Deathbringer Saurfang: two details I'd like to know

[Kaysha]

I've faced off against Deathbringer Saurfang in both 10-man and 25-man, but only downed him 3 times on 10-man so far. On 25-man, the raid keeps wiping (on two different raid attempts). This is of course because Saurfang casts 3 Blood Boils in 25-man (which each last 24 sec, instead of the single Blood Boil in 10-man, which lasts 15 seconds) and he summons more Blood Beasts (5 vs. 2), causing him to gain Blood Power more rapidly than in 10-man. Key to the fight is trying to minimize his gain in Blood Power, I know that.

But there are two things I don't know yet, with regards to the Blood Beasts. As a healer, I don't really focus on the Blood Beasts to really analyse those two things during a battle, so I hope someone else knows.

1) How many Blood Power charges does Saurfang gain when a Blood Beast hits a player? I've only found one post on WoWhead claiming it's 3 charges per hit, but no other source that confirms this. Is this true (for 10 and 25 man versions)?

2) WoWhead also lists a spell "Scent of Blood". Its effect says that the Blood Beast picks up the scent of blood, reducing enemy movement by 80%, but increasing their DPS by 300% at the same time. Is this effect actually happening, and if so, who gains the movement penalty, who gains the DPS boost? The tooltip info is not clear on that - the wording "enemy" is ambiguous; it could easily be read from the point of view of the player, as well as from the Blood Beast.

[PurechaosSK]

1. 3 sounds correct
2. Possibly a Heroic Ability... i have never seen this happen in 25/10 m normal that I can recall

[hecub]

1 I've never verified the power gain per hit of the beast sorry
2 I have no memory of being the target of any debuff during this encounter neither can I find a trace of such debuff in my logs. I can not either remember of a blood beast being self snared (and no trace in logs either on this side)
If you look at the blood beast referenced spell on wowhead you'll see that the scent of blood spell is not present (and it not in saurfang capability) : I'd say this spell is not used during the encounter.

PS : when we have no disc priest and a low dps 25m raid we just go with 2 tank 5 heal (2 are assigned to dps untill one of the 3 assigned to heal die if possible) and let die as soon as possible any target of the Mark of the Fallen Champion the only persons we heal are the tanks, the last 3 healers or someone who get the Mark while saufrag is below 20-25% health. This make the encounter a little more RNG but it reduce drastically Saurfang power gain :
here is a fight we totally screwed up :
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/1...?s=2192&e=2610
that conclued to an horrible down, but a down anyway.
I did not take the log but I did it in a PuG + reroll raid : bad execution + really low dps but it was a down anyway.

[kungfumonkey]

1) I think it is 3 yeah.. its difficult to actually count it but all you need to know is.. however many points it actually is its to many.. dont let them hit people.

2) Again never seen it in the fight, either an ability they never implemented or they are saving it for Heroic mode.. its seems to have the right amount of "nasty" in it to be an heroic ability.

if you did not know all ready a discipline priest (even unexperienced poor geared one) can make a huge difference in controlling the blood power.. You will need 2 in 25 man if possible and just have em shield all the people stood at ranged.

[Iosif]

I am sure it is more ten 3 per hit, maybe its 3 per hit in 10m but in 25m I'm certain its much more> Honestly the amount of energy he gets for a Blood-beast hits you is a mute point there is no reason for anyone to get hit by them for any reason. They can be slowed Frost Trap, Earth-bind Totem and Blizzard[Chill Effect] and even Stunned. Blizzard is not a preferred method since it requires they are AE resistant mobs. There is enough ways to slow them and they die fast enough that if anyone in the raid gets hit you have player issues.

Sent of Blood is a Heroic appears to be a heroic ability.

[Fornaw]

I've faced off against Deathbringer Saurfang in both 10-man and 25-man, but only downed him 3 times on 10-man so far. On 25-man, the raid keeps wiping (on two different raid attempts). This is of course because Saurfang casts 3 Blood Boils in 25-man (which each last 24 sec, instead of the single Blood Boil in 10-man, which lasts 15 seconds) and he summons more Blood Beasts (5 vs. 2), causing him to gain Blood Power more rapidly than in 10-man. Key to the fight is trying to minimize his gain in Blood Power, I know that.

Sounds like a problem with your ranged TBH. If they are getting hit by bloodbeasts at all they are doing it wrong. Make teams assign them to a specific beast. If you don't have high ranged dps assign melee to help out your ranged, after a delay. EG warlock starts off on his add with searing pain x2 meanwhile your warrior tank devastates to the warlock's side stunning the blood beast, warrior intervenes said mob and warrior+warlock tear it apart before it gets to the warlock. Warlock of course can demonic teleport if it gets close. Paladins for HoJ, DKs for CoI, even Enh Shamans for Frost Shock (careful with this one, it has a +threat) make good pairings. Whatever melee you have working with an arcane mage should be careful, arcane puts out lousy threat.

Your goal on 10 should be 0 marks, your goal on 25 should be 0-1 marks, if you aren't accomplishing this you need to figure out where he is getting all the blood from.

