Gormok the Impaler 25 Hardmode

[Neza]

Tuesday our guild rocked 25 reg ToC and last night we decided to give Hardmode a couple tries. We moved in and immediately noticed Gormok was MUCH harder. We would either get him to ~20% and the worms would spawn, killing everyone, snobolds would become a focus for dps, creating a lack of dps on Gormok leading to yet another worm spawn, or, and this was our largest problem, a tank would taunt Gormok, gain aggro, then immediately get 1 or 2 shot by back-to-back Impales. Before each tank taunts we make sure they wait for the debuffs to drop completely.

Our tanks are a feral druid, a frost dk, and a prot pally. Each one is in 3/5-5/5 8.5, or even some 9/9.5. They have all tanked all of Ulduar and ToC and have the gear to prove it.

After calling the raid we discussed our issues, and the back-to-back Impales came up as the largest issue. Does anyone know if there is another condition that maybe causes an Impale, or if it might even be bugged?

On a side note, the 2 tanks not holding Gormok made sure they were standing behind him along with the rest of the melee dps to prevent parries.

[korthelle]

each tank wont hold gormok for more than 15-25 seconds.

2 stacks of impale. then switch.

impale is on a timer.

and lastly, BoP and DP remove impale.

remember that he does 50% increased damage at the end, so if you dont switch at 2 stacks, even the most geared tank will die.

[Facktotum]

You can do it with 2 tanks Prot Pally,Feral Druid or Frost DK. The Prot pally can reset his stacks with BOP. You need all the dps you can get on Gormok so when the jormungars appear he should be dead or almost around 1-3%. Another thing to note is killing the snowbolds is another priority. 15% dmg increase from Gormok for every snowbold.

As for the jormungars they should be dead after the 3rd burrow to ensure you have enough time which is around 2mins 30secs to kill Icehowl.

As for Icehowl its very important that you get him stunned every time he charges. Fast movement to get out of the way (swiftness potions if needed) is very important.

You need your raid to be doing at least 5-7k dps to get all three down.

[Neza]

We tried killing the snobolds with all ranged dps, while the melee stayed on Gormok and that is when we would end up getting him to about 20% and then worms would spawn.

We also tried the 2 tank strategy a few times with the pally and druid, would manage to get him down right as worms come up, but one tank would have Impales left on it and would get destroyed by whichever worm they were tanking.

Currently our average dps for the raid is right around 5.1k, so it seems like that might just be the issue. I think we also might try switching at 2 stacks.

Another note, has anyone tried to Tranq Shot the anger dmg buff he gets overtime, or is that from the snobolds being out?

[Tippie]

The "Rising Anger" buff that he gets increases his dmg by 15%.

It appears to be cast by the snobolds. Is it 1 stack PER snobold that is alive, can 1 snobold cast it multiple times? Does he get one each time a snobold dies?

[meag333]

The "Rising Anger" buff that he gets increases his dmg by 15%.

It appears to be cast by the snobolds. Is it 1 stack PER snobold that is alive, can 1 snobold cast it multiple times? Does he get one each time a snobold dies?

It stays even after the snobold dies. Rather its 1 stack per active snobold.

[Shiira]

The "Rising Anger" buff that he gets increases his dmg by 15%.

It appears to be cast by the snobolds. Is it 1 stack PER snobold that is alive, can 1 snobold cast it multiple times? Does he get one each time a snobold dies?

They can cast it multiple times but only do so if the person that the snobold is on dies.

[Eurytos]

It is ideal to have 3 tanks in 25 man heroic. And they should also only be taking 2 stacks, this is the reason for the third tank. The dot lasts for 30secs. If you only have 2 tanks, the first tank will get 2 dots, 2nd tank taunts. By the time the first tank has the dot fall off the second tank has 3 dots on him. 3rd tank is necessary so the stacks will only stay at 2 or less. BoP and Divine shield are good to have as well.

Keeping the dot at 2 stacks will help keep your tanks alive and your healers happy. Not killing snobolds and Gormok before Worms is a dps issue.

[Blkangus]

Here's a link to our 25-man heroic kill of Northrend beasts combat log: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=4887&e=5408

For phase 1 we had all ranged focusing snobolds, but when possible we had the person afflicted get close to melee so all dps could do damage to them, although melee was focusing on boss damage. We really didn't have any trouble keeping tanks alive or reaching phase 2 with the first boss down.

For phase 2, we had physcial dps (melee + hunters) attacking dreadscale at the beginning, but after the first burrow all dps switched to acidmaw and we went all out to kill him asap. We usually had him to about 15% when the second burrow occurred, and after they came back up we finished off acidmaw and then burned dreadscale. I dont' think we ever quite got dreadscale down before a third burrow stage. We had to finish off the last 5-10% of dreadscale when icehowl arrived.

Phase 3 was mainly about intelligent spacing around the room, and we used aspect of the pack during the stun phase to allow everyone to get back to the boss and dps during the buffed damage phase as much as possible.

Hope this helps.

[Rowen]

We had exactly the same problems as the OP describes; lack of DPS and the tanks being wtfpwned by the boss. Perhaps we just need to farm regular ToC 25 for more gear.

