Madness Advice

[Deleted]

Hey Guys,

We are a small/ casual raiding guild (Still on normal mode)..... After weeks of wiping on Blackhorn we got him down last week and managed to kill Spine withing a couple of hours of trying, last night after we downed Spine early in our raid went to try Madness for a few hours.

It felt strong for our 6 or 7 attempts BUT we couldnt get past the 3rd platform, the order we was trying was Green>Blue>Yellow>Red as after watching Fatboss guide (thats what they used but said experiment) and trying to understand the platforms and each aspects ability it felt a good starting point.

As said we struggled on the 3rd paltform we couldn't kill the bolt on the yellow platform in the air even with the time zone thingy but I am guessing thats because we had just lost the 20% damage buff from blue platform. I am assuming half our raid died due to bolt landing and 'people were to close'??

We switched the raid about a bit, but we felt most happy running 2 healers/ 1 tank & 7 Dps (As below)

Our Raid set up last night was:

Prot Pally
Shaman Healer
Druid Healer
Fire Mage
x2 Arcane Mages
Survival Hunter
Shadow Priest
Combat Rogue
Ret Pally (Was tank to start with)

Usually we would have an Affliction Warlock instead of one of the mages.


Here is a log: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/7gnemj4en9aztv6m/

I understand that we will learn the fight more and try diff ways to see what suits us over time being as we only had a few attempts BUT If any one could offer some advice on which platforms 'could' suit us from your own experience or even have a little lookskie at the logs and offer any advice there it would be muchly appreciated.

[Pokty]

Green>Blue>Yellow>Red

You are probably struggling because you are getting rid of Blue too early. It gives a 20% damage buff, and makes certain spells and abilities proc an extra magical attack (Spellweaving) to nearby enemies, allowing you to instantly blow up the bloods with aoe. There is probably many different opinions on this but I think that the easiest way of doing this fight is going Green>Red>Yellow>Blue with 2 tanks, 3 healers, 5 dps. Damage won't be an issue with 5 dps since you have blue up the entire time, healing will be easy since you have three, and tanking in the last phase will be easy since you have 2 tanks. The only hard part is that you need to take one Elementium Bolt without the time zone, which will require raid cooldown(s). You will also need to stack some cooldowns on the tank which will be on the big tentacle at this point waiting for his Impale. One raid cd + tank's shield wall + something should make it easy for the tank to survive through this bolt impact/impale combo on the last platform.

You can kill this boss with all kinds of exotic setups and platform orders, but this is what I feel is the easiest and requires the least amount of personal responsibility. As long as you have tanks who can press their cooldowns, you'll pretty much win by default.

[raps]

The way my guild handles it is a little different than most. Our off-specs are atrocious so we end up just running 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 DPS. Since you're 1 tanking and healing it, you should be better off than us from a DPS standpoint.

We go Green - Red - Yellow - Blue

We pop lust/time warp as soon as the first Corruption spawns to get it down as quickly as possible. As soon as the Corruption dies we have 2 DPS leap over to the blue platform. They dps that arm/wing down to ~92% and come back. Do not go below 90%, it starts to bleed on the raid at that point and your healers will hate you. We still have enough time to down that platform with ~20seconds left on cataclysm. This gives us a bit of a head start on the blue platform, since at that point our dps will be at its lowest.

The key is the 3rd and 4th platform. For the 3rd, you have to kill the blistering tentacles since Red isn't available anymore. Its all about switching ASAP and the dps knowing how to use their tools when dealing with targets that (need to) die quickly. For the bolt on the 4th platform, have everyone who can't reduce their damage by 90% run to the wing/arm. Once it lands, kill it asap. Anyone who has an ability to let them not take damage needs to use it, and have proper macros to remove the abilities once it lands so they can do max damage again. You may need to use timewarp/lust on that platform to beat the cataclysm timer. As a guild, we don't use lust here. We like to save it for the 10% burn on the last phase. Our biggest issue is usually getting the bloods and blistering tentacles at the same time. Focus down the blistering, then aoe the bloods. If all goes well, you don't lose any time on the wing/arm.

