Q: Melee or ranged for Gala towers HC/N and FLEX Spolis and Panda boxes.

[Sonnillon]

And always open the pandas (without pandas = LFR, never follow a LFR strategy on SoO Flex or above...), always say to the tanks get Galakras near the NPCs (extra deeps on the big bad dragon never hurts), and make sure that all people know that the stack and line up on Galakras to soak Galakrond Flames aren't only for fashion. (Serious the amount of wipes on flex because that is ridiculous...)

Believe it or not, I am not new to this. You have no idea how many taunts and yelling it takes to get the PUG tank to actually keep it in NPCs and not drag it to the ranged stacking point bit more towards Jugger....
As for the Panda Boxes... It gets hard when you have to argue with the leader, who even doesn't want to try opening Pandas, and when you go and open the crates (as a tank ofc)... some hunter dies to the Path of Flowers and all I hear is "I told you, that is waste of DPS" -_-

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You get a lot more cleave damage down the bottom.

That has always been my reason for keeping the melee down and on heroic 10-man (which kill I do got), FLEX 25-man and normal 10/25-man it has worked out.

I don't mind trying things out, I just dislike when people say things with out giving much deeper thought of why it is best. And guess what... only ranged or melee+ranged on top, didn't make difference of the outcome of the fight.

[Raiju]

It doesn't make much difference, no. Generally I'd send mobile ranged / melee up simply because the immobile ranged are good (and less prone to getting aggro and dying) down the bottom for both the second tower guards and the main mobs.

[Deja Thoris]

The whole panda crate question hardly needs to be asked.

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...one&by=ability

Heres an old kill of ours, pandas have what 8 mill health? 64 mill across them all. (Guessing here) and the buffs did 166 mill dmg in total. This isn't counting the "nature" of the damage where a well placed healer buff wave can pretty much one shot 3 sparks and a load of mini adds on HC.

The bottom line is your raid leader sounds like an idiot. These things are easy to verify so when someone comes with an assertion you think is wrong ask yourself how to prove it.

[Alvito]

We have 2 ranged protect the goblins and kill the stuff in the canyon. For tower one we send 3 ranged one to off heal as needed a tank and a melee to zerg down everything and get the dragons out of the air. Tower 2 is 1 tank and 3 ranged as soon as the mini boss dies one jumps across to tower 1 the remaining 2 dps finish off whatevers left and then jump and the tank gets in the cannon. Dps mops up the remaining mobs in the canyon and we drop the boss. In normal or flex we just send everybody into the 1st tower besides a tank and healer blast it down and chit chat while the rp catches up.

[dancers]

25H we send all melee, disarm the lieutenant and drag it to the cannon for cleaving.

[Lythene]

We send up ranged and leave down MOST of the melee. Both have their advantages, in our raid we leave down the best cleavers and then just nuke towers ASAP to get back down again as soon as possible

[Sonnillon]

25H we send all melee, disarm the lieutenant and drag it to the cannon for cleaving.

This is actually good advice. Didn't really think of disarming. Although if the DPS isn't stellar won't the frontal cone which the elite's do on towers be bit harder to avoid when they are not in middle?

[Qualia]

This is actually good advice. Didn't really think of disarming. Although if the DPS isn't stellar won't the frontal cone which the elite's do on towers be bit harder to avoid when they are not in middle?

Both mini bosses move to the middle when they start their frontal cone abilities.

[announced]

melee are really only good for down below where they can constantly dps adds in galakras. they dont handle towers as well. they are fine in spoils though mostly. ranged tend to be better taking out the grunt as well as killing adds that get in the way.

panda buffs help enormously if its the tank or healer one, not so much with the dps one, but hey if its flex who cares. honestly id spend the extra 10 seconds killing the 2 pandas, esp for a 2 min buff.