First night of heroic spine attempts. Anyone care to help?

[moveth]

So here are our WoL for tonight

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-flt1v9ib19c7nwo1/

We only got about an hour or so on him tonight due to scheduling conflicts, but we are going back in Monday for a full 3 hours of work on it. We would have started progression earlier but things like spring break / raiders vacations got severely in the way for almost all of March.

We got to Third plate in about 5 attempts or so, and were toying with trying to burst the first plate down with lust + potions and such.

My question is can anyone see anything that could be improved with my raiders? Ive tried my best to point them in the right directions to guides and forums for their specific class on Spine, But I'm wondering if anyone might have some tips that them or myself may have not seen on the forums. Everyone but our spriest has his VP trinket (he will have it next week).

I am the Feral Tank on this fight. The only real difference we could make is the ele shaman (wishout a lolgendary) going enhance (which is his MS, but almost worthless for spine from what ive read).

Thank you for ANY tips you guys can give to help my raid out a bit. I really do appreciate it.

[Syenite]

You probably should save your heroism for the last burning tendons as thats the most critical part of the fight

[moveth]

Yeah. we were trying to get the first one down in a single pull for a few pulls. Going to start saving it for the 3rd one.

[Oknaps]

I am enhance on this fight, and I think it's actually pretty easy. Only because I don't have much to do besides DPS. I think it would be easier to do as enhance, especially if it's his main spec. Also, save the lust for the third tendon. We usually pot on the second tendon either the first or second time it comes up. Also, do not try to lust down the first tendon. It just has too much health. You need a tremendous amount of burst, and enhance, or a shaman without the legendary isn't enough.

Getting to the third platform in one night is good. Also if you're trying the tactic to get the corrupted earth on the tanks before even DPS'ing down anything, don't. It's a waste of time, and it doesn't do anything to help. People just need to learn where to stand. All in all, I think if you're on the third platform, even getting up the plate once is a good start. This isn't exactly the easiest of fights so I wouldn't worry about it too much. As long as you are getting the tendon down in two tries.

[moveth]

I am enhance on this fight, and I think it's actually pretty easy. Only because I don't have much to do besides DPS. I think it would be easier to do as enhance, especially if it's his main spec. Also, save the lust for the third tendon. We usually pot on the second tendon either the first or second time it comes up. Also, do not try to lust down the first tendon. It just has too much health. You need a tremendous amount of burst, and enhance, or a shaman without the legendary isn't enough.

Getting to the third platform in one night is good. Also if you're trying the tactic to get the corrupted earth on the tanks before even DPS'ing down anything, don't. It's a waste of time, and it doesn't do anything to help. People just need to learn where to stand. All in all, I think if you're on the third platform, even getting up the plate once is a good start. This isn't exactly the easiest of fights so I wouldn't worry about it too much. As long as you are getting the tendon down in two tries.

Yeah. Even on a bad phase we can get the tendon to ~35%, so DPS isnt too much of an issue. We arent delaying anything in the fight currently, our shaman is just getting better at getting tanks their stacks first, so for most attempts we had 2 stacks relatively quickly. Hes going to try out enhance on Monday to see if his damage is comparable per phase as well.

EDIT: The way I worded this made it sound like our enhance shaman is dispelling. lol. Our resto shaman is on dispel duty

[Oknaps]

Yeah, try enhance. I think it's so much easier than ele, haha. Also, I noticed I am on your realm. So if you want to just whisper me if you need anymore help that would be so much easier. My shamans name is Spanko. So if you need anything, or if your shaman needs any help just feel free to whisper me. I don't mind helping.

[fangless]

Also if you're trying the tactic to get the corrupted earth on the tanks before even DPS'ing down anything, don't. It's a waste of time, and it doesn't do anything to help.

wut?

You can get it on the tanks in the first 3 amalgamations at the very start of the fight, which is a free 40% reduction. That's not bad for basically ZERO effort.

[Oknaps]

wut?

You can get it on the tanks in the first 3 amalgamations at the very start of the fight, which is a free 40% reduction. That's not bad for basically ZERO effort.

Before I joined this guild I am in now they waited two minutes to get the debuff on the tanks before even DPS'ing anything. That is a huge waist of time. So I said that he shouldn't, and that people need to just position themselves better, and DPS as soon as the fight start.

