You can actually get higher, even if not a leather worker.
Libram of Resilience will give +20 Fire reistance to helm or LEGS. (Pushing blastguard pants to 75 total FR)
BoJ Blastguard gloves
Revered KoT have a boe JC craftable necklace +30 FR / +18Sta
Green fire protection bracers are findable... although can be frustrating looking

Those 4 items can increase FR by 20+40+30+30ish = 120+.

Yes, but it's not worth actually going higher unless you plan on getting to ~510 resistance, otherwise you're sacrificing stamina while still taking breaths with only 30% resistance.

Last night me and some guildmates were working on Sarth3D 10-man again. We are definitely not seeing the same numbers as you guys. I am running with 356 FR when buffed, and we had repeated attempts where I was seeing 18% resisted on the breath. Based on the recent posts above, shouldn't we have been out of the 20% resist range with the FR I had equipped?

Another question. Many of you are saying the druid should only need to rotate through three or four cooldowns. I start my cd rotation when the third drake lands. We are not able to burn through the hard breath phase quick enough apparently because I am going through many more than four cooldowns. We rotate paladin/priest/hunterpet cooldowns with my own. Are you all saving Heroism for this last drake or using it sooner? We were using it early.

Thanks.

We did it last night - I had 350 FR buffed. The biggest breath I took all evening was slightly over 35k (no sanctuary/vigilance). Are you sure your FR aura / totem isn't fading?.

We used 5 DPS, 2 Tanks (druid on sarth/dk on drakes) and 3 healers - I never had to take more than 4 breaths with both drakes and twilight torment up. On our kill, they were only up for 45 seconds together, and shadron died before I needed a third cooldown (used barkskin for first one, survival for next two, drank a fire protection pot for the fourth but shadron was dead before it was used). If your using the 3 tank / 3 healer strategy, you will obviously be needing more cooldowns.

One thing to remember is to not use cooldowns before twilight torment is up - until vesperon opens his portal, they aren't needed.

A couple things here. The first is that the only breaths that you'll need cooldowns for are when Shadron, his acolyte, and Vesperon's acolyte are all alive. If any one of them is dead you should be able to survive without blowing a cooldown. If you're needing "many" more than 4 cooldowns it sounds like your dps is taking portals and killing acolytes. That's a viable approach, but it also means that you'll take very few fully charged breaths (basically, only ones when Shadron and Vesperon summon new acolytes and Sarth breathes before your dps has time to kill them again). Save your cooldowns for when Sarth does a breath and all 3 of those mobs are still alive. Note that once Shadron is down there will never be big breaths afterwards.

As far as the resists go, they are recorded strangely in the combat log. If you'd like to post your WWS I can show you, but basically what happens is that only 1 of the multipliers on Sarth's breaths affects the "XXXX resisted" number.

For example, let's say that you get a breath early in the fight, before Shadron lands, for 10,000 base damage and you resist 40%. In the combat log your damage taken will be 10,000 X 0.6 (after the resist) X 2 (Shadron's aura) X 0.88 (Protector of the Pack) = 10,560 damage taken. However, none of those mulitpliers will affect the number that shows up as being resisted, so you'll simply see 10,000 X 0.4 (resist percentage) = 4,000 damage resisted. So even though you really resisted 40% of the damage, if you strictly go by what's in the combat log you'll think you only resisted 4000/(4000 + 10560) = 27.5%.

Basically, any abilities that affect "damage taken" won't affect the "XXXX resisted" portion of the combat log. In fact, of all of the possible multipliers on Sarth's breath only Gift of Twilight, which is given by Shadron's acolyte, will affect the resisted amount shown. Any other multipliers like Shadron's Aura, Twilight Torment (from Vesperon's acolyte), Protector of the Pack, Barkskin, Pain Suppression, Vigilance/Grace/BoS, Hand of Sacrifice, etc. will not affect the resisted portion of the damage in the combat log. Gift of Twilight is different because it directly increases Sarth's fire damage, rather than damage taken by you.

