Tanking Guide to Karazhan

Tanking in Karazhan can be fairly, complex, with each boss requiring vastly different tactics. However our job as a meatshield has the ever simple goal of taking damage.

In this Kara guide I will not talk about trash mobs, they are all fairly simple to tank. Instead I will go through tanking the bosses of Kara with a step by step walkthrough.

So, starting from the beginning!

Attumen the Huntsman and Midnight. (His mighty Steed)

Attumen is the first Karazhan boss, and a very simple fight, but is preferably done with two tanks.

Off-Tank Role.

Take the horse (Midnight) from the beginning of the fight, this is a fairly quick phase and only lasts till midnight reaches 95% health.

When Midnight reaches 95% attumen will spawn, the main tank should take him.

When this occurs take midnight out of the way and against the wall, keep good agro here as all DPS should attack midnight till he reaches 25% health

When this happens Attumen the Huntsman will mount Midnight and reset agro, stop attacking while the main tank gains some agro.

The Main Tank has a fairly easy role in this boss fight, though he does have a couple of moments where he may need to survive without healing for a few seconds.

In the first phase the Main tank should do nothing, however they must be prepared to take control of agro when Attumen spawns in phase 2

When phase 2 occurs attumen will appear and attack randomly. The main tank must gain agro ASAP. Healers can grab agro incredibly easily here so you should suggest they wait two or three seconds before throwing on the heals.

The tank should remember to use shield bash and spell reflection to avoid his curse and keep DPS from Attumen down.

After that you simply have to keep Attumen busy while the DPS knock down Midnight.

When Midnight reaches 25% hp Attumen will mount him. Agro resets again here so both DPS and healers should drop off their task for another 2 or 3 seconds.

You should as main tank face him away from the raid group, however it is imperative that you make sure all raid members get directly behind Attumen and Midnight to avoid his charge ability, something that can easily wipe a raid.

Once this set up is complete it is a nice and easy tank and spank

Maiden of Virtue

The Maiden of Virtue is the second boss in Karazhan. She requires only one tank who should keep her positioned in the middle of her platform.

As a tank you should stock up on healing potions, healthstones and so on, since the repentance cast by maiden can take out all your healers.

If all your healers do get taken out you can remove their stun by moving maiden towards the healer then moving away again once Maiden's holy ground causes some damage and breaks the healers stun.

If you see yourself as the target during a Holy Fire cast use spell reflect if you are a Warrior, it can cause some nice damage!

All in all a pretty easy fight for a tank, rely on the rest of the raid to do their job and you should be fine!

Moroes

Moroes is probably the first real challenge you will have in this instance. For starters Moroes has four adds, or 'dinner guests'. To get around these as many as possible should be crowd controlled till Moroes dies or off tanked and taken down immediately.

On Moroes himself you must have a main tank and an off-tank, this is required because every so often Moroes will gouge the main tank and attack the off tank (or if things go wrong whoever else is second in the threat list) until the incapacitation fades.

Apart from this you will simply have to withstand a large amount of damage and control a rather chaotic fight!

Every so often Moroes will vanish and garrotte a random player, you have to run over and quickly attack him to ensure you do not lose agro to the DPS.

Opera

Opera has three events which must be handled differently.

Firstly The Big Bad Wolf.

This guy hits fairly weakly but has some rather random abilities he can and will randomly turn one of your raid members into little red riding hood. If this happens overload all your threat abilities to try and regain agro, unless of course it is you that gets turned. If this happens run, fast.

He also does a fear, if you can stance dance out of this, fantastic, if you are not too happy about that tactic then make sure priests fear ward you and you have an antifear trinket handy.

Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz is a two stage fight, firstly you have Dorothee and her pals, then you have the wicked witch.

In the first phase the Main Tank should be on Tinhead. This guy deals massive damage but his movement speed gradually slows, meaning that towards the end of the fight he can be kited with no healing required. Off tanks should try and gain agro on Roar and Strawman. Roar is resistant to fear though and this should be kept up, be careful not to interrupt it!

Don't bother tanking Dorothee or Tito, Dorothy is unagroable, she should be nuked by DPS. Tito should not be killed till after Dorothee is dead, otherwise she will enrage.

After all these guys are down the crone will appear, main tank should get on her right away, be careful to keep moving away form the cyclones though!

Romulo and Julianne is a fairly tough fight, just because of the accuracy required when taking them both down.

Julianne will spawn first, take her down and keep in mind that all her spells can be interrupted, especially her heal! keep her tanked in one corner.

When Romulo spawns should be tanked by a warrior for the disarm ability, tank him in the opposite corner.

When Romulo dies both will come back to life. Tank them in their opposite corners. Ranged DPS on Romulo to avoid his DPS attacks and melee on Julianne for their spell interrupts.

The hard part is making sure that both bosses die within ten seconds of each other or one will resurrect their partner.

As a tank you will not take an alarming amount of damage, make sure to keep your disarm/interrupts up though!

Nightbane

Nightbane is one of the hardest bosses in Karazhan and many groups skip him.

However if you are going to take this boss down there are several things that should be considered.

