Killing Gruul the Dragonkiller

[Crikrunner]

Here are several useful links I turned up researching the Gruul fight this morning. Also included to are videos of kills using the two main strategies for downing gruul. One if for a raid with only a few melee dps, this involves just spreading out before the ground slam and staying in place. The second is for a raid like ours with lots of melee dps that involves them running and hiding before the ground slam and staying hidden till after shatter goes off then running back in. The death wish video is of this notice a dps warrior hides for 30 seconds doing nothing but they are still able to kill him. Please note regardless of the tactic used melee dps needs to wait to move by gruul till the tanks are back in position and tanks need to use intercept (bear charge for druids) to quickly get back in place even if the stance swap eats up your rage. Also bringing lots of dreamless sleep pots to be used before a shatter is mentioned in one of them we should try this once to see how it goes.

Info i still need: I still haven't found concrete info on weather pets affect shatter or not. Wowwiki says no, but they do take the snare but don't do dmg to those around them at shatter, while hunters last night said that they were adding to the damage. Every little bit of dps helps so if they aren't causing dmg to those near by during shatter we should be using them.

The wowwiki right up of gruul's basic abilities.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Gruul_the_Dragonkiller

Basic right up and a good explanation of the abilities:

http://cyndre.blogspot.com/2007/03/gruuls-lair-pt-ii.html

Movie of a gruul kill: ((This if for a raid with only a few melee, they only loose 1 person till near the end and panic have a bad shatter and kill him with only a few still standing)) Notice they group up for easy group heals, then spread out at 5 seconds till ground slam to proper positions also they are using dreamless sleep pots or at least the ele. shammy does.

http://files.filefront.com/7385320

Boss Killers right up: (( Has a chart for positions, note: remind leader to put one melee in each group and spread everyone out next time or like Kailand says maximize dps from grouping but, everyone should have a spot to go to for shatter not a group one here group two here setup. ie crikrunner this is your spot etc...))

http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild...&guide_id=7

Death wish right up: (( Small diagram more useful ideas ))

http://www.dwgaming.com/GruulStrat

Another right up: ((Baracko read the part about starting the fight j/k ))

http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild...;sid=e7APoBCGfn

Another right up with diagram: (( This one does an excellent job of showing safe spots ))

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=104

Second movie Death wish kill method: (( Cheesy but shows how much melee dps can hide and still do enough dmg to kill gruul ))

Edited May 10, 2007 by Crikrunner

[Guilozak]

Much thanks bradda!

[Vendes]

wow, nice!

[Kailand]

I'd just like to throw around some of my observations, I've already mentioned this to a few others but since crik started a thread on strategies, etc for gruul, I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

One thing I've noticed is that we need to take full advantage of the inter spec/class synergies to maximize everyones DPS. Perhaps it would be better to put a warrior in with the rogues for battle shout, and move the enhancement shammy into a group with hunters and a feral druid, make a caster DPS group with a shammy, moonkin, and mages/lock, and make a tanking group with a lock, the two prot warriors, a feral druid, and one other.

For example last night we only had 3 rogues and 2 enhancment shammies, then have the 3 rogues, 1 enhancment shammy with WF totem, and DPS warrior with battle shout together which should increase that groups DPS greatly, and by having the three hunters (all different spec btw), enhancement shammy with GoA totem, and a feral druid together in a group would increase that groups DPS overall too. Similar things also would happen with other class/spec synergies.

Additionally, we need to make a strategic plan on where people are during the shatters: I know on more than one occasion last night I had multiple melee running right at me and as a result the shatter killed some of us off.

I think we have a very strong group, and we are still learning the encounter. It's a just a matter of time before we get him down.

