Tank like a girl

Time for another reference guide, mostly for myself, hopefully of interest for others too. A new expansion means new consumables, from buff foods to elixirs to flasks. Let’s see what’s out there.

Potion:

• The Health pot du jour is called Runic Healing Potion this time around. Due to potion sickness, chain-chugging is a thing of the past, so time your potion use carefully.
• As alternative to using a health potion, you could try an Indestructible Potion instead. That’s a lot of armor that might help in encounters with Enrages or very heavy melee damage.

Battle Elixir:

• Guru’s Elixir raises all stats by 20, so is quite the excellent choice.
• Elixir of Expertise does exactly what the name suggests, raising expertise. Strong stat for tanks, so it’s a very good consumable to use, if you’re not using a flask.
• In a similar vein, you could also use Elixir of Accuracy for hit rating for threat.
• If you can’t get either of those battle elixirs, I would use either Elixir of Lightning Speed, Elixir of Deadly Strikes or Elixir of Armor Piercing, but I personally don’t think they’re as strong as the other two.
• You want to use something that scales with Blessing of Kings? How about Elixir of Mighty Strength for bigger Shield Slams?
• If you’re of the druidic persuasion, Elixir of Mighty Agility is probably the best option.

Guardian Elixir:

• Elixir of Mighty Fortitude is very nifty, and offers tons of extra health plus regen.
• Defense is a very strong avoidance stat nowadays and still worth stacking beyond the crit cap, so I highly endorse Elixir of Mighty Defense.
• Elixir of Protection offers extra armor, I will have to test if I get more mileage out of extra armor than any of the others.

Flasks:

• Flask of Stoneblood is the tanking flask, I suppose. It’s a shame that it’s just health now, no longer any extra defense.
• If health is no concern and you want to increase your personal DPS and threat, there’s Flask of Endless Rage.

Food:

All the new buff food brings back all the stats that show up on gear these days. You get to choose between strength, agility, expertise, hit, haste, armor penetration, crit rating plus 40 stamina. Which one you want to use is really up to you. Used an expertise battle elixir? Combine it with buff food that gives you extra strength, e.g.

• Strength:  Dragonfin Filet
• Agility: Blackened Dragonfin
• Expertise: Rhinolicious Wyrmsteak
• Hit: Snapper Extreme
• Haste: Imperial Manta Steak or Very Burnt Worg
• Armor Penetration: Hearty Rhino
• Crit: Spiced Wyrm Burger or Spicy Blue Nettlefish

Lots of options. Think I missed anything? Leave a comment.

After my two previous posts looking at reputation rewards and craftable tanking gear, I have now looked at instance drops and quest rewards, compared all of them, and came up with my personal shopping list which I’ll use to gear up for heroics and entry-raiding. All items on the list are either available through reputation, questing or normal level instances. I am not including BoP craftables like engineering goggles or jewelcrafting trinkets.

A priority on the gear is defense. Once you hit the magic cap of 540, it will get easier to focus on gear that is more balanced than pure defense gear. This also means that in my top 3 per slot a higher def piece might be better until you hit the cap. For heroics you will need a defense of 535, for raid bosses you will need 540 defense.

On we go! As always, comments are very welcome.

 
Head:

• Tempered Titansteel Helm - Crafted by blacksmiths. Very basic stats, but big numbers when it comes to armor, stamina, defense.
• Helm of the Ley Guardian - Cache of Eregos in The Oculus. Excellent piece, with high armor, very high def, a red socket and hit rating for extra threat. Best blue helm outside of heroics for sure.
• The Crusader’s Resolution - reward from The Crusader’s Pinnacle in Icecrown. Very solid piece, but no socket.

Pet peeve number one. Why are all the helmet models the same? Lazy, Blizzard, lazy.

 
Neck:

• Titanium Earthguard Chain - Crafted by Jewelcrafters. Great stats and a socket, and the mats don’t seem too insane.
• Amulet of Deflected Blows - Skadi the Ruthless in Utgarde Pinnacle.
• Reinforced Titanium Neckguard - Icecrown quest reward for The Admiral Revealed

 
Back:

• Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions - Honored with Wyrmrest Accord. Extremely nice cloak, and Honored is not that lofty a goal.
• Flowing Cloak of Command - Salramm the Fleshcrafter in The Culling of Stratholme. Holy moly, that’s a lot of armor. Pretty nice.
• Screeching Cape - Erekem in The Violet Hold. You can get this cloak early if you’re lucky, not a bad way to go.

 
Shoulders:

• Crusader’s Square Pauldrons - BoE Trash drop in The Culling of Stratholme. Check the AH, you might get lucky and score these shoulders which are quite excellent.
• Pauldrons of Reconnaissance - quest reward for Halls of Stone. Run an instance, score this excellent reward, nice deal. And it’s not even a level 80 instance.
• Tempered Saronite Shoulders - Crafted by Blacksmiths. Hooray, non-spiky shoulders. Another lazy model issue, pet peeve number 2. These shoulders don’t have much to offer other than good chunks of basic tank stats, but they are so easy to get.

 
Chest:

• Breastplate of the Solemn Council - Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Hands down the best pre-heroic chest, very sweet deal. Buy your tabard now and be ready to burn through Wyrmrest Accord rep.
• Reanimated Armor - Gortok Palehoof in Utgarde Pinnacle. Also not bad at all. How about grinding rep in the Pinnacle? Would work for me.
• Silver-Plated Battlechest - Quest reward for Junk in my trunk in Utgarde Pinnacle. Another argument for Pinnacle as place to be for chestpieces. Grab the quest reward or the drop until you have rep, if you’re into that.

 
Wrist:

• Svala’s Bloodied Shackles - Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle. Okay, I get it, we spend a lot of time in that place. Great bracers.
• Bracers of Reverence - Quest reward for A Wing and a Prayer in The Oculus.
• Tempered Saronite Bracers - Crafted by Blacksmiths. The cheap way for a lot of defense.

 
Hands:

• Fireproven Gauntlets - Exalted with Kirin Tor. Just about the only possible thing rep with them gains us, so that’d be the last rep for me to grind. But very sweet gloves, no doubt.
• Daunting Handguards - Crafted by Blacksmiths. Massive amounts of defense, no kidding.
• Gauntlets of Vigilance - Quest reward for The Reckoning in Storm Peaks. Color me flabbergasted, tank gear with agility on. It’s like blast from the past.

 
Waist:

• Girdle of Obscuring - Mage-Lord Urom in The Oculus
• Tempered Saronite Belt - Crafted by Blacksmiths. There are few belt options, so it won’t hurt to go with the crafted one. It’s pretty nice.

 
Legs:

• Special Issue Legplates - Honored with Argent Crusade. Sockets make my heart sing, there are so few of them these days. Great legs.
• Daunting Legplates - Crafted by Blacksmiths. If you’re really out to get tons of defense.
• Void Sentry Legplates - Zuramat the Obliterator in The Violet Hold. Another piece with one socket, and that’s why it’s listed, because it makes gear more versatile.

 
Feet:

• Tempered Titansteel Treads - Crafted by Blacksmiths
• Sabatons of Draconic Vigor - Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Clearly you’re grinding that rep first anyway, right? Pick it up with the chestpiece, win.
• Slaughterhouse Sabatons or Toxin-Tempered Sabatons - Meathook in The Culling of Stratholme or Honored with the Knights of the Ebon Blade. These boots are absolutely identical, they just look slightly different.
• Tempered Saronite Boots - Crafted by Blacksmiths. When you can get nothing else, the Tempered set will tide you over.

 
Rings:

• Titanium Earthguard Ring - Crafted by Jewelcrafters
• Dragonflight Great-Ring - Cache of Eregos in The Oculus
• Gal’darah’s Signet - Gal’darah in Gundrak
• Solid Platinum Band - Quest reward for For Posterity in Gundrak
• Staunch Signet - Quest reward for The Struggle Persists in The Oculus

 
Trinkets:

• Seal of the Pantheon - Loken in Halls of Lightning. Welcome to the only defense trinket pre-heroic and Naxxramas. Heed the words of Veneretio over at Tankingtips.com and keep your old defense trinkets. If you’re strapped to hit the def cap, you might need them.
• Sonic Booster - Crafted by Engineers. Massive massive amounts of stamina and a great threat proc. If you don’t need defense, definitely worth a look. If you are an engineer, that is. If you read the fine-print, you need 390 engineering to use it. Boo, fine print. Thanks for catching this, Daraxxus.

