Feral AoE / Cleave - Specific to blast furnace...

[Trimshadow]

Feral AoE / Cleave - Specific to blast furnace...

Hi all - I'm having a few issues with doing enough damage on Blast Furnace and I would like to get some idea's on what the better Ferals are doing on this fight. Actually when there are lots of targets I seem to struggle altogether. This isn't actually about AoE per-se - once targets seem to go to 3 or above, I kinda lose track of timers or find myself energy starved, so what do you guys do?

Tab target to get Rake up? On how many? then Thrash? then what? use combo's on RIP - but how many Rips do you try to keep active at once and how do you track them?

CD usage - If i use Berserk / Inc / Trinket on 1st Operator, they are up for 1st Elementalist - these two usually blow up in reasonable time, 2nd Operator isn't a problem either but 2nd elementalist is hard and use agi pot, but, i find myself energy starved - probably because all my bleeds have run out and I'm not getting anything back (i only have 2pc atm), so between elementalists, do you go back to tab - raking / thrashing and ripping as many as you can get up?

Do you stagger your dps cd's? like Berserk 1st elementalist, Inc 2nd, trinket + pot 3rd, hero 4th? I haven't done this and I'm not sure about splitting the cd's as they won't line up later unless i hold of waiting for them to line up...

Anyway - in depth advice / insight for this fight appreciated

[axxey]

we stagger people's cooldowns and potions between elementalists, I'm one of the ones that does full cooldowns 1st and 4th elementalist and am far and away the most damage done to elementalists, most of the rest of the fight i just have a little cry to myself waiting for my time to shine. Sadly boomkin can cooldown for slightly less while being useful the entire fight.

[theburned]

For this fight your dps will never be competitive, but on the other hand you are not useless, just stick to what ferals are good at, focus dpsing, help get down the operators as quickly as possible, in p2 primal elementalists is your key targets, in last phase its the boss.

if you are topping on all these targets but still bottom of the charts on overall no worries.

I suppose just stick to single target rotation and use trash (to proc 2p as much as possible), possibly rake on 2nd targets over shred on main target.

[Deleted]

Yeah I had the exact same issue when someone asked me why I was only doing 30k DPS, so I linked them the damage done to the Primals and the Heart of the Mountain (Phase 3) where I was top and they realised that Feral doesn't have good cleave any more. Just thrash with the clearcasting and try and spread Rake around on targets that will live long like fresh Engineers and the Guards that one of the tank is taking away.

[Deleted]

Cool downs depend on kill time but I usually just cd on pull, trinket on first elementalist, inc/berserk on second, then saved all for boss in the end with pot.

In the first phase you should be stuck with the group / side taking care of the foreman. Just rake everything and keep it up, then tunnel single target rotation into Engineer > bellows operator > foreman. Keeping thrash up as much as possible with 3+ targets. Just keep your RIP alive on the foreman, or operators if they have enough health remaining.
There's not much else you can really do as a feral, if they're expecting you to pull big numbers on blast furnace tell them to check logs and educate themselves, a feral is only there for specific target nuking.

Between elementalists you want to do two things, burst down Firecallers, or if there's no Firecallers up you just dot the security guards. It's not worth using RIP on a target unless it will survive for 14 seconds with the RIP up. Firecallers shouldn't last this long so just FB them.

Either you or your group seem to have an incorrect idea, overall numbers showing on skada at the end are MEANINGLESS.

If you're losing track of timers then get better addons to track them (weak auras or general name plate addons). If you're already using these and still losing track then perhaps feral isn't the spec for you.

[Trimshadow]

If you're losing track of timers then get better addons to track them (weak auras or general name plate addons). If you're already using these and still losing track then perhaps feral isn't the spec for you.

Nah, I meant losing track of what I have bleeds on - but i also think it's part not completely understanding my role on this fight too...

Thanks everyone who posted, appreciate your insights and help

[Smilomaniac]

I was furious while doing this on my feral; looking at the overall numbers I was surpassed by one of our tanks.
As others have stated, however, your overall dps or damage doesn't mean much. Your role is to go for the elementalists and operators and stick to that. Throw a few rakes and extra rips if you have the time, but otherwise don't fret. AoE and cleaving is not your strong suit, so let the others do their job and link your operator/elementalist damage if anyone questions you.

If you're comfortable with the bombs, you have the mobility to deliver the ones the engineers drop and try to balance out the two targets. It might not get you numbers, but it will make you very useful for the fight (I'm not sure whether only one person can pick them up or multiple, but I assume only one is able to).

As an extra bonus, you can pick the typhoon talent and blow mobs out of the purple circles that the security guards put down. Just make sure that you're helping your tank and not actually making things worse.
BE AWARE that you can push mobs out of the gate with this ability, which resets the fight. It's useful being able to do this, but it's obviously very bad if it's unintentional and things are going well. This might actually count towards being an exploit, so be careful either way...

As a final note, if you're using blink, you can end up behind the cauldrons that are on both sides of the rooms and get stuck there. It's not so relevant for ferals, but I've seen both a resto and balance druid end up there because they tried getting a bomb or firepatch out of the way

[Deleted]

Nah, I meant losing track of what I have bleeds on - but i also think it's part not completely understanding my role on this fight too...

In that case you should try using tidy plates or some other name plate addon, I just use elv ui standard ones and have done for a long time so I'm unsure what else is out there.

[Trimshadow]

In that case you should try using tidy plates or some other name plate addon, I just use elv ui standard ones and have done for a long time so I'm unsure what else is out there.

I use ShadowedUnitFrames - but tbh haven't looked into if they can track bleeds on mobs - I'll do some checking on that - might have a new look at Tidyplates if SuF can't do it - thanks again everyone