The Brewmaster Tanking Guide [5.4]

[Ahsakura]

From reading the last couple pages (well...skimming I should say) I'm curious how people are having trouble with Council and, to a lesser extent, the Horridon/Jalak tanking.

I came into my raid group with basically LFR tier and maybe a few normal pieces from HoF/ToES and had no trouble with either. Granted, I think my partner having been a Paladin at the time helped. He usually solo tanked Horridon until last phase where I would tank Horridon until Jalak, swap to Jalak, then swap back to Horridon for burn phase. Then for Council I always just tanked Priestess with my Paladin buddy on Sul/Frost and when we had to use stand in's I would solo tank Sul/Frost with no swaps. Just keep track of stacks and use big CD's before getting frozen and have healers focus you until you aren't frozen anymore.

Not to say that it's impossible to struggle because I know we all have different raid comps but I found those two fights to always be really straight forward as far as what a BrM needs to do.

[Radio]

From reading the last couple pages (well...skimming I should say) I'm curious how people are having trouble with Council and, to a lesser extent, the Horridon/Jalak tanking.

I came into my raid group with basically LFR tier and maybe a few normal pieces from HoF/ToES and had no trouble with either. Granted, I think my partner having been a Paladin at the time helped. He usually solo tanked Horridon until last phase where I would tank Horridon until Jalak, swap to Jalak, then swap back to Horridon for burn phase. Then for Council I always just tanked Priestess with my Paladin buddy on Sul/Frost and when we had to use stand in's I would solo tank Sul/Frost with no swaps. Just keep track of stacks and use big CD's before getting frozen and have healers focus you until you aren't frozen anymore.

Not to say that it's impossible to struggle because I know we all have different raid comps but I found those two fights to always be really straight forward as far as what a BrM needs to do.

Horridon Normal is fine, people struggling with that are generally inexperienced. Council with lower gear can surprise you during Frigid Assault if you weren't aware of it beforehand, I know that first week with 496 gear I didn't realise that it was avoidable at first and almost got myself squished.

Getting frozen is such a lazy way to do it though, I doubt I'd actually get 15 stacks of Frigid during my EB rolling anyway but we taunt on 10 stacks for a few moments so that I can actually do 15 seconds of damage, interrupts and raid healing without being frozen in a block.

[Ragethorn]

Lucky =/.

We've got 3 rogues, 1 feral, 1 ww, and myself for gear =/.

I was in the same boat with my 25 man until I dropped them last night. Had 1 enh shaman, 1 feral, 3 hunters, 1 rogue and myself. Going back to 10 man.

[Ahsakura]

Horridon Normal is fine, people struggling with that are generally inexperienced. Council with lower gear can surprise you during Frigid Assault if you weren't aware of it beforehand, I know that first week with 496 gear I didn't realise that it was avoidable at first and almost got myself squished.

Getting frozen is such a lazy way to do it though, I doubt I'd actually get 15 stacks of Frigid during my EB rolling anyway but we taunt on 10 stacks for a few moments so that I can actually do 15 seconds of damage, interrupts and raid healing without being frozen in a block.

It may be lazy for it's also really effective. Why make the fight harder on yourself if you don't need to?

[SurrealNight]

I was in the same boat with my 25 man until I dropped them last night. Had 1 enh shaman, 1 feral, 3 hunters, 1 rogue and myself. Going back to 10 man.

Hope it's not due to the class distribution you mentioned? RNG is RNG but on average you'll end up with a higher iLevel in the 25m with a better potential to end up even higher than average if your lucky due to the increased TF drops (I already have 2x 341's).

[Ragethorn]

Hope it's not due to the class distribution you mentioned? RNG is RNG but on average you'll end up with a higher iLevel in the 25m with a better potential to end up even higher than average if your lucky due to the increased TF drops (I already have 2x 341's).

No, I left mid raid because I just couldn't stomach wiping to Heroic Horridon one more time due to stupid mistakes where I was getting blamed.

Tool Dps: Get this mob off me.
Me: Stop attacking it after I've taunted.
"Tool Dps kites mob 50 yards away from me and dies"
Raid leader: Why didn't you pickup that warlord?

Multiple DPS dying to tail swipes, charges, etc. Melee running INTO the group for charges instead of facing Horridon away. Burning 2 battle rezes before we even make it to the 4th gate.

This is stuff I can see happening the first 8 hours of raiding...but the next 8 hours of raiding? c'mon.

Not to mention our idiot shaman popping earth elemental in the middle of the 1st or 2nd gates, rooting the mobs in place, usually in a sand trap or poison pool.
And every raid night having to bring in some undergeared DPS because one or two of the main raiders wasn't raiding that night for whatever reason.

[SurrealNight]

Always having ranged/healers stacking on the right side of every gate really cleared that up for us. Basically if there were random adds on the left side or out in the middle off nowhere it was an easy "your doing it wrong" call to that player. I just hang between the gate and right side stack and slowly kite towards next gate as bad stuff spawns.

