Heroic tanking with Voidwalkers?

[Jezebel]

was thinking about 3x lock, 2x druid. i just want to play around with mass HoT stacking and spamming seed of corruption in Wintergrasp/BG's =) my shaman team is great for PvE, but im a bit over the static combat thing. i really want to try a group that can move around, heal and damage on the run.

that being said, it got me wondering if anyone has tried tanking level 80heroics with a VW? specifically, if two druids could keep 3 VW's alive for long enough for the warlocks to down the boss? i suppose if it comes to it, i could always dual spec one of the druids feral.. but for some reason the idea of tanking with pets appeals to me.

thoughts?

[Enndo]

In the upcoming patch VW's are gonna be like 25k unbuffed again lol.

[Jezebel]

In the upcoming patch VW's are gonna be like 25k unbuffed again lol.

this is what i was reading, also, which prompted the idea.

plus, the nerf pretty much eliminated the possibility of raid tanking. everyone has seen the videos of tanking sarth, illi, etc. but heroic bosses are nowhere near that level of difficulty. i almost fall asleep waiting for my protadin to need a heal when i do heroics.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

The voidwalker staying alive was never the problem. Keeping aggro while people DPS at 1800+ on a boss, is. Soul-shatter notwithstanding.

[Ualaa]

Not to take anything away from Voidwalkers, if you want to go that route.
In the next content patch, shammies will be able to drop 4 totems at once, on one GCD.
So mobility issues are largely gone. Click your totem farm macro once, and every shammy drops 4 totems at once.

[Enndo]

Why VW though, you should just use the felguard and you wont have any aggro issues.

[Ogloo]

Well do u actually have this combo up to lvl 80 already? if you do why not try it.. But I still think that is kinda hard to control with heals on the voidwalkers, through the dps (locks putting different spells on them and stuff), and the druids healing..

Would just give me a headache.. I dont even do 1 pali 4 shaman ;/

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Why VW though, you should just use the felguard and you wont have any aggro issues.lol...just no. Have you seen the stat differences? Please don't spread bad info.

[unseen]

Well do u actually have this combo up to lvl 80 already? if you do why not try it.. But I still think that is kinda hard to control with heals on the voidwalkers, through the dps (locks putting different spells on them and stuff), and the druids healing..

Would just give me a headache.. I dont even do 1 pali 4 shaman ;/When I ran 4 warlocks + healer my healer would just do group heals, otherwise I would manually select which one to heal. For bosses that do a lot of physical damage the void is way better.

Additionally, since you have 4 dpsers you do a lot more damage, making mobs die even faster. Overall it's a lot easier to manage - you're really only healing and dpsing.

Granted, I did not do this in heroics.

[mooglej]

I've come across a couple people promoting some healer + warlock x4 groups, im sure someone has at min attempted this, my team never made it past lvl 50, WTB RAF. ;(

[Multibocks]

Hmm you could always let the voidwalkers fight for aggro and see if you can heal that way. I don't imagine this is a great strat, but if you want to try....

[Crel]

Im currently trying this at 61 with 3xLocks and 2xDruids. ITS A MESS. Im sure it can be done, but its a complete cluster %^#! if you've come from a sham team.

Pros: -When talented correctly u can often summon more pets as they die.
- Many fun pets such as Felguard and Infernal(a must if u choose this team!).
- Dots are very mana friendly, combined with shadow bolt spamming its alot of dps.
-Lots of tricky warlock spells such a shatter, healthstone's and weapon enchant stones

Cons: -Lots to control, 3dps 2heal and 3 pets, its harder than it looks!
-The pets often lose aggro if u even go half-out on dps
-Your pets will pull everything if your not carfull! Prepare for the wipes!
-If they fail to aoe aggro correctly your heals will pull the mobs, and good luck getting them off...
-very very very slow way to do an instance
- The most important con to consider = the warlock class is IMO THE MOST COMPLICATED class to play. Thus multiboxing it will give u kidney stones.

Perhaps someone else has more comforting information, I am a little biased from my last few Hellfire instance's. :rolleyes:
Good luck with whatever u choose :)

[CommanderChaos]

Adding to what Crel said above, I found sufficient pet aggro generation to be problematic with either voidwalkers or felguards, particularly aoe threat with two or more mobs. This was surprising to me, even with cleave. I've had a far more pleasant experience with hunters using bear pets that have both swipe and thunderstomp. I'm curious to know how these changes will affect both classes. Right now my 4 hunters and resto druid group cannot handle even regular instances at lvl 74. So, while I've tried both, neither group is progressing in wotlk content.

