Council of Elders 10N DPS oad block - looking for advice

[Reinholder]

Our guild has really hit the wall with the Council of Elders. We aren't hardcore but I'd say we want to do the best we can. We've probably thrown ourselves into 50 attempts so far and we I'd say we've made minimal progress on the fight. My general feeling is that while it may be a combination of factors, the main things are that we're a bit low in terms of raid wide DPS as well as still suffering one too many derp deaths (eg. standing in bad). We've tried a few different strats, nuking sul, 2 healing etc but the end result is the same.

From all the logs I've seen 680-690k raid wide dps is what a 10man group would need to get through the fight, with things becoming substantially easier if your dps is above that mark.

So question is, what are people pulling to get past this fight? Any advices? Tips? Tricks?

Here are a couple of logs showing a few attempts (from different nights):
worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-xsw66rnryop66r71/?enc=wipes&boss=69078
worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-hn6w8k7u1ew1430o/?enc=wipes&boss=69078

p.s. yes derp typo in heading is derp. :P

[Sonnillon]

This was our very first, messy kill: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/ni6p1...?s=7309&e=7784 people where between 490-503 ilvls.

We stacked Ma'li, Sul, Malakk on top of each other for cleaving. Did BL at start, burned Sul until Malakk was 60 energy. Switched to Malakk and then just DPSed Sul when ever DPSers had nothing else to do, but generally broke the guy out who was empowered. Also when Sul was about to die and Ma'li sit at 100 empower we ignored Ma'li and the raid damage and just killed Sul before his empowerment.

We tried several different tactics, but as soon as we stacked bosses on top of each other the DPS rose and we started getting further and further. Sure the Ma'li's healing spirits heal Sul but with the cleaving it is not much to out DPS.

[Deleted]

Clean up the taunts; your Bear is getting stunned sometimes, which probably doesn't help.

Edit:
I'm talking about:
Here - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-xs...?s=2575&e=2885
Here - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-xs...?s=3097&e=3391
Here - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-xs...?s=4585&e=4734

Seems like it was more a mistake than what I first assumed was a weird strat I hadn't heard of :P If your Paladin is having some issues getting the right mob or whatever, get him to make a macro that does
/target Frost King Malakk
/cast Reckoning
/targetlasttarget

And put your Bear as his focus so he can watch the stacks.

I'm by no means in a hardcore guild either but if it helps, here's our log from tonight. Might give you some ideas or help you see what the problem is.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/l...?s=2543&e=2929

[Sonnillon]

I tank Frost King, if I'm good with SD+trinket+procs I will reset my stacks (I just have to work on my timing), so it is not a big issue. The paladin just taunts Malakk of from me when I get stunned. And as for why my raid is not swapping well, the paladin will try to take around 13 stacks Malakk off from me, if I haven't managed to reset my stacks.

Paladin for us tanks Ma'li+Sul together and I just stack Malakk on top of them . If you time your dodging right you won't get stunned anyway. So mainly tank swapping should be left, imho, if you stack mobs on top of each other to the time when you are stunned or close to being stunned.

[Deleted]

I tank Frost King, if I'm good with SD+trinket+procs I will reset my stacks (I just have to work on my timing), so it is not a big issue. The paladin just taunts Malakk of from me when I get stunned. And as for why my raid is not swapping well, the paladin will try to take around 13 stacks Malakk off from me, if I haven't managed to reset my stacks.

I was talking to the OP but it clarifies it a bit :P Don't really know anything about Bears so. Neither of our tanks (Myself and the Monk) dodge enough to risk trying to reset; We'd just be losing dps letting either of us eat it.

[Durahal]

Fight is significantly easier once one of them dies, mainly killing Sul first.

On pull you should just pop hero and have everyone dump everything onto Sul with Frost King (who will be the empowered one) stacked on him.

Once Suls energy is approaching 50% just switch to him and burn him the 25% in order for it switch, basically you want to DPS Sul any time you can, while only pushing the empowered add the 25% necessary to trigger a switch.

[Spoiledkid]

Make some damage to Kazra'jin when Frost King is empowered so Priestess will be the next one. Tank Sul and Frost King together and move them top of Priestess once she gets empowered.

[Valkors]

Paladin for us tanks Ma'li+Sul together and I just stack Malakk on top of them . If you time your dodging right you won't get stunned anyway. So mainly tank swapping should be left, imho, if you stack mobs on top of each other to the time when you are stunned or close to being stunned.

You tank the priestess on top of Sul, who I assume, is your burn target? How does your group handle the Loa adds? We had tried this and even with my explosive trap glyphed, the add would still heal Sul.

