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Death Strike and Dragons: An advanced Guide to Tanking Raid Encounters
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Post by
Orranis
This is an extension of
Death Strike and You: An Advanced Guide to Death Knight tanking.
However, this guide is an attempt at taking the basics, and applying them in a real-time situation.
Raid Encounters:
An overlook on how to do the raid encounters of Cataclysm's first tier from the unique point of view of a Blood Death Knight. This guide does however, assume you already know how the mechanics of a fight work and only covers how you're to deal with them as a Death Knight Tank. Because of this, if you're attempting something new, while these guides may be very helpful you still need to find a more general guide to the fight to pair it with. I'd recommend Learn to Raid.com, or Tankspot.com.
I will do these in a carefully yet incredibly complex order determined by an equation who's factors I take using various statistics to determine which fights guilds have most difficult on weighed against the difficulty it poses to Death Knight tanks weighed against the probability that the average user of the Death Knight forums would be on our soon to be progressing on the fight.
I'm going to update these in an order based on whatever I feel like. Which probably means easiest to write comes first. If you notice anything is incorrect, have an additional little trick I've overlooked, or a complete different strategy, please mention them in the comments! All contributions (spelling and grammar may or may not be withstanding) shall be accredited. This is where commentating is most helpful.
Additionally, I may not be able to cover every raid encounter. For example, I've never tanked Onyxia /adds on Nefarian, that's our Druid's job. If anyone is willing to write up an explanation in similar format to what is posted here, Email me at Gabe.karon@gmail.com and I'll add it.
Bosses for whom I cannot write articles:
1. Riplimb (I think I know enough of it to write it anyways.)
2. Rhyo'lith
3. Drones (I think I know enough of it to write it anyways.)
Next Boss to be Updated:
Chimaeron
General Overview of Cooldown Usage:
The general guidelines of how to use your cooldowns throughout raiding encounters. If there's a special reason/way to use it, I'll mention it on the individual boss fight.
- Rotationally. Whenever the heal is effective, it's off cooldown, and the time is right based on Blood Runes (see Blade Barrier section.) If you ever need it for an emergency,
will proc, so just get the most out of it you can.
- Generally can be used rotationally, either through Blood Tap or an RE proc when you have only one Unholy/Death Rune up and none coming off cooldown for the next few seconds. However, in some fights there are places you might want to save it for.
Vampiric Blood
- Depending on the fight, this can be used rotationally or after a huge amount of damage, predictable or not, that would soon be followed by other damage, where the healing would be most useful. There's a pro-con argument when used with Death Pact, as it will increase their usefulness, but rarely will you need both cooldowns to survive something, and it leaves you with Death Pact as a cooldown to use if you don't have Vampiric Blood.
Death Pact
- A useful spot-healing spell for tough situations, it has the down-side of a relatively high RP cost and that it costs two global cooldowns (one for Raise Ally, one for Death Pact. I recommend you macro them together). That said, if a healer is doing something else or out of range/silenced for whatever reason, that's what it's there for.
Anti-Magic Shell
- In my opinion, this is the single most useful utility spell in the Death Knight's arsenal. It's use varies an incredible amount on the fight, from dodging debuffs critical to the bosses ability to kill you on Conclave of the Wind, to simply absorbing incredible amounts of magical damage, and if well-timed, maybe both on the same cooldown.
Dancing Rune Weapon
- Despite it's painfully high RP cost, making it best used preemptively and in a planned fashion then as a reactive cooldown, this is still a wonderful cooldown. Glyhped if produces a huge amount of snap threat, and also a nice boost to survivability. Some people might argue if it's best used for threat or survivability, but in general, snap-threat fights are burn phases, and in general burn phases do a lot of damage. This will give you the edge on DPS, threat, and survivability.
Icebound Fortitude
- Your last resort, a shield wall. I have yet to find a fight in the history of the Death Knight where you should use this rotationally, it is
always
a last resort for where a death seems almost inevitable. There are specific times in certain fights where this is most likely to occur, and you should be aware of these, but
never
use it if you don't have to.
Mirror of Broken Images
- Use it similarly to AMS, except that it doesn't dodge debuffs the way AMS does. This trinket is BiS for any tank, between it's treasure-trove of mastery and God-like On-use effect.
