Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Mimiron Warlock Tanking

Here are my notes to self from learning to down Mimiron in Ulduar. Please note that they were written when most (if not all) of the raid didn’t out gear 10 man Ulduar. As the raid gains more experience and gear I slowly focus more on DPS and reduce my concern for my survivability by using my PvP spec and tricks.
Talents
I run with a PvP spec for the Mimiron fight. This is a Destruction based build (currently 0/17/54) it has some key survivability talents to make it easier on my healers:
Fel Synergy - heal your pet for 15% of the amount of spell damage done by you.
Demonic Embrace - Increases your total Stamina by 10%.
Fel Vitality - Increases the Stamina and Intellect of your Minion by 15% and increases your maximum health and mana by 3%.
Soul Link – 20% damage transfer to minion.
Molten Skin - Reduces all damage taken by 6%.
Nether Protection – a 30% chance to reduce all damage by that spell school by 30% for 8 sec.
Soul Leech - a 30% chance to return health equal to 20% of the damage caused.
Demonic Aegis - Increases Demon Armor and Fel Armor spells by 30%.
Glyph
In PvP spec I have added the Glyph of Soul Link. This adds an additional 5% to what my minion will adsorb. My Soul Link will enable 25% of all damage to be transferred to my minion.

Pre-pull Buffs
Before I start the fight I make sure I have food, flask, Firestone, and Fel Armor. I do NOT have Soul Link or Demon Armor on yet. I will explain in a bit, but not until phase 3.
Gear
I typically pull on my PvP boots. My PvP boots are enchanted with a speed increase and have a lot more stamina. For added stamina I have swapped out a ring and gloves. Fully buffed I was hitting 25K health in ilevel 219.

Minion
I use Naltog, my Imp, for his Phase Shift and Blood Pact. While buffing is going on I make sure my imp is un-phased to receive full buffs. It is important to have Fort and Kings if available. I make sure Naltog is phased back before the pull.

I know that Blood Pack doesn’t stack. Except I use it to pick up a stamina buff if a shout or other over riding buff drops off.
Attack
Now I am really to tank. My damage is much lower then in my normal PvE spec. Even so my survivability has skyrocketed.

Phase 1 and 2 I damage like all ranged DPS. I pay careful attention to my mana. I don’t want to have to life tap a lot at the start of phase 3. It has happened and I didn’t get topped off before the phase started. Also, it will help healers who are topping up raid.

USE BANDAGES.

Use your bandages during phase transitions. Mimiron is a very healing intensive fight. Help your healers out. Bandages sit in your bag anyway use them up. Use them on friends! … seriously I have.
Phase 3 Start
Naltog and I have max health and mana at the start. I activate Demon Armor and Soul Link. Naltog is un-phased so he can get heals.

He doesn’t always get heals, you must train the healers. I have linked my talents to let them read how much damage my minion is adsorbing. A HoT on my minion is like putting two HoTs on me.

As soon as the head is engaged I Death Coil, Immolate, and then Conflagulate to get agro.

Looking into Mimiron’s room the raid positions themselves just left of the room. I position myself to the right, still within healing range.

I back the head out of the middle of the room. Just a little bit forward. Those responsible for Bomb Bots will then have a clear view beneath the head.

To hold agro I replace Incinerate with Searing Pain in my DPS rotation. . The reduced cast time and increased threat generation is all I need. With DPS split on the adds and head I have not been over taken. … though I have had the head taunted from me. *sigh*

If any of the adds get loose and on me, I call out in vent. A tank will taunt it off me.

There are points that the head is hit by a Magnetic Core by another raid member. This puts it on the ground and melee can DPS. This ground phase is when I life tap and health funnel Naltog if needed. I will bandage also if required.

I repeat this every air and ground phase.

Phase 4 Start
My tanking duties are not done! Melee still cannot hit the head. I am still designated range tank and will tank the robots head until he is dead.

There are still mines, spinning up, rockets, and all kinds of things to not get hit by to kill you. Oh... and that little part of all three dieing at the same time.

I have yet to have a time that I didn’t lose Naltog in Phase 4. I am still working on figuring out how to get that accomplished. Using Fel Domination and then a quick summon is useful. Need to activate Soul Link again! Depending on what is going on (if healers are actually healing minion or not) I may or may not un-phase shift him after this quick summon.

I am sure there are brilliant locks out there doing this more efficient then I at the beginning. This really worked for us and the healers appreciated my efforts. As we learned the fight, even in PvP spec I was still able to be increase my DPS.Good killing! Hope this was just repeating things you already knew.

3 comments:

  1. Excellent post!

    Now all I need is my guild to start running Ulduar. As a casual guild, we are still trying to get enough people leveled and geared up.

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  2. Wouldn't it be better for you to have your Voidwalker out then use Sacrifice ability to really alleviate healing?

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  3. Anon. I actually tried the Voidwalker a few attempts for the reason you state. Trouble I had was to manage the minion through phase 1 and 2. Spinning Up is just killer on pets. I like to be able to phase shift my minion and activate for phase 3. This allowed me to guarantee that I have a live minion for phase 3.

    Now with most raiders out-gearing the content a VW maybe the way to go. For me at the time it was a distraction.

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