 
Main Hand:

• Eternally Folded Blade - Volkhan in Halls of Lightning. The strongest tanking weapon of that item level.
• Crescent of Brooding Fury or Hammer of Quiet Mourning - Quest reward from Wanted: Ragemane’s Flipper in Zul’Drak. If you’re an orc, get the axe, and dwarves and humans should get the mace. Everyone else can just get what they like best.
• Blade of the Empty Void - Quest reward from Tirion’s Gambit in Icecrown.

 
Shield:

• Titansteel Shield Wall - Crafted by Blacksmiths. Save your pocket money for this shiny shield!
• Leeka’s Shield - Mal’ganis in The Culling of Stratholme
• Riot Shield - Xevozz in The Violet Hold
• Saronite Bulwark - Crafted by Blacksmiths

 
Ranged Weapon:

• Armor Plated Combat Shotgun - Crafted by Engineers. Nummy. Engineers will make some cash with these statsticks.
• Weighted Throwing Axe - quest chain in the Storm Peaks. Not the fastest thrown weapon, but still probably not bad on trash pulls.

And that’s it, the big shopping list. Hope some of you can use it. I have a gear plan, and I am gonna use it.

The title of my current post would have been pretty lol-worthy just a couple weeks ago. It took some exceptionally geared warriors in DW fury gear to top the charts with Devastate spam, but all in all protection warriors were considered a liability on all one-tank fights and provided little utility aside from interrupts. That’s what made feral druids so very attractive as off-tanks, the ability to provide DPS in a pinch.

But things have changed, and it’s not unusual to see the main tank really up there. In my last raids, I have been number 3 in ZA several times, and was number 2 for our last Kara run, with a DPS high of 751 on Maiden (where I provided the highest damage on that fight). In 5-mans, I usually top the DPS by a good margin or end up second at least. A couple posts back I be-moaned the lack of the threat mini-game, but you know, I am liking the DPS game by now. I am not an exceptional tank. I know my stuff, but what I do every tank should be capable of. I am not running around in T6 or insane SBV gear sets.

And yet, I see protection warriors who are not doing so great on DPS since the patch. Protection warriors of the world, hear my words: don’t be satisfied with being lowest DPS as in the old days. You can put out competitive DPS and still tank like a star.

The single target rotation:

Here’s where the first mistake happens. Forget about the rotation of the past. Push it from your mind. Remap your keybindings if necessary. Don’t think in SS -> RV -> DV, DV anymore. That rotation is dead. If you still use it like this (and my fingers will still wander that way at times), you are sacrificing DPS and ergo threat. The threat you don’t notice at the moment, but by the time 80 rolls around, the threat game might see a comeback.

Instead you must prioritize. A good sequence would be to pull, Charge, Shield Slam and then take it from there. If Revenge lights up, great! Use Revenge every time you can and Shield Slam is on cooldown. Getting a Glyph of Revenge is an absolute necessity. If neither Shield Slam nor Revenge are available, Devastate. Watch for Sword&Board procs, you don’t want to miss them. Seriously, I mean it. If you are not keeping an eye on procs, you are not playing in the most optimal way. Being a protection warrior is not about the perfect threat rotation anymore. It’s become a lot more reactive.

Priority:

> >

After every GCD, you quickly need to check which ability you should use next, and still weave in stuff like Shouts, Thunderclap, Cleave etc.

Addons can be a great help when it comes to being aware of cooldowns and procs. I highly recommend Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text for awareness of S&B and Revenge procs. It comes with triggers for warriors without having to set anything up. I moved the static area for cooldowns to the center, to be more aware of them (though no cooldown popped while I was taking screenshots).

Works great. Another addon I love for keeping track of class-related buffs and debuffs is Classtimer. In the latest version it will track both Glyph of Revenge and S&B. At a glance I can see when it’s time to reapply Shouts, TC, and other such things. I use the All in One bar, but you can freely place timer bars for yourself, target and focus.

The AoE rotation:

Veneretio has posted about this not too long ago, how to approach AoE tanking and the best ‘rotation’ for that. I won’t repeat what he’s said, go read it yourself! He nicely illustrates what you should do to build threat on multiple targets without sacrificing survivability skills. His overall point is that we should remember we’re tanks, not DPS and do our part. I agree with this, but also think that if you disregard your damage output, you’re doing your group a disservice.

I basically use the same abilities he describes, but make sure that my primary target gets Shield Slammed whenever the ability is available. If you have rage, there is no reason why you shouldn’t add Cleave to the mix. Do not neglect your defensive abilities, but do not forget your offensive options either. Concussion Blow does great damage now, and minimizes your damage taken, e.g.

At the end of the raid when I look at my abilities, Shield Slam is the vast bulk of my damage output, at 25-30%. This is followed by white damage at 13-15%, Revenge with the same percentage, and if there were a lot of trash pulls, Thunderclap and Damage Shield are usually up there as well.

If Shield Slam is not your top damage ability, then you’re not reactive enough. If your white damage far outweighs any other damage you do, then you really should try to step it up. Our new priorities for ability use should be clearly reflected in the damage breakup.

In the end, it’s not about topping the meters. Successfully tanking and keeping mobs away from the raid while staying alive is still the highest priority of any protection warrior. Providing good DPS is just another perk we’ve received in 3.0 and it would be a waste not to use it.

A lot of my WotLK excitement is about easier multi-tanking for warriors. I love huge pulls. I love the challenge. I love holding multiple mobs on me. It’s hugely engaging, you have to be aware of the situation, it surely beats spamming one button. My mission: share the joy. The basics behind this guide will still apply in a post-3.0 world, things will just be a tad easier.

In my efforts to educate casual protection warriors pre-3.0 how to feel invincible by binding masses of mobs on them, I present to you: Kadomi’s Multi-Tanking Tips and Tricks!

Before we start our multi-tanking adventure, let’s review our arsenal of skills, the ones we shall need to bind many mobs on us. Pre-WotLK warrior multi-tanking is hard, yet satisfying work, and here’s what needs to be on your action bars to succeed:

Shield Slam. Your big threat move needs to be laid onto your primary target as much as you can.

Devastate. Of course. Bread and butter. Tab from target to target to lay Devastates on.

Thunderclap. Our super-awesome AoE tanking skill. I am choking up right now. (The sarcasm will go away after the patch) Greatly superior to its old form, the TBC version is helpful as you can now use it in Def stance and the threat was increased. However don’t expect Thunderclap alone to keep non-tanked mobs on you, that will likely not work. You have to work a bit harder if you require more than HoT healing.

Cleave. You have rage to spare, you use Cleave. Just like Heroic Strike, it’s a rage dump, it hits two targets, use it.

Demoralizing Shout. Many mobs hitting you means a lot of damage, especially in heroics, so you can generate some AoE threat using it and minimize the damage you’ll be taking.

Concussion Blow. Sometimes stuns are nice. Rage likely won’t be an issue in any larger pull, so it’s beneficial to knock one mob out, to further minimize the damage you’re taking.

Challenging Shout. If the shit hits the fan, it makes more sense to blow that cooldown to get mobs back on you. With its vastly reduced cooldown in WotLK, we’ll be able to use this more often too!

Disarm. When multitanking causes too much damage to you, minimize it. Especially handy in heroics, where fearsome non-CCable mobs turn into puny harmless puppies for the Disarm duration.

Everything ready? Then let’s go to ‘Outland Multi-Tanking School, Class 101′. The place is otherwise known as normal Shattered Halls. Your classmates should be a healer, and 3 people of the kind that pew-pews. For extra added difficulty to make you an A-level student, do not take more than one pew-pewer of the crowd-controlling kind with you. Be brave. Take a resto shaman, an elemental shaman, an enhancement shaman and a shadow priest along. Do your best.

