Tanking Feat: OS Heroic MT/OT

Where: Obsidian Sanctum Heroic
Who: Kurasu of Emerald Dreams (EU) (80)
Pet: Panzer (80 Turtle)
Group: 21-man raid group (including two full tanks: one warrior, one DK)

Description: What had originally supposed to be a 25-man attempt on Malygos and Sarth 2d/3d unfortunately ended up as a rather anemic 21-man. A 21-man where one of the two tanks was rather unwell already. Our first pull was a bit of a tragedy, with mobs running every which way, many people getting struck down and killed, and some very unhappy yelps in every direction. Feeling tired and grouchy myself (and I'm willing to admit it), I pulled on my tanking suit, summoned my turtle, and declared something about going tank for this bunch.

"No, really. We'll be fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Seriously, don't worry about it."

About that time, the pair of Onyx Sanctum Guardians got too close and aggroed on our party. One tank ran for the mobs. I sent my turtle to the other, immediately pulling aggro with a 'Taunt'. One of the healers (I don't know who, but damn; thank you!) started throwing heals on Panzer, and we were able to gun down the PC-tanked mob, turning to the Panzer-tanked one. The turtle didn't lose aggro, and the mob was downed.

Raid Leader: ".... carry on."

And so I did, proceeding to join in offtanking most of the trash, and main tank both Vesperon and Shadron (Tenebron was left up for a Sarth 1D) and doing so quite handily. With Growl, Thunderstomp, and a couple MDs just to make sure (though to be honest, I don't think they would have been needed), Panzer was able to carry it through without more than a couple close calls. This included a very uncomfortable moment when Shadron was pulled as we were fighting trash, and Panzer was forced to hold him while we finished off the trash and *then* went portal-diving. Fortunately, we had on-the-ball healers and he had Shell Shield.

For the record, I offered to offtank Sarth or Tenebron, but at that point, folks weren't quite willing to experiment as much, and so I got to (read: had to) go back to DPS for the fight. Still, the words 'Carry on' was probably the biggest success I've ever felt with the whole 'pet tanking' thing.

No photos, unfortunately; still, with how successful this was, I have high hopes of being allowed to MT the drakes again at some point.

Nice one Kurasu. Too bad you didn't get to finish the job

Just a question, why'd you use taunt at the start of the fight? With no threat built on a mob, taunt is a waste.

One way that taunt can be effective at the start is build up a small threat through attacks and especially KC (which generates almost as much threat to you as Intimidation does to the pet) on the target. Then Taunt (which sets the pet threat higher than yours) and then MD.

It is a bit risky both for mess ups with the taunt and because of the long cd but I think it is the best way to get a good threat lead.

Kill Command doesn't give you any threat, it only boosts your pets threat by giving it more damage.

I'd never waste that long of a cooldown for an almost minimal boost in threat.

KC actually gives a substantial threat to the hunter for some absurd reason, I can't remember where I read about it but I have confirmed through testing.

Just testing it now to confirm, looks like it does about 300-400 threat. I managed to get George up to 10k threat next to no time with Concussive-Scorpid-Arcane-KC-Taunt and then still had MD up.

"Concussive-Scorpid-Arcane-KC" giving 10K threat?

I'm finding this very hard to believe, not to mention that's 3 global cooldowns (KC is off the GCD). So your pet has already built quite a lot of threat with 2 Growls and dps during the time. The only shot in that series that should give any substantial amount of threat is Arcane Shot unless things have changed a lot.

I do know that buffing your pet (with KC for example) turns aggro onto yourself if he's tanking more than one mob and hasn't done anything to the side mobs. But that's the same mechanic in which a mage buffing arcane intellect will get aggro on mobs with no built up threat.

10k might be a slight exaggeration or I got a lucky crit that time.

Here's what I did. HoL (i did this on norm first and the first mob was lvl79)

Ice trap the other mob
Concussive on the target
Scorpid
Intimidation
BW
Arcane
Kill Command (which also sets the trutle attacking for the first time)
Taunt

It looks like at least a good 6-8k lead before the MD. But then you don't have a taunt anymore

So basically, what you're saying is that your pet has used both intimidation and started hitting the mob when you checked how much aggro it got? It doesn't matter if you use Taunt or not in the situation you just posted. Intimidation alone will make the mob hit it.

No, I am tracking aggro all the time through omen. Intimidation isn't necessary and doesn't provide enough aggro to make a difference.

In fact, come to think of it it is better to leave Intimidation till after the taunt because the threat generated by it will be wasted unless the pet somehow manages to out aggro you on it's first attack, in which case the taunt is wasted. Remember that Taunt will set the pets aggro just above yours, so whatever you do on the initial pull gets transferred to it, while anything under that is wasted.

Starting from cold intimidation only provides roughly 500 threat or so, it isn't massive. The only reason I put in KC before the taunt is because it provides almost as much as Intimidation by itself in this scenario.

Nordh wrote:Just a question, why'd you use taunt at the start of the fight? With no threat built on a mob, taunt is a waste.

Instinct. If I see a mob going after a healer, I immediately send the pet after them and slap 'taunt'.

OK. So I'm a little late with answering, but I just got up; so sue me!



