Thread: Solo-tanking Draigoch's head?

Hi y'all!

I'm new to wardening. So, I got in a Draigoch raid yesterday as the main tank. Before doing the raid I had read and watched videos on how to read Driag's movements so I could make the right calls. Did so fairly ok, with a healer up there with me. However at the second phase our burg got linkdead and never came back. While we waited for him, hoping our only burg would come, I made a wrong call and had my healer and all other healers die. I proceeded to solo tank the head, which I did ok until he critted me when i had like 3-4k morale. Dead. Burg never came back so we called it a day.

Anyway, I tanked him enough to understand that as of now I am not capable of solo tanking the head, without a healer I wont last long up there. I had shield mastery up all time, celebration of skill or restoration up at al time, conviction up also for the extra HoT, the + Evade from Surety of Death, when not in conviction had Dance of War up for the critical defence ... and still I didn't survive without a healer. I didn't bother putting morale leaches such as Fierce Resolve or EoB, but I assume they would have made little difference.

So the question is: Is it possible for a warden to solo tank the head? My main is a minstrel and I have been on countless Driag runs where a guard would solo tank the head. So is it a guard thing with all their extra mitigations? Is there some kind of strat like positioning or so that could allow Wardens to tank the head without a healer?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, it's very easy for wardens to solo tank the head. There are two strats for this:

The first is something any class can do. Just stand there. Don't hit Dragioch, don't get aggro on him, just stand there. As long as someone is in front of him he won't hit anyone (including the person in front of him). That's all there is to it and this is what you should usually try to let happen. If however you get aggro and need to start actually working:

Go full out tank. Heal and buff like a raid of creeps is hitting you. You need to have your defenses at full for when he smacks the &&&& out of you with a crit hit. With the right traits and keeping Dark Before the Dawn up, this should be fairly sustainable. Be aware that if you wait for him to beat the snot out of you before you start turtling, it will be too late. If you need breathing room or if you know you are screwed and need a second shot use Defiant Challenge or Never Surrender respectively. Remember, aggro isn't important here, you just need to focus on not dying. Also, Dragioch does Common Damage so build for that.

Battleprep Shieldmastery
sh sp [sh-sp] sh
sh sp sh
sh [sp-sh] sp
sh f [sh-f] sh
[sh-sh]
sh [f-sh] f -> BM
BM
sp sh [sp-sh] sp

From there you can start varying, putting up a WoS, double SoD. For me, after the first round as shown above, keeping Safeguard and Celebration of Skill up is most important (block and partial block up, besides healing). If your health is up, you can use the masteries for Conviction or Restoration otherwise, WoS or double SoD/double DoW comes to mind.

Hmm, Regero thanks for the reply. Ok so just stand there, got it.

What i don't get is how to turtle up in case I get the aggro. As I wrote in my original post, I had every possible defence up I could think of and I still died. Hell I even got to pop wall of steel once in a while there for parry rating. The only thing I didnt have was morale leeches. I have traited innocence at rank 13 , and a few more virtues with physical mitigation at ranks 11-14. I also had the Physical mitigation warden carving. I have the full 5 set piece of Galtrev armour, mostly guild critted great river or theodred's jewelry, 13900-ish morale unbuffed.

So I guess the only extra thing i can do to turtle up would be Defiant Challenge then?

EDIT: To Bacho ,

Wrote the previous answer while u were writing your post. So basically I see that the main difference between your rotation and mine is that I havent been doubling up some of the Hots and defensive gambits. Hmmm, ok ... but I'm starting to think I might also need better relics on my legendary weps. Have been very unlucky on gettint the good tanking ones with incoming healing and partial block, evade and stuff. I have mainly the top tier Morale/vitality ones with a couple ones with Evade.

I don't think the "stand-still-and-hope-he-doesn't-kill-you" thing works any more. I understand that it was considered an exploit and they fixed it so that you now take damage regardless of having aggro or not.

