Warlock Tanking and You!

Hey everyone, Xyro here. Now that we're starting to move multiple prog groups through 10 Man ICC, some of us also have to adapt or take on new strategies to cope with this. I'd like to cover Warlocks, The Blood Princes stratgey and my make shift one of a kind spec. I know Richrod has touched on this subject before, but multiple people have asked me to put up a post discussing what and how I use, what I use.

Do note - Richrod has a much more in-depth strategy post than what I'll go over here (If I remember correctly :P). I'd just like to go over pretty much what goes through my head in the fight...scary thought...I know. I'll also be going over what spec/talents are used in this fight and why, I decided instead of using one solid spec for the shadow damage mitigation in this fight, I made a combination of the three, Demo, Destro and Afflic. (i.e - Demon only has Soul Link, Destro  has Nether Protection and Molten Skin, Afflic nothing really besides your normal health regen).

While discussing this strategy I'm going to go ahead and assume you've already seen, done or are familar with The Blood Princes fight. If you aren't I highly suggest you go watch it a few times on Tankspot.com. Now, don't be alarmed fellow Warlocks when a guildie says, "Help us, Uber Warlock we need you to tank Prince Keleseth!". It can be done and quite easily if you know what spells/spec to use and what your doing. Also note, that my meaning of 'easily' may greatly vary from yours. Now...off to the good stuff...

THE SPEC

I don't currently have my 'tank' spec active, but I'm pretty sure this is what it would look like...

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=9&tal=205002203122321010000000000020320030113020000000000000045230005003030300000000000 (I don't know how to make that shorter)

Anyway...it's a botch job of a spec, but from what I've heard it does it's job quite well. Remember I'm an Afflic lock, so I geared it more towards Afflic, which has some advantages and disadvantages, the same thing applies if you a Destro lock. You may want to alter it a tad to suit your style, but remember we're tanking not DPSing, although it helps keep aggro on the Prince, 3/4 of the time your not even going to have DPSing on your mind...trust me.

Demonology - This part of the spec is fairly straight forward, there's a ton of nice 'tanking' goodies in here but what we really want is Soul Link (As long as this buff is active and your demon is alive. it will recieve 20% of YOUR damage). You want your early Stam buffs obviously and your Armor Buff (We'll be using Demon Armor). Now you don't have to go the route I did and spec for Master Summoner/Fel Domintion, but here's why I did.

Things happen in a fight, you will probably die a few times learning the fight. But when things are going good and you die out of the blue, then you get B-Rez'd...you have no demon...you can't stand around for like 10 sec summoning a new one...and thats 20% damage mitagation GONE...Pop Fel Domination, summon your Fel Hunter close to the speed of light, get Soul Link up...you punch Keleseth in the face and look like a hero YAYYYYY! Just remember, even if YOU don't die your demon can and will!

Demon  - Tanking this boss we will be using the Fel Hunter  and only the Fel Hunter. No Voidwalker bubbles, this isn't that kind of tanking. Also as funny as it sounds, in my current Afflic spec (Same as it will stand in the encounter) my Fel Hunter has only 2k health less than my Void. But what the Fel Hunter has, that no other demon does is magic resistance..Fel Hunters have 160 Resistance to ALL schools of magic.

Destruction - Destruction...not a fan of it but it has it's uses =P Destruction has some very nice damage mitigation buffs here, namely Molten Skin (Reduces ALL Damage by 6%) and Nether Protection (30% chance when hit by a spell, to resist 30% damage taken from that school of magic, in this case Shadow Damage from the attack Shadow Lance.).

Another reason Destruction is nice for this encounter is the fact that Afflic locks lose their two main DoTs (Unstable Affliction and Haunt). Which means Immolate, CoA and Corruption (CP) will be our only DoTs during this fight. We can beef up Immolate while trying to reach Nether Protection, which won't keep you guessing where you want to put your points. Searing Pain has been said to be a high threat spell, but I personally have never had luck with it, Shadow Bolt spam always seems to work for me.

One bad thing about Destro is the fact you can't increase the range of it's spells without reducing threat generation...which is exactly oposite of what were're used to, but hey, that's tanking! Sooooo NO DESTRUCTIVE REACH!

Affliction - Although Afflic locks lose the higher part of their tree (Along with all the other Trees) they still have some of their core essentials and can really help a bit in this fight. You'll want to start off by beefing up your two dots CoA and CP, since you'll have them along with Immolate on Keleseth at ALL times.

If Spell Hit isn't an issue then pay no attention to Suppresion, it's a waste of points. Although you won't be using Drain Soul until the ass end of the fight, it's nice to have for the 'last push', since it does to significantly more damage to targets who are DoTd and at less than 25% (Note for ALL Warlocks, DS must be applied AFTER 25% to gain its damage buffs, not at 30% and run it out). Fel Conentration was more or less used to gain access to the higher tiers in the tree.

