25% of the normal activity in m+ this week because of really toxic affix.
Hotfix bolstering to increase dmg with 5% instead of 20%…
4 Likes
Hotfix dps to kill all the mobs at the same time instead of giving the highest HP one 10 stacks.
8 Likes
But it’s too much effort to switch targets! 
1 Like
Like with most affixes, it’s the healers that have to deal with it. Tanks too, though to a lesser degree.
Yes, Bolstering is actually a DPS affix, but if DPS don’t handle it well or just ignore, the burden still falls on the healers.
Bolstering should probably not be paired with Fortified.
1 Like
Yup. I refuse to do any M+ other than with my alts at low keys. Its just not fun.
It is something extremely difficult to do. To time certain keys, you need to get big pulls.
And surviving those big pulls relies on killing precisely the “small ones” faster than the “big one”.
////////////////////////////////
One example is ToT, 1st and 2nd pull. So you have the big massive dude. Well usually you want to kill the whitches and the dogs first. You chain AoE CC and interrupts such that (with BL) you kill them all fast. Because THOSE are the ones that end up one-shoting you.
But you bolster the big guy so much, that he ends up one-shoting the tank with his tank buster, and/or any DD with the drown.
////////////////////////////////
Same for EB for example: Those massive pulls with peddals… well… the pedals leave dots on the tank, the casters cast things on people, but also the tank… the spinny boyz do a wreack on anyone they target… not to mention the stingers…
Much, much more damage than the Abobination. So if you were to ST focus the abo, and leave everything (including the pedals) alive… well the pull would last so long, you run out of CC, DPS, tank defs, mana… ect… You just die.
In addition to that, may classes cannot avoid AoE. Melee specs are particularely. They can focus 1 add, but passive cleave means that if that 1 mob has double the HP as everything else, it wont die before the small things.
////////////////////////////////
Another famous pull are the ones in RISE (Tyr room). Common knowledge is: Focus the big ones, cleave the small ones. But its really far from reality.
What you want to do is focus the small ones (which are the ones that do most of the damage) and cleave the big ones. Drag the big ones with you while you chain pull stuff. Thats how you do it.
In Bursting weeks, you might want to focus the big ones and cleave the small ones. But as I mentioned before, they have so much more HP compared to the small ones that its unavoidable to stack Bolstering stacks on the big ones. And that is assuming you have enough CC to keep the mages under control, and a really buffed out tank to survive all the stacking bleeds (which is what happens if the pack lasts too long).
So its a catch 22 situation as you can see.
////////////////////////////////
Its REALLY hard to pull off.
In fact, its funny how the “pros” dont calculate the mob deaths as one would expect. They just do SO MUCH DPS that things just die before they have a chance to cast anything that would one-shot you.
In other words, they buff the Abobinations in EB with 20 stacks. But their DPS is just so massive, that they kill the whole pack before any mob has a chance to one-shot them. Including the Abo. So pro-strat: Zug Zug so hard things melt. Thats Bolstering. 
Fort + Bolstering is NOT a fun affix. By any metric.
Oh here’s a shocking idea 
don’t pull abomination with flowers 
whaaaat?
I know I know… it’s hard to figure it out. You’re welcome 
But what about that abomination before the council? That can’t be pulled alone 
Can’t it? Can’t it? 
Yeah, no that is hard…. Invite a warlock and gg. 
I was gonna be more aggressive with your coments… but I wont.
I said on my post the following:
Additionally, I mentioned on EB specifically:
The Abo is not the problem in EB. Its those dudes that 1 shot you on a NORMAL fortified week. No bolstering required. They HAVE to die fast.
The Abo, everyone is scared in lower keys because healers are weaker there. But once the healer knows what he is doing, Abos are EZ. You can use 1 healing CD for each burst, and you can do so indefenetly. Kinda like Bursting affix. Where in high keys healers can deal with 20 stacks and not die, while in low keys 5 stacks is a wipe.
What players at lower keys dont realize is that what kills them is the conjunction of Abos with all the other stuff I mentioned above. THAT one shots people.
So. Right there you have a master class on how you should do those pulls.
But TLDR:
Check my IO please. Then come back and try to give me lessons on how to do those dungeons.
Instead of increased damage, straining the tank or healer for clueless DPS looking at their big deeps… bolstering should increase health and reduce damage taken.