3 tank, 3 healer strat for us. My FR aura was coming from the paladin healer that was assigned strictly to me, so losing the aura is highly unlikely. After the times we wiped though we would check the numbers on the breath that dipped me low enough that the next hit or two killed me before heals caught up, and they almost always came out to 18% resisted. I know many more breaths are not dipping me so low, but it's the few that do cause the problems.

And in case I'm just dumb and calculating wrong. For example, if the combat log says "Fire Breath for 34000 (5100 resisted)". We calculate it as 100 * (6120 / 34000) = 18%.

Unfortunately my health is also a bit low due to me not being a regular feral druid for the guild. We have roster issues that prevent us from bringing the perfect ideal comp (DK tank) to this fight on a regular basis, so I took a day to dig out my old FR set and build in the new stam and enchants to make it work. So my health isn't quite as high as would be ideal, but it gets the job done most attempts when nothing else goes fubar...


edit: thanks Melthu, your post came before mine. I may have logged one or two attempts last night, will check when I get home to see what the numbers look like in that.

First contributions to this thread, but i've read it extensively in my preparation for sarth10+3. My guild was able to down this last week for the first time after 7 attempts. Needless to say it happened a lot quicker than I expected but I want to provide some feedback to those who are still working on this.

Composition:

Tank(3): Feral Druid (Sarth), Prot Pally (Whelps), Prot Warrior (Drakes)
Healers(3): Shammy, Druid, Priest
DPS(4): Feral Druid, Ret Pally, DK, Hunter

Facts:

- We did not stack FR gear, in fact all we did was stack stam + FR aura
- MT wore polar set (+24 stam gems), and did not regem his T7 for stam
- MT is Enchanter/Alchemist
- Burned hero on Shadron (Although the kill was on an attempt when hero was down, so it is not necessary)
- Used a CD rotation of (Barksin -> SI/Frenzied Regen -> Guardian Spirit -> Bubble/Sac)
- MT plays from Brazil with 400ms
- From a DPS perspective, we were averaging 3-4 breaths before tenebron/shadron were dead
- We had double LOH available in case MT got too low (as a precaution)

From reading this thread I had feared that FR was a necessity as a feral druid to tank this fight however after experiencing it, I do not feel it is. Sure there is still a possibility of being RNG'ed but you can use your CD's effectively and still survive the breaths without it. So for those who are trying to find that magic balance between FR/stam don't stretch yourself too far to do it, if it's not working try just stacking stam and go for it that way. It worked for us, and hopefully it will work for you.

ps. In case you're wondering, I was the dps kitty in the composition, specced bomkin atm for 6 mins malys

That's true, nobody should read this thread and get the impression that fire resist is the only way to do it. The primary problem with doing it with stamina is that it's a bigger load on the healers (common name: stamina bear: latin name: manamus spongius)--but in a 3-heal setup, that's not going to be nearly the issue it is in a 2.5 healer setup.

The object of the FR gear is to make the tank more "deathknighty", if you will, and in doing so make each heal relatively more valuable, so that the MT healer can run out of a flame wave, shed a blaze, and still top you off before the so-called triple breath, and secondarily to ensure that you can single up your cooldowns instead of having to pair SI/barkskin and FR pot/Nightmare seed (or whatever cooldowns you happen to have handy). With barkskin resetting in a minute, you can go for a long time without running out of cooldowns if you're fully prepared for the fight--especially if you get a little lucky with Sarth's breaths. You can still single up your cooldowns if you have enough stamina, but you're adding 20+% to the MT healing load.

For the 10 man version, I found the advantage of FR to be precisely that you can survive without cooldowns. If you've got healers with external cooldowns, and the dps to down Shadron before running out of them, the FR becomes less necessary. FR gives you a bit more flexibility in composition, and a bigger safety net through the first 2/3 of the encounter or so (though you're in a bit more danger after Shadron is down until another tank can take over).

Now that our DK is more geared we've swapped places, with him on Sarth and me on Drakes, and it has some advantages. Just keep in mind that a druid tank without FR is very reliant on external CDs, good dps, and a lot of incoming overheal. A DK MT or a druid with FR can give the raid time to manage adds or take portals for instance if you feel this works better for your comp.

