ken's "ask a tank" heroic thread

[kensanity]

K so, after hitting 80 and 540 defense, I've spent the past 2 weeks tanking heroics. Granted while my gear has much improved since my first heroic, I will admit finding difficulty with a lot of my initial attempts. This thread can serve as a place where u throw out some specific questions about a certain heroic and other tankadins can answer it. Kinda like... What this forum is. Rofl.

Anyway some things I've noticed
Heroics became much easier when I also had 20k buffed life and 20' armor. I feel as those would be the minimum stats required to tank ALL the heroics wotlk offers

Utgarde keep is the easiest heroic: mobs are easily cc'able and boss fights are straight forward.for last boss, invgar, move out of smash and dark smash, and face him away from party. Probably only tricky boss fight in instance

Utgarde pinnacle is considerably more difficult. Luckily pallies pwn undead so trash isn't that difficult. Remember rogues can sap dogs. First boss easiest boss in all heroics. Second boss ok too. 5 simple tank n spank fights. The 3rd boss is arguably the hardest. U must do a gauntlet ala shattered halls while members of your party use harpoons to shoot down the boss. Mobs in gauntlet do not hit hard. My suggestion, run all the way to the end when fight starts, when ghouls reach u, holy wrath then concecrate, use excorcism and avenger's shield to pick up any left over mobs, tank and aoe them down. Pairs of mobs continue to spawn so be sure to pick them up and be aware of quickly picking up the boss when he lands. During whirlwind, turn around and run.
Ymiron is considerably easier, just remember to stop dps during bane and move away from orbs in the phase he summons them.

Caverns of time stratholme.
People say this is easy, I think if you are just starting gear and u don't have a decked out healer, this can be hard. My advice on trash is focus on killin enraging ghiuls or casters first. Bear in mind that u have hoj and holy wrath as effective forms of stunning. Bosses have no tricks.

Coldarra instances
Nexus is moderately challenging. Most mobs cc'able making instance quite manageable for starting tankadins. For caster mage boss (telestra) work out interrupt rotation, and if u lack cc, be siure to try and tank two of her forms during phase 2.
Last boss is probably only other gimmick fight. Easiest way to deal with it is to tank and jump straight up whenever u get the ice debuff. Much easier than kiting her.

Occulus
First boss hints at where he will chain lightning by throwing little purple bolts in that direection, very simple, u see the bolts, move, he chain lightning, rinse and repeat. the mage boss is semi difficult. I don't know what is the best way to fight this boss. For the last boss various strategies work but I find ones with 2 healers or 2 red dragons to work the best

Ulduar instances
Halls of lightning
Third boss spawns bunch of lightning balls, run down the stairs to avoid them and then run back in. Simple enough. If u have debuff move from group. Loken is healing intensive have party stack on u while u tank, when he lighhtning nova, have party move out but u stay in and get healed. Rinse n repeat.
Halls of stone
Escort
Initiate combat with adds as early as possible to avoid ranged from killing npc. Boss is fairly straight forward
Maiden of grief
Various racial talents can be used to negate the repentance like ability. However best thing would just to be to jump into the black voids on the ground a second before she finishes casting her sap.

There are other instances but I'm doing this from my phone cuz this thanksgiving dinner is kinda stale so yeah

[majiben]

You were doing heroics the day before Wotlk was released O.o?

Back on topic, I don't see the two Zul'Drak instances mentioned.

[Rehlachs-]

Remember rogues can sap dogs.

those dogs lack stealth detection?

Caverns of time stratholme.
...
Bosses have no tricks.

Salramm: Corpse Explosion (heavy aoe damage), Selfbuff in damage (50% or something like that), add spawns
Epoch: Mortal Strike
Mal'Ganis: Carrion Swarm, puts party members to sleep

Nexus

addittional note: Telestra's trash will use all means to silence you and uses spell breaker. those trash mobs are really annoying until you know how to handle these.

Oculus
First boss ...

was forgotten. His name is Drakos. He will use little flying bombs like the first boss in Mechanar. Additionally he will teleport every party member to his location from time to time. so, you should always kite him to a place with an open escape route for the others.

the mage boss is semi difficult. I don't know what is the best way to fight this boss.

let's wrap this one up -
at first he is found on the outer rings. he will teleport to several other platforms when you try engage him - he leaves some random mobs to keep you occupied. after 2 ports (maybe 3.. dunno) he finally teleports to the inner ring.
final encounter: kite him out of his froststuff, when he teleports and channels his nova, hide behind a pillar (so he isn't in LOS anymore).

Halls of lightning

first boss.. depending on his stances - spell reflect, whirlwing, cleave, mortal strike, intercepting random party members
don't engage him, aslong he is surrounded by lightnings.
take care of his adds, too.

second boss..
clear the complete hall first. kite him to another spot after ran to his anvil, so his adds will freeze up in different locations. adds cast immolate on party members, dispellable.
near the end he will blow up the frozen adds, dealing aoe damage .. just stay out of this.

Third boss spawns bunch of lightning balls, run down the stairs to avoid them and then run back in. Simple enough. If u have debuff move from group. Loken is healing intensive have party stack on u while u tank, when he lighhtning nova, have party move out but u stay in and get healed. Rinse n repeat.

if you are lazy you could consider bugging his nova. it's not very fair or maybe not even legit, but it makes this encounter pretty easy.

[majiben]

For Loken I like the group to all run in one direction when he is about to Nova. That way your healer and dps don't have to waste time running back to stack on him and you don't eat the Nova damage. A hunter/ shamman or even a druid helps mitigate a lot of the AoE damage.

[kensanity]

Can u clarify the bugging trick on loken? I don't see how the nova can be bugged. Regardless, I've tanked groupos where this boss was no problem but in other groups I've wiped countless times and I don't really know how to explain why.

Also I realize my epic fail in here as I've posted this thread in the pre wotlk forum. Lol

[Rehlachs-]

I don't know exactly how it works, but I suppose having Icy touch on the depending mob without any other attack/casting speed slowing effects (f.e. improved Thunderclap overwrites Icy Touch, not sure about Thunderjudge) to reduce it's attack speed reduces the casting speed for some mobs, too - thought other effects won't work on them (curse of tongues, poison, etc).

so, Loken will stand there, casting his nova for 4 seconds. but, since his castign speed is reduced he is not able to finish his cast in the given time he stops casting and starts hitting the tank, again.

a group with a DK (3/3 imp IT) and a warrior with imp TC were able to reproduce this effect. when I tanked the ecounter the same DK wasn't able to pull this off - I suppose because of my Thunderjudge..

Also I realize my epic fail in here as I've posted this thread in the pre wotlk forum. Lol

nay, fail is kind of harsh. you posted it in a wrong forum and missed a few things .. nothing you won't be able to correct :p

[2ndNin]

Best way to handle Loken is to start in the circle at the top where he starts, when you see him start casting run down the hallway until you see him stop, then run back to him. Running back causes you to close the distance faster (because he is coming to you as you come to him) reducing the damage taken. At one point I was doing the whole Lightning-> InOut with virtually no damage due to this (tanked last 21% with just me and a DK alive for a kill).