Spiritbinder 10 Heroic - Too Much Damage

[Fenixdown]

Hello. Last night, we did some attempts on heroic mode Spiritbinder in 10-man. We are a 25-man guild, but yesterday was not an official raid night so we decided to take a look at what the heroic modes in MSV look like.

I noticed that at around the 50-60% portion of the fight, that there will be sudden massive jumps in damage to the people who are outside. I looked at my combat log and noticed that the damage seemed to be coming from the adds inside. Controlling the adds wasn't usually a problem, but at points like this people would just fall over in seconds and the damage was completely unhealable.

Is there a trick to surviving such a massive spike? What should raid members outside be doing? I managed to survive one by popping Dispersion, and noticed that the jump subsided, but then it came again shortly afterwards and I had nothing personal to use for it a second time.

Any tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[SurrealNight]

What are your tanks? We downed him for the first time last night and the real threat is the damage taken by the Voodoo Doll targets. Shadowy Attacks on the tank can result in massive spike dmg to DPS/Healer's and if they are getting shot by the adds it can easily finish them off.

We focused most of our CD's on the DK tank since Blood Shield doesn't negate Shadowy Attacks damage, wasn't much of an issue for me due to how BrM's work. The fight heavily involves mitigating tank damage to save the rest of the group.

[bals]

just make sure adds are controlled better. bad rng = them all shooting and killing one person if enough are up
what is your raid comp?
how many do you send down?

[Fenixdown]

Our raid comp for this was as follows.

Tanks : DK/DK
Healers : Monk/Shaman
DPS : Shadow x 2, Mage x 2, Rogue, Ele Sham

That makes sense, Surreal. I don't think we were doing much to mitigate Shadowy Attacks on the tank. If we go back to try more on 10-man, we'll likely have a better plan of attack for that. Are there any other suggestions for this fight that could be of benefit?

Edit : Also, to answer bals, we sent two DPS and one healer each totem.

[bals]

although you said the add damage was a lot i bet the ones getting hit really hard are those with voodoo dolls and tbh dk tanks are probably the worst tanks for this fight.

which dps are are you sending down? the shadow priests should alternate going down since they can dot up lots of adds and nearly kill them just from that. the other dps in the group shouldn't matter too much, mages might be best just because they don't have to move much. ele shammies can be really good with CL if there are lots of adds together.

make sure the healers going down with the totem heal their group up and then get out asap. I don't think monk healers are particularly great on this fight either (could be mistaken on that part). Also your comp has lots of duplicates xD

[Squirl]

To better control the adds, I would use this priority for taking totems:

1. (Dotters): SP1 = SP2
2. (DPS): Mage1 > Mage2 > Rogue
3. (Heals): Shaman = Monk > Ele Shaman

Take the highest priority person, 1 from each group. This allows you to have a SP in every totem (barring bad RNG) and they completely destroy adds. Save your Ele as a backup healer in case neither real healer can go down. Send the non-dotter back up as soon as he gets healed up and heal him up first. If neither SP can go down, both DPS need to stay a little longer.

Also, DK tanks are the worst tanks for this fight because Shadowy Attacks ignores their Blood Shield. You don't have very good cooldowns for them, so be ready to heal your ass off. I would recommend swapping at least 1 of them for another tank if you can or going to 3 heal with healers doing as much DPS as they can when damage is not too high. That's what we did.

Another tip for slightly reducing raid damage: your rogue can smokebomb the raid right after the first totem and again at the end. This prevents all damage from adds during that time. He can glyph it for 7s vs 5s duration too.

[Fenixdown]

The shadows were both going down, as were our rogue and elemental shaman with the mages as standby. I had thought about the healers coming up much faster, I'll have to make that suggestion. As far as duplicates go, the reason for the double shadow is because I was our third healer and the most geared to switch to a DPS role.

In 25-man normally our second tank is a warrior. We were just wanting to bring in some fresh faces to the 10-man group (this was actually my first 10-man run with them).

[SurrealNight]

That makes sense, Surreal. I don't think we were doing much to mitigate Shadowy Attacks on the tank. If we go back to try more on 10-man, we'll likely have a better plan of attack for that. Are there any other suggestions for this fight that could be of benefit?

Unfortunately that is about the worst tank comp for this fight you could get, one of the few fights this tier that tank choices make a noticeable difference in fight difficulty.

