Tanking Prime 101.

Discussion in 'Oracle’s Database (Guides)' started by Peacemakaz, Feb 15, 2013.

  1. Peacemakaz Committed Player

    Prime is a raid that requires everyone to hold a certain level of skill, and really, team work. Though this may not mean chatting it up, it at a bear minimum means that in order to smootly succeed, everyone needs to be doing their part. Despite this, people often overlook the tanks role, and that is why the following tips and strategies never really seem to be taken seriously.

    But at the same time, tanks really have some of the bigger responsibilities in these higher tiered raids, and while you likely will never get recognized, try doing all these things in the next prime run you do, and things will be miles smoother for the support roles and DPS.
    • Like x 4
  2. Peacemakaz Committed Player

    1. Hold Aggro on the Boss AND the Adds.

    There are 3 adds out at any given moment in prime until 2 spawners are destroyed. It helps the raid out tremendously if you have aggro on all 3 adds because when an add is beating up a healer or a troll, that essential heal may not make it to the group in time, or that power might be a lil slow causing a late heal etc. etc. Also, if you can get all 3 adds under the boss at any given point, it would ensure that the group is not split up, and really it lets the dpses kill stuff faster making the raid finish faster. So you dont forget, make sure you have 3 adds, and as each add dies, keep an eye out towards a spawner so you can get that aggro back as fast as possible.

    2. Call out 1 Shots

    Ideally, all 3 adds should be under the boss at any given moment, and ideally this should make everyone able to see the boss and read his tells, but if the tank calls out bunker busters, "pancakes"(the purple circles), electricity under your feet, and when the avatar of meta in lion form "eats", the raid will be miles easier. It is everyone’s responsibility to be paying attention, but a lil extra help and guidance never hurt anyone.

    3. Use your Immunities

    In prime there is a 1 shot that is nearly unavoidable. When the Avatar of Magic calls out Pancakes and then spins in a circle, pulling group members, it is extremely hard to dodge, and if you didn’t expect to get pulled(aka your that healer spamming that heal to keep that 1 guy alive, or your a troll focusing on your hit counter)...your pretty much dead. Right before he does his swopping move (similar to the wing armors pull), he jumps in the air and spins in a circle. At that moment, if you pop an immunity, you will save lives. No one will know what you did, but that’s ok, were just tanks lol. Also, when brainiac calls out honeycombs, a group immunity can help there as well, and I am sure there are other points in the raid where it helps, dont be afraid to support the team [IMG]

    4. Tank the Tentacle

    This is a concept not known by many tanks. Tanking the tentacle is a 2 step process. You must first hold aggro of the tentacle at all times, and you also need to direct it away from the group. When you do this, you can save group members lives, and the group will not need to do that mad dash towards the magic spawner and hope no one dies in the process. This can be done at any level, and you can even stay there while you are getting hit by electricity, but you may need to BLOCK. Try to time it so you pop a power on the tentacle and then block, or if you are ice, cycle inescapable storm and a shied before each swing. Also if you are able to tank the tentacle, that means you do not neccessairly have to tank the boss right at his platform, although it never hurts to do so.

    One thing to keep in mind about tanking the tentacle, the aggro on it has been funky as of late, however if you are able to pop a breakout move as it spawns and start popping AoE aggro pullers as it is coming up, at least in my experience you nearly always maintain aggro on the tentacle, allowing the Mele Dpses to do wha

    5. Juggle the Healer Drones
    While this is step 5, it is probably the most important step to tanking prime. When the healer drones come out, it is often a trollers job to stun the drones, but dont rely on them to do the job, and in fact, a tank can do everything needed. Also, this ONLY WORKS WHEN YOU TANK THE BOSS IN THE MIDDLE.
    For the 3 different tanks, there are 3 different methods.


    Ice Tanks

    As soon as you get knocked down, pop an immunity and run outside of the middle circle where you had previously been tanking them. Pop an inescable storm while targeting brainiac, and if you were tanking him in the middle, all the healer drones should drop right in fron't of your feat, however if brainiac happens to be outside of the center, just target change your target to the healer drones. As the begin to rise again, hit them with a bitter winds.

    If your dpses are on their toes, these techniques should be plenty of time to burn the adds. If this is not enough time you will need to spam inescapable storm or any other pull move on the drones as they take flight again.

    Fire Tanks
    Pop an immunity(for fire tanks this is espically helpful because it gets the entire group on their feat ready to tackle the drones).

    While in the center, hit backdraft and then a knock back move(flash point, enflame, etc. etc.). If the dps do not finish in time hit flash point as they try to fly up, and backdraft to group them up as needed.

