Heroic gruul wipes

[testsubjectzz]

Just wondering if you guys could take a look at what's going on. We're a casual guild working on normal maidens in BRF and we decided to try heroic gruul. I feel that this is a boss that we could do with the gear we have but we just seem to keep dying and I think it's a healing problem but not too sure on it. The slices are getting soaked and it doesn't seem we are taking in too much avoidable damage. First few goes we were dying to overwhelming blows but then we re positioned and it just seems after a while everyone just keeps dropping off.

I'm the warlock and I know my dps isn't that great but it's just movement and the petrifies wrecks me. Happy to accept criticism on my dps as well.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/rzDgNa23fVXtRhjJ

[Deleted]

Why are some people taking 2.4million damage across the encounter from Inferno Slice yet your mage has taken only 800k?

[Deleted]

DPS from almost everyone is very low for the gear levels without doubt. The other thing of note is that it's inferno strike that is killing people, so either the tanks are not angling these correctly, the groups are not stacking properly (remember can be in a line back from the tank) or people are not using their defensive cooldowns on the second stack.

[Deleted]

DPS from almost everyone is very low for the gear levels without doubt. The other thing of note is that it's inferno strike that is killing people, so either the tanks are not angling these correctly, the groups are not stacking properly (remember can be in a line back from the tank) or people are not using their defensive cooldowns on the second stack.

Just to add to this, defensive cooldowns are OK. immunities are not, mages using iceblock.. things that negate all damage will cause the other people stacking to take a bigger amount of the split

EDIT:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ourceclass=Any



The healing is significantly lower than the damage taken by inferno slice, you are running with 4 healers for a 13 man raid and two of these are disc priests, it might be worth looking at changing your healing comp.

[Radish Spirit]

Your raid is not using CDs. You are not going to beat this fight (or many in BRF) unless you can use CDs.

I don't see any Hand of Sacrifice casts, no Smoke Bombs, and just a few uses of Vigilance and Ironbark. You should be using these on the Slice soaking tank whenever possible. Set up a rotation. The fight goes like this: 6 slices, rampage, 6 slices, rampage, etc.

There's approximately 17 seconds between slices and Rampage lasts ~30 so do the math and plan your CDs or things aren't going to go well for you.


Further, on Heroic, there's no need for your tanks to take 3 slices. They are already getting killed, so taxing them further by stacking 3 slices is going to be hard. Just do this:

Tank A takes boss.
Tank B taunts Slice 1 into Group 1, Tank A re-taunts.
Tank B Taunts Slice 2 into Group 2 and then takes over tanking while Tank A moves to Group 1.
Tank A Taunts Slice 3 into Group 1, Tank B re-taunts.
Tank A Taunts Slice 4 into Group 2 and then takes over tanking...

Repeat this pattern until the first Rampage, then again after (starting with Tank B after Rampage).

This way, your tanks only get 2 stacks of Inferno Strike.

[testsubjectzz]

Hey thanks for the input guys. I think the mage you're talking about is Junior? Looking at that healing received vs damage taken wow that is very low. So to me this seems like the healers just need to react a little bit faster to the damage being taken?

@Kerchunk I will let our tanks know. I will also make sure we use our personal cds

[Kiramouse]

In regards to your dps, you should be stacking Mastery gems not crit, and you need an enchant on your weapon, even the 1 temp crystal enchant is better than nothing. at 661 Ilvl you should be pulling around 20-22k. If youre up for it Id go affliction or demo for Gruul.

[Adramelch]

No amount of petrifies and whatnot justifies the two dpsers that are doing 16k (barely above the two tanks) on what is close to a patchwerk fight on heroic.

[Dragonsangel]

A feature of WarcraftLogs that you should have a look at is the "Problems" section:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...view=execution

Another nice feature is the "Replay" feature.
From it I saw that your mage Junior was not moving with Shatter, which lead to him being routed in place next to the healers and then receiving a hit from Overwhelming blows, which in conjunction with Inferno Slice was his/her death.
The priest Aaeve also took an overwhelming blow and then died from the Inferno Slice thereafter.

There is a lot of avoidable damage being taken, splashes of Petrifying Slam, Overwhelming blows, etc.

The base thing that I seem to see is that the execution of the fight is not where it should be for a kill, that and the overall DPS and healing being a bit on the low side.
Some abilities on Normal are much less deadly than on HC, which might have made that some people ignored some abilities and think they could survive it, which is not the case on HC.

Regarding healers (mainly focusing on the Discs):
Having two Discs can work, but then they need to coordinate, otherwise it will be a nightmare and one should rather go holy.
Both Discs have an avg of 30 PW:S's casted for an encounter that is 4:41mins long, optimally is should be (Inferno Slices taken by group) x (Group size) + tank shields.
For the fight linked above, it would be Calibu = 6 Inferno, 5 people stacking + tank shields. He/She had 27 PW:S, should be closer to 37-40. For Aaeve it would be 6 Inferno, 6 people stacking + tanking shields. He/She had 30 PW:S, should be closer to 44-46.
Have each Disc shield his/her own group before an Inferno slice and assign a tank to each Disc, on whom they should keep a shield up as much as possible.

Also have them switch from Clarity of Will to Words of Mending for that fight. There is not enough time to properly use CoW, so WoM will enable them to get extra healing out while casting their PW:S, Penance and PoH's. Remind them also that they have an improved PoH after using Archangel.
Calbui is using his effectively, but Aaeve is barely using his/her's. For an 4:41 min fight, exceptional use should be 8-9 times, good use 5-7, anything less than that is not using their abilities to their full extent.

