Brutallus Strategy Discussion - Page 39

Dominus · 08/01/08, 2:39 PM

Originally Posted by ZoFu

So my guild had another day of attempts on brutallus. Our heals were picked up a lot and we started to make it to the enrage timer. Now we need to fix our DPS. Any tips would be much appreciative on how we can pick up our dps here is a link to our best brutallus attempt. We're about 9k dps short unfortunately

.

WWS

Edited. I realized this was strategy discussion and not WWS thread.

ZoFu · 08/01/08, 2:42 PM

Also keep in mind we didn't use blusts in the right groups and we did that for later fights. We also rotated gamnu(feral druid) out for another rogue. Btw apostate our other spriest does not have the shrunken head trinket.

• alinna · 08/01/08, 2:52 PM

Originally Posted by ZoFu

So my guild had another day of attempts on brutallus. Our heals were picked up a lot and we started to make it to the enrage timer. Now we need to fix our DPS. Any tips would be much appreciative on how we can pick up our dps here is a link to our best brutallus attempt. We're about 9k dps short unfortunately

.

WWS

It looks like you're running 9 healers on Brutallus, the first thing to change would be to bring in 1-2 more DPS and swap out 1-2 of the healers. Also, the shadow priests seem to be mainly grouped with the healers, try grouping the shadow priests with the elemental shaman, warlocks, mages or moonkin. It doesn't look like you have a DPS warrior in the melee group, is there a way for the feral to tank and have one of the protection warriors respec DPS?

Lyssa · 08/02/08, 6:19 PM

Originally Posted by ZoFu

So my guild had another day of attempts on brutallus. Our heals were picked up a lot and we started to make it to the enrage timer. Now we need to fix our DPS. Any tips would be much appreciative on how we can pick up our dps here is a link to our best brutallus attempt. We're about 9k dps short unfortunately

.

WWS

All above suggestions are helpful - also your feral druid's (Gamuu) rotation is really, really bad (20% mangle 18% shred when it should look more like 7-8% mangle 30-40% shred). Direct him to the feral druid megathread here so he can learn how to maximize his dps. Also I noted that some of your melee got parries - this could be during wipes of course; but make sure to check the positioning anyway.

ZoFu · 08/03/08, 2:49 PM

Ya we plan on changing the group make up quite a bit. That feral druid is to be replaced by a rogue, we're going to try and bring 7 healers and see how it goes.

Lateolocutus · 08/07/08, 11:42 AM

I reviewed like the last six-eight pages pages, but I was didn't see anything about / was wondering what's the opinion on tanks socketing stam versus avoidance (agi, dodge/parry) for Brutallus.

We have lots of Illidan kills, and three Kalcegos kills by this point, but it seems like during Brutallus we're having an incredible problem with tanks just getting one-rounded during Stomp despite how good our average level of gear is, and I was wondering if losing the hp to gain dodge would result in a lot more survivability during the fight (our warrior MT said he'd lose ~1k HP for 4% dodge, IIRC).

This is our warrior tank: The World of Warcraft Armory
Feral tank: The World of Warcraft Armory (Surefooted and the 10 hit rating gem are for getting Taunts to land, as I understand. He complains a lot about Blizzard not widely itemizing druid tank gear with hit/expertise)

Melthu · 08/07/08, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by Lateolocutus

I reviewed like the last six-eight pages pages, but I was didn't see anything about / was wondering what's the opinion on tanks socketing stam versus avoidance (agi, dodge/parry) for Brutallus.

We have lots of Illidan kills, and three Kalcegos kills by this point, but it seems like during Brutallus we're having an incredible problem with tanks just getting one-rounded during Stomp despite how good our average level of gear is, and I was wondering if losing the hp to gain dodge would result in a lot more survivability during the fight (our warrior MT said he'd lose ~1k HP for 4% dodge, IIRC).

This is our warrior tank: The World of Warcraft Armory
Feral tank: The World of Warcraft Armory (Surefooted and the 10 hit rating gem are for getting Taunts to land, as I understand. He complains a lot about Blizzard not widely itemizing druid tank gear with hit/expertise)

Brutallus has the minimum 1% chance to resist taunt already, so there's no need to socket/enchant for +hit (unless he's concerned with generating more longterm TPS).