Vial of Stolen Memories
- The dodge is hardly going to make or break you during a spike, not to say that it won't ease through, and it can be generally used rotationally.
Bastion of Twilight - Normal
Halfus Wyrmbreaker
:
Coming soon… Hopefully.
Valiona and Theralion, the Dragon Twins
:
This fight is one of the easiest from a tank's point of view. It requires only one tank, no tank coordination, and the vast majority of abilities used do not affect tanks. This makes it an ideal fight for practicing Rune Tetris, and gives very little excuses not to do it.
In the first phase, for the majority of the fight there's literally nothing to worry about as a tank. You can make sure you position Valiona where your group wants her to be positioned, usually in the center parallel to the wall. Simply tank her there. While boss-mods will warn you that you're going to be hit by a
, these do very little damage to a tank. Pop anti-Magic shell or your Mirror of Broken Images and simply tank it. It's not worth moving the boss in order to avoid it, even if just side-to-side, as this can cause confusion and even a wipe when
is cast.
The only thing you have to worry about during this phase is
Dazzling Destruction
. This occurs right before the phase transition. Giant purple swirlies will litter the ground. A twilight missile will slowly descend into it, eventually landing and doing damage to whatever it touches and sending it into the Twilight Zone. You must move out of them The best way to accomplish this is through strafing. They don't descend fast enough that you have to charge out at full speed, so by strafing left or right out of them you can keep your front to the boss (you can't dodge or parry while getting back-hacked, nor can you Death strike) as well as get out of the swirls quickly .
On Theralion, there's some more complicated positioning. This is due to Fabulous Flames. The ranged and healers should generally be able to handle themselves, but if it appears on either you or the melee, move the boss, but keep it parallel to the wall. The other thing you have to watch out for is Valiona's
Deep Breath
, which will cover one third of the room, split between enter-side, center, and exit-side. You start out in the middle because it gives your players two options of where to run, and the reason you keep the dragon parallel to the wall is so that when re-positioning, melee don't have to run through fire to escape the flames. While usually you have someone, like a healer, who doesn't have his view blocked by the monstrous dragon trying to maul his face in and bombard him with magic to call out where it will appear, a quick glance around and you can easily see where it is. The first one is the most difficult, as you don't know where the dragon's coming from, but a quick pan of the screen to either side will reveal. After that, just simply track the dragon as it flies to and fro across the screen, spreading fiery doom. It's good to keep aware of where the boss is, as it gives you more time to run, allowing you to strafe and generally reducing the chaos of the raid, as opposed relying on others to call it out which leaves a lot of room for error (the "your left or their left?" question, for example) and much less time to react. After three deep-breath's there will be a phase change.
The only other thing to watch out for is during the first phase transition of Valiona to Theralion, Theralion does not seem to share an aggro table and thus you have a few precious seconds to taunt while he lands before he starts taking chunks out of your healers or DPS. Seeing as you can use all your cooldowns, save Icebound Fortitude best used for emergencies, rotationally, I like to pop Dancing Rune Weapon just as the dragon's landing for the extra threat. The dragon will land directly in the middle, so be sure to position yourself around their so you have as little risk of melee pulling as possible. \
I've never been into the Twilight Zone as a tank, but if the boss does stay on you, between the extra AoE damage taken and the fact that no healers can reach you, a wipe is pretty much assured. If not, your DPS will be in bits and pieces by the time you get out. Dodge purple things on the ground and get to the portal, maybe you can salvage a situation as this fight is all but soloable by a tank (I guarantee you, Enrage Timer or not, we will see a solo of this fight before the next X-pac).
Cooldowns:
Anti-Magic Shell/Mirror of Broken Images: During the Valiona phase, if you have a Twilight Blast heading towards you. If something has gone wrong and you're going to eat part of a Blackout or Meteorite, or end up in some fire.
Bone Shield: Best used during transitions, where you won't be Death Striking anyways, and depending on how much time before the next transition maybe again with a Blood Tap.
Icebound Fortitude: Emergencies. Your healer is in the twilight zone? Pop it. Generally if something happened that should not of happened, and you might die because of it.
