Thok the Bloodthirsty - DEFEATED 22/10/13

[TeaLeaf]

PTR

[TeaLeaf]

[TeaLeaf]

Logs are up and I'm currently plowing through them.

[TeaLeaf]

Control of Phase 1 length by splitting group to avoid 5 Bloodied within 10 yards.

As well running 2 tanks they have gone very heavy on instant cast classes:
Aff lock
Hunter
Mage (Arcane)
Boomkin
Enh Shaman

Prot Pala
Feral tank

Resto Shaman
Resto Druid
Disc Priest

In essence they split into 3 groups, all within a Healing Rain/Green puddle and then just stood & DPS'd/healed.  

Logs for that video are here:
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/z51vtz9v7a985sod/?s=9223&e=9497

It's an extreme example to show it can be done, we just need to figure out 'sensible' for us!  


From their logs and ours:
At the pull Deafening Screech is cast every c.12 seconds and the CD reduces as the fight progresses.
20 seconds into Phase 1 Deafening Screech is cast every 1.6 seconds.
With 99 stacks Deafening Screech is cast every 1.5 seconds.
....so basically if we can cope with 1.6 seconds then we can last the whole fight in that phase.

[TeaLeaf]

Some nice tips from http://healiocentric.wordpress.com/2013/09/29/soo-11-thok-the-bloodthirsty/
Amongst which are these:

But read the full page, lots of nice tips on the whole fight (not just for healers either).

Resto Druids
Nature’s Vigil and Soul of the Forest are the go-to Talents for this encounter. Don’t be afraid to bloom your Mushrooms, and ask for a Hand of Protection or channel Tranquility during Devotion Aura when Screeches are coming fast.

Resto Monks
Rushing Jade Wind is excellent for Screeches, considering it is a passive effect and can’t get interrupted. Use Chi Burst or Zen Sphere. If you somehow get silenced, Fistweave.

Holy Palas
Devotion Aura will prevent your entire raid from being interrupted, allowing your co-healers to use their CDs. Take Clemency so you can HoProt yourself and another healer for insane healing throughput. I like Light’s Hammer here.

Disc Priests
Spirit Shell is really hard to use unless you can get a HoProt or during Devotion Aura. PW:S spam seems the way to go, and of course, Archangel/Divine Star is very strong.

Holy Priests
Bribe a Paladin to HoProt you when you want to channel Divine Hymn. Seriously pay them anything they ask. It’s worth it! Divine Star is great here, and save HW:Sanc for later in the phase so it persists until Frenzy for Blood!.

Resto Shaman
I’m about to say something shocking: Conductivity is actually good in this fight, since you can’t drop HR once Thok has 8 stacks of Acceleration*. Given Conductivity, I like EM here. I also like PE for damage and Reinforce.

* the 'phase 1 only' video says you can drop HR with more than 8 stacks, it just depends on your haste.


Thok’s Rate of Energy Gain and Deafening Screech Intervals
Stacks of Accel.|   Energy per 0.5s   |Time Between Casts
0   |4   |12.5s
1   |5   |10s
2   |8.5   |6s
3   |13   |4s
4   |18   |3s
5-7   |25   |2s
8+   |50   |1s

Fixate:

Resto Druid:
Displacer Beast, Dash, and Stampeding Roar are excellent here. You could take Symbiosis: Deterrence to give a Hunter Dash for kiting purposes, or Symbiosis: Leap of Faith to rescue players from their own stupidity

Resto Monk:
Tiger’s Lust is pretty awesome for kiting Thok or for helping other players in your raid kite him.

Priest:
Angelic Feather is great for this phase, since 6 seconds of 80% movement speed increase is better than almost any other mobility cooldown.



Kor'kron Jailers:

Resto Druid:
You can remove the Kor’kron Jailers’ Enrage with Soothe (reduces tank damage significantly)

[TeaLeaf]

Swiftness Potion might be helpful for those without a speed boost during the P2 kiting phase for those "damn he's faster than me " moments!

[TeaLeaf]

Note to self:
Set a CD rotation order for raid composition prior to pull!
Run through P1 to extend.
Devo & BOP.

