Mythic Blackhand Progression - Tanking and Strat Discussion

[Chewtoy]

Hello friends!

Since the community has been so helpful I figured I'd start another thread talking about Mythic Blackhand, so that people can share thoughts, ideas, lessons learned as you progressed, and other tidbits.

We're starting progression this week after we hopefully knock out farm and rekill furnace quickly.

I think we're going to approach it with two tanks, 5 healers. We put in about 12 pulls never seeing phase 2 and the healing felt really rough even with 5. Granted, I don't think we had a ton of coordination in regards to healing CDs and things set up yet. I'm hoping it was just that or people standing in the wrong place.

I've seen that some guilds 3 tank it...but I don't really understand what the big benefit from that is. I guess it's another person to soak in phase 3, easier to manage smashes so they don't go on the siege tank, etc. Yes, we're doing the facetank strat. We plan to have a guardian druid on it. Our two main tanks are myself, as prot warrior, and the guardian druid. We used a dps dk as tank for the furnace kill.

For smashes we need an external like sac or demo shout/shield wall/something right? 3rd one point yourself near the ranged to get life grip'd back in.


Our dps seemed really behind for phase 1 and transitioning...do people still try to hold lust for phase 3 or did you get better results using it in phase 1?

Also, do you fox to help the dps in phase 1, or the healing? If our dps can't hit the mark to phase after 3rd demo I'm not sure we have much of a choice though. Some people were really low on the attempts, hopefully it's just the traditional "I lagged" excuse.


Demo order I'm thinking will be Speed-Fiery-Plated-Explosive --- Or is Speed-Fiery-Explosive-Plated better so the boss doesn't really move?
Move boss NW to spawn speed.
Then hunter ferry the rest over moving Blackhand out for impale 4 to meet fiery.
Then blackhand to middle/west to spawn plated.

Is it better to go 3-3-3-3 for imaples in each seige, or did people find 3-4-3-3 with less DPS on fiery so it can take a 4th and the mortar bait team going out earlier to be better?

Mortar bait team is probably going to be a rogue, mistweaver monk, then some melee, dk maybe? Not sure. We'll have dk x 2, ret, warrior. They just go out and stay out once plated starts shooting, correct?


We have a bunch of melee, and unfortunately only one rogue so we'll probably have at least 5 melee in. For smashes in phase 3 is it better to do both tanks in it with slag and just ask for externals on me, or 3 melee? Do the melee have to pop some sort of CD to survive it or has the damage been nerfed enough that they just have to be in it?

I figured the soakers would be rogue, dps warrior, tank 1 and 2. I'll have the slag debuff from the bombs more than likely, so I'll have to rotate externals yes? Or would it be better for us to throw in another melee, granted we don't have any that can really gap close after the warrior and rogue so it'll be a dps loss.

[Deleted]

We are currently progressing on this; and I can give you some advice, my co-tank is a warrior and I'm a druid tank who is currently a designated 'siegetanker' while our warrior is a 'smashtanker'. So pretty much your situation.

You will have to start tanking; this is because of the threat reset he does when he smashes in phase 1. He does 3 smashes there, and he should do 2 on you, 1 and 3. The reasoning for this is you want your bear buddy to be second on threat table when you transition to phase 2, because he will have no way to damage or be in range to taunt blackhand most of the time. So the strategy is; use shield wall on first one, call for external like pain supression on third. You will be able to make it fine on the first one, but the third one you will need to be gripped or you die. Your bear buddy can use displacer beast to get out of the second smash fire quickly. But that's it for phase 1 really, how you handle mines and soaking them is up to your set up.

For other stuff in phase 1, fox is mainly for the healers, but its also a DPS check, so foxes really are needed and can't be missed. I'd try getting it done without hero first, to prove that you actually can do it; and then using heroism to just make sure you get to phase 2 so that its progress.

