Heroic Shadow Lab

[Caerdwynn]

So, I have a couple questions about this instance, was wondering if you guys could offer some advice.

I'm having problems tanking this. Last night was my first attempt, and it was not a good one.

The lack of fear ward and the ability to stance-dance the Fel Overseers was the first problem. I've got my bubble/unbubble macro, and that works to a point.. but only every 5 minutes. I was losing 1 DPSer every time we did one of these, and it turned into a real bitch. Any ideas?

The 1st boss was cake. I had everyone stand in for the fears, so the boss beat the hell out of me while I was running away. No real issue there.

Second Problem: Blackheart the Inciter. He MCs, I burn through my mana. MC ends, I have nothing left to tank with. Heals help, mana pots help, but not enough. Suggestions?

I'm just feeling like this is a huge roadblock. I've tanked every heroic thusfar except Arc and Slab without a problem.. I've done the raid OT thing.. and now this. Just feel like I'm going to be asking a warrior to tank it by the end of the day :\

~Caer

[Romie]

The lack of fear ward and the ability to stance-dance the Fel Overseers was the first problem. I've got my bubble/unbubble macro, and that works to a point.. but only every 5 minutes. I was losing 1 DPSer every time we did one of these, and it turned into a real bitch. Any ideas?

If you have a pally healing keep Blessing of Sacrifice on him and when you get feared he taunts, fel oversea hits him breaks your intimidation shout and you taunt it back (intim shout breakes when you take dmg), make sure he is in range to get blessing of sac/taunted off).

If you have all range they can try and leg it but i find this method messy.

You can also try Blessing os Sac someone who will most liekly get agro once yoi get feared but this can somethimes get messy as if its a caster he might get 1 shot.

Not really to sure what else you can do.

Second Problem: Blackheart the Inciter. He MCs, I burn through my mana. MC ends, I have nothing left to tank with. Heals help, mana pots help, but not enough. Suggestions?

I find this a messy fight but its doable. I use hybrid tank gear for this boss instead of warrior gear for the extra mana and mp5. Also get a stack of combat mana pots from SW pvp place, 10silver each and 1 honor point each, nice and cheap. Also a stack of demonic runes are helpful to. Really not much you can do but try your best to conserve mana and hold agro as well as you can. This is probly one of the worst fights for a paladin tank. You can also try and use rank 1 aoe before the mc so its on cooldown when you get MC'd. Would be possible to get a hunter to put a trap under you and you try and tank it on top so when its mc type you get traped (never tried this one).

Thats all i can really think of, hopefully this helps.

[Pwnsan]

For the Fel Overseers, use the same strat as the first boss. Just have all the dps and healer stand behind him so that everyone gets feared. He will continue to beat on you when everyone is feared.

For Blackheart the Inciter, use BoW and JoW. It helps a ton.

[PsiVen]

I solve this problem by saying "no" whenever asked to go to the Shadow Labyrinth.
When I did go, I made sure to have a druid to trivialize Overseers (tank rotation) and Blackheart (feral charge on knockbacks) while DPSing the rest of the instance.

Overseers I could deal with, but Blackheart I never even really figured out on non-heroic. Just a ridiculous fight to attempt as a paladin.

[Eloff]

I solve this problem by saying "no" whenever asked to go to the Shadow Labyrinth.

AOE tanking the really large pulls makes normal mode a ton of fun... I even had my hunter pull one of the back groups to add some challenge. Then we did the other side by pulling the big pack and it's patroling six armed freak. It was awesome.

It seems the 2nd boss is easiest with lots of DPS. Frost trap also sounds great, but you'd need a hunter. I find that if you just hit him hard enough, he goes down before mana is bottomed out. (You'll still need at least one mana pot though.) The key with this is to make sure that you are given at least 5-8 seconds to build threat before anyone else.

[Thels]

Been there 3 times for Trial of the Naaru.

1st time went okish until someone disced right in front of the 2nd boss and we called it a night. Let everyone hug the fearing mobs, and if you don't get feared, kite it. I kept spamming taunt until fear broke. We fought the boss in the hallway on the other side (if you don't aggro him right away, he hides in there pretty fast), to prevent LOS problems with the pillars.

2nd time we used the same tactic and it worked fine again. However, the rogue was raping everyone on the 2nd boss but me. We had a try or two where he'd unequip his weapons when he thought the MC was coming in, and that helped a lot, but we still couldn't manage to get him down. After a few tries the rogue and mage disced, and we called it a night again.

