[Gara'Jal The Spiritbinder] Keep wiping on him

[Deleted]

Hello everyone,
We're a casual guild but we're having a tough time on Gara'jal of the Mogu'Shan Vaults on 10N. our setup is 2 Tanks (one Dk and one Pala), 2 Healers (one Pala and one Druid) and 6 DPS (I'm the Feral in the DPS group).
We did several tries and uploaded them in two parts:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/41lf1of4fci1x5tk/
and
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/sducrwrchhpd2u9c/

At a certain point, we even tried fighting him while totally ignoring the Spirit World thing (and it didn't end well). We're not sure what we're doing wrong. There must be something we're doing wrong because we don't even reach his Enrage phase.
The general consensus seems to be that our DPS is simply too low. Is that indeed so?

I know that you're probably gonna think we're übernoobs and all... but I'm coming here to get some advice, not to get bashed

Secondly, what I wanted to ask: me as Feral, would it be more interesting to go into the Spirit World and Rake each target then move back out as soon as possible, even if my timer is not nearing zero yet? Rake is a DoT which should be enough to take out each of those Spirits.

Any advice would be welcome. Because this boss is getting kinda frustrating.
Thanks!

[clevin]

Yeah your dps is low. Tresh is under 30k... ok 467, but still.

Walk through your raiders and make sure:

a) they have caps met (Tresh for example isn't hit or expertise capped. Rasalgul is expertise capped but not hit capped). All of your dpsers need to make sure that they're capped on hit and, if needed, expertise. If they don't know the caps, send them to the class guides here for a start. In general, people need to be responsible enough to know what stats they need and to make sure that their combination of gear, enchants, gems and reforges are as good as they can get. There's zero excuse for a level 90 raiding toon to be under caps or not know their stat priorities. Again, send them to the relevant class and spec guide here if they need help .

b) if they have dots or debuffs, make sure they have high uptime. I'll pick on your hunters again since that's what I know DPSwise... they both have poor uptime on Serpent Sting and for Tresh (being SV) that's critical to keep up.

c) Make sure they're casting signature spells when they're off CD. For Tresh, that's Explosive shot, Black arrow, etc. Other things like Glaive Toss too. You can analyze this by dividing the CD on those spells into the fight length expressed in seconds. So a spell with a six second CD could be cast 50 times in a 5 minute (300 sec) fight (300secs/6secs = 50). Now, given openers, people getting into postion, etc you might only really expect 48 or 49 as a max... so if someone cast 45 of that spell, eh, that's OK. But if they cast, say, 20? They're slacking.

Once they have stats set up, have them hit the dummies and log things. Look over the logs to see if dot uptimes are good and shots/spells are being cast as often as they should be. DPS should use an addon if they have issues tracking what's available. Weak Auras, TellMeWhen, whatever. The specific tool isn't as important as having something say to them "Hey dummy! I'm off CD, cast me!!!"

[Daerio]

Your DPS does seem to be very low.

The way *I* would do it in normal is send the same 2 dps down constantly. I would definitely send the moonkin down, and maybe one of the hunters - they can go back down as soon as their timer runs out every time. If they get ahead of the add spawn, you can let one of them stay up. Alternate healers going down for mana regen. (send 2-3 people every time) Can't let your raid get behind on adds.

Roll tank CDs the entire time they're tanking. It looks like you lost some people to voodoo dolls. Use hand of protection on tanks, also.

Lust on the pull.

When boss is at ~20-25%, stop sending people down and start rolling raid CDs (devotion aura, etc) and burn the boss down. Make sure tanks have CDs the entire time.

[Honzi]

I think your main problem is your druid healer. He often ranked below the dk tank.

[Daerio]

I think your main problem is your druid healer. He often ranked below the dk tank.

Logs are not entirely accurate here, since nothing in the spirit realm is counted.

[Nurabashi]

Your DPS is just.. appalling. 30k at 467? I'm expecting at least 50-60k.

Make sure everyone is gemmed and reforged correctly. Meet all your hit/expertise caps, and make sure they are gemmed.

I recommend for a beginner/casual raid guild, get the addon called Gara'jalAnnounce. It does all the sorting of who is going in, etc, so you don't have to worry about it. Make sure your team knows what their rotation is, their CDs, their burst. I wouldn't lust on pull, rather lust during the soft enrage where no more totems spawn. But that's just what my group did.

[Honzi]

Logs are not entirely accurate here, since nothing in the spirit realm is counted.

Yes but the same applies to dps. And the druid healer was very low on healing overall on both logs.

[TwentyTwelve]

Logs dont really mean much for anyone on this fight but the person who recorded the log, assuming the first one is your log, the biggest problem is the group lol.

Not to sound mean or harsh but here;s the truth, you are doing Cata dps. Sit at dummies / look up a basic guide until you pull a steady 50k, same as every other dps, re attempt the boss and it'll be 2x easier or so.

As for healing, not checked logs since its pointless but if the dk beats the druid on many fights i'd say he needs to step his game up.

