Surviving during Durumu's light cones

[Nobleshield]

So my group tried an interesting strategy last night for our Durumu (normal) attempts: We let the bear tank solo tank him and I go Ret for extra DPS, with tossing the occasional Protection on him to bubble stacks (this is mostly because he is geared to the teeth and was doing top DPS at 150k last night to my 80k or thereabouts as Prot [however he always tanks bosses first so he gets a ton of vengeance buildup, even if I end up tanking like on Tortos he pulls first and lets me taunt later so he builds vengeance, and he's at something like 43% crit], so it's better for me to go DPS and him to stay tank than vice versa). It seemed to work well except for one part: I still stand with him in the yellow beams like I did when I was tanking him, and they HURT, bad. My health drops like a stone and I need to sometimes use HP on Word of Glory instead of Templar's Verdict or Inq which naturally hurts my DPS, but dead DPS do 0 DPS and all that.

Basically should I just tell my healers to be on the ball with heals, or is there more I can do to help out? I already pop Devo Aura when the beams come out, and I run unglyphed DP and use that typically when yellow crosses into red and/or blue, but it doesn't seem to be enough and many times I'll be near death just from the ticking damage from yellow; typically I end up having to use LoH to save myself because I'm at like 5% health or something like that. I use Sacred Shield during this time as well but I'm debating trying Selfless Healer so I can instant-cast FoL on myself for heals. I haven't done this fight as Ret (we were just trying the strat to see if it'd work on our last few attempts) before.

Any suggestions? Our healers are a Disc Priest, Holy Pally and Resto Druid; I think we have issues with them keeping heals on everyone especially if one of them is unlucky enough to get targeted on the other side of the room with the blue beam so they can't move.

[Deleted]

The tank should be alone in the light beam.

[Nobleshield]

The tank should be alone in the light beam.

Really? Hmm okay. I know when we both tank we both stand in it, so if he goes solo it should just be him? I stay on the boss fulltime during that phase so I should just meander to the sides/behind avoiding the beams and focusing on DPS?

[Deleted]

Our healers are a Disc Priest, Holy Pally and Resto Druid; I think we have issues with them keeping heals on everyone especially if one of them is unlucky enough to get targeted on the other side of the room with the blue beam so they can't move.

I suggest you put out markers where ppl with the beams should start the Phase at. Have 2 Healers (Pally/Priest stand in Blue beam. Have them watch out prior to the phase where the blue add spawns and avoid that spot. The have tanks sit it yellow and DPs + druid in red beam killing the red adds. This is a typical 2 healer fight tbh. The light phase comes exactly every 3 min. So your healers can chain their CDs there EVERYTIME.
The Pally should pop HA+Wings+DF+Guardian during first and keep up EF on ALL targets this way. Druid can tranq during every phase.

The boss tank should chain his/her CDs when stacks get higher.

The key just really is to communicate properly. The the fight is a joke.

[Nobleshield]

Thanks for that. I don't think we 2-heal any fight in ToT (and I'm not even sure if any of our heals have a decent OS, I think the Druid has a Boomy OS but no idea of gear/skill). I know that we tend not to try different things (even if it would be better/easier e.g. solo tanking or 2-healing) once we've gotten the kill with our normal strategy. Our priest was yelling quite a bit on Mumble about being in the blue beam with the pally (something about 2 healers should never be in a beam? No idea). We normally have the pally near the yellow beam/tanks to heal them. We did get much closer (closest was like 15% I think) with the bear solo tanking him, so we'll probably use that strat moving forward.

[Geekgurl]

I would check your death log to see if you had any incoming heals on you. Sometimes healers will stand further back in their beams if they are watching out for where they are dropping gaze and may be out of your range. They should be standing closer up to reach more people (and so should the team-his hit box is rather large).

Also, is your bear tank having his stacks BoP off? Maybe they are spending more mana in him then they should.

[Terridon]

I'm curious to how long your beamphase last.
We had trouble with not getting heals enough during that in the beginning(2tanking though), simply because people didn't finish the phase fast enough, which taxed the healers. So had to blow major CDs while it lasted.
Now people got it, and the phase is more or less over before it starts <.<

About the blue beam. Have one awake person in the raid get assist, and let them mark where the blue mob spawn. That way the one with the blue beam can move freely around on the platform, as long as they don't touch the mark.

[Cairhiin]

Thanks for that. I don't think we 2-heal any fight in ToT (and I'm not even sure if any of our heals have a decent OS, I think the Druid has a Boomy OS but no idea of gear/skill). I know that we tend not to try different things (even if it would be better/easier e.g. solo tanking or 2-healing) once we've gotten the kill with our normal strategy. Our priest was yelling quite a bit on Mumble about being in the blue beam with the pally (something about 2 healers should never be in a beam? No idea). We normally have the pally near the yellow beam/tanks to heal them. We did get much closer (closest was like 15% I think) with the bear solo tanking him, so we'll probably use that strat moving forward.

Dunno how others do it, but we always have all our healers in the blue beam (unless one gets the red beam obviously).

[Terridon]

Dunno how others do it, but we always have all our healers in the blue beam (unless one gets the red beam obviously).

Yeah. Standard is all healers in blue, since they then can heal freely instead of running around, dps in red, and tanks in yellow.

