How to tank and kill the Whale Shark

So I guess wow champion didn't like my guide submission, because it got totally deleted last night, along with about 200 others. Whatever. Here's the guide I submitted.

Whale Shark
Level ? Boss
780631 - 11159297 Damage
110920 Armor
9686250 Health
Cannot be tamed

Whale Shark is the giant behemoth that patrols the underwater zone of Vashj'ir and like the Fel Reavers of Hellfire Peninsula, Whale Shark has the uncanny ability to sneak up on unsuspecting players. Unlike the Fel reavers, Whale Shark has an achievement. This guide will talk you through tanking, kiting, and killing Whale Shark.

Rangedisplay addon in action.

• The first step tanks are going to want to take is to go and get an addon that will display your range from a mob. I used rangedisplay from curse.com.Set it up however you like, but you're going to want Whale Sharks distance from you up front and center.

• Tanking Whale Shark involves some heavy kiting. You should be constantly moving away from Whale Shark. If you linger too close to Whale Shark, he will one shot you, regardless of class or gear. The closest you're going to want to get to whale shark is 9 meters. At the same time that you're staying away from Whale Shark, you don't want to venture too far. If you get too far away from Whale Shark, he will reset. The furthest you can go is 20 meters. It's best to stay at 19 though, to avoid risking it.

• Practice with Whale Shark. It's gonna take a little bit of practice to master maintaining the necessary range. Remember- 9-19 meters. There are two methods to doing this. The first is the one I prefer using- the turning method. You face away from Whale Shark while swimming away, then turn and face him when you need to attack, then turn and swim away again. The second method is just to swim backwards while attacking him. Whichever you use, even just a couple minutes of practice will prepare you to not fail once a group is formed.
  

  

  This is what you should be looking atwhen you pull.

  
  

• Making the initial pull: The initial pull needs to be done from teeth level of Whale Shark. Just swim right up to his grill, about 30 meters out, then wait for him to come into your ideal tanking range. Do not pull from above or below this area. The reason for this is that the vertical range is not as accurate as the horizontal one and even when your range addon says you're far enough away, your run from the graveyard will say something different.

• Build threat before letting dps do their thing. I recommend making them wait for at least a minute. If you have rogues, they can start ToTing you on cd. Same with hunters and MD. When dps does begin, they need to do so slowly. Omen is incredibly useful in this fight and dps needs to pay close attention to their threat. Periodically, or whenever they begin to creep up on the tank, dps can reset their agro by swimming out of range of Whale Shark.

• Take Whale Shark towards the surface. There are fewer mobs up there to agro. If you have issues with your camera clipping above and below the surface, settle for a few meters below. While kiting Whale Shark watch your map, or assign someone to watch their map and give you directions to avoid dragging him out to a fatigue area.

• DPS should be resetting their agro, but if somebody does pull, tanks can get Whale Shark back under control. Tanks need to get back in the ideal tanking range(9-19 meters) and get a successful taunt off. In this situation, tanks need to be extremely cautious not to get too close.

The above information is for all tanks and groups. Occasionally, dps will be unable to locate a tank for their group. Have no fear- Because Whale Shark is kited, he does not require a traditional tank. Any class can tank and kite him. He can even be solo'd be anyone with the appropriate amount of time and patience. Below is information for groups without a traditional tank. Bear in mind, all of the above still applies.

• For a group without a traditional tank, I recommend two or three of the highest agro classes in the group go ahead and get an addon to display their range. Rangedisplay is what I use. Again, feel free to configure it how you like.

• I'm going to put a lot of emphasis on stacking. Place raid markers on your tanks and stack the entire group on those markers. A group without a traditional tank will be lacking the taunts available to other groups. When everyone is stacked on top of each other and somebody pulls off of the tanks, a taunt will be unnecessary because they'll all be stacked. Additionally, stacked groups have a higher chance of survivability when somebody pulls agro than if everyone is spread out.