[Deleted]

Clean up the taunts; your Bear is getting stunned sometimes, which probably doesn't help.

Edit:
I'm talking about:
Here - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-xs...?s=2575&e=2885
Here - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-xs...?s=3097&e=3391
Here - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-xs...?s=4585&e=4734

Seems like it was more a mistake than what I first assumed was a weird strat I hadn't heard of :P If your Paladin is having some issues getting the right mob or whatever, get him to make a macro that does
/target Frost King Malakk
/cast Reckoning
/targetlasttarget

And put your Bear as his focus so he can watch the stacks.

I'm by no means in a hardcore guild either but if it helps, here's our log from tonight. Might give you some ideas or help you see what the problem is.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/l...?s=2543&e=2929

Don't bother with taunting, the stun only lasts for 15 sec, and its more hassle to move the whole raid to the other side where the other tank is.

You need to 2 heal, burn sul OP. Imo that's the easiest strat for an undergeared group. Make sure your group is set for interrupts, and then 2 healin suddenly feels like a breeze.

[Deleted]

Don't bother with taunting, the stun only lasts for 15 sec, and its more hassle to move the whole raid to the other side where the other tank is.

You need to 2 heal, burn sul OP. Imo that's the easiest strat for an undergeared group. Make sure your group is set for interrupts, and then 2 healin suddenly feels like a breeze.

Why does the raid move on the taunt? We just have the priestess tank run over to Sul and the frost one. The priestess just stays casting on him for a bit but it's nothing terribly hard. Or maybe healing through the stun isn't that bad either.

Sorry to pick on the druid but that's the only one I can check. Resto druid healing looks a bit low, but they did die during time warp I suppose. On 5mins 10 attempt only cast swiftmend 6 times, should get near 4 a minute. No Ironbark cast, this is 2 min tank damage reduction which would help when stunned tank getting beat on. No barkskin cast, think this is 1min cooldown, could've helped survive standing in the quicksand and getting beat on by the living sands. Not sure if tank was nearby to pick up sands or if druid ran to/from them. No innervate cast, could've have two in that fight. Only used 1 the whole night it looks like. I've only tanked this outside of LFR but surely a tranquility could have been used before 5minutes to squeeze in two.

In your 5 minutes your raid took the same amount of damage from quicksand as the linked 6 min 25 kill so maybe get out of that more quickly.

[Deleted]

Don't bother with taunting, the stun only lasts for 15 sec, and its more hassle to move the whole raid to the other side where the other tank is.

Even better tactic for ton of extra dps: bother with taunting (15 seconds of stun on tank is massive dps loss) and don't bother with killing the healer add at all so you can just stack all 3 up. I don't get why people still insist on killing it off, makes fight so much more complicated than it should be and it's a huge dps loss when you look at the numbers.

[Deja Thoris]

I agree with the stacking method.

We 2 healed this and stacked them all on top of each other. It makes taunting frost dude easy and the increased damage from cleaves far outweighs the healing done by the loa spirit.

I think a key part of learning this fight for dps is controlling damage so you don't break people out of empowerment too early.

[Reinholder]

Thanks guys. I believe the theory behind having the druid on the frost king was that he would generally dodge enough to drop the stacks, but there's a bit of rng involved with that so it's probably not the best approach. The 2 heal stack method seems pretty popular and definitely agree with moving out of stuff a lot faster too, especially if we try 2 healing.

DPS wise we seem quite low compared to other logs. Any ideas where we can make improvements there (outside of gear)?

[Sonnillon]

You tank the priestess on top of Sul, who I assume, is your burn target? How does your group handle the Loa adds? We had tried this and even with my explosive trap glyphed, the add would still heal Sul.

We let Sul heal, aka ignored the blessed loa spirits. The 3,7 mil over 30 sec, wasn't an issue. As the target switching to the adds didn't get us anywhere. The cleave damage was more then enough to make the heal a sneeze.

---------- Post added 2013-03-22 at 08:21 AM ----------

DPS wise we seem quite low compared to other logs. Any ideas where we can make improvements there (outside of gear)?

If your prot. pala gets more vengeance, he will do roughly the same amount of damage, so if he gets 40+k extra DPS you will get more over all raid DPS. Whether you tank all bosses together - leaving Ma'li and Sul for the Pala and Malakk to the bear or taunting Malakk between Ma'li and Sul to reset the stacks. This should give your paladin more vengeance, as Ma'li only casts, while Sul and Malakk melee (Sul melees only when he is interrupted).

But my question is what the hell is your hunter doing? I don't see any signature spec shots like BA, ExS if he did this in SV or even KC if he did this fight in some reason as BM. Your hunter vs our hunter . Maybe your logs are bugged or whatever, but for me not using some shots seems really weird.

