Tank Hard!

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. [Flask of Fortification] is great when learning new encounters due to persistence through death. [Elixir of Major Agility] 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 [Elixir of Major Fortitude], or the 550 armor from [Elixir of Major Defense]. I have always been partial to [Elixir of Major Defense], 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, [Elixir of Major Defense] will grant you more effective health than [Elixir of Major Fortitude]. 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!

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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!

Have a question for the TankHard! crew?  Submit it on our contact form!

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?

Supremeflare writes:

How do i multi tank in heroics? In normal its fine but in heroics I find I can never get enough threat on my second target with clap/cleave to keep him off the healer, where am I going wrong?

The main thing that has to happen here is that the rest of the group needs to understand that you will be splitting your threat between mobs, so they cannot just go crazy as if you were tanking a single mob. DPS should hold off for a few seconds after the pull to allow you to generate some initial aggro on both mobs.

What I do is this, shoot your SECONDARY mob first, to just give you a little extra on your off mob. Switch to the PRIMARY target as they are coming to you. Open up with a Shield Slam on your Primary, follow it up with a TClap and Cleave. Swap to your SECONDARY target to pop a Devastate, then back to your PRIMARY mob to work your threat rotation. At that point, DPS should be able to engage without much issue.

Just continue to use Cleave and swap to your Secondary target every few seconds to apply another Devastate. Don’t forget to keep up TClap and Demo Shout. You can also use Concussion Blow on your off target, as well as Disarm if the incoming damage is too high.

If I’m tanking more than 2, then I do the same except I just cycle through the added mob to Devastate.

Again, the #1 rule here is the DPS remembering that you will be splitting your threat, and they need to adjust accordingly.

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Veneretio has posted up his comparison of Mongoose vs Executioner. He does well enough to describe the pros and cons of each. In the end he had this to say about which one he feels wins out:

Neither of them. Myself I prefer Mongoose’s combination of Threat, Avoidance and Mitigation, but I’d also not discredit anyone who preferred Executioner for it’s superior Threat increase. Both are fine choices and unfortunately on this one, it’s all going to come down to preference.

While Veneretio may feel that neither of them is the clear winner, I feel that they are BOTH the clear winner! I would recommend getting each enchant on a different weapon and use those weapons in the proper circumstances.

I will drop Executioner on my [The Decapitator] and keep Mongoose on my [King's Defender] and [The Sun Eater].

When not currently tanking but needing to build aggro, swapping in Decapitator for Devastate is a very smart move when you find yourself with lower rage generation. If you are faced with the choice of getting only one enchant, I would still lean towards Mongoose. With the Threat buffs in 2.3, survival should trump threat in most fights when you are working on progression targets.