I hate prince.

[Lovethang]

~ First post.

So I started my tanking career around 2 weeks ago after playing my rogue for around 18 months. Any way my main woe seems to be Prince Malchezar, I can tank everything else fine. I tanked Nightbane, we got really unlucky and I had to tank Netherspite through around 6 seconds of enrage because of lost dps but I can't for the life of me make it through phase 2 of prince unless I have moroes watch, shield wall or last stand off cooldown.

I don't know if I'm spamming devastate too much and getting lots of parries, shield block is depleting charges before I can get my rotation off or I've just come past too many black cats lately but the guy happens to get me the second my shield block goes down. Last night after 2 dps related wipes we downed him, but I was still very close to eating the floorboards during phase 2, so I went ahead and re-gemmed for more stam, got the brooch of deftness to help with less parries.

Is there any way around the parry ass whooping I've been receiving from prince other than to stack a whole loads of expertise?

[Khordam]

-Avoidance helps in keeping SB up longer. Incidentally, avoidance is a lot more powerful on dual wielders as opposed to the usual bosses because of the added 19% miss chance.
-Ironshield potions help reduce the melee damage you take by a lot. Keep swallowing these as long as you're having trouble with p2.
-Be sure to have imp tclap and demoralizing shout up at all times.
-Don't have melee DPS in front of Malchezaar.

[Frederic]

Prince is supposed to be able to instagib a tank, that's basically the fight in a nutshell. Have your healers constantly spamming the biggest things they can throw at you, and do everything you can to debuff his damage dealt. If you are confident that you have aggro tell your DPS to blow all their CD's + Trinkets and tear him a new one to get him out of stage 2 faster.

[Kamani]

Armory link would help. It could be that you are just undergeared.

[Shortypop]

For about our first 4 downs I used to swallow an ironshield pot at the start of P2, pop shield wall when it wore off and by then you should be home dry. Make sure you have commanding shout, thunderclap and demo shout up. An improved imp by your side and HoT's are great.

Get your mages to invis at 62%, then they can go all out in p2 without any fear of agro - same for all other dps who can drop agro.

[Krakbak]

Yep, chug a ironshield or best one you can get at 61% health, so when he goes into stage 2 you are ready. T. Clap and Dem. Shout should be up. If they're improved it helps. Other than that, Commanding shout will help, Scroll of Protection if you have one. Heck even the guardian pot that gives 500 armor will help, so drink that first. I also down a demonslaying pot as Im running in, extra dps from you wont hurt.

A lot of tanks will shield wall right off the bat during stage 2, you will know if you need that from the ability of your healers and your raid DPS.

I usually have people standing in front only during stage 3 because of the infernals, an occassional parry I can handle in Stage 3.

[zannin]

Ironshield potions are great. I use them on Prince even though I could probably get away without them. They make my healer's life a little easier.

Prince in phase 2 can be a nightmare. It's IMO an avoidance fight instead of an EH fight like most bosses. Like Khordam said, avoidance will help extend your Shield Block until the cooldown is up. I've been caught a couple times with SB on cooldown and got my world rocked.

I usually try to save my Shield Wall until the middle or end of phase 2 or beginning of phase 3 if my healers are doing OK. If I'm hanging around 50% health for more than 5 seconds or my health is jumping around, then I'll pop SW early.

[Cipher]

I've never used an ironshield pot for Prince. I think I will start using those pots even though I've tanked him successfully about 5 times. I don't have Moroe's trinket yet. When phase 2 hits, I switch from King's Defender to the Sun Eater. I use both my crappy trinkets (Adamantine's Figurine and Dabiri's Enigma) in sequence. I have my health pots ready if my health drops very low. We did it last night with two healers and we did fine.

[Dismember]

Like everyone else has said, stack expertise and stack avoidance for Prince. Hopefully you've been putting together an avoidance set, and Prince is the perfect time to put it to use. Keep the Clap, Demo, and Commanding up at all times. Make absolutely certain that SB is back up as soon as the cooldown allows. Keeping SB up should be your number one priority.

Also, don't forget that your healers are a huge part of the equation. Find out how they're healing the encounter. Phase one and phase three can be healed reactively, but doing that for phase two is extremely dicey until you really start to outgear the encounter. Depending on your gear level, it may not be necessary to be totally spam-healed, but healing definitely needs to be proactive, and you need to be topped off at all times.

If you don't have Recount, get it. One of the things it's great for is looking at death logs and pinpointing exactly what went wrong. It will even graph it for you. It will make it very apparent where the problem lies.

[Rayne]

Ditto what Dismember said, healers must heal proactively in phase 2. For a newish tank Prince can really put a hurting on you in that phase. The others gave excellent advice too: ironshield potions, TC, DS.

Eventually you get to the point where you hope he crushes you for rage. I used SB 11 times on our Prince fight last night (Phase 2 and a few right at the end to seal the deal).

