Heroic Spoils 10 Man

[shandi235]

Hey folks,

My guild is having a hard time getting over a hurdle in Spoils of Panderia. Usually what happens is one side gets 50 energy the other one dies or we get 45-47 energy on both sides and hit the hard enrage.

We're going through a little bit of a transition so we're using a healer to dps (druid healer turned boomkin, sub optimal I know) but that side was consistently getting to 45+ energy tonight.

Here our the logs for the night, the first log has 1 side (Pally Tank, Destro Lock, Combat Rogue, Warrior, Holy Paladin) the 2nd log is the rest of the group. At one point during the night we swapped the ret pally and warrior. Pull #5 is the pull both sides got to 47 energy before the hard enrage.

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...LD4K/#fight=40

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...HwVA/#fight=45

The tanks are going to start pulling faster and try wearing the dps cape, however I feel that we shouldn't be struggling like we are. The majority of us are over 570 ilvl while maybe we shouldn't be stomping the fight we shouldn't be having such a hard time either.

Sorry this is kind of confusing. What else can we do?

[Dracodraco]

Well, your disc should be doing a shitton more dps for starters. There's really no damage that atonement + lvl 90 talent doesn't cover on the fight, so he should be pushing out about 100K dps before the staff, and 250K or so with the staff.
You only have 3 ranged, which sucks. I'd recommend making sure you optimise both your ranged+buffs on different sides. ATM, the destro lock is solo on one side from what I can see as the only ranged, so he has to be 100% on sparks with no real help. Have 2x ranged and 1x ranged+disc (who can substitute as a ranged dps on the sparks easily, and literally 1 shot them with the mistweaver buff) on each side. Assuming you went with the exact setup I see in the logs, I'd go:

Bear+Disc+Boomkin+Fury+Ret on one side (lacking melee haste).
Prot pally+Hpally+Hunter+Rogue+Destro lock on other side (lacking crit or spell haste. Preferably Spell haste).

Currently, one side doesn't get crit, spell haste. While the other side gets everything. This evens it out a bit, and gives you a 2/2 ranged split (along with the disc, who does more damage than hpally, on the side with the boomkin to make up for his dmg still).

remember to get drums of lust for bothsides, perhaps use them in the first room just to start getting to the second phase. When you get comfortable, you can stop using them. Can see the hunter was using on his side.
Apart from that, just optimise dps. Get proper specs, get the strategy down, do more damage.

[Deleted]

Logs on Spoils are notoriously difficult to analyze due to phasing issues, but I'll do my best. I will, however, offer you wards of warning, because I already know what I'm going to find:

If you are wiping on Spoils at 570 average iLvl, and you are wiping primarily to the hard enrage, then you have one or more raiders that are failing fundamentally at their class. The fight was eminently doable with some aggressive pulling 10 average iLvls below that, so for you to be wiping to the hard enrage means you have raiders that simply need to get better. You should, in fact, be stomping it at this iLvl, provided you are not hamstringing yourself through your own incompetence.

Now, on to how exactly your raiders are failing:

Bushfury, your warlock: Manages a deplorable sub-60% Immolate uptime. This is not good. No Immolate = no Embers = no sexy CBs that hit for millions. Also bothers to use DS: Instability exactly once on a fight where 3 usages were possible. With the sort of gear Bushfury has (HC WF BiS TRINKETS, FOR CHRISSAKES), his/her damage output is inexcusably low. One has to almost be trying to do that little DPS as a warlock with that sort of gear.

Khaligone, erstwhile Boomkin: Doesn't actually do all that horribly, all things considered. Nature's Grace uptime needs to be much better, and Sunfire uptime should be higher... but at least Khaligone isn't wasting all that many Starsurge procs, so your chicken has that going for it.

Blackjack: SnD uptime should be higher. 91% isn't terrible, but it isn't good, either. Might be able to squeeze out more usages of Killing Spree - not 100% certain, however, as rogues are not my specialty.

Nittoh: Has HC WF EEoG, doesn't get a Storm Bolt off inside each CS. This is not good. The difference between simDPS and shitDPS as a fury warrior relies 99.5% on what you do inside CS (the other 0.5% depend on what you do to prepare for CS), and Nittoh quite clearly is mismanaging this. This is a simple, visible issue from the logs, and I can assure you with almost 100% certainty that if Nittoh is not managing to get a Storm Bolt off in each CS, then there are other things during CS Nittoh is also doing incorrectly. Encourage him/her to brush up on how exactly CS is managed optimally.

