I don't see why any guild would ever consider focusing adds down. AOE is so much ridiculously easier and the fight ends well before the enrage mark with no pots at all.
2 tanks in hybrid resist gear on 2 adds each every transition, seed spams and some mage help and all 4 are dead in 20-30 sec.
I don't see why any guild would ever consider focusing adds down. AOE is so much ridiculously easier and the fight ends well before the enrage mark with no pots at all.
2 tanks in hybrid resist gear on 2 adds each every transition, seed spams and some mage help and all 4 are dead in 20-30 sec.
May I ask how many healers you usually have? As not having any adds banished obviously require a bit more burst healing.
We are still learning the fight and we are going to go back later this week and we had planned on cutting healers down to 8 from 9, however using AoE on the adds sounds a bit tempting depending on how much extra healing it requires.
Meh, we tank 3, and we were gonna try 4 next chance we got. The only issue imo is tanking 2 at once really without losing aggro. You can heal the MT with 2-3 healers temporarily during the lower stacked phase.
Meh, we tank 3, and we were gonna try 4 next chance we got. The only issue imo is tanking 2 at once really without losing aggro. You can heal the MT with 2-3 healers temporarily during the lower stacked phase.
He also mentioned "Hybrid resist gear."
We are currently using two feral druids that both got around 120-130 unbuffed in both schools, which is decent at least even though there are room for improvements obviously.
Anyhow I'm going to try stop here as I don't want to further derail the thread that is about dps and nothing else, however in a fight like Hydross changing one healer with a dpser has a lot of impact aslong as the remaining healers can keep the raid up.
Well, we will just try cutting down the number of healers and also try the AoE strategy to see if that is what works out best for us, hopefully until then we can improve somewhat on our offtank gear.
One addendum to the Hydross, phase pulse. We've had a Hydross sit ~15 seconds against the pump and not switch to frost, before ending the tank, a few DPS, and the raid. Something is extremely fubar with the trigger.
I don't see why any guild would ever consider focusing adds down. AOE is so much ridiculously easier and the fight ends well before the enrage mark with no pots at all.
2 tanks in hybrid resist gear on 2 adds each every transition, seed spams and some mage help and all 4 are dead in 20-30 sec.
The AE strategy is probably somewhat more difficult to heal through. In addition, incorrectly executed AE during frost stage can lead to potentially disasterous bubbles. We use a compromise between the two strategies, assist-training frost and AEing nature, and it works reasonably well. The enrage timer is certainly not an issue.
We went back in tonight and did a pair of 2-hour rounds: one round of practice (flasks on tanks) and then a round all-out (flasks on tanks, on many healers, on all caster DPS). We were getting him below 50% with no consumables and our best with DPS flasks was about 20% at the enrage (1 or 2 early DPS deaths). We did as Heel suggested, AoE'd the Nature adds and assist trained the Frost adds. Kept 2 of our 3 Rogues on Hydross at all times, in addition to our Shadow Priest (to keep him debuffed). But no matter how many pulls we did, our DPS still kept coming up short. We used 8 healers, 5 tanks...this is a pretty standard raid set-up for us, we're a smallish guild and rarely have many people sitting. We'll try AoEing both sets of adds next time, though it seems pretty dangerous to do that if the dice land wrong.
All our DPS were specced for max damage, no Mutilate Rogues or Frost Mages. All the casters were flasked with full Elixirs. Only one of our physical DPS was flasked with Relentless Assult and the others weren't using that many elixirs/other pots. That's obviously where I looked first for why we were coming up short, but they're fairly resistant to the idea of Relentless Assault flasks (our Rogue CL has flat-out refused to use a RA flask) and I can't FORCE them to use consumables. We also don't have enough DPS players for me to sit anyone who refuses to flask up...so where do we go from here? It seems like we're looking at a brick wall and we don't have the tools to get past it. Our execution is really solid as far as I can see...the numbers just aren't there.
