Hit Parade

June 1-4, 2008

This week has been focused on leveling WAR to the point where I can party with it. I succeeded last night, main-tanking for a Valkurm party led by Tuns. One of the members, Astraeal, had an alt to PL us and by and large things went well. Oh, before we started, one of them said, “Barak says hi”, and that Barak said to slap Fhox. Lol – I said I already had that on my to-do list ^^

There was much {fun} and {excitement} when we finished a tough gob fight and began resting only to get aggroed by consecutive pops. But nobody died and everybody leveled at least once.

The party wasn’t too long but saw 5 reps including myself. I wound up leading just before the end and was responsible for handling 3 of those lineup changes.

Being on the other side of the mob versus the PL, so to speak, was a very interesting experience. I did my best not to voke off the PL, called Holygeno. By and large I could control hate if not completely hold it. I had to let the other melees take a ding or two either because Provoke wasn’t ready or I had taken too much of a beating. I also had to voke several times when the mob decided to head back-line for one of the mages.

The party was very kind and complimentary to me. I certainly appreciated their understanding. It is clear that I need better damage output. The Jack-o-lantern I ate did seem to help tremendously with accuracy but I was hitting for single-digits too often.

I pulled at first and eventually, one of the others (who likely had a high-level main) insisted I not pull. Tuns and our rep warrior Freyjrx then took turns and it worked for the most part. However, when Frey voke-pulled my voke wouldn’t do much but cancel out and he’d still have more hate.

Subbing DNC seems to work well (need to confirm drains actually hurt the mob’s HP) and my macros worked for the most part. I need to work on voke recast alerts and should start thinking about weaponskill coordination. I accidentally SC’ed off the THF for a detonation, but we never planned any SC’s.

All in all we were in the dunes for maybe 90 minutes and I didn’t get great XP. But I didn’t stink up the joint and I got needed tanking exposure. I really need to go shopping and may think about subbing PLD if I ever level it – some online pundits suggest its capabilities give the tank more hate-control tools, and I desperately need them. I hear MNK does too but I don’t want to level another pure melee.