To start off the class, you will pull the legionnaire at the entrance, and run forward to invite his two buddies to come play as well. Three is a good-sized group to tank. Initial move should be a fancy Shield Slam to the face of the legionnaire, followed by a hearty Thunderclap and Demoralizing Shout. That bit of AoE threat needs to tide you over while you lay on some Devastates on primary target. Next up, tab to mob number two, and Devastate. Tab to mob number three and use Concussion Blow. Back to the main target, to see if you still have a threat lead. Shield Slam and Devastate, weave in Thunderclap every cooldown, and with plenty of rage Cleave. If your lead is solid, switch to mobs 2 and 3 again to apply sunders via Devastate. There’s always something to do when multi-tanking which is my favorite part.

One often-cited reason for warriors to stick to single target tanking is that it’s so difficult to properly tab-target, and that you end up having mobs on the other side of the room targeted. Not quite correct. You can control what mobs you will target when tabbing through them. Tabbing uses a cone around you. Let’s say your primary mob is in the center of your group, and you want to tab to the mob to the right. Turn to the right so you’re directly facing the mob, then tab. Voila, you have it. Now you want the mob all the way to the left. Again, turn, face the mob, tab. Another slight turn, and the next tab takes you back to the primary target. There is a system to the madness, you can control what mobs to tab-target to. Positioning is the name of the game, and it’s fantastic practice for Shockwave, which is also a cone effect. Are you currently bored? I recently read one of Veneretio’s recommendations what to do til WotLK. You could level a mage to 26 and play with Cone of Cold, to learn how to master the cone effect.

After the first hallway of pulls which is just a warm-up, you end up in the room where the legionnaire paths from group to group. Pull the legionnaire when he’s either all the way to the right or the left, and pray you haven’t pulled the whole room. Note that you have mixed groups of casters and melee for the rest of the instance. Of course it is crucial that you tank right where the caster is. The easiest part is to bring casters to you, by using Line of Sight or rather, the lack of it. When you have mixed pulls, look around for opportunities to break line of sight. It’s relatively easy in my example. There’s a niche you can duck into on both sides. Stay against the wall until the caster is running around the corner towards you, then start your tanking cycle. In the following hallway, there are large niches with statues, you can also use those to your advantage to bring the sharpshooters into melee range. The golden rule: look for LoS breaking opportunities, and warn your group to hold the DPS until all your mobs are in melee range.

And that’s it, really. It’s not the easy Consecrate button that paladins have, and your DPS will not be able to AoE without drawing aggro. But warriors are more than capable of tanking multiple mobs if they get the opportunity and if the pulls go as planned. It requires that your group plays along. Last night, e.g. I tanked Heroic Shattered Halls, a line of sight pull, and some of the DPS did not wait for all the mobs to be in melee range. Mobs ran in different directions, splitting them up, and once your mobs are scattered all over the place, it’s very difficult to round them up. Ideally, they’re all on you in the first place. If pulls go wrong, explain what you need, and don’t give up. It’s possible, and it can be fun. And we want to have fun too, right? And just remember, this will all still work in WotLK, and we’ll get some added perks. Me, I can’t wait to re-visit Heroic Shattered Halls post-patch.

And now for the tough cookies, the instances that will make you break a nervous sweat, and where you’ll have to be in top shape. Don’t attempt unless you’re very comfortable tanking multiple mobs, and ideally you have top notch DPS and a great healer having your back.

As for the exact order, a lot of it depends on your group makeup. If you run with a bunch of people you are used to, who are skilled, provide big heals or big DPS, then those hard ones will probably all seem equally challenging. If you run with a PUG, a scale of 5 might not be enough.

My order:

11. Shadow Labyrinth
12. Shattered Halls
13. Magisters’ Terrace
14. Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde

Not rated: Mana-Tombs and Auchenai Crypts.

11. Shadow Labyrinth (4/5): When I first ran this, I was surprised that the trash didn’t really feel that much harder than on normal. But when you think about it, it is one of the tougher instances for young 70s, and the heroic version has the same risks than the normal instance does. For CC, you will want to bring a mage for polymorph, a capable hunter for trapping, a rogue for sap, a shadow priest for MC or a warlock for seduction/fear, as almost all of the mobs in there are humanoids.

Most difficult pull: No doubt the three six mob pulls in Blackheart’s room. You will need some form of CC here. Your kill priority should be to kill the shadow priests first, because their Mind Flay is eeeeevil. Seriously, it hurts a lot. If you happen to have a shadow priest in your own party, Mind Control totally kicks ass here, for the immense damage these guys can then supply to your group. As second mob you might want to kill the Acolytes or leave them CCd through the end. Have someone with high burst damage take out the minion of the warlocks on their own, they need to go down quickly as well. These are tough pulls, but not much harder than they were on normal. You just need to be prepared to tank three of those guys and pick up the rest as quickly as possible.

Other notable pulls: The Cabal Spellbinders at the end cast a channeled Mind Control called Brainwash. Shield Bash it as quickly as you can, and you’ll be fine. None of the other trash is really remarkable or notably different from the normal version of the instance.

Bosses: Ambassador Hellmaw is basically a free badge of justice, if you’re decently geared. Only danger is that you take massive damage while the healer is feared, but that’s really rare. However, he has a 3 minute Enrage timer, so make sure that your DPS hits him hard. Blackheart the Inciter continues to be as random on heroic as he is on normal. His mass Mind Control tends to be a bit more dangerous on heroic, because everyone is a lot better geared than when you first engaged him in normal mode. He hits harder, and is still as annoying. As tank, be ready to Intervene, if need be Intercept to get his aggro back after every Mind Control. There is no different strategy for him on heroic. Grandmaster Vorpil is one of the harder bosses in there, but his basic mechanic is the same as on normal. Summons voidwalkers, etc. As extra twist, he will banish a random party member, which can include the tank. I still find the good ol’ tried kiting method best here. Walk him southwards, after the first port take him down the other hallway, and if he still isn’t dead by then, you go back down south again. Finally, we have Murmur, and you get to say ‘Muahahaha’ to the rest of the group, as you won’t be the only one who has to run out of the Sonic Boom. As Murmur has an ability called Thundering Storm that hits everyone outside of his ring, everyone will want to be in there, but has to run out for the Sonic Boom. However, as soon as no one is in his melee range, he will start casting Resonance. Check with your healer if you can afford staying inside during the boom to avoid Resonance, but make sure everyone else runs.

12. Shattered Halls (4/5): Multi-tanking galore! Bring an array of humanoid CC as your DPS, and prepare for some adrenaline-rushing moments of huge mob groups on you.

Most difficult pull: The gauntlet of fire after the first boss can be a terrible experience. The wittle non elite guys rushing at you hit like trucks, as I recently had to find out the hard way on my rogue. What has always worked best for me in there is to move ahead as the tank, but slowly. Tank a group of runners, pull the static group, move forward. Focus-fire them down, avoid AoE, as that will kill your party members and will make you chase for aggro. Move into the last room as soon as you can to stop the trash spawns. Your healer will be hard-pressed for mana. Like most gauntlets, slow and steady is the way to go.

Other notable pulls: I have to admit that I end up struggling with the two large pulls in the Gladiator hallway after the gauntlet. I don’t know if it’s me, if it’s a bug in the instance, or whatever, but I often get one side as adds while doing those pulls. To this day I do not know why. My superstition makes me only pull the Legionnaire now when he’s smack in the middle of the hallway. I always pull both large groups back into the room, around the corner, for breaking caster LoS.

