Aluriel and small groups

[Pale Cat]

Hello everyone!

We run a small guild of friends, and our raids are usually consist of 10-12 ppl. It was not a huge problem before (actually we enjoy it), but the last few bosses were so much easier with more ppl. For exmaple, Xavius and Heliya. We struggled to kill Xavius HC with 10, but then invited a few more to the raid, and it was a blast with 14. The fight became unbelievably easier. And now we have the same problem at Aluriel, so I'd like to ask you for suggestions.

Our group is manly 875+. Our DDs do 400-600k dps in Nighthold. And finally we had 12 ppl in the raid (Normal) tonight. The first 3 bosses were very easy (even easier then we expected them to be in Normal). But Aluriel wiped us until the end of RT. Which problems I see:
1. Mechanics are suited for bigger raid sizes.
2. Incoming damage and HP of mobs are huge.

The 1st point is fine, we can deal with it. But the 2nd one seems absolutely weird. With 500-600k dps on adds we couldn't kill them in time. We always had about 8-10 seconds (or even more) overlap with the next phase.

So my question is: is there a trick to kill adds faster? Could it be that scaling is broken for Aluriel? Because it really seems wrong. Both adds and the boss herself seem to have more HP than they should. Besides Aluriel was 10 times harder for us than the first 3 bosses, which bothers me.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and opinions!

[intrinsc]

My guild ran into a similar issue, but on a different boss. We run about 15 on a regular night, but had 11 for Star Augur and because of that it made P2 very hard(the groups and taking the debuff from the tank) specially with more icy ejections going out later in the phase.

On Aluriel, we had overlap also, but the adds were 3-5 seconds from dying when we went into the next phase, so it wasn't that bad. We just made up for it with our best DPS doing more and focusing solely on AOE talents and prepping for those adds instead of dumping resources on the boss and not having them for the adds. I know that's not a fix all, but yes, I think this raid prefers bigger groups.

[McTurbo]

Hello everyone!

We run a small guild of friends, and our raids are usually consist of 10-12 ppl. It was not a huge problem before (actually we enjoy it), but the last few bosses were so much easier with more ppl. For exmaple, Xavius and Heliya. We struggled to kill Xavius HC with 10, but then invited a few more to the raid, and it was a blast with 14. The fight became unbelievably easier. And now we have the same problem at Aluriel, so I'd like to ask you for suggestions.

Our group is manly 875+. Our DDs do 400-600k dps in Nighthold. And finally we had 12 ppl in the raid (Normal) tonight. The first 3 bosses were very easy (even easier then we expected them to be in Normal). But Aluriel wiped us until the end of RT. Which problems I see:
1. Mechanics are suited for bigger raid sizes.
2. Incoming damage and HP of mobs are huge.

The 1st point is fine, we can deal with it. But the 2nd one seems absolutely weird. With 500-600k dps on adds we couldn't kill them in time. We always had about 8-10 seconds (or even more) overlap with the next phase.

So my question is: is there a trick to kill adds faster? Could it be that scaling is broken for Aluriel? Because it really seems wrong. Both adds and the boss herself seem to have more HP than they should. Besides Aluriel was 10 times harder for us than the first 3 bosses, which bothers me.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and opinions!

To our guild .. Aluriel is about mob control. make your raid pop cool downs during adds (especially the arcane ones) and not on the boss .. the boss damage is pretty much nothing... biggest mistake ive seen is to many people staying on the boss and not helping on add's (or late switchers)

[Pale Cat]

To our guild .. Aluriel is about mob control. make your raid pop cool downs during adds (especially the arcane ones) and not on the boss .. the boss damage is pretty much nothing... biggest mistake ive seen is to many people staying on the boss and not helping on add's (or late switchers)

We're doing that, but it isn't helping. How many ppl are in your group?

