Proving Grounds - Endless Tank

[Pinkis 12]

Hi guys. I'm struggling to get all the PG achievements, and so far I'm only left with endless tank. I've tried it as a monk, and found it extreemely difficult as I felt like a mage trying to tank.. So I've gathered some gear for my bear form, respeced and tried as guardian. This was way easier. I still had some problems on gold 10 wave, but it was an obvious misplay so when i got my stuff going I did it. Then I've started learning Endless. In the end I know by heart how to deal with first 5 waves and that's usally not causing me any trouble. I've learnt how to deal with 6th wave, but when 7th wave spawns I'm usually in such a chaos... Main reason for that is Wind-Guard mobs. I have absolutely no idea how to deal with them properly... When there's only one wind-guard it's fine, but when there are two of them, and both of them blow me away I'm lost. Yeah, i know I can taunt one, and force of nature the other, but then a monkey spawns and my precious panda friend gets beaten... 

If I manage to deal with 7th wave, i easily complete wave 8, and wave 9 gives me just as much problems as 7... Wave 10 goes smoothly if I can get back on track after wave 9...

 

I've managed to get to wave 27 (somehow) but then spent like 4 or 5 hours and didn't get past wave 10... It's quite pissing me off when I had the achievement by my grasp and it just slipped away... 

 

As there's a druid who got 29k points, which means he got to 290th wave, it should be not much of a deal to get to 31th wave... Give me all advice you can, I feel pretty desperate.. 

[Lichdom 18]

I've been in your shoes before, trying to get the endless tank achievement with my warrior. I have a detailed write up in my signature that, although is mostly warrior specific, may be of some use to you. That said, here's some advice:

 

* Ignore the PG rankings. Seeing someone get 29k points doesn't make your challenge any less difficult or less meaningful. If its a good challenge for you and you're enjoying it, then just focus on your own score and don't let these high PG scores on ranking sites belittle your efforts. Completing 30 waves on endless IS difficult. Just because some guild can kill Garrosh HC months before most other guilds doesn't lessen the achievement of those other guilds. This is no different.

 

* Memorize the spawn points of all the waves. I usually put markers on the ground to remind me which wave is going to spawn where.

 

* Get into position to pick up the wave BEFORE it spawns. This is especially true for waves 7/9. If the wave spawns and you're halfway across the room dealing with Windguards, you're already behind.

 

* Finally, keep at it! It took me over 70 tries to finally get the achievement on my warrior.

 

Best of luck and hope you get it soon!

 

 

[Pinkis 12]

Thank you for your response  
 
I've read your thoughts on PG prot warrior, and I still have same questions unanswered...
I have put markers down around the room, I do not need them anyway, but they help me to orientate in which part of the circle room I am.
As I've mentioned before, I know how to do first 5 waves. It happens to fail, but atleast I know what I did wrong. 
As for wave 6 I know what to do till first wind-guard dies to keep them off sikari. But the thing is that 2 of them get into wave 7 and that's way beyond hard for me... It's just a chaos. They're blowing me away, ambushers are spawning and on top of that I get a decent amount of damage to tank..
Same goes for wave 9. If only there were no wind-guards I would have progresed and did this...

 

At the start of wave 7 i aoe spawned mobs, take aggro, put down Ursol's Vortex and run away trying to kite them as Sikari aoes them. Then after a while one of the wind-guards catches up to me, blows me away and goes rushing towards sikari. If I stop to get aggro back - I take too much damage and if I don't stop - Sikari dies..

Pretty much same problem is for wave 9. Wind-guards only this would be arguably reasonable, but as ambushers spawn when wind-guards use their blow - I usually die or Sikari gets killed. 

 

So summing things up - the thing is keeping me away from this achievement is wind-guards. 90% of my wipes are cause either directly by them, or by unagroed ambushers, which slip due to wind-guards tossing me around. 

 

One minor thing which would help with 5th and 8th waves is mobs positioning. I'm not sure how to get them stand where I want them to, as sometimes I get that and sometimes I don't. As far as I understand this is one of the basic tank concepts so share some tips with me pls :)

 

P.S.: I know how to get flamecaller to move, just not sure about regular mobs.

[Lichdom 18]

Instead of giving you specific advice, I'll address the overall problem. It seems that when you're out of position, and your taunt is on cooldown, you're out of solutions to grab mobs.

 

You'll have to start weaving in other methods of grabbing agro. Since you're essentially alone in the arena, you'll find that self-healing produces a significant amount of agro. You can use that to grab newly spawned adds. For example, during wave 4, sometimes I don't manage to dodge the conquerer and end up getting stunned just as the ambusher is spawning. I remedy that by popping Enraged Regen, which grabs agro on the ambusher before he reaches Sikari. With the variety of self-heals you have as a druid, you should be able to deploy that to great effect. Just remember that it'll only work on newly spawned mobs, not the windguards that deagro.

 

Also, I'm not sure what talents you're using, but Force of Nature would work very well for the proving grounds. Each treant is essentially a taunt you can use when yours is on cooldown. Use Force of Nature liberally when dealing with windguards that get loose. You may want to even make some macros for it.

 

As for moving mobs into the fire, what I did in my early tries was try to maximize my dps and always place mobs in flame patches, etc. However, Sikari doesn't really need the help. If the dps is low and some mobs leak into the next wave, she aoe's them down all the same. As such, look at your increased dps and flame patch usage as a survivability gain instead of a prerequisite to clearing the waves.

 

If you can boost your dps SAFELY by parking adds in flame patches or popping offensive cooldowns, great. If not, don't get yourself killed trying to maximize your damage. Sikari will manage, just give her time.

 

A final note for dealing with Windguards. Its all about preparation. As much as you can, tank the windguards with Sikari approximately 15-20 yards behind you. So when you get knocked back, you'll still be between the windguards and her. If you get knocked back again, you can still Wild Charge back to the same spot and grab them before they do too much damage. Whenever you need to use a taunt, immediately keep your finger hovering over the treant keybind and get ready to use it when you get knocked back again. Of course, a windguard kited can do no knockbacks, abuse that to the max!

[Pinkis 12]

You'll have to start weaving in other methods of grabbing agro. Since you're essentially alone in the arena, you'll find that self-healing produces a significant amount of agro. You can use that to grab newly spawned adds. For example, during wave 4, sometimes I don't manage to dodge the conquerer and end up getting stunned just as the ambusher is spawning. I remedy that by popping Enraged Regen, which grabs agro on the ambusher before he reaches Sikari. With the variety of self-heals you have as a druid, you should be able to deploy that to great effect. Just remember that it'll only work on newly spawned mobs, not the windguards that deagro.

 

Thank You kind sir!  This thing solves the mystery of newly spawned ambushers randomly runing towards me! That must be when i use Frenzied Regeneration! As I normaly do not play tank I forgot that such mechanic exists. 

 

As for tree talent - I do use them, but they are only "temporary solution", and only works for windguards, so I tend not to depend on them.

 

And yeah, I should stand between wind-guards and my panda friend, but that's not always possible for me, as having too much to deal with tend to mess things up for me. 

 

And the last thing - mob positioning. I'd like to put the mogu guy from wave 10 into fire, so he'd die faster, because I've had a try when that guy came into wave 1.

[Pinkis 12]

Due to some of the points in this thread I've managed to finally get this achievement done!

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/kazzak/Pnks/achievement#15165:15222:a8508

 

Now I know why it is called "Proving Grounds" - I've proven to myself that I can do this :D

 

Thanks for your advice :) 

[Lichdom 18]

That's awesome, well done! I'm glad I was of some help.