Tanking ToGC 25

[Araj]

Hi!

First time poster long time reade. First of all, sorry for my bad english

I'm having big problems tanking the first boss of Northrend beasts on heroic ToC25, normally after the first 4 impales, the other tank (a paladin or a warrior) taunts Gormok off me and i wait until my impales disappear, then i taunt the boss... but at that moment i get instagibbed after the first or second impale.

Don't know if i'm lacking some gear or if there is another tactic when tanking with a DK.

When tanking Northrend beasts with a Paladin-Paladin or Paladin-Warrior combination, the encounter seems pretty much a walk in the park... even when the paladins has less life/avoidance than me.

Any advice, please?

Thanks!

Here's my armory: Armory

[Satorri]

HALP! I need advice - TankSpot
This is where this post belongs, though this forum is the right place for discussion of methods in general.

I'm surprised you push to 4 stacks on the impale, that seems to be asking for trouble. If you're having trouble only after re-acquiring his attention though, I'm more inclined to believe it is a problem with healers adjusting to the change, while managing snobolds (who slow movement and interrupt casts) and fires. They're simply having trouble keeping consistent heals on you in all that mess following the switch of targets (i.e. depending on the healers hots may not be up, or bubbles are slow to be applied).

[Araj]

Sorry for posting in the wrong section! Can a moderator move this post to the HALP section? Thanks!

Hmm, we are trying to tank Gormok with 2 tanks instead of 3: First tank takes 4 impales, then the second tank taunts and kepts Gormok until the first tank impales wear off, then the first tank taunts and usually Gormok dies after 2 more impales, then the tanks take one Hand of Protection to cleanse them from the impales so they can tank the jormungars nice and clean.

[Satorri]

I follow. I was thinking of it in terms of 10-man, heh. I read the title, then forgot when I read the post. =)

I stand by my instincts though.

[Masterkiller]

You are sufficiently geared so that is not the problem. What is your cooldown rotation? Are healers providing any cooldowns as well? Your Death Strike is incredibly valuable if timed right as you can see below. Proper DS timing can make you much easier to heal and your health pool appear to be less spiky.

What healers need to do:
So first, tell a healer to watch the timer and they are responsible for topping tanks off just prior to the impale. 2nd make sure there is a healer winding up a big heal to land just after the impale. You might already have this I'm just cover thing basics.

What you can do:
Make sure diseases are up and time your death strike + rune tap RIGHT after the impale. I usually manipulate my rotation to make sure I have the necessary runes available. Here is a real example from my log Tuesday night. Usually they don't both crit like this but you can expect a DS to hit for ~8k and with VB up your rune tap for ~12k. You probably already know that too but posting for anyone that wants to see.

Example from my logs:
22:10:56.454 - Gormok the Impaler's hit Mkdk for 12038 damage.
22:10:56.481 - Zacknafane's Beacon of Light heals Mkdk for 8925 hitpoints.
22:10:57.070 - Gormok the Impaler's Impale hit Mkdk for 19498 damage.
22:10:58.115 - Mkdk's Death Strike heals Mkdk for 12321 hitpoints.
22:10:58.406 - Mkdk's Rune Tap heals Mkdk for 13636 hitpoints.
and then...
22:10:58.571 - Zacknafane's Beacon of Light heals Mkdk for 23901 hitpoints.
22:10:58.771 - Gormok the Impaler's hit Mkdk for 14039 damage.

In this log I had IBF and VB up as it was the 4th impale. ~2 seconds prior to my 2nd impale I pop Satrina trinket. ~2 seconds prior to 3rd stack I pop VB. ~2 seconds prior to 4th stack I pop IBF which provides VB and IBF for the 4th stack. This provides a double up on each impale between 2-4. I took a 5th stack with only IBF up and immediately receive a HoP.

So the total damage I took in that .6 seconds was 31.5k. This is the perfect example of the 1-2 punch that is usually what kills us. No one attack is going to kill us, it's the combination of impale + melee or impale tick (or melee + stomp if healers have snobolds or something). Regardless you should be able to take an impale + melee + 2 stack tick without using a cooldown.

Additionally, Zack's heal was the only inbound heal between the Impale/Melee and the following melee strike. If I had not self healed, the incoming damage would have been 45,450. Even 1 well timed Death Strike can make the difference between death or not.

