Ko'ragh - ranged stacked up the whole fight?

[Detritivores]

We split the room into quadrants and have ranged "stack" in one quadrant at a time. They are actually spread out but in the same general vicinity for ease of CD use for shadow and fields being in roughly one area. Hard stacking is unnecessary and makes the fight harder for your ranged pile. Not sure what all the fuss is about field placement. Tanks pick up adds and take them to a field. Why in the world does anyone care where the field is?

Edit: We do stack the raid behind a field during recharge phases so that all their incidental cleave nonsense pulls adds into a field and makes tanks lives easier.

[Spotnick]

There is zero reason to stack in this fight. It's a complete dps loss if you do.

That doesn't mean to be out of range of heals obviously.

[Lyyght]

I find the longer we wait on the adds, the more I get shit on as a tank. Even with internal CDs and an external, I'm just flopping over. Also, i'm not standing in the suppression field... but behind hit. Maybe our DPS is a little too slow at getting to the adds... I can only assume that the slower the are, the more chance I have of getting crushed.

[steenkie]

I find the longer we wait on the adds, the more I get shit on as a tank. Even with internal CDs and an external, I'm just flopping over. Also, i'm not standing in the suppression field... but behind hit. Maybe our DPS is a little too slow at getting to the adds... I can only assume that the slower the are, the more chance I have of getting crushed.

Internal/External-> Stun -> Repeat. Both tanks should be able to nearly kill off the adds before the charging phase is over. Using a stacking method behind a suppression field, adds will come straight to the group. Tanks simply aggro from range, healers will draw aggro as well. Frost trap works wonders for staggering them on incoming. Stuns are your friend. Coordinate them and you will be surprised how easy it is.

[Raiju]

I didn't call raids bad, I called the tanks bad - because I've only ever seen the stack tactic employed due to tanks not being able to pick up adds... in normal.

[Kurgosh]

It's going to depend somewhat on your healing comp and how responsible your DPS are. If your DPS aren't disciplined enough to maintain a loose spread close to the center of the room without dropping needed silences at the far corners, or blocking the tank's path to kite arcane debuff, then you'll need to stack them to force them to behave. If they can't stay within 40 yards of healers for major throughput CDs (or if your guild is lacking CDs like healing tide, and tranq and has to rely on ground effects and group heals), then you'll have to stack for healing. A lot of strats that work for the highest end guilds don't work for the rest of us, simply because the players lack the individual skill to pull it off. Strats that make things easier (even at a loss of DPS, which can eventually be compensated by gear) are often used by guilds that aren't at the cutting edge of progression.

[PandemicDK]

Does this work?

[Everwake]

When the boss's shield is almost down, we just call out a location near a pool and everyone stacks over there to drag over/aoe the adds in the pool. Otherwise, we generally stay spread out.

[Deleted]

Its not about picking the adds up as a tank, its about aoeing them easier. Less globals spent on single target spells just aoe the crap out of them while standing behind the zone, helaers behind you. Its just way more efficient than running around. The amount of dmg you gain from not taking 2 steps to the side is not as important as handling adds smoothly and getting the shadowdebuff off quickly, it is just much easier to stack. Like someone else said, why make it harder than it has to be? The dps lost is not an issue.

[Qualia]

^
The thing is, however, you do not need so much control for the void zones in Ko'ragh, all the way from Normal to Mythic. You only need one Void zone at a "good" spot (which is anywhere that isn't all the way next to a wall) for the adds, and this is easily doable without stacking. As for gathering the add, the poster above you already gave the method, just have healers stacks when the Charging phase starts if your tanks can't pick the add up for some reason. There shouldn't be any issue with positioning the adds since tanks have 8s between each add wave to do that, and all the AoE Grip / Vortex / Binding Shots / AoE stuns to help him after the Charging phase is over.
"taking 2 steps to the side" every 15s is a DPS loss, not an insignificant one either - for most of the fights, you don't want to lose DPS if you can avoid it. Less DPS, 90% of the fights in WoW, equal to harder fight. In this case - stacking means you can't MD the fire debuff immediately = more damage healers have to heal up; having to constantly move / spread and stack back up for each Expel: Fire or Trample means the fight will be longer = more orbs to fall/ more Expel: <ability>, which is more trouble.

Of course, it's not impossible to kill him with the stacking strat as I have seen multiple guilds doing so, but let me just pose the question back at you, "why make it harder than it has to be?". The only good reason to stack is if your raid lack healing throughput CDs, really. As long as you have enough throughput CDs to cover and clear shadow debuff quickly (which should be doable with most raids), there is no reason to stack.

[Raiju]

Its not about picking the adds up as a tank, its about aoeing them easier. Less globals spent on single target spells just aoe the crap out of them while standing behind the zone, helaers behind you. Its just way more efficient than running around. The amount of dmg you gain from not taking 2 steps to the side is not as important as handling adds smoothly and getting the shadowdebuff off quickly, it is just much easier to stack. Like someone else said, why make it harder than it has to be? The dps lost is not an issue.

I'd say increased damage taken is making it harder than it has to be, since picking adds up is not difficult...

[IxilaFA]

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).

Im sorry but how does having to sidestep once every fifteen seconds lead to significantly lower DPS for you? Im not sure youre gonna like mythic fights when you get to them, since you have to be moving almost all the time it seems for most mythic encounters.

Bottom line is that stacking is almost 100% superior to spreading unless the boss actually has a mechanic that discouraged stacking. It leads to better placement, better healing, and better control over the fight in general. My guild pretty much defaults into a "stack in ranged" strat for every fight that lets us.

[Raiju]

Im sorry but how does having to sidestep once every fifteen seconds lead to significantly lower DPS for you? Im not sure youre gonna like mythic fights when you get to them, since you have to be moving almost all the time it seems for most mythic encounters.

Bottom line is that stacking is almost 100% superior to spreading unless the boss actually has a mechanic that discouraged stacking. It leads to better placement, better healing, and better control over the fight in general. My guild pretty much defaults into a "stack in ranged" strat for every fight that lets us.

What is this better control stuff people are talking about? You only need 1 silence field in a near suitable position, not something you even notice you have to coordinate... better palcement of what? all the aoe effects on your head?

I can get better healing, but that is directly counter with more damage on landing on you to move from.