Tips on pugging KJ?

[Ticj]

No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get good enough of a group together to pug KJ.


Any tips on what to ask for, and how to coordinate the soaks? It seems like by the time we get a soaking order in we can get one good attempt in before people just leave and we have to spend a few minutes recouping.

[Pijips]

Best way is probably to ask for kill achievement even though you don't have it. Pretty common if a bit of shitty thing to do. People probably won't bother to check you anyway.

[Ticj]

Best way is probably to ask for kill achievement even though you don't have it. Pretty common if a bit of shitty thing to do. People probably won't bother to check you anyway.

Yeah, I might need to start doing that. I agree it's shitty, but I've spent 6 hours total on it already and haven't even made it to phase 3 because people don't know the fucking fight.


It also doesn't help that 30% of the people that try to join can barely speak english.

[casserole]

Yeah, I might need to start doing that. I agree it's shitty, but I've spent 6 hours total on it already and haven't even made it to phase 3 because people don't know the fucking fight.


It also doesn't help that 30% of the people that try to join can barely speak english.

Use voice, it's a must for KJ.

Tell people before the first pull to expect a few wipes initially.

Give preference to classes with immunities.

Call out every important skill 5-10 seconds before they happen.

If you continue to wipe to Armageddon after a few attempts, check the logs on the damage taken for Armageddon dot. Remove people with zero or very low damagetaken

In p3, assign a person that knows how to kite the orb and tell people to run away from orb.

Make sure you don't push dark phase whilst any adds are still up. Tell a Druid to switch to cat form during darkness transmission and ping illidan location ASAP. Tell people with dots to pop personals as soon as darkness phase begins.

[Ticj]

Use voice, it's a must for KJ.

Tell people before the first pull to expect a few wipes initially.

Give preference to classes with immunities.

Call out every important skill 5-10 seconds before they happen.

If you continue to wipe to Armageddon after a few attempts, check the logs on the damage taken for Armageddon dot. Remove people with zero or very low damagetaken

In p3, assign a person that knows how to kite the orb and tell people to run away from orb.

Make sure you don't push dark phase whilst any adds are still up. Tell a Druid to switch to cat form during darkness transmission and ping illidan location ASAP. Tell people with dots to pop personals as soon as darkness phase begins.

Thanks for the tips, I have been using voice for the entirety of the runs. The annoying thing with it though is people will try to get away with not joining it, and make up bullshit excuses after I put in the title that voice is required.

The amount of people who expect to get carried for free loot in this game is fucking ridiculous.

But yeah, kicking people who aren't taking damage from Armageddon seems like a good idea.

[Deleted]

tbh I don't bother with non curved groups anymore

some general tips:

- 2-3-11 for good transition so u don't get 2nd tankadd - don't bother with groupsizes like 2-4-12 or 2-3-7/8

- teamspeak/discord, especially if most people are 8/9

- know the overlaps in phase 2. raidlead/gm should callt it:
1) focused dreadflame + singularity
2) bursting dreadflame + singularity

you need 5 soakers, more than 5 armageddons will just complicate things

phase 1:
frist soak (preferably tank)

1. intermission (when boss is flying)
second + third soak (preferably melees)

phase 2: (once boss lands)
fourth + fifth (mages/hunters since they can even soak shitty meteors that spawn in corners-- atleast mage can with double blink)

if you have problems with remembering when to soak, just start counting from the phase you're assigned to.
for example, if you soak 4th, it basically means that you soak first in phase 2 or when boss lands.

on average it takes 5-11 pulls to kill the boss judging by my stats
https://gyazo.com/ad40648e613ee6f59f148a61b5622be2

[Caladia]

Use voice, it's a must for KJ.

Tell people before the first pull to expect a few wipes initially.

Give preference to classes with immunities.

Call out every important skill 5-10 seconds before they happen.

If you continue to wipe to Armageddon after a few attempts, check the logs on the damage taken for Armageddon dot. Remove people with zero or very low damagetaken

In p3, assign a person that knows how to kite the orb and tell people to run away from orb.

Make sure you don't push dark phase whilst any adds are still up. Tell a Druid to switch to cat form during darkness transmission and ping illidan location ASAP. Tell people with dots to pop personals as soon as darkness phase begins.

Does this even work? I remember seeing it talked about early on, but thought I also read it was hotfixed to not work any longer. I just haven't had any of our Druid's try I suppose.

[Chuckadoodle]

Does this even work? I remember seeing it talked about early on, but thought I also read it was hotfixed to not work any longer. I just haven't had any of our Druid's try I suppose.

IDK about druids since we run 2 hunters and they can ping the map immediately with w/e ability the have.

[Aktec]

Does this even work? I remember seeing it talked about early on, but thought I also read it was hotfixed to not work any longer. I just haven't had any of our Druid's try I suppose.

The druid needs to have track humans active ofc for it to work, and I make sure to shift a few times pre pull to check it stays on. Just don't do the stupid thing and ping before hes actually teleported or you will have a bunch of lemmings go jumping off the edge.

