Thats exactly the same - two preassigned with 1 backup,
Only we number them.
1 south, 2 southwest, 3 northwest, 4 northeast, 5 southeast.
I've noticed people tend to remember those numbers fairly readily.
("5 southeast needs backup"), happens quick!

We also use melee dps, and if someone fucks up they're off clicking duty forever. Tends to make for no wipes ever again from this.

Not having done the fight myself, but just a guess:
Becuase by the time you get to add 4 and 5, they are so much stronger. Prot doesnt only give more treath, but more importantly, more avoidance.

We use 1 prot warrior to tank add 5. Our other prot warrior tanks add 2 and then picks up Mag when he's released.

By the time 4 adds are down, we're generally moving to our first clicking spot and that last tank is taking quite a bit of damage.

That... and the fact that we have two prot warriors in the guild, so might as well use both of them =)

Edit: Ghando vv -- the only problem with setting up actual groups based on clicking is that you can't optimize groups. My optimal caster group is 1-2 elemental shaman, 1 shadowpriest, and 2-3 mages/locks. The optimal melee group has no healer. =)

5 groups, 5 adds, 5 cubes...COINCIDENCE?
I set up groups thusly:

Each group has one tank, placed in group 1-5 in the order their Channeler will die (starting SE and going clockwise). Also in each group will be the healers assigned to that tank in Phase 1...1 healer each for the first 3 and 2 each for the last 2 (7 healers minimum, any extras are put wherever I can find room). Rogues are put with a Warrior and Shaman, Hunters and Mages with Shadow Priests, whatever will most increase our DPS.
For cubes, each group is responsible for the cube on which their tank started out (tanking a Channeler). They are responsible for sorting out their two clickers and a backup. Before we engage Mag, we call out the groups one by one and they state who's on their cubes. This is how we ensured C'Thun tentacles would always be under control...it hammers into everyone's heads exactly who in their group is doing what.

Because they have better survival, the 5th add is not trivial, and if dps is slow you're going to get bounced around about the time he tries to heal.

Also - your high dps tanks (fury war/ferals) should be on the first few adds so that they can tank in dps gear. You need zero tanking gear (not even a shield) on add one/two, and minimal tanking gear on 3.

As for groups assigned to cubes - depending on the quality of your dps and the type of dps you can do that. Some raids will have compositions that demand better optimization though. It's always easier to get people thinking in terms of teams, and not in terms of raid-based groups imo. Raid groups are for making sure shouts/totems hit the right people. Organized teams are for getting tactical things done.

Sigh, how do you keep more people alive for clicking?

We are at a point where we take all 4 adds down (the last one maybe 15 secs after he spawns). but only have 10-15 people alive...

We had 5 tanks (3 of them warriors). 3 locks, 2druids, 9 healers, 1 hunter, 1 rogue and one mage I think.

The locks and druids (after tanking) are on CC; I heard one priest complaining about getting feared etc. Seems that the abissals are killing people (we are thinking about bringing fire prot pots).

Mag itself is picked up ok and tanked, even resisted his blast nova, etc

We have Gruul on farm status, but often we've only run one Kara group (we'll be running two starting now).

Some of us (but probably not too many) are fully potted and flasked (as tank I do it for each pull); is this a gear check for the raid?
Truth be told, we've been short on people untill recently, so this is one of our first attempts with a better comp, but that also imply new recruits (some undergeared etc).

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Oops I meant we kill 4 adds before he spawns and the 5th 15 secs after...

And yes, we are probably not interrupting the shadow bolts too well...

I tank the third add and I interrupt most of the bolts initially, but after the raid moves to my add to kill it, I was more concerned with keeping aggro and killing it/surviving myself (I only disarmed, but next time I will start drinking stoneshield pots, after the second add is down, not only when I tank Mag). I would imagine the other 2 prot warriors that are tanking the 4th and the 5th have even a harder time interrupting the shadow bolts, thanks for the hint.

So what now? Bring less healers and not 9?

Much obliged!

I think you have too many healers and not enough DPS. Bring another Rogue for interrupts, too.

It might also help with Shadowbolt volley survival if the 4th and 5th tanks (assuming they are warriors) stop using skills that eat a global cooldown once dps gets to their add so that they imediately are able to interrupt.

Since the buffs the channelers get increase cast time that means that even with CoT the cast time goes down to just about or less than 1.5 seconds. Having someone who isnt hindered by the global cooldown to interrupt can be very handy for this.

Also does anyone know if trash have stopped respawning when magtheridon is engaged because when we got our first kill yesterday it seemed like we should have gotten a trash spawn but didnt (or we were just damn close).

