Namok

Our guild is trying the hard mode these days. But we don't get yet to phase 2 consistently. I would like to hear more roster examples and how you divide it between the gauntlet and the arena. In our case, we usually do it like this:

• Gauntlet: 1 warrior tank, 1-2 healers, 10 dps (2 mages, 2 shaman elemental, 3 locks, 1 shadow priest, 2 hunters)
• Arena: 1 DK tank, 1 pala tank, 4-5 healers, 6 melee dps (2 dks, 1 rogue, 2 retries, 1 feral)

The arena seems to be fairly stable although sometimes, we lose a dps because of aggro.
We have more problems in the gauntlet. I think that we go with too many dps, but actually, we let 2 sheeps behind (that we kill afterwards in phase 2) and they don't really consistently arrive in time for hard-mode.

What can be the problem? Maybe the dpsers are just doing their best? We should add another tank (so, going with 4 total) to the gauntlet and AoE the adds down?

I would be thankful to hear more specific examples of how your guilds distribute the roster in phase 1.

 

mox512

Sure.
Really you don't have much choice. Our Shadow Priest gets on his PvP gear set wit hit cap. He is around 26k HP. I also see his MCed add near me hitting the boss whole second phase while tanking

 

Yagamoth

I can confirm this. We ha to learn this the hard way - One of our healling shammys suddenly pulled such a heavy "healling-aggro" when I told him to stand below thorim. So we came to the conclusion, that there has to be some kind of mechanic behind this.
But I'd like to know how this exactly works. (Note: This is in phase 1 in the arena)

Is there any initial aggro for the one standing next to Thorim?
Does the "initial aggro" increase the nearer you are to Thorim?

I found it near impossible to get healling aggro, even if the ones standing below Thorim were doing nothing.

Besides, I found it to be a good idea to make macros to mark the targets in the arena. (e.g. Skull on evokers for a focused kill)

 

Whitemane

0:04'30.699 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 4558 Physical. (2261 Blocked) (2455 Absorbed)
0:04'31.677 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 5790 Physical. (2261 Blocked) (3117 Absorbed)
0:04'33.711 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 4934 Physical. (1968 Blocked) (2656 Absorbed)
0:04'34.614 Thorim attack was dodged by Newguy.
0:04'35.020 Thorim Unbalancing Strike hits Newguy for 7743 Physical. (9741 Absorbed)
0:04'35.020 Newguy is afflicted by Unbalancing Strike.
0:04'35.188 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 5420 Physical. (2918 Absorbed)
0:04'35.902 Thorim attack was parried by Newguy.
0:04'36.755 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 5214 Physical. (1968 Blocked) (2807 Absorbed)
0:04'37.547 Thorim attack was dodged by Newguy.
0:04'38.499 Thorim melee swing hits Deekay for 19839 Physical.

Anyone know if Thorim does parry haste? Sometimes I can see a parry and what looks like parry haste, but then at other times when he attacks really fast there's no parry to explain the haste. Had massive problems keeping the tank alive in hard mode.

 

mox512

It will be nice if you will provide full WWS log, to check Torim's buffs.
Dark Rune Warbringer must be mind controlled or killed, if just tank them, they will buff Thorim.
Check this ability, Aura of Celerity - Spell - World of Warcraft

 

Whitemane

Of course they are not up.

Wow Web Stats

The only thing missing is demo shout it seems, that would soften his blows a bit but it still doesn't explain the haste. Also Icy Touch is up all the time due to DK tank. Deekay and Newguy are the tanks.

http://wowwebstats.com/f6ixdxxd2pha3...=594083-642487

This makes it easier to follow, don't watch anything before Try 11 I think because the server was lagging like shit before that.

 

Pheroz

Reread the Lightning Charge buff that stacks on Thorim the longer the fight goes on.

Lightning Charge - Spell - World of Warcraft

His Attack speed gets faster and faster.

