Shall I tell you a story? Shall I tell you a dream? They think I'm crazy...

On the cat vs scorpid debate...

Paladins... druids... and shammies can remove viper sting.

Mabd is really only doing arena now with the 3v3 team. And on that team is a warlock.

If Mabd is gonna fight a druid... dammit, I need the cat, with it's speed over the scorpid. And abolish poison makes viper sting moot...

If Mabd is gonna fight a paladin... well, I'll leave the pally to my lock friend to CC.

Then it comes down to Mabd against a shammy. And imp viper sting would help more than what I got now... but in it's place...

I'm the physical and burst dps on the team. If it comes to a drain contest, my weakness will be made up by the lock's drain mana. I have to be able to kill priests as soon as possible, since they're the only real danger vis a vis a drain showdown. Cats help more with this. Efficiency and viper aspect go together in just too powerful a way. And Ima not giving up imp concussive shot.

I may change this if I switch teams or get into higher brackets... but for now, Ima hanging with the kitty.

K... now for the nightmare. Arms and Fury 's druid needed heroic seth for his elite flight form. Melvin'd druid needed the same thing. Great, right? Melvin would tank, Aerthson would heal, and I'd be doin dailies, preferably the hell away from both of em.

Well... it didn't work out that way. I was told in no uncertain terms that I HAD to help. And Melvin made a further point that I HAD to bring Mabd, since Majeure was... "unworthy." (That still stings!)

Now, I think i told you Melvin's first rule of tanking... if the dps pulls aggro, the dps dies. It is the job of the dps to avoid aggro, not the job of the tank to keep it.

To this, add Melvin's second rule... it doesn't matter how many times you wipe on trash mobs... the whole point is killing bosses. So it doesn't matter if he couldn't hold aggro on more than one mob... if we kill the boss, that makes Melvin a GREAT tank.

So we go in... cc two mobs, and melvin is growling at two others... I count. One heal, two heal, three heal... and the off mob comes offa Melvin straight for his healer...

/scattershot
/wingclip
/kite while dpsing main target...

We ended up getting A&F to tank, pulling magebert's tier 5 raid main healer to do the job, with Melvin playing his mage. And btw... A&F can tank. If only we could teach him grammar...

Magebert got Herk killed twice with slow heals... Herk, alas, has ready to enter kara gear... and isn't quite uncrushable... one fun time, we face two ravenguard... they can't be cc'ed but can be snared. They hit for about 2.5k on plate... so Herk goes down thanks to slow heals, then the healer goes down. Then Melvin panics and POM/Pyros, draws aggro and dies. Leaving the enhance shammy and me both mobs at +50%.

We kill the first, and the second downs me at about 5%. I kept aggro, and kited em both till I got caught with all my cooldowns blown... Ima still a little disappointed :( Sooo close. Still, it shut Melvin up for a bit. He'll start some line of bull, and I'll give him THE LOOK, and say... "he was at 5% when I died, mr. ICE BLOCK? WHAT THE HELL IS ICE BLOCK?"

But I really can't start screaming at Melvin in fustration. I'd never stop...

So.. melvin's utter failure as a tank. He doesn't have the druid talent that boosts threat by 15%. He has NO IDEA what feral charge is for. He can't tank multiple mobs worth a CRAP. He can't position mobs...

We fight Ikiss at the end. Two wipes, then he goes down. Both wipes were due to A&F's resto druid goin down... which led to a priceless moment, as Melvin started explaining the fight to A&F.

Melvin couldn't keep Ikiss pinned against the pillar in the right place.. so Ikiss played ring around the pillar like the best resto druid in the world... Melvin, after hiding behind a pillar to avoid the blast, didn't see fit to feral charge Ikiss, taking precious time to start beating on him again, giving the rest of us too much opportunity to pull him with a needed heal... I swear, melvin was hit by the aoe slow, and couldn't even swap forms to escape it... and one fight, each dps pulled aggro offa him.

We didn't kill Ikiss til Melvin went down early, and the shammy stepped up to tank.

I really, really don't drink enough.

Btw... katsup!