As for stamina vs. avoidance, I haven't done this fight myself but most of the advice I've seen is to ensure you have enough health to survive a Stomp-MH-OH combo. After that some people have reported having more success focusing on avoidance while others claim that socketing for pure stamina has helped them. Testing for yourself is probably your best bet.

Edit: You weren't kidding when you said your druid is focusing on +hit. He's losing out on some major survivability stats by going after so much +hit. In particular, Violet Signet of the Great Protector is much better than Band of the Abyssal Lord. He'd also be better served getting +12 agility on his cloak and moving the +12 defense enchant to his bracers. He could also remove some crit immunity gems/enchants by switching his necklace to Necklace of the Juggernaut, The Darkener's Grasp, or Pendant of the Titans.

Wizeowel · 08/07/08, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Lateolocutus

we're having an incredible problem with tanks just getting one-rounded during Stomp despite how good our average level of gear is

If you read more of the thread you'll realise that it isn't so much about the passive stats on your tanks' gear, but about having an active strategy for stomps. Stomp is on a timer, so you can know exactly when to use trinkets/cooldowns and when MT healers should coordinate their big heals to land staggered in intervals shortly after the stomp.

ex-moz · 08/07/08, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by Melthu

Brutallus has the minimum 1% chance to resist taunt already, so there's no need to socket/enchant for +hit (unless he's concerned with generating more longterm TPS).

As for stamina vs. avoidance, I haven't done this fight myself but most of the advice I've seen is to ensure you have enough health to survive a Stomp-MH-OH combo. After that some people have reported having more success focusing on avoidance while others claim that socketing for pure stamina has helped them. Testing for yourself is probably your best bet.

Edit: You weren't kidding when you said your druid is focusing on +hit. He's losing out on some major survivability stats by going after so much +hit. In particular, Violet Signet of the Great Protector is much better than Band of the Abyssal Lord. He'd also be better served getting +12 agility on his cloak and moving the +12 defense enchant to his bracers. He could also remove some crit immunity gems/enchants by switching his necklace to Necklace of the Juggernaut, The Darkener's Grasp, or Pendant of the Titans.

Agreed, as much as healing and timing of stomp is a factor -- that particular druid is woefully low on avoidance, especially if you take into account the Sunwell Radiance buff. Hit is great and all, but that's going a bit too far for learning Brutallus.

Gereli · 08/07/08, 12:59 PM

Hey there, I'm the feral druid that Lateo posted about.

Originally Posted by Melthu

Brutallus has the minimum 1% chance to resist taunt already, so there's no need to socket/enchant for +hit (unless he's concerned with generating more longterm TPS).

I genuinely had no idea about this, so I feel stupid now assuming this is true. :/ Knowing this will definitely help me a lot. TPS is a potential issue since a lot of our casters are riding my tail pretty closely, but we haven't even hit the enrage yet so I guess survivability should be our first priority.

I do have a set of gear gemmed/enchanted more for HP and survivability, but when we were learning Kalecgos our raid leader/tank leader asked me to get more hit, so I did. I'll start switching those pieces back in now and seeing if it makes a difference.

Blacksen · 08/07/08, 1:06 PM

As a Feral Druid, you actually should be aiming for more ARMOR - honestly as much as possible.

Our feral druid sockets mostly stam/agility and chugs ironshield potions the entire fight. His goal was to get up to 44kish armor so that during stomps, he still took very little damage. He also rotates cooldowns for the stomps. Nightmare Seeds last 30 seconds, and so he'll eat one of those before. Obviously the bloodboil trinket is great too. So is barkskin. As a feral druid, you'll never die in this fight outside of a stomp - if you're armor capped, Brutallus will be hitting you for less than 10k. As long as you're at 20k hp, you'd be fine. The key is surviving the stomps.

As far as hit-rating goes, this is an unlimited rage fight, and it should be unnecessary unless you're really doing bad on threat. Our DPS is generally riding high on threat and will always pass our tanks, but they're only doing 115%ish of the tank's tps, so they don't ever end up getting agro.

And I should also note, I've never gotten a Taunt Resist on Brutallus... I'm pretty sure he's like Narolakk in ZA - just can't resist it.

Gereli · 08/07/08, 1:14 PM

Originally Posted by Blacksen

As a Feral Druid, you actually should be aiming for more ARMOR - honestly as much as possible.

