Meat tanks most of UP (non-heroic) - a first timer story

Hi all,

I'm loving this site. Finally a place for folks that play hunters like I play mine.

Dual specs have saved the fun. I now have a setup that I can do what I want with and still swap over to my "dps flavor of the month" setup for whatever raid I need to participate in.

I went off and tamed a Rhino. Being Ground with a rhino meat-shield, Meat seemed the appropriate name. I immediately started looking around for something fun to do with him. Children's week gave me an excuse to run UP so I figured on setting up a group to go clear the place. My wife plays a holy priest, so we had tank and heals lined up from the beginning. <grin>

I managed to convince a guild paladin (ret/holy) to come along. We were going to 3-man it, but another hunter showed up at the stone and we dragged him along (new 80 with no gear).

So, we venture into UP following the rhino (2 hunters, 1 ret pally, and 1 priest). Clearing to the first boss was a matter of putting the rhino on Agressive and just following him through. No issues.

The first boss is a wonderful place to start one's pet tanking career. She does not move at all (other than up and down) and there are no special things to remember other than to mow down the 3 adds when someone gets trapped under the sword. Our group had plenty of AoE so even with the priest getting trapped, we had no issues. The amazing thing to me was, Meat took almost no damage at all in the fight, he held agro without issue. Brimming with confidence, we moved on to the next boss.

The second boss was so easy, I hardly remember the fight. Once we started it, with Meat on agressive he was getting agro before the mobs even showed as attackable to the rest of us. The only nervous moment was when he took off after Gortok and got out of range for a moment. However, there was never a real issue since he didn't take much damage at all. Second boss down and high-5s all around.

But then there was Skadi. This is where the story gets interesting.

Skadi is one of the most complex fights in any of the Northrend 5-man dungeons. For those who haven't seen it, the fight is
a gauntlet with continuous mob spawns, dragons laying down paths of frost, and a final boss fight that can be daunting. There are many tricks to the fight, but all of them require the tank to do a LOT of work with retargetting, moving, sometimes needing AoE taunts, etc. I was very nervous, but anxious to try it.

Attempt#1: Harpoon collect followed by reset and run to harpoon end.
This method is very good for tight groups with paladin tanks because it handily eliminates the frost breath as a factor in the fight. However, the mob rush requires handling something like 15 adds simultaneously. Even having the ret pally lay down consecration and doing some of the tanking on the adds, this method was broken from the beginning. Meat never died, but the rest of us did. This method is not recommended for pet tanking.

Attempt#2: Similar, but attempted to station the pet in the tunnel.
Same result. Ugly.

Attempt#3: Kick off the event, run the gauntlet while avoiding the frost.
This attempt was MUCH better. It turns out that the pet's AoE damage reduction made the frost path nearly a non-issue anyway. We fought through several groups of 4 (which Meat handled nicely) and made it down to the harpoon guns. In this attempt, we managed to get Skadi to spawn and got him down to 30%.

I have a rule about wipes when I run strange tactics, that is 3 wipes and we bring in a pro. So since we had wiped 3 times, I called on a guild druid to come do the Skadi run. Naturally that got us past the gauntlet on the first attempt. I was able to use Meat's taunt to save the Priest during one of the whirlwind rushes, which settled my bruised pride.

The final boss was uneventful. One of the most boring final fights in any dungeon (especially after Skadi). Meat handled him easily and the druid let me tank him.

Healing was never an issue throughout. Whenever there was a problem, it was always due to mobility and positioning. I think practice and creative tactics will turn my pet into a viable tank for most 5-man content in the long run.

So that puts Meat at 3/4 bosses in UP tanked.

Ground
Doomhammer

PS: Since then, Meat has gained nearly 4k HP. He's sitting at just over 21k unbuffed at present.

Good job! =)

Great story! Welcome to the site, we're glad to have you.

I have often wondered about sskadi myself, It seems like it would be mega tough, as its the hardest encounter in 5 mans.

I figured I should add some very, VERY belated 'two cents' in here when it comes to tanking the last boss.

Every 20%, the boss will stun the party and run to one of the boats to 'power up'. The hardest part is getting him past the first 20% without getting smacked in the face by Bane, but once you're done with that, it's much easier. And if you have a BM hunter, it's even better. You see, Ymiron's stun can be BW'ed out of. In our last run, we got him to about 81%, I hit BW, and was able to DPS him down to around 60-something% on my own before the party was able to free themselves up. Upon which time, I FDed out of the huge masses of aggro I'd collected, let him jump back onto the tank, and we continued normally.

