Blackhand heroic tactics, massive shattering smash phase 3

[psyquest]

Just wondering, after having seen the mythic kill, how many people are required to soak the massive shattering ability?

can 5 dps pull it off with one tank?

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No one has done it with just 4-5 melee soaking?

[Shamburger]

Well.. I know on normal you can do it with only a few. We did the meta achievement last night and we only had 15 people in the raid. 7 or 8 were out collecting the ashes. Leaving 7 to do the smash? 2 of which were mages (Which we never have soak) so that's 5 i guess?

[Xaryen]

4 players need to be hit or he will repeat the smash right again, 3dps(rogues with feint/elusiveness) with a tank is all you need to soak it.

[psyquest]

so we could potentially just put 4 melee and a couple of casters like hunt/mage (in case 2 bombs are on melee) and that should suffice. I am going to try this, although I am surprised ALL heroic kills I have seen, they pack everyone.

[Wilderness]

I am surprised ALL heroic kills I have seen, they pack everyone.

That's because the damage from the smash gets split by everyone it hits. Having the whole group spreads out the damage better. Of course you can do it with fewer people, but depending on how many you do then you will start needing classes/specs who can use CDs to help them survive through it. Its just simpler to use the whole group - on heroic. Looks like the guilds who killed it on Mythic are doing it with soaker classes while the main raid stays out of it.

[Nitros14]

You could do it with 3 rogues on heroic. I don't know if any other classes have enough reduction cooldowns on short enough timers (the smashes are every 24 seconds) to do it.

[Vereesa]

Massive Shattering Smash actually deals slightly more damage on 20-man Heroic than it does on 20-man Mythic. This is due to the fact that the Mythic P3 is designed around the ranged group being tasked with handling soaking Falling Debris and one additional Marked for Death.

With that said, putting together a soaking group comprised of Rogues and tanks should be an entirely viable tactic on Heroic despite the higher damage per player, due to how ridiculously strong Feint is.

[Tojara]

Retribution paladins are also really strong at soaking the smash, not as good as rogues, but still pretty good.

[Xequecal]

The benefit to having only melee take the smash is that it minimizes movement, increases dps, and makes healing easier. It also makes it nigh impossible to fuck up marked for death in p3, as all the ranged can stay stacked up for the entire phase and the MfD targets can just take two or three steps to the right. He smashes the tank and 3-4 melee, the offtank picks it up and moves it around the edge of the platform until it's out of range of the volcano, and you repeat from there. The entire ranged group, since they're close to the center of the platform, only needs to step about five yards to the left or right after every smash.

MfD management becomes trivial, and so does healing because the entire ranged group is clumped up and all the healers never need to stop casting. The melee being knockbacked will also be knocked into or very close to the pack of ranged, making healing them even easier.

[Daedelus]

The melee being knockbacked will also be knocked into or very close to the pack of ranged, making healing them even easier.

Apart from their Feint/Elusiveness ability, rogues can also shadowstep after the smash meaning they have zero downtime on the boss - yet another reason why they are so useful on Mythic. They double-dip by allowing all the rest of the dps to continue whilst at the same time not losing any dps themselves.

[Lamelight]

Can you use immunities (bubble/deterence) to soak the smash? Does it count towards the amount of people taking smash/splitting the dmg?