this boss is definitely a bitch. she feels like the next wall block (after gorefiend nerf) that most guild will be facing in mythic HFC progression.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
the first half of the fight is perfect for FV cleaving. however, the second half of the fight is much more critical because we need to single-target burst the boss to p3, and also single-target burst the p3 add, so i will choose seraphim instead of FV.
towards the ending, we will get aura of malice, which will put a stacking damage buff for us. whenever there is a multiplier effect, seraphim will shine!
Spec: Unbreakable Spirit vs Clemency
i prefer unbreakable spirit because divine protection save my life very often here.
p1 tempest is usually a killer because it forced the entire raid to move at the same time, taking heavy damage. healers are moving too so they won't have time to heal either.
p2 font is very dangerous because it will (always) happen together with edict. to make things worse, p1 aura of oppression will still be around in p2 mythic difficulty.
p3 transition during the time when everybody max hp is extremely low due to p2 aura of contempt. we will become very fragile and p3 has a lot of movement and damage taken from despoiled ground & bulwark. there's also 2 edict at this phase that can easily 1 shot us.
DPS Priority
phase 1
we ignore the p1 add. it is not dangerous and we just cleave it down naturally. it should die around the time when p2 add arrives.
phase 2
we ignore the p2 add too. we save our heroism, legend ring, major CD to burst the boss because we want to end this phase as quickly as we can. the p2 debuff is too dangerous, the shorter p2 is, the better it is for us to survive p3.
phase 3
kill the p2 add during the beginning of p3. then continue dps the boss until the p3 add spawn. p3 add is the top priority, he is the most dangerous add in my opinion because tank death is the most common cause of wipe at this stage. of course, he also shield the boss and prolong the fight. the longer the fight goes, the higher debuff stacks on the tank, and the harder it is to heal them. we save our legend ring, major CD, potions for the p3 add.
Interrupt Rotation
for the p2 add, we use 3 teams of interrupts. 2 melee and 1 range interrupts for each team. melee often have difficulties with the p2 add positioning because both the boss and the p2 add has very small hit-box. our tanks tried their best to position the p2 add together with the boss, so that everyone (even those people who are stacking up for the font) is able to interrupt.
sometimes a small movement from our tank could result in the boss running out of position, easily resulting in a wipe. we can only hope that blizzard will adjust the hit-box of this boss.
AW Planning
my guild dps allow us to enter p2 around 2:00 minutes+ and the p2 add will come around 2:40 minutes mark. having these info, we decided to use legend ring and heroism exactly at 3:00 minutes to sync with some classes major CD.
1st AW + 1st Ring = use on pull
2nd AW = together with ES
3th AW + 2nd Ring = exactly 3:00
4th AW + Sera = phase 3
5th AW + 3rd Ring + 6th AW = exactly 5:00
note: our p3 add comes around 4:45 minutes during our current kill
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Libram of Vindication
for now, libram is probably my best choice here since i can maintain 3 stacks LOV on the boss and the p3 add, for the duration of the legend ring at the 3:00 minute and 5:00 minute.
i know these timing may change in the future when we get better gears, i may consider vial of convulsive shadows or mythic discordant chorus if there are difficulties in keeping 3 stacks LOV during the legend ring.
Friday, 25 September 2015
Wednesday, 23 September 2015
Mythic Zakuun - Retribution Paladin
the most difficult part of this fight is to handle the seeds correctly. in p2 and p3, the boss will throw seed of destruction on 5 players, and all 5 players must run and spread out evenly within 5 seconds. it is very tough to execute this correctly because the timing is very tight.
our raid leader uses an addon that will put 5 raid icons on each of the 5 players, a druid will stampede roar and these 5 players must react quickly, fast enough to explode their seed at their correct matching raid icons.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
seraphim is much stronger than FV, hands down, very straight forward single-target fight like iron reaver.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Libram of Vindication
there's only 1 target the entire fight, no need to consider any other trinkets.
Soul Cleave
if you are being appointed to enter into soul cleave, you will be spending around 10 seconds soaking the rumbling earth, followed by another 30 seconds idle inside the nether world.
in the nether world, all you need to do is to wait for the 1st pulse wave and avoid getting hit by it. simply jump over the pulse wave as it passes by. after that, the 5 of you should gather together at the pre-assign destination, wait until the final 1-3 seconds before you teleport outside.
it is necessary to use immunity CD like divine shield around the last 1-3 seconds because each of you will unleash the wave of destruction when you teleport outside. the 5 of you should stack properly so that all 5 wave of destruction overlap one another and disappear immediately. all 5 players must use their own immunity CD so that nobody die and no waves will reach the raid or hit the pillars.
Maximize DPS
ideally, i can use AW with every ES if i am not involved with the soul cleave teams. but i cannot maximize my dps for this boss because i am involved in the 2nd soul cleave team. anyways, given what i can do, this is how i plan my AW and seraphim usage.
0:00 AW1 + ES + Sera + Ring1
0:40 Sera (before soaking rumbling earth)
1:00 ES (before entering soul cleave)
1:30 Sera
2:00 AW2 + ES + Sera + Ring2
2:30 AW3 + Sera
3:00 AW4 + ES + Sera
4:00 AW5 + ES + Sera + Ring3
the boss should die shortly after this timing.
our raid leader uses an addon that will put 5 raid icons on each of the 5 players, a druid will stampede roar and these 5 players must react quickly, fast enough to explode their seed at their correct matching raid icons.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
seraphim is much stronger than FV, hands down, very straight forward single-target fight like iron reaver.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Libram of Vindication
there's only 1 target the entire fight, no need to consider any other trinkets.
Soul Cleave
if you are being appointed to enter into soul cleave, you will be spending around 10 seconds soaking the rumbling earth, followed by another 30 seconds idle inside the nether world.
in the nether world, all you need to do is to wait for the 1st pulse wave and avoid getting hit by it. simply jump over the pulse wave as it passes by. after that, the 5 of you should gather together at the pre-assign destination, wait until the final 1-3 seconds before you teleport outside.
it is necessary to use immunity CD like divine shield around the last 1-3 seconds because each of you will unleash the wave of destruction when you teleport outside. the 5 of you should stack properly so that all 5 wave of destruction overlap one another and disappear immediately. all 5 players must use their own immunity CD so that nobody die and no waves will reach the raid or hit the pillars.
Maximize DPS
ideally, i can use AW with every ES if i am not involved with the soul cleave teams. but i cannot maximize my dps for this boss because i am involved in the 2nd soul cleave team. anyways, given what i can do, this is how i plan my AW and seraphim usage.
0:00 AW1 + ES + Sera + Ring1
0:40 Sera (before soaking rumbling earth)
1:00 ES (before entering soul cleave)
1:30 Sera
2:00 AW2 + ES + Sera + Ring2
2:30 AW3 + Sera
3:00 AW4 + ES + Sera
4:00 AW5 + ES + Sera + Ring3
the boss should die shortly after this timing.
Tuesday, 22 September 2015
Mythic Socrethar - Retribution Paladin
this fight focus a lot on interrupting the boss, in a way it reminds me of mythic oregorger where missing 1 interrupt will shorten the duration we can dps the boss. for socrethar, we set up 3 teams of interrupters and keep rotating among us because missing 2 interrupts will end p2 and no guild will want to repeat p1.
