Battle of Dazar’alor Tanking Guide

Overview: Generally there are two jobs for tanks: one stays on boss and one stays on adds. There is a tank swap that complicates matters, but it’s not a hard swap. Adds and Boss are tanked apart.

Boss

• Tank Swap Stacking Holy Damage Sacred Blade. Swap when you get a break in the adds.
• Seal of Reckoning: Most of the raid will switch to attacking the adds. However, the tank does not need to.
• Seal of Retribution: Most of the raid will switch to attacking the boss.
• Boss Damage Increases at 30% When she passes 30%, boss pops Avenging Wrath.

Adds

• Adds Tank apart from boss. Don’t kill adds during Seal of Retribution.
• Face Away from Blind Face away before Blinding Faith finishes casting. Adds will attack the next highest threat if their tank gets blinded.
• Physical Damage When the melee add grows large while buffed by Judgment: Righteousness, use cooldowns to survive.
• Move Adds out of Wave, Circle Move adds out of Wave of Light trajectory and Consecration if possible.
• Interrupt Disciple casts many interruptible spells: Heal  > Penance if on add > Divine Burst

• Boss will buff a random add with Divine Protection, making them immune to damage.

• Prayer for the Fallen triggers special abilities from all adds, even ones you’ve already killed.
  • Crusaders: Dodge hammers from Divine Mallet 
  • Disciples: Interrupt Angelic Renewal. If any of those get through, they’ll heal the boss to full.

• Wowhead Guide

Overview: This is an early tank-buster fight, the main difficulty will be in the random order of the tank buster combo, which will require tanks to pay attention. Spell names for Horde and Alliance versions are slightly different.

• Physical Damage Combo Swap to Spread Debuffs 3 of either Rending Bite or Bestial Smash (applies Crushed), order is random. Taunt during the second cast of either ability. If a third of the same ability is cast, use cooldowns.
• Untankable Adds Tank boss 15yds from adds (to avoid Lightning Detonation / Spirit Dispersion).
• Avoid Circles Avoid dangerous-looking circles: Reverberating Slam / Deathly Slam, Reverberating Echo / Deathly Echo.

• Physical Squeeze and Throw Damage The tank combo ends with a high-damage physical squeeze on the current tank, and then being thrown to a random raid member with Bestial Throw. Tanks also need to react more quickly to the combo itself as the cast times are shorter.
• Stack Stand near a friend to negate Ferocious Roar.

• Combo Combo cast times are even shorter.
• Two untankable adds spawn at once. Likely one or both will be kept alive longer so that the item they drop on death can be used at a later time.

• Wowhead Guide

Overview: At 30, 60 and 100 energy, the mage and monk will cast powerful team attacks.

Generic Boss Attacks

• Tank Swap Monk casts Multi-Sided Strike on her current tank. This will throw you up to a pillar where you must face the image that lights up as it rushes toward you. Taunt swap after you drop down to negate the Tested debuff.
• Tank Swap @ ~4 Mage spam casts stacking Fireball on his tank that explodes for raid damage upon expiration. Swap to keep damage manageable. (Fireball > Rising Flames > Explosion)
• Re-engage Monk When monk leaps away, run to her location to stop Whirling Jade Storm.
• Interrupt Pyroblast When mage teleports away, he needs to be have his Fire Shield burned down and Pyroblast interrupted.

Phase Transition Abilities

• Untankable Adds Rotating Lasers Stack Fire from Mist: Living Bomb adds will need to be killed before they explode. They are surrounded by Chi-Ji’s Song, which requires the raid to stack inside the mist to avoid line of sight issues. They also deal damage with a rotating laser.
• Ring of Peace Gauntlet A Flash of Hostility: When teleported to the edge of the encounter space, run through the gauntlet of Ring of Hostility to reach and destroy the barriers protecting the bosses. Also avoid fiery patches of Phoenix Strike.
• Random Dragon Breath The Serpent and the Phoenix: Near the end of the fight, the bosses transform, losing their teleport abilities. The monk-dragon breathes fire on a random raid member. The mage-bird deals ticking raid-wide damage.