Our feral druid sockets mostly stam/agility and chugs ironshield potions the entire fight. His goal was to get up to 44kish armor so that during stomps, he still took very little damage. He also rotates cooldowns for the stomps. Nightmare Seeds last 30 seconds, and so he'll eat one of those before. Obviously the bloodboil trinket is great too. So is barkskin. As a feral druid, you'll never die in this fight outside of a stomp - if you're armor capped, Brutallus will be hitting you for less than 10k. As long as you're at 20k hp, you'd be fine. The key is surviving the stomps.

As far as hit-rating goes, this is an unlimited rage fight, and it should be unnecessary unless you're really doing bad on threat. Our DPS is generally riding high on threat and will always pass our tanks, but they're only doing 115%ish of the tank's tps, so they don't ever end up getting agro.

And I should also note, I've never gotten a Taunt Resist on Brutallus... I'm pretty sure he's like Narolakk in ZA - just can't resist it.

I have some pieces I can swap in for higher armor--Ring of the Violet Protector, Treads of the Den Mother, and so on. I also obviously have a lot of gems/enchants that can be changed for stamina or avoidance as optimal. I hadn't been using them because I was under the false impression that high hit rating was necessary for taunts.

I use barkskin before every taunt and keep ironshield potion up. I have not been using nightmare seeds yet.

Threat wise, I'm pretty much doing everything I can, as far as I know (though we've seen how good "as far as I know" is!)--maul constantly, keep mangle on cooldown, ensure that Lacerate stays up and use Swipe for any GCDs I have left over.

Hand · 08/07/08, 2:18 PM

Originally Posted by Blacksen

And I should also note, I've never gotten a Taunt Resist on Brutallus... I'm pretty sure he's like Narolakk in ZA - just can't resist it.

Brutallus can resist taunt.

◊ Penguin · 08/07/08, 4:39 PM

Originally Posted by Blacksen

And I should also note, I've never gotten a Taunt Resist on Brutallus... I'm pretty sure he's like Narolakk in ZA - just can't resist it.

Both can and have resisted taunt, they both have modified combat tables that sets Taunt resist chance to 1% (which can't be overcome with +hit) rather than the 17% that bosses normally have. Please do your research before making claims like "they can't resist taunt".

Rublik · 08/11/08, 6:53 AM

Hello, EJs.
My guild has been trying Brutallus recently and yesterday was the first day we lived till enrage more than once.
I wanted to ask for some comments on our wws of this fight. We can analyze it ourselves, but i want to listen to people, who have killed him already.

Curtis · 08/11/08, 7:47 AM

Originally Posted by Rublik

Hello, EJs.
My guild has been trying Brutallus recently and yesterday was the first day we lived till enrage more than once.
I wanted to ask for some comments on our wws of this fight. We can analyze it ourselves, but i want to listen to people, who have killed him already.

I think giving the 2 shadow priests to your MTs healer (2 pals 1 holy priest) is way too much. At that time they do nothing but spamming their biggest heal during 6 minutes.

They need to make the fight a bit more technical for them (Brutallus only hit that hard during stomp), so that you can at least save one shadow priest to your mages/warlocks as i don't think having the boss wisdomed is enough for mana. For a FK you don't really want them to life tape/evocate.

My 2 cents.

Prof · 08/11/08, 11:19 AM

Thank's for the Tip's. That kill felt good.

The fight still feels like there is a little bit of luck involved during the stomp.

Most of the time I died on the stomp it looked like this.

0 sec A bunch of heals!
0 sec Brut MH hit 9.5k
0 sec Brut OH hit 4.5k
maybe 1 heal
1 sec Brut MH hit 9.5k
1 sec Brut OH hit 4.5k
Dead tank

It's possible the Iron shield and Inspiration/Ancestral Fortitude dropped at the wrong time, but he's got some stupid insane burst. The best way I found to mitigate this was to use Nightmare seeds, SMV trinket, and last stand to pump up health when I have to eat a stomp.

