Tanking Turn 4

[NavocSkjold]

Any tips for a tank stepping into Turn 4 tonight? ilvl 79.

[Traek]

If you are dread tank, save CDs for it. As a Paladin, Stoneskin yourself before each dread pickup. You can literally count 3 swings before each hard hit (rotoswipe), though sometimes the animation/timing gets messed up if you move them much (it'll auto attack on rotoswipe for double ouch). Never face a dread towards party. Learn the timing of dread drops for your group and try to have a comboed Halone ready for their drop.

When tanking spinner rooks, make sure to run through them when they cast pox.

Use shield oath? /trololol

Really the fight is largely about positioning, and some also depends on your group composition.

[Asdamine]

Will you be main tank or off tank?

P1 - aggro spiders and kill them off

P2 - aggro soilders/knights (OT stand at 2 o'clock; MT stand at 10 o'clock)

P3 - MT stand at 10 o'clock; rotate defensive cooldowns. OT switch to Sword Oath and dps dreadnaught, change to Shield Oath at around 40% HP

P4 - MT take one Spinner Rook ONLY; OT take one Spinner Rook and ALL the spiders. Dodge Pox from the Spinner Rook, just like Garuda's splipstream.

P5 - MT stand at 2 o'clock; OT stand at centre, aggro Soliders/knight, move to clear location so aoe won't hit the group/ or the group move away from you (common sense dictates how you will move)

P6 - MT stand at 2 o'clock; OT stand at centre, aggro Solider/knight+2spiders ONLY (Hallowed Ground, then rotate defensive cooldowns, run along the edge and kite them until only ONE dreadnaught remaining)

In summary - KEEP FLASHING AND RIOT BLADE!

[Xandim]

Im having some trouble OTing turn 4 too. Just by standing on the centre and using Flash is enough to grab aggro (P5 and P6)? Or do I have to do some running around? Sometimes I can hold aggro on them but sometimes they go straight to a healer and that ends up killing him. My cover usually is on CD from P4 (I find it easy to just let the healer grab aggro on all mobs, cover then flash) so I can't rely much on that. Is this turn heavily tank dependant? Im the kind of ppl that will always assume its my fault if something goes wrong =\

Thanks in advance

PS: Sorry, English isnt my main language =P

[Kuwagami]

in P3 (single dread), when OT goes to take the rook/bugs, I often go to 7 o'clock in order to get my rook asap, then run to my healers ands use flash twice. First is to help them survive first hits (I should take about 2 bugs out of the 4/5 that come) and 2nd takes the hate off. then I run to 6 o'clock and run in point blank circles around the rook (avoid both gravity thrust and pox. You REALLY want to avoid these) to let the bugs face the same direction all the time.

After they are all dead or nearly done, I run to middle to get the soldier and take the knight from the healers, go at 6 o'clock again to wait for P6 while everyone else burns the dread (it always dies before P6 or right when 2nd dread pops, which helps a lot). When the dread is around 20%, I run in center, pop a flash to get the soldier, run to the healer to flash and save his life from 3 bugs + knight (which normally can't get there in time and only hits me) and a bard takes the rook.

Kill order at that time is 1st dread (MT should pop Hallowed Ground right before or after it pops to survive if both are here. Else, wait 10 secs for feeding), then the rook while I feed the bugs. MT pops hallowed Ground while we burn the 2 sets of knight/soldier, and then we LB/burn the last dear and get our loot ^^

Note : it's important to feed the 1st dread in P3 right when it pops. For that, healers should stand near 11 o'clock and use a heal. They won't get the dread but thay'll attract all the bugs. It gives a big buff in damage to the dread and heals it by 10% per bug fed, so avoid doing damage before the feeding ^^ (if the OT is a war, feel free to apply storm's path before it has 4 stacks though, as it will hurt pretty bad really soon)

[Traek]

Im having some trouble OTing turn 4 too. Just by standing on the centre and using Flash is enough to grab aggro (P5 and P6)? Or do I have to do some running around? Sometimes I can hold aggro on them but sometimes they go straight to a healer and that ends up killing him. My cover usually is on CD from P4 (I find it easy to just let the healer grab aggro on all mobs, cover then flash) so I can't rely much on that. Is this turn heavily tank dependant? Im the kind of ppl that will always assume its my fault if something goes wrong =\

As an OT you need to be on top of add spawns. Flash is best for initial pickup obviously, but you should be maxing aggroe on your Knight/Soldier through Halone combos and storing up MP for the next Knight/Soldier. Of course this partly depends on your group's method of doing T4. My group does single Dread strat, so we burn p5 dread before p6 drops, and OT Flash/kites x4 Soldier/Knights (usually Hallowed Grounds to just max threat) while DD burns Rook and moves into p5 Knight/Soldier > p6 Knight/Soldier.

