After a bit more testing tonight, it appears the bite is going to the person nearest on threat to the current Blood Mirror target that is not the tank. (it seems as though its an absolute value, as it can be the person above or below them).

We were running into trouble getting a consistent bite target while playing with the Shadowmourne quest due to the "second tank's" rage generation. Our normal bite target was consistently 2nd on threat, but he'd only get bit on the attempts when the Blood Mirror was right under or above him. When the druid was lower, it was going to (seemingly) random people, including myself on the kill.

That does seem to refute it. Was it consistently going to the highest threat mage of the two? I'm curious if you were actually LAST on threat, circumventing the whole mechanic, perhaps making it go to baseing off the MT. Also, are you attacking BQ at all as the "healer tank"

The reason I feel it is linked to the Blood Mirror target is based on our experience in both weeks. When we had a consistent Blood Mirror, (no switching for Shadowmourne), it always went to the highest threat person that wasn't tanking/BM.

When he had to alternate Blood Mirrors, everything changed. Our "normal" bite target's threat didn't change, he was (still) consistently at the top of the threat meters, the Blood Mirror's threat did, however. When he was able to climb back to 2nd on threat, the bites went normally, when he wasn't, it was going to people who'd never been bit.

For anyone using my mod (ICC Crimson Halls - Blood Queen Lana'thel (Normal)), I apparently forgot to include the spell ID for the 25 man version of Essence of the Blood Queen, which made the mod do nothing in 25 man. The updated version is attached.

I would start the fight by judging the boss. It's safe to assume that I was probably the second or third person to hit the boss on our 5 pulls.

I am not sure which of the two mages were selected relative to the threat list, just that they were both directly under the main tank (in other words, they occupied the #2 and #3 threat spots).

We did instruct players to not DPS until the bite had gone out. Some players ignored this, especially our two rogues and our hunter. Assuming that we had players that followed my instructions not to DPS, I would certainly have been above them on the threat list (and I should have had RF on as well, giving my heals a little extra threat).

We did World of Logs it, if that helps. If nothing else, it should show any DPS that would've held off until the bite went out.
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Edit: I parsed our kill attempt to find out who was not attacking until the bite. I found two players (Stakk and Fayme) that sat there and waited until the bite went out. These players were, without a doubt, below me on the threat list.

I've had something nibbling at my mind for some time, and doing some research I couldn't find immediate disproof. Specifically regarding prioritizing Hunters highly for bite targets. I've tried mods designed by folks in this thread for this fight and they have placed Hunters high on priority (this can be manually altered, of course). The reasoning given is because Hunters are showing in top slots on WoL.

It's a fact that the first bite victim should out DPS anyone else in the raid simply by dint of having the + damage debuff for more time. It's debatable that the first bite issues to highest threat (unmodified by Tricks or MD), but I lean in this direction (I've started driving the bite to myself by using Righteous Fury, which removes the threat reduction from my talents when active - more on why at the end before complaints that a Ret shouldn't be a first victim). Hunters are often bitten first, as they have no threat reduction talents - they generate at 100% threat then can wipe this via FD.

Hunter bitten first = more debuff duration = more damage = shows higher on logs. This does not mean that victims 2+ if Hunter should surpass some other class that could have been bitten instead. No offense to our Hunter friends, but a good 10% of their DPS is the pet (% grows if BM for some reason), which will not be modified by this buff. Therefore they're at 190% ((90% * 2) + 10%) rather than 200% increase. If many raids are biting Hunters 2nd, this perpetuates a self-fullfilling prophecy of Hunters doing higher damage.

I would think that Hunters and any Warlocks whose pet isn't just standing for some buff purpose (and Unholy DK?) should be lower on any given bite priority. Any given guild should arrange priority based on their guild members DPS contributions sans pets (or modified downward by some degree where pets are involved). Is this unreasonable?

Sidenote regarding why I've been using RF - partially to test if I can intentionally drive target (80% certain, I've only recently begun trying and was worried regarding tank threat in those first few seconds), but mostly because it isn't picking our high DPS mages and I've managed a far higher sustained DPS under the bite than our Hunters. As raid leader I wouldn't be my own top preference for first target, but it's higher than who she is picking "naturally."

As if this fight wasn't easy enough, now you can make your bads bite people even more accurately. Check it out (in beta at the moment):

VampArrow - Addons - Curse

(Sorry for the slight necro.)

It's been a while, but I feel I should note that BQL's room coordinates have been fixed. Range checks now work fine.


Also, I am 100% convinced that the eligible players for first bite target will ALWAYS be the two highest players on threat that are not actively tanking the boss or have blood mirror. This is the exact behavior I have seen for weeks, and our first bite is only ever different if someone is not paying attention and out-threats our two designated targets. Again, 100% convinced. Note that mages still appear on the threat list (greyed out) if their mirror images are in use.