Heroic Pit of ‘Get Me the Hell Out of Here’

My lucky streak ended. After going 9-for-9, the Dungeon Finder finally dealt me a bad hand, or three.

The first queue landed me in H-Halls of Stone. Not bad, I thought. The group was solid. The tank had around 34,000 health, which is the lowest of all the tanks I’ve grouped with in the previous 9 runs, but still overkill for a heroic 5-man. After three trash pulls the tank asked the party, “Skip, or full clear?” I’m fine with skipping trash but wanted to bosses dead for their Emblems of Triumph.  “Skip,” the rogue responded.

After completing the encounter in the hectic ‘Epcot Center’ room, as I call it, we headed directly for Sjonnir the Ironshaper, which is the final boss in the instance. We killed him in record time and, instead of turning around to continue the instance, I saw several “Thanks for the run” messages. Great. They were just there for their Frost badges and skipped the final two bosses. I can’t understand why they wouldn’t at least kill the Maiden of Virtue knockoff boss, since there’s hardly any trash leading up to her. “Oh well,” I thought.

I ported back to Dalaran and queued once again.

I knew from the loading screen that I was in for it. It was Pit of Saron, a dungeon that I haven’t attempted on normal, let alone heroic. On top of that, I’ve never actually been inside Icecrown Citadel, so the entire experience was new to me. Upon entering the instance, I buffed my party. They were already mounted up. The initial portion of the dungeon is completely outdoor and open. I mounted up and followed along.

The tank was in just about all blues, except for his iLevel 200 purple pants. I always embrace a challenge, but I would have loved the cushion of another 63k health druid in a time like this. But it was apparent by his sense of command and knowledge of the instance that this character was an alt. I had high hopes.

We got to the cave where it was explained to us, “Huge icicles fall from the ceiling. Avoid them. I’m going to pull the mobs up to the first level. No DPS until then.” It sounded easy enough. Unfortunately, he needed healing about halfway up the ramp, and when I hit him with Penance, I drew aggro for a second. Fade wiped it, though, and I was able to make it to the first platform with a half bar of life and with the tank down to about 40%.

There’s an intense and uncomfortable situation that happens on occasion when you’re a healer: the entire party is taking damage, with the tank’s life spiking up and dropping back down. Meanwhile, there are either adds, or other things that need attention (such as falling icicles) that require you to either not heal (by having to move, bubble, Fade, etc), or to choose your heals wisely. Ultimately, it results in having to make a decision, to stand there and heal the party…hoping that the adds die, and icicles choose to not fall on you, or to do what it takes to keep yourself alive, which means taking your eyes off of health bars and focusing on black holes, icicles, and kiting badies. It’s stressful and often no-win.

Last night I made the decision to stand in and keep the tank/party alive. Amongst the Consecration/Death and Decay effects, I was unable to recognize and react quickly enough, and an icicle ended me.

After the wipe, the party made it back to the portal. Well, most of the party, except for me. I could not figure out where the instance portal was. After two minutes, a player left the party. Another joined. Five minutes later, that person left the party. It was embarrassing, but I eventually apologized and explained that I need more time to figure this place out on normal before I’d be able to attempt it on heroic.

I felt bad because the druid in the party was trying to be helpful and even came out of the instance to try to find me. After leaving the group, and spending about ten more minutes flying around, I found the entrance. It’s difficult to see while in ghost mode. What a disaster. What a tool, I am.

At this point I had been playing for over an hour and had only two Emblems of Triumph and two Emblems of Frost to show for it. With hesitation, I queued once more.

Heroic AN, great. I can do this. It’s the fastest heroic, and one that I’m familiar with. Plus, there was a shaman in the party which means poison wouldn’t be an issue like last time.

I saw that the tank had 28,000 health. Not that I need a 45,000 hp tank for heroic AN, but at this point I just wanted my 5 badges quickly and to go to sleep. The snoody Ret Pally commented “Damn, you just ding 80? lol,” referring to the tank’s gear. I inspected it and saw that he was wearing mostly blues, but some greens for rings, and the old-school, level-60 PvP trinket. The other trinket was an attack power trinket. And he didn’t put a belt bucket/socket onto his belt. Crap. So much for my ‘5 easy badges’ thought.

A tank with 25,000 health was about the average to start heroics back when the expansion was first released. But people have gotten use to steam-rolling heroics. So when a new level 80 wants to get in the mix there are some players who insist on giving him a hard time and accuse him of getting “carried through”.

I could tell the tank was uncomfortable, and the paladin wasn’t helping. “Go, go, go,” before each pull. “This is going to take forever,” he commented. “Aggro!” he yelled when he pulled a mob from the tank. I know the pressure that goes with tanking, and when people are badgering you it’s even worse. I reassured the tank that he’s doing fine, and that it’s no rush.

The mage and shaman also weren’t over-geared. The shaman mentioned, “This place was impossible on regular,” which tipped me off that she hadn’t been here on heroic. After the first boss, recount showed the mage to be at 1400 dps, the shaman at 1600 dps, and the pally at 2100 dps. Again, I’m use to these numbers because I’ve done heroics since before iLevel 213 gear was available without raiding. We were rolling along just fine.

We approached the second boss. The pally once again commented, “This is never going to happen.” I replied “We’ll be fine.” The tank pulled and we began the long fight. About one minute into the battle, the pally left the party. It took a long time (and a Hymn of Hope, Shadowfiend, and Mana Potion), but we eventually four-manned the boss to death. Fortunately for both the tank and myself, the tanking trinket dropped.

We queued for a 3rd dps member. Almost immediately, a DK joined the party. I explained that we’re on the final boss. “No problem, be right there,” he replied.

The final boss was challenging. During the first attempt, the shaman died, twice. When the boss was around 20%, I made a huge mistake and was too close to the boss when he cast Pound, and was one-shotted. A wipe ensued.

The next attempt we killed him and collected our emblems.

By the end of the night I collected just 7 Emblems of Triumph; 16 less than the night before.