Let's start with the heroics though.

Another boss in there looks similiar to Maiden of Virtue and has an AoE stun that breaks on damage as well. She doesn't have Maiden's Consecration spell though, she opens Void Zones on the floor. I hadn't been here before, but the priest had been and he explained the fight to me. He just told me to stay out of the void zones. I was expecting your standard void zones like the first boss in Arcatraz. Nope, these are HUGE Void Zones that take up most of the area where you fight the boss at.

I did Violet Hold again in a Half-PUG, which actually went really really well. This time around though the last boss actually dropped Sexy Purple Tauren Warrior Tank Pants of Awesome and Win.

On to Naxxramas! We started in the Spider Wing and even though most of the trash is the same, there are some small differences that keep it fresh even if you've done it before I think. Those annoying Gargoyles that regen their health if you don't kill them before they finish casting are still around and just as fun.

The above screenshot is the trash before Grand Widow Faerlina. They're really easy to AoE down but they do this AoE shadowbolt thing that just looks awesome and kind of reminds me of Kazzak pre-BC. Good times. Faerlina herself was a bit of a challenge. We wiped the first time, and the second time both of us tanks died, but we still won the encounter. You see that priest in the shoulders that look like the Tier 0 Warlock shoulders? Those are those new heirloom shoulders and I just can't get used to seeing low level alts as well as people in their 60s and 70s wearing gear that looks like the level 60 stuff. It's...so weird, but kind of cool as well because those items did look pretty awesome.

And finally here is a picture of me tanking Maexxna:

We wiped once on that encounter as well, but then came back and squashed the giant bug. ^.^ We also killed Noth and he dropped Plague-Impervious Boots for me. How nice of him.

Overall it was a very fun night.

This boss is so much of a jerk that he deserves an entry dedicated entirely to him. To start off he's got a Shattered Halls/Dragonhawk Boss in ZA style hallway leading up to him. Twice as deadly though. When you start the encounter Skadi hops on his drake and flies off. At this point several mobs come running down the hallway.

The goal is to kill the mobs fast and move up the hallway killing as many mobs at a time as you can. You have to be fast because you keep getting adds 2 at a time every few seconds. Some of the NPCs drop harpoons, which someone in the group has to pick up and use to shoot the boss when he's in range of the harpoon launchers. You're going to need to do this a few times and eventually he'll get off his drake and come attack the group himself. While he's still flying he'll randomly freeze half of the path. You want to move out of the way of this because it can pretty much kill anything instantly except for the tank, and it takes off most of my health as well. I know this because one of the mobs threw a net at me and I was unable to move in time. It's really not something you want to get caught in.

Once he lands the adds stop, so finish off any mobs that you're already fighting while being sure to grab the boss if you're the tank. This is where things get easier...sort of. He hits fairly hard, but he can be disarmed! As usual, keep TC and Demoralizing shout up if you're a warrior tank. They help a lot, but that should go without saying. At some point he's going to start whirlwinding - and this is where I screwed up the first time I did this fight. I assumed it was a whirlwind that you could run away from and he'd stay put. It's not. It's also not a whirlwind where he follows the tank around. It's a whirlwind where he does it and runs after a random person in the raid who has to run away. I don't think he can do it to the tank, or at least he hasn't done it to me in the 3 times I've done the encounter.

After the whirlwind he'll come running back to the tank. This is probably a good time to disarm him. If everyone can get away from the whirlwind it's an easy fight, but the hard part is getting through that stupid hallway. The good news? If you can kill Skadi, you can definitely kill the final boss of the instance. He's much easier, but don't take him lightly! He hits like a train, but he can be disarmed as well!

We started off in Violet Hold, which is without doubt my favorite instance of the expansion. It's Black Morass 2.0, which makes it insanely fun. The only downside is that it doesn't look as nice as Black Morass. Some of the bosses in there can be ARGGGGGGGGH though. Xevozz is a very painful encounter and while it's fun, I hope I rarely have to do it. Since the first 2 bosses you get are random. I hope next time we get Lavanthor because I really want this trinket that he drops. It's not great, but it's better than what I've got, and I do need to block a little bit more often imo. These pants from the last boss would be even better though. >.>

Speaking of the last boss, this is her:

From there we moved on to The Nexus because it was the daily. From there we moved on to Gundrak, which is a beautiful instance with some nice tanky gloves.

