[nethervoid]

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====================== INSTANCE: STEAM VAULTS ======================
================================================== ============

This guide will help new tanks cut down on the steep learning curve of tanking a new instance. It covers:

- entry requirements
- group makeup
- trash types and packs
- marking and kill order
- pulling and killing
- boss strats
- changes in heroic mode
- links to more info
- glossary

It will be as quick and dirty as possible, so as to act as a desk reference for quick reading while getting ready for the instance this guide covers.

A star by a word or term means it is covered in the glossary.


===================== ENTRY REQUIREMENTS =====================

None.


======================== GROUP MAKEUP ========================

= Avg mob pack size =
4 or 5 (no elite 6 packs afaik)

= Trash Types =
--- Naga (Humanoid) - Majority
--- Moss and Water Elementals (Elemental) - Minority
--- Slavemasters (Humanoid) - Minority
--- Gnomes (Humanoid) - Minority

= Applicable CC =
--- Rogue - Sap: Humanoid only
--- Hunter - Trap: All mobs
--- Mage - Sheep: Humanoid only
--- Priest - MC*: Humanoid only
--- Warlock - Seduce: Humanoid only - Banish: Elementals

= Group makeup =
Tank
Healer
DPS
CC
CC


=========================== TRASH ============================

=== Mob Types and Deadly Abilities ===

= Naga Packs =
-- Siren (Humanoid): AoE Fear
-- Oracle (Humanoid): AoE Silence | Heal
-- Engineer (Humanoid): Net (roots tank & ignores tank)
-- Sorcerer (Humanoid): No deadly abilities
-- Warrior/Myrmidion: No deadly abilities

= Water Elemental Packs =
-- Tidal Surger (Elemental): No deadly abilities
-- Steam Surger (Elemental): No deadly abilities

= Moss Elemental Mob =
-- Bog Overlord: Trample on engage (knockdown) | Poison (stacking) | Very hard hitting

= Slavemaster Packs =
-- Slavemaster: No deadly abilities
-- Dreghood Slave: No deadly abilities

= Leper Gnome Packs =
-- Leper Gnome (Humanoid): No deadly abilities

=== Marking / Kill Order ===

Mobs are listed in order of kill priority. Obviously if mob is CCed, leave it alone.

= Naga Packs =
CC Sirens and Oracles - Kill them last (most deadly)
If CC breaks on these and can't re-CC, focus fire them ASAP.

Moon/Star on Oracle - Sheep or Sap - Watch for mage to be silenced
Blue Square/Purple Diamond on Siren - Trap or MC
Skull on Engineer - Burn it down - Will net tank, and then ignore tank
Red X on Sorceress - Kill at leisure - Spike DPS / Frost nova
Orange Sun on Warrior/Myrmidon - Kill at leisure - Sustained DPS

= Water Elemental Packs =
Skull on Tidal Surger - If you have a lock, banish this guy - Else tank him
Elemental adds - DPS focus fire on each small elemental add until only Tidal Surger is left

= Slavemaster Packs =
Skull on Slavemaster - Focus fire him down
Dregwood Slaves - Ignore these guys

= Leper Gnome Packs =
No order

=== Pulling and Killing ===

= Naga Packs =
If you have a Siren, pull it way, way back, so that nobody gets feared into other mob packs. If you have an Oracle, make sure you burn it down quick, so your healer doesn't get silenced. Also, the Oracle will try to heal. Kick or Shield Bash/Concussion Blow it immediately! If you have an engineer(s), they should be marked skull (killed first), because they have a net ability that will root the tank, and then they proceed to ignore the tank and beat on the party regardless of threat. After net breaks, they will come back to the tank, as he or she should still be at the top of the threat meter. Fight these packs in closed in areas like hallways if possible to cut down on the problem of being feared into adds.

