Bastion of Twilight: Cho'gall - Defeated March 31st 2011

[TeaLeaf]

I'm pondering on the same tbh.  

The flip side of the coin is that if we perform at the right dps level (as we can & should) then we do not have to push healers to the limit to cover up for our weakness.  

It's not just a time loss due to time spent on the adds.  It's about individuals performing as they can and should with their gear levels.  We need that performance, we're into the end game now and the final 3 bosses, none will be easy or possible at all if we cannot produce high levels of dps consistently.

[Slush]

Well, in this case:
With one more dps'er, they dont have to push themselves over the edge. They might have a little ... slack to watch where they are standing, to move, to group and to learn the encounter. This will ultimately be how we win this. Not on uberdps, but on the technical part. When that is won, this boss will go down with 3 healers aswell.

But, this might be too tough on the healers, i know. :-)

[Twyst]

If you think bringing a frost DK with chillblanes (slow), hungering cold (root) and HoW with DnD (aoe) will help on the adds, then by all means consider bringing me as a dps on that fight.

[TeaLeaf]

If you think bringing a frost DK with chillblanes (slow), hungering cold (root) and HoW with DnD (aoe) will help on the adds, then by all means consider bringing me as a dps on that fight.

What sort of dps levels are you bringing though?  Probably best to jump into a heroic with a couple of the officers so we can get an idea of what the options are.  DKs are certainly good at the AOE, but we have other considerations too, not least of which is the melee who are geared for it and normally doing it!

[Twyst]

What sort of dps levels are you bringing though?  Probably best to jump into a heroic with a couple of the officers so we can get an idea of what the options are.  DKs are certainly good at the AOE, but we have other considerations too, not least of which is the melee who are geared for it and normally doing it!

A good question. On my skada meters, I just pulled 13k across the whole of BRC, averaging 10.5k on the boss fights. We cleared all bosses. That was in a pug though, so the Luck Of the Draw buff applied. It should also be noted that the chillblains talent is only taken in PvP specs as is a talent to reduce my 2nd interupt CD down to a minute. Also, I only have 5 epics in my DPS equipment which also plays a factor, so I would also expect to have the lowest DPS of the DPS section. I don't expect to DPS on this boss, just bringing the option of a Frost DK to the table if the raid requires the utility

[TeaLeaf]

Aside:
This is what worries me at the moment for this boss.

Damage 'on Chogall' from ALL wipes last night was:

27.0m/1.96m/1.82m/32m - Teaell
10.6m/5.20m/6.65m/27m - Tanales
14.0m/0.08m/7.40m/22m - OT
10.8m/4.00m/6.18m/21.5m - Maldaror
13.0m/1.82m/5.28m/21.2m - Switchback
13.0m/1.86m/5.18m/20m - Grimnar
16.0m/0.80m/0.00m/18m - MT

The figures are:

Damage_on_Chogall/Damage_on_little_adds/Damage_on_Adherent/Total_damage_on_all_targets

The variance is huge.

This means people are spending a huge chunk of time processing what they think they should be doing in terms of movement, rather than actually using their brain power to handle their dps rotations.   Keep in mind I covered almost every MC with a possible fear if I saw Mal was MC'd at the back and then dispelled the feared, so at every MC I was stopping dps to cover the raid MC for up to 5 seconds. That just makes the differences worse.

Running around accounts for some of it but not the extent of the variation. Some of the differences was where for the last few wipes I focued on boss until wave 3 of small adds, but then how did I also do the same dps on the small adds as some people who were doing it for the previous 2 waves as well!

Some of the dps difference was down to me not really bothering with the Adherent as it was going down quickly enough. We have to move far enough out of position to dps the adherent that I think we are losing dps now due to range and then creating potential MC issues for ourselves by being spread out.

Perhaps the right move is to kill it closer (yes, sounds controversial) but then keep the group together and enforce harder adds dps and better slowing. Moving Hal 60 yards off mean all the ranged have to move, Tirk has to follow and then we all run back to group up again (assuming we're not feared in the mean time). So maybe keeping Hal in range of the main group is the better way forward, so ranged just need to turn and not to chase. Still thinking on this one as there are downsides too.

What am I missing re the dps as the numbers are a concern.  Hopefully I'm missing something that is bloody obvious, but I cannot see it at the moment and that's frustrating. :frusty:

[JonnyAppleSeed]

Perhaps the right move is to kill it closer (yes, sounds controversial)  but then keep the group together and enforce harder adds dps and better  slowing. Moving Hal 60 yards off mean all the ranged have to move, Tirk  has to follow and then we all run back to group up again (assuming we're  not feared in the mean time). So maybe keeping Hal in range of the main  group is the better way forward, so ranged just need to turn and not to  chase. Still thinking on this one as there are downsides too.

Thats a big one for healing too as the spread we do makes control of the MC slower (boss hits harder) and screws aoe healing  ..... They should be put down right on our casting limit. If they get too close it's no problemo for the MT and casters to move back for those extra needed yards and it will keep em all heading in the right direction

2p spent

[Tirkad]

Can anyone explain me what's that Unleashed Shadows that's doing so much damage to the raid? I didn't find it on wowwiki/wowhead/tankspot.

