Primo 10 HC - Feels like we're missing something

[Nairobi]

I know this boss is (seemingly) very straightforward, and kinda embarrassed that we're hitting a wall on it, but I wanted to ask anyway. We can't help but feel like we're doing something fundamentally wrong on Primo 10HC after an hour or 2 of attempts this week. We had put in an attempt or 2 a few weeks ago (prior to hotfixes) and got decent progress, but it feels like we can't get a good footing now. Our raid DPS, which is usually pretty competitive, seems to be really suffering; this largely seems due to lack of transformations. Normally EVERYONE is able to get transformed and keep or quickly refresh throughout the fight. However, on this week's attempts, we were struggling to get even 3-4 DPS transformed and tanks never got more than 3-4 stacks. By the time Primo got to 7 stacks, we were ~45% and damage began to get overwhelming (or so it seemed, maybe because healers had no stacks?) so we got a bit discouraged.

Raid comp options:
Prot pal (Me), BrM monk
Disc, MW
Lock, Lock, Ele/Restosham*, Rogue, Holy/Retpal*, DK, Hunter, Disc/SPriest/Mage*

We tried 2x disc/MW heal set-up to get some more offense via healers, but their smites were kinda weak (obv), so maybe better to not run 2x disc? We tried them on big adds for full dmg/atonement, but tanks don't really need any help on big adds TBH, and little adds were the real problem. We tried dedicated ooze killers (one lock, and/or DK), as well as a "DOT ALL the things!" approach, but never seemed to have enough pools up. I know our tanks can both do monster DPS, so it really hurts not getting transformed for them, but right now we're struggling past getting our Rog fed 5x to just sit on the boss.

We tried assigning lanes to kill, but seemed to fall more behind, so we ended up trying this: Boss on left? Kill adds from the right. Boss on right? Kill adds from left. Boss would be moved based on black ooze spawns. Those were our best attempts, but still not good.

Logs: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-3i0mzahlbb0y1j2d/

Any help, tips, call-outs, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Deleted]

Judging by your logs you are progressing in the right direction. Think you will get it in a few attemps if you just keep pushing. What you can change is to have both of your locks go destro. It's really good on this fight and they should top damage on the boss and the blobs. Your affliction lock barely did any damage at all to the boss while topping damage on the blobs. You could probably swap out your elemental for a shadow priest if you have one of equal skill.

We assigned 2 lanes to each DPS and made sure everyone got mutated at the same time, then we burned heroism and our destro lock and mage made sure there was enough blobs ready for healers and DPS for the next mutation.

Also make sure people are in range for the Caustic Gas, and start to roll raid CD's for those a few minutes into the fight.

[Nairobi]

Thanks for the feedback. We had the locks go destro on one or two attempts (I think, maybe we just talked about it?), but had issues with the small adds not dying. So one volunteered to just take add duty (as Aff) and try to help out. This isn't ideal, IMO, as he's one of our top damage usually.

Our SPriest was Disc for these attempts, but we can have him go shadow if needed/helpful. The ele could go Resto (or we could pick up a HPal) to compensate. Resto probably better for the raid CDs i'd guess?

So you had everyone on adds in their lanes just until mutated? Or did you have them swap off/back to adds ever?

Appreciate the help, I think it's definitely doable, was just not making much progress so kinda got disheartened. Plus we wanted to save time for progression on HC Twins, which we downed in 4 attempts....ooops. Should have plenty of time to work on Primo this week, hopefully we won't need it all!

[Deleted]

Was looking on this attempt as reference: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-3i...=11330&e=11635

I think any healer class on this fight will do it tbh. The problem with disc is that you dont get your full output until you are mutated since alot of the healing is from Atonement.

It worked alright to have one DPS cover 2 lanes. It's pretty much only a bit stressful at the start. Like I said, the key is to get everybody mutated at the same time to maximize uptime on the boss during heroism. Just have one DPS with strong singletarget burst to get some blobs down for the healers. Since you will get them down much quicker with full mutation it's not much of a DPS loss on the boss.

Regarding Spirest vs Elemental, it's just that priests can multidot like hell and do strong singletarget DPS, while elementals can't really do anything. Chain Lighning cleave is not usefull as the blobs are pretty spread out and their singletarget damage is meh.

Though I have to admit it's a clusterfuck of a fight. We had a bunch of 1-2 min attempts where everything seemed to go wrong and then just randomly killed it on a good attempt. Think we did 12 or 13 pulls in total.

