Ping Pong Problem

[Deleted]

A few weeks ago our guild, a casual 10-man guild, started working on Dragon Soul. We downed Morchork fine in our first attempt, and then moved onto Zon'ozz. On 10-man normal mode, we can't get the ping pong ball to go straight. Any suggestions?

At the moment we have one ranged DPS, a hunter, 3 healers, 2 tanks and 4 melee. One tank faces Zon'ozz away, except, of course, for when he fires the ping pong ball at the ranged. The hunter stands with our three healers, and the offtank simply stands with the melee. After five bounces, the melee move away, about 25-30 yards. Maybe less.

Our ranged normally stand just at the edge of the pool in the middle, and we have the tank tank Zon'ozz where he starts. We know it's most likely not the tank's fualt, as he's positioning the boss so he's facing our ranged almost perfectly every time. Most of the videos I've seen have made it look easy, and have said things like make sure you get it to five stacks etc etc. Nothing shows us how to control the ping pong ball.

TL;DR: how does the ping pong ball work, and how do we control it? We stand right in front of it so it would presumably bounce back, but end up going off in funny directions and often missing the boss completely. Thanks for the help.

[Scoobydew]

The ball bounces off of 1 person, but shares the damage between everyone in ranged of the ball. So if it hits off 1 person sideways, it's going to go sideways. This probably isn't the reason you're wiping to this boss though, as adjusting left or right to the ball isn't really an issue for most people.

[Deleted]

So to get the ball to bounce directly back in the same direction, you need to stand directly in its path?

[Deleted]

Not sure how the bounce direction works, but the obvious solution would simply be: let the tank drag Zon'ozz into the path of the ball when you decide to hit him.
It's really no rocketscience.

[Scoobydew]

So to get the ball to bounce directly back in the same direction, you need to stand directly in its path?

The ball is round, and also is based off coded logic, so there's no definite way with 4-5 people stacked up to share the damage to guarantee that the ball will bounce straight. It's 110% easier to just adjust to the movement of the ball, and adjust the boss to absorb the ball.

[Deleted]

Okay, thanks, I'll give it a go. We tried that on our last attempt before we called it a day, but it hit the tank bad execution on our part I suppose.
Thanks for the advice.

[madmessias]

Okay, thanks, I'll give it a go. We tried that on our last attempt before we called it a day, but it hit the tank bad execution on our part I suppose.
Thanks for the advice.

Hitting the tank is perfect almost, just make it do that, but before it does, he gotta backpeddle so it won't hit him but instead the boss. (I usually do it when it's at it tail). Gotta wait for the ball to become active so it won't bounce off the tank.

[Snuff.20]

So to get the ball to bounce directly back in the same direction, you need to stand directly in its path?

Pretty much u need your soaker to move in early not late because if they are late there's a chance that they wont hit it straight on. Also causing the ball to path a long time before it reaches you in my opinion give a greater chance for it to not be straight. Be proactive and run into it so the path is shorter and will have a less chance of moving around.
You might need to let the last bounce travel more depending on if debuffs are still active on players since black phase has some nasty initial damage until flails are down.

[Video Games]

Should probably 1 tank it while you're at it.

[Frozendekay]

Should probably 1 tank it while you're at it.

Yea the offtank really does nothing in the fight, not even heroic.

If 5 bounces is too much simply do 3. It's completely doable, just takes a bit longer. Black phase is pretty easy to handle for 3 poorly geared healers or 2 fairly geared healers.

[Velkeri]

Yea also how the ball works is where ever you are facing at when it hits you it goes that direction EXCEPT the melle it bounces back from the back of their head. The way my guild did it was we had all the heals and ranged stand in 1 spot and all the mele stand in another. Then we had the tank, tank him sideways after the ball came out and our mele would stay on his left side right in front of the ranged and it would bounce back and forth between the mele and ranged. then on the 4th bounce in mele they would switch to the other side and keep dpsing on that side so that it would hit the boss but we would not lose mele dps for those few seconds. Some times though it buggs out and goes straight though him so you have to make sure your tank is watching the ball and your mele is as far back as they can be on the 4th hit. Gl on that boss after him DS is pretty much cake till the gunship

[announced]

ive noticed this too. zinozz is kinda a poorly designed boss.. while fun at the same time its much harder to master the direction of the ball.. other than guess and test ur really outta luck.