- W/Priest
One way to start the fight if you have a priest is to MC the Oracle/Siren, and allow the pack to kill her off first. To do this you will mark the pack first, and then have the priest MC the Oracle/Siren. When it dies, the tank will have to immediately jump in to grab aggro from the priest. A second way is for the priest to MC after the pull has begun, effectively CCing the MCed target, while also adding that DPS to the pack. The MCed mob can also be used as an offtank to both kill the MCed mob, and indirectly CC the second mob while it's there fighting the MCed mob. You get an extra CC with this tactic.

= Water Elemental Packs =
The Tidal Surger has a knockback effect, so should be tanked up against a wall, if you can. The rest of the group should be focus firing the 'babies', while the tank keeps the Surger busy. After the 'babies' are dead, kill Surger.

= Bog Overlord =
This guy hits like a truck. Burn him down. Be ready to cleanse the tank and others with poison. Tank go max threat, while DPS go max DPS.

= Slavemaster Packs =
Tank the Slavemaster, while grabbing aggro on all slaves. He has a geyser knockback*, so you may want to tank him with your back to a wall. Once you kill the Slavemaster, the slaves will disengage and leave. Try and pull Slavemasters when they are not close to slaves to avoid extra slaves.

= Leper Gnome Packs =
Group of non-elite mobs. Tank grab AoE aggro. Group burn them down. Should be about two packs of around 6-8 of these where you find Mekgineer Steamrigger. Make sure you don't fear any of these into Mekgineer. He will aggro, and wipe your party.


=========================== BOSSES ===========================

=== Hydromancer Thespia - Boss 1 ===

Level 72 Elite Humanoid

= Abilities =

- Lightning Cloud -
She casts this at random group members. Group members should angle their camera to be looking at themselves from almost strait up, so they can see this cloud. Immediately get out from the cloud, as it will 2 or 3 shot most people. This is nature damage.

- Enveloping Winds -
She casts this on a random group member. It's a 5 second stun. If she hits the tank with this, she will continue to hit the tank. It does not work like the Engineer's net from above.

= Strat =

One thing to remember is all group members should rotate their camera angle, so they can see any clouds form over their head throughout this fight. If a cloud forms, get out of that area IMMEDIATELY, else you'll die fast.

Secondly, Thespia will cast her stun on a random group member during the fight. Dispell this, so this group member doesn't get stuck in a Thunder Cloud.

- W/Warlock -

The tank will tank Thespia, while the lock banishes one elemental and keeps the second constantly feared. Tank and spank Thespia, watching out for any Thunder Clouds. With a lock this boss is cake.

- WO/Warlock -

The tank will tank Thespia. If you have an offtank, the offtank can tank one elemental while DPS burn down the other. If you don't have an offtank, the main tank can tank both Thespia and an elemental, but it will put a big strain on healing. DPS will burn down one elemental without the tank holding aggro on it.

Once you have the elementals dead, keep moving Thespia around to avoid her clouds while you DPS her down. This moving is mainly to keep your melee DPS moving too, avoiding her clouds.

=== Mekgineer Steamrigger - Boss 2 ===

Level 72 Elite Mechanical

= Abilities =

- Shrink Ray -
Cast at whoever currently has aggro. Reduces damage done by 35%. Has a chance to backfire. If it hits the tank it's not too big a deal, except for a small reduction to threat and rage gen.

- Sawblade -
AoE attack doing between 1500-200 damage.

- Net -
Immobilizes the target, and does 600-700 damage. He will drop this on the tank. Not sure if this is random target or whoever leads threat. It doesn't harm the tank, as he will continue to focus on him or her.

- Attack of the Gnomes -
At 75%, 50%, and 25% Mekgineer will call 3-4 gnomes out to heal him. These have about 5k hps each. The group needs to focus fire these guys down. As the tank, make sure to AoE these guys, as damage can or will inturrupt their healing of Mekgineer.

- Enrage -
Enrage after 5 minutes. Heroic mode only.


= Strat =

Mek will have 3-4 of those gnomes around him when the tank runs in. Grab all aggro. Group burns down the gnomes while tank builds threat on Mek.

