passive block cap set for Anub'arak

[Koatanga]

I have also noticed my health fluctuating wildly in the last phase when on adds. I put it down to the boss' locust swarm effect dropping my health, but perhaps there could be more to it.

We're getting better at him - last week we had 44 attempts remaining when he died - but it's still not an easy encounter for us.

The worst part of it is very poor taunt behaviour by the adds. Sometimes in the last phase the adds simply fail to respond to any form of taunting. I'll grab one with HS (who generally behaves), then spam HoR and RD (with the taunt glyph) on the other without him giving me the time of day.

And beleive me, when you are running out of attempts and raid frustration is high, a healer being gobbled by a runaway add is NOT a good look.

[Auroris]

I know what you mean. I haven't finished my block spec yet, so I am taking a ton of damage over the other tank. When an add gets off me, I have to spam taunt. For some reason it just isn't working.

[Draslin]

I've noticed similar behavior on freshly-spawned adds in a few fights. Emalon immediately comes to mind. This is only since 3.2.2.

Maybe there's actually something up with our taunts?

[lythac]

Myself and the other tanks in the guild have been managing to make Yogg phase 1 adds taunt immune. Haven't seen the logs as they haven't been posted yet.

[Wrathy]

From my limited experience on picking up more than two adds on Anub HM, the thing that gets me the most is the single taunt from across the room not having enough agro to overcome the raid wide healing out put of a priest or druid that is not standing in the correct position. If you have your raid all near the ice patch, you should not have any problems as you will be with in melee range of your healers, and as a result have more aggro.

I have noticed a few times where the taunts are just not working correctly, but we have two, and those instances are rare enough that RD is there and off cd.

[Zothor]

From my limited experience on picking up more than two adds on Anub HM, the thing that gets me the most is the single taunt from across the room not having enough agro to overcome the raid wide healing out put of a priest or druid that is not standing in the correct position. If you have your raid all near the ice patch, you should not have any problems as you will be with in melee range of your healers, and as a result have more aggro.

I have noticed a few times where the taunts are just not working correctly, but we have two, and those instances are rare enough that RD is there and off cd.

I've had this exact same problem, especially last night, and I'm extremely wary of RD these days because I've twice used RD on the runaway add.... only to have Anub'arak smack me in the face. Whoops. Looks like the other tank had hit him with some AOE threat and I just wiped the raid.

My solution, which I will be going back to, was to stop trying to stack the adds on top of the boss. Using a frost patch towards the middle of the room, behind the raid, allowed me to be much closer to the adds and pick them up before the threat/instaggro from a single taunt got overwhelmed by healing threat. The DPS lost from not getting cleave damage was easily made up during the phase 2 burn.

[Meloree]

From my limited experience on picking up more than two adds on Anub HM, the thing that gets me the most is the single taunt from across the room not having enough agro to overcome the raid wide healing out put of a priest or druid that is not standing in the correct position. If you have your raid all near the ice patch, you should not have any problems as you will be with in melee range of your healers, and as a result have more aggro.

I have noticed a few times where the taunts are just not working correctly, but we have two, and those instances are rare enough that RD is there and off cd.

Comment the first: The section I bolded. Self explanatory.

Comment the sequel: The best advice I have for cleaner pickups is... wait. Let them get in a little bit closer before taunting. The adds will have that much higher healing agro by then, it'll give you a little bit more leeway. Plus, they'll get to you (or into consecration range) within 3 seconds that way.

[polonadis]

What I do is i single-target taunt the closest add + judgement/cpt america shield and then i wait for my holy paladin with RF on or druid/priest to get aggro and when the adds are close i use RD on them and consecrate. When the adds get close, i cast holy wrath and start backing up to the frost popping shield wall (VH block trinket for the second wave) and use hammer of the righteouss. The aggro from this combo is quite high provided that you won't miss too much (i run with 0 hit -_-)

Your problems with RD might be the result of tauntung of off 1 healer a sec after the aggro was already on the second (even though mobs' targets haven't changed at that time, but the latency is a pain here). To counter a missed RD i immediately cast holy wrath and try to hammer the adds that HW missed.

[Koatanga]

Not a bad idea, but I don't like using Holy Wrath since I save that onne to interrupt the shadowstep thing they do.

I Captain the closest one, then HoR the farther one becasue the last thing I want is to slow it down. RD is pretty useless unless they are right next to you, due to the amount of healing being done. You really need to damage them to make them pay attention. Even then they sometimes just decide to wander.

[The mighty Iesous]

just pick up the first with judgement the second it spawns, backpeddle/strafe and then taunt the second one when its a few meters away from you. Hammertime!
Now backpeddle onto the icethingy with HoF activated. Keep an eye on holyshield and your done. works everytime

At first i had problems getting the right add targeted and often endet up with anub instead (yeah taunting the boss when you did not click anywhere near him is great! thanks blizz). This cant happen now anymore (with the running a few meters out tactic).