Now for phase 2, as a warrior you have the lovely job of spawning the siegemakers, you will have to go opposite the speedy one first, as that is the usual first one. For the fiery one I think you can just be near to the speedy one and it spawns, then your bear displacer beasts out after speedy one dies and picks it up. Third one was a bit awkward, you need to go kinda in the middle of the room to the left but your bear might also need to move with the fiery to blackhand as it spawns right when a smash happens, and if he starts moving back to bear, an explosive will spawn, but you'll have marks for this I'm sure. And 4th one just spawns anyway.

For smashes you will need personals and externals unfortunately; they hurt because you aren't splitting them with anyone, especially the first as the initial balcony would be cleared by enterprising hunters/warlocks/boomies. If you are only sending two people up, the other people will also need personals and if its a boomie just barkskin will not do, so this will be quite taxing on your quota of externals unfortunately and warriors get the short end of the stick here.

As for any other stuff in phase 2? Try and tank Blackhand so that he drops a mine that slags the speedy, but not your bear, also jump down as soon as you can and taunt back because siege+blackhand is fucking painful.

Haven't got to phase 3 yet... 31% was our best go but it seems that its pretty much the same as before, just with an extra mark and an extra thing to soak, I'd imagine no real change in tanking jobs there.

[Emancptr]

I think we're going to approach it with two tanks, 5 healers.

Highly recommend against 5 healing this fight. There simply isn't enough healing in P2 and P3 to justify bringing a 5th healer and it really hurts your dps for pushing all of the phases. Get used to using healing CDs appropriately and it won't be a problem. For your healing comp: Revival 1st demo, Fox+Paladin CDs+Tonics 2nd Demo, Fox+Tranq 3rd Demo. You should be foxing as the first demo hits the ground (2 big red circles will have spawned), not when the phase starts.

Note: A lot of people try and cover up P2 problems with 5 healers. This doesn't work. If you're not clearing balconies bringing 5 healers won't get you through the extra damage. You're much better off clearing balconies properly and bringing the extra DPS to deal with

I've seen that some guilds 3 tank it...

The benefit is positioning of the Smash in P2. If you are facetanking the siege engine you don't have a person that can position the boss for the smash. Therefore, the person tanking the boss has to move to the smash location (middle-ish of the room), which creates a lot of movement for melee and can cause problems with hitting the siege with marks. It's much easier to just have a third tank taunt the boss to the smash location at 100 energy. Importantly, you don't lose much damage with a 3 tank comp. A good Blood DK/Warrior tank will be roughly as much damage as any other melee on the fight.

That's not to say that the fight can't be 2 tanked, while tanking the siege engine. 2 Tanking just puts a lot more responsibility on the Blackhand tank to be in the right position for smash.

For smashes we need an external like sac or demo shout/shield wall/something right? 3rd one point yourself near the ranged to get life grip'd back in.

P1 smashes I would external. For the third smash in P1 just have CoW+Shield Wall up and leap/charge back in. Your range group is going to be running around for the 3rd demolition at this point.

You don't need an external for p2 Smashes, and you won't have enough externals to rotate for each smash. A 200k+ Shield Barrier is enough to survive, but it's more common/easier to have your Disc go Clarity of Will. It's essentially the Disc Priest's only job in P2 to make sure the tank/person getting smashed up have PW:S and CoW. Especially, if you're doing a 2 tank strat. You will want most of the external CDs available for when the boss+siege are on the same tank. Also, you don't need a life-grip. The tank is knocked back in the direction his (the tank's) back is facing. This means that you just turn your back once Blackhand starts casting Smash. You'll get punted to the near side and you can drop down to your tanking spot instantly.

Our dps seemed really behind for phase 1 and transitioning...do people still try to hold lust for phase 3 or did you get better results using it in phase 1?

You can Lust in P1 to get the hang of it, but eventually you will need to move it to later in the fight. Right now you have your dps moving too much/positioning problems. You want to minimize the amount of time you're tanking the boss in the middle of the room as that is where you take the most Demolition Damage. Watch Warcraft Logs Replay analysis to solve these issues.

www warcraftlogs com/reports/pT6k7Rr D2nm3gWGb#view=replay is our most recent Blackhand kill. The key points are that we tank the boss on the outside of the circle and then move into the middle to clear bombs once Demolition is done, and our range don't move a full circle. Compare that to your own replay where the boss is tanked in the middle of the room while Demolition is going off (your melee get absolutely trucked by demolition) and your range run an entire circle around the room.

