Help with Vectis.

[goldenguyz]

Hey guys,

I've formed a new raid team and we basically breezed through Taloc, Mother and the devourer (all normal mode), but as soon as we got the Vectis it felt like we hit a brick wall. Healers were going oom at around 50% and there was just way too much damage... I've read that the fight is tuned for 20 man, but is there something else we're missing here? We had 13-16 people during the fight.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/p76nqTGfPaCYgHVF

Cheers.

[Raelyn]

Hey guys,

I've formed a new raid team and we basically breezed through Taloc, Mother and the devourer (all normal mode), but as soon as we got the Vectis it felt like we hit a brick wall. Healers were going oom at around 50% and there was just way too much damage... I've read that the fight is tuned for 20 man, but is there something else we're missing here? We had 13-16 people during the fight.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/p76nqTGfPaCYgHVF

Cheers.

We also had a lot of trouble with this, particularly concerning mana. At least one of ours was OOM about 1/3rd into the fight. I'd be interested to see what people recommend.

[Better]

Based on pull 5, you can stack in P1. Free healing for the shaman, and your stacks should get spread more evenly (it seemed to get out to the healers, and just kept jumping between them, as they were standing at a range.) Just move for gestate, treat it like Varimathras. The adds always are absolute top priority (this includes not letting more spawn in P2 by missing a soak). In Phase 2 make sure people are actually dodging the blood geysers (the line attack), one of the rets got 10 stacks off of just those, which is a huge damage taken increase.

[Natrii]

A couple things that will help.

Stacking and letting passive Aoe heals do their thing.
Try to no let the stacks get too high.
Remember this is the beginning of the expansion, Be conservative with your mana, there are no must be at 100% health mechanics in this fight, people can safely stay around 60-80% hp for the most part.

Keep all that in mind you should have it in a couple pulls once you get the flow

[Alvito]

Just from watching the replay you guys look to be far too spread out. Utilize aoe healing as best you can, it will also mean you kill the add much faster. Keeping him at one end of the hallways seems to help clumping the pools you have to soak in P2 from spawning a mile away also. Your groups dps is pretty low too, as that goes up the boss dies much faster and mana is less of an issue.

[goldenguyz]

Thanks for the replies given here, our dps is definitely pretty low, ill have to have a world with a few people.

One problem with stacking though, is that we can't seem to move out of that stun, 70k damage to all players in 5 yards move fast enough. It comes up on DBM right? I'll have to push everyone to get DBM as i'm certain a lot of us aren't using it. We found it best to just spread out and do a /range 5; that said I'm noticing a lot of people are just miles away.

[Nikkaszal]

Thanks for the replies given here, our dps is definitely pretty low, ill have to have a world with a few people.

One problem with stacking though, is that we can't seem to move out of that stun, 70k damage to all players in 5 yards move fast enough. It comes up on DBM right? I'll have to push everyone to get DBM as i'm certain a lot of us aren't using it. We found it best to just spread out and do a /range 5; that said I'm noticing a lot of people are just miles away.

I'm using a version of DBM that hasn't been updated in a few weeks, which I need to actually update and stop procrastinating about, but on mine I wasn't getting any pre-warning either. Couple of raid mates confirmed the same - we would just get instantly stunned by Gestate and have the add spawn right away.

I'm not sure if there is a pre-cast warning window, but if there was, I wasn't getting it.

[Better]

Thanks for the replies given here, our dps is definitely pretty low, ill have to have a world with a few people.

One problem with stacking though, is that we can't seem to move out of that stun, 70k damage to all players in 5 yards move fast enough. It comes up on DBM right? I'll have to push everyone to get DBM as i'm certain a lot of us aren't using it. We found it best to just spread out and do a /range 5; that said I'm noticing a lot of people are just miles away.

As soon as you see the mob spawn, move. It's pretty simple and you have 2 sec before damage even happens. It's also like 13K, not 70.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm using a version of DBM that hasn't been updated in a few weeks, which I need to actually update and stop procrastinating about, but on mine I wasn't getting any pre-warning either. Couple of raid mates confirmed the same - we would just get instantly stunned by Gestate and have the add spawn right away.