For gates where the Dinomancer spawns on the left side he should be charging right for you and our speed boost taunt has him in melee range in time for the 1st interrupt. On right side gates he literally drops on top of me.

[Ragethorn]

Yeah, I would get called out if I wasn't stacking on the left side of the gate and transitioning to the right side. Instead of everyone stacking, everyone would spread out and they were having a melee pickup the venom priests on the right side of gate 2 and run them over to me on the left side. I asked why a range couldn't tag it and interrupt it if it stopped to cast and basically got told to shut up.

My favorite moment was when the hunter turned on pack during gate 4 and I was perma dazed and couldn't pickup anything. That was sooo much fun.

[Bryce]

@Ragethorn, I'll probably never go back to 10s. I love 25s just way more.

[Ampere]

That is the problem right there in your quoted snippet. Amp crits Horridon. Never crit Horridon, he gets really pissed off and one shots you.

On a serious note, I have tanked him in final burn phase with 9 stacks before, you just have to ask for an external and use your CD's properly. If 2p, can pop Elusive Brew, cancelaura it right before the Triple Puncture, Purify it off, Guard one, Dampen harm will usually last for 2 punctures (sometimes a melee hit will eat one in the last phase), Fort Brew, etc. Curious as to why you needed to use FB on the 4th door?[COLOR="red"]

The warbears were giving me issues, we'd have 3 up at once for a bit, so I started using FB there. I do use the Elusive Brew cancelaura for Triple Puncture when I can, I'll just have to be more ready for Jalak's death effect.

Do you (or anyone else) have any tips for heroic council? We're doing that next week. From what I've read the first sandstorm is going to happen so I'll need to pickup the adds, and there's that Twisted Fate mechanic, can that target tanks? Other than that it looks like faster Loa Spirits and more damage/hp for the councilors. I'd imagine passing the Soul Fragment to tanks is a bad idea until 2 or 3 of the councilors are dead.

[kaiadam]

Multiple DPS dying to tail swipes, charges, etc. Melee running INTO the group for charges instead of facing Horridon away. Burning 2 battle rezes before we even make it to the 4th gate.

This is stuff I can see happening the first 8 hours of raiding...but the next 8 hours of raiding? c'mon.

Not to mention our idiot shaman popping earth elemental in the middle of the 1st or 2nd gates, rooting the mobs in place, usually in a sand trap or poison pool.
And every raid night having to bring in some undergeared DPS because one or two of the main raiders wasn't raiding that night for whatever reason.

*whistles* No, no good raiding guild would ever have players who would do those things after 8 hours of attempts, no siree. In our guild with most of us having almost twenty kills on this heroic boss, we'd never have something (everything) quoted above happen. Nope. *more whistling*.

(Too be fair though, there shouldn't be pickup issues regardless whether someone is dpsing after a taunt or not.)

Do you (or anyone else) have any tips for heroic council? We're doing that next week. From what I've read the first sandstorm is going to happen so I'll need to pickup the adds, and there's that Twisted Fate mechanic, can that target tanks? Other than that it looks like faster Loa Spirits and more damage/hp for the councilors. I'd imagine passing the Soul Fragment to tanks is a bad idea until 2 or 3 of the councilors are dead.

Most strats depend on the first sandstorm not happening, it makes things vastly easier. No, TF can't target tanks. In fact, council is more or less the same on normal as heroic for tanks, all the new mechanics fall on the dps and heals.

[Ragethorn]

I understand people make mistakes, hell I make my fair share of them. BUT...when you are consistently dying to the same mechanic, pull after pull after pull, maybe it's time to pull your tongue away from the window and get benched.

There would be zero issues with picking up mobs...you know, if the dps weren't spread out and running away from me. The mages were the worst offenders. Taunt, Barrels, Jade lightning, you name it, I did it to try to get aggro back onto me...they would run/blink away every time until they were out of range.

@Bryce, I probably would enjoy 25m a lot more if I was part of a more reliable group. One with less nose picking too.

[gynshon]

The warbears were giving me issues, we'd have 3 up at once for a bit, so I started using FB there. I do use the Elusive Brew cancelaura for Triple Puncture when I can, I'll just have to be more ready for Jalak's death effect.

Do you (or anyone else) have any tips for heroic council? We're doing that next week. From what I've read the first sandstorm is going to happen so I'll need to pickup the adds, and there's that Twisted Fate mechanic, can that target tanks? Other than that it looks like faster Loa Spirits and more damage/hp for the councilors. I'd imagine passing the Soul Fragment to tanks is a bad idea until 2 or 3 of the councilors are dead.

As Kaiadam mentioned above, the mechanics are the same for tanks. Just add in a couple of things to help stun and kill with Twisted Fate, and a debuff that you can pass to others. Burn Sul down while having an interrupt rotation on him. You should be able to get him down before the 1st sandstorm.

