So I wanted to one man tank Kara ...

[Rhastah]

I've looked everywhere but can't find a thread on bear solo tanking Kara. These days prot pallies have zero trouble solo tanking the whole thing, and from this post I can see prot wars are doing it with only a little trouble.

What i'm looking for is a strategy for solo tanking it as a bear. My GM asked me last night if I thought I could do it because we were low on healers so he thought about respeccing holy (pally) and let me tank it. Made me curious if anyone has done it before as a bear, so I started looking for info on how to do it with a single bear tank, can't find anything.

If anyone has any links for a strategy or youtube videos of a bear doing it I'd be greatly appreciative.

[Vapes]

You can bear tank in almost the same manner as a prot warrior or pally. Most of the mentioned methods will work with a bear. As for Ushers, it's been mentioned you can grounding totem the Ice Tomb (I've seen it work, checked the combat log etc.) Shackle one, put up a grounding totem and you're solid.

Any plate/mail can do Netherspite's red beam for ya, just switch them out (that shaman that is grounding totem and your pally healer for instance can switch out and you can dance your phase in and out).

You should have an easier time w/ skeletons on Nightbane than a warrior, and can just Fear Ward or Tremor Totem through the fears and what not. Other than that... Moroes? I've not tried it but if the dual-tanking of an add and moroes works to break gouge, you win.

Most other stuff is a 1 tank fight anyway, and the ushers are the only trash you'd have to worry about, and that's been covered. Is there any fight in particular you're not sure how to do as a bear?

[Hadan]

Don't underestimate the ability of a holy pally to offtank. I ran kara awhile ago with one prot warrior tank (I was on my mage) and we had the holy pally building threat on ushers to pick them up when the tank got frozen. Righteous fury + holy shock + heals ensured that he was 2nd on threat. He was also able to help tank adds on Nightbane pretty effectively. Free action potions are also pro, but I would think it would slow you down if you waited for the CD between each pull of the ushers.

[orcstar]

Due to the OT being killed early in the fight I had to solotank Moroes, luckily I read a bit about it:
I went and go stand ON our paladin, then right after he came out of vanish, I would face him with my back, then the paladin would eat the gouge, I turned around and continued to build threat, counted in my head to 15 and faced him with my back again and pala would eat the gouge.

[Ceravantes]

If you stand on top of moroes, with your back to him, you can continue to attack him and he can't gouge him. You do take more damage, but really....it's oly kara and if youa re single tanking it, you are well beyond that bit of extra damage really being an issue.

[mnswhit]

Like someone has mentioned earlier, Pallies do have it much easier when it comes to Solo tanking Kara.

Attumen: My conc aura and holy shield keeps aggro on the rider, everyone just focuses.
Moroes: I don't use shackle on this, even it it's available. I have the group burn down all 4 adds while I tank all of them. then, I keep Blessing of Sacrifice on whoever is second in threat. when I get gouged/blinded 1 hit on the 2nd person, and I'm back into tanking. Most people who can hold 2nd place pretty steady usually has the health to get hit once.
Maiden: probably the only fight that really gives me any issues due to silence, but if your dps watches their threat meters, not an issue
Opera: romeo/juliet is easy, big bad wolf is solo tank anyways, Oz can be quite well CC'd with Fears on lion, fire stun scarecrow, and any ranged or melee can kite tin man.
Nightbane: AOE tanking in flight phase is easy enough. Fears my biggest issue, but normally someone in the group can help me break it (tremor totem/fear ward)
Illhoof: I tank em all. have a mage or lock throw some AOE every now and then so I don't have too much on me.
Shade: can't tank him anyways, so I throw on healing gear.
Netherspite: I usually stick a rogue w/ evasion and preparation in red beam, or a holy pally if I got one. We spend more time out of the red beam than in it. Jump en long enough to get another tick or 3, and back out.

[Schleppy]

Attumen: Just have dps give you a slightly bigger head start on midnight since you will have a dicey period right when Attumen spawns, you need that cushion the first few times, once you get experienced it will be a snap.

Moroes: I've tanked the ret pally and Ms warrior while a rogue offtanks the holy priest until dps killed the shadow priest. With the varying swing timers on the mobs gouge will break almost instantly. Poison cleansing totem removes the blind, it still works off the old blind mechanic where it is a poison. Misdirect is your friend here early on and make sure you get your back against a wall. Early on the MS warrior gives a big challenge to a group that isnt overgearing the place, but after a few runs he is nothing. The prot warrior is a joke and I hate when my group kills him before Moroes. Spell reflect alone basically will hold aggro on the pally once you get a few dev's on him and a SS for the time it takes dps to burn down the priests.

