Loading ...The Secret to Enjoying Tanking Freya
I skimmed past this quick 1 liner by a commenter on the site and suffice to say, it struck me.
Are you just tanking Freya?
Cause you shouldn’t Be.
Ask yourself, what should I be doing on this encounter when assigned to Freya? Taking as little damage as possible?
Nope.
Why do we wipe on Freya?
Because we can’t keep up with the adds. A Freya wipe is so rarely because a tank dies and usually because things get overwhelming and not enough dps is generated to down the adds before the next wave of adds.
How does that affect me?
You can DPS too. Think about what you really need to do while tanking Freya.
- Keep Demoralizing Shout up
- Keep Thunder Clap up
- Keep Commanding Shout up
- Shield Block, Shield Wall, Last Stand occasionally
- Eat Snacks?
As long as you keep Freya in front of you, why can’t you be attacking something else? Or, more importantly, why can’t you be sundering something to improve the physical DPS of your raid? After all, Freya doesn’t cleave.
How many times has not killing the tree wiped your raid? Were you attacking the tree? Why not?
I really should take as little damage as possible though
Fine. I’ll give you that, however, there’s really no reason you can’t DPS and take as little damage as possible. Not to mention, if you’re contributing to killing trees and nuking adds then you will be charging/intercepting around a lot which will result in a lot less damage from Freya thanks to her simply not being close enough to hit you.
The Point is…
…sometimes your assignment is the bare minimum you can be doing and often times as tanks we’ve got opportunities to really contribute to an encounter by going above and beyond our assigned task. Look for those opportunities.
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:36 am
I have a solution to ALL of this. I have the Pally OT pick up her and Eonar and tank them both. Since my fury set is way better geared then his ret. set. This allows us to have another 3k+ dps for the entire Freya fight.
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Veneretio reply on June 2, 2009 8:44 am:
Not tanking isn’t a solution, if you’re the tank. There’s no reason a Warrior couldn’t do the same thing. It also doesn’t change that you’ll want to help out with DPS on the other waves anyway.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 am
Great post. I have been doing this since our first kill. I’m all about doing as much dps while tanking to my target anything else I can get my hands on.
I even cheat on emalon. charge the add dps it down till 30-40% then book it back out of the group before his lightning thing.
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Veneretio reply on June 2, 2009 9:56 am:
Excellent point about Emalon, I hadn’t considered that!
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Darraxus reply on June 3, 2009 9:58 pm:
I did an emalon as a third tank a few weeks ago. My main jobs were twofold. First, I ferried the new add to the DK tank. Second, I made sure to get sunders on the overcharged add and keep them up on Emalon the whole fight. My dps was pretty awful for the fight, but we downed him no problem.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 9:07 am
I couldn’t agree more Veneretio about this fight. I would love to video and watch freya trying to chase me around this fight because I am all over the place. Since threat on freya is a non issue I help to sunder a demo the big tree guy, I also tank the water elemental when it spawns because if you time your stuns correctly he won’t go charging other raid members and cause healer headaches. Any tank that just stands around with freya is going to be bored to death with this fight but why would you do that when you could be flying all over the place and showing off what makes warriors so much fun to play.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 9:16 am
I completely agree with you here. I tank EVERYTHING I can get my hands/hooves on. I build up a decent amount of threat on Freya and then pretty much ignore her comppletely, laying down fat shockwaves on the little adds and cleavnig and devatating away. One of the ‘funner’ fights in the instance imo.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 am
This is definitely the truth. Let your fellow tanks get a-hold of the adds and then go to town. Shockwaving (or Concussive blow-ing, or Taunting) the little exploding plants if you see them going for a squishy is also amazingly useful.
On the Elementals and the Ancient there are plenty of advantages to being close to the adds anyway.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Very good post. Come to think of it I never noticed what our tanks are doing during the add phases in Freya 10. There’s six minutes of chaos and then we kill Freya.
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Shadamehr reply on June 3, 2009 4:55 am:
I’m usually shockwaving/thunderclapping/cleaving the little adds, Mach :p Though I have to admit the opportunity to lat some sunders on the larger adds completely passed me by. Will try that this reset.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 1:21 pm
This is one of the fights that I LOVE to add tank. As a warrior our OT capability here is huge - there is so much to do and stun and dance and cleave and howl and shout! We have a bear tank pick up freya and some of the adds and as a warrior I always end up chasing after the water revenant just to try and reposition him for killing. It really can be a super fun fight :).
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June 2nd, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Actually when Assigned to Freya I find myself acting as if I’m NOT. Attack trees, shockwaving adds.
The damage on the MT isn’t that dangerous and as you said she does not cleave, so don’t be affraid to move her.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
On 10 man we have 1 tank pick up the adds and Freya. Leaves an extra dps to beat them down. (Dual Spec FTW)
Haven’t done 25 yet, hopefully this weekend. I can imagine it’s not so easy there to just throw all the tanking jobs onto one person.
From a healer point of view…
Less tanks taking damage makes the fight easier to heal. The more you have to divide your attention the harder it gets. So either you want to heal everybody, or as few people as possible, if that makes sense.
As long as the incoming damage stays healable, have as few targets take damage as possible.
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Cornfedhick reply on June 3, 2009 11:54 am:
I have a holy priest as well and the theory of getting less people taking damage is great with a bunch of adds but that means more damage on fewer people as well. If the tanks are soaking up all the damage then it gives you less room to get that heal off to a fellow raid member with the hopes that you will have time to pick up the tank heals again. I’ve never healed or tanked this boss. I can say from experience tho when healing the lower level instances such as OS+drakes that it can be just as hectic with adds running all over the place that its always a risky venture when so much damage is coming in on so few people. Any miscommunication between the healers and the tank can go down in a shockingly short amount of time.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Wanna have fun? Try this: Tank freya AND the Ancient Water elemental, don’t allow him to ever be 10 yards away from you.
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June 3rd, 2009 at 1:48 am
youre mt on the gifts is nice when you mark them so the dps reacts faster on them. on 10man you can nuke them down on youre own ^^
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June 3rd, 2009 at 3:20 am
Shockwave. Nuff said.
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June 4th, 2009 at 5:35 am
no reason not to tank everything on 10man, just don’t let the snap lasher get up enough stacks to 1 shot you
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June 9th, 2009 at 9:31 am
The first time I tanked Freya was the only time I exclusively did only that. I discovered rather quickly that she hits like a wet noodle, so after our first victory, I started picking up the trees as soon as they spawned. Most times I can burn them down on my own, but my team knows that I pick them up, so if they have a moment, they hit assist and help out. Sometimes I’ll pick up the conservator if the OT isn’t nearby and tank that as well; anything to break up the monotony.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 12:04 am
Because of this post I realized that while tanking Kologarn’s torso you can also attack his arms. We generally keep killing his right arm - whenever that arm is up, I’m attacking it. Don’t turn your back to Kologarn while doing this though. Once the arm is down turn back on Kologarn to get a threat lead while the raid kills the rubble adds.
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