Group should be far away from Mek to avoid his AoE.

When gnomes pop out to heal him at 75, 50, and 25, burn them down ASAP, then resume DPS on Mek.

Easy tank and spank, really.

=== Warlord Kalithresh - Boss 3 ===

Level 72 Elite Humanoid

= Abilities =

- Spell Reflection -
White shield aura that reflects spells back on spellcasters.

- Warlord's Rage -
75% Damage buff and 70% Attack Speed buff if he is allowed to complete the channeling of a container.

- Impale -
Randomly targeted DoT. 500dmg/tick.

= Strat =

Tank grab him, and move him to a water tank. Tank and spank him until he starts to channel a water tank. When he does this, keep tanking him while the group burns down the tank. Don't let him complete the channeling.

Casters will need to watch for the bubble look around him, which signifies spell reflect is up. Wait for it to drop.

Healers need to HoT anyone in the group who Kalithresh targets with his bleed ability.

Easy fight, unless he completes Warlord's Rage.


======================== HEROIC MODE =========================

- Naga Warriors and Myrmidons cannot be MCed
- Mekgineer Steamrigger will Enrage after 5 minutes of fighting


=========================== LINKS ============================

WoWWiki http://www.wowwiki.com/The_Steamvault

More strat in these links.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Hydromancer_Thespia
http://www.wowwiki.com/Mekgineer_Steamrigger
http://www.wowwiki.com/Warlord_Kalithresh


========================== GLOSSARY ==========================

MC - Mind Control (Priest CC ability)
Geyser Knockback - A knockback that throws the character in the air, and also back a tad.

[nethervoid]

This is a rough draft, and an idea I had as a new tank breaking into Outlands instances. It is meant to be a desk reference for new tanks, so they can be proactive in knowing how to handle an instance, but specifically trash packs, which don't seem to be covered in much detail in other guides I've read.

The info stated here comes from personal experience, as well as some info from WoWWiki, especially as some details I forgot even just after running the instance for the first time.

Please post feedback, just remember the guide is meant to be a quick reference instead of a book, as much as can be helped. Also, there are probably errors in this document! Please let me know where they are, as I'm a new tank too, and don't know the intricacies of every class and every possible group makeup.

If there's a good amount of support, I plan on creating one of these for each 5 man. I've already got part of Shadow Labs written.

I know some people will say 'oh this is old news' or 'this is data duplication', so the idea here is it's for new tanks and also mainly for marking and handling trash, which I feel is not sufficiently covered in other guides to create a proactive approach to learning instances instead of a reactive, gold-costly approach to learning, e.g. wiping.

[jtone]

Very nice guide! I'd love to see more of these. I've been using WoWWiki but sometimes it can be hard to extract the useful bits from the other text. I especially like the "Mob Types and Deadly Abilities" and "Marking / Kill Order" parts.

[Tristessa]

Spell Reflect works on the Coilfang Siren's Fear. What you can also do when you first start attacking the Siren, Shield Slam then move to Berserker Stance straight away and activate Berserker Rage.

Try as I might, I can never Bash the Fear mid-cast; can anyone confirm that it's too fast to interrupt? =S

[Ciderhelm]

To add my own remark on the Sirens:

They have no natural inclination to move to the party; they only fear in melee range.

What this means is that if you get the Siren somewhere and have a Hunter, Mage, or Warlock hold aggro on the Siren through DPS, the Siren will never move into melee range, and will never fear, unless she runs out of Mana.

The Siren is primarily a CC and magic DPS mob, not a melee DPS mob. It's not dangerous to let a ranged player tank them, just let the healer know.
ranged class tank them.

[Tristessa]

So if ranged dps holds aggro on Sirens, the only thing they'll do is spam Lightning Bolts?

Interesting.

[SmokeyTheBear]

One thing to keep in mind on the Slavemasters is that you can pull the slaves individually without aggroing anything else. This serves a couple purposes: 1) Squeezing every last bit of rep out of the place, and 2) making the Slavemaster pulls a little easier, since you don't have the slaves running around hitting people until they're freed.

