LFR and tanking mechanics

[Beachninja 0]

Hello!

 

It seems that many fights in LFR the tank mechanics are not actually required. I've DPS'd and healed many of them, and even though DBM announces to me that a tank switch should happen, often there is no switch and the tanks don't seem to take much more damage. 

 

The raid guides on this site are absolutely awesome, but they often don't state when mechanics are not a concern in LFR. 

 

Is there a place to research this before I take my tank into LFR and try out these fights?

 

Thanks!

[Moozedude 47]

Certain fights the mechanics are overcome by advanced gearing, both of the tank and of the raid.  Other fights, a mechanic is legitimately removed, and two tanks are no longer required.

 

I have a 550 Prot Warrior, without the cloak.  I ran wings 1 and 2 of SoO the other day, and this is what I experienced.  I brought a totally inexperienced and undergeared tank (501 ilvl Prot Warrior) guildmate that I was showing the ropes and trying to help farm lootz.  It also allowed me to control the encounters, because I had the tank in my pocket and could just tell him what to do and he would do it.  I also brought a pair of overgeared DPS (555+) just to ensure quick burns.  My pocket healer was running an RP event, so I had to trust the luck of the draw.

 

When geared and with proper CD usage, Immerseus is easily solo-tankable.  The end of the fight is the hardest part.  What happens is the first two Phase 1 occurances, you probably are gonna take two Corrosive Blasts.  Using a magic-damage CD makes the second one negligible, and then your stacks clear during Phase 2.  Then you'll have some waves where you get only one stack.  But toward the late middle, almost end, if not enough blobs are getting killed, you'll be hovering at one blast, and then there isn't enough time between waves and you start gaining stacks.  Then the 1st Phase becomes so short that he doesn't even have time to blast, and you're home free.  I had previously solo-tanked this encounter, and had gained up to 5 stacks because the raid damage was low and phases were going to long.  But popping big CDs and having reasonable healing can get you by.

 

Protectors is very very difficult to solo-tank at this time, purely because of the way Vengeful Strikes and Gouge can synergize to kill the raid.  Also, the add phases get really challenging, and trying to take Anguish and Rook together is brutal.  I have tanked both bosses for about a two-minute stint a couple times if my cotank dies, but I don't feel it is sustainable at my current gearing.

 

Norushen is interesting.  The fact that it randomly pulls the tank into the test phase can really upset a solo-tank effort.  However, my dps friends used defensive cooldowns and bounced the boss back and forth for the 30 seconds while I killed my add in the test.  I ended the fight with something like 10 stacks of the debuff, my co-tank had managed a swap early on before he died for the third time.  I would like to point out that I soloed a previous Flex attempt and got up to 17 stacks before we wiped to the enrage.

 

Sha's tank-swap mechanic does not exist in LFR.  If you're buff enough to take his damage, you can solo him.  The off-tank usually rounds up reflections and keeps them bunched for AOE, or just plain swaps to a DPS set to burn it down faster.  Also, soloing this fight generates a LOT of vengeance for LFR;  I easily end up doing like 50% greater DPS than usual, and often rank on the meter in top 5, because, you know, LFR.

 

Galakras is pretty much not soloable due to mechanics, unless you wanna lose half the raid on the way.  If you managed somehow to convince the raid to use a zerg strat with no tower tank and just cross your fingers that Shoot doesn't obliterate half of them, you might pull it off.  But that requires strategy in LFR, and we all know how likely that is.

 

Iron Jug is probably doable.  I got to eight stacks of the debuff, the other tank kept standing in fire and his stacks kept refreshing, so we couldn't swap.  The siege phase will clear your stacks, so you only have to hold up for a couple minutes at a time.

 

I know it is possible to do Dark Shaman with no tank swap, but I'm not sure you can also tank both bosses while doing it.  There is a lot of damage going out there.  I have accumulated 53 stacks from Froststorm Strike before the amplification finally got so large it one-shot me from max health with a CD rolling.  Plus side, insta-brez, and my stacks were cleared.  Profit.

 

Naz would be really hard because his stacking debuff doesn't kill just you, it kills the whole raid.  The more stacks, the more rage, the more ravagers, the more wipe.  It's probably safest to keep a friend for this.

 

These are the fights I have personally experimented with.  I know Malk is doable, because I saw an Arms warrior solo-tank it once.  There was ridiculous healing taking place in that fight, it was one of those one-in-a-million moments.  But it can be done.  Spoils is not at all soloable.  It's just now.  Split raid is split, you can't just run back and forth and tank both sides.  Thok is very solo-tankable, seen it many times.  Seigecrafter you need two so you can kill the shredder away from the boss.  Paragons I've never seen it done, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.  Garry has several specifically solo-tank strats in Flex, so yeah, it can be done.

 

Most of it comes down to being able to get the other tank to let you do it, having healers capable of keeping up with increased damage due to higher stacks, and having the DPS to push phases and end fights before your stacks get out of hand.

 

Good luck, and have a blast!

[AMonkeyCourier 2]

Blackfuse and Paragons are both soloable in nm and below. You just need sufficient gear to take enough stacks from Blackfuse to brute-force the shredders through the healing and Paragons are a matter of burning down Skeer and Xaril quickly when they spawn.

Edited July 26, 2014 by AMonkeyCourier

[Moraras 1]

Contrary to what the posts below me say, whenever I go into an lfr for the first time, regardless of what I hear, i treat the bosses as though all the mechanics matter. The exceptions being Sha of Pride and Garrosh. Unlike normal and above, sha is a one tank fight since he dose not apply the tank debuff. 

 

For Garrosh, i've been asked many times to go dps because the other tank was geared and asked me to in whispers. Otherwise, one takes adds, one gets boss phase one, then the rest is a tank swap on 3 stacks. 

 

Aside from that, I've begun tanking each fight as though it was normal and made adjustments as I've seen. Like opening all the large crates first in Spoils or, going back to tier 14, tanking all the adds and boss during the Mel'jarak fight.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Moraras