In the ground phase the tank should keep Nightbane against the outer wall, Nightbane fears so a warrior tank is good for stance dancing, but either way it helps to keep things such as fear ward up constantly.

Look out for the charred earth AoE, this can cause disruption in your group and can make movement required under two circumstances

Firstly if Charred Earth spawns below the tank, in which case the tank should move back and the rest should follow. (this is rare but has been known to happen)

Secondly if all the Ranged DPS areas suffer from charred earth, if this happens move back so your ranged DPS and healers can re-position.

During Nightbanes flight phase several things happen, either way the best way to avoid them is for everyone to regroup around the tank, this avoids Nightbane firing fireballs at you.

A secondary tank, preferably a paladin but any others will do, should cast an agro generating AoE as soon as 5 skeletons spawn around you, these guys only have ~13.5k hp so can be taken down quickly.

When Nightbane begins to land all players should go back to their previous positions, with the tank ready to instantly gain agro should he have lost it to healers.

Using an offtank is not required for Nightbane, but it can be useful incase the main tank goes down, If you decide to use an offtank they should sit behind Nightbane in the DPS melee position to avoid overstretching the healers. Only pull one in for this if your main tank dies towards the later stages of the battle though.

Curator

Curator is a gear check in Karazhan. He is a good indication that your group is geared enough for bosses upto Prince and Nightbane.

As a tank in this there is not a huge amount you need to do, keeping the Curator focused on you is your primary concern and is not that hard to do. During the evocation phases you should burn your cooldowns, including any taunts, since DPS will be doing 300% more damage.

Terestian Illhoof and Kil'rek

For this boss you are best using two tanks.

Neither boss is particularly damage intensive on the tanks, infact Terestian Illhoof is fairly easy to tank. Kil'rek can cause problems however as when he respawns he can instantly go for an AoE'r

Both bosses and maybe even imps should be tanked close together to maximise AoE damage.

Paladins are very effective at tanking here, with fire res aura and consecrate they can sometimes even tank both bosses and the imps solo.

A little fire resistance gear here can help, but is definitely not necessary.

Shade of Aran

Aran is one of those bloody annoying bosses with no agro control. Almost singular in Karazhan it is still a pain when you can not direct his damage.

Off tanks should jump into DPS gear for this one, the main tank should still maintain agro since some attacks are based on the agro list, however if your tank feels confident he should switch out for some DPS kit.

Remember to keep an eye out for some of Arans special moves (here) as you still need to correctly negotiate each one.


Netherspite

Netherspite is probably one of the trickiest bosses you will tank, if only for beam management.

You will require two tanks working in rotation, one for each portals phase.

The portals are three zones that open up and fire a beam towards Netherspite, as a tank your main concern is the red one

A single tank can handle this red beam in each phase, he simply has to move in and out of the beam every 5 seconds to remove both Netherspite -damage%taken buff and keep their own max hp higher.

The red beam has several benefits which make it obvious why your tanking class should be using it

Lasts for 20 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:

Damage taken reduced by 1% per tick.

Hits Player:

Netherspite will aggro you.
If no one is standing in the Red Beam, Netherspite uses his standard aggro table.
Damage taken is reduced by 1% per tick.
Defence is increased by 5 per tick.
Health is modified - the first application gives +31,000 maximum health, with additional stacks reducing maximum health by 1000 per stack.
Replenishes full health every tick.


Once you have two tanks on the red beam you will also require two manaless players tanking the green beam, this can be DPS as well as tank classes. However the green beam MUST be kept of Netherspite, its properties are.

Lasts for 10 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:

Heals for +4000 health per tick. (Stacking so it heals for 4K, 8K, 12K, 16K etc. -- it is very important not to let Netherspite get hit by this beam.)

Hits Player:

Healing done is increased by 5% per tick.
Spell and ability cost reduced by 1% per tick (including abilities that require Rage or Energy, in addition to Mana).
Maximum mana reduced by 200. Stacks up until your total mana pool reaches 0. Druids in Bear/Cat Form will have their hidden mana bars affected as well. Rage and Energy maxima are unaffected.
Similar to the red beam, mana is restored to the new maximum with each tick.
If a Hunter uses Feign Death while tanking the green beam they will become exhausted and not be able to tank it anymore, most likely wiping the raid.

Make sure tanking rotations are clear before the fight starts, and try an get your timing right for moving in and out of the beams!

Managing this fight is more to do with practice than gear, once you have the technique down you will have no trouble with this boss!

Chess Event

No tanking required on this one!

Hop onto a chess piece and go!

Prince Malchezaar

The prince is fairly simple to tank, it is however important to keep an eye on the raid.

If possible make sure you keep pots and healthstones for Princes second phase, even when tanking in great gear Prince deals out a huge amount of damage with his weapons and healers may lose a vital couple of seconds healing by an unlucky infernal drop!

If your raid is getting boxed in lead him around the edge of his platform to somewhere were the DPS have more space to move around. Infernals drop regularly and do massive AoE damage, if your group gets stuck, or even worse, separated from you then it will be a wipe.

Good geared druids make good tanks for Prince due to their High Armour and health


And that is how to tank Karazhan!