Tanking the adds in the Dreamwalker encounter

I remember this being really messy the first time we tried. It was a pain to figure out which adds you wanted to pay the most attention to, and when. Er, except for the Blazing Skeletons. Those bastards make it quite clear early on how deserving of attention they are.

The key to this fight is standing in the right place and tanking the right mobs. Let’s talk about the room first:

Ideally you’ll be assigned a specific side while another tank gets the other. This side that you’re placed in is your world. Everything that enters it is now your domain. And that includes every undead creature that exits the doors on your side.

Pan your camera out enough that you can reasonably see both doors at just about all times. This is going to be key because the Blazing Skeletons are as sneaky as a Fel Reaver. You do not want them surprising your raid. As soon as one of those guys enters your domain, shout out in vent your side and if it’s the front or back door. If it’s coming from the back door, let it move far enough to clear the central pillar between the doors. If you attack it prematurely, it’ll stop moving, and place itself out of LoS for your ranged.

You want that Blazing Skeleton dead before it gets a tick of Lay Waste off, ideally. I’ve heard whispers of how the Lay Waste mechanic works, in that the Blazing Skeleton will only cast when in melee range of its target, and I’ve seen it get “confused” and delay the channel of Lay Waste. But we’ve never been able to purposefully replicate this effect. I’m not going to say having someone out of melee range taunting will delay the Lay Waste cast, but something seems to be happening. I just don’t know what.

What not to tank

Ignore the suppressors. They have no aggro, they will just run up and start channeling their healing debuff on Dreamwalker. The best way for you to help kill these is to tank mobs on top of them so the cleaves and AOEs of your dps will drop them down significantly, and usually kill them. Likewise, Holy Wrath is excellent for a quick stun on them all at once.

Moreover, avoid the Blistering Zombies. Everytime they melee you they will stack Corrosion on you. Goes up to five stacks, for a total debuff of 50% armor. Combine that with an Abom increasing your Physical damage taken by 25%, and you have an issue. Let the hunters kite these.

The Risen Archmages are kind of a gray area. They don’t hurt that much, but they can be a major threat to healers if they sneak past you and start wreaking havoc in the middle of your healing corps. I usually just throw a Hand of Reckoning on these guys when they spawn, bring them close, and then let the dps burn them down. If one of the melee dps grabs aggro, it’s not a big deal.

About face

When tanking the Aboms you want to park them on top of where Suppressors spawn and face them southward, away from Dreamwalker. Gut Spray (along with many other attacks) will hurt Dreamwalker, so let’s not make the healers’ job harder, eh?

The Gut Spray will also do some heavy damage to your melee, so make sure none of them are mouth breathing and standing in front of the Abom with you.

Swap seals

Keep Seal of Vengeance up for most of the fight, except for when the Abom dies. It’ll erupt into a pack of Rot Worm mobs that you want to pick up asap. Switch to Seal of Command, drop a Consecrate, and then HotR as they come up. Try to pick them all up and burn them down as fast as possible.

Ultimately, Dreamwalker (like all add fights) seems initially tough because there’s so much to keep track of. Once you get the hang of the adds and how to control them, and your healers get the hang of their all-too-important role, the fight quickly becomes a cake walk.