Heroic Alysrazor - Hatchling Tanking

[Skygoneblue]

Hey guys, just looking for some input, tips, or ideas for how to handle the Hatchling on Heroic Alysrazor.

We started this fight last night, and of course, Hatchlings hit noticeably harder in heroic. I think this is the first time in all of Firelands (including heroic) that we finally started seeing the downside of a DK tank. At least twice (in about 5-6 attempts), the Hatchling took me from over 75% health down to 0 in less time than my healer could react.

For more specifics, our RL asked us to eat the Worms right away to minimize the fire they were breathing everywhere. You may think that led to Tantrum-based wipes, but it actually didn't. The times when I died, the Hatchling was sated, and either I was moving to the next Worm or just standing still killing him. (No, I didn't turn my back to him, nor was I hit by Brushfire).

I am using BloodShieldTracker and doing my best to time DS after big hits. I am keeping Bone Shield up as much as I can, and toggling defensive cooldowns into those moments when I am slightly rune starved or spamming Rune Strike to get runes back.

The bigger question: Is there a feasible way to tank Hatchlings as a DK? Or is this one area where we simply can't out-perform other tanks due to our lack of passive mitigation?

Here's a link to my Armory, in case you're curious:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Morazz/simple

I don't want this to be a "RATE MY DK" thread, but if I am missing something huge on my gear, let me know.

Thanks in advance everyone!

[Deleted]

Logs would be really helpful here.

Tanking it weekly as a dk, and I usually take slightly more dmg than our warrior tank but haven't had problems with getting "gibbed" since after the nerfs.

I'm trying to line up different dps boosts for each hatchling but before you provide loggs it's hard to see what's wrong.

[Darsithis]

I haven't had a problem. Our lack of bringing Alysrazor down on heroic isn't due to that, it's due to a few people who can't seem to survive very slow tornadoes!

So what I do is this: I swap out a dodge trinket for expertise, two pieces of gear for hit gear, and a swap in a on-use dodge with stam trinket for the second one. Voila - I've got enough hit and expertise to go up against a level 87 mob (the hatchlings), without seeing my DS ever miss.

But, sometimes, rarely, you'll take a damage spike, and die. Best thing to do is do your best to avoid Brushfire, spew, and ever having your back to him. I know you said you avoided it, but it never hurts to be extra on top of that.

Also - just curious - is your healer team healing through gushing would or letting it fall off? We've been healing through it due to DK spikiness.

[Siri]

It's better to let the wound fall of during firestorm or due to a natural spike, it's way too dangerous to just wait for someone to fall below 50% before you start healing them. At the start of firelands me (disc priest) and an rdruid 2 healed alys10hc, me mainly on the DK tank and the druid mainly on our paladin tank. We didn't really have any problems once the avoidable damage was actually avoided and I didn't have a single drop from firelands at that point (just the rep cloak), the others had a few pieces.

[Deleted]

I stay in my full tank gear, kill mine before our warrior tank kills his, and never get in trouble.

It spawns, i pop DRW for extra mitigation + extra dmg, take it NEAR first worm, zerg for a bit, feed it worm, zerg more while moving to second worm, feed it second worm, bird dies.
Dont feed it both worms right away, it makes things harder. Remember worms "can be used as a defensive cooldowns" - bird stops hitting you for a few seconds while it's eating. And dont accept "our raid will fail and run into worm-firebreath"; tanking this encounter is 10x harder than dpsing or healing it; doesn't make sence to make it even harder for a tank that is struggling just to make it even more easier for people that only need to dps a humanoid standing still.

---------- Post added 2011-11-10 at 04:05 PM ----------

@ Darsithis: tornados always spawn at the same spot, meaning there's plenty of "safe spots" the entire raid can stand as to not get hit by a tornado when they appear. Put down a mark and tell everyone who is not fully confident he will be able to avoid tornados, to go stand on the mark, and in which direction (clockwise/counterclockwise) to start running when tornados start moving. Easy pie.

---------- Post added 2011-11-10 at 04:14 PM ----------

Also, OP, you've reforged your mirror mastery => dodge, why?

[Deleted]

Swap to dps trinkets/flask/food, ignore Death Strike timing and just push out as much dps as you can (DS being your big dps ability), never use death runes on blood stike, spec into 3/3 blood-caked blade and 3/3 scent if blood if you need to.

Doing this you should never have the bird in tantrum and hitting you at all, he enrages and you make him eat a worm instantly, he should die before you run out of worms and you'll have extra time when hes eating and not hitting you for more dps (with lovely vengence).

Don't eat the worms at the start just to get rid of them, its a complete waste, tell your dps to l2p.

