Zuworty's Raid Information

[Karrock]

I have done some research and talked to a few people since I made my original post. With that being said it is probably the BiS for all 4 players regardless of roll in the raid. With threat not being an issue at this time i would lean toward giving the Axe to Foroshell, as he is dps for more of the raid then Ascoli. If we can get more dps out of a melee, without Tyr's threat being an issue, I see that as the best use of the weapon at this time.

Markenhoof

I'd have to agree with Markenfail's assessment. Foro being 100% dps in every situation gives him the edge for my vote over Tyr. Ascoli bailed on the raid for asking him to flask so I say his loyalty is in question. Foro has seniority over Maalick and is superior in that melee dps role. Foro has contributed with mats and crap and will absolutely put the time into getting the extra ###### needed. Plus Foro makes the raid all the time.

K

[Karrock]

I will be in Portugal for work early next week and will not be able to make the Tuesday run. I will update the calendar tonight.

And no, they are not opening a dairy queen in europe.

K

[Holyssa]

Recent hotfix to Lady Deathwhisper (before people say "zomg why is da mana slurpin' so fast?!" tonight, lol):

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22418851790&sid=1

# The Lady Deathwhisper encounter has seen the following changes in the 25 player normal version: mana pool has been reduced, the health on all adds has been reduced, and Adherents will wait a little longer after spawning before they start casting.

# Interrupting a fireball being cast by the Ymirjar Flamebearers in normal and heroic Pit of Saron will no longer make them instantly cast Hellfire.

# The ghost waves at the beginning of both normal and heroic Halls of Reflection have undergone several changes that should make them easier to defeat such as preventing 2 mages or 2 mercenaries from spawning in the 5 mob pulls, a shorter duration of the spectral footman’s shield bash, and the spectral mage’s flamestrike having a longer cast time, shorter duration, and (in heroic) doing less damage.

# The Oculus loot improvements posted here have been made: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...o=1&sid=1#0

[Waldonnis]

I'll withdraw from the Shadowmourne consideration. Looking over things, there are other weapons in ICC that are just fine for me to work with (Shadowmourne would be a threat increase over the others, but that's about it). I'm probably the least likely to be able to complete it anyway, since my emblem acquisition rate is abysmal enough to worry about affording even emblem gear upgrades (so I couldn't even consider spending them on anything else, like primordial saronite).

While I would love to have the axe, it's just not that important for me at this stage.

[Holyssa]

Making a new post in light of the...discoveries made in Kailand's 10-man: Precious & Stinky! And WTF @ moshpit-sized trash pulls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKe2N7wKxKs

These two mini-bosses are Gluth clones which roam the halls in the Plagueworks. Both use a rapidly stacking Mortal Wound debuff and Decimate.

We handled the zombie adds on Precious (which don't heal him, unlike Gluth) by kiting them (and Precious) around the stairwell, since they stack a debuff on anyone they touch which increases physical damage taken. Popping Army of the Dead helped soak up initial Mortal Wound debuffs, and bought both tanks some much-needed survival time for cleaning up the remaining adds. Our 25-man methods may vary of course, and we could probably go by the vid & toast them.

Stinky is similar, but he doesn't spawn adds. He instead has a gas cloud which damages anyone close by. The tricky part is juggling the Mortal Wound while being mindful of gas ticks during Decimate, which means HEUGE raid-healing.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Holyssa

[Karrock]

Quick post about last night's run.

I think we did well-although I wish this wing didn't remind me of naxx so much.

The Rot encounter seemed to go south when 1) people panicked and/or 2) big blob kiter died. People got the hang of the spray, just remember it is only a 1/4 turn (90 degrees) in order to avoid the spray.

1) Essentially people cannot panic when they get the debuff. They need to find the kiter and bring the small blob to the small/big blob being kited, not to the kiter himself. The key is the small blobs combining, and dont worry about being close to the big blob because the big blob should be aggro'd on the kiter. I have read that cleansing the blob saves healing/dps time as well, but premature cleansing will result in bad things-when in doubt wait a few secs. Also, do not dump aggro on the little blobs-if you fd or ice block or whatever, the blob will pick a random target and the target will not be notified the blob is on them-the notification only comes when you get the "mutilated injection".

