Hellfire Citadel Tips and Tricks DK Edition (finally updated)

[demonardvark 556]

This is just a placeholder for the moment, but also an announcement that I'm working on this and would like all of your advice and input. This post will be used for discussion about tips and tricks for DK DPS and TANKS for the boss encounters in Hellfire Citadel. points of discussion could be useful abilities, talents to take for the fight, and which specs perform strongest.

 

 

Hellfire Assault

 

Blood-

 

Frost-  1h is best here combined with necrotic plague and plague leech. Howling blast until your finger hurts and then plague leech an add for 2 more free howling blasts. The loss of disease is irrelevant because it will either jump from another nearby add or be refreshed with howling blast.

 

Unholy

 

All Three-   Gorefiends grasp is great for rounding up the adds. From there Defile is a very strong choice to nuke them down. As your difficulty increases switching to necrotic plague becomes more viable as the adds/trash have more health.  

 

 

Iron Reaver

 

Blood-  Death's Advance all but mandatory. Run artillery to safe distance.

 

Frost-

 

Unholy

 

All Three-  Deaths advance is good for running out artillery and getting to bombs during flying phase.

 

 

Kormrok

 

Blood-

 

Frost-  1H: When the grasping hands are coming move to the outside of the raid and face yourself in. This way you can howling blast down the entire group quickly. Effective when paired with necrotic plague. 

 

Unholy Save unholy blight or make sure it is on CD pre grasping hands. Make sure to situate yourself in the middle of your group. Once hands come pop unholy blight and blood boil repeatedly to burn through that phase. Recommended with necrotic plague. 

 

All Three- During higher progression Defile highly recommended to burst nuke hands. Chilbains can help out too to reduce dragging speed, buying precious seconds.

 

 

Hellfire HIgh Council

 

Blood- Tank Gurtogg and Jubei on top of each other for cleaving and decreasing fight time. Also have fel rage person not run away.

 

Frost-

 

Unholy

 

All Three- This will require correct guild execution. When Bloodboil starts rampaging, pop all available CD's                and target focus him. He takes increased amount of damage during this period. However, this                    will require your guild members to correctly position the boss so that he is 25 yards away from                    Dia Darkwhisper.

 

 

Killrog

 

Blood-  Blood Shield from death strike can avoid shred armor debuff leading to indefinite tanking ability with basic rotation

 

Frost-

 

Unholy

 

All Three- Chillbains will slow all adds and you can even use CoI to root the small ones, buying precious                       time. 

                Save AMS for Kilrogg's Death Throes, because it helps with the huge amount of AoE damage,                       and it gives you a lot of RP.

 

 

Gorefiend

 

Blood- you can safely use Chillbains + glyph of BB to spread diseases farther. There is not much movement            involved for tanks as for others.

if confortable with damage mitigation death siphon can be helpful during feast of souls for some extra health

 

Frost-  constructs inside gorefiend can be gripped use to prevent them from prematurely escaping

 

Unholy- constructs inside gorefiend can be gripped use to prevent them from prematurely escaping

 

All Three-  Choosing Deaths advance for this fight is highly recommended. AMZ will help with raid CD weaving during Feast of Souls.

 

 

Shadow-Lord Ishkar

 

Blood-

 

Frost- Defile during add phases for leet dps. Save empowered for 3rd add phase.

 

Unholy- Defile during add phases for leet dps. Save empowered for 3rd add phase.

 

All Three- Deaths Advance useful for resisting winds and not getting blown off.

                   Blood boil right before ishkar leaves platform to spread diseases to spawning adds.

 

 

 

Socrethar The Eternal

 

Blood-

 

Frost-

 

Unholy

 

All Three- Chilbains and glyphed DnD can help slow ghosts if ranged is having trouble burning them down.

Glyph of tranquil grip highly recommended for DPS, use to grasp shadowcallers near boss for cleave (and since ranged will be focusing on ghosts shadowcallers sometimes get neglected). 

 

 

Tyrant Velhari

 

Blood-

 

Frost-

 

Unholy

 

All Three- AMS is exceedingly useful to help negate almost all damage from this fight. 

Death Pact highly recommended for phase 2.

 

 

Fel Lord Zakuun

 

Blood-

 

Frost-

 

Unholy

 

All Three- When fel lord sends out waves of destruction just run towards him. You will pass through him and not take any damage. Any melee class can technically do this.