The only thing to remember about doing that is that the slaves have an absurdly flaky aggro table, and will aggro on DPS long before anyone passes you on the threat meter. Luckily, they're not elite and don't hit too hard, even on Heroic.

[SmokeyTheBear]

Speaking of Heroic mode:

If you're running Steam Vaults on Heroic, don't get discouraged when your group falters on the first boss. She is, by far, the hardest boss in there on Heroic. Oddly, Kalithresh is the easiest because he doesn't do anything trickier than on normal (he just takes a little longer to kill). Hydromancer Thespia, on the other hand, likes to do things like: Cyclone the healer and drop a Hurricane on the tank when the tank is at half health or Cyclone a DPSer and simultaneously toss a Hurricane on them (causing almost unavoidable death). She also calls the Hurricanes more frequently and they can sometimes overlap so there are two up at once.

[Roana]

Source: Ciderhelm To add my own remark on the Sirens: They have no natural inclination to move to the party; they only fear in melee range.

This is not quite accurate. The Sirens will move into melee range initially, but give up after a while and start casting Lightning Bolt, so you have to move back far enough until they stop pursuit; then they will indeed just keep casting and not bother with fear.

What this means is that if you get the Siren somewhere and have a Hunter, Mage, or Warlock hold aggro on the Siren through DPS, the Siren will never move into melee range, and will never fear, unless she runs out of Mana.

If you have only one non-CCed Siren, she can also be tanked with Spell Reflection by throwing her lightning bolts back at her. You may have to charge a crab and use Bloodrage before the pull to get enough rage for that in non-heroic mode. Alternatively, a bow/gun pull of the Siren will generally keep her on you long enough to get the rage for Spell Reflection before heal aggro pulls her off.

On a different note, the Engineers' net isn't a complete aggro wipe in my experience, but only partial. That means that an Engineer that DPS isn't beating on will generally stay on you; if you taunt the moment you get netted, the DPS target will also stay on you.

The Slavemasters disarm in addition to the abilities noted above; this may get annoying in 2.3. The slaves themselves randomly wipe aggro at short intervals (though it's generally easy to get it back by using Thunder Clap just after an aggro wipe, or they can be rooted or feared).

Hydromancer Thespia has a Lung Burst ability (DOT) in addition to the abilities listed; her elementals do 1k Water Bolt Volleys. Without a warlock, I generally recommend having the tank grab both elementals and the hydromancer; the main thing that is going to kill you is all the overlapping AEs from the elementals and the hydromancer initially. Once both elementals are down, the rest of the fight becomes easy, and you can get them down faster by not worrying about off-tanking. Damage to the tank is really the least of your issues -- it's the heavy AEs hitting the entire party that are your main worry.

[Andromedea]

I found this guide really helpful when I was tanking SV for the first time (this is my newly 70 alt warrior).

However I had a huge problem with holding aggro on multiples and it was pretty demoralising to see mobs heading for the healer.

I ran with a group comprised of 2 elemental shamans, 1 resto druid, 1 warlock and myself. (Essentially crap-all in terms of CC and lock was not too good at keeping mobs seduced either). I tried my level best to hold the tanked mobs. Run in, thunderclap, shield slam, tab revenge, tab sunder etc etc by the book. But immediately the ele shaman would pull aggro with some retarded huge nuke and then while I'm getting the mob off him, the others head for the resto druid who's tossed me some retardedly huge heal and squish him.

The bosses were all cake. It was the packs that gave us the biggest problems really. Perhaps it was a case of running with a bad setup and no CC but I'm still trying to figure if it was my fault for not holding aggro and if I can improve my approach in any way. It seems to be an awful dilemma between holding aggro on the heavily focus fired mob or preventing the rest from heading for the healer due to heal aggro.

(I apologise if this is somewhat of a thread hijack but since my awful experience was in SV...)