Valjean

I posted in another thread about our Morogrim attempts, trying to get advice on it. But seeing this thread, I'd like to see if any of you could offer some insights to help us fine tune our approach.

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=cc5zprmz2jz3o - Full Report
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...&s=12220-12769 - Best Try
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...&s=18569-18913 - Second Best Try

Our strategy in a nutshell -

Tank Morogrim near the East Pillar. MT healers stay near there.
Raid still middle of ramp.
One holy paladin RF spam heals Holy Light trying to pull aggro on Murlocks. Consecrates
when they're nearby.
Mages have frost nova rotation to grab them all.
Warlocks start SoC.
Mages wait a few ticks, then Blast Nova, Dragon's Breath, AE, etc.

Healingwise: 9 healers (yup 9)
5 on MT (1 being the pally "tank," who is holy).
2 on raid (1 of whom is healing the pally "tank).
2 on Watery Grave (1 main, 1 backup).

Consistent problems we had:
AOErs would die to Murlocks.
MT got earthquake/crushing blowed too often.
Murlocks would go to someone else (shamans chain healing, twice the MT healthstoning).

 

• Chicken

I just did a browse through the log, your tanking Paladin appears to be trying to get Murloc aggro with Flash of Light. Not a good idea. Especially for a Holy Paladin Holy Light is far more healing throughput in a short time, he should be able to get in about 4 full 4k Holy Lights if he heals some ranged DPS which will easily solidify his Murloc aggro. If he's worried about mana consumption he shouldn't be; he should be getting healing from other people as well, and Spiritual Attunement will fill him up nicely.

With his current Flash of Light approach I'm surprised he gets aggro at all.

Edit:

Actually is it Frump or Fatbeast whom is supposed to be tanking the Murlocs? Both take a fair amount of damage from the Murlocs, though both also use Flash of Light primarily after Earthquakes it appears.

 

Valjean

Fatlord was the primary pally tank, and Frump was the backup. But Fatlord seemed to be having more problems getting the Murlock's aggro.

 

• Maestroquark

Here's the last two reports from my raid group.

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=au4k3dtckynle (Gruul's Lair + Mag's Lair)
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=zwfiozjhlkjyk (Void Reaver)

Not-so-gentle prods haven't really helped, and with two of our best DPSers (another Rogue and a Warlock) not around due to RL recently it's really hurting. I don't need our DPS to be awesome, I need it to not be awful. I just have no idea where to even start.

What are you waiting for, a certain shade of green?

 

Mearis

Your healers are also quite terrible. Look at this:
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...jhlkjyk&ab=149

Most of your healers didn't even bother using super mana potions. The worst healing druid used 1 super mana potion across 4 attempts...

I understand you were wiping early, but that's still pretty damn stupid.

Also, look at this:
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=zwfiozjhlkjyk&a=42

Some people were flat out terrible at dodging the orbs. Beevock got hit by 30 orbs over 4 attempts? Other than that, your DPS was clearly poor, but the only thing I feel I can actually talk about is that your shadow priest had rather poor vampiric touch up time. Get him to cast vampiric touch more and to get better at dodging the orbs.

On the other hand at least he was chain putting, so he was trying his best.

 

Goggles

All apart from Snowmage seem to understand the importance of +hit. Snowmage definitely needs more. Snowmage also looks like he has a PvP build (0/30/31) and he cannot be trying at all. Darthjit just can't be getting enough frostbolts in either as his dps is way too low. On Gruul Midori outperformed the others due to better gear and better damage spec but on the good Magtheridon attempt (6) she gets beaten by Chrys and Lochnar who I think probably did pretty good given their gear/spec.

Overall I'd say Snowmage needs to gear/spec correctly and along with Darthjit put some effort in - all they're doing is frostbolt spamming so it's not difficult. Midori seemed very inconsistent and should have been leading all round on all bosses given gear and spec. Chrys and Lochnar seem to be doing pretty good overall although you could argue that they should go deep fire for even more damage.

