Throne of Thunder DK Tank Style

[Ceraius 34]

As Reniat points out, Purgatory is indeed a powerful ability and it can be coordinated to be used for removing the debuff on Durumu. I've never done this, and I haven't found it necessary to do so but I might try it out just to personally see how it goes. Personally I tend to favor LB over Purgatory because of the control, unless there's incoming damage in big spikes. Then I find myself speccing into Purgatory. True enough, the healing debuff affects DC healing also and dumping the RP to Coiling delays the rune gain from the talent, but I've never found this to cause much problems. Thinking back objectively, the RP could be used more efficiently, but subjectively I find myself using LB+DC if I think i need some burst healing.

For the amounts that DC heals, I do not remember the numbers. I'll keep an eye out on our next raid on Sunday to see how much it heals. When I have the numbers I'll see if I should keep it for Durumu or take Purgatory instead.

And yes, I have used it recently on that fight I can see when I get home if i still have that fight on recount from last night, so i could check the numbers rightaway.

As for the DS healing being reduced by the debuff, the healing itself is reduced, but the shield is calculated from the original numbers. Same goes for increased healing buffs like VB and the wings from Holy Priests. DS healing is increased but the shield is calculated from the original numbers.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Ceraius

[BullDozzer 1]

I might try LB out on the next raid. We have not made such use of void shift so that is also an interesting thought.

Ah yea ok, I guess thats good otherwise blood DKs would be horrible on the boss. Thanks for explaining :)

[Ceraius 34]

Iron Qon

AMS prevents a stack of Scorched if you'll have to be soaking Unleashed Flame with the melee group.

You can also run through the lines from the spears with AMS.

[Ceraius 34]

First off, sorry for not delivering the numbers. I have very little time these days to play outside raiding so I like to spend it actually playing.

Lei Shen

Tips and Tricks

- (10man) As a Blood DK its easy to solo a quadrant during the first transition phase. Overcharge and Static Shock do not target tanks and even if you cant always soak both Bouncing Bolts you should easily manage an add or two for the rest of the transition.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Ceraius

[Reniat 23]

I dont think that's possible for 25m. maybe 10? I don't do any 10m raiding so im not sure how many bouncing balls spawn, but i know it's not possible to absorb all the balls in 25m. You'd get like 4 adds on the first bounce, 3 adds on the second wave, 2 on the third, 1 on the 4th and and then finally soak the last one (assuming you don't get a chance to soak two, which you can't rely on). This means 10 total adds that now have to be dpsed down, which takes damage away from the boss.

Static shock and overcharge aren't really that difficult to deal with, and you soloing a quadrant doesn't make it any easier for other people since no matter where they go they will have to learn and deal with the mechanics anyway.

[Storm 426]

It's definitely possible to solo a quadrant on Lei Shen in 10 man. We typically have our paladin tank do it, but I could easily solo a quadrant on my DK also.

25man it isn't possible, but I don't even see why you'd want to attempt it if you can have 6-7 people in every quadrant.

[Tarazet 144]

Ceraius is correct. The same is true forSlimed on the Ji-kun encounter. If AMS (regardless of glyph) is up when the DoT expires you will not gain the stacking increased dmg debuff. This means a DK tank can soak pools much more comfortably than other tanks over the course of the fight who may have 4-5 stacks of the debuff (which is +100%-125% extra damage from the DoT).

Not only Blood DK's - the DPS specs can also use it to benefit from the extra RP generation. Our Frost DK was a stud on that bird.

[Ceraius 34]

I dont think that's possible for 25m. maybe 10? I don't do any 10m raiding so im not sure how many bouncing balls spawn, but i know it's not possible to absorb all the balls in 25m. You'd get like 4 adds on the first bounce, 3 adds on the second wave, 2 on the third, 1 on the 4th and and then finally soak the last one (assuming you don't get a chance to soak two, which you can't rely on). This means 10 total adds that now have to be dpsed down, which takes damage away from the boss.

Static shock and overcharge aren't really that difficult to deal with, and you soloing a quadrant doesn't make it any easier for other people since no matter where they go they will have to learn and deal with the mechanics anyway.

