MercyRose, a priest, asks

Is there a mod to monitor when a tank has shield block up?

I don’t know of a mod that will alert you of when Shield Block is up or down, but it is an actual buff that can be seen on the tank’s buff bar.  You just have to keep an eye out for it!

So if that tank is telling you they are keeping up their Shield Block, and you’re not so sure, watch their buffs to see when Shield Block is active!

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Well, it’s about a week late in posting, but another personal note on another first kill for our guild.  Last Sunday, we dropped Hydross on our 2nd night of attempts.

In all honesty, we would have downed this guy on our first night had I not missed one important piece of information.  During the transition from one phase to the next, I was under the assumption that it was a total and complete aggro wipe.  This is not the case, it is only a partial aggro wipe.  I am not sure of the exact mechanics, but know that it is not a 100% complete aggro wipe.

I was tanking Nature, so our Frost tank would initiate aggro.  Since I was going to pick it up after the transition, I mainly focused on conserving rage and making sure debuffs were applied.  I did not concern myself with building threat (again, I assumed complete aggro wipe).  When we transitioned to poison, every time, Hydross would be line it for someone, often going back across into Frost, spawning more adds, and ensuring a wipe.

I kept chalking it up to too many dots, or overaggro.  I did not realize that it was my fault in not having built up any threat before the transition.

After the 6th attempt of the night, I finally realized that the transition was not a complete wipe.  On the next attempt, I concentrated more on building threat with the frost tank during the first phase.  Upon the transition, Hydross stuck to me like glue, as expected.  That was the first strong attempt we had and we got him down to 40%.  Unfortunately it was late and we had to call it a night.

The next time we saw him, we were better prepared and we took Hydross down with zero deaths.  Ahhh, I love it when a plan comes together!

We used a hybrid resist prot paly to tank 2 – 3 of the adds and AoE’d them down during each transition.  An additional frost resist tank grabbed 2 frost adds during frost phase and 1 nature add during the poison phase.  This worked very well for us.

Some tips for our readers!

Tip #1 :  I learned this one the hard way.  The transition from phase to phase is NOT a complete aggro wipe, so make sure you are always building threat.

Tip #2 : Some of the strangest things can aggro him after the transition, ie, for us it was a Searing Totem.  Tell your shammies to keep ‘em in their pants because it could cause a silly wipe.

Tip #3 : Use a weapon swap macro to swap to dual wield when you are not the focus tank in order to generate more rage.  Just make sure you swap back to your sword and board before you take over tanking!

Tip #4 : Get your guild to start working on resist gear early!  This stuff is pricey and takes a while to accumulate.

Tip #5 : You can back Hydross across the transition line, but if you find you need to move quickly, strafe run instead of turning your back to Hydross.  Strafe running is very important as you can move full speed yet still block and parry.

Do you have any tips to add to taking down Hydross?

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