10M Megaera Woes

[Atheotes]

1. After putting in ~60 wipes to Tortos before killing it, my raid team has just started owrk on Megaera and it isn't pretty. Our order for killing heads is G - R - G - R - B - R - G, and we're using hero at about 20% on the 6th head so that it's up for that and all of the following Rampage.

2. Our raid comp is as follows:
DK Tank
Warrior Tank
Disc Heals
HPally
RDruid
Combat Rogue
Ret Pally
Surv Hunter
BM Hunter
Ele Shaman (gearing his OS, he was our healer)

We assign the HPally to the DK and the Disc to the Warrior, with the Druid on raid

We kill the heads as follows:

Green (Warrior tanks this head)

Red (DK tanks this head)

Green (Warrior tanks this head)

Red (DK tanks this head)

Blue (DK tanks this head)

Red (Warrior tanks this head)

Green (Warrior tanks this head)

3. We've put in about 60 wipes on Megaera and only really made progress last night where we got to the last head.

4. While we struggle sometimes in keeping the Fire Head tank alive throughout the fight after he has accumulated 3 stacks of the DoT, lately our wipes come from the Green head tank just after the 6th Rampage.

5. We are dying throughout the fight, but on the best attempts, we can't seem to heal through the damage the Green Head puts out after the 6th Rampage. We have people stand too close to venom bolts throughout the fight, but that rarely kills someone. We also tend to struggle with the Blue Head's special abilities after killing it. I can't shake the idea that our DK tank is taking substantially more damage than many other DKs of his ilevel (~505). He's a good player in general, but we may be missing something that would help him survive better. We've been using Hand of Purity on the DK during the Red Head after the second and third applications of the DoT, as well as after the corresponding Rampage when the CDs are up. We don't typically die on Rampages.

6. We've tried keeping Pain Supp up for the 7th head, but typically when it falls off, the tank dies. We're essentially out of healing CDs by this point and can't find a way around it.

7. This is the most recent set of logs (I only started logging yesterday, and am dumb and didn't actually start the log until near the end of raid): http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-ob7fkll2kgx8hv8d/

For what it's worth, our order of healing CDs is as follows:

1/4: SShell
2/5: Tree + SBomb -> Demo B + RCry + Ret's Devo
3/6: Tranq + HPally's Devo -> Barrier + SShell + AMZ

We're using Tranq on 6th Rampage as it is all we have that benefits from Heroism.

I also notice that most of the DPS is low comparatively to other guilds that are killing it, but as our ilevel is not substantially high, I can't imagine it's a gear issue. Sometimes we're 5% off from not getting a third breath, other times we're upwards of 15%. We're considering 4-healing the fight to take some burden off the healers, but the fourth stack is worrisome.

[PuppetShowJustice]

I'm not very good at looking at World of Logs stuff but....are neither of your Hunters using Rabid? I don't see any indication of it going off. Admittedly I could be looking in the wrong places.

If that ends up being true I'd say that's an obvious problem. Especially for the BM Hunter.

[Squirl]

Don't kill green. That significantly reduces the raid healing required and allows you to spam tanks. Make sure they're actually using tank cooldowns and at the proper times. Call for externals when necessary. It also lets your DPS plant and do damage rather than running all over the place.

Your DPS is kinda low, and it appears to be mostly movement related; though, some raiders could certainly perform better. Your Disc should be doing a hell of a lot more damage too since you're 3 healing (though there is a lot to heal with green dead).

[Deleted]

Don't kill green.

In my guild we actually leave the blue one up and only kill green / red. I guess it depends on what the group finds easier to handle and will change per guild.

[420rogue]

Don't kill green. That significantly reduces the raid healing required and allows you to spam tanks. Make sure they're actually using tank cooldowns and at the proper times. Call for externals when necessary. It also lets your DPS plant and do damage rather than running all over the place.

