Project Lore

They're two of the signature moves of rogues and hunters: Tricks of the Trade and Misdirection. Both allow the two classes to dps straight out at the start of a boss fight without pulling aggro, and in fact can also help a tank build up their threat levels quickly from the start. But I had never seen a fight won solely because of the tactics of these two moves until last week.

My raid group had gotten through Lord Marrowgar in Icecrown Citadel, but hadn't quite reached the Gunship Battle shenanigans that I already happily told you about. Which left us taking on Lady Deathwhisper, and things were going great -- the Adherents and Fanatics were going down fine with the help of our two tanks, the deformed ones were getting kited around to avoid their hard hits, and the boss' mana shield was getting hacked down steadily.

Then right as we were finishing off the last of the mana shield, somehow one of our tanks died. With no battle rez in sight, we assumed that the attempt would be a wipe because usually two tanks are absolutely necessary for the second phase of this boss. She has a nasty, stacking debuff that essentially makes a tank lose the ability to generate threat, so the two tanks taunt off each other, ensuring that at least one tank is holding aggro.

Time to improvise.

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