Protection Paladin tanking Baleroc solo...

[AeneasBK]

So our guild has just moved back into 25 mans again after the summer holidays, and after killing Baleroc maybe 6 or 7 times across a couple of groups in 10 man normal we're facing ihm on 25 man.

We usually have 2 shadowpriests on 25 and can cheese the first tormetns with dispersion + hand of sacrifice, happy days.

We also use only 1 tank for 25 man (atm). Our DpS are good enough for us to afford 7 healers for the fight.

Firstly - is that viable, to use just one tank? Nothing from the way the fight changes between 10 and 25 suggests this would be impossible.

Secondly, and my main question really:

WOULD IT BE BETTER TO USE ELIXIRS OF MASTERY + SPELL RESISTANCE INSTEAD OF A FLASK OF STEELSKIN?

My theorycrafting (bear with me here *cough*) is that when INFERNO blades are up, the extra 90 fire resistance will resist roughly 7-8% of the fire damage caused, the mastery will also probably cap him for avoidance too, ensuring less spike damage from this empowerment. The second gain would be that, since DECIMATION blades cannot occur first and he will have 270k+ HP by the time it does, he will infact have a smaller magnified health pool to refill to 95%+ for the healers, making it easier to top him up between strikes.

Amidoinitrite?

Got another raid tomorrow/this evening and would appreciate any feedback from Protection Paladins out there

---------- Post added 2011-08-25 at 01:07 AM ----------

If anyone can tell me precisely how often he empowers his blades as well that would be super cool =)

[Deleted]

Of course it's possible to solo tank it, although seeing as how it's 25m I think there isn't much reason to. You should easily be able to afford the loss of ~10k or so DPS from switching a DPS to a tank. And if not that then swap a healer for a tank, with 2 spriests and 2 tanks the fight should be easily 6 healable. And I mean really really easily.

But anyways, if you're intent on solo tanking it for whatever reason then go for it. And yes the elixirts instead of flasks is a viable choice, I don't see why not.

[fearmemortals]

a) the DPS different between a tank and a dps on Baelroc is more like 15-20k

b) the less healers you can do it with the better. Any combination of 4 mastery-stacked resto shamans or holy paladins should be able to do the job.

What you can use on this fight is entirely dictated by your dps.

[silvertitan]

There really is no reason to solo tank it if your dps is good enough to 7 heal it you might as well drop a healer and 2 tank it. For the elixir question, i use mastery+armor, Spell may seen like a good idea but the bulk of the damage you will take is all physical. There should be a CD available for each inferno blade.

[Deleted]

a) the DPS different between a tank and a dps on Baelroc is more like 15-20k

What kind of tanks are you using? Any semi-decent tank with a normal gear set (read: no hit/exp) should still be able to put out 13-14k. I did 13.5 with no hit/exp on bosses in the last tier.

[Tholle]

It's easy to solo tank as a paladin, however when doing this, you should be using Mirror of Broken Images and glyphed Divine Protection, so that you are able to pop either the trinket or Divine Protection each time he casts Inferno Blade and then keep Guardian of Ancient Kings, Ardent Defender and Lay on Hands for the Decimation Blades.

If you do it like that, then using resistance potions or flasks shouldn't be needed at all, and using your normal flask works just fine.

[Zoomkin]

What kind of tanks are you using? Any semi-decent tank with a normal gear set (read: no hit/exp) should still be able to put out 13-14k. I did 13.5 with no hit/exp on bosses in the last tier.

Even with them assuming they do 15k dps should be able to double it.

[Deleted]

Even with them assuming they do 15k dps should be able to double it.

Really? The []lowest[/i] DPSer in a normal mode 25m will be able to do 30k DPS? That's some insane DPS in that guild, how the hell aren't they 6/7H already?

