Ji-kun Strategy?

[Hexorcist]

I know this is one of the easiest bosses in the instance (Normal mode), and my raid group got past her once as a total fluke, but we're officially stuck on her.
I don't have any parses or logs or videos of our attempts - I know that means we have limited opportunities for help but even just a vague suggestion might help.

Our group contains the following:
Warlock (have to double check his spec, he's new)
Frost Mage
Fury Warrior
Elemental Shaman
Beast Mastery Hunter (hyena for attack speed buff)
Holy Paladin
Discipline Priest
Resto Druid
Brewmaster Monk (me)
Protection Paladin

Raid DPS is a tad low, the warlock is underperforming a bit and the hunter is still learning her spec a bit, but we aren't looking to replace them. We would prefer to help them and teach them and watch them improve.

The shaman, warrior, and paladin are running nests.
Pally and I swap off Ji-kun at 2 stacks, or we'll take a third if Downdraft causes any issues. The tank not currently on Ji-kun is going around soaking Feed Pools.

The majority of our wipes occur due to Feed Pool overrun. It gets to a point where him and I take too much damage from Feed Pools even with CDs so they overrun the raid, then we wipe on Downdraft due to people being blown onto Feed Pools. We've tried a few Downdraft stacking strategies where we only clear a portion of the platform to limit how many we soak, but found BigWigs Downdraft timer to be inconsistent, to the point where it would count down to Downdraft, we would stack, and Ji-kun would Feed Young on the stacked group instead.

I was wondering what other groups were doing to deal with Feed Pool overload. We usually encounter problems between 50% and 25% health.

[Deleted]

Try to answer these:

- What nest are you wiping on?
- How many nests do you intend to do?
- Do people fail with getting onto the nests in time / do birds hatch and fly to the top and nuke the raid?
- Are people aware of the buff they get from using the feathers on Feed Young?

[Deleted]

Tell your raiders on the main platform to not spread around so much. You have 2 tanks there (can't be targeted), and 5 others. Just tell them to stand behind boss, and if no downdraft, to stand in front of or behind a green pool. Worst case you stand right or left from a pool if no space behind/in front. This way they'll all go on the same quarter of the platform and aren't spread out (which can indeed give issues). Tanks shouldn't even need to soak any. Only ones I'd advise soaking is if someone messed up and put a pool completely out of place. For the rest just clump them up and let them be, so that you have a big portion of the platform safe for downdraft running.

Also some other tips, you should at least let one of your best dps on the main platform go to first nest. He can pick up 4 feather charges and take the 100% extra damage buff from feed youngs to shorten the fight by quite a bit. Can go to nests whenever he has lost his last charge. If you stack up close to pools on main platform, you can also drop to 2 healers easily. Quils is only thing that hurts a bit (caw hits for a lot but in general isn't life threatening and can be healed up with a hot), and you can just use a cooldown for that like ancestral guidance or a tranq.

[Tarazet]

It seemed to me that after our raid members got better at picking up the feed buff, we got a lot less pools. We also told the ranged to stay out of melee range and stay away from the marked nest lanes.

Regarding Downdraft, have your Resto sacrifice a major glyph slot and take Glyph of Stampeding Roar if he isn't. I can't overstate how much it helps. Most of the raid will be running in place when you have it up.

[omni]

- DBM's timers work
- Our group had the off tank soak only a couple of puddles, you shouldn't get so many that you're overwhelmed
- Make sure no one stands behind the tanks so that there is always a clear downdraft path behind them
- You should be two healing. One for the platform and one for the nest team
- Two DPS and a healer for the nest team, they MUST kill the adds. If the adds are getting loose then that's definitely the problem. If they can't, assign another DPS
- Call a stack up for Quills not Downdraft, stack on the tanks
- For Downdraft just call it a few seconds before it comes so everyone can come close (under the boss)
- Caw can be avoided, if you can call it out and people start to move (not close to each other) before it casts, but this really shouldn't be needed

[Sillicis]

Try to answer these:
- Are people aware of the buff they get from using the feathers on Feed Young?

