Salute to MacGyver

One of the great things about WoW is the incredible flexibility and ingenuity that can go into playing the game. Coming up with off the wall ideas for handling bosses or instances, coming up with a strange new spec that is suddenly genius, or even just working through a complex mechanic - all of these allow the WoW player to flex thier brains along with their epeen.

I'm sure we all have our moments of genius, but here are a few of my favorite "MacGyverisms" I've seen or personally know of in the game. Some are genius, some are just pure talent, and some are mind-boggling crazy.

In no particular order....

Boomkin tanking...on Moroes. When we first ventured into Karazhan we were running one tank (me on my now dusty warrior - in greens), two healers (paladin and priest)*, and a mix of DPS. We certainly weren't ready, especially for Moroes. After single tanking the Huntsman - Thunderfury, I love you still - we roll up to Moroes. We spent the next few weeks tanking this fight using a flasked up Boomkin to tank when I was gouged. Oh backwards tanking trick - where were you then.

Holy Paladin tanking...on Skeletal Ushers. Again in Kara, along the same timeline as our Moroes kills, and before you could CC the Ushers. Our healadin would pop wings and just faceroll the keyboard to try and hold agro long enough for me to come out of iceblok, with the boomkin healing like her feathers were on fire. We'd usually lose one or two people on a pull, but damn if it wasn't funny to watch.

Solo tanking Hydross...minus the adds. I know I'm not the first person to have done this, but after having worlds of issues with getting tanks geared for Hydross and then having them leave the guild - or issues with threat on transitions - I built up a set of tanking resist gear that worked for both phases. It was an ugly set of gear, relying on a whole lot of void spheres for resistance - everything that had a socket slot was usable. I just wish I'd had the paladin AoE threat necessary to tank the adds too.

Five man of love

When I rolled into BC I teamed up with a couple of guildies who I really didn't know that well. Hell, I abused them while raid leading in Vanilla. Over the course of getting through Kara and leveling, we lived in 5 mans. Our little group was a healadin, a boomkin, a narcoleptic hunter (Oh Swiftin - where are you now), and a mage.

Back when CC was mandatory, especially for a warrior tank, we pulled out some amazing saves through luck and quick thinking. Without a doubt, I became a better tank during those runs - something I think new tanks are missing out on in current 5 mans and heroics. Shatterd Halls, Shadow Labs, Arcatraz...these instances were no joke. Unless you were running a prot pally, you couldn't just AoE your way through the place.

I turned 80 on my paladin in Wrath, hit a heroic in leveling gear, and waltzed through it. Seems kind of watered down. I think these skills are starting to be missed in the new raiders - they're not used to following marks, CC, or having to be quick on the keys to pick up adds.

Kids these days. They've got it easy.

*The healadin recently transferred over to our server, and it was like being re-united with a lost brother - even if he is ret now. Much like that lost brother there was much fighting and name calling, but that guy taught me what I know. He also writes the best guild apps ever, which is particularly entertaining.