Dungeon master Sapphire
20th June 2009 – 4.11 pmAlong with Gnomesblight getting the Wintergrasp Veteran achievement my warrior, Sapphire, has managed to keep busy. Sapphire is still trying to attain exalted status with the Argent Crusade to complete the Argent Tournament achievement list, although my casual gaming times playing World of Warcraft will make that goal last quite a while longer. But with the guild keen to run an instance or two at weekends I have been delving in to dungeons again.
The last dungeon I need to gain the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement, awarded for completing all the Northrend five-man dungeons on normal difficulty, is Drak'Tharon Keep, situated on the border of Zul'Drak and Grizzly Hills. Despite being without a lovely priest to heal, our wonderful tree-form druid is available and only the previous day we prove it quite possible to run through Drak'Tharon Keep with only four people, when other guild members complete their Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement. I took Gnomesblight in as a damage-dealer that time, as my death knight had never visited the keep either, and still needs to defeat Gundrak and Halls of Stone for the achievement. Sapphire, however, just needs this keep to be cleared.
Having been in the instance the day before and finding it quite straightforward, with the guild's gnome warrior tanking, I have the layout and mob patterns fresh in my memory. I think it is fair to say that I chain-pull my way through the whole instance, smoothly working from group to group, maintaining healthy aggro on all enemies without straining the healer's resources. I don't even pause before pulling the bosses, I am that comfortable.
It is the kind of instance run I find soothing, even though I am tanking. I can just concentrate on the simple task of sitting at the top of the threat meter without having to worry about my health dropping too far, the mobs breaking free and attacking someone unexpected, or someone not knowing a complex boss fight. Credit must go to my guild, as all present are happy to maintain a constant pace through the instance, keeping the damage and healing flowing right to the end where I also finally get the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement.
I have successfully tanked all of the five-man instances and bosses in Northrend, giving me the experience and knowledge to enter any of them as the tank with confidence. If we can increase our DPS output as a group then maybe we'll start venturing in to heroic instances. At the moment, I don't think we're quite ready but when we are we all have good experience of the standard instances, which will likely prove quite valuable when attempting them at the heroic level.
2 Responses to “Dungeon master Sapphire”
I do find your WoW Journeys inspiring me to continue with my WoW trial :D
Soling my way through the Barren's at the moment. I must be the only person in the universe to never have seen it! Briefly dabbled in the past, but enjoying this as part of my Mac project
The Barrens is an exceptionally picturesque region, enjoy!
I'm glad you're enjoying my posts here. I covered levelling up a rogue in more detail over at my other site, with the continuing adventures of Knifey, although he fell by the wayside when the death knight class was introduced.
There are also a few tales of Sapphire's journey through the lower levels over at Slain by Elf, although more from an RP point-of-view, with my journal here more concerned with mechanics and meta-game information.