I wrote this in word pad, then copy-paste to here. It kinda didn’t work. The format is messed up - I managed to fix the paragraphs and word wrap, but the all italics and other stuff isn’t there, and I don’t want to re-write it. But I still wanted to post it, so here it is.
Also I just saw that tank Brann has been adjusted since 3/14 - I have not tried Tank Brann since Tuesday, so this is an account of an average player’s ‘Tuesday’s’ (3/11) tank Brann experience.
Also also - This is just a little humorous story meant for you guys enjoyment. I don’t think there is anything in here that will get me banned, but sorry if i missed something. If you’re not interested in a short stupid story then there is nothing to see here.
Also again - This is absolutely 100% true. Maybe.
tldr: The.
Mercatto enters Sanctum of Night. Brann Bronzebeard appears.
“The Cult of Night is using this cavern tae perform dark rituals” says Brann. Mercatto jumped. He got her again, like he was there the whole time. He most definitely was not.
“All right, Brann, we were here last week. It was kinda iffy, but we got it done. We’re doin’ an 11 again, and I’ll be healing again, but I’m more than 30 item levels higher, so we got this. Just put yer tanky pants on and we’ll take it slow.”
Mercatto does her best to ignore Brann as he makes a campfire then promptly stands in it. She absently /cast [Rejuvenation] on him as she grabs a quick bite of food.
“If it’s not smoked, it’s not Gouda!”
“That’s right! Ok, I got my phial, my mana oil, foods… Oh! And I got little self heal going for helping that soldier back in Merelereldithaldarl. Or whatever. Anyway, might be a little overkill for a delve, but overkill better than mebekill.” Mercatto lets out an awkward cough. “Here, take this.” /cast [Mark of the Wild]. Brann takes [Mark of the Wild] and puts it in his pocket.
Mercatto does a quick investigation around the entrance. Seems the pair will have to rescue some folks and then most likely murderize some big baddie at the end. At least that’s usually how these things go. A conveniently placed shiny golden orb is begging to be picked up so she grabs it. A window pane opens before her eyes telling her that the orb is used to dispel deadly shadows. Just to the left she spots an elite mecha-goblin thing guarding a treasure pile.
“Smell that? It’s treasure. It’s close” says Brann.
Mercatto resists the urge to roll her eyes. “OK, Brann, we’re going to hit this guy first, then take his stuff.” As the battle is about to begin, Mercatto embraces her Worgen fursana and where a 5 foot short dark haired human girl stood is now a 7 and a half foot tall grey and white colored werewolf. She roars defiance and challenge at her enemie(s) and then begins to cast heal spells.
A circle of [Efflorescence] appeared on the ground around the mecha-goblin, and [Lifebloom], [Rejuvenation], and [Regrowth] spells appear on Brann. Mercatto shifts - the werewolf is now a large green glowing cat with a cloud of sparkly dander motes drifting off her. A /cast of [Heart of the Wild] then after a [Wild Charge] and the large cat is [Rake]ing, [Shred]ding, [Rip]ping the mecha-goblin making it bleed wires and sparks and probably a carburetor and dash-pot or two. A [Ferocious Bite] later and she launches into [Convoke the Spirits]. All the while her [Dream of Cenarius] is turning a percentage of the damage done into heals for Brann.
This is working thinks Mercatto, the mecha-goblin’s health bar is going down fairly fast in the opening seconds. “I’m goin’ all out!” yells Brann as he sta- OMG BRANN IS DYING!
Mercatto shifts back into a werewolf with a [Life Bloom] cast on Brann, followed by [Iron Bark], [Ward of Cenarius], [Swiftmend], [Regrowth], [Natures Swiftness] into instant [Regrowth]. Still dying! [Treaants]! [Treants] again! More [Treants]! Branns life bar is flashing before her eyes. [Regrowth] spaaaaaaaam!- 90%, 10%, 95%, 3%, 80%, -9%?, 99%. She instinctively knows by looking at the healing meter that she is pumping 1.7 million health per second into Brann and the fool is still dying.
