Optimizing for Heroic Spine of Deathwing (10)

[timoseewho]

First off, I know that statistically speaking, us Hunters get trumped by other classes/specs on this particular fight, but I doubt my raid would want me to bring my 385 alt Mage without a legendary nor 4P (unless they do?).

For those lucky ones who have started on the fight already, what's your recommendation for spec and just gear in general (as well as reforges)? Also, some information about your 'rotation' for the tendons would be nice too, as well as the damage you do each plate phase. Tendons aside, is the rest of the fight not important at all as far as DPS goes?

[timoseewho]

385 arcane mage is better

Seriously? Even without a legendary and 4P? I've only got 2P. I'm guessing after the upcoming patch, this might change mayhaps?

[Chickensoup23]

Seriously? Even without a legendary and 4P? I've only got 2P.

Yep, its better. As a hunter you simply don't have the burst. Even a 378 mage would be better. The 20 seconds you'll spend on the tendons won't make you better no matter how geared your hunter is.

[Deleted]

First off, I know that statistically speaking, us Hunters get trumped by other classes/specs on this particular fight, but I doubt my raid would want me to bring my 385 alt Mage without a legendary nor 4P (unless they do?).

For those lucky ones who have started on the fight already, what's your recommendation for spec and just gear in general (as well as reforges)? Also, some information about your 'rotation' for the tendons would be nice too, as well as the damage you do each plate phase. Tendons aside, is the rest of the fight not important at all as far as DPS goes?

There are certain tricks you need to pull so that you are doing your fair share.

I lay a trap down about 20s in advance, so that it is triggered by the blood tank when he pulls away from the plate. That way I am guaranteed a L&L proc is ready when the Tendons pop up, and BA is off cooldown. I then lead in with a macro that puts up a sting, RF, Trinket, Roar of Recovery, /petattack, 8% magic debuff, and charges the pet in. Follow it by ES, ES, BA, ES and pray to the Titans that BA gives you a second L&L. The alternative to this is to replace BA with another trap, which would definitely guarantee you a second L&L. I also track the ICD of Chronohunter and save it when it comes off cooldown. This is a bit annoying, as it doesn't always proc. I also have three of the same pet, so I can dismiss and resummon a fresh cooldown.

I reforge off as much haste as I possibly can, as ideally I want to be casting Cobra very little.

[Dvorjak]

You should probably be going MM for the burst damage on the tendons. If you compare the difference to damage done from MM and SV hunters via the limited numbers of WoL parses avaible, you will see that all of the MM hunters did more damage to the tendons.

*I've done some testing on this and I wasn't able to get MM to do more dps on the tendons. I believe this is due to my 397 ilvl weapon, since a lot of MM damage comes from weapon dmg. Also, if you force proc LnL with and Explosive trap on the amalgamation before the tendon comes up AND you are lucky enough to get a second proc, you will do more dmg than MM. You have to have 3 pets so you can rotate CoTW.

[Deleted]

You should probably be going MM for the burst damage on the tendons. If you compare the difference to damage done from MM and SV hunters via the limited numbers of WoL parses avaible, you will see that all of the MM hunters did more damage to the tendons.

The minuscule sample of MM hunters on WoL show them doing between 900k and 1.1m in a burst phase, which is about what I do as SV. And I've only had about 20 pulls to figure shit out.

I should have said I raid 10m and not 25.

[timoseewho]

Thanks for the replies! I still haven't given up on trying to pull this off on my Hunter instead of my Mage! How do you guys feel about BM? I saw a video of this one doing 1-1.3m per plate lift. I'm always a little skeptical with pets on spine, but I believe that was 100% fixed.

[klaps_05]

dont rly know about 10man, but on 25hc i400+ hunters do terrible dps. rogues and mages burst is just too op. also mages are simply one of the best class when they get 4pc t13 as u can do 2xAP on amalgamation and still have AP ready for each tendon.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the replies! I still haven't given up on trying to pull this off on my Hunter instead of my Mage! How do you guys feel about BM? I saw a video of this one doing 1-1.3m per plate lift. I'm always a little skeptical with pets on spine, but I believe that was 100% fixed.