Nightbane: I have them collapse on me and have an alert dps'er mark the elites to be single-targetted down. No AoE heals allowed until I get aggro on all the non-elites and the elite being killed second. AoE down the non-elites then have them spread back out from his landing spot. All hots must be gone by the time the skele's are, otherwise it can screw things up without a misdirect.

Illhoof: Dps tanks kil'rek and we have a lock to seed-spam the imps. I TC/DS constantly to try and hold a few on me for the free rage. After Illhoof hits 50% I pick up Kil'rek when he spawns for the added rage.

Shade: Dev/WW/interrupt/bandage, tank the add's until either shade or I die.

Opera: I'll "tank" tin man and initially pick up the wolf and get off the first fear so he keeps coming back to me and our lock doesnt risk death. The others are nothing special so nothing worth commenting over. Our group after 44 kara runs now has gotten romeo and juliet exactly twice, so I dont feel qualified to even comment on that.

[TheMainFrame]

I Never bring a second tank to Kara... what a waist of time unless your barely geared


Moroes is easy..

Kill Order Skull, Cross, Square, Moroes, Diamond

Just tank him and throw some agro on X.. lets the rouges tank skull cause he will drop uber fast. then they kill X... Square trapped till its ready to kill.. prob one trap if ya move fast... Diamond is shackled (prob the healer of the adds)... after Square drops you all take moreos.. Diamond stays shackled and the hunter drops a ice trap under diamond just for peace of mind... If you really dont have a tank used to soloing the fight a fury warrior makes good offtank

Opera is the only real challand with a solo tank if you get Romeo And Juliette... unless that fury warrior can tank em =)

And the free potion pots work like a charm.. thanks for the tip

[TomHuxley]

I've solo tanked everything but Spite and Moroes. Tried Moroes but I didn't know the backing into him trick at the time so we end up bringing in an alt toon usually. Tried Spite once but basically we had too many new people we were trying to drag through (happens even with an off tank if the OT doesn't understand the fight).

Attumen and Illhoof are just your basic "control two mobs" situation. The skeletal ushers often kill one or two even with spell reflect. I've never had a problem with the large golems before Curator, I just tell DPS to give me a 5 count to build agro on both. Skeletons on Nightbane are usually fine as long as DPS single-targets the leets; spamming seed or a mage AOE usually results in losing DPS too early in the fight.

What I'm happiest about though is I'm consistently hitting about 550 DPS on Aran these days when I throw my DPS gear on for that fight. I'm usually able to out DPS the 2-3 people we are trying to gear up; having a prot warrior out DPS you usually motivates them to work on their gear and rotations (and most importantly opens them up to suggestions).

Plus it's fun.

[CraZySacX]

I've never had a problem with the large golems before Curator, I just tell DPS to give me a 5 count to build agro on both.

As a side note here, the two golems at the bottom of the ramp after Curator can be skipped if you hug the left wall. After those two, the rest can be single pulled. The only trash we have occasional trouble with is the Ushers (grounding totems and well timed spell reflects really can help here) when we one tank.

[Hinderer]

Pardon a Pally tank for jumping in, I've one man tanked Kara for the last several (make that many) weeks due to a shortage of tanks in our guild. Keep in mind, progression-wise, Kara is the only raid clear. Attumen, Maiden, Prince, Nightbane, etc etc, all pretty straight forward and one man tank fights anyway (yes, I really don't think any warrior or druid worth their salt is struggling to hard with controlling two mobs for Attumen/Midnight... gear not withstanding).

Moroes fight is helpful to have a pair of shackles (Holy priest heals and Spriest DPS for us), but once they break or things go to hell, I end up tanking it all any way. Easiest way i've found is to down one of the adds while letting consecrate and ret aura establish threat early on. By then the occasional Judgment and and Exorcism will be just fine, just only face him long enough to cast.

Though we could use some help for Netherspite. Our only kill on him is on the one run our other tank (warrior, better geared than I am actually) was able to come. We are a small guild, and our Kara runs are usually with mostly squishies. We do take a shammy healer, resto druid, and a BM hunter (sometimes two). Rest of DPS is cloth, cloth, and a little cloth for spice. We have not been willing to sacrifice the shammy healer if things go bad.

