Ready for top half of Karazhan?

[Belm]

First off: thanks to all of you in the maintankadin community. This site has made it possible for me to even be asking this question so soon after dinging 70 and gave me the confidence to go bravely forth and put myself in harms way.

Now that I've buttered you up, the (simple) question:
Can I reasonably expect to main tank the top half of Kara?

The likely group is 3 good healers, a borderline off-tank (really a dps druid), 2 strong dps (700+ dps single target) and 3 entry level dps (~500 dps single target). I can upgrade some of the dps if we have to (low dps plus new tank = oom for healers).

I logged off in my preferred boss tanking gear (~.5% off uncrushable, focused on stamina and spell damage) but could put on a touch more stam / defense with a cloak swap or a lot more defense in exchange for stam with a trinket swap.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... tem&n=Belm

FWIW, through Curator was a breeze even with raid dps 50-60% of what we are used to with our mains, it just took a lot longer (4 evocs on Curator!). We didn't have an urn, so didn't get to test ourselves on Nightbane.

[VikrumthePally]

I'd venture to say you would be fine. 3 healers is over kill in there. And you are borderline. So 3 healers should compensate. Best of luck. Farm those badges.

[masterpoobaa]

yes.
Provided your healers are good and on the ball you should be fine.
I first tanked price with 11.5k-12k hp unbuffed.
Work on getting uncrushable thou.

[Belm]

Ended up not getting to give it a go this week.. we didn't have enough heals so I ended up doing that for the evening on my shammy. Wouldn't you know it, though.. Boots of Elusion dropped and no one could use them

As to that last .5% for uncrushable that was mentioned above: how important is it to cap or overcap uncrushable? I've been working under the theory that I'd rather be a small bit under the cap and have more stam, given that redoubt is going to leave me way over the cap a lot of the time anyways.

[Poneress]

I personally was able to main ALL of kara with 60%ish Uncrushable (90% with Holy shield) and my first 3 times of tanking Prince/Nightbane were with 90% uncrushable (Uncritabble ofcourse) I had roughtly 15-16k hp at the times.

I currently MT all of it with a close DPS/OT Feral Druid with close to 17khp/AR uncrittable and 99% uncrushable. Now tho I am completely uncrush and uncrit with HS active.

Your spell dmg should me more then sufficent enough (Sp?) for all of Kara, essecially with 300+ spell dmg. and your dps only pushing out 500-700 DPS.

When I ran with 370ish spell dmg I constantly ran with DPS with 900-1100 constant DPS and was able to hold aggro. The main thing in this case is having your DPS control there threat. Which to be honest, if there not cool on holding off on aggro for 2-3 seconds then they dont need to be running with you. ;D

[Barathorn]

When I ran with 370ish spell dmg I constantly ran with DPS with 900-1100 constant DPS and was able to hold aggro. The main thing in this case is having your DPS control there threat. Which to be honest, if there not cool on holding off on aggro for 2-3 seconds then they dont need to be running with you. ;D

I take it your DPS were careful with their aggro? Our geared DPS runs at around 900-1200 DPS and I am having to stack SD where possible[food, oils etc] so they dont pull aggro. What kind of DPS you running with Poneress? As in what classes? Different compositions obviously dictates threat changes.

I agree with DPS watching threatmeters and not pulling with pyroblasts, but as a tank its your responsibility to make sure the DPS can go all out as the fight progresses, this means making sure your threat production is running at maximum efficiency.

Its a tricky one with S2 gear available to all DPS pre Karazhan.

Barathorn

[Poneress]

When I ran with 370ish spell dmg I constantly ran with DPS with 900-1100 constant DPS and was able to hold aggro. The main thing in this case is having your DPS control there threat. Which to be honest, if there not cool on holding off on aggro for 2-3 seconds then they dont need to be running with you. ;D

I take it your DPS were careful with their aggro? Our geared DPS runs at around 900-1200 DPS and I am having to stack SD where possible[food, oils etc] so they dont pull aggro. What kind of DPS you running with Poneress? As in what classes? Different compositions obviously dictates threat changes.

I agree with DPS watching threatmeters and not pulling with pyroblasts, but as a tank its your responsibility to make sure the DPS can go all out as the fight progresses, this means making sure your threat production is running at maximum efficiency.

Its a tricky one with S2 gear available to all DPS pre Karazhan.

Barathorn

I typically run with 1 Warlock, 1or 2 Mages, a Hunter or 2, throw in a rouge here or there. It's really random to be honest.