Spec: Unbreakable Spirit vs Clemency
i would prefer unbreakable spirit because both overwhelming power and apocalyptic felburst hurt a great deal in mythic. for survival purpose, it is necessary to use divine protection for every apocalyptic felburst in p1.
p2 is not that dangerous but we can also use divine protection for every apocalypse. besides, tank don't really need our hand of sacrifice in this fight.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
both specs should perform equally good. FV is strong because we spend the majority of the time in p2 where there are opportunity to cleave the shadowcallers with the boss.
for equal dps, i'll still choose seraphim over FV because seraphim has the ability to burst dps. dominator must be killed asap and ret paladin is the king of burst dps. no other class (only hunters came close to us) can burst down the dominator as fast as we can.
DPS Priority
dominator > shadowcallers > socrethar
dominator will cast a shield on socrethar which prevent us from interrupting extert dominance. if socrethar managed to cast extert dominance 2 times in a row, the construct will be dead and it is a wipe. the entire raid must zerg down the dominator in a few seconds and quickly interrupt socrethar.
shadowcallers cast painful DOT and AOE on the raid. to make our healers life easier, we try to kill shadowcallers whenever it is near the boss.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Discordant Chorus
vial of convulsive shadows is a dps loss because you will never be able to sync with the legend ring.
libram is still a very strong choice but i find it quite annoying to use because you'll need to change targets a few times. and the legend ring will always be use on the dominator, which is a fresh target, thus reseting your LOV stacks when you needed it most.
discordant chorus offer us consistent dps via cleaving and there are quite a few targets to cleave in p2.
unending hunger has good potential but it hasn't drop for me yet.
Additional Notes
phase 1
fel prison - avoid green circle on the floor
volatile fel orb - range mechanic
fellbaze charge - quickly back face towards the desired position your guild has planned for melee
reverberating blow - avoid standing in front of the boss at all times
apocalyptic felburst - use divine protection
overwhelming power - pray that healers top you up
voracious soulstalker - keep a distance away when it is going to spawn, then range will kite this mob away, into a prison trap
phase 2
gift of manari - avoid standing inside players with the yellow circle
haunting soul - don't let any of them touch you, range dps will take care of them
AW Planning
1st AW - during pull
2nd AW + 1st Ring = 1st dominator
3rd AW = shortly after 2nd AW
4th AW + 2nd Ring = 2nd dominator
5th AW = shortly after 4th AW
for the initial pull, build up 5 holy power first before popping avenging wrath and seraphim.
Spec: Unbreakable Spirit vs Clemency
i would prefer unbreakable spirit because both overwhelming power and apocalyptic felburst hurt a great deal in mythic. for survival purpose, it is necessary to use divine protection for every apocalyptic felburst in p1.
p2 is not that dangerous but we can also use divine protection for every apocalypse. besides, tank don't really need our hand of sacrifice in this fight.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
both specs should perform equally good. FV is strong because we spend the majority of the time in p2 where there are opportunity to cleave the shadowcallers with the boss.
for equal dps, i'll still choose seraphim over FV because seraphim has the ability to burst dps. dominator must be killed asap and ret paladin is the king of burst dps. no other class (only hunters came close to us) can burst down the dominator as fast as we can.
DPS Priority
dominator > shadowcallers > socrethar
dominator will cast a shield on socrethar which prevent us from interrupting extert dominance. if socrethar managed to cast extert dominance 2 times in a row, the construct will be dead and it is a wipe. the entire raid must zerg down the dominator in a few seconds and quickly interrupt socrethar.
shadowcallers cast painful DOT and AOE on the raid. to make our healers life easier, we try to kill shadowcallers whenever it is near the boss.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Discordant Chorus
vial of convulsive shadows is a dps loss because you will never be able to sync with the legend ring.
libram is still a very strong choice but i find it quite annoying to use because you'll need to change targets a few times. and the legend ring will always be use on the dominator, which is a fresh target, thus reseting your LOV stacks when you needed it most.
discordant chorus offer us consistent dps via cleaving and there are quite a few targets to cleave in p2.
unending hunger has good potential but it hasn't drop for me yet.
Additional Notes
phase 1
fel prison - avoid green circle on the floor
volatile fel orb - range mechanic
fellbaze charge - quickly back face towards the desired position your guild has planned for melee
reverberating blow - avoid standing in front of the boss at all times
apocalyptic felburst - use divine protection
overwhelming power - pray that healers top you up
voracious soulstalker - keep a distance away when it is going to spawn, then range will kite this mob away, into a prison trap
phase 2
gift of manari - avoid standing inside players with the yellow circle
haunting soul - don't let any of them touch you, range dps will take care of them
AW Planning
1st AW - during pull
2nd AW + 1st Ring = 1st dominator
3rd AW = shortly after 2nd AW
4th AW + 2nd Ring = 2nd dominator
5th AW = shortly after 4th AW
for the initial pull, build up 5 holy power first before popping avenging wrath and seraphim.
Friday, 18 September 2015
Mythic Iskar - Retribution Paladin
having heal this very often in heroic, i definitely understand how difficult it is for healer to top up the raid in the adds phase and managing the mechanics on-time. however for dps, this is a very simple fight and everything can be easily planned & predicted.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
seraphim is stronger than final verdict due to our tier 18 set and legendary ring, in both single-target and AOE. the fight simply alternate between single-target and AOE.
DPS Priority
phantasmal > corrupted talonpriest > shadowfel warden > fel raven
our guild is not interested to deal with the mythic mechanics. if we can kill the phantasmal add within 20 seconds, we can skip the new mythic mechanics entirely. to do this, we actually tank the phantasmal apart from the rest of the adds. we also use our legend ring and have everybody single-target the phantasmal until it is dead before we switch over to the rest of the adds.
corrupted talonpriest is the next priority because he cast the fel bomb. killing this add simplify the passing of eye of anzu between the healers, freeing the raid concentration from having to track of the fel bomb timing.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Discordant Chorus
vial of convulsive shadows would be my top choice if we can AOE all the adds together with the legend ring. but my guild prefer to separate the phantasamal and use all our major CD to single-target it down instead. if vial could not be sync with our legend ring & major CD, it is a dps loss as compared to discordant chorus
libram is a bad choice because you will be changing targets very often, around 10+ times in the fight.
discordant chorus is very powerful because half the battle is AOE and fel cleave provides a lot of damage.
unending hunger may potentially be stronger but it hasn't drop for me yet.
Maximize DPS
1st AW = use after first chakram
2nd AW + 1st Ring = during 1st add phase
3rd AW + 2nd Ring + 4th AW = during 2nd add phase
5th AW + 3rd Ring + 6th AW = during 3rd add phase
for the initial pull, build up 5 holy power first and wait for the first chakram to happen before popping avenging wrath and seraphim.
plan the rest of the avenging wrath during the add phase when the dps requirement is at the highest.
be very alert of the tank positioning because there are quite a few times when my light's hammer went to waste due to re-positioning of the adds.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
seraphim is stronger than final verdict due to our tier 18 set and legendary ring, in both single-target and AOE. the fight simply alternate between single-target and AOE.