Dancing Rune Weapon: First transition to Theralion, whenever it's off cooldown afterward.
Vampiric Blood: Rotationally. Whenever you've taken enough damage for the healing to matter, and it's off cooldown. It's cooldown is short enough that you don't need to save it.
Death Pact: Save it for an emergency, otherwise you're not taking enough damage for healing to really concern you. Preferably used with Vampiric Blood.
Army of the Dead: At pull, you don't want to have to remain stationary otherwise. Maybe on Valiona during Bloodlust, and definitely before the transition, if you feel up to it.
The Ascendant Council - Ignacious, Feludius, Arion, Terrastra, and the Elementium Monstrosity
:
Soon™.
Post by
Orranis
Cho'gall - Leader of the Twilight's Hammer
:
The final boss in the Bastion of Twilight, Cho'gall is one of the most complicated fights in the game. That is not to say most difficult, as out of all of the three end-tier bosses of the normal modes, he's most certainly the easiest, but any group that can down Ascendant Council should be able to get the hang of this fight in a few attempts, and down it in a few more. It's also one of the more difficult fights to tank, requiring much better coordination and precision then other fights this tier.
There are two tanking scenarios, one tank who will be tanking Adherents and one who will be taunting and positioning Cho'gall while the other takes the Adherents. First I shall cover the abilities they both have to face, then the individual things either tank must do.
While tanking Cho'gall, and generally throughout the fight. you should always be aware of what 'presence' he is in. These 'presences' take the form of
Flame's Orders
and
Shadow's Orders
. During Shadow's Orders, he will occasionally pulse, sending out waves of darkness that do significant raid damage but not much to a tank. He does this three times in a row. It's good to time your Death Strikes to fit these in, as you will see a bonus from it, and they're not affected by blood-shield clipping or avoidance (although one could argue a full resist is a form of avoidance.)
During Flame's Orders, he will spread fire throughout the room, and on a successful melee hit he will deal additional fire damage to the tank. This is exceptionally good for Blood Shields, as the damage is magical and thus not clipped by Blood Shield, and adds to our masteries effectiveness which it does not for any other tank. While you can still time your Death Strike after three hits, this will hit you for quite a lot of damage and, especially if worship gets a few stacks, is the most likely thing to cause a tank death (barring, perhaps, missed Depravity interrupts, though I'll go into this later.) If your health ever gets low, screw the rules and Death Strike like no tomorrow. Furthermore, seeing as the additional damage is magical, you can easily pop Anti-Magic Shell drastically reduce damage taken during this phase. Make sure you position Cho'gall so that neither you nor the melee have to stand in Blaze during this phase.
You'll have one adherent tank, or add tank for a play on words, and one person to tank Cho'gall in the other tanks absence. First I'm going to cover the Adherent tank. The Adherent tank is also the tank that pulls Cho'gall, to whatever position designated by the raid leader. If you're the raid leader, I'd recommend pulling to the left of his throne, but not all the way. Simply tank him until one or both of the following things you have to be aware of happen:
Fury of Cho'gall
is cast, or Summon Adherent is cast. Fury of Cho'gall applies two debuffs to you:
Cho's Blast
, and
Gall's Blast
. One increases physical damage taken by 20%, one increases magic damage taken by 20%. It's important to note that these are two debuffs. From experience I've found that if you cast Anti-Magic Shell as Cho'galls Fury is being cast, you can avoid the increased magic damage taken debuff, but not the physical damage taken debuff. Because nearly all the magical damage taken is avoidable, it's still best used when you're tanking Cho'gall during Flame's Orders.
Summon Corrupting Adherent
, as expected, summons a
Corrupting Adherent
into the room, through one of two portals. The portals are located on the edges of the diamond shaped room. If you're facing Cho'gall's throne, the first one will come from the left and they'll alternate from side to side throughout the fight. You can taunt it, but make sure to hold off on moving it until Fury of Cho'gall has gone off. If the off-tank taunts to early, he can easily get two stacks of Fury of Cho'gall, leading to a huge increase in damage taken. You have plenty of time between the next Fury to go off and the first Depravity, and even if you don't make range in time, that's what Strangulate is for. These adds don't deal a tremendous amount of damage. What you do depends on how quickly they're dying. You want enough DPS to kill them before Festering Blood, but not to kill him before he reaches his designated spot. There are two ways you can drag him back. One is to slowly backtrack facing him the whole time, the other is to spam strikes on him, turn around, and make a bee-line for the back of the room where you'll be placing it.
