Tank Hard!

NOTE:  None of the links and tooltips will work right now, but hopefully as the database sites get this info integrated, we’ll be able to provide direct links.  For now,  http://www.mmo-champion.com/ has stats for all these items posted in screenshots!

Patch 2.4 brings new content in Sunwell Plateau, as well as a plethora of new items and gear. There are also a few warrior specific changes, but nothing that really impacts tanking.

Shattered Sun Offensive Reputation Rewards

There are several reputation reward items for the Sunwell plateau that may well provide upgrades if you have not been raiding much, or are an up and coming level 70. There is a shield, [item]Dawnforged Defender[/item], and a tanking sword, [item]Inuuro’s Blade[/item] on par with Grom’tor’s charge. These will only cost you a few gold once you have the required reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive reputation.

New Defensive Metagem - [item]Eternal Earthstorm Diamond[/item]

There is a new metagem as well. [item]Eternal Earthstorm Diamond[/item]. It will grant +12 Defense and +10% Shield Block VALUE. I’m not so sure this will outweigh the [item]Powerful Earthstorm Diamond[/item] unless you are going for a passive crush immunity set.

New Enchant - Enchant Chest - Defense

This new enchant will grant 15 defense rating to your chest. Now this one I see as a possibility depending on your gear and gem selections. Typically tanks would go for Major Health, which is +150 health. But if going with +15 Defense would allow you to socket more [item]Solid Star of Elune[/item], then going with Defense will be the better option. Add in the Vitality talent bonus for Stamina and you would definitely lean more towards gemming Solid Stars and enchanting +15 Defense.

New Head Glyph - [item]Glyph of the Gladiator[/item]

At first glance, this is a PVP glyph. But let’s look a little closer. This glyph gives 18 stamina and 20 resilience. This might be a good choice if you are going for more health and less avoidance of the [item]Glyph of the Defender[/item]. Again, this one will come down to personal preference, raid encounter, and current gear setup.

New Gear

There are various new items as well that will cost tokens or badges of some sort. I am hoping to get on test realm soon to find out exactly what it will take but for now here is a list of some items:

[item]Breastplate of Agony’s Aversion[/item]
[item]Crown of Dath’Remar[/item]
[item]Felstrength Legplates[/item]
[item]Spaulders of the Thalassian Defender[/item]

New Tier 6 added items

[item]Onslaught Waistguard[/item]
[item]Onslaught Wristguards[/item]
[item]Onslaught Boots[/item]

No More Attunement for Black Temple and Mount Hyjal

And of course, last but not least, all attunement requirements for Black Temple and Mount Hyjal are being dropped. So Rochelle, looks like you should start covering some of the early fights in BT and MH for us as we may be venturing in there sooner than expected!

So I’ve been working on a new design/layout. I haven’t decided if I really like this one or not… what do you guys think?

[poll=3]

Update:  Well, it looks like it’s a resounding dislike for the design.  Wish folks had mentioned it if was primarily the color scheme, or layout or both, but I’ll keep working.  I’m not heart broken, I don’t think I really liked it either, hehe.

I wrote one post about Gurtogg Bloodboil and one about The Lurker Below. A vast majority of wow players - and I would imagine that a majority of the readers here - have never seen Gurtogg and probably won’t ever see him (or at least not at level 70). But there are tons of people who have seen and will see Lurker. And that got me to thinking, would you guys rather read some tips and tricks that you can actually use in fights you actually do, or would you rather read about some BT and Hyjal fights that you may never see but are very cool nonetheless?

As all tanks know, you always strive to perform to your maximum potential when tanking raid bosses. As such, you should always be flasked or elixired up. [item]Flask of Fortification[/item] is great when learning new encounters due to persistence through death. [item]Elixir of Major Agility[/item] coupled with a Guardian Elixir are the typical tanking Elixirs.

For the most part the only debate is whether to go for the +250 hp and 10 health regen every 5 seconds from [item]Elixir of Major Fortitude[/item], or the 550 armor from [item]Elixir of Major Defense[/item]. I have always been partial to [item]Elixir of Major Defense[/item], and I feel it is worth investigating which it makes more sense to use.

First we need to understand how armor affects physical damage reduction. From the Elitist Jerks thread, for level 73 raid bosses, the damage reduction formula looks like this:

Taking that and plugging in typical level 70 armor values, we have:

Armor DR Damage Difference
12000 50.08% 2496 51
12500 51.10% 2445 49
13000 52.08% 2396 47
13500 53.02% 2349 45
14000 53.93% 2304 44
14500 54.80% 2260 42
15000 55.64% 2218 40
15500 56.45% 2178 39
16000 57.22% 2139 38
16500 57.98% 2101 36
17000 58.70% 2065 35
17500 59.40% 2030 34
18000 60.08% 1996 33
18500 60.74% 1963 32
19000 61.37% 1932 31
19500 61.98% 1901 30
20000 62.58% 1871 29
20500 63.15% 1842 28
21000 63.71% 1814 27
21500 64.26% 1787 26
22000 64.78% 1761
So what does this tell us? Well, in my opinion, I feel the added damage reduction outweighs the added health. Some would say that the added 250 health would help you survive the burst from a boss. I would contend if a boss is coming within 250 points of bursting you down, that you are undergeared for the encounter in the first place.