I'm not sure if there is a pre-cast warning window, but if there was, I wasn't getting it.

Gestate just happens, I don't think there is a warning other than the timer, players simply move away from you when the stun happens (the add spawning is the indicator to them).

[goldenguyz]

As soon as you see the mob spawn, move. It's pretty simple and you have 2 sec before damage even happens. It's also like 13K, not 70.

It doesn't work like that, the mob spawns afterwards. We can see the aoe on the floor, sure, but there will be a lot of people around it most likely making it hard to see. It's not 70, you're right there and if damage starts after 2 seconds then it's 26k overall.

We'll try the stacking method and see how it goes, I imagine with good discipline on the Gestate this will make this a lot easier.

[Better]

It doesn't work like that, the mob spawns afterwards. We can see the aoe on the floor, sure, but there will be a lot of people around it most likely making it hard to see. It's not 70, you're right there and if damage starts after 2 seconds then it's 26k overall.

We'll try the stacking method and see how it goes, I imagine with good discipline on the Gestate this will make this a lot easier.

Love that you ask for advice, then tell me it's not correct.
00:00:36.216 Vectis casts Gestate on Alaeth
00:00:36.587 Grisens Hammer of the Righteous Plague Amalgam 2 630
00:00:39.237 Vectis's Gestate fades from Alaeth

[Deleted]

Hey guys,

I've formed a new raid team and we basically breezed through Taloc, Mother and the devourer (all normal mode), but as soon as we got the Vectis it felt like we hit a brick wall. Healers were going oom at around 50% and there was just way too much damage... I've read that the fight is tuned for 20 man, but is there something else we're missing here? We had 13-16 people during the fight.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/p76nqTGfPaCYgHVF

Cheers.

keep on going and you will kill it! feels good to see people trying and having fun in raids instead of complaining!

[melkesjokolade]

The way we downed it was, everyone stack and when gestate comes, everyone move to green marker, and then back to the first stacking point. Thats about it. We also went oom at 50% before we did it like that. And ofc dps need to do their interrupts and stuff, and dodge as much as possible the blood streams.

[Jawstrock]

We had trouble with mostly 2+tank stack(1 was with bouncing debuff, one with "too many debuff stacks"(so started with no one), last well tanks), after one phase one that went well, healers were oom and then we started having players dying around, losing dps for adds etc. and after the first p2, suddenly we couldn't keep up.

Instead we started with 3+tank stacks, and suddenly the add spawn aoe was alot more managable. From the tooltip of the ability, it does the aoe damage as soon as it hits the player. We one shot it when we changed strat. (We also made sure tanks were switching at 1 stack of dot max, trying never getting over 2, which helped healing too).

Adding another healer helped also.

[Lollis]

The following is on heroic, I honestly cannot remember the exacts of normal:

On DBM Gestate has a countdown, I was getting 3, 2, 1, and then a gestate would happen. Make sure that everyone is ready to move as soon as someone is hit by the gestate and kill that add as soon as possible.

As others have mentioned, doing two groups like on varimathras seems to work.

On normal mode, simply standing grouped was enough as the damage from the dot wasn't that much of a problem. On heroic the damage is more intense, and managing the debuff is important.

[goldenguyz]

Love that you ask for advice, then tell me it's not correct.
00:00:36.216 Vectis casts Gestate on Alaeth
00:00:36.587 Grisens Hammer of the Righteous Plague Amalgam 2 630
00:00:39.237 Vectis's Gestate fades from Alaeth

How do you see what was cast like that? It does literally say in the dungeon journal, though, 13,536 shadow damage every 2 sec to a random player for 5 sec. On expiration, the Plague Amalgam will spawn. Maybe something to do with freedom/dispell effects? Whenever I was watching it, I never saw it spawn isntantly.

The way we downed it was, everyone stack and when gestate comes, everyone move to green marker, and then back to the first stacking point.

Yeah, I think we'll have to give this a try. If we have the markers far away enough the person who gets gestated should be in the middle on their own.

