Raiding Tips and Tricks - MoP Edition

[NomadKing]

Nice thread, some useful tips in here

Here's a couple of mine that I don't think anyone has said so far:

Wind Lord Mel'jarak - You can actually Feign Death the Kor'thik Strike (instead of deterrencing it) and take no damage. Needs good timing, I usually press it when I see the DBM yell for being targeted.

Spirit Kings - You can Deterrence and walk right through Flanking Orders without taking damage. Useful on HC if you get yourself in a bad spot, or if you want to squeeze out some more DPS and just pop it when they are about to hit you.

[Tehstool]

Wind Lord Mel'jarak - You can actually Feign Death the Kor'thik Strike (instead of deterrencing it) and take no damage. Needs good timing, I usually press it when I see the DBM yell for being targeted.

That's actually very nice to know, wish I could test it out.

[Tehstool]

PTR Tip(s):

Iron Qon - You can master's call the frozen blood debuff.

[Rullis]

Thanks for the PTR tip, Tehstool. Will you be testing more PTR?

[Tehstool]

Thanks for the PTR tip, Tehstool. Will you be testing more PTR?

If people can kill bosses, yes.

For people who were wondering what frozen blood was:

http://ptr.wowdb.com/spells/137664-frozen-blood

Deals 60,000 Frost damage instantly and slows the target's movement, melee, ranged, and casting speeds by 25%. This effect stacks while standing within the area of frozen blood.

Could be very helpful in that fight. I assume the pally counterpart works too.

[Deleted]

Long time lurker, first time...yeye you know the deal.

I was looking for some tips for a first time HC progression hunter. My few questions:

Which Spec in MSV and HOF...I was thinking all BM except for Stoneguard, Will and Windlord.

Feng maybe? Wasn't sure about this because of the new phase added.

What Utility am I using? All I could think of here is Binding shot and the typical utility on Will.

Now to the most important question. How exactley to distribute my DPS on Will, on my normal kills on Will my DPS has always been absolutely terrible. Is there a Video or does someone have a write up of how to maximize DPS efficiency on this boss. I tried parking my pet on one of the boss and just multidotting the rest while dropping traps under the bosses. It was never a smooth rotation and always ended up in me missing something.

Any help would be appreciated, especially for Will.

Thank You.

[Glurp]

This isn't really the thread for giving out boss guides, but to do max DPS on will multi-dot everything with Serpent sting and use Black Arrow on the bosses, dropping traps is stupid and is going to be half the reason your doing bad DPS.

[Bellatrex-Saga]

Which Spec in MSV and HOF...I was thinking all BM except for Stoneguard, Will and Windlord.

Feng maybe? Wasn't sure about this because of the new phase added.

What Utility am I using? All I could think of here is Binding shot and the typical utility on Will.

Now to the most important question. How exactley to distribute my DPS on Will, on my normal kills on Will my DPS has always been absolutely terrible. Is there a Video or does someone have a write up of how to maximize DPS efficiency on this boss. I tried parking my pet on one of the boss and just multidotting the rest while dropping traps under the bosses. It was never a smooth rotation and always ended up in me missing something.

Any help would be appreciated, especially for Will.

Thank You.

This is from a 25 man heroic raiding perspective...in MSV I was BM for everything except Will - I know a lot of people go SV for Stone Guard though. In HoF I switch to SV for Melorak. In ToE I am BM for everything except Sha of Fear.

For Will 25 man I go SV with binding shot (but never have to use it) and the talent that reduces the CD of deterrence. My job is to work with the other hunter to break the sparks - that's our first priority. One hunter goes in on the waves of 8 and breaks as many as he can and the 2nd one goes in and cleans up the rest. We both save our readiness because we each (on different waves) will have to use readiness because we will get a wave of 4 that happens before the deterrence CD is up - this happens twice in the fight so it works out well with 2 hunters. We do not trap or use any other CC because we have other people handling that. We also can't explo trap the adds because it will break the next set of CC. It's possible when we were first learning the fight we might have used binding shot as an emergency CC at the end - I don't remember. I will use stampede and crows when the bosses first come out and park my pet on one of them for the rest of the fight.

My best suggestion for maxizing your DPS it to always be shooting something. Even if your job is to break sparks, you can still usually be DPSing while you wait for the sparks to come down - there will always be a strength up at the same time.

[Puerto]

Long time lurker, first time...yeye you know the deal.

