Galakras himself mechanics

[MelodicAssassin]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/kte3jhs9mgn0vodq/

Here's last nights logs. Any insight or advice you can give would be very helpful.

[Deathcries]

So does the line give you the debuff that increases the damage from the ball or is it the ball when it lands that gives you the debuff? Seems to be a lot of different opinions in here about it on what gives it.

[Aktec]

I thought it was when the ball passes through you that you get the dot debuff and the line was just there to show the path of where the ball is going to go

[Brewstout]

Galakras gains a stacking fire damage buff for each pulse of "Pulsing Flames" - 3% per pulse - for the rest of the fight. The debuff you get for soaking a fireball (not the line, as far as I could tell) is "Flames of Galkarond" which deals ~30k a stack per second.

[Devboy]

It does seem a bit wierd, some hit stupidly hard for us, while others barely hurt. I do think we had a few issues where the person that got the ball ran away from the raid, and the ball went in the wrong direction, but we still survived, just out geared it massively I think.

[rated]

Okay, we're annihilating the trash bosses and everything up until Gala, easy peezy. However when we get to gala himself we're getting annihilated. We tried stacking, and we tried getting into a line, and still we get destroyed. Some balls will come out and hit like a wet noodle. Others come out and hit like a truck. My belief is people are coming back in the group to soon, and not staying out long enough.

Someone said something about a debuff which when it goes through other people when it hits that it'll still hit like a truck. Everything goes great for the first 10 seconds, then after that the balls are landing and one shotting the raid.

I've read some stuff on here, but people are coming to a different consensus on how to do it. I would just like to see what some others thoughts are, or get more people who have done this to come to a general consensus on what to do. Dying to mechanics that you don't seem to grasp isn't fun.

What is probably happening is when phase 2 starts every one is either ignoring orbs (bad) or everyone's soaking them (bad) and stacking up their debuff so high that the raid damage becomes too much to bare. People soaking orbs can only do so for so long until they need to stop to let debuff drop off. Make 2 lines instead of 1.

Also really really try to hold off lust for as long as you can...the damage at the start of phase 2 is weak compared to sub 40%.

So does the line give you the debuff that increases the damage from the ball or is it the ball when it lands that gives you the debuff? Seems to be a lot of different opinions in here about it on what gives it.

Soaking the orb (aka letting it hit you as it passes by to its fixated target) gives you a stack of the debuff.

[Deathcries]

What is probably happening is when phase 2 starts every one is either ignoring orbs (bad) or everyone's soaking them (bad) and stacking up their debuff so high that the raid damage becomes too much to bare. People soaking orbs can only do so for so long until they need to stop to let debuff drop off. Make 2 lines instead of 1.

Also really really try to hold off lust for as long as you can...the damage at the start of phase 2 is weak compared to sub 40%.



Soaking the orb (aka letting it hit you as it passes by to its fixated target) gives you a stack of the debuff.

So you're saying the ball passing through people it does not give the debuff too. Only the one who it hits?

[kaamila]

So you're saying the ball passing through people it does not give the debuff too. Only the one who it hits?

i doubt it. when my guild did it i read the same thing and MADE SURE the person who had the ball was 15-20 yrds out and didnt come back in until the ball hit them so we wouldnt get the debuffs, but the raid still got it.

[Deathcries]

i doubt it. when my guild did it i read the same thing and MADE SURE the person who had the ball was 15-20 yrds out and didnt come back in until the ball hit them so we wouldnt get the debuffs, but the raid still got it.

Got it. Sounds like there needs to be two groups to rotate it then. We're going to go back on Monday, but I would rather ask here and get all the particulars figured out instead of wasting time in there, as we've already had plenty of wipes on galakras himself. Having to wait around 7 minutes just to figure out maybe a minute of time on him is kind of a pain in the ass.

[Squishei]

The best thing to do, is have players attempt to soak as many as possible and when they get 3 stacks of the debuff, don't soak it anymore. It is really wierd how the soaking works as in half the time you're in the beam and it doesn't register. Maybe an ICD.

[Caffeen]

Anyone have any idea how much the Flames of Galakrond explosion is reduced per person the orb passes through? That'd be good to know to help figure out the "ideal" number of people to intercept it per orb

[Deleted]

When I wasn't in the raid when we first tried it, we failed doing it in a single line. The dot stacks up too high, after 4 orbs you have to heal 1.2 million DPS plus tank damage plus explosion, and obviously Galakras doesn't only throw 4 orbs (more like 10-15, depending on your raid damage).

