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Whilst I created the Tankadin with the aim of providing more tanking options to the guild at end game, I levelled it to the mid 40’s, rarely stepping foot in instances and with a guild boost when I did. Speedy levelling was the order of the day so I set my goals and got to it.

It then occurred to me, this alt is level 46, specced tank, geared tank, aiming to be tank at level 70… and yet I have never tanked an instance with similar levelled players. How the hell could I expect to tank any high level instance with no understanding of my abilities within an instance with people attempting to pull aggro off me?

At that I did some reading, made a macro for Righteous Defence to make it work like a ranged taunt (via target of target), set my bars out and adjusted my play style to a more mana conserving, JoC/SoR/Holy Shield/Consecrate standard with the idea of tanking ZF perhaps. After few days of trying to find the time to commit, checking LFG to find no-one available, or being asked to join groups as healer.. I was questing in STV, all thoughts of ZF at the back of my mind when I received a tell from someone asking to heal ZF.

I replied with the standard “would love to but specced prot/geared prot so doubt I’d be much use, thanks anyway” response and got on with my quest. Same person whispers back saying they also needed a tank.. a quick boat ride and a gryphon and I’m at the ZF summoning stone readying up to enter the first instance I have done in months without trusted guildies at my side.

Group is comprised of a Retadin/Rogue/Priest/Warlock and myself as Tank. Starts out well and I manage to get initial aggro on the first few 3/4 mob pulls and hold them down. As soon as I sit to regain some mana the rogue stealth’s and passes me to sap a target in the next group. Mostly this worked ok and I got some experience manoeuvring mobs around to a suitable position to consecrate without breaking CC. At this point it starts going wrong..

Every time I sit to drink this rogue gets faster and faster at the sap despite me asking for a mana break to get at least a manageable amount back to tank with. Eventually the rogue moves from just hindering mana users to regain any, to pulling aggro from bad sap targets. At this point I am painfully aware how much harder this would be had I not made my ‘taunt’ macro. It was already hard enough to tank with zero mana without having to chase mobs around and reign them in.

Despite this, the group works fairly well, the lock see’s the problem and busts out some solid AoE and the Retadin picks up any adds I cant.. we progress in this manner from start to finish with only one or two deaths from the Retadin (which I don’t mind as he ninja’d a one handed mace from me on the first boss and some tanking plate shoulders from the last)

When over I thank the group and HS back to STV and drop out of the group glad to be done with it to a degree. 30 min’s later I get a tell from a level 43 mage asking me if I’m prot specced. I reply yes and he asks me back over to tank ZF. Judging that this guy was 3 levels lower than me I thought I’d give it a go, hoping my higher level would help my tanking somewhat.

This group had another Retadin, two mage’s, shaman healer, all 2/3 levels lower than myself. Right from the go this run looks better. The Frost Mage has a 70 Protadin and knows to wait a second or two for consecrate to go down and the Shaman healer was well on top of his game with a nice amount of +healing. As predicted this run goes infinitely smoother than the last attempt, even the stairs event provided little problems to us……. till I accidentally threw a very idiotic consecrate down before the little goblin bloke opens the gates and we killed him leaving them locked. Everyone has a laugh about it thankfully and we agree to rerun the instance.

One mage and the Shaman has to drop however so we find a feral druid who was prepared to heal for us and a hunter who had never been in ZF before. Again, the run goes well, I got my mace from the first boss thanks to some kind words from the mage to the Retadin convincing him that I should get it (and earning the mage a solid place on my Friends List).. however when we reach the stairs event, the frost mage echoes something I said almost a year ago running ZF for the first time on my mage.. “I bet we can AoE the lot at the bottom”

I smile to myself and agree, as does the Retadin.. all 3 of us charge down the stairs and plow into the mobs, AoE spells blazing.. at that moment the druid exclaims in chat.. “DAMMIT! I wasn’t ready!” and down we go

On our return we take the mobs down via AoE in manageable pulls and kill the sub-bosses, but the NPC guys must have died on the stairs as the gate remained locked and no-one to open it so we agree to call it for the night.

All in all I had a great laugh, made some friends, and gained some loot and valuable experience tanking 5-mans. If only all PuG’s could be like that….