So if you know what kills you, you only need to prepare for it and time your death strike or death strike + rune tap to line up with the impale timer. The incoming damage was 31.5k and my self healing was 29,597, a difference of ~2k damage. I usually adjust my rotation to make sure I have a death strike available for EVERY impale. It's a guaranteed 8k heal and 12k or more on crit. For this reason I think Blood DK's make an excellent choice for Gormok tanking.

[Mert]

I think you can usually taunt at three stacks in 25-man if you're using two tanks - as a general rule, don't wait for it to run out completely before taunting back. I usually find that the other tank will get his third stack when I have 8-9 seconds left on my debuff, meaning that by the time he fires again mine has worn off and been immediately replaced and set back to one stack. It mitigates the amount of time the one with three stacks is taking additional damage and buys you a little longer if your taunt misses, as it won't mean a fourth stack going on the tank.

We used to call when we got to three stacks on Vent but these days I just watch DBM and taunt immediately after the third one hits - unless something weird has happened, you should find that yours drops off just before he casts again

[nethervoid]

IMO best just to taunt at 2-3 stacks. The one time I did heroic version, we taunted at 2. Never had more than 2 stacks on a tank because they always dropped off right before the new stack was applied.

[Masterkiller]

25man impale debuff lasts for 45 seconds so you would have to take at least 4 stack rotations for the tick to wear off before you can taunt again with no stacks. If the goal is to go into worms with no stacks on you your choices are very limited with 2 tanks.

You can either rotate stacks at 4 and have 2 tanks to heal (2 paladins with a beacon on each tank can help) but you are taking 18k ticks every 2 seconds which can become very mana intensive.

Or you can take very high stacks and take an immediate HoP from a paladin so healers only have to worry about healing 1 tank. It becomes a lot riskier for this scenario but if you are light on dps (as was our case when we first started togc beasts) and are trying to go light on healers (5) and light on tanks (2) and stack heavy on dps (18) you will need to coordinate damage reduction cooldowns with your healers. We also had our ret pallies on Sac+Bubble rotations when we were getting high stacks as well.

The numbers are out there to do the math to prepare you for the potential incoming damage on stomp+melee or impale+melee and impale ticks. It just takes a LOT more work making this work then a 3 tank (2-2-2) rotation. Once our dps increased and we could afford 3 tanks things became more stable.

[nethervoid]

25man impale debuff lasts for 45 seconds so you would have to take at least 4 stack rotations for the tick to wear off before you can taunt again with no stacks. If the goal is to go into worms with no stacks on you your choices are very limited with 2 tanks.

You can either rotate stacks at 4 and have 2 tanks to heal (2 paladins with a beacon on each tank can help) but you are taking 18k ticks every 2 seconds which can become very mana intensive.

Or you can take very high stacks and take an immediate HoP from a paladin so healers only have to worry about healing 1 tank. It becomes a lot riskier for this scenario but if you are light on dps (as was our case when we first started togc beasts) and are trying to go light on healers (5) and light on tanks (2) and stack heavy on dps (18) you will need to coordinate damage reduction cooldowns with your healers. We also had our ret pallies on Sac+Bubble rotations when we were getting high stacks as well.

The numbers are out there to do the math to prepare you for the potential incoming damage on stomp+melee or impale+melee and impale ticks. It just takes a LOT more work making this work then a 3 tank (2-2-2) rotation. Once our dps increased and we could afford 3 tanks things became more stable.

Ah 45sec. Very good to know. Thanks!

[luv2tank]

we are nuts, but the first tank takes 7 impales before the bop. We only do this b/c of him not having rising anger in the early stages of the fight and our healers can keep us up. Worst part is no issues w/ him and the worms but we cannot get out of the way of icehowl-go figure!

[PapaNasty]

You need to stack more stam + armor

I'm not hugely knowledgeable about DKs, since frost presence changes your stats, but using 2x dodge trinkets and 3x red gems instead of just the 1x for your meta, seems like a bad idea to me.