If it was a damage taken debuff, it would work. But since every hit gives the raid a stacking 30k DPS dot, it's better to just have two groups and have RNG go its way. Even if you're unlucky and the same group gets 5 orbs in a row, that's only half of the raid eating 150k DPS each. I found it impossible to two-heal a single line, CDs run out at a certain point and tank/explosion damage just gets put on top of the dot.

I'm fairly certain that two lines is how it is supposed to be done, otherwise they wouldn't have chosen a tank-switch-style dot mechanic instead of a simple enrage debuff.

[Rasstapp]

We tried doing Galakras the way you were supposed to for probably about 3 hours or so, we then switched to a sort of zerg tactic where everyone stacked in melee, and the person with the orb ran a tiny bit behind the group and then ran back in when it exploded, using this tactic we killed it on the first attempt.

[royals]

We tried doing Galakras the way you were supposed to for probably about 3 hours or so, we then switched to a sort of zerg tactic where everyone stacked in melee, and the person with the orb ran a tiny bit behind the group and then ran back in when it exploded, using this tactic we killed it on the first attempt.

We had the same luck, 2 or 3 wipes trying to do it "Really well" handling the orbs. Then said screw it and stacked behind the boss and had the person run out behind the group when targeted. Oddly some orbs hit for beans and some hit for 90% of our life. One of which was on me which I blinked directly out behind the group and was a good distance away. Not quite sure how to make sure the orbs don't hit for a lot. Being that we are mostly heroic geared helped with the dps check. Props to normal mode guilds killing him correctly and/or with less gear. I found this fight annoying and the following ones faceroll comparatively.

[shokter]

I posted in a previous thread about how this works but there is still a lot of misunderstanding about the mechanic.

When Galakras debuffs a person with the hunters mark thing that connects you to him with a line, he tosses an orb at you. When that orb hits the ground, it will do damage inversely proportional to how many players the line went through. 0 people is full damage, all players is minimal damage.

Every single person in your raid needs to stack on one spot and one spot only, except tanks. When a person gets debuffed, that person runs out 10-15 yards behind the giant group of stacked players and waits for the debuff to fall off. When it falls off, the fire orb hits and since you're directly behind the group the line is passing through everyone and the explosion is minimal. Then you run back to the group. The fire damage increase debuff comes from the orb explosion. The only person who should ever get it is the person with the debuff and MAYBE the next person running out.

Stacking up in multiple groups is stupid. It's a lot of RNG on line splitting and a lot of RNG depending on who gets targeted with debuffs.

Splitting up ranged and melee is also stupid. It means your melee has to run absurdly far and will hate you.

Having people block and bubble the fire damage debuff is cool and all but your strat should not ever revolve around your entire raid having to manage this debuff. You're doing it wrong if that's the case. If you want to bubble off someone who got hit more than once or twice. Cool. If you want to bubble off someone who's too close and got hit. Cool. But your entire raid should not be getting debuffs.

It is a very simple mechanic.

Is the bolded part accurate? I see conflicting info on this. Icy veins and others state the debuff applies when people soak the ball as it passes through, not from orb explosion, and from my own experience I am still unsure. We got this boss, but I want to understand it better for next time.

[Angelicat]

Is the bolded part accurate? I see conflicting info on this. Icy veins and others state the debuff applies when people soak the ball as it passes through, not from orb explosion, and from my own experience I am still unsure. We got this boss, but I want to understand it better for next time.

It's not I don't think.

I've played around with this mechanic a lot so I'm pretty sure this is how it works.

The person who the orb is targeting will get a 'fixate' debuff for 5 seconds. At the end of this debuff, the orb will fly out to the spot the person was at when the debuff wears off. This is important, because

1. If you're melee, you can basically go back to dpsing to the boss as soon as your debuff wears off instead of sitting there waiting for the orb to come to you.
2. It makes it so that if you are a soaker on rotation, you don't have to take a stack from the ball if it's not your turn to soak, since you can essentially dodge the orb before it gets to you.

If you are slow to get to the point before your debuff wears off, your ball will hit wherever you were when your debuff wore off.

As for the soaking part, you will always have one soaker at least - which is the main tank. The ball always starts on the main tank and gives him a stack, thus giving you one guaranteed soaker there. The line the ball creates is the real marker for whether you soak (and thus get a stack of the fire dot) or not, not the actual ball itself. This is important too because if your tank tanks it a little out of position, and the line is a little off to someone's side, they will essentially not get the debuff. It's why 'stack' strats sometimes don't see everyone getting the debuff at once, because they all don't truly stack up with the line, instead thinking that the ball passes them and thus they are soaking it.