Demo order...

Demo order doesn't really matter. Some will argue one method is easier than another, but the reality is that this is never a roadblock for guilds working on progression. Just know that only the first 2 siege makers die. So, those are the only ones that you have to worry about. I think it's easier to do 3-3 into the two siege makers that matter because it gives you more uptime on the boss. The problem with this strategy is it requires the siege makers to be hit by a couple of slag bombs each, which takes practice for positioning the boss.

For smashes in phase 3...

3 melee+non-slagged tank are enough to soak the smash without CDs. It'll hit each of them for about 150k, which isn't significant. It's best to have people that don't lose uptime soak the Smash. Rogues/Warrior/Monk are your best bets.

I'll have the slag debuff from the bombs more than likely, so I'll have to rotate externals yes?

You shouldn't be tanking the boss when you have a slag debuff. Generally, this means that once the Slag goes out the second tank taunts. You taunt back once the smash happens and your debuff will have fallen off. This won't be the case for the 3rd smash in P3. You will have 4-5 seconds left on Slag if you taunt the boss right as Smash happens. Shield Wall here, but if you've made it to this point you either have most of the raid up and it's a kill or you're going to wipe.

The biggest advice I can give you is look at videos/warcraft logs replays for positioning. Boss positioning is crucial in every phase of the fight and helps maximize uptime/damage.

[Deleted]

o/

Our first night of progress last night, we hit p2 4 times, only once with 20 people alive :P

Can't comment on tanking because atm our melee and tanks are setting off bombs and dying like morons, RIP. I'm playing Boomkin and can 100% confirm if you have foxes you should use 1 per demo rotation. It's physical damage so you can also BoP a healer.

We're 4 healing with 2 tanks, you'll need the extra DPS to get through P1 without the 4th demo coming in and I would probably say select classes that can stack CDs with a 2nd pot in P1 to do so, I'm doing it with my CA if I can get enough casts off.

Our healing CD rotation is something like..

HTT the first, with my Natures Vigil at the end doing a wopping 400k and any AGs you can spare - use the last 2 after you've stopped running.

Revival + Amp + a Barrier on the stacking point at the end

BoP on the Holy Paladin. We actually found the 3rd to be the hardest so we're going to consider double BoPing our Resto Shaman to spam Chain Heal, should make up for the lack of Resto Druid.

If you happen to have a resto druid, ask him to spam the shit out of genesis in P1. He'll drink mana like it's water but it makes healing SO much less sketchy. 5 melee is a problem but at the same time with 2 DKs, 1 Warrior and a Ret you can just have them use Defensive CDs plus a Smoke Bomb.



As I don't raid Tuesdays, I can't give any more feedback. Good luck!

[Cybrus]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/X92gPYrFBJv4Ch17

Help. We're cleaning up phase 1, but phase 2 is pretty brutal. When I get down there, I hardly have any CDs and a lot of our healers are low on mana. I run the boss to trigger the Speed Engine and then get smashed. Obviously I call for an external, but it's still a lot of damage. We hold our ground for a little bit but some things I'm having trouble with.

How do I position Blackhand to throw slag on the engine perfectly? If melee aren't careful, or the tanks and we get slagged... Kinda fucks us y'know? I'm just sort of at a loss of what we can do. We're also heroing at the start. Our raid leader thinks that with the amount of executing classes we have, phase 3 will be the least of our problems.

[Deleted]

How do I position Blackhand to throw slag on the engine perfectly? If melee aren't careful, or the tanks and we get slagged... Kinda fucks us y'know? I'm just sort of at a loss of what we can do. We're also heroing at the start. Our raid leader thinks that with the amount of executing classes we have, phase 3 will be the least of our problems.

Well lust @ pull to learn Phase 2 makes sense, you'll likely use it in P3 still though (at least thats what we're doing currently since we're also progressing).

