Spine Heroic 10m

[Deleted]

At first I wanted to 'apologise' because this is yet another topic about Spine.
We've been progressing on it for 2 full weeks now and at this point I am out of ideas and I would very much appreciate it if I could get some tips or critisism about our logs (the 2 latest):
Friday : worldoflogs.com/reports/6iqlvm8svi01r81
Sunday : worldoflogs.com/reports/4tnnc06t4hfhgd3i/

Setup:

Holydin
Resto Shaman
Holy/Disc Priest (Friday Disc, yesterday Holy)

Arcane Mage
Frost DK
Ret Pala
Sub Rogue
Surv Hunter

Prot Pala (Bloods)
Feral Druid (Amals)

We've had more or less some discussions on our own forum about tactics I sucked up on this page, like BL on first tendon. We tried it 2 times and only got 31% - second try 21%, but I still strongly believe we could down it in 1 go if everyone would be at their max. Without BL we always get it to 36 +/- %.
The main issue we have is that, after the first and the second plate goes down - we kill the Corruptions - and do a Barrel Roll.
And I think our fail lies there, especially for the 3rd plate. We have too many bloods not soaked, we don't take time to kill bloods and soak them up with a valid tactic before each barrel roll. Am I that wrong to want/think that?

Anyway, I'm not a leader of any kind in the guild so we are to follow what's been told and pay respect for it, but my motivition is drained, so any help is welcome and appreciated so I can let my leaders read this.

Thanks in advance,
Morg

[Deleted]

Hey there Morg,

A few weeks ago, my guild had the exact same issue, so I can understand your frustration. First of all, here's your WoL links:

Friday: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/6iqlvm8svi01r81q/

Sunday: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/4tnnc06t4hfhgd3i/

Our healing set-up was the same as yours on our first kill and I would suggest that your Priest stays Disc for the bubbles and the Barrier.

About that damn 3rd platform: If you have your tank pick up all the bloods, right before you're about to roll. At the same time, your Bear needs to soak as many puddles as possible with an Amalgamation. Then you have your Paladin to run up to the hole you're going to roll in. Have him stand next to it but not in it, wait for your Bear to soak and then pop a Stampeding Roar and get everyone into the hole. Pop a raid wall like Spirit Link or Barrier with Aura Mastery and AoE the crap out of the Bloods. If you have to, stay for a few seconds after the roll, to kill all the Bloods. That way, you should only have a few puddles left on Spine.

Now for the tricky part on plate 4: Your Pala will have a lot on his plate here and your Hunters need to use their MD on him. Have everyone move up (they should move up after every plate), so that nobody is standing at the middle or at the back, they need to be stacked close to the Amalgamation tank. Your Paladin picks up all the Bloods, and have both him and your Holy Paladin use the glyph that makes Holy Wrath stun Elementals. Your Pala tank needs to kite, to avoid taking too much damage. He needs to be vocal here, he needs to call out for help from the Hunters and the other Pala for the stun. He needs to time his CD's properly and if he can, he should try and kill some of the Bloods. So basically, kiting is the key here.

On our first kill, I died due to the Bloods (Bear tank) and if that happens, your Bear tank needs to use his Challenging Shout to get aggro on as many Bloods as possible. But when/if your Pala tank dies, you should be very close to a kill. Every single raid wall and personal CD should be used here if available. And you need to make sure, that the healers have some CD's ready for it as well. I wouldn't suggest using the BL on plate 1 strat, if you're 21% off tbh. We tried that and just found that having BL for platform 4 was much more beneficial.

Hope this can be of help and good luck OP

[Deleted]

Thanks for re-linking the WoL's, I wasn't able to due to lack of making posts. :-)

The way you're putting it here for the very last part makes it very clear in my eyes and so I will inform my guildies, drill it in their ears even, about this tactic.
I think at the very last plate we did it wrong, as we stood with the Blood-tank at the wall of the plate, perhaps at that part it should be the other way around to make it easier for the Blood tank and his kiting.
I've read allot of people saying kiting isn't needed anymore, but I'm pretty sure that if you're yourself in a progressive phase, it is needed.

