Comments on: How To Tank Archavon’s Ass

By: Jaxtrasi

Jaxtrasi — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:09:20 +0000

I didn’t mention the lunging and taunting because it’s a well understood part of the fight that I’ve never seen any tank get wrong. The gas cloud, on the other hand, I’ve only seen one tank outside my guild ever get right, so I thought it deserved further mention.

What you’re describing isn’t my understanding of how the fight works, but I guess it could be true. You seem to be saying that the Lunge itself is an aggro wipe, i.e. your threat is lost and now the second highest threat is the threat total. Even if this is true, the situation is easily resolved by simply taunting, again, once the leap has taken place.

I have never had this happen, because we just use two tanks and alternate (rather than one main tank who tries to keep aggro as much as possible), which ensures that one of the two of us always has a massive threat lead. By the time the tanks swap, this threat lead has not eroded.

If your DPS are doing like 5-6k I can see this being a serious problem, but to be honest if your DPS are doing that much you ought to get them to just relax. If they’re capable of doing 5k, they’re capable of stopping DPS (or at least capping their threat) during a tank transition or a leap.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:05:45 +0000

This is a pretty good write up, and it’s all true up to a point. That point being the first Lunge. You can run into threat problems after the first “Lunge” unless there’s a better way to do it than what I’ve been doing.

Basically, after Archie lunges for the MT, he goes after 2nd on threat list. Hopefully that’s your OT, but if it’s not, then your OT taunts and gets aggro.

After he throws you the MT far far away you have to taunt to get aggro back. This puts you at your OT’s THREAT level. Any huge threat lead you had before is gone. If your OT only has a 10k threat lead on the next dps then there’s a high likelihood after he “hops and farts” then you’re going to lose a lot of your threat lead. If he stands there and casts Rock Shards for 3-4 seconds then you’re DEFINITELY lose your threat lead.

Bottom line, you end up being limited based on how much threat your OT can generate. And since he’s often not taking anything except incidental damage, many OT’s have a big problem with this.

By: 3d

3d — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:05:14 +0000

Thanks for this! I actually am a dps feral druid, and this is the most annoying aspect of this fight. I sure hope some tanks take the time to read this.

Now if only there were a way to make hotlinks in raid chat…

By: Aristedes

Aristedes — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:17:18 +0000

Nice summary and guide, Thanks!

By: NightSaw

NightSaw — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:43:33 +0000

Nice matter of explanation on this matter, and helping it by visual items. thanks!
never stepped into this instance but this sure will be in the back of my head once I’m in there.

By: Janieris

Janieris — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:21:56 +0000

Very nice explaination. I have yet to kill him unfortunately :( but this should help a lot. When i was tanking him last night he kept picking me up and throwing me accross the room. That was the first time i experienced that in the 3 fights i have had with him. Is there anything I can do to avoid that or am I out of luck and the OT will have to take him ??

Thanks for the help

By: miesche

miesche — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:21:02 +0000

Tldr? Its got PICTURES, I’m sure you can manage that.

Anyhow, this is a great illustration! Thanks for the humor and the clear explanation =)

By: K

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:16:53 +0000

Awesome commentary!

By: Dr. Pibb

Dr. Pibb — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:12:48 +0000

I am terrible.

By: David

David — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:12:23 +0000

TLDR!