As for the mines, he throws them @ 12, 4 and 8 o clock (so basically a Y 'pattern') so just make sure that the tank is @ 4 o clock if you're @ 12 so to speak. Hardest part I found was that the fucker sometimes throws them 20 yds away, and sometimes 5 yds. Not sure what to do about that.

[Deleted]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/X92gPYrFBJv4Ch17

Help. We're cleaning up phase 1, but phase 2 is pretty brutal. When I get down there, I hardly have any CDs and a lot of our healers are low on mana. I run the boss to trigger the Speed Engine and then get smashed. Obviously I call for an external, but it's still a lot of damage. We hold our ground for a little bit but some things I'm having trouble with.

How do I position Blackhand to throw slag on the engine perfectly? If melee aren't careful, or the tanks and we get slagged... Kinda fucks us y'know? I'm just sort of at a loss of what we can do. We're also heroing at the start. Our raid leader thinks that with the amount of executing classes we have, phase 3 will be the least of our problems.

Can't help much with P2 as we've not got there reliably yet

But I'd strongly recommend not heroing in P1, I mean yeah you'll get it down faster and everyone is alive with trinkets but I'm 90% sure you want P3 to be as fast as possible because the damage gets worse the longer it goes on. Yeah you've got a fair amount of executes, but over half of them aren't 20% executes (WW/DK/Hunter) so it just seems pointless. I might be wrong but that's from the majority of people I've spoken to about it anyway.

[Chewtoy]

One shot blast furnace the week after first kill? Sexy

Then.....we just kept dying all night to phase 1. People dying all over. I was getting wrecked through smashes with demo shout, barrier, sac. Added trinket and last stand to survive. I don't know...our 4 healing set up just wasn't getting it done. But our dps even on the very rare attempt when everyone was alive was still 3% short...I'm not sure what to do.

Moved him out to the edge of the ring, and then in middle for bombs.

May try to 5 heal, lust or something.

Logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/DjN3HVAJ7tm2FTwM

[Deleted]

One shot blast furnace the week after first kill? Sexy

Then.....we just kept dying all night to phase 1. People dying all over. I was getting wrecked through smashes with demo shout, barrier, sac. Added trinket and last stand to survive. I don't know...our 4 healing set up just wasn't getting it done. But our dps even on the very rare attempt when everyone was alive was still 3% short...I'm not sure what to do.

Moved him out to the edge of the ring, and then in middle for bombs.

May try to 5 heal, lust or something.

Logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/DjN3HVAJ7tm2FTwM

I mean, you've got 2 mages playing Fire and a rogue playing Combat on Mythic Blackhand. It's not a wonder you're having issues, honestly. I'm sure the fight can be done with 2 Fire mages and a Combat rogue when it's on farm, but I'd suggest Arcane and Subtlety very, very forcefully during progression.

[Deleted]

How do I position Blackhand to throw slag on the engine perfectly? If melee aren't careful, or the tanks and we get slagged... Kinda fucks us y'know? I'm just sort of at a loss of what we can do. We're also heroing at the start. Our raid leader thinks that with the amount of executing classes we have, phase 3 will be the least of our problems.

I feel like you're kinda either being overly cautious, or your melee are too bad to be able to kill blackhand. If you're really worried that your melee can't position themselves sensibly, then pull blackhand far away from the siege the instant he throws the mines into the air. And then there's no risk of anything since you have plenty of time to get clear before any activate.

Usually, it doesn't actually matter if melee do get slagged in p2 anyway, since unless you are sending them to balconies they do not take any damage from anything in p2 and 100% more dmg taken on 0 base damage, is still 0 damage. Tanks though of course can't really afford it.

As for the mines, he throws them @ 12, 4 and 8 o clock (so basically a Y 'pattern') so just make sure that the tank is @ 4 o clock if you're @ 12 so to speak. Hardest part I found was that the fucker sometimes throws them 20 yds away, and sometimes 5 yds. Not sure what to do about that.

For when he throws too short/far (relative to your chosen positioning) you can just have an assigned person (we have our disc priest do it I think) go in and manually pop it, it will be close enough that the explosion reaches if your original position was correct.