What is your raid comp?

I have a Ret Pally, Shadow Priest, Arcane Mage, Sub Rogue and myself (SV Hunter). Having a Disc Priest Smiting helps a great deal. We have 2 plates off after about 20 pulls, so dont pay too much attention to people who say you simply aren't viable. With MD+Multi we are ideal for blood control. You can keep traps up on the bloods the whole fight. Your Amalg dps will be miles ahead of everyone else with all the L&Ls you get off the traps.

Your viability here really depends on your raid comp, and the other players being able to get the max from their classes.

FWIW I spent 2 days getting an alt mage ready on standby, should we not be able to make the burst. It turns out we are fine though.

[Blada]

My guild is starting on this fight in a couple days, so I was curious about which spec to play as well. I was thinking about going marks and reforging crit>haste>>mastery and getting the valor trinket for the extra burst, but I'm not sure how much time there is between tendons. Though there is a very little sample of hunters on that fight on 10 man, 9 in total between the three specs, so I haven't had much to compare the specs.

[Deleted]

I have done about 120 tries on this boss already in its 10-man version and I usually get 1mil - 1.3mil damage per lift. I play as SV and this is what I currently do:

- Place an Explosive Trap underneath the Amalgamation while it casts Nuclear Blast.
- Spam CoS to be sure I'm at full focus when it explodes.
- Run towards the tendons.
- Petfollow to make sure it isn't too far away from the tendons when it's time to dps.
- Usually I have a LnL proc right for when the tendons are revealed and use an ES-(VP trinket+CotW)-ES-SS-ES-Rapid Fire sequence.
- Follow rotation as usual, watching an eye for LnL which globules/tendons should proc.

Things I've tested:

- I put up HM when I have Rapid Fire ready (this should be first and fourth lifts). I haven't noticed any serious difference anyway.
- I've tried BA instead of Explosive Trap and found the latter being a better option for me. It's a pain getting a LnL proc from BA nowadays and the damage isn't that much better if at all. Also, hitting several targets will almost secure a LnL proc.
- Using a 3 pet rotation is needed to have CotW up on every lift.

While I think (and it's obvious) that other classes do far better than us hunters (Mages, Priests, Warriors, Rogues, etc.) I've found that our damage is pretty stable on every burn phase due to the fact we lack important CDs.

[Donkeywing]

I didn't try the boss myself yet, but BM sounds viable because you will have bestial wrath up for every burn phase which is huge ofc.

[Deleted]

What's the best way for us to help with the corrupted bloods? pets stuns or otherwise

A single misdirect+multi as SV is so disgustingly overpowered. In the first two phases it allows everyone to sit on the Amalg (with mana users breaking the grip). You can keep traps on the bloods and trim them down so efficiently, picking off the low ones with a KS or AS. I'm miles ahead the top Amalg dps, while controlling the bloods. Arcane mages are amazing in the 18 second burst, but they essentially do f-all for the rest of the fight. Sit in the high-mana state and plod along at 25k.

With the correct 10m setup I feel OP. If you are hitting a brick wall with the Tendons, we are an easy target to go.

[Ellesarr]

you should play your mage, even without legendary/4p

hunters are complete crap on spine

[Truefire]

While hunters are not the greatest, they are also not as bad as people tend to believe. If you setup properly with explosive traps, you can have a LnL proc right before tendon pops and 2 more LnL procs during the burst. If you can do this properly, along with swapping pets for a CoTW for every tendon lift, it's possible to do 1-1.2 million per every lift without lust or rapid fire. However, if you have a mage alt that's not too under geared compared to your hunter (not more than 5-6 ilvl difference), it would do similar tendon damage and is much better for corruptions. If you have a mage that is any less geared than that, I would stick to hunter.

[malevolant]

We arent last, but then again my gear is much better than the few people behind me

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-k7...pes&boss=53879

that is our first night of wipes.

