Going from LFR to 10 Normal

[jere]

So I finally got to do LFR last night for MSV (both halves). Previously I tried to find guides on the various bosses but after actually doing the bosses I found that they were very different from my expectations after reading the guides. I know some of this is just from different or irrelevant LFR mechanics. I was wanting to get info on what to expect when we start up our normal 10 mans later. Here are my impressions/questions:

1. Stone Guardians - So I know the normal strat is to separate one of them from the other two and do a swap to stagger the overloads. Not needed in LFR for sure. Is this only 25man version strat or 10man as well? Are there any other mechanics that as a tank I should be considering for 10man version that doesn't matter in LFR? All I had to do was tank all 3 together and move away from stuff on ground

2. Feng - I'm not exactly sure what happened here. He moved to 3 different locations and had different moves each time. In one position, I needed to move out of the large AoE. In another I think I needed to move out of fire, though I had trouble distinguishing the fire at all during the fight. We did tank swaps due to a stacking debuff, but kinda guessed at when to swap with no real direction. Any tips on when to swap and maybe more detail on the tank related mechanics for each of the positions?

3. Forget this guy's name, but the spirit totems guy. This fight seemed way to easy. Tank swaps were forced on us when one of the tanks went randomly to the spirit world. For the most part, we just stood there, held aggro, managed mitigation, and looked pretty. In the spirit world I didn't feel overly useful. The adds didn't really seem tankable in the traditional sense. Anything special for 10m on this?

4. The boss with the line of adds. This one seemed really easy except for on the pull I got one shot. Any tips on how to pull? I assume we have to move in as a group on the pull? After the pull and got battle rezzed, I never got hit that hard again, so not sure what the mechanic was that I messed up there.

5. Elegon seemed remarkably easy. Just stand in the middle and tank him until he does the thing that makes the floor disappear. Other tank just holds adds away from raid as they are dps'ed down. Anything significantly different in 10m for the tank?

6. The twin guys at the end were really easy. Just tank them in place mostly. Someone told me I need to avoid the combos, but honestly, I don't think it is possible. I got no indicator where ability was landing until it hit and it has a 180 arc. I don't want to run through him because even if it avoids the first attack, the 2nd will be on the melee, plus the arc is often times (but not always) angled and I might still end up just running into the edge of it. In 10m do we just soak it as well?

If those questions are too specific, I am really interested in learning if there are mechanics that tanks can just gloss over in LFR versus 10m where they might matter and be tank killers/raid wipers.

[KysenMurrin]

I play as dps and haven't done normal mode yet, so these few answers are not quite complete.

2. The tanks should have access to special abilities during the fight that allow you to reduce/negate his special attacks. In LFR they can produce a bubble shield for every epicentre and every fire, for example, so nobody has to run out. In the actual raid I believe I've read they can bubble every 2nd and stun the boss on some, but I'm not familiar with normal.

5. Outside of LFR you actually need to pay attention to the debuff standing on the platform gives you and reset it occasionally by running out (meaning a tank swap). You will also probably need to control the small adds in pylon phase.

6. The dance is possible, the attacks are shown by blue arcs high up near the boss, or by them standing up on one leg for the 360-degree stomp. You just need to be very quick and not make any mistakes to avoid them all. I don't think you need to worry about melee dps, your position won't affect where the specials go and if melee are there they'll be dancing too.

[jere]

6: so they don't do the combos based on the way they are facing? I didn't see any blue lines. The only visual I got was the ground turning dark brown when they did the ability. I'll have to look closer. The group made me tank them at the base of the stairs, so perhaps the terrain was hiding the blue lines from me?

[KysenMurrin]

The lines are thin blue arcs that flash in the air about about weapon-height on the mob. They can be tricky to spot. Two arcs in a kind of bow shape on the side that the attack will hit. I haven't noticed any pattern to the direction (having done the fight 3 times as melee and died to the combos 5 times...).

I would be much, moch easier if the graphic was on the ground...

[SteveL]

I'm a healer and have only done LFR, but when I was looking for videos on this encounter, I found one where the tank rotated their display so they were looking down on the boss, and that way they could see the thin blue arcs really clearly. Might be worth trying?

Found the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dFx1BGOPzY which might help. Some of the language is NSFW.

Steve

[Belloc]

It sounds like you're looking for what amounts to full guides to these fights. I suggest Icy-veins.com, as they have guides that go over all of the abilities and how to handle them in much more detail than you're likely to get from a forum thread.