You MUST interrupt
, and you cannot expect DPS to do it for you either While it's nice to have good reactive DPS who can see if you can't make an interrupt and Counterspell or Silencing Shot, they are rather rare and one's with an equally good reaction time are even rarer, and even then that's just for covering mistakes. Either spec into Endless Winter or make sure you always have enough runic power for the interrupt. Be aware that he stops when he starts casting, and if you continue to move, even if you run back and hit during the bar latency is likely to make it so that the cast still goes off. The cooldown is identical to Mind Freeze's, maybe a second or two longer, so use that as your timer. Get the interrupt, move, and as soon as it's got 1-2 seconds before coming off cooldown, stop, wait, and interrupt. If you're making a bee-line it's a good idea to spam Death Strikes here, and make sure you get good at mouse-turning to make the interrupt. Then simply continue moving. A good tank should be able to interrupt every single cast after a few attempts on the boss.
The way my raid does this fight, is we position the first one all the way in the back on the left side, the second one right in front of the next puddle, the third in front of that, and the fourth (if we get it), all the way in the back but on the right. Then we have the other tank move Cho'gall into the left, by where he summons the Adherents, so all the slimes are Line of Sited and have to go around the lip, allowing DPS to focus on them in one spot, as well as an ideal spot for Hunter's to lay traps et cetera. You must then run back, and taunt as soon as the other tank has Fury of Cho'gall on him. I like to drop Death and Decay behind me as a I run, on top of the nearest puddle of slimes, helping out on AoE damage and making sure they move the right way even if some pesky ranged is in the wrong position. This transition also gives you a nice opportunity to pop Bone Shield.
Summon Adherent and Fury of Cho'gall are roughly on a timer so that, for every other Fury, he summons an Adherent. The tank with fury on him should take the Adherent, and shouldn't taunt Cho'gall back until the other tank has Fury. The timer is rather imprecise though, so while for the first two he'll cast Fury first, for the second two he casts Summon Adherent first. However, the Adherents have a long travel time, so you should've gotten Fury and had the boss taunted off you by the time he's anywhere near the raid, and you can even taunt him as he walks with Cho'gall still on you.
The other tank has a significantly easier time. The only thing you have to do in this position is taunt Cho'gall immediately after he puts Fury on the other tank, and strafe-move him to the left-side portal right as the adherent is about to die. Simply follow the instructions I left in the beginning of the guide. However, seeing as you're not tanking the Adherent, you have to avoid Corrupting Crash's, and should be more attentive to helping out with Worship interrupts.
On
, you may not have the multi-stunnablility of Warrior's, but you have the ability to silence things from far away, especially now that Death Grip breaks Worshipping. Only ever taunt using Dark Command, and create a macro for an @mouseover Death Grip that only affects people in your raid. The one I use is:
/cast Death Grip
If you're add-tanking I'd recommend saving Strangulate for tricky interrupts, but if not, then you can make an identical macro replacing Death Grip with Strangulate and using it similarly. This functionality is great for when range aren't stacked up killing the Adherents, especially if it's as Festering Blood is being cast and they need to be brought out of there quickly.
When you enter the final phase, back Cho'gall into a corner. This can help make sure the eye-tentacles spawn around one place, and can get quickly hit by interrupts as well as cleaved. Simply switch up tanking after he casts Fury. As a tank, you have the ability to interrupt and even do a great deal of damage with Death Strikes, and seeing as DPS are needed on the boss, helping keeping Debilitating Beam off them and bringing down the tentacles can make a huge difference in the fight. The tanm not currently on Cho'gall should go for harder to reach targets, using Strangulate and Mind Freeze to keep Debilitating Beam off them and the DPS. If you're the tentacles closest target, it'll target you with Debilitating Beam. However, if you pop AMS before it finishes the cast that leads to the channel, you can avoid the debuff (at least until AMS falls off). Last but not least, if you've run out of tools, you can simply stand on top of them to eat the beam and spam Heart Strike and Death Strike to cleave them all down. Even if you're on Cho'gall, you should still be targeting, interrupting, and killing tentacles that have spawned in your range. Especially to a Death Knight tank, a debilitating beam can mean your death, and the more you do the more uptime the DPS get on the boss.
