Leotheras

[Oranniv]

Hello, I've been reading the site now for about two weeks but finally registered today to ask a few questions.

Do you guys have any success stories or vids I can show to my guild leadership concerning the Leotheras fight?

We started working on him today and it seems they do not want to consider using me as a MT for this fight. I've brought up several times over the last few weeks in casual discussion that the boss would be best MT'd by a paladin and there just seems to be an unspoken drive against it.

It just seemed humorous to me listening to ventrilo tonight as they were trying to figure out a way for the warrior MT to be able to grab aggro better. On our first few attempts I was purposefully trying to hold aggro on him during WW and the officers made a big deal about it, including the RL saying "why does Oranniv have aggro instead of the MT".

They finally told me not to do anything during WW to let the MT get aggro, which is just sillymode raiding to me. He was putting on DPS gear to try and hold him too. Oh, out of the few solid attempts we made where I was working on holding aggro over the MT, we made it to 37%. Once I stopped and just basically was a judgement-bot we ended up having a wipefest because of a total lack of control on the boss.

Idk, I'm basically frustrated. The guild seems to hold a complete lack of understanding regarding how paladins work on so many levels it's a wonder I haven't gquit yet.

[Buttertoast]

that's such garbage, man.
ditch those tools, you can't educate willfully ignorant people like that.

[Lore]

There is no MT on the Leotheras encounter. There are tanks, and whichever tank happens to have aggro at the moment is the one that is tanking him.

I have a fraps somewhere at home, I'll try to remember to edit and upload it later.

Also, take a look at PsiVen's writeup of the encounter here: http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintanka ... .php?t=636

[Oranniv]

Thanks Lore, I had seen that post by psiven this morning. I guess my guild thinks there is only one MT on this fight and they're trying to operate in this manner. I had kinda figured it was at least between two tanks and that's what I saw last night (and in reading strats elsewhere). It was usually the MT or myself that had aggro when he was in his humanoid phase last night also.

It just seems really odd they want me to back off and let him try to get aggro however and I know it's the wrong approach. I'll bring it up tonight and if they don't want to try it that way...maybe I'll just offer to sit instead to save myself a night of wipes.

[Lore]

There really isn't time to sit around and let a specific person get aggro. He has a very quick enrage timer, and even after killing him for weeks we still cut it very close most nights, with less than half a minute remaining (just last night we killed him with 6 seconds to spare). Your tanks HAVE to generate threat as fast as possible so your DPS can go nuts, waiting around for a specific tank to grab it is wasting precious seconds. That means from a tanking standpoint, anyone who can take the hits needs to be going wild on threat, and the healers just spam away on whoever he happens to be targetting at the moment.

A Paladin tank can pick him up better than any other tank due to Avenger's Shield, and his fast attacks work very nicely for Holy Shield threat. It's a DPS race encounter, and he doesn't do a particularly large amount of damage, which means you're a real asset to getting him down in time for the enrage. I would try to talk things out with your raid leaders and explain this to them. If they aren't listening...

[Bendekar]

I MainTank human form Leotheras, it works like a charm. Together with an appropriately-specced warlock for Demon Form tanking, this fight is not difficult from a tanking point of view.

Avenger's Shield is outstanding for picking him up coming out of whirlwind, start casting it with 1 sec left on Whirlwind duration and *he comes to you*. Makes it very easy to keep a consistent positioning for him during each Normal phase. Misses do happen, so if he paths very far away either move towards him and prepare to judge Righteousness, or pop a quick flash of light on whomever he first targets to gain aggro.

Barring the very unlikely miss/resist combo, there are no aggro problems. I pick him up, he hits my Holy Shield once or twice in quick succession, meanwhile DPS have already started unloading.

When he switches to Demon form, swing Wisdom for mana, and drop heals on folks fighting their inner demons (or on the demon form tank if several healers are fighting their inner demons). With <5 seconds left before he returns to Normal form, put down Consecrate, Seal of Righteousness, and Holy Shield, and judge Righteousness as soon as he reverts.

Mine is the only guild on the server that went to Leotheras after Lurker in SSC. The other guilds all have warrior MTs and fight Leo as late as possible in their SSC progression. I can imagine how maddening this fight would be with warriors tanking.

[Oranniv]

Unfortunately, I think they are biased against paladins for some reason. On last nights attempts I literally had aggro at least as often as the MT until they told me to stop. So...tonight I'm just going to sit out.

I was using different things to grab aggro from SOV dots, to judging righteousness, avengers shield, and max rank consecrations. It's just silly when they had me sitting back watching the MT run around pretending to get aggro.

The warriors are currently doing theorycraft in their forums on how to get control of him.

The only reason they let me go prot in the first place was because I had the gear already, and two of the most reliable tanks took vacation for like 3 weeks at a time. As holy, I was near 99% raid attendence, and I had been prot for a long time before so it just made sense to have me fill the gap.