[Emancptr]

Logs...

You have a ton of just fundamental problems going on in your raid.

Raid Dps:

Basically, across the board your damage is 3-5k lower than it should be. I think the majority of that is people getting used to the fight and this will improve as people get more comfortable. I also agree with the poster above that your mages need to be arcane and your rogue should be combat. In the meantime, Lust in p1. You're going to have 50+ wipes learning p2 anyway and lusting in P1 until your dps adjusts is a good plan.

General Problems:

The first thing I do when looking at anyone's logs is jump over to the problems tab. You have two major issues here.

1) You and apachechief aren't potting. Pre-potting armor potions is a 2-3k dps increase for you in P1 as well as a survivability increase. If you pre-pot that armor potion will still be up for the first massive demolition that goes out. All of your dps pre-pot, but if you're still having problems in p1 after using Lust you can add second pots to p1.

2) Healthstone/Healing Tonic Usage. Just flat out atrocious and you're the biggest offender. You don't use a single healing tonic or healthstone (Note: Healing Tonics are universally better and dirt cheap). A Healing Tonic on this fight is 300-400k healing because of resolve for you and it's still around 100k for all of your other raid members. I could eliminate 50% of your entire raids' deaths by using healing tonics. Ermac your Shadow Priest dies first almost every pull, but doesn't use a Healing Tonic once. He would live almost every single fight simply by using a Healing Tonic. Go buy 500 healing Tonics for like 1k gold and give them to your raiders.

Cooldowns:

External Cooldown usage is really bad. You have 27 Blackhand wipes, so I would expect the majority of the cooldowns I list below to be used at least 27 times.

Chewtoy: Shield Wall - 13, Vigilance - 14, Last Stand 19
Fabulouth: Life Cocoon - 6
Lorn: Pain Suppression - 9, Power Word: Barrier 9
Oriencor: Hand of Sacrifice 0
Corahed: Ironbark - 6

I could continue listing more CDs that you didn't use, but you get the point. Your druid tank is actually using Survival Instincts pretty well on this fight. This means that external CD usage is mostly coming down to you and you're not using them enough. Every time you're tanking the boss and Demolition is going out you should be using a CD. Here's what I would do if I started tanking this boss.

Massive Demo 1: Shield Wall
Massive Shattering Smash: Life Cocoon + Shield Barrier (If you wait to pop Shield Wall until right as first demolition lands it'll be up for this)
Massive Demo 2: Hand of Sacrifice (even though you're offtanking good to minimize damage) I vigilance either my co-tank or melee that tank a bunch of damage here.
Massive Demo 3: Pain Suppression + Last Stand
Massive Shattering Smash: Hand of Sac + Shield Barrier (Paladin should be clemency or get it from your ret)

Your spec/build:

Don't know why you're running Impending Victory on this boss. Heals for less than Enraged Regeneration, Costs Rage, and costs a GCD. It's just universally worse. Enraged Regeneration will be up for both the first and third Massive Demolitions when you're tanking.

Ravager isn't the best for this fight because more than 50% of the damage you take isn't parry-able. Take Gladiator Stance for the passive reduction.

You're not running a big enough Health Pool for this boss to account for errors. It looks like you're already using a Stamina Flask, but if you have a 685 Pillar of Earth that is your best bet to increase your survivability. Replace Tablet with Pillar or another Stamina trinket and you can probably go back to a Strength Flask if your HP is around 540k.

Positioning:

Your raid group is still taking way too much damage from Massive Demolition. You take 3-4 million more than most groups that kill it, which is a 20-25% increase. Your melee are still taking too much damage and you're not actually tanking him on the edge of the room. Here's a crappy paint picture of what I mean.

imgur com/6BI0N4G

Key Points:

Melee are always on the far side of the boss from the range group. They should track the massive Demlotions around as they fall and slowly move across the back of the boss to be opposite the range group.

