Trouble with normal Imperator Mar'gok

[Akonji]

My guild started progressing on normal Imperator Mar'gok about one and a half week ago. Since then we got in about 50 wipes during about 9 hours of progressing on him (none being below 40%/past the third phase). Before getting to the things like raid composition, it has to be said that we only got the bare minimum amount of people who turn up for all raids, with other spots (sadly) being filled by whoever else is online (two of our top DPS aren't there for one or two days every week).

Our raid composition (when the regulars all turn up) with their DPS/HPS and iLvl:

- Blood Death Knight (21k and 658) (Me)
- Protection Paladin (9k and 644)
- Restoration Shaman (26k and 651)
- Restoration Druid (25k and 651)
- Holy Paladin (19k and 644)
- Marksman Hunter (14k and 648)
- Survival Hunter (15k and 656)
- Feral Druid (15k and 645)
- Frost Mage (14k and 639)

Our best DPS who can't always make it with their DPS and iLvl:

- Retribution Paladin (20k and 646)
- Shadow Priest (21k and 655)
- Destruction/Affliction Warlock (21k)
- (1H) Fury Warrior (19k and 647)
- Restoration/Elemental Shaman (he switches depending on what we need) (18k as Elemental and 645)

The average DPs of the raid is about 15k if we only have the regulars and about 17k if we also have all five of our best dps'ers available.
I've already told the raid that the dps is quite low and that people should try to improve it by themselves (or at least asking others for help) instead of only logging for the raids, so (seeing how I can't provide any logs) advice for increasing their dps isn't what I'm looking for (it would still be appreciated of course, but I know it is hard to give such advice without logs). (I can post the armory links if needed)

Earlier this week I decided to lead a PUG for normal Imperator Mar'gok and killed him by using a different tactic (for two abilities) than my guild uses at the moment.

Tactic with my PUG: We'd have people who were Branded say in the group till either 25 yards range limit (if they could disengage or something like that) or 12 yards if they couldn't and then have them move out. And we'd have the tank who was assigned to do the Marks of Chaos taunt the boss in P3 just before he would start casting Mark and have him move to another corner (ranged was in the middle). The other tank would then taunt the boss back after Mark was casted (resulting in the melee dps not having to move -> more uptime on the add). (Took about 7 wipes to down him.)

Tactic with my guild: We'd have the two Hunters take care of Branded between them (thereby reducing their dps), but this would be hard when Branded landed in the melee group due to their awareness being near zero. In P3 we have the tank taking the mark stay in the current corner and the other tank taunting the boss and the add to another corner (resulting in the melee dps having to move -> less uptime on the add).

Because of the numerous wipes, my raid leader decided to use Bloodlust in P1 so that we would get to P3 faster to practice that. I argued that that woudl be pointless, because we would never clear the 2nd Intermission that way. Even trying to get him to call for Bloodlust in P3 fell on deaf ears (that way we would maybe get through that phase at least, or that was my reasoning at least). To me it seems like the low awareness regarding the Mark coupled with the AoE damage of the Force Novas and the add is what wipes us (making my PUG tactic more useful for thise phase in my opinion). I've already tried explaining how my tactic would have the add go down faster, but this too fell on deaf ears.

Which would be the better tactic in your opinion? Personally it feels as if the raid took less damage using the tactic I used with my PUG. It also doesn't require the melee dps to have much awareness about positioning in P3. But my raid leader keeps arguing that doing it that way would only make it harder due to people having to learn that strategy (in all fairness, they also have many screw ups with mines in all phases and Mark in P3 with the current strategy).

At first I thought it was just people having to learn the fight and didn't want to ask the people of MMO-Champion for help (no offense) , but after the PUG I'm getting a bit annoyed by the lack of progress, seeing how nine out of the eleven pugs had no real experience with Imperator (maybe two or three tries at most before this PUG) and still downed it within eight pulls.

Naturally I prefer my own tactic, but I hope that someone can help me figure out which tactic would be better to use. If there's something you'd like to see (like armory links) or miss in my post (like more details about something I've described), feel free to ask for them and I will do my best to provide it.

