Gara'jal 10 Normal Question

[BrerBear]

My casual 10 man group has been struggling on Gara'jal this week, so I'm looking for some info from the experienced players, specifically about adds.

Our raid hasn't hit the enrage yet, but we usually start falling apart due to random deaths 3-4 minutes in. I am pretty sure it is due to spirit realm shadow bolts on players with Voodoo Doll. The group has tried 2 and 3 healing with little difference. I suspect we're not keeping up with adds.

As the first tank, when I get banished the first time (about 1 minute in) there are usually 4 or 5 adds in the spirit realm. On my second banish, I usually find around 15 of them when I enter. I'm not sure what is a normal amount, but I expect this is our problem.

Should the DPS be keeping the adds more under control, or is this a reasonable number of adds that the healers should be healing through? Thanks!

[alucardtnuoc]

That's way to many for normal, make sure you're sending 2 dps and a healer down every chance you get and have that spam heals on them to keep their buff rolling, this makes it faster to kill adds and do more dps on the boss.

You will want to send people with good burst like frost mages. As a tank as well you can kill 1-2 adds before killing yours to free yourself.

[BrerBear]

Ok, that's what I suspected. Thanks for the advice.

[JohnnyQuest]

It's actually easier 2 healing this fight, rather than 3 healing, as it's much easier to keep the buff on 2 healers (essentially making mana a non-issue) than it is on 3 healers.

2 DPS and a healer on each totem, and have the DPS kill as many spirits as they can while they are down. Then click their button with 1-2 seconds left on their debuff.

Once you get used to the fight and killing the adds quickly you don't need to stay down for the full 30 seconds (you'll start finding that you're killing all the adds each wave and there's no need to stand around down there twiddling your thumbs), but as long as you are wiping to add damage it's a good idea to kill as many as you can.

[stgeorge78]

This fight is ridiculously overtuned for 10-man normal. When people say to 2-heal, they are probably killing it in 3 minutes anyway. For an average casual guild, if your DPS can't kill this fight with 3 healers, then your healers are probably not going to be good enough to 2 heal it. You either need 5 dps who can do 75-90k dps or you need 2 healers who can do 50-60k hps each. Unless you have some wacky combination of all-stars and scrubs, you probably have a bunch of average players who are doing less than 50k dps or less than 40k hps.

In that case, my advice is to wait until next raid tier (5.2) and get upgraded loot from new dungeons and come back around to 5.0 raids. Or get everyone fully geared out of LFR before attempting normal mode raids.

I, for one, don't think normal mode raids should have strict dps checks - feels like more of a heroic raid thing.

[Kaanalla]

So, my guild is 2 healing it, and just barely beating the enrage timer. On a normal raid week where we have all the normal people we normally raid with, everyone is pulling 55k+ dps, with the top DPS at around 60-65k. For the totems we send one DPS and a heals down the first one (big burst so they can get down as many totems as possible), this way keeping an extra DPS up on the outside realm to get a little extra DPS on the boss. Every totem after that we send 2 DPS and a heals down, and once the heals gets the DPS and himself to full health we have him leave the spirit world to make sure heals are fine on the outside, and that usually occurs somewhere around 15 seconds left on the timer in the spirit world. The DPS continue to down the adds in the spirit world until around 3-5 secs, we play it cautiously as to not lose anyone.

If you lose anyone on this boss it's a pretty much guaranteed wipe, especially if you have already used a bres. But just make sure that you're keeping up on the adds in the spirit world and it'll make the healing much less intensive. So set priority on your DPS to be sent into the spirit world if they don't have voodoo. Big bursters, and ones with big burst/AoE capabilities like an ele shaman, surv hunter and whatnot.

Hope this helps, we tuned our raid this way and it's been working especially well, but not everyone is alike. Hopefully something in this post helps you out, cuz i know this boss is a terrible fight and once you get it down it's a huge sigh of relief.

[jfragment]

It's actually easier 2 healing this fight, rather than 3 healing, as it's much easier to keep the buff on 2 healers (essentially making mana a non-issue) than it is on 3 healers.

We found this to be true as well. We did get our kill with 3 healers on week one (saying so you know gear level) then next week we did 2 healers and it was easier. There are also some interesting mods out there that our other 10 man teams use to auto call who should go, who has which debuffs, etc. http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/garajalannounce

[Deleted]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzWx-yvdP2M

Might help you, this wasn't our first kill and there some mistakes

[Deleted]

I have a question. I am a healer and we got on to this fight tonight properly for the 1st time (meaning it wasn't 1-2 tries at the end of raid time) and a couple from our other guild raid group say that the 1 healer that goes down should stay in there and keep healing even when the dps are full purely for the dps increase. Is this a normal tactic? We are 2 healing it and me (pally) and my priest partner try and get out fast as we can once every1 is topped up in order to help the other heal the boss. Any advice please?