Blackhand is just on the edge of the outer circle. Honestly, he could be moved a little bit further out from that is shown on that drawing. Compare that to what your replay shows. Blackhand is entirely inside the circle and you and apache are almost standing directly in the middle on the skull. This problem gets worse every time you guys move Blackhand back into "position." Blackhand should return to the edge of the circle after you clear bombs. Each time you guys clear bombs Blackhand moves closer and closer to the middle where you take more and more damage.

You ranged just need to adjust to the fight/move quicker. They're taking more damage then they should and that's just a matter of getting used to the pace at which they need to move. Essentially, once you start running you don't stop until you get to the end point (ignore where the red line ends they need to run slightly further than that on the drawing).

Your rogue needs to find feint and take 60% less damage than he is currently.

Edited* to talk about positioning.

[Chewtoy]

Thanks for all the feedback Emancptr, I really appreciate it! It'll help a ton

We don't have a 3rd hunter, we've been trying to recruit one but no luck so far. Is that factored into the 3-5k dps behind number? I believe the rogue said last night he was going to be spec'ing differently for the fight. The mages...are stubborn at best, one performs really well and is up there. We also weren't resetting the boss to pull each time, so he'd be all over the room. That will probably help spike numbers at the start too. I was potting, but did miss quite a few looking back at the logs now when he was in a wonky position and I was following him to go pull. Having him stationary should make it significantly easier.

Yeah, I missed tonics, a lot of my deaths were taking a smash while being too low. I'll watch it better and use one before the smash, and get a higher health pool like you said. We'll emphasize the importance, like you said tonight, especially to those who lag behind from the group. Going back and watching replays the people dying the most were also the ones behind as we ran around, thus taking more damage from each smash.

Cooldowns will be somewhat staggered better. I was using Last Stand, Demo Shout, Barrier on the first one, with a sac so I thought that'd be enough. However, when I'm dead I wouldn't get a chance to use shield wall. We've stack'd CDs differently for tonight like this:
Demo 1 - Fox Trysm + Revival + Druz Rally - Bop some healer to turret (Fab?) after 2nd hits (from Ori) - Pain Sup Chew, Tones Sac
Demo 2 - Fox Effin + Paladin super CDs + Scrittles Amp - Ori Bubble after 2nd hits and just go nuts - Chew Vig Brian, Tones Sac Brian
Demo 3 - Tranq + Fallen Amp + Lorn Barrier + Sneaky Smoke Bomb - Cora Bop'd after 2nd hits (from Tones), Druz Vig Chew, Lorn Grip - Ori Sac Chew

Should I shield wall 1 or demo it? With rallying up for demo 1, I'll be able to last stand 3.

I'll be making the spec changes you suggested. Makes more sense to have the hot on me while incapacitated. I unfortunately, never got a Mythic Pillar, it never dropped. All I have is heroic pillar, or mythic blackhand trinket (from a cache). Go with the blackhand?

Positioning....healers claimed that when we were on the outside like that they weren't able to heal us during the run for demolitions. They claimed they could never really get to the melee, and could barely reach tanks. Is that really 40 yards....are we doing something wrong there?

I agree, watching replays some melee don't move at all, or jump into defensive stances. The ranged that die the most often are the ones that lag behind and are closer for demo hits, if they can pick it up they'll probably live more.

[Emancptr]

3-5k across the board is what you need to be doing to make it comfortably. Obviously that's harder without 3 foxes, but it's more than possible. My guild's dps are probably 5-10k dps higher than yours, but that's because we've done 100 more pulls of practice.

Again, don't get hung up on the dps numbers. Lust in P1 to get more practice on P2 and by the time you start seeing P3 and want to drop lust from P1 your dps will be comfortable enough in P1 to not need it.

Cooldowns look fine (don't BoP your monk, he should just be Rushing Jade Wind on the raid). I would save Shield Wall for the third demo/smash because that is the highest damage phase. Demo Shout should be up for both of your demolitions.

The stamina trinkets/gear are all about thresholds. 530-540k ish is the threshold where you're not going to die to 3 mitigated melee swings and you have room to play around on Smashes. The first solution is to use a Stamina Flask if you weren't already. That would get you around 525k. If you were using a Stamina Flask then equip Blackhand trinket instead of Tablet and use a Strength Flask.

