Brutallus Strategy Discussion - Page 25

◊ SSJones · 05/13/08, 1:43 AM

Here's a quick cut of what I am seeing:

02:25'11.206 Brutallus's Swing dodged by Mawi
02:25'11.208 Brutallus's Swing dodged by Mawi
02:25'11.279 Brutallus is afflicted by Ignite
02:25'11.982 Brutallus's Swing dodged by Mawi
02:25'11.984 Brutallus's Swing hits Mawi for 3370 Physical damage

And again:

02:25'25.233 Brutallus is afflicted by Consecration
02:25'25.234 Brutallus is afflicted by Taunt
02:25'25.888 Brutallus's Swing hits Cynergy for 3224 Physical damage (370 blocked)
02:25'25.889 Brutallus's Swing parried by Cynergy
02:25'26.549 Brutallus is afflicted by Shadow Vulnerability
02:25'26.659 Brutallus is afflicted by Stormstrike
02:25'26.690 Brutallus's Swing hits Cynergy for 3805 Physical damage (370 blocked)
02:25'26.692 Brutallus's Swing hits Cynergy for 5257 Physical damage (370 blocked)

And the parries:

02:25'11.854 Clegmir's Swing parried by Brutallus

and

02:25'25.918 Clegmir's Swing parried by Brutallus

I guess it is possibly just a crazy clock issue? Admittedly, it doesn't seem to happen -every- parry.

Kegsta · 05/13/08, 2:11 AM

Maybe they have disabled parry swings from the tank hasting it, but forgot to do it for everyone else, so when he turns to burn someone, a melle gets parried, and BAM hasted.

Cranberry · 05/13/08, 2:16 AM

Originally Posted by Graul

Does anyone know if Burn actually generates rage on Warriors? On all of our attempts Wedensday that lasted a good while and I did not get burned my DPS was approximately the same. On the attempts where I did get burned it seemed to be higher and it also looked like in the later ticks my rage bar was almost always full. On our kill last night I was burned twice and while our kill was 23 seconds faster than our first, I ended up doing 219 DPS more and was burnt twice. I wasn't burnt at all on our first kill, but there are people claiming that burns do not generate rage because it's counted as self inflicted damage.

Hit the trash. Some of the stuff is best in slot (hi2u, shivering felspine), and if I can farm it in t4 you can in t6

Burn does not generate rage, much to my own rage.

Debuffs that do AOE damage or effects around you, like Burn, are usually considered to originate with you and not the mob. Self-damage doesn't generate rage, but it does at least save you a repair bill if you can die from it during a wipe (not that that would really be practical on Brutallus, given how fast you're going to die anyway).

Jagiya · 05/13/08, 2:55 AM

Originally Posted by Kegsta

We had our second night of attempts last night. had a 1% wipe which hurt alot due to a lot of mistakes.
it was the only time we hit the enrage, every other time was a tank death or a burn spread.

We used the druid tank first and gave him heroism on the pull, this lets everyone go all out right away and never look like pulling agro.
Amplify magic on the raid seemed to help a bit.

We are thinking of bringing a 3rd shadow priest next week, but are already having the debuff limit knocking debuffs off.

I'm pretty sure there is no parry haste, he just hits every 1 second (1.2 with thunderclap)
here is one of our tank deaths, you can see his attacks being 1.2 seconds apart even after a parry

In the WWS you posted, he was already over 71% into his next swing. If he were capable of hasting, perhaps the margin had already surpassed by this point.

As for the WWS SSJones pasted, however - the parsed logs we submit are client-side and don't compensate for lag, correct? Thus, there's bound to be fluctuations throughout the combat log as data is recieved at inconsistent intervals? I'm fairly certain that if I go and pull a mob, then disconnect my network cable for 3 seconds, then reconnect it, all of the hits I take when my connection is re-established will display within the same timestamp.

Lastnight we had our second half-night on Brutallus and got him to ~19% before enrage. We periodically lost a few people to burn along the way (silly people getting slashed on the way to the burn spot, etc...), and I think people were just using flask/oils/foods & mana pots - no destruction/haste/demonslaying, etc. We're also investing in several LW's to get some drum rotations going. Is it likely that these factors will push us over the line? We roll with 8 healers and only have a pair of Offhand Glaives.

