How to tank Nerubian Burrowers like a pro
Now, my guild hasn’t downed Anub10 heroic yet, unfortunately, but if all the blood, wipes, and tears have imparted anything to me, it’s how to tank the Burrowers like an effin’ pro.
The little (ok, not so little) buggers have a pretty set pattern. Twice per above-ground phase they come up in pairs and b-line for the raid member with the highest global aggro. As the OT in this fight your job is manifold: one, to pick up the Burrowers, two is to position them on ice where dps can kill them, and three is to not die to their various tricks.
Now on top of that delicious sundae of pain may I offer this cherry: you can handle interrupts on both of them as well. No seriously, you can.
Let me back up. On the first point you need to grab the attention of the Burrowers before they dig a hole in the face of some unlucky Resto Druid. To do this make use of our two best ranged attacks–Hand of Reckoning one and Avenger’s Shield the other. This’ll drop enough threat on both that they’ll follow you back to the ice patch that Anub should be tanked by.
Once you have both adds wailing away at you you want to get them dead center on the ice (well, maybe no dead center, but their hitbox needs to be sitting completely on top of the permafrost). Then open up on both until dead.
At this point your guild’s strategy may differ. The way mine does it is I hand of freedom myself and run off to pick up the next two adds and bring them back to the same permafrost patch while the MT and dps wrangle Anub towards the back of the room and off the ice. Now that I have the Burrowers all to my self, the responsibility for dealing with the Shadowy Strikes falls on my spiky, crimson shoulders.
How does one person not only watch but interrupt two Burrowers? Simple! First, glyph Holy Wrath to have a 15 second cooldown. Use that when they start to cast and you’ll easily interrupt them both. How can you tell when either is casting if you’re not currently targeting it? Also simple! Face them away from the raid, and if a Burrower is looking to gank one of your raiders, he’ll turn and look at them. Also they’ll start glowing all shadowy, but either way, it’s a huge warning sign.
I’ve yet to see them attempt a Shadow Strike more than once every 15 seconds, I always had my Holy Wrath up when needed (although Arcane Torrent made a fine off-GCD back up, and yes it does interrupt). Moreover, I’ve never seen a Burrower cast Shadow Strike when Anub was underground.
As for the third responsibility above (that is, staying alive) you have a powerful tool at your disposal: Block. The way the mechanics of the Burrower’s fearsome Expose Weakness attack is currently programmed, they’re debuff’s additional damage is applied to the unblocked remnant. Thus, if you’re block capped and shave say 3000 off of a 4000hp hit, the remaining 1000 damage is multiplied by 225% assuming you have a full nine-stack and you “only” take 2250 damage. This is definitely a fight you want to stack block value in!
Now, if only the rest of the fight was this easy.
Armory Feed
the rest of the fight is mostly out of your control :D
unless shit goes down the tube and while the MT is being battle-rezzed and you solo-tank everything >.<
unfortunately my 10man HM group is still on faction champs so I have yet to get to anub =(
@Feisttherogue
6 October 2009 at 5:14 pm #
Shadow Strike is on a strict timer. All the burrowers will cast it simultaneously,every 30 seconds (several events such as anub’s burrows, new spawns, and leeching swarm can push-back this timer – the information is documented across a bunch of forum threads by now, but just that hint and your own combat logs should be enough.)
So long as you have a stun available, and that stun is not on DR every 30 seconds, you’re all set.
I don’t know why, but we always have our Druid OT the adds while I MT Anub. I’d think about switching it up, but since we’re going for Tribute to Insanity, I don’t see any reason to mess with a plan that works for us.
Of course – we’re not a standard guild…our usual (and best IMO) strategies usually go like this.
“OK. Unbear just go DPS, Amath will tank everything. Ready? ZERG!”
I have awesome healers :)
haha nice
Ok good thing you posted this article since recently (last week to be exact), we’ve had some tank issues on the adds.
We decided that i would tank the elites that spawned from the right side of the room, and the other tank ( a warrior just joined the guild ), would tank the adds that spawned from the left side of the room.
So…. when first add spawns, i single taunt. I then bring it to the ice closest to the boss so it doesn’t burrow underground, and dps is near to it.
Apparently we aren’t downing the first adds to spawn fast enough. Because then the 2nd pair of spiders appear. So i single taunt again.
I lose aggro somehow, so i throw out a righteous defense followed by an avenger’s shield.
At this point the other tank is saying i am aggroing his add of him, then starts bitching about it after raid. So what exactly did i do wrong here? Reckoning is on 8 second cooldown, so all i had was my righteous defense to use which i did. So why didn’t the warrior with the 30 yard range single taunt with a cooldown of 8 seconds then use his single taunt to taunt back any adds accidentally taunted when i used righteous defense?
…
he was lazy?
He’s a warrior, they don’t have Intellect.
>.>
@ohmymoogle – 25 or 10 man?
i believe he is talking about 25 since they have 2 tanks for adds if i understand it correctly.
Ah – for 25s the way we do it (in a PUG I lead that clears TOC 25) is this.
MT grabs Anub. One – and only one – ice block is on the floor. MT moves Anub directly beside the ice. OTs grab adds. I give a three count, and all my DPS switches to the adds for 10 seconds. Adds die. All DPS on Anub. 2nd set of adds – all DPS stays on Anub. Drop 2nd or 3rd Ice Patch. At 10 sec till burrow all melee switch to adds as I move Anub away from the ice. Anub burrows, burn odwn 2nd set – dodge spikes and kill little adds – repeat. At 40% or so we just ignore the adds all together if I think we can push him to phase 3 before he burrows. OTs move adds off the ice so they will burrow, reducing damage taken. Kill Anub. /profit
@Rhidach
7 October 2009 at 1:26 pm #
Regular I’m assuming. That’s the same strat we use. I think we only had one burrow last night.
is that the strat on anub regular or heroic?
We have myself in full block gear, and a not so geared warrior tank, picking up adds, and have the DPS burn down the first add on the warrior, then dps stays on Anub while I hold two adds, and the other tank holds one. I would hold more but I’m not passively unhittable yet, and the raid leader seems to have a horrible aversion to tanking all of the adds together anyways.
Adgamorix : nice guide i’ll follow that.
I’m just a bit frustrated and fedup because a combination of things:
1. I taunted the elites that spawned on the right side as planned.
2. I taunted adds not being tanked as they should have been.
3. DPS were not killing the first pair of elites fast enough so the adds piled up on the off tanks.
4. If my add is dead, i will grab an extra add off the other tank isn’t that right?
5. If i lose aggro (which did happen a few times), i would use righteous defense is reckoning was on cool down. It’s either that or let someone die. This is the only example i can think of where i may have accidentally pulled off the other tank.
Then this other tank, not only is he complaining i am pulling his add off him, but he does not know which is his to taunt back…. just pick one and taunt jesus ….
Also he was trying to teach me like if the add has a target then don’t taunt it. Duh i know that. All the loose adds i taunted didn’t have him in their target :p
Anyway i left that guild and joined a better one who is ranked 4 on guild. At least this new guild recognise me for a good tank :/
good luck :D