While we had a sizable intermission over this weekend while I was at NYCC, and also had some delays as I caught up on other, more time sensitive things, we’re back with the next installment in the Wrath Retrospective. This time around, we’re covering the top fights for the protectors of the groups. These guys stand in the way of everything that could kill you, and shed their blood so your poor, crushable body doesn’t have to.
Without further ado…
…the Top 10 Tanking Encounters of Wrath of the Lich King
10) Blood Prince Council (Heroic)
It’s strange to start this list off with a fight that’s almost entirely not about tanking, however, this fight has the unique quality that a good tank can make it infinitely easier. To begin with, tanks have a major choice at the outset of this fight – at least on 10man. Using two tanks makes the damage intake on either significantly higher, but will greatly increase the dps you can bring to the table, making the fight shorter. If you don’t opt for that route, the fight almost doubles in length and becomes an entirely different animal.
Between the incredibly dynamic range-tanking on Keleseth, and the involved positioning requirements for the other tank (or tanks, if you’re using three), this fight appears simple on the surface, but a solid, well rounded tank can do a lot to make it a better experience for the healers.
9) Festergut (Heroic)
Festergut is an obvious choice for a tank check, and it’s probably the most severe encounter, gear wise, until The Lich King himself. The fight is simple for a tank, but must be executed perfectly. You must taunt at 9 stacks, or it’s a wipe. You must use a cooldown during three breaths, chaining them as effectively as possible, or it’s a wipe. The fight has little to no room for error on the part of the tanks, and giving the offtank something to do always makes for an enjoyable twist.
8) Thorim (Heroic)
Thorim should be rated higher. As far as tests of tanking skill, this fight has everything. A gauntlet in the tunnel, a fight-for-survival in the arena, interrupts, avoidable damage being thrown around everywhere, and then one of the more punishing taunt-swap mechanics that Blizzard has implemented. This is easily worth being a top-5 encounter. However, the fight unduly punishes melee-heavy comps to the point of being completely un-winnable with more than three. Chain lightning will bounce around and will 1-shot people mercilessly, causing a critical flaw in an otherwise perfect fight.
7) Deathbringer Saurfang (Heroic)
For such a simple fight, this battle will test three critical tanking skills without a margin for significant error. First, the opening minute of the fight is as close to a stand-and-fight as we’ve seen in Wrath of the Lich King. Your dps will be cranking out unparalleled numbers, and your threat needs to keep up so that your group will get to the end in a timely manner. Second, the constant taunt swaps have a harsh punishment for every instant that you fail. Missing even one is a potential disaster, shoving more and more work onto the shoulders of the dps and healers. Finally, this fight teaches you restraint. I can’t count the number of groups that I have seen fail because of a paladin who didn’t understand that consecrate can wipe a group if it pulls any number of blood beasts into the melee.
6) Valitheria Dreamwalker
Every flavor of adds under the sun is coming at you increasingly quickly, and it’s your job to hold them all. There’s a caster, one that explodes, one that spawns streaming adds, some that don’t need to be tanked, some that give you debuffs, and more. Dreamwalker is crisis management. As the fight goes on longer and longer, it becomes harder and harder to keep up with the stream of incoming hostiles. A truly exceptional tank is essential to lasting long enough, especially when one stray add could spell disaster.
5) Mimiron (Firefighter)
When Ulduar came out, Firefighter was the one hard mode that stood apart from the rest. Far and away the most difficult of the keepers, Mimiron’s hard mode trigger was feared for months. Even with drastically increased gear, it remains the encounter that puts an end to pugs, and even some guild runs. Through the encounter, the tank is tasked with avoiding dozens of mechanics that could kill him, while mitigating others and all the while moving the boss in such a way that the entire group doesn’t die to a poorly placed attack.
4) Putricide
While the final boss of plague wing is fairly simple for the majority of the fight, it has two redeeming qualities that greatly enhance it from a tanking point of view. First, the abomination mechanic gives the offtank, who otherwise would merely be sub-par dps, an important and unique job. Once phase 3 begins, the taunt swaps need to be crisp to maintain an equal number of stacks between all the tanks – without making the boss go immune to taunt (especially on 25man, when there will be more than 2 tanks). All this must be done while kiting the boss around in a giant loop to maintain melee dps and avoid ever expanding slime puddles.
3) Heigan the Unclean
A rite of passage for any Wrath of the Lich King tank is maintaining your life through the safety dance. When even one wrong step means the death of the entire group, there is no positional fight that is more critical. Heigan is an easy choice for the top three.
2) Lady Deathwhisper (Heroic)
Lady Deathwhisper does everything that Dreamwalker did and more. By the time that the first phase ends, you’ve tanked nearly a dozen adds, kited an abomination, interrupted countless attacks, and have been running windsprints across the battlefield so the healer didn’t get killed by the newly spawned group – and then you get into the more difficult phase. Fraught with near-instant kill abilities, phase 2 takes any tank to the brink with drastically reduced threat generation and continued add spawns. Completing this encounter is a gratifying sigh of relief, as it truly tests every single facet of your abilities.
1) The Lich King
As the final boss of the expansion, The Lich King boasts some of the hardest hitting melee swings in the game. The direct assault on the tank is significant, and especially after phase 2, will require a steady rotation of cooldowns to avoid instant-death to a Soul Reaper. The offtank’s duties are no less significant, requiring the careful management of a dozen or more adds at once, periodic enrage mechanics, as well as stuns and cleaves. Even in the final phase, the offtank must take it upon himself to reduce damage incoming to the raid by carefully judging the amount of attacks he can absorb at once, while the Main Tank moves the boss to an ever-shifting safe-zone as far away as possible from threats and hazards.
As a 10+ minute fight, The Lich King is a difficult test of tanking skill, but more importantly, one of endurance. Even one missed taunt, or pick-up, will wipe the group without mercy. The Lich King provides one final test to cap the expansion, and any tank who has stood toe-to-toe with him deserves to be proud.
Coming up next time on the Wrath Retrospective, the top 10 healer fights of the Expansion, likely tomorrow or the next day, depending on when I get a hold of Bones to do this week’s Picks.
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