Yes, the tip is indeed for 10man. I shouldve specified that. My apologies. I'll edit in the info.

As for its usefulness, for us it somewhat helped getting the amount of people/certain combination of people grouped up in the other corners. Doing this is far from necessary, but its an alternative to try out.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Ceraius

[sofuchief 0]

thanks for the advice guys really helps

Edited May 16, 2013 by sofuchief

[Maruah 0]

On Jin'rokh, if you glyph Icebound Fortitude, you will have the spell up for every Thundering Throw, allowing you to taunt and minimize the amount of static dealt by the other tank as well as pull the boss over to the pool for optimal melee time in the waters.

[Lighttouched 2]

Megaera

Useful talents:

Anti-Magic Zone: Can be used to help mitigate the incoming damage during Rampage.

Purgatory: Can and should be choosed over Anti-Magic Zone if you are having issues staying alive. (The damage-reduction from Anti-Magic Zone is not much and having a living tank is more important)

Death Pact: This boss have tanks take huge chunks of damage over short periods (3 seconds) so a quick and big heal is the most useful in my own opinion.

Death's Advance: Making the switching and relocating faster. It is not crucial, but helpfull, and there is no other talent in the tier affecting the fight in any way.

Useful glyphs:

Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell: Is useful since this will allow you to fully absorb the breaths rather than still taking 25% of the damage.

Glyph of Icebound Fortitude: Will make Icebound Fortitude available for more breaths, but makes it a lot harder to time. (Duration=Breath)

Tips and Tricks:

Use Anti-Magic Shell and Icebound Fortitude on as many breaths as possible, but do not use them on the same breath.

Save cooldowns such as trinkets and Dancing Rune Weapon for when you are tanking the Flaming Head, since Ignite Flesh is the most painful of the tank debuffs.

Try to not use any greater personal survival cooldowns during the Rampage. The healers will be aoe-healing in large amounts anyway and together with our Death Strike that will be enough to keep us topped.

Rather than using Army of the Dead before pull, use it during the last Rampage to benefit from the reduced

damage taken, aswell as (most probably) benefiting from the Bloodlust.

If you got a Resto Shaman with you, spam Death Strike during Spirit Link Totem to aid the overall health of the group. Also consider using your tier 4 selfheal talent.

If you use Anti-Magic Zone as a personal bubble and glyph for Icebound Fortitude, you effectively have a cooldown available for every breath. This allows you to use Anti-Magic Field and Anti-Magic Zone for the 3rd/4th stacks of red and the 1st stack of whatever the next head is. This greatly reduces the spikiness of the damage from the dot with the breath.

[Lighttouched 2]

On Jin'rokh, if you glyph Icebound Fortitude, you will have the spell up for every Thundering Throw, allowing you to taunt and minimize the amount of static dealt by the other tank as well as pull the boss over to the pool for optimal melee time in the waters.

If you are human, Every Man For Himself can also be used on every other stun.

[Grahf 0]

Lei Shen 10m

Tip: AMS through South Conduit Overcharge

Finally got some good attempts in on Lei Shen last night and I was tasked with tanking Lei Shen most of the first phase. Our Prot warrior would start, and then grab him right before Decapitate, I'd taunt back and he could leap outta there for minimal damage. However that put me in a position to tank while everyone stacked on the person with Overcharge. Not sure if it was just positioning, but I always got hit and stunned for a few seconds... annoying more than deadly. However if you use AMS you can avoid the stun entirely. Not sure if you need to be glyphed or not. This could also be useful to a Frost or Unholy DK so they don't have to stop DPS to get to a safe spot.

Next week I'm going to attempt to solo a quadrant, thanks for the tip!

[Ceraius 34]

Its great fun soloing a quadrant. Also, don't sweat it if you cant make it to all the swirls because sometimes its just impossible. You should be able to easily hold at least two adds while soloing.

[nicarlitos 13]

We killed Tortos heroic 25M last night, I was tanking the boss. The bats were kited for the entire encounter by our brewmaster.

