Love it love it love it love it love it love it! Keep it up Nordh! Updated with a new addition
Instance: Naxxramas (10) Military Wing
Role: Main tank x 2
Mobs: The Four Horsemen
Who: Nordhbane of The Maelstrom (80)
Pet: Umtokk (80 Gorilla)
Details: This is a perfect example of where a hunter with lots of HP, and a Tenacity pet can be very useful. Usually it takes 2 people and 1 healer to tank Lady Blaumeux and Sir Zeliek (caster bosses) in the back of the room. I now present you with a solution to only use one person, and one healer, oh, and let’s not forget the pet! Not to mention the coordination could never be any better. No need to yell switch on Vent or anything. With +54% healing on the pet, and +10% healing on me.
At the start of the fight, place the pet on stay/passive at the location where Zeliek starts out, and stand near Blaumeux’s starting position yourself (or the other way around if you prefer). When the boss is pulled, make sure your pet starts attacking Zeliek and then start nuking on Blaumeux. When one of you have 3 debuffs (for some weird reason I resisted them a lot last night, my pet got way more debuffs than mem even though I had no resistance apart from MotW, while the pet has its extra 80 natural resistance to all schools from level), just send the pet towards the one you’re tanking and run over and make a switch. Don’t worry about your pet standing in the black circles, they don’t do that much damage to it anyhow.
Keep on repeating this process going back and forth until the rest of the raid joins in. After that, keep doing what you’ve been doing, your pet will still be tanking sometimes (closest person to the mob is the tank), but unless you wanna go melee, leave the last of the tanking to the melee tanks.
That is how you solo-tank two bosses at the four horsemen. Good luck! And remember, convince your guild that hunters ARE the best tanks for that encounter. =)
Note: The image used was from another attempt where I had to take over after 1 tank died, and that’s what inspired me to do it all alone. But I forgot a screenshot of the full attempt. I’m also posting a picture from midfight instead of at the kill since it shows better what’s being done.
Other Hunters who have completed this feat:
Who: Mahler of The Scryers (80)
Role: Main tank x 2
Mobs: The Four Horsemen
Pet: Mauler (80 Gorilla)
Details:
The feat posted by Nordhbane helped me convince my guild to give this a try! I used a couple of Shadow Resist enchants (AC helm, leatherworking bracer) for the fight; switched positions after 2 marks, then swapped every time the previous debuff wore off. With priest shadow protection, had 215 SR and the pet nearly 300, the dual tanking went exceptionally smoothly! This was a first kill of 4 Horsemen for the raid team (though not a guild first, the other 10 man raid got him the previous week).
Never go on an adventure without a hat!
Big Red Rhino 
I’m sorry to say that the feats I have sent in will most likely be the last feats in quite a while. All the officers except for the guild leader (who’s one of our main tanks) think I’m wasting too much dps by being an off tank when we already have “real” off tanks.
Once the dual spec system comes into play I will most likely be a soaker for the hard bosses, but dps for the rest. And perhaps once we’ve cleared Ulduar and gotten better gear I get to Main tank bosses in Naxxramas ;P
I’ve fought this decision for a long time, and while at least some of them respect and truly like what I’ve done, most only look as far as the dps-meter shows.
Perhaps I will respec for tanking the rest of the heroics on weekends, but for now I’m pure dps (still BM though, I’ve never been a bandwagon type).
Funny thing though, it didn’t take more than one raid night before a healer complained to me that I had a cat with me since he wanted the soaking. He complained to the officers who told him the same thing about dps being more important than survival of the tank via RoS…
We wiped the whole night last night on Sartharion 3D. I doubt I would have made all the difference with RoS, but quite a few tries we died because of tanks dying and that could have been prevented.
By: Nordh on January 30, 2009
at 5:11 am
Sad to see that they could fail to see the value even after all you have accomplished. Convincing people to think outside the box is difficult indeed, especially during progression. My guild is the same way. They think its kinda cool but during progression regular tanks are preferred.
But I have hope for you and for myself that once people conquer the content and get bored that they will open up to trying new things. And when your ‘real’ off tanks are sick of running the same crap over and over maybe they wont mind you stepping in.
By: ihlos on January 30, 2009
at 8:32 am
I figured you might enjoy the fact that I’m posting this article to my guild’s ‘tactics’ page. I don’t know if it’s one that Panzer and I will ever get to try, but I figure it’s worth the mention as an ‘official’ tactic, as opposed to just something that’s interesting. There’s been more than once when a healer couldn’t keep up with two people, and one person dying can mean a wipe if there’s no one to take over!
I really hope that you guys will definitely get the chance to do more tanking feats with your pets. It’s really an inspiration to the other Tenacity-trainers like myself to see just what the pet can do. If I’d never seen it, I never would have expected that my gorilla could MT a full UK run. 😀
By: Kurasu on February 1, 2009
at 8:38 pm
It’s definitely one of the better 4h tactics. The plus healing bonus on you and your pet gives you a big advantage over other tanks. Plus you free up a spot that can be used for extra dps.
By: Nordh on February 2, 2009
at 12:29 am
Yeah, this sounds great, in fact i think i’ll post it on my guild’s page too! 😉
Now we just need to post it on wow wiki =D
By: ihlos on February 2, 2009
at 8:41 am
Would love to see their responses 😉
By: Nordh on February 3, 2009
at 2:11 am
[…] on my way to 80. Besides tanking a few heroics, I’ve also tanked raid encounters in both 10 and 25 man version of Naxxramas […]
By: /played « Umtokk feat. Nordhbane on February 20, 2009
at 8:28 am
For an update, yes. My guild did let me try this out, albeit on an achievement ‘casual run’ rather than a full-out run. Worked great. 😀 I sent my latest tanking escapades to Ihlos.
For the record, yes. Hunters and pets really *are* the best. Not only are the swaps fast and smooth, but the healing is easy. Plus, to be quite honest, you don’t really need any resistance gear if your healer’s on the ball. Not all healers are, of course, and resistance will be good to help take some weight off their shoulders, but if they don’t have the gear? Then take it anyway!
I can’t wait until I get the chance to try this out at 25-man. Unfortunately, it’ll probably be after 3.1, when I have my true BM tanking build.
By: Kurasu on March 30, 2009
at 2:35 pm
/applaud
I’m glad you got to try it =)
By: nordhbane on March 30, 2009
at 11:28 pm