That is what I can quickly'ish see from the logs.
I know I hammered mostly on the Discs, but everyone in the raid can improve on almost all fronts, from doing more DPS/HPS/taking less DTPS to avoiding more avoidable damage.
From the replay the positioning is good, so follow the advice that Kerchunk gave (along with everyone else's) and you should get a kill very very quickly.

[testsubjectzz]

Really good points Dragonsangel. To be fair the 16k dps is coming from our deaths. Generally we can all pull at least 20k, I'm certainly not saying that's optimal but I don't think I'm that clueless.

Thanks for all your points and I'm sure we will see a H Gruul kill soon.

[Radish Spirit]

People are harping on DPS. Yes, it's low but it really doesn't matter. You can survive indefinitely as long as you're using proper cooldowns and positioning.

It's easy to look at numbers and say "they're low" because it doesn't take any analysis and people like to get their peens out, but it really doesn't inform your strategy much at all. It's not like you're going to go "Hey guys, your DPS is low!" and they're just going to change. You need to work with what you've got, and if they're DPS is low then that's all the more reason to execute properly.

[Kanadei]

Repeat this pattern until the first Rampage, then again after (starting with Tank B after Rampage).

This way, your tanks only get 2 stacks of Inferno Strike.

I'm not amazing at analysing logs but judging from your warrior's gear there is no reason he shouldn't be able to tank 3 slices.

I think your problem is more likely to be tanks not popping cds appropriately, groups not stacking appropriately and groups not being topped up before slashes.

Also just generaly clusterfuckery with Shatter and void zones and what not.

[Radish Spirit]

I'm not amazing at analysing logs but judging from your warrior's gear there is no reason he shouldn't be able to tank 3 slices.

?

Why do something that makes the fight more difficult if it doesn't benefit the raid?

Sorry, that's stupid. Two slices on Heroic. There's NO REASON to take three whether you can or not.

I think your problem is more likely to be tanks not popping cds appropriately

Prot warriors have two cooldowns that are appropriate for Inferno Strike: Shield Wall and Vigilance. Shield Wall is on a 2m CD and Vigilance can only be used on someone other than yourself. You can't "pop a CD" every 17 seconds. That's not how it works.

Shield Block is a help, Demo Shout too, but neither will soak a strike. Again, why make it harder than necessary? Every raid has HoS or Ironbark or Pain Suppression or Spirit Link or Smoke Bomb or Devo Aura or etc., etc.

[Dazu]

Your shatter hits is really bad. My guild which is the same size had 1 hit total this week and our kill was very sloppy.

Your DPS/Healing numbers are fine in the DPS/HPS way. But looking at one of the tank deaths on your last attempt, he barely received healing over the last 5 seconds before the inferno strike killed him except for existing HoT's. Now, the inferno strike wasnt overly large, which means he cant have been fully healed up knowing there was a inferno strike less than 5 seconds away. This makes me think you might not be running with some form of boss mobs or such? If you are, the healers, especially the disc priests, should have pre-emptively shielded and topped people up a lot more, especially with 2. This makes me think your healers are probably reactive healing only, which just doesnt work by itself, they need to have everyone fully topped off before every inferno slice atleast. Reactive is fine except for that, but inferno will deal 200k odd damage in your raid size so to be safe in case of an unlucky cavein or shatter at the same time, you want every person over 250k when the inferno strike happens.

I think the Shatter damage/hits is whats really hurting you though, as that creates issues like low health for inferno strikes and possibly movement. Your ranged should be as far back as possible also so cave in isnt in melee range which results in melee either copping avoidable damage when inferno strike happens, or missing the inferno strike and making the ranged take larger hits.

[Slant]

Why are some people taking 2.4million damage across the encounter from Inferno Slice yet your mage has taken only 800k?

Mages can spec into a talent that let's them reduce slice damage massively. A strategy that is necessary for the mythic strategy my guild is playing.

[beelgers]

?

Why do something that makes the fight more difficult if it doesn't benefit the raid?

Sorry, that's stupid. Two slices on Heroic. There's NO REASON to take three whether you can or not.

Exactly. I keep seeing people suggest things that are harder - especially with this fight - only because you can. No reason to do anything the harder way. Nobody is getting an achieve for taking 3 slices. Even if the tanks survive, that's more stress on the healers, so they may let someone else die ultimately.

The strat Kerchunk offered near the top is what we do. Simple and effective.

If your healers are super stressed still, you can do silly stuff like have any paladins (if you have some) taunt+bubble soak a slice alone I guess. May just confuse things.

Take the easiest path. Doing anything else honestly just doesn't make sense.

[Adramelch]

People are harping on DPS. Yes, it's low but it really doesn't matter. You can survive indefinitely as long as you're using proper cooldowns and positioning.

It's easy to look at numbers and say "they're low" because it doesn't take any analysis and people like to get their peens out, but it really doesn't inform your strategy much at all. It's not like you're going to go "Hey guys, your DPS is low!" and they're just going to change. You need to work with what you've got, and if they're DPS is low then that's all the more reason to execute properly.

The DPS is waaaaay below what it should be for some people. Sure they're failing at mechanics as well, but there will come a point where you will still need that DPS (BF phase 2 maybe?). They have to fix both for sure, but fixing your DPS will apply to every single boss out there, while mechanics change. So for me, in the long term it's easier to fix your DPS and it's going to help with mechanics as well. A guy knowing that he'll be getting a DPS boost if he moves during GCDs will be able to recognize how to avoid mechanics in an optimal way.

Again, obviously they have to do both.