• Fiery Circles Magma Trap will knock you very high up, likely killing you with fall damage and block off room. Those with teleports and very high damage reduction cooldowns can try to soak them. This also can make returning to the monk during Whirling Jade Storm difficult.
• During A Flash of Hostility, orbs appear on the ground that grant an extra-action ability to make a second piece of barrier attackable.
• The dragon breath also leaves behind a trail of fire.

• The entire raid, except for the mage tank and one random healer, gets ported up for Multi-Sided Strike. There are now 5 strikes and they come faster.
  • The tank on the mage needs to be prepared for lots of magic damage, since they only have on healer on them.
• More Xuen adds, more Magma traps.
• During Fire in the Mist there are three Bombs that need to be killed.
  • The tank on the mage might need to stay out of the mist with a designated healer because the mage can be difficult to move and he can still land spells on you.
• During A Flash of Hostility, the entire barrier is immune to damage until the orbs are delivered. There is also Path of Niuzao, which makes backtracking the maze nearly impossible.

• Wowhead Normal & Heroic: Wowhead Guide
• Wowhead Mythic: here

Overview: The start of this encounter gives you the choice between three paths, the ones on the left and right lead to mini-bosses that need to be killed to make the main boss vulnerable. The third path down the middle leads straight to the main boss. The raid will need to split up to engage the mini-bosses so that they can be killed at the same time.

Corridors

• Avoid Raised Hand(s) Before Crush finishes casting, move away from where the boss is facing.
• Pulsing Electricity Debuff On the left side, players affected with Volatile Charge should drop pulsing electricity away from the raid.
• Rotating Cone of Fire On the right side, during Flames of Punishment stay behind the mini-boss as it rotates around blowing fire.
• Avoid Room Traps Each room has its own dangers. Flame Jet is a stream of fire that comes from the side, Ruby Beam focuses a player with a laser that leaves a trail of fire.
• Pick up Diamond In the final room, tanks pick up Diamond of the Unshakeable Protector that decreases all damage taken by 50% until they take three times their health in damage, then it has to recharge (~30s).

Boss

• Tank Swap ~30s Swap when Diamond of the Unshakeable Protector recharges. You can look for a large blue bubble on you and your cotank to ascertain if either of you have the shield.
• Avoid Gold Pools Move out of big pools of Liquid Gold.
• Untankable Adds When adds spawn on the boss, they should be crowd-controlled and killed before reaching the edges.
• Increasing Magic Damage During the 10s cast of Wail of Greed, the raid will take increasing shadow damage. This can often deplete both tanks’ Diamonds.

• In the final mini-boss chamber, the electricity orbs and fire cleave are empowered, dealing damage in a much larger area.
• Tank Swap Physical Burst Swap immediately before Coin Sweep, which will likely deplete the diamond in one hit. Use damage reduction before it lands.
• Stack The raid should stack on the target of Coin Shower to mitigate the damage they take.

• Damage dealers can be randomly ported between the two sides with Chaotic Displacement. This just makes things more chaotic while us tanks watch.
• Gold Puddles heal the adds. Kill the adds quickly and place the puddles at the edges.
• The boss will also occasionally double the size of the gold pools with Surging Gold.
• Coin Shower does enough damage that most raids opt to use immunities, Blessing of Protection, or sacrifices rather than have the raid split the damage.

• Wowhead Normal & Heroic: Wowhead Guide
• Wowhead Mythic: here

Overview: You face four bosses, two at a time, that should be separated at least by 7 yards. Upon each boss’s death, the second boss is healed to full. Each boss has a permanent effect that sticks around even after death.

The standard kill order is: Gonk, Kimbul, Pa’ku/Akunda (last two don’t matter as much)

Active Abilities (While Aspect is Active)

• Pa’ku: Stacking Haste Buff Tank Swap Successful melee attacks increase the boss’s haste with Hastening Winds, reset once he melees a different target. You can also have a dps taunt and take a hit to reset it.
• Gonk: Physical Damage Cleave When the boss shifts into raptor form and casts Wild Maul, be sure she’s facing away from the raid and use physical damage reduction.
• Kimbul: Tank Swap @~4 Stacking Bleed Cleave Taunt swap to reset stacks of Lacerating Claws. This ability also cleaves.
• Akunda: Run Away from Circle Stay out of the Thundering Storm circle cast around Akunda’s Aspect.