Holyturel, prot paladin of dubitable skill: As a prot paladin myself, I wasn't sure whether Holyturel's logs were going to give me a grand mal seizure, or simply make me punch my screen. The issues are many, so I'll only list the most egregious ones.

1. Uses Seal of Truth. As a prot paladin, you never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, leave Seal of Insight. Never. Doing so is pants-on-head retarded to the tune of never using SotR. Make Holyturel stop this yesterday.

2. Has prot 4-set, takes Sacred Shield. My brain hurts. Not only is EF the strongest talent this tier by a large margin, it also synergizes stupidly well with Divine Purpose and the 4-set. If you're going to be a hipster and take SS because you're too cool for EF, then at least have the decency to use something with good itemization rather than the 4-set.

3. Deplorable SotR uptime - should be at least 10% higher. This is partially due to gear with hilariously awful itemization, and if that's simply due to bad loot RNG, then that obviously sucks. Make sure Holyturel is coining everything that doesn't drop a BiS shield or 1-hander in ret loot spec so he/she doesn't get all the shit loot that pollutes the prot loot table.

The rest of your raiders are a pleasant surprise - both Kjersten and Salvestrom are half-decent players by any standard.

[Deja Thoris]

Holy crap @ the poster above me. Try not to sound like a complete condescending prick when you give advice. You might be a good raider but you have the people skills of a crack addict with Tourette's.

@ The OP, one thing you can definitely improve on is the holy palas use of the mistweaver buff. In attempt 5 the buff cast 28 times and only hit 15 of them http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...-done&source=3
That's about 12 million damage you missed out on.

The prot pala as mentioned needs to take EF, he should drop the AW glyph and get final wrath for this fight since so many mobs spend the fight at low HP. He also needs to use his wings more often (once on that attempt where 2 was possible)

The advice given by both posters above is solid, now I think you just need to look at quality of life improvements.
1) Spend a few attempts opening more aggressively and die to being overwhelmed to test your limits. Having said that, follow some simple rules. Don't open another medium crate if theres an anima golem up. Kill burial urns and kuchongs asap and so on.
2) Pay attention to positioning and what buffs you have. Drag bosses to the middle so sparks can die to natural cleave from buffs without being focussed and so on.
3) Pace the opening of the massives to line up with peoples CD's ie open the first massive then all the med / small crap then a massive near the end when cooldowns are back.

Good luck :P

[Musca]

The hunter's damage output doesn't seem to be too horrible but their choices are just weird. They're using AMoC and Dire Beast, which together make up a whopping 4% of their dps (i.e. practically nothing, and at a high focus cost, too). BS and TotH would be much, much better on this fight. They're also wasting GCDs on traps -- if the hunter has enough downtime to be able to lay down traps then the tank needs to pull faster.

[shandi235]

Hey folks

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to take it into advisement and adjust accordingly. Thanks again

[Orcindauh]

They're also wasting GCDs on traps -- if the hunter has enough downtime to be able to lay down traps then the tank needs to pull faster.

I didn't look at the logs but if the hunter is survival, throwing frost traps is actually beneficial in this fight, I'll explain why.

Besides the bosses, nothing is really alive long enough for black arrow to get it's full duration so throwing frost traps around to proc LnL could be a dps increase. Especially if you were like me as I was the only ranged dps on my side and I sometimes was in huge need for a LnL proc when sparks popped up. (soloing sparks as a hunter is srs bsns).

[Dracodraco]

I didn't look at the logs but if the hunter is survival, throwing frost traps is actually beneficial in this fight, I'll explain why.

Besides the bosses, nothing is really alive long enough for black arrow to get it's full duration so throwing frost traps around to proc LnL could be a dps increase. Especially if you were like me as I was the only ranged dps on my side and I sometimes was in huge need for a LnL proc when sparks popped up. (soloing sparks as a hunter is srs bsns).

Plenty of stuff lives long enough. That said, if you are playing surv on this fight you're already doing yourself a disservice, so meh. Throwing traps around isn't likely to provide a dps increase.

[Tehterokkar]

Bushfury, your warlock: Manages a deplorable sub-60% Immolate uptime. This is not good. No Immolate = no Embers = no sexy CBs that hit for millions. Also bothers to use DS: Instability exactly once on a fight where 3 usages were possible. With the sort of gear Bushfury has (HC WF BiS TRINKETS, FOR CHRISSAKES), his/her damage output is inexcusably low. One has to almost be trying to do that little DPS as a warlock with that sort of gear.

>Implying Immolate generates a lot of embers.

