Help w Heroic Tortos

[arisoh]

Hello all,

I need help with heroic Tortos. My guild wants me to kite, but I'm having some issues.

Aggro - I'm having issues grabbing bats. The first round is no prob since I insist that I tank Tortos until the bats came out so I had some vengeance, but by the time the second round comes, my pally cotank's vengeance is pretty high up so Battle Healer's heals and Consec and the resto druid's healing aggro means bad things for me. We also have no hunter to md/rogue to tricks, a resto druid with hots rolling on everyone and 2 priests spamming Halo.

What we've done is make my pally cotank remove Battle Healer (=\) and stop Consecrating. I've also asked the resto druid to stand nearish me when the bats come out (we didnt have time to test this out because raid ended).

I have Tiger's Lust, Chi Wave, Charging Ox and Rushing Jade for this fight. I try to Charging Ox the bats as they come down, and if I can, Keg Smash. If not, I start kiting with Dizzying Haze. I tried glyphing Leer of the Ox for help, but doesn't seem to be working.

Also, what's the best way to corral the bats? Is it easier to Charging Ox the bats already following me then Clashing to the bats coming down + Rushing Jade + Dizzying Haze?

Any help would be appreciated. Combining bat groups is the next challenge that I see.

[Deleted]

The following link might be helpful

sunniersartofwar . com/blog/2013/05/08/brewmaster-vs-heroic-tortos-the-kiting-guide/

[Ph0tek]

I'm on my 2nd week of doing this, so others will have more experience, but here's my 2 cents. First, you should definitely having a hunter misdirecting every single wave of bats to you. Don't bother getting close to the bats to dps them. If you're kiting, they should never be close enough to touch you. As you get more bats (typically by the 2nd wave), they will 1-shot you if they reach you. Dizzying haze is your main ability here. Kite around the outer perimeter of the room while controlling the bats with dizzying haze. What I like to do, is stun the bats with Charging Ox right before a stomp, to give you a little breathing room.

I also like to use momentum as my tier-1 talent, because I find it's easier to control the bats if you wait until they are close before hitting them with dizzying haze, and then rolling away. Momentum boosts your run speed after rolling, so it's a passive, smooth means of controlled escape. The less buttons you have to press during this, the better. You also shouldn't need to pop any cooldowns during stomp. I do this in full windwalker gear/gems/enchants, but i eat stam food and use a stam flask and raid-buffed i get about 670k health. This is enough so your shield should stay up through a stomp without even using guard. But for good measure, feel free to toss up Guard before a stomp just to be safe.

Lastly, make a macro to refresh your crystal debuff in case it falls off (it will probably fall off occasionally from getting hit by a random unslowed turtle or a rockfall when passing in front of tortos). My macro, which works really well, is this:

/target Humming Crystal
/cast Chi Wave
/targetlasttarget

[Robb]

I found that the bat groups combined naturally as I went around the room.

A little something some people may not realise, Chi Torpedo is excellent for this role. Not only does have a longer range than roll, but if you do it through a crystal, it activates it also. Combine this with the talent that gives you extra rolls makes keeping away from the bats almost trivial.

I managed to do this with a hunter MD'ing every time, but I also spammed haze all around the room pretty much every time they came down just to make sure. Also had a pally tanking tortos, and this was plenty to get the bats. [EDIT] At NO time do I try to dps the bats, would be silly to do so imo. Haze is plenty to get aggro.

Charging Ox Wave is really nice for this tactic also.

I found the biggest challenge was towards the end, if the dps are stopping killing the turtles to get the final % of the boss down, it can get a bit tricky to dodge them, so this is the point I ask for other people to stun the bats for me at times.

[SurrealNight]

Just killed him last night after only 11 attempts learning to kite. This is 25m HC and I have 2 hunters with MD so I probably had an easier time getting initial threat than if you run 10m with no hunter but here is what I did.