DPS Priority
phantasmal > corrupted talonpriest > shadowfel warden > fel raven
our guild is not interested to deal with the mythic mechanics. if we can kill the phantasmal add within 20 seconds, we can skip the new mythic mechanics entirely. to do this, we actually tank the phantasmal apart from the rest of the adds. we also use our legend ring and have everybody single-target the phantasmal until it is dead before we switch over to the rest of the adds.
corrupted talonpriest is the next priority because he cast the fel bomb. killing this add simplify the passing of eye of anzu between the healers, freeing the raid concentration from having to track of the fel bomb timing.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Discordant Chorus
vial of convulsive shadows would be my top choice if we can AOE all the adds together with the legend ring. but my guild prefer to separate the phantasamal and use all our major CD to single-target it down instead. if vial could not be sync with our legend ring & major CD, it is a dps loss as compared to discordant chorus
libram is a bad choice because you will be changing targets very often, around 10+ times in the fight.
discordant chorus is very powerful because half the battle is AOE and fel cleave provides a lot of damage.
unending hunger may potentially be stronger but it hasn't drop for me yet.
Maximize DPS
1st AW = use after first chakram
2nd AW + 1st Ring = during 1st add phase
3rd AW + 2nd Ring + 4th AW = during 2nd add phase
5th AW + 3rd Ring + 6th AW = during 3rd add phase
for the initial pull, build up 5 holy power first and wait for the first chakram to happen before popping avenging wrath and seraphim.
plan the rest of the avenging wrath during the add phase when the dps requirement is at the highest.
be very alert of the tank positioning because there are quite a few times when my light's hammer went to waste due to re-positioning of the adds.
Mythic Gorefiend - Retribution Paladin
this is a very heavy mechanics boss which means your guild strategy is going to affect your playing style and you have to spec accordingly to suit the guild strategy.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
as previously mentioned, the playing style for this boss totally depends on your guild strategy. for my guild, we assign 1 rogue, 1 warrior, 1 death knight to be the main soul killer and everybody else is supposed to go pure single-target spec. totally no cleaving, no aoe, just pure single-target. in this case, seraphim is the only choice for me.
of course if you are allowed to cleave dps the souls, final verdict will be a lot stronger.
DPS Priority
1) gorebound essence
most dangerous add. if they are not killed quickly, they will cast non-stop AOE and SLOW on the entire raid. healers won't be able to keep up with the aoe damage. and the constant movement reduction will cause more people to make mistakes or fail mechanics such as slow to clear shared fate, dying to crushing darkness, unable to place doom well at the desired location, gorebound construct chasing and explode on players, etc.
2) gorebound construct
kill the construct before it reach a player
3) gorebound spirit
heavy tank damage and debuffs, melee need to constantly interrupt this mob too.
Digest Phase
it is very important to bring all the constructs down to around 35% rather than killing some of them and allowing some of them to come outside with full hp. because 35% is the hp range where most classes can use their execute abilities, thus the players outside can efficiently kill the construct. another reason is construct walk faster than players so a very high hp construct will be extremely dangerous because they will eventually out-run and explode on the victim.
i always use 1 seraphim inside the digest phase, since the CD is always up and the extra damage for 15 seconds is very powerful too.
Spec: Speed of Light
speed of light is a very useful due to many mechanics that requires you to run about.
- stomach phase, running from mobs to mobs
- touch of doom, running to the destination on time
- shared fate, reaching the player faster to clear it earlier
- soul feast, soaking a soul and return back to dps asap
additional note: hand of sacrifice is also very important, keep it on your hotkey and use it when you need to deal with mechanics under the slow effect caused by essence.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Vial of Convulsive Shadows
unending hunger may potentially be stronger than the vial but it hasn't drop for me yet.
discordant chorus would be great at cleaving the souls, but i'm not the appointed soul killer.
libram is also a very good choice but it is difficult to stack up 3 LOV right before the legendary ring during soul feast because we usually have 1 or 2 adds alive during soul feast. once we kill the last add, my guild will not waste any more time on soul feast and use the ring immediately so we can start dps the boss. there is no chance to stack up 3 LOV unless we tunnel the boss while everyone is killing the last add, which is very bad behaviour.
vial of convulsive shadows is my only choice left because of the problem i've with the libram and the 2 minutes CD is good enough to be available for each soul feast + legend ring sync.
AW Planning
1st AW = use after first touch of death
2nd AW + 1st Ring + 3rd AW = during 1st soul feast
4th AW + 2nd Ring + 5th AW = during 2nd soul feast
6th AW + 3rd Ring + 7th AW = during 3rd soul feast
soul feast is the best time when we can dps the boss in peace, very straight forward.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
as previously mentioned, the playing style for this boss totally depends on your guild strategy. for my guild, we assign 1 rogue, 1 warrior, 1 death knight to be the main soul killer and everybody else is supposed to go pure single-target spec. totally no cleaving, no aoe, just pure single-target. in this case, seraphim is the only choice for me.
of course if you are allowed to cleave dps the souls, final verdict will be a lot stronger.
DPS Priority
1) gorebound essence
most dangerous add. if they are not killed quickly, they will cast non-stop AOE and SLOW on the entire raid. healers won't be able to keep up with the aoe damage. and the constant movement reduction will cause more people to make mistakes or fail mechanics such as slow to clear shared fate, dying to crushing darkness, unable to place doom well at the desired location, gorebound construct chasing and explode on players, etc.
2) gorebound construct
kill the construct before it reach a player
3) gorebound spirit
heavy tank damage and debuffs, melee need to constantly interrupt this mob too.
Digest Phase
it is very important to bring all the constructs down to around 35% rather than killing some of them and allowing some of them to come outside with full hp. because 35% is the hp range where most classes can use their execute abilities, thus the players outside can efficiently kill the construct. another reason is construct walk faster than players so a very high hp construct will be extremely dangerous because they will eventually out-run and explode on the victim.
i always use 1 seraphim inside the digest phase, since the CD is always up and the extra damage for 15 seconds is very powerful too.
Spec: Speed of Light
speed of light is a very useful due to many mechanics that requires you to run about.
- stomach phase, running from mobs to mobs
- touch of doom, running to the destination on time
- shared fate, reaching the player faster to clear it earlier
- soul feast, soaking a soul and return back to dps asap
additional note: hand of sacrifice is also very important, keep it on your hotkey and use it when you need to deal with mechanics under the slow effect caused by essence.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Vial of Convulsive Shadows
unending hunger may potentially be stronger than the vial but it hasn't drop for me yet.
discordant chorus would be great at cleaving the souls, but i'm not the appointed soul killer.
libram is also a very good choice but it is difficult to stack up 3 LOV right before the legendary ring during soul feast because we usually have 1 or 2 adds alive during soul feast. once we kill the last add, my guild will not waste any more time on soul feast and use the ring immediately so we can start dps the boss. there is no chance to stack up 3 LOV unless we tunnel the boss while everyone is killing the last add, which is very bad behaviour.
vial of convulsive shadows is my only choice left because of the problem i've with the libram and the 2 minutes CD is good enough to be available for each soul feast + legend ring sync.
AW Planning
1st AW = use after first touch of death
2nd AW + 1st Ring + 3rd AW = during 1st soul feast
4th AW + 2nd Ring + 5th AW = during 2nd soul feast
6th AW + 3rd Ring + 7th AW = during 3rd soul feast
soul feast is the best time when we can dps the boss in peace, very straight forward.
Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Mythic Gorefiend - Holy Paladin
one of the most annoying fight, especially for healers, because the amount of healing is very intensive, both outside or inside the stomach. and there are a lot of movement required in handling the mechanics.