About tanking him. Seems like you understand the tells and where to run and stuff so skipping that part. The key here is making sure all your defences are up all of the time. My rotation starts with doubling up on the good buffs with BM:

battle prep
Shield Mastery
2x Dance of War

Goad
Surety of Death
BM
Defensive Strike
Celebration of Skill
BM

Conviction
Wall of Steel
stack other self heals

DoW
SoD
CoS to refresh buffs

then its a cycle of

Refresh Self Heals
...
Refresh Self Buffs

Couple of things you should not neglect - feel free to pop DC whenever (if you're at 50% health just pop it). Dont save it. The tanking phases are fairly short and you are out of combat a lot.

Which brings me to the next point - Tanking weapons. Make sure to have the buff duration legacies and DC cooldown as well as healing legacies on javelin. The other thing I recommend is the partial mitigations relics.

With long self buffs and self heals on and the occasional DC and even NS you should have no probs.

P.S
Get parry buff and motivate from Captain ofc

yes, its possible to tank the head without a healer (and without exploiting)

just keep your heals and avoidance/crit def buffs cycled and you should be fine. its possible without using NS or DC as well, but they're certainly nice to have to fall back on in case the RNG decides to hate on you with crits/non-avoidance

Originally Posted by EtherSunrider

EDIT: To Bacho ,

Wrote the previous answer while u were writing your post. So basically I see that the main difference between your rotation and mine is that I havent been doubling up some of the Hots and defensive gambits. Hmmm, ok ... but I'm starting to think I might also need better relics on my legendary weps. Have been very unlucky on gettint the good tanking ones with incoming healing and partial block, evade and stuff. I have mainly the top tier Morale/vitality ones with a couple ones with Evade.

The doubling-up part is just to tier the buffs up, like DoW and SoD. Both: high buff, short duration. By doubling them up, you prolong their duration.
I don't actually know if it works with self heals, too, but you would want to go for different heals anyway. Restoration is unnecessary to tier up the block+partial% buff, but you would need to play Safeguard first, then Celebration of Skill (first the smaller one, hope I got the names right).

Better relics will probably play their part, too. I'm one of the partials-fraction. All 4 partial relics on my tanking gear, others prefer pure crit defense - I don't know. I think that you can manage with what you have, though. Your common mitigation will be @50%, I assume.

If you are in the end still losing to that dragon, I would say heals before BPE, meaning that besides the 3 heals from the Safeguard-line and Conviction, you could also add a bit of War Cry flavour and the other small heal from sh-f.

I do it all the time... in the rare occasion that I get crit (usually around 6.5k) and hit a couple more times after without BPEing anything, just pop defiant challenge, or if you have it (and this makes for a really good second "oh &&&&" button), the Stangard pocket item.

Usually just battle prep shield mastery as he's moving, put up all the self hots and conviction and maintain DoW + tier 2 buff. I'm too lazy to use the 323 3232 buff.

Three wardens in our kin regularly solo tank the head. I haven't done it yet 'cos I'm scared.

So for those "new" buffs, i call them advanced buffs
have 3 basic tipes:
-Evasion (evade rating)
-Armour use (mitigation + crit defense)
-Shield use (block rating + partial block bonus in % - so over capping)

and 3 tiers (enduring, advanced, expert) for each buff. Higher tier buff is giving more bonus, but expiring faster.
-> u can have also enduring expert buffs (those lasting same long as enduring buffs), if u have the t2 (enduring), or non enduring t3 (expert) buff on yourself, while firing out a t3 buff giver gambit. These enduring expert buffs can sustained with firing a new t3 effect before expiration.

so the gambits give these buff separate from other effects of the gambit.

Evasion giver gambits - use surety of death with battle memory
-war-cry (t1)
-brink of victory (t2)
-surety of death (t3)

Armor use - maddening strike + dance of war (with using masteries) is faster than a double dance of war with battle memory, also if u arent in melee range but u must refresh your buffs you can do dance of war: [23][22][recovery][33] or [22][recovery][32][33] - that is very useful in some fight like foundry last boss, if u must run if fire is coming
-impressive flourrish (t1)
-maddening strike (t2)
-dance of war (t3)

Shield use - these are our hot gambits so use them frist in corect order, aand not duplicate the 3 gambit with battle memory
-Persevere (t1)
-Safeguard (t2)
-Celebration of skill (t3) (at my setup enduring expert shield use lasting for 50s so dont need too much care, just heal yourself as before

