Oondasta the "real" way? From the perspective of a low-pop realm.

[Yoojine]

Hi, I'm looking for advice in killing Oondasta the way he's meant to be killed, and not with a humongous zerg. I'm on the third-lowest populated US server, so a zerg is pretty much out of the question. Getting a full group even for Sha was nearly impossible in 5.0-5.1 without relying on cross-server beneficence. Now since loot is server-exclusive, I can't imagine getting a full group unless we engaged in some weird tit-for-tat deal with another low pop realm. We currently have two, count 'em, two raiding guilds total on the server, one 1/12 and my 3/12 "best" on server guild, so I anticipate I'll be able to field 10-15 non-ToT geared players at best in addition to my ten raiders.

With these limitations in mind, is it conceivable for us to kill Oondasta post-nerf? Does anyone have any experience they can share in trying to do Oondasta "properly"?

To be honest, his mechanics seem quite simple. A somewhat dicey taunt switch (made easier with hand of salvation/protection?) and an AoE mechanic that should be a cinch given our tiny group. My specific questions for those who have tried killing him the "right" way are: 1) about how long do we have until his frenzy stacks start annhilating tanks (so I can get an idea of how much DPS we need) and 2) how hard is it to manage the taunt switch?

Any general advice would be greatly appreciated too.

Thanks!

[Deleted]

We killed it last night on a low ranked server (20th from bottom in raid progression in the EU). We did have a full 40 man raid that had just killed Sha/Galleon and there was also a second raid group of overfill - I don't know how many were in it, it was far from full. They certainly did not add to the 3 tanks we used. Frankly, I can't see killing him with only 30-35 mediocre geared players.

We wiped about 5 times. We tried the "kite to the graveyard" strategy but that seems more trouble than it's worth. The fight goes to hell once the tanks have died once - you can't taunt, so they can't regain aggro and the boss does 800k breaths all over the raid. Maybe you can zerg with 4 raids, but not with one and a bit.

To me, it seemed all about that 800k frill blast. It seems to hit everyone in front of the boss (180 degree arc) so what worked in the end was simply placing a raid marker in front of the boss and one behind. The active tank standing on the one, the rest of the raid being behind the boss, very loosely spread. DBM users should use the command "/range 10" to check they are spread out.

The active tank needs to have a CD for every frill breath or they will die. Eventually, they will run out and then another tank should step in. It's essential the backup tanks have top threat or the boss will turn and breathe on the dps.

Just have 3 tanks who know tactics and how to play their class, a raid leader who can assert authority, and healers/dps who spread, and you should be ok. But I would not try it with less than 40 people.

[RickJamesLich]

Unless you got a lot of people with throne of thunder gear (and I mean they wanna be close to decked out), you'll need at least a second raid. Best bet is to form a few groups during peak hours and be prepared for some wipes.

[Soisoisoi]

Don't get mad at my Paint skillz, m'kay?

On a slightly more serious note, for smaller servers, without pretty good dps you will have trouble beating the 'soft enrage' of Piercing Roar hitting like a truck and one shotting everyone. Without awesome coordination (low end servers generally won't have that), it's going to be really, really hard.

[CombatGarrosh]

Oondasta the real way.

Post nerf, with the 50% hp nerf, naturally.

GY strat.

4 tanks.
8 healers.
28 dps.

~Clear the dinos around the beach right before pull.
~1 healer per group.
~Each healer markered from Star to Skull.
~Every group stands *ON* their healer, ONLY their healer *minus the healer in tank group, preferably a resto shaman in the middle of nowhere NOT in frill blast just healing the crap out of current tank and prepped for 2nd tank getting hit when 1 goes down.
~/Range 12 for DBM just to assure non-idiocy.
~Pull boss to GY with 2 tanks, turn him RIGHT facing the mountain once he's down. As you turn him, Frill Blast should happen within 10 seconds, depending how straight your tanks pulled.
~The preset markers spread their groups. Don't have more than 3 groups of melee or you WILL link the beam.
~Spiritfire beam will target ONE group at a time. 1-2 people will die each beam. They rez, go back to their marker. Rinse/repeat as needed for each beam. There WILL always be 1 or 2 deaths. BUT it means it never links to a second group.

By about 7-8 buffs of the enrage, he's dead, or damn near dead.

Enjoy.

~Done on US-Garrosh with 38 horde. All in sub-par gear. Only 2-3 in TOT, and none of them were tanks or healers.

[Belloc]

We killed it last night on a low ranked server (20th from bottom in raid progression in the EU). We did have a full 40 man raid that had just killed Sha/Galleon and there was also a second raid group of overfill - I don't know how many were in it, it was far from full. They certainly did not add to the 3 tanks we used. Frankly, I can't see killing him with only 30-35 mediocre geared players.

We wiped about 5 times. We tried the "kite to the graveyard" strategy but that seems more trouble than it's worth. The fight goes to hell once the tanks have died once - you can't taunt, so they can't regain aggro and the boss does 800k breaths all over the raid. Maybe you can zerg with 4 raids, but not with one and a bit.

To me, it seemed all about that 800k frill blast. It seems to hit everyone in front of the boss (180 degree arc) so what worked in the end was simply placing a raid marker in front of the boss and one behind. The active tank standing on the one, the rest of the raid being behind the boss, very loosely spread. DBM users should use the command "/range 10" to check they are spread out.

The active tank needs to have a CD for every frill breath or they will die. Eventually, they will run out and then another tank should step in. It's essential the backup tanks have top threat or the boss will turn and breathe on the dps.