 

KamPa

Namok - we don't really leave any sheeps, don't even use CC, other than stuns on Acolytes. Pulling first mini boss with one add alive and letting dots finish him off saves few seconds. At the stairs, just kill both healers and charge upwards - we don't sheep, since you can keep hitting them on your way and don't have to start from 100% after you kill the boss. It doesn't matter much, your goal should be engaging before 3rd add spawns, or at worst, right after.
All of that is fairly basic. Obviously, you can't let mobs get a single heal off, it delays things enormously. Also, it should be easier now with newest hotfix, seeing that Felguards/hunter pets won't get slaughtered by Impale. I don't see AOE as much better - first 2 packs hit fairly hard, so you'd probably need another healer. If not, you'd still have problem channeling proper AOE while strafing fire. Overall, 9 DPS + 2 healer + 1 tank works fine for us, and that's including locks who couldn't properly use Felguards without them getting gibbed by Impale before first boss.

 

Whitemane

Yes, if only his attack speed was constant and not fluctuating which is what I am saying it is.

 

Melthu

Early on his swing timer seems to be about 1 second, then later it becomes closer to 0.8 seconds. Unbalancing Strike can occur any time so getting hit with it 0.4 seconds after a melee swing is common. The only other exception seems to be the 2 second gap between the 2nd and 3rd swings.

0:04'30.699 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 4558 Physical. (2261 Blocked) (2455 Absorbed) #1031212
0:04'31.677 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 5790 Physical. (2261 Blocked) (3117 Absorbed) #1031445
0:04'33.711 Thorim gains Lightning Charge (8). #1031979
0:04'33.711 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 4934 Physical. (1968 Blocked) (2656 Absorbed)


You can see that he gained Lightning Charge between those 2 swings, which is probably what caused the delay. Other than that the swing times seem pretty consistent, getting slightly faster after he gains Lightning Charge of course.

 

Whitemane

0:02'14.600 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 10039 Physical.
0:02'15.686 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 8638 Physical.

0:02'31.143 Thorim melee swing hits Deekay for 7860 Physical.
0:02'32.936 Thorim melee swing hits Deekay for 8274 Physical.

Early on the timer is anywhere between 1 second and 1.7 seconds.

0:03'38.916 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 9325 Physical. (1968 Blocked) (2484 Absorbed)
0:03'39.647 Thorim melee swing hits Newguy for 15020 Physical. (1968 Blocked)

0:03'48.531 Thorim melee swing hits Deekay for 14903 Physical.
0:03'49.668 Thorim attack was parried by Deekay.

0:03'53.780 Thorim attack was parried by Deekay.
0:03'55.402 Thorim attack was parried by Deekay.

Later on it seems be between 0.7 to 1.5 seconds.

Yes, he does gain speed throughout the fight but there are definitely variations in attack speed. He could possibly reset his swing timer when he gains lightning charge, it is a spell after all.

 

Cascade

We have been trying the heroic version of Lose Your Illusion for a reset now and we have a real problem with the Chain Lightnings. We run a melee heavy raid usually, around 10 melee guys with 2 tanks and even if we split them up to three separate groups to localize CL jumps to their respective groups, they usually get gibbed around the middle of p2, our dps drops and of course we cannot beat the soft enrage.

Rotating with the tanks works ok and healers are fast enough to top up. My guys telling me that his hitbox doesn't big enough for them be more separate from each other, I'm getting a bit desperate over this as I have ran out of ideas

Are there anything else we could do in this situation other than the obvious 'stack more casters' solution? Since we don't have any more casters to bring, this is unfortunately not feasible.

Thanks.

However, the shaman didn't care.

 

Torrential

Disc priest going bubble crazy on your melee? Make sure Nature resist totem is up.

 

Cryect

Thorim parried 46 Physical attacks, 2 Shadow attacks, and 1 Holy attack for a total of 49 parries which is a lot of parry hastening (40% reduce swing timer per swing with max of 2 parry hastens per swing to reduce swing timer to 20% of normal). Those numbers are from Try 11 btw.

When you say 3 separate places is that including the tanks? Should have 4 places including the tanks and worst case your melee DPS will get killed down to 2 at each spot leaving you with 6 melee at least by the end. Also might want to consider stacking the melee on each other who have AOE damage reductions, more HP and saves versus those who don't (which is really just enhance shamans who don't).

I need to do something useless.

 

Cryect

Delete

I need to do something useless.