- Unpin camera in settings so it doesn't reset to trailing behind you. Then you can steer in a circle with keyboard while tossing kegs in same direction.
- Disable un-needed UI sections, I cleared a lot of crap that had no relevance and was clicking on it and losing my Dizzy Haze UI marker.
- Talents: Celerity, Charging Ox Wave, Chi Torpedo.
- When new bats spawned a Chi Torpedo when close will clip those close to you or at least generate some healing agro. Then I would toss a few kegs right behind me and be good.
- When DBM warning for stomp goes off do a pre-emptive Torpedo to be 100% you have a good lead on your pack.
- Turn and Ox Wave if you get cornered. I'm not sure I even used it on our kill but it's a good "oh s**t" backup.
- Celerity. I would have absolutely died on our kill without this. Last spawn of bats and there are turtles and rockfalls and just crap everywhere, ended up triple rolling from the left all the way to right side of room and survived un-touched.
- Chi wave macro above is good I used the same.
- You can cast Expel Harm with no melee ranged target, can build up 2 Chi and throw up Guard just to be safe while kiting.

[Ph0tek]

I did 25 HC as well.

when you get too far ahead of the bats thats where it can get a little tricky on keeping the bats together. i find that if you let them get a little closer to you before rolling away, it tends to keep them grouped a lot better and prevents them from cutting corners. the exception to this is when a stomp is about to happen - you want some good distance from the bats through a stomp. but even then, you can stun them with charging ox wave so distance isn't overly important.

when i first started, i had priests putting body & soul on me constantly, and i found the constant speed boost was hurting me more than helping because i'd get so far ahead of the bats they would start to cut corners and clutter my escape routes.

One other thing to remember, you can't dizzying haze the bats until they are pretty much on the ground, which prevents you from slowing them until they get reasonably close to you.

[arisoh]

Thanks for all the tips guys, will def try some of these out.

Unfortunately, like I said, we have NO HUNTER and NO ROGUE to help with initial aggro with the bats, so I'm gonna have to be spot on with the pick ups.

[Ph0tek]

without a hunter misdirect, i'd tell them to either find a hunter, or change their strat to killing the bats. or have a dk kite, cuz they can slow/agro while they're still in the air.

[SurrealNight]

without a hunter misdirect, i'd tell them to either find a hunter, or change their strat to killing the bats. or have a dk kite, cuz they can slow/agro while they're still in the air.

Have to agree with this, friends 10m tanks bats cause of this. We started with a DK kiting (me on boss) and the pickups was easy for him but they don't have the stuns or crazy mobility of a BrM to get out of bad situations so they have to be really spot on or get caught soon as a few shells get in their way.

I think Chi Torpedo will help. Without testing on purpose I'm pretty sure Torpedoing under/through the bats before they have actually "landed" will dmg them and get initial agro. With a full Shell + Guard I even would survive my "pack" catching me a few times.

[Terridon]

Only done it on normal, as palatank, so this might be worthless advice for you, but when i don't hold back the raid healing is high enough for bats to go for me, so the other tank can jump to me and grab them up.
I don't aoe at all for the first few seconds after that, since i then do grab the adds from him, and it's fucking annoying if another tank don't let you get the aggro first, so would say your palatank could do the same, being more carefull with cons, that anyway isn't needed for survivability.
Might even buff his damage overall to wait with cons/other aoe to bats are up.

[Takeada]

As the person above mentioned, using a healer's aggro to pick up the bats can make it considerably easier. Especially if you have a holy paladin with RF activated. I've found this to be more reliable than a hunter's MD.

[bals]

Our monk would purposely not get a shield and asked healers not to top him off after stomps. He would use whatever you guys use to heal yourselves after a stomp to get healing aggro on all the new bats. Worked pretty well.

[arisoh]

@ bals: will definitely try that

@ Takeada: No dice. Our comp is pretty fail right now, especially since our mage couldn't make it and pug people with experience seem scarce. Our comp is (lol):

Prot Pally
BrM

Destro Lock
Destro Lock
Demo Lock
Shadow Priest
Unholy DK
Enhance Sham

Disc Priest
Resto Druid

[SurrealNight]

Our monk would purposely not get a shield and asked healers not to top him off after stomps. He would use whatever you guys use to heal yourselves after a stomp to get healing aggro on all the new bats. Worked pretty well.

