[10] XT-0002 Solo Tank

[skolor]

Last night we downed XT-0002 after several tries, and I figure I should share what finally worked for us. We tend to have fairly low DPS, and we're carrying one particularly low DPS (1.5k ish) that evening, since the person who was supposed to be in that spot didn't show. We also had an undergeared DK doing the MT duty, because I'm apparently the only person who can pay attention enough to pick up and hold adds. And since he was so undergeared, he was dying. After a couple times of him dying, me picking him up and holding onto XT+whatever pummelers were up, we just had him switch over to an alt for the fight.

What finally worked: I tanked XT a little ways up the stairs behind him. Every time a pummeler spawned, the healers would run into melee range so I would be in range to taunt off of them. Between a DK laying down D&D and my own stuff, no more than 2 pummelers were up at a time, and that worked fine for healing (With 3 healers and 6 dps).

So, anyone else who has problems with DPS, and can't afford to 2-heal him, Solo Tanking is definitely an option.

[Epimer]

I ended up inadvertently solo tanking him on our group's first kill, after the warrior tank took 3 unavoided hits in a row and ate floor about 15 seconds in. We had him positioned on the left wall to limit the number of possible spawn points to the farthest away wall, which made add-pickup really easy - no-one was out of RD range so I could pick up the pummelers quite easily each time.

Probably won't do it as a standard strategy, but it's good to know it's manageable that way.

[Jasari]

I've found solo tanking this and Ignis is the easiest way to do the encounters. More DPS is always good and on 10 man, going from 5 DPSers to 6 is almost about a 15% increase in raid DPS which is pretty substantial.

[skolor]

How do you do the Solo tanking for Ignis? Drag him and the adds through the water?

(We're doing Ignis tonight)

[Jasari]

I stand in the water with the rest of the raid pretty close to his ass. Whenever he scorches I move slightly to either side for a couple seconds until the scorch disappears (it only lasts a few ticks when it lands in water). Since the whole raid is within taunt range, it makes picking up the adds pretty easy, I typically taunt and then throw AS to make sure a DPSer doesn't get aggro from passive AOE. We don't worry about killing any adds, as long as you can kill him in under 4:30 he won't hit you any harder than 20k by the end which is very survivable. I have a ret pally Divine Sac/Shield at about 25% then I bubble wall when that runs out and blow trinkets and usually get a divine guardian the last few %. Now that the adds only need 10 stacks to be brittle, I imagine you could even kill them if you wanted to since they always get a few stacks each scorch, but it's really not necessary with competent DPS.

[Funtodin]

I did solo tank XT Deconstructor in 10m, but it can get ugly. The pummelers can spawn quite randomly: sometimes you'll get 2, but that one fight I had 5, being 4 at once when the boss died. The knockback they do is quite annoying and when you have all of them it can be hard to stay in position.

[Jasari]

I did solo tank XT Deconstructor in 10m, but it can get ugly. The pummelers can spawn quite randomly: sometimes you'll get 2, but that one fight I had 5, being 4 at once when the boss died. The knockback they do is quite annoying and when you have all of them it can be hard to stay in position.

Positioning a bunch of the golems on Ignis while running out of scorch for a couple seconds can be even more annoying. The key is to just let your healers know if you're going to have to backup a couple steps so that you don't get out of range of them.

[Markoh]

We started doing this the first week ulduar was out b/c we kept just barely hitting the enrage (didn't know that the heart damage was converted) and switched to this one tank strat to get the kill.

That being said solo tanking the adds can get rough if your dps is too high. With good dps you will send him immediately from one heart phase to the next, to the final heart phase; which means that you can get multiple pummelers in quick succession.

If you have a rogue to emergency tricks or hunter to quick md when your taunt/shield are on c/d it helps a ton.

[drizzy]

We've only ever done this with the one tank, and typically just have a plate wearing dps pick up the adds until I can multi-taunt off them.

[Nalyn]

I did solo tank XT Deconstructor in 10m, but it can get ugly. The pummelers can spawn quite randomly: sometimes you'll get 2, but that one fight I had 5, being 4 at once when the boss died. The knockback they do is quite annoying and when you have all of them it can be hard to stay in position.

We've only ever done him with 1 tank in the 10 man, wasn't intentional, at least originally, we didn't know about the pummelers at the time. She just picked them up, and they typically ended up dead to collateral damage/dots before we got any more.

[Funtodin]

It's probably what Markoh said, we had to hold dps on the hearts to not push into hard-mode, so there wasn't enough time for collateral damage to kill them.

And regarding Ignis, it is so easy now to just shatter the adds (debuff up to 10 stacks down from 20) we haven't even tried doing any other way and possibly making the fight harder than it's supposed to be.

[icesurfer7]

isn't the general idea for fighting knockback mobs to position yourself again any wall?or did you just not want to try and reposition yourself for the fight?

[Markoh]

For Ignis I personally prefer to offtank the constructs, so its 2 tanks 2 healers and 6 dps. We easily get the "Stokin the furnance" achievement and it makes the fight incredibly easy.

They reduced heart life so this strat might be easier if your trying to avoid hard mode. With less life xt might not go instantly from one heart phase to the next. Even if he still does your dps will have to stop earlier and during this time they can dps down pummerlers for you.

[Doogiehowser]

Do you gents remember at what gear level you can solo tank XT?

This is currently what I'm at and I am in the same situation as the OP with some lower dps.

http://www.chardev.org/?template=207673

Is it possible with that gear?

[Jasari]

Do you gents remember at what gear level you can solo tank XT?

This is currently what I'm at and I am in the same situation as the OP with some lower dps.

http://www.chardev.org/?template=207673

Is it possible with that gear?

The gear requirement for solo tanking isn't really any different than tanking him normally. The adds barely hit for more than your BV and since your healers won't have to worry about healing a 2nd tank they'll be able to stay focused on you.

Basically, yes, you're easily geared enough.

I feel like they've nerfed the spawn rate of the pummelers since the first week. When I solo tanked this right after 3.1 I remember having like 6 or 7 pummeleres on me at the end. Now I typically have 2, maybe 3.

[edit]

Oh, and you're going to want to tank him either are the far left or far right side of the room right between the trash heaps on that side. This way you only get spawns from the far trash heaps.