My main point is that the burst during stomp is just insane, and his debuffed swing rate is still faster then 2 secs. If heals get synchronized, then you can easily die between spammed heals. It seems like 1 in 3 attempt a tank is just gonna get smushed like a spider.

sovelis41 · 08/11/08, 1:33 PM

You are correct, the damage is insane. However, your cooldowns are best served rotated for every stomp. I believe our tanks use a trinket/nightmare seed rotation, and then go for last stand if a healer gets burned or some other unseen circumstance happens. Stomp can be crazy and make your heart skip from time to time, but you definitely don't need all of those cooldowns to survive it reliably. Our tanks give us about a 5 second heads-up on the stomp timer, when this happens the 3 MT healers finish their current cast and start to spam their max rank until the tank is stable/stomp over. The varying levels of haste/pushback/new casts/etc allow the heals to stream it at a good rate.

If you are still having some issues, tell one of your hunters to go tame a bird with screech, it helped us quite a bit. The only part of the stomp that worries me anymore is the first hit, if you have the tank topped going in and good heals landing just after, the rest of it is cake to heal.

@ Rublik

Hello, EJs.
My guild has been trying Brutallus recently and yesterday was the first day we lived till enrage more than once.
I wanted to ask for some comments on our wws of this fight. We can analyze it ourselves, but i want to listen to people, who have killed him already.

Just a quick look at your enrage-only attempts shows that all of your dpsers simply aren't using full consumables. All of your physical DPS should be using [Elixir of Demonslaying] (remember you need to refresh it partway through the fight), and your casting DPS should be hitting [Destruction Potion]. There are attempts where 1 caster is using 1 Destro Potion over the course of almost 6.5 minutes. If logistically possible, adding a shaman to throw your melee group an extra heroism would help as well.

Lastly, on some of those attempts I'm seeing burn deaths. Those usually result in the loss of a few hundred thousand damage if that person can't be recovered.

Blacksen · 08/11/08, 2:49 PM

Originally Posted by sovelis41

All of your physical DPS should be using [Elixir of Demonslaying] (remember you need to refresh it partway through the fight), and your casting DPS should be hitting [Destruction Potion]. There are attempts where 1 caster is using 1 Destro Potion over the course of almost 6.5 minutes. If logistically possible, adding a shaman to throw your melee group an extra heroism would help as well.

This is partially false, in two regards.
First, if you look at the WWS more closely, you'll see that most of the melee ARE using Elixirs of Demonslaying. What they aren't doing is re-applying them after they expire. Remember that the elixir of demonslaying only lasts 5 minutes, and thus needs to be re-applied near the end of the fight.
Second, most caster-dps classes benefit significantly more from mana potions than destruction potions. Even classes that you wouldn't think of (such as Warlocks) still get more benefit from MANA than Destruction. You can go see the class forums for more information on this.

@Rublik
The most glaring errors are how low some of your DPS'ers are. Every Mage / Warlock / Rogue / Hunter / DPS Warrior / DPS Shaman needs to be at 1600 minimum, consistently. Any attempt where any one of those classes can't break 1600 is either a severe lack of gear, consumables, or knowledge. In reality, any raw DPS class needs to be 1900+. "Raw" DPS classes are BM Hunters, Mages, Destruction Warlocks, Rogues, and Fury warriors. If they aren't breaking 1900, they are not ready for Sunwell and beyond.

Aliengirl - Really needs to get her 4piece bonus to be competitive at this level. Gems/Enchants look good. She's just not casting enough. Wow Web Stats - He casts 86 fireballs, yours casts 73. It's a significant difference. Your mages REALLY REALLY REALLY need a shadow priest to be effective in Sunwell. I'd suggest you hook this mage up.

Anexus - Why is this guy wasting cast time on Immolates? It's unfortunate that he got burned so often. Your healers really need to be good enough though to make it so he doesn't need to cast drain life. He's already got fel-armor. He also seriously needs some new weapons...

Uragan - Wow, really? Heartless in Sunwell? Does he know that the badge main-hand is better than Heartless? This guy should PvP seriously and try to break 1800 if he wants to keep swords.

Batja - I don't know much about Fury Warriors, but I refuse to believe that his gemming is correct. He's not even at the 1-handed hit-cap. I'll leave someone else to hit this guy up, but his gear is good, and he's only pulling 1600 dps. He needs 1900-2k.
Honestly, you should make this guy go Blood Frenzy. Part of your huge problem is Darkwarrior isn't pulling her weight, I take it that it's because she's prot. You need a Blood Frenzy in every fight in Sunwell past Brutallus. Brutallus is a dps race, but you'll find that you hit the enrage on every fight past Brutallus also. Felmyst has a rough dps requirement. So do Twins and M'uru and Kil'jaeden. Not only that, but look at the Sunwell gear for Warriors - all of it itemized for 2handed dps.

