Normal Warmaster Blackhorn

[Dazarann]

Hey guys I've got a pretty solid problem with this fight.

My group has spent an entire night wiping on this fight which looks fairly simple, but in all reality, ends up being quite hard.

I want to make it clear that we've reached the last wave of adds about 20 times, but in the end, its the sappers that always
end up killing us. We have zero problems with soaking onslaught, or the mini onslaughts, dodging charges. Our healing is solid
across the board, and our dps from my standpoint is stellar. We literally can't get ONE sapper out of invis and he fucks our day over.

I've watched multiple videos from different guilds......asked other guilds what their strats are. Yea I'm literally at wits end.

Any help here would be amazing.

Thanks!

[Deleted]

Make sure to be vocal about what stuns/snares are used on each snapper. Also call out when they spawn so that everyone is aware of them.

[Qprah]

Once the sapper vanishes it sits in the cloud for a second and then runs for the cabin doorway. This is when you have to do an AoE attack to break the stealth and then slow/stun him until he dies. You wont be able to prevent him vanishing, however you can break it within a few seconds of him casting it.

You should be able to predict his approximate location by his landing spot and the direction he will run towards the doorway.

The sappers can land in one of 3 general places, the left side of the ship, the right side of the ship, or directly in the middle of it. So aim your AoE effects to where he is and be ready to stunlock him.


When my guild first started doing it we put a marker on both sides of the boat and when the sapper dropped we'd call out where he was.
"Sapper red side!" "Sapper blue side" "Sapper middle" etc.

[Deleted]

You don't have to "get him out of invis". He lands, vanishes and reappears in the middle of the deck. Just have stun/grip ready and burn him down.

[Frozendekay]

We just.......stun them.....and they sort of die. Sometimes if we're all moving I'll deathgrip it when it comes out of stealth.

Make sure people switch to them properly and you'll kill them with only 1 stun or a death grip.

[Johnmatrix]

The sappers are the most annoying part of the fight because of the freaking smokebomb. It's easy to be able to hit them before the smokebomb or inside it, but they will vanish anyway. But as said, you have to stun and slow them and they are still relatively easy to kill. And make it a priority to kill even if there is an onslaught coming at the same time. We have 3 of our melee assigned to kill them, me (ret), rogue and arms. We will rotate stuns and the warrior puts a hamstring on.

[Dessan]

If you're at the point where ship damage is low, let him through, otherwise as said above, make a stun rotation (our 2 tankadins alternate) and a target macro.

Early calls on them along with knowing when your next Onslaught will be and who potentially will have to not soak it to re-apply a stun is all recommended.

[Deleted]

Sappers should be no problem at all. You can slow them, stun them, a dk can grip them.
They spawn in the middle of the deck and are shortly invisible. You can see them 1 or 2 seconds after they started running. And you have more than enough time to deal with them.
There are several ways for doing it, depens on your setup.
A hunter throws his slow trap, a mage circle of frost, a shaman frostshockes him. a warrior charges and uses his snare. A rogue runs after him with sprint and can use his 5 sec stun. A demo warlock can stun with his felguard. All paladins can use their hammer, etc.
And because of the mass of slows and stuns you can use, it is no problem at all to kill them before they reach the cabin. If you wipe to them, thats quite fail...sorry if i have to say this.

As a general strategy tip: split your raid in 4 teams. The ship has 4 squares on the ground, which can be used as orientation. Throw a raid mark in every square and get your teams done. one square at the cabin is reserved for tanks and melee, the other at the door is for your healers, and range dds split on the other 2 squares, where the aspects are protected by this shield.
every teams is responsible for soaking the swirls on their own square. This makes it way easier and spares you much runningtime. Plus, the sapper rns through your melee camp...Only way to move more is the big swirl. To soak the 2 small swirls while the big one comes, use peopel who are near them and let them say their char names in ts, they need urgent healing when they soak one swirl alone.
With this strategy, the achievement is quite simple.
Good luck!

[Cidius]

What Frozendekay said. We're running with two death knights in our 10-man group and a warrior, so we usually grip/stun (grip is useful when you have an onslaught to stack on and you have the sapper running for the cabin). Our paladin tank or healer usually helps out with stunning if needed, it's not a real issue, you pretty much got the fight covered if you get out of charges and have decent enough DPS to kill the waves of drakes and adds. Mark the sides of the ship, call out where, have your melee deal with it. Sappers are always first priority, you can run with 3 adds at a time.

[Dazarann]

Yea I guess we'll have to set up a rotation of snares and stuns.

Thanks to those who gave constructive criticism. We do what we can with 4 hours of raiding a week with zero PTR experience.