Bosses: Grand Warlock Nethekurse knows no new tricks at all. Make sure to not stand in the void zones and inspire your DPS to burn him hard once he’s under 20% health. Bloodguard Porung is only around on heroic, and is the named guy at the end of the gauntlet, where on normal there’s just another archer. He has no special tricks at all, so I guess his badge is the reward for making it through the gauntlet. Warbringer O’mrogg has two heads and two separate aggro tables. A strategy that works very well is that once he switches aggro tables, everyone but the tank stops DPS. That way you quickly get aggro back. The faster you get aggro back, the less likely it is for one of the party members to die. Last but not least, we have Kargath Bladefist himself. He is rough on heroic, very much so, for me the hardest part of the instance. His adds have a high health pool, and as we have tried, it’s not feasible for most cloth DPS to try handling the adds, as they will eat casters for breakfast. Tanking Kargath by the steps and picking up adds for tanking will be more successful. Try to tank additional adds, and use CC like Polymorph or Fear for others. Your healer will have a hard time topping everyone off, the Blade Dance really hurts.

13. Magisters’ Terrace (5/5) The most recent 5-man to be added to the game is special. In normal mode, it’s at least as difficult as the easier heroics. In heroic mode, it can get overwhelming very quickly. The more humanoid CC you bring, the better off you’ll be. An ideal DPS composition would be mage, warlock and rogue or hunter. Mage for polymorph, warlock for enslaving and seducing, and one other form of CC. Which bugs me about this instance, because you become so dependant on crowd control. Sorry, shamans and other non-humanoid CCers, I feel your pain in finding groups for this.

As general rule of thumb, learn to take the most advantage of LoS that you can, and as always warn your group when you pull like that. Aside from the first pulls up to the first boss, you can use line of sight everywhere. There’s always a niche to duck in to, a corner to run around, to bring all the casters to you. Also, use spell reflect as long as you still have casters up in the pulls. This will minimize a lot of damage you’ll take, and help with threat. Use it every cooldown.

Most difficult pull: Right before you meet Kael’thas, there’s a huge pull of five nasty trash mobs. If you wipe here, they’ll all be back, good times. My tank trick is once again to use line of sight here to your advantage. Pull, run back down the steps around the corner and tank them there. Your CCers can apply CC while the mobs are on their way. One of the most annoying mobs to tank is the Ethereal, as they blink around and spam Arcane Explosion. Keep healers CCd if you can. As with all the pulls, if you have a warlock and there’s a succubus in the pull, have her enslaved. She does loooots of damage and can take some tanking burden off you.

Other notable pulls: The first group pull requires you pull back very far, or you are in danger of getting adds. No one wants adds in MgT, ever. All trash pulls after Vexallus are pretty tough, I can only repeat my general rules for tanking here.

Bosses: Selin Fireheart is the easiest boss in here, and pretty much is like the end-boss in Steamvault. I’ve used different strategies here, either destroying the crystals or just burning him down quickly. Depends on your DPS. Shouldn’t be much of a problem. Vexallus on the other hand is a big headache. I haven’t been back to MgT since the 2.4 nerf, I can only hope he’s easier now. The only strategy that worked for us in the past is to actually stop DPS to have the debuff wear off, once the classes that can remove the debuff (mages, rogues) have dealt with the adds. As tank, be prepared to take one or two of the adds as well, and quickly, don’t let them get into the group. Thunderclap won’t work, so either tab-target to them or Cleave when they are spawned. At 20% everyone needs to go all out and burn him. Next up is Priestess Delrissa who holds two of the absolutely best tanking trinkets in her possession: Shard of Contempt and Commendation of Kael’thas. Both are fantastic. The shard is wonderful for threat, and the Commendation has saved my butt on hard-hitter bosses many times. I feel very lucky that I have gotten both trinkets in my first two runs. However, the boss herself is a tanking nightmare. Slap on your DPS or PvP gear if you have any, and do your worst. Personally, I usually focus on interrupting Delrissa’s heals and hamstring every single uncontrolled mob for those extra precious moments of time, use Intimidating Shout as well. I have virtually no PvP experience as warrior, so it’s kinda rough. As you initiate the pull, make 100% sure to pull all the way back to where you cleared the trash. You will want to use fear and at least one of her companions can fear. You don’t want any adds whatsoever to survive here.

We finally come to Kael’thas himself, and he gets his own paragraph from me. As protection warrior I am used to running in to a boss and starting a fight with Shield Slam, but not on Kael’thas, nuh-uh. You’ll be taking a lot of damage from his fireballs and you can minimize the impact by starting off with a well-placed Shield Bash to interrupt his first fireball. Once he starts casting again, you probably have enough rage for a Spell Reflect, and from there on you can alternate between Shield Bash and Spell Reflect. Your healer will be extremely grateful. Also, make sure to move out of the Flamestrike. If your group gets close to 50% and you haven’t had a phoenix for a while, slow the DPS down, as you really don’t want gravity lapse + phoenix for insta-wipe. On heroic. Kael will shield himself after 60 seconds. The shield needs to be hit with 10k damage so that you can interrupt the Pyroblast in time. If the Pyroblast is not interrupted, you take 40k fire damage to the face. Been there, done that. At that point it doesn’t matter anyway, because by that time it’s almost Gravity Lapse time, and you’re absolutely unneeded for that phase of the fight. To sum it up, use your unique warrior goodness to minimize spell damage, interrupt the Pyroblast or you bite the dust, and don’t stand in the fire. The universal truth of almost all fights in TBC, don’t stand in the fire.

14. Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde (5/5): Take this review with a caveat. This instance is last on my list because I have never been able to successfully run it. My first try was so discouraging I never went back. I have heard it’s been seriously nerfed since then, so I will have to go back and give it a proper review. All I can suggest at the moment is that you bring lots of CC you can use on the move (hunter, mage, warlock), and try to avoid melee DPS. As I only ever made it to the second boss in there, I won’t go into details. I promise a more in-depth review once I have finished the instance. However, as I really felt it was excruciatingly difficult, it remains last on my list.

Unrated heroics: Mana-Tombs and Auchenai Crypts. I have yet to set foot in there on heroic. I can see myself running Mana-Tombs, but I always felt Crypts was disgusting in normal mode, I have no desire to do it on heroic. However, I think I might sacrifice myself and run both, so that this will be a complete guide. I will update the guides accordingly once I am done there.

As always, I welcome feedback, criticism, suggested changes, and I hope you enjoyed this overview of TBC heroics.

See also:

• Heroics order, part I
• Heroics order, part II

I’ll continue just where I left off last time, presenting you the medium to tough heroics. I am listing the ones that are a pleasant challenge to those who already have a few pieces of badge or Karazhan gear and are confident of their skills at tanking.

Update: Thanks to ARA’s suggestion, I have added Black Morass, it was an oversight not to include it.

My order:

5. Botanica
6. The Steamvault
7. Caverns of Time: The Dark Portal
8. Blood Furnace
9. Sethekk Halls
10. The Arcatraz

5. The Botanica (3/5 for most, even if it will feel 1/5 for the really geared ones): Nowhere else will you get as much bang for your buck as in Heroic Bot, my heroic of choice. If it’s the daily, you’ll walk out with seven badges of justice, for about 90 minutes of work, not a bad deal whatsoever. And even when it’s not the daily, five badges is a top-deal. Trash mobs are almost all humanoids, but there are a bunch of AoE pulls plus satyrs. Bring a hunter or a warlock for the satyr pulls, or as alternative have an off-tank, because the two four satyr pulls can be tricky. For the third boss, less melee is more here. Note that everything I describe makes the instance sound really easy, but you need a top healer, and your DPS really must be on top of their game. Lacking in one department, and Heroic Botanica turns out to be excruciating.

Most difficult pull: There are several contenders. The highest death quota I usually find on all the pulls involving Bloodwarder Stewards. They do a whirlwind that’s called Arcane Flurry and hits random party members for much ouch. Your best bet here is a rogue’s kidney shot or your very own Concussion Blow if you’re a protection warrior. Stuns are the only way to interrupt the Flurry. There are about four pulls with Stewards in them. Strong contender for most difficult pull are the four satyrs by Thorngrim the Tender.