Definitely doable, and you'll definitely stay busy. I solo tank the head when I am the one tanking for our kin. As others said already, the key is really just keeping your HoTs and buffs up. I cycle through each HoT and it'll be time to go through them again when the first one I put down is almost done. I used that gap to self buff 1 or 2 things (Shield Mastery/DoW). During the transition and he's moving, I hit battle prep and buff up Shield Mastery again and pop a Conviction, and then prep up another Restoration for when I meet the head. Then start with Safeguard, Celebration, Conviction, buff up something if you can before hitting Restoration again right before it expires.

If you don't have the BuffBars plugin, I recommend it as you can distinctly see how much time left you have on each HoT. Very important to keep those HoTs running because he can surprise you with that big crit for about half your health. Usually phase 1 is OK but then phase 2 he's critting me for 6280. Thank goodness for that Crit Immunity. I sometimes use 10 minute food and you should be able to refresh it after he gets back up from the ground.

Trait-wise, I definitely go 5B+2R (Keen Response, Efficient Thrust for the power savings) and DC. Though I don't usually have to hit DC but it's great to have in case. NS if he somehow gets me near 1/3 health so I have an insurance policy while building morale back up. Since you have 5pc of the tireless sentinel, the 10m CD is great for when you need NS again.

My relics are a mix. both gems are the block/parry partials, 1 rune with evade/parry, other rune with block/inc healing. settings are both inc healing (though one is the +bpe one and other is the morale/icpr one).

Get some more practice and I think you should be able to do it. I think it's more fun that way and opens up a DPS spot for the floor.

Tanking draigochs head is very easy. Just stand in front of the head and do not attack or get aggro on it. You will still take some random hits but you can self heal that very easily. Sometimes I'll get aggro on the head because I get bored. Just have the shield spear heals up and you should never die. Also, there is defiant challenge, never surrender, and even the LG bubble to help save you in case things go bad.

Thought I read somewhere that just standing in front of the head while "tanking" may cause Draigoch to bug, usually somewhere in the 3rd phase, which I have seen a few times when using the stand-in-front-of-the-head-and-do-nothing strategy. Which sux when your 30 mins into the fight and the dragon suddenly refuses to fght back.

So recently I soloed the head while the rest of the group took care of the claws. It was very doable as long as you keep your buffs up and heals going. Trait 5 blue, battle prep shield mastery and conviction when out of combat, cycle heals, and the only thing to worry about really is which direction to call out.

Besides, we're Wardens, not statues....we're better than that. Engage the enemy!

Solo-tanked it many times, it depends a bit on what kind of gear you use. Have the best end game gear and you won't need to spam buffs as you might be almost at the cap. I always spam hots and when I get bored because he doesn't get my health down, I do some B/P/E/PM buffs.

I never realy get lower then 10k morale, even if he devestates me. Only when I don't realy pay much attention. When I get under 10k morale, I use the tank jewellery bubble and my health is back to almost full.

Never tryed it with gear like the Galtrev set. Always use the Orthanc one as it also gives you +1800 Incoming healing rating, which gives your hots a little more fire.

Thanks for the replies guys, this has been really helpful. Keep them coming!

Indeed, you don't take damage if you stand there, tough from time to time you will be hit, keep your BPE's up if you can with masteries, if you start taking damage just do HOT's, if your group is allright you sould be able to live till they kill the paws.

Also if all 4 have the debuff on them our dps group when 12-manning it has been able in many ocasions to kill the paws before he moves.

MT

I have solo tanked him. Try standing back from the head a little (still in melee range though). He seems to damage me more when I am up close. Let me know how it goes.

wow i didnt think i would be seeing people posting they use a exploit to solo the head. Wardens with average gear should be able to solo tank it without using exploits.

I am solo tanking him every week last few months and NEVER used the "dont-aggro-the-head" exploit. No one who is using it should name himself warden.