Spec: Unbreakable Spirit vs Clemency
Unbreakable Spirit will be so much better because i can use divine protection on myself whenever i have touch of doom, shared fate or to soak spirit. Hand of Sacrifice is not really important here because tank only take heavy damage for a short duration when the gorebound spirit is outside.
in addition, the fight will last very long (around 8-9 minutes) for guilds who are still progressing on this fight. having a 2nd Lay on Hands inside the stomach is really powerful.
Digest Phase
every normal phase, the boss will always choose 2 healers at the 20th seconds and another 2 healers at the 65th seconds. since our guild is 5 healing this, there is a chance that if i am not chosen at the 65th seconds, i can make a choice to either suicide into the stomach and help the last 2 essences or to stay outside and help stable the raid.
the main objective of the stomach digest phase is to top up 5 tortured essences inside the stomach. topping 5 essences sounds very easy but in reality, it is very difficult to do so because the 5 essences arrive at different timing. when you first enter the stomach, you will only see the first 2 essences. i usually use both my Avenging Wrath and Etheralus, the Eternal Reward together and top up the first 2 essences immediately. when legendary ring buff is gone, around the time when the 3rd essence came, i'll pop my Intuition's Gift trinket to further enhance my healing power for the remaining duration in the stomach.
the main problem is the last 2 essence, which will come very late, around the time when you have only 12 seconds left. in fact if your soul is return back too fast, you won't even see these 2 essences and this is also the main cause of all your wipes.
if the last 2 essences came out at very high hp, they will start to cast non-stop AOE damage the entire raid & also SLOW movement speed of everyone. the reduced movement speed will eventually cause everyone outside to make more mistakes and jeopardise all the mechanics (shared fate / doom well), leading to a wipe naturally. therefore, it is very important to let the healers remain inside the stomach until the final 1-4 seconds. this is to give the digested healers enough time to top up the last 2 essence. this is also the reason why some guild sacrifice their 5th healer around 10 seconds later into the stomach, following the previous 2 digested healer, just to deal with these 2 tortured essences.
holy paladin is extremely powerful at single-target healing and we are probably the only class who can solo top-up all 5 essences within the time frame. it is very useful to use my Lay on Hands on 1, and then focus on another.
Edit: mythic gorefiend is officially nerf on september 17, giving us an extra 5 seconds in the stomach, making the fight so much easier.
Touch of Doom
Touch of Doom explosion is a distance-based damage mechanic. the closer the player explode their doom, the more damage it is to the entire raid. a bad position explosion can easily result in a 500k raid damage or higher, depending how close the explosion is to the raid. considering that 2 healers should be inside the stomach, there are only 2 healers outside. therefore, a bad doom well explosion can easily cause your 2 healers to fall behind in healing and this is a very dangerous situation with people dying.
touch of doom always affect 3 players at a time and it is very important for these 3 players to run away from the raid as far as they can. sometimes 2 players may decided to run in the same direction due to rng, so everyone must learn how to split up separately on their own, and quickly!
we set up 4 drop-off location at the corners of the room. people with touch of doom must carefully lay the doom well on top of the previous doom well. this can be done by running to the assigned position, wait until the debuff has 1-2 seconds remaining, then use a damage-reduction CD and walk through the previous doom well. if done properly, your doom well should overlap the previous doom well. the reason we overlap is to save space as these 4 corners are the furthest point (least raid damage from explosion) and we don't want doom well getting closer and closer to the main raid.
Soul Feast
our guild use 5 healers and soul feast is a cake walk most of the time. our healing officers simply chain up all the major cooldown one after another, by alternating a damage-reduction and a healing-throughput cooldown. eg: Healing Tide Totem to Devotion Aura to Tranquility to Power Word: Barrier.
everybody will be stacked at the melee position for this phase. souls will start moving towards the boss, 2 souls at a time. every player must take turns to soak a soul and clear our debuff so that we can re-enter the stomach again. the raid leader will mention 2 names at a time and the 2 players will then run out from the raid to soak the soul. make sure to run out a bit further from the raid because when you soak the soul, it causes a small explosion and you don't want this explosion to hurt the entire raid.
the soul soaking must be done perfectly so that the soul feast can last an entire 1 minute.
Avenging Wrath
for my guild, i feel that our soul feast healing is already very solid because we are 5 healing it. so i find myself more beneficial to the raid when i channel my power on the torture essences instead.
0:20 - shadow of death on first 2 healers
1:05 - shadow of death on next 2 healers
2:00 to 3:00 - soul feast soaking must be done perfectly so that it last almost 1 minute
3:20 - shadow of death on first 2 healers
4:05 - shadow of death on next 2 healers
5:00 to 6:00 - soul feast
6:20 - shadow of death on first 2 healers
7:05 - shadow of death on next 2 healers
8:00 to 9:00 - soul feast
it is necessary to use Glyph of Merciful Wrath so that AW is always ready inside the stomach.
Spec: Unbreakable Spirit vs Clemency
Unbreakable Spirit will be so much better because i can use divine protection on myself whenever i have touch of doom, shared fate or to soak spirit. Hand of Sacrifice is not really important here because tank only take heavy damage for a short duration when the gorebound spirit is outside.
in addition, the fight will last very long (around 8-9 minutes) for guilds who are still progressing on this fight. having a 2nd Lay on Hands inside the stomach is really powerful.
Digest Phase
every normal phase, the boss will always choose 2 healers at the 20th seconds and another 2 healers at the 65th seconds. since our guild is 5 healing this, there is a chance that if i am not chosen at the 65th seconds, i can make a choice to either suicide into the stomach and help the last 2 essences or to stay outside and help stable the raid.
the main objective of the stomach digest phase is to top up 5 tortured essences inside the stomach. topping 5 essences sounds very easy but in reality, it is very difficult to do so because the 5 essences arrive at different timing. when you first enter the stomach, you will only see the first 2 essences. i usually use both my Avenging Wrath and Etheralus, the Eternal Reward together and top up the first 2 essences immediately. when legendary ring buff is gone, around the time when the 3rd essence came, i'll pop my Intuition's Gift trinket to further enhance my healing power for the remaining duration in the stomach.
the main problem is the last 2 essence, which will come very late, around the time when you have only 12 seconds left. in fact if your soul is return back too fast, you won't even see these 2 essences and this is also the main cause of all your wipes.
if the last 2 essences came out at very high hp, they will start to cast non-stop AOE damage the entire raid & also SLOW movement speed of everyone. the reduced movement speed will eventually cause everyone outside to make more mistakes and jeopardise all the mechanics (shared fate / doom well), leading to a wipe naturally. therefore, it is very important to let the healers remain inside the stomach until the final 1-4 seconds. this is to give the digested healers enough time to top up the last 2 essence. this is also the reason why some guild sacrifice their 5th healer around 10 seconds later into the stomach, following the previous 2 digested healer, just to deal with these 2 tortured essences.
holy paladin is extremely powerful at single-target healing and we are probably the only class who can solo top-up all 5 essences within the time frame. it is very useful to use my Lay on Hands on 1, and then focus on another.
Edit: mythic gorefiend is officially nerf on september 17, giving us an extra 5 seconds in the stomach, making the fight so much easier.