Tanking Cho'gall can be stressful, but it's easy, and you should be able to Rune Tetris on it with a fair bit of ease. However, if you're tanking an Adherent, things are so chaotic you might as well not bother, especially if you can use the blood runes as Heart-Strike for extra damage and RP for interrupts. In the third phase, seeing as tank damage becomes the least of your worries, you should be using every rune you have whenever it's up, still focusing on Death Strike but throwing out as many Heart Strikes as you can to help out with DPS.
Cooldowns:
Vampiric Blood: I wouldn't use it rotationally, but still use it fairly often. Cho'gall hits like a truck, and anytime you're brought into the sub-40% range I'd recommend popping it.
Death Pact: Similar to Vampiric Blood, especially if used in unison.
Bone Shield: Transition phases.
Icebound Fortitude: The mother of all emergencies. If ever you come to the point where death seems certain, Icebound Fortitude is your last line of defense, and may just save your raid.
Anti-Magic Shell/Mirror of Broken Images: During flames orders. I've yet to test whether or not it absorbs corruption, and if someone could confirm/deny it for me I'd be grateful. In that case it could be used as an emergency if you somehow end up in a puddle of Old-God goo, an adherent is alive while Festering Blood is cast, or you missed an interrupt on Depravity and don't want the corruption.
Dancing Rune Weapon: Seeing as when you switch to the adds you still have vengeance up, even if you're not attacking them the whole time there're still very little aggro problems. Similarly, it would be impossible to have it up for every add. Because of this, I like to use it once at the beginning of the fight, during Flame's Orders, and then a second time in the last phase where healers need to focus on raid and tanks should fend for themselves as much as possible. Similarly, this is where damage actually makes a difference.
Dodge Trinkets: Generally can be used rotationally, but only while tanking Cho'gall and preferably during Flame's Orders if you don't have a trinket off.
Blackwing Descent - Normal
Omnotron Defense System
Magmaw
Maloriak
Chimaeron
Atramedes
Nefarian
Post by
Orranis
Shannox and the Hounds
One of the entry raiding bosses to Fireland's, it is a surprisingly vexing encounter to tank for a boss so early into the tier. However, with the help of this guide, I can hope you won't be the one to wipe your group on this overgrown salamander. To be precise, here is Lizard Help.
Shannox
Tanking
Shannox
has three phases. The first phase is the 'normal' phase. During this phase, he will melee once every 1.8 seconds for a flat amount of damage, and is generally pretty normal. Even so, this is slightly harder hitting than you average t11 boss, about on par with Nefarian or Cho'gall with too many worships. In this phase, there are two things you must be aware of. First of all, traps.
There are two traps to be aware of. Immolation Traps will be constantly placed on you and anyone else in melee range of the boss. Stepping on these traps will not only smack you in the face for a hefty 70-80k fire damage, plus 19-20k ticks, but will also increase your damage taken by 50% for the next nine seconds. Stepping on these is a very easy way to cause a tank death, and due to Shannox being untauntable, a wipe. This looks like an enlarged hunter's immolation trap.
The other trap is Crystal Prison trap. This is thrown at random raid members. While I have never had it targeted on myself, that is not an indicator that they will never target you. Furthermore, even if it did, this does not remove the need to be aware of where they are, as you could easily step into one cast on another raid member, especially if you have a melee DPS on the boss. If you get in it, you will be frozen and likely die. This looks like an enlarged hunter trap, with a crystal in the middle.