2) They recommend tank kiting for him-mostly due to the dps loss of one of our hunters and the fact that a tank may survive more than one hit by a big blob. I was hoping there was a pattern to the ooze pools on the outside, but the only thing I could find is that it is a 4 pt rotation in which no sector is repeated (until the entire room is reset). After reset-it does not resume the same pattern and could be a different rotation. So there is an aspect of luck involved.

To mitigate the risk, a strat we can try is having a hunter ready to distracting shot the big blob across the room when the kiter is pinned. This will require TS communication-there is too much going on for raid chat to be effective. My experience with this seems to have me needing a small window (3 sec "reprieve") in order to have the kiting back on track.

Thoughts?

K

[Markenhoof]

Yes I have a few thoughts.

Who are you and what did you do with Karrock?

4 paragraphs and you didnt say Monkey or Douche

I am kinda worried.

Be safe on your trip to Portugal next week.

Mark

[Calendar]

I'll withdraw from the Shadowmourne consideration. Looking over things, there are other weapons in ICC that are just fine for me to work with (Shadowmourne would be a threat increase over the others, but that's about it). I'm probably the least likely to be able to complete it anyway, since my emblem acquisition rate is abysmal enough to worry about affording even emblem gear upgrades (so I couldn't even consider spending them on anything else, like primordial saronite).

While I would love to have the axe, it's just not that important for me at this stage.

I thank you for being considerate Waldy...

Ultimately, the entire conversation was somewhat irrelevant since it will the first person to reach the next step of the quest chain that will be the one obtaining the necessary drops. We will not be contributing primordial saronite from the raid stockpile for this endeavor either. If and when we get multiple players fighting for quest drops, then we'll make a decision.

And for those wondering what my own views were on this...

In my mind it was always a toss up between Waldy and Foro. They are both loyal, great players and would make good use of the weapon...what more could we really ask for?

[Karrock]

Yes I have a few thoughts.

Who are you and what did you do with Karrock?

4 paragraphs and you didnt say Monkey or Douche

I am kinda worried.

Be safe on your trip to Portugal next week.

Mark

Thanks Douche

Bad storms over in the UK so I will keep an eye on travel. The trip may be postponed...if it is, most likely I will be available Tues but not Thurs. As I know more I will update here and/or the calendar.

K

[Waldonnis]

2) They recommend tank kiting for him-mostly due to the dps loss of one of our hunters and the fact that a tank may survive more than one hit by a big blob.

Who's they?? Maybe on 10-man, but that's actually not totally true for 25...and most guides are written from a 10-man perspective. About the only tank that could take more than one big blob hit in a row is a druid (very good health scaling and great mitigation, and I know two druids that currently tank the big blob in their raids that agree). That thing hit me for 27-30k or so every time, so it can literally two-shot me pretty easily...and I'm also frequently getting hit by the blob's AoE. This is compounded by the fact that I need to actually hit the thing to gain any threat...which means I'd have to tank it, not kite it, or else it will just run all over the place after the taunt effect wears off. I'd basically need 2-3 dedicated healers to pull off any kind of tanking/kiting strategy since I would need to actually tank it about 50% of the time that it's alive.

A paladin might have better luck with judgments being ranged (threat) and having shield block (added mitigation), but who knows. Not making any excuses here, just saying that if we do need a tank to kite it, death knights are probably the worst class for the job out of any of the four tanking classes. The only thing I can do is taunt and IT with the rare deathcoil if I'm avoiding getting hit, which is about 5-10% of my normal threat generation, if that. On a side note, I have no Demo Roar/Demo Shout/Vindication-equivalent ability to help with incoming damage reduction nor any form of block (even druids have SD).