Touch of Doom
Touch of Doom explosion is a distance-based damage mechanic. the closer the player explode their doom, the more damage it is to the entire raid. a bad position explosion can easily result in a 500k raid damage or higher, depending how close the explosion is to the raid. considering that 2 healers should be inside the stomach, there are only 2 healers outside. therefore, a bad doom well explosion can easily cause your 2 healers to fall behind in healing and this is a very dangerous situation with people dying.
touch of doom always affect 3 players at a time and it is very important for these 3 players to run away from the raid as far as they can. sometimes 2 players may decided to run in the same direction due to rng, so everyone must learn how to split up separately on their own, and quickly!
we set up 4 drop-off location at the corners of the room. people with touch of doom must carefully lay the doom well on top of the previous doom well. this can be done by running to the assigned position, wait until the debuff has 1-2 seconds remaining, then use a damage-reduction CD and walk through the previous doom well. if done properly, your doom well should overlap the previous doom well. the reason we overlap is to save space as these 4 corners are the furthest point (least raid damage from explosion) and we don't want doom well getting closer and closer to the main raid.
Soul Feast
our guild use 5 healers and soul feast is a cake walk most of the time. our healing officers simply chain up all the major cooldown one after another, by alternating a damage-reduction and a healing-throughput cooldown. eg: Healing Tide Totem to Devotion Aura to Tranquility to Power Word: Barrier.
everybody will be stacked at the melee position for this phase. souls will start moving towards the boss, 2 souls at a time. every player must take turns to soak a soul and clear our debuff so that we can re-enter the stomach again. the raid leader will mention 2 names at a time and the 2 players will then run out from the raid to soak the soul. make sure to run out a bit further from the raid because when you soak the soul, it causes a small explosion and you don't want this explosion to hurt the entire raid.
the soul soaking must be done perfectly so that the soul feast can last an entire 1 minute.
Avenging Wrath
for my guild, i feel that our soul feast healing is already very solid because we are 5 healing it. so i find myself more beneficial to the raid when i channel my power on the torture essences instead.
0:20 - shadow of death on first 2 healers
1:05 - shadow of death on next 2 healers
2:00 to 3:00 - soul feast soaking must be done perfectly so that it last almost 1 minute
3:20 - shadow of death on first 2 healers
4:05 - shadow of death on next 2 healers
5:00 to 6:00 - soul feast
6:20 - shadow of death on first 2 healers
7:05 - shadow of death on next 2 healers
8:00 to 9:00 - soul feast
it is necessary to use Glyph of Merciful Wrath so that AW is always ready inside the stomach.
Thursday, 10 September 2015
Mythic Kilrogg - Retribution Paladin
the 2 dps who enter the first vision of death will be the main dps power of this encounter. if you are the appointed one, this will be both a very challenging and fun fight for you as you definitely want to min-max your dps.
DPS Priority
1) blood globule & salivating bloodthirster
these 2 adds are the most dangerous. allowing the blood globlue to touch the boss or allowing a bloodthirster to touch the pool will easily cause a wipe. however, both adds are not efficient for melee-dps unless they came close to the boss. usually, range-dps should be enough to manage them unless the heart seeker runners screw up. raid always screw up towards the end when 2 heart seeker came at once.
2) hulking terror
hulking terror is the next priority but if you are assigned to interrupt hulking terror, then you should just tunnel dps on the hulking terror and focus on interrupts as your highest priority. it is very crucial not to miss any interrupt because the raid will take a lot of damage if a cast went off. it is necessary to assign at least 3 players to chain interrupt. another thing to remember is to run away from the hulking terror when it is about to die because they will explode with fel corruption. once they explode, melee-dps has to soak in the green pool until it is gone completely.
3) kilrogg deadeye
dps the boss when there is no near-by adds
Vision of Death
i find that righteous fury & seal of righteous is very helpful here.
as the mobs enter the room, righteous fury will help you to gather aggro and hold them near the entrance. this is very useful because when the large demon die, it will leave behind a powerful ground aoe damage pool. we definitely don't want the large demon to die in the middle of the room where your range-dps, healer and khadgar are standing. even if the range-dps and healer can avoid the pool, khadgar won't move at all and he will die very fast inside the pool. if khadgar died, the vision of death will end pre-maturely and we won't get 20 stacks. we must delay and survive long enough so that all 3 players has 20 stacks of undying.
another CD i would recommend is to use avenging wrath inside here. you may feel a little bit wasteful to spend 1 wing but i believe it is worth it because killing the first few mobs quickly really help me to get 20 stacks much easier.
Spec: Unbreakable Spirit vs Clemency
the benefit of unbreakable spirit is being able to use divine protection for every death throes. death throes is a strong raid-wide aoe damage which happen every 45 seconds. but this is probably not a strong reason to choose unbreakable spirit over clemency. i believe every raid leader will ask their paladin to choose clemency so that the raid can remove 1 more heart seeker debuff. of course, we are still able to use divine protection for every alternate death throes.
as a DPS, it is always better to wait for the healers or the raid leader to call out when to use our hand of protection or hand of sacrifice. using our hands at the correct moment is much more meaningful because the healers will know when they needed extra help. if people are too busy to call, maybe the best is to have assignment done pre-pull.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
i've seen very good result from paladin using either final-verdict and seraphim spec.
final-verdict is always strong at cleaving and there are plenty of cleaving opportunity in this fight because the adds came in constantly.
seraphim will shine if you are being assigned to enter the vision of death and is even better if you have the privilege to be the legendary ring user, mainly due to the 200% damage increase multiplier effect from vision of death. i am usually assigned to went into the vision of death so i'll choose seraphim over final-verdict.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Vial of Convulsive Shadows
vial of convulsive shadows is my choice because i am usually assigned into the vision of death. when i came out with 20 stacks, i can align all the 7 stars together, namely ES-wings of libery10, avenging wrath, seraphim, legendary ring, trinket, strength potion, blood lust and do insane dps for the next 20 seconds.
libram is quite annoying to use because i am assigned into the vision of death and my LOV stacks will drop off. when we came back outside, we use the legend ring almost immediately but i will not have time to rebuild 3 LOV stacks. i feel it can be a potential dps loss as compared to vial of convulsive shadows.
unending hunger may be stronger than the vial but it hasn't drop for me yet.
discordant chorus feels a bit lacking because we will only hit 2 targets at best.
AW Planning
1st AW + 1st Ring = use on start
2nd AW = inside vision of death
3rd AW + 2nd Ring = use after 1st vision of death
4th AW onwards = whenever ES is ready
my guild pop everything at the beginning together with the legendary ring. the first vision of death will come around 1:15 into the fight, remember to cast a ES before going inside.
seal of righteous = when inside vision of death
seal of truth = when outside boss room
DPS Priority
1) blood globule & salivating bloodthirster
these 2 adds are the most dangerous. allowing the blood globlue to touch the boss or allowing a bloodthirster to touch the pool will easily cause a wipe. however, both adds are not efficient for melee-dps unless they came close to the boss. usually, range-dps should be enough to manage them unless the heart seeker runners screw up. raid always screw up towards the end when 2 heart seeker came at once.
2) hulking terror
hulking terror is the next priority but if you are assigned to interrupt hulking terror, then you should just tunnel dps on the hulking terror and focus on interrupts as your highest priority. it is very crucial not to miss any interrupt because the raid will take a lot of damage if a cast went off. it is necessary to assign at least 3 players to chain interrupt. another thing to remember is to run away from the hulking terror when it is about to die because they will explode with fel corruption. once they explode, melee-dps has to soak in the green pool until it is gone completely.