**edit for spelling and grammar

Edited May 10, 2007 by Kailand

[Crikrunner]

Great stuff Kailand! Also from a healing stand point I think assigned healing would be better. We need 2 hot casters (priest /druid casting a single hot on the dps then going back to healing/nuking) Two or three single target healers on main aggro holder, and 1 or 2 healers on secondary aggro holder. After a shatter all classes that can heal need to target #1 and #2 and top them off then back to their jobs. Then as the fight progresses and gruul hits harder have more healers switch from dps to heals. At the beginning of the fight most of my heals were wasted over heals as we had more healing on the aggro bearers then we needed. Also for aggro slot 2, would a druid have more dps to keep up with the main aggro bearer and more hps for the hits or is a warrior better? This would allow the non main tank to dps and swap in a shield should the main tank die? any of these worth trying?

[Scryll]

I know I'm not in the run, but I like to think I've kept up on the theory-crafting for group make-up, at least for DPS. Pre-BC, the hierarchy for melee buffing was battle-shout, totems, TSA and LotP, and battleshout, TSA, totems, LotP for hunter dps. I don't know how to ranke LotP anymore with the healing proc, though it should be more effective than TSA at least, but I know that shamans have moved up to the warrior slot for melee dps, and possible for hunter dps as well. In a sustained dps encounter, and even more in interrupted dps encounter, an enhancement shaman's Unleashed Rage ability, combined with their totems, pushes past Battleshout. Strategic use of commanding shout might still keep a warrior over a shaman, but it's not really possible to quantify and model its effect on DPS output, it's too variable.

[Kailand]

Warning : if you don't like numbers and math , you might want to skip this post

The only problem with battleshout is that it only works with melee DPS, not ranged DPS (hunters recieve no benefit).

As for Trueshot Aura, only one hunter in the raid has it (Luingwath), I'm survival and as such do not have it, but I do have expose weakness essentially is a raid wide AP buff against the target it procs on (1/4 of the hunter's agility). After the 2.1 patch it should always be up, and raid buffed plus using GoA, my Agi is over 800, which means that expose weakness grants all physical DPS an additional 200+ AP against that target. BM hunters when using thier pet have a talent similar to the shammy Unleashed Rage ability, except it is only a group buff - not a raid buff.

Right now for combat rogues the best totem to lay is windfury, for all other rogues it is GoA and then use poisons(or that is what I got out of reading the rogue/shammy forums), so if we have 3-4 combat rogues it probably is better to put them in a group with a shammy for windfury - but in our regular composition with 4 rogues and 1 enhancement shammy in the raid, it may be better for them to get battleshout and the other physical DPS (hunters/feral druids) to get GoA to maximise the raid damage. I haven't crunched the numbers for WF vs Battleshout for rogues and moving the totem to a hunter/feral druid group but I have a feeling it will provide the raid with more damage that way. Maybe a person more familiar with rogue mechanics will want to do the calculations for average DPS with Battleshout vs. average DPS with windfury.

I've done a calculation on what GoA will give me and it's contributions to my expose weakness:

->(77{GoA}*1.15{talent agi boost}*1.10{Blessing of kings})=97 agi

->which is 97 AP and 2.4% crit boost for myself

->boost all physical DPS against that target in the raid by (97agi/4)=24 AP via expose weakness.

Of course expose weakness procing will only be reliable after the 2.1 patch when it procs on every crit - and raid buffed my crit approaches 50%.

On a side note - do rogues have any talents that synergizes well with other classes (I don't think they do, but I could be wrong), like totems do for shammies, LotP/etc for Druids, TSA/expose weaknes/Imp. Huntermark/etc do for hunters, and shouts do for warriors? If they do it may make sense to split them up to create physical DPS groups with a rogue in each one.

But of course I will always favour a method that will increase the overall raids DPS/healing/tanking even if my DPS isn't buffed to full potential - to paraphrase JFK: 'And so, my fellow raiders, ask not what your raid group can do for you; ask what you can do for your raid group'

[Waldonnis]

Also chiming in from the "not in the raid, but some observations on mechanics" standpoint...