[Threndsa]

1) Three a hit sounds about right. BUT hits shouldn't be happening at all.
2) Im gonna say thats a heroic ability as it is not in the current fight.

[Kaysha]

Thanks for the hints and info (so far :P). The issue of not getting hit in the first place is a good one, but also a bit on the derailing track .

The main reason to get information on this is so that I can figure out what's wrong with our raid's attempt, why he gains so much Blood Power to begin with. Then I would like that information to inform and instruct the rest of the raid.

[Nangz]

1. 3 a hit I do agree with.

2. Imma go with heroic ability also. It would only make sense for it to be given to the player because that way you can't kite them but must burst them down.
If it is a blood beast buff then kiting them would be very easy and the 300% damage would be pointless.

[evan_s]

The main reason to get information on this is so that I can figure out what's wrong with our raid's attempt, why he gains so much Blood Power to begin with. Then I would like that information to inform and instruct the rest of the raid.

Just look at a log. Any time anyone takes damage from anything in that fight he is gaining blood power. Do anything you can to minimize that.

Figure out how handle the adds so that no one gets hit.

Figure out how to spread out as much as possible so the blood boil isn't hitting other people.

Figure out how to get a disc priest to shield like mad.

[SilverLynx]

Part of my raids issue was not having people placed 10 yards apart. If you have DBM, you have a range monitor. Make sure all your ranged people really are spread apart. That way the only people who have to run away during a Blood Boil are your Melee, who then run to the left or right at the bottom of the stairs.

If your CC team for the beasts is good enough those beasts should never hit anyone. It's very possible that you may need to go back over recount after a wipe and find out who is taking ANY damage and why.

The CCing should be taking place with minimal movement. Mages using slow, Warlocks teleporting to a safe location, Spriest using Mind Flay, Shammy dropping a totem at the base of the spawn point and running back to position, then helping the kiters with FS, Hunter with Concussive shot and frost trap, DK with chains, and on and on.

A strat I read which could be handy for you is to have a holy pally sit in the very, very, very back with Righteous Fury on spamming heals - it wouldn't be enough to effect Saurfang, but the beasts will go after him. If they get toooooooooo close, he can bubble to drop aggro, but in theory if the beasts have been slowed correctly, they will never reach him, as aggro will eventually shift to the DPSers (who are to the east and west, as far back as possible).

But the proper strat should have as few people moving as possible - the more you move, the more likely Blood Boil will be hitting more than just the three who get it.

Oh and a disc priest.

My local priest hates being a shield bot. ><;;

[Saraduahn]

The main reason to get information on this is so that I can figure out what's wrong with our raid's attempt, why he gains so much Blood Power to begin with. Then I would like that information to inform and instruct the rest of the raid.

There are only a few mechanics (and failures thereof) to cause this:
1) Tanks are not taunt-switching quickly when they get Rune of Blood
2) The ranged/healers are not spreading out sufficiently and are chaining Boiling Blood to each other
3) The ranged are not controlling/killing blood beasts fast enough and are getting hit. No one should ever be getting hit by a blood beast. At all. In some cases, the "fail" on this is actually your melee and tanks, who do multi-target attacks as the beasts spawn, pull the beasts onto themselves, and then get slammed repeatedly with hits from the blood beasts.

[Kaysha]

1) Tanks are not taunt-switching quickly when they get Rune of Blood

This is indeed one of the issues that I brought up a few times. Main Tank is also the raid leader, by the way. But I don't know how much impact this has on the fight (need to collect data on this).

2) The ranged/healers are not spreading out sufficiently and are chaining Boiling Blood to each other

I assume you mean Blood Nova. The main issue here is that Ranged people run around to avoid the Blood Beasts getting near. But once they have moved, they seem to stay where they are, instead of heading back to their assigned positions. I recall one attempt where I only had 1 other person in range at the start and the first Blood Nova that went off near me actually hit 5 people ...

3) The ranged are not controlling/killing blood beasts fast enough and are getting hit. No one should ever be getting hit by a blood beast. At all. In some cases, the "fail" on this is actually your melee and tanks, who do multi-target attacks as the beasts spawn, pull the beasts onto themselves, and then get slammed repeatedly with hits from the blood beasts.

This may indeed very well be an issue as well. Again, like with the Rune of Blood, I don't know how much impact this has as I don't have data on our raids available. I found an addon that keeps track of unnecessary Blood Power gains, I will try and use it next raid.

Figure out how handle the adds so that no one gets hit.

Figure out how to spread out as much as possible so the blood boil isn't hitting other people.

Figure out how to get a disc priest to shield like mad.

These are pretty open doors and the first two points are brought up before the encounter is started. But if people don't realise just how much impact this has - or get dragged into the spotlight after having failed on those points - they just seem to think "suuuuure" and continue the way they did before.

Our attempts do show progress, as we get him down further and further. Best attempt brought him to like 18% or so, but at that point we had like 6-8 Marks running on the raid and people started dieing. First Mark always seems to land around 70% HPs, which is waaaay too fast.

