Friday, February 5, 2010

Tanking Crib Sheet – Blood Queen - Updated

***EDIT***

Several commentors have pointed out that fear breaking effects do indeed work. I'll be trying them (again) next week and update the post with my findings. If they do work, we've at least proved you can successfully navigate the fight without using a single one. I'll chalk that up to awesome testing on our part.

This is definitely the case - and every fear mitigation seems to work now. At least we know it can be done without any of those things.
***EDIT***

It’s hard to know where to start with this fight – and I’ve had a few informal requests for more ‘non tank’ information. I’ll put down what I can after the tanking tips. Note that these notes are current after the latest fix to extend the Vampire buff duration – meaning you don’t want to sacrifice someone to the fire. You’re also working on shared attempts with Putricide, so watch that ticker closely.

Tanks required, and what she’ll do

Damage Link: First thing to note – the tanks share a link, so whatever happens to one happens to the other. It’s not a huge deal, but it does lend itself to some gear choice selections, and tanking selections (who has agro and who’s soaking). We use a Paladin as the ‘MT’ and our druid as the ‘Soak Tank’.

Gear change: This is one of those fights where pure stamina won’t win out for the MT. The OT will only take the unmitigated damage, so I use the 245 armor trinket and the coin from 25m Gunship. I use the coin for the high dodge, and the equip effect works well with Ardent Defender. Putting some block gear on can’t hurt, but she doesn’t hit incredibly fast. Keeping Sacred Shield up (and Disc bubbles) really helps keep the transferred damage to a reasonable level. Armor potions help as well.

AoE Fear: Not a lot you can do during this part. Paladins hit Divine Sacrifice as the raid is about to take a ton of damage. Stay more than 10yds away from anyone else, and you should be fine. If you have to move towards someone (usually a melee) to get bitten after the 2nd fear, put a Hand of Sacrifice on them to help mitigate the AoE.

Positioning, Fear recovery, and the Pull

The Pull: Straight forward. Make sure the OT is close by, and gets on her threat table early. If they’re a little slow, she can link someone else to the MT – generally resulting in their untimely death.

Positioning: Put yourself on the top steps of her dias, and she’ll be in perfect position for the ranged to hit her, and still leave enough room for your melee to run if they get shadow flames.

Fear Recovery: ***EDIT*** After testing last night, yes the PvP trinkets work, Fear Ward works, and so does Mass Dispel and Tremor Totems. This fight is fairly easy now. I'm going to stick with my guns on the fact that these didn't work before the change to the bite timer, but they definitely work now ***EDIT*** You may wind up being on the list for a bite after the second fear, so coordinate with whoever will be biting you BEFORE the pull, so you both know where to go (Tip on this in the ‘Other’ section below).

Conclusion

Overall, a very straight forward fight for the tanks. We don’t have a lot of exciting things to do here, mainly staying out of the way and using CDs effectively. Remember, if you’re supposed to be bitten after the 2nd fear, run TOWARDS your partner, not away from them.

Tips for everyone else

Positioning: If you look at the floor there’s a conveniently placed circle with nifty points that are about 11yds away from each other (Perfect!). The points are at the major cardinal directions, as well as their 45 degree partners (N, NE, E, SE, etc). You can stand on the N, NE, NW points without pulling, but if you ht that 90 degree E/W point you’ll body pull (hint – this is bad).

The Link: I have no clue what this is actually called, but two players (never the tanks) will be linked and have to run towards each other to break the link. You’ll do AoE damage the entire time while linked, hence the spacing mentioned up above. We assign one healer to deal with the linked pairs, as they can quickly die from it (plus the room wide AoE that seems to be there – unconfirmed). Once you touch, the link should disappear and you can go back to work.

Shadow Flames: This is old hat Mario. The flames work just like those from Jaraxxas. Kite them away from the center and towards the wall. Don’t be that guy who cuts the room in half. You should get a raid warning a few seconds before you start burning, so take that time to start running early.

Fear and the AoE: Every two minutes or so she’ll fly up and fear the room. Run back to your original position right away, staying more than 10yds away from anyone else. Paladins use your Divine Sacrifice – it’ll be up by the time the next one hits. Healing can be quite intense if the raid gets grouped up (shocking – it’s a spread out fight).