3rd time we had a lot less CC. Me tanking, a Dreamstate Druid healing, Fury Warrior, Mage, Shadow Priest. The Priest was Dwarf, and the fear mobs were laughable now. 2nd boss was still annoying, but we managed to oneshot him somehow. 3rd boss was laughable. After that, the pain started. Had like 3 or 4 wipes on the trash mobs in front of Murmur because somehow there would always a runner pop up the moment we'd do something. Then the boss went awry. We switched to the Fury Warrior tanking and me healing, and then it more or less worked after a few tries.

I'd rather not go back there. So much encounters favoring Warriors over Paladins with practically none the other way around. I much rather help people on the Shattered Halls Heroic.

[Lore]

Eh, warriors don't really do any better on the fears. It's on a random timer, and you can't switch stances once you're feared, so unless they're tanking in berserker stance they're not gonna break it reliably either.

Second boss I just bring plenty of mana pots and it's fine. Still a pretty obnoxious fight, but I've always been able to get him down.

[Sayka]

A shaman in your group is very useful. His totem should get u out of fear in time. And for the 2nd boss: use manapots. But I figured that you can really be unlucky here. Within 2 minutes Ive had 1 mindcontrol phase but there have also been 5 - so it really depends.

[Nich]

My biggest issue with the Inciter is, I'm chugging mana pots to try and keep him from squashing people, but I can't burn the mana fast enough before the MC, so it gets wasted on a HL on myself, or max rank cons on one person.

Still, the last few times he's died. Even if it was just me and a holy pallyhealer both alive, both oom.

[Phaex]

I only did this instance once, with no real problems.
We had me tanking, Druid Healing, Affl Warlock, Icemage and a Hunter.

The Overseers were a bit surprising. The first one completely wiped us. But we figured out how to keep losses low quickly. Just have everyone hug the mob. This will get everyone feared most of the time, resulting in no agro loss, and the mob beating you out of fear himself. Bubble out if it goes wrong, (some clothie resisting) PvP Trinket out if it goes wrong again.
We had only one dead squishy on those mobs for the rest of the instance.
They usually don't oneshot anyone these days. Even a blue geared mage with 7k hp lasts 2 hits

Using sacrifice could be a good idea too, maybe a hunter standing behind, or a SL warlock, someone who can take a few hits, and the other 3 players hugging the mob. But i didn't try that.

On the second boss i usually buff salvation to everyone but me, i get a wisdom.
Start with some classic tank&spank of course.
I'm oom after the second mindcontrol, take a pot. After the third use a demonic rune. If you don't have one, you can still taunt, kite him away from the group, bop if someone gets cought, taunt back and kite away, so he flips agro all the time and spends all of his time running around doing nothing. It is absolutely possible to survive till the fourth mindcontrol without the mob hitting anyone at all. Have your group spread out widely, you have plenty of space.
Don't tank him at the door like most people do, thats a warrior tactic. You should use the whole room instead, he doesn't hit hard, so getting knocked away from your healer won't kill you, just walk back.
It might look like a total mess, people getting knocked away for 100 yards and all the running around and stuff, but i guess thats how the fight was meant to be, and its working

It also helps to tell everyone to wait a few seconds after a mindcontrol before doing anything. Tell your healer to wait too and use a healthstone or something. You should be able to tank him with just wisdom up and some mana from spiritual attunement till he dies.

[Daedricks]

On both normal and heroic, the trick with the overseers is to have everyone stand in melee range. That way, everyone gets feared and the mobs stays on me, causing me to break fear early usually due to the damage I am taking (at least, I assume that is the reason, regardless, when this happens I always break early).

Unfortunately, I can't count the number of times people refuse to do this. I literally pull the mob over to the healers so they are in melee range and watch in frustration as they back away from me. I mean, instincts are one thing, but when I spam it several times and you still don't listen...

In normal mode, I will admit I have let the mob run off and kill the mage/hunter/whatever that refuses to come in melee range before I taunt it off. More often than not, though, they usually die before the fear breaks.

/shrug

[Tauxalot]

So, I have a couple questions about this instance, was wondering if you guys could offer some advice.

I'm having problems tanking this. Last night was my first attempt, and it was not a good one.

