ICC Frost Tanking Question

Hey all! I am a 5.2k gs frost dk tank starting to do ICC10 with a group of dedicated but friendly raiders. We can down the first four bosses no problem, but can't seem to be able to kill Festergut/Rotface. Our raid leader says this is because my fellow tank and I need better gear.

Is she right? Here's my Armory profile: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...aker&cn=Frigth Does my gear look decent enough for ICC10? Are there any upgrades I should get?

I should also note that I have 60 Frost Emblems now; what would be the best upgrade to buy with them?

Thanks!

I should also note that this is mostly about me dying on Festergut. My healer goes OOM trying to keep me up, and I tend to instantly die the second the other tank taunts him off me.

You have a few enchants and gems that should be changed. Less expertise and hit, more stam. At the very least, get the 40 stam to bracers.

But really, your gear is not bad, and you pick up all the important survival talents. Unless you're tanking with your back to the boss, I doubt it's you.

For Frosties, save up 95 for Cataclysmic Chestguard. Not only is this a huge upgrade in both stam and armor, but it also is a ton of threat (expertise yum).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Frigth

I should also note that this is mostly about me dying on Festergut. My healer goes OOM trying to keep me up, and I tend to instantly die the second the other tank taunts him off me.

---

This is kinda a stupid question... but does he taunt before 10 stacks? tanks should be switching at every 9 stacks, 8 is tolerable the first time but the debuff wears off on the 9th

Blood tank here, and having the same problem.
My spec is fine, enchants and gems are all stam related.
around 36k hp ub, but when I ran with a pug I could never stay up for the fight. Tried 3 times and everyone bailed.



Meaning, generally...for simple fights like this..if a healer cant get a tank up in a simple taunt-switch fight like gormok or saurfang, then theres really nothing the tank can do about it. Unless he was raiding with sub-par gear and his spec and gear was a bit weird.

Not really your problem, is my guess. its a healing intensive fight. Get a holy pally. Beacon the MT and keep healing you.

Thanks for the input guys. We've been taunting at 8 stacks, and the transition is normally smooth. Typically I die before I'm even at that point, though. It's gotten to the point where I pop cooldowns when the boss is at 2 stacks of inhale blight instead of 3, just to try to stay alive long enough for the next taunt switch.

My plan all along was to try and get the Cataclysmic Chestguard, but my groups failness has caused me to consider [Verdigris Chain Belt] for the extra two sockets for more +30 stam gems. I'll be replacing my gloves and wrist enchants with something that grants stam, and replacing all my gems that don't grant stam with the +30 ones (with the exception of one Guardian Dreadstone for my meta req.)

Thanks guys for the help! You've made me a better raider, lols. I guess it's time to find better heals for the group.

Oh, forgot to ask in the post, so should I wait for the Cataclysmic Chestguard or let my impatience get the better of me and go for the belt?

Belt is BiS.

This is what I did on my pally and dont regret it a bit.

I got a drop from voa, got another piece to get 2pt10, then got the gloves, then the belt, then the cloak, then the libram (sigil, for you)
the belt and cloak are pretty much best in slot for tanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rriparetti

Belt is BiS.

---

And the Chest is BiS until you get into 277 tier.

I'd still go with the chest, personally. It's a huge upgrade for you, the belt isn't bad but the chest is bigger IMO

True. On my pally I have still the t9 chest, need to get rid of that asap. I have the t9 chest and the boots, but I still feel like 95 emblems is damn hard to come by.
I mean...alright. 2x7 = 14...plus 5 for the weekly, 4 for VoA. 23 so far. Now go do ICC10, say you're in a pug and usually get 2 wings down. Thats 14 more emblems. 37. Lets hope to gosh RNG loves you and you get a weekly in one of the wings. Thats 42. Same with ICC25, cept most pugs get 4/12. Thats 8 emblems and a chance of 2 weeklies, from Deathwhisper or the frost giant. 50. plus 5 from the daily. 55.