I would recommend gemming for some extra stamina and use a stamina trinket. This will allow you to create really huge shields from the humming crystals. Its still always important to time a death strike before a snapping bite, otherwise your shield might drop.

I expect that its possible to keep it up for the entire encounter, but mine did drop a couple of times.

I found that death pact was a nice way to top off the shield when needed.

The only tricky thing was standing in a decent position so as to be able to stay in melee range of the boss and be able to hit the crystal at a moment's notice.

Very fun fight to tank.

I did notice that my blood shields seemed slightly gimped...I'm assuming that this was because I wasn't actually taking much damage. It was the humming crystal shield that was.

One final tip- use weak auras to track the humming crystal's shield. I think it would have been impossible without it!

[Tyrendorf 1]

Megaera

Useful talents:

1) Death's Advance is great for a quickly spread out after Rampage, specially if the raid stack close to the red head and you need to tank the green one, for exemple.

2) Anti-Magic Zone could be usefull to minimize the raid damage during Rampage, but the overall damage reduction is pretty low, so you could prefer go with Purgatory. The choose depends on your gear/exp/trust on your healer and your own survivability. If your are not used to Megaera fight, go with Purgatory+Death Pacth for a second chance.

Useful glyphs:

1) Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell is good to reduce the damage of Acid Rain, if your going to use it in this way. If your are going to minimize the damage of the head's breath attacks, you should use it unglyphed (it will provide a damage reduction during more time, making you less "spiky").

2) Glyph of Icebound fortitude is good if you are having trouble with the physical damage after the third breath of the green head, so your can use it in every green head rotation (if your are killing the green head only 2 times, you probably don't need the glyph it to have in every rotation).

Tips and Tricks:

1) Is possible for a DK to do not take almost any phisical damage during Megaera encounter by pooling Death Shield during Rampage (+700k) and keep it up during the head kill. It's is doable for a 515 ilvl DK, if the raid keep a balance between the number of head (that reduce the stacks of Hidra Frenzy to 2, at the maximum).

For this, is important to keep a eye in Blood Shield duration, specially during when moving after rampage and never let it fades.

Lao-chin's Liquid Courage and Jade Warlord Figure are extremely usefull trinkets to quickly rise your Blood Shield after the second breath of each head.

Doing this you neutralize the debuff of green head, leaving your Defensive CDs only for the red one.

2) If you are not having trouble with breaths attacks, you can use your Anti-Magic Shell to absorve the damage of Acid Rain and using the extra runic power to do more DPS, regenerate more runes (more Runic Strikes = more Deaths Strikes) or use Magic Rune Weapon.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Tyrendorf

[Shine 144]

Megaera:

Talents:

• Anti-Magic Zone (for the rampages, when raid is stacked)
• Desecrated Ground (UNCONFIRMED, Might be able to break the 20 seconds stun from Arctic Freeze, in case the tankswitch is too long)
• Plague Leech (is always good on fights where you focus on one target at a time)
• Purgatory (is always good as a lifesaver)

Glyphs:

• Glyph of Vampiric Blood is in near all cases a good advise.
• Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell to soak any form of magical damaging ability (of wich there are plenty in this encounter)
• Glyph of Icebound Fortitude Good for breaths
• Glyph of Death and Decay (Good for adds on HC)

Thats it for now

[Tarazet 144]

Megaera:

Talents:

• Anti-Magic Zone (for the rampages, when raid is stacked)
• Desecrated Ground (UNCONFIRMED, Might be able to break the 20 seconds stun from Arctic Freeze, in case the tankswitch is too long)
• Plague Leech (is always good on fights where you focus on one target at a time)
• Purgatory (is always good as a lifesaver)

Glyphs:

• Glyph of Vampiric Blood is in near all cases a good advise.
• Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell to soak any form of magical damaging ability (of wich there are plenty in this encounter)
• Glyph of Icebound Fortitude Good for breaths
• Glyph of Death and Decay (Good for adds on HC)

Thats it for now

You can also use Glyph of IBF to stay on blue head full-time, if your strategy calls for it.

