If I'd noticed this thread yesterday I would've just heaped it. Now that people have posted constructively in it, I just edited the title.

Please keep thread titles containing "Omg" and " :( " off the forums, thanks.

On warrior-heavy nights, we actually put two tanks on the raptor, and switched aggro to let the debuff reset. A single healer could then be assigned to both off-tanks and still help on the MT.

Of course, that takes a warrior who could be DPSing Bloodlord and takes them out of the picture. This is more of a slow-and-steady approach.

On low-warrior nights, we'd just throw three hunter pets at the raptor, and toss them the occaisonal heal, with the expectation that all the pets would die at the end.

Was all this worth it to avoid the enrage? I'm not entirely sure it was, but our raid leader disagreed. It worked coonsistently, though.

id say keep the raptor alive. the dps you would lose from the 1-2 warriors on him is minimal. Melee dps on blood lord has to move in and out alot to avoid the whirl wind (or die like morons and make the boss stronger). having 2 less wont be a big hit to your dps imo.

Always had 2 warriors switch off aggro on the raptor when sunders stacked to 5 or so - it's trivial to do and trivial to heal through. For a lower geared guild I think this is the way to go because you will have serious issues trying to keep your MT alive for the enrage period when the raptor dies first.

Until recently, guilds I've raided with had always killed the raptor and never used the spears exploit. It was more the charges and whirlwinds that hurt us and less Mandokir's enrage. These were raids with people in half to full tier one gear. We used careful aggro management and had few problems with Mandokir once people got the rhythm of the fight down.

If you have problems with charges, your raid needs to treat charges like Mandokir is watching someone. When Mandokir charges, tell your ranged players to stop dps so that Mandokir will return to the tank. The person being charged should definitely stop whatever they are doing because they will completely screw themselves if they hit #1 on Mandokir's threat list while he is off the tank.

This is why, for a small guild that is just getting into raiding, Mandokir is good prep for Onyxia.

Also, remember to use Amplify Magic on your tanks and keep Curse of Weakness / Improved Demo Shout on Bloodlord to lessen the MS damage.

I tanked through the enrage when we first started ZG and I was at 5.4k HP buffed, 350ish Defense, and about 6k AC. It's doable, but it comes down to your healing corps.

For like a year we never used those. Then we get an x-server recruit who says in the raid one day, "Why do you guys do this the hard way?" Month later it gets nerfed.

Though I concur that sac'ing a couple rogue alts to beef him up to make it a more challenging fight is fun. Personally? I withhold heals until he dings about 3 times. Then I start smiting. <3

Ultimately yeah though, this is very much a "Do your healers suck?" fight as much as it is a "Fucking taunt plz" fight. If your healers haven't learned how to use /assist to watch for quick agro changes you'll have a much harder time. Far less deaths if you can land a pw:s or start a quick heal before Mandokir actually gets to the new target.

Reactive priests make me a sad panda. It's all about proactive healing.