Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Warrior Tanking 101: Halls of Reflection

What is this shit? Something useful? BOOOOOO!!!! Post more fail pug shit.

Ok Ok, calm down. This will only take a minute or five.

Most of you have probably already done Halls of Reflection. Most of you have probably also been part of a fail pug in Whore.....I mean HoR.

This is not the easiest instance to tank by a country mile. Especially for a Warrior tank. You have to do things right or your healer will get eaten up.

First things first. After all of the "Blah blah impale me with your big meaty frostmourne, Arthas" talk, you get to the actual instance. This starts out with 4 waves of adds, coming one wave at a time followed by a boss. Then 4 more waves of adds followed by the next boss.

The waves are the real pain in the twat part. I tank the waves in the alcove behind Falric. They come in many varieties and combos including mages, priests, hunters, rogues, and warriors. The kill order for me is always priest, mage, hunter, rogue, warrior. These pulls can be tricky because they come from random directions. It is your job as the uber leet tankxor to pick them all up. This is where good use of your abilities comes in. As they come up you will usually want to use Heroic throw on a mage. This will get the into range. All of the DPS and the healer should be out of LoS of the waves when they first activate. This will funnel them in the same direction.

I like to open with a thunder clap followed by a shockwave to get all of their attention. The most annoying one to get into position in the hunter as he can not be silenced. You will have to run out of LoS to make him follow you. Make sure your group knows the kill order and that they should be focusing on a specific target.

One of the most important things is not to blow waste your abilities. When there are only one or two of mobs left in a single wave, you will want to conserve some of that rage for the next wave. You will also want to make sure that Thunderclap and Shockwave are off of cooldown. If they aren't, your healer and dps may be in for a world of hurt.

After the first 4 waves, you will fight Falric. The fight is basically a tank and spank except that he fears you from time to time. This fear cannot be broken by Berserker Rage or Tremor Totem. Everyone will take a good chunk of damge during this fear. As long as the healer is up to stuff, you should be fine. Collect your loots and get back in your cubby hole for the next set of waves.

4 more waves exactly the same as the first sets of waves and then you will face the second boss, Marwyn. Marywnn is even easier. Dont stand in bad crap. He will curse people. And uhhhhh.....yeah. Beat his ass and take his loot.

From there you will go fight a big skeleton dude in the next hallway. He is tank and spank. He summons mirror adds of everyone in the party. Smash them to bits. I think they may explode or something. I didnt even notice to be honest.

From there Jaina decided she no longer has the constitution to choke on Arthas' knob and flees. You must defend her honor while she breaks apart the ice wall. Well you don't have to defend her honor really. Just kill more adds while Arthas walks after you like Jason Vorhees.

The mobs will come in waves of different kinds. The first and weakest are the ghoul mobs. They jump at you and will be very easy to AOE down. Pro Tip: Bring up the rear as you run from ice wall to ice wall. The mobs should default aggro on you. I also like to refresh one of my shouts just to make sure. The second kind of mob is the abomination. Make sure to turn them away so they dont puke on everyone. The third is a witch doctor that casts curses and shadowbolts. You should probably take these down first.

If you get to the end of the tunnel and the gunship comes to save you, feel free to pump up your dps numbers on Arthas. He wont mind.

Well, there you have it. No need to avoid it anymore. Darraxus help you SMASH!

7 comments:

Arioch said...

The Alliance version of wHoRe sounds like a good-bad porno.

*vlad* said...

I think you summed it up nicely. Shame that the whole 'line of sight' tactic makes you feel like you have to fight in a cupboard.

Vordan said...

I love it when tanks let the a-bom's puke on the party *sarcasm*. I have been in so many groups where they just let them wild hitting everyone, think the only group I was in that didnt happen was when you tanked it the other day.

Dread said...

I prefer not tanking in the alcove only because it limits my own view of the battlefield. From the first clear I sit the healer on the pedestal in the middle, CC any ranged if we have CC. Pick up footmen and rogues first and burn priests as the dps prio. As soon as I have solid aggro on the melee I pick up any mages or hunters. Priests hit like bunnies so I throw a taunt here or there, but no need to tank them religiously. I have had less trouble with this method than the LoS method as a warrior.

What's my main Again? said...

The biggest issue I tend to have is rage starvation. If I don't have bloodrage up just before the mobs come I'm pretty much screwed. In general I approach the fight the same way as you do. Thunderclap the melee who get in first then whip open my pants and let the shockwave hit the mages and hunters.

Fricassee said...

Protip: To get the hunters to go where you want them to, save your disarm. When they're about 10 yards out, strafe/disarm/strafe back. You can start with a shockwave if you're worried about the others moving.

Angry Gamer said...

I use disarm on the Hunter. Chuck a sword everynow and on a caster or charge out, stun, shield smack and draw back to alcove

I actually have more trouble with the final wave in the run from arthas than i do in the opening stages of this 5 man. It drives me nuts.