I was looking for some tips for a first time HC progression hunter. My few questions:

Which Spec in MSV and HOF...I was thinking all BM except for Stoneguard, Will and Windlord.

Feng maybe? Wasn't sure about this because of the new phase added.

What Utility am I using? All I could think of here is Binding shot and the typical utility on Will.

Now to the most important question. How exactley to distribute my DPS on Will, on my normal kills on Will my DPS has always been absolutely terrible. Is there a Video or does someone have a write up of how to maximize DPS efficiency on this boss. I tried parking my pet on one of the boss and just multidotting the rest while dropping traps under the bosses. It was never a smooth rotation and always ended up in me missing something.

Any help would be appreciated, especially for Will.

Thank You.

This is what I did personally.

MSV

Stoneguard - SV with AMoC and ToTH. Our multishot/serpent spread "cleave" is actually pretty damn good for this fight.
Feng - I usually go SV for this fight as well with ToTH. But that is because I love AoEing the adds lol. Regardless, getting the adds down as fast as possible is always a good thing. Here I just drop a frost trap as my "utility."
Gara - BM all the way.. should be a straight single target DPS race for you.
Spirit Kings - BM as well, all single target again.
Elegon - BM again
Will - SV here with ToTH and barrage for AoEing rages. Running around getting your serpent sting on everything helps a lot as well. You are doing it correctly by keeping your pet on passive and on the boss at all times. You can watch my Heroic Will kill on my youtube page in my signature. You can pretty much see how I did it. My DPS was not AS high as the other hunters due to me being the first/main hunter exploding the sparks, but I feel I was able to put out some decent numbers.

HoF

Vizier - BM.. all single target
Blade Lord - BM.. all single target
Garalon - I actually go out of the norm here and go SV with Fervor. We do not take much advantage of the legs as range in our group, so what I do is keep serpent sting up on all the legs while DPSing the bosses. Average around 110k-120k DPS here.
Wind Lord - Easy... SV here with barrage and ToTH.
Amber-Shaper - SV here again with barrage and ToTH. Main priority for you on this fight is making sure you kill oozes ASAP.
Empress - SV here with glaive toss and fervor. Depending on how your group deals with the adds in phase 2 will determine whether or not you should use barrage or glaive. (ie. how far the adds are spread, and whether or not barrage would be able to hit all 6 adds)

[Atroxe]

Long time lurker, first time...yeye you know the deal.

I was looking for some tips for a first time HC progression hunter. My few questions:

Which Spec in MSV and HOF...I was thinking all BM except for Stoneguard, Will and Windlord.

Feng maybe? Wasn't sure about this because of the new phase added.

What Utility am I using? All I could think of here is Binding shot and the typical utility on Will.

Now to the most important question. How exactley to distribute my DPS on Will, on my normal kills on Will my DPS has always been absolutely terrible. Is there a Video or does someone have a write up of how to maximize DPS efficiency on this boss. I tried parking my pet on one of the boss and just multidotting the rest while dropping traps under the bosses. It was never a smooth rotation and always ended up in me missing something.

Any help would be appreciated, especially for Will.

Thank You.

Keep in mind these were my strategies and opinions going into each encounter coming from a 10man heroic perspective.

Mogu'shan Vaults
1. Stone Guards: [Survival] - AMoC + Fervor and put your AMoC on the two quillens that are being tanked together, save fervor for high stacks of Energized Tiles and do as much burst here as possible. Keep SS on everything and continue a single target rotation while maintaining dots on everything.
2. Feng the Accursed: [Survival] - AMoC + Fervor. Do a normal single target rotation up until the adds phase. Assuming your raid is stacked for when the adds come out, put an explosive trap + ice trap underneath your raid and try to be around focus cap as the adds come out. During this you should be using abilities such as GT / Barrage and spamming Multi-Shot (save fervor for this)
3. Garajal: [BM] - Just do your single target rotation, run DB + AMoC + GT. If you are looking to pad, feel free to execute low HP totems.
4. Spirit Kings: [BM] - Single target rotation, don't wipe your raid etc. You can disengage Pinning Arrows if you time it properly.
5. Elegon: [BM] - AMoC + DB. Depending on your gear level, during the orb phase try to save your kill command / GT for the boss (it will have more and more stacks as you kill the adds) and try to kill the orbs using strictly AS or CS. The more damage you put on the boss during this phase, the better your DPS will be. Try to SS as many pillars as you can during intermission phase and leave the AOEing to your other raiders. You can multi-shot them once to activate beast cleave, then kill command your pet back onto Elegon.
6. Will of the Emperor: [Survival] - Make sure you are spec'd into 1min Deterrence, you can soak a lot of Titan Sparks this way, keep DoTs on both bosses as much as you can and kill your priority lists (Courage -> Strength -> Rage). During the break when no adds are coming out, blow CDs on the bosses. You can put SS + AMoC + BA on both bosses with the use of readiness.