To get into the discussion that has already happened below, my usual opening for threat is:
Pet attack (with Kill Command if possible to get as much out of the opening Thunderstomp as possible)
MD with Steady Shot/Autoshot/Arcane Shot (queue the steady shot, then hit Arcane as soon as you're releasing; all three shots come in the span of a second and offer a big burst)
Intimidation
Bestial Wrath

Oftentimes, the pet's own Growls and Thunderstomps are enough to hold aggro after this, and the mana spent on Intimidation and/or MD can be used for my own shots. In a boss fight, or a 'full burn', I will continue to use MD. In particular, I hold a MD for 20%, when I can MD a Kill Shot onto the pet.

That sounds like the normal thing, although I'm thinking it's best to set up Kill Command before the pull to avoid mishaps with aggro at the start.

The whole thing with the taunt is just a nice why to get a big burst of aggro at the start of the fight since someone asked how one could use it in a pull.

Actually, I went back and did some further testing and found that Intimidation scales better than what I had presumed. What must have happened then was that either the Intimidation came in AFTER the taunt or the Intimidation + Growl was enough to get good threat alone, although I find this unlikely (I didn't have Thunderstomp talented when I first tried this).

So it looks like the whole Pull-Taunt-MD trick doesn't really yield anything substantial enough to make it worthwhile.

I use a similar pull system to Kurasu which works well for me.

To avoid hitting the wrong buttons in the wrong order i use the following 3 macros.

Macro 1- setup

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=3 [target=pet] misdirection, mendpet
/cast killcommand

Macro 2 - attack
#showtooltip
/petattack
/petautocaston growl
/petautocaston thunderstomp
/petautocaston swipe
/petautocaston charge
/petautocastoff claw
/castsequence reset=5 intimdation, bestial wrath

Macro 3 - open burst
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=3 [target=pettarget] steady shot, arcane shot, scorpid sting
/userandom 13,14 {not sure if i left this in as i think it was not casting}

So my start goes spam macro 1 x 2, then macro 2 x 2 - timing the second push just before the pet hits the target to get the most out of BW. Followed by macro 3x3 to burst in with 3 Misdirected shots (including an autoshot) and a sting to help the pet out a bit.

I then thread shots & abilites as they cooldown/are needed.

I always, always save Taunt incase i really, really need it - thats if i have it, which i do not always do.

Great job!

Could you give us more details on main tanking Vesperon and Shadron?

It seems with everyone going in the portal you would have lots of free time to build up solid aggro.

Other than the blue portals, do these dragons do anything interesting?

Quick test done to see if these hunter ability cause the hunter any moderate threat to give to your pet through Taunt.

Level 79 non-elite.
Concussive Shot: 16 Threat
Scorpid Sting: 44 Threat
Kill Command: 198 Threat

Putting up general debuffs on targets always causes a small amount of threat and putting up buffs on a friendly target causes a small amount of threat, and that's all that's going on here. If you've ever made the mistake of buffing your group just as the tank tried to body pull a group of mobs you know what I'm talking about (read: my priest in Shadow Labs).

If you want to use Taunt at the beginning of a fight to give your pet your aggro, you'd be better off using other abilities than Concussive and Scorpid. Arcane -> Aimed/Multi -> KC(since its off the GCD anyway) -> Engineer Rocket -> Taunt, something along those lines.

Even then I doubt it would be enough to justify losing the Taunt for it, it looks like even doing a sequence like that you could only pull about 2k aggro or something. Except if you had time to build a nice solid threat lead somehow or had "buff of pulling aggro for sure when cast" I can't see the trade off being worthwhile.

I was just using the Concussive-Scorpid sequence for convenience in that pull btw, concussive gives next to nothing and neither does Scorpid really, except that then Arcane is available more quickly.

Ihlos wrote:Great job!

Could you give us more details on main tanking Vesperon and Shadron?

It seems with everyone going in the portal you would have lots of free time to build up solid aggro.

Other than the blue portals, do these dragons do anything interesting?

My apologies for not answering this earlier! I skimmed through the theorycrafting idly, and didn't notice that a non-TC had snuck its way through.

For tanking this trio of dragons (I only tanked two, but the third one would probably be a fairly easy tank as well so I'm adding a theory for it), it's actually a very easy tank 'n spank for the most part. They do a couple of interesting things, which I'll bring up, but the idea for tanking them both is about the same as a basic 'tank n spank' mob. That is to say send the pet (with Kill Command if you want the extra threat), MD a series of shots to make sure it's solid, and mostly just let the pet go to town on them. They are immune to Intimidation's stun, but not the threat burst; always use it. And Bestial Wrath goes a long way to helping you get yourself some extra threat as well, with the big damage boost on the pet.

All three of the drakes will form a portal in the air now and then. Each of these portals begins a different buff/debuff, and will be addressed separately. But the universal action for this portal, generally, is for one tank and healer to stay outside the portal while everyone else goes inside to handle what is within. Remember that you *cannot* go into the portal if you are tanking. Your pet will follow you, and thus leave no tank outside the place. So when people run for the portal, just as if yoiu were the one physically on the boss, don't click on it. Just stand outside the portal, DPS the boss while your pet tanks, do whatever.