[clevin]

Ok, took another look at Tresh. Um... one of his trinkets is a tank trinket. He has a str gem in his shoulders and a PVP Power gem in his crafted epic chest. A bunch of stuff isn't enchanted at all. He just needs some basic help before he raids. If it's ignorance and he's willing to learn, eh, that's not hard. An hour on the class guide here, some regemming, enchanting and a couple of other things and an hour or so on t he dummies will go a LONG way to improving his performance.

I'm picking on him since I DPS as an SV Hunter but you really need to look through and audit what your DPS has for gear. There's no real excuse for that kind of thing going forward.

PS: Mother of... your mage has 10.4% hit. Cap is 15%. His/her gear isn't messed up with obvious mistakes like Tresh's but stilll... gemming for crit when you're below hit cap by that much?

Take a step back, redo peoples' gear so they're capped and get people together to do some practice on dummies (log it!). Get dot uptime up, make sure people are using abilities on CD. Honestly, if you do that stuff and then execute it in raid you'll be fine. The only thing blocking you will be if people refuse to change. Some people get the "I know what I'm doing" or "Dont tell me how to..." and that will kill you if you don't then drop those people.

[Deja Thoris]

The bottom line is that half your players don't play their characters well.

The first reply spoke about hitcaps. Your mage is at 10.4% and should be at 15%. No point casting spells when half of them miss and don't do damage. Sort this out first. Then reforge and enchant the rest of the gear properly according to the stat priorities guides give. After this smack test dummies until your rotations are perfect.

If you aren't willing to put in the effort above you may as well not even try. Casual does not have to mean "bad" and atm you are closer to bad than casual.

To give you an idea, my mage in challenge modes can comfortably do 55-70k dps on a single target boss. Challenge modes scale gear down to ilevel 463. Your mage is more than 10 ilevels above that and on some attempts pulled less than 40k dps. Theres huge room for improvement.

Once you get the basics sorted people can step in with tricks like "Have the offtank taunt when not tanking, it increases his vengeance and therefore damage".

I didn't intend to come across as harsh (but probably did!) - Please take this constructively, you will reap huge rewards with a relatively small effort.

[Harsesis]

DPS issues aside you should figure out why you are wiping. In the six wipes linked only one made it 2/3rds to the enrage time. Most didn't even make it halfway. To me that says you are doing something mechanically wrong.

[Raxxed]

Sweet merciful crap, that DPS is horrifying.
Just ask people to do SOME research, that's all I can say without causing someone to cry.

[Noryega]

It's been pointed out already how big is your DPSers issues; but I must add; you also have an healing problem. Your healers seems to have no clue whatsoever of a DPS buff mechanic in the spirit realm. If they spam their fastest mana-expensive heals they will greatly increase the DPS output of the DPSers. Also, by spamming the right healing spell in the spirit realm they will come out of it with a full mana bar. If they don't come out of the spirit realm at full mana, well... just like the poster above I won't say what I think without causing someone to cry.

[Sonnillon]

Wait until you get to Elagon ^^, then the true fun will begin. But all jokes aside.

If some of your DPSers are too low, just 2 heal. I know it at first sound very hard to accomplish, but in reality if your other raiders step up their game, it should not be an issue. I've tanked this fight so many times and still fail once in a while when people fuck up with something (like using their bloody button)

For tanks:

• If you don't have the aggro, keep your taunt on CD. It will keep you steady 20kish vengeance, which increases DPS.
• If you are tanking, rotate your physical damage reduction CD as well as any other defensive CDs you possible have. Gara'jal melees hard and the shadowbolt hitting from Spirit Realm are not helping at all. The way the vodoodolls work is that all your raiders connected to your tank with doll, will take 80% of the damage the tank is taking. So if your tank can mitigate the damage, less raid healing in general.
• You can, if you are banished to Spririt Realm, help out killing the spirits, but you will have to kill Severer of Souls as well, before your time runs out. Up to your tanks to decide do they help DPS out or not.

For healers

• 2 heal. It is not that hard. Since the healer in Spirit World restores mana.
• Use fast insta heals to build stacks on DPS up (DPS gets stack when they are healed, which increases their haste). LoH works wonders and grants you instant 22 stack
• DPSers HAVE to be topped up in spirit realm, for them to get the button to get out
• Top DPS up, toss some more heals on them and the get out to help with healing out side. Don't stay there too long.
• You should rotate healers going in. This is actually doable if you pay attention to Banishment CD.
  
