A plea for assistance on Heroic Will.

[CombatGarrosh]

Alright, first things first. My guild is not amazing, this I know. We got blocked on every single hard fight in heroics and normals so far because we run 6 excellent players, and 4 meh players. It is what it is. Let's just get that out of the way.

We've finally gotten to Heroic Will. And I can honestly say after 30 minutes of attempts, that I, as the raidleader, need help from a community such as this. I am posting for the first time here because usually I can find my questions answered by you guys easily. And you're all amazing for helping out and giving feedback to raids in need who can't quite hack it without a little advice. Welp, this is my need-advice post.

I will do my best to offer up relevant information to the fight.

Heroic Will.

Comp:

Tanks~
Prot Warrior *10/10 Dancer*
Brewmaster Monk *9/10 Dancer*

Healers~
Resto Druid *non-Dancer*
Disc Priest *9/10 Dancer*
Resto Shaman *non-Dancer*
*One of these can sit if it's needed*

DPS~ Two of these can be changed.
Windwalker Monk *10/10 Dancer* *assigned to Courages ~Purely for the spark blowup - Diffuse Magic~*
Assassination Rogue *10/10 Dancer* *assigned to a Rage 4-set of spark blowup via CoS, Cheat Death, and Preparation, each for separate sets, naturally*
Ret Paladin *7/10 Dancer* *assigned to Strengths for tanking AND blowup*
Frost Mage *non-Dancer* *assigned to Rages* *not assigned to blowup*
Survival Hunter *non-Dancer* *assigned to Rages* *assigned with glyphed deterrence for blowup on a rage 4-set WITH Disc priest Pain Suppression when Rogue CoS/Prep is on Cooldown. Estimated 2-3 times this needs to happen in the entire fight...I think*

EXTRA DPS:
Frost DK *non-Dancer* *assigned to Strengths*
Destruction Warlock *non-Dancer* *assigned to multi-dot, and primary Rages*

So the initial 10 I listed are what we've started with. We didn't make it very far. I will not lie, I am a bit lost. The ret pally can't, even glyphed, soak a single spark bomb. It kills him every time. Our DK hasn't gotten a shot yet because erm..he's deaf. *chuckle* Don't tease, he's an amazing player, even with his handicap, but the communication on this seems like it might be a bit much. He could EASILY soak Strength sparks with AMS though. So if it's possible, please tell me. if I can give my DK a spot in the raid where he can be more useful than my ret paladin, I will more than gladly run a swap out.

I'd list all the specifics, but I could just really use a help. A rundown list would be amazing. Something that can help. I can't figure out WHY in the world we can't manage this. It just turns to absolute chaos. Strengths are handled, bosses are handled, courages are handled, but rages are going postal. Please someone help. If someone could just basically babysit the encounter and say PlayerX soaks 1/3/5/7 spark sets, etc, etc, that would be amazing. I tank one of these, and do raidleading, this seems a bit much for me.

Please help if you can. It would mean the world to a noob like me.

Server: Garrosh
Faction: Alliance
Guild: Edge of Insanity
My Toon: Combat *Dwarf Warrior*

[Deleted]

With a rogue in the party we found the easiest thing to do was to have our rogue handle all of the rage adds. We killed them one-by-one and he used Feint for each rage, glyphed for extra damage reduction, off the top of my head I think this was 65% which was easily enough, went to around half HP each time. This has no CD so as long as you're not killing them both at exactly the same time it's fine. So we had 2 sets rages hop down, we focus the left one first, then focus the right one.. and do that for every wave. I think if you soak rages one by one, you don't need to worry about co-ordination, about having all the rages CC in the same place/dying at the same time/etc. I believe a common strategy for 10-man is to make your life easy with a rogue using this tactic.

