1. #1

    Megaera 10man Normal - Need Advice (w/ Logs)

    Background: we're a casual group that missed "Ahead of the Curve" (ToES / HoF) last tier. Two nights / 5 hours per week average raiding time. In the past we maybe would spend a week learning a boss, and then down them the next (Garalon and Elegon being exceptions that required one extra). Megaera has now taken three weeks of progression with zero improvement...in fact, maybe even a backslide.

    Week #1 strat: G-R-G-R-B-R-G. Not too many pulls (late), and were seeing fifth head before end of night
    Week #2 strat: Started the same, but also an hour with B-R-G-B-G-R-G in order to get some Blue mechanic learning. Consistent 6th head, and a bunch of 30-40% 7th heads.
    Week #3 strat: All over the place. New RL, so some strat shake-ups: G-R-G-R-G-R-G; G-R-B-R-G-R-G; G-R-G-R-B-R-G. Changes to grouped up vs. spread out. Never made it past 5th head I don't think. Bad night. =(

    Regular group make-up:
    • Tanks: Warr / DK
    • Heals: Pala / Disc / Sham
    • DPS: Ret Pal / D.Lock / Hunter / Boom / Elem Sham

    Link to logs: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/yxggkyf62c3vlz35/

    I know that DPS is a huge issue for us, especially our Shammy (60-70K), Hunter (70-80K), and (to lesser extent, though low for iLevel) Lock. I really don't know what's going on with the DPS and why it's so low. The Shammy put out better numbers pre-nerf HoF. Our Lock has a very low activity level, so that may be a root cause.

    From a healing perspective, we handle Rampage rather well. Movement is a pain, and I wonder if the usual comp hurts for healing after Acid Rain. We very frequently have deaths due to Cinders post-Acid. (FYI: our usual Disc was out for logs, but new Paladin stepped up pretty well. Shammy went Disc for extra DPS near end of night.)

    For the tanks, not sure if there's anything glaring. Usually die when healers are stuck running around and out-of-range.


    Would really appreciate any tips and recommendations people have. Class experts definitely welcome!

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Okay, I looked into your logs and checked 2 of your longest attempts. There's a few things that seem quite obvious:

    1. Your dps is really really low, to the extend that I don't even know if you're gonna be able to down it.

    2. Your healing. This fight can be 2 healed and with your dps you really need to 2 heal it in favor of an extra dps.

    3. People are taking a lot of damage from Acid Rain, something that can and should be avoided - run away from it.


    You say that you have a healing setup consisting of Hpala, Disc and Shaman but in the logs you linked, you're going 2xHpala and Shaman. With a Disc Priest Smiting, you'd gain more dmg.

    Here's a log from our last kill, where we rather derped and lost 2 ppl almost at the beginning, meaning that our Rogue was dead almost the entire fight gg. The Ele Shaman Callmemaybe is a low geared alt who just filled in.

    http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-o3...?s=9550&e=9905

    But note the dmg we still do. I'd say that you raiders should at least be able to do 100k. I can't speak too much about the specific classes but as you can see, we have both Ele, Lock and Hunter in our setup as well.

    What would happen, if you tried 2 healing with Disc/Hpala?

    Honestly it seems like a L2P issue for most of your dps. When you've been wiping so much and have so low dps, they need to read up on their class/spec. I think that's really the best advice I can give you.
    Last edited by mmoc3a262a3a21; 2013-05-08 at 04:35 AM.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Danishgirl View Post
    You say that you have a healing setup consisting of Hpala, Disc and Shaman but in the logs you linked, you're going 2xHpala and Shaman. With a Disc Priest Smiting, you'd gain more dmg
    Healing comp is explained in the OP:

    - Regular Disc was absent, so we pulled in Thosif
    - Switched Shammy for his Disc late for Smite DPS

    Wishing we had previous week's logs. Had some consistent/good attempts. (sigh)

  4. #4
    I personally just downed Magaera tonight with a new guild and I have to say it looks like the dps might be your main problem.