[JonnyAppleSeed]

Trying to find a way to seriously up healing output - the logs show the druid hitting 270khps :woot2: (hes ilvl 566 at the and managed to hit the 30 haste cap)

I think its the key to this we are just not quite hitting the numbers on healing to be able to hold a stable p1 for long enough.

The fight feels like crazy healing blow all mana in p1 then re-gen thu p2

[ayla]

I've been scouting round the forums to see if theres any tips for us too, sorry to say ive been looking mainly for healing tips - eek, sorry dps'ers  Ive found on the blizz forum, someone saying that devo aura helps with the interupts - as in stops us suffering an interupt - but cant vouch for that as was only a comment thrown into the discussion.  Ive also, seen comments about us all cuddling up - including the tank that isnt tanking at that point, but still within melee range.  For me personaly, If Im in on the fight, Ive seen a few comments about using our new lvl 90 talent rushing jade wind for this fight - generally monks shy away from that as its pretty cruddy and the other two options far outway RJW, but, it seems this fight can give that talent a home, so, as said, if im present im going to try that.  One thing that bothered me about his screeches, was how quick they seemed to roll in from the time our tanks pulled the dino - it was every 3 seconds, which seems a bit mental? but, guess if thats the mechanics then i have to suck it up and get on with it If i find anything else, i'll be sure to share

[Ziley]

I think a lot of their healing comes from healing cds and their puddles o' love. It might be worth it to consider Pinn healing on this fight in place of one the more cast heavy healers since shaman healers are so strong for this - at least if we are trying to make phase last as long as possible (in which case we should probably also go with a dps setup along the lines of 3 melee and the ranged that are best suited for phase 1).

If we aren't willing to go to such extend though I feel that just optimizing our cd rotation (tranq + devo and stuff like that) will make this much more managable on normal - even though our healing classes may not be the best for phase 1. Heroic could be a different story entirely, but let's look at that when we get there.

[ayla]

If you want to sit a 'cast heavy' healer, then I'm probably the best one to be sat.

[Ziley]

If you want to sit a 'cast heavy' healer, then I'm probably the best one to be sat.

It's only in the case of going absolutely nuts on phase 1, which probably is not an ideal strategy anyway, since the healing required is quite extreme as Jas pointed out. Might not be half bad with your zen combined with devo aura to avoid interruption either. Overall I don't think we'd need to make such drastic changes but there's no doubt that a shaman healer as a class is well suited for this fight (as is disc priests and resto druids).

I don't want to be one suggesting that anyone be sat I'm sure we can kill it with a lot of different setups! :yahoo:

[TeaLeaf]

Deafening Screech
WoL Expression Editor (timeline plot)

Code Select Expand

sourceName = "Thok the Bloodthirsty" and spell="Deafening Screech"
DMR Try 5: First P1 (1P1) = 16 Deafening Screech

Average WoL kill: 6:45

DMR (8:37 Try 5): 1P1 = 16
SPQ1 (5:12 kill): 1P1 = 15
Ovo (6:35 kill): 1P1 = 15
SPQ2 (7:51 kill): 1P1 = 15
Origin (8:31 kill): 1P1 = 10
Doomcaliber Knights (6:40 kill): 1P1 = 16
Prestige (6:38 kill): 1P1 = 14
Reanimated (7:01 kill): 1P1 = 12

This tells us our current strat is perfectly fine in 1P1.   We as much or mroe than many other guilds in 1P1, so what we have is fine, we just need to up our dps as we've survived longer than any other guild's kill time!

Fixates

Code Select Expand

spell="Fixate" and FULLType=SPELL_AURA_APPLIED and targetName !="Thok the Bloodthirsty"
1P2 - 8 Fixates (inc the NPC's)
2P2 - 7
3P2 - 7

Other guilds are managing with:
DMR: 8-7-7-wiped
SPQ1: 6-5-1
Ovo: 5-4-5
SPQ2: 6-6-6-4
Origin: 6-6-6
Doomcaliber Knights: 6-5-5
Prestige: 6-6-5
Reanimated: 6-6-5

This says we're probably pushing the Fixate kiting 1-2 times too many (the log deaths confirm this) and we should call the Key use earlier.   Note SPQ2 kill under the final kite (no more keys).

