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!)
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