Uldir Tanking Guide

In this guide, you’ll find simple tanking strategies for Uldir, Halls of Control, the first raid in Battle for Azeroth. It covers normal, heroic, and mythic (though some versions are still being iterated on).

If you’re looking for more specific guidelines, don’t forget to check out the Notes tabs!

Taloc

MOTHER

Fetid Devourer

Zek’voz

Vectis

Zul, Reborn

Mythrax

G’huun

Labels
Important Positioning Change Position / Movement Cleave / Watch Positioning Adds / Change Targets Tank Swap Defensive Cooldown / Active Mitigation Environmental Dangers Interrupt
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Taloc

NormalHeroicMythicTrashNotes

Overview: Taloc begins in a small room for the first phase, descends down an elevator for the second phase, then repeats the mechanics of the first phase in a much larger room.

Active Boss Phase
  • Swap During Cast Move near puddles for Cudgel Before the boss finishes casting Cudgel of Gore, move in or near the red pools of Blood Storms to clear them away. The other tank should taunt to keep the movement predictable (though it’s not required).
    • Watch out for the knockback and damage once the boss turns around to pick up his Cudgel.
Elevator Phase
  • Soak Small Adds away from Edge The raid should stay together so that the small adds (Volatile Droplets) that fixate on random players are easy to kill. Intercept any that get too close. Do not intercept be near the edge, they can knock you off the platform (Combustable Fuel)!
    • These will continue to spawn once the elevator phase is done.
  • Taunt Big Adds One tank should pick up the big adds (Coalesced Blood) and slowly shift as it drops puddles of Blood Storms.
Elevator Phase
  • Wall Lasers As the elevator descends, look down to watch for upcoming lasers (Uldir Defensive Beam) jutting out of the walls and across the platform.
Active Boss Phase
  • Tank Swap Stand with Soakers Swap when one tank is afflicted with Enlarged Heart. The debuffed tank should stand with the rest of the raid to spread the damage, or use immunities or very strong defensive cooldowns to solo it.
  • Avoid Red Circles Hardened Arteries is a debuff on non-tanks that forces them to spread out.
  • Two tentacles, though they will alternate surrounding themselves with a large puddle of dangerous goo.
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MOTHER

NormalHeroicMythicTrashNotes

Overview: The encounter takes place in multiple rooms separated by a wall of light (Defense Grids). Players must traverse the wall before the room they’re in fills up with fire, but not everyone can cross the wall at once. 

  • Tanks Separate into Rooms One tank will be on the boss while the other will be on add duty in the next room. The add tank will cross the wall first, and the boss tank will cross last, before the room reaches 100 energy.
  • Avoidable Cleave Step to the side of the boss during the cast of Sanitizing Strike to dodge the cleave. If you get hit, do your best to not get a second stack.
  • Interrupt Adds Three seconds after each player crosses the wall, an add will spawn. Interrupt Clinging Corruption.
  • Avoid Fire Swirl Shift out of the small Purifying Flame. This is applied to every player in the room with the boss, so the raid shifts as a whole.
  • Avoid or Walk Against Wind During Wind Tunnel, stand in the safe area protected from the wind, or push against it so you don’t get knocked into the fire pit.
  • Avoid Lasers When vertical beams of light appear (Uldir Defensive Beam), find the hole and move through it before they reach you.
  • Defensives when others cross The most dangerous point defensively is when groups cross the Defense Grids. Use defensives, especially if your health is low before they start crossing.
  • Stand in Gold Swirls of Safety In addition to the horizontal lasers, Uldir Defensive Beam can be be vertical. The safe spot is marked by a line of golden swirls.
  • New adds based on role
    • DPS spawn the same guy you’ve seen on other difficulties.
    • Tanks spawn Resistant Bacterium, which casts Bacterial Outbreak. It’s the highest priority dps target, and should be chain stunned / knocked back / gripped.
    • Healers spawn Viral Contagion, which casts Endemic Virus, which is a debuff that requires the target to move out of range before being dispelled. It doesn’t seem to pick tanks.
  • Stand in Safe Place Side-to-side lasers and up-down lasers happen in quick succession, meaning the whole raid will be standing very close. Be especially careful to point the boss away from allies.
  • A common strategy is having a large group cross with stacked raid cooldowns. The tank crossing should be prepared with very fast AoE pickup. AoE stuns and silences are extremely helpful.
  • Trash will spawn from different directions in Taloc’s room.
  • Crawgs stand in place dealing thrashing AoE damage. Stun or displace them to interrupt it, or pull the rest of the trash out.
  • The smaller trash explodes on death. Run away before they die (hard for a tank, you might just have to die).
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Fetid Devourer