If you can get Twins and Durumu you should just walk over this tbh

[Nairobi]

Yeah, we noticed the heals issues a bit (as in they were lower than normal, not like it was an issue though) by them both being disc at -75% dmg. I don't think any healer got mutated; may be worthwhile to swap one to shadow and move ele to resto.

Just so I am clear then, you're suggesting we have each of our 5 dps covering 2 lanes at the start, and getting themselves mutated, correct? At that point, once 5x dps are mutated, pop lust and go? Or should they continue to kill some adds to get extra pools for tanks/heals? I feel like we should leave 1, maybe 2 DPS on adds (even after mutated), ideally multi-dot classes obv. But I don't want to overcommit to adds and not get enough dmg into the boss... Is it RNG on which adds can drop a pool? I know red vs purple is, but it seems like we get a lot of NO pools dropping.

Agreed, our DPS is pretty solid so it's a bit frustrating knowing that we can get "harder" fights, but were getting stumped by this Hopefully we can refine the strat this lockout.

[Drobo]

Have both your locks go destro, using Mannoroth's Fury as their 6th tier talent, stacking mastery and saccing their pets. Let them get full mutated first, it shouldn't take log at all. Once they are mutated, have the tanks start kiting the circle as usual. The locks should keep up FnB immolates and RoF on all the adds chasing Primo and on him as well, which will having them overloaded on embers, chaos bolting the hell out of Primo with havocs on CD on the big blobs. There will be an excess of dead blobs allowing even healers and tanks to get mutated, while also helping other DPS get re-mutated instantly once their first mutated drops off.

[Nairobi]

That does sound far easier...and with lots of green fire. Will def be giving that a shot. Should be loads of Havoc-Shadowburn spam too, I'd think?

[Drobo]

That does sound far easier...and with lots of green fire. Will def be giving that a shot. Should be loads of Havoc-Shadowburn spam too, I'd think?

Certainly, if they can macro it fast enough. Check the Topped Off (US-Illidan) 10M H Primordius video on youtube for further reference.

[Divinedoom]

My guild has the 2nd fastest and 7th fastest 10H kill thats on WoL dispite 3 healing and not even trying for a speed kill, so I'll share our strat. Might help you.

Our dps get to 4 stacks asap, then we all transform at the same time. Imdediatly blow lust and all dps single target burn the boss. Except for our elemental shaman, he is spamming chain lightning on the adds behind the boss while we're kiting the boss as such a pace that those adds won't hit him. This allows us to stack all 3 healers before dps need to restack while still having all but 1 dps go full out single target. There are also enough pools down at this point that our ele shaman can get instantly restacked when his transform falls.

Then we restack the other dps 1 by 1 (I'm calling out who's getting stacks next so we don't try to all take the same pools), usually several of us can instantly restack but this depends a bit on the kiting and such. Once we are all transformed a 2nd time we just nuke the boss and don't care about stacking healers.

Now your millage may vary, if your raid dps is lower you might want to stack healers a 2nd time to help them with healing towards the end of the fight. And might even need to stack your dpsers a 3rd time. It might take the raid/tanks a few tries to figuere out a good speed at which to kite the boss.

Also you have a really good settup for this tactic. Have your ele shaman do the chain spam while 2 destro locks keep down RoF on the adds and spamming chaos bolts on the boss with all the extra embers. With 2 warlocks I guess double rain with MF can do the same trick, but loosing out on KJC and having to keep immolate up on the adds will reduce their boss damadge. Eitherway kiting is the way to go for restacking.

[Elyllon]

That does sound far easier...and with lots of green fire. Will def be giving that a shot. Should be loads of Havoc-Shadowburn spam too, I'd think?

Dost thou doubt thine skills?

My guild has the 2nd fastest and 7th fastest 10H kill thats on WoL dispite 3 healing and not even trying for a speed kill, so I'll share our strat. Might help you.

Our dps get to 4 stacks asap, then we all transform at the same time. Imdediatly blow lust and all dps single target burn the boss. Except for our elemental shaman, he is spamming chain lightning on the adds behind the boss while we're kiting the boss as such a pace that those adds won't hit him. This allows us to stack all 3 healers before dps need to restack while still having all but 1 dps go full out single target. There are also enough pools down at this point that our ele shaman can get instantly restacked when his transform falls.

Then we restack the other dps 1 by 1 (I'm calling out who's getting stacks next so we don't try to all take the same pools), usually several of us can instantly restack but this depends a bit on the kiting and such. Once we are all transformed a 2nd time we just nuke the boss and don't care about stacking healers.

Now your millage may vary, if your raid dps is lower you might want to stack healers a 2nd time to help them with healing towards the end of the fight. And might even need to stack your dpsers a 3rd time. It might take the raid/tanks a few tries to figuere out a good speed at which to kite the boss.

