Comments on: How to tank Heroic Halls of Reflection

By: Pallymom/Mommyrhea

Pallymom/Mommyrhea — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:32:22 +0000

THANK YOU to all tanks that talk about Crowd Control. As a pre-BC built mage and also now Holy/Prot Pally, I am so freaking tired of people asking me why I am silencing the priest(on my mage) and Holy Wrathing after the tank has hold of stuff or Hammer of Justicing the priest or mage everytime I see them the CD is up when I am healing. I also turn evil like a fool. I have been sucessful with druids, warriors and paladins, and I have died with them too. This isn’t soly about the tank so don’t knock yourselves- Post BC built players were cheated out of gamesmanship and at least in the 5 man perspective, this is the one place to bring it all back. All the gear in the world and the best tank on the planet cannot save your group if you are not intent on team work in the first ten waves of this instance. You can take that back to the graveyard with you folks. From the tanks perspective, take a few moments to go over strategy with your group even in randoms. We are now so overgeared and chain running all the other heroics that this place is a wake up call. Do what you need to do. Have your priests shackle, your hunters trap (did you ever wonder what that skill was for- Post BC guys?) Just slow the faceroll down. That is crowd control. And for god’s sake, mark the target with the macro so they have something to focus on. I rely on tank target on both my toons for judgements and DPS unless I have a kill order. Basically learn to work with strangers. =-) That is gamesmanship!
I came looking because my buddy is having a hard time with her Prot pally in this instance. She decided to do a dual prot spec with more emphasis on the AOE right down the the glyphs with the extension of Consecrate, etc. I hate to say that I bubble from the start just to ensure she’s got it under control because the interrupts of the alcove method are certain death for me and my group. I am that healer that has to get out of the corner, so to all the rest of you… sorry. They are coming after me anyway so at least you get a chance to get between them and me and the DPS can see them coming at me. I will not personally tank this instance yet because my gear is like tinfoil atm as my focus has been holy.

By: Rhidach

Rhidach — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:13:07 +0000

As a paladin tank, I can honestly say I’ve never heard of crowd control.

By: Fae

Fae — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:45:19 +0000

What ever happened to CC…..Crowd control for those of you that never raided at 70. Its actually possible to immobilize mobs so you can kill the rest of them and then focus 1 or 2 quickly afterwards. Just check yous spellbook I promise there are abilities in there that will do just this. And yes it does even make a difference when they come in waves like this instance. I know it sounds foreign but it really works!

By: Doodli

Doodli — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:07:32 +0000

Shaphat: like many people have noted in this forum before, there are a lot of tricks that can make this encounter easier, if the group doesn’t have the brute force to just aoe them all. First of all, what’s your gear level? I have done it with mostly lvl 226 gear, with some 232/245 and a couple of lvl200 epics, with every possible food buff/scroll/flask I could put on myself, and I think I’m on the low end of acceptable gear combination. I’d say you need to have a minimum of 40-42k buffed hp, about 26k armor and over 45% avoidance to pull it off. Judging by the fact that you were falling behind on the waves, you really had a low dps issue. I’d say each dpser must produce at least 2.7k focused dps (that’s an average over all the encounters, I didn’t measure the dps during the event, but I would imagine it must have been over 3k each). Combined with your own 2.5k dps it should do the trick of killing the waves rapidly and providing 10-15 sec pauses in between. Also, you may have an issue with overpowered or trigger-happy dps, or dpsers not hiding out of LoS in the beginning of each wave. They may (and, depending on how much abuse your healer can take, should) fan out later. Basically, if anyone but you pulls the initial aggro on any of the mobs, the chance of a wipe increases tremendously. Of course, a strong healer can make all the difference. I’ve done it with priest and druid healers, I’d imagine a shammy will shine in this fight also. Probably a pally healer is at a bit of a disadvantage here, due to the large amount of aoe damage. Cleansing is important; if you have a druid or shammy (or pally) healer who’s on the ball with cleanses, you’re good. If you see a poison ticking for more that a few seconds, burn a gcd to cleanse it yourself, at least from yourself. Last but not least, your threat meter only shows threat on one target. Xperl unitframes provide better visualization of who’s being an aggro target and who’s taking dot damage.

By: Shaphat

Shaphat — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:50:50 +0000

I’m at my wit’s end with this heroic. I’m a Pally tank, and have tried every strategy posted, from LoS to Setting up a secondary tanking spec that includes SoComm. I still have not passed it, and cannot fo the life of me figure out why. My threat meters say I have all the threat, yet the DPS keeps getting killed off. Last time i tanked this I was holding off 3 waves at once, then good ol’ Falric decided to jump in the fray. Is it bad luck with DPS? Is it me?