The DPS numbers seem low in your WoLog report, but that may just be from downing the blue platform first. If your dieing from not killing the bolt, then save blue for last. The healer/tank requirements are not high for this fight. Healers have certain points where they need to be good, but otherwise its all about having enough dps to overpower it.

[raps]

The way my guild handles it is a little different than most. Our off-specs are atrocious so we end up just running 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 DPS. Since you're 1 tanking and healing it, you should be better off than us from a DPS standpoint.

We go Green - Red - Yellow - Blue

We pop lust/time warp as soon as the first Corruption spawns to get it down as quickly as possible. As soon as the Corruption dies we have 2 DPS leap over to the blue platform. They dps that arm/wing down to ~92% and come back. Do not go below 90%, it starts to bleed on the raid at that point and your healers will hate you. We still have enough time to down that platform with ~20seconds left on cataclysm. This gives us a bit of a head start on the blue platform, since at that point our dps will be at its lowest.

The key is the 3rd and 4th platform. For the 3rd, you have to kill the blistering tentacles since Red isn't available anymore. Its all about switching ASAP and the dps knowing how to use their tools when dealing with targets that (need to) die quickly. For the bolt on the 4th platform, have everyone who can't reduce their damage by 90% run to the wing/arm. Once it lands, kill it asap. Anyone who has an ability to let them not take damage needs to use it, and have proper macros to remove the abilities once it lands so they can do max damage again. You may need to use timewarp/lust on that platform to beat the cataclysm timer. As a guild, we don't use lust here. We like to save it for the 10% burn on the last phase. Our biggest issue is usually getting the bloods and blistering tentacles at the same time. Focus down the blistering, then aoe the bloods. If all goes well, you don't lose any time on the wing/arm.

The DPS numbers seem low in your WoLog report, but that may just be from downing the blue platform first. If your dieing from not killing the bolt, then save blue for last. The healer/tank requirements are not high for this fight. Healers have certain points where they need to be good, but otherwise its all about having enough dps to overpower it.

[Easo]

Green>Red>Yellow>Blue, 1 tank, two healers, kill corruptions before impales (easy), stack with defensive cds up on blue near wing tentacle, when bolt falls. Tank will possibly die on adds in last phase, but probably not before one add is dead and second close. If he dies, battle ress him, dps till 11-12%, nuke adds, if tank dies again, wont matter, adds will die before dpses. Nuke till end, ignore tentacles if they appear for third time.

[Pokty]

1 tank, two healers,

Puts too much strain on the healers for a very casual guild in my opinion.

[Ineras]

The two platform orders that I would suggest trying are:

1. Green>Yellow>Red>Blue
2. Green>Red>Yellow>Blue as Pokty said

Looking at the deaths in your log it seems a lot of them is because of the Elementium Bolt so you may want to try order #2 as you should only have to deal with it landing once as the other times Nozdormu's effect will slow the bolt down and you should be able to dps it down before it does any damage. For when the Elementium Bolt will land have your shaman healer use their Spirit Link totem and everyone sort of stack around it for the initial hit and then move out so as to reduce the chance of everyone getting hit by the tentacle. Also I would suggest 3 healers since that Elementium Bolt is giving you trouble.

[Almondknight]

To echo what Pokty said:

I lead a casual 10m raid group (We raid about 5-6 hours a week). We're 8/8 normal, so we do have Madness experience. We run the same setup and platform order as Pokty's post stated.

Starting with green is a given. We then knock out red because single targeting a few Blistering Tentacles on two platforms is MUCH easier than handling TWO elementium bolts. Our third platform is yellow, because in our experience having to deal with one bolt vs not having Spellweaving (The AoE addition to your attacks Potky stated) AND the 20% damage buff is too much to handle.