Also, on our first night of attempts we had myself and a Feral druid tanking. The Feral Druid is more geared than I am, with 5 pieces of Tier 6, Shadowmoon Insignia, Commendation, etc. We experienced a lot of occasions where he'd literally just drop dead randomly. The sad part is, he'd always be perfectly stable during stomps, but throughout the rest of the fight, it was very rough for him. (Yes, I'm keeping Clap and Demo up for him) I know that alot of people use Druids for the additional threat and mitigation during stomp... but he wasn't matching my threat either. Lastnight he was experiencing connection issues so we had to use a Warrior offtank instead. With 2x Warriors, we experienced much more stability overall, and consistently/comfortably lived through all the Stomps via rotating cooldowns. (We're both geared almost identically.)

Does anyone else use 2x Warriors? Do you find it more stable than a Druid? And why would our Feral Druid be taking more damage outside of stomps? His overall avoidance is obviously lower due to the combination of Sunwell Radiance and absence of Parry, but I thought the huge armour advantage would remedy this? And what sort of threat do Druids usually pull on Brutallus? I'm typically sitting at anywhere between 1200 and 1500 whereas he's rarely seen above 1300.

Everything tells me that Druids are the ideal choice for this encounter, yet in our experience it's just not showing.

dakalro · 05/13/08, 5:30 AM

It's what the healers get used to probably. We've done the fight with Warr/Pala, Pala/Druid, Warr/Druid, Druid/Druid and Paladin survived better than Warrior, Druid survived better than Paladin, Warrior better than Druid.

There really is nothing to it but healers and what they see/expect/get used to. Didn't kill them with all those setups but got to enrage with all of them (can say paladin on 28k+ (seed) hp is something hard to kill on stomp even if he takes a ton more dmg on average most likely and the threat is sweet to say the least).

malthrin · 05/13/08, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by Jagiya

Everything tells me that Druids are the ideal choice for this encounter, yet in our experience it's just not showing.

Got an armory link? How's his gemming?

Regen · 05/13/08, 2:21 PM

Originally Posted by Jagiya

Also, on our first night of attempts we had myself and a Feral druid tanking. The Feral Druid is more geared than I am, with 5 pieces of Tier 6, Shadowmoon Insignia, Commendation, etc. We experienced a lot of occasions where he'd literally just drop dead randomly. The sad part is, he'd always be perfectly stable during stomps, but throughout the rest of the fight, it was very rough for him. (Yes, I'm keeping Clap and Demo up for him) I know that alot of people use Druids for the additional threat and mitigation during stomp... but he wasn't matching my threat either. Lastnight he was experiencing connection issues so we had to use a Warrior offtank instead. With 2x Warriors, we experienced much more stability overall, and consistently/comfortably lived through all the Stomps via rotating cooldowns. (We're both geared almost identically.)

Does anyone else use 2x Warriors? Do you find it more stable than a Druid? And why would our Feral Druid be taking more damage outside of stomps? His overall avoidance is obviously lower due to the combination of Sunwell Radiance and absence of Parry, but I thought the huge armour advantage would remedy this? And what sort of threat do Druids usually pull on Brutallus? I'm typically sitting at anywhere between 1200 and 1500 whereas he's rarely seen above 1300.

Everything tells me that Druids are the ideal choice for this encounter, yet in our experience it's just not showing.

While your druid will take more damage over the course of the fight (due to total avoidance) it will be much more consistant and should be EASILY healable with 7 healers (You could probably push 6 if you were insane and only wanted 1 person burn healing). As the feral in our Warrior/Druid combo I have never died to healing even during stomp for obvious reasons, where the warrior has been occasionally gibed (Although I doubt that will happen often anymore as he has all prot loot excluding Muru except for Paragon's which is more of a threat cloak).

Despite both gemming for avoidance (with ~3 stam gems for the meta) I always fall somewhere between 50-100k~ more damage taken the warrior (Hell might as well factor meteor slash damage in there). Threat was a little sketchy on the first few kills however after getting t6 boots (felmyst) and brutallus's neck I have absolutely no problems, the expertise reallllly does make the difference... maybe see if he can wear the badge neck until he gets the one from brutallus. Things in general that he might not be doing: Major agil elixir/Ironskin(resilience elixir) for maximum avoidance/gear swaps, Ironshield potion to ensure armor cap (~36k) and to raise your armor that much more during stomp (with inspiration its quite possible to be sitting at ~24k as a druid), Barkskin before taunting (eases the tank transitions significantly).