Usually goes like this:

Frost King Empowered, Burn Sul while cleaving King. Switch to King if need be to make sure he doesn't stay Full power for long.
Mar'li is next Empower, Keep Burning Sul, cleaving Marli and King. Stunlock twisted fate adds and burn them down equally while range group burns theirs down.
Kaz is next empower, pull Marli away, and keep Sul and King together away from Marli. Sul should be dead or close to it already.
After Kaz will be Marli again. Kill King while ensuring Marli doesnt become Full Power.
After that it won't matter because you only have two left.

Have all your DPS, Healers get the debuff first and pass it around amongst themselves. You can get it last and hold it for tons of stacks.

[Ampere]

Thanks for the tips. I will advocate Hero on the pull if we have any issues burning Sul before his first empower, not sure how difficult that will be for us. We overgear the fight I think so it's definitely going to be all about execution.

This would be a fantastic boss to get down, drops weapon/gloves/trinket... /drool.

[Trendy-Ideology]

No, I left mid raid because I just couldn't stomach wiping to Heroic Horridon one more time due to stupid mistakes where I was getting blamed.

Tool Dps: Get this mob off me.
Me: Stop attacking it after I've taunted.
"Tool Dps kites mob 50 yards away from me and dies"
Raid leader: Why didn't you pickup that warlord?

Multiple DPS dying to tail swipes, charges, etc. Melee running INTO the group for charges instead of facing Horridon away. Burning 2 battle rezes before we even make it to the 4th gate.

This is stuff I can see happening the first 8 hours of raiding...but the next 8 hours of raiding? c'mon.

Not to mention our idiot shaman popping earth elemental in the middle of the 1st or 2nd gates, rooting the mobs in place, usually in a sand trap or poison pool.
And every raid night having to bring in some undergeared DPS because one or two of the main raiders wasn't raiding that night for whatever reason.

Being an officer has perks. I get to cuss the whole raid out and call people names (not really) for making my life hard and running away with mobs on them and not dpsing the prority targets.

Sounds like you guys are having a lot of the same issues we had.


If the raid leaders are yelling at tanks for not picking up adds when you've got people dying to swipes and not moving out for charges, you've got bigger issues than tanking. And bigger issues than one boss. Sounds like poor raid leadership to me.

[SurrealNight]

Most strats depend on the first sandstorm not happening, it makes things vastly easier. No, TF can't target tanks. In fact, council is more or less the same on normal as heroic for tanks, all the new mechanics fall on the dps and heals.

Someone was telling me or I read this can be solo tanked by BrM and you just AoE the tar out of the bunch is this correct or possible for a "1st kill" strat?

---------- Post added 2013-05-30 at 02:29 PM ----------

The warbears were giving me issues, we'd have 3 up at once for a bit, so I started using FB there. I do use the Elusive Brew cancelaura for Triple Puncture when I can, I'll just have to be more ready for Jalak's death effect.

Have Capt Tiger tank one just make sure the group is where you are ok with him before casting. We also have the Horridon tank pull away the 3rd for a bit if anything to keep the bears cleaves away from wandering melee DPS more.

[kaiadam]

Someone was telling me or I read this can be solo tanked by BrM and you just AoE the tar out of the bunch is this correct or possible for a "1st kill" strat?[COLOR="red"]

Generally if you're solo tanking, you want to do a slight bit of aoe at the start to get aggro on Mar'li then move Sul + Malak off to one side so the healing add doesn't keep heading towards Sul.

It's totally viable as a first kill strat to one tank the fight, it just means you get smacked around a bit more than usual. With elusive brew, I'm generally fine tanking 2/3 of frigid assault, you could easily have a holy paladin and a melee play ping pong with him for the remaining 10 seconds. In my opinion, it's safer and will cause fewer wipes 2-tanking the fight, but it's always fun to see half a mil dps, so whatever works.

[Trendy-Ideology]

but it's always fun to see half a mil dps

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[SurrealNight]

Where can I subscribe to your newsletter?

Sadly that isn't even a record breaking number for us if you look back at H Blade Lord solo tanking logs.

[Bryce]

Generally if you're solo tanking, you want to do a slight bit of aoe at the start to get aggro on Mar'li then move Sul + Malak off to one side so the healing add doesn't keep heading towards Sul.

It's totally viable as a first kill strat to one tank the fight, it just means you get smacked around a bit more than usual. With elusive brew, I'm generally fine tanking 2/3 of frigid assault, you could easily have a holy paladin and a melee play ping pong with him for the remaining 10 seconds. In my opinion, it's safer and will cause fewer wipes 2-tanking the fight, but it's always fun to see half a mil dps, so whatever works.

We essentially 1 tanked it for our first kill because we were lacking on dps. Was pretty fun beating the dps by about 200k or so. We did have another tank just for Maril and a just in case, but 99% of the time we just healed me through the stun on frigid assault.

@Surreal, you mean H Wind Lord right :P. Was amazing on that fight solo tanking it as brewmaster.