 

 

Xhul'horac

 

Blood- AMS prevents fel strike and void strike debuff. Glyph of regenerative magic highly recommended.

 

Frost-

 

Unholy -

 

All Three-  Gorefiends grasp is all but mandatory. Useful for rounding up small adds for burst cleave. 

                     AMS before bosses use flurry/gaze to avoid getting fel/voidtouched (show us on the dolly where he... nvm)

 

 

 

Tusks of Mannoroth (i'll put proper name later )

 

Blood-

 

Frost-

 

Unholy

 

All Three-   Mass grip can be useful for rounding up adds (be careful)

                     Death's advance is all but mandatory. Used during shadowforce and empowered shadowforce to not get knocked off the edge

 

 

 

Archimonde

 

Blood-

 

Frost-

 

Unholy

 

All Three- Deaths advance almost mandatory to help move quickly during allure of flames. AMS during allure is also recommended to help reduce damage and potentially generate RP.

 

 

 

Finally updated (sorry for delay). There will be a noticeable gap when it comes to frost/unholy tips and tricks. DPS wise they are relatively similar and share the same tips and tricks for most part. Beyond all three section not too much differentiation for dps. 

[Anfauglith 6]

Hellfire High Council

 

This will require correct guild execution. When Bloodboil starts rampaging, pop all available CD's and target focus him. He takes increased amount of damage during this period. However, this will require your guild members to correctly position the boss so that he is 25 yards away from Dia Darkwhisper.

 

Kilrogg

 

Save AMS for Kilrogg's Death Throes, because it helps with the huge amount of AoE damage, and it gives you a lot of RP. 

[simpetar 12]

Kilrogg:

Chillbains will slow all adds and you can even use CoI to root the small ones, buying precious time.

 

Gorefiend:

As Blood, you can safely use Chillbains + glyph of BB to spread diseases farther. There is not much movement involved for tanks as for others.

AMZ will help with raid CD weaving during Feast of Souls.

[simpetar 12]

Hellfire Assault:

 

Gorebound Terror (Felcaster after the transform) Fellfire Volley can be dark simmed: the glyph is extra useful. Note: it deals set amount of damage to every target; obviously the more targets there are, the more effective it is.

Edited June 28, 2015 by simpetar

[Anfauglith 6]

Socrethar

 

You can Dark Simulacrum the Shadow Word: Agony from the Shadowcallers for some insane DPS. Having multiple DK's on this fight enables you to get insane amount of DPS out of it, because every time you cast it, it refreshes its duration and adds a stack. Sample log of what I'm talking about: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/qdba4HWYtcCwNMB8#fight=14&type=damage-done (We kind of went overboard there xD)

 

Glyph of Runic Power is useful because of the slowing fire the boss spawns when he charges. Glyph of Dark Simulacrum for spamming SWA more often.

 

Shadow-Lord Iskar

 

Blood Boil just before Iskar leaves the platform to spread your DoT's on the spawning adds.  

Edited June 29, 2015 by Anfauglith

[luxipux 0]

Socrethar

 

You can Dark Simulacrum the Shadow Word: Agony from the Shadowcallers for some insane DPS. Having multiple DK's on this fight enables you to get insane amount of DPS out of it, because every time you cast it, it refreshes its duration and adds a stack. Sample log of what I'm talking about: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/qdba4HWYtcCwNMB8#fight=14&type=damage-done (We kind of went overboard there xD)

So, first DK is applying SW:A to the boss and all the following are adding stacks to his application right? So if I'm the only DK in our raid it will not make that huge numbers as I cannot maintain high stack debuff on the boss myself?

[Shine 144]

on killrog, glyphed death and decay may help out with slowing adds even more. 

 

on Iskar Death's advance is practically mandatory to hold out on the winds as long as possible. (we by the way used warlocks for portals here and a rogue can run into it fairly long using sprint.)

 

(UNCONFIRMED) on socrethar I think I saw that less stacks of the debuff (from the construct) were applied while using rune tap as a tank. in general melee dps should aim to always soak the debuff with you anyways, yet when I took one alone and used runetap I only gained 2 stacks as far as I could see. 

I will try to cnfirm this if I can. if this is true than maybe IBF would work even better.

[Cowworth 1]

Xhul'horac: Anti-magic shell just before the fel and void minibosses use flurry/gaze to avoid getting Fel/Voidtouched, extremely useful when transitioning from P1 into P2

[Anfauglith 6]

So, first DK is applying SW:A to the boss and all the following are adding stacks to his application right? So if I'm the only DK in our raid it will not make that huge numbers as I cannot maintain high stack debuff on the boss myself?

