Marks

Did I miss something? When did X stop meaning kill straight after Skull, cause I think the whole of Azeroth may be trolling me... well I KNOW my raid team IS trolling me because I whinged about it and now they go out of there way to kill X last. But complete strangers seem to be trying hard to NOT kill X anymore.

And on that note, if you HAVE CC (I'm looking at you hunters and mages - others too but they seem to be the most reluctant these days) then USE it. Even if your tank doesn't ask for it you're allowed to sheep / trap / sap / sleep / mind control stuff. And NO knockbacks are NOT CC - save that s#1t for questing. Don't snare unasked but proper CC, go for it. And if your tank MARKS something with ANYTHING other than skull or X, then CC that bad boy. Don't stand around saying, we don't need CC. You don't have to be terribly skilled to do it. Your casting range is much further than aggro range and since Blizzard nerfed CC pulling there not much skill needed at all.

And assuming that your tank has some skill, don't CC the skull or the X. If (s)he's taken the time to mark the adds, he probably has a pulling plan in mind that may need a shield to bounce or a line of sight that you aren't necessarily aware of. You may like to argue the toss over whether or not the tank SHOULD lead the group, but the de facto situation at the moment is that they are EXPECTED to in most cases. And they ALWAYS have to be in charge of the pull.

It takes longer to wipe and run back than to just CC and kill a mob on its own.

N00b Tanking LFR in Dragon Soul - Part 2

So you've lifted the Siege, and it's time to make your assault on the Destroyer himself. As you head up to the top of Dragonrest Temple, you'll meet Thrall and the Aspects charging up the Dragon Soul to attack Deathwing. After some RP dialogue Deathwing will unleash his ultimate weapon, Ultraxion. First there will be waves of twilight drakes, pick up as many as you can and be especially wary of the ones blasting swathes of blue flame across the platform. These guys must be taunted or interrupted ASAP. Avenger's Shield is brilliant for this. Once the trash are down Ultraxion will arrive and suck the raid into the realm of twilight. You'll also get a special button on your screen called Heroic Will. This button will shift you OUT of the twilight realm for 5 seconds or until Hour of Twilight or Fading Light complete. Your co-tank will likely tank Ultraxion from the start, but be ready with your taunt in case some trigger happy DPS jumps the gun. Thrall gives you a buff which halves the cooldown and doubles the duration of all your defensive abilities. This means you can and should have Holy shield up 100% of the time (at least the time you're actually tanking). It also means that you can soak every one of the Hour's of Twilight (which are 45s apart) by alternating Guardian of Ancient Kings and Ardent Defender. You can increase your survivability with Divine Protection regularly and throw a few Divine Guardians out there to help out the healers. All of this stuff isn't terribly dangerous on LFR but the one thing you REALLY need to concentrate on is Fading Light. It is a debuff of varying duration that is cast on Ultraxion's current target. If your co-tank gets it, taunt ASAP. If you get it, wait until there is <5s remaining on the debuff and press your Heroic Will button. You don't need to cut it fine or anything just wait until there are 3-4 seconds remaining and click. If you are still in the twilight realm when it expires you WILL DIE, not bubbling or damage reduction can save you.

Once Ultraxion is dead, there'll be a little video of Thrall shooting DW with the Dragon Soul. Deathwing is injured and flies off, hop on the Skyfire and chase him down. On the boat there'll be a bit of RP and then some Twilight Elites will drop down on the deck. Pick up the one that your co-tank doesn't and tank it over on one side near where the dragons get pulled in to the harpoons. The Dreadblade elite does a cleave so make sure you point it away, and if you have a choice, pick up the slayer. The slayer spawns on the Starboard side (the right hand side, facing the front of the boat). Once the elites and dragons are dead Warmaster Blackhorn will jump down. If your co-tank doesn't pick him up, taunt him and tank in the middle of the boat. Watch your co-tanks stacks of Sunder Armor and taunt off at 2/3 stacks, and then as soon as your stacks fall off there after.

