Posted on by Sunnier

Heroic Spirit Kings 10 Tanking Guide

Also known as “Four Kings”, in Mogu’shan Vaults.

General

  • One Tank
  • Two Healers

Changes from Normal

  • When boss hits 30% health, next one spawns. Most difficult phases are when two bosses are out at once.
  • Flanking Orders requires you to avoid two waves of death instead of one.
  • Each dude gets a new ability. Most of these abilities are “STOP ATTACKING NOW” abilities:
    1. Qiang the Merciless gains: Impervious Shield. Stop attacking the boss when this ability is activated and wait for dispel.
    2. Subetai the Swift gains: Sleight of Hand. Stop attacking the boss when this ability is activated. Can be alleviated by stun.
    3. Zian of the Endless Shadow gains: Shield of Darkness. Stop attacking and wait for (multiple) dispels.
    4. Meng the Demented gains: Delirious. Can be removed by an enrage-dispeller, though if you can’t remove it there’s nothing you have to worry about, except additional damage.

Qiang the Merciless

The cleaving warrior king.

  • New Ability: Impervious Shield – Stop attacking and wait for dispel. Be pretty paranoid here (your damage doesn’t matter much anyway, no reason to push it). It’s not the end of the world if someone attacks with the shield up as it just deals AoE damage to the raid, but obviously it should be avoided.
  • General strategy: Soak his cleave, run behind him for his deadly cleave, run away from unstoppable row of soldiers. Flanking Orders remains after Qiang dies.
  • Qiang doesn’t melee the tank and his only damage is the cleave, so your vengeance and threat will suck. Luckily, you won’t wipe if someone pulls off you because they won’t get hit hard either (just taunt back quickly so they don’t get too confused).
  • The hard part is continuing to stack while avoiding flanking orders. Not everyone needs to be stacked, but most everyone should be.
  • To survive Flanking Orders and the cleave: mark one dps and let them designate the way to move, then everyone and the tank follows. The tank shouldn’t be the one to move first because there’s the natural human delay and people will only be able to follow the tank a second or so after he moves, and if it’s timed badly then someone might die to cleave.

Subetai the Swift

The evil Robin Hood king.

  • New Ability: Sleight of Hand – Stop attacking for the duration. If you attack him while this ability is active, you’ll receive a debuff that reduces your armor, healing, and damage by 50% and is pretty much a gamebreaker for tanks. Stuns temporarily prevent the negative effects of the debuff, but as a tank you should just vow never to attack him while his special ability is active because it’s just not worth the risk.
  • General strategy: Spread out for Rain of Arrows, run out of Volley, avoid Pillage. Pillage remains after Subetai dies.
  • When he first appears, the tank needs to taunt fast because he actually deals a lot of damage and could kill a healer.
  • Once he is alone, you can safely bring him to the middle. Centering the boss in the middle typically makes it easier for ranged and healers to run out of Volley.

Zian of the Endless Shadow

The shadow sorcerer king.

  • New Ability: Shield of Darkness – Stop attacking and wait for all charges to be dispelled.
  • General strategy: Kite the shadow ball around the edges of the room and away from the raid, interrupt Shadow Blast. Undying Shadows remains after Zian dies.
  • This boss is another relatively light-hitter, so you don’t need to worry too much about his additional damage. Try to interrupt as much as possible.
  • You can get targeted by the shadow ball as a tank. If this happens, you’ll have to kite around the room like any other person would.

Meng the Demented

The mind controlling crazy king.

  • New Ability: Delirious – The boss gains energy faster, meaning he will enter his dangerous super-damage dealing energy levels sooner. You don’t really have to react to this ability directly, just watch energy. It can be removed by anything that dispels enrages.
  • General strategy: Stand together and AoE during the mass mind-control, be prepared for big damage at high energy levels, don’t kill yourself when he reflects damage, and interrupt Crazy Thoughts when he’s at low energy, do not interrupt when he’s at high energy.
  • A few seconds after Meng spawns, you should pop a big cooldown. He deals increasing damage as his energy increases, and he hurts! When both this boss and Zian are active is the most tank damage intensive phase, so try to chain cooldowns and strong AM while they’re both active.
  • Once Zian dies, the fight gets pretty easy. You will still get bursted pretty hard by Meng when he’s at high energy, so save up on resources until around 60 energy, then use your active mitigation.
  • Save some shields or heals for Maddening Shout. If you start out with full health, it shouldn’t be a problem, but it’s always nice to be prepared since your healers won’t be able to help you during the mind control.
  • During Maddening Shout, avoid using AoE abilities that inflict debuffs because that only hurts your allies. Flying Crane Kick and Swipe are good AoE abilities to use.
  • PSA: No one else should be using skills that might incapacitate the tank. The boss ignores the tank if they’re disoriented.