Grim Reach is VERY nice for picking up the orbs in this fight and I felt it was points well spent...and unlike Destro...there's no threat reduction =P Siphon Life isn't something that's required, but considering all the damage being done and especially to YOU health regen can be very important. I also opted to spec for Life Tap since using Dark Pact is also out of the equation for Afflic locks.

THE STRATEGY AND SPELLS

I was going to try to break this up into two seperate categories, but since I feel like I made you suffer long enough with 'The Spec' portion of it...I'll try to make it quick and painless from here on out...

Remember, your tanking, get that into your head. When you hear change target, as long as it isn't Keleseth your main priority its gathering the Dark Nuclei (aka - Balls, Blue Balls, Purple Ball, The Balls, Purple Orbs, Blue Orbs, Orbs, Princely Balls, Royal Balls, Family Jewels, Fuzzy Balls, etc.). This is a very ball intensive fight and there are many balls...big orange ones flying across the room, others just bouncing up and down...but a vast majority of balls will be on you...right in your face. Which makes it VERY difficult to see, even with your camera zoomed all the way out...

**I HIGHLY recommend HudMap for all fights, even this one, but I can't stress this enough if your tanking Keleseth, I literally at times can't see anything on my screen, I'm going by name plates and what dbm/hudmap is showing and telling me.** HUDMap Rundown - http://www.natural-order-guild.com/content/add-alert-hud-map

Now all joking aside, gathering the orbs can be very stresfull and are KEY to not dieing, hence a lot is riding on the Lock Tank, don't worry, there's always a learning curve. Once you know what works for you and how to pull it off, it isn't as bad as it seems. Each orb you have 'on you' (it will attach it self to you with a beam) gives you a shadow damage mitigation BUFF, the more orbs you have on you the larger this buff is going to get. This also stacks with all the mitigation we're gaining through our spec. When Keleseth attacks you he'll be throwing a 'Shadow Lance' which is Shadow Damage Spell, this can and will become empowered doing an insane amount of damage, again, if you don't have enough orbs on you, there is a very good chance you will die. I can't stress this enough ORBS ARE KEY!

How I gather orbs - Again your strategy may differ, but this is how I do it and it has been working for me, use what works! First of all, people in the raid should keep AoEs to a bare minimum! The key with orbs is to have as many on you with doing as little damage to you as possible, any big time AoEs can sometimes rip them off of you. The orbs will tick themselves

out similar to the stars on Algalon, but you don't need Rank 10 spells pounding on them. Sure you'll get the orbs attention and lose it way before it should die. Rather what I do is have a macro set up to cast CoA and CP Rank 1 on the orb, that way the orb will be looking at me, but I'm doing very little damage. You can try only 1 DoT, but I've had problems with this in the past.

Normally I like to stand where the Princes are at the start of the fight, facing the same direction they are. The stage is a nice area to avoid raid damage as well as see a big part of the room, since you'll always be scanning for orbs, just don't go to far in I think range might become an issue for healers. Also it's very important to be constantly be panning your camera around your chracter to search for orbs, they pop up quickly and even though you just looked somewhere 3 sec ago, doesn't mean one didn't spawn in that time. They also tuck themselves away in corner sometimes, so REALLY look for them. You will be doing a lot of running around this fight BE PREPARED FOR IT!

Keleseth - Assuming you've managed to gather enough orbs and stay alive long enough...it's your turn to take on that 'Prince'! Although staying on the orbs and dodging bad spots can be a lot, through all that your going to have to maintain DoTs on Keleseth the entire time (Immolate, CoA and CP FULL RANKS). If there aren't any orbs to gather pound on Keleseth...(which is rare, but it does happen, just keep panning for them...they'll be there)...SB Spam, Searing Pain, make sure you have him even when he isn't up yet.

***Also don't forget about your Shadow Ward, it doesn't last long or absorb much Shadow Damage, but every little bit helps...especially in those 'Oh Shit' situations! I personally try to actively roll it while tanking Keleseth.

Now...when he does become attackable your going to want to be going full blast on him...BUT...if there are orbs popping up...GRAB THEM...you need those damn orbs to live. I should also stress the point that any abilites other classes have (Hunters Misdirect, Rogue Tricks of the Trade, etc.) should be going to YOU during this phase, even more so in this fight than any other. Its hard to hold him on your own especially when your not spec'd for DPS, but instead your a damage sponge.

Once the next Prince is up, go back to your orb gathering and doding shit on the ground, rinse and repeat and enjoy your victory! Congrats you just tanked an ICC boss wearing cloth your so l33t!

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There it is in all it's entirety, I probably forgot a ton of stuff or maybe not. I just can't type anymore, point out my mistakes and make fun of me. Oh by the way, your welcome =D

Here's a few shots of us one shotting the Blood Princes...if your screen doesn't look like mine...YOUR NOT DOING IT RIGHT...and forget about me letting Mog die...