If your ret pala is having trouble staying alive on the sparks (we found it possible, but a bit risky on the health pool), what we did was have our ret pally tank the strengths. But then when they are killed, he runs out and we have 2 people assigned to soaking those in a rotation. In your group you could have him run out, then Frost mage soaks it with ice block/cauterize. Second strength, he runs out and your hunter soaks it with Deterrence (since you wouldn't need his deterrence on the rages if your rogue handled them all). You can also have your ret pala still soak some to save them the hassle whenever his bubble is up.

Anything you got stuck on other than spark soaking? The above would seem a good solution to me, as for courages you said they are already under control.

[CombatGarrosh]

The feint glyph trick may very well be what will solve it. Other than rage add control getting out of hand, we were doing great. Courages come out in 90 second intervals, which means I can put my WW monk *Diffuse Magic 90sec cooldown* on that spark easily, and I can trade the ret paladin for my frost DK *AMS 1min cooldown, Strength 1min cooldown*

If my rogue can handle feinting each spark there, that covers absolutely every RNG basis, and leaves us with DPSing the bosses. It takes 1 person off of our dancing. He's one of our best, but putting him on rage soak will mean very simply, that he's on rages the ENTIRE fight.

Do we have to 2heal this, or is 3healing acceptable? I don't want to get this down pat, and then have to set this back up to 2healing just to end up having to re-learn. /thinking. Again, the feint idea is amazing, it completely negates the whole hunter/rogue swapping strategy and is a welcome piece of advice.

Okay, down to the final thoughts. TL;DR.

Rogue Feint removes Rage spark problems.
Rogue handles Rages with staggered blowup via feint/reheal
WW monk handles Courages with Diffuse Magic
Frost DK handles Strengths with AMS

And the concern is..do we have to go down to 2healing? You can check our WoLogs. We run heroic Elegon 2/2 adds, clearing 6 sparks each time without trouble. We do heroic spirit kings with 3 healers and we have over a minute left on enrage typically. I don't know if that helps gauge my dps, but they're all about equal on par, with the frost mage bringing up the rear at a loss of roughly 3-5%.

Thank you thus far for the help, seriously.

[CombatGarrosh]

Edit: Doublepost. Sorry!

[Deleted]

We 2 man healed it. Found it easier to control the adds like that.

Also we killed every 2 rages ASAP while stunning to they stuck together so that we could soak both with 1 CD

Fight is not that good for melee imo and should try to get the most ranged possible. HUNTERs! GET HUNTERS! xD

Also, with 2 man heals you dont want a healer dancing... in fact we didnt have anyone dancing except the tanks

[Deleted]

2 heal, rogue on all sparks (maybe a backup for courages) dk/ret solo strengths, whichever does more DPS, only tanks dance.

[PBitt]

Just a few words of advice:
-Only tanks dance, you won't even have time for anyone else to, the fight is about add control
-As said above, two heal it, no question about it, you'll fall behind without it and if everyone else can do their job, healers will have the easiest jobs out of everyone
-I would avoid the rogue soaking strat, you will most likely not have enough dps without soaking (yes you may get more out of everyone else, but you're dps really needs to be on their game if you're going to do that). If you want to try it, try it, but just stick with one strat and the other and keeping going, don't keep changing strats, be patient.
-Honestly, this fight is very simple, it's all about control and communication and requires excellent execution. If you can get through the initial double add phase with everyone alive, you're going to be okay, it only gets easier thereafter, you just gotta keep everyone focused for 12 or 13 minutes or so, it is a long fight.

[Spiralphoenix]

I notice you talk about having a DK soak with AMS.... keep in mind that AMS is capped at 50% of the DK's HP in absorb. Which for your typical DPS DK is probably like 200-210k absorb. The sparks explode for 750,000 damage, still more than enough damage left to kill the DK through AMS alone.

[Mushedcow]

Stam flask/food, and divine protection from a retribution paladin unglyphed can soak them, if your still unsure, get a shield from your priest.
Or using unbreakable spirit you can bubble every 2.5minutes instead of 5 allowing you to soak every 2nd? strength without any danger of dying.