NPC Order

Code Select Expand

spell="Fixate" and FULLType=SPELL_AURA_APPLIED and (targetName="Waterspeaker Gorai" or targetName="Akolik" or targetName="Montak")
DMR: Akolik-Gorai-Montak
SPQ1: Gorai-Montak (kill)
Ovo: Gorai-Akolik-Montak
SPQ2: Gorai-Akolik-Montak
Origin: Gorai-Montak-Akolik
Doomcaliber Knights: Akolik-Gorai-Montak
Prestige: Akolik-Gorai-Montak
Reanimated: Gorai-Akolik-Montak

I find Origin's Montak 2nd approach bizarre as it must make healing a nightmare, so Montak last is correct imo.   We are in the minority doing Akolik first instead of Gorai, but we are not alone.    

Arguably, the Ice Block phase of Gorai might be easier as the Ice Blocks have little health and are easier to handle than the dispells (but mass dispell should also be used here - shadow priests take note).   I think I'd like to try Gorai first, just for a change and to see what difference if any we see.

Guild: DPS/DPSe
DMR: 714k/712k
SPQ1: 1,543k/1,542k
Ovo: 1,200k/1,200k
SPQ2: 1,074k/1,071k
Origin: 1,270k/1,265k
Doomcaliber Knights: 1,247k/1,245k
Prestige: 1,251k/1,247k
Reanimated: 1,179k/1,177k


Summary:
We can survive in 1P1 longer than anyone else.
We can kite longer than anyone else.
We have only got the boss down to 28%.

We need MOAR DPS!!

[Ziley]

Were all of those guilds using 3 healers? I'm refering to your write up on phase 1 here.

Should we try looking at each of the phase 1s and decide how many stacks we want to reach and setup cd rotations accordingly (since I don't imagine we'll have all of our cds up for every single p1, namely HoP.

I'm just going to put up a suggested number of stacks for each of the phase 1s with the goal of killing him during the 3rd phase 1 (and very shortly into it). I'll use the comp we used yesterday for setting up a cd rotation, but substituting cds based on our comp should make it usable no matter which healers we bring.

1. phase 1: 15 stacks
approx 30 sec in: barrier
Then: Xuen (if Zolena uses him) + devo (I think the durations match up - correct me if I'm wrong) - Smiz spirit shell during this devo and the next
Then: Devo + vamp and other off-heal cds (if we have any) and personals - Smiz spirit shell during this devo and the previous
Then: HoP on Zolena + Zen

This will result in 62 seconds of time passed (from the pull, with no cds for the first 30 secs). The amount of time until we reach 15 stacks is approx 51 seconds, which means that we might be able to skip Ascendance and save it for the next p1 (where we already have Jas's tranq + 3 HoPs and whichever CDs come back up). Then for the second p1 we'd most likely be able to use this cd rotation once again (which means we might want to swap it around so we do the frost guy first as TL suggested, so that we have the most amount of CDs possible available during the poison phase which arguably has higher damage on the raid.

That means that our 2nd phase 1 will look something like this

30 seconds without cd:
HoP TL + TL tranq
Then: HoP Smiz + spirit shell
Then: Devo + Revival
Then: HoP Jas + Jas tranq

This is 67 seconds which is quite too long, but the cds are not all as powerful which means we might have to overlap a little. I think the ideal number of stacks here is 10-12, which is about 46 - 48 seconds.

Thoughts and corrections plz

[TeaLeaf]

From memory these were all 3 heal groups.

I'm not at all sure we will stick with Pinn as resto for this, so let's not assume that we'll run that same group.    Looking at the logs many of those guilds have killed it with a resto monk and specifically with a resto druid/resto monk/disc priest combo, so our main spec healers will be better prepared to deal with this encounter than an offspec (no offence to Pinn's healing here).   So where it says Pinn substitute Zolena and her CDs as with properly chained CDs her throughput will exceed Pinn's.

Certainly the key to our progress was the chaining of CDs, if we get that bit right then we survive long enough in P1.     The major problem for us is still that we are not getting enough dps on the boss during (I suspect) the kite phase and this will be where our dps numbers look poor.   Mathematically we'll also look worse if we kite for longer, so the trick will be to kite P2 for just enough, to then get back into a solid dps P1 again.