Your DPS is kinda low, and it appears to be mostly movement related; though, some raiders could certainly perform better. Your Disc should be doing a hell of a lot more damage too since you're 3 healing (though there is a lot to heal with green dead).

Killing green lets your raid stand still. til the very end. On my disc priest, I can smite most of the fight until rampage, AoE heal through it, then go back to smiting til like the 5th head at which the green starts making me AoE heal a lot more at that point. By not killing blue, their dps will be higher than if they left green alive.

[tyrindor]

Why are you killing green? Avoid it completely this fight is one of the easiest in the instance on normal. We one shot it on normal and just killed it on heroic yesterday. Don't kill green.

[Squirl]

Killing green lets your raid stand still. til the very end. On my disc priest, I can smite most of the fight until rampage, AoE heal through it, then go back to smiting til like the 5th head at which the green starts making me AoE heal a lot more at that point. By not killing blue, their dps will be higher than if they left green alive.

Blue targets 1 person per cast. Green causes the majority of the raid to move and it's constant at the end of the fight. Killing green does not let you stand still.

Why are you killing green? Avoid it completely this fight is one of the easiest in the instance on normal. We one shot it on normal and just killed it on heroic yesterday. Don't kill green.

This guy speaks truth.

[Deleted]

The red/green strat is very easy if you go with 4 healers, you only have to deal with the cinder debuff which is easy to manage compared to the ice stuff. Raid damage is very high on this strat, but again 4 healer barely moving are more than enough. Only thing to worry about is mana: a lot of aoe healing and longer phases.
If you are 3healing it go with the B-R-B-R-G-R-B combination, a lot of RNG involved and learning needed, but much less raid damage.
After 2-3 lockouts you will be able to do the first tactic again with just 3 healer, it's a matter of getting used to the fight and getting more gear.

[Muffinz]

I'm the priest in question from the 3rd post / original post. I'm not smiting much this fight because of all the other damage going off, plus if you look at my healing targets, Cobalt is my primary focus on the fight to keep alive (paladin mainly is on the other tank, and druid on raid). After a few heads in, I stay off smite completely, try to toss up holy fire on the move until the very end when we burn everything on the last head.

[SirReal]

G R B R G R B was what we ended up doing and it works well - make good use of that smokebomb and ur ele's healing cds as well

[420rogue]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/w...?s=6960&e=7385 is a WoL of my guild killing it in 7 minutes and 5 seconds, you had some attempts around that mark. From looks of it, DPS could really use a boost. Almost all of our dps beat your highest.

[Deja Thoris]

This fight really feels like the first gear check of the instance. From a heals pov the damage ramps up a lot later on. From a dps persepective, the shorter a head lives, the easier it is on the tanks and healers.

A couple of things I noticed.

-Your disc priest doesn't use spirit shell very much. Your longest attempt it healed for 2.4m and it was used 2x. Use it on cooldown or close to it. Our disc's did 7.4mill healing from spirit shell, theres enough raid damage happening that the absorbs won't go to waste, especially if you learn to time it well.
- I don't see any healing from the level 90 talent. Cascade does good healing and its only a 20 sec CD, perfect for as the posion clouds hit.
- Barrier and pain supp. Use them more. Theres no harm in using one on say the 3rd rampage if you know it will be up for the one where you REALLY need it.
Disc priests are strong atm. I don't see why they should be being outhealed so comprehensively.

You have 2 pallies. Use more devotion auras.

Not sure if any pala uses sacrifice on the tanks, you can use that and bubble on hairy heads to prevent deaths.

I can't speak about DK's as I don't know enough about them. They do take a lot of damage but they self heal a lot too. Someone here will be able to offer good advice I'm sure.

Bloodlusting at the rampage that starts the 6th head is a good idea. Get that head down with 10 men standing and you can lose a couple and still get a kill. Nuke the crap out of that head and try to hang in for the last one.

If all else fails I guess adding a 4th healer and having the disc go full out nuke may be a good mix of heals to damage.

Good luck, if its any consolation the next 3 fights are a lot more plesant.