Why on earth would someone refuse to use a flask? They are so much more cost-efficient than even one elixir per attempt for learning nights, and the jump in performance is significant.
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
A suggestion would be to move to Lurker or Morogrim, neither one of those fights require a fully flasked raid and you can get to them with a minimal trash clear. I cant see farming any of those bosses giving you enough upgrades to get another 20% on Hydross, but it can't hurt.
Eliminate deaths would be my recommendation. We had zero deaths this week and killed him well before the enrage timer. I do not understand the rogues not flasking, it cannot be good for the rest of the raid to do what they can and have a class that should excel in that fight not pull their weight.
Edit i saw that your shadow priest stays only on him. When we are doing transitions i take a few seconds to put a dot or 2 on all tanked adds, refreshing dots on the transition if need be on Hydross.
50% unbuffed and 20% flasked doesn't sound right to me. We went from 50% unbuffed to dead flasked after one wipe due to a bad aggro pull after a transition (people adjusting to their buffed DPS, basically).
If you are focus-firing, one thing that we found helpful was to kill 3 and then OT the fourth, letting it get hit by multishot, whirlwinds, etc., while focusing on Hydross. Then when you go to transition him, the DPS can quickly burn down the remaining add while the transition is happening, since they can't be DPSing Hydross until he's tanked again. Anything to cut down on idle DPS time, basically.
About 20% unpotted/flasked is a good point for Killing is. A few of our attempts have been that way (just around enrage).
As for healers running OOM - how do you have healing set up?
We usually put a Shaman on the Melee, Priest/Druid/Paladin/Shaman on the MT full time, Paladin, paladin, shaman on the OTs. (yes, we bring 4 shaman to raids QQ).
Another tactic you can try, which I don't see a lot of guilds do, is cycle your heroisms throughout the fight. Depending on how much shaman you have, you can usually do a Melee/Caster heroism at the start of 1 transition, then a Melee/Caster or single-group the next transition. There's not really a defined burn period, unless you're trying to beat the enrage - which is outcome of popping heroism periodically. Just like potting, Heroism will mean adds die faster and you have more time on the boss - heroism'ed time on the boss. (Sorry for the above - i guess it's Bloodlust for horde :P).
Melee for us do well on this fight. Blade Flurry plays a part of it, as well as the fact they can switch between adds a lot smoother than Casters (if your tanks keep them in place). Have DPS keep DoTs on all the adds that are up at each time. Melee spread in frost phase just like Kel'Thuzad. Chain heal, a Flash Heal, FoL, Lifebloom will do them enough in most cases.
If you do get enrage, however, a tactic our rogues have been using is Vanish as the tank dies, so they'll be up the longest to keep DPSing during the chaos that ensues.
About 20% unpotted/flasked is a good point for Killing is. A few of our attempts have been that way (just around enrage).
He said they got him to 20% at enrage with flasks. If you can get him to 20% without pots or flasks, you will probably kill him with a minute to spare, or better.
As it is, Ghando, you probably need 5-7% extra dps. Flasks on those who refused to use them, or one less death, and you probably had him. If your rogue class leader is refusing to flask, you really ought to demote him. I know it's never that easy, but you are going to have bigger long term issues if half your raid members refuse to put in their share of the work.
50% unbuffed and 20% flasked doesn't sound right to me.
It wasn't quite nobody flasked/potted to everybody flasked/potted, which might account for this. Some people had a flask up since the beginning and were potting for every attempt, some didn't flask or pot at all for the entire night. We also started making mistakes near the end of the night that we weren't making early on. Our top mage for DPS has a bad habit of dying, and he rarely lasted more than 3 minutes or so on flasked attempts, which was unfortunate.
The rogue refusal to flask surprises even me. We actually had a discussion about why we only had one rogue doing DPS that was competitive with the casters (40-50% more than the other rogues), and the CL that apparently refuses to flask claimed that the difference was all from the flask.