[Deleted]

I killed him on HC for the first time last night, and we used a strategy similar to what you were employing in your PUG.

First of all: Triggering a Destructive Resonance (trap) is probably a wipe unless it happens early enough that your healers can spend a CD and get it back up in time for when they were actually supposed to use it.

The Mark of Chaos strategy that you mentioned is what we used and it worked out well, although it does require that the tanks are very aware of their timers.

As for Arcane Wrath, it shouldn't be an issue if everyone is aware that they equally responsible for dealing with it. When it reaches 6-7 stacks, have the the person with it and a healer (since your raid can't afford to lose any DPS, but your healing seems to be ok for Normal) move away and then deal with it. Remember that during phase two, you cannot move very far while branded so be extra careful in that phase.

I don't think there's any reason to use Bloodlust in the first phase as you really want it ready for burning down the Reaver and the two mages in the second intermission.

[Grindfactor]

As a raid leader who has recently downed this i did the same thing as you have with the 2 hunters and branded, the 2 can disengage from each other and makes it sooooooooooo much easier... but heres the trick to NOT STOP THEIR DPS as its crucial... have your people stack in a clump almost on the bosses heels.... the closer u are the easier because think about it... phase 2 the knock backs only help u instead of pushing u into more mines, also the closer the group is to him the less distance your 2 hunters have to be back to deal with the branded... hence more dps. Our dps wasnt the greatest but we still managed it. In the transition with the big add (reaver) pop lust burn it then focus down a mage then the other... boss may reactivate but thats ok. Mines only grow at the 85% marker... after first transition they only last longer or duplicate.... so perfectly find to stand near them after the first set of 2 mages... make sure u have a healer focus on the 2 hunters with the branded. In the final phase make sure you kill the first big aberration and deal with those adds and you should be getting orbs and force wave immediately after, raid cooldowns.... use them. Right after just focus the boss down. Ignore the next few aberrations and focus the boss down hard. Also for the tank debuffs we use our warrior tank to taunt and then leap away, we never have had to deal with the dmg badly.

If you want PM me and i can go in ALOT of detail and draw little pictures for u about our strat haha we perfected it.

[Alianthos]

Hey,

In my guild (cleared heroic multiple times, currently progress on mythic) we do a mix of your 2 strategies
- Boss tanked in the middle always, ranged/healers turn around him (leaving mines on their right, or their left if you prefer)
- Mark of Chaos is the exact tactic with your PUG, in P3. Before the mark hits, one tank goes on the other side of the room away from the ranged group, get the mark, second tank taunts back to the middle of the room. NO NEED TO CHASE THE BOSS, this is really important. Yes, he may go out of range. It's up to your tanks to do the switch quickly. Just a couple of tries should be enough. Tell your raid to let the tank do the switch and wait for it, not run after the boss randomly and trigger a mine, eat a nova or whatever.
- Branded : P1, tell your raiders to move away at the 4th iteration (3 is doable). P2, P3, we use 2 hunters. They really dont loose that much DPS, actually they always end up at the top. For P2, they should position themselves slightly behind the ranged group and grab the debuff. People branded should go back slightly towards the hunters. If the dot is in melee, 4th or 5th iteration should move away from the melee group and go back after debuff is gone. P3, it's the same, use 2 hunters, slightly away from the ranged group. Frist branded raiders should run to the hunters, give the debuff and run back in. If the debuff in in the melee group, tell them to run up to the ranged group, give it randomly to someone there, and then it's given to hunters.

Using 2 hunters is going to make it SO EASY for your healers in P3. Because Branded healing is very taxing mana wise, but if you KNOW who is going to get the debuff (hunters) then your healers can plan accordingly and keep them up until the debuff is gone.

It's not so hard honestly !
And keep BL for the second transition.
Good luck

[Akonji]

First of all, thank you all for your help.

I'll try to get my raid leader to accept the strategy for Mark in P3, since I'm more used to it (I just need to get the other tank to taunt when I yell taunt instead f ignoring me for that).