  • Banishment is "spell" which is cast onto tank who is currently tanking the boss. Banishment sends the tank to spirit world. On top of that, each time banishment is cast the vodoo dolls on people change, since the second tank will get dolled.
  • If you are a healer what you want to do, is always get out from spirit world, before banishment CD is up. That way you will increases the chance for the second healer to go down and restore some of that mana of theirs.
  • Your tank is the best person probably to call it out in advance - around 10 sec or so, to give enough time for healer

For DPS
Fight starts, first totem pops:

• With first totem your weakest DPS should go down (if possible, if they don't have dolls) as there is not much spirits to kill, so their DPS is kind of irrelevant, but they get haste boost none of the less
• Second totem, your hardest hitting DPS go down (if they are not vodoo dolled) to clear out spirit realm
• Once they are out, pop BL/Hero/TW as that will increase their DPS done greatly
• Make sure, if you are DPS, that is you go down (kill a totem) that you have a healer along always. If you missed your healer well, you either find a way to heal to full or die
• After that it is just watching the debuff and sending people down. If the spirit realm is crowded, have your best DPS down there to mop things up.
• For a feral, just rake is enough enough to toss on a spirit. Rake+5cp on as many target as you can and get out. Or kill them one by one. Thr point is, the less spirits there are, the less damage your raid takes.

General notes

• If your DPS under performs, go to their class forums, ask advice on how they should improve or have them do their own bloody research
• Damage meters are not accurate, unless you have the logs from both tanks, as if one tank is down, the other is always up
• Call out Banishment, this allows your healers to rotate who goes down and who stays up.
• Tank tanking boss should rotate their def. CD visely. When one is off, have other up. All external dmg. red. CD help as well.
• Tank with vodoo doll, gives 80% of their damage to the other people connected with dolls as well
• Spirit realm should be kept clean from spirits to lessen the general raid damage
• Have someone call out who has doll and who should enter spirit realm. We however have people sort it out themselves and it works out great.
• You can have BL at start, or when the highest DPS has exited the realm and are benefiting from the buff
• Before 20% marker you should send in your best DPS to clear the realm as at 20% p2 will start. The boss will start hitting very hard. Save major CD for that.
• Make more pulls on him, don't give up if you fail
• EDIT: Make sure your ppl have the button in spirit realm once they're at full HP. Unlike LFR you will have to USE the button to get out in time.

[Deleted]

I think the best thing you can do is get your dps to go read some decent guides and make them spend an hour on the raid test dummies dot at least an hour. Time better spent then wiping endlessly due to low deeps.

[ThePants999]

As a general rule, wiping before enrage timer generally implies either a healer failure, or getting a mechanic wrong. In this case, though, the "getting a mechanic wrong" could be "insufficient DPS in the spirit realm"!

[Deleted]

Thanks everyone. Thanks a lot. I'm actually kinda relieved you're saying that... because that's what I was suspecting. I myself (I'm Snowbat in those raids) do a fairly acceptable DPS. nothing extraordinary, but +/- enough for my class.
Of course, since I spend my time running back and forth from the Spirit World, I lose some DPS on the boss because my DoT's expire on him while I normally always keep them up. And my DoT's (Rake and Rip) are my main DPS sources.

But I was expecting some of our raid members to be disastruous. 30k is very low. And basically if me or the other bigger DPS dies, you might as well wipe.

I'll study all your advices, translate them: we're French and I'm the only one who speaks English fluently (I'm the only Belgian and Belgians are known for being OK in English) and try to fix all that.
Thanks guys!

PS: I didn't take anything as harsh or offensive. Quite on the contrary, sugarcoating stuff doesn't help.
Work needs to be done, each should properly gem/enchant their class and do some research on how to properly use it. Them Frenchies and their lack of English knowledge I swear

[EastcoastSB]

Everyone else has pretty much covered most of what is wrong with the attempts, but it's also important to min/max the time spent in the Spirit World. Go in with 2 dps and 1 healer and have the DPSer with low multi target DPS(melee pretty much) get healed immediately to leave and head right back to the boss. The healer can then focus on himself and the other dps who is hopefully better at multi-dotting (SV hunter, boomkin, lock, etc) to clean up the adds before their time is up.

Once the healer has all 3 in the Spirit Realm fully healed they can leave as I don't believe anyone left in the Spirit Realm will continue to take damage.

[Deleted]

Not a single of your dps or tanks does any amount of acceptable dps. If logs did work properly with spirit realm that might change.

As a feral druid, no you should not enter spirit realm unless completely nessesary. (Which it isn't on normal)
Make your healer (the one who goes inside) heal ppl to full and then leave immedeately. This will make it a lot easier. The 5% or so increased damage your dps would get if he stayed in there for 15 more seconds just isn't worth it.

Another thing. Make people run in when you wipe, or not release at all if someone survived and can mass ress. The logs you linked show ....6 wipes on around 2-3 min each. That is 15 min of actually fighting the boss. You took 77 min. That's a mere 20% of active time............... fix that and everything will get better that is for sure.

[NRL1515]

Not sure if this has been said, but when we were working on this guy we had issues with selecting people to go into the spirit world and people had a hard time adjusting on the fly if others got voodoo doll'd. I suggest getting the addon 'Gara'jal Announce' (sp?) from Curse.com, and you can adjust the priority of who goes down into spirit world, and it'll automatically place markers on the next 3 people and announce in raid.