Thok 10H Tips?

[Notdev]

So we got our first progression pulls in on Thok in a month since clearing Spoils yesterday. We did alright, got him to 20% before the yeti killed a bunch of us, but long pulls were just so rare that we didn't have many shots to get him down lower.

Our group comp:

Prot Warrior
Blood DK
Frost DK
Ret Paladin
Mage
Warlock
Hunter
Holy Paladin
Disc Priest
Resto Druid

I know a lot of people do things like 1 tank/2 healing, but neither of our tanks really have good DPS specs, so this is the comp we're going to use. Again, we had him at roughly 20% in the 3rd stack phase, so we still had two kite phases and the fire "stack" phase to get him down the rest of the way, plenty of time.

Was just wondering if anyone had any tips for us. Especially class specific healer tips. Any specific talents/glyphs/abilities that you don't normally use that helped you net your first progression kill? Suggested cooldown rotation? We have pretty crap non healer CDs but as we're 3 healing I think we should still be able to consistently get him to 25+ in the first stack, 10+ in the second, and 20+ in the third.

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As a Disc priest, this is basically what I do:

Keep Divine Star on CD.
Track POM, refreshing it when it finishes (not on CD)
Holy Fire close to on CD until the later stacks to keep AA up.

Smite heal until stack 5.
Stack 5 - Inner Focus/Spirit Shell - if timed correctly can easily get 3 off.
Start spamming PW:S at around 8. Exception being during Devo Aura and my BoP, where I spam PoH
I get another Inner Focus off around 22 ish and get 2-3 PoH's off in that time.
(All this including what I wrote above)

Our healing CDs go something like this:

7 - Holy Avenger
10 - Devotion Aura #1
13 - Devotion Aura #2
15 - BoP on Druid and myself, Tranquility + Tree Form
17 - Guardian + Other Paladin CDs
20 - Rallying Cry/Demo Banner/Personals
24 - Stack

(I've been saving Barrier for the bat phase, healthstones are usually saved for kiting phase)

Our Paladin has been trying different things, going between Selfless Healer and Eternal Flame, and Holy Prism and Light's Hammer. Any suggestions on his part?

As for our Druid, not sure exactly what talents he's been using, but it seems pretty straightforward. Explode Mushroom intelligently, spam Rejuv, Wild Growth, etc.

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We have close to no issue on the kite phase, aside from a few outliers. We have a decent grasp of how to force healers to be picked to kite so DPS can keep up on the boss/jailer. He gets to about 10 stacks before the phase ends. (I believe that is 4 full kites?)

[Andaja]

I don't think I see you use titty bubble anywhere in that list. It is supposed to allow healers and casters to cast O.Oa.

[Lackluster]

I don't think I see you use titty bubble anywhere in that list. It is supposed to allow healers and casters to cast O.Oa.

It does not, it simply stops spells from being "pushed back" due to damage (that means the cast being delayed), it does not stop interrupts like the one from Thok's scream. The effect is similar to Barkskin, not to Devotion Aura or Unending Resolve.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be used though.

[Deleted]

Hey ! A little tip you could choose to optimise your defensive CDs is to deal alternatively with short and long "stacked" phases. What we do is:

- pull next to the fire cage, rotating every majors CD until the 30th stacks
- split up and kite, opening fire cage
- put a marker on somebody in the raid and everybody (except from the tank actually tanking) stacks and follows him really closely, we don't try to push this phase much, no major CD spent
- kite & open poison cage (do not get in position before the next phase is started ! you would end with bad flames)
- get in position and repeat almost like first packing phase, blow every defensive CDs, and push this as far as possible, don't hesitate to do the same rotation as first phase but a little bit earlier, it's fine to end this phase at 25+ stacks
- kite & open the last cage
- stack up and survive as long as possible with your CDs left (beware of the yeti !)
- kite and kill it

If you alternate long and short phases, you'll have every majors on each long, and you only last the short ones as long as you keep the raid alive. Nontheless we elaborate this strategy when we were around 465 ilvl (with 5 dps like your comp), so you might find the boss dead without seeing some of the last steps, Denver dies during the second packing phase for us now.