Heart of Fear
1. Imperial Vizier Zorlok: (BM) - My personal favorite fight as a hunter, spec into as much single target damage as possible and volunteer to stay behind on the Attentation echo since hunters excel at this. Use Disengage / Deterrence if you feel it is necessary on each mind control.
2. Blade Lord Ta'yak: (BM) - Single target the entire P1, watch timers so you don't pop cooldowns during Unseen Strikes. You can disengage during the blade storm, but don't use it to early or it will yank you back in, I usually wait until my feet hit the ground, then disengage out. (Posthaste may be useful here). At the start of P2, you can bandage yourself if you like. One tick of bandage will help. If you are looking to rank, feel free to use Nitro Boosts, though it is a bit risky. Run on the sides around 11% so it will carry you to the other side around the same time he pushes over to the other side.
3. Garalon: (BM) - Consider yourself a Melee and use the blue as much as you possibly can, you have no movement restrictions so get into them and blow things like BW and other CDs to get the legs down ASAP. While running Pheramones, try to keep SS on as many legs and the boss as possible and if you see a leg near you, kill command your pet to the blue (YOUR PET STILL BENEFITS IF ITS STANDING IN THE BLUE EVEN IF YOU AREN'T!)
4. Wind Lord Mel'jarak: (BM or SV) - Both specs work well here, I personally go BM since it helps kill the 2nd set of adds quicker for a chained Recklessness, but you will see good results with both specs. If playing BM, save all your cooldowns for Recklessness and keep Beast Cleave up. If Beast Cleave is up, continue your single target rotation.
5. Amber Shaper: (Survival) - Spam Multi Shot when there is a lot of adds up to spread Serpent Sting, otherwise put your damage on breaking people out of Constructs / killing the Monstrosity.
6. Grand Empress: (Survival) - Feel free to use GT or Barrage, both work well. GT will probably beat out Barrage if you are going for only 1 add phase, but I haven't done the math on it. Try to get the Poison Fumes buff as much as possible, works really well during the add phases. Keep SS on all the adds and etc.

Terrace of Endless Springs
1. Protectors of the Endless: (Survival) - Hunters aren't that great here, feel free to Multi-Shot with one of your globals off the opener to help proc your trinkets, otherwise single target the proper target. Survival beats out BM here because of pets not benefiting from the damage buff, though hunters are still pretty weak on this fight. Try to keep your pet on the bosses rather than the adds and help slow the adds using Ice Traps.
2. Tsulong: (Survival) - You can put full use to things such as Binding Shot / Entrapment and Concussive Shots during the night phase. Try to make sure you keep full DoTs on the boss and get in as much burst as possible during the night phase. During Day Phase you should help kill the large adds, once they die AOE as much as you can for when the small adds spawn. Fervor works well here.
3. Lei Shi: (BM) - One of the few fights I still run Lynx Rush on due to the hiding / protect phases. Try to save CDs for when the boss has large stacks of Scary Fog. Spec into Wyvern Sting and you can CC 2 adds during Protect.
4. Sha of Fear: (Survival) - Our raid handled this fight by ignoring all the Terror Spawn on p1 and nuking the boss into P2. If your guild decides to use a similar strat, the only advice I can give for P1 is between breaths, stand outside of the light so that immobile classes have more space to move around. During P2, you will shine more and more as a higher add count comes. Use your pro Survival AOE skills to nuke adds down and keep DoTs on the boss. You can use Ice Traps to slow the adds as well.

Hope this helps a bit

[Atroxe]

Long time lurker, first time...yeye you know the deal.

I was looking for some tips for a first time HC progression hunter. My few questions:

Which Spec in MSV and HOF...I was thinking all BM except for Stoneguard, Will and Windlord.

Feng maybe? Wasn't sure about this because of the new phase added.

What Utility am I using? All I could think of here is Binding shot and the typical utility on Will.

