Feral Megathread - Page 325

dukes · 09/08/08, 10:05 AM

You're best off dealing with things with the idea that casters can tank some mobs, if you can keep a couple off them. I generally go for keeping threat on one or two, and using taunt off-cooldown on another to keep the damage down. You're better off keeping two or three mobs locked to you and letting the casters deal with the rest (and if you have two tanks, if they do the same this should deal with most of them if it's a controllable AoE pack) than trying to tank all of them and not actually tanking any - if you combine this with putting single target people on the ones not being tanked, using stuns on them/others, and using things like Frost Nova, you can avoid the casters taking much damage at all.

Boevis · 09/09/08, 4:41 AM

In general, the idea is that you're going to Hold 3/4 adds and have the CC to handle the others if they're untankable by casters. There's very few large groups of mobs that can pound casters into the ground, without the ability to have enough tanks to handle it.

Specifically for the Dragonhawks, assuming warrior MT. If you have a paladin of any sort with you this is a DPS fight, otherwise you need to outlast or risk many deaths. Without a paladin, kill 1 hatcher and let the other hatcher spawn 4 waves before killing him, burn them down single target so you can hold aggro and keep light DPS on the boss so you don't hit the 35% mass hatching too early. Do this 2 more times and then bring him below 35% to hatch the rest, burn your AoE taunt and let the casters AoE.

With Paladin, kill 1 hatcher and let the other hatch his entire side, stay in bear for the first 4 waves then shift out and hurricane, between hurricane and consecrate, the mobs will both die faster and do less damage to whoever they aggro onto than would be done if you tried tanking and held 3 of them. If you have the DPS to burn him down to 35% after the first wave, do it. When they come, open with hurricane and shift to bear as soon as you get any aggro to build rage, the Pally BoPs the Mage as soon as frost nova fades and you AoE Taunt. If you had the DPS to bring him to 35% they should be dead by the time your taunt fades. The key to the hatchlings is that they have low health (7k), and the stacking debuff makes them more dangerous with time, so high DPS works better than trying to control them.

In either case, dispells are essential, as 10 stacks of the buffet brings many casters close to being 1shot by the flame breath.

kalbear · 09/09/08, 2:58 PM

I'm going to be tanking Brutallus for the first time this week, on our progression kill. Rawr of course favors max avoidance without knowing about the MH+OH+Stomp worries, and I've read about the various 21k/20k/19k dependent on armor, healers, and overall avoidance.

What I'm more curious about is the value of hit. I can swap out [Belt of Natural Power] for [Waistguard of the Great Beast] - which is a gain in avoidance at the cost of armor and stam. But it also has +hit. Is this worth the swap? I'm currently leaning towards no, as we do have a moonkin in the raid - but I don't know how likely it is that a taunt will be resisted yet.

Also, what do you believe to be more valuable - the elixir of major defense (+550 armor) or elixir of major fortitude (+250 health)? How have people used consumables when progressing on this fight? I'm personally leaning towards the health, as I'm floating around 19.5k before any commanding shout/imp shenanigans.

Hoofhearted · 09/09/08, 3:12 PM

You probably haven't ticked "Sunwell Radiance mob" in the buff tab if you see avoidance being preferred.
Taunt resist is 1% nomatter what +hit you have on brut. Rest of the questions have been answered previously.

kalbear · 09/09/08, 3:23 PM

You probably haven't ticked "Sunwell Radiance mob" in the buff tab if you see avoidance being preferred.
Taunt resist is 1% nomatter what +hit you have on brut. Rest of the questions have been answered previously.

No, I have clicked sunwell avoidance. With a dual-wielding mob and scorpid sting/insect swarm, I'm up to anywhere from 60 to 75% avoidance, depending on the gear and debuff setup. That actually makes sense; 75% avoidance and 17k health is stronger than 22k health and 60% avoidance assuming that the mob won't gib you. That's not the case with Brutallus.

Good to know about the 1% hit issue. I thought that there was some kind of nerf on that, but wasn't sure; I see a lot of bears stacking +hit doing Brutallus.

Also, the reason I brought up elixir of major defense vs. fortitude was that I had not seen that mentioned anywhere in the thread. There are comparisons to agility/ironskin vs flask vs. agility/fortitude, but major defense does not seem to be a major consideration.

• Melthu · 09/09/08, 3:37 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

No, I have clicked sunwell avoidance. With a dual-wielding mob and scorpid sting/insect swarm, I'm up to anywhere from 60 to 75% avoidance, depending on the gear and debuff setup.

Brutallus does not have a DW miss penalty.

kalbear · 09/09/08, 3:53 PM

Thanks. That's good to know. The amount of dual-wielding mobs out there seems to be very, very small. Sorry for the ignorance otherwise. I'll keep tweaking in rawr.

RareBeast · 09/10/08, 4:15 AM

Originally Posted by kalbear

No, I have clicked sunwell avoidance. With a dual-wielding mob and scorpid sting/insect swarm, I'm up to anywhere from 60 to 75% avoidance, depending on the gear and debuff setup. That actually makes sense; 75% avoidance and 17k health is stronger than 22k health and 60% avoidance assuming that the mob won't gib you. That's not the case with Brutallus.

Just make sure when you are using the optimiser that you put some conditions in, such as health > 21k or whatever you want your minimum health to be and it will generate a set that is more appropriate for that fight.

