We've killed C'Thun twice now, and are still ironing out some details to make the fight consistent. A recurring issue is vuln timing--we tend to have a lot of confusion in the few seconds leading up to each vuln.

When do most people try to vuln? And what specific protocol do you use to communicate between stomach and topside?

As far as I can tell, the best time to vuln is immediately before a Small Eyes/Giant Eye spawn. The only thing alive should be a Giant Claw that you've had at least 15 or so seconds to DPS, even if you start the vuln a good 10 seconds early (just to be safe). However, this window only appears once per minute.

Which reminds me, we tend to waste 2-3 people (tank/healer or two) tanking a low-to-mid HP Giant Claw during vulns. Is this normal, or do people consistently manage to fire vulns when things are completely clear?

In general, how do you get the vuln to happen right as the topside team is ready? When someone in the stomach says that a vuln is imminent and asks me whether we want it, I try to give a time estimate. But when I say "now," it's often 5-10 seconds before anything happens. Sometimes a "5 sec to Eyes" warning pops after I say "now," and the vuln doesn't go off until right after the Eyes spawn, which is obviously bad. I'm wondering if people have specific patterns of communication they use to make sure that a vuln can be given without delay when the topside team is ready.

We try to do it as a giant eye is at about 50% and on its way down. That way nothing should be up and you get a nice full burn.

I noticed the same, so when the stomach team is ready to take it down, I tell them to do so 10 seconds before the next spawn, no later. If it's not vulnerable 5 seconds before the next spawn, and the stomach people are still 'working on it' I usually tell them to stop and not risk getting a new spawn right at vuln. Works out well usually.

Oh, and communication is done through voicecomms obviously.

like most fights, we just zerg the shit out of it, seems to work pretty well thusfar.

We just have vulns happen when they happen, if small eyes spawn just as it goes vuln thats only ~2 sec off of vuln dps giant eye would take ~5 sec away, and a claw would be OTd.

By simply not caring when a vuln comes we get 40-45% damage done in a vulnerability, with carefully timing it would probably let us get him in 2 vulnerabilities instead of 3, but we have never felt it neccesary to put in the 'effort' of trying to make the vulnerabilites happen at certain times.

It also seems to me that if you spend time waiting to kill the stomach tents at the 'right' time you loose just as much time overall as you would by maybe having to take an extra vulnerability due to having to deal with some spawns during a vuln.

This is what we do and it works well for us. It usually nets us a kill in 2 vulnerabilities or < 15% after 2 so that we can take down the stomach anytime and zerg the last 15%.

Do NOT do it when you are < 5 seconds to small eyes.

usualy as a giant claw is at ~30% and dieing, or right as a giant eye spawned, kill the stuff up then kill cthun

We take him to vulnerability ASAP. We could probably reduce it to 2 vulnerabilities by dicking around with the claws inside the stomach, but the fight is usually so smooth we can spend the extra few minutes and not try anything too fancy.

I don't really like waiting on vulnerabilities, because no matter what Vulnerable time leaves you time to catch up if you're not doing well. If you are doing well, it really doesn't matter. I personally don't like him going vulnerable as a Giant Eye is up, usually there's a Claw up though.

You guys might want to put a little more effort into your posts. Just a heads up.

We kill the right Flesh Tentacle first, then get the second to between 1-5% and then wait for an Eye Tentacle spawn. Once the little eyes are dead and any remaining giant claw is being off-tanked, the raid leader gives the go ahead, the last tentacle is dropped, and everyone goes all out on C'thun.

Advanced warning for an incoming vulnerability allows warlocks to throw CoR/CoE/CoS, mages to get full fire vulnerability, druids to faerie fire, and warriors to fully sunder C'thun before the start of the 45 second window, which helps get the most out of the 45 seconds. Doing this, we normally kill him in 2 weaken cycles.

Our rules for vuln is trying to do so approximately 15s after the previous giant spawn. So, either when a Giant Eye is basically dead, or when a Giant Claw is around 50% or so. In p2, I run a 30s timer which gets reset every time a giant tent spawns, so people generally know when's a good time to vuln. But even with really bad vuln timing, 3 vulns is pretty common. 2 vulns are possible if you have good timing, though.

Obviously though, the best time for a vuln is right after a Giant Eye dies, because those die with about 10-15s left until the next spawn.

You get a nice 45(?) second break between the end of a vuln phase and the next wave of crap spawning. This is on top of the vulnerable time you can use to catch up. As such, we rush the vuln phase as quickly as possible. The damage that you lack during the vuln phase pales in comparison to the extra time you have to kill adds.

There isn't a 45s break, it's more like 5-10s and then a giant claw spawns.

As far as I can tell, it's the beginning of the fight all over again, regardless of where you were beforehand.

Yeah, but giant claws are the easiest part of the phase. Don't you have 45 seconds until eyes spawn?