• Drop agro. Drop agro, drop agro. As I mentioned before, dps can drop agro by simply swimming out of Whale Sharks 20 meter hitbox. Dropping agro will result in a cleaner kill and a smaller repair bill.

Here is the video tutorial outlining the above information, and showing it all put to use.



You should now be well on your way to your achievement.

Whale Shark, Version 2.0.

So after my last post, Whale Shark 1.0, I set out on a mission- I was going to kill Whale Shark. I was going to avenge the death of my toon and countless others. I did what any internet savvy geek would do.

I googled.

Surprisingly, I was unable to locate any guides. I did find a few blips here and there by individuals who had killed him, detailing their trial and error and what had been successful. I also ran across numerous funny stories detailing the pwnage whale shark dished out. But I could not find a definitive guide to lead me on my way. I decided that I would go on what I could find, and when I was successful, I would take everything I learned to make a guide for other adventurers.

After my humiliating defeat, I learned they Whale Sharks hit box was very... strange. Too far away, and my toon somehow lost the ability to see Whale Shark. I don't know how to explain it. People in Stormwind and Orgrimmar would look over into the ocean and see Whale Shark without difficulty. But my toon, a mere 25 meters away, was having issues. Too close and I started having nightmares of a giant gaping mouth with teeth.

I set out to find and locate an addon to show me my exact range. Rangedisplay at curse.com was the first one I came across and it fit my needs perfectly. I configured it to show my focus's range, and to make small dings when I had gone above 18 meters and when I had dropped below 9. Lemme tell you, those few meters of working space that you have feel very tight and make tanking Whale Shark a little unnerving.

Once I had my addon, I started practicing. I didn't get a group, because I didn't want to waste anyone's time while I learned what a narrow margin for error I was going to have to work with. Whale Shark resets above 20 meters, and kills you at 5. I found that working with the 5 meter intervals rangedisplay shows worked for me. I would move in front of him until I was displaying 15-20, then sit still till I dropped down to 10-15. The move forward again. When my judgement was off of CD, I turned, waited till the meter ticket the 8-10 mark, then judgemented as I was turning and swimming back to the 15-20 range.

It was difficult to not get too far in front of him, but mostly, to build acceptable threat. Because I couldn't just sit there and wail away on Whale Shark to build their agro the traditional way, I was left with judgement, consecrate, avengers shield, and yelling at him (hand of reckoning). I knew it was going to take me a long time to build a good amount of threat on Whale Shark. Often, DPS is anxious to get on the road, and there will almost certainly be a Go Guy somewhere in the group. People don't like sitting around watching a tank play with the critter they're supposed to be killing.

After a few days of practice- I formed my group. I grabbed guildies, other PAA members on Dark Iron, and headed to the zone. Once there, I made someone assistant and they grabbed a couple other people who wanted the achiev.

The challenge lied in constantly moving, maintaining the correct range, and keeping Whale Shark too occupied to go and smash the rest of the group. I found out that eventually, somebody will invariably pull agro. A coulpe times when this happened, I was able to get Whale Shark back under control. But the margin for error to regain agro is infinitely smaller than simply tanking the Whale Shark. When somebody pulls agro, if that person is not stacked on the tank, Whale Shark will turn and chase said person. That will change Whale Sharks direction of movement and distance from the tank. As I said, it is possible to get Whale Shark back under control. You can see in the video at the end of this post the couple times he turns from me and I successfully get him back. you can also see the one time that I wasn't successful.

My next post will be the guide that I am submitting to wow champion for their guide contest(wish me luck!)

 

What if it's your guild?

It's only too easy for me to bash on PUGs. They're... Well, they're PUGs. They need no further explanation. And generally, they deserve every bit of bashing that is thrown their way.

