The Dragonsoul Bear Mitigation/Dps-Guide

[Deleted]

This is thought as a guideline for bears for defeating all the dragonsoul encounters. You will find tips and hints how to minimize the incoming dmg and maximize your personal DPS for all the dragonsoul encounters. If you find something you don't understand feel free to ask and if you find a mistake or a way to do even better please comment to improve the thread.

I'll give you a little info about my char from which point I'm writing this.

Armory
http://eu.battle.net/wow/de/characte...aqumo/advanced

I am raiding 10man and at the moment I have cleard 5/8 hc in dragonsoul. All tips/hints im going to write about is from the experience I made in the last 8 weeks of dragonsoul raiding. For gearing/gemming/etc. I mostly followed the guidelines of this: http://theincbear.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5 , so check it out if you have questions.

Short Agi vs Stam:
From my point of view 225-230k HP (full buffed in bear) is enough to clear 6/8 hc(10 man!) and all the normal modes. I can't say anything about spine/madness hc or 25man since I havn't played it. I tried to spend all points above 230k into agi since its our best stat for DPS + Mitigation.


Table of Content:
1. Morchok
2. Zon'ozz
3. Yor'sahj
4. Hagara
5. Ultraxion - coming soon -
6. Blackhorn - coming soon -
7. Spine - coming soon -
8. Madness - coming soon -
9. Cat-Switch-Guidelines
10. Trinkets


1. Morchok:

Mitigation Tips:
- Also this should be clear make sure to maintain 100% uptime of demo-shout (-10% physical Dmg). So when the bloodphase is over make sure to refresh demoshout as soon as possible, since it will also reduce the Dmg on the other raidmembers.

- Use barkskin and survival instincts only just before a stomp will hit you. Especially in hc this is important since Morchok will give you a debuff which will increase all physical dmg you take. So watch the castbar and use one at 1,5/2 sec casttime of stomp.

- The fight will be long enough to use survival instinct twice so make sure you use it quite early so you will have it again when morchok will go in his soft enrage at 20%.

- Make sure you only use barkskin or survival instincts if there is more than 12 sec left till the bloodphase. You dont want to waste your cooldowns.

- Frenzied. Reg. can be used as an oh-shit-button whenever you're about to get low and your healers tell you it will be hard to heal the next stomp. This is especially strong with T13-4piece since your whole Group while benefit from it.

DPS Tips:
- When morchok casts blood dont run away instantly , you'll have 1-2 gcd to pull of some attacks on him. If you stayed a little to long use speed-rawr or dash to run out quickly.

- 3-5 second before blood-phase will end, buff yourself thorns and charge in. Refresh demoshout + infected wounds and start dps again. You wont get more than 3-4 stacks which should be easily healable for your healers.

- If you really want to maximize your dps you will switch into cat and stay the whole bloodphase near to him. Make sure you tell your healers that you stay in the blood. When your have ~5 stacks or when morchok has casted for 5 sec (Bloodcastduration is 15sec) use survival instincts. This is also the moment you want to use your berserk and if needed your barkskin as well. WATCH OUT!: This will need a survival instinct and since you want to have your SI for his softenrage use this in the first blood-phase. If your healers say its to hard to heal or it costs to much mana just use the two tips above.

- If you don't stay in the blood make sure to use faerie fire on CD while you hide behind the stones.

- (Normal only!) Whenever the other tank taunts of for the armor-reduce debuff make sure to switch into cat .


2. Zon'ozz:

Mitigation Tips:
- The longer the phase , in which you stack up the ball , takes the harder the boss will hit. So make sure you'll use your cd's as late as possible to mitigate as much as possible dmg. But dont use them too late unless you want to waste your cd in the shadow-phase. I found out that for me its the best to use survival instincts right before the ball will hit the meeles the last time. It will reduce the dmg from the incoming ball and will last until the ball returns to the boss again just before the shadow phase starts.

- Do NOT use Barkskin or Survival Instincts in the shadow-phase since you wont get a lot of dmg.

- When to use Frenzie-Reg: If you have T13-4piece and your healers want you to use it as a raid-cooldown than use it in the shadow-phase, if not use it in the second ball-stacking-phase instead of survival instincts since it will be still on cooldown. In the third ball-phase survival instincts should be ready again.

- I personally use barkskin right after I turned his back to the group again to reduce the dmg of his cone-skill which will heal him. But feel free to use it a little later.

Dmg Tips:

-The fight changes significantly from normal to heroic so I will seperate them.

! Normal :
- Whenever shadowphase starts switch into cat and do as much dmg as possible. WATCH OUT: Zon'ozz will be casting some shadow-spell as soon as the phase begins, but he will start hiting you with meele hits again after ~10 second. So put up your bleeds and switch back to bear.

