Strategy: XT-002 Deconstructor

I thought I'd put together a few little guides on how to tank various fights in Ulduar. These guides will be completely first-person. I'll just go through what I do and how I do it, and the reasons I do it throughout. On this particular fight, I'm one of the offtanks, which means that my job is to tank the Pummellers. Of course, that's so easy it's not even worth mentioning. My real job, like everyone else's, is to dps the boss. The enrage timer on this fight is extremely tight, so the goal is to squeeze as much dps as you possibly can.

First: gear and buffs. For gear, I wear my block/threat set. It's basically every bit of block rating gear I've picked up since Wrath began, which means at this point, everything but hands (since they never dropped for me) and a second ring (since it doesn't exist). Darkmoon Card: Greatness is huge here. It's both threat and block value. Otherwise, my set's a little under 2k unbuffed block value and over 3k unbuffed ap. For buffs, I use a Dragonfin Filet (the strength food) and a Flask of Endless Rage. There's no need to be fancy here, and you actually take more damage from the tantrum the more hitpoints you have.

So, when the fight begins, I take off Righteous Fury. This is important. There's no tank who can hold aggro from me with Righteous Fury when I have my threat set on. I run in behind the boss and start thwacking away. I pop wings early in this fight, since otherwise I won't get full use of them. It'd be nice to get the extra damage from bloodlust, but I won't be there for the full heart phase anyway. Then, it's the usual threat rotation. Seal is Corruption.

At some point, he will drop his heart. A quick tab targets it for me. Then I swivel my camera around so I can see both of the heaps of trash on my side (we have another add tank for the other side) and keep dpsing away on the boss. At some point, a Pummeller will spawn in one of the scap heaps. At that point, I throw up Righteous Fury, which I will keep up for the rest of the fight. I run up to the Pummeller, throw my shield, then exorcism, then judgement, then Shield of Righteousness. Assuming he is surrounded by Scrapbots, I'll also drop a Consecration. If there's any Boombots around, I stay as far away as I can and save the Judgement and ShoR for when I get back.

Now there's a little bit of a tricky part. I pull the Pummeller in such a way that he's right on top of the Deconstructor so that I can dps both while still blocking the Pummeller's attacks. At this point, unless I missed my shield slam, I've cemented aggro, so I go back to targetting the Deconstructor. The main tank should have enough of an aggro lead now that I won't catch him (though I usually end the fight at ~90% of the main tank's aggro so be careful). Between Consecrates and Hammers of the Righteousness, I can hold aggro pretty easily on the Pummeller without ever targetting it again.

Then it's just rinse and repeat. There are a couple tricky bits. Of course there are the bombs. When that happens, I just spin and run away. Don't back out. Pummellers can actually hit pretty hard from behind, but it's better than blowing up the raid. A healer will probably get you, and if not, use your Divine Protection. Then go back and reposition the Pummeller like you did before. The second tricky bit is that, on the second phase, you may end up with two or even three pummellers. That's okay - it's why you have your block set. Just position all of them and go back to dpsing.

That's the whole thing. Remember of course to run away when you have the bomb. Watch your aggro, because a paladin in a threat set and Righteous Fury will steal aggro. Remember to keep Divine Plea up, since you can't dps without it. Tantrums will get most of your mana back, but that's not enough. Pop wings whenever you can; don't save them for the heart. Keep focussed.

As I do more bosses in Ulduar I'll post more of these little strategy guides.