Tank Tips

by:

Anub Tanking Strats

There are multiple ways to approach this encounter from a tanking perspective and a lot just depends on the classes of tanks that your specific guild has to work with. As for a main tank choice for Anub himself there really is no wrong choice for classes to pick from, but that is a topic that could be discussed at a separate time. For the adds on Anub I would HIGHLY recommend either warrior or paladin for this role. Warriors are better from a damage mitigation standpoint because of the fact that it is far easier for a warrior to gain more shield block value than it is a paladin. Critical block is a massive amount of mitigation and if itemized properly you can obtain enough block value to reduce almost all of the add damage entirely. Paladins however are much better as far as threat goes for the adds. They also can take a considerable amount of damage in comparison to warriors. I would say the selection of these two classes depends on the strategy your guild decides to use for the encounter.

The number of tanks used on this fight will create the overall strategy and flow of the fight. You can either use two tanks for the adds or just one, and by no means is there a wrong way to approach it. There are a few pros and cons for both selections however.

Two Add Tank Strategy:

Pros-

1. Damage Mitigation

The damage mitigation between the two tanks is split even more so than with using just one which can take a great deal of stress away from your healers. If you don't quite have all of the gear in order to tank the adds or have the full unhittable set it is not as detrimental to their damage intake as opposed to using just one. By using only one add tank it is absolutely necessary that the tank has 101.6% avoidance or it simply will not be possible.

2. The Shadow Strike cast!

This is probably one of the main problems of the encounter to overcome and a large weight on the selection of the number of add tanks used. Now by using two add tanks it allows for the cast time on the adds of shadow strike to be 2.1 seconds as opposed to a 1.3 second cast when all four are grouped together. By splitting the distance between the adds and having each tank pick up two each it makes the cast a lot easier to interrupt and attack speed time of the adds reduced significantly. Basically when using two add tanks you want to just assign either a Rogue, Shaman, or Death Knight to each of the adds to interrupt the cast. As you will find it makes this specific role of the fight to be much easier.

Cons-

1. DPS

The damage on the adds as well as Anub himself will be decreased by a large amount. The placement of the adds can be very sensitive with all of them being in range of various classes AoE abilities and their buff that increases the cast time. Basically what you want to do is get them close enough for all AoE to hit them without them gaining more than two stacks of their buff. You will quickly notice that the uptime of dps on Anub will decrease and a majority of the time will be spent on adds and AoE.

2. Phase 3 Leeching Swarm

With having two tanks tanks on adds greatly increases the amount of healing done back to Anub in phase three, which could also make it quite difficult to meet the enrage timer if your guild is lacking dps. The main tank will do roughly three million healing back to Anub and each of the add tanks will do around two million, most likely a little bit less depending on the amount of time you spend in phase three. The add placement and dps is going to have to be almost flawless in order to reach the enrage timer for this fight if you decide to use two add tanks.

One Add Tank Strategy:

Pros-

1. DPS

With using just one add tank it increases the dps of the raid tremendously due to the fact that you have that extra dps slot in your raid composition in replacement of the extra tank and the adds are always going to be in range of all AoE and will get in place quite quickly in order for dps to start on the adds. As a result of the adds being in range of all AoE and Anub himself it will clear up for a lot of single target dps on the boss. The adds will take roughly 15 to 20 seconds to kill from the time they are all in place and that will give all the dps time to focus on just Anub for 20 seconds or so until the next wave of adds spawn.

2. Phase 3 Leech Swarm

As I stated above it will make the time you spend in phase three a lot less thus allowing for a easier enrage timer to meet.

Cons-

1. The Shadow Strike cast!

This is one of the main reasons that guilds tend to not use this number of tanks for the encounter because it makes the cast almost next to impossible to interrupt due to server lag, player latency, as well as individual reaction time. The only way to successfully go about the adds with this strategy is to stun and silence them during the shadow strike cast cooldown and burn them down as fast as physically possible. Now I will not go into detail on this topic unless people have specific questions on it, which I will be more than happy to answer.

Oh here is a nice (old school) item we used to get our first kill.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=16055

DXE DOES HAVE CORRECT TIMERS FOR THE ADDS

DXE download link: http://www.wowace.com/addons/deus-vox-encounters/

2. Add pickup

Using one tank is going to cause the add pickup to be impossible to do without having Rogues use tricks and Hunters using misdirection on the tank. What you are going to have to do is have hunters misdirect the farthest add spawns to the tank and have Rogue(s) tricks the close spawns to the tank. Now how you set that up is based on the number of those classes you have available in your guild.