Darmeus · 05/13/08, 3:08 PM

Looking for a little feedback one what we are doing wrong with our Brut fight. We're currently using 8 healers and two 8 man soak groups. A pretty typical setup. We can't seem to make it to enrage, 99% of the time its a tank gib. We've been trying to taunt right as a stomp happens to the current tank. Later in the fight this causes issue with meteor/stomp timing. The first taunt goes fine, after that it all gets sketchy. I guess what is the main recommendation, try and avoid stomps with tank changes or try and live through them and taunt after stomps?

Also with our current failures there has been talks of a three tank method. I'm not to keen on the idea, but does anyone have any experience with this method?

14 attemps for your viewing pleasure

I'm OT, I'm mainly gemed as avoidance, the MT is gemed as Stam.

Touf · 05/13/08, 3:37 PM

Originally Posted by Darmeus

Looking for a little feedback one what we are doing wrong with our Brut fight. We're currently using 8 healers and two 8 man soak groups. A pretty typical setup. We can't seem to make it to enrage, 99% of the time its a tank gib. We've been trying to taunt right as a stomp happens to the current tank. Later in the fight this causes issue with meteor/stomp timing. The first taunt goes fine, after that it all gets sketchy. I guess what is the main recommendation, try and avoid stomps with tank changes or try and live through them and taunt after stomps?

Also with our current failures there has been talks of a three tank method. I'm not to keen on the idea, but does anyone have any experience with this method?

14 attemps for your viewing pleasure

I'm OT, I'm mainly gemed as avoidance, the MT is gemed as Stam.

Taunting after stomp is nice, but sometimes you just have to eat the stomp so the slashes don't stack up. I think overall you'll end up taking 4-6 stomps (that you have to heal though)?

Regen · 05/13/08, 3:38 PM

Originally Posted by Darmeus

Looking for a little feedback one what we are doing wrong with our Brut fight. We're currently using 8 healers and two 8 man soak groups. A pretty typical setup. We can't seem to make it to enrage, 99% of the time its a tank gib. We've been trying to taunt right as a stomp happens to the current tank. Later in the fight this causes issue with meteor/stomp timing. The first taunt goes fine, after that it all gets sketchy. I guess what is the main recommendation, try and avoid stomps with tank changes or try and live through them and taunt after stomps?

Also with our current failures there has been talks of a three tank method. I'm not to keen on the idea, but does anyone have any experience with this method?

14 attemps for your viewing pleasure

I'm OT, I'm mainly gemed as avoidance, the MT is gemed as Stam.

I would most definitely use a weapon with Mongoose (pretty obvious from an avoidance point of view) as well as straight +10 def gems over the seasprays. I personally use Commendation as a druid, but I think my warrior MT prefers to use Shadowmoon Insignia.

I know our healers (only 7 required) found it alot easier to heal on initial kills by bringing an affliction lock to the raid (5% less damage).

Also the first attempt I looked at was #10 which was ~7.3M and 6"11. Hell you've hit enrage. Your other attempts look fairly week but it definitely looks like your dps is slacking bigtime. Not going to take the time to look at their gear but all 3 rogues should be pulling 2k+, All destroy locks should be 2k+ depending on burns, All mages should be 2k+ depending on burns (Maybe less since bloodlusting at 25% is a substantial dps increase), both of your hunters are BM and should be pulling again 2k+ (Should probably have one of them go survival), maybe have a paladin go ret for again - more dps. Your Enhance shaman is only pulling sub 1200 which is terrible and your elemental is pulling 1600 which is more reasonable but again can be pushed a fair deal.

Healing will come with practice and the 5% from the affliction lock will help a fair deal, dps really needs to step it up.