Now organized runs in guilds, those are different. It is basically understood that when you join a guild, you're joining a somewhat like minded group of individuals to take on group projects. That includes raids, dungeons, battlegrounds, world bosses.... etc. Most guilds (good guilds) require some sort of application process and it is during that application process that an individuals experience is established. Generally, that experience will weigh towards whether or not an invitation is extended. Sometimes, no-so-much. Granted, unless the guild is an exceptionally top end raiding guild (Paragon comes to mind) there are bound to be extreme casuals, "I know X, invite please" and that one guy who always seems to be in the fire.

I encountered a guild run this weekend that rivaled most PUGs I end up with. Now I will agree that sometimes people just have an off day. And of course, with Cataclysm so new, most everyone is still learning what to do and what not to do. Those two things combined had me feeling like I was in a group of bads who had all managed to slip through a crack in the application process.

The stage was Heroic Throne of the Tides. The antagonist was Lady Naz’jar. The scene of events that unfolded was party members out of range, an occasional shock blast that went uninterrupted, party members getting caught in whirlwinds, myself getting caught in whirlwinds also as I tried to keep everyone healed, adds running amok and uncontrolled, and wipe, after wipe, after wipe. Thankfully, the graveyard was closeby. I really couldn't tell you if I was to blame or if they were to blame, or if Lady Naz'jar was to blame. I know that nearly everyone, myself included, would get caught up in whirlwinds and for that everyone, myself included, was to blame. But that didn't seem to be the only issue. After 15 or 20 attempts or so(I didn't keep track, but I think I should have) I finally let them know I was too annoyed with it and left.

But seriously, what if it's your guild? You can't exactly nerdrage, or you risk not getting invites again. You can't really just bail out with no reason or a really lame excuse- that'll come back to bite you in the ass also. And you sure can't go on and on about how terrible they are and that they need to l2p in caps lock or you'll risk a Gkick.

So my question for you, loyal readers, is what do you do when it's your guild?

 

A prime example of a bad.

So Ricket FINALLY popped up and I took my little priest up to the jadefang alcove to camp for my minipet. I decided I didn't want to just be sitting there for HOURS doing nothing, so I joined a queue. After a bit it popped- "Dungeon is in progress"

Well that means the group either failed altogether, or the healer got pissed off and left. I really don't like joining dungeons in progress because of the recipe for epic failure. I took a deep breath, pressed accept, and promptly got smacked in the face with a terribad.

THIS is what I saw when I loaded in to the middle of grim batol. I know it's not a particularly difficult dungeon, but healing it is massively easier when there's some kind of CC up and running, and since this group had a mage and a lock, keeping CC up should have been no issue.

Well the baddie from the group was the tank. Thought I should point that out.They're the worst kind of bad, because groups will be reluctant to kick them out for their badness. Nobody wants to wait for a tank to queue in.

Moving along. The lock and the mage did use their CC things and it was going fairly smoothly, till this bad ran up to a group before they could CC and started letting all the mobs smack him. After healing him through the pounding he was willingly taking and nearly going completely oom, he decided it was a good time to pipe up with a "see, we don't need CC" comment.

Bads. Please, Please, PLEASE L2P!!!!

Shifting Perspectives: The unbearable suckhood of pugging

I swear, this writer is after my own heart. Linked below is their post, which is completely on spot.

http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/12/22/shifting-perspectives-the-unbearable-suckhood-of-pugging/#continued

I recommend following the link to get the full effect of it, go and read it. For a quick flyby, here are a few excerpts:

A Throne of the Tides dungeon finder group.
Allie: ... So this is the skull; I'll root the melee mob over here. Shammy, can you Hex this dude? Mage, can you sheep the healer? I've marked her with the moon.
Shaman: No problem.
Mage: (silence)
Allie: (foolishly assumes that silence implies consent) LOS pulling.
The entire group minus the Hexed and rooted mob aggros. Allie, who is line-of-sighting behind a wall, watches the pull go to hell as the group opens fire on the skull. The ranged mobs stop dead in their tracks, the melee aggro the group due to DoTs and AoE, and the unsheeped healer mob keeps healing the others to full.
Allie: (Feral Charge) (Challenging Roar) (cooldown cooldown cooldown)
Allie: Mage, if you could sheep the next moon, that'd be great; it's just gonna keep healing, otherwise.
Mage: No.
Allie: Jigga-what?
Mage: Just tank this s%&t, you don't need to CC here.