! Heroic :
- In heroic you have to tank the big tentacle in the shadow-pahse so you cant switch into cat. What you want to do is dmg the tentacle and keep up 3 stacks of lacerate on it. When the boss returns to you from the middle of the room you want to use pulverize to get full 18sec from the 9% crit buff. Then you want to use berserk + enrage to cleave the boss and the tentacle for the whole berserk duration. Berserk can be used every ~second shadow-phase (depending on how high you let the ball stack). If berserk is not ready make sure you keep lacerate on the tentacle since every tick can reset your mangle cd. If this isnt clear make sure your auto-attacks hit the boss since he is getting more dmg from the debuff you stacked on him. The tentacle should fall to the dotdmg+cleave of your DD's.

I have a log for this fight (heroic) so if you want to see pulverize-uptimes or berserk-uses follow this:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/6...&e=2909#Jaqumo

3. Yor'sahj:

Mitigation-Tips:
- Since its impossible to say which colors are going to spawn its impossible to perfectly time the defensiv cooldowns. Also it varies from the combinations your raid plays. So I just write about the experience I made. Feel free to post your opinions when to use which CD.

-Survival Instincts: I only use this cd when we get the green/red/black/yellow since it will be the phase with the most damage income.

-Barkskin: Use Barkskin 14-13 seconds before Yor'sahj is going to cast the next colors. If you plan to do him with two tanks use it 14-13 second before the second tank will taunt.

-Frenzied Reg.: This is such lifesaver in this fight. Whenever you play purple and you allready have 4 stacks and you drop low use this cd. It will save your ass since the heal does NOT stack the debuff. If you have T13-4piece you may to use it in the green/red/black/yellow phase to support the raid.

-Whenever there are adds from the black-gues make sure you refresh demo-shout so all of them will recieve the debuff asap. It is possible to tank the adds even though they try to focus other raid members. You'll have to taont them in the moment the spawn, also faery fire works. It doesnt work always but most of the times you'll be able to get 1-2 on to you.

-It doesnt Mitigate the dmg you take but it helps the raid if you'll give innervate to one of your healers when Yor'sahj is draining their mana. (He wont hit you for 3 second so you can safely switch in and out of bear. You'll see the cast as a big blue whirl above his head.)

Dmg-Tips:
- Whenever the boss casts colors you want to switch into cat. Depending on your tactic dmg the color or the boss or the manavoid.

- You want to keep your berserk for black-phase with adds since mangle will be able to cleave 2 additional adds. Though you cant wait forrever, sometimes there is just no black phase. I'm waiting till the second color-spawns if the first had no black. If the second also has no black I use berserk for cat.

4. Hagara:

Mitigation-Tips:
- At first how to handle the "focused attack" (I dont know the exact name i just translated it). In normal-mode this abillity can be simply stoped by walking 3-5 steps backwards. The attack will automaticly stop and she'll auto-attack you. In heroic this isn't possible anymore. Also the attack deals massiv dmg. We managed to control this attack by making a healpaladin taunt the boss. The attack doenst cancel but it still has a range of 5 yards. So it wont hit the Paladin who is 30 Yards away. On half way I'll simply taunt back and keep on tanking the boss. If you dont have someone to taunt make sure you'll get all possible raidcooldowns there are because Hagara will rape your face

! Heroic : You want to have your big CD rdy when the iceblocks are played. Most tactics place the block close to the boss so they can be cleaved. The problem is that the iceblock do creat a line of sight effect. So it is possible that not all healers can heal you. Sometimes they even line of sight the paladin for the taunt which will lead to a massiv dmg on you. So right before the iceblock spawns you want to use survival instincts or frenzied reg.+Barkskin or other CD's from your Raid (like Painsupression etc.).

! Heroic : In the Icephase its possible to dispell yourself with a powershifting macro. This decrease the dmg you get in the frostbubble since you can dispell yourself instantly. You can also dispell others with Stampeding Roar.

Powershift-Macro:
/cast [stance:1]!Bear Form
/cast [stance:3]!Cat Form

DPS-Tips:
- Whenever Hagara is stunned after a special-phase or you enter the ice-phase switch into Cat.

- Berserk: Use Berserk whenever you go into Cat to DPS her or use it when you will cleave the iceblocks. If you think the iceblock live too long than you should use berserk on them.

- When you are in the frostphase and there is only 1 shard left but you just passed it or you'll know that the next ones are going to fall anyway , then turn back and avoid the icewall by running into the frostbubble. As soon as the wall passed you charge the shard and Dps him. You can repeat this as often as you like.

- Stay as long as possible on the shards in the icephase since you have a lot of possibilities (charge, dash, Skullbash, Stamp. Roar) to get to the next shard faster.



5. Ultraxion:

- coming soon ...

6. Blackhorn

- coming soon ...

7. Spine

- coming soon ...

8. Madness

- coming soon ...

9. Cat-Switch-Guidelines:

To get maximum DPS on most of the bossfights its usefull/necessary to switch into cat. I wrote a little guideline how to do the cat right when you switch into it.