    Earth Tanks
    I am sure the pattern has been seen by now, but after you pop an immunity hit your pull move and then knock back move(epicenter ?>shards?/totem? whatever knock back you have on your loadout will work). As they fly up hit epicenter whenever it cools down.

    So ya guys, a short guide on my 5 essentials for tanking prime. Hope some of you guys out there read this and try it out! This seems to be some of the most vital things that I have found, but if you guys have any additions let me know.

    -Peacemak3r
    • Like x 3
  3. ObsidianChillSucks New Player


    The philosophy seemed to have switched at some point where it was the norm for tanks to keep the 3 spawned adds off to the side while the rest of the raid fought the meta's. Now in some raids this strategy can work fine, its something the tank should always clarify beforehand if its a pug which is the raids preference but this cannot work for Avatar of Magic. Tanking Tech just means he'll float above you and his red single target will be focused on you. Tanking Meta is just the tentacle his purple balls aoe range is too great to be tanked effectively and his ground lighting is random player positioning based. But Avatar of Magic can be tanked nearly 100% of the time and the dps cannot effectively tank Magic like the other 2 meta's. Magic will continually interrupt your rotations, his pounce deals massive burst damage in addition to his meteor throw.

    Also not mentioned is the starting position of where the tank should stand, most pugs believe it near Meta which is incorrect, as stated above the starting position for a tank after each boss rotation should be Avatar of Magic.



    This is one method but not the most ideal, if your raid has not taken out the spawners or if there are adds or if brainiac summons his rocs & birds inescable storm will not be as effective. Ideally an ice tank would have Resonating Gale spec'd which would drop the drones and then would allow you to group them with IS or if you were flight you could also use Low Pressure. Also if you have an immunity available to pop to override the knockdown from brainiac you should cast Wintery Tempest just before the healer drones finish spawning as the healer drones reset the aggro tables which is why the usually instantly target healers or controllers because their heal and power over times would have moved them to the top of the threat tables as they are already currently casted.
  4. Peacemakaz Committed Player

    I am not sure what you mean obsidian chill on your first point, you say this cannot work for avatar of magic, and then say it can. I think I may be misunderstanding something, so can you please clarify?

    As for the brainiac tanking strategy, it is actually the most ideal way to tank, however keep in mind that it was a strategy for the healer drones only.

    One of your concerns was the aggro of the healer drones being random when they spawned, however if you were tanking brainiac in the middle, wintery tempest would have already been out, so as the tank you would be highest on the aggro table.

    The reason why you want to use Inescapable storm instead of Resonating gale is the nature of the moves(knockdown vs pull).

    Resonating gale might be a nice AoE juggle with a huge range, however if brainiac is dead center, you will be able to pull all the healer drones straight to your feet without even switching targets, and they will be tightly bunched up. Since the drones already spawn spread out, doing an AoE knockdown/juggle like gale would only make it harder for the dps to kill them.
  5. Potent New Player

    never had a tank not tank the boss, i urge my tanks NOT to stand in front of a meta befor a tagout, and just stay in the middle, let the boss come to the middle, allows you to effectively control all adds/bosses with less possibility of them aggroing someone else first. a good tank can TANK the tentacle(i emphasize that because many tanks say they are tankong the tentacle, when all they are doing is standing th re taking it, tanking involves controlling positions/directions as well as holding aggro.)

    but personally i must say, id probably leave the raid or find a new tank if i saw them using resonating gale.....
    • Like x 2
  6. ObsidianChillSucks New Player

    I was referring to the fact that some groups like the tank to take the adds off to the side so that they are not with the rest of the group at the boss as some of them like wing armor would interfere with the rest of the players. That was the strategy that I said couldn't work with magic as the dps cannot tank him as efficiently as they could meta or tech.
  7. Radium Devoted Player

    Lion form is pretty easily done, but that Wing form is going wherever he wants to lol
  8. Sore Steadfast Player

    I will definitely be looking at it more closely in future runs with this feedback.
  9. zzzJackFrostzzz New Player

    my tank is ice so ill tell everyone how i do it with no problems, ICE TANK, cr89 sp133 with 2000 dom. you dont need 2000 dom i was using this same strategy in amazon gear. when it first came out....

    first i put two pulls in my load out- Inescapable storm, and low pressure, winter temp, bitter winds, winter word, reflection,

    THE STRATEGY

    TECH- pull all the adds using the two pull moves under tech so the dps's can burn tech and the adds at the same time. call out bunker buster. also remind the dps's to run the pods into the spawners

