Some questions about BT...

I know this is definitely dependent on a lot of things (guild mechanics, etc), but I had a few questions regarding Black Temple. My guild is on its second serious night in there, we're 2/9 (would be 3/9 but we ran short on time) and just about to start the "harder" bosses. What I'd like to know:

1. In your opinion, which boss fights are the most difficult to learn for guilds new to BT?

2. Which boss fights are the most difficult to execute after the strategy is already learned? (I'm thinking along the lines of Vashj, where even though we have the strategy down pat, there are still inevitable wipes due to one or two people forgetting their jobs.)

3. We have an awesome prot pally who has been vital to our success. We went 4/5 in MH on our first real week in there and it's largely due to his presence. How much of a role will he be able to play in Black Temple, other than just throwing on healing gear or getting subbed out after trash?

Any info you veterans could provide would be much appreciated. It'll be nice to know what we're up against.
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Obnauticus/Warlock/Mannoroth (main)
4/6 SWP
Oldtuna/Paladin/Nordrassil (alt)
7/10 Kara 2/2 GL LOL

Answers,

1. RoS + Boil are a pain in the ass for people to grasp tbh.

2. Hardest strat to execute in there imho is bloodboil from a tank's PoV.

3. Aside from trash, your pally is notably able to

Supremus becuase of faster threat and pickup
Teron because he wont threatcap the dps meaning he goes down faster
Akama tanking sides of adds is lolmode for him
Bloodboil (notably easier for an alliance than horde with SoV imo)
RoS p1 is easier and p3 there is NO reason pally shouldn't tank (see the thread for reasons)
Council just as any tank can tank it i think rogue is favoured
I heard a pally is easier to heal than a warrior or bear but im not sure, no reason they cant soak lashes though.
Depending on your gearing and style, illidan MT or flames if hes got capped FR.


At collage now so brief reply, hope it helps.
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1. Gurtogg will likely give you the most trouble as you clear through the rest of BT. The other fights are very strategy-dependent, but 100% reproducible - there should really be no surprises on Teron or RoS at all - but there's a definite element of luck to the BB fight sometimes. Illidari Council can also take some fidgeting with your strategy to get just right.

2. One person forgetting to move or an unlucky spike on a cloth-wearer will give you fits on Gurtogg even after you've learned it. Every other fight in there is 100% execution.

3. You're definitely not as useful as in MH, but if you're a solid offtank, a prot paladin will have no issues filling that role in BT when it's needed (Supremus, Akama, Gurtogg, RoS, Mother, Council, Illidan). There's a bit of AoE trash as well but not as much as in MH.
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Nowadays, everyone in our raid is pretty pro at handling Teron's constructs but I remember painful times when invariably "that guy" would be marked for death.

It depends on the depth of your tanking corps how much tanking your tankadin will actually do in BT. But if he's sufficiently geared and skilled, there's no reason for him not to tank in every encounter in BT.
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Fights I am involved in tanking in BT:
Supremus
Gurtogg Bloodboil
Reliquary of Souls P1 & P3
Shade of Akama
Mother Sharaz
Illidari Council (rogue)
Illidan (flame)

I generally heal on Najentus, but I tanked it this week.
I dispel on Teron. We found it better to have someone dedicated to it.

We only bring 3 specced tanks for the whole instance (PW, PP, Feral). Your prot pally is perfectly capable of being one of those 3. Considering we've been in BT just over a month on a 3 day raid schedule and have one nighted every boss except Gurtogg Bloodboil...I highly doubt I am holding us back in any way.
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<3 Tankadin at Heart.

Not necessarily accurate: Armory

Priests or mages getting fel rage on Bloodboil make me cry irl, they get it a lot and it seems pretty random whether or not the healers can keep them up. Even when we get him on farm I see this still being an issue.
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My situation is very similar to Questioner's - am a tankadin with a prot warrior and feral druid, and am the least kitted of the 3 having swapped to paladin late on.

I tend to heal on Najentus, tank or off-tank on Supremus, tank a side on Akama, do dispells on Gorefiend, tank on RoS [not p2 obv], tank/off-tank on Bloodboil, off-tank on Mother, tank rogue on Council and tank flames on Illidan. Obviously plenty of the trash is AOE friendly too, so I play a key role there. In summary there is plenty for a tankadin to do in Hyjal, on all encounters.

I'd say RoS and Gorefiend are probably hardest to learn pre-Illidan. We had problems with interupts of spirit shock on RoS; make sure you have interupt teams, there is a deaden mod to reduce the chance of them interupting deaden, ensure you have Curse of Tongues. Gorefiend can take a while to learn if people can't cope with the ghosts - there is a Flash Game which is kinda handy for learning the ghosts, but is harder than the real thing.

The hardest fights to repeat are probably Gorefiend [due to the ghosts] and Bloodboil. Bloodboil can get tricky if you get say a cloth wearer with fel rage at the same time a couple of tanks have a high stack of dots for whatever reason. We generally bring in an extra healer for Bloodboil onwards.
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Bloodboil was the most "difficult" for me. It took several tries to actually get a feel for how the tank rotation works, and it's different for each guild. You really have to work together with the other tanks and watch your threat and theirs as well. However, after killing him 3 times, it's not very hard at all.

I can't say about RoS yet because my RL felt DPS was too low to bring me in (even though he agrees tankadins are best for p3, we were struggling to kill p2 in time with me there) and opted to bring another dps in my place, but RoS only took us two nights of attempts to kill. The hardest part of that fight is getting the p1 rotations down perfectly so everyone is alive for p2. Also, from what I heard on vent, interrupting in p2 needs to be perfect, because as soon as our MT took a spirit shock or whatever its called, dps got killed and then they couldn't make the timer.

Also, mother shaz can be a bit of a problem is you're scraping by on SR gear like we were. People can't be lazy on FA with only 250-300 buffed SR.
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I pretty much agree with what Morganim said.

As for Illidan, our Warrior MT is passivley uncrushable so i we have him tank Illidan,
Myself and the druid OT take care of the flames (his is killed first because he takes more damage :p)
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Stats shown are unbuffed as of 28.04.08

1) Gorefiend, Gurtogg, and RoS are the only fights that take more than a few core people learning how to really hold their own, and as such take a bit longer. To some extent, Council is also annoying because it's so long.

2) Depends what you mean. "Random player falling asleep" is lethal on Gorefiend. "General bad luck" can wipe you on Gurtogg phases when clothies get chain-crushed, or on Council when the flamestrike and envenom just happen to land at the same time on 4 priests in a row.

3) Paladin tanks are neither an absolute requirement nor a disadvantage to bring for BT. They help in a few places, they're ill-advised to MT a few bosses, but OT roles are fine in those cases. Ultimately, having three tanks of mixed classes each night is about all that matters, except where p2 RoS does require one warrior tank.

well ive never had the chance, simply because until recently ive been
undergeared (lol T4 helm still)

Ive never taken a crushing on Anetheron or any of the T5 bosses, but then 3.5:1 on flames, i doubt we'll rotate tank roles until im 4/5T6 with the helm.
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Stats shown are unbuffed as of 28.04.08