I think it'll all be situational. You can maximise inter-class buffing for DPS, but if effective DPS isn't the shortcoming, then you haven't done much (e.g. if healing is a problem, positioning for shatter, etc.). There are several options for group setups that may improve whatever the weakness is. For instance, I know the default "desire" of rogues is to increase their AP (making WF, BS, et. al. desirable), but if threat becomes a problem, then aggro-reduction may be a better fit. Same goes for healing on primary melee damage dealers...if they're dying too fast, placing them into a group with a resto and feral druid would end up helping on many counts (HoTs and ILotP, along with the regular LotP boost). In the end, it's all situational and will likely change depending on who you have and their specs. In short, when it comes to DPS analysis, think about the whole picture and remember the key principle: effective, sustained DPS...meaning if they're remaining alive and doing the best that their specs and gear allow but it's still not enough, then start down the "let's maximise this through buffs" avenue (my suggestion). If they're dying too quickly or getting caught by bad positioning, then all of the totems and battle shouts in the world isn't going to win the encounter.

Traditionally, min/max-style raiding guilds solve this by reducing the variables, i.e. dictating specs and enforcing attendance. This allows problematic fights to analysed in simplistic terms, usually ending up with a "we don't have enough <healing/ranged dps/melee dps/cc>", making it easier to solve. If you have variable attendance from week to week, it's probably best to squeeze in as many different group arrangements as possible per night in there to see which works best for that night (and maybe gather some info for trend analysis) since each raid will be different enough to introduce more variables. Eventually, you'll find a trend that's successful regardless and can cope with even a 25% variable roster easily.

Also, there's one thing that can never be discounted and that's how well people work together within the same group...some healers function better as off-healers assigned to one group, while others are better at timing heals for MT/OT...or even raid-wide off-healing. Same goes for DPS, although in a slightly different capacity....there are some circumstances (and people) where I would not lump all rogues together in a single group, for instance. Some have strengths due to spec or gear that warrant additional, counter-intuitive measures, such as threat reduction due to high crit chance or high sustained white damage...or may need some dedicated healing. And then there are those people that just don't get along and giving them a group chat together can lead to even more bickering/distractions *shrugs*. Ah, the joys and complexities of running a raid

I know the advice is unsolicited and probably well-known by the folks here, but it's something to think about regardless. Buffs are nice...but if you're banking too much on <person A with spec 2> to be there every night so they can cast/provide <buff/aura IV>....good tactics executed by good players with adequate gear win fights, not buffs

[Ghules]

Here's another great video of the fight (bit large though) from a healer's perspective.

http://files.filefront.com/HeadHunters_Gru...;/fileinfo.html

It shows great use of positioning prior to the shatters to prevent anyone from being knocked around, and post shatter.

Edited to include link *doh*

Edited May 11, 2007 by Ghules

[Scryll]

Warning : if you don't like numbers and math , you might want to skip this post

The only problem with battleshout is that it only works with melee DPS, not ranged DPS (hunters recieve no benefit).

I had this niggling little voice at the back of my head saying it just buffed melee atk power, but I convinced myself I was wrong. Oops.

Right now for combat rogues the best totem to lay is windfury, for all other rogues it is GoA and then use poisons(or that is what I got out of reading the rogue/shammy forums),

Not quite that simple, unfortunately. All dagger rogues get more from GoA, even if they're combat-specced, and it actually looks like combat-fists also benefits more from GoA, at least with five-man itemization. Combat sword/mace and possibly hemo benefit more from Windfury. They'll also derive more benefit from LotP's crit bonus than daggers and fists.

so if we have 3-4 combat rogues it probably is better to put them in a group with a shammy for windfury - but in our regular composition with 4 rogues and 1 enhancement shammy in the raid, it may be better for them to get battleshout and the other physical DPS (hunters/feral druids) to get GoA to maximise the raid damage. I haven't crunched the numbers for WF vs Battleshout for rogues and moving the totem to a hunter/feral druid group but I have a feeling it will provide the raid with more damage that way. Maybe a person more familiar with rogue mechanics will want to do the calculations for average DPS with Battleshout vs. average DPS with windfury.

