Thread: Tanking Roots of Fangorn

When you are stunned the orcs ignore you, you can let everyone get stunned so they will be pounding on you still.

OR you let a champ/captain run in to get stunned and then take the adds yourself

or take a lore-master

Hey all,

I need some advice on tanking Roots of Fangorn, specifically the first two trash fights. In both of these fights, the orcs seem to stun me almost immediately. I've tried a couple of different options, including:
- My standard opener: battle prep EoB, run in and trigger, goad, EoB, EoB from BM, etc.
- Battle prep shield tactics, trigger right before I enter, the start goad, EoB, EoB from BM, etc.
- Battle prep Eob, then go for Shield Tactics, etc.

The results on all of these are fairly similar. Either I get my opening gambit off and am then stunned, at which point my group either doesn't heal or attack and I die before the 10 s stun ends (even if I put Defiant Challenge up first), or they start in and pull everything off me because I only had 1 or so EoB up and running... Or the shield tactics protects me for long enough to get 1-2 EoB off, then I get stunned as soon as it wears off and the group faces the same problem as before. Doesn't matter if it is T1 or T2.

In contrast, I had no problem tanking and holding aggro in any of the subsequent fights where stuns weren't involved, including all the boss fights.

Any suggestions? Watching the orc hoard literally run over me multiple times a in row is somewhat depressing as the group behind me is in a tough spot and down their tank right off the bat...

Thanks,
Caidan

Now my reply is above your first post -.-

Use 3 pieces of dragon (+5s antistun). Use shield tactics and inmediately pull with BP EoB. Everytime it's off CD on the pulls, use it again. On the first boss, everytime a new wave of adds is going to enter, use Shield Tactics. This way you should avoid a lot of stuns.

Originally Posted by AJDT

Hey all,

I need some advice on tanking Roots of Fangorn, specifically the first two trash fights. In both of these fights, the orcs seem to stun me almost immediately. I've tried a couple of different options, including:
- My standard opener: battle prep EoB, run in and trigger, goad, EoB, EoB from BM, etc.
- Battle prep shield tactics, trigger right before I enter, the start goad, EoB, EoB from BM, etc.
- Battle prep Eob, then go for Shield Tactics, etc.

The results on all of these are fairly similar. Either I get my opening gambit off and am then stunned, at which point my group either doesn't heal or attack and I die before the 10 s stun ends (even if I put Defiant Challenge up first), or they start in and pull everything off me because I only had 1 or so EoB up and running... Or the shield tactics protects me for long enough to get 1-2 EoB off, then I get stunned as soon as it wears off and the group faces the same problem as before. Doesn't matter if it is T1 or T2.

In contrast, I had no problem tanking and holding aggro in any of the subsequent fights where stuns weren't involved, including all the boss fights.

Any suggestions? Watching the orc hoard literally run over me multiple times a in row is somewhat depressing as the group behind me is in a tough spot and down their tank right off the bat...

Thanks,
Caidan

Mmm... never done this yet myself. Try a Lore-Master Anti-Stun, then shield tactics. Just a thought but is it 1 particular mob that stuns you, mayby you could get some Burg to do Startling Twist/Hunter Rain Of Thorns/Lm Cracked Earth?
I suggested this as if the stun is at melee range mayby then you can root the orcs and attack at range

been awhile since I did roots but there are a couple of shamen types in each pull that do the stuns. you have to time it right but what you can do is ambush the closest while a lm/berg mezes the other have the dps portion dps the ambushed one keep the mezed one under and kill the rest of the pull you may have to pull the group away from the mezed one to get the most out of AOEs. after the rest of the pull is dead mastery shield tactics and break mez he should go down before the stun immunity wears off. You are tanking the group not the ambushed shaman he will probably wake up from the knockdown before they kill him and you really want him to be aggroed on a champ or something so you are not sitting their stunned with the entire pull pounding on you.

Just had a thought they should make way of the warden stun immunity that lasts the entire fight I would actually trait it again.

Originally Posted by khaipur

been awhile since I did roots but there are a couple of shamen types in each pull that do the stuns. you have to time it right but what you can do is ambush the closest while a lm/berg mezes the other have the dps portion dps the ambushed one keep the mezed one under and kill the rest of the pull you may have to pull the group away from the mezed one to get the most out of AOEs. after the rest of the pull is dead mastery shield tactics and break mez he should go down before the stun immunity wears off. You are tanking the group not the ambushed shaman he will probably wake up from the knockdown before they kill him and you really want him to be aggroed on a champ or something so you are not sitting their stunned with the entire pull pounding on you.

Just had a thought they should make way of the warden stun immunity that lasts the entire fight I would actually trait it again.

The shamans don't stun. They put out nasty DoTs. The cleavers do a frontal AoE knockdown.

Had a nightmare time in that instance the other evening as I joined a PUG. It really knocked my confidence in my tanking ability.

