A Visual Guide to Tanking Alysrazor 10N

Yes, yes, I know, it’s nearly time for tier 13 and I’m posting a guide for a tier 12 normal mode fight. It’s just that my raid recently picked up a talented tank with no previous Firelands experience, and tank positioning on Alysrazor is hard to explain with words alone. Also we’re sticking to Firelands until our spriest gets his staff, so it should be relevant for… two more weeks?

Because boss guides are everywhere and because I am lazy, I’m not going to explain the whooole Alysrazor fight. Consider this guide more of a tank-oriented supplemental.

I hope you find it useful!

The Guildmother

All day I’ve been worried sick about tonight’s raid.

I’ve been poring over the logs from last night’s Baleroc attempts, each healer’s in turn, looking for things they can improve on. I stopped on my way out the door to suggest to our beartank in /g that he pick up the Bedrock Talisman, since the proc is OP for the fight. I’ve been the kind of worrywart micromanager that I go out of my way not to be, normally. And there’s a good reason.

My little raid is leaving the nest.

In Which Lost City Brutalizes my Sanity

For those of you just joining us, I’m going through the normal mode dungeons completely unprepared and without DBM, for the fun of learning the encounters through wiping. Please excuse any idiotic mistakes we made, because we literally don’t know any better.

Dear god they weren’t kidding when they said this was going to be harder.

OK, to be fair. We went in with 4/5 of the group undergeared according to the dungeon finder, and our one raiding DPS also underleveled. I was level 85 and nearing geared-enough-for-heroics, but Blanket (who was healing, as holy) had just dinged 84 and was drinking between most trash pulls as he became accustomed to his spells’ newly inflated costs.

We did OK until we got to High Prophet Barim, after easy kills of the first two bosses. Then we hit a wall of OOM.

First it was “OK I’m standing in Blanket’s good ground stuff WHY ISN”T IT HEALING ME OH GOD IT’S A WIPE.” Then we figured out that Blanket hadn’t been the one to put down the big bright circle, and so we should stay out of it. Next I tanked the big bird and tried to gather up the Soul Fragments too, but they kept disappearing and giving the bird health. OOM again, wipe. So then we tried DPSing the fragments down like on Bronjahm. Sorry, OOM, wipe. Try again. Again. We concluded that DPSing the fragments takes too long; kite them and burn the bird! We finally got to phase 3, but hey, OOM, wipe.

OOM, wipe.

OOM, wipe.

OOM wipe OOM wipe OOM wipe OOM wipe.

And me out of alcohol too. I could have used some.

Tanking the Elemental Bosses

Funny how I often only recognize a need for tank education while playing my healer. After many painful Gahz’rilla runs, it has become apparent to me that there is significant room for education here.

The Elemental Bosses are four holiday bosses associated with the pre-Cataclysm event. They’re mostly updates of vanilla bosses, with one completely new boss who appears to be a knockoff of Thunderaan. They drop item level 251 gear, i.e. gear of equivalent quality to that which drops in ICC10 normal.

All four of the elemental bosses are unlocked by the defeat of the invasions of Orgrimmar/Ironforge and Thunder Bluff/Stormwind. These happen roughly every 3 hours, and the cities of either faction will always be attacked simultaneously. If the invasion of Org/Ironforge is defeated, Flamelash and Theradras become available; if the invasion of TB/SW is defeated, Gahz’rilla and Sarsarun become available. They’re only available for about half an hour after the defeat of the invasion, but you don’t have to participate in the fight to queue for them. You can only queue for one elemental boss at once.

Plate tanking gear drops from Flamelash (Salamander Skin), Theradras (Barrier of the Earth Princess), and Gahz’rilla (Twilight Offering Bands). Melee leather, for our druid friends, drops from Sarsarun (Pulmonary Casing).

Screenshots are up!