Now to the most important question. How exactley to distribute my DPS on Will, on my normal kills on Will my DPS has always been absolutely terrible. Is there a Video or does someone have a write up of how to maximize DPS efficiency on this boss. I tried parking my pet on one of the boss and just multidotting the rest while dropping traps under the bosses. It was never a smooth rotation and always ended up in me missing something.

Any help would be appreciated, especially for Will.

Thank You.

Keep in mind these were my strategies and opinions going into each encounter coming from a 10man heroic perspective.
Mogu'shan Vaults
1. Stone Guards: [Survival] - AMoC + Fervor and put your AMoC on the two quillens that are being tanked together, save fervor for high stacks of Energized Tiles and do as much burst here as possible. Keep SS on everything and continue a single target rotation while maintaining dots on everything.
2. Feng: [Survival] - AMoC + Fervor. Do a normal single target rotation up until the adds phase. Assuming your raid is stacked for when the adds come out, put an explosive trap + ice trap underneath your raid and try to be around focus cap as the adds come out. During this you should be using abilities such as GT / Barrage and spamming Multi-Shot (save fervor for this)
3. Garajal: [BM] - Just do your single target rotation, run DB + AMoC + GT. If you are looking to pad, feel free to execute low HP totems.
4. Spirit Kings: [BM] - Single target rotation, don't wipe your raid etc. You can disengage Pinning Arrows if you time it properly.
5. Elegon: [BM] - AMoC + DB. Depending on your gear level, during the orb phase try to save your kill command / GT for the boss (it will have more and more stacks as you kill the adds) and try to kill the orbs using strictly AS or CS. The more damage you put on the boss during this phase, the better your DPS will be. Try to SS as many pillars as you can during intermission phase and leave the AOEing to your other raiders. You can multi-shot them once to activate beast cleave, then kill command your pet back onto Elegon.
6. Will of the Emperor: [Survival] - Make sure you are spec'd into 1min Deterrence, you can soak a lot of Titan Sparks this way, keep DoTs on both bosses as much as you can and kill your priority lists (Courage -> Strength -> Rage). During the break when no adds are coming out, blow CDs on the bosses. You can put SS + AMoC + BA on both bosses with the use of readiness.


Heart of Fear
1. Imperial Vizier Zorlok: (BM) - My personal favorite fight as a hunter, spec into as much single target damage as possible and volunteer to stay behind on the Attentation echo since hunters excel at this. Use Disengage / Deterrence if you feel it is necessary on each mind control.
2. Blade Lord Ta'yak: (BM) - Single target the entire P1, watch timers so you don't pop cooldowns during Unseen Strikes. You can disengage during the blade storm, but don't use it to early or it will yank you back in, I usually wait until my feet hit the ground, then disengage out. (Posthaste may be useful here). At the start of P2, you can bandage yourself if you like. One tick of bandage will help. If you are looking to rank, feel free to use Nitro Boosts, though it is a bit risky. Run on the sides around 11% so it will carry you to the other side around the same time he pushes over to the other side.
3. Garalon: (BM) - Consider yourself a Melee and use the blue as much as you possibly can, you have no movement restrictions so get into them and blow things like BW and other CDs to get the legs down ASAP. While running Pheramones, try to keep SS on as many legs and the boss as possible and if you see a leg near you, kill command your pet to the blue (YOUR PET STILL BENEFITS IF ITS STANDING IN THE BLUE EVEN IF YOU AREN'T!)
4. Wind Lord Mel'jarak: (BM or SV) - Both specs work well here, I personally go BM since it helps kill the 2nd set of adds quicker for a chained Recklessness, but you will see good results with both specs. If playing BM, save all your cooldowns for Recklessness and keep Beast Cleave up. If Beast Cleave is up, continue your single target rotation.
5. Amber Shaper: (Survival) - Spam Multi Shot when there is a lot of adds up to spread Serpent Sting, otherwise put your damage on breaking people out of Constructs / killing the Monstrosity.
6. Grand Empress: (Survival) - Feel free to use GT or Barrage, both work well. GT will probably beat out Barrage if you are going for only 1 add phase, but I haven't done the math on it. Try to get the Poison Fumes buff as much as possible, works really well during the add phases. Keep SS on all the adds and etc.