The priest healer just don't know the encounter too well i guess, since he complains :P
It's not like you can't stand right next the the tank(s) from being in blue beam. It goes all the way to durumu, where i'm fairly certain any tank on durumu will be unless he's bouncing off the edge >.<

[Jaelian]

I don't think while I've done this fight as retribution have I had any trouble dying to the beams - unless the person with the beam ends up running well ahead of red add or other people have died to something stupid.

The way we've done it in the guild i'm with is melee in red, ranged in Yellow (And tanks) - and blue is handled by the healers (and the person who is the beam if they are not a healer).

Also we tend to mark a position for the blue beam to start so the healers know where abouts they need to be - meaning there is less time wasted running across the platform after the beam.

As long as you manage to communicate somehow (we managed it without voice comms) and try get the red adds down as quickly as possible the damage for that phase shouldn't be an issue tbh.

[Anetulan]

Perhaps you could switch to Seal of Insight for the light phase? You could also bubble during it, giving you 8 seconds of immunity. While both these would hurt your dps, it would help keep you alive. If I remember right, you need at least two people in each light phase, otherwise the bear will be taking a ton of damage. Though I guess it might be possible for him to survive, but I think it would be better to have you there too.

[Colmadero]

I don't think while I've done this fight as retribution have I had any trouble dying to the beams - unless the person with the beam ends up running well ahead of red add or other people have died to something stupid.

The way we've done it in the guild i'm with is melee in red, ranged in Yellow (And tanks) - and blue is handled by the healers (and the person who is the beam if they are not a healer).

Also we tend to mark a position for the blue beam to start so the healers know where abouts they need to be - meaning there is less time wasted running across the platform after the beam.

As long as you manage to communicate somehow (we managed it without voice comms) and try get the red adds down as quickly as possible the damage for that phase shouldn't be an issue tbh.

This is how my my guild handles it (25 man) and it works like a charm. We have 4 paladins (1 prot, 2 rets, 1 holy) and we just chain our Auras.

[Nillo]

The tank should be alone in the light beam.

I really don't think that's a good idea. At least not if you have healers like mine who easily get distracted by raid damage.

[Deleted]

I really don't think that's a good idea. At least not if you have healers like mine who easily get distracted by raid damage.

Well dunno, I have had the great joy to progress durumu in 3 different raid teams (yay for guilds falling apart), and in every raid team we had tank solo in yellow, was never any issue. The yellow beam just tickles the tank if you are alone in it. You got such a wast array of cooldowns that it should never become an issue. I have not always played with the best healers in the world, and we often had to resolve the pugs in the first weeks.

From my experience, tank standing solo in the yellow beam has been by far the easiest solution. Having 1 dps there that takes very spiky damage seems like a big risk.

[Nillo]

Meh idk - might be doable on normal but you're still relying on people killing the adds soon enough and healers actually healing you instead of healing the raid !:

[Deleted]

Meh idk - might be doable on normal but you're still relying on people killing the adds soon enough and healers actually healing you instead of healing the raid !:

The OP mentioned that he was doing normals.

From my experience you really dont need heals in the beam phase, maybe the third one.

I mean, this is not another of my crazy "It might be doable" ideas. It is extremely easy and imo the easiest way possible in 10 mans. Beam phases for me:

Pop Goak a few seconds in, wait for 1-2 hard stares depending on my life (If I am on full health after the first stare I wait for another), bubble off the stacks, when you are on 0 stacks that means you can substain your own health for a good while. Drop in an aura mastery when ever needed for the raid.
Pop stoneform after the first hard stare after reset. Pop divine protection whenever needed. Use AD if needed.

I never had any issues with this ever. The raid dying has always been a bigger issue.

[Nobleshield]

Definitely going to mention that it's worth a try with the bear standing in the beam solo; we're still experimenting with strategies for it so if we waste an attempt trying that' it's no different than having all of us die in the first beam phase because someone did something wrong.

[Deleted]

I cant speak though for a bear tank how it works for him, just know that as a paladin we found standing solo to be a complete joke, far easier than any other option.

I assume it should be similar for a bear, though bears got less self healing.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

I'm asuming this is for normal mode?
Haven't done normal mode in about 2 months or something but as far as I can remember you didn't have to rotate people from beam to beam, anyways. there's 3 beams and 10 people. you can easily put ranged dps in yellow and just have them stand as close to the boss (inside the yellow beam) and have them dps whatever red adds they get into range from from there. Same with healers really, if they stand close enough to the boss they'll stay inside the yellow beam for like 4 seconds before they have to move. If you get lingering haze you can drop it directly under Durumu.

[Rucati]

There's no reason to 3 heal it, use 2 and you'll get through the light phase faster. The only time there's any damage is if you pass the red beam and it explodes for like 300k to everybody, which should never happen. Also tell your healers they can use 3 min CDs on both light phases, I usually Tranq about 10 seconds into the first and about 15 seconds into the second. Tank can take yellow beam alone, there's no reason to put anyone else in that beam with him, all you're doing by having a DPS in the beam is slowing down the phase even more (and if you're going to 3 heal it, it'll already be slower than it needs to be), so just have the tank take it alone.

And there's no reason the Druid should be tanking, Prot Paladins are better at it. Has nothing to do with DPS, but the vengeance makes Prot heal for more. We usually have Disc Priest/Resto Druid at 100kish HPS and Prot Paladin at 50-60k HPS. Makes the fight even more of a joke, although like I said healing is already easy on this fight so there's no real need to do this, but that's why Prot is better at solo tanking than other classes, because their self healing is so much higher.