[Aethilus]

My guild that is similarly casual (some amazing, some not so much amazing players) just killed H will yesterday. We soaked as follows:

All rages and the first strength of the fights as well as the last strength before any break in add spawns to the rogue. (cc 1 each spawn burst them seperately, earlier described in thread)
Strengths were tanked and soloed by a fury warrior who would run out when they died, soaks were done alternating a shadow priest's dispersion and our boomkins cloak of shadows (acquired from symbiosis on the rogue).
Myself (Affliction warlock) helped with rages except when a courage was spawning where I'd go and use glyphed curse of exhaustion and solo them. I soaked every courage spark alternating between dark bargain for the first spark, and unending resolve and shadow bulwark (sacrifice a voidwalker) together for the second spark, healthstones and dark regeneration used as necessary.

Our raids average item level was probably around 492 to 496, we killed it in 10mins 11 seconds well ahead of the enrage, called for a burn on the boss at 30% which was right after the 3rd break in add spawns.

We were also 2 healing with a holy paladin and a resto shaman, in an emergency case the paladin would bubble and soak one, but on our kill attempt we had no such emergencies.

[Dracodraco]

All strengths - rogue feint.
All courages - Monk diffuse.
CC 1x set of rages (Hunter scatter shot into trap, mage sheep). Blow up 4 rages together. Have dps team consisting of:
Warlock/Hunter/Mage/DK atleast on the rages. DK can provide slow to rages+sparks (chillblains), making sparks easier to soak. He grips them together with Gorefiends Grasp right before they die to make spark soaking possible.
Along with this, you have:
Warlock shadowfury stun.
Mage Ring of frost.
Hunter entrapment (don't use this if melee are in rages, they get rooted and smack whatever is closest = dead melee).
Hunter binding shot (stun).
Hunter powershot (knockback).
If your monk is not busy, he can join in with his Leg sweep stun.

Have your DK/Rogue/Monk deal with the strengths if not DPS'ing rages (there's a minute between every wave), and have your ranged be on the bosses. Travel time is far too long for melee to run back and forth.

All of this should be useable for every single set of double-rages. Your hunters deterrence should be talented to a 1 minute cooldown, and as rages spawn every ~30-35 seconds, he can easily soak every spark of rages *on his own*.
So that means only your rogue (strengths), monk (courages) and hunter (rages) are ever soaking. Leaves mage with blink/iceblock, and warlock with Dark Bargain as backup.

It's a 2 healing encounter, I'd go for disc priest+shaman unless your druid is *extremely* strong - disc is simply OP, and shaman provides a mana battery for the disc. Druids are "meh" this tier, but at your level, player skill usually says alot more than class.

[Sesshou]

The feint glyph just adds duration. What he wants is to drop cheat death and pick up the elusiveness talent for the 65% total reduction. This is amazing and I can soak an infinite number of single sparks. Personally, I tanked the strengths on my rogue and soaked that and anything that got free on my side of the room.

You can very easily have your rogue soak both the strengths and the courages if some one else tanks the strength (odds are they will drop before the courage's spark can be soaked) which will free up your monks 90% dr cooldown to soak a pack of rages and your ret can soak a pack with divine shield (granted the ret one is a long cd). Alternatively, you can try it basically like you have it and just have the rogue also soak the strength spark for the ret (we tried this, but then decided at that point I might as well tank it so we didn't tie up 2 melee constantly).

I'm not sure why I'm hearing that dps don't dance. This a fundamental difference in 10m? On 25m during the burn phases, we have dances line up with the burn where the adds stop and all of our melee except whoever is tanking strengths goes to the boss immediately after the last rages die to dance while the range finish off the other adds.

And I believe glyph for deterrence is worthless. If there is another glyph he can use that is useful, he might want to. Glyph afaik only makes you take less damage during deterrence, but deterrence actually prevents you from taking any damage from sparks period.

