Blood Princes

[grimkiller]

My guild has recently attempted Blood Princes and we are having a problem when Keleseth gets invocation.
We have a lock who is playing ranged tank, and he seems to be doing fine with gathering orbs during the other 2 empowers, but once Keleseth gets it, he just destroys everything, including the lock who has 3-4 orbs on him, sometimes more.

We save BL for Keleseth's empowered phase, but that usually leads to some random DPS pulling his threat.
We have the lock spamming searing pain (or whatever that spell is called) as much as he can, but it doesn't seem to work for long. Other ranged also try to drag orbs from the other side of the room to him to help him.

So, basically, does anyone have any additional tips for this fight aside from the basic strat tankspot, and websites of the like, offer? Maybe of how the lock should spec, what pet to use, tips on efficiently gathering orbs? Everything I read makes it sound so simple and the rest of the mechanics are, except this one.

One thing I was thinking to do is, as a hunter, to gather the orbs and try to keep Keleseth on me (with distracting shot taunt up on Keleseth when I can, while DPS'ing the empowered one). Raid buffed I sit around 30k, so I would assume that should suffice for this, right?

Any help is appreciated.

[Sunshine]

In my guild, we just use a regular melee tank. Specifically, we use a paladin, but any tank class should be able to do just fine.

If you know your lock is going to have trouble with threat, why use BL on that phase? You could use it easily on one of the other bosses (probably not Valanar, due to movement during empowered vortex, but Taldaram should be fine).

I don't see any reason why you couldn't do it as a hunter.

[zapa]

Try it with a DK tank, i am tanking the mob and all were easy in our 1st kill (we 2shoted it).

PS: I am offspec tank but with nice gear.

Edit: I am talking about 25man, if you ask for 10 man i dont realy know becouse i am tanking it there too.

[Deleted]

In 10 man, when the lock (me) was getting gibbed by Keleseth, we let our warrior tank keep Keleseth busy, while our druid tank keeps both Valanar and Taldaram on him.

Needless to say, only took us 2 tries afterwards to get the job done.

[KandyCane]

Like mentioned above, a melee tank is actually easier. The reason is that as a Warlock you can survive a maximum of 2 bolts(sometimes only one) without heals, whereas someone with 45-60k health can easily survive a few more.

EDIT: However, for 10-man the second tank is going to be taking a ton of damage, but assuming the Keleseth tank knows what he's doing it shouldn't be that big of a problem.

I'm the Taldaram/Valanar tank, and I often found my health dropping extremely low(they each hit for about 15-18k and quite fast). Our Keleseth tank was able to keep around 5 stacks on himself almost constantly though, so even while he was empowered, the tank didn't require much healing(hardest he was getting hit was 8k I believe he said).

[zapa]

To do it with a DK tank:

When the fight start i go melee and full dps the mob to get some aggro (i stay in melee until i pop up all my runes cd) - at that point your DK might need a bit more heal couse of no debuffs.
After i go to a range and just spam DnD on the boss, and moving arround gathering Boubles with Death Coils and Icy touch or even melee if they spawn close and keep on spaming DnD on boss in every cd (15sec). The tip is to be in a range so boubles wont get hit and die from DnD.
If my mob is 2nd in dps rest of dps in raid take care to not overaggro me (especialy in 10man) and i ensure all hunters msd me. If my mob is 3rd then its not problem in aggro (but still i have hunter to msd me when raid is dpsing my mob).
In the 1st time we tried it priests had rotations of Guardians on me but after our 1st kill we realised that this was too much, dk is probably the best tank for this becouse a) He has ranged high aggro abilities and ranged hits to pull boubles on him and b) DKs have realy nice antimagic cds

[nwgminion]

We also started it with ranged and moved to a real tank.
Its just easier to keep up someone with more health.
Doesn't have to be a super-geared main tank, someone with a decent offspec and 40-45k+ worked for us.

[krasgoth]

You could use a real tank, or if you want to use a ranged tank, you have to stress to them a couple of things:

1) Use pvp gear, the highest HP stuff you have.
2) It doesn't matter what dps you do on Keleseth, KEEP YOURSELF ALIVE. Period. You die, the raid dies.
3) Get as many balls as is humanly possible. 3-4 during enrage is not enough. Practice getting 5-6, if not more.
4) Tell your dps to not be stupid and pull aggro. If they're hurting for aggro, either stop, ask for salv, or just hold off, but don't start pulling keleseth all over the place. If it means you have to stop dps and sit on your hands, do that.