I'm not sure where this whole fire damage taken thing came from with the dot or orb explosion. Galakras himself pulses a raid wide AoE, and everytime he pulses it, he does 3% more fire damage. This effect stacks on him. The dot you get from soaking a ball is a 30k per second dot that lasts 6 seconds. This is why getting up to 5-6 stacks is bad and why "just stacking" up is a bad idea and essentially just zerging him before he kills you. I don't think the increased fire damage buff he gets applies to the orb or the dot stacks you get from soaking an orb either, just to his pulsing raid wide AoE.

It's very easy to make 2 groups of 4 (because you have the main tank always soaking a stack) and just alternating every 2 stacks. If you understand how the orb fixate mechanic works as well with the line and the above mentioned fixate debuff, you will never have an odd guy out with weird stacks either. You need at least 3 people to make the orb damage deal-able, including the main tank who always takes one.

I'm sure the majority of deaths in that phase are due to high stacks of the dot, or people not moving in time behind the group before their fixate debuff ends thinking that as long as the ball hasn't flown out yet, they are fine on time.

TLDR; There are 3 sources of fire damage on Galakras -

1. Pulsing raid wide AoE that starts weak, but everytime it pulses, it makes Galakras do 3% more fire damage and stacks, making the raid wide AoE pulse the soft enrage of the fight. Doesn't apply to the orb damage or the dot you get from soaking an orb.

2. Orb landing damage. It starts off big, but as people "soak" it, the damage it deals gets smaller.

3. Dot damage from soaking an orb. 30k a second dot for 6 seconds you get for letting an orb pass through you. This stacks, so getting past 2 stacks makes it really hard to heal.

[Txiv]

Is the bolded part accurate? I see conflicting info on this. Icy veins and others state the debuff applies when people soak the ball as it passes through, not from orb explosion, and from my own experience I am still unsure. We got this boss, but I want to understand it better for next time.

That has not been my experience , In fact I failed to get a stack at the point of impact after every Dps soaked. They all had the dot.

I think the problem is people are getting the terminology mixed up. The debuff is just a warning that you are the orb person. The flames of galakrond is a dot that deals fire damage and can stack every time you intercept the ball. The searing flames is a self buff on the boss that increases his fire damage and happens at random. The explosion of the orb is a raid wide aoe burst of fire damage independent of location, lessened by people standing in it before it explodes.

[Deleted]

The best thing to do, is have players attempt to soak as many as possible and when they get 3 stacks of the debuff, don't soak it anymore. It is really wierd how the soaking works as in half the time you're in the beam and it doesn't register. Maybe an ICD.

I've also seen this. I was hesitant about doing the "stack in a group, person with ball moves behind" tactic but it actually worked with the debuff seemingly registering sometimes and not others, I can't imagine why as its the exact same debuff the tank gets and for the exact same reason (spawn at its mouth, on top of the current tank). Maybe the positioning needs to be exact to get the debuff?

More annoying is the fact our only melee can be targeted with it. Either way, it felt like a farce compared to our first kill when we split into two groups to handle it.

[Vanderhuge]

Remember to bring Galakras close enough to the faction NPCs so they can get some hits in. Varian/Lor'Themar both hit Galakras like a fright train, and the damage will help a ton in 10 man.

[coocoo]

Just wanted to give a shoutout to Angelicat & MelodicAssassin, amongst others here... with these tips, we were able to understand how to handle the second phase and got our kill.

Galakras targets a random player with 5 sec fixate debuff -> yellow line from the boss to the player.
When the debuff falls off, a fireball goes flying to the spot the player was standing at, at the moment the fireball spawns & starts moving.
This means 2 things: you can easily set up 2 teams of soakers (stacked tightly on the soak spot) & rotate them after 3 debuffs, and, it doesn't matter who is the fireball target: if it's one of the players who is not soaking currently, he can move away from the spot when the fireball starts moving & avoid getting the stacking debuff. Likewise, if the target is a soaker, he can move back into the soak group as soon as the fireball starts moving.

Crappy ascii setup:

Tanks
XXXX
Galakras
XXXX
Soakers
XXXX XXXX RestofRaid (standing about 8 yard to the side)
Fireball dropzone

In other words, the soak group was standing just behind the boss (at approx max melee range), the fireball dropzone was just 5 yard behind the soak group, with the tank->soak->fireball spots marked in a direct line, and the Rest-of-Raid spot about 8 yards to the side between soak+fireball spots -> to minimize time spent moving = more dps/heal uptime.
Boss tanked on top of flamestrike spot.