Anyway I will bring this info over to my guild, thanks for that and hopefully it'll result in a kill on Wednesday!

greetz, Morg

[Hartlin]

Thanks for re-linking the WoL's, I wasn't able to due to lack of making posts. :-)

The way you're putting it here for the very last part makes it very clear in my eyes and so I will inform my guildies, drill it in their ears even, about this tactic.
I think at the very last plate we did it wrong, as we stood with the Blood-tank at the wall of the plate, perhaps at that part it should be the other way around to make it easier for the Blood tank and his kiting.
I've read allot of people saying kiting isn't needed anymore, but I'm pretty sure that if you're yourself in a progressive phase, it is needed.

Anyway I will bring this info over to my guild, thanks for that and hopefully it'll result in a kill on Wednesday!

greetz, Morg

Basically, if your soaking is very good during the rolls, and enough blood are soaked up, you won't have to kite. Soaking will take some practice, but just stress the importance of good soaking, it makes the fight much easier in the end.

[Deleted]

I know that some people say, that kiting isn't needed any more but I can tell you this; we have Heroic Spine on farm now and we still kite.

Although I probably should remember to mention, that I kill a crap load of Bloods as a Bear, thus making more puddles. But I still think that kiting will take some stress away from your healers tbh.

Keep in mind that when the Bloods explode, they do an AoE wide dmg. That is why you don't want the Pala tank stacked with the rest of your raid during this phase. There's just going to be too much dmg.


Edit: I forgot that our Rogue was frapsing our last H Spine kill, here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk7ex...ature=youtu.be

[tyggyr]

Keep in mind that when the Bloods explode, they do an AoE wide dmg. That is why you don't want the Pala tank stacked with the rest of your raid during this phase. There's just going to be too much dmg.

The dungeon journal states that the Burst aoe has a 200 yard range - does it matter where the pala tank is?

[Yodawinfrey]

Huge help and didn't read anyone elses post so if it is said already sorry. But, change your tanks around. We have our DK on amalgs, and Druid on the blood. On the last plate we literally have our Druid just stand there at the plate and tank the bloods. Druids mastery is absolutely OP as shit for the bloods physical damage. You can basically keep savage defense up 100% of the time. The only time he ever kites is on the second lift of the third plate to just clear the screen up for everyone so they can focus down the 'ol tendon. But, once you kill this fight, it's a breeze after that. Took us about 2-3 weeks to kill spine, killed him on Thursday, came back in the next week and one shot him without a single problem. It's a TERRIBLE fight to learn, but once everyone gains the muscle memory for it, it's a joke.

[Deleted]

The dungeon journal states that the Burst aoe has a 200 yard range - does it matter where the pala tank is?

We found that it matters at the last plate, but I forgot to mention this though; if your raid is at the wrong side of the tank i.e closer to the back than to the front, they are more likely to get aggro from the Bloods - making it harder on the tank. At the end, I try my best to finish off some of the Bloods all the way back. Another reason for this is, that if your tank is stacked with the raid, the Bloods will take splash/AoE dmg and that will make it impossible to control dmg wise. So yeah, I should have been a bit more clear about that.

About having your Bear tank on the Bloods; That really depends on a few things. First of all, do you lack Tendon dps? Second of all, your Bear would have to be Mastery Focussed rather than Dodge focussed for SD to really be that much more beneficial imo. I'm Dodge focussed and I mitigate a lot of the physical dmg from the Bloods. But I would have been tanking the Amalgamation, had it not been due to our DK tank being Mastery stacked, making him take a ton more physical dmg from the Bloods than me. Up to the point where the healers just said, this is not a good idea.

But then again, it all depends on your raiders tbh. What I posted is just what works for us and in the end, I don't think there's a "right or wrong" but every guild has to find the strat that works best for them.