In addition, i believe if you get the foodbuff you also save the raid from a spot of Feed Pools, since you've collected that mid-air

[shadowfyre27]

If your hunter is good with knowing their AoE rotation I would suggest having them and the ele instead of the war if your having trouble killing the eggs before they hatch. As per getting the feed buff from collecting it in mid air, I'm unfamiliar with doing it on normal so I don't know if it follows the same pattern as on heroic. On heroic the feed buff you fly up to get is only available like every other feed young or so from what I have noticed.

As per the pools as other have said you really shouldn't need your tanks to soak them unless you running behind on dps cause they work as a sort of soft enrage timer IMO. The way we handled them was that when one fell we made sure that people were as close to it without being in it so that if another dropped where that player was and it overlaps with the one there already. As mentioned also stacking for quills is a really good idea, that's what we did. When stacked we had our pally at the back of the stack so that he could do his "spray heal" not sure what it's called but it heals all targets in front of the pally. This will also allow for your druid to heal everyone when he has the green healing circle thing on the ground. Sorry I don't know the name of the healing spells as I play a dps lol.

[Othinsson]

One of the things we did was to have myself(resto druid) and our frost mage coordinate to eat up the puddles on the floor as needed to keep the platform relatively open. Between Barkskin and the frost mage shield we were able to do it pretty easily.

Edit: that was on Normal.

[Senen]

We separate the platform in four quadrants. Everybody spread on a quadrant, when this quadrant is full, we move to the next quadrant (approximatly at each wind phase ("Downdraft"? Don't know the english name), IIRC).
I use to soak some pool during the fight (I'm a tank), but that really isn't necessary as long as the dps catch some food during Feed Young.

There are many way to handle nest rotation. What we do now (we changed several times during farm, to try things):
1 healer dedicated to nest, the dps split between two groups, 3 dps in group 1, 2 dps in group 2.
We send the healer and the group 1 in nest 1+2, wait for the end of the Quill phase and then the group 1 come back on the platform.
Then, the healer fly to nest 3 while group 2 jump into nest 3. After that they move together to nest 4-5-6.

This way, the three dps from group 1 can have their wings and soak several Feed young and the two dps from goup 2 can use all their cooldowns at the beginning of the fight to burn the boss.
Depending on your dps, you might want to handle 12 nests maximum. It's important to know that nests 9 and 10 are active at the same time. You can either send group 1 to handle nest 10 while groupe 2 handle nest 9, or you can just ignore nest 10 and let a hatchling pop.
Anyway, you may stop handling the nest at any time, I'd say around ~30%, maybe 20%, every dps come on the main platform, bloodlust/heroism and burn the boss down.

Like I said, there are several ways to handle nests, but it's a good thing to have every dps with a feather so that they can intercept the food spit by Ji-kun.
Another way to do it, for example, is to send one group of two dps handle every nest, and send one additional dps on each of the first three nests so that they gain one feather.

[Kolo]

My guild swapped to the burn strat prior to summering out which takes a lot less work. You have 1 group go to nest 1 and another group go to nest 2 and just get feathers to snag Feed Young buff and smash the boss. Your raid DPS will go up a lot and you can get the buff by just flying over her face.



This is a burn strat video I found on a quick search.

Edit: Grammar

[Terridon]

What percentage do you get him down to? Anf what nest?
I don't really get how you manage just to have 3 people on nests without running out of feathers <.<
Guess most in your raid can soak a pool or 3 during the encounter. hunter Detterence/mage iceblock+armor/lock survivability(lifedrain on top), and healers can too if they're not too pressed.

