A question for those knowledgeable about this fight. Is it reasonable to have healers and meteor soakers take 4 marks every switch or do they need to have separate rotations from the tanks?

Calling people idiots is uncalled for, especially when you're wrong yourself. I'd just like to point out, 65-40=25, not 15. 25^2 + 25^2 = ~35^2. And I've yet to measure it, is it really square enough that you can use pythagorean theorm on the distances?
You can place totems halfway along that 35yd line and be 17.5 away from your 'safe' healing spot, and both 'max range DPS' spots. However, you might take a mark from both Morgraine and Thane. There is no way to place totems in range of anyone doing DPS and not risk taking marks in the placing.

No one has to draw diagrams involving (aparently) difficult geometry, spend hours of practice to figure out where those spots are in the room and reliably do it between marks when dealing with Blessings.

You act like this is some difficult and mathematical strat. It's not. It's about the idea that OMFG MY MELEE NEED TOTEMS. No, they don't. As a melee class in a guild that this entire theory is based on, I do virtually nothing on 4h. I follow my tank around and stare at mobs with shieldwall on. Congratulations to me!

As I understand it, it's about the idea that OMFG Alliance all have Blessing of Salvation and BoK (10% more stamina on a fight where everyone takes damage, let along the other stat boosts) and OMFG it's even harder than usual on this fight for Horde to give anyone tranquil air, let alone windfury or FR or whatever.

The drawbacks of totems vs blessings (in both power and useability) has already been hashed to death, and it's a bit pointless going over it again here, although it's equally a bit pointless for an Alliance raider to try to explain to experienced Horde raiders how OMFG they're placing their totems wrong (and to do it with a diagram that can't add 40 to 25, natch, although your idea may still be possible- although we're talking letting the totems effect a ranged group only, in two positions only, if they stand on a tightly defined spot only, and if the shaman can get an exact positioning on the totem drop which good luck, they don't drop on the spot you're standing on).

As far as melee goes, not having done 4h myself I'm not going to argue with you about the usefulness of rogues (much as I suspect you're exaggerating), but I know it's a warrior-centric fight, and if you think totems to support tanks wouldn't come in handy you are most certainly kidding yourself.

The totem vs Blessing debate is already a dead horse.

Was a great ideea from Blizzard that failed horribly . Why ?

Massive improvements to blessings.

Originaly Blessings vs Totems were very equal. 5 minuites mobile blessings wich were better for buffing purposes vs stationary totems that were both offensive and defensive

Than things went HORRIBLY wrong. Blessings recived buffs ( 15 minuites greater blessings ) that made them a viable raiding tool ( They were intended to be short term buffs originaly in alpha.... They should hav been something like .. Blessing of Might +600 AP for 10 seconds with 1 minuite cooldown )

Totems recived nerfs in their offensive role : There are no totems wich affect raid bosses/ mobs ( or if they had .. they got nerfed --- aka Huhuran debuff vs grounding totem )

So now everybody sees totems as a buffing method only. So you cant compare Blessigns with totems at buffing because they were never intended to be equal . Totems should make up the difference by their offensive role ( Lets say fire nova totem will also reduce attack speed by 10% when it goes off /// Or searing totem will Light the mob afire giving 10% more fire based dmg take etc )

When blizzard will fix the offensive power of the totem they will be equal. But since they have forgoten why totems vs blessings were equal in the first place .... there is a slim chance that will happen.


On a side note : I am very dissapointed in Blizzard's recent philosophy of game design .. aka .. Take the easy route.

Biggest dissapointment : Burning Crusade Story : The most logical and the coolest way to continue The Frozen Throne Story was OBVIOUSLY to have a THIRD faction ( Blood Elfs / Naga / Dranei + 1 more Race.. ) from Outland and make the game in to a 3-way battle : Horde / Alliance / Outcasts.

But NO... They just took the easy way out and made huge lore mistakes / sacrifices.

Second dissapointment : Balancing Paladin vs SHaman in raids... Easy way out : Give them to each side.. Lol



Enough of this long post wich was aimed at the totem vs blessing imbalance. ( dont ban me pls )

Which is due to.

Your mages and locks are choking their damage potential because they don't want to pull and be "that guy".

Look at it this way. Some classes have to travel x distance to begin attacking. Other classes have to travel y distance. If x < y, then the classes at y need to have very significantly higher dps in order to do more damage.

I'm kinda confused at this entire thread TBH...you send your "dps group" into Thane, hit his shield wall, they back out. You send them into Mograine, hit his shield wall, they back out, back to Thane, shield wall 2, out. Back to Mograine, shield wall 2, out. Thane, kill, out, Mograine, kill, out.

We consistantly kill both Thane and Mograine on I believe the exact same mark every single time, for what, a month and a half now? How does DPS even matter on this fight? This isn't a DPS fight. Our entire DPS lineup basically holds back because well, hitting shield wall #1 3 sec earlier does -NOTHING-.

And you only have to hold back right at the mark application...the only way to pull aggro is spike damage right around a mark, or get out right before a mark, both are easily controllable/avoidable. It's not really a salv issue, if a mark hits, and you then crit a 2.5k fireball and get an ignite tick...

As for healing, I'm not sure why people think healing meters matter. We have 2 healers on a tank in some places, 3 in another, and both those tanks tank the exact same thing. The 2 healers will output more healing...then when 2 die, healers stay in the safe spot, on "backup" for if another healer drops to a void zone or something. Those healers just heal all sortsa DPS that need it, they can spirit regen as much as needed, etc....they get a ton of healing, but it's not on the tanks always...

As a priest, solo healing Blam/Zeliek rotation, I NEVER have mana problems. I sit at full mana most the entire fight. I guess BoW helps, but I'd easily be full mana the entire fight without it....and my tank doesn't die, not sure what else you expect a healer to do. If 1 tank never takes a void zone hit, but another worse tank clips them every now and then, the healer with the worse tank does more healing.

I'm curious, how long does it take for other guilds to kill Mograine?

Elendril, in response to your post on page 2 the horsemen's behavior does change as the fight goes on. We initially had thought it was percentage based but through some testing found it to be time based. We ran the fight out to 35 minutes last week and Zeliek and Blaumeux were absolutely ridiculous. We wiped at 1% on Zeliek (our 4th horsemen; how stupid is that) and went back and redid it in about 15 minutes (now confident that it was time based) with no problem or real noticeable change in the rate of special abilities. I don't recall the exact time where it starts to get nasty but it was somewhere in the realm of ~25 minutes.

If this was addressed between then and now I apologize I did not have the opportunity to read all 16 pages of this thread :|

Well it's either that or he just doesn't know how big the room is, because you definitely can not get totems on 2 different horsemen. Unless you want to be really impractical and not have ranged soak meteors, of course.

This is common knowledge. They "enrage" after 20 minutes, spamming their abilities with no cooldown.