[Kazeyonoma]

First off, I'd like to thank MasterWolf and a few others who encouraged me to do this, and to Ciderhelm who provides this wonderful forum for us to do such things to better the warrior community.


First off, group composition:

The more CC you have the better.

I have done it with crap though.

Priest, Fury Warrior, Fury Warrior, Prot Warrior, Rogue.

So its totally doable if you know what you're doing.

The trick is to skip as many mobs as possible.

Here's my full rundown.

Enter Heroic Mech:
Pull Center robot when pats away, pull to entrance, kill.

Mark up the 3 humans to the left! Kill Physician first, CC Netherbinder (this guy is trouble if left alone, what he/she will do is summon 2 or 3 nether adds that can hit for a lot on clothies, and basically just causes chaos to the group, I've wiped many a times because the CC i ran with forgot to resheep this badboy and let him summon his adds), and leave the melee one for last, he's a chump and will just give you rage while tanking. Wait for robot to stop behind them and go ahead and pull (don't worry saps and shit won't agro the big robot when he pats back, just pull to entrance and you're golden).

Here's what it should look like at this point:


After that's handled, make sure you're clear and go ahead and pull the left robot (you won't have to kill the entire right side this way!)

Have group wait for you at entrance still, and either pull the robot when he's at his furthest patting through the door to the left, or wait till he's all the way gone and pull the 2 at the archway just through the left door, killing physician first again. Then kill robot or vice versa.

Move up through the left door, and again, CC or just duo tank the physician/melee mobs by pulling em back and enter:

Here's how it looks when you are at the base of these stairs about to pull:


And here's heading up to the stairs:


Trick #1

Have the group stay on that slanted ramp. You run up against the rightmost wall, and hug it till you can see the first mini-boss. Pull him with ranged, he won't agro anything as long as you wait for him to fit through the rightmost gap next to the wall. Once he reaches you, pull back to your group and blam, 2 groups of mobs skipped.

Here's how it should look like when you want to pull him:


Then go as far left as possible with group and sneak through that gap. You'll notice A physician and a melee again guarding the top of the stairs, a patting robot up and down the stairs, and a REALLY close looking group of demons + engineer that pats. Mark the pat to warn the party of his presence, and when that pat is furthest from the stair mobs, pull the stair mobs as far left as possible and kill. (same strat as before) making sure you don't have the robot pat anywhere near. Once done. wait for robot pat to come and again, being wary of the engineer, pull as far left as possible when he reaches top of stairs. Once he's done, move the entire party down the stairs clinging to the left wall, till about halfway down so you don't agro the next group. Avoid the patting engineer from up top and you'll never have to deal with em. just leave him marked the whole time incase someone dies and needs to runback, it'll be a good reminder.

Here's the above explained in picture format:




Same as first 3 pull, CC Netherbinder, kill physician, loller tank the melee.


Here's where the instance gets hard.
You'll be next to some crates at the bottom of the stairs now. Your first destroyer will pat really shortly back and forth between the elevator and halfway to your current location. you gotta grab that sumabitch RIGHT as he is furthest from the elevator, and pull back to your group sitting at base of stairs. This way you won't agro the astromancers, OR the evil demons to your right. make sure you interrupt (counterspell does indeed work) his charged fist or you will probably die. If he does get charged fist off, spell reflect asap, and hit em with a stun if possible. Consider these guys as mini..mini-bosses cuz they do cause frustration and take a little bit of coordination.

Here's the pull of the first Destroyer and where you want to pull him back to:


Once he's done, run around the backside of the crates to your left, and proceed to kill the 2 astromancers (cc one, kill other, whatever you want just down em).


Okay, now you've got some moving space. Tough part #2

These demon things are friggen annoying. If you've got a lock enslave one and use it to tank/bomb the others and if necessary banish one too. Here's the trick... You aren't gonna tank. Split them up as best as possible, they're not elite, but in groups they deal massive damage, so designate 1 target per person, there's 4 i think so 1 per dps. And go nuts, pull em back, move em around, spread em out, and just take em down fast. I normally do a weird Charge in, whack em, run out, move em, intercept in, whack em, run out, back and forth, till they drop. Don't worry about dying here, its gonna happen... A lot, as long as you kill 1 or 2, the 2nd time back you won't have any trouble cleaning it up. (Thanks to Sair for this): They have a targeting mechanic that seems to go for the closest possible person, so just have people run in and out to spread out damage between people, if you can pull them all apart like I suggested than they shouldn't be a problem at all.