Didn't sound like the tanking really was a problem, but just to avoid the third stack, let the paladin tank first. That way it will always be you(monk) that have one stack on you when backdraft comes. Then you can just roll back in right before it ends and thus be sure you get the second hit, and paladin can come taunt of you a couple of seconds later when he come slowmow running back

We have the better raiders on the even nests, while the less good is on the odd ones, since the even ones are harder to jump down at.
Using bloodlust at nest 9 since that's where things tend to be messy, and people are a bit low on CDs.

[Inthislzon]

What percentage do you get him down to? Anf what nest?
I don't really get how you manage just to have 3 people on nests without running out of feathers <.<

Easy

Divide the raid as follows
Tank A (starts tanking)
Tank B
Nest Group (2 DPS + 1 healer, will do every single nest)
Rest of the raid (4 DPS + 1 healer)

Nest 1: Nest Group + tank B grab feathers, if you focus fire one egg and have the tank grab that feather he can get first feed young buff, upon reaching top he taunts Ji-Kun, just AFTER talon rake.
Nest 2: Tank B and 3 DPS from platform go down and grab feathers, nest group avoids them like the plague. CDs can and should be used for quills
Nest 3: last DPS from platform comes down to grab feather and nest group grabs the other 3, now the nest group has 4 feathers, 1 for going back up, and 1 for each upper nest.
Nest 4: Tank A goes up to help
Nest 5 and 6: Nest group on his own, if needed you can have 1 DPS save a feather for helping there, shouldn't be needed

Nest 7, same as nest 1. Keep going from there.

[Hexorcist]

Thanks for the replies guys!

We did have the hunter on the nests originally, but since she's still kind of getting used to her character and doesn't have her rotation down yet, we ended up switching her with the warrior because he knows his class way better. Once she feels more comfortable we'll probably put her back on nests and see how it goes. Nests were a problem in the beginning but I didn't see many nest issues near the end of the night, it was mostly the feed pools.

We got Ji-kun to 19m on a few pulls (I don't have percents visible so not entirely sure what percent it is, probably like 1-5%?) but ultimately people died to Quills and Caw.

I do think coordinating the ranged is smart and didn't even think of that so thanks! I'll pass that on to my raid lead.

As for soaking pools, the reason the pally and I are stuck doing it is because our shaman is kind of a hot shot (plays in full cleared raid group on another character) and he tells our RL that anyone but the tanks soaking is stupid and a waste of heals, so he's got the whole raid convinced that only the tanks soak, which means we have to soak as much as we can or get overrun. I'll definitely bring up coordinating where the ranged are standing so we can make the most use of the platform space, and I think our nesters are trying to soak the feed pools in midair but I'm not sure how they're doing. I know nests weren't an issue so I didn't check in much with them last night, they did their own thing. They don't run out of feathers because they manage to pick up on the first nest and the third nest, then they have enough for the upper nests, and then back to the lowers.

If nests continue being a problem I'll get people to use CDs on it — I did mention the hunter Deterring on a feed pool and the shaman instantly went "no no no no nobody but tanks soak anything" so I mean, haha. I'm not the RL so I don't have authority in his mind, and the RL mindlessly does whatever he says, so there's always that problem.

But thank you guys for your suggestions! I'll definitely be trying some of these out this week.

[Rucati]

For 10N we killed it with Disc Priest/Hunter on nests, just those 2. Then tanks swap at 2 stacks, eating a third is doable but there's little to no point. There's no real point to soaking pools in normal to be honest, we do it just cause they're there and why not, but it certainly isn't needed. I die on that fight every time I try to soak things cause I like seeing how high I can get it to stack, but it's really not necessary on normal to do at all, if the tanks are eating it that'll probably be enough, otherwise just have everybody eat 1-2 stacks and call it a day. I know in our group when we were learning the fight we had tanks, healers (mainly cause I was bored and I heal the platform) and then our Warlock eat pools. The Warlock can eat an absurd number of pools because Warlock survivability is crazy, so that should help with that if you really do need to absorb them.

