I've been out of the PuGging game for awhile (no, I don't count LFR... and yes, changed guilds again. Don't ask :P), so I was rather confused with the request for "AotC" on most of the heroic Blackhand groups.
Being a hunter, I'm used to AotC meaning
Aspect of the Cheetah, but of course it's not - it's
Ahead of the Curve, as in you've killed the boss on heroic before. Unfortunately before tonight, I didn't have it... so trying to find a PuG to take me - and also be good - has been annoying.
The smaller groups (for some reason the "magic number" seems to be 2 tanks, 4 heals and 9 DPS - possibly something to do with the balance of loot and organising the number of people) had huge problems with handling phase 2. If a couple of people died to mechanics, especially in phase 1, you weren't likely to recover.
It was a whole different story when I found a 25m PuG this evening - people were getting hit with bombs and marks left, right and centre. I had to /boggle at the easy two shot (although the group had been going on a little while before I joined, I think).
I also discovered that you can't loot two tokens from Blackhand - as in, one coined and one from the boss. Not that I minded, since I had my 4pc bonus already, but I wouldn't have said no to a 5th piece to swap in/out with non-tier.
Either way, I'm glad I have the achievement now - hopefully will be less trouble to PuG Blackhand in future weeks, which at least means I should be able to get the 5th tier piece soon!