Check out burbon's post in this thread he is a good DK (and was speaking about 10m): http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...e-Spiritbinder

I would agree with his suggestion that both DK's need to forge for parry/dodge (use a reforge tool to balance DR) instead of mastery because Shadowy Attacks can be avoided. They should be timing CD's like Bone Shield/DRW/IBF around the SA events with healers working in their own externals. AMS is good to use during this time as it will at least block the shots from the adds so it doesn't get added on with a hefty SA hit. I was using Avert Harm to siphon damage away from our DK when it was up.

Make sure DPS are helping kill at least one of the Severers or your tanks will die. I could get all 3 myself as BrM but I'd literally have 1 second left before I died so was scary.

We used Hero at the beginning the "burn" phase was actually rather easy it seemed. The goal is to get out of the Voodoo cycles ASAP plus the enrage timer is no friend either.

We used the same healer comp, all I can say for that is our Shm was very pissy if people didn't group up in his healing rain Cocoon was used on the DK and then on me during burn phase. I'd almost say it's a shame you don't have a Disc priest as Pain Suppression and bubble would be nice additions.

BrM's do so well because we can have Elusive Brew up for each SA which means my total avoidance is sitting at 80% each time.

[bals]

BrM's do so well because we can have Elusive Brew up for each SA which means my total avoidance is sitting at 80% each time.

and pallies/warriors are great because they can block the SA.
poor dks got nadda

[Annamarine]

But 25 mans are harder than 10 mans so shouldnt it be faceroll for you?

[SurrealNight]

But 25 mans are harder than 10 mans so shouldnt it be faceroll for you?

I don't see where it's indicated they downed H Gara on 25m either.

[whathump]

But 25 mans are harder than 10 mans so shouldnt it be faceroll for you?

Ten man H Garajal is likely harder than 25 because of fewer people to spread the shadowbolts over = easier to get insta-gibbed. I think Blizzard made a hotfix that slowed the add spawn rate in 10 man to compensate, but I can't remember.

Still, I'm pretty sure this is a three heal fight on 10 man, since that's how my guild did it. Makes the damage from voodoo dolls way easier to keep up with.

[Maxvla]

Most guilds will need to 2 heal it the first time to meet enrage. 2 healing it is far from impossible, just difficult. If you have a disc priest who can atonement dps that would be ideal since you would gain some dps and healing but with the added cooldowns.

If you have the ability to change tanks, grab a warrior. Their mitigation on this fight is unmatched and they have the ability to help other tanks through their tanking time with banners, redirects, etc.

Paladins of any spec are also useful since you can BoP the tank because the boss is fixated. Double bops through talent mean you can get 4 bops from a paladin one on each tank twice through the first if you use the first one nearly right away.

[Gliff]

But 25 mans are harder than 10 mans so shouldnt it be faceroll for you?

This fight is harder on 10 man. More lilkely to get bad RNG and unhealable deaths. We have had people take 400k damage in .8 seconds before. Bad RNG.

Just 3 heal it. The enrage is a joke now with HoF and Terrace gear. My 5/16 H casual guild 3 healed it even on our first kill and still beat the enrage by a minute.

[SurrealNight]

Just 3 heal it. The enrage is a joke now with HoF and Terrace gear. My 5/16 H casual guild 3 healed it even on our first kill and still beat the enrage by a minute.

OP isn't even 16/16 normal yet let alone 5/16 H "casual". We two healed it and downed at 5:41 so I doubt removing a DPS would beat the enrage timer unless maybe it was a DPS'ing Disc priest as mentioned.

[Banzhe]

Our raid comp for this was as follows.

Tanks : DK/DK
Healers : Monk/Shaman
DPS : Shadow x 2, Mage x 2, Rogue, Ele Sham

That makes sense, Surreal. I don't think we were doing much to mitigate Shadowy Attacks on the tank. If we go back to try more on 10-man, we'll likely have a better plan of attack for that. Are there any other suggestions for this fight that could be of benefit?

Edit : Also, to answer bals, we sent two DPS and one healer each totem.

You could probably settle for 1 dps and 1 healer, with the exception for when Severer of Souls is active, at which point looking at your comp it makes little difference who is dolled.
Just make sure the dps inside focus on dotting everything instead of trying to nuke a few, 2 Spriests means you will "always" have 1 open to go inside more or less.., and if the dotting is done right, all it takes is 1 Halo to finish the majority of adds.

DK's do have a couple of cd's that mitigates Shadowy attacks, but overall they are the worst tanks for Gara'jal hc alongside druids.

Best of luck on moving forward