Honestly, this seems to be yet another fight where the "offtank" needs to be better-geared, have superiour stam/mitigation scaling, and/or have a more well-rounded ability pool than the main tank if big blob tanking is the strategy of choice.

[Ascoli]

Honestly, this seems to be yet another fight where the "offtank" needs to be better-geared, have superiour stam/mitigation scaling, and/or have a more well-rounded ability pool than the main tank if big blob tanking is the strategy of choice.

If you ask me tanking the big blob is pretty much out of the question, even for 10-man raids. The only advantage I can see with having a tank kiting is being able to survive a little bit longer should a slime puddle appear below their feet. It's true paladins do have more ranged threat abilities although during the few attempts we did with Kailand's 10-man I also wasn't able to hold threat. In any case, for the moment what we really need is more practice.

[Karrock]

It was a tankspot thread, they were talking about the OT kiting (as stated above) not stand and tanking, it was 25 man, and the OT's were druids probably for the reasons tyr said. We can try it with the shortbus (aka orcala) if we want to guarantee failure or we can try the hunter kite method again.

Thinking about it some more, we can put an xtra hunter in a stationary spot outside of the inner ring, moving around the room infrequently as needed to get to the other side when the kiting hunter gets close. Hunters should also be md'ing the big blobs to the kiting hunter whenever possible to help with threat. The less turn and fire is done, the higher chance of a successful kite.

K

[Karrock]

Looking at the run last night, our dps is full of fail. We need to have rotface killed before folks start dropping, no way around it. It is a hard fight to monkey-proof so people just have to do better....

K

[Kailand]

Looking at the run last night, our dps is full of fail. We need to have rotface killed before folks start dropping, no way around it. It is a hard fight to monkey-proof so people just have to do better....

K

It looks like most kills are taking about 4 minutes and 30 seconds, with some lasting about 5 min or more minutes. Most of our attempts were reaching that ball park. Everything I've read suggests popping all cooldowns at the start of the fight, since the ooze spawn time is time based, not health based, so we will have more DPS at the start then at the end. One suggestion I've read is that if we get to around 10%, spread out around the room and nuke ignoring kiting the small ones.

I think our best attempt was about 25-30%... we definately need more DPS from most people.

Edited January 15, 2010 by Kailand

[Calendar]

Latest Player Audit Results:

Tyrandius -- Good

Holyssa -- Good

Elrikk -- Upgradeable chest enchant

Orcala -- Good

Foroshell -- Low hit (missing 40)

Sneekeh -- Good

Maalick -- Good

Ascoli -- in Prot gear

Kailand -- Good

Karrock -- Good

Anamarie -- Good

Jestin -- Overcapped hit

Zeniita -- Missing bracer enchant

Draegloth -- Low hit

Druze -- in PvP gear

Tainish -- Upgradeable clock enchant (? Spirit Vs. Haste)

Xiris -- Upgradeable boot enchat (stam/speed Vs. Crit/Hit)

Zuworty -- in Holy gear

Kadiana -- Good

Kalea -- in Elemental gear

Markenhoof - Good

Tizaria -- Good

Bralor -- Good

Hannista -- Upgradeable boot enchat (stam/speed Vs. Spirit)

Eigun -- Good

Notoken -- Good

Alclave -- in Ret gear

Evila -- Missing ring enchant, missing socket in belt

Vitalremains -- low hit (missing 52)

[Tepheris]

I'm over the hit cap in preperation for the T-10 pieces...... and for the last time I hate depending on raid buff for the hit. That is all

[Calendar]

I'm over the hit cap in preperation for the T-10 pieces...... and for the last time I hate depending on raid buff for the hit. That is all

I'm publishing what I see. If you have a valid explanation than so be it, who am I to judge?

I'm not a WoW-Atlas and I certainly don't have a record of everyone's posts, messages, mails and whispers backed up somewhere.

The next couple weeks will might get a little testy as we poke and prod people to try and improve their performance. Patience and understanding will be required by all raiders (including myself). There is no reason to get up in arms when your name crops up on an audit or if a performance-related question is asked.

