25HM Baleroc questions

[Diplom4t]

Hi, my guild is starting progression on 25m HM Baleroc and ill be tanking (Prot Warrior) along with a Pally. I believe I will be on inferno blades and he will be on Decimation so I was wondering the options I have to help mitigate. I understand I have shield wall, Last Stand, and ER. Using those 3 i do not have anything else so assuming bad RNG and we get very few Decimations, I will have unmitigated Inferno strikes a few times and im trying to get around that. I'm currently using a spindle / essence of flame which are both mastery trinkets but have no mitigation involved on use. My other option is to use my H Vial and lose mastery to stam but get the 1800 dodge use which wouldn't be a bad idea other than sacrificing around 330 mastery. The only other thing I can think of to help is using a Magic resistance potion during one of those to mitigate a bit of the fire dmg. From what I understand, Decimation has no way or really being mitigated but Inferno Blade can, so im assuming also I could have PS and aura mastery to help mitigate during the times i don't have a CD of my own?

I would love to hear from some warriors currently doing Baleroc and see what they do to survive through.

Thanks =)

[Golijov]

Don't forget that Inferno Blade can be blocked, so you'll easily have Shield Block up for any blades you'll be tanking. Obviously Inferno Blade is also partially resistible so you'll definitely want to use a Mirror of Broken Images without question (available for every other Blade). Stay of Execution is also an excellent trinket option for either tanking role. Outside of that, yes Pain Suppression or Aura Mastery are both good options.

If your paladin tank's gear is decent enough from him to be CTC, you might want to consider him tanking Baleroc/Inferno Blades. Glyphed Divine Protection can be used every other blade cast, and during Decimation Blade he is able to use his Hand Sacrifice or Lay on Hands effectively on you (which he can't on himself). Though his Ardent Defender will work on the Decimation Blade, it's far too long of a CD to be relied on. Oddly enough Druids and especially DKs are actually stronger at that particular blade, so yet something else to consider if you have a 3rd tanking option.

Regardless of whichever tank you have doing Decimation Blade, they should make sure to lean heavily towards avoidance itemization, as mastery is useless, and being atleast over ~174k HP fully raid buffed. You'll also find that Inferno Blade is usually the period of the lightest tank damage, with his actual melee attacks being far more dangerous.

[Esarael]

Inferno Blade deals Fire Damage, so (talentend) Shield Block is actually very nice for that, as well as the Mirror of Broken Images (Tol Barad Trinket). They're both on a 1 minute cooldown, so use them and use them often.

Aura Mastery sure helps a lot, and depending on how many holy paladins you bring and how often you get Inferno Blade you could have it up for every Inferno Blade, or at least every other Inferno Blade. Its cooldown is a measly 2 minutes.

Other than that, you can use many kind of external cooldowns. Divine Guardian from your fellow Prot Paladin, Pain Supression or Power Word: Barrier from your Disc Priest... Guardian Spirit would probably be best suited for the Decimation Blade tank, if at all needed.

Hand of Sacrifice shouldn't be used on a tank during this fight at all, since it'll instantly kill the paladin if used on the MT (the one on Baleroc for most of the fight, whose HP gets quite high) or will have no effect if used during Decimation Blade. It can however be used on someone tanking shards (I haven't quite tried this, but I imagine that were the Paladin the MT, he could probably soak a lot of shard damage using this).

EDIT: Woah, beat by almost an hour. Whatever.

[Golijov]

Inferno Blade deals Fire Damage, so (talentend) Shield Block is actually very nice for that, as well as the Mirror of Broken Images (Tol Barad Trinket). They're both on a 1 minute cooldown, so use them and use them often.

Aura Mastery sure helps a lot, and depending on how many holy paladins you bring and how often you get Inferno Blade you could have it up for every Inferno Blade, or at least every other Inferno Blade. Its cooldown is a measly 2 minutes.

Other than that, you can use many kind of external cooldowns. Divine Guardian from your fellow Prot Paladin, Pain Supression or Power Word: Barrier from your Disc Priest... Guardian Spirit would probably be best suited for the Decimation Blade tank, if at all needed.

Hand of Sacrifice shouldn't be used on a tank during this fight at all, since it'll instantly kill the paladin if used on the MT (the one on Baleroc for most of the fight, whose HP gets quite high) or will have no effect if used during Decimation Blade. It can however be used on someone tanking shards (I haven't quite tried this, but I imagine that were the Paladin the MT, he could probably soak a lot of shard damage using this).

EDIT: Woah, beat by almost an hour. Whatever.

Shield Block is a 30 second CD so it will be up for every blade CD, even if cast back-to-back (since they are about 45 seconds apart). As far Guardian Spirit, using a Holy Priest on this encounter is a terrible idea, so I wouldn't count on that. Don't forget though, Barrier and and Pain Suppression make for excellent soaker CDs (needed when healers have Tormented). Hand of Sacrifice does effectively transfer Decimation Blade damage and can be safely used with Divine Shield, so you can get one use per paladin. However, our holy paladins found Hand of Sacrifice best used on our shadow priest soakers to stabilize the 10-20 stack time period.