Friday, February 10, 2012

DK tanking in Dragon Soul

For this little guide, I'll assume everyone is familiar with each fight. I originally wrote this out and had explained each part of the fights, but that was just ridiculously long and it seemed like I lost the point of the entry. So basically I'm just going to go over when I used each ability I have, if there's a specific point in the fight I feel is ideal to use them and all that.


Morchok

For this fight, I tank Morchok the entire time while the other tank is on Kohcrom, but I have tanked both. Morchok does 3 Resonating Crystals, and I have to move him near each one to make sure all those soaking them will still be within Stomp range. This isn't hard since it has a 25 yard range. I put up a range check of 20 yards to help out here. Having a hunter in your soaking group sometimes makes this a little annoying since they have that dead zone where they can't shoot at all. I try to time Rune Tap (with Glyph of Rune Tap) after each Stomp if possible. I also use Vampiric Blood right after a Stomp if I see the crystal explode around the same time so the healer gets a little more healing power to bring everyone back up. Obviously I use Icebound Fortitude when the boss is sub 20%. Anti-Magic Shell is used whenever I'm closer to the crystal initially than one of the soakers to ease healing. I've also soaked crystals when people have died while tanking the boss, so obviously it's good for that as well.


Yor'sahj, the Unsleeping

I feel this fight is catered to dk tanks. Deep Corruption I would think would be a problem for a lot of tanks. But none of my self healing adds any stacks to it. It's rare that I even get 1 stack from healing sources; although I know healers are also very aware of which of their spells don't add stacks. I use Anti-Magic Shell usually right before the 5th-6th application of Void Bolt to absorb the initial hit as well as some of the DoT. Icebound Fortitude is usually reserved for the one combo where we don't kill the Glowing Globule since Void Bolt stacks higher and there's just generally much more damage going out. Dancing Rune Weapon is usually used when there's adds out as I can sometimes get a bunch to stick to me (although that's all RNG). Army of the Dead is usually used for the second wave of adds during that combo with the Glowing Globule not killed.


Warlord Zon'ozz

We just recently got this guy down, so I can give a little guide now. Since the introduction of Necrotic Strike, I've been searching for a time to actually use it. In PVP, I'm sure it can be quite useful, but I don't PVP. Enter Psychic Drain, the bane of my existence. I use Anti-Magic Shell and stack Necrotic Strike on the boss in the time leading up to his usage of it. The problem for me always seems to be when he uses it. See, Deadly Boss Mods has a timer for it, but it rarely lines up. Sometimes he uses the ability immediately after the timer runs out, other times it can literally be 7 seconds after the timer reaches 0. But my favorite is all the times he does it 1-2 seconds before the timer reaches 0. Since the cool down on Psychic Drain is shorter than the cool down on Anti-Magic Shell, I alternate it with an old favorite trinket from tier 11, Mirror of Broken Images. Vampiric Blood I use for the start of each dark phase.


Ultraxion

Anti-Magic Shell is my best friend here. Hour of Twilight does around 50% of my health when topped off if that's the only cool down I use. I usually add Icebound Fortitude to it as well. This usually drops me about 10% instead, which is just crazy. Dancing Rune Weapon is used each time it's available if I'm currently tanking the boss. Vampiric Blood is used on cool down as well since the raid damage gets pretty insane. Rune Tap I pretty much use on cool down here as well provided I'm missing any health really. 5% isn't a lot to the other 4 people in my group, but every little bit helps.

One last thing to note here, before Thrall gives the tanks the Last Defender of Azeroth buff, if you're tanking the boss, use all your normal tank cool downs. Don't use trinkets, just your normal cool downs. Why? As soon as you get the buff, it resets all the cool downs on them. Vampiric Blood, Dancing Rune Weapon, Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Shell, even Rune Tap are all effected by it.


Unfortunately that's as far as we've gotten on heroics so far. We've been working on Hagara next. Focused Assault does a ton more damage on heroic, but stacking my Blood Shield up beforehand seems to work well there. Common complaint I'm getting from the ranged in my group is moving her too much. I don't like moving her much to begin with since melee then has issues getting damage on her. I know moving her also makes blocking the Ice Lance beams difficult for ranged as well. At the same time, standing there means almost certain death. I try to keep her around the center as much as possible. But I also have to bring her to the side where we're going to start each transition phase to try to limit the amount of time we spend in it. So yeah, interesting balance I need to find there.

Hopefully this helps out my fellow dk tanks a bit. Again, this is just how I tend to use my cool downs for these fights. If you find a better spot to use any of them, I'm always open to advice.