Passive Abilities (Once Aspect Dies)

• Stack under Pterodactyl During Pa’ku’s Wrath, move to the pterodactyl and stand in her circle to negate the blow back.
• Untankable Adds Untankable rapter adds focus on random players and deal damage if they reach their target. Can be crowd-controlled.
• Spread Out for Leap If debuffed with Kimbul’s Wrath, spread apart from others so that they don’t get hit with the damage and stun.
• Roaming Orbs During Akunda’s Wrath, debuffed players will explode, generating orbs that need to be avoided.

• Gray Swirls Avoid gray swirls of Krag’wa’s Wrath. 
• Raptor adds can’t be stacked, else they will become immune to crowd-control and gain a movement buff.

• Bwonsamdi’s Wrath
  • A curse that makes the target immune to healing. It can be dispelled, but it will only bounce to another player; it cannot be removed permanently.
  • If it lands on a tank, it should be dispelled ASAP. Tanks probably need healing.
  • By the end of the fight, many applications of the debuff will be bouncing around the raid, making the last stage very chaotic.
• Pa’ku’s Wrath circle is much smaller than other difficulties. This can making working around Krag’wa’s Wrath and Akunda’s Wrath more complicated.

• Wowhead Normal & Heroic: Wowhead Guide
• Wowhead Mythic: here

Phase 1

• Run Away Tank Swap Magic Damage When Rastakhan casts Scorching Detonation on the current tank, they should quickly create some distance between them and the boss before the channel finishes, dealing raid damage. Tank swap is not strictly required, but will increase dps by keeping the boss near the rest of the raid.
• Adds Tank Swap Swap Siegebreaker Roka after each Crushing Leap.

Phase 2

• Run Away Tank Swap Magic Damage Rastakhan continues to use Scorching Detonation.
• Tank Bwonsomdi Away Bwonsomdi needs to be tanked far from the rest of the raid so no one but the tank gets hit by Aura of Death. Bwonsomdi absorbs all damage he takes.
  • Healing Reduction Caress of Death deals ticking shadow damage and makes the target immune to healing for 5s. Use defensives to keep your health stable.
• Fire Circles Avoid players targeted by fire circles, Plague of Fire.

Phase 3

• Run Away During Phase Transition During Bwonsamdi’s Boon, Tanks should try not to be the closest to Bwonsomdi so that they don’t go into the dead realm. They aren’t needed there. Half the raid will be gone for this phase.
• Run Away Tank Swap Magic Damage Rastakhan continues to use Scorching Detonation.
• Phantom of Rage Position Away from Raid Circular AoE Healing Reduction Pick up Phantom of Rage and tank him away from the rest of the raid so they don’t get hit by Necrotic Smash. This places a 50% healing debuff on anyone hit for 8s.

Phase 4

• Run Away Tank Swap Magic Damage Rastakhan continues to use Scorching Detonation.
• Run Away from Giant Circle Move out of giant circle around the boss that tries to pull you in, Inevitable End.
• Green Orbs Avoid the roaming orbs of Dread Reaping.

• There is a third bodyguard in phase 1, Headhunter Gal’wana.
• Cone of Fire Rastakhan also casts Serpent Totems, which breathes fire in a random direction.
• Green puddles Plague of Toads also leaves behind puddles of Poison Toad Slime.

Phase 1: Adds

• Seal of Purification (laser from one of the adds) now leaves behind a trail of fire.
• Plague of Toads now has 5 frogs (up from 3)
• Tank adds and boss together
• Once Greater Serpent Totem appears, move the adds and boss a bit aways so no one has to deal with it.
• Remember that the adds will revive in the same place they died.

Phase 2: Rastakhan and Bwonsomdi

• Bwonsomdi’s Aura of Death has a range of 45, making it hard to heal the tank. Position yourself near the healers and if they are right on the edge they should be able to reach you without standing in the debuff.
• Tank Swap
  • You can continue to handle the tank swap similar to heroic, but it’s a lot of movement and stray Aura of Death debuffs.
  • You can also not do any tank swaps, leaving the Bwonsomdi tank to use a heavy rotation of strong cooldowns to deal with the stacks and then to remove the debuff themselves (if they are a paladin) or die and quickly resurrect.
• Plague of Fire can spread to melee players. If you get it as a tank, stand still and wait for your melee to leave the circle.
• Non-tanks have to deal with positioning the Death Rift carefully.