[Whitey]

We need to get "Tricks of the Trade" on the tank when the small adds spawn (every time they spawn).  It would make a huge difference as the adds would all head for the tank and everyone else can concentrate on dps (and the rogue wouldn't die as much).  Looking at the logs it was only used once in all of the attempts on Cho'Gall tonight.  I'd suggest creating a macro to save time.


and for Tirkad: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=93220

[Slush]

Can anyone explain me what's that Unleashed Shadows that's doing so much damage to the raid? I didn't find it on wowwiki/wowhead/tankspot.

Its the Aoe damage he does that ticks 3 times after he gets a swirly blue/purple ring around his legs in the Shdow Orders phase.
Unavoidable, but im always putting down healing rain before... and doing chain heals when he gets the ring/when it ticks.

This at the same time as small adds doing damage to melee is what caused Myth a couple of deaths.
Small adds and Unleashed Shadows separate is easy though.

[Slush]

Lol.
Debilitating Beam
This is what the tentacles do. Muahahaha. Lucky for us, we will get better at interrupting next time.
Here is who took most ticks from it.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-wz5dndzjw7xdxsum/spell/82411/

The way to deal with this, is that the off-tank needs to pick up as much aggro from these as possible. This is what hal did great yesterday, but we are very spread out.
In addition.. they need to be interrupted aswell (?). These must never lol-lazerbeam on healers. In the back, I had 2 beams on me. They hurt.

Tbh, we dont need to be that spread out, healers(me atleast) are doing dispellduty on the vomitting ones pwetty quick.
And in the good couple last good tries, I was ok on mana aswell...

[TeaLeaf]

Indeed, looking at logs atm.  here's my immediate thoughts:


6% wipe was good.  Im happy with the 2 healer strat we are now pursuing and can see it getting us the kill.

Spacing: 5 yards, not 50 yards please folks in P2.  I'm pretty sure I said that on TS last night.  If we spread out too much the tentacles are *******s to get to and kill.

Tanales - how about speccing into Entrapment for this fight?   If we get 8 seconds of stationary adds from firstly a frost trap, then a snake trap it would help a lot.  Plus, if snakes are humping adds they are likely to pull some aggro and so keep them stationary longer.

Fails:
-where we regularly failed was simply not remember that adds spawn shortly after the adherent dies.  Pretty obvious, but we need to be ready for the adds, screw the boss, turn and wait for the adds to spawn as they were what was killing us.
-Worship, we seem unable to see the CD for both Worship and little adds at the same time!  When a worship is coming shortly after adds, don't be 50 yards away on your own as you'll be the one to get MC'd and remain MC'd for ages as we can't get to you!

[Tirkad]

I'll be short and direct: this will be very tight if things continue like this.
Tonight raid was quite interesting from the healers point of view, we tried different tactics to handle the various difficoulty we were having.
You may have noticed that in the first runs i was going oom very fast and for almost all the attempts duration i was very low on mana. This was becouse i was trying to keep a 100% activity both on tanks and raid even if i had to heal one target per time, which is very mana draining for a paladin.However, even if this brought Slush to have little to no problems in the mana department, it still was too risky for the tanks.
We tried then to keep on our jobs, me sticking almost always on tanks and Slush on raid and popping an heal or two on the tanks when he could spare one. This worked good for me, i was able to save at least half my mana pool for the last phase (which allowed us to survive the tentacles for the first time i can remember), but on the other side was really tight for Slush: it just took one single mistake from the dps to dump all his mana (see the attempt where sheep died in the second last add phase).
I tried different tactics to handle the add tank as well. You know Halbarad is going out of range (i'm using an euphemism here, becouse to help the dps he's getting on the other side of the world, really) to make it easier for the dps to control and burn down the ads, that means i'll have to follow him down, resulting out of range on the following worship. I've tried to stick to the middle to avoid risks while being targeted in the worship phase, but it's making the healing too difficoult (i have 2 tanks to keep alive and i have to keep moving becouse of the shadow crashes on me or on someone near me) so i decided it was better to stay alone and far away from everyone else, so it's really unlikely i end up moving for the whole phase and not be able to heal; however this brings a new problem: i may not be able to get back in time. In the last attempt i was about 30 yards away from the raid when got hit by worship, i stayed in that state for some seconds, and then hal stunned me while running back, i had to be stunned for another 6 seconds, that's something like 10 seconds without healing (not to mention the time to run back) and i couldn't catch up: Hal died.
I wrote this just to let you know that healing wise is really tight: one single mistake will most probably lead to a wipe, if we afford to exclude the luck factor (as tl told me more than once).
Too Long;Didn't Read
We (as healers) can do little more to make this fight easier, but i'd like you to notice that most guilds (as you can check from the logs) are doing this with 3 healers, since they seem to have no problems to handle damage and adds with 5 dps.

[Arcticfire]

Question @ Slush, how many times do you use youre mana tide totem in this fight?

[Whitey]

We (as healers) can do little more to make this fight easier, but i'd like you to notice that most guilds (as you can check from the logs) are doing this with 3 healers, since they seem to have no problems to handle damage and adds with 5 dps.

We discussed this last night and the main issue with going 3 healers is that most guilds doing this have more dps than us.  We would like to have a try again with three healers but we really need everyone to look at what they can do to improve their dps.