Flex shamans, 3 tank strategy

[rgirty]

Our guild has been running flex 2 for a few weeks now. Often times we are short 1 healer and need to pug.
On weeks that we've downed the shamans successfully our pug healer (often ilvl 550+) has healed the two off tanks up on the hill beside where the shamans are first pulled.

On a few occasions I've tried to do this with limited success, a 1% wipe and a few 10-15% wipes. We've had some low dps on some of these pulls, however I feel like maybe i'm just doing something wrong in this healing scenario. We take 5+myself (six total) for the second group and typically leave 6-7 in the other area for the other group.

Should we only take 5 max to the top to support group heals? Also I've heard of a HUT* strategy but we haven't tried that yet... watched quite a few videos without learning much.

Anyone have any tips? I'm using atonement as much as possible, divine star on cd, SS on cd+ archangel+IF for max effectiveness... just seems that if anything small goes wrong with ashen wall or any other raid damage it's too much. The off tank isn't overly geared but should be ok. I just feel like at my ilvl I should be able to do it. I've never had much problem healing before (been playing since vanilla).

Managed to get gold in proving grounds, I know that isn't overly tough but I think I know what I'm doing.

Any tips/tricks/advice is appreciated!

[Forgettable]

The only people we ever put on the hill are two tanks and one healer. Nothing should be going wrong with ashen wall or the slime, they are both easily avoidable. Whoever is tanking the boss on the hill currently needs to face the boss away from both the other tank and the healer. The boss will cast ashen wall on his current tank, in a perpendicular fashion (forming a T). He will also cast slime on the off tank or the healer. As long as those two are spread out in a V formation and behind the boss, nobody should need to move.

The healer on the hill has the easiest job in this fight if the tanks do their jobs.

[rgirty]

Thanks for the advice. I think you are right, we have too many people on the hill that need healing. Myself and the two tanks would make it much easier. We'll give this a go next time around!

[Forgettable]

Yea the whole point of the 3 tank strategy is to simplify the fight. By having more than 3 people up on the hill, you're doing exactly the opposite by having a big mess in two different locations. Just throw everyone down in the main area and as long as your melee doesn't get caught up in slimes you should be ok.

[Junkdepot]

When we actually run wing 2 anymore, we 3 tank it with the tanks in the hut. Our tanks like being able to face him into the wall and have the ashen wall fall where no one has to worry about it. We also put all the melee in that room so they have full uptime on the boss instead of having to run around avoiding the slimes. Depending on how many show up, we either 3 or 4 heal the fight (once we have people in a fourth group we go to 4 heals).

[rgirty]

junkdepot can you describe the hut strat? Which hut? Or could you point to a video? I've had no luck in searching for a good one.

I might add we do flex with 12 or 13 and typically only have 1, or at max 2 ranged dps.

[Tedbuckland]

When we actually run wing 2 anymore, we 3 tank it with the tanks in the hut. Our tanks like being able to face him into the wall and have the ashen wall fall where no one has to worry about it. We also put all the melee in that room so they have full uptime on the boss instead of having to run around avoiding the slimes. Depending on how many show up, we either 3 or 4 heal the fight (once we have people in a fourth group we go to 4 heals).

I don't know how far away your group is from heroics OP but this is pretty much the heroic strat. The hut he's referring to is grommash hold I'm asssuming. On flex it should make the fight trivial for Harrom group.

[Junkdepot]

Inside the hut where the bosses spawn, there are alcoves in the walls. First tank positions the boss so the boss is looking into the alcove, second tank moves to the next alcove. When the taunt occurs, the first tank moves to the next alcove in line. The tanks need to ensure that they turn the boss so he's facing parallel to the wall or the ashen walls will project out into the room. Once you get the ashen walls, tanks might need to jump 2 alcoves to avoid taking damage from them.

We're ranged heavy and melee light typically (usually a ret paladin, rogue, and feral druid) so there are far fewer people inside the room than outside, but we've done the same strat with up to 10 people inside the room. People just have to be aware of the different things going on and make sure that they aren't putting the poison trail down on top of everyone else.

[Sketchy]

Don't use the little side huts. The main building where the shamans spawn is the only one to use.
The little huts all around the area have a huge risk of resetting. We often use them to reset on wipes.

If you have any melee who aren't comfortable dodging the purple downstairs, let them be up with
the hill tanks, but no more than a 5man group upstairs to spare the healer frustration.

For your upstairs setup, think of a dragon's backend... one melee on left flank, other melee on right flank, healer at tail.
Tanks with back to wall. This way will prevent the green from hitting more than one person at a time.

Good Luck!

[rgirty]

Don't use the little side huts. The main building where the shamans spawn is the only one to use.
The little huts all around the area have a huge risk of resetting. We often use them to reset on wipes.

If you have any melee who aren't comfortable dodging the purple downstairs, let them be up with
the hill tanks, but no more than a 5man group upstairs to spare the healer frustration.

For your upstairs setup, think of a dragon's backend... one melee on left flank, other melee on right flank, healer at tail.
Tanks with back to wall. This way will prevent the green from hitting more than one person at a time.

Good Luck!

This sounds like the ticket! I appreciate it!

[Cantor]

Personally if you have a tank and healer that are comfortable doing this, I would change it up and stack people up the hill at Haromm – that's what we do on Heroic and it works very well. 2 healers, 2 tanks and all the DPS (4 if you're in 10m but obv can change in Flex) at the top, with a single healer and tank on Kardriss; this is considerably easier imo, as there are only 2 people to deal with all the big telegraphed moves that Wavebinder does. There are several videos out there concerning this strategy, and it's also detailed quite well in this thread. Any healer can do it so long as they have a personal CD or absorb up at least once/minute – we use a Resto Druid who always has Barkskin.

[Deleted]

Wow this 2/8 Split strat (or 1/9 if you have a DK tank) makes this Boss really easy. Not like it has ever been much a problem if you had 3 Tanks, but i imagine this fight to be one of the easiest now in the whole instance.

Anybody tryed something like this for 25man? Should be easily doable too?! Should be enough time to Solo the Blobs and except for that nothing really changes.
(but in the end this boss is so easy for 25man that i guess nobody ever had to try such a tactic^^)

[Adhemar]

I will also advise trying the 2/8 split. Most of your raid can sit still while fighting Haromm and it becomes the easiest fight in SoO as long as you have a tank and healer capable of kiting oozes down below (monk tank is ideal for this because of his barrel tossing, and you want a mobile healer, so disc priest or druid are excellent).

[Deleted]

We usually send 2 tanks a heal and whatever melee dps we have up hill for normal, but from my understanding when we do hc it's best just to have tanks and a heal, we skipped shamans and killed naz as he is faceroll and are now progressing malk hc. Once he is dead we will prolly do shamans.

[MisterMine]

We usually send 2 tanks a heal and whatever melee dps we have up hill for normal, but from my understanding when we do hc it's best just to have tanks and a heal, we skipped shamans and killed naz as he is faceroll and are now progressing malk hc. Once he is dead we will prolly do shamans.

shamans are ridiculously easier than malkorok, dont know why u would skip the free loot to go wipe on a harder boss

[Adhemar]

Do yourself a huge favor and send the entire raid up the hill with Haromm. One tank and one healer can handle Kardriss and it's so much easier this way (I'd put it on par with Sha). There's a ton of discussion about the method in this forum, just go find it.