Phase 3

• The revived adds will appear in the death realm after they die (a second time). As there’s no tank down there, they should not be killed until everyone in the death realm returns.

Phase 4

• Phase 4: If you make it here with mostly everyone alive, just dodge things and it should be a clean kill.

• Wowhead Normal & Heroic: Wowhead Guide
• Wowhead Mythic: here

Overview: This fight has a lot of interesting mechanics that actually target tanks!

Active Phase

• Tank Swap @~8 Taunt swap to reset the boss’s buff Electroshock Amplification. This can be complicated if one of the tanks is dealing with another mechanic.
• Avoid Cannon When the boss charges up Buster Cannon, shift out of the way.
• Blast Off Circles Move out of the circles when the boss prepares Heavy Thrusters.
• Don’t Step on Smalls Don’t run over Shrunk players, it will stun them. If you are small, use your diminutive status to take control of the robots.
  • Match the Code Inside a robot, your raid will need to communicate to you a code of three colors. Press those buttons to dismantle the robot.
• Hide behind walls with bomb If you get targeted by Gigavolt Charge, run behind a wall before the bomb explodes.

Intermission

• Avoid Sheep and Shrapnel Don’t stand near the Signal Exploding Sheep, and avoid the orange orbs that explode from them.
• Don’t Step on Smalls Continue to watch out for shrunk players

• Wormhole Generator pulls the whole raid to the same spot.

• Position the boss in a predictable area (usually wedged next to the stairs of the temple thing). This makes it easier for the raid to know where to place bombs.
• Bombs drop a puddle after exploding, Gigavolt Radiation Zone, that deals deadly damage to anyone stepping into it. This forces the raid to find new places to drop bombs as the fight progresses.
  • Generally, take the furthest back safe spots early, leaving the easier to access spots for the intermission.
  • Try to position your camera so that you can tell when no one is in the bomb’s line of sight.
  • You can find visuals for safe places here: here
• Non-tanks have to deal with a variety of other new mechanics.
  • Sometimes Wormhole Generator bounces them high into the air. Paladin tanks can try to save them if they can’t save themselves.
  • Sometimes Wormhole Generator will turn them into sheep.
  • Sometimes when people are shrunk, one person becomes Enormous. This can only happen to tanks during the intermission, but it’s not nearly as difficult to handle then. Don’t move around while Enormous.
• Bots have to be disarmed in 30 seconds once someone jumps inside, so everyone needs to jump in roughly at the same time.

• Wowhead Normal & Heroic: Wowhead Guide
• Wowhead Mythic: here

Overview: This fight starts with the raid splitting between two ships to deal with two human bosses, then teleporting to the docks to deal with an elemental boss.

Phase 1

• Raid Split One tank should go to each ship.
• Sister Katherine
  • Electric Orbs Avoid waves of electric blue Voltaic Flash. They appear in random waves and quickly move across the ship.
  • Run Away Create distance between you and the target of Crackling Lightning, which stuns and silences based on distance.
• Brother Joseph
  • Avoid Watery Circles Stay out of patches of Sea Storm.
  • Kill Siren Help kill siren before targeted player jumps over the edge.
• Once both bosses are dead, click on the pedestal to teleport to the water elemental on the docks.

Phase 2

• Tank Swap Swap when adds spawn and quickly run over adds so that Kelp Wrapped Fists expires on them, slowing them down and increasing damage dealt to them. On death they apply a debuff on a random player, Storm’s Wail, that allows them to clear green patches.
• Green Patches Spread out for Sea Swell. Avoid the green patches it leaves behind, if possible. They can be cleared later.
• Stack to Soak Circles Help soak Ire of the Deep while not tanking.

• Sister Katherine and Brother Joseph will swap boats at 50% health. This means that one ship might have two bosses at once, so try to make them reach 50% at around the same time.
• Instead of a random debuff, elemental adds drop a sphere that someone needs to pick up.