The lack of fear ward and the ability to stance-dance the Fel Overseers was the first problem. I've got my bubble/unbubble macro, and that works to a point.. but only every 5 minutes. I was losing 1 DPSer every time we did one of these, and it turned into a real bitch. Any ideas?

The 1st boss was cake. I had everyone stand in for the fears, so the boss beat the hell out of me while I was running away. No real issue there.

Second Problem: Blackheart the Inciter. He MCs, I burn through my mana. MC ends, I have nothing left to tank with. Heals help, mana pots help, but not enough. Suggestions?

I'm just feeling like this is a huge roadblock. I've tanked every heroic thusfar except Arc and Slab without a problem.. I've done the raid OT thing.. and now this. Just feel like I'm going to be asking a warrior to tank it by the end of the day :\

~Caer

For the Fel Overseers, switch to a "tanking" weapon, like a Sun Eater or King's Defender. I have yet to be feared for more than 1/4 of a second using SoB on the Overseers since their fear breaks on damage. If you don't want to do that, just have everyone be in fear ranged and take the fear. If everyone gets feared he will go back to you and hit you, breaking the fear.

As far as the first boss goes, yeah he is a cockblock for sure. I bring mana pots and take advantage of JoW and SoW. Have everyone blow cooldowns to start off to burn him down as much as you can. Then when the MC hits he won't use the cooldown abilities on you or your party. Another thing that works is have everyone in melee range of him to eat the shockwave that drops aggro. He has no other abilities besides autoattack and charge so just get in there. Hunters can feign death if they get charged.

[Candiru]

these people who claim SoB breaks fear, it never does for me, what sort of pings do you have? I have a very low ping and it never works, do you have a high ping?

[Buttertoast]

these people who claim SoB breaks fear, it never does for me, what sort of pings do you have? I have a very low ping and it never works, do you have a high ping?

i connect at ~50ms and still observe the half-second delay on blood damage.
still, i don't count it as a reliable strategy.

on-topic, a decent hunter makes SL wonderful to do. he is a perfect sac target for overseers, and is able to misdirect through one of blackheart's aggro dumps so your dps can get a solid burndown on him.

[Frank]

Don't fear Shadow Labs! It can be fun. I'm not kidding! Really. Fun....

I've been running this a bunch lately and thought I'd give some pointers here....to take out a bunch of the frustration some of you may be having.


Trash
I AOE tank the entire instance. There is an alcove in the hall before the 1st boss' room I pull back the ritualist 4 pulls before the first boss into (tell your party to give you extra time to build aggro on these guys.) If I have a CCer I'll have them take out one of the Shadow Priests or Acolytes on the 5 pulls before Inciter. I usally have CC on the summoners before murmur.


Inciter
Going OOM is the biggest issue for most of you in here. I have the solution to this. I haven't seen this suggested but it works amazingly well. WEAR A LOT OF YOUR HEALING GEAR! I have all plate healing gear and just use my tanking sword, shield and a couple other key tanking pieces (those with high Int and SD). Inciter doesn't hit hard enough to destroy you with your healing gear on. I usually start the fight with 11K health and 9.5K mana and have never even had to pot during the fight. I take a bit more damage which is actually beneficial as it obviously helps with mana regen. Tell everyone to stack stamina here and give them all kings.

Vorpil
Have everyone go to the upper level. This is a DPS race, ignore the adds go all out on the boss. As you tank him walk him back towards the far wall, this will keep him away from the void walkers for a longer period of time. If you get banished make sure whoever pulls aggro continues to walk him backwards! MAke sure DPSers and healers stay away from you because the Voids explode and do some aoe damage. Each time you get ported do the same kite route I described earlier. If your DPS is strong you'll only get ported once.

Murmur
I basically make sure that the other four people spread out around the boss inside the bump of the outer ring (if it was a clock 12, 3, 6 and 9, o'clock) Whenever he casts murmurs touch everyone runs back to their original positions. I've found that just staying in and eating the Sonic Booms is the best method. If everyone is going out and coming back in and it doesn't work even one time you'll get the resonance deuff and it's most likely a wipe. By staying in I never have to worry about that. Not only that but I can stand right under Murmur which helps with Murmurs Touch spacing. It taxes my healer though so a Shadow Priest or off healer can come in handy here. So basically 1.5 healers is ideal unless your healer is an animal if you are eating the sonic booms. I also stack stamina and tell everyone in my party to do the same.