[Dracodraco]

Just to make sure - track humanoid only works after someone actually spots Illidan. You'll be able to see him on the minimap as soon as someone else can actually see him, speaking from experience of my own hunter. It "helps" but the guy who actually sees him could ping as well. It's why people sometimes claim it works (if everyones spread, there's a good chance someone instantly sees illidan), and sometimes don't.

[Onikaroshi]

Just to make sure - track humanoid only works after someone actually spots Illidan. You'll be able to see him on the minimap as soon as someone else can actually see him, speaking from experience of my own hunter. It "helps" but the guy who actually sees him could ping as well. It's why people sometimes claim it works (if everyones spread, there's a good chance someone instantly sees illidan), and sometimes don't.

We've had everyone stacked in the middle and the hunter was able to see illi off to the side so IDK what the trigger is.

[Deleted]

1 - Get 2 solid tanks. Not offspec tanks or weekend tanks. 2 tanks who know what to do and actually plan their cds for felclaws. Worst thing is to get into p3 and have your tanks 1 shot by the 5th stack. At the same time make sure you use the healer externals, if you dont use discord make sure you type it in chat before the pull.

2. P1 and intermissions the tanks can soak no problem. In p2 if you have a holy paladin have them do the 1st(divine shield) and 3rd(bop) with a mage or hunter doing 2nd.
I do this because its better off keeping the mage blocks for the orb in p3.

3. If you need the raid to stop dps because of adds coming close to 40% do so. Make sure everyone in the raid responds to this in chat so they are aware.

4. Spam /rw or yell on discord about the fire orb when it spawns. All too often i see people just stand in it and get hit. Get 1 reliable player to do it. Mages or hunters are usually the best but tbh anyone with a brain and topped with some defensive cd can do it.

5. In last phase most people just seem to ignore obelisks for some reason. Like if the tank doesnt move the boss the melee will just stand in line for no reason without thinking. Have the tank move it to a safe spot and get someone in the raid to mark a safe location to stand on.

[Jonsno]

My guild is pretty casual so they still haven't killed KJ but the way me and a few friends pugged it was that we used discord and required everyone to be on there. If you don't join, you'll be removed from the raid. One of us would raidlead and we'd make sure everyone is doing mechanics, and if we didn't get curve that night we'd just add the best players to battle.net for the next attempt.

We had most issues with P3 and one thing that really helped was that at the start of the darkness phase, we'd have everyone stack up at where illidan is to get healed to full and then start pulling/stunning the adds.


It only took a week or two before we finally killed HC KJ with mostly a pug. I'd say 14-17 players is the best and/but if you have enough dps to get through P2 before the second tank add spawns, you should be good. Boss died after 56 wipes.

[DeusX]

Just cycle people in a group of max 15 until they all play the tactics right. KJ normal is not about coordination, it is about people doing the mechanics. No need to talk about anything.
Ah, make sure you dont overcrowd the melee.

[Meiffert]

You don't specify a difficulty you are trying to do.

There is some good advice in this thread already, but one thing I want to mention in case you are talking about heroic is this: heroic KJ (and other last bosses in other heroic raids) are not supposed to be pugged.

The fight is difficult. Most top guilds wiped a couple of times before they got him down the first week. And we are talking some of the best players in the game with awesome coordination, used to calling and using externals/raid cooldowns, very high individual performance and PTR experience.
If they couldn't one-shot it, how do you expect to do it? And ultimately you only have a few attempts in a pug before someone leaves. As you replace people, you have to start over.

There are successful groups on heroic KJ for sure. But these groups have people who are 7/9m, 5/9m or at least 9/9hc multiple times by now.
With their experience of killing the fight multiple times, they can now do it with limited coordination of a pug and even then it's not exactly easy and rarely do you get a clean kill or a 1-shot.

To get the boss down the first time, you have to make continuous progression. Most groups who haven't killed it by now will likely require multiple nights to do it. It's hard to have a pug run long enough without disbanding to learn the boss.
The best advice I can give you is to not progress hard bosses in pugs. You can do them in a pug - later on when you and everyone else in the pug has the experience of killing the boss, but for progression you should really join a stable group.

[Tang0]

You don't specify a difficulty you are trying to do.

There is some good advice in this thread already, but one thing I want to mention in case you are talking about heroic is this: heroic KJ (and other last bosses in other heroic raids) are not supposed to be pugged.

The fight is difficult. Most top guilds wiped a couple of times before they got him down the first week. And we are talking some of the best players in the game with awesome coordination, used to calling and using externals/raid cooldowns, very high individual performance and PTR experience.
If they couldn't one-shot it, how do you expect to do it? And ultimately you only have a few attempts in a pug before someone leaves. As you replace people, you have to start over.

There are successful groups on heroic KJ for sure. But these groups have people who are 7/9m, 5/9m or at least 9/9hc multiple times by now.
With their experience of killing the fight multiple times, they can now do it with limited coordination of a pug and even then it's not exactly easy and rarely do you get a clean kill or a 1-shot.