Phase 1

• Luminaria regularly casts Sea Swell, just like in phase 2. Because space on the ship is limited and we have no way of removing the puddles in phase 1, this is handled by everyone stacking tightly until the cast finishes, then moving slightly out of the puddle. A few seconds before the next cast, everyone steps back into the puddle (it actually doesn’t do that much damage), drops Sea Swell, then moves out again.
  • If you have to choose between moving out of Voltaic Flash and dropping a Sea Swell in the designated spot, you choose Sea Swell (and maybe use a raid cooldown).
• Many groups choose to leave the mini-bosses casting Storm’s Empowerment because they aren’t doing any other mechanics while channeling that. If you do this, Luminaria will start with more energy, but usually that’s tolerable.

Phase 2

• The spirits of the mini-bosses occasionally return to cast their signature abilities, most important being Voltaic Flash and Tempting Song. Voltaic Flash can be ignored unless it’s easy to shift out of it. Tempting Song is the highest dps priority.
• One tank will handle the boss. They should stand at max melee range and only get dispelled when a) an add won’t be coming soon so it won’t be needed, or b) when an add has gotten close enough to them to be hit by Kelp Wrapping.
• The other tank solo-soaks Ire of the Deep.
  • It is only a moderate amount of damage, a tank with full health should be able to handle solo-soaking one.
  • However, it now knocks you back significantly. Stand with your back to a safe spot, like a pillar or far from the edge of the platform.
  • Each Ire of the Deep will add more puddles to soak in succession, up to four puddles. You may have to call for help when puddles get out of control.

• Wowhead Normal & Heroic: Wowhead Guide
• Wowhead Mythic: here

Overview: This is a long, complicated encounter that starts on a ship and ends over the frozen sea. The primary mechanic is around keeping frost damage low to avoid being frozen into a block of ice.

Phase 1

• Any frost damage applies a stack of a the debuff Chilling Touch. Once that debuff reaches 20 you’ll be frozen in a block of ice. Can be cleared by stepping in fire patches.
• Tank Swap Taunt swap regularly to keep stacks of Ice Shard. This is physical damage, but it will still apply Chilling Touch.
• Tank Swap Run over Fire When a tank is targeted by Avalanche, taunt swap and run over fire patches to clear them. Watch out for other people with this debuff. Leave some fire up.
• Frost Cone Shift out of the way of Freezing Blast cone.
• Ring of Ice During Ring of Ice, run out of the big circle and stand in the fire.
• Untankable Adds Untankable adds focus on random players. They are vulnerable to knockback/cc.

Intermission 1

• Starts with a knockback, be sure to not have your back to the open water
• Projectiles & Tornadoes Chase Jaina down while avoiding Glacial Shards and Blistering Tornado.

Phase 2

• Tank Swap Run Away Continue to swap on Avalanche. Avalanche now only applies to tanks and spawns little waves of ice that should be avoided.
  • Also swap if a tank becomes frozen, which is more likely in this phase since Chilling Touch is constantly reapplying.
• Ice Patches, Runic Circles, Runic Arrows Avoid patches of Arctic Ground, which is left by a few different abilities, and circles of Broadside. Stay out of the path of the arrow from Icefall.
• Stack on Ignited Barrels When barrels are activated with Broadside, stand near them to remove stacks of Chilling Touch.
• Frost Line Shift out of the way of Glacial Ray, a narrow cleave targeted at a random player.

Intermission 2

• Break down the ice wall and run into the safety of the cavern before Jaina freezes everybody.
• Elemental Tank Elemental.
• Dodge Arcane Barrage missiles.
• Free Nathanos Blightcaller from his tomb (ugh, do we have to?).

Phase 3

• Most of the same mechanics from phase 2, except Avalanche.
• Tank Cleave Face Jaina away from the raid so no one else gets hit by Crystalline Dust.
• Ice Lance Avoid Shattering Lance projectiles that head toward frozen players.

Phase 1

• Jaina casts her special abilities faster during Time Warp.
• Ice Shard applies a stacking debuff that increases its damage. This debuff cannot be dispelled by standing in fire.

Intermission 1

• You now have to track down Jaina by watching were her attacks come from.

Phase 3

• Help soak Orb of Frost 

• Gathering Blizzard forces players to stand near each other.

• Wowhead Normal & Heroic:Wowhead Guide
• Wowhead Mythic: here