Then the next big nasty pull is on the right. Get a CC on the humanoid engineer in the back (tricky for a rogue like ours but just sneak there and Sap and pull at the exact same time). Designate a kill order for dps to take out the demons again, and you will just kite/tank the big nasty as far away as possible. depending on if your dps kills the demons fast or not, and if your cc is refreshable or not (our rogues obviously isn't) then kill either the big nasty or the humanoid last.


Turn the corner and you'll see a group of mobs in the right nook, if there's no treasure chest, ignore them, if there is, its basically a smaller scenario of the last fight.

Next group is gonna be tough if you don't have a warrior or another off tank. There's 2 of the big demons, and 2 of the little ones. same thing witht he little oens, let dps kill em. If you've got a ranged dps, maybe have 1 kite the 1 of the big ones all the way up the stairs then jump down, and repeat kinda thing but i normally have an offtank grab him. and you tank the other. Shouldn't cause a wipe, definitely need to kill 1 of the big nasties if you do die.



Then you arrive at 1st boss

Mechano-Lord Capacitus


Slightly altered from non-heroic strategy, instead of going physical/magic immune. He will "polarity change" everyone and you will all get a debuff that is either + or -. you have to clump the +'s together, and the -'s together, and keep them away from each other (the boss is big enough that frontal dps won't "clump" with backside dps). when clumped together you get huge dps boosts, when + and - clump together you get zapped for 2k every 2-3 seconds so definitely separate out, and if you gotta slow down dps or sit out because the tank has a different charge from you, then do it, although he does eventually enrage (thanks Sair again) we're just not sure how long, but its pretty long, just beat him down and have healer topping off others when possible since there are random floating bombs. Nothing too fancy. Note: I've discovered that the bombs primarily come out of his backside, so if people are taking too much bomb damage dps'ing, they might want to move off to the side and bandage while avoiding opposite charged party members.
Drops:
[item]Warp Engineer's Prismatic Chain[/item]
[item]Plasma Rat's Hyper-Scythe[/item]
[item]Lunar-Claw Pauldrons[/item]
[item]Thoriumweave Cloak[/item]
[item]Hammer of the Penitent[/item]
[item]Assassin's Fire Opal[/item]
[item]Shining Fire Opal[/item]
[item]Defender's Tanzanite[/item]

Trick #2

This saves you ALL of the right side.

Just wait there after boss dies. and you'll notice the other miniboss pat almost RIGHT down to the floor of the 1st boss.


Blam grab him into the boss floor and kill him, same as in regular mech run away when he raises his hammer down him, gg. no mobs even TOUCHED on the right side, AND you managed to skip at least 2 groups on the left side on your way down to the first boss.

Then up the elevator you go, and have your group just hug the left wall and set up there. First monster you'll encounter is another destroyer. Do the same strategy as indicated above, interrupting charged fist, shield reflecting it if it does go off, and stunning if you need to. Nothing too hard, but he can present some problems to fresh heroic goers, so don't feel bad if you die to these bots now and then.

Big pull, you've got yourself 2 melee and 2 astromages right in front of the 2nd boss. no worries, you won't pull the 2nd boss unless you step on the stage she's on so CC'ing won't be an issue. If you've got an offtank with 1 cc like my group makeup, CC a caster, have the OT take the other caster and focus her down, while you hold down the two melee's, if you don't have an offtank, but hopefully more than just 1 CC, then CC 1 melee/1caster, and solo tank the caster/melee killing the caster first. If you're really in a jam and have only 1 CC and no offtank, then definitely CC a caster, and burn the caster down as fast as possible while keeping agro on all 3, if a ranged pulls agro on the melee, and you can't get it back, have them try to kite it a little, you've got a little bit of moving space here. Shield Reflect the astromage's Big nuke to save yourself a ton of damage, and to deal a ton back to them. just eat the scorches or interrupt em.

Then, ignoring the 2nd boss, go for the next destroyer, rinse and repeat as before.

Then you've basically got the same pull I've described just right now again on a slightly raised hallway. Do what you did to handle this last 4pull and get ready for some fun.

Hallway Event
When someone finally steps foot into that long hallway/corridor, mobs will start spawning, in 3 waves. First wave will be a Physician, 2 melee's and a caster I believe. Burn down the physician, kill the caster, then the melee's last, if you have a hotkey bound to marking up mobs, this'll help, or just make sure people know the kill order before hand. When these all die, you'll have a destroy come charging at you. If you're healer's mana is okay and no one is dead, then go ahead and take this badboy on just as before. When he drops, another wave will come at you, consisting of an Astromage, and 2 Engineers (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong about this event I'm a bit hazy) Kill the Astromage then the 2 engineers who will shrink and death ray you and your party but nothing too bad. If you can get past these three than you're done with the first half of the corridor.