[Multibocks]

Interesting, I am using 4hunters and 1 priest now and they tear it up in dungeons. So what is not working at 74? Not enough health? Too hard to heal? Are all pets tanks or just one? I run all pets tanks (bears and one pig) and I cannot pull aggro off them and my priest finds it pretty easy to heal as they fight for aggro. Once in a while a pet will die, but that's just because a few unlucky things going on. If I paid more attention they wouldnt, but its so easy mode that I just kinda lose focus.

edit: P.S. Priest is teh hax for healing. I have a bunch of AE healing ability and I have run a high level resto druid before and I have to say that I like the priest much much more. I run all pets in and just AE heal through most fights with my priest halfway between hunters and the pets. That way I ensure everyone gets healed (in case of AE damage)

[Ualaa]

If you're going with 4x warlocks, I'd probably have one voidwalker as the tank.
The Felguard is the highest dps pet, with taunts off they shouldn't take threat from the VW.
Even if they do, 50% of your damage heals the pet, and VW should have most of the threat.
The Felhound grants an Intellect buff or the Imp grants Stamina. Not sure if either is stronger then another Felguard.

I'd probably go with 3x Felguard, 1x Blueberry (tank). Demo spec, as its the easiest to box.

As far as heals, go with...

/assist Master Warlock
/cast [help] Regrowth; [help, target=targettarget] Regrowth; [target=VW's Name] Regrowth
Substitute in Rejuvenation, Healing Touch, Lifebloom etc.

The heal is directed towards whoever the mob is attacking.
You can also force the heal on whatever you want, by targeting it on the Master and pressing the desired heal.

[Multibocks]

The problem is that voidwalkers just dont generate enough aggro to dps anything down. If they made them more like hunter pets I could see this maybe working....ok, I lied.

[CommanderChaos]

Interesting, I am using 4hunters and 1 priest now and they tear it up in dungeons. So what is not working at 74? Not enough health? Too hard to heal? Are all pets tanks or just one? I run all pets tanks (bears and one pig) and I cannot pull aggro off them and my priest finds it pretty easy to heal as they fight for aggro. Once in a while a pet will die, but that's just because a few unlucky things going on. If I paid more attention they wouldnt, but its so easy mode that I just kinda lose focus.

edit: P.S. Priest is teh hax for healing. I have a bunch of AE healing ability and I have run a high level resto druid before and I have to say that I like the priest much much more. I run all pets in and just AE heal through most fights with my priest halfway between hunters and the pets. That way I ensure everyone gets healed (in case of AE damage)


I'd say it's the healing that's been trickiest for me. With the resto druid spamming wild growth, BC instances were no problem. With the pets all competing for aggro, getting proper heals off in time to the right pet has been hard, even using targettarget. I can see that a priest with a more powerful aoe heal might make a difference. To be honest I haven't felt confident enough in a single pet tanking to turn off growl or taunt on any of them. That could simplify healing though.

I'd really like to hear some strats you use with your team on bosses for Utgard Keep and Nexus. So far they seem to go through the pets like paper, and if I'm not especially careful, I'll lose pets on a 4-pull of trash. My guys are at only 11k health and 1700 AP at lvl 74. Am I just still undergeared for those dungeons?

I'm running an ftl setup, and I think I'll need to start making use of focus somehow in order to get the healing done right. And, while my comments here have been about my hunter team, I wouldn't mind hearing how people have handled their lock teams like this. I hit the wall with mine at ramps lvl 61.

[Multibocks]

I think priest is perfect for this group as priest healing is very reactionary. Druid healing requires that you *know* who is going to be taking damage and that way can have all your HOTs rolling on them. It took a damn long time for me to get used to using a druid with my 4 DK group and I imagine it would have been tons easier to use a priest. 11k health doesnt seem like a lot for your pets in lich king, but honestly I have no clue as I havent had a pet class in lich king (well except for DK pets, before nerf my pet had around 26k health - lol).

Letting them all fight for aggro makes AOE healing that much nicer. I used to single target heal, but I found it was just easier to AoE heal. My stinking instant AOE heal hits pets for over 1000 at 64 and it's not even glyphed yet. Also I macro'd in the hunters tossing a heal once in a while. The hunter glyphed heal is pretty sweet. It's a lot of healing going off (which pets need) but I worry that the wall will come in Lich King when the trash just does too much damage. We will see!

Also I wonder if maybe you could use some more sta gear? What's your gearing like? I know pets have a few talents to get them more health, you probably already have them tho...

edit: dont forget, priests get a very nice health buff that pets can also receive. 700 health at 60 is no joke for a buff!

[Jezebel]

I think priest is perfect for this groupyou know, the more i think about it, the more im starting to agree. i liked the idea of druids because they can mitigate spike damage a lot better. my rationale was that, if you keep 2x wild growths up, it gives you a lot more time between cooldowns to get single target heals off. i completely forgot about holy nova. circle of healing plus glyphed holy nova would be fantastic, instant burst healing for the whole group. not to mention a couple of extra instant dots to stack on people.

.. the downside to priests, i suppose, is it really limits you to being a PvP group. if the pets cant tank effectively theres no dual spec priest tank build =P i am pretty settled on the two healer, 3 lock build. i suppose i could even go 1 druid, 1 priest. the synergy should be easy enough to work out.

im really looking forward to spamming seed of corruption in WG. i heart boom <3