Originally Posted by Prof

0 sec A bunch of heals!
0 sec Brut MH hit 9.5k
0 sec Brut OH hit 4.5k
maybe 1 heal
1 sec Brut MH hit 9.5k
1 sec Brut OH hit 4.5k
Dead tank

It's possible the Iron shield and Inspiration/Ancestral Fortitude dropped at the wrong time, but he's got some stupid insane burst. The best way I found to mitigate this was to use Nightmare seeds, SMV trinket, and last stand to pump up health when I have to eat a stomp.

It's very survivable. If Demo Shout or Ironshield falls off, you're right - you're basically dead. But 28k dmg on this fight is not unheard of. Pop shield block right beforehand and you're shaving 1k off. A HoT tick from any priest/druid and you're probably shaving another 1-2k off. That's just a nightmare seed / trinket away.

In regards to dealing with the stomp, as a warrior I rotate nightmare seed and bloodboil trinket. I'm unsure what our feral druid does, but he also has a consumable/cooldown rotation. If both the trinket and seed are on cooldown, I use Last Stand. If I'm not at full health going into a stomp, I'll probably pop shield wall (it's useless at the end of the fight anyway). There are also a lot of fancy things you can do with the stomp, particularly waiting for it before you taunt. One important thing to understand about Meteor-Slash is that it doesn't matter who his target is. It's like Cone-of-Cold - just a straight up frontal attack. Thus if you taunt while he is casting Meteor Slash, it will hit the new group.

This enables you to get fancy with the stomps that are close to the 4th Meteor Slash cast. If both Meteor Slash and Stomp are coming in 5 seconds, wait until he casts Meteor Slash to cast your taunt. There's a good chance the other tank will get stomped and thus your healers won't have to deal with it.

As it stands, my nightmare seed / trinket / Last Stand / shield wall end up saving my life 82% of the time on Brutallus, and I've been popping every single one about 4-5 seconds before a stomp. They're really not optional for warriors. I also save shield block whenever a stomp is coming up soon to shave off a bit more inside.

Dominus · 08/11/08, 2:58 PM

Edited, I had locks telling me they rarely LT, when it wasn't the case.

Blacksen · 08/11/08, 3:10 PM

Originally Posted by Dominus

This actually heavily depends on group makeup. Our locks/mages have no problem using destruction potions as they're almost always paired with a resto shaman and shadow priest.

Do your warlocks lifetap? Yes.
Then unless they're at some obscene (and unattainable at Brutallus) level of haste, mana potions will be better.

Saying that "group makeup" makes a difference is also false. If it can save ONE life tap, mana potions will still be better. The frequency at which they lifetap makes no difference.

I use mana pots over destruction pots aswell on stationary fights (like brutallus) or fights very excessive tapping might get you killed (felmyst p1). On fights where alot of movement is involved destro usually is better, if you can always tap when running.

Mana pots generally _ARE_ more dps than destro pots for a warlock. I don't know to how many locks i've said it and always get "ye ok" and then they continue using destro pots. I'll use some simple math this time to prove my point (which I hate sadsndsakdn! ^^)..

One super mana pot gives 1800-3000 mana, that's 2400 mana on avarage.

One lifetap at your gear level gives ~1800 mana (at the cost of 1800 health, also straining healers). That's 1.5 seconds global cd. 600 more mana (to reach 2400) is 0.5 seconds global cooldown more landing you at 2 seconds spent not casting.

1 shadowbolt = 2.5 second cast. Your avarage shadowbolt does with crit and raid debuffs counted for ~5500 damage. 2 seconds of no casts is 4/5 of a shadowbolt, 4/5 of 5500 = 4400 damage.

Every mana pot you use gives you 4400 damage effectively.

Oh i'm so bored right now but meh, now for the destruction pot.. ^^

A destruction pot gives you 2% increased crit and 120 spell damage for 15 seconds.

In 15 seconds you cast 6 shadowbolts at 2.5 speed.

2% increased crit does at your gear level (again raid debuffs and everything counte