Alternative Strategy
What I do with my group since we obviously are kinda gimped, is we kill all but the last npc and then have the tank move it all the way near the elevator before we kill it, this way, you can run down the elevator and sit down there (sometimes needing to backtrack through the instance a while to get out of combat) until the next wave resets. Then you go back up, and repeat, doing this every wave. It's a little bit longer, but it prevents wipes if you're group is 'barely' pulling out each wave.

Okay, now you've survived the first half of the corridor. Now the 2nd half.

when you go up the corridor/hallway you'll come to a bend, I'm not exactly sure how far up it is but just stop early if you're worried, once you move past this bend a bit, the next 3 waves will start.

The first wave will be like the last wave in the 1st half, with 1 caster, and 2 engineers. Same strategy, burn em down, and reset if you have to after the last kill by going down elevator.

Next wave is another destroyer.

Last wave is the hardest and normally causes a wipe to unexperienced groups, but no fret, if you reset, its not that bad, AND as long as you kill 1, it makes it a ton easier. You'll have 1 Astromage, 1 Physician, 1 Netherbinder, and 1 Melee/Engineer (I'm hazy on the 4th mob). Burn the Netherbinder down ASAP if you're just taking the fight on without resetting and you don't have an incombat CC. If you have an incombat CC, or you reset, then CC the netherbinder and burn the physician down, followed by the astromage, and then the melee, saving all dps to wreck the netherbinder as fast as possible (see first explanation as to why these guys suck if left uninterrupted).

After you finish this, you'll have maybe 10-30 seconds to drink up and get ready, Pathaleon the Calculator awaits.

Pathaleon the Calculator
He will actually charge up the corridor towards your group if you wait too long. (DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN) if he does charge, reset him by running down the elevator. You WANT him in his room.

The more fears you have for this the better, hence why a 3 warrior+priest combo for this actually worked well, but anything where you can handle an aoe fear or aoe kiting ability is best.

Warrior will charge in and begin tanking Pathaleon with his back up against the pink crates directly opposite of the entrance into his chamber. Throughout the fight until he's under 20% he will Mind Control someone (I think its 2nd agro), sheep/dispel/whatever to handle this person, if you can tank it that's fine. Keep all ranged/casters at the opening to this corridor to give yourself time to kite/cc this MC'd person (hopefully its a melee). At around 70% he will summon forth 3 wraiths to help him, you can either try to burn them down fast while you continue tanking (not what I do), or you can have the 1st Fear assignment run into the tank who should blow his AOE Taunt to pull em nearby, and aoe fear them away. here's where you gotta burn Pathaleon, his summons will despawn at 20% or so so you gotta get him down fast. He WILL summon more if you give him time to, i believe around 40% or so. you gotta just keep kiting these things around with fear/frost nova/cyclone, whatever you can muster while you take down Pathaleon to 20%. Once he reaches 20% his adds will despawn, and you can just focus on him. He's cake from this point if tank+healer is still up. (I've solo dps'd him down as prot warrior while priest kept me alive, he doesn't get harder as far as I know) When he's finally dead, rez up dead members, and cross your fingers for phat lewts:
[item]The Sun Eater[/item]
[item]Vanquisher's Legplates[/item]
are some honorable mentions to a warrior in the party.



Alternative strategies can be found here as well as his full Loot table: Pathaleon the Calculator - NPCs - World of Warcraft

But What about the 2nd Boss?!

Aha! I haven't forgotten. She's just so much of a pain in heroic that lots of groups skip her, you've gotten your 3 badges already, skipped a ton of mobs to get here, and you downed the last boss for his purples and Nether. If you really wanna down her here's what I do.

Try to have as much range as possible for her, the more you have the better off you're gonna be in terms of dps but if you don't, it'll just be harder, not impossible. Warlocks truly shine here because they can dot her up and run away.