[Simplexity]

Run two heals. You don't need a huge amount of HPS for this fight, about 110K total, so 2 heals should be able to cover that pretty easily. Tank healing is pretty easy with the extended dance. This is the comp I'd run.

Tanks: Warr/Monk
Heals: Disc Priest/R Sham
DPS: Mage/Hunter/Rogue/WW/DK/Lock or ret

Remember that the order of adds goes 2 Rages/Strength/2 Rages/Courage/2 Rages/Strength.

The easier way for us to handle the rages was to CC one of the rages every set and just kill them 1 by 1 and have the rogue soak all of the rage sparks with 65% reduction covered above. You could also CC a set, but with a rogue that can overcomplicate things. If you MUST bring 3 heals though, you'll probably have to do it that way. Here's how I would do the soaking.

Rages: Rogue soaks every one. Kill one by one. These are DPS priority, especially ranged. Assign one ranged to CC one. This ranged and the rogue will not assist on the Courage.
Strength: DK tanks and soaks every one. These are last DPS priority.
Courage: Monk or Hunter can soak everyone. All DPS on Courage except for the ranged Ccing a Rage and the Rogue.

[Bombercloner]

Make sure your ret pally ISN'T glyphed. the unglyphed version of Divine protection is a 40% magic reduction. The Glyphed version is 20% magic 20% physical. (Note: I have not done heroic will.)

[Deleted]

As recommended above I'd go down to 2 heals, the more DPS you have the more the fight is under control. I'm sure it's possible with 3, but we started with 3 and found it easier to go down to 2. As also stated forget about the dancing for anyone other than the tanks (and the melee during the 'burn the bosses' time during the add interval).

[CombatGarrosh]

Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you SO much for the interest in helping, and the help itself. I thought some of you might appreciate an update.

First night of attempts:

Issues:

Spark Soaking
Add Control
Spark Bugs
Courages
Healing
.....
~Spark Soaking. Rogue with Elusiveness and Shadow Step. Shadow Step was found to be more useful than preparation for soaking Strength sparks. Our ret paladin tanked it, quite well. Took 2 attempts to get it down. Rogue now soaks them all effectively.

~Add Control. Took about 4-5 attempts, but we pulled things around, and had our WW monk who I had on the bosses, on adds. Control immediately showed itself, all adds died within the proper timeframe, minus courages. Explanation below.

~Spark Bugs. THIS... WAS... STUPID... My monk with diffuse magic, or my hunter with deterrence would call out I GOT THIS for the Courage spark every 90 seconds, and then they'd be sitting under it for A SOLID NINE SECONDS, without it blowing up. I'd be standing there tanking, watching my monk jumping up, whirl kicking it, trying to get it to blow up and...his Diffuse Magic timer wears off...THEN it blows up. No clue as to how to fix this. We tried hitting, taunting, everything. He was underneath the darn spark! Literally UNDERNEATH.

~Courages. We got hardblocked on this. We couldn't progress on the fight because of this. It wasn't an error or anything, it was one simple problem. We only had two range =(. Our warlock did not show up, and we were down to 4 melee and 2 ranged. It was more than sad. With the courages being fought between a dance phase, our melee would be weaving in and out losing dps numbers, and when they do get the courage down, the presence rating on the melee is such that the adds have started to overrun the raid. Wipe within 20 seconds, every time. Is there anything we can do to combat this? Because it's more than a little sad. =(

~Healing. Healing seemed a tiny bit sketchy. We were learning it, and we ran restoshaman, disc priest. The rogue was kept up easily, everyone was staying alive, and both tanks were being kept up with one minor exception. My monk tank seems to be squishier than my warrior. I tell him to rotate cooldowns and have his upkeep constantly up but... squish squish squish. Is there anything an experienced monk tank can tell me that will assist in his survival?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again, I thank everyone for being an amazing helper on this. We went from wiping 20seconds into the first adds, to running 3-5 minutes into the fight with perfect control. It seems our biggest issue is this fight is a hardblock if you have too much melee. It's LITERALLY a screw-you to melee majority. We prided ourselves on playing what we wanted, not playing for comp requirements but....now it seems I have to sit melee hard =(

Our comp if anyone is curious, and if you could help or give tips/hints, that would be amazing.

