The Highlord's Return Tips

[Xequecal]

No one has said that DPS is the most important part of tanking. However the reality is while you say that "WE ARE NOT DPS" sadly tanking has been so dumbed down that we kind of are just melee that stand in front of the boss. They added active mitigation in MoP because in WoTLK and Cata we just stood in front of the boss and popp'd emergency CDs when things got ugly.

There just aren't many challenging ways to measure how effective a tank is. I mean back in TBC as a Warrior I received so much praise for how much threat I could generate (which was with max tank DPS btw) allowing my DPS go worry less about threat. I was also praised for being able to hold aggro on 4+ mobs, Warrior tanks were very bad at AoE threat, but I could do so with mouse over macros and what not. Hell most Warriors couldn't even stance dance (not sure what was so hard about it).

I mean the WoD Gold Challenge really isn't that hard, I suppose they could amp it up, but once again the problem is you can hold aggro by just breathing on mobs.

I've also really never been a fan of the "tanks need to max DPS" mentality, especially when it comes at the expense of actual tanking. On Botanist, for example, I just target the Arcanist the whole fight even though that causes a lot of DPS to be wasted, simply because it makes it impossible for me to fuck up the taunt swap for recursive strikes by taunting the wrong mob.

[Deleted]

I've also really never been a fan of the "tanks need to max DPS" mentality, especially when it comes at the expense of actual tanking. On Botanist, for example, I just target the Arcanist the whole fight even though that causes a lot of DPS to be wasted, simply because it makes it impossible for me to fuck up the taunt swap for recursive strikes by taunting the wrong mob.

But with this you admit you are not min-maxing, correct? You pick safety over it, which is fine as everyone can make his own choice.
The challenge here is that on top of the normal "tanking stuff" it is about max-dps, and the many critical comments here indicate clearly where the line is between good/tank and excellent tank.
It is about the balance between survival and dps output, adjusted to the needed situation. I think Blizz did a great job here.

Back in the days of Vanilla/BC aggro was the biggest issue, especially in multi-target. Hell, in serpentshrine BiS trinket for fury was that Trinket that just reduced your aggro. Today, aggro is no issue at all unless you do not use any ability. So in my view it makes totally sense to design an encounter that takes "tank" stuff as granted and filters for max-dps at the same time. After all it should be a challenge, and preventing to get kicked of the platform and using mitigation/CDs definitely does not sound like a challenge to me.

[Toybox]

I've also really never been a fan of the "tanks need to max DPS" mentality, especially when it comes at the expense of actual tanking. On Botanist, for example, I just target the Arcanist the whole fight even though that causes a lot of DPS to be wasted, simply because it makes it impossible for me to fuck up the taunt swap for recursive strikes by taunting the wrong mob.

Just make a /cast [target=focus] Taunt macro & put the Arcanist on focus if you're afraid of that. No need to deprive your raid of that amount of damage, especially on mythic.

[Deleted]

Prot paladin = Legendary legs, arcanocrystal, 913 ilvl. In other words, highly geared, well itemized and has the 'necessary'(debatable) legendary, prot legs, 20% shield dmg, + 2 target bounces, perfect for 5 targeets(4 adds and boss) Crits for near a million each with wings.

Gz to Lazel, it was interesting to watch for sure. It looks fairly simple and easy. I would use the same leggies as he did, don't have the arcanocrystal though and well, yeah... There isn't much to comment other than well done.

Perfect execution with 1 knockback that I noticed that I believe wasn't intended(3:59) and knocked him within the platform, but outside of that, quite a good attempt. Lucky with the eye spawns at the start.

EDIT: Personally, 35 tries with the legs legendary makes sense to me. I've only did it around 25 or so, with it, progress would be far better and would likely down it around there as well.

[Killface1]

Tanks do damage.

Things die quicker and better when each person does the maximum amount of damage they are capable of. Tank damage in raids matters, and if you think it doesn't, take a quick peak at method solotanking mythic guldan.