Forgive me if this is obvious--it seems so now, but I didn't come up with it right away when I was learning the fight, so I'll mention it just in case it helps someone else:

One thing that I have found that helped stretch the cooldowns out longer, is that I don't actually use my cooldowns until we're in the "danger" phase AND the cast for Flame Breath actually begins. When first attempting the fight, I initially popped Barkskin as soon as Vesperon landed, and chained SI right as it expired, giving me about 32 seconds of relative safety. By waiting until a cast comes up, I can be safe for perhaps a minute or more under those two cooldowns, depending on how quickly he casts, which can give the dps some extra time if they are a little slow to kill Shadron.

And for the record, I'm using the FR strategy (thanks, Shamgarr et. al.) with > 343 FR, > 39k hp after pull, and I've never been one-shot with either Barksin, SI, or a fire pot up.

Orin - Where's the 6120 coming from?

I'm guessing these are made up numbers, but a to figure out the exact resist % you'd calculate it like this (if both Shadron, Shadron's Acolyte, and Vesperon's Acolyte are alive):
Base Damage * 2 * 1.5 * 1.75 * .88 * .97 (Grace/Sanc/Vigil) * (1-Resist%) = Damage Taken
Base Damage * 1.5 * Resist% = Damage Resisted
Solving both for Base Damage
Base Damage = Damage Taken / 4.4814 / (1-Resist%)
Base Damage = Damage Resisted / 1.5 / Resist%
and plug in multiples of 10% for Resist%, look for values within the range of Flame Breath and you have your Resist%

I've always blown berserk on Tenebron. The faster Tenebron dies the sooner you can start to kill Shadron. The only reason that logic won't hold true is if you kill Tenebron before Shadron lands and you have idle time, but in a 10 man, thats extremely unlikely.

Boevis, those were made-up numbers I came up with just as an example of how we were doing the math during the raid. Obviously we are doing it wrong. :P Thanks for the clarification.

We use bloodlust on Shadron simply because we want more healing during that time than we do during Tenebron. Damage wise it doesn't really matter as long as you do it right after a wave comes, but Tenebron is fairly mediocre on healing requirements.

The greatest danger of the whole encounter is when shadron/vesperon are in play. Thus you want to make this period the shortest possible. Tenebron alone is not the primary cause of wipes it's when shadron/vesperon are down. Personally I was blowing berserk after tenebron was down once we started dps on shadron.

Seems like lots of guilds do it differently. In 10-man, our guild found that blowing most dps cooldowns (bloodlust, etc.) on Tenebron worked best for us. One of our major hurdles was the drake tank getting double-shadow-breathed if Tenebron and Shadron were on him together, and the other was lack of whelp control. Burning Tenebron helped alleviate both problems, so we went that route. As the Sarth tank, I'm pretty safe in 10-man, even without cooldowns (as long as I'm getting healed, I won't get one-shot), so shortening the time Shadron is up was less of an issue.

In 25-man, though, those were less of an issue, and my survivability was much more questionable (i.e. cooldowns required), so for reasons already detailed, we burn Shadron in 25-man.

We are going to attempt Sarth 3D 10 man tonight. I have everyone committed to 2 flasks worth of attempts.
I have read through this thread and I am leery of trying to do it with FR vs straight up stamina gear.

Our setup is as follows: (3 Tanks, 3 Healers, 4 DPS - All players are in full naxx 25 gear)

Tanks:
Feral Druid (Myself, Sarth Tank)
Frost DK (Drake Tank)
Prot Warrior (Add Tank)

DPS:
Mage
Shadow Priest
Hunter
Ret Pally

Healers:
Resto Druid (Raid Heals, Drake Tank Heals)
Holy Pally (MT Healer)
Resto Shaman (Raid Heals, Add Tank Heals)

I know this setup is not exactly optimal (Splitting DPS between magic/physical) but it is our absolute best players that have at least experienced and downed 2D 10 man twice. Is it possible for me to keep a shielding rotation with the Pally for more then 4 breaths? Or would I be better off using FR gear to push 1 shots off the table so my split DPS has a bit more time to get Shadron down and me out of 1 shot range? Has anyone done it taking portals the entire time to avoid twilight torment/1 shots?