Prot Warrior
Brew Monk

Resto Shaman ~On Monk/Raid
Disc Priest ~On Warrior/Rogue/Raid

Ret Paladin ~On Strengths soloing with range/DK
Frost DK ~On Adds full-time
Survival Hunter ~On Adds full-time, soaking Courage spark with deterrence
Arcane Mage ~On Adds full-time, sheeping left Rage, staggering kill order. No spark soak. Greater Invisibility emergency soak.
WW Monk - On Adds full-time. No spark soak. Diffuse Magic emergency soak.
Assassination Rogue - On Adds full-time. Feint Talented/Glyphed with ShadowStep for mobility. Covers all Rage and Strength sparks easily.

Not On:
Destro Warlock
Resto Druid

If there's any tips/hints, especially about the Courage strategy that will make this work, please don't be shy. We could really use the insight from experienced players.

~Thanks so much,
~Combat

[nyteryder]

so.....hopefully some of this helps...sorry if it is a long winded post but im all hopped up on coffee atm.

this fight is all about making sure your not overlapping add types and soaking sparks. the soft enrage of the fight is typically easily met if these things are handled correctly.

-healing-

2 heal it - this is going to cause some serious strain on your healers and everyone up in melee range HAS to dodge the combo attacks or else they will drastically drain your healers much needed mana.

i suggest using your resto shaman simply for the mana tide, as for the 2nd healer, both a resto druid and disc priest are viable for this roll. the resto druid will do better healing the slight raid damage from the gas while the disc priest will do better healing the spike damage from the sparks. personally we use a resto shaman and a holy priest to heal this. though your druid can put a symbiosis on your rage spark soaker so they get growl for the extra hp. putting symbiosis on your hunter will also make the resto druid a viable spark back up soaker with deterrence.

raid icons -this will make things much easier for position - put a marker down in the middle of the circle and then a marker down towards each set of stairs about 35 yards away (this should be about right on the edge of the outer circle) healers and range dps should stand in the middle of the circle as much as possible to make ample use of group effect/aoe healing while the tanks should stand just on the inside of the outer circle with the boss on the markers. with the combo attack being a 25 yard range this will put the range/healers 35-40 yards away from the boss, while ensuring the tanks and the entire rest of the room are with in heal range (tanks might temporarily go out of range while doing the dance). we also put a raid icon back near where the rages spawn in from 40 yards out from where the healers will be standing. this is so the rage spark soaker knows not to go past that point if he wants heals.

healers will be parked in the middle of the room and only really need to move slightly if a spark is getting close - small heals and hots are typically enough to heal the damage from the gas - tanks will need a moderate amount of heals when they are not dancing the combo attacks but if they are using cool downs correctly they actually take less damage over all then on normal mode(due to the fact that the bosses are spending twice as long doing devastating combo). spark soakers are typically in no urgent need of heals after soaking a spark and light heals will typically be enough to keep them alive through the gas. just make sure they are topped off before they are needed to soak another spark.

mana efficiency is key to getting through this fight with 2 healers so use your mana regen cool downs early and often, while not wasting as much mana as possible.


-tanking -

tanks will really just be helping kill the initial adds until the bosses join the fight, at which point they pull the bosses their assigned locations and do their thing. i do suggest not having a tank attack the 2nd strength that spawns in. this will spawn in seconds before the bosses spawn and you do not want your tank trying to move out of the stun effect of the strength while trying to build aggro on and move the boss.

tanks should be using a defensive cool down when ever possible between dances - monks elusive brew and stagger line up about perfectly with this.