Right now in wow, a tank has several responsibilities - Most importantly are to hold aggro and live. Of secondary importance is to position correctly, manage adds, manage interrupts, and manage debuffs. Least important, but still very important, is to min max dps once the other requirements are dealt with.

Because the first set of requirements are pretty easy (you have so much passive DR, so much healing, and its so easy to deal with interrupts, aggro, and positioning) it becomes more important to min max dps. Whether or not you think this is where tanks *should* be is irrelevant. This is where tanks have been for the entire time I've played this game. Aggro management is a non issue (also, as a sidenote, take off the rose colored glasses, aggro management is not fun - look how much fun people had tanking and playing with skittish - it isn't fun for dps and it isn't fun for tanks).

By the looks of the current tank challenge, it looks like its a very well designed challenge. For people to down it right now requires a pretty solid mastery of their class in all aspects.

In 2 months, when the casual players have full heroic ToS gear and are sitting at 10m health, its going to be a lot easier. It'll be easy to do 1.5m aoe dps. It'll be easy to live through things that used to be a struggle, because you'll passively have more DR, more health, and presumably your abilities will reduce more damage.

Its tuned to be challenging in all aspects of the tank game right now. You need to be good at everything, and it's not blizzards fault if you aren't. Play the game more and try and improve if you want to be better, and if you just want the appearance, wait 2 months for ToS to come out and get a bunch of 920+ gear.

[Ravagebull]

they already hotfixed the p1 trick with stunning/disorienting the inquisitor. p1 is way harder now.

They need to put him back the way he is and get rid of that Black pool on the ground seriously i can see it is a challenge but don't make super difficult to complete

[KrotosTheTank]

They need to put him back the way he is and get rid of that Black pool on the ground seriously i can see it is a challenge but don't make super difficult to complete

You want a "challenge" that isn't super difficult to complete? The DnD pool is the easiest of the mechanics to manage, it just of course sets your pace; stop asking for them to allow you to cheese it again.

[Deleted]

Tank Challenge Round 2, NPCs still not attacking, still Knockbacks from invisible Eyes, no orb Spawn etc...

Really, really good Work here!

[chaud]

Posts that aren't about the challenge itself will be deleted from now on.

[Deleted]

I only have one question: How do I stop Kor'vas Bloodthorn from dying in phase 2? She always stands in fire and next to Nether Storm. I can't seem to do anything about it.

[Williee]

I only have one question: How do I stop Kor'vas Bloodthorn from dying in phase 2? She always stands in fire and next to Nether Storm. I can't seem to do anything about it.

I had that happen to me once, I am not sure what she died to until I saw my videos. She had a stack of annihilation and died while standing in netherstomp. It only happened to me once or at least I only noticed it once. Does it consistently happen to you?

[Panetale]

Kruul is still constantly despawning if you don't stand right next to him when he jumps down for phase 2. I also witnessed him healing two times in a row even tho I interrupted him before.

I'll call it a day, about 150 trys in and no sign of killing it, best try was somewhat arround 10m left, which is a bunch. (Blood DK, 911, Sephuz/Kil'Jaeden, 54 traits)

This is just a joke, it took me 2 trys to do the Unholy one with suboptimal gear, no UH specific legs and an ilvl 911 36 traits weapon, this shit is so god damn unbalanced it makes me want to vomit.

I don't even know what offends me the most - the fact that the Tank one is 10 times as difficult as all the others and EXTREMELY hard for EVERY class not just for a few (Veng DH has a way better time than other tanks but still hard) or the fact that they completely hotfixed arround the main problem - the fact that phase 2 requires us to do abnormal amouts of dps, while NPCs run into adds and die, while interrupting, while stunning, while manageing CDs, avoiding smashes. Phase one was doable before both of the hotfixes, very annoying but doable. Phase 2 is just a huge pile of aids that is buggy half of the time.

I want an actual "challenge". This has nothing to do with tanking anymore, relying on NPCs and doing tons of damage while doing everything else as well on our own is no situation you will ever be in while raiding. And this comes form a guy who tries to get maximum dps out of every farm boss (8/10) now.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...928043/latest/

as proof.

