Heroic Animus....to zerg or not to zerg

[Kretan]

So our raid team has finally made it to 10/13 after coming together right at the end of the tier. We are extending the lockout and pushing as far as we can. The problem is, we are at the point where we cannot choose the wrong strat. Our average raid iLVL is 542.26, and out comp for zerg strat would be:

Prot paladin (545)

Demo lock with normal UVLS (536)
Assassination Rogue (546)
2 Boomkins (543 and 541)
Fury Warrior (541)
Ele Shaman (540) and a Hunter (530) or Ele shaman x2 (540 and 538)

Disc Priest (541)
Holy Paladin (543)

For any other method, we would replace one of the ele shamans with a blood dk at ilvl 539. We can have either the warrior or one of the boomkins go to tank spec for any 3 tank methods. Also, one of the boomkins can go heal. Any advice from people who have done the strats as to which they would recommend would be highly helpful. I know all of the strategies available, I just want us to bang our head with the right strategy for our group.

[Jellospally]

Burn with that 2 heals, 1 tank. You should be more than fine with a burn doing that comp(way higher raid ilvl than my group and we were able to kill it before full power(me doing 710k as prot and the rest of the dps between 150-200k)

Have w/e melee is gonna do less dps do rings for you and kill off that persons add before first rings and you kill one of your 3 adds before the first ring and keep 2 rest of fight.

You can have up to 5 adds total die into the boss without messing anything up. So Yours, plus the melee clearer and 3 left over incase dots kill something or you kill yourown(which then you can taunt other ppls adds)

[Kretan]

Alright. How many wipes/attempts should we expect do you think? I know this is probably an extremely difficult question, but how long did it take you? I'd like a point of reference to compare from others so I can know what to expect.

[Deja Thoris]

From everything I've read people spend almost as many wipes trying the zerg strat as people who do it normally.

Add to that some people switch after 60 odd wipes trying to zerg it and then have to learn it the normal way.

With this in mind, I think learning to execute it properly is better. Sure the zerg strat "can" be done but meh.

[Kretan]

From everything I've read people spend almost as many wipes trying the zerg strat as people who do it normally.

Add to that some people switch after 60 odd wipes trying to zerg it and then have to learn it the normal way.

With this in mind, I think learning to execute it properly is better. Sure the zerg strat "can" be done but meh.

This really is the concern. On one hand we would ideally want a repeatable strat for the future.....but in our situation we are going for 1 kill ever. So is it worth rolling the dice to try and get some early RNG? That is the question.

[Axelond]

We killed animus last Wednesday doing the normal strat, We tried doing the zerg strat for one raid but ended up being just to RNG so we ended up doing him the normal HC strat and it took a total of like 4h of progress on him for a kill. Total of like 40 wipes I think with most of them being 1-2 min because we spawned a large one

[Kaiten]

Problems with the zerg strat are two-fold. Sometimes you can literally be globalled if the third add isn't dead quickly, even with a SOTR up. The other problem is that early wipes mean a lot of sitting around waiting for three minute CDs to become available.

That said, it's incredibly fun to tank when you nail the pull correctly and have a raid that can step out of font.

[Cybb]

Dont zerg, you got 2 moonkins and they will be mad if they can't multi dot. (I would be hella mad)

[Rucati]

You could always try the zerg strat for like 5 attempts, see if it looks like you even have a chance. If you wipe and the boss is at 2% you can probably kill it with better RNG, if you wipe at 20% then odds are good you won't get it.

If it goes poorly, then you just have to do the normal strat.

[Kretan]

Dont zerg, you got 2 moonkins and they will be mad if they can't multi dot. (I would be hella mad)

Believe me I know little of moonkin dps, but couldn't you dot some adds for starsurge procs and help with single target/movement?

- - - Updated - - -

You could always try the zerg strat for like 5 attempts, see if it looks like you even have a chance. If you wipe and the boss is at 2% you can probably kill it with better RNG, if you wipe at 20% then odds are good you won't get it.

If it goes poorly, then you just have to do the normal strat.

I think this is what we will end up doing. I mean from everything I gather the only possible upgrade we could make to our comp for this strat wouldbe maybe a mage and more locks haha. Our tank/healer setup is perfect for this from what I gather.

[Xploit]

Zerg strat is fun and all to try out once or twice, like we did, however it's a lot faster to just do it the normal way.

Also, you have 2 boomkins, the Starfalls alone will kill unwanted golems.

[Soulzar]

We were in a similar position as you. We spent a night or two with the zerg, got close, but the RNG was just too much. I think the only people enjoying themselves was the tank any myself (Demo). Spent another night on two tank 3 heal, and were close to a kill but due to attendance ended up swaping to 3 tank 2 heal, which got us our kill last night.

Now to squeeze in LS before 5.4.. I hope...

[Deleted]

Zerg can be very frustrating... you will need about the same amount of wipes with most of them ending after 10 Seconds... then having to wait for CDs again etc...

With the current gear the "normal" strats for Dark Animus are quite forgiving and way easier than it was a few weeks ago!

For example you can now always play with 3 Healers no matter what because DPS isn't a problem anymore. This makes the fight a lot easier especially the Jolt-Phase.
With two tanks you don't have to get the 2nd Massive Full before the first Siphon. With three tanks you don't need to swap Anima from small and large golem to the massives after the first third and fifth Siphon anymore.

[Kretan]

So we tried zerg tonight and it felt like there was no progress pull to pull at all really. After about 90 minutes we swapped to 3 tank 2 healer. After another 90 minutes we made it to the first jolt. It isn't that zerging is any harder, it's just that it feels like you never make progress. Normal strategies keep people more engaged in my opinion.

[Berianther]

Zerg strat isn't easier than the normal strat for most guilds. You've gonna have a kill soon if you manage to get to first jolt on the normal strat.

[Viromand]

If you zerg, you should be aware of tankdeath alot. Thats mostly the only reason dying with the zerg strat.

You can also do 2tank 2/3 healer. Its a bit smoother on the tanksand the dps is not that far off. And you can do it with almost any tankcomp.

We used dk/druid warrior/druid, Druids takes 3adds nukes 2 of them in an inactive taunts one from a healer and justnuke the boss.

If you have good tanks and healers you can just nuke the boss, but if a golem gets 2 empowered stacks he will hit like hell. So I kill if one gets 2 stacks and jsut taunt another form a dps or healer.

You need 1.9 million raid dps ON Dark animus to kill him, give or take a few seconds.

With a holypala in your raid I would recommend two tank strat, If you ahve a druid with 2piece and NV specced he will be alot easier to heal due to his selfhealing.

If you do wipe on normals strat on jolts/dispelling, or stuff like that you should run zerg,but ifyou manage to kill DA normal you will have an easier time rekilling it cause zerg strat can be very RNG with animafonts and random tank deaths.