    Ideally you want to have everyone doing at LEAST 100k. Although 90k+ is probably fine for a few dps. 60k dps is really low though..

    Also like the person above me said, people need to avoid damage from acid rain. It's really easy to avoid and should be done so every time.

    My group tried hard to have cinders dispelled in the back so that it was easier to move around but it's best to dispel ASAP because they take a LOT of damage.

  5. #5
    Tell your Destro locks to keep Rain of Fire as much as possible when 2 heads are next to each other. Huge ember increase, more Chaos Bolts. You can use gate for people in melee getting ember. Hell, you can even have lock dispelling people with Imp if he is decent enough. Have ranged as far as possible with healers in middle, that way they should never have to dodge away from tanks.

  6. #6
    Deleted
    Getting your disc back will most likely (should) help with deaths after Acids. And overall mitigation really.

    People should definitely try to move away from the Acid Splash (the further away the less dmg they take). My guild rarely clears 10man as we are a 25 raiding guild, but we did clear last reset 10man with me healing as a disc, a holy paladin and our trial resto shaman. For us its quite easily 2man healable as we're fairly geared (round 520) but we wanted to check the shaman out.

    It's hard to compare the kills log-wise, but I'll link our kill anyway in case you find something useful out of it. Dont think we particularly thought about the head order, ended up starting with Blue and then doing right-left-right-left whatever colors they were.

    Every Rampage is Spiritshellable, every third Barrier:able. I personally prefer to not start preshelling too early, as it's nice to have the ongoing shielding during the rampage with our healing setup, but it's a preference call. Prayer of mending is strong here, and your disc should go Divine Star for spot healing groups (brilliant for healing up melee after Acids btw). Shield the people getting Cinders, let them dash out (assuming your disc has the movement increasing talent for PWs) and dispel when not in the middle of the raid.
    Atonement is great there for spothealing the people in need outside Rampages, and provides nice extra dmg, I push around 40k dps.

    If you feel the first 4 rampages are easy enough to heal, have your disc spiritshell the Acid splashes at the start, you can muck about with cooldowns however best suits your style/raid comp, but I'd definitely save SS for the later on Rampages.

    This ended up being pretty disc-oriented, but make sure your dps uses personal dmg mitigation talents/spells when you feel your raid needs it the most. If Rampage healing is fine, have them use cd's before Acids hit. Before Rampage 5 it should be fine to use cd's on anything but Rampages anyway with 3 healers.

    Have your dps use dps cooldowns on heads that cause you issues (making sure tank debuffs are still fine).

    Here are our logs from last resets kill, not sure anyone played to their best ability as it was a "woohoo lets do a 10man for a change"- event, but hey hum. At least we have the same healing comp as you seem to normally have
    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/g.../?s=951&e=1358

    Good luck!

    Edit: Looking at the cause of deaths in quite a few of your tries, you next to always have 1 or 2 die from standing in the front of one of the heads, more than often the Green head, causing them to die from Rot armor.

    You should never have anyone but that 1 tank in front of any head, that's completely silly and causes a) deaths or b) wasted mana on healing up those people. Tell your raid to position themselves better.

    And your tanks need to pick up heads quicker, some deaths were caused by heads melee hitting dps.
    Last edited by mmoc94cac24f38; 2013-05-08 at 10:07 AM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Tenaru View Post
    (snip)
    Looking at the cause of deaths in quite a few of your tries, you next to always have 1 or 2 die from standing in the front of one of the heads, more than often the Green head, causing them to die from Rot armor.

    You should never have anyone but that 1 tank in front of any head, that's completely silly and causes a) deaths or b) wasted mana on healing up those people. Tell your raid to position themselves better.

    And your tanks need to pick up heads quicker, some deaths were caused by heads melee hitting dps.
    This, right here. Get your tanks to start moving into position 2-3 seconds before the end of Rampage, and make sure that nobody drops cinders or ice trails in the front of the playing field and you'll solve a lot of problems.

    Are you using warlock portals to cheese cinders/ice beam? It can give your ranged and healers a lot more stand-still time, which can help improve their dps immensely.

