Warmaster Blackhorn - DEFEATED 04/12/11

[TeaLeaf]

PTR

Live video

http://www.icy-veins.com/warmaster-blackhorn-detailed-strategy

http://25man.com/dragon-soul/warmaster-blackhorn

[TeaLeaf]

TLDR version:
2 tanks
3 healers
5 dps

This fight is about the raid absorbing the damage done and keeping up with adds.  Damage not absorbed will be taken by the ship.  When the ship dies, we wipe.
P1 Add control
P2 Execution

P1:
Twilight Elites Redblade - frontal cleave + stackable DOT
Twilight Elite Slayers - mild physicla damage + stackable DOT
-both can Blade Rush (designates a player's area for high damage to be done and those inbetween also get hit, so MOVE!)

Twilight Barrage - Pink swirly - stack in it and share damage
Twilight Onslaught - again stack on it and share damage
Twilight Drakes - harpoons
Twilight Sappers - spanwon deck and rush to bridge to explode, kill

After 3 waves P2 begins and you fight Blackhorn & mount (Goriona)
Goriona
- 30k twilight flames (shareable damage)
Blackhorn
- sunder
- Disrupting Roar (60-80k physical damage to all, plus 8 second silence)
- Shockwave (100k frontal cone with 4 second stun)
-Vengeance increases his damage by 1% for each 1% HP he has lost

P1 Prios:
Arrange to soak all Barrage (?2 groups in ranged)
Ranged: Sappers > Drakes
Melee; Sappers > Elites

P2 Prios:
Ranged: Goriona
Melee: Blackhorn

[Azunai]

I reckon it's very important we do as they say in the vid, near the end: Focus on the part *you* have to play individually, and it should be very doable.

[hubbah]

i heard the people from fatboss say that they ignored the sappers because the dmg the do on the ship is minimal and they focused on all other adds..
Maybe this is someting we can look into?

[TeaLeaf]

i heard the people from fatboss say that they ignored the sappers because the dmg the do on the ship is minimal and they focused on all other adds..  Maybe this is someting we can look into?

Yep I noticed that too, but I think I would note that the Fatboss PTR guide was a month earlier than the L2R version, so the fight might have been tuned in the mean time to mean that the Sappers do need to be handled properly.  The tooltip says 250k explosion from a Sapper, the later L2R video says 20% of the ship's HP.   Only way to find out is to try I guess.

Handy macro for DK tanks to be cast only when the Sapper comes out of his smoke bomb and starts running towards the bridge.  Probably worth testing stuns etc too.

Code Select Expand

#showtooltip Death Grip
/cleartarget
/tar Twilight Sapper
/focus
/targetlasttarget
/cast [@focus,exists] Death Grip
/cast [@focus,exists] Chains of Ice
The other thing I have read is that the Drakes are a higher priority for ranged dps as they are only in range for a limited duration, so it might be that ranged need to prio the Drake over a Sapper.

[Treach]

cos I can;t help myself, Here's the shortened version:
#showtooltip
/cast [@Twilight Sapper][] Death Grip;
/cast [@Twilight Sapper][] Chains of Ice;

It will only work if you can cast both spells at once.

[Whitey]

I've replaced the PTR video on the first post with the Live version.  Please watch it as there are a couple of differences.

[TeaLeaf]

2 tanks
3 healers
5 dps

2 tanks
2 healers
6 dps

Blade rush animation is much improved so seeing it should not be a problem, likewise AOE animations in general are better.

Not too much difference other than that imo.

[Whitey]

The other thing was the priority of Sappers (they have to go down and can't be ignored) and they mention the stuns/slows on them.

[TeaLeaf]

Yep, sorry I was working on the assumption they were a prio due to the later PTR video saying 20% HP, so for me I did not see a change!

[TeaLeaf]

Summary from tonight:

-ignore little patches, too much hassle ot move into them and they do very little damage on the Ship (we killed with Ship still at circa 56%
-kill Sappers prio, they really do take 20% HP from the ship!
-P2 circle around boss and no more than 15yds from boss (at least 11 yds though!) to make sure you can run out of his cone AOE

Otherwise this fight was pretty easy.

[Switchback]

After tonights raid from RGW im kinda lost....We have a good grp who can do great dps...it wasnt shown tonight....
I was ranged but as OS and TL came in as an Alt and we beat every1 on dmg done....this is not right.

I had the easier job of just sticking on the melee adds and when i could the drakes....but what about Tl?.... he was assigned the drakes and still beat all our main raiders and was on top of dps,on his alt.