Also you have a really good settup for this tactic. Have your ele shaman do the chain spam while 2 destro locks keep down RoF on the adds and spamming chaos bolts on the boss with all the extra embers. With 2 warlocks I guess double rain with MF can do the same trick, but loosing out on KJC and having to keep immolate up on the adds will reduce their boss damadge. Eitherway kiting is the way to go for restacking.

That sounds like a fun strat actually, thanks!

[Nairobi]

Dost thou doubt thine skills?

Oh, I see you found your login info. And no, I just know your SB's hit like trucks (lol@shamans), but didnt know if chaining SB's off of low adds was better/worse than turreting CB's into the boss instead.

That sounds like a fun strat actually, thanks!

Agreed. I think we can/should try to combine these strats to play to our strengths. I'm all for simplicity, but I know our ele's cleave is insane so this may be the best option.

Thanks to all for your feedback thus far, hopefully we can get the kill this week.

[Nairobi]

Ok, so....update.

We went back last night with the strats suggested in here and did some attempts. 30+ attempts over the span of the evening, with our best ones being 2-3 attempts in the 30%s range after ~5-6 mins. So, probably behind on DPS considering we lust after the first set of mutations.

Logs: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-hdjrfoofvz7cfpat/

Things we noticed:
There were probably 20+ wipes of add getting too close to the boss. I'm not counting "tank died so add ran to boss", I'm speaking strictly of "add spawned right by where we had Primo, and ran to/through him on the way to the tank, etc". It doesn't help that our BrM's taunt gives the add run-speed, as probably 15x we saw it make a bee-line for the boss at warp speed for 1-2 sec before it changed diretion to him. We had a few attempts where the add would just stutter-step, even if the tank was stationary, and move around/beside him (and then get too close to Primo). Eventually we started just trying to keep the add relatively far from Primo (and in a group of slimes for Chain Lightning cleaving), but even then, bad spawn points meant that tanks could be out of position to get the new add without it getting too close to boss. Any suggestions on this? Is there any way to counter the bad RNG on spawns? We tried speeding up when the spawn was close, as well as doubling back to avoid it, but this led to a lot of extra slime absorbs.

Boss and big add would randomly evade bug. Seemed to be if they got on or around the grate in the center, but it was so intermittent/random it was hard to tell. Is there any known "evade spots" to avoid? Really frustrating to get a good attempt ruined by bad coding.

We did not have the "ideal" comp for last night, as we only had 2x lock for ~2 hours, and had no Spriest/Mage due to internet issues. Had in the Hunter/DK instead. We basically had the Destro lock on add duty (can pretty much solo them) with Rog/DK on boss fulltime. Ele would be on boss unless lock needed help/retransformed, and would cleave off of big add. Hunter would shoot things. We have no problem getting everyone their first transform and popping hero, but it seems that we fall apart after that. We can't reliably get second transforms out, and healers nor tanks are getting transformed at all with any reliability. Given tank's debuffs that can nuke adds/boss, I was lobbying for tank transforms, but healers were really struggling with the dmg output and requested stacks as well. Who should get priority? I feel like more damage is important, since we're behind pace on enrage, but if we keep having tank deaths that obviously won't matter. We can try going 2x Destro, but one of our locks is not comfortable with the spec, and feels he would do better as aff. To me, 2x Destro seems like the easy/obvious solution (since our 1x Destro can already almost solo all the adds), but that's also because he plays Destro a large part of the time. Other than that, we could swap in the Spriest over someone, but he's unavailable for a few days.

Any other tips or callouts you can see? We're all pretty stumped, since everyone is saying "You got Durumu/Twins/whatever, Primo should be like 3 attempts for you NPGG". So, obviously we're all frustrated and embarassed, and now out of ideas.

[blusenho]

When is the optimal time to tank swap? We got him to 14% the first couple hours we spent on him, but the biggest issue for us is the insane tank damage on both tanks due to high stacks. Healers start to run dry towards the end.

[Nairobi]

We've been swapping every 2 adds (so ~6-8 stacks of Primo's buff or 4-6 stacks of Horror buff), as that seems to be the normal timeframe to allow the first buff to fade before swapping back.

The buff/defbuff from Primo can be Bubble'd, btw, in the case of a swap that goes too early or stacks get too high.

[Deleted]

Swap after 2 adds, but remember to give the tanks some time to look where the next add will spawn. Don't switch add tank if a new one pops out when the old is killed. Better to call out nuke this add down fast so we get a tank swap.