[Deleted]

We worked on this for a 1 week trying to do the following:

For the 2nd roll - wait for grip - aoe bloods - then roll
For the 3rd roll - wait for grip - then roll

We found ourselves overwhelmed with bloods for plate 3.

So we changed it to:

For the 2nd roll - wait for grip - aoe bloods - then roll
For the 3rd roll - wait for grip - aoe bloods - then roll

Killed it in 2-3 attempts the 2nd week.

[Deleted]

rofl we get first tendon down to like 28% without bl..

You're awesome!!!! Reply constructively helping the OP or don't reply at all. Thanks. -Azshira

[Deleted]

@Yodawinfrey : After Danishgirl's information, video and yet another video of a detailled fight, I think I am indeed gonna decide to swap the tanks. I think it's more nessesary for us, to aoe bloods rather fast then having problems on the Tendons. It's indeed a terrible fight, but like the other fights where we struggled (Hagara, Lootship) we 2 shotted them both the lockout after. It's weird that it happens like that, but that's another case. Also gonna inform our druid, if he could try either Mastery or Dodge, or just the specc he uses (knowing we'll be fighting it next time with a 20% nerf).

@ Danishgirl : The Fiery Grip breaking isn't an issue. I'm solo-assigned for it as when I have 3 stacks of the AB I can break it with 2 hits and a barrage. Of course I have had lame moments where I'm not paying attention and hit it for 20k each >.< but we wanna keep as many up on the Amal as possible and I think that one is going down rather on a good speed. So it's probably my job to make sure Fiery Grip wont be an issue. But no problem, I like a little challange.

I've been ready really allot and indeed, there's never a right or wrong. Because everyone has a diffirent set-up and/or assignments and what else.. It's finding the right thing for the group you're raiding with.

mswhiskerson : 1 question regarding that, actually for everyone who'll read this. I know almost every video I've seen says that - during the Amalgamation you break 2 grips - when the grip is about to come you stack him up - break the grip when the Amal is about to go **boom**. Is it sagnificantly better then just kill a Corruption right away, to speed up the phases?
Like, when the Fiery Grip will be active in 19 seconds we would just kill the Corruption. Reason, Spine is where time is against you. Killing the Corruption would speed up the fight, even with a few seconds. But probably our reasoning about this is wrong.


At last; Megaegg, congratualations for that amazing achievement,
during the 15% nerf.

[Divinedoom]

I'd just like to point out you don't have to aoe the blood before the roll, you can just aoe while rolling. Makes things a lot eassier/faster. One note of caution though, this does obviously increase raid damadge during rolls so only do this if your healers can handle it/you have decent raid cd's for rolls.

It will help quite some with the amount of blood early on the third plate if you can, one way or the other, propperly soak blood while rolling.

[tyggyr]

I'd just like to point out you don't have to aoe the blood before the roll, you can just aoe while rolling. Makes things a lot eassier/faster. One note of caution though, this does obviously increase raid damadge during rolls so only do this if your healers can handle it/you have decent raid cd's for rolls.

It will help quite some with the amount of blood early on the third plate if you can, one way or the other, propperly soak blood while rolling.

I've read that when the bloods die, their residue will slowly seep to a corruption hole where it'll respawn to extra bloods (rather than the normal spawn-rate bloods); and that AoEing them before a roll will cause the residue to be blown off during the roll, resulting in far fewer bloods.

My group is having problems (or I wouldn't be reading these spine threads with such interest) - everything's peachy keen util just after the 2nd roll where it all blows up in seconds. Comparing logs with another group I know of, it looks to me like we're killing a lot of extra bloods (we're healing almost 2x what the other group is, because of the blood AoE), and our timing seems off... hopefully without hijacking the thread, if anyone can give a hint - here's the log of one of our better attempts: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-16...?s=7415&e=8075.

[Deleted]

I've read that when the bloods die, their residue will slowly seep to a corruption hole where it'll respawn to extra bloods (rather than the normal spawn-rate bloods); and that AoEing them before a roll will cause the residue to be blown off during the roll, resulting in far fewer bloods.