If and when DKP penalties are to be applied folks will be advised in advance.

[Karrock]

A couple rumors about Rotface:

The slime spray he does is in a random direction, not on a random player.

The sooner the mutilated injection is dispelled, the sooner the next one is applied.

He doesn't hit hard so it is recommended to have 1 healer on MT and the rest OT/raid.

I am not sure what is true/false, but I just wanted to put it out there for thought.

It would also help if the warlock pads were put on the same side of rotface just 10 or so yards apart (e.g. one behind each leg). Obviously it depends alot on positioning the boss after the slime explosions-which seems to be a pita.

K

[Holyssa]

Moar guides & movies. This time for the new wing opening tomorrow - The Crimson Halls:

Blood Prince Council

Abilities: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=891

Strat: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f128/61725-...-encounter.html

A 3-tank encounter with oodles of chaos mixed in. I hope one of our warlocks has a stamina-set saved up!

Queen Lana'thel

Abilities: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=895

Strat: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f128/61736-...-encounter.html

Brain links, biting your fellow raiders (yes, you read correctly), another DPS rat-race, and *drum rolls* ...PURPLE FIRE! Dunno if we'll try the new wing out, but here's the information to help bypass this mess.

[Waldonnis]

Upgradeable boot enchat (stam/speed Vs. Crit/Hit)

This is actually a debatable recommendation from whatever site you're using. In fights that have more than a few seconds of movement, Tuskarr's Vitality is superiour for caster damage/healing output (think it's 10secs of having to move or so). The stam is worthless...it's all about the movement speed increase, which allows you to get into a new spot faster to start casting again. It's hard to quantify without talking a ton of math, but I only consider Icewalker if I need the hit.

A couple rumors about Rotface:

The slime spray he does is in a random direction, not on a random player.

The sooner the mutilated injection is dispelled, the sooner the next one is applied.

He doesn't hit hard so it is recommended to have 1 healer on MT and the rest OT/raid.

I am not sure what is true/false, but I just wanted to put it out there for thought.

It would also help if the warlock pads were put on the same side of rotface just 10 or so yards apart (e.g. one behind each leg). Obviously it depends alot on positioning the boss after the slime explosions-which seems to be a pita.

The slime spray is indeed in a random direction, from my observations so far. I've seen him rotate in a direction where no players are or have been. He's apparently not so concerned with intentionally puking on someone...he just needs to get it out.

Healing on me shouldn't be bad from an incoming damage perspective, but...if that one assigned healer gets injected, someone else has to know to cover (same goes for cleansing duty). It's NOT as easy as just putting Beacon on me either, since there may be a healing lull at that point on whatever other target that paladin is assigned to (unless FoL/HL spamming is nearly non-stop regardless of what damage is being taken by anyone). This may require a bit more coordination than just "so-and-so on Tyr", since the situation is so fluid.

As for the Demonic Circles...I'm not sure what the intent is here. If it's to have a marker for the group to stand, it won't work too well after the first ooze explosion, as noted (since I have to move and the boss moves with me; getting him back into exact position is next to impossible with the current pathing bug). I suppose they could be "reset" after an explosion, but that's 1sec+ that the warlocks aren't doing any damage per cast w/GCD...all to drop a "stand here" sign? Easier to just say before the fight "when we have to move, everyone move left"...

...and that's if the entire raid needs to be in one spot to begin with. Given the random direction element, it's pretty pointless to have everyone moving all of the time (if anything, it decreases damage/healing output). May be easier to spread around him and just move towards the back of the boss if he's looking in your direction, then move back to your spot (PLEASE don't move on top of or behind me for a few reasons that I won't get into). This will let most of the raid just stay in place and keep mashing buttons at any given time.

[Martok]

I'm over the hit cap in preperation for the T-10 pieces...... and for the last time I hate depending on raid buff for the hit. That is all

I'm publishing what I see. If you have a valid explanation than so be it, who am I to judge?

I'm not a WoW-Atlas and I certainly don't have a record of everyone's posts, messages, mails and whispers backed up somewhere.