Other notable pulls: Ah, so many tricky ones here. Be careful with Greenkeepers, try to CC one of them. They use a spell that’s like druid Wrath on crack. Low cast-time, it’s like a green machine gun to the face. Spell-reflecting is a pleasure and a must here. Make sure not to lose aggro on them if multi-tanking, they kill healers for breakfast. For the dragonhawk pulls, CC the falconer, use Intimidating Shout for the birds, and focus fire them down, kill the falconer last. The Sunseeker Chemists use poison vials, move out immediately and tell everyone to move out, because that’s a lot of poison damage to absorb. The Sunseeker Channelers use an ability called Soul Channel, Shield Bash it, because it’s ouch for whoever is targetted by it. Last but not least, make sure to never stand in the Death&Decay of the Sunseeker Gene-Splicers. Last Bot run I did, it killed three party members who were careless, but not me, hee.

Bosses: Commander Sarannis is as unremarkable on heroic as she is on normal. If you burn her in under 60 seconds, she doesn’t even summon adds. And even if she does, no sweat, just kill the healer. High Botanist Freywin is equally trivial. He has no added perks whatsoever. Just be careful, as he’s a pansy, I end up completely rage-starved on him, and you must save up some rage for Thunderclap when he changes to tree-form. Thorngrim the Tender is by far the hardest boss in there. Same strategy as on normal, but he hits a lot harder, his fire burns more, his sacrifice is annoying. Big super-important trick to make this fight a lot easier and less frustrating for everyone: the moment you see him switch targets for his Sacrifice, use Taunt/Growl/Paladin taunt right then. It lasts six seconds, so by the time he’s done Sacrificing, you’ll be number one on his aggro list after the threat reset and can then build more threat. Rinse and repeat. This only fails when he sacrifices while you’re running back to him from a Hellfire. If you have problems with losing him at the threat reset, ask your healer to please heal you through hellfires. Laj, Warp Splinter, both are the same as on normal, tank and spank. If you have any decent DPS, this should not prove to be a problem.

6. The Steamvault (4/5 until the first boss, 2.5/5 after the first boss): I am very torn on this one. Like all Coilfang heroics, I want to love it, but the difficulty of the trash and the first boss make me not run it much. You will definitely want at least one warlock for the first boss, and some other solid form of CCing casters. The sirens and their fear cause quite a few wipes.

Most difficult pull: Anything with a siren in it, so basically the whole part to the first boss can be a wipe on every pull if you’re really unlucky. I normally always suggest the shortcut through the bushes, with the two Bog Lords, but not on heroic. On heroic it is safer if a lot more slow to take the long way around. Pull far back, keep casters CCd or kill them first, and pray that no one will be feared in an elemental pat or into a Bog Lord. Or the next group standing over there. Stunning the casters is very helpful.

Other notable pulls: Nada. Once you have survived the area of doom after the first boss, trash pulls are significantly easier. They’re not as tightly packed anymore, so the danger of adds is minimal.

Bosses: Hydromancer Thespia is a wicked witch and significantly more difficult on heroic. You really want to have one elemental banished here. Warn all your group members that there will be many storm clouds and make sure to always move out the moment you get the first tick from one above you. Mekgineer Steamrigger has no real perks, other than his continuous stream of leper gnomes trying to repair him. This is a veeeeeery long fight, dependant on your DPS, the faster the gnomes go down, the more DPS can actually be dedicated to the boss himself. Warlord Kalithresh is just the same as on normal, but his fish tanks have a lot more health. Burst them down, if he manages to enrage, you get to try again. It’s just a DPS race. Nothing special to look out for as tank.

7. Caverns of Time: The Dark Portal (3/5 to 4/5) More commonly known as Black Morass, this heroic can either be fairly easy on the group, or really hard. It all depends on a) the quality of your healer and b) more importantly on the quality of your DPS. The faster the Rift Lords go down, the less adds you will have to deal with. The better the DPS of the person who takes care of the adds, the easier that will go. As for who does adds, I have seen the best results from frost mages, destruction warlocks and BM hunters, but also fury warriors. In fact, I have specifically respecd to fury just to handle adds. The adds pack a punch on heroic, especially the executioners that will start coming out of the rifts after Chrono-Lord Deja is down.

As far as tanking goes, this is really easy. Single-mob tanking, nice and easy. If any of the caster rift lords want to cast at you, simply spell-reflect, as they are immune to interrupts. Save a Thunderclap for the annoying whelplings, whoever is doing adds will appreciate help with them. However, if you do try to bind adds on you, make sure you keep threat on them up until the adds-person takes care of them. If you just do one Thunderclap, you can rest assured that the adds will wander off towards the healer and will bite their face off.

The bosses have no special tricks either, everything just hits harder, and Temporus is just as dangerous as he is in the normal version. Really, as tank you have the easiest job here, tanking in BM is really pretty easy. Your healer and the DPS might scream in terror. Where you really place BM in terms of difficulty stands and falls with your group. If everything goes well, you will walk out with three badges in about 30 minutes.

8. Blood Furnace (3.5-4/5): One of the three Hellfire instances, this one is a step up in difficulty for two reasons. The trash in there hits incredibly hard. Remember Slave Pens when you thought Defenders were all evil? All the trash in there hits like that. Magtheridon’s blood is potent stuff, yo. Bring CC for humanoids, and you really do want a warlock along to make the last part of the instance a lot easier.

Most difficult pull: The felguards in the last part of the instance are extremely annoying and hit like trucks. They also pretty randomly charget at people, reset aggro, so if you have a rogue along, stunlock the crap out of them. Here’s where having a warlock along will really help you, because tanking two of those is painful.

Other notable pulls:: watch for stealthed rogues. There’s always two in the area with the stairs, one either on the left or the right hand side in the hall leading to Broggok, two in the room right after Broggok. Nothing is more fun than corpse-runs and then the ‘Oh shit, rogue, dead again’ effect after that really long corpse run. In the pulls with technicians watch for mines, make people aware of it that if you move the mob away, there’s mine danger, and to be careful. In the long hallway of doom towards Broggok, it is very easy to get adds. Line of sight is your friend here to pull the casters, I pull them into The Maker’s room a lot, or the niches in the hall. As always, warn your group that this is going to be a line of sight pull, so that people play along.

Bosses: The Maker is as simple as he’s on normal, though he does have a habit of MCing the tank, which usually means someone dies. Broggok however represents the nastiest, most unforgiving part of the instance that makes Blood Furnace fairly difficult. The prison cell event. You pull that lever and you get waves of mobs rushing at you. Everyone has to pull out all the stops here. CC is a great help, so is a rogue that knows how to stun and blind. Fear is awesome, but beware, some of those mobs are immune. This is one part where CC will really shine in making this encounter more trivial. Solid multi-tanking skills are a must. If you survive the four waves, you’re all set for Broggok who is really easy compared to the waves. Lead him around in a nice circle, don’t stand in the poison and only loot him once the poison is gone. Last but least we have Keli’dan the Breaker, and when he yells ‘Closer, come closer!’ you really want to run. As he does an Aran-like magnetic pull, this means everyone, and no backing up. I have had fights where the healer and I were the only ones up and it took forever to kill him. If you make it past Broggok and then later the felguards, you won’t have any problems though.

9. Sethekk Halls (3.5/5): If Botanica offers you the biggest bang for your buck, Sethekk Halls offers the lowest, with a piddly two badges to earn, unless you know a druid who can summon Anzu. It’s also filled with some of the most annoying trash, so it’s not one of the more popular heroics for me. CC you want to bring is someone for humanoids (I count off-tanks as CC), ideally a priest for shackles, and if you bring a druid for Anzu, Hibernate for the birdies are awesome.

Most difficult pull: The Ravenguards bring us back to the Defender pulls you might remember from Slave Pens. Two mobs that cannot be CCd at all and that hit very hard. To top it off, once you kill the first one, the other one enrages and hits even harder. Good times. Be on top of your game building threat on two mobs, if healer aggro peels one off, you have a problem. Stunlocking helps a lot, also make sure to use stuff like Concussion Blow and Disarm, they really help in minimizing damage.