[BrerBear]

Thanks for the advice from everyone.
We tried another shot at it last week with some spec adjustments and a few other changes. We got to a 2% enrage wipe while 3-healing it, so when we try again after the holiday I think we'll get it down. More effective work on the spirit world adds was the key, both from DPS and tanks.

Once nice thing about the 3-heal strategy is that it made < 20% a lot easier to handle. It allowed us to Heroism right at the start when everyone was focused, potting, and with cooldowns ready.

[Deleted]

I have a question. I am a healer and we got on to this fight tonight properly for the 1st time (meaning it wasn't 1-2 tries at the end of raid time) and a couple from our other guild raid group say that the 1 healer that goes down should stay in there and keep healing even when the dps are full purely for the dps increase. Is this a normal tactic? We are 2 healing it and me (pally) and my priest partner try and get out fast as we can once every1 is topped up in order to help the other heal the boss. Any advice please?

It depends. While you can't target players in the other realm, you can still see them on your raidframes and watch their health. When I see the other healer struggling somewhat, I just pop out as soon as everyone has their button, if not, I stay in and spamheal everyone inside, making sure I heal myself once last to refresh the 30 second duration of my mana buff. The former usually happens in a case of 1 healer getting back to back voodoo dolls, in which case he may be struggling for mana. Popping out early in that situation also makes it so that chances are higher the other healer doesn't get another voodoo doll on him since you are an extra possible target for it.

[Ariluz]

Thanks for the advice from everyone.
We tried another shot at it last week with some spec adjustments and a few other changes. We got to a 2% enrage wipe while 3-healing it, so when we try again after the holiday I think we'll get it down. More effective work on the spirit world adds was the key, both from DPS and tanks.

Once nice thing about the 3-heal strategy is that it made < 20% a lot easier to handle. It allowed us to Heroism right at the start when everyone was focused, potting, and with cooldowns ready.

You should have full mana at the start of <20% and be able to kill it with no real mana issues. Sub 20% (2H/6 DPS) is also easier with lust at the end, just because the raid damage doesn't really have time to ramp up.

[Sonnillon]

My guild 2 heals the fight. And our raids DPS is crap (minus our lock, spriest and rogue) and we beat the fight with very few seconds before the enrage. Since we have a warlock, he can clean the spirit realm up pretty easily.

Both of our tanks have taken as much of avoidance as possible, as he hits hard and he does melee hit mainly. Thus the less you get or mitigate damage the less the people tank is voodoo dolled with get damage.

With very first totem we send down one healer and 2 lowest DPS as there is not much to do. With the second totem there will be more spirits probably so we will (if the lock/rogue) doesn't have voodoo dolls both of them down to clean the place up. Also when it is called out that there are crapton of spirit up eitehr rogue or lock go down on the next totem if they can.

One other thing we do is, that our tanks call out Banishment, as when this happens one tank gets to be sent into spirit realm and the voodoo doll people change. We call it out and see who gets the doll. Usually we call it out 10-5 sec before it happening as it gives the healer in spirit realm time to top everyone, who is down there, up and get out, so he would get the doll, allowing the other healer to go in.

If you 2 heal the fight healers mana will be an issue as one healer is always down and other is always up. So you will have to rotate the healers going down or staying up with when who gets the voodoo doll. With the last totem before he goes to 20% your best DPS should go down there and clean the spirits up so there would be less damage.

As for using BL we pop it when the 2 of our best DPS have come out, as they get the buff from the realm and do extra damage. That in combination with BL is a very good DPS increase. Key to this fight is communication. We have a holy pala usual along and if possible the pala goes down with lock always so he can LoH the lock, giving him instantly 24 stacks, which boosts his DPS creatly. Bear in mind that the damage meter and logs are not accurate, cause the DPS in spirit realm is not recorded by the person who is not in there.

As with the buff stacks. Around 22 stacks is the optimal you can get with fast, large, expensive single target heals. Above that the stack building gets harder and harder. HS+potion+all healing skills work to increase your stacks. If you 2 heal the fight your healer in spirit realm should come out as fast as possible, once both DPS inside are topped up, to help with the healing outside the realm.

Your DPS should leave the realm as soon as it is a) clean or b) very few spirit remain, to help DPSing the boss. Your tanks should only focus on killing the severer and cleaving any of the spirits near it. As tank goes down with high vengeance, it would be optimal for the tank to exit with some vengeance as well to do higher DPS. One tip for tanks is, that the OT can keep his taunt on CD when he/she is not tanking the boss. Boss doesn't switch the target and keeps attacking your MT, but every time your OT that is DPSing for a doll phase taunts, he/she gets free vengeance. This allows it to keep vengeance around 20k, which boosts tanks DPS as well bit more to help out.

