Wrath weekend 1

I was surprised at how stable the Warcraft servers were this weekend. I sat in login queues of over 800 but once on, other than a few lag spikes, things were good. Quest competition wasn't as bad as I expected either. Tankisaurus, my pally tank, is 90% through level 74 and I've cleared 5 of the new dungeons.

First I must say I was disappointed with the wiki site I used for dungeon help. The boss info for the mid-70 dungeons is very inaccurate. But still the site is great for general info. The bosses are 80% tank 'n' spank, the trash is 90% group 'n' aoe. But it's exciting to see the new content. There's so much rich detail. The encounters were simple to figure out and execute, but I see a lot of room for them to be harder on heroic difficulty. With 74s and 73s, we waltz through a dungeon full of 76s with no problem. And there is a LOT of undead. Great for pally tanks, who have extra ways to damage and hold aggro on undead targets.

Most of the encounters were done with my instance cliche: pally tank, frost mage, beast mastery hunter, arms warrior, and discipline priest.

Utgarde Keep

Prince Keleseth - Tank be ready to pick up the adds when they come. The adds spawn from the door to the right as you enter the chamber.

Skarvald & Dalronn - Try to have them die almost together. The only time anyone died in this fight was the one time we were paying attention and Dalronn was at 80% when Skarvald died.

Ingvar the Plunderer - He hits like a brick shithouse. In phase one the tank can strafe out of Ingvar's big attack. In phase 2 I didn't have as much luck avoiding it.

The Nexus

Ormorok the Tree-Shaper - Super easy! Avoid the painfully obvious crystals and don't die when he enrages at 20%.

Grand Magus Telestra - Focus DPS when she splits at 50%. The tether she whips you around with is a fun ride.

Anomalus - Snoozer. Change DPS for the rifts ever 25%.

Keristrasza - Finally something interesting! You have to keep moving or you'll get a stacking debuff that hurts. As the tank, just keep jumping.

Azjol-Nerub

Krik'thir the Gatewatcher - Group up on the boss and AOE when he summons the little bugs. Consecration and Holy Wrath kills pretty much everything.

Hadronox - We wiped a few times before we got patient. Wait until the giant spider is in front of the middle of the room in front of the steps. The adds will stop spawning and the fight is cake.

Anub'arak - When he submerges an elite add comes down the steps that you came from. Tank that, but nothing else needs a tank. He'll put a sinkhole under players (mostly me) that stuns for the duration. I tried my best to avoid them by jumping or continuously moving, but always got sunk.

Drak'Tharon Keep

Trollgore - Adds will come and beat on the boss, they died (didn't notice how, maybe a little splash damage?) and he'll explode them. "Corpse go boom!" The explosion does almost no damage unless you're standing on it. So tank him with his back going up the steps and it's easy.

Novos the Summoner - Squishy adds come down the steps, tank the giant fat guys. Necromancers spawn behind the boss, kill four to unlock the boss to kill him. I had serious mana problems by the time the boss was ready to kill.

King Dred - Tank 'n' spank with aoe fear, grievous bite (heal the victim to full to clear it) and a few other debuffs.

The Prophet Tharon'ja - FUN!! He'll turn everyone into skeletons! 1=attack, 2=taunt, 3=shield, 4=heal. As you're being released back to human form, the tank can taunt. Don't stand in the green.

Anh'Kahet

Elder Nakox - Annoying! He'll summon elite adds that make him immune to damage until killed. I didn't know about the elites and had to run through the boss to grab them a few times, so I was getting hit pretty hard from the back.

Prince Taldaram - Kill him in the face until he summons a fire orb and vanishes. The fire orb looks really cool but does minimal damage. He'll reappear and pin a player down, sucking his/her blood for some amount of time. This apparently heals him, but we out-dps'ed any effects it had.

Jedoga Shadowseeker - Tank him until he floats up into the air. A lightning bolt will hit one of the adds around him and the add will slowly walk to the middle. Kill the add before it gets there! When he lands, he'll do an aoe knockback and drop a lightning field that you don't want to stand in.

Herald Volazj - More fun! He'll use an "Insanity" ability, which clones all your party and you have to kill them. They have 4k hp and do generic abilities. Once you kill all 4, you'll merge into someone else's "realm" and you help kill theirs.

Having such an easy time in these places has given me a big head. I want to try higher and higher instances until we hit a real challenge, to see when we get outgeared. We all have good gear, t5+ equivalent from all the heroics I ran before the expansion, and a dabbling of stuff from Black Temple from the guild's one attempt the week of the xpack. But I get the feeling these instances were designed for people that only played Burning Crusade long enough to get from 60 to 68 and are entering Northrend with significantly inferior gear. I'm sure future patches will tweak the fights, a tank 'n' spank when you're 2 levels under what you should be is silly.