Other notable pulls: Time-Lost Controllers will put down MC totems, kill that totem as quickly as possible. When tanking Sethekk Oracles, always have them with their back to the rest of the group so they will not be hit by the silence effect. Gnash your teeth once you reach the second floor of the instance, here’s where the pain begins. Sethekk Prophets are incredibly annoying. Always pull very far back, if you can get Fear Ward or Tremor Totem that’d be perfect, and run away from that annoying ghost that’s spawned when the prophets die that takes me right back in time to that annoying Prophet boss in Sunken Temple. Pulling far back until you end up with Ikiss is the key to success.

Bosses: Darkweaver Syth comes with elemental adds. TC and hold them as long as you can before your DPS burns them. Ignore the last wave. Win. It really helps if you can get initial aggro on the elementals to make life easier for everyone. Spell reflect all chain lightning. I am assuming you have no druid along. Anzu is crazy and annoying, but also sorta fun, especially if killing him means epic birdy for some happy druid. Tank him, in phase 2 try your best to bind the birds before you give up in frustration, pick up aggro when Anzu comes back, rinse and repeat. Long, crazy fight. Talon-King Ikiss is still much the same from normal, however, to make his Arcane Explosion even more fun, he puts a slow on everyone when he blinks. Stay close to the pillar, remind people to let you pick up Ikiss after every Explosion, and hope for the best. He drops fantastic tank shoulders, really good stuff, yet so fugly: Spaulders of Dementia

10. The Arcatraz (3.5/5): The jump in difficulty between normal and heroic Arcatraz is not huge. It’s one of the heroics you think is really extremely hardcore, but it’s actually not bad. If it wasn’t for the really aggravating first boss, I would have placed it at Botanica level. As tank, you get to tank a lot of single mobs, so it’s really quite easy to tank, and you need next to no CC. There are three pulls where CC helps (the three blood elves at the entrance plus the two Ethereal pulls at the end). The boss event at the end is challenging and requires people to be on their a-game, but I find it easier than the Blood Furnace Broggok event. H Arc is one of the trials of the Naaru, and pretty much the easiest one of the three.

Most difficult pull: If you don’t have a warlock along for Detect Invisibility, entering the room with bosses 2 and 3 can be tricky. There are stealthed succubi that have nasty abilities, if you pull more than one mob, it’s often a wipe. The felguard lookalikes silence and disarm. While you’re disarmed, Shield Slam and Thunderclap to continue building some threat, and block to minimize damage. The two different kinds of succubi have tricks up their sleave too. Gouge, Mind Control and a lovely debuff called Spiteful Fury that increases threat by 500%. Too bad they never put it on the tank.

Other notable trash: The Abyssals just before the end I thought would be more frustrating than they really are. If everyone stands on top of each other, right behind the tank (outside of fireshield range), then your healer should be fine healing through that. Other than the above-mentioned, none of the trash is any more difficult than on normal, they just hit harder.

Bosses: Zereketh the Unbound is nasty, frustrating, and most healers I know burst into tears when talking about him. He’s not particularly hard to tank, you just die a lot, because your healer will be overwhelmed by the massive damage everyone in the group is tanking. Prayer of Shadow Protection or Shadow Protection Aura are a must, and it actually helps if you have an offhealer for this fight who takes care of the group while the main healer keeps you up. Really unpleasant boss. Dalliah the Doomsayer is just about the same as on normal, with one very important difference: the cast time of her heal after the whirlwind is significantly shorter. Prepare to run back to her early enough so that you can interrupt her. Having additional interrupts along helps. Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates does more fire damage, but that’s the only difference from normal. As long as the group stays spread out and mobile, to avoid the flamewake, things will be fine. Last but not least, we have Harbinger Skyriss. He is not much harder than on normal, it’s the three mobs before him that can be rough. Watch out for the curse that you can get from the elemental, you want to be decursed when the drakonids show up.

This concludes part II of this guide, watch out for the terrifying heroics in the next part.

See also:

• Heroics order, part I
• Heroics order, part III

Yesterday, as I was leveling my shaman, I listed to one of Veneretio’s podcasts, and one of the questions he received was which instances make good starter heroics. Which took me right back in time. There I was, with every possible blue out of a normal instance, looking for a new challenge. With me I had my trusty sidekicks, a warlock and a priest, with the same predicament. We so got our asses handed to us, repeatedly. Wipe after wipe after wipe. That was back when you needed to be Revered with factions to run heroics, and when you actually were able to PUG because people had run instances a lot. At the time my most burning question was what instance to tackle first. There are various different opinions out there. By now I have run almost all heroics, with two exceptions so I’ll just add my opinion to the masses.

Before I start listing heroics, here’s my warning. If you’ve never been to Karazhan and you just want to start heroics, and your fellow group members have the same gear level, be prepared that heroics are hard. They are! Sure, ask in any forum and people will be ‘roflmao, noob, l2p, heroics r caek’. When you’re all clad in purples, they are significantly less challenging. But when you start out, prepare to wipe until you can wipe no more. As comparison, our first full heroic Slave Pens run had about six wipes. Basically, after second boss, we wiped from pull to pull. 3 hours after heading in, we finally killed Quagmirran. Yesterday, I ran heroic Slave Pens again (though I was on my rogue) and we completed with zero wipes, in about 55 minutes.

Enough rambling, here’s the meat! I will be using a scale of 1-5 to delineate difficulty as I see it, with tanking hints. A general hint before I start: trash is much harder than bosses in heroics, that’s why you skip as much trash as you can, unless you like your rep grinding masochist style. For your first attempts, I would generally advise at least two CCers. Once your gear is a bit better, you can start bringing the poor suckers who get left out, like enh shaman, boomkins or fury warriors.

Heroic instances in order of difficulty:

1. Slave Pens
2. Underbog
3. The Mechanar
4. Hellfire Ramparts

1. Slave Pens (1/5): The ultimate beginner instance for heroics. If you’re a beginner, bring tons of CC. It’s all humanoids, so mages, rogues, warlocks, hunters, shadow priests, they can all CC for you here.

Most difficult trash pull: Defenders. Come in pairs, cannot be CCd at all, spell-reflect, hit like trucks. In blue gear, expect 3-4k per hit. I found it impossible to tank both of them back then, as your healer will produce great amounts of aggro trying to keep you up. If you struggle, hunter kiting or frost mage kiting one of them works, just most of the time results in a death of them. Another helpful trick is to have a rogue stunlock the DPS target. Also, don’t be shy with Concussion Blow and Disarm, which both greatly minimize the damage you take. Once you start having more armor, the pulls become easily tankable.

Other notable pulls: Careful, after the second boss, there are three pulls that just spell ‘wipe-alert’. Especially the pull in the tunnel to Quagmirran has killed us many a time. Pull way down in the tunnel to avoid being feared in stuff you didn’t clear. In Quagmirran’s room, stand right by the tunnel when someone lets Bite out of the cage and fight the 3 mobs right there. Bite won’t aggro that way, and you can get your OP buff for Quagmirran.

Bosses: Mennu is cake, as long as someone takes out his totems quickly. Spell Reflecting the Lightning Bolt is awesome. Rokmar just needs to be burned quickly before the bleed effect kills you. Quagmirran needs to be turned away from the group because of his Cleave, and once he starts using Acid Spray on someone from the group, you taunt him after a second or two, so that you will get the majority of the damage. The Mark of Bite will greatly help here.

2. Underbog (1/5 with a lock, 2/5 without one): The next step up would be that other Coilfang Reservoir instance. Based on your group make-up it’s just about as easy as Slave Pens, but if you don’t have a warlock for banishing, the way to the first boss is somewhat painful. CC options: warlocks for banishing elementals and fearing wasps; mages for polymorphing bats and the humanoids between boss number one and 2; rogues for the humanoids; spriests for the humanoids; hunters for everything. It is a bit on the longish side, early runs will probably take 2 hours or so, nowadays we usually complete it in 90 minutes.