[Zothor]

just pick up the first with judgement the second it spawns, backpeddle/strafe and then taunt the second one when its a few meters away from you. Hammertime!
Now backpeddle onto the icethingy with HoF activated. Keep an eye on holyshield and your done. works everytime

At first i had problems getting the right add targeted and often endet up with anub instead (yeah taunting the boss when you did not click anywhere near him is great! thanks blizz). This cant happen now anymore (with the running a few meters out tactic).

I don't think anyone's issue is the first two adds; it's the third and fourth.

The third and fourth adds spawn almost exactly as the first two are casting their second shadow strike, so you have to hit holy wrath to interrupt it (no more fok interrupts) AND grab both adds. I may end up making a hunter ship one of them to me to be safe if this continues to be a problem, although I'll probably just harp on my healers to stand closer to me first.

[The mighty Iesous]

Oh, wrong thread ^^
We had all 4 adds always spawn the same time. We use 2 rogues with fok glyph that tott all 4 adds to our warriortank (1 rogue 2 adds from 1 side). You need to position the boss right so that the two nearest adds dont get behind the addtank. The addtank moves only from one side of the icepatch to the other.
Once there, adds are mindnumbed and shadowstep gets kicked with shockwave and by my holywrath/belf silence (he kicks reactive i kick proactive).
Healer to close can screw you over (healdruids seem to produce some crazy tps).

Apologies, if advice was unwanted.

[Janduin]

I don't think anyone's issue is the first two adds; it's the third and fourth.

The third and fourth adds spawn almost exactly as the first two are casting their second shadow strike, so you have to hit holy wrath to interrupt it (no more fok interrupts) AND grab both adds. I may end up making a hunter ship one of them to me to be safe if this continues to be a problem, although I'll probably just harp on my healers to stand closer to me first.

Are you doing normal or heroic 25-man? Because in heroic there are 4 adds which spawn at once, not 2, and only in heroic 25-man is a passive block set required to solo-tank adds.

Also, in either normal OR heroic, if the first set of adds are still up when the second set spawns, your AOE dps needs to step it up. You should never have to worry about interrupting Shadow Strike from old adds while picking up a new add spawn in any version of Anub'arak in my experience.

[Zothor]

I don't think anyone's issue is the first two adds; it's the third and fourth.

The third and fourth adds spawn almost exactly as the first two are casting their second shadow strike, so you have to hit holy wrath to interrupt it (no more fok interrupts) AND grab both adds. I may end up making a hunter ship one of them to me to be safe if this continues to be a problem, although I'll probably just harp on my healers to stand closer to me first.

Are you doing normal or heroic 25-man? Because in heroic there are 4 adds which spawn at once, not 2, and only in heroic 25-man is a passive block set required to solo-tank adds.

Also, in either normal OR heroic, if the first set of adds are still up when the second set spawns, your AOE dps needs to step it up. You should never have to worry about interrupting Shadow Strike from old adds while picking up a new add spawn in any version of Anub'arak in my experience.

Bleh, I should have thought of that. I was mostly responding to Heroic 10 man experience, but since Heroic 10 man doubles the number of adds, it makes perfect sense that Heroic 25 man does too. We aren't at heroic 25 yet. Hmm.

So on your heroic 25 man, your'e burning down the first four adds? And still getting the boss to leeching swarm in one burrow? Jesus that most be some hotshit dps, although I suppose that's why it's heroic mode On our heroic 10 man, we weren't able to make the one burrow and burn down even two adds, so I'm taking all four into the burrow phase. Ergo, passive block cap set being something of a neccessity, especially on the 5-6th adds second time around (we didn't manage to get through it until I got close to capped)

edit: In my defense the OP/subject doesn't say 25 anywhere in the title still a dumb mistake on my part.

[Janduin]

So on your heroic 25 man, your'e burning down the first four adds? And still getting the boss to leeching swarm in one burrow? Jesus that most be some hotshit dps, although I suppose that's why it's heroic mode

No, we get to Leaching Swarm (Phase 3) in 2 burrows like everyone else on heroic 25-man. You just have to use judicious positioning and HoPs to avoid popping more than 2ish ice patches per burrow phase. But yes, we burn down the first 4 once I have them picked up, and leave the second 4 up until burrow and burn them down then. Repeat once he comes up, after that all adds are burned every time, as there are no more burrow phases. We haven't killed him yet on heroic, but reasons are not related to add-tanking. We usually have plenty of leeway on DPS getting to phase 3.

On our heroic 10 man, we weren't able to make the one burrow and burn down even two adds, so I'm taking all four into the burrow phase. Ergo, passive block cap set being something of a neccessity, especially on the 5-6th adds second time around (we didn't manage to get through it until I got close to capped)

edit: In my defense the OP/subject doesn't say 25 anywhere in the title still a dumb mistake on my part.

Hmmm...that is definitely you compensating for a deficient raid then. I see why you need passive unhittability. It doesn't take a particularly well-balanced raid to burn to phase 3 in one burrow phase on 10-man while killing the first add spawn before the second spawns. We do it even with 3 healers, though the fight is killable with 2. I usually hold the 3rd or 4th spawn (don't remember) a little longer to allow dps to burn into phase 3, but they still die before the next spawn is up. Your dps need to stop slacking