3) kilrogg deadeye
dps the boss when there is no near-by adds
Vision of Death
i find that righteous fury & seal of righteous is very helpful here.
as the mobs enter the room, righteous fury will help you to gather aggro and hold them near the entrance. this is very useful because when the large demon die, it will leave behind a powerful ground aoe damage pool. we definitely don't want the large demon to die in the middle of the room where your range-dps, healer and khadgar are standing. even if the range-dps and healer can avoid the pool, khadgar won't move at all and he will die very fast inside the pool. if khadgar died, the vision of death will end pre-maturely and we won't get 20 stacks. we must delay and survive long enough so that all 3 players has 20 stacks of undying.
another CD i would recommend is to use avenging wrath inside here. you may feel a little bit wasteful to spend 1 wing but i believe it is worth it because killing the first few mobs quickly really help me to get 20 stacks much easier.
Spec: Unbreakable Spirit vs Clemency
the benefit of unbreakable spirit is being able to use divine protection for every death throes. death throes is a strong raid-wide aoe damage which happen every 45 seconds. but this is probably not a strong reason to choose unbreakable spirit over clemency. i believe every raid leader will ask their paladin to choose clemency so that the raid can remove 1 more heart seeker debuff. of course, we are still able to use divine protection for every alternate death throes.
as a DPS, it is always better to wait for the healers or the raid leader to call out when to use our hand of protection or hand of sacrifice. using our hands at the correct moment is much more meaningful because the healers will know when they needed extra help. if people are too busy to call, maybe the best is to have assignment done pre-pull.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
i've seen very good result from paladin using either final-verdict and seraphim spec.
final-verdict is always strong at cleaving and there are plenty of cleaving opportunity in this fight because the adds came in constantly.
seraphim will shine if you are being assigned to enter the vision of death and is even better if you have the privilege to be the legendary ring user, mainly due to the 200% damage increase multiplier effect from vision of death. i am usually assigned to went into the vision of death so i'll choose seraphim over final-verdict.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Vial of Convulsive Shadows
vial of convulsive shadows is my choice because i am usually assigned into the vision of death. when i came out with 20 stacks, i can align all the 7 stars together, namely ES-wings of libery10, avenging wrath, seraphim, legendary ring, trinket, strength potion, blood lust and do insane dps for the next 20 seconds.
libram is quite annoying to use because i am assigned into the vision of death and my LOV stacks will drop off. when we came back outside, we use the legend ring almost immediately but i will not have time to rebuild 3 LOV stacks. i feel it can be a potential dps loss as compared to vial of convulsive shadows.
unending hunger may be stronger than the vial but it hasn't drop for me yet.
discordant chorus feels a bit lacking because we will only hit 2 targets at best.
AW Planning
1st AW + 1st Ring = use on start
2nd AW = inside vision of death
3rd AW + 2nd Ring = use after 1st vision of death
4th AW onwards = whenever ES is ready
my guild pop everything at the beginning together with the legendary ring. the first vision of death will come around 1:15 into the fight, remember to cast a ES before going inside.
seal of righteous = when inside vision of death
seal of truth = when outside boss room
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
Mythic Kilrogg - Holy Paladin
mechanics is almost the same in mythic, just that everything is more unforgiving now. the fight is significantly easier if the first and second vision of death is done properly too.
the most important mechanics for healer to react "immediately" is the heart seeker. it is very crucial to use a speed boost talent and run to the designated drop off position. this will give the range-dps enough time to kill the blood globe before it reach the boss.
Hand of Protection
the heart seeker debuff in mythic will cause a painful DOT on the player. in mythic, the DOT will stay permanently so as the fight goes on, more and more player will be getting this debuff, making it harder and harder to heal towards the end, which is also a soft enrage mechanic.
our hand of protection will help out healing a lot by removing the debuff. every paladin in the raid is capable of removing 1 or 2 heart seeker (depending on spec) and we have to use it wisely.
for example, it is not meaningful to use hand of protection on someone who is assigned to enter the vision of death because players with the debuff will be cleared when they enter the vision of death.
it is also not useful to use it early in the fight where healers can easily manage a few heart seekers using efficient spells. the best is to save it for the later part around 3+ minutes where there are too many heart seekers going on and healers being forced to use inefficient spells to top up players asap.
Hand of Purity
this is 1 of those rare fights where hand of purity can shine again. the damage reduction is quite strong but the trade off is having 1 less hand of protection. however, i did not have the chance to try hand of purity yet
Vision of Death
the first vision of death comes around 1:30 minute and each subsequent vision of death will be around 1:15 minute apart. we always assign 3 players into the vision, namely 1 melee-dps, 1 range-dps, 1 healer.
it is preferably that the melee-dps has some kind of aggro holding ability, such as paladin righteous fury, death-knight armies, etc. it is quite important to hold the mobs nearer the entrance because the larger demons will leave behind a ground-aoe damage when they died. if the large demons die near khadgar, the ground-aoe will kill khadgar and end the vision earlier than desired.
when we enter into the vision of death room, there will be a 5-10 seconds of free time where i can apply a beacon on myself and another on the range-dps. after which, i just need to spam heal non-stop on the melee-dps who should be getting hit most of the time. if my hp is in danger, i can always bubble myself.
Avenging Wrath
1st AW = after 1st heartseeker
2nd AW = after vision of death
3rd AW onwards = use whenever CD is up
it is a great time to use avenging wrath after vision of death because of the 20 stacks of healing buff.
the most important mechanics for healer to react "immediately" is the heart seeker. it is very crucial to use a speed boost talent and run to the designated drop off position. this will give the range-dps enough time to kill the blood globe before it reach the boss.
Hand of Protection
the heart seeker debuff in mythic will cause a painful DOT on the player. in mythic, the DOT will stay permanently so as the fight goes on, more and more player will be getting this debuff, making it harder and harder to heal towards the end, which is also a soft enrage mechanic.
our hand of protection will help out healing a lot by removing the debuff. every paladin in the raid is capable of removing 1 or 2 heart seeker (depending on spec) and we have to use it wisely.
for example, it is not meaningful to use hand of protection on someone who is assigned to enter the vision of death because players with the debuff will be cleared when they enter the vision of death.
it is also not useful to use it early in the fight where healers can easily manage a few heart seekers using efficient spells. the best is to save it for the later part around 3+ minutes where there are too many heart seekers going on and healers being forced to use inefficient spells to top up players asap.
Hand of Purity
this is 1 of those rare fights where hand of purity can shine again. the damage reduction is quite strong but the trade off is having 1 less hand of protection. however, i did not have the chance to try hand of purity yet
Vision of Death
the first vision of death comes around 1:30 minute and each subsequent vision of death will be around 1:15 minute apart. we always assign 3 players into the vision, namely 1 melee-dps, 1 range-dps, 1 healer.
it is preferably that the melee-dps has some kind of aggro holding ability, such as paladin righteous fury, death-knight armies, etc. it is quite important to hold the mobs nearer the entrance because the larger demons will leave behind a ground-aoe damage when they died. if the large demons die near khadgar, the ground-aoe will kill khadgar and end the vision earlier than desired.
when we enter into the vision of death room, there will be a 5-10 seconds of free time where i can apply a beacon on myself and another on the range-dps. after which, i just need to spam heal non-stop on the melee-dps who should be getting hit most of the time. if my hp is in danger, i can always bubble myself.