I swear to god, I ran into that exact mage. I was healing a lost city run and the tank was busy with two or three mobs, while a caster sat at range and threw handfuls of colorful pwnage into my face. I asked the mage to CC said mob and was advised that he had been here several times and hadn't CC'd a single time, and that this instance was just a tank n spank instance. He further advised that he wasn't going to waste *his* mana CC'ing something that didn't need it. I suppose he prefered me wasting my mana to heal myself instead of the tank. Thankfully, the group had a paladin who agreed the mage was an idiot and who kept the ranged mob stunned from there on out. (I love you, mystery paladin)

The final boss, Erudax, in heroic Grim Batol. The group has run back after a wipe.
Allie: Okay, that was a good attempt, but we need to switch DPS to the adds a lot faster. They spawn straight after Shadow Gale, so be prepared to run. Ready?
Rogue: r
Priest: r
Warlock: r
Ret paladin: r
Allie: (pulls)
Warlock: (keeps DPSing Erudax after Shadow Gale)
Rest of group: Adds?
Warlock: (keeps DPSing Erudax)
Rest of group: Adds? Hello? Bueller?
Allie: Goddammit.
Allie Feral Charges one of the adds and helps to DPS it down, because she is awesome. The group wipes on the next add phase.
Warlock: (posts damage meters showing himself at the top)
Allie: (hunts around for the aspirin bottle located somewhere around the laundry bin)

Well.

That's about all there is to say to this one. I've never really liked the recount guy. EVER. He's generally stupid, annoying, and too busy stroking his own *filtered for the children* to actually be useful. More often than not, his refusal to follow basic instructions is more harmful to the group than his dps is helpful.

A heroic Stonecore dungeon finder group.
Tank: Everyone ready?
Allie: Sure. Are you going to mark the p-
Tank: (pulls)
Allie: (to herself at the computer) This will end in tears. Probably mine.
Nobody: (interrupts the Stonecore Earthshaper)
Stonecore Earthshaper: Whoo! AoE! Heal through this, sucka!
Stonecore Berserker: Sweet, I can Spinning Slash through the melee and tank and NO ONE WILL MOVE OUT OF IT.
Allie: (heals like crazy and goes OOM).
Pull: (finally dies for some unaccountable reason)
Tank: (runs to the next pull)
Allie: Mana!
Tank: Are you going to have to drink after every pull? This place is going to take ages if you do.
Allie: TREE SMASH.

I'm gonna be honest with you here- I haven't moved on to heroics. Because I am Horde at heart, and my current guild is... alliance, I'm a bit of an outsider. I think they're just racist against the Horde. Regardless- it is incredibly difficult for me to get guild groups, so I do a lot of pugging. So far, even with more than an adequate ilvl to move on to heroics, I am sticking with regulars. There are a couple reasons for this.

1. All these dungeons are new, people are still learning wtf to do. Myself included. I would rather learn in a regular and then progress to heroics, rather than stumble into a heroic and watch the group scatter when I announce that "I've never been here before."


2. The same as I don't want to make others suffer through my learning curve, I don't want to suffer through anyone else's learning curve.


3. PUG's suck. Even in regulars, I am rarely getting grouped with anyone who still deserves to be in the gene pool. I would quite possibly be the next viral youtube nerdrager if I tried running a heroic pug.

All that said, even in regulars, I am managing to burn through mana faster than that Qur'an burning pastor burned through media coverage. It is necessary for me to drink, if not every pull, then at least every other. This is with groups who are actually doing mostly everything right. Forget groups who manage to do everything possible wrong. In that situation, I'm keeping all my mana recovery abilites on CD as well as needing to drink all the time.