[evan_s]

It sounds like your lock is failing. It's kinda mean to say it but if Keleseth is blowing him up it's because he's not doing his job well. A standard tank can be used now since blizzard fixed the issue with him meleeing.

Some tips.

1) use rank 1 corruption or CoA on the orbs to gather them up. Using high level spells just does damage to them and causes them to die faster. Net result is less orbs.

2) It is ok to move around and grab the orbs. Should really need a bunch of help.

3) Keep dots on Keleseth while gathering the orbs and nuke as you can. Best way to help out threat is to have a huge lead. If he isn't the one empowered on the first switch you should have tons of threat to prevent every loosing threat.

4) I'd ditch searing pain. It does extra aggro but it also does crappy damage in the first place. With a decent lead they should just be able to do their normal dps rotation and hold aggro. ToT and Misdirect can't hurt.

5) spec wise a standard demo spec should work well enough. If you are really having problems you can build a specialized spec and use specific glyphs to maximize your damage reduction. SL with SL glyph, Felhunter pet out and nether protection from the destruction tree seems to be the biggest reduction you can get. Assuming a standard demo spec they can bomb soulfires on Keleseth before he gets empowered which should be huge amounts of threat because it's so high dps.

[PriestLuna]

This is relevant to my interests. It seems for 10man 2 tanking this encounter is ideal. Makes spacing, dpsing, healing, and whatever else easier.

So, am I to understand:
One tank hits the center prince and taunts the right prince. DPS single target only skills.
The other tank grabs the left shadow prince and does nothing but maintain aggro, stay alive, and collect orbs on him?

With this strat, it seems the only gibs can be....
- lack of heals on MT taking two princes
- not spreading on empowered shock vortex
- Keleseth tank not getting enough orbs
- ???

That sound about right?

[Sunshine]

That sound about right?

Yep.

It's not really critical that the dps on Valanar / Taldaram use only single target skills -- the tank should build a big enough threat lead for it to not matter. There's no point in specifically trying to hit both, of course, but I wouldn't change your normal single-target rotation if it happens to include things that hit 2 targets.

[PriestLuna]

Yep.

It's not really critical that the dps on Valanar / Taldaram use only single target skills -- the tank should build a big enough threat lead for it to not matter. There's no point in specifically trying to hit both, of course, but I wouldn't change your normal single-target rotation if it happens to include things that hit 2 targets.

Alright, I healed it last week with this strat and I remember the MT RL complaining about cleaves and what not. Is there anything else to worry about with this set-up? Regular shock vortex, conjured flame? There's a lot going on in the fight, but I'm trying to focus on the only things that can and do wipe raids. Which, it seems for this fight the only ability that can single-handedly do that is an empowered shock vortex.

[krasgoth]

Only thing that can really wipe raids on Blood princes..

People failing at Static Orbs
Letting your tanks die
Empowered Shock Vortex

Conjured flame *shouldn't* ever kill anyone that's paying attention, but if you throw a shield or something on them just in case, that would be good too.

[Sunshine]

Alright, I healed it last week with this strat and I remember the MT RL complaining about cleaves and what not.

It could be difficult if they go all out right away with AoE spells and the MT isn't building threat on both... but the solution to that is a combination of ToT and putting out at least some threat to the secondary target.

Which, it seems for this fight the only ability that can single-handedly do that is an empowered shock vortex.

Also, kinetic bombs. I don't think empowered shock vortex is going to totally kill anyone straight out, but chaining of empowered shock vortex + kinetic bombs will.

[evan_s]

It could be difficult if they go all out right away with AoE spells and the MT isn't building threat on both... but the solution to that is a combination of ToT and putting out at least some threat to the secondary target.

Any decent tank shouldn't have problems holding aggro on both. Bears will hit both with swipe and maul. I'd expect most warriors to have glyph of sunder armor which makes their devastate hit a second target or at the very least they have cleave too, etc/

[moode]

If you want to go with a warlock tank here are a few tips.