I've done a calculation on what GoA will give me and it's contributions to my expose weakness:

->(77{GoA}*1.15{talent agi boost}*1.10{Blessing of kings})=97 agi

->which is 97 AP and 2.4% crit boost for myself

->boost all physical DPS against that target in the raid by (97agi/4)=24 AP via expose weakness.

Of course expose weakness procing will only be reliable after the 2.1 patch when it procs on every crit - and raid buffed my crit approaches 50%.

It's not just Windfury. You don't get any dps benefits from SoE or Unleashed Rage either, which we will. Just Windfury/GoA against Battleshout, BS wins hands down. It ends up adding to a difference of between 15-25 sustained dps per rogue between having shaman as their sole group buffer, or a warrior.

On a side note - do rogues have any talents that synergizes well with other classes (I don't think they do, but I could be wrong), like totems do for shammies, LotP/etc for Druids, TSA/expose weaknes/Imp. Huntermark/etc do for hunters, and shouts do for warriors? If they do it may make sense to split them up to create physical DPS groups with a rogue in each one.

No, we don't. Not one. Well, actually there's Hemo, but that's like Expose Weakness, it's a debuff on the mob so it benefits the raid, not a group.

Expose weakness doesn't stack, does it? Another possibility is slotting you or another EW hunter into a rogue group with a shammy dropping GoA instead of Windfury.

Some have strengths due to spec or gear that warrant additional, counter-intuitive measures, such as threat reduction due to high crit chance or high sustained white damage...or may need some dedicated healing

Stop looking at me! I'm not even in this raid!

[Kailand]

In response to Scryll's comments:

Hmm, I was under the impression that Unleashed Rage, also applied to ranged to, since the description mentions attack power, where as battle shout specifically mentions melee attack power. I will have to test this to see if what you said is true. As for exposed weakness - I'm not sure if it stacks, I haven't had the opportunity to check that out, since survival is still the least spec'd tree, and most do not get far enough in it for expose weakness. Also the forums are no help on that either.

It sounds that there probably is a point where WF will be greater than BS or GoA since WF scales with gear, whether the rogues in the raid have reach that point or not is up to them I guess - Although they were calling for WF.

In response to Waldonnis:

Mages, Hunters, and Rogues (and maybe druids and priests - unsure of that. does reincarnate count for shammies? ::looks at Baracko: all have agro wiping abilities. I'd hope that most of them know when to use it, and as such high agro attacks shouldn't be a primary real concern. I do agree with you that positioning and working together can overcome the incremental buffs, but we do need to take advantage of them if they are there.

In response to Ghules:

Where is the link

[Amahli]

Awesome! Definitely a good read and lots of good advice.

*gets to planning*

[Scryll]

In response to Scryll's comments:

Hmm, I was under the impression that Unleashed Rage, also applied to ranged to, since the description mentions attack power, where as battle shout specifically mentions melee attack power. I will have to test this to see if what you said is true. As for exposed weakness - I'm not sure if it stacks, I haven't had the opportunity to check that out, since survival is still the least spec'd tree, and most do not get far enough in it for expose weakness. Also the forums are no help on that either.

It sounds that there probably is a point where WF will be greater than BS or GoA since WF scales with gear, whether the rogues in the raid have reach that point or not is up to them I guess - Although they were calling for WF.

There is a point where WF is better for everyone. For non-combat and combat dagger/fist the point isn't reached with gear from the non-heroic level 70 instances. As for unleashed rage, I went and checked the shaman forum before writing what I did. Neither it nor Battle Shout explicitly say "melee attack power" but that's all either affects.

[Waldonnis]

Mages, Hunters, and Rogues (and maybe druids and priests - unsure of that. does reincarnate count for shammies? ::looks at Baracko: all have agro wiping abilities. I'd hope that most of them know when to use it, and as such high agro attacks shouldn't be a primary real concern. I do agree with you that positioning and working together can overcome the incremental buffs, but we do need to take advantage of them if they are there.

