Tanking Saurfang 10 heroic

Some random hints and tips for warriors at tanking this fight. People have been facerolling Saurfang on normal for a very long time and it's easy to forget the nuances of the fight. Actually there is quite a lot for tanks to do here - you don't need to move much, but everything you do has to be perfect, or you wipe.

We run with two healers for this fight, which means that you need to have killed the boss before he casts mark of blood for the third time. This means doing everything possible to minimise the amount of blood power gained by the boss.

- Let the other guy start tanking the boss at the start of the fight. The reason for this is that Saurfang's abilities are on very strict timers and therefore you can predict when he debuffs the tank - as you know you need to swap tanks when he debuffs his current target. There are two debuff points - after he casts boiling blood, and just after he summons the blood beasts. The tank who starts the fight will be debuffed just after boiling blood, and the OT will be debuffed just after the blood beasts arrive. You will need to be free to do other things once the blood beasts are up (see below) so you want the other tank to take the boss at that stage. That means that you want to be the OT.

- When the blood beasts arrive, immediately shockwave one of the beasts ("B1"). It's important that your shockwave does not hit the second beast ("B2"), since you want B2 to aggro on a ranged kiter. If you stun B2 next to your melee dps it might get hit by cleaves etc and aggro the melee, leading to a massive blood power boost and a probable wipe.

- Have all your dps apart from the B2 kiter nuke B1. You should help (since by now your tanking partner will be tanking the boss). When shockwave is about to wear off, use concussive blow. This will mean that B1 should be dead before your concussive blow wears off (8 seconds of stun should be enough to kill it). All your dps should then head off to kill B2. If it looks like B2 is going to get into melee range of your kiter you should taunt B2, allowing a few seconds more for your dps to kill it.

- Diminishing returns on taunts appears to be turned on for this boss. What this means is that if you accidentally gain aggro when you shouldn't it's a possible wipe, since when the tank taunts back the next tank swap will be in the diminishing returns window and will have a high chance of missing. It also means that if you are a warrior you should not use mocking blow as part of your rotation, as I did (/shame), since this is likely to stuff things up for your tanking partner.

- If you have paladins in the raid they can cast Hand of Protection on people who get boiling blood to cut down on the amount of blood power gained by the boss. Clearly they shouldn't cast it on tanks or on your assigned blood beast kiter.

- When you are tanking Saurfang you shouldn't use shockwave or concussive blow, or they won't be available for when the adds appear, leading to a wipe.

When tanking Saurfang during frenzy you should ensure that you have a cooldown up (or at least available). Good luck!