So... Magtheridon

[Kathryn]

I actually find that our warrior main tank puts out equal or slightly better threat than me, through his beefy shield slams. I'm already running 260 base SD, plus an oil. Do I really need even more to notice this 'Far superior threat' people keep talking about? Or is that confined to Exorcism.

I only have 200 SD without oil, i wasn't using oil either and i still put up about 600-650 TPS on a Raid Boss. (Without Exorcism.) Dunno what your numbers are but...

Are you using JotC?
What's your threat cycle and what spell rank do you use?
do you have a LOT of dodge?

[Lore]

"Far superior threat" is a myth perpetuated by our ability to use Exorcism in Karazhan, which unfortunately is the farthest many Paladin MT's get. In 25-man content, you need to be able to wear spell damage gear (such as tier 4/5) to keep your threat advantage. That comes at the cost of mitigation/avoidance.

We can certainly ramp up our threat quite easily by stacking more spell damage, or popping AW, but that typically requires a "first add" situation like Magtheridon.

[Fridmarr]

I actually find that our warrior main tank puts out equal or slightly better threat than me, through his beefy shield slams. I'm already running 260 base SD, plus an oil. Do I really need even more to notice this 'Far superior threat' people keep talking about? Or is that confined to Exorcism.

I only have 200 SD without oil, i wasn't using oil either and i still put up about 600-650 TPS on a Raid Boss. (Without Exorcism.) Dunno what your numbers are but...

Are you using JotC?
What's your threat cycle and what spell rank do you use?
do you have a LOT of dodge?

Hmm, that's pretty high vs a boss. Even spamming max rank everything with JoTC and 340ish spell dmg I'm typically in the upper 500s. I've got 5/5 1hand spec, imp judgements, and 3/5 weapon expertise. Our prot warrior tends to be 750ish range if he's using rage on clap and stuff, and a bit higher if he's not.

[Fridmarr]

"Far superior threat" is a myth perpetuated by our ability to use Exorcism in Karazhan, which unfortunately is the farthest many Paladin MT's get. In 25-man content, you need to be able to wear spell damage gear (such as tier 4/5) to keep your threat advantage. That comes at the cost of mitigation/avoidance.

We can certainly ramp up our threat quite easily by stacking more spell damage, or popping AW, but that typically requires a "first add" situation like Magtheridon.

The myth was also aided by more front loaded threat and the ability to hold the trash in kara through AOEs and seed spams. Perception vs reality.

[PsiVen]

I find my single-target threat to be on par with prot warriors when we're both wearing normal tanking gear on non-undead bosses. In the case of the warrior wearing pure +block gear his threat is superior unless I put on more +dmg (which happens to come with +block gear thanks to T5) or have an Exorcisable target. If I have tiered tanking gear on and an undead/demon to tank, my threat is pretty hard to match.

In an off-tanking situation on a single target where I still take damage (i.e., Void Reaver) I can chug mana pots to sustain significantly higher threat than a warrior doing the same without much rage.

I can output almost 1200 sustained TPS on a single target in spelldamage gear, but there is a massive mitigation sacrifice (and they laughed at me when I put Dodge librams on my Avenger's back in the day that would unacceptable for anything that would really pose a threat to the raid if it got loose. So maybe when I get full T5 I'll find more uses for wearing pure +dmg.

[Dorvan]

We're actually going for out 2nd day of attempts on Mag tomorrow, and I'd love to here about the 4 tank strategy which we're planning on trying (last time we just did the standard 5 tanks with me on the 1st add and then on infernal round-up duty).

One concern that we've thought of is aggro on the 2nd add though if we've got a mage and rogue assigned to it for interrupts. I'm not worried about the usual AoE stuff of course, but having 2 DPS'er focused on a 2nd target seems like it could cause problems.

Finally, I thought I'd share this quote from a guild mage on how we should hanfdle the situation (I've quickly become th favorite choice for 5 mans, for obvious reasons):

"I say we have dorvan tank them all while I AoE them down."

[jere]

"I say we have dorvan tank them all while I AoE them down."

Just make sure to kite them to Vael's room first.

