Ok we have killed Patchwerk twice but we still see very strange behaviour with hateful strike that causes us to wipe.

What happens is that one of our 3 HS tanks will drop off the list and stop receiving HS's. This usually happens about 1-2 mins towards the fight. Then inevitably tanks will start dropping.

We use 4-5 healers on 2 offtanks then 1 on a 3rd. Has anyone else encountered this problem and know what causes it? It is not always the same tank that is dropping off either, seems to be a different one every time.

I am assuming somehow that someone else is getting on the list, our mellee are standing in slime beforehand so they are very low hps so if one of them was on the HS list they probably wouldnt get hit. We have tried to find out if HS has a threat component, we have tried our offtanks building aggro and also just auto attacking but neither seems to help.

Can anyone shed some light on the subject?

Do a search for a thread called "Surviving Hateful Strike", it had a lot of discussion about this.
http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=7594

I had read that thread before but I thought it didn't discuss this issue

I reread it and saw this post by Gurg:

thing is we have had tanks drop off who have taken lots of HS's and our offtanks never move so they are always within range. I guess we will try them all going all out on aggro to make sure they stay ahead of the dps

Here's my best understanding of how this works:

1) When Patchwerk hits you, he generates a significant amount of extra threat for the target of his attack. This applies both to autoattacks and HS. I do not know if the value for autoattack differs from the value for HS.
2) Every 1.2sec, Patchwerk uses HS. He looks to people in melee range with him and selects the #2 through #4 highest-threat players at melee (after the MT, of course). Whichever of those three has the highest current HP, he will attempt to HS.

That's it.

If the "MT" isn't working hard to build aggro and the top-hp #1 OT is building a lot of aggro, it's possible to pass the MT on the aggro list and switch places, such that the old MT becomes an HS target, and the old HS target starts taking autoattacks. This is uncommon.

More common, an OT who is the #3 OT and thus takes fewer HSes, or an OT who dodges or parries a bunch of HS in a row early on, can fail to gain the necessary amount of threat to stay on the HS list. DPS -- typically fury warriors -- will surpass him and come to occupy that spot on the HS list. Getting HS'd as an offtank does two things for you -- it generates some flat aggro value; and it also fills your rage bar allowing you to use a bunch of threat-generating abilities. The person most likely to fall off the HS list is the lowest-hp HS tank. Especially if you are using a two-tank strat with a third just as a buffer.

If your DPS on Patchwerk is strong, and you are Horde (stupid BoS) you might want to enforce a 30-second wait before your fury warriors engage Patchwerk. Everyone else can go in pretty quickly. That generally provides the head start you need to keep it stable.

Dipping in the slime is a bad idea unless you are a troll using it to berserk. It is a selfish act that can only hurt the raid. 5k hp fury warrior, who goes down to 2k after a slime bath.

Let me give you two scenarios:

Stable setup:
OT1: 4.5k/10k hp
OT2: 4k/10k hp
OT3: 9k/9k hp

When OT1 and OT2 are both hurt, OT3 eats an HS. That works. Now, let's say OT3 falls off the list and DPS Warrior slips onto it.

Scenario1:
OT1: 4.5k/10k hp
OT2: 4k/10k hp
DPS: 5k/5k hp

In this scenario, the DPS warrior gets splattered.

Scenario2:
OT1: 4.5k/10k hp
OT2: 4k/10k hp
DPS: 2k/5k hp

In this scenario, OT2 dies.

Losing a DPS class is nothing. Combat rez and continue. Losing a buffed OT with a high place on the hate list is a huge problem.

DPS classes who dip in the slime accomplish nothing but potentially getting tanks killed. (Trolls notwithstanding, of course.)

The fight is actually very doable with a single OT eating every single hateful strike. Using this method, a slime bath for all of the melee is mandatory :-)

Why is it mandatory? Explain what would happen, please, if your DPS all had 4k-5k hp instead of 2k.

Tell your offtank to turn their back to Patchwerk for a few hits.

one of our fury warriors is a troll thats why he was standing in slime then all the mellee dps decided to do it -_-

im a noob. why are troll warriors exceptions? seems weird to be troll, not class/role specific.

isnt that just like a +15% attack speed for a few seconds? is it really worth it? although, patchwerk is supposed to be a dps crazy fight, so i guess it is. hmmm, never would have thought about that