In addition, you'll want to talent and use on-cooldown Hand of Purity for Stone Guard. You can also use it on Feng when you get 2+ stacks of the DoT. You'll want to talent double-hands for the Gara'jal (use hand of sacrifice/hand of protection on the currently-fixated tank when healers are down below to lower damage on Dolls) and Elegon (Hand of Sacrifice on the current Elegon tank = smoother damage on him and more Vengeance on you while you tank the add). On Will of the Emperor, talent for Pursuit of Justice to increase your chances of successfully completing the dance).

[Ezharon]

Mysticknight got a nice video on how to avoid the combo on Will of the Emperor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MJt87swEdM&feature=plcp

[jere]

It sounds like you're looking for what amounts to full guides to these fights. I suggest Icy-veins.com, as they have guides that go over all of the abilities and how to handle them in much more detail than you're likely to get from a forum thread.

Not so much full guides I was more looking for stuff like "On LFR you can eat the combos, but on normal you have to dodge them all" kinda stuff. I'm not really good at explaining myself.

Things I think I have picked up on from the guides:

Stone guard: have to tank dogs split up (2 and 1) and do tradeoff in Normal, while can just tank them together in LFR

Feng: DoT is a much larger issue in Normal than on LFR

Will of the Emperor: Dodging combos is paramount in Normal, but optional in LFR

Elegon: Add must be tanked away from raid in Normal while in LFR it can be tanked on the raid.

I've actually read the guides on Icy Veins, but without seeing the actual fight, it's sometimes hard for me to tell what mechanics are more important to me in Normal vs LFR. My only experience thus far is in LFR, but I know a lot of the mechanics are ignored or different there. The guides will say stuff like "Feng puts a dot on you and you must tank swap", but it doesn't really give an indicator of how dangerous that DoT really feels and LFR isn't a reliable area of experience for that since a lot of mechanics are not a big deal. For all I know, if you get 3 stacks of the DoT in Normal, you die while in LFR I've been up to 7 or 8 stacks on one of the DoT's and still managed to survive for a bit or maybe the DoT isn't as dangerous in either mode and some other mechanic is the bigger tank killer. The guides don't give you that kind of sense all of the time.

So I'm not looking for "here's how you do the tank swap" but more of "a tank swap is actually needed in Normal mode". It doesn't have to be fully descriptive, just things to pay attention to. The tidbits you posted on the talents is actually very helpful and more along the lines of info that I was searching for.

Sorry for the confusion on that.

[jere]

As a separate note, I appreciated the feedback, especially on Will. I was able to see the blue lines by turning the camera to overhead view. I had a little trouble figuring out when it was a circular versus arc attack, but that's more of a reaction time issue for me that I can work on. I tried both Pursuit of Justice and Speed of Light on that and found Speed of light more useful (at least on my practice in LFR).

[fuzzygeek]

Elegon: Add must be tanked away from raid in Normal while in LFR it can be tanked on the raid.

A note: you want to tank the add inside the bubble to 25%, then get it OUT of the bubble as quickly as possible. Its pulses do more damage whilst inside the bubble, and its final cast does double damage to the raid. Depending on timing, this is likely to wipe the raid.

You'll also have to tank swap constantly to deal with the stacking Overcharged debuff.

[jere]

Elegon: Add must be tanked away from raid in Normal while in LFR it can be tanked on the raid.

A note: you want to tank the add inside the bubble to 25%, then get it OUT of the bubble as quickly as possible. Its pulses do more damage whilst inside the bubble, and its final cast does double damage to the raid. Depending on timing, this is likely to wipe the raid.

Funny enough, I've only done two LFR's so far, but we actually used that strategy for the first one with great success. On the second LFR we did it again, but the group from Nemesis all started yelling out I was a stupid tank (you know the whole ALL CAPS half English style insults we've all come to love followed by the endless chain of lifegrips from 5 or 6 priests in all different areas who don't know where I should be but just like to yank you around). It was then I even learned you could tank him close in LFR.

[econ21]

Anyone want to update this for Heart of Fear?

On Mel'jarak (boss #4), an impetuous tank pull meant we did not CC any adds and just zerged them in a mass scrummage. On normal, I gather planned CCing and separating the tanks is crucial.

On Un'sok (boss #5), the mutated construct tank can break free at 10% (not 20%) health but does not really need to press that button as they will be automatically freed (at 0%?). On normal, tanks who don't press the button will die.