Post by asakawa
so, your guild's asked you to tank
Keleseth in the Blood Prince Council encounter in ICC?
here's a quick guide to give you an idea of what to do.
firstly, anyone can tank this encounter but warlocks
do have several abilities that make them well suited to the task.
we have:
- damage reduction
- increased healing
- threat on demand
- DoTs spells
just as any class
can tank Keleseth but warlocks do it best, any warlock spec
can tank this but demo is best with destro builds (with soul link - PvE 0/18/53 or PvP destro specs with nether protection too) a close second. no special build or gear is required for this job, PvE specs and gear work perfectly well.
Damage Reductiondamage reduction comes in the form of
soul link. damage is shared with your pet so your pet will need a little healing attention. demo locks should use a Felhunter (due to further spell damage reduction via
master demonologist) and other specs should use a Voidwalker (for his higher health pool and bubble).
warlocks also have
shadow ward which has a very small effect on damage taken but is worth using as Keleseth empowers to give you healers a chance to adjust.
Increased Healingincreased healing taken comes from
demon armour which should be used instead of the usual fel armour, not for the armour increase but for the increased healing taken (which is boosted further by
demonic aegis).
Threatfor threat warlocks have
searing pain it does twice as much threat as it does damage (unlike most of our spells that have a 1:1 ratio) and is a nice quick cast, not suffering much from push-back. deep demo lock may find they can get more threat by using soul fire due to constant decimation procs while Keleseth is not empowered. i tend to find that it is still a long enough cast to struggle with push-back.
Encounter Mechanicseach of the 3 bosses in this encounter will become empowered. this always starts with valanar and is random from then on. when keleseth (your target) becomes empowered he will one shot you even with the damage reduction we warlocks have.
how do we prevent this?
by agroing the
dark nuclei that spawn throughout the encounter.
each dark nucleus that has agro on you gives a stacking debuff,
shadow resonance, that does a small amount of DoT damage but also reduces the shadow damage you take by 35%. these stack multiplicatively, not additively so with three stacks you still take 27% shadow damage, four stacks 18% down to 5% at seven stacks.
the key to surviving Keleseth's empowered phase is stacking several dark nuclei throughout. three should be considered the minimum.
so, why did i mention DoTs?
the dark nuclei don't have agro tables like most mobs. they simply attack the last player who landed a damaging attack on them. as such it doesn't matter how much damage you do or threat you generate you can always have them pulled off you by the DPSers AoEs. spells like consecrate are particularly dangerous since they're AoEs spells and continue to tick making it very difficult to reclaim an add you lose to a paladin. also, since threat doesn't matter, abilities like misdirect and tricks of the trade can not send mobs to you. the hunter or rogue will get them.
the way to get and keep a dark nucleus is to use a DoT. the best DoT for the job is
curse of agony. it ticks every 2 seconds instead of 3 like most DoTs and lasts 24 seconds, longer than any other.
using rank 1 CoA will ensure that you keep the add on you without any chance of you killing it before it despawns. they have quite a lot of health so this is unlikely but worth bearing in mind.
The Fightso you're set up before the fight with a soul link spec, demon armour on and a Fulhunter or Voidwalker out? now the actual fight is pretty easy.
at the start put
CoE on Keleseth and spam searing pain for threat. as dark nuclei spawn go and put a CoA on them and return to searing pain on Keleseth (i usually focus target him so i can re-target easily during the fight).
when he becomes empowered you should have a healthy threat lead and your priority is to get more than 3 dark nuclei and keep them. getting lots more than 3 is fine even up to 7. if CoA is starting to run out on dark nuclei you've had for a while you can cast
shadowflame to provide an AoE DoT on all the adds you currently have.
keep in range of your healers and avoid the various knockbacks and AoEs in the fight and this is an easy encounter. if you keep more than 3 stacks at all times you should also get the
orb whisperer achievement.
good luck and i hope this helped!