Icecrown: Forge Of Souls and Pit VICTORY!

So I get into a group for Normal Icecrown, with two guildmates and two PUG people (healer and tank). The tanks, two pulls into it, disconnected.

"Someone should tank the trash until he comes back," said the priest (our PUGger)
"I can!" I say.
"He can!" say my two guildies. I think they might've mostly been joking.
"What the hell?" I say, and pull on my tanking gear.

Two instances later with only one wipe (a pat that everyone was surprised by) and I was proud to see my tanking has apparently come a ways since the first days! Even just on normal, the place isn't a total cakewalk, but while it isn't easy, it's mostly simple. Which comes in handy.

So just as a note, for people who want to go for it: while I haven't done it enough to get a full-on feel for technique, I can say that tanking this is not only very possible, it's pretty simple and very enjoyable. Will add tactics for the bosses later on, if smoeone doesn't already beat me t oit. Needless to say, though, while it's not completely 'tank n spank', your pet can pretty much stay in and beat things up. 99% of the bosses, all the worry is with the party.

The one big exception I can think of, the man rides a Frostborn. Tanking this one, he occasionally throws a very powerful burst of damage which throws your pet back, and then will chase it. This is accompanied by a buff of an extra 75% damage and a -50% speed. Kiting is easy with the pet, and with how much damage he throws? I highly suggest a kite. Save your Cower until directly *aftre* you have finished the kite. That loss of speed on your side can be deadly as well.

As a warning, though, the third one has a long, *long* gauntlet battle. While far from impossible to tank, I was happy when we got an actual tank involved; it's very tedious. Use CC, for certain, especially on the ranged folks, and keep a close eye on your healer for loose fellows.

GRATS!

If you can throw some screenshots and extra details up, i'm going to bring back Feat articles (as long as Ihlos doesn't yell at me).

I can easily give details, but not so easily give screenshots. Alas, I wasn't taking them. If I get the chance to do it again, though!

Anyway, as for details, I think I can offer them.

First off, as I said, most of the trash in the first dungeon is either groups of two (large skeletons; tank and spank and no problem at all other than hard hits) or four (several humanoids/undead people and a spook). Shackle works well on most of them, and should be used liberally in the multigroup pulls. The only trash that really (and I mean *REALLY*) worried me here were some rather large phantoms. These look a great deal like third stage Black Knight, and attack similarly, including party-wide waves of damage. One of these even managed to kill off a good amount of the party, and it was only due to the healer and Panzer's CDs that we managed to survive. Sweat-inducing, let me tell you!

The first boss here is a wizard called Bronjahm. Unsure of what he could do, I just put Panzer on him with a nice big threat burst and crossed my fingers. Turns out that for a hunter pet tank, that's about all you need to do. His melee isn't too painful, and his special ability is negligible, as the pet hasn't got mana to drain off. The players need to watch for his abilities, of course. He will summon (or rather, corrupt) a small add from one of the party members now and then, which must be killed or he will absorb it for 120,000 health. Needless to say, that can make this fight take a very long time! In addition, when he is down in health, he will teleport himself to the center of the room (if not there already) and start lashing out with a number of souls. The annoying thing here is that to avoid damage from them, you need to get close. And as a hunter, if you get close enough, you are just a smidge outside your 'minimum range'. So it's very easy to get yourself stuck here unable to attack. Be careful! In addition, prepare to use Bestial Wrath, as he will occasionally throw fear to 'chase' people into that swirl of spirits.

The second boss, Devourer of Souls, is painful and complicated to fight for the people, but not too terrible to actually *tank*. At least, as long as you are careful. Have someone who can interrupt if possible, to stop 'Phantom Blast' from being cast whenever possible. In addition, be prepared: now and again, the giant beast will randomly target a person and plummet down on top of them. This does not dump aggro; while the person will need to move out frmo beneath (to avoid damage from the Well beneath it), its threat is kept and it will generally wander back to the tank, unless your DPS have been overworking themselves. The main thing to worry about as a tank is to beware of Wailing Souls. Recall your pet and make sure it is not in front of the boss at this point. the damage this 'wail' can throw is deadly, and ticks every 0.4 seconds. Think 'Mimiron p3wx2 and you've got a good idea of what this does. Aside from that, the 'Unleah Souls' is something to worry about for your players, but they seem to target PCs over pets; I don't recall Panzer getting hit by any of them (although the party certainly did!)


On to The Pit. Here, the trash is very reasonable. Focus on tanking the big ones, while your group AOEs the small non-elite skeletons. There are also single large skeletons which, though they hit quite hard for trash, are fairly innocuous (IMO). The ones to fear are the large groups of ghouls. For me, what I did here was to send Panzer and MD a Volley onto them. It didn't keep them locked to Panzer *perfectly*, but if people were attacking the wrong target, by the time they pulled it off Panzer, they could kite and kill it on their own.