I messed up and didnt run logs tonight so we cant look at what people were doing,but i spent about 20mins after the raid sorting this (im crap with computers and such)....but we are lacking serious dps....i dont know what it is, do RGW dps'ers have a problem managing things...this fight we have to look out for a few things and people cant cope....

Nuke the melee adds then the drakes....grp up,,nuke the sapper...its not hard. Hanne and Cynba were on top of this and myself. Pals,hermi, sithy ...you need to pull ur fingers out or we are stuck.

Some moaned about gear....im still in 359 gear for 3 of my slots...look at the fight on forums check your rotation if any questions arise ask on forum or ingame....we are a community that helps each other

[pälsboll]

I can only talk for myself and Im not moaning over gear.. gear are not everything.. it is what I do and stand that is more imported. in my case that I have to run after the mobs all over the place. and that "darn" little sapper... and when the melee mobs get to be many, Im kind of corned.. and the sapper.. he get very very close to the doorway many times.. and sometimes when I got there he was pulled by deathgrip and gone... a melee mobs charge got in the way too a couple of times, when im hunting down the sapper.  so I do know my faults but still a bit confused how to solve it.. and I guess after i checked a couple of logs, rgt and some others.. that cats arnt the greatest DPSrs in this fight, but still..

 I need Grimnar,  how do ya do it? help pls any specialtrick where to stand who to kill or how or who to dot? could ya give me a pointer or two?

[Sithvid]

We got to phase 2 once the dps wasn't massively different to the other attempts, therefore there must be something in the kill order. My dps  did suck and I will work at it for next time.

[TeaLeaf]

I think the grip is a good point Pals.  The grip tended to be when the add was about halfway along the ship, so the Sapper got pulled to the very edge of the ship.  It might be better to leave Grip until much later and use it as a 'get out of jail free' card when the Sapper is not yet dead.   A 5 combo stun from Pals is worth more to DPS than the grip as there is less movement.   This is not a criticism of using Grip, but I think we can refine *when* it is used.
(and I bet all those click targeters lost time when the Sapper suddenly moved too!)

....which brings me on to Positioning (I thought about this last night after the raid):

Is there any reason why both melee adds are pulled across to the very edge/side of the boat, opposite the ranged dps first drake target? (melee tended to get pulled to far right of boat, ranged tended to do left drake)

The fight is about accessing different areas of the deck so if you all group on one side then:
-big swirls are sometimes well out of range, leading to extended periods of running (and no dps) to the swirl
-you are less likely to have anyone in range of some of the smaller swirls as you are all grouped on one side
-you are further from the normal Sapper path (he runs down the middle)
-you force all charge damage to go through you melee dps team (charge will not go off the side of the ship, so it has to go through melee)
-it makes it far harder to put the melee adds back to back when you're on a ledge as you have less room to manouvre

If you leave them in the middle and stack them there then people have less distance to run to anything (ie more dps time), more space to avoid charges (360 degrees instead of 180) and more splash damage on both the melee mobs & the sapper.

Imo, the adds land in the middle of the ship, why not kill them there?  This then avoids the Grip problem mentioned above and leaves Grip as a 'last resort' safety net for when dps is particularly poor or a stun is missed.

2 ranged dps should be sufficient to handle a drake.  So 2 on the left drake, 2 on the right drake.   All 4 ranged can burn the melee mobs in the period before the drakes arrive or when they have flown out of range.   Multi-DOTing helps here! (e.g. Living Bomb on Drake and both Melee targets).   If you want to single target the drakes then that's fine, but 4 ranged should be able to kill a drake before it flies away (so 2 dps on their own should take no more than 2 bites of the cherry to kill a drake).  

Ranged should soak a couple of small swirls when they can during their drake dps.

The combination of being closer to any big swirl (thus getting more to soak it and losing less dps time), combined with the HP saved through soaking a few of the smaller swirls along the way will make a substantial difference to the ship's HP imo.

RDPS
BUT, as Switch says, if everyone in the raid is doing 13-16k dps each then you are going to struggle unnecessarily on almost every fight in Dragon Soul.  

Logs are unavailable for last night so I cannot make a direct analysis, but as a comparison:
RGT tanks do 15-16k dps each for this fight
RGT dps ALL do between 20-30k dps each for this fight (the majority above 25k dps)
(note for Pals: cats are great for this fight, Grimnar did 25k dps on his last go at it)

Yes RGT has 'better' gear, but not by that much.  And tbh when my alt mage can do 21k dps in i381 gear, then you know that gear is not the issue.   Take ownership of the dps, work out where you can do better, make sure you are up to date with your theory crafting and using the best talents/glyphs/spec/rotation & addons.