Heroic Siegecrafter inconsistencies with damage on shredder

[SH4D0WS1N]

Hey, I'm currently main tanking Siegecrafter heroic 25m in my off spec gear. I'm incredibly spikey, but I've done a fair job of handling that thus far. My biggest issue is my damage on the shredder is beyond inconsistent. On my first pull dragon roar hit the first shredder for 6 million damage. On my last pull it hit for 3.1 million damage. What exactly is going on here to cause these kinds of damage inconsistencies? I have 4 stacks for both of them, along with crit banner. I'll take any help I can get (I don't want to swap to Incite glyph if I don't have to though).

Logs: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/xfyc9lq2dot21ekx/

My warrior hopefully in my OS prot gear: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...guiss/advanced

Thank you in advance. The sooner I get a response the better, as they might not have an actual tank again for tomorrow night and I'll be off spec main tanking again. The amount of damage we're taking from overload when I can't kill it in time in insane and causing quite a few deaths.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Edit: I'm going to guess your vengeance is the reason then.

[SH4D0WS1N]

It takes extra damage when stunned by Death From Above.

Every Dragon Roar I casted was during the Death From Above debuff (except for the ones where I literally missed the shredder, whoops).

- - - Updated - - -

Edit: I'm going to guess your vengeance is the reason then.

Why is there such a large disparity in my vengeance if I'm doing the exact same thing then?

[Ssateneth]

standing in fire/taking damage while he is in midair will cause your vengeance to go down since you are taking less damage

[Khorm]

Going through your logs is bringing back nightmares. Please use Warcraft Logs in future.

[Braindwen]

Why is there such a large disparity in my vengeance if I'm doing the exact same thing then?

Likely because you aren't doing exactly the same thing.

6M roar (attempt 1):
roar: [21:36:04.889] Sanguiss Dragon Roar Automated Shredder *6006740*
Most recent shredder hit: [21:36:00.625] Automated Shredder hits Sanguiss 168645 (B: 252969)
about 4 seconds between them.

3.9M roar (attempt 2):
roar: [21:45:37.964] Sanguiss Dragon Roar Automated Shredder *3922497*
Most recent shredder hit: [21:45:28.485] Automated Shredder hits Sanguiss 122324 (A: 133427)
a 9.5s gap.

3.1M roar (last attempt):
roar: [23:36:15.109] Sanguiss Dragon Roar Automated Shredder *3177129*
Most recent shredder hit: [23:36:02.436] Automated Shredder hits Sanguiss 147399 (A: 99514, B: 132275)
Almost 13s between hits, you got hit by overload twice without even being attacked in between.

Vengeance is a 20s buff. If you don't get hit for 10s, that overload right when the shredder lands is going to take away half your vengeance. Since vengeance is pretty much all of your damage, that means you lose about half your damage. I'm not sure what you're doing to not be attacked at all for 10+ seconds at a time some attempts, but it's killing your damage.

standing in fire/taking damage while he is in midair will cause your vengeance to go down since you are taking less damage

There is always an overload the moment the shredder lands. That'll reset vengeance regardless. Feel free to take as much damage as you can .

Going through your logs is bringing back nightmares. Please use Warcraft Logs in future.

WCL's expression editor sucks, and the pins aren't really much better . This brought back fond memories of an expression editor that was actually good, I wish WoL would update so people would use it again .

[SH4D0WS1N]

Interesting. Is this something I should attempt to control, since I'm struggling to kill the shredder before overload gets too high? I find myself stressed on time for getting the shredder out to the sawblades in time for Death From Above. Should I focus more on getting hit before it happens than actually getting them in the sawblades? Just for some clarification, the reason I don't get hit on some attempts is related to the fact that I'm taking 4 stacks on pull and rushing to get the shredder out (specifically I'm leaping) in time for Death From Above to occur not only outside of the heal range but also in the sawblade(s) from pull. I guess the irony here is that as I got better at moving the shredder in time for Death From Above my damage also dropped because I was taking less hits.

I actually only upload to WcL but when I went to turn off combat logging at the end I found out I never turned it on in the first place so I had nothing to upload myself, sorry.

Thanks a lot for the help though.

[lakhesis]

You can look at what you're doing to the Automated Shredder by going to expression editor & entering the following string:

(sourceName = "Sanguiss" and targetName = "Automated Shredder") or (SourceName = "Automated Shredder" and spell = "Death From Above")

So that's showing everything you do to the automated shredders, and also showing when the shredder leaps + is affected by the debuff.