Boom, DPS suddenly seeing smaller numbers taking longer to kill! They wouldn’t like that… 
Stuff that reduces damage taken and/or increases HP.
OK…
Sanguine does exactly that. And if I were to type what people think of Sanguine I would get banned from the forums.
Nah. Blizzard said, and I quote: “Play the dungeon, not the affix”. So they should do just that. Bolstering, Sanguine, or any other affix that slows down progression should be a NONO.
NOT my opinion. Blizzards opinion.
Also, people complain about DDs a lot. But their value on a dungeon is infinite. While tanks and healer’s value is caped.
A good DD can carry a dungeon let me tell you that. So we need to show some more love to them…
It’s fine… I’m a tank, I can take it. I’m used to this forum anyway.
Try healing. You will see where damage comes from, and will really improve your overall tanking performance. Trust me.
If anything, you will know when your healer is really stressed and cant baby-sit you as much, and when he can offer 100% of his attention to you. Can help you optimize your CDs better.
Naa, I’m not planning to. I’d rather he tells me to pull more or to pull less.
I don’t need to try new specs, all I need is communication.
You then try tanking… you’ll see how easy it is to pull just the abomination….
… and having the DPS screaming at you to pull more you stupid tank.
So you pull more and they die… and they scream at you, you idiot tank…
… and then they come back and you die because you can’t keep yourself alive forever…
And the healer would scream at you because you pulled too much, you moron tank go back to your basement…
And the DPS leaves whispering you’re a piece of … you get it.
Does this sound familiar?
No? play tank in pugs then
TL:DR This is the week where you just do your weekly vault and be done with it.
dont really mind it, just needs dps to use brain, on pala i often use single target spender to kill all at the same time while balancing mob health.
its a good affix as it takes a bit of skill and thinking to deal with instead of being annoying like many others.
Oh… I have played tank. And im really bad at it, simple as that. But by totally failing at it, I learned valuable lessons from that. I also played DD. Both Melee and Ranged, with similar results.
Sad you hear you get those reactions though. Everyone gets them though (Healers and DDs as well). So finding a jerk one in a while is not a big deal IMO.
However, if you continuously get that reaction from every group you join, then you should reconsider other tanking routes.
This is the wrong approach. Pugs, or pre-mades. Does not matter.
A) The Pack type, and size you take should be determined by the comp you are with. No need for communication there.
B) The healer does not determine the pace of the dungeon. You do. And you should be aware what your healer can, and cant do. Because if your healer sais “pull more” and instead of pulling more plants in EB you pull 3 stingers when your healer cant dispel poisons… then YOU messed up.
C) The healer does not determine pack size. DDs, and their offensive CDs do. So you cant have 4 people telling you yes/no/no/yes on pull size. You as a tank have to track those CDs.
D) DD deff CDs also determine pack size (depening on what the pack does, and the comp you run with).
Thats ALL the stuff I learned while tanking. And it helped me a lot.
Because among other things, as a healer, I learned the importance of tracking other peoples CDs. Both offensive, and defensive. But especially the tank CDs to predict with some seconds in advance when he will be in trouble (3rd boss in ToT for example).
1 Like
My approach to dungeons is more like the movie Edge of Tomorrow 
the one with Tom Cruise.
Ah crap I pulled too much here, DPS died… leaves the key…
… the same dungeon… again!
Pull less… we did it yay. Next pull.
They should just remove all affixes at this point and just let the dungeon be what we play.
I already got 4 points this week (everbloom)
And we threw a DHT 25. Playable week. Not the best but playable.
Let me tell you a secret…
When I DD or Tank lower keys, I also YoLo the dungeon. Its just SO MUCH FUN.
So I fully understand your “edge of tomorrow” approach. So much fun.
However, whenever I do that and pull 3/4 stingers at once in EB… and I get responses like these from my partners:
Then I have to admit I 100% deserve the “nice compliments”… 
Awesome ! Hey… any chance we get to play together this week?
Dont you have an alt somewhere you can dust off?
I agree Fortified and Bolstering are pretty aids together, mostly for the tank if you don’t have 486 ilvl considering that you have to use defensives off cooldown in pretty much every trash pack. But the problem is that the dps go all in and AoE the mobs, giving numerous Bolstering stacks to the highest health mobs and it’s often that which kills the tank or party members. The highest health mobs should ideally be killed first.