Avenging Wrath
1st AW = after 1st heartseeker
2nd AW = after vision of death
3rd AW onwards = use whenever CD is up
it is a great time to use avenging wrath after vision of death because of the 20 stacks of healing buff.
Mythic Council - Retribution Paladin
personally, i find dps role a lot easier for mythic as compared to healing. the sequence of events and the things to avoid is almost the same as heroic but healing is much more intensive.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
very difficult choice here. FV is great for cleaving and so it will perform very well for the first part of the fight when both gurtogg and jubei are together. seraphim is also great since the second part of the fight is mostly single target so i would say both talents are very close to one another.
however, i think seraphim has an edge over FV because:-
1) if gurtogg decided to fel rage on you, congratulations, the multiplier damage increase from fel rage will easily boost seraphim dps above FV
2) seraphim is stronger in single-target dps and this is very crucial since you really need to kill the bosses as quickly as possible when they reach below 30%, especially gurtogg because you definitely want to avoid having 3+ stacks of debuff for the rest of the fight.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Libram of Vindication
it is not possible to maintain 3 stacks of LOV throughout the whole fight. when gurtogg is alive, i can focus my crusader strike on jubei so it helps to extend the duration of my 3 LOV stacks even after gurtogg is dead. however, jubei will disappear dring felstorm and i will need to re-built my LOV stacks again.
unending hunger may potentially be stronger than the libram but it hasn't drop for me yet.
discordant chorus feels a bit lacking because we will only hit 2 targets at best. and after gurtogg is dead, it's mostly single-target
vial of convulsive shadows might be a good choice if i could sync the trinket when gurtogg fel rage on me but there is no way i could predict that either way.
Maximize DPS
1st AW + 1st Ring = use on start
2nd AW = use on 1st fel rage
3rd AW + 2nd Ring = use on 2nd fel rage
4th AW and onwards = use whenever ES can be sync together
it is good to use all 3 wings at the beginning when gurtogg is still alive because dps will be higher due to the opportunity to cleave on 2 targets.
my guild pop everything at the beginning together with the legendary ring. the first fel rage will come around 0:25 into the fight, before my 2nd seraphim will be ready. the second fel rage will come around 1:50 into the fight, before execution sentence is ready. CD down time will happen for both case which is quite annoying, but getting fel rage is still better than not getting it.
seal of righteous = when gurtogg is alive
seal of truth = when gurtogg died till the end of the fight
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
very difficult choice here. FV is great for cleaving and so it will perform very well for the first part of the fight when both gurtogg and jubei are together. seraphim is also great since the second part of the fight is mostly single target so i would say both talents are very close to one another.
however, i think seraphim has an edge over FV because:-
1) if gurtogg decided to fel rage on you, congratulations, the multiplier damage increase from fel rage will easily boost seraphim dps above FV
2) seraphim is stronger in single-target dps and this is very crucial since you really need to kill the bosses as quickly as possible when they reach below 30%, especially gurtogg because you definitely want to avoid having 3+ stacks of debuff for the rest of the fight.
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Libram of Vindication
it is not possible to maintain 3 stacks of LOV throughout the whole fight. when gurtogg is alive, i can focus my crusader strike on jubei so it helps to extend the duration of my 3 LOV stacks even after gurtogg is dead. however, jubei will disappear dring felstorm and i will need to re-built my LOV stacks again.
unending hunger may potentially be stronger than the libram but it hasn't drop for me yet.
discordant chorus feels a bit lacking because we will only hit 2 targets at best. and after gurtogg is dead, it's mostly single-target
vial of convulsive shadows might be a good choice if i could sync the trinket when gurtogg fel rage on me but there is no way i could predict that either way.
Maximize DPS
1st AW + 1st Ring = use on start
2nd AW = use on 1st fel rage
3rd AW + 2nd Ring = use on 2nd fel rage
4th AW and onwards = use whenever ES can be sync together
it is good to use all 3 wings at the beginning when gurtogg is still alive because dps will be higher due to the opportunity to cleave on 2 targets.
my guild pop everything at the beginning together with the legendary ring. the first fel rage will come around 0:25 into the fight, before my 2nd seraphim will be ready. the second fel rage will come around 1:50 into the fight, before execution sentence is ready. CD down time will happen for both case which is quite annoying, but getting fel rage is still better than not getting it.
seal of righteous = when gurtogg is alive
seal of truth = when gurtogg died till the end of the fight
Friday, 4 September 2015
Mythic Council - Holy Paladin
this fight is one of the longer and also more healing intensive fight. first kill of most guild will be around 8.5 minutes and healers will be out of mana
Hand of Protection
there are 2 ways to use hand of protection to help countering gurtogg mechanics.
during fel rage, gurtogg will fixated 1 random player and started doing heavy damage to the player. if this is a range caster, it may be worth using hand of protection to mitigate away the melee damage of the boss for almost the entire fel rage duration. usually we will get 2 fel rage while gurtogg is alive.
gurtogg bloodboil is also a lot more dangerous in mythic because it can stack up very quickly and sometimes players can carelessly get to 5+ stacks without knowing it. it is very important to set my UI to show the stacks of bloodboil. if a range caster stack too high 5-10 stacks, a hand of protection will help remove the debuff. this can save life.
Hand of Sacrifice
most of the time, my hand of sacrifice will be use on the dia tank. this is mainly due to my guild strat which prefer everyone to pump external cooldown on the dia tank.
during the first wailing horror phase, the entire raid will stack up on gurtogg and jubei. that means our tank will be alone with dia outside and he will get up to 10 stacks of bloodboil quickly. this is the moment where we use external cooldowns like hand of sacrifice on the dia tank.
dia also can transform into nightmare visage and deal heavy damage on the tank so this is another reason to use hand of sacrifice.
of course if tank healing is already very strong, it is also reasonable to use hand of sacrifice on high bloodboil or fel rage victim.
Mark of the Necromancer
dia will cast mark of the necromancer on 3 players at a time. it is very important to set the UI to alert you when the mark of the necromancer turns red.
for our guild, the best way to deal with mark is to cleanse the first 3 red mark. then we will not cleanse any more until a reap happen. while waiting for the reap to come, usually 3 more mark will turn red but it is very crucial that we do not cleanse any more even though healing is getting very intensive. keep sustaining the heal until the reap happen and all the red marks will be gone.
we will repeat this for the entire fight. cleanse 3 mark... wait until reap, then cleanse 3 mark... wait until reap again. and repeat and repeat.
Felstorm and Felblade
one of the most dangerous moment in mythic is during the first jubei felstorm felblade phase, the whole raid is already getting a lot of damage during this time so we have everybody stacking up together and we will chain up a few healing cooldown + legendary ring.
it is also around this time when our raid has re-position to a new area. with all the fel blade swinging around, any careless player getting hit by the fel blade will probably die. however if we can tide through this period with everyone alive, it is very likely that we will win this fight.
the second jubei felstorm felblade is no longer that dangerous because the raid damage was lower in comparison to the first felstorm felblade phase.
Avenging Wrath
1st AW = after 3 cleanse
2nd AW = during jubei felstorm
3rd AW onwards = felstorm or wailing horror
considering that it is a pretty long 8-9 minutes long fight, i can't remember the exact timing of all my AW usage. but usually if we can get pass the first jubei felstorm phase alive, the rest of the fight won't matter as much. in general if AW is up, i'll use it whenever i notice a significantly dip of overall raid hp and healing started to lack behind because of heavy mark damage.