Make sure the people on nests fly up to get the buff, that makes nests a whole lot easier.

Other than that there's not much more to say. We usually do nests until the boss hits 30-35% health, depending on the timing of where the nest group is, then have everyone head to the platform, pop lust, and go to town. Sometimes we wait for downdraft before we pop lust since it's hard to DPS during it, but other times we don't, kinda depends if the raid leader is paying attention I guess.

[Youvegotfail]

Here's how we do it, and it's really easy.

No one soaks any pools, unless like someone mentioned before someone spawns one in an awkward spot, and then it's a tank that soaks it. We two heal now, but started off 3 healing with same strat so either will work. When two healing, it's REALLY important that your dps on the main platform stay spread out 8 yards apart at all times (except for during quills, but honestly we don't even stack up for that anymore, but we used to). It'll eliminate any Caw splash dmg.

your nest team sounds fine, as long as they're getting most of the eggs/birds down (if a couple get loose no biggie, people can kill them in the air while getting food buffs).

The food buff is the key to making this fight easy. We have two dps that aren't with the nest team go down to pick up feathers. For my group, it's myself (fire mage) and an enhance shammy usually. I'd send your highest two. One person goes down on nests 1 and 7, the other on nests 2 and 8 and just picks up a feather, waits until a few seconds before feed young and flies back up intercepting the food for the buff on the way. Then every time after if you have a feather, use it right before feed young and fly directly above Ji-Kun to get the dps buff (also prevents a pool from spawning from that food). The buff gives you a hella dps boost (stacks higher each time you do it) for 30 seconds. (while above Ji-Kun, i always dot up any birds that happened to get off nests, they're usually almost dead anyway). After nest 8, even with low dps you should be at least at 30% on boss, have your nest team come back to main platform (if they're doing it right, they should have been getting food buff stacks as well), lust and burn. Since we've switched to two healing, we're usually at 10-15% at nest 7 or 8 so I've stopped jumping down for a second feather, not even worth it.

The pools will not be an issue if everyone is intercepting the food like they're supossed to. Also helps to keep dps/heals on the main platform in the same quadrant (while staying 8 yards apart) and have them stand right next to pools when possible to overlap them as much as you can.

Hope that makes sense, and helps!

[Radio]

Being overrun by pools is usually a symptom of either or all of the below:
- not enough people utilising feed young damage buff
- nests not being cleared completely and fledglings flying above the raid (they spawn soooo many pools)
- switching to burn too early for your raids capacity to burn it down before the various living hatchlings and fledglings become too overwheling

Generally a well executed kill will not require you to soak any pools unless one ends up in an awkward spot.

[Lorol]

I would suggest that if feed pools are your problem you either need to get more people soaking them or work out the strategy for grabbing the pools in the air. My group (neither 10 nor 25 man) have made use of the feed pool buffs so I can't give you any pointers there but if your issues lie in both low dps and too many pools that could come in very beneficial for you.

Definitely have more than just the tanks soak the puddles, especially if you are getting overrun by them. Your group has several abilities they could use to soak puddles:
1)Warlock specced into sacrificial pact
2)Holy Paladin using Divine Protection (could also use Devotion aura since its not useful for anything else), he can soak a few in a row with Divine protection up and then bubble the DOT off afterwards and shouldn't get the damage increasing debuff.
3)Shaman can spec into Astral Shift
4)Resto Druid can Barkskin or Ironbark
5)Frost mage could use Ice Barrier if talented
6)I am sure there are others I am missing

In my 25 man we have about 5-6 people that are good about soaking puddles by using CDs and calling out they are soaking so healers can be ready to heal them.

Some other tips:
Make sure people are spread out so that multiple people dont get hit by caw.
We don't even stack for Quills, just using healing CDs. With a druid and priest healer you have decent spread aoe healing anyway.
Speed boosts, warlock gate etc so no one ever falls off platform during downdraft.