Tanking in Icecrown

Any thoughts on the implications of this:

For Icecrown Citadel, we are implementing a spell that will affect every enemy creature in the raid. The spell, called Chill of the Throne, will allow creatures to ignore 20% of the dodge chance of their melee targets. So if a raid's main tank had 30% dodge normally, in Icecrown Citadel they will effectively have 10%.

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In the current implementation this will effectively reduce our dodge to zero. I am not quite sure what that means, but potentially it would make any dodge scaling we do receive much more effective which means less diminishing returns, assuming we get any dodge scaling in the first place.

They say that they are making boss damage less spikey because of this, which, given our tanking style, might actually be a very good thing since spike damage is still our biggest weakness. Potentially a change like this could mean pet tanking could be very much more usefull, or alternatively completely useless.

I wouldn't be too surprised if pets didn't get the debuff either It wouldn't be the first time aura buffs weren't applied.

I actually wrote a post about that but had to delete it sadly... It is a buff to enemy creatures, not a debuff on us, so I would imagine it is highly unlikely.

This is actually a very interesting change from a theory craft perspective. In terms of total avoidance this 20% reduction won't be as big a relative reduction to pets are it is to regular tanks. I know this sounds backwards since pets have such little avoidance, but think about it more in terms of hits that land, not hits that are avoided.

For example if a tank has 60% avoidance against a raid boss (which is about right for some of the best geared tanks around), they're getting hit 40% of the time. Subtract 20% dodge and now they're getting hit 60% of the time, so if the bosses did the same amount of damage, going from 40% chance to be hit to 60% chance to be hit they'd be taking 50% more damage because of this change.

A pet on the other hand has around 30% avoidance after talents. That means its getting hit 70% of the time. Subtract out 20% dodge, then pets will be taking 90% of the attacks. While this sounds pretty brutal, its only a 29% increase in damage taken.

Pets will have a really how amount of avoidance in Icecrown, but the difficulty will be tuned around traditional tanks and this change is more harmful to them than it is to us. Assuming we can keep up in terms of Armor mitigation and health pools, this seems to be a net buff.

However, don't forget that other tanks have both parry and block. Pets do as well, but these don't have any way to improve them, other than by tiny amounts through buffs.

Normal tanks can get block/parry equipment from elsewhere to offset this disadvantage. Our pets can't. They can just stack stamina ATM.

Unless the pets get more scaling in stats (and I don't see that happening with 3.3), pets are giong t obe at a big disadvantage for tanking Icecrown, I think. Not completely out of it, potentially, since the damage won't be as spiky (supposedly), but still at a big disadvantage.

this seems to be a net buff

I agree, it effectively adds a couple of percentage points dodge to us as well since we are now treated as if we had 20% dodge even though we had only 16% to begin with.

In addition, if we DO get scaling we get more advantage from stacking dodge because of diminishing returns mechanics.

Remember what the goal is of the change, to make damage less spikey. Yes we get the reduction but if you take their word for it, overall damage remains the same, so anything that maintains overall damage while smoothing things out will only make pet tanking more viable.

Dont forget also that this is intended to give tanks more time to react, which will only benefit us more so since we need that reaction time even more, since we control our tank remotely.

I just realized that depending on whether or not pets get dodge from agility, this change would actually give up three free talent points. If pets don't get dodge from agility, then a pet with full dodge talents will have a little under 16% dodge against a raid boss, so Catlike Reflexes would have no effect after subtracting 20% dodge. If you're going to have zero percent dodge either way, you might as well throw those points into something else.

I fiddled around with that myself, but I couldn't find any place to spend those darned points tbh, plus the Kill Command loss is actually quite significant from a thunderstomp perspective.

It would have been epic if Scorpid was on Improved Stings though

Admittedly its not the most useful 3 talent points in the world. I plan on using two of the points to get Improved Mend Pet, which I normally wouldn't bother with in a raid tanking spec, and the third point to fill out Mortal Shots.

My build these days only has one point in Mend and no points in Revive (I figure if the pet dies that is all she wrote in any case what with the limitations we have on our taunt).

That means I can fill out Mortal Shots anyhow, I would probably end up sticking with exactly the same build if it came down to it sadly.

This thread may be somewhat moot.

My first time in Icecrown was today, and I noticed something: Chill Of The Throne (chance to dodge reduced by 20%) is a debuff on the whole party.

Chill Of The Throne does *not* appear in my pet's debuff list, however.

Anyone give a BOO-YAH?

If it truly doesn't effect pets as that makes it appear, we've received a HUGE buff compared to traditional tanks. I suspect that within a week or two of a pet tanked Icecrown boss we'll have a fix for that in a hastily assembled patch.

Wow, that is splendifirous. Roughly the the same dodge as any any other tank: Priceless.

