I've read all the threads on C'Thun and didnt find this positioning neither posted nor discussed.

I'm aware many off you are more in Naxx-mode atm, but i thought i'd throw this out there if anyone could give their views on it.

I'm the RL of a guild currently up to C'Thun. Anub and Instructor on farm, but we decided we want whole AQ on farm before progressing further (well, maybe Noth too) in Naxx. Those DPS upgrades from C'Thun (and ofc the epeen of downing him) is just to much to give up.

So Phase 1 is mostly smooth after a raid worth of tries... Like 1-5 ppl dying, and they get rezzed at the phase switch.

Our problem in P2 seems to be beeing able to hold enough DPS on the Giant Claws/Eyes to stay ontop of the spawn. So i got the idea of this positioning from a C'Thun movie by the guild Time (i think).



My reasoning is:

* Claws and Eyes only spawn below people... Keeping raid together means they spawn where we want.
* Running = Time wasted DPSing
* Keeping your raid together = better from healing perspective atleast
* Cutting down on tanks in tankinggear

The obvious threat would be an eye getting of a beam... but with 2-3 mages free to CS, every melee in a few seconds range from an eye that shouldn't happen.

I realise there IS a chanse the claw/eye would spawn below one of the 4 mages, but since everyone is gatherd close by north that wouldnt be the end of the world.

Anything im blatantly missing in this setup? Any forseeable problems? Is it for some reason dumb to scrap the normal surround tactic?

GRouped up that much you're probably going to end up with a group of people hit by each ground rupture. Provided your healers can keep up with that i see no reason it wouldnt work

Yes, ruptures might be a problem. But the rupture AE isnt THAT big, and if everyone uses the entire area of the Northernside of the room to spread out it should minimize (like 3-4 ppl perhaps) the amount of people getting hit.

We tried a similiar setup initially, but the problem was that even with people designated for killing the south eyes the small eyes just died too slowly and we kept losing random people when new spawns came which lead to a chain reaction of more and more deaths. The incoming DPS from small eyes right after a ground rupture is very high, do not underestimate it, they need to be killed asap. By bunching up you're also getting more people ruptured at the same time. You're also depending on designated people handling the south eyes, and they can get eaten or otherwise distracted and if no one backs them up fast enough people will die to the small eyes.

Basically, you're making the time around each new spawn far more dangerous and not really gaining that much dps from it. Just spreading evenly around the room and having all DPS roam after they've killed their own small eyes and move back to position before new spawns worked a lot better for us at least. Using your proposed tactic we wiped for a night with maybe 5-6 tries in P2 with everyone alive, on the next day we just spread around the whole room and killed it on the second try we got to P2 with everyone up(first one ending up in a wipe in 3%). We used to raid with 17 healers then also, and did not have any trouble with keeping up with giant tentacle spawns when spread around the whole room.

That tactic can also work, but it is simply just a lot more vulnerable. The theoretical dps gain is not imho worth the added risk.

Make sure to really stress that everyone keeps themselves topped off health-wise and that they aren't standing around at 75% health coming out of the stomach or something. One unlucky ground rupture could kill a bunch of people.

Aark: True enough. For some reason i missed the chanse that one of the 4 mages getting eaten at a bad time would probably kill people.

And yeah, i guess a rupture + 1-3 ticks from an eye could kill someone nearly instantly.

Well well, it was a thought anyway, i guess we'll just have to do with the DPS beeing more on their toes and reacting faster, so the giant things drop quicker.

thanks for the feedback, much appriciated :)

Beav: That would be the main problem i guess... Back to the drawingboard :p

If a giant eye manages to beam your raid will be wiped.

I think the big thing you're missing is that random people get swallowed up.

If the small eyes spawn and two of those mages got eaten, you might run into a bit of trouble. Nothing you can't prevent by having backup people assigned.

We use something similar, and it works very well. The big advantage to having everyone grouped more tightly is that DPS can get on tentacles much more quickly, giant eyes get controlled more quickly, and healers are generally faster, since everyone is always in range.