As for knocking out blue, this is our (In a nutshell) strat: Before the fight starts, we place a marker at the BACK (Under the Wing / Arm) of the platform. Ranged and healers spread out immediately after landing on the platform. Everyone nukes Wing / Arm for a bit, then our OT (Prot War) goes to the Corruption to quickly taunt it. As soon as it's up, everyone is on the Corruption nuking it as hard as possible. Once the impale goes out, I (Blood DK) taunt the Corruption. When Elementium Bolt on DBM says 3 seconds left before cast (Cast is 5 seconds I believe) EVERYONE except me runs to the marker we set under the wing. I blow every CD I have: AMS, Vampiric Blood and IBF and soak the bolt impact and impale (It happens at the same time). Since everyone was nice and far away, damage is minimal to the group, but as soon as it makes impact, our ret pally LoH's (This is key) so that I won't die while healers are scrambling to keep everyone up as they nuke down the bolt on the ground. The more pulses it does, the more likely you are to wipe. We then clean up the Corruption and continue to nuke down the Wing / Arm until phase 2.

To note, in phase 2 we found downing the first set of adds (Small and Big) and IGNORING the second set (The Prot War and I just pick up the big guys) to be more effective than healing through 2 sets of adds. Our DPS isn't legendary by any means, but we got it with 5 people alive :P.

Like the Fatboss guide said, there are plenty of ways to experiment, but our group found this strat to be the most effective and put us 8/8 in 5-6 hours a week.

Oh, and our raidcomp is:

Blood DK (Main Tank. Myself)
Protection Warrior (Off tank)
Resto Druid
Disc Priest
Resto Shaman (Goes Enhance during 2 heal fights)
Elemental Shaman
Retri Pally
Destruction Lock
Survival Hunter
Combat Rogue

And here is our log of our full clear night:

http: //worldoflogs.com/ reports/w9ip4ovylrijz52f/

Can't post links because of low post-count.

Hope this helps!

[Tradu]

Green>Red>Yellow>Blue, 1 tank, two healers, kill corruptions before impales (easy), stack with defensive cds up on blue near wing tentacle, when bolt falls. Tank will possibly die on adds in last phase, but probably not before one add is dead and second close. If he dies, battle ress him, dps till 11-12%, nuke adds, if tank dies again, wont matter, adds will die before dpses. Nuke till end, ignore tentacles if they appear for third time.

I agree with everything you said, except the P2 stuff. Only kill the first set of adds. When the Monstrosities spawn, pop BL and the tank's defensive CDs and blow them up. Then nuke the boss and ignore adds(have the tank pick up Monstrosities if another set spawns, obviously, but otherwise stay on the boss).
Easiest to do with a paladin tank, I'd say. Tranquility/Spirit Link totem are really strong for P2, PW:Barrier is really good for the bolt impact on Blue. Shaman healers are quite strong, because they can regen a ton of mana from Telluric Currents during Cataclysm while there are no tentacles up/the AoE aura starts going too high to solo heal.
Most importantly: remember offspec Tranquilities etc, they do make a difference.

[Mohammed]

You may want to run with one tank and 3 heals, going Green-Red-Yellow-Blue. We decent dps for the level we play at, and JUST manage to get the mutated corruption down before the bolt hits the time zone. If you are comfortable 2-healing, you won't have any problem with dps. For the 4th platform you can get the tank to Ardent Defender or Guardian of Ancient Kings for the first impale, and simply bubble for the 2nd, since nobody else will be around. Phase 2 we take down the first set of adds, brez the tank, and lust and tunnel DW.

[Bucknazty]

We did the Green, Red, Yellow, Blue strat. For the blue platform, as soon as Elementium Bolt is announced, stack on the shaman I guess, have him pop Spirit Link, use a Div Sac, and try to save Tranq, but if needed, blow it, and ALL DPS get on the bolt. It will be REALLY hard to survive 2 ticks of the bolt.