Regarding the Branded, I have no idea why they lose so much dps, our Survival Hunter usually pulls about 20k dps but drops to 15k or so with the Branded involved. But using different tactics for it in P1/P2/P3 seems the best way if I can get everyone to actually watch their debuffs and move accordingly.

[Monzsterr]

If you're only getting to phase 3, it's likely that strategy alone is not going to win the fight, unless your players are suddenly going to get way better overnight I'd suggest that rather than burning out with 50 more wipes that you simply focus on gearing up more. Honestly a gear score of 639 is pretty sad. Many players are skilled enough to do this content with such a gear score, but I'm guessing if this player couldn't be bothered to push for a higher score right now they're not the caliber of player who will do well at this level.
Also, don't be afraid to try some of the heroic bosses first. My guild was 4/7 heroic before we got normal Imperator down, mostly because we couldn't be bothered to wipe 50 times and after about 7 or 8 pulls not getting past phase 3 we just moved on and found that twins and tectus were pretty manageable. Kargath is a push over and very easy loot and with good mushroom management brack is not too tricky either.

You sound frustrated though, you sound like a fellow who is ready to push raiding harder and are standing at an ilvl and dps way out ahead of the rest of your guild. Your guild is not going to change. If raid awareness is an issue after 50 wipes that's not going to change. A group that his mines on Imperator after 50 tries is not a very aware group at all. I really encourage you to consider looking around for a better guild. I spent all of cata in a go-no-where-guild and refused to leave because these people were my friends. However after 60 wipes on the stonegaurds at the beginning of MoP and a guild collapse I finally moved on I wish now I had done that two years earlier.

[Akonji]

Thank you for your replay, antsterr.

We've tried Heroic Highmaul already and only managed to down Kargath Bladefist and kept hitting wipe walls on the other bosses too (both Twins and Tectus). With most in the guild having (some) previous Heroic (MoP Heroic) experience and myself already being 5/7 HC, I didn't expect to run into walls with this.

I suspect gear to be the issue again here, because tactic-wise I saw no difference between my guild runs and PUG runs on these fights.

And I'm in the middle of rerolling a different class to raid with a friend's guild who are at 7/7 Heroic since yesterday already :P
So I'm slowly trying to distance myself from my precious reputations and teleport items my DK has accumulated over the past years to get my Shaman up.

[worcester]

It's really simple, your raid size is too small for you to simply brute force encounters without good dps/healing. Appropriately increase your raid size and thus number of healers until adequate amount of cooldowns is available (4 or 5), phase 3 and 2nd intermission becomes a joke. If you want to keep your small raid size of 10-12 people, you simply have to use 2 healers to meet the dps checks in 2nd intermission, they will have to do 30-40k hps to keep up. Or if you want to take 3 healers, each dps should do 18k or more (its not much to ask and getting more gear solves everything in this case).

Take note of the raid size of your hc progressed friends guild or the pug runs, it has nothing to do with your guild group doing low dps/hps even though that does help sometimes.
Btw, hc butcher is the same story, the only ones taking damage are your soakers and tanks; you can simply add more and more dps until he dies and keep the healers the exactly same (3 or 4) regardless of if you have 15 people or 30. i think you see the pattern now.

The best advice i can give is there is nothing wrong with either tactic you are using and both have its merits/disadvantages, but at the end of the day its simply a game of numbers and gear ilvl is not on your side. Just relax, clear what you can and gear up. If you have any real life ties with the guild members, i suggest you not break up your friendships over progress, most people can't get both: so choose the one that matters.

[Alianthos]

Also I want to add that I personally wiped around 80 times on Imperator (normal + HM) progression. By all means this is not an easy fight AT ALL. Gear makes it really easier, and 639 is def too low unless the player is very skilled.

