HoR Tanking Tips

[zenkai]

Wanted to get some input on some DK tanking for HOR, right now I am running with about 4.5K GS, 26k armor, 25% Dodge and 21% parry and about 35k hp unbuffed. I have done it successfully all 4 times I tried, and the only reason I run it is for the neck piece. The first time I ran with a pug healer, no problem next two times ran with my priest friend no problems, last night ran it again just fine no wipes as usual but the healer and his guildie pally friend gave me a lot of grief, before it even started, they were mocking my GS.

When I tank this on my warrior, I Just pretty much lock down the adds that can give me issues with stuns.

On the AE pulls as my DK during p2 when the mercs show up everyone kept killing everything but them and they would stun me from time to time and that's when I would lose aggro to one or two usually to the pally focusing on footman which is probably the last thing I preferred killed in the AE pack, as mercs stun, priest heal, mages AE, and gunners tend to ice trap the healer. I Never had aggro issues with AE before but when I am stunned there is nothing I can do So what would you do in that situation? Is there any tricks I am missing to make HOR easier?

Since my main is a healer I tend to try to make things easy on the healer, I focus on keeping all the adds on me and using my CDs to reduce damage on me during what I know to be huge damage inc, but I keep running into mixed healers, some healers love me and some just hate me saying I take too much damage. As a healer myself I never have issues with any pug tanks even poorly geared ones, the only issues I have with any tank is if they don't pull fast enough.

[Wingwraith]

Sounds like you know what you're doing. The only problem I see is that your dps wasn't focusing on the correct most dangerous mobs. That's their fault and also partially yours if you didn't specify a kill order or mark them. You are the tank after all, you have to take control.

[Deleted]

The fact that they gave you grief before you even started should indicate to you just how to take any other complaints they have to offer. Like said above though, you should be telling which mobs to attack. If you want people to focus a mob (and you should in HoR) you should mark it - leaving it to people to judge what mobs to hit first isn't a good idea. For most people, that will be entirely random, for others, their assessment of the "most dangerous mobs" won't be the same as yours.

It's not as easy to mark in HoR as other instances given how the mobs spawn, however you can bind your raid icons, and should bind at least Skull and x - which are usually assumed to be "kill first" and "kill second" although you can state that at the start to make sure. I use F1-F4 for icons. By default these keys target members of your party, but you should never need that as a DK.

If people don't follow marks after that, just let them do what they want. If you're holding aggro on skull and some tard is being killed by a random mob he's fireballing, nobody can reasonably blame you. Obviously you will still need to hold off some incidental aoe and healing aggro on all mobs but that shouldn't be a problem.

[zenkai]

Sounds like you know what you're doing. The only problem I see is that your dps wasn't focusing on the correct most dangerous mobs. That's their fault and also partially yours if you didn't specify a kill order or mark them. You are the tank after all, you have to take control.

Yeah, I do agree I should have said something, and usually I would have but right off the bat the healer was getting an attitude with me and threatening to kick me at the start because of my gear and being him and his friend already had 2 votes to kick me if I POed them I wasn't trying to rock the boat. But that all changed when we got into the LK fight and I Knew they couldn't kick me anymore and I told them why the pally died (he died again to cleave and vomit and they blamed me).

I was just hoping there was a good way of dealing with mercs since on my warrior I tend to focus my stuns on them and they are not as much of an issue.

[Deleted]

yeah tbh the only thing your fault is not stating a kill order, btw are you frost blood or unholy? because I think frost with all of its aoe would be the best fitted for tanking HoR, but i could see how any other spec could easily do it. I've tanked it with ghoul before now with no problems

[Wingwraith]

I was just hoping there was a good way of dealing with mercs

Kill them fast. Rogues are dicks. (I apologize to all rogues who may be reading this, but you know it's true.)

[evan_s]

IBF is the best CD to use vs mercs as it makes you immune to stun. Unfortunately, you can't use it once you are stunned to break it and it doesn't last all that long.