I'm basing this off of the OP's post, I mean no offense to his/her guild but I'm damn certain that they have players below 30k DPS who could be swapped out for a 2nd tank and make the healing much easier and simpler. Or, like I said earlier, swap a healer for the 2nd tank and you're even better off. My second point was to not underestimate how much DPS tanks can do, it's really much higher than it has been in previous expansions relative to a DPS. I actually play around with it weekly by reforging to some hit/exp and see how much I can do as Prot, I've gotten as high as ~23k while tanking.

[Etann]

Yes, solo tanking it is very viable as long as your healers are on top of Deci blade healing (and have enough stacks to do so). Prot paladins make the the ideal solo tank mostly because of AD.

The most important thing for your tank on this fight is to become avoidance capped. The boss swings so quickly that he can take very heavy spikes in damage at times. Also the armor elixir would be better than the resistance, the boss still hits like a truck very quickly without his empowered blades.

On top of that, I would not glyph DP. There are times that you could want it up for his regular melee swings. Inferno blade is usually a break from the intense damage for the healers until the later parts of the fight where it's gonna hit you for more. You should be able to have your Mirror trinket up for the majority of the Inferno blades...and the damage can also be blocked so Holy Shield, so that's an option too.

[Deleted]

Stamina is actually dangerous for a tank in this fight as they're risking health scaling faster than the healers stacks increase. Obviously a minimum needs to be maintained to ensure 250,000 (or even better 278,000 ish)health when the first decimation blade hits but with the recent changes then this is trivial.

That means
Flask of Steelskin - bad
Fortitude - bad (click it off)
Stamina trinket - bad, replace with Mirror of Broken Images and the best dodge trinket or failing that the best CTC trinket. A stamina trinket with a dodge "on use" effect will suffice as the good points outweigh the bad. The idea is to give the best possible chance of dodging / parrying a decmimation blade which is really the only dangerous mechanic.

Realistically if the tank has Mirror of Broken Images and glyphed Divine Protection then he doesn't need to use the resistance elixir as he'll have almost total coverage of inferno blades with one of the two abilites but for the tanks out there who pride themselves on minimising every bit of incoming damage possible, it's a must. The mastery elixir is completly optional as his damage when not in a "Blades" phase is trivial and the raid might be better served with an expertise or hit elixir for the extra DPS. Someone has mentioned that he still hits like a truck when not empoweered but with competent healers with plenty of stacks even their efficent small heals will be easily enough for this and healers can spam these indefinitely.

It's easy to solo tank as a paladin, however when doing this, you should be using Mirror of Broken Images and glyphed Divine Protection, so that you are able to pop either the trinket or Divine Protection each time he casts Inferno Blade and then keep Guardian of Ancient Kings, Ardent Defender and Lay on Hands for the Decimation Blades.

If you do it like that, then using resistance potions or flasks shouldn't be needed at all, and using your normal flask works just fine.

This is partial misinformation, Guardian of Ancient Kings is useless for Decmimation blade as you cannot mitigate the damage, and Lay on hands is only useful for the first one as the heal from it is actually based on your stamina not on your health (so will still heal for 180k ish even when the tank has 1 million health) However Ardent Defender is great. Even a bubble is great to use as you can sacrifice one of your DPS in order to save the raid (pesky filthy Death Knight usually)

[Myrlae]

There's no reason to solo tank this boss, grab a feral and let him tank the decimation blades, while the other tank is tanking all the other stuff he can go cat form and still do ~20-25k dps

[Deleted]

since you a paladin you are the best at taking the normal+ fire hits and then being able to use hand of sacrifice on the oftank for each decimation blade as transfers work and transfering 30% of 280k will barely scratch your 500k+ health by the time the fire decimation blade comes in and means the decimation guy is only taking hits for 60% of his health instead of 90~.
also a mastery stacked discipline priest can be droping power word sheilds worth 300k onto your decimation blade tank after 2 minutes. effectively making the decimation guy need 3 in a row to hit to actualy kil him. and combine that with your hand he would need 5 hits from decimation to damg him before he actualy dies.