To get the boss down the first time, you have to make continuous progression. Most groups who haven't killed it by now will likely require multiple nights to do it. It's hard to have a pug run long enough without disbanding to learn the boss.
The best advice I can give you is to not progress hard bosses in pugs. You can do them in a pug - later on when you and everyone else in the pug has the experience of killing the boss, but for progression you should really join a stable group.

That's not an attitude to bring into the fight it is(was) difficult, but quite a few pugs, mine included, managed to do it week one. Without a ridiculous amount of time spent. And the evrage ilvl was around 910. All in the coordination

[Deleted]

my 2c for HC KJ (raid leader for a casual 2night guild). Focusing on the fact you're doing a PUG, not a guild group:

Group size: 2/2/6 or 2/3/12

Minimum ilvl: 920

Voice: must. Instakick people not being able to join voice chat. Soakers, tanks and healers being able to talk in basic english is a plus.

Composition:
Tanks: Blood DK (for aoe grip in intermission 2), Bear (roar) - both are good against Fell Claws, both can be used as big armageddon soakers if need be (I'd use them as backup). Avoid a paladin tank (brings nothing to the fight, bad ones will be decimated by Fell Claws)
Mdps: Rogue (soaker 2), Arms Warr (1 or 2) - make warriors leap to small armageddons that are not covered by ranged. Avoid melee as much as possible, stack only high performers for this fight (rogue, arms warrior)
Rdps: Hunter x2 (soakers 1 and 3), Mage (soaker 4 + hero), x (any other ranged is good). Try to stack hunters (even mediocre ones do decently due to heavy movement in the fight which doesn't affect their dps).
Healers: hpally (spot healing, 2x soaking if need be - can soak with either bubble or bop), rdruid (aoe hps throughput + will be able to use tranq 2 or 3 times). If going with a third healer I suggest a shaman due to unique cooldows (spirit link at p3 start + hero). Any other is also viable for 3rd healer.

Fight:

Most important rule regarding the fight itself - if you're failing armageddon soaks you won't kill the boss. Replace people who ignore soaks (esp. ranged!) asap. Your soakers are: hunter -> rogue (this one is in the intermission so rogue anyhow doesn't have uptime on boss) -> hunter -> mage -> repeat. Tanks and hpally (2x) can serve as a backup.

Phase 1: you are in a good spot dps wise if you transition just before or just after singularity (must transition before 2nd armageddon!). Replace low dps if that's not the case
Intermission 1: tell your hybrid dps to heal themselves during intermission, not like they have anything better to do
Phase 2: hero on phase start. If you enter 2nd intermission prior to armageddon (not sure which one, might be 6th) and without adds up, you're good
Intermission 2: stack raid in the middle, have 1 hunter ping the map where Ilidan is. Use aoe grip to cluster the adds
Phase 3: at the start of the phase, there's a Darkness of a Thousand Souls cast - have one warrior shout just before the cast finishes and start tranq. Have 1 hunter always kite the orb. If you reached this far, don't get too stressed with deaths, p3 is doable with a handful of people left as long as you can meet the enrage timer.

[Alithia]

I have been pugging TOS on 10 toons for 6 weeks now. I have about 40+ KJ kills and 500 wipes.

So here is my experience.

First you obvioulsy want to be carried, so when people find out they will most likely leave. Either you take that risk or be open about it.

Linking Deceiver's Fall is a must! Get "Achievement check" addon and check. Obvioulsy it will identify you as somebody who doesn't have the av, but at least you know who linked you a fake av.

Write 915* in description, and advertise if you can, e.g. 930 tank in group. 920 is overkill. It is mechanic check.

Get a good amount of soakers and one hunter. (Frost mage, DH, Hunter, Pala, Rogue)

Macro a raid annouce soak order list and put all soakers in one group, order is top to bottom.

Make it very clear if you want tanks to soak in P1 and intermission. Sometimes people assume the soak order starts from P2 on. Be very clear about that!

Be an asshole and kick people who die to singularity, there is zero excuse for that.

If you demand flask, food and runes, run a check and kick those who refuse to use them. Write this in your description.

Now a mean thing: Careful with Russian and French players, some of them don't understand one word of English!

TS/Discord is not needed at all, especially in an international pug.

[Deleted]

Careful with Russian and French players

on the topic of national bias, I have a mixed experience with Russians. They are either among the best or by far the worst in the group. Seems to be no middle ground with them. French I had no issues with but Italians and Portuguese... (realms Pozzo del Eternita or something like that and Aggra). I try not to be biased when making a pug for anything, but somehow these people almost aways prove to be the least reliable. And 99% of the time they don't understand a single word of English.

On the other side of the spectrum, players from German realms tend to be solid and reliable in most cases.

[Deleted]

Blizz made bosses to difficult. Pugging becomes more and more a no go area. So much for the fun! I know people who dont botter anymore and skip endbosses. What good are they anyway, what experience they give? Next patch and all shit is redundant. Maybe a few expansions later i will zerg KJ and have fun instead of wiping and be frustrated. Have a nice day.