Immolate is the lowest ember generator Destro has, 1 ember bit for tick crit. Incinerate generates 1 ember bit always and crits generate 2.

What's truly wrong with the Warlock is:

(4) 7.97% Rain of Fire uptime
Rain of Fire is already a DPS increase to use single target with haste effects(Meta gem/Berserking/bloodlust), so with 2 targets it's super good. And Spoils has a LOT of mobs going around(especially in Mogu, but in this parse Lock is in Mantid) so you essentially spam Rain of Fire to cover the entire room and spam Chaos Bolts around.

(1) 1.88% Fire and Brimstone uptime
Only utilized Fire and Brimstone once, I think it might be a tactic fault here with not opening enough boxes to make FnB worth it(I usually have a 4 target minimum as a standard for using it).

0 uses of Havoc
Havoc is the best spell you have as a Warlock, you can double your Chaos Bolt's damage with this or generate twice as much Ember bits from 3 Incinerates. Or you can spam 3 consecutive Shadowburn's for massive execute damage.

Using Grimoire of Supremacy
Grimoire of Sacrifice is a much better talent for this fight, even more so considering your Warlock has HC-WF KTT

Immolate uptime is low
Not a major source of resource, but the damage is pretty good still, should be kept on medium/large mobs only, or if there are 4 or more targets that will live for at least 5-7 seconds each, then FnB-Immolate.

CD usage is bad
Only used Dark Souls once, very bad.

TL;DR: Your Warlock sucks badly.

[TheWindWalker]

Holy crap @ the poster above me. Try not to sound like a complete condescending prick when you give advice. You might be a good raider but you have the people skills of a crack addict with Tourette's.

I thought he was fairly respectful and did a good job of explaining the problems with most of them. The bit about the Tank took a turn and it was hilarious but kept to the point. Honestly, a good deal of people got a laugh out of his Prot section.

Seriously, I don't even play Prot Paladin at max level and I understood everything he said and why it's important. The tank in this raid is in serious need of a good re-learn of his entire spec. It's nothing to be entirely ashamed of, sometimes you've just got to take a step back and sort yourself out.

[Adhemar]

2) Pay attention to positioning and what buffs you have. Drag bosses to the middle so sparks can die to natural cleave from buffs without being focussed and so on.

This was a big key for us. After several wipes due to insufficient DPS, we switched to alternating massive crates and putting the boss in the middle. Our mantid side opens the boss crate as the pandas are being killed and pulls him to the middle of the room, while the mogu side feeds the mantid side as many sparks as they can. When mantid boss hits about 20%, mogu side stops opening new boxes and then opens it's first boss box and the roles reverse. Repeat for the other two bosses. Having the bosses timed for the other side producing sparks in this manner made it much easier to handle with less target swapping.

There's a large element of RNG to this fight depending on which buffs you get, which is pretty stupid when you're learning it.

[Mini]

There's a large element of RNG to this fight depending on which buffs you get, which is pretty stupid when you're learning it.

This. When we were progressing, we would only make the dps check if we got the healer buff in the first box. So a 1/3 chance of "no healer box, wipe it". Turns out 300k healer dps is important. We also had ~555 ilvl, so the dps checks were a lot tighter.

[Jester Joe]

This. When we were progressing, we would only make the dps check if we got the healer buff in the first box. So a 1/3 chance of "no healer box, wipe it". Turns out 300k healer dps is important. We also had ~555 ilvl, so the dps checks were a lot tighter.

The healing buff is way too strong compared to the rest honestly. Not only does it wipe out red sparks relativity easy, it makes a huge difference on the Mogu side, with the sparks of life being wiped out by the wave, the statues that the giant mogu summons that buff him if they're not killed also get one shotted basically, and it also actually is a massive heal when it hits people. And all it requires is facing a direction. Seriously, why.

Basically, if you're having issues and you see the healing buff, rejoice, and make sure your healers are using it properly too.

[Dracodraco]

The healing buff is way too strong compared to the rest honestly. Not only does it wipe out red sparks relativity easy, it makes a huge difference on the Mogu side, with the sparks of life being wiped out by the wave, the statues that the giant mogu summons that buff him if they're not killed also get one shotted basically, and it also actually is a massive heal when it hits people. And all it requires is facing a direction. Seriously, why.

Basically, if you're having issues and you see the healing buff, rejoice, and make sure your healers are using it properly too.

The healer buff and the tank buff are equally strong, actually. Except the tank buff doesn't require you to face the right way, but just to stand in the middle of everything (which tanks luckily tend to do). If the tanks utilise it correct, anyway.