I routinely tank/kill the shredders on h-siege, and I have a warrior tank, but I haven't done h-siege with a warrior. That said...

1) Sometimes you get three on-the-GCD hits in while the shredder's got the debuff & sometimes you only get two

2) You're not always getting a 3 stack of devastates up prior to the death from above

3) Always pool damage for Death from Above. I'm seeing windows where your three attacks after DfA are Dragon's Roar -> Shield Slam -> Devastate, I strongly suspect you'd be best to pool a Revenge. Also ensure you can spam heroic strike through the whole debuff window

4) If you're struggling to kill it, be careful you don't clip Mines or Siegecrafter with Dragon Roar (due to reducing damage via aoe splitting)

5) If all else fails, you can get a range to swap & toss a couple of shots into the Shredder immediately after the DfA, while it's got the debuff up. Depending on how you handle stack swaps, the second time you're lower on stacks & have to kill a Shredder can be a little awkward until you get the hang of it & a quick hit from a dps or two can help you through

6) Yes, more vengeance does help. A lot of your variation in hit sizes is probably due to that. If you log with advanced combat logging & upload to warcraftlogs, you'll be able to track your Attack Power levels to judge what's happening there (in the Resources tab). I don't think WoL has put in anything that'll tell you vengeance.

[Elbob]

Not to be poking at strats since each guild is their own, but if you are concerned about killing the shredder you can always pull the first one out so it doesnt get healed after the 3rd stack of the debuff is applied and still easily be able to kill it as a warrior.

[SH4D0WS1N]

Not to be poking at strats since each guild is their own, but if you are concerned about killing the shredder you can always pull the first one out so it doesnt get healed after the 3rd stack of the debuff is applied and still easily be able to kill it as a warrior.

We do a 4 stack then 2-1 OT-MT rotation until I get my 6th stack, then they get 7 stacks and I drop mine and we start over.

You can look at what you're doing to the Automated Shredder by going to expression editor & entering the following string:

(sourceName = "Sanguiss" and targetName = "Automated Shredder") or (SourceName = "Automated Shredder" and spell = "Death From Above")

So that's showing everything you do to the automated shredders, and also showing when the shredder leaps + is affected by the debuff.

I routinely tank/kill the shredders on h-siege, and I have a warrior tank, but I haven't done h-siege with a warrior. That said...

1) Sometimes you get three on-the-GCD hits in while the shredder's got the debuff & sometimes you only get two

2) You're not always getting a 3 stack of devastates up prior to the death from above

3) Always pool damage for Death from Above. I'm seeing windows where your three attacks after DfA are Dragon's Roar -> Shield Slam -> Devastate, I strongly suspect you'd be best to pool a Revenge. Also ensure you can spam heroic strike through the whole debuff window

4) If you're struggling to kill it, be careful you don't clip Mines or Siegecrafter with Dragon Roar (due to reducing damage via aoe splitting)

5) If all else fails, you can get a range to swap & toss a couple of shots into the Shredder immediately after the DfA, while it's got the debuff up. Depending on how you handle stack swaps, the second time you're lower on stacks & have to kill a Shredder can be a little awkward until you get the hang of it & a quick hit from a dps or two can help you through

6) Yes, more vengeance does help. A lot of your variation in hit sizes is probably due to that. If you log with advanced combat logging & upload to warcraftlogs, you'll be able to track your Attack Power levels to judge what's happening there (in the Resources tab). I don't think WoL has put in anything that'll tell you vengeance.

1. It actually depends on if my bloodbath/dragonroar are off of cd in time. I guess I should probably get a GCD out first instead of ending up wasting a whole GCD waiting on their cds.

2. Oh, that's not even something I acknowledged, jeez. Any times I did that was purely me trying to hold more threat on the shredder while I was waiting to go out. (or later ones where I have enough time to do a full rotation)

3. Oh, so in the earlier ones should I just spam devastate if I can't use ss/revenge before I need to use them in DFA? Are you sure about heroic strike though? I'm incredibly spikey and squishy at my gear level (I probably logged off in fury for another thread) at 563 ilvl and I figured I was better off holding onto my rage for mitigation so I don't get gibbed by the shredder.

4. This should have only happened once during our attempts it and was when we (the tanks) messed up something and the add had to sit in melee and wipe us.

6. Yeah, I normally log with advanced combat logs and use WcL

[lakhesis]

If you expand that bit of code out with: or (SourceName = "Automated Shredder" and targetName = "Sanguiss")

It'll include the shredder's attacks on you - which lets you see the timing with Death from Above.