Instead we started with 3+tank stacks, and suddenly the add spawn aoe was alot more managable. From the tooltip of the ability, it does the aoe damage as soon as it hits the player. We one shot it when we changed strat. (We also made sure tanks were switching at 1 stack of dot max, trying never getting over 2, which helped healing too).

Wow, we might have to try this. at 3 stacks we're basically spamming flash of light on our tank.

[Raelyn]

Looks like we were doing it all kinda of wrong then! Our RL had us in 3 separate groups to try and manage the debuff stacks - melee, ranged and healers - and was probably the main reason the healers OOM'd so fast.

[goldenguyz]

Thanks for all the replies btw guys! I'm sure we'll be able to do it next raid night.

As others have mentioned, doing two groups like on varimathras seems to work.

On normal mode, simply standing grouped was enough as the damage from the dot wasn't that much of a problem. On heroic the damage is more intense, and managing the debuff is important.

True, I checked over the journal and Gestate does shadow damage which will always be the same amount. We have a lot of info to work with now, thank you again everyone!

[Better]

How do you see what was cast like that? It does literally say in the dungeon journal, though, 13,536 shadow damage every 2 sec to a random player for 5 sec. On expiration, the Plague Amalgam will spawn. Maybe something to do with freedom/dispell effects? Whenever I was watching it, I never saw it spawn isntantly.

EMFH was used on that one, however it was used when it faded. (which is why I added the fade time in the edit, hadn't thought about the possibility of being Alliance before).
How I did that was looking at the casts of the boss, clicking Gestate then hitting "Events" for the first one, just to establish an exact time of cast, then based on what cast it was I looked at what Amalgam it could have been, in this case 2. So Enemies selected->Plague Amalgam->instances->2->Damage taken->Events for the 2nd line.
Then for the fade I looked at Debuffs->Friendlies->Gestate->Events
I didn't use the first one because your hunter was in the middle of nowhere, so it being hit instantly was unlikely.

Guess I should also elaborate, I was looking at pull 5, b/c it was your best one.

[Scrysis]

Hey guys,

I've formed a new raid team and we basically breezed through Taloc, Mother and the devourer (all normal mode), but as soon as we got the Vectis it felt like we hit a brick wall. Healers were going oom at around 50% and there was just way too much damage... I've read that the fight is tuned for 20 man, but is there something else we're missing here? We had 13-16 people during the fight.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/p76nqTGfPaCYgHVF

Cheers.

Our group was 21 people with four healers. I play a holy priest, and looking at your logs, you're going to have to talk to your holy priest. I'm really kind of stunned by the log.

Your holy priest only used Holy Word: Sanctify FOUR TIMES, Halo THREE TIMES, and Prayer of Mending 6 times. Top heals were flash heal, our mastery, Holy Word: Serenity, and Heal (wat.), followed by CoH. I just checked with Raid Leader, and apparently our logs are broken and only recorded the very first boss of the night, so I can't give you comparative numbers, but I can tell you that they're off. Really off.

Prayer of Mending should be on cooldown. ALWAYS. It's a long fight. There should be WAY more than 6 casts given that it has a cooldown of 12 seconds. This is a largely static, ticking dot fight. PoM is KING in these fights since it will keep bouncing.

Holy Word: Sanctify is an incredible heal. After the first minute, that should be on cooldown.

Halo is awesome. It literally heals the whole raid with no cap. After the first 40 seconds, that should be cast on cooldown as the whole raid is going to be taking increasing amounts of damage.

Waaaaayyy too much flash heal and CoH. You're burning through mana. There are no movement components this fight. I highly suggest that your holy priest swap to binding heal as filler and spam that instead of flash heal. Binding heal is more efficient this fight, and you have a holy paladin to prioritize tanks.

This is a long fight. I was able to cast Holy Word: Sanctuary and Divine Hymn TWICE. In this fight, use those cooldowns as a means of stabilizing the raid with lower mana consumption. I used Sanctuary first just as Vectus went into his first transition phase because everyone was roughly around 50% health. The next raid cooldown was when we all got down to 50% again. And I cast them as needed when they came back. This usage is for saving a huge amount of mana.

Also, don't forget about Hymn of Hope.