==
On a more technical tanking note: Your entire job consists of making sure your meteor slash never gets stacked to 4. That said go ahead and taunt the initial stomp (make sure you are vocal 3 seconds in advance, and count it down prior to every single taunt). From there on you are basically watching your debuff tick down and timers from Bigwigs/DBM. When you see your debuff with 7 seconds remaining and the cooldown on slash and stomp is 7 do not taunt prematurely. Sit there and watch meteor slash cast and a) if stomp landed prior to that slash taunt asap or b) if stomp is about to land by at least a margin of 4-5 seconds before the next slash, wait for it and then taunt. You will run into situations where you will have to eat a full duration stomp, again call it out and use your cooldowns/trinkets (exactly the reason you equip them in the first place).

EDIT: I'm not even sure how many times I've posted or seen other people post more or less the same shit.. and yet alas more teachmehow2play posts, for the love of God can we actually read the pages prior to <Last> and if you still have a question that for some reason hasn't been answered (doubt it), post.

Jagiya · 05/13/08, 10:38 PM

Originally Posted by Regen

Major agil elixir/Ironskin(resilience elixir) for maximum avoidance/gear swaps, Ironshield potion to ensure armor cap (~36k) and to raise your armor that much more during stomp (with inspiration its quite possible to be sitting at ~24k as a druid), Barkskin before taunting (eases the tank transitions significantly).

Thanks for that, I'll pass it on.

Re: malthrin
The World of Warcraft Armory
Last time he was online, his connection died in the middle of healing Kalecgos. His connection issues haven't been resolved so unfortunately the Armory link doesn't show his tanking kit.

Ondskaben · 05/14/08, 6:30 PM

Hey peeps,

This weeks brutallus has us puzzled. Across the board physical dps'ers were seeing lower crit rates than expected and casters reporting higher resist rates. We had around 8 tries or so before killing him (healer hiccups) but did get him in the end with 4 seconds to spare (we've been killing him for 6 weeks, so he is not new to us).

We don't normally use WWS so i'm afraid i can't provide one. However, i'm a frequent recount rider, and among all the tries and kill i was down 5-13% on expected crit rate (not a single try with a crit fluctuation above expected) which seems more than just random. I did write down my recount numbers for the kill as well as the raidbuffed stats i was running with:

Hunter, survival, surefooted 3/3 (3% hit)
1197agility
3018ap
41.28% crit
83 hit (with surefooted thats 12 hit rating short of the cap)
441 armor ignore
78 passive haste (utilizing 2:1/3:2/1:1 rotations - see survival thread page 63+ if interested)

Steady shot
Hit: 113, 1055 average
Crit: 69, 2519 average (37,9%)
Miss: 0

Auto shot
Hit: 77, 1023 average
Crit: 39, 2390 average (33,6%)
Miss: 2

Arcane shot
Hit: 0
Crit: 2, 2171 average
Miss: 0

Multi shot
Hit: 3, 993 average
Crit: 0
Miss: 0

Aimed shot
Hit: 1, 1146 damage
Crit: 0
Miss: 0

Average dps in fight: 1602,4
Total damage done: 580k
Fight duration: 5:56

Group setup:
No beneficial classes except SP for mana
2 haste pots used

Now, on the kill i had about the highest crit rates of all the tries. And those are still a good deal below the expected average. If it had only been that try and kill i wouldnt have thought it funny. But seeing the same pattern (to a worse extent) on all the tries as well as others seeing missing critrates, well.

Now, as Lactose discovered in Mount Hyjal (banshee debuff) hunters run on a 2 roll system rather than a 1 roll system as previously believed. But even so, seeing only 2 misses total (0.6% misses) on the fight (and +/- similar on the tries), the missing hit rating towards the cap cannot account for the crit discrepancies as i see it.

Damage on Kalecgos and Felmyst seemed normal.

So, anyone else experiencing weird result on this resets Brutallus??

Edit:
Forgot to mention that 1600dps is the lowest dps i've had on a brutallus kill since shifting to the /cast /cast setup (which i have been using since second kill) which provides me with 1700-1840ish dps normally in similar setups (and should be higher if my computer didnt have mad fps lag). Furthermore i have just aquired Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas from twins and starstalker legguards some weeks ago, so by all means my dps should be at least equal to expected minimum (1700) or higher.

Gofa · 05/14/08, 8:12 PM

Seems like you were really unlucky.