EDIT: Phaedra looks very similar to Midori. Decent gear + spec but not putting in a good performance (seemed to get hit by a lot of orbs too)

Not actually a member of Refusion on Burning Blade.

 

Malan

Well your enhance shaman has 3 pieces of Epic Gear unenchanted (boots helm cloak), so that's one place to start. He also has some sub-optimal gems socketed - the ones on his boots are "ok" but he needs to upgrade those to +8str and +4crit/+4str. He needs to ditch the +hit gem on his helm. Work on getting him the Totem of the Astral Wind - that totem he's using now is garbage, he'd be better off using the +12 mana to water shield totem instead.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

◊ Cadfael

On Magtheridon, people (including you if I read it correctly) die due to cleave ? Either the MT was already down or you are standing / tanking him wrong. (Or someone pulled aggro). Should not happen ever as soon as he is in phase 2 and in tanking position. Note that the cleave can jump, so one player standing wrong can chain it to you always. So make sure everyone knows where to stand. Phase two is pretty easy, healers can mana regen, you have virtually unlimited time to do it (until 30%) as long as clicking the cubes works fine.

I comment on your Shadow Priest:
Dasia has good enough damage for Magtheridon for being a clicker, though there are some wanding hits. Is that an OOM problem (even seems to have gotten an innervate, which is generally wasted on low-spirit Shadow Priests, imho) ? Also I personally would respecc a bit, less +crit on mindblast & SW:D (those are the only two spells that can crit of a Shadow Priest so those points are not really needed!) and put at least 4 points into Shadow Weaving. Dasia currently has over 76 +hitrating so full 5/5 is not needed but 4 at least should be there to push spell resist to the 1% limit. Also might be worth calculating if it's not better to kick out the meta gem and gem bonus and put +9 damage everywhere. Also might be better to get a Spellstrike set even though the set bonus does not apply when one is not a tailor.

Also there are no enchants on chest and cloak. If Dasia does have mana problems, she should take out three points from shadow tree and invest those into Meditation. I would take points out of Shadow Power and/or Improved Mind Blast. The latter is not a fix increase per point spent, it is purely dependant on spell rotation and latency (!) and the more the better does not neccessarily apply there ! But this is the wrong threat about that. Look into the Shadow Priest discussions in the class forum.

I won't comment on the other classes as my raid experience is lacking there. Overall, your people eat far too many Orbs at Voidreaver. Train that (ignore damage doing, just go into enrage with the goal that everyone dodges as many Orbs as possible and fully concentrates on that. People find their own strategy then and it will go better).

Also I can't see that in the WWS but we've instigated the rule: Either a flask or two elixirs in at all time. And pot whenever possible, be that mana or health potions, oils, buffood. People going OOM hurts every aspect of the raid, be that dps or healing. Having a SP in the group is no excuse not to drink mana potions (except of course if there isn't any problem at all). Having healers is likewise no excuse to not bandage or drink a health potion or use a health stone. With 2.1 and daily quests and the new drops in TK/SSC it's no longer expensive to use consumeables whenever possible.

Lastly, try to get as much synergy out of the groups to increase performance. Ultimately though it's the players that define what's possible and what not.

 

• Maestroquark

Some was due to tank death, either after the raid was falling apart thanks to cube-clicking or once because Debris hit the tank. One was due to a bad Earthquake. A couple were due to me pulling aggro just after a Vanish (yeah, thanks a lot for that bug, Blizzard). And no, cleaves cannot chain anymore.

What are you waiting for, a certain shade of green?

 

dukes

That's horribly wrong.

The chain mechanics for Cleave were taken out in 2.1. What happens now is it's a full 180 frontal cone attack - because his hitbox is so large this means it covers a huge area and can be very dangerous (especially for melee) when earthquake is happening. You just need to spread your raid more and make sure melee are aware it can happen. If it helps you should probably make people run out about 30-35 seconds after the previous earthquake to make sure they're safe.

Of course, you could have died to cleave whilst wiping rather than having people dying early, but it's still worth mentioning.