[Tholl]

Your AoE threat should be enough that any DPS who are using AoE should not be pulling from you.

DPS in WotLK need to learn (Or remember) how to set a focus. People have gotten way too lazy (And stupid) trying to come in first in the "Big Numbers" race.

The entire instance should not be resting on your shoulders. HoR is geared to make players use their brains. If they don't then they are fail. Simple as that.

[Ashareth]

What you encountered is not a tanking problem, but a retarded dps/healer problem like most of the time.
People act like shit, have no clue what to do, and expect others (mostly the tanks, sometimes the healers) to bail them out and carry them so they can slack.

It's the reason while only 1/10th of the rogues and hunters ever use tott/md, or feign death/vanish, why no one ever interrupt (even in raids like ToC/ICC) before a wipe and them being bashed AND shamingly pointed out as failures, and why you won't see more than once in 40/50 times some priests/paladins/hunters using shackle/turn evil/frost trap in HoR, nor will you often see people single-target focusing, interupting, and killing mobs in the right order (ie : Priests>Mercenary>>Mage/Hunter>Footman) but nearly always going all out AoE from the start, killing footmen first, and complaining because they have aggro on ranged and such, and/or that mobs stay alive too long/another wave spawns/they die because you spent half the fight stunned by the mercenary and couldn't do shit while they were killing the footmen.

Hopefully, with the current overgearing, most of the time one dps with a brain is enough to make things doable and compensate for the other failures, when the tank know what to do. Strangely, 9 out of 10 times those people are people who are(or have been) tanking and took the time to understand and experience tanking mechanisms.

And the worst dpsers for that aren't the people that started with WotLK, it's the "old farts-know-it-all-we have nothing to learn-it's faceroll" from TBC/Vanilla....

[Dedweight]

And the worst dpsers for that aren't the people that started with WotLK, it's the "old farts-know-it-all-we have nothing to learn-it's faceroll" from TBC/Vanilla....

Don't think that's a TBC/Vanilla player issue but just a bad player that claims "it's just a game and I shouldn't be expected to learn my class" issue.

[Forgettable]

Make it easy for the DPS like I do. I also play a DK tank, though my GS is around 6k, I've had my fair share of trouble in HoR. Go into your Key Bindings and set "Mark Target as Skull" to a button. I personally use " \ " just because it's out of the way. DPS USUALLY notice the skull and hit it first. It will help with some of your "I'm a retarded DPS and am going to hit whatever I feel like" problems.

[superstargoddess]

There's a great addon called "skull me" at curse. Get it and set it to 2 seconds.

[Ashareth]

Yeah it's a bad player issue, strangely, those people usually fall into two categories :
- people that started recently/ebayed their account/etc, and have no clue how it works, refuse to accept they did wrong and use the "lol it's a game i play how i want" argument
- the "old farts" that are pricks that can't evolve, adapt and are lazzy rude fuckers that always try to blame it on the others with *mature* arguments like "i've been playing for 4/5/6 years, i know what i do, L2P Noob", specially when you proved they fucked up.


The second part being, by far, the worst ones (and in raids too btw).


The "old farts" that have a brain and adapted don't behave like that most of the times, i wonder why.

[Foibles]

I glyphed DnD.

[Aldurok]

You can set keybinds for raid markers in the standard WoW keybind menu. It's way down towards the bottom (depending on add-on keybinds that might be there). I set my numpad keys (1-9) to them, with 9 being remove mark. Makes it easy to let go of mouse with right hand to quickly press a button to mark and then go back.

I also have a kill order macro I made specifically for HoR. I honestly don't remember exactly how it goes, but basically it puts in party chat:

"Kill order = Priest > Mercenary > Mage > Hunter > Footmen."

I also have another more general one that puts in raid/party chat:

"Kill order = {skull} > {cross} > {square} > whatever. If a new {skull} pops up, switch to focus that"

In HoR I'll hit that at the start of the instance (before we start the event) after I've made sure everyone is actually there.

