Tanking the Coliseum (Part 2: Lord Jaraxxus)
Jaraxxus is all about positioning. This infernal, landing on melee, will force me to reposition the boss.
Now that you’ve tanked Northrend Beasts, you might expect an encounter on par with it in terms of tanking difficulty. You would be wrong. Lord Jaraxxus is a fight that requires little in the way of gear, kiting, or threat generation. The only thing this fight asks for, is a little bit of skill with positioning.
You only have a second to pick him up after the encounter starts.
First off, Jaraxxus aggros the nearest person to him when he activates. Be that person, and prepare a ranged attack if he runs off at the starting gun.
Predictable placement of portals and volcanoes helps DPS do their job.
Once you have Jaraxxus firmly on you, drag him into position. The trick here is that you want the portals and volcanoes to spawn in a predictable place for the DPS. My trick is to spawn them in the center of the circle. To do this, note that he always spawns them to the left of where he’s facing. Thus, if you stand with him in front of you, and the circle to your right, 9 times out of 10, the portal will end up in the center of the arena. I say 9 times out of 10, because there is a small chance that Jaraxxus will spawn a portal while he is casting a spell at someone in the raid, and that position will be used for placing the portal. You can’t avoid that, so just plan for the more common situation.
Watch out for these little balls of fun. They can ruin your melee's day.
The third, and final, tip for this encounter is to keep your melee out of trouble. Keep an eye out for melee getting hit with Legion Flame. When that happens, move him back a little bit, keeping him on a circular path around the arena. I use the second “ring” as a guide here. Similarly, when the infernals fly into the melee, start moving immediately. On heroic, the Fel Inferno they cast can’t be interrupted, so you need to move before people get burned. Note that if he casts a Fel Fireball while you move him, he’ll stay behind. Make sure you have a ranged interrupter (Shaman are perfect for this), for just such occasions.