[Thamyor]

delete this reply

[eschatological]

Hmmm, I've been playing a high-haste MM spec for this fight because we've needed trueshot, with an AiS focus dump only during non-tendons, to save Chrono for tendons.

So far I've been playing around with /tar boss2, /petattack, Lightning Breath, Roar of Sac, AS to proc MFD and hopefully chrono, otherwise RF into a SS/Aimed/ChS rotation. I've been doing piss-all for damage on the tendons (usually around 800k per lift) and have been trying to convince raid leaders to bring in our prot pally for our prot warrior so I can go SV.

edited to add: Right now we're still getting plates off in 2 lifts though, so I don't know how it'll go. RF isn't up for every lift even in MM, and Chrono can be a pain to proc (and is inferior to my glyphed RF anyways).

---------- Post added 2012-01-16 at 03:08 AM ----------

Second night of trying this fight as MM, still sucks. Even with moving my pet into tendon range before it pops, and AiS dumping solely to save Chronohunter for the tendons, I find that unless I pop Chrono in the first two ASs, allowing me to pop RF and Aimed Shot spam, I never get near 1m (this is all in 10m). The only two MM hunter parses I've seen in H-10m have had their hunters at about 930k a pop, which I'm not far off from, but again, I almost have to spam AS to get chronohunter up for it to be viable.

Then, if we push at a normal rate, my RF and/or Readiness are about 30 seconds off from being up on the 2nd plate, 1st lift, and my DPS plummets (understandably so). The healers are pretty adamant about not delaying so CDs are up, but I feel like there might need to be some executive decisions made.

I haven't been using sigil because I stupidly sold bracers/boots earlier this week when I didn't think I'd be in for the fight, but I should have it next week. You guys think Sigil will make a significant difference here? I also don't have any version of wrath yet, the first two went to our rogue and feral, so I'm using 410 vial and 397 Matrix proccing haste (but again, lining up that proc is a total shot in the dark unless I do nothing before tendons pop). I suppose I could pop on a 391 hungerer for even more haste, but again, I'm bumping up against the 1s minimum AiS with Chrono and RF up. No starcatcher yet either.

[Thamyor]

I did some trys on my group when some ppl don't show up (10 man) and I can give some tips to have the best burst.
- First of all go SV all the specs are close when it comes to burst but SV is the easiest to play so u can keep your mind on all the tricks to get more Burst.

(also after patch SV is prob going to be better.
- Get the Valor Trinket like all your raid should do.
- Remember to start on the Tendon full focus and with your Spine trinket stacked, always open with Serpent Sting and don't use Hunter's Mark
- Place a Trap in a spot that the amalgamation won't trigget it when it's going to die so u can use a trap before he dies and have your BA back on Tendon along with the trap, also keep using the trop over the fight if your group allows it (on last Plate u should have more caution with this), if you do it on a way that hit the bloods and the Amalgamation it will raise your dps (even if you can't the don't on both it's better).
- Get many pets from the same pet you use on this fight and switch then to get the pet CD up everytime.
- If you have the DW Polearm u can do a nice and hard trick to control the proc, if you can reequip it during the fight, it will enter in a 1min CD if you do that 1min before the tendon u will prob get the proc. For me that 1min is 5 sec before the Second Fiery Grip for the first Amalgamation (the one u need to wait for bloods), and 18 sec before the Second Grip for the rest of the Fight. (that time will prob change for your raid, so just get 1 try to figure out the time or watch a video of your raid).


Right now I'm doing 950k (witch still below most ppl, that's why i'm a replace here) average on each Tendon time, prob would be a lot better if I get a 410 bow to replace my fucking 391 from FL. but with a Nice weapon the patch buff u can get to other classes (non mages/rogues), specially the buff on LnL since you lose many ES spamming AS like crazy.
That's all I have to say about the fight and sorry for the bad english.

[timoseewho]

Yea I think sigil was made for this fight, especially with the 1.5m CD. I personally think wrath+sigil is the best combo here.

Have you been rotating pets for Call of the Wild? Also, are you proc'ing Master Marksman for the tendons too?