As long as you're not tunnel-visioning, which can be a bigger problem when you're taking an incredible amount of damage, you shouldn't get hit by these traps as DBM gives you a huge warning as to when one's been placed near or on you, giving you plenty of time to run out before it's triggered. A bigger problem is making sure you don't walk back into another while sidestepping others. It's important to have a very high awareness in this fight. You should try to keep the boss in the same general area, so that the off-tank knows the distances he can use for kiting Riplimb. Because of this, you should try to limit yourself to strafing while avoiding traps, and when you run out of room or your melee no longer have space, only kite backwards, and stay as close as possible to the original spot.
Never
move forward through him, as there is often a trap hidden behind or underneath his body. Good communication is tremendously helpful.
The second is
Jagged Tear
. Jagged Tear is a bleed debuff applied through
Arcing Slash
that ticks for once every three seconds for 3k damage. While this seems like nothing, it stacks, all the way up to one hundred. The most I've ever had was ten, due to a PuG offtank failure, and having an extra 30k spike is not welcome at all. However, he can only Arcing Slash with a spear in his hand, and near the end of every other stack, he will use
Hurl Spear
towards the off-tank, dealing heavy damage to anyone hit by it and moderate fire damage to people near it. After this Riplimb will retrieve his spear for him (you should call out the spear on vent). This is when the stacks must be reset. Through careful positioning of the off-tank and slows on Riplimb, your stacks will drop off before Riplimb reaches Shannox with the spear. If performed perfectly, you should never get above two stacks before having them reset, however you can easily expect and deal with four to five. It definitely helps assure that the stacks will reset to try and move Shannox away from Riplimb, but it's generally the off-tanks job because you will likely be surrounded by Immolation Traps and doing so could easily kill a wipe. Warn your offtank if you do however try this, so that when Riplimb gets back on him he's not further away and causing Separation Anxiety (which will squish both tanks pretty fast). It's important to note that AMSing while standing on a trap will
not
dodge the debuff.
The second phase starts when Rageface dies. While one difference is that your healer isn't going to be Face Raged anymore, which is welcome, the only substantial change for you is that Shannox receives
Frenzy
. I also like to move Shannox to a completely new area, that I have warned the tank about in advance, at this phase, because the traps can really start to build up.
The 130% attack speed and damage first of all means that Rune Tetris becomes much more important, and should be employed with much more care. However, you must also make sure you're not tunnel visioning, because getting trapped at this point is pretty much a wipe no matter what. Also note that you're far more likely to be bursted to death at this point. Keep track of Arcing Slash, as an instant 125% hit in line with a melee or two without heals could be the death of you, so you can plan to have a small CD like Boneshield or Rune Tap up for that point. While timing DS is still very advised, don't use it on a full health pool, I would advise against going for maximum efficiency, as with the faster attack speed there are too many attacks in the five second window to safely go up against without a DS. You'll be getting hit hard and fast, so short of avoidance streaks you'll almost always have a good heal/blood shield, so focus more on pumping them out than maximizing individual use. Be ready to use cooldowns generously, especially short term ones, and you may be able to get an Icebound Fortitude at the very beginning of the phase and still have it up for the last phase, but I would advise against it unless you absolutely need it.
The DPS will burn Shannox to 35-40%, then switch to killing Riplimb. Make sure you get a stack reset off just before Riplimb dies, you really don't want to go into the third phase with high stacks. When Riplimb dies, Shannox gains an additional 30% attack speed and damage buff, putting him at a 60% increase to both. At this point he will just hit ridiculously hard. DS as much as possible as long as you're getting the full heal and shield out of it, and chain all your cooldowns as much as possible. Tell your DPS and healers to use threat-reducing cooldowns like Vanish, Invisibility, and Feign Death, and have your off-tank build as much threat as he can as quickly as possible. In the event of your death, which is rather likely, this means you will have minimum casualties before you have a fresh tank with zero stacks of Jagged Tear and all his cooldowns to complete the encounter with.
Besides just the damage boost, there is another difference to phase three. Shannox will no longer throw his spear, instead, he will thrust it into the floor, but rather use
Magma Rupture
, and swirling little fireballs will erupt in a spiral from it. You must avoid these. Occasionally this will occur while you get trapped, and you have nowhere else to move, in this case pop AMS and eat the fire, but preferably use it right before he thrusts to avoid the original damage and debuff as well. This also means that stacks of Jagged Tear are no longer removable. This creates a second 'soft-enrage' to the fight, in that eventually they'll stack too high for you to handle. However, considering how hard he hits in this phase, there's also the 'soft-enrage' of healer ooms and tanks running out of cooldowns, so if the boss wasn't dead by the time it would take for this to happen, you probably would be.
