Going BM - worth it?

[Seejay]

Hi all, hope you can help. First, we're a social guild and we don't proclaim to be anything we're not, but we've started attempting HC modes recently and we hope you can help. Please be constructive.

Basically, we've been trying on YS Hc this week and with our best try we got to 17% before the engrage hit. I play SV atm but to up the DPS of the raid as a whole they'd like me to go BM for the Ferocious Inspiration talent.(http://www.wowhead.com/spell=34460).

I've never been keen on BM (I play SV atm and I like it the most) but I suppose if it will benefit the raid as a whole I am willing to go BM if it really helps.

My worry is that my personal DPS loss from going BM would be greater than the overall gain that the raid would get. Also we'd be losing Hunting Party but I suppose our Shaman can use Windfury Totem to cover that.

Anyway, I guess I'd like your thought on whether it'd be worth it or not. I don't want to just run loads of simulators, I'd rather get practical advice from others that perhaps have done the same.

Here's our best attempt:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/q...?s=5232&e=5837
(Btw I am aware that our dps as a whole is low - it's actually usually higher but there you go. We also had some non regular raiders/alt characters with us.)

Alternatively, if you can see anything else that we could switch around instead (specs etc.) then please do say.

Thanks and I'll check back tomorrow

[Ijanaak]

They don't have you AOEing the slimes? I noticed Serpent Sting isn't as high as it should be for that fight and Explosive Trap isn't used... the raid DPS on the boss would go up higher if they had a Survival Hunter AOEing the slimes with the warrior and shadow priest - since the faster they die, the faster the warrior and shadow priest can single target the boss, plus it helps unburdon the healers somewhat as well.

Personally I'm not all about BM and I don't think it'd be a game changing DPS difference and would advise against it. It's not terrible exactly, but if you aren't as happy with it, then why bother allowing them to justify the change.

[aHeeRo]

I don't believe going Bm would increase your raids dps. Well it would but it wouldn't help you down this encounter. Use your Explosive trap off CD LnL procs on Boss. I'd recommend telling your Mage to go fire because being Arcane is pointless on that fight.

[Magpai]

Registered just to tell you this:

The Ferocious Inspiration talent is redundant to Arcane Tactics, and your logs indicate that you have an arcane mage in your group, so you'd get no benefit out of it.

In case the arcane mage is one of the alts and won't always be around: TBH, if you're hitting 17% then you need about 20% more dps across the board anyway so I wouldn't even worry about such small changes until it has a chance to make a difference.

Besides, you would contribute more to the group's dps by improving your aoe on the forgotten ones than by respeccing. And don't let anyone tell you that only damage on the boss counts when you're having enrage problems: Each wave of forgotten ones adds a fixed amount of health to the encounter that you have to chew through, and every point of damage counts towards that number.

P.S. If you get Purple Blue Green Black oozes and you're killing green, switch to killing black to remove some dps requirement.

[Seejay]

Hi, was just about to go to bed but saw this got quite a few posts really quickly (ty for them btw) so thought I'd just clear a few things up.

Basically my job involves getting the Mana Void down to a decently low health (but not killing it, which probably explains the low SS damage perhaps (trying for the most part to avoid DoTs)) and then obviously killing the oozes and then the boss.

I think I have been not AoE'ing the adds enough though, I can see that now. I've probably been relying too much on other people to do that and been focusing on the boss primarilly too much, so thanks for that and that's something I'll certainly try to do more of next time we try it.

Anyway going to bed now and thanks for the help so far

[Deleted]

Would I be right in saying its a toss up between you providing 3% damage or the mage providing it? If so, then I agree with aHeeRo - have your Mage go Fire and you go BM. I went BM for our first couple of kills, and it isn't half-bad for that fight.

> Bestial Wrath was up for each and every blob phase which meant I could pump out reasonable AOE damage when needed - even without a Chimera or Worm, as my pet was providing the 5% crit buff.

> I was also put on Mana Void duty (Q_Q), which was in turn made easier by having B/Wrath available each time. There's no harm in using S/Sting on the void, it doesn't do enough damage to kill it when your break off from the Void.

> Make sure that you leave your pet on the boss when you're running off to kill a blob - you can still tell it to K/Command the boss even if you're away nuking down an add someplace. Just make sure you don't have any /petattack lines in your shot macros and your pet is on Passive when you tell it to attack the boss. You'll suffer greatly if you have to pull your pet off the boss each time to kill a blob.