And all I meant by waiting a second or two is when you do the first pull and are waiting for the mobs to hit your concentration. There are few times I run up to the mob I wanna go tank because of the chance of aggroing the next grp. However, once I have my initial cycle started (that 2ish second period) then the DPS IMO can go all out.

I will say this. I was running with 380ish spell dmg buffed for a very long time. I did fairly darn well holding aggro against 900+ DPS ppl. Course they used Salv / Kings. But last night I picked up the S2 mace chanted it and WOW, the same ppl I had to put salv on I no longer have to. Def worth getting IMO.

[Poneress]

When I ran with 370ish spell dmg I constantly ran with DPS with 900-1100 constant DPS and was able to hold aggro. The main thing in this case is having your DPS control there threat. Which to be honest, if there not cool on holding off on aggro for 2-3 seconds then they dont need to be running with you. ;D

I take it your DPS were careful with their aggro? Our geared DPS runs at around 900-1200 DPS and I am having to stack SD where possible[food, oils etc] so they dont pull aggro. What kind of DPS you running with Poneress? As in what classes? Different compositions obviously dictates threat changes.

I agree with DPS watching threatmeters and not pulling with pyroblasts, but as a tank its your responsibility to make sure the DPS can go all out as the fight progresses, this means making sure your threat production is running at maximum efficiency.

Its a tricky one with S2 gear available to all DPS pre Karazhan.

Barathorn

I typically run with 1 Warlock, 1or 2 Mages, a Hunter or 2, throw in a rouge here or there. It's really random to be honest.

And all I meant by waiting a second or two is when you do the first pull and are waiting for the mobs to hit your concentration. There are few times I run up to the mob I wanna go tank because of the chance of aggroing the next grp. However, once I have my initial cycle started (that 2ish second period) then the DPS IMO can go all out.

I will say this. I was running with 380ish spell dmg buffed for a very long time. I did fairly darn well holding aggro against 900+ DPS ppl. Course they used Salv / Kings. But last night I picked up the S2 mace chanted it and WOW, the same ppl I had to put salv on I no longer have to. Def worth getting IMO.

[Pizbit]

Ended up not getting to give it a go this week.. we didn't have enough heals so I ended up doing that for the evening on my shammy. Wouldn't you know it, though.. Boots of Elusion dropped and no one could use them

As to that last .5% for uncrushable that was mentioned above: how important is it to cap or overcap uncrushable? I've been working under the theory that I'd rather be a small bit under the cap and have more stam, given that redoubt is going to leave me way over the cap a lot of the time anyways.

It is very important to just be over 102.4%. Over that any block rating you have can be turned in to avoidance, stamina or threat as it provides no benefit(Block is first off the combat table).

[Belm]

Well, so far so good. Tanked through Shade last night, including Nightbane and only really had one momentary issue on Nightbane where I "got myself out of range of the healers" when I was turning him on the first landing. Fortunately a pot plus an off-heal from the enhance shammy tided me over until they got back in range.

Hopefully we will whip chess, netherspite and prince tonight. Not too worried at this point, though maybe that is overconfidence setting in

Wish me luck! And for something to actually drop that I want to use (so far it is all side-grades / situational gear: bracers from huntsman, belt from moroes, shield from nightbane).

[Pizbit]

Well, so far so good. Tanked through Shade last night, including Nightbane and only really had one momentary issue on Nightbane where I "got myself out of range of the healers" when I was turning him on the first landing. Fortunately a pot plus an off-heal from the enhance shammy tided me over until they got back in range.

Hopefully we will whip chess, netherspite and prince tonight. Not too worried at this point, though maybe that is overconfidence setting in

Wish me luck! And for something to actually drop that I want to use (so far it is all side-grades / situational gear: bracers from huntsman, belt from moroes, shield from nightbane).

If you fail at chess I *will* mock you, Code of Conduct be damned.

[Belm]

Success!!!

Got down netherspite in one try and Prince on the fourth; though the wipes on the fourth had far less to do with my gearing than small errors by the team (including myself, unfortunately, but that's what learning is all about).

For other new folks on Prince.. a few things that you might learn the hard way:
- It seems to all be in the positioning. I (at least) had a dreadful time making small adjustments in Prince's positioning without inadvertantly getting knocked back a bit. The kill occured when I finally managed to get him right to the spot I wanted him.. spend some time thinking about this before you do your first attempt Big moves (around infernals) seem infinitely easier than small ones.
- WTB Hunter mis-direct: see above. Pulling him yourself when you don't quite know where you are going or how he moves is probably not recommended for the first time you do him.
- Bring more ranged DPS or at least DPS that knows how to run out. Spending 4+ minutes in Phase 2 isn't nearly as much fun as you might think it is.