So not only is the damage less spikey, but we still get the dodge \o/

Time to convince my new guild I should tank Already cleared both 10 and 25 man the first day though =(

Nordh wrote:Time to convince my new guild I should tank Already cleared both 10 and 25 man the first day though =(

Advantage of clearing them the first day: that means the next time around, they might be more inclined to let you tank it, since that means they're aware of the limitations.

Been considering the bosses a bit myself. I've got my eye on the first on as a possible 'easy tank', and the last one which is pretty much pure tank n' spank (unless there's something I missed, having only done 10-man). Please note: 'tank n' spank' doesn't mean easy' he's got some nasty, sneaky tricks. But I don't know how many are thrown on the tank.

'm going to report that I have done my first tank job in Icecrown!

.... OK, so it was only a trash-farm. And we didn't even attempt the boss. And I didn't main tank. But we did it!

The skeleton hordes are pretty much... nasty. Do not try to solo tank the ones with spellcasters unless you like enemies running wild all over Elune's Green Earth. However, offtanking them is extremely successful. They hit fairly hard, and if you get too many in a group, you're going to feel it. A *lot*. Don't be too brave. Let the other tanks handle the large groups for AOE and just grab hold of single targets (there's a few who can be 'singled out') for safety.

Surprisingly enough (or maybe not so surprisingly, considering our usual tanking tactics), the giant skeleton mobs are actually fairly simple to tank. They hit like a royal ton of bricks... gold bricks... being towed by a tanker truck... but Cower and Shell Shield helped a lot with him keeping his feet, and thanks to some new gear (including actual pieces of ICC gear; I love being the only hunter occasionally) I had the HP to handle it. I didn't check how often he dodged; I was too busy going 'OH MY SHIT I'M TANKING ICC TRASH!'

Anyhow, having done the bosses (as in, in normal 'raid mode'. Not tanking them), I'm going to make some thoughts. Note: none of these are tried and tested.

Marrowgar seems to me to be a fairly straightforward tank. His bone spikes won't target the tanks, though you might need to occasionally move out of fire. Even with the level of AOE defense your pet has, the healers will need all the mana they can get for Bone Spikes and Bone Storm, so don't be making them waste it if you can be moving. As Saber Lash is considered AOE (I believe) you will actually take a lot less damage than the average tank. Still, it's painful. Get some melee/tanks there to help eat the extra damage, so your pet's not having to soak 40k or so all by itself. During the Bone Storm, I suggest leaving the pet on the boss not to keep threat up (as it's a total threat dump) but to immediately pick him up when he stops spinning (when the threat is reset and he'll focus on, usually, a healer). SAVE YOUR MD FOR THIS. Our 'Taunt' may work on the bosses (I don't know) but a Misdirect will work just as well. You'll know when it's time. He'll stop spinning.

The second boss... well, this one is a lot more difficult. This is because she requires two tanks to do properly. Helping to tank the trash before she 'spawns' is easy, and a good thing to do. The extra tank, I'm sure, will be appreciated. However, one of her abilities is a 'threat lowering' attack, and as we've all noted in the past, we do *not* need lowered threat. I don't know if it's totally impossible, but this is definitely a boss that is presently beyond 'easy tanking capability'. I don't think MD would be enough to pull threat back from the second tank, though it *might* be, considering the 'reduced threat' that the first tank will be saddled with. It might be worth trying. Plus, maybe she won't target pets with it. If someone tries, let me know!

Third, there is an airship battle. For here, I'm not positive on where the better use for the pet would be. I *suspect* that a useful possibility would be to have the pet tank Saurfang while he is healed by a healer. Obviously, you can't make the pet leap between ships, so you would have to jump over, summon the pet, and then tank, though. That might be dangerous. Second place for it is to keep your pet on the original ship (not too difficult) and use it to tank the enemies coming out of the portal. Here ,the big issue is sheer number of enemies, and the need to AOE to keep them from dinging too many times. Sergeants first, then Reavers, to keep damage down.

The final enemy... I'm not sure what he's like to tank. However, I honestly think that all in all, you only need one tank proper for him. he hits hard (even harder as he powers up and agonizingly hard when he frenzies), but he doesn't have any special 'hit the tank' abilities. In addition, I haven't seen any of his specials hit a pet. It may be that the pet would be one of the safest people to tank him. However, one thing you will want to be careful of: put Thunderstomp on manual if you can (as well as any other AOE you might happen to have, depending on the pet). When he summons the blood beasts, *DO NOT USE IT UNTIL THEY ARE CLEAR*. The damage they do isn't enormous, but it's potentially quite painful, and it adds energy to Saurfang. Let your ranged pull the beasts off before you begin Thunderstomping again. I've seen many wipes because of some paladin's Conc catching the beasties.

Anyone see anything I missed here? Anyone want to add something else?