Edit: your SV spec seems a little off to me - this would probably serve you better: http://db.mmo-champion.com/utils/tal...4Iw.bqj.hunter.
You should also glyph Arcane Shot (its boss damage, or lack thereof that makes or breaks this fight, not how fast adds die) instead of S/Sting and also Raptor Strike for the damage reduction. Yor'shaj has a friendly hitbox for hunters.

The BM spec & glyphs you should use would be: http://db.mmo-champion.com/utils/tal...j.hunter.bBL5Y

[Seejay]

The edit post function doesn't want to work for some reason and I forgot to add, our usual Mage is a Fire mage, so we don't usually have an Arcane Mage in the group, so most of the time we are losing that 3% damage talent.

[Oricc]

I'd give both a try, if you're playing properly (which tbh you're probably not) you can pull crazy numbers as SV on that fight. You and the amge should be able to top everyone else easily. like I'm talking 60k DPSish and your mage can pull well over 120k if he's really good. ht epoit is you can kill it as either one, I'd say a well played SV would be better for your raid that a well played BM. if you did the same damage as BM as you did as SV, you're raid would only gain 1.3 million damage. considering your mages DPS is so low, I would say make him go Arcane for the 3% damage buff, it's shitty aoE but he's not AoEing well anyway, so it doesn't matter much.

[Deleted]

Just to clear things up as there is some confusion.

We would normally have a firemage instead of the arcane mage and a different arms warrior.
Seejay was on void duty so alot of the time was focusing the mana void instead of aoe-ing

hope it helps

[tyriddik]

Just to clear things up as there is some confusion.

We would normally have a firemage instead of the arcane mage and a different arms warrior.
Seejay was on void duty so alot of the time was focusing the mana void instead of aoe-ing

hope it helps

Well with out the Arcane mage you would just do some simple math.

your raids best atempt was*172489.8 dps

3% of that is 5174.7 dps

If your dps loss is less than than 5k than it may* be a raid increase*
*
if your dps loss is greater than 5k then its prolly not worth it.*

ty

[Blabb]

I noticed that you are 3 healing, while we regularly 2 heal in our main run and for our first kill 3 healed our alt run, 2 healing will yeild the highest dps increase for your group compared to people changing dps spec. Having ur priest healer go shadow will generate much more dps and then both the spriests in the group can pop out some sheilds now and then to help. The druid looks like he is fair bit ahead on healing anyway so can probably handle this but ur shammy looks low probly due to the disc sheilds coming out. Shammy are really great healers for this fight, so with a little practice the druid and shammy should be able to 2heal. worse case scenario the 2 spriest can pop a hymm to help during non purple. Just have 1 healer healing each group and be vocal if need help to top some1 off. Having the spriests for aoe will also gets adds down quicker reducing the time spent not on boss and the fight shouldn't go longer then 9 minutes giving u a nice 1min buffer incase something goes wrong

[Ijanaak]

Another tactic you can use for the void is... while you'll still want it lowered a bit, right as you need it to die if you have the DK death grip the Mana Void into melee range and have everyone switch to it and blow it up in the stack it'll probably help you out. The AOE classes don't need to AOE the adds until there's a handful of them out, they don't need to AOE on the first few so if it's a phase when the Mana Void needs to die its not a big deal that everyone gets on it and kills it at just the right time(right when the new void drops) and then AOE when there's 5-6 adds out.

Also, when the Mana Void is death gripped into melee, the warrior can cleave the adds off the mana void anyway and things will all die a bit more efficiently.

[Deleted]

Hellos,

thought I'd stir the soup a little as well :P
First off the raid composition was indeed a bit different from our "best" lineup. Warrior dps would be higher, mage dps would be significantly higher (better geared + fire). Tank would be better geared :P So the next time we go, we might just get enough dps from having our regular team members along. This is assuming we can make the most of what we have though.

It is indeed simple maths deciding whether the 3% dmg buff is worth it or not. If our raid dps over the fight would be 190k (which i think is definitely possible if not enough :P) we'd gain under 6k raid dps from the 3% dmg buff. As long as the loss of personal dps is smaller than that, it's worth it.

So with arcane/fire mage vs bm/survival hunter there's a few options:
- Both stay in their optimal dps spec, focus on making the most out of our aoe dps. Warlock on void duty.
- Mage goes arcane. Poor aoe dps from him, though still higher overall dps than shown on the logs(different mage). Gain the 3% buff. Mage on void duty.
- Hunter goes BM. Worse aoe dps, but according to Helfarch a few posts up, BM can do acceptable dps. Gain the buff. Hunter remains on void duty.

Right now based on what I've read here, the first option seems like the best bet. My only concern with that is the red blob's beam. It hits harder the further it travels, so considering a minimum distance is needed to be able to dps effectively as a hunter, how much of a problem is this? I would guess that when 3 healing, this isn't an issue as long as it doesn't outright kill anyone.