Most difficult pull: similar to the Defenders in SP, you have a two pull without any CC option, right before Hungarfen. They hit hard, they grow, and they like running away to smash a healer to pulp. Use similar tactics as described for the SP Defenders.

Other notable pulls: The two Underbog Lords just before the end of the instance are scaaaaary. They really hit harder than anything. Huge aggro range too, so be careful. Never turn your back on any of the bats, they can backstab for 5k+ on plate. For all pulls towards Swamplord Muse’lek, use line of sight to pull all wasps to you. There’s a corner you can run around that will force them to fly around it. You can bash or reflect the poison spit.

Bosses: Hungarfen means constant movement, hit V to see spawning mushrooms right away. Ghaz’an is kinda boring, as long as your healer can keep you up. Swamplord Muse’lek himself is a PITA. Get the damn bear to 20% first, his charge is like the most aggravating feature ever. Have everyone stand in the bear’s butt to avoid chasing him forever. Black Stalker needs to be burned fast, ignoring the adds works great.

3. Mechanar, Home of the Sun Eater (2/5): If you’re a warrior or paladin tank, this is likely the one heroic you will run over and over and over and then some more. Until you cry. Then The Sun Eater drops and you never set foot in the instance again. True story, for me. Still, it’s the avoidance sword, you’d be strange not to want it, as tank. CC options: mages, rogues, spriests for the humanoids. Warlocks make the demon pulls trivial. Ideally, those little annoying ones are enslaved and then just spam their Arcane Explosion thingy. Fun times. Hunters for trapping everything. For the end-boss, two classes that can fear are ideal.

Most difficult pull: Tempest-Forge Destroyers. Single pulls, hit really hard, but their worst part is their ability to use Charged Fist. Here you can really shine as warrior tank, because you have the unique ability to actually spell-reflect that. Reflecting roughly 4k damage is awesome cake! So be aware when you tank them to have spell reflect ready and be thankful that it’s off the global cooldown. As beginning heroics tank, you should always have rage for Spell Reflect, at my gear level I actually have to save the rage to be able to use it, at times.

Other notable pulls: My advice is to leave Nethermancer Serpetrea for last, because she can be very demoralizing. She’s harder than anything else in there. Instead, head towards Pathaleon the Calculator. The gauntlet is tricky and might require some dirty tricks. If you manage to survive the first wave of four, the Destroyer and the wave of three should be manageable. Be ready to Intervene on the Destroyers, they have a habit of heading straight for the healer. For the second part of the gauntlet, I strongly advise to use the elevator method for the last wave of four mobs. By elevator method I mean running out, using the elevator to go back down, wait til you’re out of combat. Once you go back up, the four mobs will be waiting for you and you can CC at your leisure. It sounds cowardly, but it’s better than wiping on the damn bridge. Pay attention to the Netherbinders, once they start summoning their Arcane Servants, you’re in trouble.

Bosses: the gatekeepers aren’t really worth mentioning, just run out of the Jackhammer. The first boss is significantly easier than on normal, go figure. You just have to tank your butt off, because DPS with matching buffs will lay down serious threat. Pathaleon is best done with a fear rotation, try to hold the adds on you as long as you can. Nethermancer Serpetrea aka ‘That fire bitch’ is the hardest nut to crack. Kite her around, Intervene/Feral Charge whenever the Dragon’s Breath wears off, and curse. She sucks that much, and it usually takes us a wipe or two before we get her down.

4. Hellfire Ramparts (2.5/5): This is a very short instance, but surprisingly I haven’t tanked it a lot, despite some interesting drops in there. CC options: mostly humanoids, so the usual options. Druids can hibernate the dogs.

Most difficult pull: there are several contenders here, but the pull with the Beastmaster in the first part of the instance is noteworthy as wipe-central. Don’t pull until the pat has left, pull faaaaar back and don’t be surprised by the dog-pack the Beastmaster summons. If the pat adds, you’re screwed, in most cases.

Notable trash pulls: Raveners hit extremely hard. Be prepared for that. In the pulls with the caster and the one guy in the center, kill the lone guy first, CC as many casters as you can, and generously use spell-reflect.

Bosses: On Omorr, try to tank the felpuppies as long as you can, because they like to eat casters for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On Nazan, don’t forget to move him around the platform, fire resistance of any form is a great help here, as is tremor totem or fear ward. I didn’t mention the first boss, because there’s no real change from when you first killed him at level 60.

This concludes the first part of my heroics blabbering. Part II will describe all medium-level heroics, basically the ones I would run anytime, and part III will cover the ones that you have to really talk myself into running.

See also:

• Heroics order, part II
• Heroics order, part III

Out of three possible Opera encounters, I would say this is probably the one best suited for warrior tanks. It requires a lot of coordination from the raid, and good interrupts, plus dispellers.

This is a two tank encounter. If there’s only one warrior tank, she should be on Julianne duty for interrupts. If you have more than one warrior (or none), the better geared tank should be on Romulo.

Assuming you’re on Julianne duty, you tank her normally but pay close attention to her spellcasting. She will cast Blinding Passion a lot, which is a random holy attack with a DoT component that you can just let her cast. If it’s on you, you can spell reflect it (if you’re a warrior). But the moment you see her cast Eternal Affection, you must stop it and interrupt it by using Shield Bash. Ideally, you have at least one more interrupt available, I like sticking rogues on Julianne duty. If you have a second interrupt available, discuss an interrupt rotation. You don’t want to let a heal go through, especially not in phase 3.

 

Phase 1 is over quickly. Julianne is a cloth-wearer and doesn’t have much health. Cue the Romulo tank who has to stand ready to use Thunderclap, Demo Roar or Consecrate to immediately pick up Romulo. It is best to tank him against the wall by the stage entrance. You want your back against the wall to avoid his knockback. He deals a lot of physical damage, so having high armor will help here. If Daring is Purged/Dispelled once up, you shouldn’t have too much trouble. It also helps to have a shaman, druid or paladin remove the poison he applies.

Phase 2 ends with Romulo dead but remain by his corpse. R&J will show up together. Both tanks need to be ready to pick up their targets immediately, by using the usual methods of AoE threat and then start off with a high threat move. You especially do not want Romulo in the raid, he is painful.

Julianne’s health should go down a lot faster than Romulo’s, so it is entirely possible that a DPS stop will be called. If that’s the case, make sure that you as J-tank remain on top of her aggro list, only use Auto-Attack, and Shield Bash her heals. Here’s where having MT frames really helps so that you can closely watch the targets’ health. You do not want them to die outside of that narrow five seconds window. If your raid can time this procedure correctly, those two are very manageable.

Lootwise, aside from the Eternium Greathelm any Opera boss can drop, there’s really only one thing worth mentioning: Romulo’s Poison Vial. If all your physical DPS already has it or are hit-capped, it can make an interesting threat trinket for a trash tanking set.

Welcome back to the leveling guide for warriors. I will continue focusing on a DW-fury build as fastest leveling spec for warriors. The last part concluded with us having the following build: Fury build at 39

Once you hit 40, one of the big changes in the life of a warrior is about to happen! You get to replace all your precious mail gear with even more precious plate gear. Huzzah! Armor will increase drastically, which will of course assist with survivability. The first pieces of blue instance gear that are plate drop in Razorfen Downs, one of those instances people often forget about. It’s got great gear for its level though, so it gets my thumbs up. Gear-wise, you will still want to focus on the big two: strength and stamina. Agility is nice to have, but strength and stamina are superior for leveling.

From now on you will get very few new abilities. You get zero new abilities between 40-49, aside from being able to wear plate armor and the 31 point ability from your chosen talent tree.

Talents from 40-49:

40: Sweeping Strikes - Sweeping Strikes + Cleave make for a very powerful combo. You no longer need to worry about pulling two mobs, because with those two abilities you can quickly kill mobs. As guideline, if it’s more than one mob, save up the rage and use Sweeping Strikes. It’s fun!
41: Bloodthirst - the 31 point talent will be your major attack as fury warrior. It’s an instant attack, scales with attack power, and restores you minuscule amounts of health. The healing part is really sort of a joke, even at level 70 you only get 35 health back, but hey, better than no healing.
42-44: Precision - increases your chance to hit by 3%. Less misses make for higher DPS, so we want that.
45-49: Improved Berserker Stance - more damage in berserker stance is awesome, as that is the stance we should now be in most of the time. The less threat component is very handy if you’re in a group and you’re not tanking.