Eh, this is getting off topic now . I've seen a lot of vids now of the fight, and this site is a solid source of knowlege. We'll see what happens tonight.

[Johnar]

Ive tanked Leo in human form and paladins have good tools for him.

I judge wisdom on him and use SoV.

Get a good stack on him in demon form. Right before he changes consecrate and then judge vengeance right after he changes.

When he WWs use avengers shield to get aggro. Also later in the fight hell be below 20% and you can use HoW also.

He doesnt hit very hard I use high threat gear for him.

We have a warrior in FR gear tank his demon form with a warlock to back him up at the end of the fight because the fight is very hectic at the end and people tend to die.

For the human form, another warrior and I fight for aggro. As long as its not our MT I get aggro. Our MT puts out a lot of threat and I cant routinely beat him in threat.

[kedalic]

Makes sure that your dps/healers have the transitions (the end of WW, and the end/start of demon form) called out so they can stop heals/dps 2-3 seconds before them. The WW phase is just about survival, not DPS (although getting some in is nice, and will mostly happen after a tank solidly picks him up). If your dps is still continueing during a transition, yell at them to not suck.

The biggest advantage of the prot pally on that fight, besides the superior pickup skills, is that you won't lose to your inner demon. Both our warrior and druid MT's have gotten MCed multiple times, because they just can't kill their demons in full tank gear. Holy damage simply destroys them, however. Lastly, from 20% and below, you gain Hammer of Wrath to help pick up the human form after a WW (the demon form transition is easy, just drop consecrate/judge where he is standing). Lastly, as has been mentioned, time your Hammer of Wrath/AS to go off right as the WW ends, which should keep him going right at ya. Lastly, wear threat gear, he hits like a girl (1.7k avg hit, crush is 6k if you don't have shield up), and bring lots of mana pots ;p. Oh, and when he splits at 15%, his demon form will be where he was standing, so don't consecrate and pop trinkets, unless you want to aoe tank both ;p.

[Eloff]

I'm running into similar guild problems now that we've progressed onto 25 mans. I'm an officer of my guild and have been with them for over 2 years now. The problem is we have a designated raid leader who runs raids and he is sleeping with our female GM...

I'm very likely to leave my guild soon in search of 'a guild like the one we used to have'. LOL! And they'll have to welcome pally tanks of course!

We haven't progressed to this guy, but I was forced into the 'judgement of light bot' role during our first Void Reaver attempt. I explained in threads before the fight, and in vent immediately before the fight, that paladin tanks generate the most threat by being hit. Therefore, I NEED to be the first tank in the rotation (and judgement of light instead of SotC would kill my off-tank threat). Somehow this concept boggled the mind of our MT warrior...

It really sucks for me, because over 80% of the guild absolutely LOVES my tanking. A few even spoke up during Void Reaver, but basically got ignored.

[Nich]

I like the Leotheras fight - the warrior tanks all out-gear me, so there's no guarantee I'll pick him up after a WW, if they're within range to SS, etc.

The thing is tho', they're very reliant on spell reflect to kill their inner demons - and if they only get one shadow thingo to reflect, they're rolling the dice on whether they'll kill it in time.

If you're in a guild that doesn't look fonly on tankadins, then this fight can really show them, if your warrior tanks bite the dust and you can pick Leotheras up in time

[Oranniv]

Well, the thing that boggles my mind is that I was picking him up as often as the MT and they told me to stop.

Now they're talking about having a feral druid in there to put lacerates on him. Face + desk^infinity.

If you look at my armory profile I have the gear, and if I can pull as much aggro as the MT and still keep HS up...

I told the raid leader I was "confused as to my role" on last nights Leo attempts and he told me "don't pull aggro, try to pick him up if the MT can't". Basically, they want me to stand as far away from WW as possible, but if the MT can't get it somehow manage to run across the whole raid to somehow pick him up before he kills the raid. There happened to be all three of our guild hunters in the raid for the first time ever also...

I felt so useless in the fight I can't describe it. Oh, we managed to get him to 6%, but considering the first 75% is easy I think we need a lot more tweaking before a kill happens.

[Gideon]

Our first attempts used multiple tanks and we just scrambled for aggro. The phrase I used with my fellow officers was "moving at the speed of the fastest pickup."

Since then we've stripped it down to just our best prot warrior and myself. Somewhat embarrassingly, his 700BV Shield Slams often beat my 350SP Avenger's Shields. WTB more threat gear.

As an aside: My guild left this boss until we managed to recruit a warlock who wasn't on crack.

[Lore]

Yeah, Oranniv, it seems like your raid leader just doesn't understand the encounter. There is no MT for the Leotheras fight.

[Eliane]

We sort of divide the playing field between me and our MT on Leo. I go left and he goes right when he WWs. We also stick a searing totem down in the middle (works great).

If he stops WW towards the middle of the room, we both go for him, competing for aggro and whoever gets him tanks until the next WW.

When I dont have aggro I go out and top people up if needed and during demon phase I help healing the one with inner demons.