[Tholle]

This is partial misinformation, Guardian of Ancient Kings is useless for Decmimation blade as you cannot mitigate the damage, and Lay on hands is only useful for the first one as the heal from it is actually based on your stamina not on your health (so will still heal for 180k ish even when the tank has 1 million health) However Ardent Defender is great. Even a bubble is great to use as you can sacrifice one of your DPS in order to save the raid (pesky filthy Death Knight usually)

Never meant for it to migitate the Decimation Blade, but to reduce the hits you may take once the Decimation Blade has faded, since it has happened more than once that I've died to the hit following the Decimation Blade.

[AeneasBK]

Thanks for all the help guys, unfortunately for *tonight* our DK tank has family visiting so we're only gonna have one Firelands geared tank available anyway so we'll have to stick to that method for now...

Lots of useful tips here though, we run with plural ret paladins (up to 4 if both our protadins are offspeccing, rare but ahs happned) so theres hands of sacrifice a-plenty, seems a bit broken that it works on decimation blade

[Deleted]

4 Ret paladins?
Aren't there any other ppl on the bench ?
Ret is one of the worst DPS classes atm.
Just sayin'.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

This is partial misinformation, Guardian of Ancient Kings is useless for Decmimation blade as you cannot mitigate the damage, and Lay on hands is only useful for the first one as the heal from it is actually based on your stamina not on your health (so will still heal for 180k ish even when the tank has 1 million health) However Ardent Defender is great. Even a bubble is great to use as you can sacrifice one of your DPS in order to save the raid (pesky filthy Death Knight usually)

Even more partial information. Lay on Hands does indeed work off your Maximum Health. Here a snippet from a combat log at baleroc

[22:18:29.593] Fetzie Lay on Hands Conquist +112860 (O: 895462)

note the 900k overheal.

Remember than all heals cast by yourself for 4 seconds after a DecBlade are reduced by 90%, so only ever use LoH after this has expired (you have 5 seconds between each DecBlade)

[Deleted]

Thanks for all the help guys, unfortunately for *tonight* our DK tank has family visiting so we're only gonna have one Firelands geared tank available anyway so we'll have to stick to that method for now...

Lots of useful tips here though, we run with plural ret paladins (up to 4 if both our protadins are offspeccing, rare but ahs happned) so theres hands of sacrifice a-plenty, seems a bit broken that it works on decimation blade

nooo that will result in dead ret pallies, the first transfer will do 80k~ the next transfer will do again 80k~, which will have transfered more than 100% of their hp and kiled them, the hand only works if your maintank and casting on the deci tank due to your inflated health pool. the hand of sacrifice only turns itself off if 100% is Exceded but stil transfers the damg that took it over 100 if it's all in one lump.
the reason hand works is because it's a re-direct instead of a reduction. also note Absorbes work against decimations so pally mastery + disc bubble with several healing stacks = 400k worth of absorb per power word near end of fight.

[Bellio]

WOULD IT BE BETTER TO USE ELIXIRS OF MASTERY + SPELL RESISTANCE INSTEAD OF A FLASK OF STEELSKIN?

Always. Especially on this fight however, your stam flask does absolutely nothing for you on a fight that mechanically increases your health AND deals true damage in %s.

[AeneasBK]

4 Ret paladins?
Aren't there any other ppl on the bench ?
Ret is one of the worst DPS classes atm.
Just sayin'.

Naa I know we found it hard to recruit DpS wariors as the raiding ones in our server were comfy in thier own guilds we have 2 MS rets, and 2 Prot/ret paladins and a Blood DK... so if, say, the Blood DK was tanking Baleroc, the other 2 would go ret leading to 4 ret pallies

---------- Post added 2011-08-25 at 07:44 PM ----------

Wish us luck! =)

[Chanserv]

There is no reason not to solo tank it...

run str flask call it a day. pop str pot if you need the extra parry. use dodge on use trinkets if you have a non stam one.