[Shakou]

I don't think scaling is an actual problem at all, seemed like a wall for my guild (on heroic) but it's really more of an issue of a few people not being geared enough, our raid comp being sub-optimal, and people not hard switching to adds and focusing them down. My Gm seems to think this boss is a "pug killer" and I think he's flat out wrong about that and needs to research the fights better and recruit more people that fit our actual needs.

TL;DR if your group is not optimal you're going to have issues regardless but the biggest issues will always be A) no aoe stuns/interrupt rotation for the fire adds B) people are not swapping to adds fast enough and/or C) people are not using their cooldowns for the adds and/or D) people are trying to cleave all the adds down rather than focusing one at a time.

Obviously less difficult on normal than heroic, but your group cannot be melee heavy, your group must have an assortment of aoe stuns for the fire adds. And your group must only dps the boss (outside of cleave abilities) when any adds are up.

Also person saying that arcane adds are the worst is flat out wrong, it's not. It's the fire adds. With arcane phase you're probably wiping because you're standing in purple shit on the ground moreso than the adds.

There could also be some balancing issues, the difference in difficulty between her and the first 3 bosses is quite a lot but it's not the HP really.

[Pale Cat]

Hello everyone! So here's my report. We went with 15 ppl group (2 of them were PUG) yesterday and killed her without any major problems. Yes it wasn't easy still, but not as difficult as with 12.

So yes, scalling is the issue.

[ryougi]

I didn't get any problem as a 10 ppl group, but I think you will encounter a similar issue with Star Augur. The scaling is kind of bad, specifically when everyone (like 6 people) has the icy eject debuff and the tank need to soak the debuff after the meteor.
They should either reduce the number of targets for the icy eject debuff or reduce the number of falling meteor (like 2 instead of 3) for the ice phase for 10 ppl.

[Deleted]

I didn't get any problem as a 10 ppl group, but I think you will encounter a similar issue with Star Augur. The scaling is kind of bad, specifically when everyone (like 6 people) has the icy eject debuff and the tank need to soak the debuff after the meteor.
They should either reduce the number of targets for the icy eject debuff or reduce the number of falling meteor (like 2 instead of 3) for the ice phase for 10 ppl.

This. For the debuff to stay with 3 people requirement in small raid groups is a major oversight.

Or it might not be, very clearly since the flex was introduced, the small 10-12 raidgroups were consistenly given the finger by Blizzard.

[Soisoisoi]

This. For the debuff to stay with 3 people requirement in small raid groups is a major oversight.

Or it might not be, very clearly since the flex was introduced, the small 10-12 raidgroups were consistenly given the finger by Blizzard.

Probably not an oversight considering Helya had 3+ debuffs forcing you to have 3 dispels minimum too. Shit for smaller groups.

[NightZero88]

As per usual, Blizz screws over smaller group sizes. The amount of health that mobs get by adding another person is not equal to the amount of assistance the provide. A group of 20+ will always be better than 10+ these raid days. We had a lot of problems with spellblade due to add health as well but we managed to get it down after a day. The add health is extreme when you only have 5-10 dps. This has been this way for a long time though and I don't expect it to change ever.

[Taalyn]

Also person saying that arcane adds are the worst is flat out wrong, it's not. It's the fire adds. With arcane phase you're probably wiping because you're standing in purple shit on the ground moreso than the adds.

Like most generalizations this one is wrong. My raid group is only having issues on Arcane adds. We get the fire adds done with no issues using single target/cleave and whatever stuns/interrupts we have. We Heroism on the Arcane adds and we still have 3-4 cast Armageddon. We're working out whether we want to cleave or AoE and try to clump them better. We don't lose anyone to purple stuff on the ground.

[Ezekill]

My guild ran into a similar issue, but on a different boss. We run about 15 on a regular night, but had 11 for Star Augur and because of that it made P2 very hard(the groups and taking the debuff from the tank) specially with more icy ejections going out later in the phase.

On Aluriel, we had overlap also, but the adds were 3-5 seconds from dying when we went into the next phase, so it wasn't that bad. We just made up for it with our best DPS doing more and focusing solely on AOE talents and prepping for those adds instead of dumping resources on the boss and not having them for the adds. I know that's not a fix all, but yes, I think this raid prefers bigger groups.