I use 3 conditions as a rule for my tanking gear on the optimiser :-

1) Chance to be crit < 0
2) Health > 20000 (good enough so far for BT & Hyjal)
3) Mitigation from AR > 73% (otherwise it generates lower armor sets which just don't seem "right")

Boevis · 09/10/08, 7:14 AM

That's one problem with tanking spreadsheets (and healing spreadsheets), they can only show averages. High dodge will always beat out high health/armor if you assume you're fighting a boss that cannot possibly Burst you. Simulators are fairly absurd as well, I don't think it's possible to have a valid input for all possibilities (maybe for brutallus), much less manage the coding for everything.

One thing I would like to see in Rawr is a way to input your max 3 second burst base values (before armor/stance reduction) and have it take those into account, ie. Brut MH's hit for 20k and OH's hit for 10k before armor, Stomp hits for 20k (approximate figures, I don't know the exact). Knowing how likely you are to "just die" would be nice.

Shamgarr · 09/10/08, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by Hoofhearted

You probably haven't ticked "Sunwell Radiance mob" in the buff tab if you see avoidance being preferred.
Taunt resist is 1% nomatter what +hit you have on brut. Rest of the questions have been answered previously.

I wasn't aware of this 1% resist mechanic... is that specific to brut? I'd be interested in seeing the source on that. In our own experiences, our warrior in capped hit gear (with moonkin) has yet to miss a taunt, whereas it often happens to our druids. As far as other sunwell bosses, I know we've seen far more than 1% taunt resists on Kalecgos and Sathrovar.

TimWischmeier · 09/10/08, 11:22 AM

Taunt counts as a spell but is in addition to that affected by melee hit (was changed in 2.3). As a spell, it has a 1% chance to miss you cannot overcome, your warrior has just been lucky not experiencing any resists on Brutallus.

Astrylian · 09/10/08, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by RareBeast

Just make sure when you are using the optimiser that you put some conditions in, such as health > 21k or whatever you want your minimum health to be and it will generate a set that is more appropriate for that fight.

I use 3 conditions as a rule for my tanking gear on the optimiser :-

1) Chance to be crit < 0
2) Health > 20000 (good enough so far for BT & Hyjal)
3) Mitigation from AR > 73% (otherwise it generates lower armor sets which just don't seem "right")

Originally Posted by Boevis

That's one problem with tanking spreadsheets (and healing spreadsheets), they can only show averages. High dodge will always beat out high health/armor if you assume you're fighting a boss that cannot possibly Burst you. Simulators are fairly absurd as well, I don't think it's possible to have a valid input for all possibilities (maybe for brutallus), much less manage the coding for everything.

One thing I would like to see in Rawr is a way to input your max 3 second burst base values (before armor/stance reduction) and have it take those into account, ie. Brut MH's hit for 20k and OH's hit for 10k before armor, Stomp hits for 20k (approximate figures, I don't know the exact). Knowing how likely you are to "just die" would be nice.

Rawr already supports what you want, directly. You guys are forgetting that there's more than just Overall Rating. By definition, Survivability Rating means how much burst you can take. It includes mitigation from armor already.

You're looking for an optimization of Overall, with the additional requirements of 'Chance to be crit <= 0' and 'Survivability Rating >= 74000' (74k is equivalent to your 20k hp and 73% mitigation example. For Brut, I go with Survivability Rating >= 82000)

• Melthu · 09/10/08, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by Shamgarr

I wasn't aware of this 1% resist mechanic... is that specific to brut? I'd be interested in seeing the source on that. In our own experiences, our warrior in capped hit gear (with moonkin) has yet to miss a taunt, whereas it often happens to our druids. As far as other sunwell bosses, I know we've seen far more than 1% taunt resists on Kalecgos and Sathrovar.

Yes, the reduced resist chance on Taunt is unique to Brutallus and a few other bosses where taunting is an intended mechanic of the fight (I believe Nalorakk is another example). There is nothing you can do to either increase or decrease your chance to successfully taunt Brutallus, it's merely luck that your druids get resists while your warrior has not.

At least, that's the case for druid taunt as I understand it. It's possible that warrior taunt works differently, but I really doubt it.

Nuitarin · 09/10/08, 1:01 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

I'm going to be tanking Brutallus for the first time this week...

Also, what do you believe to be more valuable - the elixir of major defense (+550 armor) or elixir of major fortitude (+250 health)? How have people used consumables when progressing on this fight? I'm personally leaning towards the health, as I'm floating around 19.5k before any commanding shout/imp shenanigans.

For me [Bloodberry Elixir] which is cheap on my server and a [Elixir of Major Fortitude] works best for Brutallus. If you are dieing very quickly you can use [Flask of Chromatic Wonder], I avoid using [Flask of Fortification] because of the dodge loss.

TimWischmeier · 09/10/08, 1:35 PM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

optimization of Overall, with the additional requirements of 'Chance to be crit <= 0' and 'Survivability Rating >= 74000' (74k is equivalent to your 20k hp and 73% mitigation example. For Brut, I go with Survivability Rating >= 82000)

How do boss damage and survivability rating interact? I mean, how do you know/calculate by Brutallus' attack speed and damage per hit(s), that 82k will make a good number to go for? For me, seeing a number x of mitigation / surv rating, it is very difficult to adept in what numbers it will "effectively" turn out (ie opposed to cat dps rating in an earlier version).