[Tharkkun]

Same problem for us. We'd be just getting him down as the worms spawned on us. I chalk it up to lack of gear though which seems to be the issue for guilds who rolled through normal mode and haven't been farming 239 loot from Ulduar hard modes for months.

[Vampiricdemise]

My guild was experiencing the tank gib (prot pally, prot warrior, offspec prot pally) but our DPS was fine going from Gormok to the Jormungars. Sadly we kept falling apart come the worms on the 25man and had only seen Icehowl a handful of times before just dying because the worms were still alive at the time.

[ewhenn]

We tried killing the snobolds with all ranged dps, while the melee stayed on Gormok and that is when we would end up getting him to about 20% and then worms would spawn.

We also tried the 2 tank strategy a few times with the pally and druid, would manage to get him down right as worms come up, but one tank would have Impales left on it and would get destroyed by whichever worm they were tanking.

Currently our average dps for the raid is right around 5.1k, so it seems like that might just be the issue. I think we also might try switching at 2 stacks.

Have your druid be the last tank in the rotation, have a paladin Hand of Protection the druid to clear the Impales, and have the druid quickly cancel the HoP effect so he can tank. This is what we did.

Also 5.1K on the gormok Phse is a little low, we had 8 or so people over 6K DPS for that phase, the rest were all above 5.3Kish.

[Izzirez]

We've been using 2 tanks (warrior tank, 50k+ buffed, and druid tank, 55k+ buffed) for this fight. Believe they'd take it up to 3-4 impales before switching, then it would be bopped off on the first round. Possibly use cds for some of them, but usually Pain suppression was saved for the worms after we killed one and the other enrages until its dead.

[Foxlarocks]

North rend beasts... the gate keeper.

[Deleted]

If you're having trouble with enough dps to take down Gormok before the jormungar's turn up, then consider what you're applying your dps on.

Snobolds? Take a look at what impact they have on the fight compared to everything else going on.

If they're on a caster (especially a healer) it can be an issue for sure, as they interrupt casts.

If you get one stuck to melee or hunter though, it's a minor inconvenience and not worth wasting the dps on killing when you MUST get Gormok dead before the worms arrive.

For tank survivability, just consider that Gormok's damage increases throughout the 3 mins you have to kill him. Use cooldowns intelligently and pre-emptively (ie. not as "oh shit" buttons).

[Amonet]

As long as you have a decent amount of HP you'll make it, by assigning 3 healers on the tanks you will most likely always get a fully effective heal on you to get you ready for the next hit.
Though, his hits are lots and lots harder than usual, not to mention the dot he does.

[Snorri]

Some tips that we learned today. Overall the fight is the same as on normal except is requires a lot more healing and dps.

DPS Gormok as fast as you can without using heroism. Ignore kobolds that land on the dpsers. Only switch to kobolds that land on tanks and healers. If you dps all kobolds too much while fighting Gormok you lose too much time and the worms will come out. Someone keeps track of the timer. If you have plenty of time, stop dpsing the boss at around 10% and then focus dps on the remaining kobolds instead so that you don't have to waste time fighting them while the worms are out.

Hand of Protection removes the impale debuff. Useful to use it on a tank right after Gormok dies so that he does not have to have it while fighting the next boss.

Use heroism on the worms. You only have 3 minutes to fight them and some of that time will be spent while they are burrowed. You want to nuke them the hardest.

On Icehowl it is extra important to spread out to minimize the amount of people being hit by his icebreath. He ALWAYS does it after he has recovered from a stun by running into the wall. If you are hit you are stunned for the time and that's a few seconds loss of dps. If you fail to move away from his charge a single time there is a big risk of wipe due to the extra damage he gets and you miss an opportunity to do extra damage on him. During the charges you do NOT gain any speed boost, so you have to react even faster.

[G l o w y r m]

each tank wont hold gormok for more than 15-25 seconds.

2 stacks of impale. then switch.

impale is on a timer.

and lastly, BoP and DP remove impale.

remember that he does 50% increased damage at the end, so if you dont switch at 2 stacks, even the most geared tank will die.

This pretty much.

The big thing is BoP and DP removing impale, that's a little trick we use even on 25 normal sometimes. The key is though that the tank has to click it off FAST!

Also someones else said to realize that the damage increases over the fight, so make sure at almost 2 minutes in tanks start using their cooldowns and pots and not wait until they are at 1% HP.

We always kill the snobolds, but our dps is really good so...you're may just need more practice to move quicker between targets or you may need to appoint ranged to only kill snobolds on non healer/casters so the rest can stay on Gormok, and if the snobold is on a healer/caster then have even more dps dedicated to those ones.

[Belloc]

DS removes impale, not DP.

Furthermore, you want to save your Divine Shield for phase 2, in the event that you get a bad paralytic poison and are unable to be saved by a person with burning bile. A two stack of impale isn't the bad part -- the damage from having impale applied is what really hurts. If you can manage the encounter, your healers can manage a 2 stack. Save your DS.

If you really need something to manage the final 2 stack, just use a glyphed Hand of Salvation.