The timing on the logs can get a little whacky, with melee swings landing a couple of 1/10ths of a second after its started casting, but during the 5 second cast of Death from Above the Shredder doesn't melee. After the 5s cast it spends 3s airborne, which is your run-away time. Then it lands and is taking the 200% extra damage for 5 seconds.

So you've got an 8s window prior to the buff going up where you don't want to be wasting rage on mitigation, cos no mitigation is needed anyway (assuming you've got enough health left to live through the overload - but that's a healer problem). You also don't want to be putting Shield Slam on CD in the last 3s of the cast, or using Revenge, so if you treat the cast time as your cue to cast 3x Devastate you should cover all your bases at once.

And after it touches down any ability you cast is worth a minimum of two casts of the same ability at any other point. If you can stack several multipliers it just gets better. So yeah, save the Revenge for the debuff window - it's the equivalent of using it twice.

Now if you wanted to get cute, you could probably run Glyph of Heavy Repercussions + Glyph of Incite, and Demoralizing Shout + Shield Block on the way out (the free HS's from Incite only last ~9s).

That combo'll give you a nice buffed up shield slam & your three heroic strikes at the same time. And frankly you're aiming to have the shredder dead by the time the debuff wears out (or 1-2 GCDs after), so that shouldn't give it enough time afterwards to kill you (no matter how squishy you are). Kicking its face in is the ultimate mitigation =)

The obvious downside is that the only survival boost you get out of demo shout is against the 3rd overload, so it is a tradeoff... but better you take more damage than the entire raid takes a 4th overload. It'd absolutely be worth it for the healers to focus heal you a little more in order to avoid a 4th.

So just to spell it out, what I'm thinking of as a sequence would be:

- Shredder starts casting Death from Above (5s)
- Spam 3x Devastate
- Shredder jumps (3s airborne)
- You run out while triggering Demoralizing Shout, Shield Block, & then Bloodbath
- Shredder is landing & you Charge into it
- Dragon Roar + free Heroic Strike
- Shield Slam (with Heavy Repercussions) + free Heroic Strike
- Revenge + free Heroic Strike
- Debuff wears off & Shredder becomes active again... but is hopefully dead... or sub 5% anyway...

Like I said, I haven't done it on a warrior tank - only a paladin & a brewmaster - but I suspect that should be about the optimal sequence from a DPS PoV. That sequence should rip through at least 50% of its health.

[Exer]

...

So just to spell it out, what I'm thinking of as a sequence would be:

- Shredder starts casting Death from Above (5s)
- Spam 3x Devastate
- Shredder jumps (3s airborne)
- You run out while triggering Demoralizing Shout, Shield Block, & then Bloodbath
- Shredder is landing & you Charge into it
- Dragon Roar + free Heroic Strike
- Shield Slam (with Heavy Repercussions) + free Heroic Strike
- Revenge + free Heroic Strike
- Debuff wears off & Shredder becomes active again... but is hopefully dead... or sub 5% anyway...

Like I said, I haven't done it on a warrior tank - only a paladin & a brewmaster - but I suspect that should be about the optimal sequence from a DPS PoV. That sequence should rip through at least 50% of its health.

Making sure the add has sunder debuffs should be top priority. If damage output is an issue on the first add, bloodbath is useless, you're better off picking Avatar (it will be up the next time you deal with an add after your stacks reset). Heavy repercussion is a no brainer here. Keep the add in fire/sawblades and spam revenge as you should be swimming in revenge procs at that point.

Make sure you use recklessness, and make use of your Ultimatum proc during death from above. Pop shield block while hes up in the air, and then charge (you could also leap there) when hes landed. Then you DR-Shield Slam-Revenge, and finish him off with executes. If you have DPS trinkets, you should also use them. Damage is easily predictable and CDs+Shield barriers are enough to keep you alive.

[Eetabee]

I would definitely suggest either storm bolt or avatar. Both help withe the shredder way more than bloodbath. Here is what I do.

1. Pool rage (get external if needed since you may be sans active mitigation for a bit) and tclap for dot
2. Run out from death from above.
3. Storm bolt as he starts going down.
4. Charge, shield block, shield slam, heroic strike
5. Dragons roar, heroic strike
6. Revenge, heroic strike
7. It should be dead.

If it's not dead by that point then you most likely messed something up. You can also throw in a strength potion if desired, it's not huge but it is a little more attack power.