The other day I posted about preliminary findings which show ICC has parry-haste mostly turned off for the raid bosses. Theck’s confirmed that now, and my gratitude to the original writers Tbdsamman (parry-haste addon) and Clifton (wrote the log parser).

Sindragosa should not be tanked dual-wield either, because of Permeating Chill. Go two-handed. Also gives some advantage to a DK over other tank classes who attack faster.

This strengthens the conclusion I made the other day. Don’t worry about expertise as a mitigation stat. It’s a threat stat again (in Icecrown anyhow). If you care about ToC, Theck also analysed those fights.

Dual-wielders no longer need 30 or 26 expertise to be viable.

Stay up to date with Twitter

I twittered about this before blogging. I mentioned a threat profiling addon and a cursor-highlighting one. Noted DRW and Garg strangely now give threat! I also posted my single-target raid buffing blood spec.

We also discussed the raid value of [Hysteria] (~200 dps for a top 50 guild rogue, Feist) and its synergy with Bloodlust. Linked to my favourite wow.com column. Mentioned how great Allods Online is.

Sometimes I don’t blog about these, just ‘micro-blog’ with Twitter. They’re just not big enough to warrant a post but are often valuable snippets. I listen to the other tank bloggers tweets, for the same reason.

The proc nerf

The recent nerf to how proc effects interact with white hits had more impact than I’d thought. It means obviously that Necrosis is not added to rune strike, which I knew, but worse: it means Killing Machine (comes off melee hits) is not proc’d by rune strike.

I haven’t analysed the threat impact of these subtle changes, but they suck and there’s no word if they’re intended or not. For Frost: it’s possible that black ice is now better than KM; and for Blood, Subversion is now definitely better than Necrosis. Topic here.

On related topics:

• Parry-haste doesn’t seem to exist in ICC
• Do not parrygib your Sindragosa tank
• Dual-wield, weapon speed and expertise
• Avoidance value of expertise
• TankTotals addon updated
• 3.3 Death Knight dual-wield tanking

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I have an index of the guides from those sites most people use, plus have tried to include key posts from the blogging community.

The MMO-Champion and WoWWiki guides include loot and abilities. TankSpot is to their videos.

If you’re a tank or strategy blogger, and have written a guide of quality for one of these bosses, please let me know so I can include you. I don’t link out to bloggers who have lots of ads though.

Achievements

If I come across guides on how to do specific achievements, I’ll add them too. Currently the only author I’ve found is resto druid, she’s pwning everyone else!

To comment

please use the forums on this topic.

On related topics:

• Do not parrygib your Sindragosa tank
• Lich King, movement between phases
• Lich King 25-man strategy guide
• Glyph of Rune Tap
• Offtank specs for the Lich King
• Individual performance does matter

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If you get called on to OT in Ulduar/TOC/Ony, what will you be doing? Often fights have several viable strats and I won’t be covering them all. I’ll mention the main adds that need to be OT’d and what to expect. Variations are up to your raid leader. I’ll often skip hard modes as you’ll likely know the fights well if working on those. I also assume some familiarity with these fights from a dps perspective. Warning! This is a fairly long post.

Ulduar

resist gear is not needed in Ulduar, so OTs should concentrate on the best mix of survivability and threat stats/gear. Exceptions – maybe – would be frost resist on Hodir or Thorim hard mode.

1. Flame Leviathan: no tanks

2. Razorscale: Three tanks typically. Usually, the MT will pull the Sentinels off to the side for range to kill. OTs gather the other Dark Rune dwarves together for aoe, making sure to stay out of fire. As OT, you’ll need to be ready to taunt Razorscale when she stays on the ground and the other tank gets 2 stacks of Fused Armor. Kite her facing away from the raid and out of flame patches.

3. Ignis: We do the burn method of tanking Ignis in the water and kill him fast, but in any case 1-2 OTs should grab the constructs when they spawn and kite them through scorched areas, then to water when they turn molten (10 stacks). Be careful, they hit hard, which is why some guilds use a hunter to ‘tank’ the constructs. If you’re within 10 yards when the construct is blown up, you may die to the aoe.

4. XT Deconstructor: grab the pummelers when they spawn and tank them.

5. Kologarn: two MTs, switch when reaching 2 stacks of crunch armor. 1 or 2 offtanks need to pick up the rubble. Rubble spawns need to be tanked off to the side to keep their aoe from killing melee.

6. Iron Council: Three tanks. As OT, you may be asked to tank the first boss to be killed, Steelbreaker in normal mode. Know the abilities of each. Steelbreaker (well all of them) needs to be kited out of runes of power and use your cds when he fusion punches.

7. Auriaya: tank one or more of Auriaya’s sentries in the pack until all are dead, then dps. Feral defender can sort of be taunted to you, so stay on them while up (unless your guild ignores them) but they can’t really be tanked.

8. Hodir: Your guild may keep one extra tank in tank spec/gear in case the MT dies. We don’t.

9. Thorim: MTs will probably be: one in the hallway, and one in the center of the arena picking up most of the adds. May use one or two OTs. Dark Rune Champions should be pulled out of the pack by one OT and tanked just outside the pack so their whirlwind doesn’t kill everybody. Another OT may be employed to control warbringers in the pack. In P2, OTs get ready to taunt Thorim immediately after he unbalancing strikes the tank.