Here's the log of our kill today (yes, Brutallus was troublesome for us today..) and there wasn't any lower critrate than expected for anyone (of course there are always +/- 5%).

Tojara · 05/14/08, 8:40 PM

Sometimes lower or higher then expected crit rates happen, its why you will sometimes stumble across Warlocks doing 2800-2900 DPS (with 48% crit rates).

While Brutallus is certainly a much better fight then Teron these oddities will still arise, even with a 6 minute fight.

skellionz · 05/14/08, 9:57 PM

Wow Web Stats here is the wws for the night onds

Ondskaben · 05/15/08, 2:18 AM

Originally Posted by skellionz

Wow Web Stats here is the wws for the night onds

Looking at the WWS Skellionz posted it backs up what i was seeing (apart from a few extra wipes i didnt remember)

Crit rates:
B1-2: Fast wipe, not enough data (0 raid damage done / 330k raid damage done)
B3: steady 32% auto 46% (3.4M raid damage done)
B4: steady 25% auto 25% (2.7M raid damage done)
B5: steady 31% auto 20% (900k raid damage done)
B6: steady 22% auto 35% (3.4M raid damage done)
B7: steady 34% auto 28% (6.3M raid damage done)
B8: steady 29% auto 34% (4.4M raid damage done)
B9: steady 35% auto 29% (7.4M raid damage done)
B10: steady 38% auto 36% (7.4M raid damage done)
B-death: steady 34% auto 33% (10M raid damage done)

Average steady crit: 31.1%
Average auto crit: 31.7%
Expected average: ~41%

Same numbers for Ulgrag:
B1-2: (see above)
B3: steady 26% auto 30%
B4: steady 41% auto 26%
B5: steady 33% auto 18%
B6: steady 35% auto 35%
B7: steady 32% auto 31%
B8: steady 35% auto 39%
B9: steady 29% auto 30%
B10: steady 30% auto 30%
B-death: steady 36% auto 33%

Average steady crit: 33%
Average auto crit: 30.2%
Expected average: ~38% (as far as i remember asking him his buffed crit - he had LotP)

Ofcourse it might just be a very bad streak of RNG, but it does strike me as really odd.

Edit:
Looking at Gofa's WWS they certainly did not seem to have any crit issues.

Wolfsark · 05/15/08, 1:05 PM

Hey everyone,
This is my first post of the elitistjerks.com forums. I spent hours and hours reading the information on this site about my class for a while now and I really believe it has helped my play style tremendously.

My guild's first Illidan kill 3/17/2008. Needless to say, we haven't been farming ALL of the t6 content for quite as long as some other guilds but we were very eager to get into sunwell when it came out and we've had our struggles and triumphs. Last week we had our first set of real Brutallus attempts. Prior to this we were just playing around with him after Kalecgos kills (I'm not really sure our healers and tanks were ready for the amount of damage this boss can put out). They were all wipes and showed us nothing about our dps limits since no one was blowing all their consumables and bloodlust simply because the healers hadnt figured out how to keep the tanks alive.

Recently we saw our first enrage and put out ~9.4 mil raid damage. WWS report can be seen here.

What I'm trying to ask with this post is how I can increase my personal dps through gear/gem choices and ability rotation. I'll give you a rough outline of what I did for this specific attempt. When our hunter counted down his Misdirect pull, I used Demonslaying Elixir, Drums of Battle, Blood Fury and a Haste Potion. After Brutallus started moving towards the tank, I put out Tranquil Air Totem, Mana Spring, Strength of Earth, Searing Totem. By the time I got to Brutallus I started auto attacking. I waited for my global cooldown to wear off then started my dps rotation with flame shock, Storm Strike, Earth Shock. Then I did flame shock, storm strike, twist wf/goa totem macro, earth shock repeat, repeat, repeat while using my consumables when they come up.

Comments about my WWS, I recently upgraded my berzerkers call with a DST so in my buffs section it shows 3 Call of the Berzerker buffs. I only got 3 drum buffs because no one in my group has LW ( I think this is full of fail but I've been talking with our group and they are currently leveling it.)

Basically what I'm asking is... tear me apart.

PS. If this post is in the wrong section or not appropriate from this thread it should be removed.