My group is having problems (or I wouldn't be reading these spine threads with such interest) - everything's peachy keen util just after the 2nd roll where it all blows up in seconds. Comparing logs with another group I know of, it looks to me like we're killing a lot of extra bloods (we're healing almost 2x what the other group is, because of the blood AoE), and our timing seems off... hopefully without hijacking the thread, if anyone can give a hint - here's the log of one of our better attempts: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-16...?s=7415&e=8075.

It is true, that if the Bloods die in the Corruption hole, the puddles or residue flies off - that is why we do it. It is also true, that it requires a raid wall as I mentioned in another post.

It's a fine balance when to kill Bloods and how many to kill tbh. This depend on your healers for a large part. When tanking the Bloods, the only time I don't just nuke the crap out of them, is right before an Amalgamation is about to explode and before I drag them to the hole, since I don't want to burden the healers with extra damage during Amalgamation explosion and since I need the Bloods to die in the hole.

If the Amalgamation damage is fine, you could assign a dps to stay on the Bloods and single target them. This is obviously only needed, when you start to have 10+ adds. If you notice in our video, we end up with a lot of Bloods, when Spine dies. We try to have our Amalgamation tank pick up any puddles that is close to him, up to 6 stacks - although that was a bit high. But the puddles do indeed crawl towards the Corruption holes and then spawn new Bloods faster and faster. So having our Amalgamation tank picking up even a few puddles close to the holes makes it easier for the tank on Blood duty.

---------- Post added 2012-04-23 at 11:28 PM ----------

rofl we get first tendon down to like 28% without bl..

You're awesome!!!! Reply constructively helping the OP or don't reply at all. Thanks. -Azshira

So do we but that doesn't change the fact, that using BL on plate 1, leaves you with a problem on plate 4. And specially when progressing, that last plate is the very hardest and where the BL can be the difference between the healers keeping everyone alive or not.

But yeah, you really provided some good feedback Sir^^

[tyggyr]

It is true, that if the Bloods die in the Corruption hole

Do you kill the bloods literally in the hole - I thought that if the residue gets to the hole you get a new blood? - or just next to it?

[Deleted]

We kill them in the hole yes. Normally new Bloods will spawn but the puddles are being thrown off during the roll.

[Sinister Knight]

Interesting, I'd never heard that. I thought the point of aoeing is so you can soak up a bunch of residue with amalgs right before a roll to remove them permanently.

[Deleted]

Hello there,

I am guildie of Morgasto and playing my alt fDK on Spine. I have encountered some problems during our last attempts. I seem to cause very big threat and getting aggro all the time. After the first plate is down, I have to stop using Howling Blast at all. After the second plate it is impossible to dps anything without having aggro from bloods (casting HB or DnD would result death, no matter without or with AMS).
Please advise, should I stop casting Howling Blast and DnD after the first plate at all? I really dont wont to do this, since it is a huge dps loss.

[Deleted]

Filling up Rubla's post a bit. We used a diffirent setup also. Our druid tank went Resto and our Priest got his Prot Paladin so we had 2 Paladin's tanking.
The main problem was that he indeed gained allot of threat and in the end it resulted with hearing he couldn't use HB, not even when we have to aoe them adds down before a barrel roll because the bloods start attacking him and kill him. We both agree that 1) Spine is based on time which results that everything must die AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. so 2) isn't it granted then that good aoe'rs, use all ability's they have?

[Deleted]

AoE on the blood on the latter part of the fight is akin to suicide.
Imagine 15 bloods dieing in a 1-2s window. That's 15 x 22k physical damage blast on the raid +bloods/amalagan melee damage + hole raidwide dot = pretty much dead raid.
Tell your dps to focus the bloods one by one. Getting rid of even just 5 bloods per roll is enough.

For information in our farm kills we have only the tanks touching the bloods, noone else touch them for the whole fight (except to keep the trinket stacks up when we can't touch the amalgam waiting for more bloods to pop)