Also, in order to avoid the poison phase ending too soon, get somebody (Hpal is great because he can bubble) out of the 2 packed groups, that way you won't have 5 people at the same place and you can keep control of when to push to next transition. Also, results are really similar with lusting at start or during the bats phase, we didn't find any great difference so just use it when you feel it good.

Class related:
- the best time to use your PW:B is at the end of the packing phase (near 24~25 stacks), when your 2 group stacks up to start the transition
- selfless healer si really good for your holy pal, light hammer too
- blowing mushroom is a last resort measure, tell your druid to avoid it as much as possible. however it's pretty awesome to top the raid just next to the transition announcement
- try to use at least one of your AM later on the phase, it's a really powerful CD for you and the holy paladin, and it will be really helpful for your mage/warlock (evocation..)
- try do not overlap your CDs, for example a rdruid tranq alone is strong enough, keep your tree form for sooner/later, and be sure to include your personnal CD into the rotation (SS, light hammer, ToL)
- if your holy paladin spend his 4 healing CD together, he can keep the raid alive for a good 8-10 stacks. he also can use 2 light hammer if he spend the first soon enough in the long packing phase. it's great to use it during the bats
- try to use your warlock gateway to push transition phases longer, but remember that it despawn if the warlock goes yoo far from it
- if you find some trouble beating the "enrage", ask your melee to train on dpsing the boss during transitions, they could keep smash his butt at least until 6th stack if they anticipate shifts properly
- if you have some trouble to keeping him alive in main phase, ask your mage to go with temporal shield and feel free to focus him with PW:S. also tell him to go with armors glyph if he is fire spec'd


I must be missing a lot a tips, hope this helps anyway. Good luck on your progression !

[Notdev]

Killed, thanks all

[houndstooth]

Little late to the party, but we found 1 tanking made a huge difference. 1 tank / 3 heal with Prot warrior, disc, disc, resto druid.

[Nebs]

I'll also hijack this thread instead of making a new one. We'll be starting this guy on Monday and will be one tanking; I'm curious to your guys' opinions regarding solo tanking with a Blood DK or Prot warrior, both having similar tank and DPS gear. Now, from what I've read an overwhelming majority of people seem to be saying that Prot is the way to go in this case, but for our raid, it would be a significantly larger DPS increase if we had the DK tanking and the warrior DPSing. So, is a DK really that terrible for solo soaking, or is it something which all tanks are perfectly capable of doing, with warriors having a slight advantage?

[Daetur]

I'll also hijack this thread instead of making a new one. We'll be starting this guy on Monday and will be one tanking; I'm curious to your guys' opinions regarding solo tanking with a Blood DK or Prot warrior, both having similar tank and DPS gear. Now, from what I've read an overwhelming majority of people seem to be saying that Prot is the way to go in this case, but for our raid, it would be a significantly larger DPS increase if we had the DK tanking and the warrior DPSing. So, is a DK really that terrible for solo soaking, or is it something which all tanks are perfectly capable of doing, with warriors having a slight advantage?

Our Blood DK solo tanks this with 2 healers on Heroic and does just fine- wipes are always mechanical or raid deaths, never tank deaths.

[houndstooth]

I'll also hijack this thread instead of making a new one. We'll be starting this guy on Monday and will be one tanking; I'm curious to your guys' opinions regarding solo tanking with a Blood DK or Prot warrior, both having similar tank and DPS gear. Now, from what I've read an overwhelming majority of people seem to be saying that Prot is the way to go in this case, but for our raid, it would be a significantly larger DPS increase if we had the DK tanking and the warrior DPSing. So, is a DK really that terrible for solo soaking, or is it something which all tanks are perfectly capable of doing, with warriors having a slight advantage?

Our healers were concerned about 1 tanking with a non-Monk non-Pally aka non-Cheese tank, but it turned out fine. We had the same options you did and I think both would be fine depending on external cooldowns. Make sure to use one for bats as well.

And btw I bumped this thread because it was very useful when we were fighting him so hoped it would help others as well.