I've Never Done It, But Trust Me, I'm An Expert

Thanks for taking the time to write a very informative blog. I am just a tad behind you with my paladin as far as gear and progression but I learn lots from reading your blog.
I am sorry to hear that you got hacked and lost all of your stuff. This is one of my biggest fears and I think that if this happened to me, I don't know what I would do.
As far as my progression we are 2/6 in SSC and 2/4 in TK but only 3/6 in ZA (stupid dragonhawk boss has been owning us) I guess that my raids have been having a problem with AoE'ing stuff down. Any advice on how to keep the adds on me (or at least 2 or 3 on me) with the hydross fight?
Again hang in there and thank you for a wonderful, informative site. (one that isn't blocked from work) :) - Altair from scilla

I'll do my best, even though I've never actually had to do this.
I don't tank adds in the Hydross fight for Mal Katai. I'm our Frost Resist tank and main tank Hydross while he is in the Frost form.
Edit 4/25: Look in the comments. Coristad (someone who has actually done this, has some great advice.
If I were to do it, this is the approach I'd take:
Basically the adds spawn in a square formation around Hydross. Flip your camera to where you are basically looking down on Hydross from above. Either run a little infront or a little behind and watch for the adds to spawn. Have Seal of Righteousness up. Drop a Consecrate right on top of one of the adds as it spawns and immediately tab target to the other one (make sure you didn't tab target to Hydross). Judgement. That should get two fo them on you. Now target a 3rd add and let fly with Avenger's Shield. It's going to take a couple of seconds to get off because the other two adds are banging on you. That should get three or even 4 adds on you. Don't worry with Holy Shield, it's useless in this fight. You are going to have to hold aggro through Consecration and Seals and Judgements. What I typically do in a situation like that, is change targets every Judgement cooldown. So I whack on one mob til Judgement comes up and Judge, then switch and whack on another mob til Judgement come up, and continue switching until the mobs are dead. If one of your mobs gets loose and runs off, use Righteous Defense to get him back.
I'd love to use Seal of Vengeance (switching Mobs each time it procs to build multiple stacks on multiple mobs), and basically tab through all the mobs putting a DoT on them, but I feel like in the Hydross Add situation you need to really burst the threat so I like Righteousness.

Comments

Raydz said…
I'm not very familiar with a pally's taunt cool down but these mobs are tauntable as well (you can even taunt as they are in thier "spawning" phase -- there is that 1-2 seconds where they pop but dont move)

This could possibly help grab that 3'd one?
Anonymous said…
Have a judgement of righteousness ready to go, but there are simpler ways to do it.

Imagine a clock face with mobs at 1, 5, 7, and 11. 7 & 11 are the closest to where your raid is. I try to stand on/near 7 and drop a consecrate right away.

In my experience, what normally happens is 1 and 5 will go for a healer, and because of the way heal aggro works it's the same one. Normally, 5 will go as well. 3 mobs are heading right for someone... hm... how can I pull 3 mobs off someone from range... oh yeah, Righteous Defense! Fire off a quick taunt, and the mobs will stop in their tracks and head for you. Now you toss your shield because they're all nice and close-like. Now you can move in and meet them halfway, which is normally on top of the boss, while dragging your other mob behind you. Drop another consecrate, let it tick for a few, and then tell the aoe to open up. Add-wrangling is important enough that it merits having a backup person (like a feral) standing outside of the fray ready to pick up a stray mob if needed to drag back into the aoe.

Also, flask of chromatic resistance > everything for this fight. The extra resist mitigates way more damage than any other option and makes you dramatically more survivable. You can do the fight with 14K buffed health if you have a flask and a 150/150 set.
Honors Code said…
The Paladin Taunt (Righteous Defense) has a 15 second cooldown (which feels MUCH longer when you need it).

The Paladin Taunt requires the mob to be targeting a friendly player for it to work.

I'd rather have the taunt to grab a mob back from an overzealous DPS, rather than use it on the pickup.

The really nice thing about our taunt is that we don't have to be in melee range for it to work. The Player the mob is targeting must be within 40 yards of us.
Raydz said…
Im not sure if they have preselected someone as a target while they are spawning so then i guess taunt off the bat might not work.
I used to do it when i would tank adds, taunt one - run over to the other mob and sunder him then start cleaving and bouncing back and forth to grab aggro.
it worked pretty well but since you have alot of ranged aggro catchers those would prob be better.
Anonymous said…
@Honors-
Your comment was that you are not an add tank. I was, and I can tell you that at least under the circumstances I described, using taunt works very well. It has nothing to do with preselecting targets and everything to do with heal aggro. All commentary on this fight indicates that there needs to be a DPS stop during the transitions. That's wonderful, but in most cases the MT Healers is still chugging away. The adds are going to target someone immediately, and it's not the add tank. If the adds spawn at the same time your Main Healer drops a 6K Crit heal on the tank, that's around 3K threat you need to put out right away to avert a wipe. That's why I taunt, and then follow up with the shield toss. The consecrate seals the deal.

Screw the overzealous DPS, I'm saving the healers. :) That's the approach that I developed for that fight. It worked for me. I think it's fairly simple and reliable. As always, YMMV.
Honors Code said…
I've edited my original Blog entry directing people to look at Coristad's comments. Thanks for posting Coristad!

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