Die stupid goblin thing! Live stupid Brann! It’s so close to dying, less than 15%, but those last few healthy bits being dragged across the ground by the sparky wires refuse to die. Mercatto is casting every spell she knows. Even the ones that won’t help like [Rejuvenation] again when Brann already has one going because she is in full sweat panic mode and nothing is working.
The meacha-gobin begins to charge up a high powered attack. “Don’t stand there!” yells Brann.
Also Brann: Stands there, /dies.
“EEEK!” squeaks Mercatto. “Take the B-res, Brann!” She tries to resurrect Brann [no target] 'What? Brann? Brann! Take the-" [no target] Somewhere in the void she hears a laugh followed by ‘you gotta click on him.’ Whatever that’s supposed to mean. The void isn’t helping. Stupid Void.
The mecha-goblin is almost on Mercatto. Somehow she knows if the thing hits her once she’s dead. She /cast [Moonfire] then shifts into a cat and runs away like a true boss. With speed enchants from her armor, her innate druid talents, and the boost from cat form it should be easy to- nope, the mecha-goblin is faster.
She drops [Ursol’s Vortex] on top of the goblin and [Dash]es back to Brann. The vortex should hold the goblin for about 1 second which makes the spell almost useful. Noticing that Brann’s health bar was ticking upward even though he was dead she shifts back to werewolf with a full heal spam on Brann. Branns health is full less than a second later but the fool is just laying there.
“Get up, Brann!” Yells Mercatto, she is almost back to Brann. Thinking on how her heal spells work, she trys grabbing some leaves and twigs and starts stuffing them into Brann’s wounds. The guy doesn’t even have any wounds. He’s fully healed. Frustrated and with the mecha-goblin almost back within painful range, Mercatto throws the leaves she’s holding at Brann’s face. They fall gently. A couple even make it there. “Elune’s balls!” she screams.
The mecha-goblin is there. 8% health left. Mercatto /cast [Survival Instincts], shifts into cat form, and hopes she can get a couple bleeds in with her defensives up before the thing kills her. She hits the goblin with [Rake], a couple [Shreds], and WHAM the goblin hit once, even with her 40% damage reduction up she was instantly down to 5% health. she takes a health pot and back to full heath long enough to hit the goblin with a [Rip], then a [Typhoon] blows the goblin back a few yards.
Just then she remembers she can root things in place and promptly does so. As soon as it’s rooted the damage from the bleeds and moonfire break the roots. Why? Mercatto lets out a whimper.
She attempts ‘clicking’ on Brann. Not knowing what that is supposed to mean, she lays a hand on Brann and immediately notices a cast bar to resurrect him. An extremely slow cast bar. “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” she yells.
With the mecha-goblin almost back on her she /cast [Moonfire] on it again, shifts into cat form , uses her other dash spell and runs away. Like a boss.
“Get over here!” yells Brann, apparently back in the fight. Somehow.
“Brann! You’re alive! Stay that way!” Mercatto yells as she starts throwing heal spells at Brann. With the mecha-goblins attention back on Brann, the last 4% of his sparkly bits stopped sparking in short order.
“Don’t step in those webs. They’ll summon Nuru-a-beans”
“There aren’t any webs here, Brann. Thanks for looking out though.” Fur soaked in sweat, Mercatto, let out a sigh of relief and noted that the Nemisis strongbox had been upgraded. That seemed way too hard. Three more goblin treasure guards to fully upgrade the Nemisis strongbox. Suck. What happened to tank Brann? She gave a somewhat worried glance towards Brann.
Forty-five minutes later…
After murdering some cultists and goblins and saving those needed saving, Mercatto decided that rooting and crowd controlling everything in this place in an attempt kill everything one at a time just to try to stay alive was taking way too long. So a stealth run to find last two goblin treasure guards and kill the end baddie would be a much preferred time saver to killing their way there.