[Dorvan]

So we worked on Mag for a little bit last night (not as long as I would've liked, but oh well). Anyway, misdirecting the 2nd add onto me worked pretty well, though we still have a few kinks to work out. Basically, have the interrupts people actively dps'ing the 2nd add caused them to pull aggro a couple times, or caused me to lose aggro on the 1st add once while I was building more on the 2nd. Still, most attempts we didn't lose anyone even with the aggro issues, and next time we're going to use focus targets for interrupts and hae all DPS on the 1st add, which should make things even smoother.

The overall picture was that I'd open up big on the 1st add with DPS starting immediately (AW + AS + JoR + consecrate) while the 2nd add was misdirected to me. When the first add was at 60-70%, DPS would start using blade flurry/chain lightning/cone of cold/etc (that wasn't a problem, it was only the focused interrupts DPS that ever pulled aggro). That extra dual-target DPS and not having to move caused those 2 adds to go down pretty fast. After that I'd run to the MT and taunt off his add so he could get in position (though we were easily getting the 3rd add down before Mag popped, but it was a good insurance measure). From there the fight proceeded as normal. We had some trouble with shadow bolts getting off on the later adds, and as a result didn't get the last add down yesterday, but we did successfully banish Mag once.

Anyway, on the whole the approach seems solid. As others have observed Paladins make excellent 1st add tanks of this fight.

[DracAlexstrasza]

So we worked on Mag for a little bit last night (not as long as I would've liked, but oh well). Anyway, misdirecting the 2nd add onto me worked pretty well, though we still have a few kinks to work out. Basically, have the interrupts people actively dps'ing the 2nd add caused them to pull aggro a couple times, or caused me to lose aggro on the 1st add once while I was building more on the 2nd.

I'd suggest judging crusader on both asap. Haven't lost aggro on them even with dps hitting both (rogues hitting the second one with their full dps).

If you are worried about having enough threat spell damage food and flasks might be the right choice (they really don't hit hard at the start).

The only place things were tricky was on the pull, my gm insists on DOTing up the 1st target immediately so he can get some damage in before the infernals. If my shield throw missd it was bad. lol Fortunately the axe from the prince never misses and is a great follow up to make sure I have aggro.

[Mavrix]

For the 2 channeler tanking job, what gear is recommended? Full on tank stuff or a mix with spell dps stuff or what?

I see Lore said he goes with full spell dps gear if only tanking a single. Is that common preference?

[DracAlexstrasza]

For the 2 channeler tanking job, what gear is recommended? Full on tank stuff or a mix with spell dps stuff or what?

If your gear is comparable to the rest of your guild you shouldn't have to trade out anything, just use spell damage consumables. Since they die so fast it really is a time for our initial burst aggro to shine.

Of course, I've been tempted to switch out for more damage and healing plate so I'm more useful healing once all the channelers are down. But since we've one shotted him every time since his first death I'm not worrying about it too much.

[Baelor]

Few questions about the Mag fight, since he's next on my kill list:

1. How do you guys handle healing set-up for the fight? I've heard 1 healer per tank, the rest on the raid, but what about when Mag breaks free and the last 2 channelers are still up? How many healers go with the MT to handle Mag until the raid is ready?

2. Where do you put Mag? Assuming you kill the S, SW, and SE channelers, where does the MT pull Mag and park him while the raid bum rushes the NW and NE channelers?

More to come when I think of it.

[Mortehl]

I just replied to a thread like this in the main wow forum:

Firstly, it took us about 4 nights of attempts to get everything squared away with Mag. A little frustration is going to happen because there are a lot of individual things to master.

To start with, your number 1 gut check on "Am I going to get this @@@!er tonight?" is whether or not you are on the fourth channeler. I'm not saying it can't be done sooner, but it is a pissload easier when you're finishing off number 4 when Mag spawns.

Secondly: The order you kill the channelers is important. You want to clockwise from when you wallk into the room. The channeler right at the entrance should be first, and you should be rotating around the room moving left. Your main tank should be ready to pull mag north which will leave channeler number 5 all the way south.

Next up: Healer placement is incredibly important in this fight. When Mag spawns, healer aggro is going to draw him almost right away. Make your tank's life easier by making sure your healers are staying against the walls. When Mag spawns this will give you -maximum- distance so all your healers don't get wtfpwned.