THANKS

Regen · 05/15/08, 1:29 PM

Originally Posted by Wolfsark

Hey everyone,
This is my first post of the elitistjerks.com forums. I spent hours and hours reading the information on this site about my class for a while now and I really believe it has helped my play style tremendously.

My guild's first Illidan kill 3/17/2008. Needless to say, we haven't been farming ALL of the t6 content for quite as long as some other guilds but we were very eager to get into sunwell when it came out and we've had our struggles and triumphs. Last week we had our first set of real Brutallus attempts. Prior to this we were just playing around with him after Kalecgos kills (I'm not really sure our healers and tanks were ready for the amount of damage this boss can put out). They were all wipes and showed us nothing about our dps limits since no one was blowing all their consumables and bloodlust simply because the healers hadnt figured out how to keep the tanks alive.

Recently we saw our first enrage and put out ~9.4 mil raid damage. WWS report can be seen here.

What I'm trying to ask with this post is how I can increase my personal dps through gear/gem choices and ability rotation. I'll give you a rough outline of what I did for this specific attempt. When our hunter counted down his Misdirect pull, I used Demonslaying Elixir, Drums of Battle, Blood Fury and a Haste Potion. After Brutallus started moving towards the tank, I put out Tranquil Air Totem, Mana Spring, Strength of Earth, Searing Totem. By the time I got to Brutallus I started auto attacking. I waited for my global cooldown to wear off then started my dps rotation with flame shock, Storm Strike, Earth Shock. Then I did flame shock, storm strike, twist wf/goa totem macro, earth shock repeat, repeat, repeat while using my consumables when they come up.

Comments about my WWS, I recently upgraded my berzerkers call with a DST so in my buffs section it shows 3 Call of the Berzerker buffs. I only got 3 drum buffs because no one in my group has LW ( I think this is full of fail but I've been talking with our group and they are currently leveling it.)

Basically what I'm asking is... tear me apart.

PS. If this post is in the wrong section or not appropriate from this thread it should be removed.

THANKS

Given you've read all there is to know in the enhance thread already I'd say this belongs in the WWS thread instead.

Just offhand I can tell you it would have been a kill if your hunters were better (One should be survival which would justify one of their scores being low), you brang an extra dps and 7 healers (not that hard if one of your locks was affliction -- which might I add are both extremely low), and your fury warrior should also be pulling more dps.

EDIT: PM'd you ours if you want to do some comparisons of your own.

Wolfsark · 05/15/08, 1:43 PM

Originally Posted by Regen

Given you've read all there is to know in the enhance thread already I'd say this belongs in the WWS thread instead.

Just offhand I can tell you it would have been a kill if your hunters were better (One should be survival which would justify one of their scores being low), you brang an extra dps and 7 healers (not that hard if one of your locks was affliction -- which might I add are both extremely low), and your fury warrior should also be pulling more dps.

We've all been discussing the problem with the locks. Aside from general playstyle issues that they need to work out with themselves; however, they were not placed in the "stacked caster group". The caster group consisted of 3 mages 1 spriest and 1 elemental shaman. The locks were placed in the group with classes that really didnt benefit them much. When we were doing this fight on this particular night, it was more about experimentation rather than REALLY pushing the dps since our last attempts were failures due to healers not having practice dealing with the immense amount of damage brutallus dishes out.

There are obvious problems with our "raid dps" that will be fixed in the future. The subject of this post was solely to discuss my own dps as an enhance shaman. Again, if this is in the wrong section of this forum I apologize.

◊ Hanos · 05/15/08, 2:40 PM

You really want to wait until about 30 seconds in to blow all your cooldowns, especially the 2 min ones. Popping them on the pull means the boss isn't fully debuffed. What we is line them up with my Drums, at 0:30, 2:30, and 4:30, and we get Heroisms as 2:30 and 4:30 which is normally around 20% now (hold on the last Hast Pots, Trinket etc if Heroism isn't up yet). Not going to get you 600k Damage, but it will help.

Also, get and Arms Warrior, not need to bring a 1600 DPS Fury Warrior, a Survival Hunter, and figure out why your warlocks are so low. This is an issue of your groups have to be god aweful.