In this scenario, picking up p5 Knight/Soldier is easily attainable with x2 Flash and starting into your Halone combos, as damage should be manageable with one healer per each tank. Make sure you are tanking Solider/Knights away from heals as their AoE will continue to hit heals hard if tanked near. Another thing you can do is ready a Halone for the middle spawn p5 add, and use as it drops. If big heals are going out at the time, provoke the far add drop as it runs over to heals, and Flash on it, or have a Savage Blade ready.

Honestly it sounds like you are having somewhat of a threat gen problem. You shouldn't *need* to use cover at all for p4. If you are at the drop location, your initial flash should pick up a majority of the adds, and if healers are gathered properly there, the next one will pick up the rest as they converge. MT should take the kill target Rook and OT just flashes while dodging pox on 2nd Rook (obviously can single target after threat is established).

On initial adds pickup possibly save a Circle of Scorn and maybe even Spirit's Within. While any extra DPS is nice to have, keeping your healers alive is far more important as a tank, so save them as needed.

[Delorean]

poor positioning and pickup planning in the transition into the very last wave before focusing the last dreadnaught is the easiest way that you can wipe

one of the knights/soldiers from the last phases always spawns in the middle of the room. find out where the other one spawns, flash on top of it, tomahawk/shield lob the one in the middle. we personally use a strategy where the healers stack on the back of the dreadnaught so that bugs run straight for it and dps tanks the rook and i hold 2 waves of knights/soldiers until the rook dies and then ae lb all of the knights and soldiers.

There were many times where an add was loose because their spawn did not line up perfectly with my rotation and it was the only reason why we wiped. We used to wipe at least once or twice every week on turn 4 since we downed it because of it.

edit: oh yeah, fight or flight is not just a hotbar decoration or simply a damage boost. if you are having trouble keeping hate in particular parts of the encounter, use it accordingly.

[Asdamine]

Sometimes I can hold aggro on them but sometimes they go straight to a healer and that ends up killing him.

While it might be the tank's fault that he couldn't hold aggro due to the amount of adds running around and the intensity of the fight. But most of the time I done it, when a healer took my aggro, is because they over-heal the MT (or OT). Common mistake for healers are that they believe spamming Cure/Physick non-stop would maintain the tank alive. While spamming it would definitely keep the tank's HP topped up, however, that is just a waste of resources and over-heal do gain aggro equally as a normal heal.

It is very much a team effort (as well as you) on how you'll perform. Make sure you talk to each other if you notice these kind of problems.

A little trick is to pop hallowed ground immediately after the adds have gathered around you in p6. This gives you a clear 10 seconds to gain threat. This 10 seconds will definitely decide the fate of your fight. Good luck.

[Ooshima]

While it might be the tank's fault that he couldn't hold aggro due to the amount of adds running around and the intensity of the fight. But most of the time I done it, when a healer took my aggro, is because they over-heal the MT (or OT). Common mistake for healers are that they believe spamming Cure/Physick non-stop would maintain the tank alive. While spamming it would definitely keep the tank's HP topped up, however, that is just a waste of resources and over-heal do gain aggro equally as a normal heal.

It is very much a team effort (as well as you) on how you'll perform. Make sure you talk to each other if you notice these kind of problems.

A little trick is to pop hallowed ground immediately after the adds have gathered around you in p6. This gives you a clear 10 seconds to gain threat. This 10 seconds will definitely decide the fate of your fight. Good luck.

Depends, sometimes it's due to bad positioning of healer when the next wave begins.

[Xandim]

Thanks for the input, I'll tell my healers to stay closer to me when P5/6 starts (im usually in the middle and the healers are more to the edges). I'll save Fight or Flight for that part too (at least I wont use it on P4) to generate more threat. I DID pass it once but it wasn't with my static, it was with a PUG (even tho 3 or 4 members were from my static group/FC members). Oh and i'll try to craft/buy Mega-ethers, since sometimes I lose track of my own mp for Flash (and even tho we do have a BRD, its always good to have a instant mp recover).

You shouldn't *need* to use cover at all for p4.

It's not that I NEED to use Cover on that part, I just find it easier to Cover the aggroed healer. I almost never use Cover, might as well use it at least once in my game life =P