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  • High Melee Damage The primary tank on the boss will take a high amount of sustained melee damage. 
  • Stand on Primary Tank Physical Burst The secondary tank should be the closest to the primary tank to absorb Terrible Thrash, which deals a large amount of physical damage every fourth attack. The boss builds up a buff, once you see 3 stacks, prepare some defensives.
  • Even More Physical DamageAt 50%, the boss increases his damage dealt significantly with Fetid Frenzy.
  • Avoid Red Breath Attack Run out of the breath attack, Rotting Regurgitation, aimed at a random player.
  • Avoid Red Waste Disposal Move away from any Waste Disposal Units that start projecting gross stuff.
  • Position Boss in Alcove Tank the boss in one of the alcoves, with your back to a wall, so that people won’t get knocked back so far from Shockwave Stomp.
  • Position Boss near Big Add New untankable pile of goo to kill: Mutated Mass. May want to drag the boss near this add since dps is very tight on this fight, though it’s also a risk for tanks to move so much. Depends on what works best for your group.
  • Stay out of Circles Malodorous Miasma and Putrid Paroxysm (non-tank debuffs) spread to nearby players within the circle. If you get it as a tank, you can recover by both tanks spreading out until the big circle expires (and melee still being far enough to not get caught by Thrash).
  • Obviously, damage is much higher, and some tanks excel at different jobs:
    • Best Thrash Tanks: Brewmaster, Death Knight, Paladin, Bear
    • Best Melee Tanks: Warrior, Demon Hunter, Bear
  • Boss patrols his room, so be careful to pull trash around his path. He can be reset by pulling him out of the room.
  • Seagulls will disorient the tank, dropping aggro.
  • Lions should be interrupted.
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Zek’voz, Herald of N’zoth

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  • Magic & Physical Damage Healing Debuff Tank Swap Wide Cleave Might of the Void consists of three attacks:
    • Void Lash (shadow, healing debuff) > Shatter (physical, increased physical debuff) >  Void Lash again
    • A single tank may be able to take all three hits with cooldowns, enabling a simple taunt swap after the end of each sequence. Though if that ends up difficult, taunt swap before the second  Void Lash.
  • Large Blue Rings During Surging Darkness, move to the clear areas in the middle or outside the rings. 
  • Untankable Adds Phase 1 and 2 have different untankable adds. The small Warrior adds focus on random players, and the larger Voidreavers spam interruptable Void Bolt on random players. Tanks can help with snares, crowd control, damage, and by keeping the boss nearby for cleave dps.
  • Interrupt Mind Controlled Allies Interrupt and crowd control allies under the effects of Will of the Corruptor.
  • Avoid Purple Circles & Swirls Avoid circles dropped by players with Roiling Deceit (stepping in one spawns an add). Avoid purple swirls that need to be soaked by dps players in phase 3 (Orb of Corruption). Soaking one will eventually mind control you.
    • Accidental adds Pick up any adds that spawn from accidental triggers.
  • Void Lash now reduces healing by 50% per stack. Tanks should still be able to take a full cycle with proper defensives, assuming taunt swaps are fast.
  • In phase 3, DPS players with Corruptor’s Pact will AoE fear upon the debuff’s expiration. 
  • Phase 1 and 2 happen at the same time, so both the little adds and the voidreavers will be active.
    • The adds spawn every 2 min.Your raid will need to organize a chain CC sequence of grips, stuns, and knockbacks to keep the little bugs in one place and away from their targets.The voidreavers are handled by CC’ing two of the three, killing one along with the little bugs, then moving the boss to the remaining adds and killing them individually.
  • The hardest part is going to be overlapping abilities, like both killing adds and the purple rings happening at the same time, or the tank cleave happening halfway through.
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Vectis

