Nightbane

[Shortypop]

So, my guild summoned nightbane for the second week last night. Last time it took us about 4 tries to down him so we were pretty optimistic about our chances last night, but couldnt get him down due to losing healers in flight phase and dps when he landed.

We had a couple of lower geared dps, which I think might have been causing some of the problems (our healers weren't having problems keeping me alive), but I wanted to ask two tank specific questions.

1. Last time I was targeted for his shadow blast (?) ability that he does while flying, whereas this time our priest got targetted Was it just bugged last time, as I gather its meant to target a healer or is there anything I can do as a tank to increase my chance of getting targetted (I have the hp to survive it, our priest is a lot more difficult )

2. This time I was having problems picking Nightbane up when he landed. I saw online this morning that some people recommend the dps and healers falling back to their previous places before he lands - does this make picking him up easier?

Any other suggestions would be great

[Noraxe]

We did him first time on sunday. And the RL just spammed her macro about people running back to their places before he lands. Also I think we did it abit differnt then others we had dps on my right side + 1 healer(that focuse on the dps casters), my left side healer(focusing on me and the rogue).
Poor dancing by me, but third try

[Anchor]

About 12secs before he comes into land we have all our dps and healers drop back to their original spots and I usually get a miss direct from one of our hunters.

This strat works pretty well for us.

[Xhathor]

1. Last time I was targeted for his shadow blast (?)

Smoking Blast

ability that he does while flying, whereas this time our priest got targetted Was it just bugged last time, as I gather its meant to target a healer or is there anything I can do as a tank to increase my chance of getting targetted (I have the hp to survive it, our priest is a lot more difficult )

As I experience it's simple based on the threat he get's after he took off.
It's normaly a healer who get this. If you have a Paladin, let him start healing with righteous fury or a Shaman with chain heal. As damage is physical they will mitigate more by armor than a squishy priest or druid. Just get them dispelled for the fire DoT.
To get the blast as warrior, it can happen, but it's not normal.
wowwiki says he will aggro via heal threat but once I had aggro (maybe a deep wound) sometimes our warlock gets the aggro (maybe his DoTs).

2. This time I was having problems picking Nightbane up when he landed. I saw online this morning that some people recommend the dps and healers falling back to their previous places before he lands - does this make picking him up easier?

Our tactic is:
All run to the tank as soon as he takes off. Tank takes three or four steps towards the group.
As soon as the rain of bones starts all ranged and healers run back to their original position.
Melee pick up skeletons.

So 10 seconds before he lands tank step back to his spot.
As I tanked him I simply took the lonely skull nearly midways the terrace as a mark, took him as target and started pounding my shield slam button til it got off. Was easy to get him every time. Sometimes I had to turn him a little bit but not really much.

[Shortypop]

His threat seems a little random for the smoking blast as my main healer was a pally with RF on and it went to our priest everytime. Ironically I think part of the problem was that this time i stayed still and everyone came to me for the flight phase whereas last week I could never remember to stand still and always met everyone halfway between my tank spot and the rest

Oh well, resets today so another shot at him over the weekend, thanks for all the good advice

[Karaja]

We fight him the same way as the above poster, really easy fight if you just take it slow an easy. I like to think that the fight is a ony with a dash of nef. We start off tanking him by the skull for a marker. I am usually the hunter so I have misdirect up about 5 secs before the landing, and pull him str8 to the tank. We also have a pally that basically spam heals himself to pull the shadow bolt aggro. We usually down him first attempt as long as the healers dont catch a fear. As a hunter I try an stay right under the tank an at max distance, this usually seems to for some reason have me targeted for the burning earth thing. It seems to keep the healers and the other ranged dps out of it.

[Belak]

My guild does essentially the same things described here, and I've also kind of wondered about the smoking blast aggro during the flight times.

What frequently happens is that I try to grab the attention of as many skellies as possible by spamming thunder clap, spreading shield slams around, etc., while the rest of the raid uses someone else (bear or dps warrior) as the main assist.

About 75% of the time, this seems to be enough to make me the smoking blast target instead of our priests. Wish I could make it more reliable, but it's better than nothing for us.

[veneretio]

The smoking blast is based on healing aggro. As a tank you will get healing aggro when you are given stuff like Earthshield and Prayer of Mending. It's pretty fantastic how much a Shaman/Priest combo can push the healing aggro on you for this fight. It won't last on you the whole time, but it'll certainly give the healers a little breathing time before they have to heal everyone + themselves.

Our group has people fall back to their spots immediately. It lets us know if someone has agg because the skeleton is running after them rather than just standing their destroying a clothy. Not to mention from range players pull aggro at 130% making your tanks job on adds that much easier.

[Belak]

Hmm. That's what I thought originally too. Have to pay more attention to that in the future.

Anybody know if lifebloom counts for me too? I've read varying reports, but nothing definitive.

[Shortypop]

"It's pretty fantastic how much a Shaman/Priest combo can push the healing aggro on you for this fight."

Apart from prayer of mending and earthshield (which I get given at the beginning of the fight) care to give more details - also do you mean use PoM as he takes off or during the fight or?

My knowledge of healers isn't great but I can pass on any suggestions to our wonderful healing team - usually for nightbane it consists of a holy pally, a holy priest and a resto shammy - anything that might make this fight easier, especially while we're still learning, would be great.

[Taowlie]

I've tanked him a few times, and I'm not sure if it gave me aggro on nightbane or not but when he was in the air I was pretty much spamming demo should / tclap. Other than that I would just run around shield slamming/ taunting skeletons off the healers, generally when he landed I would usually have aggro and hit him with a shield slam... Dunno, worked for me