Tanking Hydross?

[Bodasafa]

Ok last night our guild had the first real go at Hydross in SSC.

We had our resists maxed out on the respective tanks for their phases and our OT's were mixed geared well for the adds.

Our dps did well downing the adds and then getting back onto Hydross.

Heres the Question:

How long are you tanks staying on Hydross before the switch?

At what mark % are you begining to move to pass her off to the other tank?

We tired it where we held her till the 50% mark moved to 100% mark and that didnt give the dps enough time. So we swithed it to stopping dps and passing her off at the 100% mark moved to 250% mark. That helped but still i think we need to be on her longer.

Our best attempt we got her to 46% before the enrage timer went off and that was with us switching tanks at the 100%/250% change over.

We use Bigwigs addon and when the timer was at 5 seconds to the 250% mark i called to stop dps and started dragging her back to the poles for the frost phase where the other tank was waiting.

Need some help to understand how long we need to stay in for.

How many swaps are you guys making on a sucsessful down before the enrage timer hits.

Any input is appreciated, thank you, -Boda

[Lilred]

hey glad to see you pushing hydross.

here are soem things we do we stop all dots at mark 3.5 we take all dps off at mark 4.25 and start moving her.

With the tanking the frost tank picks her up in the first rotation of course. The NR tank just builds a 100% rage then moves to the transition line. at mark 4.25 we start the move when she nears the line the next tank starts spamming devistate, soon as she phase changes he will SS HS dev spam for max snap agro. Might look up a macro in the macros forum. I made one just for the fight for instant threat.

ok with the add tanks dont worry to much about resist they need to just build as much agro as possible. pally tanks and druids are great for them. If you are using a pally have him pick the the adds where he cant pull hydross of the MT at the time. Have them move the adds once everyone has agro on their mobs/bosses to hydros then seed them up and arc explode them down. This till throw more damage on the boss.

We usually down her in 4-6 min. it is about killing the add as fast as possible to keep the enrage timer down so the dps can blow her up as much as possible. Usign the add aoe on the boss helps a bit too.

Also some HoT's from healers can cause whipes so make sure they are not healer agro inducing hots. I believe lifebloom and prayer of mending will be fine.

I would also have your healers say around the transition line so that if they do pull agro on a transition the move to the corresponding side is quick and easy.

Hope this helps.

[dude]

Just started Hydross also. Reading Lilred's post made me think of a few wipe problems that I should have prevented by altering the guild strat.

One of the big problems with DoT/HoT aggro isn't the sudden death of one person, but rather the transition line bounce causing a form shift and 4 adds again

Thank you for reminding me to keep those guys shifting with the tanks. Makes life easier when learning.

As for the original poster, we only tried Hydross 1 day so far so this is just a first impression, but let me see if I can tell you how we were doing it.

Stop DoTs/HoTs a bit after the 4, drag across during the 5, and the tank picking Hydross up should be walking back with me with good rage and start to pound it like LilRed said. Cross the line, that tank keeps it while I peal off to help on Adds. Then back and forth.

Things that boned us...

1) A totem o.O
2) Slow DPS Think we only had 2 good shots of 80% on first phase the rest barely scratched 88%
3) Healers not knowing when the transition took place and not picking up the correct tank/healing the new tank before he actually tanks.
4) Adds on Healers (Pure Form) for a few attempts
5) Stack Debuffs too high on lesser people

Now, #1 can be delt with by reminding the shammy totems can aggro and to not drop after a point.
#2 is just well...not part of your post, so I'll skip it
#3 is..also...not part of your post, but if your healers do need help with this, just remind them, it is when Hydross changes colors and adds spawn, also when his target of target changes to the other tank. A verbal heads up I guess...could help this...
#4 Pure Forms aren't Frost Nova-able. This is where the OTs really need to umm..well..OT.
#5 Even though the tanks are max'd resist...the other people are not. A globe after 100% can very well spell the end for a clothie. So 100% is, for us at least, the point of stop the Dots and focus on Hydross, kill hots after a bit, fade and pull him across when 250% is about to ding.

So a lot like what LilRed said.

I think BOTH of our problems (OP and myself) isn't the transition waitings (you'd guarantee a death or two if you keep longer than 250) but DPS.

[Ceravantes]

Basically like what has been said, save that the adds can be stunned, which helps with pick ups. War stomp and you can have the previous form tank conc blow one. Stop dots 5 seconds before mark 4 hits, I call dps off about 7 sec before mark 5 hits and just truck it over to teh transition line. It is very important that max dots are put on hydross immediately after aggro is established by the next tank. I would get SS off for initial threat then call dots on, as this is a sunbstabtial amount of dmg you are missing out on.

We also single target the adds, crunch the numbers with mana cost/aoe etc and you will see it is much more efficient this way. banish 1 with rank 1 banish, tank 3 adds whoever tanked the first add picks up banished. You have to kill each add in about 15 sec max.

[Narshe]

Our lock were too lazy to track their dots so we told them to cross the transition line aswell. Then if they pull agro, Hydross don't take a trip and switch phases causing a wipe.
We also used Shield wall as strategy if DPS were going low. We told the tank of poison phase blow Shield wall and stay 10 seconds longer in that phase.