 

Whitemane

Yes, those are looking at it from a big perspective but I've looked at it closely and found a few where there have been no parries to hasten the attacks.

 

Cryect

Well then I would say latency since the timestamps are client side not server side.

Edit: Also should say messages aren't guaranteed to arrive in order for the combat log (you will often see things out of order in the combat log though generally its correct).

I need to do something useless.

 

Cosa

Ok after several days of wipes I have to ask a question here:

We were trying to abuse idea of hard mode and to spend as less time in arena as possibile by reaching Thorim in 3 min 1 sec mark as soon as Sif leaves to engage him. Setup is as follows: 1 tank 1 pala healer + 8 dps in gauntlet reaching him as off last night with 15 sec after Sif leaves.

By that time 2 tanks 6 healers 7 dps arena is getting close to overwhelmed. Several times we got to P2 with like 10-15 mobs up, and even when we reach him and get fight in control we are dying somewhere at 30-40%.

For first kill do you suggest more controlled arena and what would be split-up recommended for clean kills in arena while gauntlet make their way in steady pace? What would be ideal split-up?

 

vorda

Seriously, do you even read what you're posting? Whats the point in reaching thorim quickly when you can't handle with the adds anyway?

Unless you want to do hard mode, there is no benefit at all in reaching thorim quicker than his timer. The add spawn rate does not increase, nothing gets harder.

I really don't get how people can wipe an entire night without realising the obvious "plenty -unneeded- dps"-->"too little dps" balance.

edit: anyway, 6 dps in arena should be plenty. We do hard mode with about the same setup and never have more than 2-3 freshly spawned adds up in arena.

 

Cosa

Hi Dalhia, long time no see.

Well we had like 2 hours of first raid reset and 2 hours of previous raid reset and yesterday so since in those previous tries we were overwhelmed with adds we tried to push gauntlet faster - that was idea behind this, so I was just asking in general - what's ideal split up, disregard what we have done plx - it was all "trial and error"

 

vorda

What shines most in arena for us are rogues specced in throwing spec spamming FoK and dismantling champions. This allows you to AoE everything down without bothering to interrupt or watch too much for whirlwinds.

Other good arena classes for us are hunters (FD+volley, and helping to peel off champions running towards healers) and spriests (good vigilance target, solid AoE, fear, fade). Ferals do good as well (swipe + bear form when really needed).

We usually run 2 tanks, 4-5 healers (who are utterly bored) and 6-7 dps. Making them all spam their aoe (controlled ofc) is most important, mainly the rogues with throw spec.

 

Norie

We got our first kill last week after having huge issues in arena survivability. After analyzing what is killing people we realized it was a chain reaction effect after the champion tank goes down due to DPS not switching around as they needed to. So we put a warrior on the champions, stuck a warlock and hunter on the champions only and we were able to keep our mobs under control. In the guantlet we had one tank, 2 healers and 6 dps. A paladin and a bear tanked all the other mobs and the melee all just stacked in the middle with the other AOE classes on the outside. Worked very well.

As for the chain lightening, our melee spread out in the Y formation and move when needed. I don't believe we lost a single melee.

 

KENisFIS

Are you talking about the orb chain lightening or the mob chain lightening?

Mobs - don't bother running away they don't do enough damage to worry about.
Orbs - Have everyone(casters and melee) stand in the center circle, stacked on top of 2 tanks. Have both tanks use their AOE tanking while focusing on new mobs while AOE is on cooldown. Stacking everyone in the center circle allows you to avoid any damage from the orbs. Thus making the arena a joke.

 

bengali

Do you find disarming the Champions reliable enough to prevent the whirlwind? We seems to get blended by it when we tank them in the middle.

 

Lanthon

This is correct. The first mini boss displays a mechanic similar to Lava Surgers in Molten Core; he will only charge people over 10 yards away (give or take). Stack up in melee or he can charge and melee swing (it's killed me too).

I would also recommend leaving an aoe class upstairs for P1. As a shadow priest I can put out 8k dps with Mind Sear, even with the casting debuff. With good aoe tanking (bunched up in the middle) and good interrupts on whirlwind, I can aoe with impunity (though I might have to fade a time or two). Also, having an extra Mass Dispel for the evoker shields is a plus.