First Breath: Barkskin
Second Breath: SI
Third Breath: SI hopefully still up
Fourth Breath: Pally shield (can't think of the spell name)

You are forgetting fire protection potion? Or is it not enough?

It all depends on the dps you are able to pull out, but my experience is that 10man is generally slower than 25man. We can kill 25man tenebron before shadron lands, but we are nowhere that close in 10man. So i use FR set, where i can survive without cooldowns (i still use them since its very close, but if we run out of them - we can go on with a bit of luck).

A priest shield will not be enough to keep you alive through a big breath with minimum resist. In 25 man, the max damage is 44112 for a 30% resist. You need to use cooldowns on breaths with Shadron, Vesp, and Twilight Torment up. Usually Barkskin + Survival Instincts is enough time for us to get down Shadron, but I usually have someone waiting for me to call out a third if needed.

On a more intersting note, we actually did 3D with 22 people this week since we didn't have enough online to fill the raid.

I'm now confident enough that the previously undetermined constant in the resistance formula is 510 to post what I hope to be final, correct tables for the flame breath.

This shows the levels of FR that eliminate a potential partial resist - for instance at 127 FR, a 0% partial resist is still possible (though highly unlikely), while at 128 FR this small possibility is eliminated.

At each level of FR, the table shows the maximum breath a druid could receive. This assumes BoS, but does not assume Grace, as a disc priest is less common than a prot pally / prot warrior, and even with one, Grace may not be at 3 stacks for 100% of breaths. Next to this is the amount of HP you must exceed pre-pull to survive this worst-case breath with no CDs.

Fire Resistance Thresholds for Sartharion's Flame Breath

10 Man

FR	Min Resist	Max Breath	Min HP
128	10%	45374	60499
219	20%	40333	53777
340	30%	35291	47055
510	40%	30249	40333

25 Man

FR	Min Resist	Max Breath	Min HP
128	10%	56716	75621
219	20%	50414	67219
340	30%	44112	58816
510	40%	37810	50414

nightcrowler - while it doesn't sound like you need it, you can use a mighy fire protection pot + nightmare seed and guarantee survival for another breath. But why would you want 5 tanks? 4 is already stretching things a bit. Having 13 DPS is probably doable, but they have to be very good DPS with decent synergies and none of them should die. I guess I'd rather ask the question why you'd want to bring 5 tanks.

There are two benchmarks for DPS: Tenebron should die just after Shadron activates, and Shadron should die about 40 seconds after Vesperon lands. If you cannot make those benchmarks, chances are you will fail the encounter.

Snarley - my experience is that relying on cooldowns makes the encounter less stable overall, and having the FR gear to absorb the breaths innately in 10 man is what makes druids fairly preferred. That being said, you're going to take a LONG time killing anything. Depending on how slow you are you may not get Tenebron down until Vesperon lands. If that's the case, I'd recommend strongly that you don't DPS Shadron down, you DPS Tenebron down.

Thank you for the advice, after reading further on here and taking a look at some gear recommendations to hit the 340 mark it really does seem like its the preferred way to go for 10 man.

I am a little confused on what you mean regarding the kill order. We have definitely managed to kill Tenebron before Vesperon lands (Vesperon being the one to land 3rd). I assume you meant if it took us so long to kill Tenebron that Vesperon actually landed before we had any DPS on Shadron? And you were recommending that we DPS Vesperon down as the second drake to kill(thereby negating Twilight torment quicker)?

I was also reading on tankspot someone who successfully used a 2 tank strategy (giving the added bonus of a 5th DPS with 3 healers). Add tank (Prot Warrior) dealing with the drakes and tanking tenebron basically on his whelp portal. However this seems like its a lot to ask of the Prot warrior but would allow our DK who is well geared for DPS to go his DPS spec.

Awesome table! Thank you very much for posting that in a more concise way.