I'm really good in ditching out a lot of tank-dps, but this is more or less inhuman.

Horrible design, just horrible.

[Deleted]

I had that happen to me once, I am not sure what she died to until I saw my videos. She had a stack of annihilation and died while standing in netherstomp. It only happened to me once or at least I only noticed it once. Does it consistently happen to you?

Yes. I have tried this encounter maybe 40 times and have been in phase 2 about 30 times. I myself have not died in phase 2 yet. It's always Kor'vas Bloodthorn who dies.

- - - Updated - - -

Horrible design, just horrible.

Yes, I have to agree. I am in the same position as you, being a Blood Death Knight, but with a bit lower item level. 75% of the time one of the NPCs dies for me, and 25% of the time I get knocked off the platform because it's just too much stuff to keep track of at some point. I don't ever die to actual damage in this encounter.

I also had Kruul despawn for me 3 or 4 times already and I have only been in phase 2 about 30 times or so. This is quite shocking.

I really don't understand what all this has to do with actual tanking. When do we ever get knocked off platforms, killing us instantly? When do we ever have to babysit some of the most powerful NPCs of the game? When am I ever responsible for passing a DPS check? I never had to do any of this before this "challenge" and I never want to do any of this ever again after I am eventually done with it.

Overall the mechanics aren't actually challenging, but just extremly annoying. Having to look into those eyes all the time while having to dodge other stuff that would kill us instantly just feels clumsy, unnatural and unintuitive. The inept NPC AI is what is killing it for me. I will try it a couple more times, but I will not put many more Nethershards into this until they remove the NPCs from this scenario or fix their behavior.

[Daan]

Instead of nerfing Variss and the Horrors, Blizzard should have fixed the annoying bugs.

Btw, I wish a real tank challenge and not "do as much as possible DPS without getting kicked from the platform".

[Deleted]

Btw, I wish a real tank challenge and not "do as much as possible DPS without getting kicked from the platform".

Exactly. If this is what Blizzard would truly describe as the ultimate challenge, I am very worried about the future of this game. This challenge is also inherently unfair, because some aspects of this scenario are completely trivialized by certain tank abilities.

There are 3 main causes of death in this scenario:

1. Being knocked off the platform. This problem is completely gone for Demon Hunters and drastically trivialized for Druids, Warriors and Monks thanks to charging, leaping, blinking, rolling and dashing.

2. Being overwhelmed by eyes. This problem is almost completely non-existent for Druids because of Moonfire. Not only can they kill eyes very easily with it while other tanks struggle massively, but they can even gain rage for doing it.

3. Failing the DPS check. This truly puts on display how poorly the tanking classes are balanced at the moment when it comes to dps. Especially aoe dps is completely all over the place and this is a huge issue. Tanks with lower aoe dps than others will fail to kill the Nether Storm adds in phase 2 fast enough, which will result in Kor'vas Bloodthorn dying every time.

This is not good. Blizzard REALLY should have designed a specific challenge for each tanking spec.

[Deleted]

Hello. 915 Vengeance Tank here. I got 2 BIS legendaries(neck, trinket) I do mostly 1m dps on this encounter, AOE etc. I tried 50 times. I can by pass the eyes, I just ignore them totally since my reaction is good to press glide when I get knock off. I mostly nuke Valaris on start, get 6 stacks and then whlist waiting for horrors, I throw glaive at the boss and it takes %1 hp from it, I nuke horrors etc, I am fine with that, but sometimes I get 1 shots out of no where, literally.

1. When I look at re-cap, the last dmg was 500k from inferno, although my HP was full (6.5mil hp), this is obviously not intended.
2. 2nd Problem is that there is too much to do in that challenge that almost half of it never represents the tank role. - DPS is the obvious one. As I am tanking Mythic raids, my DPS is the lowest on recount, so why is this important in that challenge? It really not for this role.
3. It is retarded that the adds still spawn at the 2nd phase of the fight. I was on 2nd phase and I literally never saw the horrors and there were soooo much shit around me that I literally couldn't see really.

suggestion

I don't call for nerfs, but make the challenge that suit the tanks, perhaps reduced threat so we need to manage it importantly. Velen can do the DPS, like in proving grounds.
Don't make 1 shot mechanics, because that defeats the purpose of a tanking role. Whats the point of having 50% dmg reduction or more stamina where 1 shots are a thing.