I would like to welcome all scrubs to Cataclysm. We are no longer in WotLK. Sorry, but we're not blasting through instances in 15 minutes or less anymore. Relax. Sit back. Take your time, and do it right. If your healer has to drink, let them drink. In case you missed the memo, they're the healer. Their mana determines the pace of the group. Ignoring this basic rule will invariably result in a corpse run. There are some great healers who can heal every kind of "oops" imaginable. But unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult for even the best among us to heal stupid. Even those of us who manage to heal stupid can only do so a long as we have mana. No mana, no heals, no shiny new loot.

 

Again, Go and read the original post over at http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/12/22/shifting-perspectives-the-unbearable-suckhood-of-pugging/#continued It's a great post!

Whale Shark

The Burning Crusade had the Fel Reaver in Hellfire Peninsula. A mechanical monstrosity whose footsteps shook the zone, and whose mighty shadow sent noobs and veterans alike fleeing for safety and punished those foolish enough to stand their ground.

For awhile.

Wrath of The Lich King had Thrym in Zul'Drak. A frankenstein-ish horror who patrolled a lonely section of road, crushing AFK-ers and travelers who ventured close enough beneath his massive foot.

...For awhile.

Cataclysm has introduced yet another great behemoth- the Whale Shark. The Whale Shark, who laughs at science as much as he laughs at tanks.

Whale Shark has asked me to let you know that it is displeased by your tone, and to deliver the following message:
Whale Shark is the devourer of the slow moving and inattentive. This includes plankton, whales, and AFK players. Whale Shark swims where and how it pleases. Whale Shark /spits on your science.

-Daxxarri, us.battle.net forums

The Whale Shark, who inspires epic stories of defeat.

Thought i should share my experience of whaleshark. Me and five or so guildies were questing in the area killing Naga and whatnot, when i noticed a small yellow dot on the corner of my minimap. I began to swim over to mine said dot when i noticed it... whaleshark! With his big funny mouth and little beady eyes! I called the guys over and we went about discussing if we could take it or not. We decided tank'n'spank was the best course of action and off i charged, in full gnomish glory! Devistate hit 6k, than 8 and sheild slam for 10k! Rawr! All whaleshark did was blink. It was that blink that hit me so hard it disbanded my guild and deleted my account. Curse, vent, every expansion uninstalled. Even the desktop icon and my background of chromie gone. I had to log onto the guild forum to find out what was going on! It turns out the rest of the guild tried to run but to no avail, whaleshark opened his huge mouth and hit them all with 560k effortlessly. Anyone wearing metal had his armour shattered, the casters were stripped naked and one druid had his tree form turned into tooth picks. It was terrible. And as if that wasnt enough, whaleshark grew a hand and reached through my screen, flipped me off, inapropriatly touched my girlfriend and punched my cat. Im still traumatised. Apparently everynight before he goes to bed, Chuck Norris checks under his bed for whaleshark...

-Abigaile, wowhead comment

The Whale Shark, who obliterates tanks with a with a mere look and causes clothies to implode, leaving behind only a few air bubbles that drift to the surface.

I was foolish enough to go and mess around with whale shark. In the words of Illidan Stormrage- I was not prepared! Whale Shark demolished me, my party, and judging by the screams echoing through the zone, I think he also killed everyone else as well, merely as retribution for me interrupting his afternoon tea. To be fair, I was unprepared. I hadn't researched the fight or established what was necessary to kill him. Hubris led me to saunter over to him with a group of seven, two or three of them a mere 81-83. After a thorough thrashing by Whale Shark, we disbanded and fled the scene. I don't like to think of it as running away. I prefer calling it a tactical retreat. Whale Shark may have won that battle, but I guarantee, he will not win the war.



OMG! They're rolling in packs, now!  /runaway!

My Hero!

Taken from Ghostcrawler's post:

I’m not trying to bash pugs here, but I am amazed at how often a nuker will pick a random target instead of the one being tanked, then blame the tank for not holding aggro (and then blame the healer when they die).

My Hero! In short- Bads, please stop being bad.