Easy fix. Have all your dps/healers be in 1 group. If they get the pulsing circle they move out, each tank calls for when he needs to be cleaned of his debuff and 3 people who don't have a debuff go touch him. That's how I did my heroic pug 1 shot.

[MrDaemon]

If you have problems with Aluriel then wait for GulDan. Tbh most of the bosses are tuned for 20 man raid size.

[Deleted]

If you have problems with Aluriel then wait for GulDan. Tbh most of the bosses are tuned for 20 man raid size.

feels like it, and we ve seen 25 ppl raid just faceroll everything. Seems like blizz cant manage to balance the difficulty of their encounter across raid size, hence why they limit mythic to 20.

[Evilmoo]

My guild ran into a similar issue, but on a different boss. We run about 15 on a regular night, but had 11 for Star Augur and because of that it made P2 very hard(the groups and taking the debuff from the tank) specially with more icy ejections going out later in the phase.

Make tank take all 3 ice hits BEFORE clearing the debuff, makes raid / group rotation non-existent, requires small amount of additional healing towards tank and if you are lucky and have paladin tank with legendary bracers, he can be immune for EVERY ice meteor and requires practically no additional healing. (1 hit > Spellwarding > 2 hit >3 hit > Clear > 1 hit > Wings / Selfheal > 2 hit Ardent 3 hit > Clear > 1 hit > Bubble > Boss goes into 3rd phase.

[Sangomah]

We have a similar issue with low amount of ppl, but its rarely the tactics that usually puts a stop for us.

Helya has been the only boss where groupsize felt like a realy hinderance so far (we are 7/10 in NH so cant speak for Augur, Ellisande and Gul'dan) but the mandatory 3 dispels or 2 shadowpriests + 2 healers was a bit iffy with our group size on HC as the Tainted Sea does not run out before dispelled like it does on Normal.

For Aluriel specifically we just had the tanks stand in the middle in front of the stairs, with the group spread out around her, meaning we didnt move at all, and only started popping together when 2 ppl that were next to each other got hit. The only time we had to move was during the arcane phase due to the balls.

No matter how you look at it, smaller groups have higher demands on execution than bigger groups and that will always be an issue I guess, but dont be afraid to look outside the "normal" tactic boss when possible

[ryklin]

yeah I did a 12 man augur on normal on my alt, basically I just chained rage of the sleepyhead->survival instincts and cleared my dot at 2 stacks on the melee group during ejections then just ate the dot until the ranged were back together, but I can't even think of a strat that would work besides just eating the dot for a bit in a 10man, it's just not a good fight for small groups

and yeah boss hp seemed to scale a lot with more people, but adds, not so much, we tried to do an extra night with people, since learning new fights, normal took us a night and we only went 8/10 this week, 11 man heroic elisande was actually not too awful, but I feel like the damage check was really high for heroic and it was a really long fight, but 11 man gul'dan bonds was not fun

[Deleted]

It honestly feels like your dps are too cheap to switch to the right tallents.

There are barely any mechanics on Aluriel Normal, and 500-600k dps is less than what tanks do on 7 targets.

Sorry to say it, but you might give some 7.1.5 guides to your people, as most of Karazhan bosses are harder than this.

[Demonpuke]

We had a similar issue on Trilliax heroic. A few people showed up for optional raid day and we were brick walled at Trilliax. We had 10 people and there were too many foods coming out. All 10 of us would have a food and there would still be several still up. Went in today with 15 and it was trivial. Seems the number isn't tuned correctly for very low raid sizes.

[Threndsa]

I've done the fight on normal now with 10 and 11 players and it's fine. DPS ranged from ~550-750k Both fights ended right at the start of the arcane phase (pre adds) You can stack everything on normal and just mow em down. Unless you have no AoE in your comp you should be fine.