1. if staying alive is a problem they need to get the hybrid spec that has the most damage reduction. tell them to head to google and they will find it (something like 0/36/35 or something close).
2. make sure lock is keeping fel hunter our for 10% magic damage reduction.
3. Highest hp gear they can get
4. shadow resist+stam helm enchant can help a little
5. TELL YOUR HEALERS NOT TO LET HIS PET DIE. if the fel hunter dies your lock instantly loses almost 30% damage reduction. other than kenetic orbs hitting the ground this was the biggest issue we had while learning the fight.
6. Tell your lock to save shadow ward for when keleseth is empowered, it helps a little.
7. get a hunter to MD to the lock at the start of the fight and use kill shot to give him a huge aggro lead.
8. 3-4 orbs is not enough. 5-6 through the empowered phase will make healing him cake.
9. tricks of the trade and MD should be used again while everyone is dpsing keleseth to help out.
10. put a raid icon on the lock so healers can see him running all over the room. we have a tree following me around but anytime I run into range of another healer they toss me a hot or a shield to help out.
11. make sure the lock is not using teleport because it will cause him to outrange his orbs until they can catch back up to him.

That should be about it.


I have about 35k hp buffed and the only time I have died is when they let my pet die or a kinetic bomb hits the same time I get hit with a shadow lance. Both outside of my control.

[Matafact]

We use a lock or me the Spriest, I always keep 5+ orbs on me and if i fall below 4 for any reason during keleseth their is a cd waiting for me so I don't die and wipe the raid.

A couple tips you could use, make sure pallys are using any cds to save damage on the raid during keleseth's active phase, make sure your ranged tank keeps 5 orbs on him/her always at minimum.

If you had some webstats I could find out what you guys were doing wrong or at least improve on it.

[Creature]

I actually made an account for this

We two heal most of ICC and two tank most of it too. Standard raid composition for us is 2 pally tanks, a pally healer, a druid or shammy healer, a fury warrior, combat rogue, destro or afflic lock, mm or surv hunter and then whoever else is online for guildies.

Our strat is simple:

Raid spreads out in a half circle, along the pattern in fron of the stairs. Healers are at 5 and 7 o'clock. The hunter and the lock are tasked with the kinetic bombs.

I tank Taldaram and Valanar to start. Our other pally runs and grabs Keleseth and collects orbs. DPS down the active one until it switches.

If it switches to Keleseth, we monitor aggro carefully. Tank has had very little time to aggro the boss as he has been picking up orbs. If it switches to Taldaram, I switch to tank him.

After the first switch, to allow the Keleseth tank to pick up orbs, tanking becomes fun. To make it easier on the healers, I tank only Taldaram or Valanar if they are active, and the inactive gets tunted by the Keleseth tank. I tank them both if Keleseth is active. This makes it that the tank who has the enabled mob actually takes the least damage, as the other tank has two bosses on him.

On top of that, once Taldaram enables I am dispelling (together with the pally healer) his glittering sparks and I run along with his empowered orb to absorb some damage. Lastly, I save a Hand of Sacrifice or a DS for those moments we take a lot of raid damage or a lot of single target damage.

Diesel healers help, but this fight is all about controlling the bosses and your tanks' abilities to stay alive.

[Auzerais]

A warlock should be able to tank this with little or no effort.

I tank this as a hunter in our guild, and it is nearly always a one shot.

The key to the fight is the orbs. I can target them, hit them with any one of my shots (in your case spells) and get them onto me. After I gather an orb, I hit my /tar Keleseth macro, hit him with everything I got while scanning the room for the next orb. I then grab that orb, rinse and repeat. Your raid needs to be aware of you and your positioning and allow you the space to move at ease. They need to make sure you are not going to get blown up by being too close to one another.

Heroism is saved for Tal, as you don't want to lose agro on Keleseth. You should be able to adequately build enough threat on him with the initial agro and in between orbs. If you are losing agro, you are not doing enough. If you aren't getting enough orbs on you, you are not being proactive enough.

You are just a cattle herder with a little added utility this fight. If you are getting nuked it is because you are not gathering enough orbs, or your healers are failing you. Either way the problem is not with the tanking class, but with the execution.

Good luck to you!

[grimkiller]

Awesome info here guys, thanks for the responses.
We are heading back in there tomorrow to beat our faces against this wall.

I will suggest the 2-tank strat, we have pretty good tanks (war and pala).
This will also help free up the lock's DPS so we can burn them quicker.
Me and the mage are on kinetic orb duty and those are never a problem (until people die from shadow lances lol).
I have also found that having my pet stick on one works great, no one else needs to hit it.
In our previous attempts in 10 man, we get them to about 70-75% in the first 2 minutes, but that's when the shit hits the fan.

We are going to try the 25 man Sunday, but we will have 3 full tanks for that one.