Heroic Tanking Siege of Orgrimmar: Siegecrafter Blackfuse

I find Seigecrafter Blackfuse to be a boring fight for a tank, since you’re just sitting there popping cooldowns every 20 seconds or so. But it’s hard for everyone else so you must do your best to make it easy on them!

Brewmaster and Gearing Stuff

  • Talents:
    • Tiger’s Lust – For getting the the freshly spawned shredders quickly.
    • Chi Wave – For burst healing and dps.
    • Diffuse Magic – For absorbing an Electrostatic Charge.
    • Xuen – You need single target dps on the Shredder.
  • Glyphs:
    • Glyph of Guard – For absorbing an Electrostatic Charge. A glyphed Guard can absorb some very high stacks of the debuff.
    • Glyph of Zen Meditation – So that you can use Zen Meditation for an Electrostatic Shock while moving around.
  • Gear:
    • Offensive stats.The Shredder’s AoE will cause wipes if left up too long, so you need to kill it quickly.
    • The tank legendary cloak is useful if you mess up your defensive cooldown rotation and need a backup. If you need more dps on the shredder, you’ll have to use the dps cloak.
    • DPS trinkets, like Harromm’s Talisman, or hybrid trinkets, like Ticking Ebon Detonator
    • Vial of Living Corruption (optional) – If you’re not struggling with dps on the shredder, then a reduced cooldown on Guard can be useful. With glyphed Guard, it won’t get absorbed much quicker, but you can prep yourself with the healing buff while waiting for the next Electrostatic Charge.

Dealing with Electrostatic Charge

This debuff stacks on the current tank, increasing the damage of the next Electrostatic Charge and increasing your damage against Shredders. It is magical burst damage, so easily dealt with through Glyphed Guard, Zen Meditation, and Diffuse Magic.

Here is the rotation I use:

  1. Nothing, easy to handle with a heal.
  2. Guard (You could also get away with nothing except some well-timed heals here)
  3. Guard
  4. Diffuse Magic
  5. Guard + Avert Harm

I don’t typically use Zen Meditation here, but it also works well, though it can be hard to use since it must be initiated during the boss’s cast and there’s a lot of movement involved. If your tanking cloak never triggers elsewhere, you can use that as a cooldown as well. Scary, but effective. Finally, Avert Harm allows you to stagger magical damage, providing a huge damage reduction against these magical attacks.

The tank rotation can be tricky to work out. Brewmasters are the weakest tanks on Shredders because our burst dps isn’t great, and we only have a single dps cooldown every 3 minutes. That means you might want to send the other tank to the shredder most of the time. The frequency of swapping and the number of stacks depends on the dps cooldowns of each tank, how often they’ll be up and how powerful they are, and timing that with Shredder spawns. Here’s how we split it up (with a Druid and Monk tank):

  1. Tank A pulls and holds the boss until he gets 3 stacks. Then he picks up the first shredder.
  2. Tank B taunts and holds until she gets 2 stacks.
  3. Tank A taunts and holds for one more stack (to get up to 4). Then he picks up the second shredder.
  4. Tank B taunts and holds until she gets 5 stacks. Then she picks up the third shredder.
  5. Tank A taunts after his stacks reset, and holds until he gets 4 stacks. Then he picks up the fourth shredder.
  6. Tank B taunts and holds until she gets 3 stacks.
  7. Tank A taunts and holds for one more stack (to get up to 5). Then he picks up the fifth shredder.
  8. Tank B taunts and holds until she gets 5 stacks. Then she picks up the sixth and hopefully final shredder.
  9. Tank A taunts and holds until hopefully the encounter ends.

Shredder

  • Need around 3-4 stacks of Electrostatic Charge to kill the Shredder.
  • Shredder should die ASAP because he AoEs the raid for increasing damage, goal is to kill him by the end of his Death from Above.
  • Use DPS cooldowns like Xuen and potions.
  • Position him fire or blades for additional dps.
  • He has to be far enough away from the boss that they don’t link together and heal. This means you’ll probably be far away from your healers and will have to be largely self-sufficient. (I like to use Fortifying Brew for this part.)
  • Save up a big hitting attack as Death from Above is about to be cast, like Keg Smash. He takes much more damage after Death from Above, so you should be able to kill him right away.
  • When he jumps into the air, run away, and return once he hits the ground. You can use Transcendence to return quickly.

The Boss

  • Other than Electrostatic Charge, the boss isn’t very dangerous.
  • Use an avoidance ability like Elusive Brew during Protective Frenzy (He grows bigger and shouts when this happens).
  • Avoid bad things, like fire and razor blades.
  • Kill the rockets if they’re nearby.
  • Try not to stand too close to the edge when the magnets come out.