Vanco's Coming of Age

Last night, I tanked on Vanco for about two hours.

Ok, I know the stupid LFG looks at gear score, or some version of gear evaluation, when selecting a random dungeon for you. And, I've been unable to queue up for Halls of Reflection precisely because I needed to acquire better gear.

So, what's the first instance to pop? Yeah, HoR. Dang, must have been those Saronite Swordbreakers that I just got.

The first boss was already down, so I assumed they wiped on either the waves or the second boss. Since the second boss is pretty much a tank and spank, I figured the waves were the issue. Great, the failtank has to hold aggro on a 5-6 pack of mobs.

I gave the group the option of grabbing the next tank, but they were game to try it out.

First pack, no real problems. Yank someone off the healer. Taunt someone off a DPS. Make sure I have DnD down. Done.

Hey, that wasn't too hairy...Second and third waves go in similar fashion. The four and fifth waves were much more hectic, but somehow we all survived. It sure wasn't due to my tanking.

The boss was pretty much an after thought as I only had to move once or twice to get out of the fire.

The big bone guy with the party essences was pretty easy, and I kept aggro on everything.

Jaina and Arthas were locked in Mortal Combat, and we arrived just in time! Oh, yeah, you know the deal. Anyways, we started up the gauntlet.

The other DK thought he was helping by throwing out his DnD, but unfortunately, he didn't put it in the same place I was putting mine, so the pulls didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked. The first two pulls went pretty good, the third was a bit scary, and we lost the healer on the fourth.

Luckily for us, we had a shadow priest that saved the day, healed through the last couple of mobs, and gave us the victory! We did it!!

People started leaving before I could suggest another, so it was just me and a pally left. "Queue for another?" I asked. She replied in the affirmative and queued us up.

The next one was Halls of Lightning. We did a pretty good job. Once again, I held aggro for the most part and had the presence of mind to taunt when I lost it.

I pulled the first boss while he had the lightning buff on him. phssst. No problem.

We had a couple of deaths on the slag dudes; yeah, they got AoE'd.

Second and third bosses went down without so much as a whimper, and Loken died also. We lost the healer again on Loken, but, hey, that's on him 'cause I had Loken's attention the whole fight. I also lost one of the dps on a trash pull; I think he got charged twice in a row from the big guys.

Drunk on our victory, we queued up for a random with just one person bowing out. We rolled UK. Yes! An easy one.

This instance is where I finally got used to tanking. I had moments in all the other dungeons that I've tanked, but this particular run was....just awesome. I was comfortable in my role, I was able to maintain a nice pace, and I didn't have anyone die. I was relaxed. It felt pretty good to have confidence in my abilities. And, yes, we roflstomped our way through the instance.

I had time for one more, so we random rolled a UP. This one was a bit more difficult, and the death that we did had was from someone standing in the (frost breath) fire. But all in all, it was almost as nice as the previous run.

So, what does all that mean? It means I'm comfortable in any of the three roles that the game has to offer. Currently, I'm only proficient in Hunter/SPriest DPS, Holy Priest Healing, and DK Tanking, but I can easily apply the concepts to other classes (and have - Druid healing).

Now, maybe, just maybe, poor little Daxynn the Pally will get some love...