Useful Tools

  • Movement abilities are incredibly valuable to avoid flanking orders.
  • The bosses typically have fast, small hits.
  • Have a targeting / focus macro so you can watch both boss’s debuffs and casts. Here is the one I used.
/targetexact Subetai the Swift
/targetexact Zian of the Endless Shadow
/targetexact Meng the Demented
/focus
  • You can also make an aura to emphasize boss buffs. Here is my weak aura:
d0d4gaGAjG1tvPEjvL0UubQxRcAMsQMlvLy2uXnjk0Hf52a1Jb0ojH9I2nO9te)KOQHru04Kq9mQKHQQ0GbYWb4GsihvfihJiDoQulufAPsqTyQQwoHhsuYtvwMk65cMOkGPsQjtvMo0fLiDvjixMY1fAJuvCEsQnRsBNeDAP(SOMMKmpIcAKev(grPgnjz8QkoPeOBjrCnjQ7ruG)QQ63QY2KuMsPMlrnrUaN409jhyopopQ5ewUFqTAagxw8Ia4cMZ97RHi3r51A5LX6L6JMZ(aib9mpEKdgbRfDoBIaviLR94KtcObOfnkbKV2WCGZ5L8OMt8CmQ5ahDWMAIejsKdi1uHuQ5(i)9gmKkkrMhSB3UD7Qy31QkUYLSlZPw(7nyi9PSux1CFkZkzFwv2L0ZtElPQmhk6C2euZHQbyCbmHXahata0GOkl5GQ4C5IlcBKdtISHCXG9hHnYJCrOP0GixkIpUyW(bycGgevzjhufpYbWeaniQYsoOQ)hatKWNGtgkdiY58sEuZjEog1CGJoytnrICXG9hAFB8ixmy)((bn6NlgSFGpW(tipYfAFBuZfAy2X4qdsKiNWY9dQvdW4AGpixkIp6NZRdficbITsJ(5sEEn2pyY5hfDoBIa1uHuQ5qrNZMGAounaJlGjmg4IqtPbrUueFCMsdICfc2OeqYsvsKaIMOdydmWfI(nLge)kSB)HBFlTEDUyW(HjWgpYbtGnUdQtWSeqOktciz0eaBhle4Ib7pcBKh5cr)MsdIlEV9hUFzv00)txuH1CryJCysKnKixeIIoNnb1CryJCysKnKirICThNofHixeIIoNnb1CryJCysKnKihmcwl6C2ebQ4KZRdaCsQliWhKRGq0e3eqZxkiWhm4lj)TtJQ)b)Gh(dq8u(o0isfNuZPw(7nyi9r2UKw85zTYvLRQv29PlElPYnhk6C2euZbtGTa1uHuUPQnhpjGExjGoqsCi0cbICryJCysKnKiNZl5rnN45yuZbo6Gn1ejsKty5(b1QbyCnWhKZRdficbITsJh5(i)9gmK(uRMRZZAvslx5YDvvXU5TKQkUKNxJ9dMC(rrNZMiqnviLAou05SjOMdvdW4srrIZZ8hVxTAagNCLw)RpfQoxi63uAqCX7T)W9lRIM(F6IkSMlcBK7(agdCWeylqnviLBQAZXtcO3vcOdKehcTqGiNP0GiNCwYbvXfI(nLge)kSB)HBFlTEDICrik6C2eutKiroyeSw05SjcuXjx7XnvT54jb07kb0bsIdHwiqKkCrnhk6C2euZfHnYHjr2qoycSfOMkKYnhRZQqjGExjGKlb9isKZ5L8OMt8CmQ5ahDWMAIejYjSC)GA1amUg4dY51HceHaXwPXJCQL)EdgsFKTlPfFEwRCv5QALDF6I3sQCZL88ASFWKZpk6C2ebQPcPuZHIoNnb1COAagxkksCHOFtPbXVc72F423sRxNle9BkniU492F4(Lvrt)pDrfwZfHnYDFaJboycSfOMkKYnhRZQqjGExjGKlb9iYzkniYjNLCqvCEM)49QvdW4KR06F9Pq1jYfHOOZztqnrIe5(i)9gmK(uRMRZZAvslx5YDvvXU5TKQkoyeSw05SjcuXjx7XnhRZQqjGExjGKlb9isKtjviTsMYKij
  • The only point where you really need to save up AM is when Meng is at high energy.
  • There is some magic damage, but it is typically not significant or predictable.
  • Only AoE opportunity is Maddening Shout.
  • Cleave is useful for times when multiple bosses are active, just be careful not to cleave onto a secondary target that is using their special shield.

Brewmaster Things

  • Be very careful with Keg Smash when two bosses are up. If you use it when either boss has a shield up, you will trigger it.
  • I’ve actually had luck with using Xuen to tank one of the bosses. I’ve used him during the first double-boss phase and he pulled Subetai off me. That’s something that you shouldn’t rely on, but it’s a nice bonus if it does work.
  • Swift Reflexes doesn’t proc the boss shields, so you don’t need to worry about uncontrollable parries wiping your raid.
  • Healing Elixirs is probably your best bet for the tanking tier of talents. I was never able to get Dampen Harm to proc and the spell damage isn’t scary enough to justify Diffuse Magic.