Cooldowns:
Icebound Fortitude
- Abbreviated IBF. Best used for the CD train after Riplimb dies, but may be able to use at the very beginning of phase two and have it up for phase three as well.
- A good thing to pop in anticipation of the Arcing Slash, especially later on in the fight, and can be used as a light cooldown in both CD chains and leading up to them.
Death Pact
- Best used in emergencies, especially if you're in the third phase and don't have a cooldown up and won't survive the next hit.
Vampiric Blood
- Great throughout the entire fight, where you will so commonly be low, try and get as much use as possible out of it as a light CD, while also fitting it into the CD train.
Anti-Magic Shell
- Abbreviated AMS. Of little use in the first phase where you're taking near to 0 magic damage, it becomes incredibly valuable when frenzy is stacked twice and can be used to reduce the spear-thrusts damage. Squeeze as much use out of it as possible, its cooldown is short enough.
Empower Rune Weapon
- Best used at the very end of a CC chain if the boss isn't dead yet, for desperately trying to stay alive, or just before to try and hold off having to use CC's for a little longer.
Lichborne
- Incredibly useful in a CC chain, because you can predict when you'll use it and pool RP in advance.
Dancing Rune Weapon
- Again, super valuable to a CC chain, but also usable multiple other times during the fight.
Avoidance On Use Trinkets: Can generally be used on cooldown, but it's also very good to have them up for the final CC chain, especially in combination with a small CD.
Mirror of Broken Images
- Pretty much identical to AMS.
Riplimb
Coming soon.
Post by
Orranis
Beth'tilac - The Red Widow
Beth'tilac
This is dealing with going up and tanking
Beth'tilac
. When you pull, you'll get about five-ten seconds of just healing AoE damage before Spinner's are spawned. When
Cinderweb Spinner
are spawned, you have to coordinate with a team of you, a healer, and 1-2 DPS who is going to get which web. While killing the Spinner brings the string down, taunting does as well, and works much more faster as well as allows melee to help kill them. Keep your healer as your /focus so you can see where they are on the mini-map and check if they have a web. Taunt the closest one to you down, and DPS it until the healer has their web. When the healer has a web, jump up on yours. You're going to have 1-3 seconds of downtime without a healer, and plan cooldowns accordingly. Self-affecting casts can be cast on the way up, I usually use a Bone Shield and maybe a trinket followed by an AMS when I get up to mitigate the
Ember Flare
, and generous use of Rune Tap to make sure I can survive 'til the healer comes up, sometimes with heavier cooldowns like Vampiric Blood. If you're tempted use anything heavier then that, just make sure you'll have it up when phase two starts.
As soon as you reach the top of the net, taunt Beth'tilac, as the healer will have generated some healing aggro and you wouldn't want them to be melee'd. While uptop, Beth will melee you for a pretty good amount of damage, and have a moderate fire damage AoE that isn't too bad on it's own but can get nasty in combination with the hits. Watch for puddles of lava, not only do they do damage, but a will soon fall into them doing massive amounts of damage and causing a hole. The holes look like orange blazes left on the web, and there is also a large hole in the center that looks like a hole should. Move her around so that you always have space to move away from a puddle without risking falling into a hole, but also so that you're melee DPS has the same sort of room. You will tank her here while her energy runs out, and then when it does, she will cast
Smoldering Devastation
. At this point you will drop down through the holes. While any hole works for dropping down, be it the one in the center or the center one, but if you use the center one you will take no falling damage while the meteor one's will do damage equal to about 30% of your health.
When on the floor, it will be a rinse/repeat of last time. Because there is a second of downtime before spinners spawn, I like to drop DnD to help out with the
Cinderweb Broodling
s and maybe get a hit or two in on the drone before stacking in the middle. Then you will taunt, DPS, and eventually take the web sling, of the spinners, similar to how you did last time.
You will do this three times before phase two.