Just have 3 tanks who know tactics and how to play their class, a raid leader who can assert authority, and healers/dps who spread, and you should be ok. But I would not try it with less than 40 people.

Tanks receive a buff that increases their threat generation. It might not be immediate, but they definitely can get threat back.

[Deleted]

I honestly believe that if you have 25-30 people that is somewhat used to raiding, that'd be easier and smoother to kill with than zerging with 100+ people.

[Libertarian]

The boss has 400m whatever health, which is about double what a 10man boss has with no damage increasing effects (durumu). Get together 20-30 people with 505+ gear and you will be able to kill him no problem.

[Zyl]

We did it with 37 on Agamaggan last Monday, so its possible to do it without a full 40

[PBitt]

You'll need to have a full or near full raid group of 40 to down him. It's best *not* to have more. We had a full raid group this week on my also-crappy-but-not-quite-as-crappy server as yours and a second group that wanted to drag him to the beach and zerg him got in our way and screwed up the whole 10 yard thing. But we did it the normal way just fine and once the other group was waiting at the graveyard we were able to kill him whilst having everyone 10 yards apart. Very simple, no adds, no need for movement or anything fancy other than tank swapping and though we lost a few people over the course of the fight because watching their range meter was too hard, we were able to kill him, maybe 30 left alive by the end of the fight, average dps was probably around 80k. So, very doable, you just have to have the numbers and people that are willing to wipe a few times and follow simple directions. It's an extremely simple boss, really. With his health halfed, it's far easier to do it the intended way than the zerg way. Trust me. This boss isn't really any harder than anything from VoA, it's just unforgiving if you mess up extremely simple stuff.

[Daltin]

20 people and less Oondasta is very much possible.

Don't let anyone convince you that "you need 40 + people". The more, the worse it is. Nothing is definitely more frustrating than 150 people crashing the party!

I'd say in the gear level of around.. 500-510, 25-30 would be acceptable. 40 is probably the "ideal" group. If your group is pretty geared though, less than 20 is possible.

I think it worked out to .. In order to kill Oondasta in 6 minutes with 15 people, you had to have all DPS averaging 90k. This conversation happened a long time ago, so I don't remember exact specifics. It worked out to something close to that, however.

[Deleted]

We did it several times on a really low pop server (horde side, maybe 100-150 people active at good times). We used the same strategy described above, though we had like three tanks I tank the fight completly with my monk. You only have to survive Frill Blast so make sure your healers get at full before and after. Even if you die during the fight, normally second tank just picks him up and he goes down pretty easily.

[Yoojine]

Thanks for all your replies guys. We're going to give it the ol' college try this weekend with whoever shows up, and I'll post our results next week. Any further advice is welcome.

[bigbad]

I've killed him twice now after the HP nerf about 30 people we had 2 tanks but the boss died before the first tank did so if you have enough dps you'd only need 1 tank, recon you'd never need more then 2 tanks but we have done it with another 10man guild and some randoms so pretty geared dps overall.
Just spread out (melee in groups of 2-3) and have 20-30 geared people and it should fall over

[dkdk]

If I could we could just dps the boss and not automatically die because there are 40 terribles standing everywhere because everyone shows up when will kill him, I think we could pull it off with our 10 man group. His health is a joke, and generally half the group is dead the whole time. We managed to solo tank it 2 weeks ago because all the other tanks died so, from my raid group, our healer just kept our tank alive through way more stacks than he should have be able to take.

Doing the math it would take my 10 man group sub 9 mins to kill him, maybe not possible with his stacking buff. If we had like 5 or 6 more raid worthy dps we could pull it off easily.

Basically if you have a raid group that understands what they need to do, and actually spreads out its a cake walk. You need a decent number of healers but assuming the chain doesn't link you are golden.

Also we always kite to the graveyard, if people are going to die, take him down there.

[Pitkanen]

The most important thing... have raid geared tanks. Not 550k HP tanks. They'll die. It isn't even worth trying, they'll die, the boss will turn, wipefest will begin. Literally just give up if the best tank you can find is 550k HP. Get a 650-700+k HP tank and you'll be much more likely to win. Simply because his frontal cone thing hits so hard. Next step is give your healers a place to stand where they can reach the tank. From there everyone just needs to do the /range10 thing and do moderate damage.

[rayanne]

We killed him pretty easily with a group of 14 people, but we're all heroic content raiders. And we had two tanks and two healers I think? It was actually really pleasant as compared to doing it previously with 4 full 40man raid groups.

[Kisho]

The most important thing... have raid geared tanks. Not 550k HP tanks. They'll die. It isn't even worth trying, they'll die, the boss will turn, wipefest will begin. Literally just give up if the best tank you can find is 550k HP. Get a 650-700+k HP tank and you'll be much more likely to win. Simply because his frontal cone thing hits so hard. Next step is give your healers a place to stand where they can reach the tank. From there everyone just needs to do the /range10 thing and do moderate damage.

Just a note on this: 550k HP is fine if it's a Brewmaster. I solo tanked Oondasta from 100% to 0%, never dying once, with proper use of cooldowns. Never got a healer cooldown (that I'm aware of: they may have cast them on me without me noticing).

The group was around 25-30 people. So y'know. A decent tank can probably solo tank him, and 550k HP is fine.

[Isiildur]

You need to rotate cds on whoever is tanking the boss. We did it with 30 people, of which 7 were guildmates (We had 2 healers, one tank, and a warrior for demo banner). Died after 4-5 minutes.

[Tharkkun]

If you do happen to get a second raid group make sure people are aware of their surroundings. /Range 10 won't show people not in your raid.