[Thedom]

I didn't see this mentioned but on the confessor I noticed that even tho shes immune you can still interrupt her heals to keep her from regaining all of her health while you deal with the summoned boss.

[Rifter]

Transitions in ToC are a pain. You need to watch out for where the mobs are, and where friendlies are. This is kind of a different fight. If you want to do it easy, run out after you have de-horsed the competition.

Where I have seen issues, is in ToC and especially H ToC with the memory, and the army of dead from the black night.

Here are a couple of observations from last night.

Encounter 2 - Confessor : The nightmare, if you are not well-geared is a very tough fight. We are still trying to track down a good tactic for this fight. After wiping a few times, we decided to try and kite the memory around. At first, we tried to move it away from the confessor, since I didn't want to hit the confessor with my AOE damage. We discovered that the confessor follows, so we started kiting the mob, with the confessor in tow. That seemed to work well.

In Encounter 3 - Phase 2: The Army of the Dead - We found with other DK's in the party, if we popped our Army of the Dead when the Black Knight popped HIS Army of the Dead, they kind of canceled each other out, and we beat on the Black Knight. I am a Frost build DK, so I used a bunch of howling blasts and boil blood to AOE the adds into the ground, as well. My girlfriend was in a group that lost horribly to this phase until they quit. Their tank would not back up, to keep the adds in front of him. They pounded on his back, dropping him fast.

[Athenodorus]

The pickup is the worst part of the first fight. We have started zoning out to reset them once they are all dismounted.

Dispelling makes a difference when fighting the Champions and the Memory: The Mage's Haste, the Hunter's Lightning Arrows, and Paletress' Renew can all cause grief and can all be dispelled with Shield Slam. It's also a very mobile fight (especially if you have the Warrior or Rogue). I like to use the Warrior's rolling thing as an excuse to Charge interrupt one of the casters. Intervene is great for getting out of Poison and the BK's phase 2 AE.

Some of the trash before the 2nd boss seem to use Unbalancing Strike. Not a big deal on the trash, but kind of interesting.

[JuBia]

One question about Paletress: I heard two healers tonight saying that I (tank) should taunt her after the image is in. Afaik, there is no aggro table for her when the image is in the arena (and, thus, tank should focus on it, not her.)

Anyone can confirm or deny that?

[Muffin Man]

You won't be able to keep aggro on her even if you taunt. Since you can't damage her she'll end up on the healers eventually (unless you already had a massive lead on them, in which case you don't need to taunt). A good idea though is to kite the image away from her because any incidental damage on her will hurt.

I ran ToC as dps the other day and the pally (friend) said Paletress just casts randomly anyways, so she may says she's focused on you and still smite the hunter minding his own business.

[JuBia]

Source: Muffin Man You won't be able to keep aggro on her even if you taunt. Since you can't damage her she'll end up on the healers eventually (unless you already had a massive lead on them, in which case you don't need to taunt). A good idea though is to kite the image away from her because any incidental damage on her will hurt.

Exactly as I thought. I even said that to one of the healers (the first one, we had to kick the guy 'cause the mage was getting hit and got no heals at all) that she have no aggro table when the image is in the arena.

I just thought it was weird 'cause two healers said the same thing.

[rolo]

completely agree on running out after jousting the Champions. This needs to be communicated beforehand (at best during the intro, when everyone's sitting around anyway. In my experience, running out has about a 25% chance of one person getting isolated and dying, while trying to pick them up seems to have about a 100% chance of at least one death and about 75% chance of a wipe. Especially if the champions are as spread out as they seem to be.

Having tanked and healed this, I have to say that Paletress is so much tougher than Eadric that I'm frankly shocked someone at Blizz thought they were comparable. As far as Paletress is concerned:
- When the Memory is out, she seems to smite completely at random.
- Even while shielded, her smites can be interrupted or caught with a grounding totem, but it may not be worth it. The casts are fast, many will get through anyway, and you need all the dps you can get.

I'm still having trouble warrior tanking Black Knight phase 2, especially on heroic. In groups where the dps can pick up some adds that I miss, no problem. In groups where they can't burn the ghouls fast enough before they blow up, wipefest. This is getting embarassing enough that I'm thinking of switching back to my DK or levelling my Pally.

[uglybbtoo]

Got invited into a heroic group the other night and was shocked at there tactic 2 healers and 2 dps and me as tank.

They swore to me its alot easier and they were right it was very much easier and even phase 3 they easily outhealed the damage.

The 2 dps simply had to meet 2K dps which they did. The fights drag on abit especially the paletress fight we got but HP never looked in danger.

Interesting tactic and a way for undergeared tanks to do heroic but I expect blizz will move to insert an enrage timer because I don't think its as intended in the same way as the zone out after dismount is.

[jafager]

I confirmed that the champions seem to keep their aggro table from the jousting phase after the dismount. That explains why they're such a pain to pick up unless you reset the fight.

I also confirmed that both the single ghoul in phase 1 and the AotD ghouls in phase 2 drop aggro periodically and go after random people. Ultimately we decided that their melee wasn't a threat and I just had the DPS kill the loose ghouls first while I kept the bulk of them (and their explosions) away from the ranged DPS and healers.

[Rifter]

jafager, that is VERY interesting to know. Thanks for the heads up.

Black Knight phase 3, with that stupid debuff is pretty tough. I have found with my DK, I can pop anti-magic shell, and survive it well enough. Without AMS, I tend to die, every fight. (DK here).

We did some Heroic ToC this weekend. One with a good tank, and one without.

Honestly, this battle really hinges on the tanks and their ability to not get their butts handed to them.

In encounter 1, phase 2... with the 3 bosses running around, it is easy for a tank to get turned around, and get hit in the back for MASSIVE damage... Encounter 3, phase 2 with all the ghouls is the same way. Even encounter 2, phase 2, with the nightmare a good tank makes all the difference in the world. I finally have fairly high DPS, and plate, so I can compensate and make a tank's life easier, but a good tank vs a bad tank is night and day on this fight.

[Hit Me]

Source: Rifter jafager, that is VERY interesting to know. Thanks for the heads up. Black Knight phase 3, with that stupid debuff is pretty tough. I have found with my DK, I can pop anti-magic shell, and survive it well enough. Without AMS, I tend to die, every fight. (DK here). We did some Heroic ToC this weekend. One with a good tank, and one without. Honestly, this battle really hinges on the tanks and their ability to not get their butts handed to them. In encounter 1, phase 2... with the 3 bosses running around, it is easy for a tank to get turned around, and get hit in the back for MASSIVE damage... Encounter 3, phase 2 with all the ghouls is the same way. Even encounter 2, phase 2, with the nightmare a good tank makes all the difference in the world. I finally have fairly high DPS, and plate, so I can compensate and make a tank's life easier, but a good tank vs a bad tank is night and day on this fight.

I'm not positive, but I don't believe getting hit from behind increases the amount of damage you receive, but only prevents you from being able to parry or dodge the attacks. Having one behind you for an extended period of time may be detrimental, but taking a shot or two in the back shouldn't cause too many issues.

[Smokiez]

When picking up the mounted adds, it does not matter how skilled of a tank you are... I have all 3 killed within tclap-s radius, still unable to pick up cause of agro tables: The adds that usually kill the raid are the hunter and/or the warrior that charges... I could have the hunter selected, and spam taunt on him until he is able to be hit, he will still 1 shot who ever he had last agro on -_-...

Also, with the amount of bugs during this transition: once you kill all 3 mounted elites, they still continue to get up and try to get back on a horse (which results in everyone leaving the zone anyway) or the one I just experienced, you de-mount 2 elites, all of a sudden the entire party gets dismounted and heads into killing the elites, 1 elite is still on his mount, stomping on players (stunned) which causes deaths...

I recommend fighting near the exit, so that if the stage becomes bugged, you can make the exit fast, and also recommend to just reset it after de-mounting all 3.


The only time I dont wipe in that transition is if I have a full uld25 geared group where they dont get 1 shotted.

[Hit Me]

We've had a lot of bugs in there as well. The most common is the getting dismounted early. We did defeat them all one time and the warrior kept remounting instead of just leaving with the other two. He'd get down to 1 hp and remount. We'd kill hte mount and he'd still be at 1hp and he'd go get another mount. It was strange

[Rafus]

i'm suprised nobody has mentioned it so far here. there is an really easy way to get all 3 mobs on you at the transition 100% of the time.

all you have to do is to already get off of your mount once the 3rd mob hits 50%. now you taunt the dead mob #1 lying around on the floor, wait till your taunt cooldown is up again, taunt mob #2 and when finally the rest of your group kills the last mob you taunt him as well.

you have aggro on all 3 mobs and it's no problem.

[Smaken]

Source: Hit Me I'm not positive, but I don't believe getting hit from behind increases the amount of damage you receive, but only prevents you from being able to parry or dodge the attacks. Having one behind you for an extended period of time may be detrimental, but taking a shot or two in the back shouldn't cause too many issues.

It also removes block. Between block, dodge & parry, you should be avoiding at least 50% of the attacks from the smaller ghouls. The issue is not having 1 behind you but if you just stand there you'll have 2-4 behind you hitting you for their full dps.

A shot or two you can survive, 3 shots at a time every two seconds will kill you pretty quick or at least put you in range so the black knight can do it.

My personal strat for P2 is to have the whole group stack up on me, Challenging shout, TC, start backing up then Shock Wave the group, keep them dragging around while the group spreads out behind me. If the group starts spread out then it is really troublesome trying to gather all of them up.

Any class with an aoe snare makes this cake, even without it just having the right movements makes it pretty easy.

[J4yk]

its prety eazy if you focus fire
kill order heroic= Warrior, shaman, mage rogue hunter
i say kill warrior first, his intercept can 1-shot your healer, just save up shock wave for when shaman starts healing , try to interupt some of thoes

[Rifter]

Source: Smaken It also removes block. Between block, dodge & parry, you should be avoiding at least 50% of the attacks from the smaller ghouls. The issue is not having 1 behind you but if you just stand there you'll have 2-4 behind you hitting you for their full dps. A shot or two you can survive, 3 shots at a time every two seconds will kill you pretty quick or at least put you in range so the black knight can do it.

This is what I was getting at. Our one tank kept getting whirlwind attacked by the warrior, in the back. It is a short trip to faceplant when that happens.

Source: J4yk its prety eazy if you focus fire kill order heroic= Warrior, shaman, mage rogue hunter i say kill warrior first, his intercept can 1-shot your healer, just save up shock wave for when shaman starts healing , try to interupt some of thoes

Our kill order tends to be Shaman, Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Hunter. The rogue himself isn't too bad, but his poison can make things more difficult than what the mage sends your way.

Honestly, with a couple of weeks experience, this instance has gone into farm mode finally. We still frequently get more deaths in it, than any other instance... but ultimately not that many.

[nomdeplum]

Did my first run on normal, and it was pretty embarrassing. I tanked in lvl200 threat gear, and had problems holding agro with the champions.

I died a couple of times before the all the bosses were down. Somehow I managed to get dismounted.

after the reset, 1st pull seemed to be ok, but I stayed in the poison because I was so worried about holding threat, i did not even notice it. I think during that fight I did not manage to get agro off of one of the mobs (mage).
2nd attempt had the shaman, then the rogue down, but wiped on the mage.

3rd attempt i was a complete spaz and could not keep from losing agro on the shaman and kept targeting the rogue.

I could not have screwed the pooch any harder if I tried.

Totally embarrassing, I told the group to get another tank.

I did notice that I was not given much chance to establish agro, but it was still pretty much all my fault.

I would dps this run, but my dps gear is mostly pvp stuf, and I have no idea how much dps I can actually put out in it.

[GiANTBOMB]

Am I the only one who tanks the memory right near Paletress? It makes it easier to T-clap/cleave so I keep aggro on her as well as the memory. Of course I take more damage but I mitigate some of that with Spell Deflect.

Amidoinitwrong?

[Dromidov]

Is this the same run for 10 man raid??