She will summon 3 fire elementals immediately after you agro her on the platform. They will randomly pick 3 targets and start chasing them. If you have an infernal on you... start running, even if you are the tank, throw all the agro you can on the boss, taunting if necessary, and start moving away from the infernals, avoiding the fire trail they leave behind. it hurts. The key to this fight is getting in your damage when you can, but always avoiding the elementals. After 15-20 seconds the elementals will stop in place, and start to channel hellfire, this is where all your dps needs to get to the boss asap and lay down as much damage as possible while not standing in hellfire. I tell my group to kite around the outmost rim of the room she's in in a counter clockwise pattern while I try to keep her in the middle/platform. After they hellfire they will randomly retarget and repeat again. This fight is made hard by the movement involved and the fact that she will cast Dragon's breath, disorienting its target and wiping agro so you gotta be ready to intervene/intercept her asap when she does it to the tank. She also casts a 50% slow frost attack but with intercept and intervene it shouldn't be a problem, the only person cutting through infernal trails should be the tank to get back agro on her. and the healer should try to stay in the middle of the room to stay in range of all dps/tank who is running around the room. with some luck, and good kiting, you'll down her but if you wipe a few times, don't stress, she's a tough one and honestly she's worth skipping if you don't think you can take her, wiping multiple times in a heroic just doesn't pay off when she drops the same loot as non-heroic + chance for epic gems and a badge.


And that's it for this guide. let me know if you have any suggestions/corrections or just feedback. I hope this helps out those of you who are badge farming or nether farming or just gearing up through heroics. lots of good drops here and one of the easier heroics to do. Hopefully the skipping tactics I provide save you enough time to do this heroic in under 1:00 maybe 1:30 max. And I look forward to writing my next one on heroic Slave Pens if you guys like this one enough. Thanks for your time!

EDIT:: Added pictures, minor fixes, and just to note, did it today with Rogue, MS Warrior, Mage, myself, and Priest, finished in 47 minutes.

~Kazeyonoma

[Criss]

Thanks for writing this. I'm sure this will be incredibly beneficial for loads of people-- especially the people who have to run this instance hundreds of times for their Sun Eater.

I personally am quite fond of heroic Mechanar, and really, really shine when I do it, since I've done it so many times it's nearly second nature for me at this point. I actually don't use any crowd control save warlocks enslaving right before the first boss, but that's because I'm not an advocate of taking off gear and I like all the mobs on me so I can get rage to hold aggro. Well, and because it's an actual challenge.

You should write more heroic guides, methinks. It could be really, really beneficial to all those new tanks out there.

[Kazeyonoma]

Thanks criss, its encouraging to hear kind words. I know I would've liked something like this when I started off so I can only hope this benefits even 1 poor tank out there who is learning the ropes. I like to tank as much as possible too, and probably could, but I wrote this guide for tanks who aren't as geared yet and probably can't handle that many mobs at once. More CC = more stability in pulls so just keeping it safe for those new tanks out there =] But I hope I showed that you can perfectly do Heroics with only 1 CC. and a rogue sap at that.

[MasterWolf]

A+!
A masterpiece of writing!
Highly recommended!
9 out of 10 Tanks agree, this guide rocks!!

[Rak]

There really needs to be a guide like this for every heroic. Heck it's easier to get raid strategies than it is to get heroic 5 man strats.

[Lilie]

Thanks a ton, Kazey! Take it from one of those "new tanks" you speak of. I will be pouring over this. Now...just got to get there!

[Kazeyonoma]

Source: MasterWolf A+! A masterpiece of writing! Highly recommended! 9 out of 10 Tanks agree, this guide rocks!!

what's the other 1 tank doing? PvP I suppose. lol

Thanks, I'll keep going and try to get Slave Pen's up by tomorrow, and Setthek Halls after that. I dunno if I can do every heroic though, I really only have experience with these 3 since they were easiest and people I run with were willing to do em. I guess I can do Underbog as well, but the rest I haven't even attempted I think =P

[MasterWolf]

The other tank is either:
a) a noob
b) hates Hordies
c) doesn't do heroics

[Criss]

Source: Kazeyonoma what's the other 1 tank doing? PvP I suppose. lol Thanks, I'll keep going and try to get Slave Pen's up by tomorrow, and Setthek Halls after that. I dunno if I can do every heroic though, I really only have experience with these 3 since they were easiest and people I run with were willing to do em. I guess I can do Underbog as well, but the rest I haven't even attempted I think =P

You know, honestly.. I think it would be really cool if we could all help make heroic guides for every instance. Like, for the ones you don't want to do, the community could help do. It would really be another cool thing to add to this site.

[Kazeyonoma]

I'm fine with it if you guys are, like someone else stated, you can't find 5 man heroic guides, its all raid guides, and sure to raiders and stuff heroics can seem like cake, but for the large portion of the WoW world, heroics is as far as they'll ever get in terms of PvE. Hell even the ones who want to raid, are normally told to "gear up in heroics" and if they don't know how to do the damned things they're stuck between a rock and a hardplace!

I'm all for this, any others who think they can contribute? :]

[adrenalize]

We need video's for these things But thats a really good guide, with a coupe of tricks that should make it much easier for next time im in there.