-dps-

of all of the classes you have listed really they are all viable but i will make a suggestion...on which ones i would us.

rogue
mage
ww monk
hunter
lock
ret paladin or frost dk

having the rogue and mage together will make this fight alot easier - ranged will be better then melee on this fight due to being able to stack in the middle for aoe heals better. so besides the rogue the other 2 melee dps you bring between the monk, paladin, and dk really don't matter as long as either the monk or the paladin is 1 of them.

assign the rogue and mage to dps the rages full time - the mage should sheep the right rage (or the lower one if they are both on the right) and they should kill the left (or upper) rage first. once that spark has been soaked by the rogue using feint, then you start killing the sheeped rage. at which point the rogue will again soak this spark with feint. the mage is a back up soaker for these sparks if the rogue is unable to pop them. the mage can use blink after the effect is triggered and completely avoid the damage but this will take some practice - i suggest the mage take greater invisibility and use that to soak when needed it is much more reliable then cauterize.

2 dps focus the strength, you want this to be either your ww monk or ret paladin "tanking" the strength making sure it is always facing away from everyone so they are not having to move out of the stun radius. your 2nd dps here should be either your lock or hunter. your going to want your paladin to rotate soaking the strengths spark with the other dps assigned to the strength. your hunter or warlock should be soaking the first strengths spark and the paladin or monk should be soaking the 2nd strengths spark and just alternate from there. the none strength "tank" (so hunter or warlock) will break off and kill the courage when it spawns in.

all other dps will help out on the rages and switch to the courage when it spawns in...the courage spark will be soaked in an alternating order between the hunter or warlock(which ever isnt soaking the strength's spark) and your monk or ret paladin(which ever isnt tanking the strength) make sure you pull this spark out of range of the boss before you soak it, you do not want him getting the spark buff.

so to break it down a bit easier...

6 dps

class kill priority soaking
rogue rage>boss all rage sparks
mage rage>boss back up rage sparks
str "tank" str>rage>boss alternating str sparks
2nd str dps courage>str>rage>boss alternating str spark
all other dps courage>rage>str>boss alternating courage spark


again im all hopped up on coffee, so sorry if any of this was 2 confussing im probably just rambling by this point

[Deleted]

~Spark Bugs. THIS... WAS... STUPID... My monk with diffuse magic, or my hunter with deterrence would call out I GOT THIS for the Courage spark every 90 seconds, and then they'd be sitting under it for A SOLID NINE SECONDS, without it blowing up. I'd be standing there tanking, watching my monk jumping up, whirl kicking it, trying to get it to blow up and...his Diffuse Magic timer wears off...THEN it blows up. No clue as to how to fix this. We tried hitting, taunting, everything. He was underneath the darn spark! Literally UNDERNEATH.

The sparks spawn REALLY high in the air. When they move to the targetted player, they slowly move down to the ground (and thus easier to explode). I dont know if this is actually your problem, but it sounded like it.

[Sesshou]

For the courages, honestly our melee had more damage on them. Since your rogue isn't tanking he should be able to get on the courages as soon as it drops and shiv cripple onto it and you should have several seconds to kill it before it enters dance range, but you do need people in position. If you have people waiting for it to drop and then going over to kill it, then its almost guaranteed to live long enough to enter dance range. Just make sure the tanks aren't keeping the bosses to close to the wall (the bosses just need to be far enough apart that the dance of one doesn't prevent you from being able to dodge the dance of the other).

[Deleted]

Yeah the sparks one is not a bug, as Sesshou says you need to wait some seconds before they start coming down, and THEN you can soak them. They won't explode before that time

But really, just use your rogue to soak ALL the sparks. Simply make sure he is topped off before each spark and there's not gonna be any problem. We 3-shotted (literally) the boss using a rogue, it's just a cheat on the 10m version of this fight