at the top of the staircase you're going to see all those dancing phantoms. The first thing you'll want to do is mark each patting elite with a raid symbol. These guys walk around the whole room, so you'll want to know where they are so you don't pull a big AOE mob AND an elite. The elites hit fairly hard too, so you really need to pull one at a time.

The pulls are for the most part straightforward. Try to clear the two AOE mobs at the top of the staircase first so you can pull the patting elites without much worry. All heals should be on your mages since they'll be taking a fair amount of damage as they go in and AOE. As a warrior tank, my role is fairly limited: I just keep thunderclapping and DEMO shout to try and get some aggro, or to at least decrease the amount of damage these guys are going to do.

Once you clear the mobs in front and the pats, work your way to the room to the left. There's a few patrolling undead elites, so you may want to first pull one or two back down to the stairs, in addition to the first AOE table when you walk in. Once that's clear, move into the room, stick to the wall on the left, and group up into the cubby. From here, just start pulling the tables and elites. Be careful with some of the waiters, because if you get hit with a bottle, you'll start taking loads of damage very quickly. Make sure the whole room is clear except for Moroes and his adds.

Moroes - This fight is much more about how your group handles a boss fight with a lot of adds. You'll need at the very least, 2 CC'ers who can CC undead - priest or hunters. There are healers in the group that you're going to need your CC'ers on constantly, otherwise Moroes gets healed, your healers then run out of mana, and wipe.

I pull Moroes, then move to the right side of the room if you're looking at Moroes when the fight starts. Pull him right to the wall there and away from everyone else. At this point, you and your OT have only 1 thing to worry about: making sure your threat is above everyone else in the raid. The top two always need to be the MT and OT, otherwise: fail. This is a great place to be a dwarf with the stoneform. Moroes will "garote" you, which is a pretty bad 5 minute bleed. One stoneform, and it's gone. The rest of the raid should taking down the adds, minus the healers, and then focusing on Moroes. He'll constantly vanish then "garote" someone. The main reason you need to make sure the tanks are in the top two, is he'll always sap one of the tanks through the fight. If the other tank isn't #2, he'll start running for the rest of the raid, and you'll wipe.

Like I said, the fight itself isn't too bad - just keep your aggro up on Moroes, and let the DPSers do their job. The higher your threat-per-second, the more your DPS can go all out on him.

I'm still waiting for his pocket watch to drop...one of the few items left in Kara at this point which would be a nice upgrade for me, and something I'd want when I start doing 25-man runs.