[Niss]

We killed Hydross recently on our first night of attempts. (granted, we have killed all the other bosses and have been skipping hydross till now). What worked very well for us was letting the raid DPS hydross starting ~5 seconds after the transition while the offtanks built some aggro on the spawns. This way you dont lose much dps on hydross. The offtanks tank the spawns on top of hydross and when the call is made all AoE starts and kills the adds + hydross.

As far as when to switch, we called for stop DPS at 5 sec to mark 4, made the switch a few sec after mark 4. Warlocks just watched their own dots. (I think they went through 2 dot cycles).

Resuming DPS on hydross while the offtanks build aggro should help alot with hitting the enrage timer, assuming the MTs can maintain decent tps in the resist gear. (I was still easily hitting 1k tps rage dumping at the transition, + a misdirect for insurance).

It's also a good idea to make sure at the very least your tank healers are crossing the transition line early in case they need to heal they wont cause a double switch. It doesn't hurt to have all dps cross the line when the stop DPS is called for.

[Thist]

I yell Stop Dots when the deadly boss mods timer gets to 4, then I yell Stop DPS when it gets to 5 and run across.

All high DPS and healers that tend to pull aggro move across the line with the tank so they only kill themself if it happens and don't spawn an extra sets of adds.

The tank currently not tanking picks up one of the adds, dps warrior another, druid another and a holy pally the other. None of them wear resist gear, I think the pally wears his pvp or tanking gear. We drag them to hydross and warlocks go crazy.

[dude]

you know what....I didn't even think of warstomp for the adds. As you can see, this is my alt, but somehow found myself in tanking this for a bit.

Didn't get another chance at Hydross lately due to illnesses in the guild and other things, but I think this will help a lot.

Also the shield wall on the Nature part would be a good idea, but our Nature Tank is a druid. Do you think it would be safe for the frost tank to do the Shield wall too? My main concern would be the water tomb killing people.

What do you guys think?

[Unger]

Our guild has a rotation that allows us to pull him over the line about 2-3 seconds into 250%. You want to have DPS stop at about 5 seconds left in 100% and DOTS/HOTS should be stopped sooner. One thing we have done is move Hydross all the way to the left of the ramp and have healers/ranged DPS on the right ON THE LINE where the flags are. This way, if at any time they pull Hydross, he wont "cross the line" and spawn 4 more adds (he has to be all the way across to switch phases).

The warrior tanks should que up a Autoblocker trinket and a shield slam for when he crosses into a new phase. This helps a lot. Landing a 2.5k crit SS generates a TON of threat.

Additionally, you want to take at least 3 warlocks because on the 2nd to last transition before he enrages, you will chain banish 3 adds and tank one. You dont burn the adds at all...... all DPS is on Hydross. When you transition again, you chain banish 3 again, chain fear 3 more and tank 2. This will give you about 2 minutes of uniterrupted DPS on Hydross himself. If you remember from the initial pull, you can do about 20% in phases where there are no adds. Granted, your warlocks are a bit tied up, but the rest of the group can do a lot of damage in those phases.

Once Hydross is down, the adds despawn.....

The key is to remember that the 1st transition (before adds) and the 2nd to last and last transition (when you CC adds, you dont kill them), you can do about 55-60% of the total damage to Hydross. The rest of the transitons is about survival and the ability to do a little bit of DPS on the boss.

Happy hunting!

Unger

[Worldie]

I would strongly suggest to AoE the adds instead of single target them, expecially if you have 3 offtanks in mixed gear (they don't really need it with that tactic to be honest).
Unless you are lacking locks/mages, that makes adds handling way more fast and allows more DPS on the boss and so reduces the chances of getting to enrage, and as well doesnt force you to chainCC last wave(s) of adds.

About tanking transition, our Phase Tanks usually wait until 100% mark comes, then start moving and move it about at same time that 250% mark. Then we get some seconds to get the add's and boss' attention to the appropriate tanks, then gather all on Hydross and AoE. Melee and single target DPS are on boss all time, but they are told to stop DPS when tank starts to move. DoTs are stopped at 100% mark (meaning that they run out between that one and the following one).

Shield Walling on frost phase is bad, just because the Water Tombs will kill more people at same time, while the poison will kill the raid 1 by 1.

[Clifford]

Some excellent advice here and we got him down on our first evening of trying. Our attempts were 80%, 55%, 25%, 15%, some stupid mistakes then 0%.

The things that worked well for us are:
(1) Make sure he is at 80% before first transition.
(2) Stop dots 5 secs before 100%.
(3) Move agro sensitive raid members across transition line at 100%
(4) Stop dps at 7 secs before 250%.
(5) Have two druids tanks (200/200 resistance approx - might have been higher) and the previous phase warrior tank (300 resistance unbuffed) gather the elementals.
(6) AoE them on top of Hydross (give the AoE groups a shadow priest or shaman for mana).

We managed to kill him with over 2 minutes to spare - thanks to all the good advice posted here.