We use guardian druid and protection paladin as tanks. Healers we usually can choose from shaman, paladin, monk, druid or even priest (once in a while) as healers, but for us always one of the healers will be the holy pala, who will go down always with our best DPS. We do have a mix of DPS in combination.

[Deleted]

Another question i have for 2 man healing this fight. Currently as a holy pala i've been using sacred sheild. Would using Eternal flame on targets before i enter the spirit realm help the other healer ALOT by healing the dps as well as the Beaconed tank or would i not see that much difference?

[Kisho]

You've already gotten great general advice, so here's something specific that may help:

Do you use a Brewmaster Monk as a tank? If yes, they can help a lot with the adds in the spirit realm. Essentially they'll be able to spend most of their 30 seconds killing adds (keg smash is great burst), then when the debuff is about to run out they can jump over to the Severer of Souls and use Touch of Death to instantly kill it.

Brewmaster Monks also take far less damage from Gara'jal due to their very high avoidance, meaning Voodoo Doll'd people take a lot less damage as well. Generally speaking Gara'jal is perfect for Brewmasters.

[Deleted]

if you have a ret paladin/holy pala you can use Hand of Protection on him at the 20% phase so he doesnt get dmg at all. 2 Healing is alot easier in my opinion, healers have more mana to throw away. How we handle SPirit realm:
We form 3 Teams. Team 1 has 2 DD, team 2 has 2 DD, and team 3 has 2 DD. People announce if team 1 for example cant go in, so team 2 goes, and so on. The 2 healers just announce if they have the doll debuff or not.

[JohnnyQuest]

I have a question. I am a healer and we got on to this fight tonight properly for the 1st time (meaning it wasn't 1-2 tries at the end of raid time) and a couple from our other guild raid group say that the 1 healer that goes down should stay in there and keep healing even when the dps are full purely for the dps increase. Is this a normal tactic? We are 2 healing it and me (pally) and my priest partner try and get out fast as we can once every1 is topped up in order to help the other heal the boss. Any advice please?

If you 2 heal the fight healers mana will be an issue as one healer is always down and other is always up. So you will have to rotate the healers going down or staying up with when who gets the voodoo doll. With the last totem before he goes to 20% your best DPS should go down there and clean the spirits up so there would be less damage.

Quoting these together as they relate to each other.

If you're 2 healing the fight then the general idea is to rotate which healer goes down on each Totem. This means that each healer regens full mana every minute, making mana a complete non-issue. Obviously this becomes trickier if the same healer is getting Voodoo Dolls everytime, but you have to be incredibly unlucky for that to happen several times in a row.

One way to help push the RNG in your favour is to get your healer that has gone into the spirit realm to come out asap before Gara'jal is due to assign new Voodoo Dolls. This gives him another possible target, making it more likely that your other healer is free to go into the spirit realm. This is less viable if your group lacks DPS, as you want the increased Innervation buff from overhealing, but if healing is a bigger problem than DPS it's something to consider. It's even better if you have good DPS who can jump out quickly after cleaning up a load of spirits.

[Tyllastus]

Another question i have for 2 man healing this fight. Currently as a holy pala i've been using sacred sheild. Would using Eternal flame on targets before i enter the spirit realm help the other healer ALOT by healing the dps as well as the Beaconed tank or would i not see that much difference?

Gara'jals Shadowy Attacks ignore Absorption effects, so Sacred Shield is bad for this fight. Your beacon heals also won't transfer to a tank in a different realm. It's better to beacon youself when you are banished into the spirit world, and otherwise beacon the tank tanking Gara'jal when you're in the normal realm.

[kenshinag]

I, for one, don't think normal mode raids should have strict dps checks - feels like more of a heroic raid thing.

You're gonna hate Elegon and Garalon then.

My guild 2 heals this fight. During progression we 2 healed as well. Just had our dps make sure to kill stuff below. As a affliction lock, I killed maybe 5 or 6 before hitting the button? Now I just pop down and dot everything and my dots will finish everything off even when I go back up. That's just with gear. If I went down with our spriest even in 463 gear we could just dot dot and come back up.

I'd recommend to have your strongest dps prioritized to go down first, saving CDs until they come out and then burst the shit out of Gara. They get the buff without killing more than 1 or 2 adds and then come back and smash stuff. Then they can go back down as long as they're not dolled once their buff is gone to refresh it and clear out the bottom. Send final group in maybe 25% so that they clear as much as possible and have the buff for most of execute. Fury warriors so sexy for this.

[Deleted]

Any advice for a Pally tank tanking this boss. Everytime he gets voodoo doll the other 2 take Lots and lots of damage... i hate this fight as a healer.