It wasn't quite nobody flasked/potted to everybody flasked/potted, which might account for this. Some people had a flask up since the beginning and were potting for every attempt, some didn't flask or pot at all for the entire night. We also started making mistakes near the end of the night that we weren't making early on. Our top mage for DPS has a bad habit of dying, and he rarely lasted more than 3 minutes or so on flasked attempts, which was unfortunate.
This doesn't make sense, frankly. There are two kinds of attempts:
1) No consumables whatsoever except tank consumables (if needed, to maximize longevity in order to maximize learning experience).
2) Max consumables used raidwide to kill the boss.
If I see DPS classes popping elixirs, much less flasks, on learning attempts I scold them and tell them to stop -- if they have that many spare, they should just give them out to people who don't have them if they're going to waste them aimlessly like that.
On Hydross, aim for 10 minutes of execution with no consumables beyond maybe stam food and such, where you just transition, clean up the elementals, probably with barely any time to spare before the next transition, and then transition again. Repeat. Just get the mechanics down until everyone can do that comfortably.
Then pot up and win. Potted wipes are brutal and almost always avoidable. No offense, but if you're squandering consumables like that, that may be part of why people aren't always using them when they're needed.
Edit: Note that the only exception to this is a situation where consumables are needed to even learn the fight properly. But Hydross is not such a fight. A decent example would be Kel'Thuzad, where completely unbuffed you were likely to have enough mobs left over after Phase 1 that the transition to Phase 2 became unnecessarily complicated. Magtheridon v1.0 is another such example, where it really wasn't just a matter of pure execution -- unbuffed you simply couldn't get enough Channelers down before Mag broke free to really properly transition or stabilize and learn the second half of the fight. I hate fights like that for this reason, and I welcome the 2.1 changes where a cheap flask will be all you need for learning and farming alike.
If the Rogue CL is on one hand stating the different in DPS is all from the flask, and then subsequently refusing to flask, I have to ask, why is he in a leadership position? If it's so obvious to him that physical DPS is doubled (which I would refute, but anyways) by the RA flask, why is he hurting the guild, and being allowed too hurt the guild, by not flasking?
Looks like theres a few ways to deal with the adds
-Banish two and tank two, while focusing fire with each of the tanks and repeat for the next two once they unbanish
-Two tanks tank two adds each and you AoE them down.
Obviously the first one is quite a bit safer, but it would seem to me takes the most time. While the second option is a strain on healers but would be quicker.
I don't recall how much health each add has, but wouldn't banishing one then having one tank grab two (probably the druid) and the other tank grab one be a fair comprimise? AoE those three down, then focus on Hydross. Once the banished one pops up a tank hops onto it obviously and like another mentioned before, whirlwinds/multishot etc should take care of it relatively quick. Not to mention the Affliction Warlocks and a Shadow Priest could DoT it up.
I can't argue with that, I'm just saying that's probably what accounts for the numbers not seeming to add up.
I wouldn't necessarily say squandering consumables is the problem, though. It was made pretty clear that we were doing unflasked attempts for a while to get our execution down and try out some different methods of dealing with the adds, some people decided to use consumables anyway. I can't recall anyone ever being rebuked in the guild for deciding to use potions without being told, but we've always been pretty lax as far as consumables go. The only fights I can recall really being strict about people having to bring consumables to were C'Thun when we first started doing him and the Horsemen. Maybe strongly encouraged for a handful of other Naxx encounters.
Anyway, we worked on him for about two hours without telling people to use consumables, then trash respawned and we cleared it. After that, everyone was told to start flasking and potting. Some people didn't, but these weren't generally any of the people that had been using consumables earlier in the night, which is why I say I don't think that's the problem.
Flask of Relentless Assault makes a huge difference really. Considering it adds between 20-25% of a Rogues unbuffed attack power.
Theres no reason that your Rogue CL would refuse to use that flask, it simply is the best consumable available to Rogues as of right now. If the whole raid is using their own respective flasks for that class theres no excuse why the Rogues shouldn't be doing so as well.
Like another mentioned theres two types of attempts.