It was my second run in the place, previously once on LM, which went easy and this time on Warden. We went in with no LM or burg(so no debuffs), 1 hunter, 1 captain, 1 RK and 2 champs and myself on warden.

I was asked to charge in get all agro, but make sure that Tactics was up for 10s stun immunity. I BM up shield mastery, conviction and shield tactics. I set EOB as ready skill, charged in, got off goad, hit EOB, then BMed EOB, then was stunned, mobs ran off and beat on the healer some picked up by the champs. When stun wore off I charged in got off an EoB then died within 4/5 seconds. One or two others went down, but the mobs got cleared.

We dusted ourselves down, went to the second pull. Almost a repeat of the first, except I got off a few more protective skills, but lost some agro, died and the rest finished off the mobs with some losses ourselves.

We then went on to fight the lonesome troll. I went in, got off a few EoBs, kept agro, but my morale kept dropping low. I got off a few protective skills, started to lose agro, so I went back to EoB, aggresion got it back, we did the fight, with me dying 20s before the troll.

Then on for Frushkal. Ranged pull, fought back in the trolls room. Had Aggro started to re-apply protective skills, bang. Died.

Champs have aggro. I am rezzed, heal myself, get aggro back and died again. I retreat run back build up aggro get it back and die again. Frushkal goes down with a champ tanking.

We go to the first spider. I get aggro, my morale drops really fast. I start to throw in more BPE & few self heals, lose aggro, throw in EOB, get agro back and die. This is getting embarassing now.

Not surprisingly the guys want me to switch to my LM and one of the champs switches to their warden.

My morale was not great at 13500 and my BPE was bad at about 20% without any gambits. It really knocked my trust in my survivability. Having said that I did check back through CombatAnalysis after and noted that I had received less that 1500 of morale healing from the RK in each of 3 of the fights we had been in. Far less than the self healing I had given myself.

I solo multiple mobs in LG but this run really made me reconsider how I gear up. I am working on my BPE and am currently at about 30% without gambits. My morale has dropped down to 12000, and I need the armour from Too which will really help with my morale. The trouble is that this instance has knocked my confidence in tanking on my warden.

Does anybody have any suggestions or advice?

What sort of BPE is advisable unbuffed/gambited?

I know I need more morale and I am using second age legendaries with tanking threat ups.

Originally Posted by Davouts

What sort of BPE is advisable unbuffed/gambited?

I know I need more morale and I am using second age legendaries with tanking threat ups.

BPE fully buffed is about 60-65% (not including partials) and 16k moral unbuffed, look into some level 65 melded unique relics with incoming healing; they're relatively easy to make and yield good stats. Also try to get second ages with the +threat up, +buff duration and a few of the one-point-wonder legacies (+bpe's). Download the LIP plugin, and tinker with them before making a new LI.

As for surviving the pulls, using 3 pieces of the Draigoch set is huge for those initial 15s without stuns. Use Defiant Challenge liberally, try to save Never Surrender for the 3rd spider trash room.

Get a healer.
Forget what others say, you are NOT supposed to tank 6man instance without a healer

Originally Posted by WhimsicalPacifist

As for surviving the pulls, using 3 pieces of the Draigoch set is huge for those initial 15s without stuns. Use Defiant Challenge liberally

This - I tend to swap out 3 of the Thamen for 3 of Tireless Sentinal set if I don't have an LM in group for Roots T2 - the extra 5 secs is worth it

Originally Posted by MightyKOko

Get a healer.
Forget what others say, you are NOT supposed to tank 6man instance without a healer

True, if your CA says you were self healing more than you were being healed from the RK, something is very wrong.
You need to keep your buffs and aggro on, so you don't have that much time to self-heal (leach from EoB appart).
Of course you also need some better gear, but it is important to keep that healing coming or you won't have time for the rest.

Look at what you should keep up (not all at the same time): Shield Mastery (for the BPE), Celebration of Skill (Morale and Block), Dance of War (mitigations, evade, critical defense and aggro leach), EoB (Morale leach and aggro), War Cry (Morale "leach" and aggro), any other single target aggro management for the boss (Precise Blow, at least)...

Considering Dance of War needs to be scaled to last 30 seconds and not 10 and that those are a lot of skills to keep "spamming", you hardly have time for more heals...

NOTE: My warden is only level 52 so, unfortunately I didn't yet get a decent grouping experience (I'm hopping I get some in Moria), I do, however, understand what is needed to survive a huge group of opponents (like pulling the Training Grounds boss without killing the orc recruits and their 2 orc trainers first - fighting 16 orcs at the same time is FUN ) and it is not easy without a dedicated healer, if besides that you need to worry about aggro management, you don't have an easy time at all.

EDIT: Note that RoF is NOT a good instance to get confidence... you need a good group - ranged dps to get the venomous spiderlings, a LM to help with the stuns (possible without them, but nightmarish as you saw)... And it is generally a hard instance for someone who is not used to playing a role in it.