Looking at the other things suggested in this thread...

2 healing is a possibility, but if we were to do that it would be the shammy and disc priest healing. The only healer with a halfway decent dps spec is the druid, and even his dps would be maybe 10k lower than the others' and he'd prefer healing, so this is pretty much the last option. Also, if we do want to 2 heal it i'm not quite sure if the priest and shammy can handle it - though my hymn and the druid's tranquility would of course be used.

We are already gripping the void in when we need to kill it, though there's still some improvement to be made with timing there.

Changing which blob we kill might help reduce the amount of dmg we need to do. With the "Purple Blue Green Black" combination mentioned above, we are already killing black though - not sure there are many other combinations where we can do that?


In the end it is a question of increasing overall dps. There is no wasted dmg in this fight, everything needs to die. So it doesn't matter where it's targeted as long as the raid dps is the highest it can be. In the end we might just not have sufficient dps at the moment without 2-healing it.


I appreciate everyone's input There were good points made and we'll certainly take them into consideration the next time we try it

- Neral

PS: I noticed the log Seejay linked isn't actually our best attempt, but since I haven't posted here before I can't link the best one It was the 4th attempt of the same run though, if anyone can be bothered to check it :P

[Divinespeed]

Hi, was just about to go to bed but saw this got quite a few posts really quickly (ty for them btw) so thought I'd just clear a few things up.

Basically my job involves getting the Mana Void down to a decently low health (but not killing it, which probably explains the low SS damage perhaps (trying for the most part to avoid DoTs)) and then obviously killing the oozes and then the boss.

I think I have been not AoE'ing the adds enough though, I can see that now. I've probably been relying too much on other people to do that and been focusing on the boss primarilly too much, so thanks for that and that's something I'll certainly try to do more of next time we try it.

Anyway going to bed now and thanks for the help so far

In my opinion, you should have your rogue stay on the boss at all times, or warrior as he is top dps, when you are getting a new mana void have him switch off to the void to get it low while you guys go and kill blobs.

[Seejay]

OMG Neral's right, I posted the wrong attempt!

Here's our best one:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/q...?s=5232&e=5837

[Zayniel]

I'd think that respeccing rogue to combat (letting him stay on boss fulltime, perhaps go void if it's needed) and the mage to fire should be okay. 3% damage isn't a gamebreaking buff in 10man honestly, especially on this fight where you'd get more total DPS if you stay Surv and the mage goes fire. Also, you don't need someone to be assigned to the void, it's simple enough to do that "on the fly". Say void is full health and you get a blue ooze spawning, just let the combat rogue switch to it, get it to ~20% or so. Another thing you could do is just dot it up while you run to the ooze that you're killing, and dps it a bit on the way back to the boss.

Oh, also you could get your warlock to spec demo for this fight for some more AoE. (not 100% sure about this one since I don't know too much about warlocks)

As you mentioned, DPS is quite low. Try 2 healing, it should be pretty easy for you guys since you have a shadow priest and a blood DK.

Good luck! (apologies if what I wrote doesn't make sense, wasn't too long ago since I woke up :P)

[Deleted]

Hehe I total agree with Divinespeed :P, could just go sub and nuke then assuming we have greater aoe dps

[Deepfriedegg]

I'd give both a try, if you're playing properly (which tbh you're probably not) you can pull crazy numbers as SV on that fight. You and the amge should be able to top everyone else easily. like I'm talking 60k DPSish and your mage can pull well over 120k if he's really good. ht epoit is you can kill it as either one, I'd say a well played SV would be better for your raid that a well played BM. if you did the same damage as BM as you did as SV, you're raid would only gain 1.3 million damage. considering your mages DPS is so low, I would say make him go Arcane for the 3% damage buff, it's shitty aoE but he's not AoEing well anyway, so it doesn't matter much.

So nice from you to tell him how much DPS can best HM geared players in 25 man do and then tell him that he/they should do it, too... (in 10 man with mostly normal gear...) This kind of "advice" is really what the OP came here for.

OT: If you are assigned to void, there shouldnt be too much issues with you being BM - your AoE would be very low and being stuck with non-AoE pet (because you need to bring Crit buff). Just make sure that pet always stays on boss and you kill the void / bring it low enough so that you can easily kill it within several GCD when needed. I think that is the way you will be most useful to your raid.
Good luck

[bandet]

BM is worse than SV. If they need more burst, other classes do it better. You should be aoeing as SV. Other classes aren't able to do both good single target, and aoe damage with one spec.