A hunter pet used here will also be free during BW, allowing for masses of threat to be garnered while the party is stunned in between. So remember: before he hits that first 80% mark, BW and starts taking advantage of the boss' distraction. They won't be able to pull aggro off the pet with a *crowbar*. Especially if you can get him down to 60% while he's busy trying to get himself powered up.

Great tip!

Im still worried about sskadi though, I guess you would just have to do the encounter the normal way, pick up the boss as fast as possible, and shell sheild through the whirlwind while running. Seems like it would be real tough

No doubt that Skadi would be the hardest. I don't think it would be impossible, though. I haven't done this one, but here's my 'tanking theory' on how to handle this fight.

The gauntlet, do normally: tank them a group at a time, rather than do the whole bunch, and do what you can to make sure they are out of the frost so melee DPS can attack them. Don't shoot the harpoons haphazardly; gather them up first. Six are needed. The reason I suggest this is not just for the achievement, but because haphazardly shooting them could drop Skadi into the fray before you're ready. And that would be Bad. Once as many adds are cleared as possible, and Skadi's passing, make your shots and bring him down.

Once Skadi is on the ground, immediately MD him to your pet. This will not only give you a burst of aggro, but if you have a good MD macro, will be much faster than your pet running up to him and potentially 'position juggling'. Tank as normal, but watch for the whirlwind targets. One taunt can be used to pull him off the first target, Shell Shield if you've got a turtle to help bolster against the damage, and spam the heals. The second one, make the target kite him if possible. When he comes out of WW, Intimidation/MD/Growl to let the pet pick up aggro again.

Back before we knew he could be taunted off his whirlwind target, we'd always kite him up and down the pathway. It works well. Just make sure you've got 'target of target' turned on so you can see who Skadi's targeting.

I usually run up and take about 3-4 packs from the get go and just AoE them down. Even if some get lose they don't hurt that bad. They don't hit much harder than normal mobs tbh, and they have so little HP that they go down really easy. Tell everyone to wait for the second thunderstomp and you're all good.

The cloud doesn't hurt at all either.

The only dangerous part is when he spawns because he can easily oneshot a clothie standing in the middle. And he starts hitting instantly (really strange that Blizzard didn't allow a second or two to pick him up) so whoever is standing in the middle will take a pounding. Make sure you're ready for when he drops and have MD up on the pet.

Ignore the adds, let the other dpsers kill them while you build up some aggro. They don't need to be tanked.

When whirlwind hits, just let your pet stay on the boss building up some aggro, but just as with any other tank, run the hell away from him when he's doing it Whirlwind doesn't even hurt the pet that much due to the avoidance. I don't use Taunt.

I'd say this is the second easiest boss of the instance. The first boss being the easiest (but hardest to keep aggro on since the boss will never be on the ground after the first 25% if you've got good ranged dps ).

Oh man. 2nd easiest? Ugh. I think Skadi is one of the hardest encounters in any non-heroic instance.

I think the 1st and 2nd bosses are the wimps. Totally /afk tanking for both.

Last boss is real easy too since threat is never an issue (not that it ever is with my pet).

Ground

2nd boss is harder in heroic. You need a healer that doesn't go oom while fighting all 5 bosses. But it's not that hard. Skadis only hard bit is the landing, imho.

Having done my first full UP tank (two other hunters, a DPS druid, and a resto druid), I can confirm that Nordh's way of tanking the gauntlet is very efficient. Don't try to collect all the guys in one cluster. Just get them a little at a time (two or three groups) and blast them down. Making people collect the harpoons and not throw them until you're prepared is good; don't just shoot them as soon as you get them. You *definitely* want to know when he's coming down so your clothies can be out of the way.

Also, when he starts the whirlwind, the pet's taunt *will* taunt him out of it, and if you're specced properly, the pet will barely feel the attack. It can save someone from having to kite, but is especially well-used if he targets a glass cannon melee (i.e. rogue) who can't get out of the way in time. Ranged staying at max range will be able to kite him with no problem, and the taunt should be saved for when he's too close to someone. At least until they shorten the CD on Taunt more. Grumble grumble.