Since the main danger of Gormok is that he does an unavoidable instant strike (the impale which stacks the debuff). Which means you take that + bleed + melee hit within maybe 1s. So you need to have a big enough effective health pool to withstand the dmg.

so imo 2x stam trinkets, +armor to cloak +30 stam gems in every socket except your legs (use your 1x +10 expertise +15 stam there, or imo agi/stam but im a pally not a dk) and maybe +18 stam to gloves aswell. Threat is ezymode, I'm sure with a 245 weapon you'll be fine without the 2% threat enchant :-P

Also make sure that you're popping cooldowns / consumeables. Pop an indestructable pot before the fight starts, and then another once that runs out. Likewise cycle your cooldowns (both your own and external) towards the end of the fight.


imo stick with taking the 4 stacks and 2 tanking Gormok. Makes it alot easier to heal since the paladin beacon keeps up the OT and then all of the healers can just focus on you.

Likewise don't BoP targets to remove the bleed, since the most important time to remove the bleed is once Gormok dies and the worms come out, since then your healers have to spread out and heal multiple targets at once (Just remind your paladins to freedom you straight after to remove the BoP tho so that the worms won't ignore you lol)

[swelt]

There are a dozen posts like this in the Halp forum (as linked above) and also in the crusaders strategy section: Crusaders Coliseum - TankSpot

There is also a specific project marmot video addendum which covers a detailed 2-tank gormokk strategy: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/...hard-mode.html

[Zara]

You are sufficiently geared so that is not the problem. What is your cooldown rotation? Are healers providing any cooldowns as well? Your Death Strike is incredibly valuable if timed right as you can see below. Proper DS timing can make you much easier to heal and your health pool appear to be less spiky.

What healers need to do:
So first, tell a healer to watch the timer and they are responsible for topping tanks off just prior to the impale. 2nd make sure there is a healer winding up a big heal to land just after the impale. You might already have this I'm just cover thing basics.

What you can do:
Make sure diseases are up and time your death strike + rune tap RIGHT after the impale. I usually manipulate my rotation to make sure I have the necessary runes available. Here is a real example from my log Tuesday night. Usually they don't both crit like this but you can expect a DS to hit for ~8k and with VB up your rune tap for ~12k. You probably already know that too but posting for anyone that wants to see.

Example from my logs:
22:10:56.454 - Gormok the Impaler's hit Mkdk for 12038 damage.
22:10:56.481 - Zacknafane's Beacon of Light heals Mkdk for 8925 hitpoints.
22:10:57.070 - Gormok the Impaler's Impale hit Mkdk for 19498 damage.
22:10:58.115 - Mkdk's Death Strike heals Mkdk for 12321 hitpoints.
22:10:58.406 - Mkdk's Rune Tap heals Mkdk for 13636 hitpoints.
and then...
22:10:58.571 - Zacknafane's Beacon of Light heals Mkdk for 23901 hitpoints.
22:10:58.771 - Gormok the Impaler's hit Mkdk for 14039 damage.

In this log I had IBF and VB up as it was the 4th impale. ~2 seconds prior to my 2nd impale I pop Satrina trinket. ~2 seconds prior to 3rd stack I pop VB. ~2 seconds prior to 4th stack I pop IBF which provides VB and IBF for the 4th stack. This provides a double up on each impale between 2-4. I took a 5th stack with only IBF up and immediately receive a HoP.

So the total damage I took in that .6 seconds was 31.5k. This is the perfect example of the 1-2 punch that is usually what kills us. No one attack is going to kill us, it's the combination of impale + melee or impale tick (or melee + stomp if healers have snobolds or something). Regardless you should be able to take an impale + melee + 2 stack tick without using a cooldown.

Additionally, Zack's heal was the only inbound heal between the Impale/Melee and the following melee strike. If I had not self healed, the incoming damage would have been 45,450. Even 1 well timed Death Strike can make the difference between death or not.

So if you know what kills you, you only need to prepare for it and time your death strike or death strike + rune tap to line up with the impale timer. The incoming damage was 31.5k and my self healing was 29,597, a difference of ~2k damage. I usually adjust my rotation to make sure I have a death strike available for EVERY impale. It's a guaranteed 8k heal and 12k or more on crit. For this reason I think Blood DK's make an excellent choice for Gormok tanking.

This is one of the best responses I've seen!

Also Grimreaper is a good addon to see the logs leading up to a death.

[luv2tank]

oooh!