Advice on Tanking Titan?

Hello! I'm a paladin about ready to undertake Titan HM, but I've been having a hard time finding any guides on the subject specifically for tanks. From the videos I've watched, it doesn't seem like we have it as hard as other roles during the fight, but I hate to go in unprepared. Can anyone offer any advice or strategy to help me prepare? Were their any guides that helped you? Thanks in advance for any help! I appreciate it!

There's a nice graph floating around out there. Sadly, I don't have it have it handy right now. In essence...you just stand at the edge of his area each phase, pop cooldowns for mountain burster, and dodge bombs if you're not asleep by that point.

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Originally Posted by Lex_Luger

During phase 4, the heart phase, it's important to grab snap aggro fast, because you'll have DPS going balls deep, and healers dropping huge heals from the previous phase change. I usually spam tab until the heart is targetable, toss a shield lob, as soon as it gets to me, I provoke+uncomboed halone just in case anyone has over taken my hate lead in that split second, spirits within, and CoS, and then start my regular halone combo. Other than that, in phase 5 if you see landslide, you know a mountain buster is coming. I usually throw a flash out right before buster, and I typically dodge about 1 buster per fight depending on its length and the quality of DPS. You can time Rampart so it lasts through the Heart>Phase 5 AoE from phase shift, Buster, and Stomps, which is a great way to start the 5th and final phase.

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Curious why you wouldn't start with FoF, shield lob, CoS then Halone combo? Provoke and uncomboed halone would hinder your emnity more than assist.

During phase 4, the heart phase, it's important to grab snap aggro fast, because you'll have DPS going balls deep, and healers dropping huge heals from the previous phase change. I usually spam tab until the heart is targetable, toss a shield lob, as soon as it gets to me, I provoke+uncomboed halone just in case anyone has over taken my hate lead in that split second, spirits within, and CoS, and then start my regular halone combo. Other than that, in phase 5 if you see landslide, you know a mountain buster is coming. I usually throw a flash out right before buster, and I typically dodge about 1 buster per fight depending on its length and the quality of DPS. You can time Rampart so it lasts through the Heart>Phase 5 AoE from phase shift, Buster, and Stomps, which is a great way to start the 5th and final phase.

How viable would it be for a Paladin to use Stoneskin right before Titan's Mountain Buster? I'm curious about this from the tank's standpoint.

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Originally Posted by mythicrose

There's a nice graph floating around out there. Sadly, I don't have it have it handy right now. In essence...you just stand at the edge of his area each phase, pop cooldowns for mountain burster, and dodge bombs if you're not asleep by that point.

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Thanks for the replies guys! So it really is just a tank and spank for the most part. Is there any more specific advice you can give me on dodging the bombs? You don't seem too worried about them :P

And thanks Lex for the tips! I'll defiantly grab aggro as quickly as possible, I wouldn't have thought hate resets during the heart phase, so its good to have a heads up :O

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Originally Posted by WellFooled

Thanks for the replies guys! So it really is just a tank and spank for the most part. Is there any more specific advice you can give me on dodging the bombs? You don't seem too worried about them :P

And thanks Lex for the tips! I'll defiantly grab aggro as quickly as possible, I wouldn't have thought hate resets during the heart phase, so its good to have a heads up :O

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It depends on how confident you are in yourself, healers, etc. You can eat a bomb and mountain burster if you have cooldowns ready and healers on the ball. For the line pattern of bombs (which seems to be the biggest concern for dodging), you can run to the bomb that is going to explode next once you since Titan finish casting landslide for zero damage. One caveat.. you have a chance of Titan cleaving team mates if/when you return to your original position.

Edit : Addonex, kudos for the chart.

http://i.imgur.com/KP8wXYZ.png

That covers it pretty well.

In all honesty though, biggest thing you can do before the final phase is maximize your aggro. Start the fight with Fight or Flight, because WHM healing aggro is a serious issue at certain gear levels before you reach the final phase (when they've been able to drop aggro twice with Shroud). Once you get past the Heart phase, you're only real job is minimizing the damage you take from bombs and using cooldowns appropriately on mountain buster (which as noted previously, always follows landslide).

Bombs can be dodged either by dancing the bombs accordingly (Titan won't cleave until shortly after the bombs finish exploding, so you can always have him appropriately repositioned if you do this) or you can find the sweet spot to stand in between bombs to be just out of the blast range. The second method is what many tanks try to do that often gets them double bombed and killed. Typically, the ideal position is going to have you standing w/ half/most of your body hanging over the edge. If you're worried about this, pop rampart the first few times you try this, that way if you screw up and eat two bombs, you still have a chance at living and it'll last long enough to be up for the following cleave + mountain buster you want it for anyways.

Once you're set on aggro and positioning, the above picture is a pretty accurate depiction of what the fight feels like for a tank.

Final tips:

Having stoneskin cross-classed here helps. You have ample time in the last phase to use it on yourself or others to help the healers out. Might need to communicate with healers, I personally think it's better to have the PLD SS himself and let the WHM stick to heals since they're more mana efficient anyways.

The last phase involves 5 plumes. If enough players die, the tank will become a target for these. So be ready to dance if this happens.

Addonex

FoF/BB are a given, so I didn't list them. Perhaps you didn't fully read my post, because I explained exactly why I do what I do. The first attack in the Halone combo has no enmity bonus attached to it. It's just like any other DPS's regular attack, expect you're not wearing DPS gear, so its pretty inferior. Halone has a 5x enmity modifier on it, which means even a 100dmg Halone, will generate 500 enmity, where as your 100 damage fast blade genereates... 100 enmity. This is really only effective because the only time your enmity will be suspect is before you land the first combo. By Shield lobbing, spirits within, circle of scorn, and doing a RoH, in 2 GCD's you have given yourself a sizeable aggro lead while your DPS start pounding away. During the phase3/phase4 shift, your healers are tossing huge medicas right around the time your shield lob is landing, as titans heart takes a moment before it is targetable. This is why you can shield lob, and loose aggro briefly before securing it if you aren't quick to react. Obviously, all of this depends upon the gear level of the tank vs the gear level of the DPS, but its a method thats been 100% tried and true for me for countless titan kills.

There were times where Shield LoB (SW/CoS on GCD cool down) and then starting my halone combo would hold aggro, and there were times where he would flash orange or yellow for a second, before the 2nd and 3rd part of the halone combo land. By doing Shield LoB (SW/CoS on GCD CD) and opening with a RoH instead of Fast blade, I have NEVER lost aggro, even for a split second, during those initial moments of the heart phase.

Ha, thanks for the chart Addonex xD I'm feeling a lot more confident after reading everyone's suggestions. Thank you so much for taking the time. Sounds like if I can grab aggro quickly enough for the heart phase and find the sweet spot between bombs I should be alright. Still nervous mind you, but much less now thanks to all the help!

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Originally Posted by Lex_Luger

By doing Shield LoB (SW/CoS on GCD CD) and opening with a RoH instead of Fast blade, I have NEVER lost aggro, even for a split second, during those initial moments of the heart phase.

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Shield lob and RoH are both wastes of the GCD imho. Regardless of whether or not you have issues it still holds true. You can land CoS and flash before you can even target titan. By the time you can actually target him you can just Spirits Within and enter your RoH chain.

FoF/BB, Flash, CoS, SW, enmity combo.