Heroic Spine, Heroic Rag, and Heroic Madness Difficulty (10-man)

[Simca]

@DPS concerns, in case you didn't want to go through a million wipe logs to find a viable attempt, this is our 'best' attempt: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/1...?s=9393&e=9820

I've truncated the attempt to exclude the phase 4 intro sequence as well as phase 4 itself since people were just trying to get used to the mechanics. This is the attempt I referred to earlier where our Mage accidentally Time Warped us in Phase 2 (the only time he's ever done that, oddly), so the DPS is skewed a bit but not really that badly. Our Mage was new to Arcane at the time (he was Fire until Heroic Ragnaros/Blackhorn) and is also our Magma Trap detonator (Blink).

Additionally, Fluff (Ele Shaman) has our legendary staff and I (Ret Paladin) am in my offset gear as my mainset is Holy (though since all that drops for us is Conqueror gear, I have more heroic gear in my offset than several other people in their mainset, hilariously).

And if you still can't get it, know that you CAN solo-tank h raggy. You'll need some healers CDs cast on the tank towards the end of each phase, and in P4 the tank has to run fast (or use someone else *cought*healadin*cought* to taunt raggy in the trap)

Interesting. However, I'm not terribly concerned about DPS though, since we have never really had a DPS issue when pushing Heroic modes (or a Healing issue). It has always been mechanics, and I'm convinced we won't have a second meteor if we have everyone alive and have Bloodlust available.

To be entirely honest, the "if we get more gear we have less of a problem with this" part of the OP was my self-talk more than anything and I pretty much logically talked myself out of that position just in responding to people in this thread.

[announced]

heroic rag was on farm mode ever since people discovered the magma geyser removal in 4.3.. if u can destroy heroic blackhorn u can do heroic rag easily.. think about it.. no one even had 410 gear or t13 set bonuses to contend with against rag..

just warp in p3 and u should be fine... its really hard to die once u hit p4 unless no ones paying attention.

[TJ]

Heroic Rag was in a different league to all other bosses in regards to difficulty, even now 2 nerfs later it's not exactly a cakewalk.

[Szemere]

What I set as goals for my raidgroup:

We first of all wanted to get DS down asap. We managed to get it Horde first about 3 weeks back with easter, when both of our 2 10man groups had some slight difficulties getting a full group together. So it was basically a joined effort of 2 raidgroups. At that point one of our groups had Spine down, and the other had Blackhorn down. We now did Madness the week after with one raidgroup, while the other still has some trouble keeping enough people showing up to get Spine down.
In my raidgroup we just did all the hardmodes for the hardmode drake, we'll do that a second time to have everyone (we have a 12-13man 10man team) complete those achievements and drakes, then we will farm DS HC hopefully in a one-night-clear every week, to get everyone that HC drake.

In the nights (3night raiding guild) that we now have left, we first aimed to do all T11 hardmodes (done by now), then the T11 HC's (only Sinestra and Nef to go), and after that Rag a weekly clear for the mount. So from next week and onwards or so, we hope to just get both mounts rolling in for our team, weekly.

Problem with basically all those fights: You need a well-coordinated group, that knows what they do.
Spine is trivialised, if you can consitently put out the numbers on the Tendons you need, and you manage to survive the insanity of bloods between the 5th and 6th opening, on the 3rd plate. If you get those 2 things right, have people assigned to grip-breaking, have the raidwallrotation set up, and the rolls going well, it's just a matter of "no DC's should basically be plate 3, and correct execution should be a kill".
Madness was very easy on our healers, with a 2tank 3heal setup. Have 2 paladins in the group for a Sac on every single Impale, have enough DPS to kill off the parasites, have the Corruption dying before the 3rd Impale comes close, and don't even worry about the Regen-bloods, they are so insanely trivialised if your DPS has put in the time to see how they can abuse spellweave well. Blue platform, the Impact of the bolt would seem hard, as that's the hardest part of the normal encounter back in shit gear and 0 nerf, however with nobody in melee range of the bolt, and all the raidwalls and tank's 4sets up, it's very well doable. P2 is a case of focusing on using dream on 3-4 seconds on the Shrapnel (buggy debuff checks the state of Dream early or something), and having everyone very aware of slowing and completely nuking down these Congealing Bloods. Honestly, disconnects and Congealings getting through and Carrying Winds bugging out is the only thing that can go wrong for us (and people hugging the parasite spawn for no reason). Just keep the Terrors in the bubble on the second time they spawn, and make sure you regulate the DPS so that the Congealing bloods only spawn when YOU want it. (16% 10.5% and 5% is what it seems to be). Madness is said to be a lot harder for 10man than it was on 25man, but it's actually a joke if you just take 3 healers, and communicate the cooldowns on Impales, Spine is seriously harder.