Exception: At the end of the 2nd fear (in 10 man, 25s you’re on your own here) you should have 4 players bitten, and their buff will end just as the fear goes off. You need to get to your assigned bite partner ASAP (see tip below) or they will become Mind Controlled and probably wipe the raid.

Bloodlust/Heroism: You’ll get the most out of this when 4 players are bitten. By the time 8 are bitten she should be almost dead, and this can give you enough of a DPS push to cover one or two people dying early (your mileage may vary). If you pop it right after the 3rd and 4th people are bitten, you’ll get a full duration before the 2nd fear.

On being a Vampire: My tips on this are limited, as I’ve only tanked, and haven’t had to bite anyone yet. One person will be bitten about 15 sec into the fight (I believe it’s the 3rd highest on threat, this is unconfirmed. She’s only bitten a healer on a bad body pull, and never bitten a tank). You’ll have about 60 seconds of being completely IMBA, and you’ll heal yourself for quite a bit (this doesn’t mean you can stand in the fire Ed).

At the end of your IMBA time, all your action buttons will become some sort of “Bite the other guy” button. Run to another DPS (or anyone really after the 2nd fear) and give them the chomp. Failure to do so will result in you being Mind Controlled and you will probably fail to successfully navigate the encounter.

UNCONFIRMED TIP ON DEALING WITH THE 2nd FEAR AND THE BITE

When Blizzard extended the duration of the Vampire (IMBA) effect, they also pushed the end of the 3rd rotation (when 4 people are bit) into the 2nd fear. We found (on our first successful kill) that you can bite someone for about .5 sec before the fear goes off.

What you need to do is move right next to the person you want to bite and stop DPSing the boss, instead targeting that person. The fear is on a timer, so you should be able to gauge it. Right as she starts moving towards the center of the room to fear, your buttons should light up and your bite will go off. I’d recommended just spamming your “1” key so that as soon as it becomes available you use it – otherwise you’re going to be hard pressed to get the effect off.

I can’t guarantee this will work (we’ll test it again next week and I’ll let you know), but it seemed to help us out quite a bit.

Healing: Last, but certainly not least, is the healing. We run with a Druid, Resto Shaman, and Disc priest on this fight.

Druid: Heals the linked pair that are running towards each other, and anyone who is trailing fire. Many raid heals after the fear. We put our Druid at the 6 o’clock position.

Shaman: With the now even more OP Chain Heal, the shaman can reach the entire raid with one hit. We put the Shaman at the 3 o’clock position (if the boss is the 12).

Disc Priest: Primary focus is the tanks and shielding anyone about to be bitten. Priest stands near the 9 o’clock.

Wrap-up

Hopefully this information proves to be helpful for taking her down in 10man. I’m certain the 25 is close to the same, but with more screaming, gnashing of teeth, and standing in fire. I’ll be happy to address any questions in the Comments section.

7 comments:

  1. In my experience, everything works on the fear, like Every Man for Himself, fear wards, tremor totems, even dispelling. One of our priests uses fear ward on himself them does a mass dispel on the melee pack.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm absolutely certain that every man for himself works on the fear. Half our raid is human, works wonders.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chiming in to say that the tremor totem definitely works. Just tried it in a 25-man raid on BQ. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. what would you advise a "soak tank" to wear? is it worth stacking eh and maybe some extra armor, or is the transfered damage somehow magical?

    ReplyDelete
  5. just ignore the comment above... reading just sometimes helps a lot.
    /sigh

    ReplyDelete
  6. Man if Tremor Totem really works I'm going to be kicking a certain pair of shamans right in the junk. I suppose it would be my fault - I mean if you're wiping continually due to a fear mechanic, you'd THINK that a shaman would say "you know, I'll drop a TT here and see".

    I suppose I should blame it on the fact that one of our Shaman is Canadian, and the other is Texan.

    I don't know which one is worse.

    ReplyDelete
  7. As a note - after talking with our Shamans and Priest - it seems that these things did not work on Tuesday when she was released, and so they never tried them again. It will be interesting to see how it plays out on Tuesday.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.