Definitely a valid point. I suppose I've just seen too many pissing contests and headaches happen in the past when people begin to rely too much on getting "their buffs". As a paladin, I learned early on that most people shouldn't get the buffs they most want (if they didn't like what I gave them, too bad ...and if they upset me, melee got concentration aura to boot ).

As to aggro wiping abilities, this is true, but cooldowns come into play heavily for two of the three classes mentioned. Mage invisibility is usually up once per fight in raid settings, but rarely more than once (ice block is NOT a threat wipe...it's equivalent to a paladin bubble, e.g. immunity, just for info). Rogues can vanish, but that's also on a longer cooldown and burns reagents (not a limiting factor often, but it can be in extended raids)....feint can be used more often , but it's effects can be marginal if you're fully buffed and outputting strings of heavy crits. In essence, the only true dump on a managable cooldown still belongs to hunters, which is why they are one of the few classes that I would actually strive to buff heavily for damage-dealing. Other classes like mage or rogue, despite their threat reduction abilities, would tend to warrant more threat mitigation than damage buffs, if any at all....I'd rather keep them alive and dealing damage, even if the scrolly damage numbers aren't as big for them individually. If a rogue can pop even one less feint or a mage not use the mana for invisibility, that's more energy/mana to put into damage and will likely end up with them outputting more sustained DPS, despite the lack of a direct buff to their damage. It's really the whole "fury warrior vs. rogue" scenario on a grand scale....a fury warrior can often output more damage than a similarly-geared rogue in a short amount of time, but due to lack of threat management, often doesn't live long enough to outdamage the rogue by the end of the fight.

I know I keep harping on threat management, but it's really just an example of one of the avenues buffs provide that doesn't fit in the "maximise DPS through direct buffing" box that many people fall into. My goal with the posts are more to open up other avenues of thought about group and buff dynamics in a raid setting (it's one of the things that I have a hard time letting go of these days in 5-mans, which seem to lack the ability to exploit that additional axis ), so I hope nobody is taking this as a "you should do this"-style lecture If maximising direct damage buffs makes sense for the circumstances (e.g. it's boiled down to "everyone's staying alive, we just flat-out need more dps"), then I definitely encourage it and there are about 3-5 workable group arrangements to buff the melee and ranged damage with what I've seen on the last signup or two, most of which were covered by Kailand and Scryll.

[Amahli]

Another thing about the intergroup buffs.. Last run the groups were sposed to be switched up after Maulgar to better enhance DPS for the Gruul fight. And I know some people say that the DPS increase with intergroup buffs is only marginal, in the length of the Gruul fight the intergroup buffs play a much larger role than in 5mans.

Don't blame Baracko for not switching up the groups, I should have made the lists more clearly pronounced in my email.

About the shatters. Melee DPS shouldn't be running all of the way over to where ranged is at. In fact, ranged DPS should be the farthest away from the scene (and it would be good for ranged DPS to learn the "safe spots" as shown in some of the videos Crik posted). Healers should be between the melee and the ranged, and ranged should still be closest to Gruul. I think a lot of the melee DPS have it in their heads to get farthest away from Gruul, even though distance from him doesn't matter, it's distance from the other players that matters.

And I know we also may have a problem with some people not moving, and just assuming that someone is going to move away from them. Don't assume

Crik, if you want to go ahead and talk to the other healers, and set up some sort of healing rotation, we should talk about that I know a lot of people just stay logged into the gruulshealing channel, myself included. I can tell you right now, I'm having to pull some melee DPSers back to doing healing/ranged (myself included). I talked to a few other guilds, and they usually do assign one person per half of the room to toss some heals onto the unfortunate DPSers or other healers that take a big shatter or can't move fast enough from a Cave In.

The way I have it set up for next week is 8 healers, 4 on each side. Though I do know and understand the need for a healing rotation with the healers we have to prevent overhealing and wasted mana. We'll figure something out before Wednesday

Other than that, I'm glad folks are reading up and watching videos and the like. I can't wait to get this big ugly beast down.

