Like Deathbringer Saurfang, Festergut is a pretty straight-forward fight for tanks. We don't have to do a whole lot other than tank him in a single spot. By and large this fight is a DPS check.
During the entirety of the fight, the ground is going to be covered in Gaseous Blight (orange poison cloud) that will tick damage on the whole raid. There's nothing you can do about this, but be aware that you will not be the sole focus of your healers (at first).
There is going to be some tank swapping in this fight. Festergut will stack Gastric Bloat on the tank. If it reaches 10 stacks you die a horrible explodey death and take anyone within 10 yards with you. This is bad. But you do get a 10% damage buff from each stack. This is good. The idea is to let this get up to 9 stacks and then taunt-swap.
As a Feral you really want to be the first tank to take these stacks. Festergut's enrage timer is pretty short. There's enough time to taunt-swap twice. And if your DPS is fast enough it'll only happen once. If you tank Festergut first you can drop into Cat form after he's taunted off you and have a full 100 seconds of additional 90% damage. In my tank gear and spec this equates to almost the damage I would normally be doing in my DPS gear and spec. But it's fun to be able to put up those kind of numbers with a gimped rotation and Energy regen rate.
While you're DPSing make sure you're watching the Bloat stacks on your other tank and be ready to shift and taunt when they get to 9. Also, watch your threat. Even though you're in cat, until the other tank gets a few stacks of the Bloat you'll be riding the threat limit.
On a regular interval Festergut will Inhale Blight, which reduces the ticking damage of the gas in the room by 30%, but also increases his damage and attack speed by 30%. He'll do this 3 times. If you're tanking during the period of the third inhale you'll want to start managing your cooldowns to help your healers. Don't pop them all at once. You need to drag them out. Usually I start with Barkskin. When it has about 3 seconds left I'll pop Survival Instincts. When that's a couple seconds from expiring I'll use Frenzied Regeneration. That will usually last through the vast majority of the 3rd inhale period.
When the time comes, instead of a 4th inhale Festergut will exhale all the blight he's sucked in (Pungent Blight). Ideally you (and the rest of your raid) will have 3 stacks of Innoculation from a spore mechanic going on in this fight and that 50K damage will be reduced to something very manageable.
The spores will spawn at interval on two different players. When they do you'll want your ranged to group on one and your melee on another. At times this may require one of your raid members to run out to the ranged or in close with the melee. If you're in cat at the time and get this, run forward just a little to stand right between Festergut's legs so that the spore will also innoculate the tank when it bursts. Also be ready in case your raid decides you need to be the one to run out to the ranged. If you're the tank and you get this, all the melee needs to shift closer to you until the spore pops.
Finally, this won't affect you directly, but Festergut will be casting Vile Gas on random raid members. If you have at least 3 people in your raid at range it will never hit the melee. You want to make sure this is the case. The player that gets Vile Gas (and any other player within 8 yards of them) will start puking for 6 seconds and will be unable to do anything during that time. It's essentially a stun. Just more disgusting. Depending on who you have standing at range this could be a healer. Just be aware and be ready to react appropriately, especially if there's multiple Inhales active.
Obviously with needing to clump together for the spores and stay spread out for the Vile Gas, anyone at range (potentially healers) is going to be moving around a lot. Just be aware of this and manage appropriately.
On 10-man Festergut will drop Plague-Soaked Leggings which are very nice for tanking. He can also drop the Cloak of Many Skins, though it's only okay for you. Honestly, by the time you're tanking Festergut, you should already have the Frost Emblem cloak, and that's about as good as it's going to get for Bears.
On 25-man you can look forward to Distant Land (do want!!) and the Gangrenous Leggings.
As with all my boss strats, I'm writing from the overall perspective of a Bear tank and what they will need to do. For you Cats reading this blog, I suggest you check out Dinaer's guides on Forever a Noob. They're written for Rogues but are a pretty good guide for melee in general and his gear drop suggestions (with the exception of weapons) will be spot on for Cats. If I have additional insight, I will try to add it in my blog. Here is his Festergut strat.
Warcraft is old (and so am I)
4 years ago
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