So, I made a decision - I'm not going to force myself to tank in LFR. My main is a Protection Paladin, and he has been since 2006 (literally since I hit level 10 and had my first talent point to invest). Obviously, dual-spec in Wrath and then the much looser approach to specs in later expansions have allowed him to go as Retribution for soloing, but he's had a very firm Prot identity in basically all instanced content.
To be fair, this isn't the first time I've done this. I think around Tomb of Sargeras I was rocking the Ashbringer. But I found that I've been kind of too stressed out to run LFR for a good long while - I only ever did the last fight of Battle for Dazar'alor on my Horde Shaman because you needed to for the campaign, then I never did anything other than the first wing of Sanctum of Domination (which was more about my weird feelings around Blizzard at the time) and just didn't get around to Sepulcher of the First Ones (which is a shame because it seemed cool).
Tanking in LFR, you have a ton of responsibility. If a dps messes up, usually it's not the end of the world, but tanks can really screw up the fight. And this isn't the patient, guild-run environment where errors are easily forgiven. So, in order to actually enjoy myself I've decided to start running LFR as Ret, at least at first.
Of course, on my main I just got into the last fight (but won the tier gloves! Also, apparently Need/Greed is back for raids?) But I ran the whole wing on my Death Knight (who sadly rolled like garbage for loot - I think his highest was like 16).
Anyway, the first wing (I think it's The Primalist Bulwark) has three fights: Eranog, the Primalist Council, and Dalthea, Ascended.
Eranog (whom you might remember from the Thaldraszus campaign quests) has basically three major mechanics to look out for as DPS. You need to avoid patches of fire (and stay behind the boss, as he has a big cleave). Also, people get debuffs on them that then summon a portal that spawns an add. The adds fixate on a random player, and DPS needs to burn them down. My DK's Abomination Limb ability was fantastic for this. Third, periodically Eranog summons a ring of fire elementals that converge toward the center with a ring of death that contracts on the party - similar to the Sylvanas fight in End Time with the ghouls. The raid needs to focus down one of these elementals and escape through the gap.
The Primal Council (Primalist?) is the most complex in the first wing, but makes sense once you get the hang of it.
There's four members of the council, one for each element. The Earth and Fire ones get tanked (and I believe tank-swapped) while the Air and Water ones are casters - you'll want to interrupt them to get them to reach the tanks. The key to this fight is balancing elements. The air boss puts a debuff on players that deals nature damage to them, but can be dispelled if you just walk up to one of the pillars the earth boss summons. However, this debuff will link to anyone you walk near, so the whole raid really needs to be good about running to the pillars and dumping the debuff together or it will just endlessly spread. Periodically, the water boss will channel a spell that puts a stacking debuff on everyone dealing a ton of damage and slowing them, but if you step into the pools of fire that the fire boss puts down, it'll clear your stacks, so you want to dip a toe in to clear stacks. The bosses do not share a health pool, so you want to take them down at about the same rate.
Finally, Dalthea, Ascended (the RP before the fight implies her brother was on the council, but the name is also Dalthea Stormlash, so I don't really know) is actually the simplest fight. Basically, you want to stay away from people with a debuff, run away from the boss when she tries to suck you in, avoid getting hit by gusts of wind, and then kill adds. When the adds die, they knock everyone back quite far, so you want to pull the adds to the center and get closer to the center so you aren't knocked off the edge (alternatively, just get on the side of the add that faces the center of the platform).
Anyway, big enemies in the raid drop tokens you can turn in for Dragonscale Expedition reputation. We are, of course, in the period where people are taking their mains into the raid, so we'll have to see how smooth the raid continues to be on LFR. My sense, though, is that things are skewed a little easier so far this expansion - whether intentionally or because Blizzard hasn't seen quite how much more powerful the new talent system has made player characters. I'm fine with it - I don't need LFR to be a painful slog.
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