55 emblems in 1 week if stars align. Meh. Thats 2 weeks of raiding for the possibility of getting the chest. Gotta love RNG :P

Taunt at 9 stacks in 10 man...8 is not enough with only 2 tanks. It'd certainly be worth checking your combat log to make sure you weren't dying from the 10th stack explosion.

Your HP are also a little low, thanks to all of those Exp/Hit gems. At 260% damage, you're not leaving the healers much margin.

Apart from that, the general advice is, Festergut is a tank and healer check (well, and DPS, thanks to the short enrage...). Make sure you're rotating your cooldowns on the 3rd inhale, and others in your party have a plan for things like Pain Suppression, etc. Especially when gear is still marginal, healers should be spam healing the active tank. (Meaning also that healers need to know who the active tank is. In my group, the active tank says "8 stacks" in vent and then "TAUNT!" at the 9th stack, so healers have a few seconds' warning to be ready for the tank swap.)

My co-tank and I always taunt at 8 stacks and then as soon as the stacks drop after that. Make sure you watch your threat after the co-tank taunts; drop righteous fury, frost pres, etc so that you don't pull aggro and pick up an extra stack. Remember, icy touch threat is insane and it is easy to accidentally jump your co-tank's threat in frost. If you are dying before that, make sure you are doing everything you can to maximize armor such as black heart and glyph of indom as well as stam (EH=armor+stam).

Other than that, the healers have to be up to it. You can help on the taunt transition by warning healers before the taunt and with an indestructable pot just before you taunt (this isn't where you said you have the issue, however).

If the dps is sufficient, 8 stacks should be fine. And like Sifued said, you dont want to accidentally out-threat the tank during the fight so I'd wait several seconds and then start doing the normal rotation, err in your case I guess its a priority.

Fester hits harder and harder on tank till exhale .. The fight cycles from raid taking more damage at start to tanks taking more damage at exhale then resets again.

You may need to cycle CD's if you have a weaker healer and pot and get shields from shaman or priest to help if available.

The OP wasn't getting to the 9 stack point and dying somewhere between 6-9 which is the usual and means healer isn't up to job or you are taking too much damage to heal.

If you are dying with different healers you are probably going to have change something either better gear or change spec. I know from running both specs on my DK tank at the sort of 5200 GS Frost is currently providing better survability you can check differences via a simulator like RAWR and change your talents around.

The basic problem is you are running gear with HP's of around 33-35K which even with the 30% buff only brings you up to the marginal notional limit we recommend for going past 1st four of 40K and you have a big shortage of armour.

There would be some mixes of gear/spec around these limits that will be fine and I am sure some readers will have such setups but not all.

If you have recount, check the death log. If you're not being spam healed, that's why you died.

The belt is better to get first than the chest, imo. It usually provides the biggest upgrade and getting BP of the white knight as a temporary is a very good option.

You HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO run cooldowns on festergut or you will die if he's at 3 inhales, I even use minor cooldowns on inhale 2. If a tank dies and didn't use every button reasonably possible to stay alive, than his death was just as much his fault as his healers.

Also don't get T10 pants, go for pillars of might, T10 pants are the weakest pants avail in every tier and for 90% of all situations, pillars of might are BiS for all tiers.

(p.s. f u gendered language people, his is technically the proper unknown pronoun so I'm gonna use it because typing out his/her every time looks stupid)

Hello, Frost tank here, I would upgrade your cloak, it is the biggest upgrade for you on your gear and would make a huge difference on your stam, with the cloak you have u get +89 stam, with the setinel winter coak you get +124 stam plus a socket so with the blue stam gem thats a total of 154 stam, also get the skeleton key thereafter,and with the stam from the trinket which is 228 thats a total of 372 stam right there, keep the glyph of indominability in your bag and use it for melee intensive fights such as saurfang, but use the skeleton key for all you magic based fights. Also i would level your mining up to 450, u get toughness rank 6 which is a 60 stam bump for nothing.