[Jester Joe]

The healer buff and the tank buff are equally strong, actually. Except the tank buff doesn't require you to face the right way, but just to stand in the middle of everything (which tanks luckily tend to do). If the tanks utilise it correct, anyway.

I don't have the actual things right in front of me, but isn't the tank buff single target? Unsure of the dps one, thought it was too, which is more of what I meant, if a group is struggling with the adds, the healing buff is the best for an AoE cleave, at least in my experience.

Unless I misread, in that case smack me.

[Dracodraco]

I don't have the actual things right in front of me, but isn't the tank buff single target? Unsure of the dps one, thought it was too, which is more of what I meant, if a group is struggling with the adds, the healing buff is the best for an AoE cleave, at least in my experience.

Unless I misread, in that case smack me.

Nope, tank one is an AOE around the tank that hits for about the same as the healer buff and stuns for a few seconds. So if you have a proper tank, he can obliterate a ton of small boxes on his own while people are dealing with the medium ones, as long as he has the buff.

[Jester Joe]

Nope, tank one is an AOE around the tank that hits for about the same as the healer buff and stuns for a few seconds. So if you have a proper tank, he can obliterate a ton of small boxes on his own while people are dealing with the medium ones, as long as he has the buff.

Huh, that's actually a good tidbit then also!

[Nebs]

I noticed you mentioned that you were wiping at 45-47 energy. This should never really be the case, and makes me think your order for opening boxes can be optimized. Let me explain what I mean.

The big boxes give 14 energy each.
The medium 3.
Small, 1.

Since you want to minimize the amount of sparks going out, you should be looking to open both larges (28 energy), all 6 mediums (18 energy), and 4 smalls (4 energy). Now, its extremely important that, after opening both pandas, you open a large as your first box. Feel free to open up a small one here as well, but do it around 20% since it might be a kunchong (on mantid side) which will require target switching. Blow all your CDs on the big add, your DPS should never be using their big cooldowns on anything other than the large boxes. Then, make your way around the room, chain opening the medium boxes, and throw 3 more small ones in there. At this point you're at 36 energy and need just 1 more big add to make it to 50.

This is why I mean you should never be hitting hard enrage at 45-47, if you do hit it, it should be at 36 because you can't get the big add down in time. Splitting up the big adds this way allows all your DPS cooldowns to be up again after using them on the first large box. Use potions on the 2nd big add, no need to do it on the first as you'll likely still have trinket procs up. Conversely, if potions are not enough, don't hesitate to blow hero just so you can make it to the 2nd room. Don't listen to people saying you should only hero on the 1st big add in the 2nd room, do it whenever you need that extra burst. If you're at 60-70 seconds left as you're opening the 2nd big add, you should be alright without hero and potion. This is also a good bench-mark for this fight, try to time opening the medium and small ones so you allow 60+ seconds for the final big add.

As others have said, the healing buff is overpowered on this fight. It brings sparks to 20% hp after one hit, and allows the person on spark duty to concentrate more on DPSing the adds. When you're on the mogu side, it is imperative to tank the big add in the middle and cleave down the little adds that it spawns, if you have more than 2 of those up the big AoE will be hitting for a lot harder. On the other hand, if you have a person exclusively dedicated to killing the little adds spawned from the big one, you won't have enough DPS to bring it down in time.

Good luck! Getting this fight down for the first time is quite a rush, it's usually done with less than 5 seconds until enrage.

[shandi235]

Thanks again guys! I really appreciate the insights! We're going in again in about an hour and a half. Wish us luck!

[wombats23]

There really isn't that much RNG to the buffs. You're guaranteed to always have at least 1 of the healer or tank buff.

Most guilds do this fight improperly if they're unable to down sparks w/o the healer buff. You're supposed to have one side chain both bosses and then trash while the other side chains the trash and then both bosses. The side with the bosses at the time has the tank move into the center where the sparks spawn. By doing that, you're guaranteed to either have the healer be able to aim the waves at the sparks or have the tank scuttle to the sparks. It's not a coincidence that both buffs deal ~750k damage (in 10H at least). The only thing you have to keep note of is that the side that does the bosses second can't pick up their panda buffs right away because you'll risk the buffs falling off before you even start on the bosses.

Like other guilds, my guild would struggle with handling the sparks until we switched to this strategy. Sparks are just meter padding with this strat.

(To be honest I hate it when we get both the tank and healer buff because then our warlock and priests can't execute them for embers/orbs, but I'm just a DPS meter whore.)