[420rogue]

I'm the priest in question from the 3rd post / original post. I'm not smiting much this fight because of all the other damage going off, plus if you look at my healing targets, Cobalt is my primary focus on the fight to keep alive (paladin mainly is on the other tank, and druid on raid). After a few heads in, I stay off smite completely, try to toss up holy fire on the move until the very end when we burn everything on the last head.

Here are some tips for you personally. Archangel and spirit shell should be used EVERY rampage. Run to the stack spot ahead of time and start spamming spirit shell on the groups when the head is about to die. look at my last log post and look at my spirit shell healing to yours. On that link, my ilvl was 504ish so a little higher, but how much healing I am pushing is way higher. This is probably due to not using archangel effectively and not using spirit shell correctly or enough.

edit: soon as spirit shell runs out, use cascade!

[rohendar]

With your setup: forget green and go blue/red...

Or: go 4 healer and do green/red...

That's all there is to it really.

[420rogue]

With your setup: forget green and go blue/red...

Or: go 4 healer and do green/red...

That's all there is to it really.

with their dps, if they go 4 heals, they will go oom and die. They really need to get their dps and healing up.

[Belloc]

Blue targets 1 person per cast. Green causes the majority of the raid to move and it's constant at the end of the fight. Killing green does not let you stand still.

Killing green only makes your whole raid move if you're all stacked up, which you shouldn't be since there isn't any AOE raid damage aside from ground AOEs outside of rampages -- or if it targets melee and you are bringing more than 1-2.

Alternatively, the more blues you kill, the more (and longer) players have to move.


Granted, different group comps will get different mileages out of the variety of kill orders. Your group might love ignoring greens, but that doesn't mean it's easier for other groups.

The only things I really have to add, OP, is that, with three healers, you should be aiming for 2 breaths per phase instead of 3 (when the fire head is up, anyway). Also, green head tanks take progressively more damage as they get breathed on, so they should save their cooldowns for later in the phase. For instance, as a prot paladin, I don't even bother using divine protection (40% magic reduction) until the third green breath OR the first breath from whatever I tank next, since the green debuff is still on me.

[Troklon]

To remove damage spikes on tanks we always swap tanks after the second breath to reduce number of green and red stacks on a single tank. (we don't swap when red and green are there at the same time though)

[FloridaElement]

We do it in a different manner , we ignore Blue completely and just kill green & red. worked out quite nicely although i had been killing it by doing all 3 heads, just a lot easier without that blue beam trucking people, IMO. best of luck, i dont have much time to go into detail. Make sure your tanks are swapping correctly, and ignore blue. should be GG

[Rockets]

When rampage hits, where are you stacking? It may seem obvious, but we were having dps problems on this initially that were fixed by always stacking up on the next head, so melee (including both tanks) are in range to be hitting it the whole time. I'd guess we're getting the head down to 60%ish before rampage even finishes? At which point the dps have all their ramp-up taken care of and are into full burn.

Makes a big difference being able to plant both your tanks with full Vengeance on the target head too, that's worth another 0.5-1 DPSers depending on your tanks.

[Muffinz]

I'm trying to remember when I was using spirit shell off the top of my head (have had a headache all day long today, so doesn't help much). I know first one I'm using spirit shell, and 3rd/last I'm trying to use barrier (as long as it's up and I'm not blown out of mana, which has happened more than a few times). I was trying to use spirit shell on cooldown for every rampage session, and tonight I guess I'll be using cascade instead of halo (do note that I WAS using a 90 talent, not cascade however). I was trying to decide between the three, and halo seemed the way to go since it'll be up every rampage and the minimum amount seems to be higher than cascade's minimum amount. Divine star seems to need too much positioning for it to be worthwhile, even with the 15 sec CD.

---------- Post added 2013-04-04 at 07:00 PM ----------

And yeah, to respond Baconslicer, we are stacking next to the head we're killing next, that's a given.