So here they were, at the end of the delve. With the baddie on the airship, countless ‘shadows’ that needed to have the golden orb thing thrown at them less they kill you, both remaining treasure goblin piles (one with 3 elites that summon more guys, and one with 2 elites), a random group of 3 cultists just hanging out, and up on the ledge in front of the building is some kind of bugged out mess of nine cultists. Nine. Like WTF? Mercatto has seen maybe five there in the past, but nine? Not to mention the countless mobs behind them they stealthed through to get here.
Mercatto knows she should just forget the last 2 goblin mobs and just kill the end guy since this is a bountiful and already took forever, but… Yeah no. She is getting that upgraded chest. One treasure pile with 3 elites was just in front of the entrance for the ship, the last treasure pile was a little ways to the left of them, and then 3 random cultists on the far right.
“Brann, we’re going to stealth in and fight the 3 goblins directly in the center. We should be good if we stay right there and don’t run around. Don’t aggro the random guys on the right, and don’t aggro the other goblins.” Mercatto nodded. Brann Branned.
Mercatto tossed the golden orb to dispell the shadows, /cast [Effloressence] on top of the goblins, then steathed and ran in to [Rake] the center goblin stunning him. She then /cast [Heart of the Wild] and went directly into [Convoke the Spirits].
Brann didn’t feel like staying in steath all the way to goblins with Mercatto, and instead jumped out of stealth right in the middle of the random 3 cultists. “Brann? Brann! Why you do this to me!” yells Mercatto, back in werewolf form spamming heals on Brann.
“I’m goin’ all out!” yells Brann as he jumps from the random group of three right over Mercatto and into the other 2 elite goblins. That were not aggroed.
Mercatto, in an attempt to run away, somehow decides that since she can’t just run back down the hill full of cultists, running onto the ship with the end boss guy was a good idea. It wasn’t.
“I’m coming tae save the day!” yells Brann as he jumps from 8 mobs beating on him to the ship were Mercatto aggroed the boss guy. He dies mid jump and lands on the boat in a pile of broken dreams and poor choices. Mercatto jumps off the ship in an attempt to make it back to land and somehow save the situation. She doesn’t. It’s an air ship ffs.
Thirty minutes after that…
So here they were. At the end of the delve. Again. With all the same packs of guys at the top with the ship, minus the small pack of 3 randoms. 1 of those died in the previous bad idea, with Mercatto and Brann just taking out the remaining 2. This time they also killed their way here just to have some place to run away to.
Mercatto looks up to see 1 life remaining - an ominous system message. She looks down to see Brann. He has been acting strange. Well, stranger.
“We are going to fight this pack of 3 goblins, and only this pack of 3 goblins. I’m going to [Entangling Roots] the farthest one, then [Moonfire] the closest one. Just stay here with me so the remaing 2 come to us. When they try to summon more guys I’m going to hit them with an AOE stun.”
“My mom is an AOE stun.” says Brann.
“Alright, get ready. Wait. What?”
“Ye don wanna believe me, but I tell ye the way she would just have tae enter a room an-”
“Brann! Stop! Just… Stop.”
“Story for 'nother time, maybe…”
“No, no it’s not. It’s not a story for any time, Brann. Just, lets kill these guys, OK?” Mercatto wondered to herself again what is up with Brann. And what happened to his canned responses?
The fight starts as planned, the far guy is rooted, the near guy is moonfired, just as they have fought previous packs of three on the way here. Immediately after the fight starts, it goes as not planned. Perhaps expected, but not planned.
Instead of Brann jumping on the guy running towards Mercatto as in previous fights, Brann jumps on the rooted guy. Mercatto starts panicking in pile of heal spells and treants, while also trying to do some damage to the closest guy to her. Werewolf to cat multiple times, and just as it seemed it might work out-
“Get over here!” yells Brann as jumps into the pack of 2 elite goblins that were minding their own business.
“Brann! What are you doing, Brann!” Mercatto screamed as the 3 elite goblins they started fighting all turned to her. She cast [Ursol’s Vortex] and [Entangling Roots], then promptly turned and ran away, screaming curses at Brann all the while.