Your healers are out of range because they are running on the absolute outside of the ring. Have healers "cheat" to the inside 2-3 yards and they'll be in range of melee. This also helps because it prevents piles from spawning outside the circle/in the run path.

[Deleted]

Curious about gearing though, Since the high amount of unblockable/parryable damage, is this a fight where dropping the 4p or even 2p would be worth it for more versatility and the likes? I've not bothered with dropping anything yet but I do have a few WF off pieces that I could switch in instead.

I don't think it's worth it though, curious about other opinions on the matter.

[Emancptr]

4 piece is really good on this fight. There's only a lot of un-blockable damage in P1. By the end of the fight 70-75% of your damage taken will be melee from Blackhand.

Versatility is also incredibly good on the fight. If you want to min/max survivability on this fight you can put BA/Versatility pieces in non-4 piece slots. Sco's build for this fight was/still is very versatility heavy (8-9% ish). It's very good for Smash/Demolition damage and isn't bad versus melee.

[Chewtoy]

Well, we started getting farther by using lust to make sure that we were hitting phase 2. DPS was going up over the course of the night as people were getting more comfortable. We had some push as Demo 3 happened, or during it.

Logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...jY61r#fight=35

Still had some deaths in phase 1 though to massive demolition. So, I'm not sure if it's how we're doing healing CDs or what is going on there. We ended up with this as our final version for the time being:
Demo 1 - Fox Trysm + Tranq + Cora Bop'd after 2nd hits (from Tones) - Chew Last Stand + Shield Wall + Demo, Tones Sac
Demo 2 - Fox Effin + Paladin super CDs + Scrittles Amp - Ori Bubble after 2nd hits - Chew Vig Brian, Tones Sac Brian, Life Cocoon
Demo 3 - Revival + Fallen Amp + + Druz Rally+ Lorn Barrier + Sneaky Smoke Bomb, Druz Vig Chew, Lorn Grip - Ori Sac Chew, Chew Demo
Transition 1 - Devo

In phase 2 - Do other guilds assign where to soak in the room? Melee near where the boss ends up, some ranged further back, some in the middle, etc?

The transition still seems really rough, we lose a few people right away, or myself to not a lot of healing while I have Blackhand on the far side to spawn speedy.

We did however, have a few times where I got smashed and he instead ran and killed DPS instead of going to my co-tank...why?

However, once we get going things seem to be somewhat fine until right about when Fiery spawns and it all goes to shit. I think it's because we're having trouble with people getting up onto the balconies when they're supposed to.

On smashes where it's just myself and a boomkin how do you handle CDs? The boomkin seemed to be constantly dying or was really low when they landed on the balcony and died shortly after. I also seem to be taking a bunch of damage...do I have to set up some kind of external CD for every single smash in that phase?

Anyone have a good weak aura for smash timers and reminders for people to go up, one you can maybe alter the text for like the Operator WA?

Also are there any good weak aura's out there for the mortar CD showing time until the next so that they team can get out easier. Our lovelies were forgetting and dropping fire wherever.

[Emancptr]

Still had some deaths in phase 1

All your deaths in P1 are individual players lagging behind/not knowing how to deal with impale being thrown during a demo. Your guild's total Demolition damage is down to an acceptable level, and with the hotfix to demolition damage it should be even easier next reset.

In phase 2 - Do other guilds assign where to soak in the room? Melee near where the boss ends up, some ranged further back, some in the middle, etc?

You only need to soak the half of the room that the tank is on, completely ignore the other side of the room. You can assign areas for players, but eventually people just get comfortable about where they need to soak. The only big thing is to have healers soak back/middle so that they're in range of you on the other side of the room.

Here's two pictures that help you get there.

imgur com/tc7kaWJ,38jvUxx#0
imgur com/tc7kaWJ,38jvUxx#1

The first pictures shows the rough area that you need to soak, and where healers should be relative to it. The second picture is probably more important and not intuitive. Right now your whole guild gets thrown everywhere on the transition. Ideally, you position yourselves during the p1/p2 transition to land in a good spot.