As for attacks, the drakes have three main attacks that they all share. One is the basic melee, which can do a lot of damage, but healers should be able to keep up with it fairly easily with pet's increased heal. The second is a breath attack. Keep your party away from the drake's face to avoid getting 'breathed'. Your pet will take pretty much nothing from this, especially if they are specced for avoidance, so this isn't a concern for you, but for your raid, as it *is* an AOE. Thirdly is the void zones they will drop on the ground. These will, after a period of time, 'explode' for massive damage. If one forms under your feet, move. Don't stand in it, and you'll be fine. None will ever form beneath your pet, so unless you manage to move your pet into the range of one of those zones, you'll be safe from them. Just remember to watch your own self; if you die, the tank despawns.

Now for the individual drakes:

Shadron: This is the drake on the right of where you enter. When the portal opens, he becomes immune to all damage directed at him. Due to this, he can be very difficult to tank since you can't gain 'extra' threat on him while the party is in the portal. Due to this, I strongly suggest keeping your MD rotation on him at all times the shield is down to ensure solid threat. Also due to this, the portal obviously must be used in order to keep the fight going.

Vesperon: This is the drake on the left of where you enter. When the portal opens, he covers himself in a shield that will do damage to you as you do it to him. Needless to say, this means your healer has to be on the ball, since your pet will be constantly taking damage while the portal is open and people are within. I suggest keeping Mend Pet up at all times to help out a little bit, though your healers are the ones who will have to keep the healing up. Remember: the more your pet attacks, the more damage it'll take, so this is one place where turning off your threat dump might actually help out a bit.

Tenebron: As I did Sarth with one drake up, I didn't tank this one (one of the easiest drakes to do 3D with). However, it seems to me that it would be at least a fairly simple matter. Tenebron has no special abilities when the portal is opened. However, within the portal are a number of eggs which will hatch into whelps. Depending on whether you have an extra tank or not, there are two ways to do this: ignore the portal, DPS the drake through it, and tank/AOE the whelps, or go into the portal and kill the eggs before whelps hatch. Both are equally workable, though the 'AOE inside portal' is preferable for you to tank, since it means you'll have more threat time, and less people running at full burn.

Thats a great walkthrough, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Now lets just hope I can get a chance to use it!

So this is for heroic mode, doe they have all of the same abilities in 10 man, just reduced damage?

Ihlos wrote:So this is for heroic mode, doe they have all of the same abilities in 10 man, just reduced damage?

Yep. In 10-man, the abilities are exactly the same, except potentially lessened damage on the shadow aura on Vesperon. As I was able to handle a 25-man tank on these, 10-man would no doubt be an absolute cakewalk.

I really hope that you'll be able to use it, too. Tanking this bunch, to be quite honest, was a very fulfilling thing. Especially since it was a surprisingly *easy* tank, other than keeping them turned away from the raid (or as the case may be, the raid turned away from them).

Also, a 'trash tank' that I should mention: the Onyx Sanctum Guardians (i.e. the huge dragonkin that pat in pairs) will throw a curse called 'Curse Of Mending'. For 1.5 minutes, the target has a 20% chance of healing its target by 5% when it attacks. This heal can crit, meaning a whopping 10% of their health back. When something is attacking as quick as your pet is, that can end up a lot of healing, and yes, they *will* potentially target your pet as well as you. Make sure to have Mend Pet up at all times, not just for the healing, but to keep dispelling it if it pops up and the healers forget to dispel on the pet (as they might).

Good stuff!

So when you talk about keeping them turned away from the raid, obviously we can use a eotb to turn him, do you have to move him at all after that? (Obviously a player could trigger a void on top of you, so it would have to be clear that no one should stand on top of the pet, which they shouldnt to avoid the aoe anyway)

Does shadrons immunity make him immune to growl and intimidations threat?

Ihlos wrote:So when you talk about keeping them turned away from the raid, obviously we can use a eotb to turn him, do you have to move him at all after that?

Most of the time, the raid itself should be able to move away from the drake. You may need to rotate it if the drake forms a portal near its face, but most of the time it's well out of the way from what I've seen, and people emerge in the same location they went in, so there should be very little rotating needed once you've got his face away from the raid.

(Obviously a player could trigger a void on top of you, so it would have to be clear that no one should stand on top of the pet, which they shouldnt to avoid the aoe anyway)

IMO, if people are standing on top of the tank, they deserve what they get. But yes. People should be at the drake's back (it is not a dragon and hasn't got a tail whip) and the tank should be the only one at its face. If you do get a void beneath the pet, it's better to just do a quick 'call back' to move it, rather than EotB. EotB takes too long to cast; you're liable to get blown up.

Does shadrons immunity make him immune to growl and intimidations threat?

I'm not positive, but I think it's all-inclusive immunity, yes. Would have to look more closely next time, but it seems to me I saw immune against everything that was being thrown at him. Fortunately you should have a good enough aggro lead that your healer won't be ni danger.

cool, im hoping to try to main tank these guys in our next guild OS run, I think it would be good practice for the big guy.

I appreciate all the tips!