CT - Taking the Bone Dragon to the True North

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

As I said before, think about the composition of the room. There's a huge central platform, then segmented pathways in 8 directions. . . and the room fills with poison periodically. Why would you tank it anywhere but the center? Sure you'll want it to FACE north - this is assuming your Alliances position themselves (initially) West (A), South (B) and East (C), but why position yourself (as the main tank) in an area where your field of movement gets restricted by poison, not to mention creating a situation where (one would assume) the skeletons will move in a straight line for the dragon. . . off the main paths and into the poison? That'd be a nightmare for your melee DPS, and effectively your healers as well.

[Thaliss]

as long as it works, it proves that you don't have only 1 way to do it

[Kuwagami]

as long as it works, it proves that you don't have only 1 way to do it

I tanked Acheron in the fire once, and it worked well. Doesn't mean that was a good idea ^^

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Have you seen my Lost City Bard-tank vid? I can do it, rather easily I might add, but it's quite impractical.

But hey, if it works for some, so be it.

[Lyrinn]

Standing around for 8 minutes is stupid, yet T2 enrage is mainstream.

Tanking dragon north is idiot-proof unless your healers are garbage, in which case you'd wipe regardless. Literally same reason as T2 enrage, nothing more to it than that.

[sheepysheepy]

enrage is mainstream cos people failed at regular
no one fails at regular bone dragon, so altering anything is unneccessary

[Fynlar]

I've personally seen it tanked to the side far more often than in the center. Every time I've seen it tanked in the center, the fight was incredibly sloppy or a wipe.

+/- All skeletons have to travel the same distance to the boss.

This right here is a big con, and is the reason why you don't tank it in the middle.

With the dragon to the side of the arena, there is an (unspoken) priority established with regard to the killing order of the skeletons: you kill the ones closer to the dragon first, since the ones farther away have more time to be killed. Any DPS that knows how the fight works generally knows to handle the skeletons this way without having to be told.

With all the skeletons at equal distance, no such priority exists, which makes the process sloppier.

Tanking it north screws the melees pretty hard

Melees get screwed pretty hard on this fight no matter what you do. Other than the final phase, it's rare for them to actually spend much time attacking the boss at all. Yet, they don't really have much else better to do than chase after the skeletons, because otherwise the boss gets killed too quickly.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Standing around for 8 minutes is stupid, yet T2 enrage is mainstream.

Tanking dragon north is idiot-proof unless your healers are garbage, in which case you'd wipe regardless. Literally same reason as T2 enrage, nothing more to it than that.

Actually no, tanking it in the center is idiot-proof. Here's what NEEDS to happen:

DPS needs to NOT go all out on the dragon, especially if there are skeletons up.
Tanks need to NOT fight each other for aggro. If someone grabbed a skeleton and is leading it away to a proper, open spot, let him.
Assuming A goes to the left (west), B stays centered (south), and C to the right (east), FACE the dragon North.

Most importantly: If you have new people or if anyone is unsure of what to do or how to do it, take just a little of the MORE THAN GENEROUS amount of time you're given for CT and EXPLAIN THE FIGHT. You can't get everything from a video.

[Donjo]

With the dragon to the side of the arena, there is an (unspoken) priority established with regard to the killing order of the skeletons: you kill the ones closer to the dragon first, since the ones farther away have more time to be killed. Any DPS that knows how the fight works generally knows to handle the skeletons this way without having to be told.

With all the skeletons at equal distance, no such priority exists, which makes the process sloppier.

And this is why I listed "requires greater party organization" as a con for tanking it in the middle. The way to take care of skeletons with a middle dragon is very, very simple.

There are 6 skeletons.

There are 12 DPS.

There are 6 Tanks.

Each skeleton gets attacked by 2 DPS and 1 Tank. They all die at roughly the same time. The fight continues. Of course, this requires that little thing called "organization" to accomplish.

[Poringing]

I think I know why some people like taking the dragon to the North most area. Though the reason is going to be plain sad.

Lets just assume these:
- Nobody knows what they are doing (also, their attacking and tanking rotation is based on a RNG)
- Everybody is going to fight with everybody for aggro
- Everybody thinks that the dragons AoE frontal breath (the disease causing one) has an infinite range, causing the 120 degree area taken by the main tank off-limits to everyone but him

With the above assumptions, where the skeleton will ultimately end up is as if you're throwing darts blindfolded. So if you're tanking the dragon in the middle, you're only left with 60% of the arena to randomly drop the skeletons; but if you're tanking at the North most area, you now have 90% of the arena to randomly drop skeletons. In the end, chances of not placing 2+ skeletons together and thus clearing is 50% higher when you tank the dragon at the North most area.

But seriously, this is done in half the CTs I've been in and it's the hands-down the best method.

East ------> (Team C)

Boss -----------------1st add (MT)-----2nd add (OT)-----3rd add (MT)
Center Platform-------Platform 1---------Platform 2--------Platform 3

Everyone of team C is standing on platform 1 to vaporize everything that walks by.