Gear

This is simply listing the pieces that are used for the set itself, but the gear will change from player to player due to the accessibility of the gear listed. This is the warrior itemization for this fight. You need to make sure that you have 101.6% avoidance fully raid buffed before you start stacking block value.

/run ChatFrame1:AddMessage(format("Unhittable at 102.4%% - you have %.2f%%", GetDodgeChance() + GetBlockChance() + GetParryChance() + 5 + 1/(0.0625 + 0.956/(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)/4.91850*0.04))))

Run that macro with whatever gear you have equipped

Head-

Avoidance - Tier 8.5 - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=46166

Block Value -Tier 9 - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48463

Neck-

Avoidance - Maly 25 man Quest Item - Nexus War Champion Beads - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44665

Block Value - 25 man Kologarn - Necklace of Unerring Mettle - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45262

Shoulders-

Avoidance - Tier 7.5 - Valorous Dreadnaught Pauldrons - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40548

Block Value - Faction Champions 10 man Heroic - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48016

Cloak-

Avoidance - BoE 10 man Iron Council - Cloak of the Iron Council - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45322

Block Value - 25 man Nax Trash Drop - Shadow of the Ghoul - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40410

Chest-

Avoidance - Tier 7.5 - Valorous Dreadnaught Breastplate - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40544

Block Value -25 man Auriaya - Unbreakable Chestguard - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45334

Wrists-

Avoidance and Block Value -25 man Nax Maexxna - Bindings of the Hapless Prey - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39764


Hands-

Avoidance and Block Value - 25 man Nax Noth or Gluth - Gauntlets of the Disobedient - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40188

25 man Iron Council - Handguards of the Enclave - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45228

(the ulduar gloves are stat for stat better than the nax gloves)

Waist-

Avoidance - 25 man Nax Patchwerk or Gluth - Fleshless Girdle - Item - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40263

Block Value - 10 man Nax Razuvious or Gluth - Waistguard of the Tutor - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39298

25 man Ulduar Razorscale - Dragonslayer's Brace - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45139

(the Ulduar belt is stat for stat better than the nax belt)

Legs-

Avoidance and Block Value - 39 Emblem of Conquest tokens - Wyrmguard Legplates - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45842

Feet-

Avoidance and Block Value - BoE 25 man Nax Anub'Rekhan or Gluth - Inexorable Sabatons - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39717

Rings-

Slot 1- BoE 25 man Ulduar XT-002 - Signet of the Earthshaker - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45247

Slot 2 - 25 man Normal ToC Anub'Arak - Band of the Traitor King - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47315

This slot has many options because of the fact that there are not many other rings itemized toward this set specifically. I use this ring myself since it is the ring that provides the most amount of avoidance that I have access to. If you have the Zul'Aman ring from the event chest that is also an ok item.

Trinkets-
(now there are a lot of options that you can choose from here so I will list all that would be ideal for this specific set and you can decide based on your gear accessibility)

Level 60 Nax (no longer obtainable) - Glyph of Deflection - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23040

Heroic Violet Hold (this one trinket is the absolute best for the gear set) - Lavanthor's Talisman - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37872

Onyxia10/25 Quest Item - Purified Onyxia Blood Talisman - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49487

Badge of Justice Reward - Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600 - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29387

Weapons -

10 man Heroic ToC Anub'Arak (Best for avoidance aside from the Anub 25 man Tribute chest weapon)- Blood and Glory - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48699

25 man Hardmode XT-002 (A very good alternative weapon from Blood and Glory) - Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45442

Shields-

Avoidance - 10 man Hardmode Hodir - The Boreal Guard - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45877

Block Value - 10 man Anub'Arak Heroic - Aegis of the Coliseum - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48055
(the 25 man heroic Northern Beasts is BiS for value however unless you get two of them or want to regem and enchant for every week I would just recommend using the 10 man shield)

Best Overall - 25 man Algalon - Bulwark of Algalon - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45587

I personally like the Bulwark best because of the socket color and the bonus that the specific color provides. It is the only piece of gear that gives an avoidance increase with socket bonus that contains a BLUE gem. This is the slot I put my Enduring Eye of Zul in to meet my meta gem requirement.