Also, I'm glad that the group we have works so well together. I know there are a few rough patches here and there, but overall, we have both the group mechanics, and the group chemistry to pull this off. Much love!

Edited May 11, 2007 by Amahli

[Baracko]

Just as a note: I made a mistake in reading the emails and did not switch the groups as Amahli had intended for the Gruul fight. This was an oversight on my part, and was surely not my intention.

As is the case with any raid, the first few times you formally lead it, its a little nerveracking... time only brings more understanding and comfort.

Amahli is much more comfortable with the Gruul mechanics, and I know we'll make the necessary changes next week!

Stay positive, and we will succeed.

- Bar

[Vendes]

I watched the healer video - was great! I need some better gear. But seriously i think a lot of it had to do with people other than the tanks not having to get heals. Even this guy with his gear, mana and pots would have a harder time if people didn't stay out of trouble. Awesome video and I know we can do it!

[Crikrunner]

Baracko had the groups at least melee well organized for dps. My point I was trying to make is if you optimize groups for dps you cant use the group 1 sw, group 2 nw, group 3 n, group 4 ne, group 5 se set up as group 1 may all be melee. Therefore you waste all the space behind group 1. If you maximize groups for dps, as you should, the set up should be spot based and indivual; ie crikruner you stand at the se healer spot, Baracko you stand at the sw melee spot. Does that make more sense?

The second point was just that if we a different plan for shatter, going in melee heavy, 5 seconds before each ground smash (the thing that tosses you in the air) all but 3 meleers need to run to a safe spot. The reason we are loosing so many to shatter is we have all this people in the middle being tossed into the healers and ranged dps and killing themselves and the healer/ranged dps. We either need the melee dps to run and hide some, or we need to trim the group removing extra melee dps and adding ranged dps. I find this solution unacceptable but blizzard does have bosses that are way easier with a certain group make up. For example: Moam in my aq20 days I would have to swap out member or kindly as certain people to sit out this boss fight, unless you had 3 priests 3 warlock minimum we couldn't kill him and never did even when we got good at the fight. There were "alternate tactics" if you had less than the 3/3 you needed but we never came close to pulling it off, as it was gear Dependant. So possibly having all but the few melee dps that can/has to stay run out , or change raid member before the fight should be looked into. That make more sense?

Ghules that healer video is amazing. It shows how you can stack people up in the safe spots to avoid ground slam, then run to their spot to avoid shatter dmg, great find! dabu

Edited May 12, 2007 by Crikrunner

[Amahli]

Is there a timer that lets you know when Gruul is about to Shatter?

Also, yes, Crik, I wasn't plannin on doing the pie chart group thing anymore

[Crikrunner]

La vendetta has a cool down timer for it, but it's a random use ability ie he could use once the timer counts down, but he could choose to not use it for another 30 seconds after the timer is up.

[Benea]

Unsolicited 2 cp: With 8 healers, and depending on the class composition, I'd assign 2 healers for raid healing (preferably resto druid or priest), the rest to MT/OT primary and secondary to raid. The paladins are always on MT/OT, everyone needs to stop healing the raid in general at 7-8 growths and just concentrate on the MT/OT. I usually end up as the unfortunate holy priest to heal the whole raid (since we run dps heavy at times), and I run laps around the room hitting everyone with hots The raid in general needs to learn to take as little damage as possible as stated by someone above. If you get 2 ticks with cave in, you get yelled at by me ^_^ (since you're usually dead).

For shatter, a good way for me to avoid damage, is to turn on friendly name plates--if you don't see them on top of your raidmates, you won't die. You can move while in the air direction wise, so having the camera distance placed on max (under video or interface options I think) helps a lot.

Oh yeah, what usually gives us trouble is the silence. At high growth numbers he hits really hard, and the timer for the silence is fubar'ed for us for some reason. We just try to stack up the hots when the timer gets close on the MT/OT.

Edited May 14, 2007 by Benea