Terrace of Endless Springs
1. Protectors of the Endless: (Survival) - Hunters aren't that great here, feel free to Multi-Shot with one of your globals off the opener to help proc your trinkets, otherwise single target the proper target. Survival beats out BM here because of pets not benefiting from the damage buff, though hunters are still pretty weak on this fight. Try to keep your pet on the bosses rather than the adds and help slow the adds using Ice Traps.
2. Tsulong: (Survival) - You can put full use to things such as Binding Shot / Entrapment and Concussive Shots during the night phase. Try to make sure you keep full DoTs on the boss and get in as much burst as possible during the night phase. During Day Phase you should help kill the large adds, once they die AOE as much as you can for when the small adds spawn. Fervor works well here.
3. Lei Shi: (BM) - One of the few fights I still run Lynx Rush on due to the hiding / protect phases. Try to save CDs for when the boss has large stacks of Scary Fog. Spec into Wyvern Sting and you can CC 2 adds during Protect.
4. Sha of Fear: (Survival) - Our raid handled this fight by ignoring all the Terror Spawn on p1 and nuking the boss into P2. If your guild decides to use a similar strat, the only advice I can give for P1 is between breaths, stand outside of the light so that immobile classes have more space to move around. During P2, you will shine more and more as a higher add count comes. Use your pro Survival AOE skills to nuke adds down and keep DoTs on the boss. You can use Ice Traps to slow the adds as well.

Hope this helps a bit

[Deleted]

Wow, you guys are legends,thank you for the massive help...much appreciated.

[Rullis]

I see everyone has put Survival as their specc on Grand Empress. I played BM and it worked perfectly fine. I guess it has alot to do if you tank all the adds in 1 group, or use 2 groups instead. Our AoE was fine with a rogue, warlock, frost DK and me as BM. Of course, if adds don't go down before she advances, survival will help you there.

[Bellatrex-Saga]

I see everyone has put Survival as their specc on Grand Empress. I played BM and it worked perfectly fine. I guess it has alot to do if you tank all the adds in 1 group, or use 2 groups instead. Our AoE was fine with a rogue, warlock, frost DK and me as BM. Of course, if adds don't go down before she advances, survival will help you there.

25 man raider here... both of us in my guild go BM ... we have our adds split into 2 groups and with all the fixates they arent grouped up enough to even make SV worth it.

[Dracodraco]

People play SV on shekzeer because the two specs are incredibly close, and mastery scales with the poison buff that is applied by the reaver tank after each add-phase, meaning your singletarget damage as SV and BM is going to be roughly equal - however, rolling serpent stings on all 6 windblades is extremely easy as surv during the add phase (shoot a multishot at each group once every 15 secs while all 3 are stacked up), and add phases are usually the "hard" part for most guilds. Therefore, Surv is better.

[Drakoes]

People play SV on shekzeer because the two specs are incredibly close, and mastery scales with the poison buff that is applied by the reaver tank after each add-phase, meaning your singletarget damage as SV and BM is going to be roughly equal - however, rolling serpent stings on all 6 windblades is extremely easy as surv during the add phase (shoot a multishot at each group once every 15 secs while all 3 are stacked up), and add phases are usually the "hard" part for most guilds. Therefore, Surv is better.

Just a minor addition (or clarification) - I wouldn't spam multi-shot constantly during the add phase at all. Sometimes, I'll manually apply my SrS, if a group has a few of the windblades 'missing' due to them being fixated away.

It might sound pretty basic, but I continue a single target DPS rotation on one of them, and will only fire a multishot if there's 3 of them all grouped up, if SrS is about to expire.

[Puerto]

People play SV on shekzeer because the two specs are incredibly close, and mastery scales with the poison buff that is applied by the reaver tank after each add-phase, meaning your singletarget damage as SV and BM is going to be roughly equal - however, rolling serpent stings on all 6 windblades is extremely easy as surv during the add phase (shoot a multishot at each group once every 15 secs while all 3 are stacked up), and add phases are usually the "hard" part for most guilds. Therefore, Surv is better.

Pretty much this. My add damage for this fight is at the top of not the top when going SV. The other two phases are trivial compared to the add phase, so I feel SV is superior.

[gulder]

Should make a new thread for T15, keep this one clean and specific.

[PBitt]

Should make a new thread for T15, keep this one clean and specific.

Was just about to suggest this myself.

[Bellatrex-Saga]

Was just about to suggest this myself.

I'll start a new thread for T15 when it comes out. A lot of things change between PTR and live so we can probably just wait a couple weeks and be fine.