Icecrown Blood Princes

[Quinafoi]

The Dark Nuclei have a tendancy to aggro onto a healer if left unattacked, however this is not guarenteed. There is also no confirmable reason why they aggro onto the healer based on all observations of how they function and most of the time they will just float in place and not aggro on anyone.

Having a healer tank Keleseth effectively means three things...

1. DPS can't do anything to Keleseth because of threat generation of a healer. A healer generats 50% of effective healing as threat, distributed to all hostile targets. Even if you're doing 12,000 eHPS, that tops out at 2,000 threat per second based on healing to each of the three bosses. That isn't a feasible amount of threat generation for an ICC level encounter, DPS would simply be unable to attack one of the easiest targets for them to attack.

2. Healers do not have high effective health, as their priorities are towards high mana pool instead. Even in PvP gear, it would be unlikely that a healer could have more health than a DPS, and no where near the health of an actual tank.

3. The healer that is "tanking" can't heal at 100% efficiency. Because they would be forced to move to aquire Dark Nuclei. No healer can sustain maximum throughput while moving. Additionally they have to use non-healing spells to insure that the Dark Nuclei does in fact aggro onto them. Because their effective health is lower than a DPS or tank, they will also require more Dark Nuclei in order to survive the empowered phase.

Because of these three reasons, it is never feasible to have a healer tank Keleseth. Most raids will use a conventional tank on him because of the highest effective health. However, if effective health is high enough, a DPS can also tank him. A healer can not generate sufficient threat, have the same amount of effective health without greatly hindering their healing, and heal effectively on the move.

[obiwayne]

So far whenever I have had a successful kill of Princes, we just do not DPS at all when Keleseth has the orb. What I've found is if we let DPS attack, the ranged tank is unable to really hold aggro on him, so we just ignore damaging him at all. To my knowledge there is no enrage timer so we have our DPS focus on getting rid of any stray Kinetic Bombs and getting into position for an orb switch, and leave Kelseth alone.

[Quinafoi]

So far whenever I have had a successful kill of Princes, we just do not DPS at all when Keleseth has the orb. What I've found is if we let DPS attack, the ranged tank is unable to really hold aggro on him, so we just ignore damaging him at all. To my knowledge there is no enrage timer so we have our DPS focus on getting rid of any stray Kinetic Bombs and getting into position for an orb switch, and leave Kelseth alone.

That is more of a problem with the tank than the DPS. With experience tanks can generate siginificantly more threat on the boss. For instance even if he is the second target empowered in our 25 man, our DPS does not need to hold back (though they may need to use one of their cooldowns, but they do not need to hold back). While the Keleseth tank does generate less threat than other tanks with experience it will make little difference. Additionally if threat is an issue at the beginning, hunters can misdirect early on before Keleseth becomes empowered and use Kill Shot since he is sitting at 1 hit point.

Also, there is a berserk timer, it is just very generous of a timer. The fight isn't a DPS race at all, it is an execution test.

[Callandor]

That is more of a problem with the tank than the DPS. With experience tanks can generate siginificantly more threat on the boss. For instance even if he is the second target empowered in our 25 man, our DPS does not need to hold back (though they may need to use one of their cooldowns, but they do not need to hold back). While the Keleseth tank does generate less threat than other tanks with experience it will make little difference. Additionally if threat is an issue at the beginning, hunters can misdirect early on before Keleseth becomes empowered and use Kill Shot since he is sitting at 1 hit point.

Also, there is a berserk timer, it is just very generous of a timer. The fight isn't a DPS race at all, it is an execution test.

I'd say a Demonology Warlock at execute phase (and the boss stays at 1%, so its always execute phase) probably does more TPS than any tank could.

[Quinafoi]

I'd say a Demonology Warlock at execute phase (and the boss stays at 1%, so its always execute phase) probably does more TPS than any tank could.

I fail to see your point. Regardless of who tanks Keleseth, a DPS or a tank, experience improves your performance. As you do better, you generate more threat while maintaining control over the other aspects of the encounter. A tank wouldn't have to worry about a DPS pulling aggro off of them because over the course of the fight the DPS will only be on Keleseth one third of the time, providing sufficient time for the tank to generate an additional threat lead. It is primarily a concern only at the very start of the fight and in particular if the empowered buff switches to Keleseth first. However with sufficient experience, even if Keleseth is the second target an experienced tank could have generated a sufficient enough threat lead to hold aggro through the phase.

A raid first learning the encounter will likely have to hold off more on Keleseth because the tank lacks sufficient experience. However a raid later in progression does not have this same issue because the tanks have become better and more comfortable in the role they are expected to perform.

