Avoiding abominations knockdowns ?

[Rroach]

Background - Tanked all the trash waves in hyal in a few different gear sets now and only seem to take significant damage from shadow bolts and when im knocked down.

I know that most advocate a block set but you cant block spells and /or when your knocked down so ive started focusing on armour / health (which will save you when knocked down)

The question is - are the abomination knock down attacks avoidable - if they are it may be worth focussing on avoidance stats rather than a block set.

Ive run a search and not found an answer, and if ive posted in the wrong place apologies

[Worldie]

You can Dodge it, i'm not sure if you can Parry it. For sure it won't miss nor be blocked.

[Dorvan]

It can definitely miss, be dodged, blocked, and parried:

http://wowwebstats.com/ixji1t3xi2pcy?s=trash&a=38

A blocked knockdown only reduce the damage taken from the knockdown, the stun effect is still applied.

As far as avoiding knockdowns, [item=5634]Free Action Potions[/item] are very handy when you're first running the place.

Passive stun resistance (from talents or meta gem) also works against knockdown, and prevent the daamge caused by knockdown as well if resisted.

[Worldie]

Hum then i've just be somehow "lucky" and only dodged it, i never recall either miss-block-parry

But it's relatively hard to notice "one" combat entry while you got Parrot spamming your screen anyway.

[Rroach]

Thanks for the advice

Do use free action pots, but run with limited numbers of tanks so i usually hold 2-4 abominations in larger waves (sometimes all of them when things get messy)

Looks like avoidance armour health may be my focus

Cheers

RRoach

[Seloei]

Block set for normal trash, and swap in your avoidance set when you see 4+ abos coming down the hill. Using a gear-swap addon makes life real easy and yeah, those free action pots are life savers when starting, or when you run with not so good healers.

[Deimosfobos]

Thanks for the advice

Do use free action pots, but run with limited numbers of tanks so i usually hold 2-4 abominations in larger waves (sometimes all of them when things get messy)

Looks like avoidance armour health may be my focus

Cheers

RRoach

Actually, if you dont want to die to stuns... max HP-AR is the key imo, even when stuned, those 2 stats still count, while the rest become useless. And a stun is pretty much the only way a geared prot pally can die on Hyjal trash.

Many paladins go the block rating/BV way on the trash... I found my max HP-AR set the best way to survive tanking many aboms+ghouls/spiders/othercrap.

To each his own i guess...

[masterkiller]

Will a tremor totem affect the stun effect? I have never tried it. I usually just eat em up.

[Worldie]

I don't recall tremor totem affecting stuns.

[Seloei]

even if it does, the stun is just 3 seconds long and in that 3 seconds you will go down pretty much by a lot. Either ask the other tanks to grab the abos off you fast or use a EH/Avoidance set for them.

[Holyfuri]

on the big abom pulls I typically have a shaman lay a earthbind totem in front, use my pocket watch CD, throw a consecrate down, and back up while keeping holy shield up while the other tanks grab their aboms off of me. This allows me to build initial threat on everything while not being in melee range of all the aboms at once, after a few are peeled off (about the same time as my initial consecrate is finishing) I stop, throw another consecrate down and start building my threat. The only time this doesn't work is if the tanks are really slow picking their targets up or the shaman forgets to put the totem down.

[Kyrael]

There are always a few tanks feeling useless on trash pulls in MH, so we just use those to grab an abom or two each... most I'm ever left with is 2, and that's usually not a problem.

I just pop a Free Action Potion as they get to me, ehich stops the stun for 30 sekonds, and use my Moroes Trinket as soon as the potion wears off... that's usually enough time for the other tanks to grab the ones they want.

The less help I need tanking this stuff, the more trivial it feels for the rest of the raid. Hyjal has been a huge help in getting some of them to accept me as a "proper" tank.

[Tekkel]

Aye get yourself a bunch of faps. Depending if u got 2 or 3 other tanks u need around 2-5 for a night. That's easy to fish and herb pretty fast.
Lay your conc down, time your holy wrath and pop a fap and go afk
The other tanks should have 1-2 aboms each and then it won't kill u anymore if u got 2 paladins healing u.

[Drak]

Free action pots are nice when starting hyjal, but now that I have nearly everything I need out of bt/hyjal I just stopped bothering since I actually WANT to get knocked down for the extra mana regen. I like to keep a few on me though, but mostly only for "oh shit" moments where I have to tank like 6 aboms because the other tanks are somewhere else or dead for whatever reason.

[Sarkan-ZdC]

Also, do talk to your healers. If I have 4-5 Abonomations still alive (with like 15-20%) and the FAP has like 2 Sek left. I say this in TS:

FAP about to run out, overheal me!

Cause the healers are used to like 30 Sek of smoth incoming damage and do not suspect anything bad.. This will save you, trust me.

Of course activate a trinket if you have a on use one then.