With the Warmaster Dead (and hopefully giving up his nice shield) it's time to parachute onto DW's back. You'll either have to tank a Hideous Amalgamation or collect up bloods. If you are on Amalgamation duty, tank it right near the front of the area (it can be a bit confusing at first, zoom right out and look for DW's head). Wait until it has about 20-30% health and then run around dragging it through pools of corrupted blood until it has 9 stacks. Once it has 9 stacks, pop a defensive CD and tank it near the front edge. When it starts casting Nuclear blast, leg it to the far side. Help kill the tendon and then repeat. If your co-tank picks up the Hideous amalgamtion, run around picking up the bloods (look like the slimes from Yor'sahj) and stack them up just back from Amalgamation so that the main tank doesn't have to run far to get stacks. This is a very easy fight on LFR, you just have to be careful of people accidentally killing an extra tentacle and spawning an extra Hideous Amalgamation. If this does happen, pick it up and go tank it in a corner away from the pools and just let the bloods go where they will go. Avoid getting aggro on them as if the HA gets stacks it hits much harder. Once you've removed 3 plates DW crashes into the Maelstrom and it's time for the final fight.

This fight consists of 4 platforms which each correspond with a dragon aspect. You start on the green platform (Ysera) and this is usually where most groups will start on LFR. You'll notice you have a bonus button, this is a nice little damage reduction button, but it is only available on the first platform. Next you'll usually go to the Yellow/Bronze (Nozdormu) platform, which reduces the speed of the Elementium Bolt. Then Red (Alexstraza) which burns down the blistering tentacles. And finally Blue (Kalecgos) which is a DPS boost. On each platform there will be a limb of DW at the start. 5-15s after you start on the platform a Corrupted Mutation tentacle will spawn at the back of the platform. This must be tanked. If you start on it you need to pop some defensive cooldowns when it start casting Impale, if your co-tank starts, you must taunt it just before Impale is finished casting, don't worry it will still hit the original target, but you need to tank swap for the impale debuff which will kill the tank if you take two impales in a row without massive damage reduction cooldowns. When the tentacle is down, switch to the limb and help DPS. Pick up the bloods when DW casts Hemorage. Once the Red platform is dead you'll need to single target attack the small blistering tentacles that spawn as they are immune to AoE, but the DPS should be taking care of that. Once the 4 platforms are down you go back to the Green platform and Focus down DW's head. Little tentacles will spawn that need to be killed ASAP. They cast Shrapnel on various raid members. If you are one you can use the green button to handle it (although as a tank you should be able to just soak it). The thing you REALLY need to look out for is the two Elementium Terrors that spawn. Pick one up (your co-tank will take the other one) and drag them into the big yellow swirly. This will slow them down and help you survive. You might want to pop a couple CDs as the stacks of Tetanus climb. Use them from weakest to strongest, and use Emerald Dream and Holy Shield and Trinkets etc... to keep the damage down.

Congratulations. Do this all a few more weeks and pick up some good 384 quality gear and you can find yourself a proper raid to try :)

Dear DPS, from the meat shield.

Dear DPS,

We appreciate your contribution, no really we do. Pew spewing really speeds up those dungeons for the Healer and I, and we like that. However, there are a few things you could do to make our lives a bit less frustrating.

By all means use all those abilities to Max out your numbers and I appreciate that you may be learning what they all do, but please please please, don't press that knockback button. Seriously, I realize it comes in handy while you're leveling your squishy moonkin or shaman, but when I've just used all my cooldowns to get those casters all standing in range of my cleaves, your knockback just screws everything up. You see if a caster isn't silenced he'll just stand where he is and fire off armour ignoring spells at will at the person on top of his threat table. And if he's out of range of my melee AoE, then that top threat person will quickly cease to be me, the high stamina, damage reducing tank, and rather be the significantly more vulnerable healer. And that's not even mentioning the knockback into the next group.

In a similar vein, if you see a caster or a hunter standing off to one side shooting at the tank, it's probably not wise to attack it. As instead of the usual competing with the tank's 500% threat generation, you will competing with a bit of residual threat. Much better to attack one of those enemies your tank is pounding on - preferably the one with the skull above it.

I won't harp on about pulling for the tank, you should know better. Or about those 3 repetitions of g and o that you love so much. Trust me, it really makes me want to slow down - and possibly - take a smoke break (I don't even smoke). But just generally, if you make my game feel like work, and not the good challenge type of work, but the annoying disciplining preschoolers kind of work, then I'm not going to go out of my way to keep you alive. And I may just throw it in for now, after all my next queue will very likely be as quick as my last one.

And a very special mention goes to the moron retribution paladin who thought it was a good idea to cast Hand of Protection on the tank on every cooldown, completely cancelling his threat and sending mobs everywhere. You are a schmuck.

Regards,
Your tank.