Your gear isn't that much worse than when I tanked it (on heroic) a few months ago so there shouldn't be any problems, could just be a healer issue I guess.

PS. You don't need to do this, it can be done in full tank mode with a proper tank spec but that isn't working for you so give this a go.

And can't help much more without logs.

[Deleted]

Another tip: keep your ghoul active during killing birds as much as possible. It will do dmg to it, and more importantly, if you get in trouble you can insta-death pact. There's never enough time to summon your ghoul & sacrifice it between the time you realise you're in trouble and the time you are face-down.

[Skygoneblue]

Sorry Resania, I don't have any logs available. Wish I did... :\

@Darth - Last night was our first night on it. I didn't hear the healers really discussing that Gushing Wound aspect one way or the other. I think they were still a bit overwhelmed with everyone else still learning how to dodge Brushfire, Boulders, and Spews.

@Lohe - That's our exact healer setup. Our Disc Priest was on our Paladin tank, and the Resto Druid was on me. I am starting to wonder if maybe, just because the paladin has more passive mitigation, the Disc Priest would be better suited for healing me.

@Herpie - I agree with you, and maybe I didn't explain well. I grab the Hatchling, let the initial Sated buff wear off, let him eat, and then move him next to the next worm and let him eat the second his Sated falls off again. Basically our RL asked us to use the "Defensive Cooldowns" of the worms as soon as possible. You're right, folks should know how to avoid, but if we need to eat them anyway, why not do it sooner? (That was his rationale anyway.)

If it helps, here is the healer who was with me:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Daabull/simple

EDIT: I just noticed our druid doesn't have Nature's Swiftness, or Blessing of the Grove (4% additional Rejuv healing). I'll talk to him about that.

[Deleted]

Also, lose the defender's demoneye in your pants. That's just sloppy.

[Deleted]

We tend to feed the worms directly after spawning so there is less fire going around. We have yet to kill it because since we have 5 raiders with Virgin media from the UK (from what i noticed from them) they got major lag spikes/issues.

But what Darsithis said, there is an occasional bad luck streak where you get hit by all attacks when they "enrage" Getting hit by 55-70k hits is not fun :P.

Eventhough im a DK and my fellow tank is a warrior im alot less Spikey in the eyes of our healers.. i even tanked a hatchling for a while where my healer got disconnected and it took em about 15 seconds to get back in. RNG can be in our way aswell.

Note though, im an avoidance tank.

[Deleted]

Another posibility would be to drop the lichborn spec for this encounter. The birds are what you're struggling with, and i really dont see you activating lichborn and self-deathcoiling for 3 gcd's during bird-phase, using RP on it, and still kill it in time.

If you loose the 6 points in frost tree, you can get stuff like virulence, or scent of blood, or butchery, for more dmg and/or RP generation => bird dead faster.

[godmodeon]

There have been times where I do so much DPS on him that I almost don't get him to the second worm. What I like to do is replace my mastery trinket with the DPS mastery trinket from rep (Essence of Eternal Flame or something?). Usually while the egg is on fire, I'll lay down DnD right before he spawns & aggros. I'll make sure my back is pointed direct center to right in between the 2 worms I'm going to eat. Right after he starts attacking I usually pop DRW, Outbreak, and Essence and do my rotation as HS>DS>HS>DS while trying to time them 6 seconds apart with RS in between to refresh some runes (duh). I am usually kiting him directly in between the 2 flame breaths from the worms, as I am juuuuuust out of their reach and gives me ample time to figure out which way they're spinning and when I can time my feedings. This usually brings him to around 50-65% and whether he tantrums or not, this is when I eat a worm. Soon, you should have him down to like 30% and by then he should have tantrumed, but if not, eat a worm anyway just for good measure and DPS him down.

I should also mention I always am flasked for STR on this fight with STAM/STR food as well. You should really have no problem. My survivability is pretty good on this fight and I out-DPS our Pally tank by a lot, seeing as how I usually finish like 10 seconds before him.

EDIT- I should probably also mention that I always have Bone Shield up before he is hatching, but after the fire DOT wears off from Alys. If you do this right, you will have Bone Shield off CD every bird.

If you're still having trouble, see if any DPS can help you. I know that our Pally needs it a lot and it definitely helps.

[Deleted]

@Herpie - I agree with you, and maybe I didn't explain well. I grab the Hatchling, let the initial Sated buff wear off, let him eat, and then move him next to the next worm and let him eat the second his Sated falls off again. Basically our RL asked us to use the "Defensive Cooldowns" of the worms as soon as possible. You're right, folks should know how to avoid, but if we need to eat them anyway, why not do it sooner? (That was his rationale anyway.)

