Ko'ragh - ranged stacked up the whole fight?

[Netherspark]

So my guild is a little stuck on Ko'ragh heroic, and are repeatedly insisting that all ranged should be stacked up together for the whole fight (not counting fire debuffs or soaking/absorbing orbs ). I can see some video guides were they're doing the same... but why?

Exactly what benefit does stacking grant you? As far as I can tell all it actually does is make the fight harder - when you get the Expel: Fire everyone needs to run and spread, on Expel: Frost everyone gets slowed, when he does Trample everyone has to run away, and it leaves a huge obstructing clump of silence zones right in everyone's way.

I'm lost trying to figure out why stacking like that is anything other than harmful.... wouldn't it be better to be loosely spread around the room? It just seems like a huge loss of DPS and needless complication.


And another thing, when Ko'ragh is charging up his shield, all ranged are instructed to focus on adds rather than attacking the boss. Would it not be better to DPS the boss for that short time you can actually damage him, and then kill the adds afterwards?

[Raiju]

We one-shot this last night doing exactly as we did on normal - ranged slightly spread for fire debuff / ease of silence field damage.

Stacking doesn't gain enough in healing imo for it to be at all worth it.

All dps during the charge phase should be on the boss, and adds taken care of after.

[Deleted]

For heroic there should be no problem stacking in a range group to ease healing up the shadow debuff. While it's not exactly needed it is easier in order to avoid people dying afterwards from fire debuff, adds, orbs.

Atleast theres nothing preventing you from doing so on Herioc. On mythic it seems to be different though.

[Gorsameth]

It is generally preferable to keep ranged on the boss during his recharge and quickly get the adds down once they have all spawned, 3 waves of 3 adds.
The reasoning for this is partly the increase in damage on the boss which makes the fight shorter and the fact that the low HP of the adds will probably cause a good number of them to die before the tank can pick them up and move them to the silence zones.
Note however that 9 adds hitting the tank is kinda painfull so he may need external cooldowns.

Stacking ranged lets you control where the silence zones go but as you pointed out greatly increases movement required which lowers dps. I dont see why you should stack on HC. the dps loss isnt worth the control over silence zones when that is not really important.

[Qualia]

And another thing, when Ko'ragh is charging up his shield, all ranged are instructed to focus on adds rather than attacking the boss. Would it not be better to DPS the boss for that short time you can actually damage him, and then kill the adds afterwards?

To be honest, tell whoever instructed your range DPS to focus on add during the charging phase to do more research about the fight before giving out instruction. The boss takes 50% more damage from magic during that phase, and the adds' HP are low enough that you can just AoE them down after that phase is over - there is no point in giving up extra damage.

[britishbubba]

To be honest, tell whoever instructed your range DPS to focus on add during the charging phase to do more research about the fight before giving out instruction. The boss takes 50% more damage from magic during that phase, and the adds' HP are low enough that you can just AoE them down after that phase is over - there is no point in giving up extra damage.

This never made it off beta. you do however, want to throw all your dmg into the boss while magic damage is actually effecting his health pool instead of the shield. adds can just be AoEd down when all 3 sets have spawned.

[Netherspark]

Stacking ranged lets you control where the silence zones go but as you pointed out greatly increases movement required which lowers dps. I dont see why you should stack on HC. the dps loss isnt worth the control over silence zones when that is not really important.

Well this is their point; that we NEED to control where the silence zones go, but it actually doesn't really matter that much where they are, provided they're not all in silly places or obstructing the fight.

[Raiju]

Well this is their point; that we NEED to control where the silence zones go, but it actually doesn't really matter that much where they are, provided they're not all in silly places or obstructing the fight.

Yes, it doesn't matter it all. I find the "bring all adds to tank" tactic crazy personally.

Tank should be able to pick up at least 2/3 adds of every spawn by himself, and either grab the third a few seconds later or if available have a hunter/rogue help get some onto him. He can then kite them about (sprints or slows/stuns) till all are spawned... get them into a field and have them finished.

Doesn't matter where the field is in the slightest, and honestly just seems to make the fight more difficult for everyone else in the raid just because the tank can't hold a few adds (the boss doesn't hit too hard especially if the other tank takes the boss more towards his higher stacks, just save cd's for the add phase)

[Rhyseh]

I wouldn't stack. Have your raid spread out imo. Stacking is technically more healing efficient but in no way required to kill it. Just assign healing CD's for when the shadow and intermission phase overlap and you should be sweet. IMO stacking will only reduce your DPS an increase the risk of taking excess damage from the silencing zones.

If your tank can't pick up all the ads on his own he needs to lift his game. What we do is have all DPS on Koragh while he is regenerating his barrier and then have everyone switch to ads once it's replenished. AOE them down in the silence zone and gg. Just make sure no one drops silence voids right in mid and you will be fine.

[Deja Thoris]

Its for efficiency of heals. With the hit from the frozen orb / fire debuff / shadow debuff and orbs deopping theres enough healing to be done.