I think it's all about overhealing to deal with his crits. The one time I used a tool to measure battle stats it appeared tha the hit me for 105k damage total and I used to heal myself for 330k. Of course some lucky crits look scarry, but you still got Defiant Challenge to maximise your mitigations and Never Surrender if the things go really bad. I also use the bauble from LG jewelry set sometimes. Otherwise, keep your ShieldMastery up, and spam all your self heals in order, it's that simple.

Call it an exploit if you want, but regardless if i do or do not hit the head, me being hit by the head is random, even if i attack him many times i just stop taking damage.

MT

if just standing there and not aggroing the head, how do wardens do self heals using restoration etc, since warden needs to hit the head to do the gambits. Are warden able to perform restoration gambit without hitting head?

I don't even bother with avoidance gambits. I just keep the HoTs up and use dbtd when i need power. At first spot I wait until the first time I see an attack against me (usually passively blocked), then I lay into the self heals. Also leverage bauble bubble, DC, NS, and pots to help make it a more laid-back experience. I have found that not going into a gambit frenzy but rather being very deliberate about every button you press has the best results.

You should be getting restoration crit heals for over 1k.

Originally Posted by MightyKOko

I am solo tanking him every week last few months and NEVER used the "dont-aggro-the-head" exploit. No one who is using it should name himself warden.

I think it's all about overhealing to deal with his crits. The one time I used a tool to measure battle stats it appeared tha the hit me for 105k damage total and I used to heal myself for 330k. Of course some lucky crits look scarry, but you still got Defiant Challenge to maximise your mitigations and Never Surrender if the things go really bad. I also use the bauble from LG jewelry set sometimes. Otherwise, keep your ShieldMastery up, and spam all your self heals in order, it's that simple.

Yeah my thoughts exactly, just do this and it'll be fine.

I usually don't even bother putting up any defensive gambits, only focusing on keeping selfheals up at all times.

I have solo tanked the head many times. You can stand there and do nothing with a captain or mini healing you, or just stack self heals the whole fight and tank it solo. Neither way will bug him. This is one of the only raid bosses I have ever seen that is easier for a Warden to tank than a Guard. Now that I have shown my mates that it can be done solo, we never use a guard unless we have no Warden alts available.

My health stays higher when I just repeat the shield spear line and conviction putting out 900 hp\sec and if I feel like I am getting crit abnormally hard, a shield mastery, repeat and watch for which way he falls\paws sit.

Originally Posted by schizoid19

Tanking draigochs head is very easy. Just stand in front of the head and do not attack or get aggro on it. You will still take some random hits but you can self heal that very easily. Sometimes I'll get aggro on the head because I get bored. Just have the shield spear heals up and you should never die. Also, there is defiant challenge, never surrender, and even the LG bubble to help save you in case things go bad.

that's not tanking, that's exploiting

For whoever is wondering, to the best of my knowledge they did fix the "just stand there" tactic by having the front claws do damage while they're up. However, once the top claws are dead, you don't take damage and it is then possible to do the "stand there and do nothing" tactic. So they really didn't do a good job at fixing it. Call me a bad warden for doing it, but I can't say I particularly care haha.

Simple, and while all these gambits recommendations are helpful, i've done it just standing while watching tv.

Yeah i dont know if you have covered this because reading all that text is like study! haha but i personally just stand there for about 10-15 seconds with restoration i think (sh sp sh sp sh) ready from battle prep! draigoch's hear will have normally targetted a healer! and by the time i strike i do not draw aggro! from there i will build a celebration of skill (sh sp sh sp) just incase i get hit with some distributed dmg! tanking the head is really easy, just take your time and if you can try not to attack in the first 5-15 seconds and you should be fine. of course if you do draw aggro spam heals like a mofo good luck

Pretty sad how many in this thread have openly admitted to exploiting.

It's not really surprising considering how many people in the forum were defending the TV bug at U6, which allowed EoB to generate 75k+ damage worth of threat per shot. I guess the rationale is that wardens need to use exploits and bugs to tank properly? :P

Agreed, Catisa and Beornded.

If I'm with my usual fellows, they just let me do my thing, but every second time I go in with a pug, someone tells me not to attack the head and all. I would laugh, but I don't find it funny.