You should always know when the giant eyes are going to spawn, which makes them fairly easy to control.

We do something pretty similar, but melee down south, not casters... works for us, though an unlucky southern Giant Eye spawn will almost assuredly be a called wipe.

We use same positioning in phase 1 with people dedicated in each group to take out small eyes. DPS roams to where they are needed.

We have been killing C'thun for months now but I'd like to hear some views on dealing with giant eye tentacles in phase 2. We have mainly been dealing with them by having a decent number of mages in the raid (6+) and with almost all of them having improved counterspell. However a few want to spec out of imp cs now and with giant eyes already causing wipes occassionally I'm interested to hear how other guilds deal with giant eyes.

We normally have mages assigned to different quadrants to silence when an eye spawns, but sometimes we wipe when a mage is in the stomach or a claw spawns near a giant eye and knocks a mage back etc. Does anyone use warlocks to CS with felhunters or any other methods of dealing with the initial silence/stun when the giant eyes spawn? Is CS without silence sufficient to stop the initial eye beam?

yea we've told warlocks to use felhunters before but they all say it's pointless becuase they die :P

Does the Giant Eye green beam have a cast time? Or does it need to be kept locked down via stuns/real silences?

it does have a cast time but it's a very short one. Very hard to interrupt esp for Oceania players :/

Then have them complain to their healers to heal the felhunters. If the felhunters get healed they don't die.

It looks like a 1.5cast, and can be slowed by Curse of Tongues. I could interupt it with my euro connection so it's not impossible ^^

i remember one attempt where my felhunter died 4 times to giant claws, and once to a small eye beam :(.

Giant claws spawned twice next to them and went THWACK. :*(

The start with all of the raid in the back is a bad idea. Why?

--What about those eyes in the south? They will flay the raid to death! If the Mages CS them, you're fucked on giant eyes basically (unless you have some amazingly quick interrupters). The way to know if a Giant Eye is Casting is when the eye part towards the top starts to turn green like it's charging up. After like 1.5-2.5 secs it casts a flay that rapes faces, and this you don't want happening. Just spread out around him like normal P1 positions and have the Mages spread out (if they aren't already) to pick up the CS' on the Giant Eye Tentacles.

I don't know how other people do it, but our whole raid rotates 180 degrees every Dark Glare. Whichever cycle we're on when P1 ends becomes the positioning for P2.

If we have 11 melee DPS, the 3 Claw tanks get Rogues doubled into their groups, leaving one person in each group to handle Small Eyes. The mantra in P2 is "back to your home positions." It's like soccer--you stretch away from your position when you can help with something nearby, but you snap back to it when you're done, and in either case, you're responsible for things that happen there.

So the rhythm of the fight goes:
--Giant Claw spawns. First priority is to ping the location and identify a tank and backup tank, then get everyone on it.
--at 20% or 10 secs until Small Eyes, whichever comes first, people positioned on the opposite side of them room get back "home." People on the near side can finish off the Claw in time. Usually everyone positioned on the far side moves back, not just the melee, so we're more consistent on Small Eyes and are better positioned in general.
--When Small Eyes spawn, melee attack them, while Mages and Paladins start scanning the room for the Giant Eye. When it spawns, everyone in range goes for the CS/Stun. Once one stun/silence (our resident Shadow Priest is pretty helpful here) goes down a Mage with CS up will call that they're covering the next cast, while everyone else just burns it down. Usually, that's all the time we need. People diametrically opposite the spawn point often don't bother coming over.
--Should be a few second of clear time to start over. Everyone returns to position. If a vuln is ready downstairs, this is the time. With really good communication, people are building up Imp Scorch/Shadow Vuln/Sunder as the Eye is going down.

Also, Curse of Tongues, really?

If Curse of Tongues works, so does Mind Numbing Poison?

Knowing Blizzard, CoT does and NMP is allowed to take up a debuff slot, but doesn't.