To anyone who says stupid comment like "get good" you obviously either did it as a DPS or just trolling, because the tanking is not hard, ITS not balanced, its rarely possible to achieve the challenge as a tank in this moment of time, EVEN on higher ilvl

[Deleted]

Hello. 915 Vengeance Tank here. I got 2 BIS legendaries(neck, trinket) I do mostly 1m dps on this encounter, AOE etc. I tried 50 times. I can by pass the eyes, I just ignore them totally since my reaction is good to press glide when I get knock off. I mostly nuke Valaris on start, get 6 stacks and then whlist waiting for horrors, I throw glaive at the boss and it takes %1 hp from it, I nuke horrors etc, I am fine with that, but sometimes I get 1 shots out of no where, literally.

1. When I look at re-cap, the last dmg was 500k from inferno, although my HP was full (6.5mil hp), this is obviously not intended.
2. 2nd Problem is that there is too much to do in that challenge that almost half of it never represents the tank role. - DPS is the obvious one. As I am tanking Mythic raids, my DPS is the lowest on recount, so why is this important in that challenge? It really not for this role.
3. It is retarded that the adds still spawn at the 2nd phase of the fight. I was on 2nd phase and I literally never saw the horrors and there were soooo much shit around me that I literally couldn't see really.

suggestion

I don't call for nerfs, but make the challenge that suit the tanks, perhaps reduced threat so we need to manage it importantly. Velen can do the DPS, like in proving grounds.
Don't make 1 shot mechanics, because that defeats the purpose of a tanking role. Whats the point of having 50% dmg reduction or more stamina where 1 shots are a thing.


To anyone who says stupid comment like "get good" you obviously either did it as a DPS or just trolling, because the tanking is not hard, ITS not balanced, its rarely possible to achieve the challenge as a tank in this moment of time, EVEN on higher ilvl

[Ravagebull]

Exactly. If this is what Blizzard would truly describe as the ultimate challenge, I am very worried about the future of this game. This challenge is also inherently unfair, because some aspects of this scenario are completely trivialized by certain tank abilities.

There are 3 main causes of death in this scenario:

1. Being knocked off the platform. This problem is completely gone for Demon Hunters and drastically trivialized for Druids, Warriors and Monks thanks to charging, leaping, blinking, rolling and dashing.

2. Being overwhelmed by eyes. This problem is almost completely non-existent for Druids because of Moonfire. Not only can they kill eyes very easily with it while other tanks struggle massively, but they can even gain rage for doing it.

3. Failing the DPS check. This truly puts on display how poorly the tanking classes are balanced at the moment when it comes to dps. Especially aoe dps is completely all over the place and this is a huge issue. Tanks with lower aoe dps than others will fail to kill the Nether Storm adds in phase 2 fast enough, which will result in Kor'vas Bloodthorn dying every time.

This is not good. Blizzard REALLY should have designed a specific challenge for each tanking spec.

Druids better be able to complete this with this nerf to inquistor and nether horror adds if you are going to nerf it again only get rid of that Black pool underneath him

[Deleted]

Alright, I've had enough. I will stop wasting Nethershards until this mess of a "challenge" gets improved. The stupid NPC Kor'vas Bloodthorn continually keeps dying, ruining all my attempts of phase 2. I am done.

[Williee]

Alright, I've had enough. I will stop wasting Nethershards until this mess of a "challenge" gets improved. The stupid NPC Kor'vas Bloodthorn continually keeps dying, ruining all my attempts of phase 2. I am done.

Are you running over her during annihilation? That will usually kill her when it happens. At least i remember seeing the debuff on her in one of my wipe videos.