Unpotted attempts. Basically the learning stage. Enough consumable use to just learn the fight in general.
Ways to improve from here that I see are the following:
1. Strip down tanking and healing...1 tank and 1 healer could have been dropped from the raid for more DPS, preferably AoE-capable DPS.
2. Universal use of consumables by DPS...probably not gonna happen, but we'll see.
3. Using AoE on both Frost and Nature adds...with proper execution and the melee sticking to Hydross we can probably avoid getting owned by a bad Water Tomb and get the Frost adds down faster.
4. Not throwing our eggs in the "5th hour of Hydross wipes" basket. Our execution definitely started getting sloppy when it needed to be tightest, in large part because we'd been wiping on him for hours on end and concentration was fading. I definitely was burnt the hell out after the raid, just logged to drink beer and play Guitar Hero.
Healing and tanking are solid all the way through. We could get by with slightly less of each, as I've mentioned. Healers weren't having mana problems...I wasn't using any consumables outside of SMPs (even as the "least efficient" healing class) and adds were, for the most part, controlled thoroughly. I guess it's just time to dig deep.
AoEing the adds works great if you go that route. Chain heal/circle of healing are plenty for keeping the tanks up, with paladins/hots on main tank since they don't take a lot of damage initially. The only flasks needed with this strat are on the main tanks. I know we've done it with 8 healers maybe less, I'd have to check logs if I have any. You can save yourself a lot of consumables going this route. Healers just need to be on the ball keeping tanks alive and if they get tomb'd keeping whoever the stray add is going after alive.
We dropped him tonight in about 8 minutes on our first flasked-to-the-gills attempt, AoEing adds in both phases. We got some unlucky Water Tombs in the Frost phases, but they were with a low stack so it was healable. Thanks very much to everyone who contributed in this thread. Our damage meters were as follows:
Warlock
Mage
Warlock
Warlock
Mage
Shadow Priest
Rogue
Rogue
Rogue
Hunter
Mage
Feral Druid
We've been contemplating the aoe-tactic for some time now, but I'm somewhat skeptical towards the ability to tank the adds during aoe. IIRC they've got somewhere close to 60k hp, which will take some time to aoe. How do tanks build enough threat on the mobs before they are aoed?
We've been contemplating the aoe-tactic for some time now, but I'm someone skeptical towards the ability to tank the adds during aoe. IIRC they've got somewhere close to 60k hp, which will take some time to aoe. How do tanks build enough threat on the mobs before they are aoed?
Usually transitions go like this:
Transition ->
1-2 seconds later Frost Nova (nature side only) ->
4 tanks pick up their designated spawn (3 in part frost/nature resist gear plus the frost or nature tank, whichever isn't tanking Hydross) ->
Warlocks + Mages begin AoEing (we had 3 Mages and 3 Warlocks so the spawns went down pretty fast)
Sometimes a Mage goes splat from using arcane explosion but that's how they roll, except for one who used Flamestrike mostly. Warlocks using SoC. I used rank1 SW:P on the adds as well to get misery up there then went back on Hydross. There were a few times that the spawns went after the warlocks but overall they were pretty well controlled and bunched up.
Edit (responding to below):
Yea I forgot you couldn't nova the frost adds, we only tried AoEing both sides near the last few attempts before the kill so I'm not entirely sure how the frost adds were controlled when they spawned. You could save stuns for them (paly hammer of justice, conc blow, etc.) till your tanks pick them up. Having an assigned tank on each spawn location made it a really clean kill.
We've been trying the aoe method and been impressed with it but one problem we had was just having adds peel off at transition (we're not using 4 "tanks" on them at the moment) so we've just been stunning them.
Unlike Hydross the adds don't even move for 1-2 seconds. Hell as the NR main tank, I actually tank one of the frost adds and still have time to shield slam the frost hydross so that he doesn't run away from our frost tank if he misses. You don't need frost nova basically unless your OT's are slow.
04/19/07, 6:44 PM
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