Grin and Bear It

As previously mentioned, my collection of WoW-playing RL friends rolled up some Alts recently. We're hitting old instances together and it's been a complete blast. On Saturday, we did Scarlet Monastery twice to accommodate everyone. Both pulls were done AE and both were complete clears in about 2 hours each. It was, to say the least, a blast. One of the best parts was being able to group with our friend living over-seas. (Thus the reason for the second "late night" run.)

Each of us is trying something new. Each of us is "stretching" a little in our new roles. My wife -- a full-time raid healer -- is playing a frost mage. I'm bear tanking.

For a long time, we've had tank issues. Various members of our group have been "stuck" doing it. Heck, I remember in PBC, I would often pet-tank several instances. It was never pretty, but we often got the job done.

Since, Scarlet Monastery is my first real tanking experience, I thought I would talk about the trip. First off, as a beastmaster hunter I know a little more about tanking than the average ranged player. Which is to say, I don't know much. BUT, I do farm leather by letting my pet collect 2-4 mobs at once and then taking them down one-by-one.

Here's what I've learned from my experience.

1) Swipe is your best friend. It seems like whole pulls can be done with just using swipe. During AoE pulls, I discovered that shifting my position and tabbing through the targets, allows me to put swipes on more than 3 mobs. It's not full-proof, but it helps.

2) Using Growl too soon or on the wrong mob doesn't do shit. Target of target is a lifeline. In a group, it's good to have party target frames to help find the mob that pulled off.

3) You can't keep all the mobs in a 4-6 mob AoE pull. The trick seems to be to keep as many as you can, and do your best to grab back 1 or 2 when they start beating on the mages. Eventually, a mage or warlock will die. Oh well! As long as it wasn't the healer and the party didn't wipe, it was probably still a good pull.

4) Thanks to Karthis, I've learned when/how to use charge. I was charging to open pulls when I first started. Reading his post recently, I saved it to grab the stray spellcasters OR save my healer.

Anyway, I'm interested to see what future levels hold. Deep down, I'm still a hunter. Still, it's a great change of pace. I can't imagine ever switching to druid, but who knows.