[yatl]

So last sunday my guild went to the blood quarter the first time feeling the mechanics for the princes. I expected wipes since majority of them hasn't been in this area and might need time to learn and adjust. I thought I did pretty good at picking the dark neuclei and hold the shadow lance bastard and also before we went in I read the startegy here and told the ranged to tap those kinetic bombs once in a while to keep them afloat.
Now this is the part that baffled (or pisses) me (off), the following night, one of the dps (a warlock) said she did the strategy readings and said as the nuclei picker (me, a pally tank) should also go dps on the kinetic bombs (she called it the orange orb). I don't think this is right, and i know that the readers here are more knowledgable in this than me hence why I am asking the question

[Quinafoi]

So last sunday my guild went to the blood quarter the first time feeling the mechanics for the princes. I expected wipes since majority of them hasn't been in this area and might need time to learn and adjust. I thought I did pretty good at picking the dark neuclei and hold the shadow lance bastard and also before we went in I read the startegy here and told the ranged to tap those kinetic bombs once in a while to keep them afloat.
Now this is the part that baffled (or pisses) me (off), the following night, one of the dps (a warlock) said she did the strategy readings and said as the nuclei picker (me, a pally tank) should also go dps on the kinetic bombs (she called it the orange orb). I don't think this is right, and i know that the readers here are more knowledgable in this than me hence why I am asking the question

The tank for Keleseth has two concerns and two concerns only (which believe it or not are the same two concerns a tank always has).

1. First and foremost, survival. Surviving tanking Keleseth has to deal with rounding up and maintaining a sufficient number of Dark Nuclei. Without doing this correctly and tank will die simply because healing won't be able to keep them up when the boss becomes empowered.

2. Generate threat on the mob you are tanking. Obviously if you're tanking Keleseth, he better be attacking you and not wandering off to one shot a healer. In refining your technique for gathering Dark Nuclei through experience you will improve yourself in this area naturally because you are given more time on the boss to generate threat.

A tank on this encounter shouldn't really be responsible for anything other than tanking what they are assigned. Yes, you can help keep an Kinetic Bomb from falling if one is near you and you happen to notice it. However, you should not be assigned to doing this, that is the job of the ranged DPS. You can help them do their job, you should not do their job for them. As a paladin, you can also help with clensing the magic debuff on the raid. These are areas you can help, but you should not be assigned to it.

[yatl]

let me rephrase this, she said my priority as a third tank is dpsing the kinetic bombs, while the second objective is grabbing the dark nuclei as the bomb duty is the foremost important thing I need to be doing by the way she said it over ventrilo. either she's looking for a carry or she's not understanding the encounter as she ran into the healers time after time during the empowered vortex shock which almost kill the 2 healers. By count, her warlock is the weakest dps in the group, should i just have her assign to bomb duty when she's not DoTs the prince?

[Quinafoi]

Let me rephrase this... "You're right."
The tank's job is to tank. You can help others in the raid do their job once in a while, but you aren't responsible for it. Your job is to tank.

Also, you don't really DPS the Kinetic Bombs. You can't actually kill them. You just use some direct damage abilities every once in a while to keep them airborne. Typically hunters can manage it quite well by using a pet on one while hitting the other themselves. On heroic difficulty you will need at least two people doing it on 10 man (and likely four or five on 25 man) however because response time is tighter but that is something quite a ways off.

Sounds to me like the Warlock simply doesn't get it. Wouldn't surprise me if they were also DoTing up the Kinetic Bombs and it not doing anything because only direct damage actually knocks them back into the air. This fight isn't actually a DPS race, you could always stick the Warlock in the corner and make them watch as the rest of you do it right. Sounds like they need a time out anyway.

[yatl]

thanks quina, that clarify things for me, i had 100% of that shadow bastard's aggro on me and i managed to pick up 3 dark orbs during the 2 trial runs my guild ran that night. Is it still correct that no more than 6 of those dark nuclei on the keleseth's (the shadow bastard) tank at any given time throughout the encounter?

[Quinafoi]

Most I've ever personally had on myself was 7, but I haven't tanked it for a long time. Since they spawn randomly around the room there can be like 10 of them out there at any given time, you just wouldn't have them all on you at once. Main goal is to stay above 3 all the time, 4 is preferable but 3 is minimum. If you drop to 2 during an Empowered Keleseth phase you will want to use cooldowns.

[Quinafoi]

as usual, the guide is awesome but i am a bit confused abt certain things :S
i have the same question as Zartanchi

There is no requirement for a specific class to tank the caster mob, in fact that vast majority of raids now a days use a conventional tank for Keleseth. I've personally tanked him as a balance druid. I've heard of even hunters and even mages tanking him nowadays though with the zone buff. The advantage a warlock had is higher magic damage reduction, however in the greater scheme of things, a conventional tank will likely still have higher over all effective health against shadow damage simply due to the higher health pool. The only advantage a ranged tank would have is that they have an easier time hitting the Dark Nuclei, since they are ranged they actually have to move less. However with practice just about any class could tank him provided sufficient threat generation and ability to aquire the Dark Nuclei.

[jcfuzzyface47]

Good Info and good movie, But- Her voice is distracting and sounds like a open mike in a wind storme. Plz teach her how to use a mike without breathing on it. Tks