Normal / HeroicMythicNotes
Active Boss Phase
  • Tank Swap @ 1-2 Magic DoT Evolving Affliction deals nature damage over time, tanks just need to alternate.
  • Adds Pick up Plague Amalgams as they spawn. They need to be taunted and killed quickly. This might complicate your swap since taunts will often be on cooldown.
Inactive Boss Phase
  • Stand away from Puddle Avoid Blood Puddle & Projectiles Move away from the pool of blood where the boss went (Liquify). The further away you are, the easier it is to dodge the blood projectiles, Blood Geyser.
  • Soak Circles Stand in Plague Bomb circles to reduce damage dealt to the raid. Only one person is needed per puddle.
  • Lingering Infection will have additional effects based on number of stacks. You want to limit stacks as much as possible, ideally never reaching 12.
  • There are four total Omega Vector debuffs, so tanks might be needed to help spread out Lingering Infection stacks.
    • My guild had tanks hold onto Vector during the intermission, passing it between each other until the phase transition.
    • Another strategy is to have tanks be a part of the rotation during phase 1.
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Zul, Reborn

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Add Phase
  • Crusher Adds Tank away from Adds Cleave The bigger add with large weapons, the Crusher, will buff her allies once she reaches 100 energy (Thrumming Pulse). Pull her apart from the group around 80 energy. Face her away from your allies.
  • Bloodhexer Adds Tank away from Boss Interrupt Pull away from the boss before she reaches 100 energy and casts Congeal Blood, then kill the blood adds they spawn before they reach the boss. Interrupt Bloodshard. 
  • Crawg Adds These can be tanked on the boss. They heal based on damage they deal with  Hungering Maw.
  • Untankable Adds Small purple Minion of Zul adds are not tankable, instead focusing on random players. They need to be purged.
Boss Phase
  • Cleave Tank Swap @2-5 Physical DoT Drop Debuff at Edges Tank swap to reset the debuff of Rupturing Blood, then quickly run out and let the debuff expire at the edges of the room. Upon expiration it will create a large area of Ruptured Blood.
    • Eventually the room will fill up with these large circles, so keep tank swaps to a minimum if possible.
    • The damage can be quite dangerous, especially if you’re running out of range of your healers. It is physical damage but it is not reduced by armor.
  • CC one BloodhexerCannot have two bloodhexers active at once or they will heal everything with Sanguine Presence, but they can be crowd controlled.
  • Adds cannot die permanently unless they have Decaying Flesh. This debuff starts on one of the adds and bounces around when dispelled. Players with a purge should be responsible for bouncing Decaying Flesh to Crushers and Hexers when they get low.
  • Crawgs: The debuff shouldn’t be left on a Crawg, instead allowing them to respawn regularly.
    • Many strategies opt to bring in a third tank to hold Crawgs, which are then used for classes like Subtlety rogues that get very high single target dps from dealing AoE damage.
    • Our raid chose to use only two tanks, one handling the Hexers and Crawgs, the other handling the Crushers.
    • Whoever is not tanking Crawgs needs to be careful not to deal too much AoE damage, especially in the beginning where there aren’t many Crawgs up.
  • Boss Phase: Tanks are likely to die to the DoT, best you can do is plan around it and try to die in the correct position. Blessing of Protection can be used as well.
    • There are likely many Crawgs at this point. You can reduce their damage with kiting tools like Sigil of Chains and Ring of Peace.
  • Try not to pull dominator patrols at the same time as other packs.
  • If dominators are pulled with other packs, have one tank pull them out from the others to keep them from significantly buffing their allies’ damage.
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Mythrax the Unraveler

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Active Boss Phase
  • Cleave Magic Damage Tank Swap after each Pick Up Orbs as Necessary Tank swap after each Essence Shear.
  • Avoid Purple Circles Oblivion Sphere will render you unable to perform any actions until you are pulled out by allies, stay out of them.
  • Avoidable Breath When the boss turns to cast Obliteration Blast, stay away from his front.
Inactive Boss Phase
  • Destroyer Adds Separate Cleave Magic Damage Interrupt N’raqi Destroyers need to be tanked apart due to Critical Mass.
  • Large Green Beam Run out of the stationary Obliteration Beam cast by the boss.
  • There are other adds during this phase that are untankable.
  • Orbs (Existence Fragment) will be harder to come by, meaning tanks should get priority on any orbs. You will probably spend most of your off tanking time gathering orbs.
  • Decreasing HP At 30%, orbs will stop spawning (Essence Shatter). This is a soft enrage, and tanks will have to use defensives to survive with high stacks of Annihilation.
  • New untankable add: Xalzaix
  • Obliteration Beam and Obliteration Blast will consume any orbs they hit.
  • Intermission:
    • The boss will aim Obliteration Beam at the add, who will then redirect the beam in a random location. 
    • You can stack the nearly the whole raid on one tank in a special spot, which makes all the little adds spawn nearby and makes the laser extremely predictable. The other tank along with a healer can handle the other add until the first one dies.
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G’huun