Reason for me to make this post is because I want to get a deeper understanding of some of the mechanics, that I haven't found elsewhere (I've only found pretty global information), so I can better analyse where we fail and instruct the raid accordingly. And again, I've downed him several times on 10-man now, with at most 1 Mark up; wouldn't say we have him on farm yet, though. The 25-man attempt is a joint venture with another guild and a number of PuGs.

[Tahmu]

you could just let the first few people who get the mark die, before it matters, that's how we do it in pugs

[Kaysha]

Me and another Priest have stated as such several times. We get called back on that with a "... but Saurfang heals for 5% each time someone with a Mark dies!", besides the mention of losing DPS if the mark is on a DPS'er. They don't seem to realise just how deadly the bootstrapping effect of the Marks is. One note: the raid leader is careful enough to not select total idiots as PuG'ers; they are people who seem to perform decent and better, judging the way we handle the other 3 bosses in the first wing.

[evan_s]

These are pretty open doors and the first two points are brought up before the encounter is started. But if people don't realise just how much impact this has - or get dragged into the spotlight after having failed on those points - they just seem to think "suuuuure" and continue the way they did before.

Discussing it before hand and people actually being comfortable pulling it off are 2 different things and it does take some practice.

Our attempts do show progress, as we get him down further and further. Best attempt brought him to like 18% or so, but at that point we had like 6-8 Marks running on the raid and people started dieing. First Mark always seems to land around 70% HPs, which is waaaay too fast.

Reason for me to make this post is because I want to get a deeper understanding of some of the mechanics, that I haven't found elsewhere (I've only found pretty global information), so I can better analyse where we fail and instruct the raid accordingly. And again, I've downed him several times on 10-man now, with at most 1 Mark up; wouldn't say we have him on farm yet, though. The 25-man attempt is a joint venture with another guild and a number of PuGs.

On 25 man spreading out for the blood nova is much harder and much more important.

The other thing I haven't seen mentioned is use less healers. The fight is a dps race. The quicker he dies the less dps you need.

One other option to letting someone dies is to have a pally, DI them and then battle res the pally. The person marked will be invulnerable for 5 minutes and won't die so the boss won't get bloodpower and won't get healed.

[Deathcold]

On 25 man let the first 3 players marked die, since the massive damage they take gives blood power to saurfang, healing those players ll start a chain reaction making impossible to heal all those marked ppl and speeding up really fast the next mark.

The 4th player to get the mark need to be healed, if you have a 5th that player cant die neather and so on...

[kungfumonkey]

A slight slant on how some others do it.. we do the 25 man fight like this.

Have all your ranged (including healers) group up into teams of 2 and stand on each other more than 12 yards away from any other group of 2. We find there aint enough space to have EVERYONE stand apart so we half the space needed and take a minor hit on the bloodpower generation by doing it this way.

We allow the first couple of people who get the mark to die.. once there is 3 mins (the lentgh of time Divine Intervention lasts) or less left on the Enrage timer we then start getting the pallys (who are soulstoned) to take it in turns to DI the People with marks. This stops them from dieing so no +5% health to boss and also they dont take damage so no bloodpower to him either..

[Kaysha]

The other thing I haven't seen mentioned is use less healers. The fight is a dps race. The quicker he dies the less dps you need.

One other option to letting someone dies is to have a pally, DI them and then battle res the pally. The person marked will be invulnerable for 5 minutes and won't die so the boss won't get bloodpower and won't get healed.

We actually tried the DI tactic on a few attempts, but I admit we never thought of waiting with that a little to get closer to the enrage timer. We DI'ed the first two that got marked, but eventually they would be "free" again, compounding the problem.

I don't remember exactly how many healers we had going about, but I think we had 6. And yes, I think 5 would be enough ... it's a point I will try and bring up next time we try it. Especially if we opt to let the first few people die, the healing demands near the end shouldn't be all too high.

Of course this is also a spot where the RNG can kick butt: last few attempts one of the other Priests got the first mark and I got the second one - and not once, but on two consecutive attempts, same priests, same order. :P

On our 10-man attempts, we initially started with 3 healers, but couldn't cut it. When we switched to only 2, we made it.

Overall: thanks for the info so far, it has given me (and I hope a number of other readers ) more insight into this fight.

[naPS]

Have all your ranged (including healers) group up into teams of 2 and stand on each other more than 12 yards away from any other group of 2. We find there aint enough space to have EVERYONE stand apart so we half the space needed and take a minor hit on the bloodpower generation by doing it this way.

Not all your ranged has to stand at range. Most of the casters can stand in melee range to make things less crowded out on the platform. I think the minimum number of people you need out on the platform is 8, it could be 9 though. Keeping the platform clear minimizes the number of blood nova's that hit Saurfang, and can really reduce the number of marks that he casts. In our most recent 25 man kill we were able to kill Saurfang before he put his first mark on a friendly player.