The basics, the boss pushes you towards the middle of the circle based on the closest edge. The closer you are to the edge (that is the edge of the inner circle) the further you are pushed in the opposite direction. Based on this, you can reliably land close/where you want to be by positioning accordingly. The tank should be on the right side of the circle as you enter Blackhand's room (red position one) and the Range/Dps should be on the left side of the circle (Blue position 1). They will end up roughly tank (red position 2) and range/dps/healers (Blue position 2). Again, the closer you are to direct middle of the room the less you will be pushed one way or another. The closer to the edge of the circle the further you are pushed.

The transition still seems really rough, we lose a few people right away, or myself to not a lot of healing while I have Blackhand on the far side to spawn speedy.

Your healers aren't dispelling Burning Cinders quickly enough. Have all of them take the double dispel glyph that gives them two charges. 8 Dispels will help clear the soakers quicker. Mass Dispel if required. Your shamans are doing a good job of using grounding totem and your hunters look like they're deterring the debuff, which is all good. Make sure both shaman are using shamanistic rage to clear the debuff, they're one of the best soakers. Also, your Dks should be wanting to soak so they can AMS.

You don't need to send 3 people for the first balcony. Send the Warlock and Boomkin to land on the first balcony during the transition, but have your hunter soak. Hunters are one of the better soakers.

We did however, have a few times where I got smashed and he instead ran and killed DPS instead of going to my co-tank...why?

Every time a Smash happens it's a complete threat drop. To avoid this problem you need to stop losing all of the threat in P1 each time he smashes. Once the targeting reticule for smash has appeared that target will be smashed. However, the off-tank can taunt the boss while smash is being cast by Blackhand and before the smash threat drop occurs to preserve threat. This is most important on the 2nd/3rd smash in P1.

Right now, 2nd smash in P1 clears your druid's threat. He builds threat for roughly 10-15 seconds before you come back and taunt for 3rd smash. You get smashed and the boss goes back to druid's relatively low threat. If you taunt as the bear is getting smashed by the 2nd smash, and if the bear taunts while you're being smashed for the 3rd smash you preserve all the threat you've built and melee won't surpass it when you get the 1st smash in P2.

On smashes where it's just myself and a boomkin how do you handle CDs?

You don't have enough Cds to do this. Like I said earlier, your Disc needs to go clarity of will. Your disc priest's entire job in P2 is to ensure that both you and whoever is soaking the smash have a CoW and PW:S. That is 300k worth of absorbs and more than enough to survive the smash + be healthy enough to deal with the balcony.

Anyone have a good weak aura for smash timers and reminders for people to go up, one you can maybe alter the text for like the Operator WA?

I don't have WA for these things, but i'm sure you could create/find them. If you're directly comparing to the Thogar WA that Midwinter used, that was just a text WA. You can write anything you want in that. e.g.

Smash 1 - Solo Tank
Smash 2 - Tank + Boomchicken 1
etc.

Smash happens at 100 energy on Blackhand and any boss mod will tell you when it's happening. Boss mods will also tell you which smash it is for that phase. Smash 1 is solo soaked by you, and after that it depends on how you're doing balconies.

Note: this is the biggest benefit of having a third tank. A third tank's one and only job is to watch Smash timer and call out who is going up. Then taunt and position Blackhand for the smash.

Also are there any good weak aura's out there for the mortar CD showing time until the next so that they team can get out easier. Our lovelies were forgetting and dropping fire wherever.

100 energy on the siege tanks. Again, easy WA to make, but just as easy to /focus the siege tank and move out at 90ish energy.

[Deleted]

Hypothetical question: as a tank in P3, can you take massive shattering smash, while slagged and splitting it with 3-4 other people?

[Emancptr]

Yes, Smash in P3 hits for ~150k on 4 targets (3 melee + 1 tank). Slagged debuff means 100% more damage, so you'd get hit for ~300k by the smash. Liveable without CDs if you're at full HP.

[Athridon]

chew toy of the apocalypse idk