Heroic Chimaeron 25 Man

Heroic:  Chimaeron (25 man)

For the first time since I started playing the game, I'm in a guild that can accomplish stuff.  

I'm going to start this off by congratulating the entire guild on our heroic kills.  The guild is currently 3/13 Hard Mode bosses, which is incredible.  For any of you out there that are running Cataclysm raids, you know that they're no walk in the park.  Heroic content is harder, much more chaotic, and much more demanding.  So, congratulations to everyone and thank you for working so hard.

This was also my first "guild first" heroic boss kill.  The even better part?  I was tanking for them.  Even better than that?  I didn't screw up as much as I was afraid I would.

Did I forget to mention that I lack serious confidence?  Oh.  Yes, I lack confidence when it comes to raiding.  Well, I guess it's more true to say I lack confidence in general.  Anyway...we're not here to psychoanalyze, right?

We're here to rejoice at another heroic raid boss down...another awesome night raiding and new lessons learned.  

What?  You didn't think I still learned stuff about my beloved druid?

Oh, believe me.  I do.  Chimaeron on heroic is no joke.  He hits like a freight train filled with lead at maximum velocity.  I learned a great deal more about precious cooldowns and how to use them more strategically in order to increase my TTL.  

TTL?

Time To Live.  You tanks out there should know that one...right?  

At any rate, we threw a BUNCH of attempts at this boss on heroic last night.  What I like about my guild is that we don't invest a few wipes then move on to something "easier".  I think that when you do that, you hurt your progress much more than helping further it.

What do I mean?

So many questions today...jeeeepers.  What I mean is...If you wipe, say, 4 times and either switch back to normal mode or move onto a "farm boss", I think people retain less of what they're figuring out from the wipes.  I know that wiping for 3+ hours straight on ONE boss is frustrating, but I think it forces people to look at what they did on the wiped attempt and try to tweak it for the next go at it.  I know that's what I do. 



The first few attempts - I had only a very, very poor understanding of what I needed to do and what was going on, despite watching numerous videos and reading as much as I could about tanking him.


The last few attempts - I had a much clearer idea of what I needed to do in the fight and how to help recover from losing a tank unexpectedly.  The lesson I learned:  Don't try to taunt Double Attacks with 2 stacks of Break on you.  It is deadly.

Each time we wiped, I learned a few more tricks.  We managed to get him into phase 2 two or three times before finally ending the night on our guild's 3rd heroic kill.  Vent practically exploded with happy raiders.

WOOOHOOOO!!!!

Now that we've downed another heroic boss, I'm eager to see if we can bring down Atramedes on heroic.  We've put in a bunch of attempts, but we've yet to get too far into the fight on heroic.  I'm hoping that last night's victory boosts morale and encourages everyone to focus that much harder on bringing down more heroic bosses (especially frakkin Atramedes...the bastard!!!).

Anyway, that's really all I've got for today.  Life has been absolute chaos again, so of course I'm finding little to no time to drop in and post and say hello to you all and see how you're doing.  I'm wondering if anyone else out there has stories to share?  Epic stories, funny stories, screen shots?  Anything goes.  It would just be nice to share what other WoWheads have to say.

OH!!!!!!!  Before I forget...For those of you who have hit my armory and have been jabbing at me and prodding me to drop the BoE crafted epics in order to get at least 2pc t11...I did that finally last night for my bear gear.  Initially, I didn't do it because the guild wasn't really sure whether they needed me more for healing or tanking, but since we've recruited a few more dedicated healers and I've been tanking on most encounters...I decided to take the plunge and grab some t11.  I have the chest and gloves right now, I believe.  I could easily buy the legs with Valor Points as well, but I'm going to hold off on that in hopes that we'll win Tol Barad on a night I can actually get into Baradin Hold and see what drops.

One other important thing that happened last night:  My passion for my bear was revived.  I've always "liked" tanking, but I've generally been in guilds that don't see much progression or they don't attempt "hard" content until it's been nerfed into the ground and it just wasn't satisfying for the longest time.  But now...the passion is there once more.  RAWR BABY!!! 

RAWWWWWWWWWR!

F*ckin' ugly jerk...

I have a screen capture I can post of our crew standing with our kill, but of course, that's at home and I'll have to add it to this later on.