10. Freya: You can have multiple tanks grab the trash elites and face them different ways. We just have the MT face the whole group away and aoe them down. For the flower trash packs, pull the big one away from the group, tank it for the few seconds it takes to kill it, then dps the pack (or conversely, tank the pack while the other tank pulls the big flower out). Each of the three Elders will need to be taunted by an OT when they do their debuff ability – but the fights should be very short. For the main fight, the MT just stands and tanks Freya for all the add phases, so the OTs have a very important role. For the three adds, we kite the snaplasher with hunters, so OT isn’t that useful. You can tank the water spirit facing away from the raid. For the Detonating lashers, OT shouldn’t worry too much about aggro as everyone should be grouped up, then split up (and take a few lashers with them) when the lashers’ health is low. We pull out at 40% because they die so fast. For the conservator, the OT pulls him to mushrooms and stands under one mushroom, then the next one, and so on. In P2, MT kites Freya around the room, OT dps.

11. Mimiron: P1 – no OT. P2 – no tank. P3 – tank the various bots where indicated. We tank them off to the side and aoe them down. Range tank does the aerial unit so not you as OT. This fight has been nerfed to hell.

12. Vezax, OT should help with the trash, tanking one or more elites. There is no OT in normal mode, on hard mode the Saronite Animus needs to be tanked.

13. Yogg-Saron: P1 – several ways to do this, but in any case, several tanks are useful for tanking guardians. You may have one with the raid and one at Sara, or you can tank-kite them alternately from the raid to Sara. In P3 the OT tanks guardians.

14. Algalon: Algalon switchs targets at 5 stacks of phase punch, so OT needs to maintain high threat to get Algalon back when he switches again.

Trial of the Crusader/Trial of the Grand Crusader

no resistance gear required.

1. Northrend Beasts: on normal mode, two tanks are suffcient. Tank Gormok, and when you have three stacks of impale, the next tank taunts. On heroic, this is possible, but only with significant cd usage and bubbles etc. A three tank rotation may be better for most guilds. On the Jormungar, for normal we have a ranged – hunter or lock- tank acidmaw and dps both worms at about the same rate. On heroic most guilds use a tank on both worms and burn acidmaw as quickly as possible. OT must pick up their worm when emerging from the ground immediately and face them away from the raid or people will die. OT is not needed on Icehowl unless someome misses a charge and the MT dies.

2. Lord Jaraxxus: OT will pick up Mistresses and doomguards, preferably close enough to Jaraxxus for splash/aoe on adds. On heroic, even OTs need to dps portals and volcanoes.

3. Faction Champs: tanks may be switched out for dps but often can harass the faction dps with taunts, slows, interrupts and death grips out of the raid to keep dps from being too high on your raid. Recently nerfed, hard, so should be less of a problem, and less need for anyone in tank spec. I’ve played the ‘harasser’ role in frost presence, but never in tank spec.

4. Twin Valkyr: if called to tank (one of your MTs is out), you may ‘MT’ a Twin. We prefer to tank the Twins within 10 yards of each other so aoe hits both. As tank, judicious use of cds is all that matters. Keep threat, stay alive. We don’t have tanks switch colors.

5. Anub’Arak: OTs grab the Burrowers and tank them on permafrost, preferably one (or two on heroic) on each of Anub’s hips. During P2, try to keep swarm scarabs off healers, but it’s not crucial.

Onyxia’s Lair

no resist gear needed; no heroic mode for this fight.

1. Onyxia: pick up whelp packs on either side as they come down the ‘tunnel.’ We prefer to tank them right at each entrance, as it makes avoiding Deep Breaths easier. Be sure to pick up Lair Guards which emerge from the tunnel you came down to approach Onyxia. They can’t be death gripped to you (although DG does aggro them), so warn dps to leave them alone until they reach you and you have them securely. We have no disarm, so ask for a dispel/purge of Ignite Weapon. Preferably, move out of Blast Nova although AMS can keep you up.

Written by Hinenuitepo

On related topics:

• The term off-tank
• Anub’arak, Koralon and Vezax hard-mode video
• First new sigil from quests (alpha) has stamina
• Do not parrygib your Sindragosa tank
• Ulduar 10 in a pug tonight
• Choosing your second tank spec

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The’ve got Jaraxxus, Northrend Beasts and Twin Val’kyrs written so far, plus Ulduar bosses. I’ve updated my Coliseum guide to include these condensed, to-the-point and well-written strategy guides from wowhead. Worth a look.

On related topics:

• Crusader’s Coliseum strategy guides
• Video guides ICC heroic
• Ulduar 10 and 25 differences: full guide
• Naxx strat guide: hidden gem on wowraid
• Individual performance does matter
• Finally, killed the Lich King

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On related topics:

• Crusader’s Coliseum guides from wowhead
• Ulduar 10 and 25 differences: full guide
• Individual performance does matter
• Finally, killed the Lich King
• Video guides ICC heroic
• My one-night raid guild kills Blood Princes

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