[Deleted]

We let Sul heal, aka ignored the blessed loa spirits. The 3,7 mil over 30 sec, wasn't an issue. As the target switching to the adds didn't get us anywhere. The cleave damage was more then enough to make the heal a sneeze.

---------- Post added 2013-03-22 at 08:21 AM ----------


If your prot. pala gets more vengeance, he will do roughly the same amount of damage, so if he gets 40+k extra DPS you will get more over all raid DPS. Whether you tank all bosses together - leaving Ma'li and Sul for the Pala and Malakk to the bear or taunting Malakk between Ma'li and Sul to reset the stacks. This should give your paladin more vengeance, as Ma'li only casts, while Sul and Malakk melee (Sul melees only when he is interrupted).

But my question is what the hell is your hunter doing? I don't see any signature spec shots like BA, ExS if he did this in SV or even KC if he did this fight in some reason as BM. Your hunter vs our hunter . Maybe your logs are bugged or whatever, but for me not using some shots seems really weird.

Prot pally? Go 1 tank 2 heals. Pally tanks LOVE vengeance. Stack em up and aoe down. Pally tank interrupts Sul. Raid aoe nukes Sul. Pop a cd when about to get stunned and let your healers know. Killed it first time like this yesterday. Simple tacs. Easy way to get ranked .

[Deleted]

We used to have trouble with this fight aswell, spending 2-3 raids wiping on Council.
We ended up trying to stack them all up. Ignoring the healing Loa Spirit. Have a melee fulltime on Sul, and everytime one of the 3 bosses that are stacked up is possesed, as much cleave as possible.
It really made the fight much easier, and we now one-shot it.

[Sonnillon]

Prot pally? Go 1 tank 2 heals. Pally tanks LOVE vengeance. Stack em up and aoe down. Pally tank interrupts Sul. Raid aoe nukes Sul. Pop a cd when about to get stunned and let your healers know. Killed it first time like this yesterday. Simple tacs. Easy way to get ranked .

Pally tank dies when the 3 bosses are too long on him x_x (that is just my case), but never mind. Each of us find a way to kill it . It is just matter of finding which tactic works for you.

I'm pretty sure that we can kill Council only with a certain setup, as w/o BL we probably won't pull it off etc. And even then we will probably have to adjust the tactic to fit the particular raid group.

The best thing I can suggest to the OP is to try various tactics suggested here and on other topics and choose the best one. GL

[bigbad]

680-690k isn't needed.

Our last kill: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/p...2#Bigbadorugly

We BL at the start and nuke Sul. I'm staying on Sul till he dies cleaving frostking as well and interrupting sand bolts. Glyphed grounding totem helps on kazrajin if you can get a shammy in the raid. We don't tankswitch and just heal through the stun if the druid doesn't get a lucky dodgestreak. Marli on the other side of the room and the other 4 dps breaking out the empowerements/killing spirits.

Our first kill pre-nerf we did the same but killed Sul just after his empowerment instead of before, if you lack dps you can do this as well. We had the raid move to the side behind Sul and have the Marli tank move back as well and pick up most of the adds.

[InkarnateKT]

As said above. Hero/BL and nuke Sul, switch to the empowered add at around 60% energy the first time they get empowered to break them in time (~50% energy the second time because they gain energy faster). Put all of your extra damage into Sul (multi-dots/cleaves). I would leave 1 melee on him full time as well to keep him going down and reduce the damage from Sand bolt. If people aren't dieing to mechanics then dps isn't really an issue. Make sure to stun/slow loa spirits and kill within 20 seconds.

Tank Sul/FrostKing together at the start with marli on the other side of the room. Make sure your tanks aren't getting stunned ( taunt frostking when he has buff up and other tank has 12-14 stacks).

[Shodan30]

My 10 man raiding guild is not quite so diverse as some and we downed council last night. My group typically consists of 2 paladin tanks, 1 druid healer, 1 shaman one rogue, one warlock, one mage, 2 shadow priests, pali healer.

What we ended up doing is having the rogue and one of the shadow priests stay on sul the sandcrawler the entire fight until he dies, which if all goes well is before or very soon after he first empowers (ideally before but our gear isnt quite at that level yet) so we only get maximum one set of sand elementals. after that we just focus on whoevers empowered. Course you have to plan your dps cooldowns pretty well so that the remaining empowered people dont get to 100 energy and wipe the raid. Took a few tries with this strat but it seems the best one as it will only get easier with better gear.

As a warlock i just set a macro to havoc sul the sandcrawler on cooldown then i would chaos bolt the current empowered person, and constantly Rain of fire on the person tanking sul + frost king for extra embers.