The next couple weeks will might get a little testy as we poke and prod people to try and improve their performance. Patience and understanding will be required by all raiders (including myself). There is no reason to get up in arms when your name crops up on an audit or if a performance-related question is asked.

If and when DKP penalties are to be applied folks will be advised in advance.

No lie. You don't even reply to people's PMs

[Kalea]

Uglutz need reply? Send to me. No telling what you'll get, but I'll answer you. *grins*

[Calendar]

Upgradeable boot enchat (stam/speed Vs. Crit/Hit)

This is actually a debatable recommendation from whatever site you're using. In fights that have more than a few seconds of movement, Tuskarr's Vitality is superiour for caster damage/healing output (think it's 10secs of having to move or so). The stam is worthless...it's all about the movement speed increase, which allows you to get into a new spot faster to start casting again. It's hard to quantify without talking a ton of math, but I only consider Icewalker if I need the hit.

That is a good point Waldy. My only concern is that I'm at times seeing this type of gemming/enchanting strategy as a means of survival (rather than an increase in efficiency). I'd rather see our raiders learn to be more aware of their surroundings rather than try to mitigate the issue through gearing (which we can all agree is unlikely to resolve anything). If a raider makes a valid argument than I will not oppose it.

The audit is really meant to make people AWARE of POTENTIAL improvement/issues. It is not meant to push people into gearing themselves based on my own beliefs.

====================================

...and that's if the entire raid needs to be in one spot to begin with. Given the random direction element, it's pretty pointless to have everyone moving all of the time (if anything, it decreases damage/healing output). May be easier to spread around him and just move towards the back of the boss if he's looking in your direction, then move back to your spot (PLEASE don't move on top of or behind me for a few reasons that I won't get into). This will let most of the raid just stay in place and keep mashing buttons at any given time.

Also a valid point, we'll modify our strategy tonight accordingly. Thanks Waldy.

====================================

Benchmarking...

Just to put folk's minds at ease:

Benchmark isn't going to be used at a mechanism to boot people out of the raid. Hitting new content and is likely to be the hardest instance before the expansion means that we all have to give that extra little bit of performance.

We want to assess WHERE improvements can be done: Is it gearing? Is it folks having a hard time following fight mechanics? Is it rotations? Talents? Glyphs?

We want to know where each raider sits in comparison to EACH OTHER. Is one Warlock always on top of the others? Why? Is there a large DPS discrepancy between rogues? What causes this? Is it something we can improve or is it something outside of our control?

Already we've seen that the thought of having to go through a benchmark is forcing players to ask themselves the question: "What can I do to improve?" And better yet, we have folks stepping up to plate and helping their fellow raiders improve!!!

Competition is fun and can help improve raid dynamics, but ultimately I rather have a raid that enjoys cooperating and helping each other.

====================================

Sitting out...

The following comments are here simply because they were recently asked:

The purpose of sitting out is to:

- Allow a rotation of raiders in and out of the raid

- Provide backup for folks that need to miss a raid

- Provide stability in the case of unforeseen roster circumstances

When you are asked to sit out, you are expected to show up at the proper raid time and leave only once the raid has been filled.

Being sat out does NOT give you the freedom to muck up your raid IDs and thereby force us to sit you out the entire week. We will NOT move to a weekly-based roster to allow folks to jump between raid groups. This defeats the purpose of roster rotations.

Zu

Edited January 19, 2010 by Calendar

[Karrock]

RE: Sitting folks

I'm not sure if this is already done, but I would suggest waiting to sit folks until right before the raid. This will all but prevent folks from planning other activities in advance.

The new rotface strat looked good-I would be surprised if we don't down him in the next couple attempts...barring any lag issues, naturally.

K

[Karrock]

The new rotface strat looked good-I would be surprised if we don't down him in the next couple attempts...barring any lag issues, naturally.

K

Oh my god I cannot believe how wrong I was. We are full of fail.

And I will fix my mic as soon as you people stop being douchebags.

K