One other thing to do is to pop IBF as soon as the mercs get over to you. That will give a short duration to really get threat going on everything, and of course helps you survive the most dangerous part of the fight when you have the most mobs on you.

[Ubhor]

I glyphed DnD.

This helps quite a bit. Along with the other kill order things people mentioned.

[fangless]

This helps quite a bit. Along with the other kill order things people mentioned.

DnD glyph + 2pc 10 :P


As far as a general strategy, it's just simple tanking 101 really D:

Cast DnD in the doorway of the hiding spot just as the ghosts rise up to become active. I just then hang back, letting any initial aggro'd ghosts to run to us due to no LOS. There's no real need to continue to stay in the corner, as someone will likely cast a spell that will gain initial aggro over you. Make sure the DnD isn't on your group in the corer, but in the doorway, else the ghosts will smack people in the face before DnD ticks. This also helps you by gathering up mobs in the doorway, and avoiding lots of AE dmg that's being put out since most likely your group will tunnel vision in the corner and refuse to move anywhere. Also, don't be afraid to use Empowered Rune Weapon to get off more Blood Boils, or Bloodtap either.

At that point, you may have some ranged ghosts still shooting at people, try to grip one to if you it's available, or just move the your pile of ghosts to the ranged and fight on top of them.

Then it's just a kill order.

Once you get it down, it's honestly not that hard, unless your healer is just a tard or has no gear (sorry, but skill =! make up for having pvp gear or a horrible spec :P)

[Jynks]

I usually tank it as Unholy, more AoE threat is always nice especially with the gung ho DPS you usually end up with.

At the start of the instance if people look geared I don't worry about it otherwise I usually set a kill order:
Mercs - Priest - Mage - Hunter - Footman

Alternatively if people are attacking dumb stuff I'll mark the target I want them to focus, most people are smart enough to follow that.

DnD - IT - PS - Pest - Blood Tap - BB is a pretty decent threat lead at the start.

Save death grip for the hunters and LoS the mages in, use AMS liberally for the RP, try to save IBF for the "OH SHIT!" moments.

Mop up mobs and then thank your lucky stars you aren't on a warrior (which is the worst class to tank this place if you ask me.)

[Squishie]

Lay down DND, Deathgrip the hunter type add. Silence the priest. Leave the mage outside the group and cycle icytouch on him to maintain aggro.

That's my basic strategy for dealing with the waves in there. I don't have threat problems at all any more but if you are either worried about threat or the kill order mark a skull. Despite the brain dead status of most dps these days. Anyone who really played TBC has it hardwired into them that the skull must die first. You will find that if you asign a kill order most people will follow it.

On the note about them mocking your GS before you started. I had a similar issue when I was gearing up my DK. Had them mocking the fact I was a DK and didn't have a massive GS. Threatening to kick if I didn't perform perfectly. I proceeds to tank the first 8 waves without incident. Then drop group.

Cannot abide people who judge you based on an arbitery meaningless number they try to asign to skill.

[zenkai]

Thanks for the input guys! I wish people killed skull first, this is never the case most of the time. Most players kill the first one that gets to me first no matter what, so if there is no hunter I tend to DG the merc to me first, even though I agree is something stupid that I shouldn't have to do. I always mark skirmishers in AN with skulls and they almost always die last.

Good news, I got my neck piece last night, had a great group, 0 problems 0 deaths, no complaining, Held aggro against a 5.9 GS pally doing u to 9kish AE DPS. He carried the rest of the group that was pulling 2 1/2=3k AE dps

However I randomed HOR again that same day LOL, things was going great despite the really low DPS until a shadow priest died on wave 7 and ran back in, the second boss when he activated ran strait to the shadow priest stuck behind the door and right when I was in range to pick him up he ran through the door and reset making us do P2 all over again. Then I died on wave 6 (0 heals for 7 seconds) and said screw it and left and loaded up SC2 :P