Looking at your log, your raids DPS is a bit low imo. When we did it, and we are pretty casual, we had 4 ppl above 40k, and 1 DPS at like 35k. If you cant get that bolt to die before it explodes a second time, its pretty much a wipe.

Some tips: Always lust on the first platform, it will be up for the last one. Pop all CDs on first platform, including a prepot, and they will be up on the 3rd platform (3min CDs). I made a macro on my boomkin for the bolts. Just a simple /tar Elementium Bolt, but you would be surprised at how much that helped. I was having major problems clicking it and losing like 3-4 secs, which can be a game breaker.

The one platform without the timezone is the game changer. Once your healers can handle that, its pretty much a cake walk on the last platform as long as your ppl can click their button. O and tank the Big Adds on the last platform in the timezone. It slows the rate at which they stack their buff that kills the tank haha.

[Deleted]

Thank you for all of your comments thus far...

I am the Shaman healer so take on board all of what you have brought up.....

I woudl liek to say that both me and our druid healers have no trouble what so ever healing on the first 2.5 platforms and then we all die from the bolt....its not a gradual death its an all on 90 to 100% hp and then BAM 6,7 or even 8 people are dead!!! I am guessing its because we just killed the blue platform that we dont have the 20% dmg buff to kill the bolt before it lands.....

So I wouldnt count that as a healer problem, or should I ??

But maybe that is because of the order we was trying the platforms, we will see....

As for the comment on low dps you have to remember that we killed the blue platform 2nd so thats a 20% loss in DPS and althou 1 or 2 is a bit low most of the attempts we do have 2 or 3 in the 40k mark and the others not far behind.... Is that really that bad? As in we wont make a kill?

[Ineras]

I woudl liek to say that both me and our druid healers have no trouble what so ever healing on the first 2.5 platforms and then we all die from the bolt....its not a gradual death its an all on 90 to 100% hp and then BAM 6,7 or even 8 people are dead!!! I am guessing its because we just killed the blue platform that we dont have the 20% dmg buff to kill the bolt before it lands.....

Well once you kill the yellow platform the bolt won't be slowed down so it will hit after that (20% dmg buff or not). If everyone is topped off and everyone dies from the impact of the bolt then I would say you are too close to the impact zone (as the damage you take is proportional to how close you are to the yellow swirly impact zone), but if you die from the pulses after that then I would say it is a healer issue because the pulses after it lands do less damage than the initial hit. Have your shadow priest use their Divine Hymn right after the impact to help get everyone healed up so they won't die from the pulses.

[raps]

So I wouldnt count that as a healer problem, or should I ??.....
Is that really that bad? As in we wont make a kill?

It's a DPS problem, not a healer problem. Getting through an unexpected bolt landing is impossible. It will 1 shot anyone very close to it, which would be all the melee if they're trying to kill it. They need to make sure the bolt dies. That is A+ #1 priority. Your overall raid DPS is more than enough to down the fight before hitting the enrage/cataclysm timers. The bolt landing is either a burst dps issue, or a target switching issue. The dps need to get on it asap. Macros help with targeting. You also should be smart about what spells you use just before switching. Don't throw away a nice big damage ability that has a 6 second CD if your about to switch to the bolt.

[Deleted]

Well once you kill the yellow platform the bolt won't be slowed down so it will hit after that (20% dmg buff or not). If everyone is topped off and everyone dies from the impact of the bolt then I would say you are too close to the impact zone (as the damage you take is proportional to how close you are to the yellow swirly impact zone), but if you die from the pulses after that then I would say it is a healer issue because the pulses after it lands do less damage than the initial hit. Have your shadow priest use their Divine hymn right after the impact and any other off-spec healing CD's to get everyone healed up so they won't die from the pulses.