Rag on the other hand, I don't know how difficult that is. Honestly, the tactic of grouping up, running as a group, and killing off ads as they come for you, didn't seem to work well for us at all, I think if you just spread out on the back before they spawn, and run to a point in the middle like on normal, seriously reduces the chances of someone screwing up, and then you just spread out after the initial damage, and pick off these ads one by one. Meteors are incredibly simple if you just make sure they don't get knocked back into other players, and P4 seems insanely easy if you just don't die from Empower Sulfuras... However we didn't do this with a full raidteam yet, and have just been frustrated with 3/4 individuals obviously not having watched any streams/videos from how other guilds do it, as the random deaths happening in P2 and P3 are almost always avoidable...

As to what you want to do first, our guild personally just wanted to get Horde first on our fairly mediocre realm (we had several alliance guilds already with madness on farm), which is why we did Madness first. But honestly, it's just which mount you want to get your entire team the most. Both will probably be nerfed to that 1% droprate in MoP, but both fights are now fairly achievable if your group just knows what they do and communicate well. It sounds like your guild wants to clear Ragnaros Heroic for the mount first, and I'd just say: tell them to watch tons of videos, as the damage going out is not nearly as high as on Spine, and if you can get to P4 with only one meteor up, you should be totally okay to just stomp that fight. However, if you have individuals messing stuff up, I can say both Spine and Rag HC can be a pain to get through, as they both require near-perfect execution in the sense of "just don't screw up"...

[Simca]

However, if you have individuals messing stuff up, I can say both Spine and Rag HC can be a pain to get through, as they both require near-perfect execution in the sense of "just don't screw up"...

Yep, that's pretty much the definition of our guild's problems. On a scale of 1-10, I'd put my guild's DPS at a 6/10 and healing at a 7.5-8/10 but our mechanics are probably a 4/10, which is what can cause us to take longer than normal on mechanically heavy fights (H Hagara and H Rag) but do very well on DPS/Healing intensive fights (H Zon'ozz, H Ultraxion, H Blackhorn).

Since Spine and Rag are both in the "needs better execution" ballpark, I think we'll probably take your (and others) advice and go for Heroic Ragnaros purely since we already have a larger head-start on that fight's mechanics.

[Wilderness]

Simca, based on how you describe the strengths and weaknesses of your guild I would say work on H Rag first. Personally, I think that mount is much much better looking than the DW one, and it sounds like that is your priority as well. Also, H Rag isn't really going to get easier (gear somewhat, but with H DS gear its really more about execution anyway) while we are fairly confident another DS nerf is coming in the near future. And finally, H Rag, from a mechanics perspective which is a weakness for your guild, is harder. Spine and Madness are long fights, but consist of a lot of repetition so when you are working on them I don't think it will take you long to get to the hard parts consistently to be able to work on them (3rd plate on Spine, 4th platform and P2 on Madness). With each of Rag's phases being different and requiring learning of the mechnics it will be more difficult from that perspective to learn the whole fight, and it is those mechanics which you have said are a weakness for your group.

The nerf of the geysers does make P4 much, much simpler but it is still going to take some practice on your part. At this point it basically comes down to your tanks and your dreadflame person. On 10 man the RNG of dreadflame placement can make it rather difficult to keep on top of, so someone who has never done that before is going to struggle until they learn how to see where they are going and the rest of the raid gets comfortable enough with that phase to help watch.

Finally, it sounds like you are starting to make some consistent progress on H Rag so far, and I think you should keep working on that. Once you get that down you'll still definitely have time to get everyone in your raid the mount, and I believe that you'll still kill Spine and Madness quick enough after Rag that you'll probably get all or most of your guild the Madness mount as well.

[DreamSpyre]

Honestly speaking, if your dps is at all good, at this stage in the game (even more so if the 20% nerf is this tuesday) H Spine will probably be your fastest kill because it requires the least amount of "mechanics". Just balls to the wall dps the whole time (except for the very first amalgamation) and you trivialize the fight because there won't be enough bloods to even warrant kiting. The hardest part of the fight will simply be the Plate 1->2 and the Plate 2->3 transitions. If your healing and dps are your strong points like you said, Spine of those three requires the least amount of thought these days.

Considering you've spent the time on H Rag so far though, you can go either way. But the really stupid annoying thing about that fight is yes, if someone dies at any point it feels like you've wasted 10 minutes getting so far to have to wipe and do it all over again. Just tackle it one mechanic at a time and you'll get proficient enough to get to P4 with one meteor soon. Once you do, have someone who stands with the group dedicated to keeping the meteor out of the group until you want to freeze it and destroy, and one person (Arcane Mage is fantastic for this) on dreadflames. Every movement speed increase possible will help trivialize it, Stampeding Roar, Swiftness Pots, Blink Talent, Aspect of the Pack (Only when the tank isn't running out for roots).

H Madness on 10 is still kind of a bitch. The dps requirement is a lot lower after the nerfs, but if you one tank it like we did it's just a huge pain in the ass when someone messes up an impale and you have to wipe after 10 minutes. Definitely finish off Spine and Ragnaros before Madness, it's nice since Rag still has like 1 or 2 pieces that are BiS for some people.