  8. #8
    If your healers and cooldowns can handle it, G-R-G-R-G-R-G. It's simple, but can be harsh. Especially after head 5, where the green one is up 4 times at the back, and has 3 stacks of the buff. For us it seemed to depend on the pally tank. Must be some CD there, because without him it was a wipefest every time.

    For the times where you can't do it, try something like G-R-B-R-B-G-{R or B to finish, depending on where all the fire and ice are}. This reduces the impact of the green one, which was absolutely murdering us. Obviously this introduces Mr Blue, but he's really not so bad. Just keep back when you can, and run when DBM blares at you.

    Feel free to try your own strategy, based on what your raid finds hardest to deal with. There's really no set way to run this encounter.

    Edit: Logs. You can see the Green/Red one is a lot spikier on incoming damage.

    Green and Red only.

    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=5296&e=5709

    Red, Green and Blue.

    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=5225&e=5740
    Last edited by Blackmist; 2013-05-08 at 02:01 PM.

  9. #9
    Thank you all for the replies.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nivrax View Post
    Tell your Destro locks to keep Rain of Fire as much as possible when 2 heads are next to each other. Huge ember increase, more Chaos Bolts.
    Great tip. Our Boomkin already does something similar.


    Quote Originally Posted by Blackmist View Post
    For us it seemed to depend on the pally tank. Must be some CD there, because without him it was a wipefest every time.
    Oh to have a Paladin Tank sometimes. Maybe I'm biased though, being a Paladin myself.


    Quote Originally Posted by Tenaru View Post
    This ended up being pretty disc-oriented, but make sure your dps uses personal dmg mitigation talents/spells when you feel your raid needs it the most. If Rampage healing is fine, have them use cd's before Acids hit. Before Rampage 5 it should be fine to use cd's on anything but Rampages anyway with 3 healers.
    Thanks for the tips. We are aiming to have one cooldown for Rampages 1-4 simply for mana conservation. Our Shammy has something for every one, while the Disc, Ret, and I rotated Devo & Spirit Shell. Hand of Purity on Fire breaths. Hand of Purity for an extended ice patch clean-up.

    Will have to check if we have any other C/D's for between rampages.

    I do know that it'll get easier with better DPS, less Acid Rains and Cinders to heal through.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ninotchka View Post
    Are you using warlock portals to cheese cinders/ice beam? It can give your ranged and healers a lot more stand-still time, which can help improve their dps immensely.
    When person has ice beam they run to the back, and port back up to front again. Cinders is a count-to-three and dispell. Up to people to move. Exception is our Ret, who just gets to a good spot and calls for a cleanse.


    ~~~~

    In regards to breath/head melee deaths, this was often the case after a tank death but not really during a run. We did have a couple people who got caught in a bad spot trying to run cinders (went sideways??? O_o)

    What is the best way for range to stand?
    - Stacked = more moving; less DPS
    - Spread = harder to heal up after Acid Rain

    Should each tank have a dedicated healer, who don't stack with range & raid healer? We had a lot of problems when one tank would be out-of-range after healers had to run from Acid Rain or Cinders.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Crakkerz View Post
    Thanks for the tips. We are aiming to have one cooldown for Rampages 1-4 simply for mana conservation. Our Shammy has something for every one, while the Disc, Ret, and I rotated Devo & Spirit Shell. Hand of Purity on Fire breaths. Hand of Purity for an extended ice patch clean-up.

    Will have to check if we have any other C/D's for between rampages.

    I do know that it'll get easier with better DPS, less Acid Rains and Cinders to heal through.
    I actually meant cooldowns more in the sense of personal mitigation cooldowns rather than healing ones, admittedly I didn't phrase it well

    Using SS on (during, rather than pre-shelling) every Rampage will help with conserving mana, as your disc should be perfectly fine with his. Outside Rampages he gets to atonement heal quite a lot (at least I do in our 10man there) and use Rapture easily on cd.