This instance has some great boss encounters. The first one is very much like the Snake Boss from back in Zul'Gurub. In that it involves snakes and a troll and there is an AoE poison. Fairly simple though as long as everyone avoids the Poison Nova. From there you move on to a boss that looks like a giant statue surrounded by little elementals. As you start the fight the elementals go away and the statue attacks you. Through the fight he switches between Statue and Elemental forms. Again, very easy as long as everyone stays out of the "Don't stand here or you die" spots on the floor. Then there is Moorabi.

Moorabi is a troll that tries to turn into a mammoth. You can prevent him from doing this 3-4 times with Pummel/Shield Bash/Kick/Counter Spell/Earth Shock/Etc. Then it becomes instant cast. If you can kill him before he turns into a mammoth you get an achievement. Moving on from him is one of those mutant Murloc things named Eck. Eck is adorable. See for yourself:

Eck randomly leaps around and he's got a frontal cone AoE poison spit. You *WANT* to be hit by that because you get an achievement if you finish the instance with the buff from it. Other than that it's just tank and spank. I highly recommend wiping on him at least once so that you can see his idle animations. He does something adorable. >.>

Moving on from there is the final boss. He's also a troll and he turns into a rhino. In troll form he has an AoE, and in Rhino form he has a charge. (I think) In rhino form he'll randomly impale someone on his horn and they're helpless for a few seconds.

After finishing Gundrak we moved on to Utgarde Pinnacle and then Utgarde Keep. I kept hearing that UP was a difficult instance on heroic, but it really doesn't seem to be. The hardest part is the boss that flies overhead on his drake, freezes half of the area to do massive damage, and when he lands does some seriously nasty things to whoever he hits.

I think the last boss was actually pretty challenging but at the same time incredibly fun. I can't wait to do that again, and not just because he drops an incredible tanking sword...Though that would be nice too. >.> When you enter the last boss' room you need to clear a little bit of trash. After that it's just the boss and 4 little boats. The boss has some nasty little debuffs he does, and he hits like a train, which makes one point of the fight difficult.

At 80% (and then 60%, 40%, and 20%) he'll run to one of the boats. They each give him a different ability. The hard one is where he summons an electrical orb in the middle of the room. You have to keep yourself and him away from it. If he touches it, then you take massive amounts of damage and the squishies pretty much all die instantly. We didn't know that the first time we attempted him, so we died pretty horribly. We came back and killed him with relative ease.

From here we moved on to Utgarde Keep, which I haven't done since Beta, and I believe I blogged about that. I got myself a fairly cool ring from the last boss and this was definitely the easiest of the heroics I've done so far.

I have off tomorrow so I plan to do more heroics tomorrow night and hopefully I'll get some more screenshots. ^.^

In relation to WoW - Because I know that's what you read this for. - I tanked a couple heroics! I haven't done all the instances on normal yet even, and some of them I've done on heroic but I haven't done on normal. O.o It's definitely a lot easier than Burning Crusade content. That's not necessarily a bad thing though.

We started out with Heroic Violet Hold, and this is one that I've done on normal as well. It was easy on normal mode, but that's to be expected I think because I'm a couple levels higher than the content. I was a little worried about on heroic because it's similiar to Black Morass, and Black Morass was fairly challenging on heroic. It was actually pretty easy. Mobs didn't seem to be hitting very hard - Though the healer did almost die from some sort of AoE damage at one point. It was fun, and I hope to run it more. Perhaps I'll try to pug it on one of my days off. I hear there are some excellent plate pants that drop there.

From there we went on to Nexus. We did that instance earlier in the day as well because one of the lowies needed it. Again, fairly easy. There is some heroic only boss in there, and he's pretty harsh on melee in that he has a whirlwind and if the melee DPS doesn't get away *FAST* they get one-shotted or close to it. All of our DPS died. Myself and the healer lived and with a little help from a mana potion we were able to finish off the boss. It was pretty fun!

Gundrak was next, and it was more difficult than the previous two, but we were able to complete it and we got a couple extra achievements aside from the one to complete the dungeon. We got this one and this one. Fun times!

After that was Drak'Tharon and it was super easy except for the T-Rex boss. There is a T-Rex boss btw. It's got all the abilities of a devilsaur from Un'goro but obviously much stronger. He also has this nasty thing he does where he reduces my armor from 25k down to around 6k or so, which leads to me taking HUGE amounts of damage. I almost died once or twice, but with some creative cooldown use and potions I was able to stay alive. Very fun fight. Some really creative encounters in there, not so much on the tank-and-spank aside from the T-Rex.

I'll try to get some screenshots from my next runs.