Gems

For this set you primarily want to use only defense gems for your pieces, any slot you can stick a 20 defense gem in PUT IT THERE! As for socket bonuses you are going to want to ignore them except to fill your meta requirement IF they provide an avoidance socket bonus. Ignore any type of bonus that provides stamina here because the less health you have for this encounter the better. (phase 3 healing back to Anub)

20 Defense - Thick King's Amber - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40126

Jewelcrafting - Thick Dragon's Eye - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42157

Red Meta Requirements-

10 Dodge 10 Defense - Stalwart Ametrine - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40160

Blue Meta Requirements-

10 Defense 15 Stamina - Enduring Eye of Zul - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40167

Enchants

Head-

Avoidance - Arcanum of the Defender - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29186

Block Value - Presence of Might - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19782

Shoulders-

Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44136

Cloak-

Enchant Cloak - Titanweave - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=44591

Chest -

Enchant Chest - Greater Defense - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47766

Wrists -

Enchant Bracer - Major Defense - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=27906

Gloves -

Threat - Enchant Gloves - Armsman - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=44625

Avoidance - Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Major Agility - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38967
or
Vindicator's Armor Kit - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25651
(this slot is more so a personal play style option, they all play different roles and it depends on the gear you have at the moment)

Legs-

Presence of Might - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19782
(start the ZG grinding)

Feet-

Mobility - Enchant Boots - Cat's Swiftness - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=34007

Avoidance - Scroll of Enchant Boots - Superior Agility- http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=44589
or
Vindicator's Armor Kit - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25651
(I personally like Cat's better because of the mobility that it provides. Getting in place faster for dps to start, kiting impale during burrow phase, and for add pickup as well. I feel it provides a great amount of help on this fight, but that is just my opinion.)

Weapon-

Avoidance - Enchant Weapon - Exceptional Agility - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=44633

"OMG save me!" - Enchant Weapon - Blood Draining - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64579

I personally find Blood Draining to be the better enchant because in phase three your health can fluctuate quite often and the heal can be life saving at specific times throughout the encounter. Your health during phase 3 is like a rocky roller coaster and from my personal experience the heal from blood draining is quite nice.

Shield-

Avoidance - Enchant Shield - Defense - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=27946 or Enchant Shield - Shield Block - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=27946

Block Value - Titanium Plating - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44936

Consumables

Battle Elixir - Elixir of Mighty Agility - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39666

Guardian Elixir - Elixir of Mighty Defense - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44328


Food - Slippery Eel - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43652

Spec

The spec as well as glyphs will alter depending on the number of tanks used for the fight. For the single tank strategy I would recommend using this build.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LVZhycZVItrx0zidczsGo:dMizMm

That is the spec that I personally use and I glyph for taunt as opposed to shield wall is because I am responsible for picking up an add and having a taunt resist can cause serious problems for their placement and direction of path they come to you in.

For the two tank strategy I would recommend this build.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LVZGV00xZVItMx0didczsGo:dTiMzm

The only reason for not glyphing or specing into shield wall in the one tank strat is because the dps you gain from cleave is quite substantial. Now there are of course variations of these builds, however this is simply what I would recommend. Play style and strategies will alter these decisions heavily.

Damage Intake Breakdown

As I briefly stated before the class selection for the adds has different advantages to them. Paladins will take a considerably larger amount of damge than warriors because of how the class mechanics work. Below are wowmeteronline links to various tanks damage intake breakdowns and you can see how itemizing and strategies will differ the results.

Rush vs. Anub'arak (warrior single tank)

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/detail/255810194#damagetaken

Blood Legion vs. Anub'arak (paladin single tank)

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/detail/231927367#damagetaken

Vodka vs. Anub'arak (paladin and warrior tank combination)

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/detail/207848592#damagetaken

(paladin damage intake)

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/detail/207848583#damagetaken

(warrior damage intake)

Now those are just a few examples of the physical as well as leeching swarm damage breakdown, but they give you a general frame of reference for the encounter.

The below link is the gear that I used on my guild's first kill of Anub. This proved to work just fine aside from the fact that I was missing many of the best pieces for the set.

http://www.chardev.org/?profile=305767

Closing

Thank you all for taking the time to read my Anub'Arak Add tanking guide I hope that it is helpful to all players that read this information. If you have any questions regarding this guide you can either post on this thread or contact me via Email at jake_ayulo@yahoo.com. Any suggestions and additional input on this would also be greatly appreciated.