You can also look at it in terms of Effective Health. At almost any reasonable combination of health and armor, [item]Elixir of Major Defense[/item] will grant you more effective health than [item]Elixir of Major Fortitude[/item]. The higher the ratio of hitpoints to armor, the more effective health you will gain. The only time you would gain more effective health from Fortitude is if you have substantially more Armor than health (like 6K more).

In the end, it likely all comes down to personal preference and ease of obtaining these Elixirs. They realistically are very close in terms of benefit. The ability to take more raw damage, or the ability to mitigate more. If you are a follower of the Effective Health doctrine, then you would go with Defense. If you are worried about getting burst down, you would go with Fortitude. Perhaps each Elixir is better suited for certain encounters. At any rate, as a tank, you should always be looking for ways to improve your tankability, and you should always be potted up during raids. So do those dailies, befriend an Alchemist and always have a steady supply on hand!

[poll=2]

I like the idea of what Bizzam did with the run down on how to tank all of the ZA bosses and I think I will go through of all the tips and tricks I know for tier 5 and maybe even tier 6 bosses. Bizzam covered Hydross already so I will skip that one and go straight on to Lurker. I want to focus on what the tank needs to do more than a whole overview on the strategy of the fight.

Lurker has 3 main abilities that he uses in phase 1 and he melees for somewhat high damage on the MT. The first ability is called Whirl and it will hit everyone in melee range for 3k or so and do a knockback. Geyser is a random secondary targetting spell that hits for 3.5k and does a 10 yard knockback to the target and anyone near the target. Spout is on a strict 45 second timer and it will pretty much kill anyone who screws it up. It does a ton of damage and has a huge knockback. If the damage doesn’t kill you, then the scalding water as you swim back to the raid will.

There are three platforms on the outside of the main ring in his room. In phase 2, adds will spawn - 2 archers on each of those outside platforms and 3 warrior mobs on the inner ring. Basic strategy is to kill the archers on the outside while you CC or tank the warriors on the inside and then you kill the warriors. After a certain amount of time or after all the mobs are dead Lurker will reappear and it is back to phase 1.

Everyone who has been into SSC has surely had someone accidentally fall into the water at some point and they will tell you that the fish in the water don’t mess around. They are elite and they will mess you up real fast. But if you clear the trash on the platforms above Lurker’s pool, then the water takes on an effect called Scalding Water and it kills all the fish. So if someone falls in after clearing the trash they don’t get attacked by fish anymore but they will take 500 damage every 3 seconds from the scalding water until they get out. Thats not really a big deal to heal through so the tank just jumps right in and the healers have to heal through a little extra damage.

Back in the day when the top guilds were learning the fight, it wasn’t obvious that clearing the trash killed off the fish, so a lot of the top guilds just did the fight with the fish in the water so you couldn’t stick the tank in there. Which meant the tank was up on the platform and could get knocked back by whirl and geyser which meant you needed to have another tank #2 on threat.

From the MT perspective, this fight is pretty easy. You just hang out in the water and try not to move. The only dangerous part is that whirl and geyser can sometimes knock you out of line of sight from your healers so after a whirl or geyser if you notice that the rhythm of healing is broken or if your healers say something like ‘omg you are out of line of sight!’, then you are probably out of line of sight. You can fix it but moving forward a bit and jumping. For phase 1 there really isn’t anything else to it. The OTs can just dps their little hearts out and wait for phase 2.

When phase 2 happens the adds spawn at the same spot every time and your raid leader should assign tanks to those spots. My guild sheeps the warriors and puts tanks on the archers to keep them from multishotting everyone. When doing that I like to stand on the spot where the warrior will spawn and hit it with a concussion blow before jumping to the outside platform. That way it won’t go one-shot some squishy before the mage finishes casting sheep. When you are tanking the warriors, you will want to stand on the very edge of the ring with the mob facing the outside because can cleave and kill people. It also helps to yell at anyone who gets too close.

The moment Lurker comes back up after phase 2, he will start to spout again so it is crucial that the MT be in the same spot as always so that spout happens in a predictable way. If the tank is out of position then Lurker will start his spout in a wierd place and will catch a lot of people off guard. If you are tanking a warrior that isn’t dead yet when phase 2 ends then you need to be ready to jump into the water to avoid spout even if the warrior is beating on you. They will hamstring the tank which makes it even more important that you are standing on the edge already since you won’t be moving quickly. If you have to go into the water with the warrior, you need to be ready to pop your cooldowns to stay alive because you will probably be out of line of sight of your healers until the spout passes by and you can get back on top.

Its a pretty simple 2 phase fight from a tank’s perspective and if you are lucky you will be rewarded with one of the best tanking weapons in the game - [item]Mallet of the Tides[/item].