At first its about the specc. I recommend to use this specc: http://eu.battle.net/wow/de/characte...lent/secondary
ALSO: I use Glyph of Bloodletting instead of the Lacerate-Glyph. You may want to switch these two depending on the encounter.

If you dont have T13 4-piece you can put 2 points from Stampede into feral agression. If you dont have someone else in the raid who can decrease armor make sure you bring up 3 stacks of faerie fire as soon as possible.

What should I do when I switch into cat.

1. Faerie Fire (3 stacks) and the mangle debuff should be up anyway since you've been in bear before. If not make sure you apply them. There is no encounter where you will stay longer then ~30 second in cat so the debuff shouldn't go off until you switch back to bear and refresh them.
2. The Rotation:
We are bears and not cats so we dont need to use the perfect rotation. This should be the easy rotation you'll use:

1. Switch to Cat and make sure that you stand behind your target.
2. Use 2 x Shred.
3a. Use Tigers Fury.
3b. If its not on cd and its not needed somewhere else use berserk.
4. Use Rake.
5. If you have 5 CP use Rip , if not use Shred until you have 5 CP and then use Rip.
6. If you have T13-4piece use Ravage, if not use 1 x Shred.
7. Use Savage Roar.
8. Shred.
9. Refresh Rake and Rip (5cp) if you have so much time in cat. Do NOT use Bite, just spam shred even if you have 5CP.
! Remember that Cataclysm changed the way dots are refreshed so refresh Rake when its duration is less than 3sec and Rip when its less then 2sec.

10. Trinkets

You want to have Wrath of Unchaining and the Vial of Shadows as your DPS choice. Change the Vial with as a stamina trinket if you think you need more HP.


Feel free to comment and post improvements.

[Deleted]

Not that its not an interesting read but i would argue use of cooldowns is far more situational than you make it out to be.

On Morchok heroic for example i use my survival instincts on first stomp as there is a lot of moving and its harder for the healers, but then i only use barkskin if my healer warns me he is going to struggle on next stomp, and i use frenzied regen if i need a rapid burst of health after a stomp. Since i cant use barkskin on every stomp i use it when its needed and not when its off CD.

[Deleted]

Thanks for reading

True , sometimes cooldowns have to be used somewhere else. But usually this only happens if someone made a mistake or when you had really bad SD-Rng/Avoid-Rng for several seconds. Also those are only tips which should help to avoid dmg-peaks on the tank, additionaly I cant prove that it is the best way. It's all from my personal experience.

@ Morchok : Since you're talking about a lot of movement I expect you to be talking about heroic difficulty. I think this really depends on your tactic. We seperate Morchok and his Copy into two 5-man groups and play him down. We used to run a 2 tanks , 4 heals and 4 DD's Setup for this. Since there are 2 healers each I never had any problems with droping low etc. . Also the movement part is just practise. The first 2-3 times its maybe a little struggle but when there's some routine it will be just a stomp like any other. I dont know if your playing 25man, that might be completly different from what I said about Morchok.

[mitbrandir]

Nice guide , just one question... I've been wondering if the Roar ability also affects your melee dps when you're in bear form? you do keep the aura , but im not sure if it actually increases your auto attack dps.

[Arielle]

Morchok -

Thorns being a DPS increase over saving your Rage and/or Vengeance during Black is debatable. IW has no effect on damage to party, only you. Definitely use BS often, but save SI for when things go sideways and the healer(s) have to group heal instead of healing you. Save FR for the group when/if needed. Sometimes a group will go crystal-stomp-crystal back to back to back right after the split. That's a good time for it especially with the 4pc.

Tank swapping on normal is a waste of time.

[Deleted]

Nice guide , just one question... I've been wondering if the Roar ability also affects your melee dps when you're in bear form? you do keep the aura , but im not sure if it actually increases your auto attack dps.

Thanks. Afaik roar only increases your Cat's Whitehits.

Morchok -

Thorns being a DPS increase over saving your Rage and/or Vengeance during Black is debatable. IW has no effect on damage to party, only you. Definitely use BS often, but save SI for when things go sideways and the healer(s) have to group heal instead of healing you. Save FR for the group when/if needed. Sometimes a group will go crystal-stomp-crystal back to back to back right after the split. That's a good time for it especially with the 4pc.

Tank swapping on normal is a waste of time.

You'll loose about 60-80% of your vengeance when you run behind the stones, so its not really a vengeance waste. When you charge 2-3 secs before blood end into him you'll get enough rage and also vengeance.

The reduced dmg belonged to demo-shout only and not to IW. I changed it in the guide to make that clear, thanks.

As I allready said to Reape your Cooldowns can be used anywhere else where you and your group want it. These are just advices and not stated as to be the best of all.

Maybe tank swaping is a waste of time for your raidgroup but maybe other raids do taunt him.

[mitbrandir]

Btw , tip for ultraxion to do more dps if you can go cat or something: spec the talent that increases your dps when enrage is active ( king of the jungle it is i believe ). Will give you like 24/30 sec a damage buff if you use it every cd.