 

Correct. But looks like this was nerfed, so it is no longer viable. 

[captain9653 0]

Killrog - Blood

  Fairly obvious one, Your Blood Shield from Death Strike can be used to avoid the Shred Armor debuff meaning you can tank him indefinitely with just your normal rotation. 

[simpetar 12]

Xhul´horac - blood

 

AMS completely prevents application of Fel Strike and Void Strike debuff. Glyph of Regenerative Magic is highly recommended. It is most likely an unintended exploit, abuse it while you can :)

Mass grip the imps, it makes the encounter so much easier.

 

Mannoroth

 

Mass grip is useful for obvious reasons. Be careful what target everything will be pulled to (hostile / allies); Infernals stacked on players can cause issues.

[Shine 144]

Fel Reaver, At least as blood, Death's advance goes a long way for artillery. especially if you're 2 tanking on heroic since boss will be using artillery in quite fast succession. this makes it so the boss doesent move so much (Ive seen a bunch of pugs actually 3tankiing this encounter on heroic to minimise boss movement.)

 

Xhul'horac: Gorfiends grasp is practically mandatory imo. if you have 2 or 3 dks grasping the small adds ever time they start casting you prevent almost any fel orb cast coming off. 

[simpetar 12]

New observation for Gorefiend, blood:

 

I had some success with Death Siphon. It helps during Feast of Souls when tank is supposed to soak spirits in the required distance. And during normal phase it gives you another thing to do while chasing adds all over the place. Just make sure that you feel confident enough not to need Death Pact somewhere else in the encounter (e.g. tanking Spirits outside the belly). Not a default recommendation, but worth a consideration.

[Greenleaf 0]

Hello all icy Veins DK's,
i've just created an account to say to all the people reading that 90% of the tips are bullshit.

Watch logs (warcraftlogs) that will help you to chose the right spec/ talents

 

worst advice ever: NP on Kormrok

don't use NP on Kormrok as frost Dk ! not enough burst damage, the hands gonna get rekt, even more in HM.

in Mythic if your raid starts green, just don't use defile at pull or Pillar of frost,

keep them for after the jump and cast 2 sec  before the hands pop. Stack your Blood Tap and spam Howling Blast 4 to 6 times. don't waste empower rune weapon at Pull because fight is less than 5 minutes. (or 5 max).

2nd hands pop Same, you have to keep defile so watch timers, same for pillar of frost.
Empower rune weapon after no Death/ frost rune if hands are not deads if you could stack Rune Tap.

same for Third pop (this is where you should use your Empower rune weapon or just for Bloodlust when you gonna go only MonoTarget).


Be sure to have AMS /ice fortitude/Goule sacrifice with new glyph for the last waves on the room just before the down, gonna be hard time.

 

[demonardvark 556]

Hello all icy Veins DK's,

i've just created an account to say to all the people reading that 90% of the tips are bullshit.

Watch logs (warcraftlogs) that will help you to chose the right spec/ talents

 

worst advice ever: NP on Kormrok

don't use NP on Kormrok as frost Dk ! not enough burst damage, the hands gonna get rekt, even more in HM.

in Mythic if your raid starts green, just don't use defile at pull or Pillar of frost,

keep them for after the jump and cast 2 sec  before the hands pop. Stack your Blood Tap and spam Howling Blast 4 to 6 times. don't waste empower rune weapon at Pull because fight is less than 5 minutes. (or 5 max).

2nd hands pop Same, you have to keep defile so watch timers, same for pillar of frost.

Empower rune weapon after no Death/ frost rune if hands are not deads if you could stack Rune Tap.

same for Third pop (this is where you should use your Empower rune weapon or just for Bloodlust when you gonna go only MonoTarget).

Be sure to have AMS /ice fortitude/Goule sacrifice with new glyph for the last waves on the room just before the down, gonna be hard time.

 

 

lol these are in general tips and tricks to help out not full raid strategies to implement. Viability of any of these can stagger greatly depending on raid strategy. On lfr, norm, and heroic depending np on korm works great and helps get people on the outliers of teh raid group. Outside of mythic you cannot expect your raid group will have complete mastery of the mechanics and properly stack. Mythic changes everything (its really not an unreasonable idea to do a mythic only tips and tricks). If one does reach mythic progression (which despite the people that claim to on interwebs only 7% of players reach which even then what percent dks will reach?) the raid will largely dictate your individual talent choices based upon group need.