I will say, In my eyes at least this is one of the few heroics where i specific group make up helps, but isnt totally needed. Have done it with only a mage for CC before, genrally me taking 2 whilst they dps the last clothie of a group.

10/10 tho, maybe some other tanks will get the sexy sexy sword

[psychostomp]

well kazey i still need some nethers for my bulwark so between ramparts UB SP and mech i will be spending my time farming them so will try and write up a decent strat for the ones you dont get to. Ramparts is fairly easy and often overlooked the only tough part is the boss where you have to defeat the waves before fighting the boss.

[Ciderhelm]

Not sure what to do with this; should I put the strategy forum back together and move this in there? It's definitely worthy.

Or, should I set up a strategy listing section on the frontpage itself, and start with this?

No idea just yet.

[Karaja]

Awesome post Kasey, I havent had the chance to tank heroic mech yet but I think this will come in handy.

[Valtam]

Wonderful guide. Thanks alot for posting it. I'm sure it will help me alot when I start to run heroic Mech.

5/5

[Lilie]

Hurrah Hurrah for Heroic Guides! Hurrah!!!

[Kazeyonoma]

Whatever you want to do Cider is fine with me, a strategy might be handy but we should probably get at least 2-3 before we make a whole subsection for it, for now maybe just a link from frontpage is good?

And as a side note, I'll try to take pictures next time I run it and integrate it into this so that It can be as complete as possible without making it a video.

[Roana]

Just to note, I have some different preferences when clearing the ground level.

Rather than going through the middle, which requires you to clear some of the nastiest pulls on the ground floor (a whole pack of the AEing tinkerers, a pull with two Wreckers), I like to do the left and the right side separately. It's a couple more pulls total, but the benefit is that they are overall easier. Mechano-Lord Capacitus is then tanked with the tank standing in the middle of the eastern edge of the depression that he patrols, which keeps almost all the bombs contained within the depression, and you have plenty of room to move around after polarity shifts.

By the way, from what I can tell from my combat logs, Pathaleon's adds do not spawn based on a percentage of his health but based on a timer. The first batch will spawn at about 20 seconds into the fight, the second batch 45-50 seconds later.

[Flintridge]

Aside from the tinkeres i prefer the left side, jsut because you can get both gatekeepers. A neat trick for the tinkeres is if you have a mage that can Iceblock, clear to the elevator door have the mage steal the fire shield form the caster mob. Then the mage runs over to the tinker group , iceblocks and that usually takes em down alot if not kill most of them.

[brain9h]

Good guide, that's pretty much the right way to do it.

I'd add... that the more I play, the less I prefer CC, and that goes for all instances.

It's just bad to stop between pulls and mark everybody, wait for everything, say 'rdy?', and then pull. Losing 1 minute between pulls will make your run last extra 30 minutes or more. It adds up real bad. Think of it during the course of weeks/months... Worst thing is having to wait for a rogue to go sap ZZZzzzz....

I just pull, and multitank everything, marking the skull on the fly for focused DPS. If the pull involves 2 casters, 1 is marked skull for kill-first, other is marked kill-second and can be kept stunned/dazed/blind/etc. A single prot warrior can easily neutralize a single caster type, so in case of 2 casters pulls + melees, I tank the melees, disturb the 2nd caster and completly ignore the 1st caster (skull) .

My rotation is thunderclap, (queue cleave), sunder+tab, sunder+tab, demo shout, (queue cleave), thunderclap (repeat). If they hit hard you can always fit a disarm between, and never waste a single concussion blow.

I dont even stop for mage/warlock mana, as long as healer has mana, its fine. When dos complain I say 'Just give it 6 secs beween casts', and drink quicker.

Everybody seems to prefer this quick-fast-fun approach to tanking 5-mans

And... we wipe less... actually we almost never wipe on thrash anymore. Thats because with the dynamical approach everybody is ready and willing to take action, your reflexes are sharpened, everybodies skill is being put at use.

The "traditional" approach on the contrary, makes people lazy and unfocused. Waiting between pulls and waiting for the tank to mark what everybody should do makes them unready for quick change, not prepared for problems, not willing to take action and control of the moment when things go bad, it is lazy play at its best, give all resposibility to others.

If you try the 'just pull' approach, you just make things better. To make people prepared for it don't be afraid, just do it, next time you enter Mech or Mech Heroic, JUST PULL the first big guy and you will see how much your group is prepared... I've seen all kinds of reactions, its just amusing

ps: and don't forget to CC the netherbinder, he is a pain