SSC Trash Question

[Alienne]

My guild has recently let me go full-time prot, and it's going quite well so far, but because I leveled and raided exclusively as holy before, I sometimes have trouble figuring out the best way to handle a pull. I'm wondering if you guys could offer me some advice on how to deal with the first 3 pulls of SSC.

They look like this:
[1. Screamer] . . [2. Bat] . . [3. Tamer] . . [4. Bat] . . [5. Screamer]

What we've been trying to do is have other tanks on 1, 3, and 5 right where they stand, while I tank the bats where the rest of the raid stands. But we're having troubles getting the bats to actually come to me.

First we tried having 2 hunters each misdirect a bat onto me, but because the misdirects can't be used at the same time, it took a while to get the second one up to me, and we had some trouble with it sticking on one of the other tanks. And we don't always run with 2 hunters, so we can't always do that.

Then we tried having me use Avenger's Shield on 3 (to grab 2 and 4 at the same time), and then having a hunter MD it onto its correct tank. But AS never works correctly! I've seen it hit 1, 3, and 5; or 3, 4, and 5. Never the ones I'm trying to hit.

What has worked a couple of times is to have a mage start nuking whichever bat isn't coming to me, then I can taunt it off him without worrying about getting the other tanks' mobs as well. But this is pretty risky for the mage, and leaves my taunt unusable if dps opens up too quickly on the other bat.

Does anyone have any suggestions for this? Or maybe alternate strategies? It's getting pretty frustrating seeing unnecessary deaths on these pulls.

[Cimzar]

It sounds to me like the dps is starting off on the pets....why? The tamer should be the first target, after which the pets get sheeped and you can help with the sirens, if you are not already tanking one (I tank a siren and one or two of the pets usually)

Your best tool for initial aggro is Seal of Righteousness. It is instant, ranged, and a good amount of threat. That is what you should be using for every pull you can't start with your shield (which is most of them in SSC). If you are taking both pets (which are not actually bats, mind you), SoR the first one, and then taunt the second one with Righteous Defense.

[Steve]

We polymorph the bats. Only one bat can be enraged at a time, so a tank will pick up the enraged one and tank it until it's no longer enraged, at which point it is polymorphed again.

Once the tamer is dead, the bats stay polymorphed and you just kill things one at a time. Screamers first then the bats.

Paladin is a pretty poor choice for picking up the bats in this strat though since you are pretty screwed if you get silenced. You can clear it with divine shield/cancelbuff, but it's pretty easy to get silenced multiple times in the small window the tamer is still alive.

You could do it but it's going to be notably harder for you than a warrior or feral druid.

You'd be best off on a screamer or tamer.

[Cimzar]

They are nether rays, not bats.


A paladin is actually preferred for the pets, since they can tank them reactively and not break sheeps due to bad timing. Just start the fight by taunting them or using JoR. I usually tank them along with a screamer, so the JoR goes on the screamer and the taunt on the pets.

Once you pull them away from the group (I pull them on the far side of the tanks so the pets charge doesn't go into the heal/dps group) do a single top rank consecrate to glue them to you, and keep holy shield up between silences.

Since you are away from the heal/dps group, they will not be aggro'ing either of the pets, so your reactive damage is plenty to keep them on you until they are sheeped. The charge is kinda annoying to whatever tank is getting it, but that's what they are there for.

[jere]

They are nether rays, not bats.

They are spore bats, not nether rays

[Lethara]

Hi,

we normally focus the bats first as they die very fast.
We normally use 3 tanks for this pull. The warrior tanks the tamer where he stands and a feral druid tanks the 2 screamer close to the warrior (the feral just runs in grabs one and get a missdirect for the other one).
We start with me running in first and I drop a consecration for initial aggro, with a JoR / the consecration and holy shield I have enough aggro to allow the dps to start immediately at one of the spore bats, while I tank both bats I move back to the raid and away from the screamer to avoid the silence.
Once the bats are down we kill the tamer and then the screamer.

This works good for our raidgroup .

[Therem]

We don't polymorph, as we found it not reliable enough. We have two def-warries on the screamers, 2 off-warries on the bats and myself on the tamer. Kill order is Bats, Screamers and tamer last.

In general when doing trashmob groups I usually tank the mob that's killed last for the simple reason that otherwise I sometimes need breaks for drinking - this way, I'm always at 80-90% Mana so we can pull the next group right away.

[honorshammer]

What's stopping you from tanking the Tamer and the Bats. Only need 3 tanks that way.

[adese]

What's stopping you from tanking the Tamer and the Bats. Only need 3 tanks that way.

We actually do it this way. I shield pull the tamer, run in and drop a consecrate, and hold aggro on any thing that sticks to me. Warrior tanks build aggro on the screamers incase I get silenced at an inopportune time.

While I sometimes die if the healers are sleeping (or not ready for the pull), it makes the trash much simpler than getting a tank for each target.

[Gracerath]

We usually have 3 tanks. One for the tamer, one for the 2 bats, one for the 2 screamers. What I do is set my /focus target on one screamer and target the other. I run in and hit it with a melee/SoR hit, then target my focus and judge quickly, drop consecrate and they are mine, even with silences. 9 times out of 10, the bats charge me instead of the raid and I can soak the damage pretty well. We used to utilize sheep but after they nerfed the bats to not charge as much, we just tank them the whole time.

I sometimes use the frisbee to get my initial target but the other tanks bitch at me when I end up tanking their spore bats along with the screamers

[Kellann]

I run in right behind the warrior MT (usually we only have 1) & drop the consecrate so that all 5 mobs get licked.

I also generally smack one of my flappy targets with JoR, and am prepared to SoR attack the other or taunt...but generally the consecrate is enough that they bounce off my shield - at which point they're mine.

Worst case is if one of the druid tanks gets sloppy, and I end up with both of mine and 1 or 2 or the screamers - but even then it's just a "oops, got them all" on vent so that the healers respond.

we kill:
Tamer
Screamers
Bats

/shrug - never had a problem with those pulls.

The Hydross->Lurker pulls are typically more annoying to me, but more because the pull isn't executed all that consecrate friendly - so picking up adds generally means I break sheep on the healers (and then the mages have to stop fireballing to resheep - poor them)

[Alienne]

Thanks very much for the advice, guys. We've changed our strategy around a bit, so I'm now starting the pull by hitting one bat with my AS, then charging in with the rest of the tanks. As I run in, I judge righteousness on the second bat, then drop a consecrate to hold them both on me. It's going much smoother this way--we only get the occasional death now if I get silenced before I can consecrate.

[kywirelessguy]

Would it be possible to tank both screamers and spore bats? I've tanked the two bats and one screamer before so I guess it couldn't be all that difficult. Just need healers paying attention. It just sucks to get stunned with 4 25 man raid trash hitting you. Could you aoe tank the whole pull? All 5 of em? DPS would have to be on their toes threat wise, but is it just too much incoming damage?

I usually tank both the little spore bats. I was thinking if I aimed an AS at the tamer barring a miss it would hopefully hit both bats. Or at least one. Which would free up my JoR for the second bat if needed. Can the warrior MT then just taunt only the tamer off me? I don't know how their taunt works or if the tamer is even tauntable.