    MAGIC-
    • BIRD FORM- again pull all the adds to one central spot, so the dps can focus there burn on them.... bird form magic will be going where ever he wants. after adds are dead, stay in his face.
    • LION FORM- Same as tech here, pull all adds to him let the dps's burn them at the same time.
    META- Meta is where the tank is key IMHO. Here i try to keep meta on his spawner the reason i do this is because it keeps meta from controlling a majority of the board. By keeping him on his spawner the " hot floor" electric floor will only be just in front of him thus still allowing him to still be ranged, when the tentacle is up its rang of attack is far less than if he was in the center of the map, because if he is in the center of the map the tentacle can hit almost any where on the map! "the tentacle is the one shoter" and finally the purple balls, keeping him on his spawner gives the group more time to account for the purple balls.
    Keeping all this in mind! try to pull the adds to meta an away from the group, " by this time the spawners should be down anyway" when the tentacle is up move behind it so it will hit strike you away from the main body of the group. when the electric floor is up just move around it " don't stand in it " and finally you don't have to worry about the purple balls because your under meta, but call them out to the group if you have a mic.
    BRAINIAC- The main thing here for the tank is the "Healer Drones" when they pop up immediately use low pressure! it will ground them and pull them togather in one spot! if some get away use inescapable storm to pull them down. And of course the same with the adds but the Healer Drones are the key here for the tank. also winer word will pick you right up if knocked back by brainiac's thrust move.

    hope this helps someone.
  10. Daddio New Player

    Once thing I have been noticing a lot lately, Magic, Bird Form, will target a downed player to circle on in an attempt to kill the players trying to revive them.
    I think the Devs may have tweeked something with the attacks as well as now they seem to come much faster in sequence with little time to refocus on dps.
  11. Sore Steadfast Player

    One tip. Don't jump to make Magic Lion Form short skip his maul attack. His damage still hits his intended target at range. Blocking his animation only makes it so the target of his attack doesn't know he's become the target. He now has to block based off of damage flowing off of him instead of blocking because he sees Magic lunging his way.
  12. Zim New Player

    Lol, absolutely. Tank is the key to a smooth run in this raid. I also make sure they are running with both breakouts if I am not personally tanking.
  13. Paradox Well-Known Player

    Very useful information in this thread.

    I have a question,
    For a fire tank, what immunities are you referring to?
  14. Soulburn32 Loyal Player

    Burnout and Burning Determination : Breakout and Immunities are the same powers.


    I will add if your going for the No Tag Out, you need to pull the adds away from the boss and not aggro the boss as this allows for maximum damage from all the dps as non of their powers are being split.
  15. Kristyana New Player

    Oh, so that's how I'm supposed to do it? I just pull everything on top of braniac in the center :p
  16. Kristyana New Player

    One thing I've found that works with immunities; when fighting Braniac, save "Unstoppable" "Burnout" and "Shatter Restraints" for when he knocks you down to summon the healer drones. The other immunities aren't usable at this time because they do damage, and these will get you and the three closest people to you instantly back on their feet, giving an extra 2 or 3 seconds for them to turtle or pop a trinket or set up a nuke before the drones spawn. It also lets you get back immediately on your feet to position yourself with your juggles.
  17. SkillorElitism New Player

    o_O, maybe if some more people followed these tips prime would be a breeze in any pug group.
  18. TheLastSuperman Well-Known Player

    Two ways to do this:

    - Tank pulls all ads away from Avatars (if he's good enough then yes he does aggro boss only when teammate falls, Avatar directs aggro at him/her while others revive downed teammates / apply shiled so adds don't chunk off your health while Avatar is on you as well).
    - Tank pulls ads UNDER Avatars (All teammates hit w/ powers to drop their health rapidly).

    Dominance is a must to pull properly, (at least 750+ Dom and if a troller is in there w/ higher dom for example YOU MUST gain Aggro of Avatar and the adds from the get go) I suggest the tank uses two pulls (Earth for example - Earthen grip) one being low pressure or similar if your not flight, also the tank should bring plenty of remixes, the troller needs to focus on power for the dps and healer IF your off to the side pulling the adds away instead of under boss just remember tank to go into range of your healer every so often.

    If your doing a 4-5 man run of prime, someone w/ a group shield is a must, from our experience a troller w/ the Hard Light group shield. Yes you can 4-5 man Prime :p.
  19. Soulburn32 Loyal Player

    if your not an earth tank, get lasso for no tag out runs
    the cc + the pull is better than just the pull effect of say movement or even storm
    • Like x 1
  20. TheLastSuperman Well-Known Player

    Keep the bosses aggro at the right times in any raid to alleviate the pressure from your teammates and recognition will come! Tanks aren't there for glory or the highest damage - We are there to pound Boss and Adds faces bottom line.