Fourth: Have one of your warlocks on permanent duty near the number 4/5 channeler tanking area (Southeastern side of the room). His job is going to be to keep CoT up on those two channelers and to keep the infernals on that side of the room from owning the healers (see healer aggro). Putting a prot paladin on the fourth or fifth channeler is an awesome use of the slot because that paladin can keep an eye on all the healers assigned to the toughest channelers. Prot Pallies have consecrate to grab the infernals from their channeler, plus they have exorcism to grab any infernals from the other channeler as well. This makes it super easy for the lock on the 4/5 side to banish/fear any uncontrolled infernals.

Fifth: Don't waste your time stopping the shadow bolt volleys at the expense of stopping the heals. The number 2 raid killer in this fight is repeated channeler heals. You really need to stop these. Your healers will have more than enough mana to handle this fight as long as you don't prolong the channeler phase any longer then necessary.

Moving on: So yay, now Mag is safely being tanked, your channelers are dead. Lets talk about Blast Nova. The number 1 reason why raids die is because a lack of strict, tight management of the Blast Novas. Remember the clockwise rotation I mentioned earlier? It comes into play now. Assign a symbol to 5 casters in your group. Each caster is in group A. Group A can due to the extreme range of their spells pretty much live right near their assigned channeler position. Assign a symbol to Group B. Group B can be hunters, off tanks, and if needed, a couple of melee (NEVER HEALER!).

The raid leader needs to help out here in a big way if you want to be 1 shotting this bastard every week. At 20 seconds, the group currently up needs to be moving into position. At 10 seconds, you MUST be in position. Do NOT click until Mag emotes. That is the only 100% foolproof method of detecting a cast. If you accidentally hit escape or tab or something you miss the cast bar. He -ALWAYS- emotes. Remember, even though the CD might be up on Blast Nova, he can't cast it while he's quaking so don't panic and wipe the raid.

At ~33ish percent, figure out how long the cooldown is on Blast Nova. If it is >10 seconds, STOP RAID DPS. Deal with the blast nova, then burn is ass down. If it is <10 seconds keep going. You do NOT want to be screwing with Blast Nova when 30% hits and Mag does 5k damage to the entire raid and starts collapsing the roof. Anyone hit with the roof collapsing after the initial 5k damage is dead unless they're a paladin who was in bubble already. The collapse does 100 THOUSAND plus damage. Its GG for whoever walks into it.

That is the foolproof, "How to 1 shot Mag" guide.


BTW - 1 healer for channelers 1-3, 2 healers for channelers 4 and 5. Leftover on raid until Mag pops. Leftovers + channeler 3 healer on Mag. HoTs on your blast wave channelers.

[Aergis]

We also just tried the pally tank 2 channelers as well last night, but it was on #2 and #3. We had a druid start out with #1, who then went DPS for the rest. Occasionaly he would taunt off the infernals from the other tanks as needed since we only had 2 locks.

It worked out really well, I'd time my AS on #2 with the druid counting down, with a misdirect on #3 to me, then just aoe tank like normal. Once the first was down, we had a rouge and shaman intereupting the #3 while rest blade fury, dps warrior cleave / whirlwind, mages aoe, etc. We'd get the 2 and 3 down with about 30 seconds left before mag pops, so I'd run to the #4 for a bit, judge wisdom and reseal it to gain some mana back, then leave to tank Mag.

It worked out well, aggro was less of a problem with me tanking mag than our warrior because he is a demon, so I could instantly slap on around 3000 threat. Last week we had a bit of trouble with healers pulling aggro on mag 1 second after he popped ( and the warriors shield slam ). And honestly there's no reason a pally shouldn't be able to tank mag, he hits pretty weak, about 5-6k per hit on me without stoneshield pot, 7k ish cleaves.


One time we even had all 5 down before mag popped at all. Unfourtunatly dps was used to me tanking mag for about 15-20 seconds before the 5th is down, so they opened right up and pulled agro Now we just need to work on the damn blast nova timing....

[Aergis]

I wonder, since we are using misdirect on #1 for the druid ( the way we do it ), could we instead misdirect #2 and #3 onto me while I start out on #1... Basically tanking 3 and aoeing them down leaving only 4 and 5 that need to be tanked...


"I say we have dorvan tank them all while I AoE them down." may be possible... lol