[Ladida 0]

Archimonde, glyph of bloodboil can potentially cause problems in the last phase if infernals happen to spawn JUST too close to you, when it applies diseases to them, it will be harder for the assigned people to hold them off you to avoid them from stacking.

[demonardvark 556]

I really need to update this soon XD Work in progress been busy, plan to get to it this week

[demonardvark 556]

Update 1.1? Update complete :) keep sending in those tips and tricks you find.

[LordGhoul 0]

Kilrogg - Also Rune Tap keeps you from getting the Shred Armor debuff. If you're tanking Kilrogg make sure to keep an eye out for adds that may have snuk through, as you can grip them in, and slow them, saving your raid from dealing with an unneccessary add.

Chains of Ice works nicely on the smaller adds, especially useful on the Bloods

 

 

Socrethar -  If you are tanking Socrethar in second phase, position yourself so that you are always within range of gripping the Shadow adds. This leaves dps just worrying about the cleave and not keeping check on when they spawn. If you're not in interrupt rotation on the boss you should use both Mind Freeze and Strangulate to negate the amount of casts going through.

Glyphed DnD may be useful for the ghosts if you are dps, maybe less so as tank as defile makes for smoother damage intake throughout the fight.

[TeamC 6]

Iskar - (Normal/Heroic) Remorseless Winter is a useful talent to help mitigate some damage the smaller adds do during the first 2 Shadow Escape periods. An aoe snare + stun can really take the pressure off the tanks for a few seconds, particularly so if you single tank this fight on Heroic. Use it when the adds get near you/your tank(s), and the quick CD will be ready for the next group. Not useful for the final group of Priest/Warden/Raven, unfortunately.

 

Hellfire High Council - (Normal/Heroic) If you get stuck tanking Dia Darkwhisper, your Defile CD will coincide almost perfectly with her Nightmare Visage usage. Wait until she stops casting the ability, drop Defile, and then just reactively Death Strike whenever you're hit. The Blood Shields you generate from reactive Death Strikes will enable you to get through this phase without the use of any other defensive CDS. Your Mind Freeze + Anti-Magic Shell + Reactive Death Strikes will make absorbing the Shadow Bolt phases cake too. Just keep your diseases up, roll Death Coils when you have the RP for them, and let your Death Strikes make tanking this part of the fight simple.

 

Fel Lord Zakuun - (Normal/Heroic) (Blood) I'm a massive fan of reactive Death Strikes in this fight, particularly in the Unarmed parts and Phase 3. The Blood Shields and healing you can gain from allowing DS to be a reaction instead of part of your rotation can really go a long way to surviving. Couple this approach with Defile for the above periods of the fight as well Glyph of Regenerative Magic to either protect a pillar or simply lessen damage to yourself if a pillar or player is struck by a wave. You can also get away with alternative glyph choices here, because there is nothing else for Blood Boil to hit. Glyph of Raise Ally is a decent choice here just in case you need to Battle Rez someone and you don't have or don't want to spend the RP on it.

 

Mannoroth - (Normal/Heroic) Your Death Grip and Gorefiend's Grasp make you an excellent Infernal position-er. Assuming you aren't actively tanking at the time, you can run off to the side and DG a badly placed Infernal away from yourself/melee/raid, or use GG to move multiples into better position all at once. I'd also recommend Glyph of Blood Boil on this fight to spread your diseases to the Imps and Infernals for a bit extra damage on these. Glyph of Regenerative Magic for some extra protection/extra Runic Power during the Fel Hellstorms; AMS should be up for each Fell Hellstorm. AMS can also be used to help take some of the pressure off the healers during the raid-wide Shadowforce in P4.

 

(Blood) you can get a massive heal + Blood Shield if you time a Death Strike right when you are hit (and thrown back) from Massive Blast. It should heal you almost the full amount you lost from the hit itself, which is particularly handy if your co-tank is a bit slow on the taunt swaps, or if you find yourself having to handle Mannoroth solo for a while because your other tank died.

Edited November 21, 2015 by TeamC

[Peroxidic 0]

Area 52- Blood tank, Tip: norm, heroic, mythic. manno- use ams with regenetive magic glyph for massive blast + glave combo for 100% damage absorb. Can dark sim imps.