The first boss, Forgemaster Garfrost, is easy. Or rather, I should say *simple*. Your pet's AOE resistance means that you don't need to run it away from the boss at all. It can stay in and tank. You will need to kill him quickly enough that his aura doesn't stack high, but it's not as difficult (at least in our group) as it seems. Any and all frost resistance on your pet is a huge help here. On Normal, I didn't need any to tank him (the pet was hurting near the end but not terrible) but if you're daring Heroic, I highly suggest bringing some along; it would probably be a big help. Remember to get out of LoS when he's about to discharge his frost attacks. The pet can handle it (at least Panzer did; I suppose if he has a *lot* of stacks you'll want to retreat) but the players may not be so lucky.

The biggest thing to worry about with Ick and Krick is actually the trash. There are three ghoulish entities that walk around him, and at any time they can come wandering through the area. Always pull and kill these before the boss for your own safety!

Tanking Ick is a matter of keeping the tanking CD rolling, or having a good amount of nature res. Aura can help with this, if you can hold your own threat well enough. This is one area where your pet *can* stand in fire, to to speak (Panzer did and managed to survive), but this is a painful prospect. Besides, if a slime puddle is dropped near enough to hit your pet, it is probably interfering with your melee's attacking, and thus the enemy should be moved (as simple as a /petpassive and walk a couple steps). Krick will occasionally use a series of Arcane Novas around the ground. For me, I found these weren't unreasonably painful for the pet, so I only moved him if they were close enough to cause problems for DPS. Otherwise Panzer just ate them and let the healer handle the damage. There are enough of these that moving is an option, but it is annoying. Beware of the occasional 'focus' that will be called. Now and again, Ick will begin to pursue one member of the party with extra damage and lowered speed. At this time, he can't be taunted, so simlpy have them kite until the order wears off.

There are a series of enemies leading up the hill to the tunnel. This is where I found it most difficult to tank. There were simlpy too many of them! AOE is very tempting here, but be careful as the pet can't handle holding threat, and these large groups can cause a good amount of damage if they run free. This is another of those 'Be ready with CC' moments.

Further along this path is a snow-covered tunnel. In here (in addition to ice plummeting from above) there are two types of enemies: large elite skeletons (around 83k health) and much smaller, non-elites (around 12k). For me, I had the pet tank those larger skeletons, while the rest of the party handled the AOE on the littler guys. They're essentially normal mobs (thouhg quite a few of them) so any class with AOE can take them apart fairly quickly, leaving the scary ones for you to tank.

The final boss, at first glance, looks to be pretty terrifying. However, it is not the drake you will be fighting, but instead the one mounted on top of it. Now, this boss hits *hard*. However, you'll want to be prepared to time your cooldowns, as using Cower at the wrong moment can easily get you killed. As mentioned above, Scourgelord can inflict a lot of damage with his 'Unholy Power' ability, particularly since it comes very quickly after an attack called 'Forceful Smash'. I suggest that you use Cower ASAP, and then not use your next one until *after* he has used Unholy Power and you have kited him. Make sure your DPS knows that you are kiting; they'll want to be holding damage while you're doing this so as not to jump too far ahead on the DPS meter.

So there you go. Feel free to add detail, or to ask for more if I missed something.

Really well done.

Just too bad hunters can't choose tanks in the PuG interface =(

having done this on heroic, I would like to stress that while I don't think anything is impossible, having a pet tank for the third of the three Icecrown instances would probably be a *huge* challenge, and potentially very lethal. Our experienced raid group wiped no less than four times on that place on heroic, with a warrior tank. The lack of AOE tanking really shows. If you want to dare it, make sure to mark and CC the ranged where you can. You can LoS in the alcoves, too.

Kurasu wrote:having done this on heroic, I would like to stress that while I don't think anything is impossible, having a pet tank for the third of the three Icecrown instances would probably be a *huge* challenge, and potentially very lethal. Our experienced raid group wiped no less than four times on that place on heroic, with a warrior tank. The lack of AOE tanking really shows. If you want to dare it, make sure to mark and CC the ranged where you can. You can LoS in the alcoves, too.

I've been thinking this myself. I think its possible to pet tank the first encounters with an experienced and disciplined group, but attempting it in a pug would probably be pretty disastrous. The gauntlet at the end of the instance would be even worse. If you wanted to truly solo tank it without an offtank, you're going to need at least one other hunter for MDs.

As far as I could tell the mobs come in two waves each time, some easier ones and then the big nasties. If you hold your MD for the second set it might just be doable, but very hard by the looks of it.

I was thinking more of just a threat standpoint. You have to keep a pretty good pace to keep from being caught and there's only so much room to trade survivability for threat with that last group; there's several hard hitting foes in that one. You might need an extra MD or two just to make sure the DPS aren't waiting so you can get those mobs down quick enough.

I afraid you might be right on that one, this is one where two or even three hunters in the group can really make a difference.

Fortunately, the first wave of little guys (the leaping geists) are weak and AOE'able. You can pretty much leave the DPS to do what DPS does there and wait for the elites. For me, the gauntlet afterward is actually easier than the one inside the room.