By: Dreaming

Dreaming — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:34:39 +0000

For all tanks that have difficulties with this instance (and I completely understand it’s much harder for warriors and druids than for paladins), try to find a good disc priest as a healer and it will be a cake walk. Why ? Simply because the priest can shield the whole group before each wave, which mean 0 aggro for him for about 10s as he’s not healing at all, and plenty of time for you to get threat while still having a full life group.
I did try it on my disc priest yesterday with a warrior tank and it was way way easier than on my holy pally, even with slightly less gear.
Only difficulty for the priest is the rogue poisons, but once again shields prevent damage, which counters the bad healing reducing poison as you have less healing to do in the end.
When threat is a problem damage reduction wins by a long shot.

By: Víðarr

Víðarr — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:10:22 +0000

I dunno if any of these posts actually talked to their healer to make it a little easier on them. Getting the mobs pissed off is easy enough, but idenitifying the problem points and solving it with your group is key to making this fight a little easier on the healer.

I find that stacking up in the corner is probably the worst due to the flamestrike attack from the mage, the frost from the hunter, and the aoe from the priest hitting everyone.

We also noticed the footman, when he hits, hits for about 13k every few seconds. One he is disarmed or disabled (dead) this fight is really a lot easier. We went from having problems keeping everyone up, to everyone staying at full health for the most part.

Also any melee in this fight, make sure the tank has aggro on the footman (he will be gathering up the ranged and might not be able to re-target maybe as quickly. But if he gets on you, he his really hard. Disarming, stunning or whatever the footman was the biggest problem. Staying out the mage flamestrike, and the ranged keeping back will help a lot here. Single target kills are important here as AOE forces the healer to keep you and everyone up a lot longer in full dmg.

I personally haven’t healed it on heroic, but my healer is very honest with me and I try to make it as easy as possible for him, as after getting aggro, thats my most important priority.

By: Doodli

Doodli — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:29:19 +0000

From my experience it is of paramount importance to wait until the tank has the entire wave in melee range before opening dps. I would order my group into the corner, as far as they can squeeze into it, and not to spread out or open dps until I say so, which will not be until I have hit each and every mob with SoR, AV, judgment, consecrate or all of the above. This will only take a few seconds, if I’m standing my back to the wall in that corner. Generally, unless you have a hunter in your group, nobody would ever have to move an inch during the entire event, until the boss comes out. With a hunter, I asked her to stay where I’m standing until I have the mages, and then scooch back along the wall, staying at minimal range. We did wipe miserably with a group where the healer just had to move away from the corner and expose herself to incoming mages on every wave. On successful runs I had the healer standing in the corner facing the wall the whole time. Once the tank has sufficiently pissed off the mobs, it becomes an AoE fest. It is a very healing intensive fight, though, so be sure to praise your healer when you’re done, he deserves it!

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:16:28 +0000

I don’t think this is an attempt by Blizzard to make tanking difficult. I think it is an opportunity for dps to step it up a notch. Tanking and healing all three of the new ICC 5 mans is SO much easier when you have dps that know how to use their moves that don’t do damage (they usually forget about those). Shackle and Ice trap make a world of difference on falric and marwin mobs. Not to mention a well played Death Grip is like heaven to me when i’m taking. Windhshear, Counterspell, Kick etc. Even using slow on the casters helps reduce the damage they do a lot.

By: SpynusGypo

SpynusGypo — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:46:46 +0000

Sorry for the warrior talk on a paladin blog but I just wanted to drop some tips in here, pretty sure a few bits will apply to other classes as well.

As a warrior tank that has done this a few times now I have to say that it is possible, just not a face roll like we’ve come to expect with wotlk heroics. Some good suggestions in other places especially about kill order.

My main tip is to pick up the melee mobs first with thunderclap, they can one shot your clothies so need to be your initial focus. After that a quick silence with a shield bash or heroic throw on any mages and you should be ok to group them up with the melee. The hunters can be left for a while and have the other mobs dragged over to them once you have rounded them all up. Just keep an eye out for shadow stepping mercenaries. Save your first shockwave until you have at least 3 mobs in front of you, the aggro lead it gives you isn’t worth wasting on less than 3 mobs.

DPS can help by thinking a bit less about their dps and a bit more about any cc skills they have or misdirects etc. That can really help your tank out a lot.

A couple of talent points in imp spell reflect can do wonders here to but that’s not that common in a lot of builds.