Your basic ability rotation would now be

for single mob pulls: Charge - TC - switch to Berserker Stance - Bloodthirst - Whirlwind - alternate between BT and WW until you can begin Executing.

for several mobs: Charge - TC+Demo Shout - switch to Berserker Stance - Sweeping Strikes - Whirlwind - Cleave - BT if there’s enough rage.

At level 50, you will receive the 41 point talent and you can start thinking about the direction you want to go in for leveling to 70: more damage or tanking ability. As this is a tanking blog, I am of course leaning towards a hybrid build that will let you tank all Outland instances while still being able to have superb solo capabilities.

Talents from 50-59:

50: Rampage - increases your attack power once activated, with every attack giving you more AP for a stack of 5. As this can only be activated after a critical hit of yours, you’ll have to keep your eyes open to use it. Since the rage cost for activation was reduced, it’s pretty awesome.

51-53: Tactical Mastery - this will allow you to carry over 15 rage, for a total of 30 rage, when you switch stances. As you’re doing that a lot anyway, it’s definitely very useful while leveling.

54-55: Anticipation - increases your defense. Not that exciting while leveling, but defense always means more avoidance, so it’ll be useful for tanking.

56-59: Shield Specialization - essential for added rage generation while tanking and pre-req for Improved Shield Block, so it’s good to have in a hybrid build.

At level 50 you will learn one new ability, one of the abilities that shares its cooldown with Retaliation and Shield Wall: Recklessness. I haven’t used it much at all while leveling, due to the increased damage you will take. Try at your own risk.

Your ability rotation will basically be the same, you will simply add Rampage to the mix when you can activate it.

Talents from 60-70:

60: Shield Specialization - one last missing point to max it out

61: Last Stand - the survivor ability. It’s saved my butt innumerable times. You’re almost dead, but think you can kill this last pesky mob within 20 seconds? Pop Last Stand, get 30% of your max health for 20 seconds, finish off your mob and live another day. Once the Last Stand buff goes away after 20 seconds, the extra health goes away, leaving you with a minimum of 1 hp. If the mob’s not death, that’s probably instant doom, but it’s well worth a shot. Also extremely useful while tanking when your health is low. This buys your healer(s) extra time in landing that essential heal.

62-64: Defiance - at least as long as we still have it. Defensive Stance will absorb this talent in WotLK, but if you’re leveling right now, it’s really a must-talent in the protection tree for tanking. More threat is extra-awesome. More expertise is as well.

65-69: Deflection - we’re moving to the first tier of the Arms tree, for Deflection. 5% extra parry is a lot.

70: Improved Shield Block - our last point goes to the protection tree again, for Improved Shield Block. Lets you block one extra attack when you use Shield Block and the buff lasts longer.

In the 60s, you will learn a few more new abilities. The first one you will receive at 62, Victory Rush. You will learn to love it while soloing. If the mob is not grey to you and you land the killing blow, you will get an extra attack that costs no rage, within 20 seconds. The damage is based on your AP. It can crit quite nicely, for a big chunk of damage. Make it a habit to use Victory Rush whenever available.

At 64 you will receive an ability that is extremely handy while tanking, not so handy while soloing: Spell Reflection. Lets you reflect a spell back at the caster. It has a high rage cost, but if you’re tanking a caster, pop it up to drastically reduce damage you’re taking and increase damage you’re doing. If a spell can be reflected, you should rather reflect it than interrupt it. A good example would be the Charged Fist of the Mechanar Tempest Keep Destroyers, that’s a lot of damage you will reflect back at them. Solo utility is minimal, as you really don’t want to wear a shield for casters at that level.

At 68 you get Commanding Shout. Again, solo utility isn’t that great as you would always prefer Battle Shout to Commanding Shout. In groups, your group will likely benefit more from increased health for everyone, unless you’re in a very melee heavy group.

The final ability you learn at 70 is Intervene, sort of like Intercept for tanking. The use of it is a bit quirky, I am still using my old macro, though I hear you no longer need one for it to work. No solo utility at all, but by 70, you will likely solo less, group more.

Your final build would be this. It’s a full-fledged fury/protection hybrid which will maximize rage generation. You should be able to tank all pre-70s instances with ease. At 70 you can then decide where you want to go: continue fury for raid DPS, go arms for PvP or go protection to be able to tank even better.

Tanking while not protection spec:

Especially in Outland, remind your group you’re not a protection warrior, you will need to land a couple Sunder Armor before DPS can go crazy. With Tactical Mastery in your spec, you can actually use Charge to carry the rage over into Defensive Stance, but if there’s any risk of adds, it’s safer to pull.

If you’re dealing with multiple mobs to tank, definitely use TC and Demo Shout. Start laying on the Sunders and keep them up as full stack. Use Shield Block to trigger Revenge, use it whenever available. If you have high rage, use Heroic Strike. In really hairy situations, don’t be shy, use Last Stand and Shield Wall. These are your Oh Shit buttons and it’s better to use them than not.

And that concludes this guide. Ultimately, this will all be obsolete soon, and I’ll then try to work on a revised edition. As always, comments, critical observations and adoration are welcome.

The easiest of the Opera fights is Big Bad Wolf. He’s also one of the funniest. I have fond memories of this being my very first Opera experience. That said, he’s certainly not your average tank-and-spank boss.

As the Big Bad Wolf spends so much time chasing Little Red Riding Hood, it is very difficult to hold aggro on him. This will be your major obstacle as tank in this fight. This is a one tank encounter, as off-tank, you will provide DPS in this fight.

 

 

Positioning: As Big Bad Wolf will be in the center of the stage as grandmother, you can take your time to position the raid, which is very helpful. We tend to have all ranged DPS and healers by the entrance to the stage. This will give them, especially the healers, some extra time for running away from the Big Bad Wolf if transformed. The Main Tank will talk to the grandmother about how phat her lewtz are once everyone is where they are supposed to be, and she will change into Big Bad Wolf. As warrior, Bloodrage now and the moment you can attack him, Shield Slam to the face. In this phase of the fight, it is important that the only one doing anything is the tank. No heals, no DPS of any kind. As MT, drag BBW to the exit door of the stage. You won’t have much time to build initial threat because after very few hits, he will loudly announce ‘Run away, little girl’ and a random raid member will be Little Red Riding Hood.

 

Now you get to experience the fun of chasing BBW as he chases a gnome, trying to get some high threat moves in while he runs. At this point DPS still doesn’t do anything. I know, they will likely twitch and be restless. But it’s for the best! Eventually BBW will stop chasing the gnome, and try to tear you a new one, and once you have another Shield Slam (or any other big threat move of other tanking classes) on him, you can give the go sign.

As if you weren’t already running around enough as it is, BBW has a fear effect. If you’re awesome at stance-dancing (I am not) that’s one way to dodge the fear, otherwise, ask for Fear Ward or Tremor Totem, and if not available, you just suck it up.

DPS needs to be careful here. BBW hits hard enough to quickly rip squishies apart, so no one wants to draw aggro. Make sure people are aware of the difficulties of building threat here. Everyone here has to keep in mind that the tank losing aggro likely means a death, as he cannot be taunted back like all of the bosses in Karazhan.

BBW doesn’t have a lot of health, so if your Little Red Riding Hoods all run away well, if you can manage to keep BBW on you in non-running phases, then this is really not so bad at all. Be quick on your feet and try to keep the threat moves up even when he’s running, and you should be all good. Communication is essential, make sure your DPS knows when your TPS is struggling.

Drop-wise, none of the specific things BBW drops are very interesting for tanks. Warriors and paladins might enjoy Eternium Greathelm that can drop off any Opera boss. I still use it as avoidance helmet on boss fights.