A question, would going there with 2 locks work? We haven't tried Magtheridon much, mostly because we lack active locks, and getting all 3 we have together is a pain, but was enough to make some decent progress and finally getting to phase 2. However, I find it pointless to wait for that 1 day where they're all available and either skip him altogether(which we were doing for some time) or go there with 2 and try it. Any hints how to do that?
I guess multiple early heroism for downing add before he spawns his own infernal or some fear rotation from priests, plus pulling 2 together for some aoe abilities and faster killing. Didn't have much luck using hunters to kite so far, though that was mostly because they were busy dpsing. Also, didn't try using free tanks to grab infernals, are they normally tankable?

You can do 7 healers without too much difficulty. Interestingly, you can even get through phase 1 with 5 healers:
From http://elitistjerks.com/showthread.p...420#post316420

We made our first major attempts with 2 earlier in the week. A third would be nice, but I wouldn't let it stop you. If you can get to phase 2 consistently with 2 Warlocks, having an extra will make it that much easier.

FWIW, here's how yet another guild does it;

1) Team Warlock
2) Team Tank
3) 2-3 backups (the reliable, quick thinking, can't-do-something-wrong-even-if-he-tried type - good practice to identify who these are in your raid group)

Team Warlocks are three Warlocks and two Hunters, they've worked out among themselves who goes where. (Typically similar formation as how they're assigned at the start of P1 for dealing with infernals)

Team Tank are the tanks who tanked the P1 mobs; they click the cubes at the same spot they were tanking. The first two we kill (both initially tanked by the Mag tank, with SW being misdirected onto him) are taken over by two mages. Decided that healers are better off healing people (especially the tricky ones before and after 30% in case of a late click and errant fire nova tick, which somehow inevitably happens, not totally the fault of Oceanic pings though :P) than clicking cubes since the fight no longer requires 4 teams.

It may sound a little confusing at first to have to tell Joe and Sue to click at these points when, but the raid gets the hang of the pattern, it gets done like clockwork every single attempt. If you need to sub someone, everyone else knows what to do/where to go already and we fill in the new guy pretty fast.

If anyone dies, a backup is assigned to their spot pronto.

Trash won't respawn if you are already engaged in the encounter.

Thats a change then because it absolutely could previously (resulting in the raid wiping).

Yes but you see what he said there "Every priest has a shadow priest". That's thier key right there. Most guilds dont carry 7 preists, let alone 5 shadow priests. Yes yes they are ultimal, but in the real world where we all aren't the hardcore guild everyone wants to be in...well.

Ah yeah, right. My bad.
Except me, the poor tree, who gets no priest or the pally with Conc aura... poor Tree, nobody loves you but the tanks.

I realize it's harder to min/max the crap out of your raid if you're assigning things based on group number, but our DPS has been where it needs to be without consumables for some time now. Also, setting things up by cube allows me to assign healers in an intuitive way (you heal the tank in your group, who is also on the cube your group is responsible for). It really does amaze me, though, how people are able to mess up clicking no matter how many times they've done a fight. We had a guaranteed kill lost last night when at 5% ONE cube got double clicked and nobody from that group backed it up. Wipe at 3%, and it was pretty late (we did Mag at the end of the evening...not a great idea in retrospect) so everyone started playing like crap and we called it a night with Mag still up.

It's actually gotten to be a theme lately...half a dozen people dying every single time the Lurker uses his Spout. Clicking going wrong on Magtheridon. Healers just stopping their heals when our MT gets an avoidance streak on Gruul...and then he eats 3 hits in a row and dies without heals. We went back to Naxx to kill KT this week--didn't bag him before TBC And he should have been dead on the third try but we had to suffer through two single-digit wipes. Might be a derail, but any ideas how I can get my raiders' heads back in the game? I'm not a screamer, I've never been into calling people out and shaming them in front of the raid when they mess up...but I don't know what to do.

We wiped to trash respawns during the attempt last night.

Ghando: As bad you feel your guildmates probably feel just as pissed off they didnt get kills in. No need to yell at them to make them feel worse. Sometimes taking 2-3 days off in a row from raiding helps rejuvenate people as well. Or even just take a whole week off.

Don't ever be afraid of calling raids early or giving a few extra days off. After a solid night of Leo learning last night and a Lurker 1-shot, we went over to Mag'theridon and started putting in some gongshow-worthy attempts, so we just called the raid after 30 minutes rather than stressing people out by wiping to farm content. Had we spent another 30-60 minutes it would have obviously died, but in this particular case it wasn't even worth doing that, since people were obviously tired out and not playing particularly well.

That said, if some people are truly playing below par and consistently wiping your raid, replace them. If no replacements are available, have them sit outside anyways.

How far in? The first minute or two? Likely the first pack respawned while you were setting up.

Unless the trash pack comes running in when Magtheridon is at like 60%, which is a different story...