[Teebu]

Everyone on that list below maybe 18k NEED to step their game up DPS wise. The Prot Pala included.
14-15k at that gear level isn't all that great. In fact, it's on the lower end of what's acceptable. That overall DPS, even with bloodlust, is going to make the Reaver transition so much harder than it needs to be. 50 wipes should have eased in the mechanics you've encountered and made focusing on proper spell usage easier. Guide them towards Icy-Veins and the class forums here. Make sure people who use Noxxic (if any) switch immediately.

As said, 639-645 range, which most of your raiders are in, is a bit low. Think of it as having 540-550 when doing Garrosh on normal (now heroic), or just around 510 when doing Lei Shen. It's gonna be a struggle at that gear level and honestly, my best advice for the situation is to just let him keep his throne for a bit longer while you guys focus on gearing up and getting rotations down on the previous bosses. A week or two of gearing and getting spell priorities straight, and he should fall over after not too long.

[Deleted]

Your hunters need to up their game. At that ilvl should be higher on the dps.

[Radish Spirit]

For P3 we tank the boss where he "lands" after the transition - marking the spot.

When Mark is about to drop is usually when an aberration spawns, so OT at that time takes the add and everyone moves away from the boss focusing DPS on the add. Mark drops, OT taunts boss and DPS continues while we wait for the marked tank to explode. Then we just return to the starting point and repeat.

I know everyone likes the "tank gets away" strategy, but I like our way too. It's super simple to understand and easy to call out.

"Okay, switch to add and get away from mark."

"And reset."

That's about it for the whole phase.

[pistola22]

It seems you know what the better strat is. If you can't impose it on your guild leader, then there's really no reason to be there. Leaders unwilling to research better strats or try things they didn't come up with are bound to remain behind.

[Detritivores]

i suggest you not break up your friendships over progress, most people can't get both: so choose the one that matters.

This is great advice.

Both the guild and pug tactics are valid. It's just a matter of executing. Lusting in p1 is hilariously dumb though. Make that stop asap. Otherwise, keep working at it.

[yondaimea52]

Normal / Heroic branded 4-4-7-4 start taking branded out at 3-3-6-3
Use fox / Roar at p3 nova be aware of knock back into mines and dont chase the wave xD

[Akonji]

@worcester: I wish we could increase our raid size, but lately we've been forced to pug people to even reach 10-12. And they simply refuse to gear up with first 6 bosses and then wait for reset (they're stubbornly saying they're good enough as is to do it).

@Teebu: My raid leader keeps insisting dps ain't the issue (even though we had a Warmage at 96% at end of 2nd intermission) and refuses to boot the low iLvl/performing ones nor requires them to gear up. And the 50 wipes mean nothing, they still trigger at least 4 mines a fight by now.

@Fairchild: I gave them proof they should (one of the guys in the guild I raided with as a PUG did that dps on his 627 Hunter), but I doubt they'll put in effort to do that...

@Kerchunk: This night we had at least 1 person standing in every mark of P3 (that person not being the tank with Mark). Calling it out didn't fix it either, they just kept dying to it. Doesn't help that we had mines all over the place.

@pistola22: After tonight's raid (full of wipes with 1 pull at 24%) I've decided to just give up on the guild, seeing how they don't listen to whatever I tell them (be it mathematical evidence that we can't make it due to DPS/mana or what the lot of you have told me).

@Detritivores: I've got friends in both my current and soon-to-be guild (neither are IRL friends), so for that the difference is almost zero. But after tonight's repeated wipes (ranging between 24% and 2%) I've lost the ruge to raid with my current guild due to everyone making the same mistakes over and over (Mage trigering about 30 mines over 21 pulls).

[Radish Spirit]

@Kerchunk: This night we had at least 1 person standing in every mark of P3 (that person not being the tank with Mark). Calling it out didn't fix it either, they just kept dying to it. Doesn't help that we had mines all over the place.

If you have a diamond on the floor and your raid leader says "Get away form diamond" and people don't do it, then I'm afraid you have problems that run far deeper than any change in strategy can fix. You can only foolproof a strategy so much. If people can't listen to their RL, watch DBM and respond to the simplest of instructions then you might as well call it at Normal Imperator because Heroic progression is pretty much going to destroy your guild.