Hmm well, dont feed it the worm while you're at full HP. Those 2x a couple of seconds not getting dpsed per bird really matter and should be utilised to your advantage. Create those gaps of not getting hit for a few seconds when YOU need it, being when you're at low health, or your healer needs to go heal dpser that think fire is cozy, or whatnot (or asap if it tantrums offc).

---------- Post added 2011-11-10 at 04:31 PM ----------

It should also be self-explanatory to not let diseases fall off of birds due to the dps debuffs. I'm sure you're aware of that, but i'm just throwing things out there!

[Goregasm.]

As a DK Tank, Alysrazor is my favorite fight to tank in Heroic Firelands... I always put on my 2p t12 and my 2p t11 (these two set bonuses are huge), 2 dps trinkets, and Fallen Crusader runeforge. I always end up killing my add before my fellow warrior tank, i take slightly more damage then him in the long run, but require less healing taken.

If you are able to pump out enough damage, then by simply eating sprinklers every time Satiated falls off, you'll be fine and guarantee no tantrums.

[Xarganthos]

i've never had any problems with hatchling tanking at all. only in normalmode they killed me rather easily. maybe i've just gotten a little better at using cds since then, dont know. if your assigned healer stays on guard and you use your ds and cd's right, there should be no problem with the adds.

dont forget ams if you ever happen to run through fire xD

[Spodumene]

Hey guys, just looking for some input, tips, or ideas for how to handle the Hatchling on Heroic Alysrazor.

We started this fight last night, and of course, Hatchlings hit noticeably harder in heroic. I think this is the first time in all of Firelands (including heroic) that we finally started seeing the downside of a DK tank. At least twice (in about 5-6 attempts), the Hatchling took me from over 75% health down to 0 in less time than my healer could react.

If you're dropping that fast - thats the perfect time for those DS's, you sure you're saving them for that moment? You'd heal like 70k a DS with that much damage coming in. That - or the thing is enraged and you're just not getting it to the grubs fast enough. You could also communicate to the healer that the bird is likely to enrage and he can start queuing a big heal while you're on the way to the grub. Are the healers putting CD's on you ever?

[Skygoneblue]

Also, lose the defender's demoneye in your pants. That's just sloppy.

Why is that? I always try to gem for socket bonuses to get a large chunk of tank stats rather than straight gemming Mastery. Every little bit helps. Can you explain?

Also, just a few things to clarify:

I appreciate all the hints and tips, but I was never having trouble killing the bird in my tank gear. While there's something to be said for "if it's dead faster, you have to survive less", that's not really the problem I was having. It's just plain survivability.

And yea Herpie, I'm keeping diseases up, and making good choices about when to eat the Worm. I guess the worm eating is kind of a moot point. I probably shouldn't have even brought it up seeing as I'm dying while he's sated.

---------- Post added 2011-11-10 at 09:47 AM ----------

If you're dropping that fast - thats the perfect time for those DS's, you sure you're saving them for that moment? You'd heal like 70k a DS with that much damage coming in. That - or the thing is enraged and you're just not getting it to the grubs fast enough. You could also communicate to the healer that the bird is likely to enrage and he can start queuing a big heal while you're on the way to the grub. Are the healers putting CD's on you ever?

Yep, I understand that. In one case last night, our RL checked the last ten seconds of our log before I died. In those 10 seconds, the bird chewed through my shield, hit me hard, I popped Rune Tap + Scales of Life, fucker hit me again, I Death Striked, and he hit me again, ate my shield, and killed me. The exact numbers escape me, of course, but in that case I think it was a problem of Druid HoTs just not doing enough.

Just in humility, I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong either. Heroic FL is new to me, so I appreciate all the advice here!

[Deleted]

Why is that? I always try to gem for socket bonuses to get a large chunk of tank stats rather than straight gemming Mastery. Every little bit helps. Can you explain?

Red = fine ember topaz as in every other red slot you have.

Edit: i feel a need to point out again it's merely a sloppy mistake.

[Spodumene]

The question then is - were those REGULAR melee attacks killing you or enraged? Enraged kills are easy to fix - regular melee kills will be harder to deal with lol.

[Ferocity]

Does your dps team interrupt Fieroblast casts of adds? If adds will cast it on tank, it will put heavy pressure on healers.

If that is not the case, and if you (and anyone else in your team) avoid all fires in that encounter, your healers should just catch up, it is supposed to be very stressful fight for healers and they have big time intervals to get mana back. Other tank classes often sacrifice survivability on this encounter to get more hit and exp, as it is way more important and safe to kill hatchlings before firestorm.

Edit: and yeah - in our raids we dispose of worms asap too, they are not inconvenience alone, just together with brushfires and meteors.