 

◊ Cadfael

Ok that with cleave is my bad. I haven't been at Magtheridon since 2.1. Tonight is another Magtheridon + SSC raid but I've only been setup for SSC.

I've just looked at the WWS again and looked through your deaths. I didn't find any death of you where you'd vanished just before he killed you. Some deaths were due to Blast Wave, which obviously is an entirely different problem. So I don't know about a bug with Vanish not working. Note however that nothing you do is instant. It always requires the data to travel to the server who needs to see you pressed vanish. If you happen to press it a bit too late, the server might have already decided that the Boss is looking at you and just about to hit you with his crit-of-doom. You have activated it, but the information has not yet reached the server and the server ultimately controls the Bosses' aggro-list and behavior. Same thing with healer healing dead people, it costs mana but the heal cannot land because the server already "killed" the player before it receives your heal cast. Nothing happens concurrently, ever. Most times you won't notice it but there's always some latency involved.

It can be a bug, of course, it's just very hard to be sure unless there is a way to reproduce it.

Debris hitting the tank is bad luck, though it is avoidable. Very dangerous to move for the melees though. Also quakes and cleave have been a problem in the past for us as well. I honestly don't know what they do but I think it involves frantically strafing or something like that (you seem to have a tiny bit of control between the "hops" during quake)

Cube clicking is a purely concentration thingie, it just works after a time or you simply know who is reliable and who isn't. Since Phase 2 really isn't that difficult in general, just have your most reliable people on cube-duty and not the most expendable (ie Warrior offtanks). Of course it is always a problem if a clicker dies untimely, but you should always have two or three people on standby or simply three groups at fixed location and always 2 clickers ready just to ensure it will work, if cube clicking is your worst problem there.

Also it might help how you announce cubes or handle them generally. There are lots of variants. Some use addons to help, some do it purely on voice. We simply call out 20 seconds before the timer runs out for group X to move in position. 5 seconds before the timer runs out comes the "group X must now be in position" which sort of is the last chance that someone may call out that he can't do it in time. Afterwards there's no announce anymore, clickers are instructed to observe the chat emote and react to that and to that only. This worked the best for us, but it's different from group to group. Find the best way to ensure reliable clicking. Goal should be 0 Blast Novas though we do occassionally still have one due to clicker getting pushed too far away with a quake or so.

By the way: Lurkers on Terenas, that's the LL's crew, right ?

 

Docjowles

Why is everyone specced frost? Even if you are willing to accept that, it seems to me that they have all chosen badly within frost. Shatter and Frostbite are useless in raids, as most trash and all bosses are immune. Improved Frostbolt and Arctic Winds are now absolutely core talents, yet several of your mages have not maxed them. They are losing something like 10% of their DPS from that alone. Lose the PvP talents if you are serious about killing anything harder than Maulgar. I'd also try and prod them into speccing fire. Chrys has invested so heavily in +frost gear that it might be too late for her at this point.

Lochnar and Chrys had very low DPS times on Gruul. I know it's a chaotic fight, but 90% is possible and the sub-70 that Chrys posted is abysmal.

Phaedra would benefit from a more standard 10/48/3 build. She needs more hit (which the 3 in frost would help), and would get more mileage from maxing out the deep fire talents. You really only want to deal with deep arcane if you have the 2 piece Tier 5.

Finally, like Goggles said, Snowmage has a funky hybrid build that misses the best talents of both trees. He also needs more hit...but that's excusable since he seems to have zero raid drops.

 

Goggles

1 thing to remember is that frost mages will have lower dps time than fire mages due to the fireball/ignite dot. That said Lochnar and Chrys performance on Gruul was much worse than on the other boss attempts they were in.

Not actually a member of Refusion on Burning Blade.

 

• Maestroquark

It's really a separate issue, that I posted about here on the bug forums. TLDR: I vanished 3 minutes after Mag released, and got aggro 1 minute after I vanished.

Debris on the tank was a first for us last night, but we've come up for a plan to hopefully counter it. Might kill all the melees, but that's better than the tank dying.