Hand of Protection
there are 2 ways to use hand of protection to help countering gurtogg mechanics.
during fel rage, gurtogg will fixated 1 random player and started doing heavy damage to the player. if this is a range caster, it may be worth using hand of protection to mitigate away the melee damage of the boss for almost the entire fel rage duration. usually we will get 2 fel rage while gurtogg is alive.
gurtogg bloodboil is also a lot more dangerous in mythic because it can stack up very quickly and sometimes players can carelessly get to 5+ stacks without knowing it. it is very important to set my UI to show the stacks of bloodboil. if a range caster stack too high 5-10 stacks, a hand of protection will help remove the debuff. this can save life.
Hand of Sacrifice
most of the time, my hand of sacrifice will be use on the dia tank. this is mainly due to my guild strat which prefer everyone to pump external cooldown on the dia tank.
during the first wailing horror phase, the entire raid will stack up on gurtogg and jubei. that means our tank will be alone with dia outside and he will get up to 10 stacks of bloodboil quickly. this is the moment where we use external cooldowns like hand of sacrifice on the dia tank.
dia also can transform into nightmare visage and deal heavy damage on the tank so this is another reason to use hand of sacrifice.
of course if tank healing is already very strong, it is also reasonable to use hand of sacrifice on high bloodboil or fel rage victim.
Mark of the Necromancer
dia will cast mark of the necromancer on 3 players at a time. it is very important to set the UI to alert you when the mark of the necromancer turns red.
for our guild, the best way to deal with mark is to cleanse the first 3 red mark. then we will not cleanse any more until a reap happen. while waiting for the reap to come, usually 3 more mark will turn red but it is very crucial that we do not cleanse any more even though healing is getting very intensive. keep sustaining the heal until the reap happen and all the red marks will be gone.
we will repeat this for the entire fight. cleanse 3 mark... wait until reap, then cleanse 3 mark... wait until reap again. and repeat and repeat.
Felstorm and Felblade
one of the most dangerous moment in mythic is during the first jubei felstorm felblade phase, the whole raid is already getting a lot of damage during this time so we have everybody stacking up together and we will chain up a few healing cooldown + legendary ring.
it is also around this time when our raid has re-position to a new area. with all the fel blade swinging around, any careless player getting hit by the fel blade will probably die. however if we can tide through this period with everyone alive, it is very likely that we will win this fight.
the second jubei felstorm felblade is no longer that dangerous because the raid damage was lower in comparison to the first felstorm felblade phase.
Avenging Wrath
1st AW = after 3 cleanse
2nd AW = during jubei felstorm
3rd AW onwards = felstorm or wailing horror
considering that it is a pretty long 8-9 minutes long fight, i can't remember the exact timing of all my AW usage. but usually if we can get pass the first jubei felstorm phase alive, the rest of the fight won't matter as much. in general if AW is up, i'll use it whenever i notice a significantly dip of overall raid hp and healing started to lack behind because of heavy mark damage.
Wednesday, 2 September 2015
Mythic Kormrok - Retribution Paladin
everything in this boss happen at a fixed timing. knowing when to use our CD will make a big difference.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
this can be very personal from guild to guild. FV is a stronger choice for me because my guild has many strong AOE classes (warlock, warrior, mage) and grasping hands will always die within 1-3 seconds. it is better for me to use the opportunity to throw a FV-DS (best is FV-EDS) for such a short moment.
the decision to hit the grasping hand also help in overall boss damage. don't forget that the legendary ring will be used during the grasping hands, all the AOE damage you accumulated during the grasping hands will be exploded on to the boss as single-target, which is huge.
Spec: Light's Hammer vs Execution Sentence
even though my guild AOE is very strong, i was very surprised to find that LH easily win ES by a large margin. getting 1 tick of LH on 20 targets is already good enough to throw ES away. in addition, the slow effect from LH also helps out a couple stray hands once in a while!
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Libram of Vindication
in my opinion, the strongest combo should be EDS and LOV. using a focus macro crusader strike will help maintain the 3 stacks of LOV on the boss for the whole fight. the only exception is when the boss jump to the pool. for my guild, the purple pool jump is too far away from my soaking position.
Maximize DPS
1st AW + 1st Ring = use on 1st grasping hands
2nd AW = use shortly after 1st AW
3rd AW = use on 2nd grasping hands
4th AW + 2nd Ring = use on 3rd grasping hands
naturally we should burn our CD during the grasping hands because there are 20+ targets. no arguments needed. make use of our tier18 bonus. the first 10 seconds (stacking buff due to wings of liberty) is the most crucial. it is very useful to learn how to time a divine storm to the grasping hands at very high stacks!
do not use any CD at the beginning because the boss will leap to the pool shortly after the pull. instead, use this time to build up 5 HP and 3 stacks of LOV and also get ready to position yourself for the soaking. while soaking, remember to switch to the correct seal since you have nothing to do while running.
try to keep 3 stacks of LOV at all times. 10 seconds is very short, that means a series of FV-EDS proc may cause the stacks to reset. this is very common when you have AW on, you may need to sacrifice a hammer for a crusader strike so that you can maintain the 3 stacks of LOV.
Spec: Final Verdict vs Seraphim
this can be very personal from guild to guild. FV is a stronger choice for me because my guild has many strong AOE classes (warlock, warrior, mage) and grasping hands will always die within 1-3 seconds. it is better for me to use the opportunity to throw a FV-DS (best is FV-EDS) for such a short moment.
the decision to hit the grasping hand also help in overall boss damage. don't forget that the legendary ring will be used during the grasping hands, all the AOE damage you accumulated during the grasping hands will be exploded on to the boss as single-target, which is huge.
Spec: Light's Hammer vs Execution Sentence
even though my guild AOE is very strong, i was very surprised to find that LH easily win ES by a large margin. getting 1 tick of LH on 20 targets is already good enough to throw ES away. in addition, the slow effect from LH also helps out a couple stray hands once in a while!
Trinkets: Empty Drinking Horn & Libram of Vindication
in my opinion, the strongest combo should be EDS and LOV. using a focus macro crusader strike will help maintain the 3 stacks of LOV on the boss for the whole fight. the only exception is when the boss jump to the pool. for my guild, the purple pool jump is too far away from my soaking position.
Maximize DPS
1st AW + 1st Ring = use on 1st grasping hands
2nd AW = use shortly after 1st AW
3rd AW = use on 2nd grasping hands
4th AW + 2nd Ring = use on 3rd grasping hands
naturally we should burn our CD during the grasping hands because there are 20+ targets. no arguments needed. make use of our tier18 bonus. the first 10 seconds (stacking buff due to wings of liberty) is the most crucial. it is very useful to learn how to time a divine storm to the grasping hands at very high stacks!
do not use any CD at the beginning because the boss will leap to the pool shortly after the pull. instead, use this time to build up 5 HP and 3 stacks of LOV and also get ready to position yourself for the soaking. while soaking, remember to switch to the correct seal since you have nothing to do while running.
try to keep 3 stacks of LOV at all times. 10 seconds is very short, that means a series of FV-EDS proc may cause the stacks to reset. this is very common when you have AW on, you may need to sacrifice a hammer for a crusader strike so that you can maintain the 3 stacks of LOV.
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