I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about these too. For the most part I agree with you on these. Assuming Marrow's Saberlash is considered AoE, this fight shouldn't be much of a problem. I don't know if you looked, but those giant skeletons use the same type of Saber Lash ability so if Avoidance does work against it, Saber Lash should have hit your pet for only about 20% of what a normal hit did. If you have a combat parse or something from this I'd love to look at it. Hopefully I'll be able to talk my 10 man group into letting me test it on one of these skeletons this week.

If Saberlash still hits for the full amount, its going to be significantly harder because it'll require extra coordination with the offtank. Ideally you'd want to use Eyes of the Beast to position him in a steady manner, making it easy for the offtank to stay on him, but with the random AoE he shoots out it'd be risky leaving your body vulnerable. The damage from the frost isn't too huge, and would probably be healable. Also he doesn't seem to have any sort of enrage, so a patient raid should be able to get him even with the threat dumps.

The reduced threat and taunting mechanic on the second boss are very problematic. Sure, when the second tank gets the diminished threat debuffs you'll start to catch up, but so will the DPS. Add to that the fact that for nearly the entire fight the pet has a diminished threat debuff (since you get it when you're tanking and waiting for it to wear off when you're not), this fight really strikes at our major weak spot in threat generation. Again, there's no enrage, but this fight would probably take a long, long time.

On the gunship fight I'm not really sure. Sending your pet over to tank Muradin Bronzebeard (yeah, I said it) would be a major pain, but is doable. Initially I thought that having him tank the adds on your own ship would be easier since I know from personal experience on my prot pally there's a ton of downtime, it'd give you plenty of time to build threat. This isn't the case though, since the mobs begin to rank up and become more powerful the longer they're alive which could be a major issue.

The original incarnation of Deathbringer Saurfang struck me as an obvious choice for being pet tanked. However since the fight went live his ability Rune of Blood has been significantly buffed, and its now considered necessary to use two tanks which would mean taunting, which would mean we're probably out.

Durante wrote:I don't know if you looked, but those giant skeletons use the same type of Saber Lash ability so if Avoidance does work against it, Saber Lash should have hit your pet for only about 20% of what a normal hit did.

I admit, I didn't look. I just know that the pet's tanking the skeletons wasn't an issue. So that could very likely be why, if it's true. Sadly, I don't have a parse for it. I'll check around, but I expect since it didn't go great (it wasn't the most successful trash farm; lots of mistakes on everyone's heads and we quit fairly early) there won't be one anywhere.

The damage from the frost isn't too huge, and would probably be healable.

I agree with this. The healing on the pet isn't what worries me. The healing on the rest of the raid is. I think that the healers will want to stop going OOM on pet and only pet and be able to hold out a little to save someone else's butt.

Add to that the fact that for nearly the entire fight the pet has a diminished threat debuff

*Presumably* will. I *expect* he will target the pet with it, but you never know! A few 'targeted' effects won't target the pet.

.... I know, too much to hope for.

But you're right about the DPS getting a big gain here; for some reason I hadn't considered how much of an advance they'd end up getting. And she *does* have an enrage timer. So yeah. It could probably be more hazardous than it's worth here. Still, it *could* be worth trying. Could. Maybe.

On the gunship fight I'm not really sure. Sending your pet over to tank Muradin Bronzebeard Saurfang

Fixed!

The original incarnation of Deathbringer Saurfang struck me as an obvious choice for being pet tanked. However since the fight went live his ability Rune of Blood has been significantly buffed, and its now considered necessary to use two tanks which would mean taunting, which would mean we're probably out.

Ugh. Hmm. Yeah. :/ Two tanks because of sheer damage ability? I'm DPS, so I've not taken note of how to tank these ones. I'm too busy dragging the fleshthings around.

Kurasu wrote:Ugh. Hmm. Yeah. :/ Two tanks because of sheer damage ability? I'm DPS, so I've not taken note of how to tank these ones. I'm too busy dragging the fleshthings around.

Two tanks mostly because of the healing to does to him when he hits a tank with this debuff. If he's healing himself the fight takes a really long time and in the meantime he's building blood power. Eventually he starts throwing Mark of the Fallen Champion on the raid and it just goes downhill really quick. In fact with the debuff he might actually heal himself faster than the dps hurt him, especially with a pet tanking.

And about pets not getting targeted debuffs, generally, but not always, they generally do not get debuffs that target a random raid member, but do get debuffs that are placed on the mob's current target. Pets are generally not listed as targets for random debuffs since it'd either make the encounter too easy or annoying, but most abilities that are used on the tank will blindly be applied to whatever target happens to have aggro.

I have off tanked the Trash mobs a few times at the first part of icc 10man , have not had much trouble
normal what i do is hot the main tank with RoS MD pet aoe like mad and random D shots to myself form mobs that brake off the main tank if we have a trap pop , I use my macro to target /petattack it not shur if this helps but thats what i do,, gl