[Bigmoomma]

Hi there, I've read through some information in regards to KJ lately that has made me question the strategy my guild is employing and I'm looking for some feedback.

The current strategy employs a Warlock tank main tanking KJ. Our guild is currently running 3 prot warriors in the fight with KJ which to us feels like overkill and our lock tank (who tanks in almost exactly her normal DPS gear as stated in most strat guides). None of us, including the warlock can figure out why for the life of us we're using the warlock tank. Is there some ability I'm missing that isn't listed? Is there some specific reason a warrior cannot tank KJ?

I remember when browsing over some information finding a single entry about how KJ has a knockback AFTER his initial spawning knockback that he uses occasionally. Supposedly it's not that frequent and doesn't hit that hard. I've also heard tell of guilds using feral druids to tank him (due to feral charge countering the knockback). With the addition of warbringer to supliment an intervene or a intercept if really needed I dont see this as being an issue, especially once glyphed.

Our warlock tank, while great DPS, and decent TPS while spamming SP is no post 3.0 warrior. While she does enough TPS to let the DPS pewpew they do have to watch their meters a little more than normal and use agro dropping abilities more frequently. Primarily this is of concern to our ret pally (and we havn't even hit phase 5). Our warriors on the other hand can shelve out rage dependent on the LOW end of things 2400 TPS, up to as high as 4000 TPS maintained based on rage / gear sets. As he isn't a physically hitting boss, gear can be min maxxed even more than normal for TPS.

I'm just looking for some feedback from the community and would like to touch base with some other tanks that have thought about or done this before.

It made sense pre 3.0 due to lack of warbringer / bears taking more spdmg / fel armor for heals, but now? It seems like (atleast for us) we're gimping our raid an extra DPS slot by using her as a tank when a warrior could do it just as easily at the same level if not better.

If I'm missing some mechanic PLEASE tell me I feel like I must be overlooking something.

I wont have a chance to get back in on KJ until monday, but feedback as soon as possible would be appreciated so I can talk with our Tanks / GMs / Raid leaders about it.

[Gwailo]

Just forget the warlock tanking strat and use a warrior or druid in DPS gear. Seen a hunter do it though. Warlocks just don't put out enough damage/threat as they did before (this could be objectively wrong).

[Blindlabel]

The knock back is hardly an issue assuming that you're positioned correctly. Protection Warriors in DPS gear can easily produce the highest amount of threat possible on Kil'jaeden. I've tanked Kil'jaeden as Protection and Mortal Strike, never had any problems with it.

[bludwork]

We used a warlock tank last week on our first go at it. Switched it to me tanking this week and it works just fine, plus frees up a warlock to actually do some dps. Warrior or feral tank is much better imo.

Phase1 is a little tough if you don't have a hunter you're susceptible to random knockbacks etc. Just make sure to put vigiliance on a mage or a high dpers (not healer, healer aggro is bugged and won't give you any threat).

P2+ you'll have more than enough time to build a huge aggro lead when dps starts doing orbs and reflections.

[Kavtor]

I see no reason not to use a warrior with warbringer and imp. def stance now. But a druid will work with feral charge, and we use a prot pally, and he does just fine.

But with the change to salv, using a warlock is just silly. My guys tried that the first night on him in 3.0 when I wasn't there to call them stupid.

[ttocs]

I tanked our first KJ kill last week, as a prot warrior.

For shits and giggles, I pretty much used full tanking gear, with BV trinkets. In tanking gear it's a bit more manageable - pre 3.0 (when we were actually able to get to him), I was tanking him as a hybrid DPS/tanking spec (0/31/30, or 33/15/13) to get the most threat I could out of it. I was DW with a tanking set, using MS or BT on cooldown with sunders to fill in the gaps.

It was much, much harder as a prot warrior pre-3.0 to generate the constant 2K+ TPS that was supposedly required.

He doesn't melee hard (he crit me for like 1000 in fury gear) at all, and while your warlock is tanking, the highest melee DPS gets punted anyway.

With the new mechanics ("baked in" salv), it's probably best that you get a tank to tank KJ now, since you can't just salv the raid sans warlock.

That and apparently warlock DPS (that isn't affliction) isn't nearly as good as it used to be.