(Yes, I am still hooked on the Portal song >.>)

The other day a member of Carpe Jugulum (a guild that Bloodriver has an alliance with) was leveling an alt and asked in our common channel is anyone had a character that they wanted to take to RFC. I remembered my dragonling pally Sarauku so I logged onto him and we both got started gathering the quests for that dungeon. In the end the group fell apart and I didn’t get my run that night but I rediscovered how much I love playing Saraku. So since then, I’ve basically been doing dailies on Niqora and then logging onto Saraku for the rest of the night.

While questing with him one of these nights, I got into LFG for Ragefire and merrily checked all the role boxes (even though he’s specced Prot, he can still heal and DPS at level 14, right?) It wasn’t very long before I was invited into a group of a warlock and a druid healer, who asked if I could tank. Which was perfect because I want to learn to tank on the dragonling. A rogue joins and then gets his shammy friend invited as well.

First pull in the instance…is not by me, but the rogue. Okay, whatever, maybe he stealthed a little too close. Only the next pull is the same. And the next. And the next. Not only that but I’m fighting for aggro with the shammy as well. This is my first time tanking and they’re not dying so I chalk it up to my inexperience. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong as I’m using Righteous Defense whenever I can but I keep going and don’t say anything.

Then the shammy yells out “AM I ONLY F***ING TANK IN THIS GROUP?” Which wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t iterated several times that I was going to be tanking. As I’m remembering why I don’t like pugging, I calmly respond with “I’m tanking but I’m having some trouble holding aggro against you.”

A couple minutes later, the rogue and the shammy are still pulling aggro from me but not as often. Well, I’ll take what I can get. Then the shammy has to leave. The rest of us decide to try and 4-man it. Now the rogue is really pulling everything, even if the healer has no mana. Does no one watch their healer’s mana bar? Then the rogue manages to pull a nice big group when neither the healer or me are ready. He takes a couple good whacks that bring his health way down and has the nerve to call for me for help. He manages to survive thanks to the quick thinking druid but I give him the warning “You pull it, you tank it.”

Of course that doesn’t stop him from pulling anyways but by this time, I’m getting pretty good at figuring out when to taunt and use my other abilities so I’m tanking most of the time. Nonetheless, I’m still getting really irritated by him.

We kill Bazzalan with only my poor dragonling dying (it was no one’s fault, the healer just had a lag spike) so I get rezzed and as I’m drinking and eating, I see the rogue sidle up to the ledge right over top of Jergosh. Oooooh, I can just see the tiny gears in his brain turning. He wants to jump right on top of Jergosh. Saraku’s bars are all full up so I walk over beside the rogue to peer down as well, and the rest of the group joins us.

Do you think the rogue asks if we should do this, or even asks me to go first? Nope, of course not. He stealths and jumps off the ledge. He’s lucky and lands without the boss noticing him. But he doesn’t wait for the rest of us, oh no. He attacks Jergosh and his two cronies all on his own. The druid and the warlock aren’t moving an inch so I’m not moving either. Then finally, right before the rogue dies, he asks for some help. Only then do I jump down and try to get aggro off of him but of course it’s too little too late and the rogue dies. And releases because he’s certain it’s a wipe without his pwnage.

We kill Jergosh and his pals. And between frantically clicking on mobs to make sure that the rest of us didn’t die, not only did I not notice that the rogue had released but I accidently right-clicked Jergosh’s corpse (in all honesty, I did not mean to).

All in all, Saraku got Subterranean Cape and quite a few greens which was nice. Personally, I had my first tanking experience…and got some first hand knowledge of what it’s like to be the tank of a crappy group. Oh well, tis life.

P.S. If all my references to “dragonling” are confusing, I roleplay Saraku as the humanoid version of Niqora’s netherdrake. He doesn’t have any uber powers or anything (just noting that for you RP natzis 😛 ) and he can’t transform back into a dragon while in Azeroth due to the lack of nether energies (although he amusingly turns semi-transparent at the most inopportune times. Makes for some great RP)