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Orbs (Phases 1 & 2)
  • High Mobility Tanks In the first two phases, the raid must coordinate on the upper levels to pick up Power Matrices (foot of the ramp) and deliver them to the Reorigination Drive (top of the ramp). Tanks with high mobility may want to help, since only one tank is needed in the arena for phase one.
  • Power Matrices will quickly root you. Use movement abilities before getting locked in place, then throw to someone ahead of you.
  • If you are catching, stand in the golden swirl and DO NOT MOVE OUT. Missing a catch loses the orb.
  • Attack the Cysts to clear a path. The grey goop below them, Undulating Mass, deals damage and snares.
Phase 1: Adds
  • Run out with Debuff Fuzzy Gray Balls If you get Explosive Corruption, run out from the group so that the puddle drops out of the way. Avoid the spores that radiate from it.
  • Dark Young Adds Stack on Adds Physical Burst Tank Dark Young on top of adds so that they get the effect of Dark Bargain.
    • Allies will also want to stand in the circle for the beneficial aspects of this debuff, which increases damage dealt and taken of everything inside it, allies and foes alike.
    • Do not take more than one stack at a time (two stacks will MC you).
    • Massive Smash does a large amount of damage if you’re debuffed, use defensives to counter it.
Phase 2: Active Boss
  • Swap ~7 or on Explosive Corruption Increasing Magic Damage Successful melee attacks apply Growing Corruption to the boss, which increases his damage very quickly the longer you’re tanking.
    • Tank swaps can get a little more complicated with Explosive Corruption, which still requires you to move out to drop the puddle in a good spot. The ideal time to swap is as he casts Explosive Corruption so that the tank getting it can easily run out, though he doesn’t always cast it predictably so sometimes you just have to swap based on Growing Corruption.
  • Stand in Red Circle Stack on the player with Blood Feast (big red circle) to remove the debuffs from Wave of Corruption. Only do this when necessary, as it will spawn a stronger add the more people in the circle.
  • Gibbering Horror Add An add will spawn from the Blood Feast, pick it up and help kill it.
Phase 3: Burn
  • Continues using his previous abilities.
  • Run from Falling Rocks Damage from Collapse is based on proximity.
  • Face Away Face away from G’huun when he casts Gaze of G’huun.
Phase 1: Adds
  • Seriously, avoid the Fuzzy Gray Balls The orbs that spawn from Explosive Corruption will spread Explosive Corruption to anyone they hit. It is especially important to avoid them.
  • Large Tentacle Add Interrupt New add that needs to be tanked and interrupted. Tank the Dark Young on top of it until it dies.
    Phase 2: Active Boss
    Phase 3: Burn
    • Avoid Red Growths Covering Large Area Malignant Growth will cover half of the room in red goo, then the other half. Shift into the safe zone, then wait there (even while more growths spawn under you) until the next zone becomes safe.
    • Swap ~3 The boss no longer puts Growing Corruption on one of the tanks in phase 3, so you can stick to swapping to reset stacks of Growing Corruption.
    • Section still in progress
    • Explosive Corruption is cast on more players (12).
    • Adds will spawn a new worm add on death that focuses on a random player and must be killed before it reaches them. If it reaches its target, it infects them and once the debuff expires two more will spawn.
    • Ball running:
      • Avoid Tendrils of Corruption, which root you in place.
      • Run faster than the Matrix Surge, which are deadly lasers that move toward the current ball holder. Should never be a problem.
      • Two balls must be dunked within 3 seconds of each other.
      • In phase 2 onward, the raid must time the dunking with the death of the Gibbering Horror (guy who spawns from the circles).
    • When the red spire-things spawn, two people without the Bursting Boil. debuff should stand the closest. Coordinate so that no single person gets more than 1 stack of Bursting Boil.