0. Krosh Firehand - Mage Tank Guide 09/06/2008 03:45:49 PDT
Hi i am Deathfyre just your average mage. My guild has not done many of the 25 man raids since we have a limited number of people. However we recently cleared Gruul's lair. Searching on mage forums revealed nothing on how to tank this guy so i thought i would create this small guide to help out newer mages in Gruul's.
Who is Krosh Firehand:
Krosh is one of the minibosses accompanying High King Maulgar, the first boss in Gruul's Lair. He is different to most bosses since he MUST be tanked by a mage (not your usual tank choice).
His attacks:
Krosh does not have a melee attack
Blast Wave: 6013 - 6987. Fire. Instant cast, 15 yard range with a 70% movement speed reduction.
Greater Fireball: 8550 - 9450. Fire. 3 second cast like ours - uninteruptable/silenceable etc.
Casts a Spell Shield which a mage must Spellsteal. It reduces incoming spell damage by 75%, and lasts for 30 seconds.
How to Tank:
Krosh uses a spell shield which reduces incoming spell damage by 75% and lasts 30 seconds. The mage MUST spellsteal this. This is why he can only be tanked by a mage and will enable you to take his damage while the guild deals with the other bosses. The mage must keep up agro by fireing spells at Krosh while making sure to spell steal the shield as soon as its up. Due to his aoe blastwave the mage must stand out of range of this while tanking and this is the reason normal tanks would find this guy stupidly hard.
Spell steal rotation game:
Krosh can will only refresh his shield when yours runs out and he will not do so while casting fireball. Therefore there will be a point where your shield timer runs out and a fireball is coming towards your face! Don't worry there should be a healer assigned to you and you should have enough health to deal with the 8-9k hit. Things like fire ward and ice barrier also take off some of the damage. If you are lucky you can manage to spell steal the shield as soon as krosh refreshes it so that while his fireball is flying towards you you can spell steal his shield.
Basically spellsteal the shield as much as possible as without it you will die.
Pull krosh > spell steal > get to possition > get agro through spells > spell steal another shield.
You should cast fire balls etc. at krosh when ever you have the shield so that you keep up agro once the shield reaches the 3seconds left point just spam the spellsteal button.
If you like to help your healers you can use this macro when the spell shield is nearly gone:
/t >inserthealername< Spell shield nearly down
/cast fire ward
Then spam spell steal :D
Location:
Krosh is usually tanked here: http://www.wowwiki.com/Image:Maulgar-Krosh_Mage_Positioning.png
Stand near the steam and make sure Krosh is over as far to the right as possible. Krosh must be tanked away from the rest of the raid due to his nasty blastwave - so make sure you know where your other tanks will be before possitioning yourself. Your raid leader/ other tank may decide they want this spot so you may have to find a new spot.
Tip: make sure you are in range of Krosh enoguh to spell steal! A couple of times i have had to move and ended up casting fireballs and then wondering why my spell steal was not working... this ended in a wipe :O!
Starting the fight and pulling Krosh:
Usually the raid leader will ask you to pull first. Use some instant spell or if u can time it right a scortch or fire ball as the leader counts down. If you hit first the rest of the bosses will start to rush towards you aswell - all other tanks should use ranged weapon/fearal fairyfire etc to pull the other bosses away before they hit you or you will ofcourse die. After you have pulled spell steal his shield that he will put up and run/blink into your possition - make sure he is away from the rest of the raid but ignore the idiot hunter who stands where you want krosh. Once in possition the fight should be relatively straight forward just keep the shield up on you and keep agro.
Mana:
Dont forget your mana - spell stealing is expensive and in your new tanking situation you may forget to use gems/pots and run oom without the shield on so watch out. Once you have enough threat you can always just stand there doing nothing but spell steal.
You tank gear:
You will need the following stats --
>9-10k health unbuffed
>Spell hit cap for arcane (202 without arcane focus points) you do not want your spell steal resisted
This can be achieved simply with pvp gear or stamina greens but you will need enoguh mana for the fight. Fire resistance gear is not needed dont worry about it you will just gimp yourself and its a waste of badges/money for this fight. With raid buffs you should have 11-13k health which is more than enough. It can be done with less than spell hit cap but resists could mean your death.