In Phase Two, Beth'tilac will descend from the web, and come down the the ground level. Immediately kite her away from any broodlings that were still up (and shouldn't have been up, give your raid a good scolding). At this point, Beth will begin to stack
Frenzy
, increasing damage gone by 5% for each stack. You can use small cooldowns at first, but save your big ones. Once the boss hits about 15 stacks, maybe more or less depending on your guild's DPS, start chaining cooldowns. At some point the tank will be afflicted with
The Widow's Kiss
, which will stack over itself by itself and reduce healing taken by from 10-100%, and also do fire damage to nearby allies. As soon as one tank receives this debuff, the other should immediately taunt off and get out of the raid. From what I observed, you do not take the AoE damage Beth'tilac produces while you're afflicted by this, though that could be false (I would like a confirmation, if anyone could).
-
Cooldowns:
Icebound Fortitude
- Abbreviated IBF. You can use it on the first, maybe even second, jump up and still have it up for 15-20 stacks into frenzy, but it's primary use is to be used in a CD chain to survive high frenzy stacks.
- Used to mitigate damage taken before healers can get up on the web, and can be used as a light cooldown in both CD chains and leading up to them.
Death Pact
- Best used in emergencies, especially if you're in the Frenzy stacks and don't have a cooldown up and won't survive the next hit.
Vampiric Blood
- Great throughout the entire fight, where you will so commonly be low, try and get as much use as possible out of it as a light CD, while also fitting it into the CD train.
Anti-Magic Shell
- Abbreviated AMS. Great to be used to mitigate AoE fire damage throughout the fight, especially before healers aren't up yet or frenzy is high. Squeeze as much use out of it as possible, it's cooldown is short enough.
Empower Rune Weapon
- Best used at the very end of a CC chain if the boss isn't dead yet, for desperately trying to stay alive, or perhaps just before if you want to get that much many more frenzy stacks before starting the chain.
Lichborne
- Incredibly useful in a CC chain, because you can predict when you'll use it and pool RP in advance. This ability turned our last wipe of the evening into a kill.
Dancing Rune Weapon
- Again, super valuable to a CC chain, but also usable multiple other times during the fight. If you can build the RP on the spinner, very good for surviving before healer comes up on the web.
Avoidance On Use Trinkets: Can generally be used on cooldown assuming the boss will be hitting you for the full duration, but it's also very good to have them up for the final CC chain, especially in combination with a small CD.
Mirror of Broken Images
- Pretty much identical to AMS.
Cinderweb Drones
Post by
Orranis
Lord Rhyo'lith
Unfortunately, my guild one tanks this fight, and I am not that tank. If someone else has a guide they'd like to make, I'm happy to give credit and post it here.
Post by
Orranis
Reserved
Post by
Orranis
Reserved
Post by
Orranis
Reserved
Post by
Orranis
Reserved
Post by
Orranis
Reserved
Post by
Orranis
Reserved
Post by
Orranis
Reserved!
Post by
Orranis
And one for good luck.
Post away!
Post by
Gnub
This is an extension of
Death Strike and You: An Advanced Guide to Death Knight tanking.
However, this guide is an attempt at taking the basics, and applying them in a real-time situation.
Not to burst your bubble or anything, but I would - personally - much rather have this guide being linked in that one above, with a short part describing the reasoning behind it, rather than having it as a second sticky.
In either case it's not nearly close enough to completion to deserve a sticky on its own. It should not be taken as negative criticism, but I hope you can follow my reasoning behind it :)
Post by
Orranis
Bump. I haven't tanked Riplimb, Drones, or Rhyo'lith yet, but I may be able to update with Baleroc after I get back from my one week vacation. What do you guys think I should do about the t11 content? Thinking of just deleting it but keeping it in some Word document somewhere.
Post by
DraconisAerius
Bump. I haven't tanked Riplimb, Drones, or Rhyo'lith yet, but I may be able to update with Baleroc after I get back from my one week vacation. What do you guys think I should do about the t11 content? Thinking of just deleting it but keeping it in some Word document somewhere.
While the normal mode stuff is pretty face roll now, I'd like to see your take on how to work in the the heroic mode encounters, since they were not nerfed.
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