What kinds of tactics should we be using for the phases we don't have
me tanking? We're kind of stalled here, and only here.

[mnswhit]

as much as I hate putting a healer in the red beam, the resto druid is your best bet, if you tend to go clothy heavy. the real trick to tanking spite is more on the stam than the avoidance/crit. have your resto druid put on whatever stam gear he can, and get him to stay out of the red beam as much as possible, jumping in long enough to get healed, and then back out...that'll allow him to keep his max health up higher. since he probably wont have alot of def/resil or dodge, the extra health will keep him alive.

Another option is to make sure one of your hunters that you bring has Deterence (11 points into survival) and have them tank. just make sure they don't pop it right off. they'll have the health at first to take hits, but if they wait a bit then hit deterence, they can continue to tank the last 10 seconds of red phase.

I pally solo tank it each week, my offtank on netherspite is usually a rogue with alot of dodge, or a balance druid with a stam/feral set.

[kemsozuoz]

I have a warrior and for the last 6 months i am running kara for badges and always I am tanking alone.. never needed an off tank.. our dps probably is very high ...

I never use cc in kara such as a priest or hunter..

Attumen is really easy to tank alone.. just keeping two mobs only.. if u have some1 to decurse its really easy to do

Moroes also doesnt have problems even without ccing any mob there..
dont tank skull pure all out nuke and tank the other mobs..
I rarely get gouge there maybe 1 for the whole fight..

Nightbane can be really easily solo tanked.. first and second adds use tab devastate and shield slam fast with tc adn demo .. u should really easily keep them of aoe if u are fast at sundering up the mobs... third pack adds use tc and demo then 5 secs after aoe starts use challenging shout to get rest to u..

Netherspite is the place where u will need another one to take red in second portal phase.. a holy pala if u have or if u dont any mail user can do it really easily..

we run kara with 1 tank 7 dps and 2 healers.. longest we finish is 2 hour 15 mins.. shortest we did it in 1 hour 53 mins and there was still room for improvement..

[Daavos]

I would have expected this type of post on the forums. "I solo'd kara /flex!"

IMO taking only one tank to kara is idotic.

Sure, if you're on a badge run in your T5/T6 gear and your tank is super competent you don't need an off-tank. But this is prefect opertunity for your guild/friends to gear up one their alts or their off spec, and acquire tanking gear and skills.

Everyone qq's about the lack of tanks but taking only one tank to Kara is just another form of not taking Blue geared tanks to Heroics.

[Hinderer]

I would have expected this type of post on the forums. "I solo'd kara /flex!"

IMO taking only one tank to kara is idotic.

Sure, if you're on a badge run in your T5/T6 gear and your tank is super competent you don't need an off-tank. But this is prefect opertunity for your guild/friends to gear up one their alts or their off spec, and acquire tanking gear and skills.

Everyone qq's about the lack of tanks but taking only one tank to Kara is just another form of not taking Blue geared tanks to Heroics.

Yes, you are correct here on quite a few points. No Kara run should be made that doesn't at least consider taking alts that need gear. Also, it is very easy to get caught up in "I'm uber-l33t cuz I don't need help." However, speaking for myself, and probably for a few other people here, I know I would relish being able to take any other kind of tank. Problem is, we don't have them. We have two other warriors, but they are alts of our primary DPSers, and as small as we are as a guild, we still need them in that role. That leaves the issue of out MT who is only able to run currently once every couple of weeks. End result: I solo tank, or we don't run. Please don't assume we're all trying to show off our epeen's here, some of us just need to know if there is another way to see content.

My apologies to the rest of the forum community if I sound like I'm trolling after that.

[mnswhit]

If I made it sound like I was /flexing my solo abilities in Kara, it wasn't the point. I do it every week, yes, but that doesn't mean I don't try to take someone. Every Tank class has a dps spec, at least one of my dps in my group is always gearing to be the next tank. I agree with Daavos's statement. There are way to few tanks out there. But if the person I bring is willing to go or stay dps spec for the run, then by all means, it's an extra dps that we wouldn't normally have. and if your geared enough to solo tank kara, chances are you won't be rolling on the drops, so it's like free loot to a fury warrior, or a ret paladin.

There's an occasional time when I either can't find someone to fit that category, or I'm in too big of a hurry to wait around to find someone like that, and I'll do the run without. My main reason for running kara at all is, for badges. But for the most part, I like taking a fury warrior, or feral druid. comes in handy when a healer all of a sudden has to afk, or I just feel like being lazy