[ebs2002]

Also, prince is a fight more more Shield Block Value is a good thing. I normally drop my threat pieces (like Brooch of Deftness) for SBV/Avoidance pieces. Use your autoblocker and a +Defense trinket (or moroes if you have it).

[djiss]

but I can't for the life of me make it through phase 2 of prince unless I have moroes watch, shield wall or last stand off cooldown.

Using Shield Wall during phase 2 is common. That's also why we have it. It's a "Oh Shit" button, but can also be a strategic move to do, if done at the right moment, and P2 is a good moment to pop it and let breath your healer a lil. Just warn them when you use it.

Normally, I never use my +block% trinket (~3%), but on this fight it help.
Since he DW, with a good amount of +def and avoidance and block you can be close to be passively uncrushable, so you SB last a lot longer.
Like other said, keep TC/Demo, be sure you're the only one in front of him.

[Keldorn]

It sounds like you are encountering the same thing the every other tank has on this fight - it can be brutal, and sometimes there's not a thing you can do about it.

However, I happened to read about paladin tactics for this, and how a pally can simply stop auto-attacking and just use consecrate/ret aura to generate threat through phase II. Without directly attacking him, the paladin removes the spike damage that prince gains through a parry.

I figured I would give it a try, and it works like a charm. I make sure I go into phase II about 30k - 40k threat above the rest, and then I simply stop attacking. I use shield block, and then demo shout/thunderclap (weak I know, but it does help). It sounds unorthodox, but I'm not about to let my pride keep me from downing a boss.

This, combined with high avoidance (I swap in sun eater/boots of elusion for this fight), will typically result in a successful kill for my raids. Give it a shot. If you have a hunter, make sure they are misdirecting on you to help with that aggro ceiling. If you simply can't generate enough threat to establish a 30k gap in threat, have your raid back off until phase II. That's where it really counts anyway, so it's worth keeping a reasonable pace at first in order to really let him have it in phase II.

Hope this helps.

[Lovethang]

The World of Warcraft Armory

Sorry guys, bit of a slow couple of days for me .

Tanked bear phase nalorakk last night with no worries, and seems the brooch of deftness is helping a lot with parries, will be itneresting to see how I go after kara reset on prince with all the help.

Thanks!

[Sanelora]

I have been one shot for 18.5k buffed health (no flask/shout etc) by prince

combat log said i was hit for a 4k crushing and that was it. myself and everyone else in the raid watched me go from 100% to 0% in less than 1 sec.

this was as soon as phase two started.

on review of a combat log recorded to a .txt file, i received a heal for 4k {2k overheal} and then 4021 (crushing) SB comes off cooldown and then i die. randomly. no dot, no flurry no nothing :P

got that was a funny night and i guess that is the fabled bugged swing. i have only seen it happen once before, back when my gear wasnt good enough for prince.

we got him after the wipe, easy.

as everyone has said - chug the ironshields!!! it was bay far the best few gold i have spent

just a fun story i thought i should share

[Porkins]

I have been one shot for 18.5k buffed health (no flask/shout etc) by prince

combat log said i was hit for a 4k crushing and that was it. myself and everyone else in the raid watched me go from 100% to 0% in less than 1 sec.

this was as soon as phase two started.

on review of a combat log recorded to a .txt file, i received a heal for 4k {2k overheal} and then 4021 (crushing) SB comes off cooldown and then i die. randomly. no dot, no flurry no nothing :P


just a fun story i thought i should share

This is a known bug. It occurs in the phase 1 to 2 transition and is fairly rare. As for tanking him, make sure you have all shouts and tclap up all the time. As far as healing goes, spamming your "biggest heals" runs you oom in under 40 seconds. Don't tell your healers how to heal. They either know or they don't.

[Shortypop]

Sounds like you got enfeebled, as Porkins said it's a known bug that if he enfeebles at the transitions he can enfeeble the tank, even if no one else is close on threat. It should have shown on your combat log. In almost a year of running kara (one to three groups) we've seen it happen twice, once when I was tanking and once with a pally.

[Sanelora]

thanks for the responses guys

but I'm aware of the bugs with prince and we are more than capable of killing him

the main reason i posted is cause it was funny

[choryukami]

I severely outgear Kara at this point. And about a month, maybe two months ago, Prince Malc triple crushed me to death. So I decided I would then make it impossible. I read online that since in phase 2 he dual wields, he gains the 20% miss rate that player dual-wield does. So I made a set with 82.4% avoidance. I tested it out in phase 2 by not using shield block the entire phase. I have not been crushed in phase 2 by prince since that day.

Phase 2 is actually easier for me than 1 and 3 now.

Yeah, usually he rapidly gets dodges, parries, misses, a couple hits for 2k, a couple misses, you get the picture.