Cube clicking is a whole separate disease that either works well or horribly depending on the night. Our raid crew is quite large and unwieldy, but what I really want most right now is just to see some drive from DPS members.

OT, but yeah, we're related guilds, though most people end up sticking to their server (Terenas vs Stormrage) pretty much.

What are you waiting for, a certain shade of green?

 

• Playered

One thing I've noticed on quite a few reports is that people are able to keep JoW up frequently, yet our Paladins say its not possible as it gets knocked off almost instantly, I'ld say the typical raid has 3 Mage, Loc, Rogue, 2 SP - is there any trick to keeping it up?

 

• Chicken

I've never noticed any trick to it, it's simply an annoying yet extremely helpful thing to do, as long as I make the effort to either get in a hit once every 15 or so seconds or simply spend a global cooldown on judging a Seal I haven't yet noticed one dropping off when raiding.

It also reminds me I need to be a bit more consistent on keeping Judgements up myself, the right Judgement in the right situation is a very large gain.

Obviously you could get a Ret Paladin to help out with keeping Judgements up, but while Crusader Strike is nice for this, it's far from required.

 

callade

Here is the WWS from our last VR run. We've downed Gruul/Mag, but have yet to kill any SSC bosses (to give you an idea of our gear). I'd welcome any general raid comments in addition to thoughts about my play (Callade --> holy priest) or Zeriandra's (affliction warlock).

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...&s=5452-6055&m

 

Abaxial

Just have your tank save shield wall for that. Slowing dps before so that you can have debris happen after clicking also helps.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...ks/Abaxial.png

 

Pesmerga

The tank did use Shield Wall on the initial debris that happens at 30% (I could be wrong on the timing). We time it well for that to occur. What happened is that a random debris hit him at some point later on for close to 24k damage.

This was the first time we've had our main tank get hit by a debris after the original 30% one that hits the entire raid.

Debris stats from final attempt

Edit: Shield Wall was used 5 seconds after the first debris. The 2nd one killed Shalandrax about 20 seconds later.

Debris 1: 4:13'35
Shield Wall: 4:13'40
Debris 2 and Death: 4:14'01

 

moowalk

Wulfin didn't use mindflay. That might be a range issue, or maybe he just didn't train it :p

 

skrewler

Our guild started trying the prot pally / lock life tapping strategy on Tidewalker last night and had some great success, but our main problem was the tank dying. Was wondering if I could get some input from some WWS parses:

1st (and best attempt)
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...zw&s=6157-6780
2nd
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...zw&s=7807-8373
3rd
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...zw&s=8999-9209
4th
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...zw&s=9741-9941
5th (Bear tank, healers said he was easier to heal..)
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...&s=10572-10997

It's my idea to stick with a bear tank on this fight, as the burst DPS tidewalker puts out is just insane. Any other thoughts on where we can improve?

 

tedv

Your tank didn't have amplify magic. It would help a lot. The improved version is equivalent to every healer in your raid getting an extra +360 healing, so roughly equivalent to upgrading a full set of T4 to T6.

Also, try and keep your shaman and priests healing the main tank for inspiration and ancestral fortitude. In your best attempt you only had 2 inspiration procs but 11 fortitude procs. +25% armor is obscenely helpful on the tank.

 

beaubird

Midori checking in here from that raid setup. From the looks of it, I probably have a pretty bad spell cycle. I tend to use scorch to get the fire vulnerability up and that go with fireball. I probably mix in a bit to much scorch though...What cycle should I be using to maxmize my DPS?

Or should I be looking outside of the cycle. I know I can post decent farming DPS, but carrying that over to the raid has been a bit frustrating for me.

 

callade

Ack. Either I didn't finally get my /combatlog range issues sorted out, or he was staying at range (since we've had problems with folks getting close and having the tanks eat orbs).

 

snape

7 (or 8) Fireballs and then a Scorch (after you've put up the initial 5) is good. If you do any more than that, you might run into a string of unlucky Scorch resists.