_____________________________________________

Also, you're running into the same problem that our group did. Your first death was to a double omega stack. Your second death was the tank to a triple omega stack. Third death was to a triple stack. That's not a healer problem; that's a "we're screwing up mechanics problem". Healers absolutely cannot compensate for that.

How we solved it:

Three groups spread across the boss' backside. The first three people to get infected would pick a stack different than the others and go hang out in the back of it. Once the Omega infection jumped to the next closest person, they would go back into the stack, and the new infected would head to the back. Rotate as needed, and keep an eye on personal Lingering debuff stacks so that they wouldn't get too high for people. During transition, people with infection would go stand near three (different) markers and people with low stacks would go over there to get a germy hug. Commence stack rotation. Once Vectus goes back into phase 1 again, go back to three stacks.

People with super high stacks would pull out of the group entirely and avoid infected people. This strategy kept Lingering stacks off of the tanks, thus making them easier to heal. I won't lie; it was still a beast to heal through. All the healers were super oom at the end (not to mention that mana potions give virtually nothing back), but we did beat him down. The fact that we didn't steam roll him first thing is nice.

[goldenguyz]

Our group was 21 people with four healers. I play a holy priest, and looking at your logs, you're going to have to talk to your holy priest. I'm really kind of stunned by the log.

Your holy priest only used Holy Word: Sanctify FOUR TIMES, Halo THREE TIMES, and Prayer of Mending 6 times. Top heals were flash heal, our mastery, Holy Word: Serenity, and Heal (wat.), followed by CoH. I just checked with Raid Leader, and apparently our logs are broken and only recorded the very first boss of the night, so I can't give you comparative numbers, but I can tell you that they're off. Really off.

Prayer of Mending should be on cooldown. ALWAYS. It's a long fight. There should be WAY more than 6 casts given that it has a cooldown of 12 seconds. This is a largely static, ticking dot fight. PoM is KING in these fights since it will keep bouncing.

Holy Word: Sanctify is an incredible heal. After the first minute, that should be on cooldown.

Halo is awesome. It literally heals the whole raid with no cap. After the first 40 seconds, that should be cast on cooldown as the whole raid is going to be taking increasing amounts of damage.

Waaaaayyy too much flash heal and CoH. You're burning through mana. There are no movement components this fight. I highly suggest that your holy priest swap to binding heal as filler and spam that instead of flash heal. Binding heal is more efficient this fight, and you have a holy paladin to prioritize tanks.

This is a long fight. I was able to cast Holy Word: Sanctuary and Divine Hymn TWICE. In this fight, use those cooldowns as a means of stabilizing the raid with lower mana consumption. I used Sanctuary first just as Vectus went into his first transition phase because everyone was roughly around 50% health. The next raid cooldown was when we all got down to 50% again. And I cast them as needed when they came back. This usage is for saving a huge amount of mana.

Also, don't forget about Hymn of Hope.

_____________________________________________

Also, you're running into the same problem that our group did. Your first death was to a double omega stack. Your second death was the tank to a triple omega stack. Third death was to a triple stack. That's not a healer problem; that's a "we're screwing up mechanics problem". Healers absolutely cannot compensate for that.

How we solved it:

Three groups spread across the boss' backside. The first three people to get infected would pick a stack different than the others and go hang out in the back of it. Once the Omega infection jumped to the next closest person, they would go back into the stack, and the new infected would head to the back. Rotate as needed, and keep an eye on personal Lingering debuff stacks so that they wouldn't get too high for people. During transition, people with infection would go stand near three (different) markers and people with low stacks would go over there to get a germy hug. Commence stack rotation. Once Vectus goes back into phase 1 again, go back to three stacks.

People with super high stacks would pull out of the group entirely and avoid infected people. This strategy kept Lingering stacks off of the tanks, thus making them easier to heal. I won't lie; it was still a beast to heal through. All the healers were super oom at the end (not to mention that mana potions give virtually nothing back), but we did beat him down. The fact that we didn't steam roll him first thing is nice.

Thanks for your reply.

Embarrassingly enough, though I am the holy priest, it's my first time raiding as holy and I knew something was off. I'm just glad you pointed it out. Gimme a week and I'll be whipping out my massive healing-e-cock again.