Awesome thank you, that was kinda what I was looking for as I was not 100% sure why people were dieing from the bolt landing...So if its they are to close then I know where to start, do you have an idea on range they need to be??

[Dhurn]

If people are dying from the bolt impact, it is because they are too close and/or you are not correctly using raid and personal cooldowns. Any personal defensive abilities dps have should be saved for bolt impact, and a raid CD like SLT or raidwall if your tank has 4pc.

[Ineras]

Awesome thank you, that was kinda what I was looking for as I was not 100% sure why people were dieing from the bolt landing...So if its they are to close then I know where to start, do you have an idea on range they need to be??

It's worked for our group if we stack over beside Deathwing's wing/arm thing.

[Scathbais]

Hang out next to the boss and you will be out of range of elementium bolt. Try not to stack if Mutated Corruption is alive as it can one shot your group with a Crush.

We use 1 tank, 3 healers, 6 dps (fire mage, demo lock, hunter, boomkin, frost dk, druid in cat form). The key to this set up is killing the Mutated Corruption before the second impale. Ideally you want to kill it before the elementium bolt is launched.

We do Ysera, Alex, Noz, Kalecgos. We lust on the pull (so it is up for phase II). On third platform, you will have to single target the blistering tentacles, so don't push 80% boss health until Mutated Corruption and Ele Bolt are down). On 4th platform, still have to single target blistering tentacles, but also have to stay near boss (wing?) when ele bolt launches. Kill it, kill the Mutated Corruption, kill boss.

Phase 2 is pretty easy. Start on Deathwing's head, single target elementium fragments and use dream if you are targeted with shrapnel. Have tank pick up 2 adds and burn them. Lust should be up somewhere around here. If your dps is good (around 10% boss health), you can ignore the second set of elementium fragments, burn the boss and use dream if targeted by shrapnel.

[Static Transit]

This is the way my group does it:

- First of all, we 2 tank this. If you dps is good enough to down the corruptions before too many impales, it won't be too much of a problem. Also, your tank better be good.
- Second of all, we go Green>Red>Yellow>Blue. The reasons for this is that Blue is very important (it's VERY difficult to kill Regenerative Bloods unless you have that buff). Yellow is next, since it decreases the amount of times you need to deal with the Bolt impacts. Next is Red, since you won't need to deal with tentacles for a bit. Green is least important.
- For the final platform, it's important to set a stack point for the Bolt impact. Stack as far away from it as you can, as it does proximity damage. Your tank will need to stay on the corruption, of course, so that it doesn't impale the Aspect. Everyone that has a defensive cooldown should pop it here, and shaman should use Spirit Link and use Healing Rain in preparation (make sure everyone is topped off, too). After it lands, everyone should immediately kill the Bolt (as it does continuous AoE damage) then kill the Corruption (if it's not already dead).
- Remember that for the last two platforms, you'll need to single-target the Burning Tentacles. NOTE: DO NOT get the claw below 70% before the Bloods are dead on these platforms. Stop DPS at 75%. The reason for this is that you do NOT want a hemorrhage and Burning Tentacles at the same time.
- Save Bloodlust for Cataclysm on the final platform. If you feel your DPS is good enough without it, you may want to instead use it on the Corruption, since ideally, you want it dead before that Elementium Bolt comes out.

For phase 2:

- Remember to pop Dream for Shrapnel.
- Mark one of the big adds with a skull so that people can focus one down.
- If you haven't used Bloodlust yet, save it for the second set of adds. You DON'T want to burn down the boss too much before the second set, as he does more AoE damage the lower on health he is.

[Deleted]

What Ineras and Pokty said.

Use the Green>Red>Yellow>Blue strategy as it is by far the easiest that I found myself too.

We do 25 in my guild but as far as I know it's the same strategy. In the 4th platfrom before the Elementium Bolt reaches the location make everyone go near the Wing Tentacle and place a healing CD and your tank pop up one of his CDs too.