[Deleted]

I am the Feral Tank on this fight. The only real difference we could make is the ele shaman (wishout a lolgendary) going enhance (which is his MS, but almost worthless for spine from what ive read).

Agree with what someone said earlier, just have him play Enhance. People playing their off-specs/alts is only wortwhile if they are equally geared and skilled at it. If they are less good at their off-spec they'll be subpar anyway. Enhance isn't the best burst DPS but with the 15% nerf you really don't need the burst requirements that were originally needed, and led to statements such as enhance being "worthless" for spine, that you "need a full yellow/blue raid" to kill it. If your enhancement shaman is good at his main-spec he will still pull his weight on the fight. The fight is more about co-ordination now than DPS anyway, so if you have someone playing a spec they know better, they'll be able to peform awareness-wise a lot better to, due to not having to focus so much on playing a different spec.

[bubblebye]

Few things I saw in the logs...

Based off of the time you are downing the second tendon you are on par for about a 11:30 kill. This is reasonable but the closer you get to 11 min the more manageable the blood will be at the end (with the dps picking it up near the end being the most important when their are 7 spots for bloods to spawn). Contrary to what people tend to believe at the start of learning this fight, dps on the amalgamation DOES matter. As others have mentioned save your lust. We lust on either the first exposure of the 3rd plate or on the 6th amalgamation immediately following.

It also looks like your group is taking considerable more amounts of burst damage. How many bloods are you soaking on the first and second roll? How many do you typically have left after?

(Some people might not agree with this one) but we actually had our priest go holy for this one and it worked out great for us. He was able to hymn on each roll (along with SLT) and provide more overall healing. NOTE: This should work for you as well assuming your priest is comfortable since your grips appear good.

[Deleted]

Ferlol tank can viably roll with kitty spec/gear and the barkskin glyph here.

[Reojr]

We just got our first kill last night. Here's a few tricks we learned that help us on our kill:

1. Save bloodlust for the first lift on the last tendon, unless you're 100% sure you can reliably kill the 2nd tendon in one lift.

2. Make absolutely sure you are "mopping up" bloods with amalgamations before each roll. You want the amalgamations to absorb as much blood as they can right before the amalgamations get thrown off, so those bloods permanently destroyed. This is how you manage the amount of bloods up during the 2nd and 3rd plate, and is probably the most important mechanic to master for this fight.

3. Raid cooldowns can be generalized like this: Personal cooldowns for the 1st roll, Healer cooldowns for the 2nd roll, All cooldowns from every player for the 3rd roll.

4. Kill the one remaining tentacle right when the amalgamation is finishing nuclear blast. This prevents any DPS from getting gripped during a tendon burn. Make sure the new amalgamation that spawns gets picked up by a tank.

5. Reduce as many transition delays as possible. The second a plate blows off, your DPS should be going all-out on the tentacles so you can roll Deathwing in like 5 seconds. As soon as the tentacles are almost dead, people should already be moving towards the stack spot to roll Deathwing. As soon as people are in the stack spot, they should already be DPSing the new tentacle that you're going to get your amalgamation from. If your raid wastes 3 seconds each time an event like this happens, you will have 30 more bloods by the end of the fight and wipe. It's very important for people to think about what they are supposed to do immediately after their current task.

[moveth]

Thank you for all the help thus far, guys. its really appreciated. Hopefully monday might net us a kill.

[fangless]

Before I joined this guild I am in now they waited two minutes to get the debuff on the tanks before even DPS'ing anything. That is a huge waist of time. So I said that he shouldn't, and that people need to just position themselves better, and DPS as soon as the fight start.

er.

Have the raid stand on his right side, have the tanks just barely on the left, and they should get the debuffs in about 5 seconds :P

There is a trick to it, and it really takes no time at all. You can still dps too.

[moveth]

Just an update. shaman went enhance and tonight was very smooth. we've had 15 total attempts or so and we got to the second tendon of the 3rd plate several times. Just need to clean up the last 30 seconds of the fight and we'll have a kill tomorrow.

Again guys, I really appreciate the help

[moveth]

ANOTHER UPDATE!

Thank you guys SO much. With last nights practice we went in and one shot it tonight! Now we get to work on Madness.

Again, thank you to all the helpful people :3