Also, theres always a few people in every raid that place the suppression zones in the most pants on head retarded positions possible while tunneling the living fuck out of an add while they wonder how they pulled aggro. If you don't have people like that in your raid feel free to spread :P

[Herecius]

Stacking helps clear frozen orb off everybody fast, and clearing the shadow debuff fast. It also helps keep the suppression fields from being EVERYWHERE. It makes the fight far more controlled and less chaotic. You certainly don't need to, but why make it harder than it has to be?

[Hildrande]

Stacking and moving ranged constantly leads to a substantial DPS loss. We got him down after switching to being spread out, also because we had more problems dealing with fire and suppresion field when stacked.

[Qualia]

Stacking helps clear frozen orb off everybody fast, and clearing the shadow debuff fast. It also helps keep the suppression fields from being EVERYWHERE. It makes the fight far more controlled and less chaotic. You certainly don't need to, but why make it harder than it has to be?

On the other hand, stacking means everyone will have to move frequently to dodge each time Trample or Fire debuff goes out then stack back up, which lead to less damage / healing = longer shield phase / longer shadow / fire debuff staying up. The only real benefit of stacking is to clear shadow debuff faster, as even with the raid spread out nicely, frozen orb slow is easily cleared with Stampeding Roar / WW totem and you only need one Suppression Field at a good place.
So in the end, it come down to which is more annoying to you, and I'd say that at least to me, having to move at least once every 15s is way worse than letting the Shadow debuff be up for a few more seconds (which may not even be the case if you assign throughput CDs to get rid of it).

[Aktec]

I would say it depends on your setup, how much dps would actually be lost by moving vs how much do healers need people to stack, maybe you have very little raid healing output cds (tranq, hymn, tide) but if your stacked up you could use barriers and spirit links etc towards the end when the dmg is higher.

[Sheridanjohn]

So my guild is a little stuck on Ko'ragh heroic, and are repeatedly insisting that all ranged should be stacked up together for the whole fight (not counting fire debuffs or soaking/absorbing orbs ). I can see some video guides were they're doing the same... but why?

Exactly what benefit does stacking grant you? As far as I can tell all it actually does is make the fight harder - when you get the Expel: Fire everyone needs to run and spread, on Expel: Frost everyone gets slowed, when he does Trample everyone has to run away, and it leaves a huge obstructing clump of silence zones right in everyone's way.

I'm lost trying to figure out why stacking like that is anything other than harmful.... wouldn't it be better to be loosely spread around the room? It just seems like a huge loss of DPS and needless complication.


And another thing, when Ko'ragh is charging up his shield, all ranged are instructed to focus on adds rather than attacking the boss. Would it not be better to DPS the boss for that short time you can actually damage him, and then kill the adds afterwards?

Suppression fields are always predictable when stacked, if loosely spread people run into them. Healing is easier. We can roar and drop the frost debuff off of everyone. Idk stacking seemed really easy for us, your guild might have issues moving out of mechanics so it may not be so easy for you.

Switching to adds before they have all spawned is a dps loss, you have say 20 seconds (hypothetically), you can either dps the boss for 20 seconds then aoe nuke the adds in 3 seconds or dps the adds for 23 seconds.

[Sanji]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BICfw6tJPf4

For reference on one of our silly tries, it worked kinda well until one of the hunters missed his soaking target and we had 3 exploding at the same time killing the other soaker... Things got complicated after that. However essentially this is how we executed it and tbh it worked a lot better for us instead of having everyone spread.

[Tojara]

Thing is you really don't lose that much DPS. It makes healing shadow expel really easy, and when frost orb gets thrown on the group you can get everybody with windwalk totem or stampeding roar.

The silence zones are controlled this way instead of everywhere, and other than that you just spread out during fire.

The adds are the easiest when done right, and nobody should be hitting them but tanks anyway. Grab the 9 adds, mass grip into zone, AoE stun and vortex, then blow them up in 3-5 seconds. They die really quick for a reason, because it's intended you get punished if you don't kill them cleanly.

Most range DPS don't lose much for side stepping the void zone placed if it's just one GCD.

[Raiju]

I honestly don't get the issue with silence fields - are peoples tanks just that bad?

[Deja Thoris]

I honestly don't get the issue with silence fields - are peoples tanks just that bad?

Somebody does it different from me, they must all be "that bad".

[Wilderness]

I honestly don't get the issue with silence fields - are peoples tanks just that bad?

Its certainly not required to stack, but it also makes it easier to control the fight as a whole. You control where the fields go, and even though you spread for the fire debuff you're still going to be more concentrated for healing than if you were spread around the whole room. Its really not much to sidestep a few yards when the charge comes out, and its easy to clear the frost in one roar. The adds will be coming towards your main group when they spawn, making it easier for the tank to grab, and of course healing throughout the fight is better due to the grouping.

You don't have to stack, but there are benefits to it vs not stacking that may be better for some groups. Its not like you're losing a ton of dps, nor is it a dps check fight to begin with. I don't think that makes them terrible.