Expel Harm + Chi Wave/Zen Sphere + Chi Torpedo could all be used together when bats spawn. Running around low life all the time seems like playing with fire but whatever works I guess.

[arisoh]

Is Chi Wave the preferred one? I was thinking maybe of Chi Bursting the adds for more aggro too.

[Ampere]

I use Celerity so I can always roll before a stomp to get more distance from bats, Zen Sphere to keep building up my shield, Charging Ox Wave to stun old bats before maneuvering to pick up the new set, and either Rushing Jade Wind for extra threat on the bats or Chi Torpedo for a longer roll (I haven't decided which of the two I prefer).

In our group the bats go for our resto druid 90% of the time, so we mark him and I spam dizzying haze on him when bats spawn and he uses Disorienting Roar if they don't immediately change targets. 9% of the time they go for our prot warrior, so I place my statue near him and have a macro to AoE taunt them. With a pally tank AFAIK you will want him to not use Consecration on bat spawns if they always go for him so you can grab them with a statue taunt + dizzying haze. The other 1% of the time they pick someone 'random' or our hunter shoots them without misdirect up and FDs and they are a pain to pick up.

I think the taunt statue macro is:
/target Black Ox Statue
/cast Provoke
/targetlasttarget

[bals]

Expel Harm + Chi Wave/Zen Sphere + Chi Torpedo could all be used together when bats spawn. Running around low life all the time seems like playing with fire but whatever works I guess.

only time he was really low life was after stomps, he would then heal himself up and other heals would heal him as well

[SurrealNight]

Is Chi Wave the preferred one? I was thinking maybe of Chi Bursting the adds for more aggro too.

I used Chi Wave just for the shell macro so I could no brainer get a new shield if I was on the move, I've seen a video where they used Chi Burst to fire at bat spawns but remember it will have a cast time so have to be careful. Zen Sphere will probably generate some constant healer agro and can throw alternating ones on Tank or someone if you can find the concentration to do so.

[Orion Antares]

@ bals: will definitely try that

@ Takeada: No dice. Our comp is pretty fail right now, especially since our mage couldn't make it and pug people with experience seem scarce. Our comp is (lol):

Prot Pally
BrM

Destro Lock
Destro Lock
Demo Lock
Shadow Priest
Unholy DK
Enhance Sham

Disc Priest
Resto Druid

You've got 3 locks, that's 3 Shadow Furies right there to help control the adds for pick up. Either have the last group stunned or the new group or heck, both.

I used Chi Wave just for the shell macro so I could no brainer get a new shield if I was on the move, I've seen a video where they used Chi Burst to fire at bat spawns but remember it will have a cast time so have to be careful. Zen Sphere will probably generate some constant healer agro and can throw alternating ones on Tank or someone if you can find the concentration to do so.

Wouldn't need much concentration. Just setup a macro to cast it on the tank. Use that one for when you are near Tortos and the one for your self when you are at the back of the cave. That helps to make sure it gets a chance to burst and have the full effect.

[Thedave]

I had never once specced into BrM before the night we killed this a few months ago. We didn't have a hunter or rogue MDing either. So... it shouldn't be as much trouble as it sounds like you're having.

Alt-Z your screen but have an audio countdown for bat spawn bosstimers. Spam kegs everywhere. Have your druid stand on top of your protadin, but most of the time, your paladin should have the initial healing aggro. If it's really a problem, though, have him salv your druid on bat spawns. Spam kegs on that tank+healer position right after your audio timer ends and you should be fine: they start hitting the bats about 10 yards above the ground. You can also statuetaunt right as they reach the ground.

Again, the value of a misdirect is really overstated by people on these forums: you don't need it (my ilvl 496 BrM set definitely didn't), and it often makes it harder because the bats have a higher likelihood of getting hits off on you. Just spam kegs and use your healing CDs on the spawn. Donezo.

A circular kite path with an idea of when to use your port will naturally group all the bats.