What the rest of the raid shoulkd be doing to help you:
>You must be assigned a healer - those occassional 9k fireballs hurt. They must get you topped off after every fireball which with the shield up should only be 2-3k below your maximum. If your health is slightly down when the non shielded fireball hits you will die so make sure you are topped off. If you healer is terrible you better have a health pot or health stone you can pop if in dire need.
>The rest of the raid should be off killing the other bosses while you fight. They will kill Krosh Firehand only before High King Maulgar. By the time they get onto Krosh your threat will be enough. Make sure they stay out of the range of blastwave and melee should just go attack Maulgar. Just keep up the rotation untill the guy is dead then help dpsing Maulgar.
If at any point you happen to die the entire raid must switch quikly to Krosh and kill him fast or he will kill every healer.
*Note* Make double sure that no hunter is using arcane shot on Krosh or the shield will be dispelled before you steal it and you will be literally toast.
>>>>>Not sure on this as i have never seen it but it should be possible for a shammy to use grounding totem to protect you when your shield runs out - however this would require good coordination but may stop you being hit by that 9k.
Here is a lil vid if you need extra help (not that you should with this awesome guide)
Not my video but it is helpful and there are many other online - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cMJCAPDHQiw
That is the end of the guide thank you very much for reading i hope this helped you understand mage tanking!
Ps. Sorry for any spelling mistakes/ grammar - English people arn't good at English geddit????
[ Post edited by Deathfyre ]
Futilo 70 rogue
Deathfyre 70 mage
Change nerf bat to a nerf cusion plz so it hurts less!
Q u o t e: Fire resistance gear is also good to have
This is wrong. Doesn't do anything at all this fight.
On a sidenote, we have had a pvp warlock in s1/karazhan quality gear tanking him without problems.
[ Post edited by Gediablo ]
In test after test, our jaws are consistently dropping at the sheer damage output we've seen from the mage at level 70, so I do think that some of the panic here is unwarranted.
Stack stamina if you can't find your mana shield and fire wards.
Spellsteal Krosh's shield.
Maybe you'll wipe once more because you didn't read an entire Krosh encyclopedia, but who cares.
Can't say council is much worse, some trial and error and you've nailed it.
If i ever say something nice you better screenshot before I edit it away
So much text for such simple encounter.
Have full S1 + vindicator items is enough for stamina part.
Hit rating is overrated on this encounter. In pvp gear I aprox got ~ 50 hit rating which is enough really.
Having one healer on you is enough.
Spam scorch during entire fight, gem & evocation if needed. Stop casting at aprox. 3 secs before your shield fades. Cast fire ward if you want. Spellsteal shield every 30 secs.
Mostly I get him to 50-70% hp when ranged get to him (depends how slacky the rest of the raid is).
Easy fight.
Only 1 class easily can screw this encounter up. Those are warlocks, those nimbwits have the intention to do only dps where they should enslave the felpuppy's. ^^
Overall pretty ok guide but with faulty information ( fire resistance helping). Had one funny occasion year ago on this boss. I died while tanking so offtank had to go taunt it (or sunder, dunno if it's immune) and we downed the boss just fine. I think he stops fireballing then but overall mage tank will be much easier to heal.
About pulling, you might want to use pyroblast and countdown at vt or something and at 1 sec of pyroblast hunters md or tanks go pick them up. That way there wont be any mistake with mage dying to melee damage. Also if you want to use fireblast to pull I'd use the council pull tactic: bop mage and let him run in to hit the mob with a fireblast/ice lance, spellsteal and missdirect (obviosely on council you will spellsteal first).
Anyway gl any new mage tanks if there's any (i doubt there will be that many of those nowadays).
Sheesh it was a joke asking for sticky with an alt jeeze im not stupid yall?
Thx for people who liked it - yes maybe it is a bit late but i was late becoming a raiding mage
Futilo 70 rogue
Deathfyre 70 mage
Change nerf bat to a nerf cusion plz so it hurts less!