“Im goin’ all out!” yelled Brann as jumped from the other 2 elite goblins, who were previously minding their own business, up onto the ledge where the bugged out pack of 9 other mobs were. Who were also previously minding their own business. She manages to get the 3 goblins after her in a position to [Typhoon] them off the ledge.
It worked! She turns to remember the Brann situation, then Poof the mobs blown off the ledge appear right on top of her. “I’m comin tae save the day!” yells Brann, /dies.
Mercatto goes into a rage, casting anything and everything that might help her. /cast [Laura Croft] /cast [Doom Guy] /cast [Last Week’s Brann] /cast [Shadowmeld] Ha ha stupid Worgen. There was no point in casting her actual spells as they were as useless in this situation as [This Week’s Brann].
Even though she knows it’s hopeless, Mercatto, once again, turns to run away. She trips. Wha-? looks - a root. How?!
Back at the mid-point resurrection area…
Brann saw it happen. Even though he was dead at the time, he wasn’t dead enough to miss that. She tripped on a root. A druid. Tripped. On a root.
Mercatto sighed.
“Smell that? It’s self loathing and despair. It’s close” says Brann. Mercatto’s head whipped towards Brann. He flinched. Too far, maybe.
Mercatto clenched her fists until her knuckles went white, popped, went more white, popped again, then… Sighed. “I’m trying so hard not to eat you right now, Brann”
“Aye. Appreciate the effort, Lass.” says Brann.
Mercatto sighed yet again.
She was human right now, much less scary than the werewolf. Or Radioactive Cat. Or werebear… Brann decided that she was just… Scary. Especially on account of her looking a little unhinged at the moment. Comment about eating him set aside even. He quietly wondered what form would be most scary for her to eat him with. Quickly deciding her human form would be most scary for reasons he didn’t want to get into, he moved on to other thoughts.
“We’re gonna need a better strategy tae beat that.” says Brann.
“L o l. L O L! Brann! Zero lives remaining, Brann! I actually said L O L instead of actually laughing out loud!” screamed Mercatto. She did not seem a happy camper.
Brann makes a campfire, then stands in it. “That means laugh out loud? I thought it meant lots of licks.” says Brann.
Mercatto eyed Brann as if he said something intelligent. Brann stammered “Well, I mean, I’ve raised puppys in the past, an whenever I saw L O L I’d think of those puppys and the lots of licks they’d give ye when they was happy tae see ye. Especially if ye had some treats tae give um.”
“Puppys? Brann?” says the 7 and a half foot tall werewolf standing over Brann, whom runs back to town after an awkward farewell. Mercatto leaves shortly after.
A few days later…
Mercatto smacks her paws together as if dusting them off from some labor. It might have worked had it been dust on said paws instead of bloody cultist and gobliny bits. As it were, said gore just kinda splattered into even more places.
“Well, that was stupid” says Mercatto after wiping the floor with the end boss guys bloody face.
“We beat the delve, Lass. Level 11 even. We didn’t even die this time! You just ran through and ate everyone in werebear form!” Brann says, dumbfounded.
"It’s stupid because all I did push ‘Guardian spec’ and roll my face across the keyboard! I didn’t even change any of my crappy ‘healing’ gear! I even just now noticed that I forgot to change my Best is Slots weapon to melee! It’s stupid, Brann!
“It was more fun to have you push tank spec and healing you while dpsing while I could. If I wanted to push my own tank spec and roll through here like some Orc I would have from the start. I didn’t even need your heals, you should have went DPS.”
Brann sighed. Maybe she did have a point. His tank spec suuuuuucked.
“Well at least lets take the parachute- oh, it just timed out.”
Mercatto jumps off the air ship and makes her way over to the treasure room. She had a few [Avalanche] potions this time though, so the fall wasn’t an issue. “I’ll get this right open for ye” says Brann. Mercatto doesn’t know why Brann’s legs aren’t broken from the fall. She thinks about breaking them.
Mercatto /loots tank trinket. She eyes her loot spec, which is set to ‘Current spec’ instead of ‘Restoration’
“I hate you, Brann.”