    Considering positioning, if you feel moving for ranged is an issue, you could try having ranged stacked in 2 groups, leaving the middle free for people to drop cinders as that requires minimal movement for the people with it, and makes it simple for healers to see when to dispel. Having cinders centered in one area also makes it easier to negate them with frost later on, and the other way around.

    We tend to have the lock portal fairly central and range on both sides of it, the cinders we drop behind the portal (ie in the middle) and depending on how alert melee you have they can easily dash to the middle if they get a speed shield from your disc, too. As soon as a range (melee really dont seem to get frost beams when we position like this, ie a big differentiation between melee and range) gets targeted by a frost beam they click the portal and your grp moves an inch to either side in order to not get hit by the beam, which now travels straight back.

    We do B-G-R-B-G-R and I've never noticed Acid splashes being an issue whatsoever, so don't know what to say about that, but I can see the Acid movement being an annoyance if it takes ages to kill the head, but it shouldn't be too bad, especially if you have 2 grps, with the healers spread 2-1.

    Tank being oor has never been an issue for us, not with 3 healers. As a disc you can still heal with shields / penance / atonement / pom etc while running, and using the range glyph I rarely find myself being oor of the bosses. On heroic we have 1 healer focusing on each tank, guess our paladin and shaman semi do one each on normal too but it's barely a loose guideline for them.

    Maybe your healers can be more vocal in when they get the frost beam, as that's when they're most likely to be oor of the tanks so that the others can pick up the slack. Cinder moving really shouldn't cause an issue there, especially as you dump them in the "back middle" as you barely have to move.
    Last edited by mmoc94cac24f38; 2013-05-09 at 09:48 AM.

  11. #11
    Things we did that helped a lot:

    1) Count backwards with your healing coolddowns, and then use them as much as you can. We broke out cooldowns for the 5th and 6th rampages, then worked backwords to fill them in on all the others - 1 rampage per minute on the cooldowns. So 3 minute cooldowns would be used on rampages 2 and 5 or 3 and 6, and 2 minute cooldowns would be used odd or even.

    2) Don't hold bloodlust for the last head - your dps tends to be scrambling around dodging crap, wasting a lot of it. We bloodlust right after we come out of the 5th rampage, which gives us better uptime on the head and still lets us have it for healing the last rampage.

    3) Work your dps cooldowns like the healing cooldowns - line them all up for either head 6 or 7 (wherever you don't have bloodlust), and then work backwords to figure out when else you can use them.

    4) Spreading the dps worked a lot better for us than stacking and dodging the acid rains. We're ranged heavy, though.

    5) Offheals are pretty awesome. We have an enhance shammy, SPriest, and boomkin to toss cooldownsfor rampages.

    6) Most deaths were ultimately due to rampages - either being low right when it started, or being low coming out of rampage and getting sniped by cinders or a acid rain. Overkill on the cooldowns really helped out to stop these.

    We go GRGRBGR, btw

  12. #12
    Deleted
    I'm going to suggest going 2 healer and doing blue>red>blue>red all the way. It means people will have to move around a bit more but it doesn't have nearly the raid damage towards the end as really any green combo will. The green heads in the background add up pretty monstrous damage from acid rain towards the last 2 heads.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    When we cleared the first week, we had the idea of getting as little green as possible. To us, it was a matter of balancing the killing of green head, and the tank damage that comes with killing it less. You seem to have a problem with bad combos of green, and if u only kill it once in the beginning, it shouldnt be more than 2-3 bombs between rampages.

    The strat that we finally landed on, was killing green first, and last. It is going to be alot of damage on the tank tanking green because of the increase in attack speed, so beware of the melee attacks right after the breath. To your warrior tank, tell him to get 100 rage be4 the breath, do Shield Barrier on the breath, Shield Slam to get to 60 rage again, the immidiately follow up with a Shield Block. Its more likely that tanks die from melee attacks after breath, than the actual breath. If he has to choose between Barrier and Block, u choose Block and shout at healers to heal the breath. Use tank CDs on the breaths during the final 2-3 heads.

    our first kill rotation: G - B - R - B - R - B - G

  14. #14
    Greatly appreciate all the replies, tips, and advice

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •