[slvr92]

I am planning to soon tank H ToC! I've been trying to look for some tips and videos on H ToC, but it's only a single boss video on YouTube. So that wasn't of any help. I've also asked a friend to run me through H ToC once or twice so I can understand the concepts of it, but I doubt he'll help me out.

So, now, I need your guys help on what to do in H ToC as a tank. What should I be looking after? How do I encounter the bosses? Is it anything like regular ToC? How are the adds handled (if there are any)?

I think there might be more questions that I should be asking, but if I haven't listed it, could you guys point them out for me?

Tanks a lot!

[Singd]

Start here and see if this helps,

Trial of the Champion - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

[amilo]

Make sure you've done a few of the jousting dailies as the first part of the encounter is mounted combat.

after that you'll have to fight them on foot, they have regular aggro tables so they can be tanked and spanked, watch out for the healers and burn them down first; then proceed to burn the other 2 down.

The next fight you'll be pitted against either eredic or paletress. Paletress will stun you at around 50% and summon another add, who will periodically cast an aoe fear. Tremer totem ftw if you have a shaman, if a priest, fear ward the healer. apart from that you need alot of dps to drop the "memory"(summoned add) and then to kill paletress.

if its eredic, it's simple, tank and spank; and simply face away when he dose.. Radience I think its called.

after that its the back knight. 1st phase of him, he summons a ghoul and its a pretty easy tank and spank, a dps will get thrown away like the announcer did for some shadow dmg,

Phase 2 is when he comes back and casts army of the dead. From my experience they like to attack everyone but the tank, so any aoe threat bomb you got is recommended. once the knight dies, the ghouls explode, so watch out!

phase 3 is a shit ton of aoe dmg. Its a real dps check as you need to burn him down before the tank and dps can no longer be reliably healed.

It's not as bad as it sounds, but you do need to be decently geared for it. 30k hp is nice for the tank, but you can get away with less. Best way to learn it is do it, good luck.

[Theotherone]

It's exactly the same as reg ToC, just more damage output from mobs.

[slvr92]

Source: amilo Make sure you've done a few of the jousting dailies as the first part of the encounter is mounted combat. after that you'll have to fight them on foot, they have regular aggro tables so they can be tanked and spanked, watch out for the healers and burn them down first; then proceed to burn the other 2 down. The next fight you'll be pitted against either eredic or paletress. Paletress will stun you at around 50% and summon another add, who will periodically cast an aoe fear. Tremer totem ftw if you have a shaman, if a priest, fear ward the healer. apart from that you need alot of dps to drop the "memory"(summoned add) and then to kill paletress. if its eredic, it's simple, tank and spank; and simply face away when he dose.. Radience I think its called. after that its the back knight. 1st phase of him, he summons a ghoul and its a pretty easy tank and spank, a dps will get thrown away like the announcer did for some shadow dmg, Phase 2 is when he comes back and casts army of the dead. From my experience they like to attack everyone but the tank, so any aoe threat bomb you got is recommended. once the knight dies, the ghouls explode, so watch out! phase 3 is a shit ton of aoe dmg. Its a real dps check as you need to burn him down before the tank and dps can no longer be reliably healed. It's not as bad as it sounds, but you do need to be decently geared for it. 30k hp is nice for the tank, but you can get away with less. Best way to learn it is do it, good luck.

You make it sound pretty simple except for the Black Knight's part...

[Marzh]

When I tried this it was cake in reg, but in heroic I just couldn't get the hang of it. I would always die on the champs, don't know if it was because I was horrible, healer was horrible or I just finally figured it out. Oh and hopefully you don't have a doucher who just attacks what they feel like killing instead of what you have marked.

Now for that lady she can be pretty difficult if you don't have a sham or fear ward, but what I've found out is after the fear just kite the boss for a few sec to let the healer get back to you. Just make sure to strafe and not run straight.

Now as for the black knight, the first phase since I'm a war I stand back a little and charge, then go in rotation. When the ghoul runs away I throw a quick taunt at him and then switch back to BK and cleave. This should be enough time for the dps to burn him. The ghoul randomly jumps to ppl, so having aggro on him isn't that important.

Now for sec phase I charge him again and shield slam him then wait for most of the adds to pop up and i do thunder clap. If this doesn't get them all I do my aoe taunt and this should be enough time for the BK to go down.

For the third we all just stack up on me and were pretty much fine. Just gotta have decent dps though.

So for me this has worked every time. Not sure if your a war or not, but you should get the idea. So hopefully this helps and that link never really helped me.

[jafager]

Healing is always always always the problem in ToC.

The two exceptions are:

1. You can't hold aggro on the three champions. If the healer draws aggro she will be dead in seconds.

2. The DPS aren't carrying their weight. If you're stuck with three champions up for too long you can run into mana problems. If you take too long to get the nightmare down on Paletress you can run into mana problems. Spend too long in phase 2 or phase 3 of the Black Knight, you can run into mana problems.

The main problem with an undergeared tank in H ToC is not keeping him up so much as keeping everybody else alive at the same time.

[Maèl]

TOC5 is won by focus fire and situational awareness by the whole group. If the DDs don't play ball you won't get anywhere. So mark early and mark often.


The three champs in the beginning are not too easy. Since you've got three of them and you will get punted around if you get the warrior you can run into a situation where you can get hit into the back. You'll have to be extra vigilant.
Kill order of the champs depends on your group makeup.
I always leave the ranged champs be until everything else is dead. They are quite easy to tank tho you should be prepared to taunt them frequently.
If you get the Rogue, kill him ASAP. His poison kills tanks and his poison clouds kill everything.
The warrior is mainly a nuisance which I also leave to kill last. BUT if you are running with 3 melee DDs then his whirlwind becomes a real liability.
The healer should be either constantly interrupted or killed early on.
The hunter is roflcakes if you don't let him go into range.
The mage is quite fun actually. She is easily tanked via taunt(and as a warrior spell reflect and heroic throw come in quite handy). She seems to reset aggro every once in a while and will go straight for the healer. So be vigilant.

There is an infrequent bug concerning the trash before the second encounter. I've seen them positioned so you pull two groups. Given that the priesty mobs do MC this can be quite fatal. Burn the priest first. One of the mobs does cleave but DDs standing in that cleave die to their own stupidity.

Paladin is easy. Just avert your eyes.
Priestess can be tough. She summons a nightmare that frequently fears and hits like a truck. The Priestess still casts her smites and holy fires while in her bubble. The bubble reflects damage so make sure she is not standing in any AE. This encounter can be tough on your healer.

The Black Kniggit. Oh dear, where to start. In the first phase he summons a ghul. It has a random aggro reset so be prepared to taunt it off your healers. IMHO it's not wrong to burn it down ASAP.
In the second phase he calls quite a lot of ghuls. You can either try to kill as many as possible or ignore them altogether. The Black Knight WILL explode them. One at a time. He does stop, the Ghul stops running around and becomes big and then kapow! The second phase is highly mobile. The Black Knight plants some Deadknight AOE on the ground which does tick for significant amounts of damage. It is not a good idea to stay in it. The ghuls do reset their aggro every 3 to 6 seconds so don't even try to tank them. Your group has to stay clear from the ghouls. A frost nova or similiar stuff is highly recommended to give the healer a breather. Be prepared to trigger cooldowns because in the second phase you are mainly on your own. I'd recommend to ignore the ghuls and go for the Black Knight. Tell DD to keep an eye on the healer. Choose the Black Knight as a focus target because if you loose him you won't find him too soon. It is that chaotic.
In the third phase he does some weird AOE on the group and tank damage. Try to assisting to kill him as good as you can.

A word of advice:
If your healer is a shaman YELL at your group if they spread out too much. Especially in Black Knight phase two there will be corpses if they spread out too much.
AND thank your healer if you managed to get thru. Healing in there can be brutal.

[amilo]

Yup, use wow heroes to check your gear and you should be at least ulduar 10 ready if your going to jump into this fight. The gear droping is ilvl 219 so that Uld10 gear. I jumped in when wow heroes said I was uld 25/totc10 ready and it was no cake walk. I'm still wary about pugs goin in there.

[Jeffro]

Source: amilo Yup, use wow heroes to check your gear and you should be at least ulduar 10 ready if your going to jump into this fight. The gear droping is ilvl 219 so that Uld10 gear. I jumped in when wow heroes said I was uld 25/totc10 ready and it was no cake walk. I'm still wary about pugs goin in there.

I did ToC Hc with blues and when I wasn't even Naxx 10 ready.

If you know what you're doing and have a decent healer its easy. I do toc hc each day and 9/10 times its a walk through the park

[Roana]

Some additional notes:

The ghouls (both the single one on phase 1 and the eight different ones on phase 2) have an attack called Claw, which will make them change targets. You can and should taunt the ghoul on phase 1 to reacquire aggro if that happen (unless you have a survivable DPSer burn it down first), but it's pretty much hopeless to expect to be able to control all eight on phase 2. Note that the ghoul on phase 1 can also be shackled.

To pick up the ghoul in phase 1, notice where he tosses the herald after he kills him. The herald will be raised as a ghoul at the same spot he is then.

Threat carries over between all phases. If you build enough of a threat lead in phase 1, that gives you more breathing room to kite ghouls and run out of the desecration in phase 2.

The "Marked for Death" debuff is pretty brutal in phase 3. At some point it will result in the target being hit for 10K+ damage every two seconds from Death's Bite, and no healer can keep both the target and the rest of the group up at that point unless the Black Knight dies first.

Understanding the champions' abilities is also critical.

The warrior has Mortal Strike and Bladestorm. Bladestorm does a TON of damage and melee DPS must must must move out of it.

The rogue has a stacking poison, applied through both an AE on the ground and Fan of Knives. If you have a shaman, even if the shaman is enhancement or elemental, Cleansing Totem should be used to avoid poison stacks from piling up. You need to move out of at least the AE on the ground. If the poison stacks to full, it will tick for 5k damage every three seconds.

The other three are comparatively harmless, but have some abilities to look out for:

The shaman has a ton of different heals. He has Earth Shield (dispellable), a Hex of Mending (curse), meaning that all heals to the target will also heal him, and a 40k Healing Wave (should be interrupted). Neither of these can hold up against DPS, but if you kill him second or third (common if you have both the rogue and the warrior), the Healing Wave needs to be interrupted at the very least.

The mage has a polymorph ability and if the healer gets polymorphed, you may have to worry about staying alive by yourself for a moment. Her fireballs can be reflected.

The hunter is just a ranged damage dealer -- the one problem with him is that he likes to keep his distance and controlling aggro on him can be a bit tricky.

If you can, don't tank the champions on the floorboards where they start out -- it's not uncommon for, oddly enough, line of sight issues to crop up there.

Also, hard CC doesn't work on the champions, but stuns, interrupts, dispel, and disarming does.