[Shine 144]

You can also use Glyph of IBF to stay on blue head full-time, if your strategy calls for it.

I guess you could.

[Boeffen 0]

Hello fellow tanks and other people. I am rather new to raiding in Pandaria, and I think it would be a good idea to actually describe the tanking on the bosses. The description text aswell as the videos really doesn't cover specifics in the actual tanking (at how many stacks to taunt, placement of tanks and boss and other concerns). I used tankspot back in the day, but I find your site superior :)

As a noob, I really feel that it could use some more specific descriptions to the different roles, instead of just describing the fights. Maybe even make 3 different videos for each role.

I hope I am not coming off as a know-it-all, because I really am not.

Yours sincerely, Boeffen.

[Ceraius 34]

This thread, as you can see, is specifically directed towards a single class and spec and how that specific spec can improve in ways that might not be obvious right off the bat. These threads assume you to have some general knowledge of the fights.

The general guides on the site are good to read as its good to know more than just your job, and if tanking pointers are all you're looking for, those aren't too difficult to find on the general guides.

Bottom line is, you won't know the fight through and through until you've done it yourself. No matter how many videos you watch or guides you read, some things might still catch you off guard the very first time youre there.

Dont get that wrong, its very good to prepare with the vids and guides (thats why they're there) but to kill anything you have to go and do it.

I hope I didn't come off as offensive there :P

[Shine 144]

Hello fellow tanks and other people. I am rather new to raiding in Pandaria, and I think it would be a good idea to actually describe the tanking on the bosses. The description text aswell as the videos really doesn't cover specifics in the actual tanking (at how many stacks to taunt, placement of tanks and boss and other concerns). I used tankspot back in the day, but I find your site superior

As a noob, I really feel that it could use some more specific descriptions to the different roles, instead of just describing the fights. Maybe even make 3 different videos for each role.

I hope I am not coming off as a know-it-all, because I really am not.

Yours sincerely, Boeffen.

I must say I kinda agree with Ceraius here. To learn a fight you shouldnt be looking at letters, but rather trying them out yourself. Tank style can change quite alot depending on who else is in your party.

(at how many stacks to taunt, placement of tanks and boss and other concerns)

The taunting at a number of stacks is not something you should find on the internet. Sites like Icy-Veins may be able to give some pointers to it, but it all depends on you, your colleague tank and your healers. Some teams choose to break a stack earlier or wait a stack longer because they're confident about their DPS/Healing/Tanking. If there is anything important about placement of tanks and/or bosses, it is probably mentioned in the guide for the boss here. There are only 3 general rules to tanking placement, and even these have a bunch of exceptions.

• Always face the boss, dont turn your back on him.
• Always have the boss face away from your raid.
• Never stand directly behind the other tank when he/she has the agro. (This is because of breaths etc.)

For the rest there is not much to say about it, each fight is different and if you talk to your team, you will get the answers you need.

Cheers

Shine

[Boeffen 0]

My concern is LFR, people are really impatient and rude. They expect you to know everything :-/ You get alot of flames when wiping.

[Oltier 471]

My concern is LFR, people are really impatient and rude. They expect you to know everything :-/ You get alot of flames when wiping.

Just send a whisper to the other tank, and say: "hey, at how many stacks do we swap, and do you want to start? I forgot it..."

Or, you should tell the other tank in LFR, that you gonna start tanking. hopefully, he will know when to taunt off (DBM yells! :D, but really if his/your HP is getting low constantly just swap), then you just taunt when your debuff has expired. At least this is what I usually do.. :D

[Ceraius 34]

I agree with Oltier on the whisperstuff. I sometimes get the "what to do whispers" from my co-tank if i'm running LFR, and I gotta say I respect that a whole lot more than the ones who just charge in and have no clue what they're doing and are too proud/dumb to ask for pointers.

As for the taunting at X stacks, a good general rule is to taunt back when your stacks have fallen off regardless of the number of the stacks.

Unless the fight mechanics force a certain pattern. HC Ji-Kun comes to mind where the tanks have to fly to specific nests.