Help with Thok HC 10 person

[Deleted]

Hi guys and girls,

we are currently trying (or better wiping) on Thok HC. We had 3 times an hour for him and yesterday we decided to renew our instancelock from last week and just feed the Dino the whole evenning.
And we feeded him.
Comp was:
Tank: Druid (Solo)
Heal: Monk, Restoshaman, Druid
DPS: Feral, Enhc, FrostDK, 2xFrostmages, Eleshaman
First of all we did it with 2 tanks the last weeks but this week we tried to give it a shot with 1 Tank. Doable in most trys but sometimes the Tank dies at 4-5 Panicstacks. But i dont think our problem lies here.
We rotate CDs in P1 to get to 21 Screeches which we managed most of the time.
P2 as usual with opening after 7-8 Stacks.
Second P1 we wait until the Bats came out, BL pop CDs the Feral uses HotW to tank them for a while and we nuke them. Transition is a little bit unstable still because we often times dropped out in P2 again before the bats are dead.
Second P2 is fine also.
Third P1 we try to redo first one. We managed to get here only a few times so we couldn't really stabilize and we have some rangeproblems so we get out of this to early in most cases.
P2 as usual.
4th P1 we only reached 1 time. We spread, heal and get together at around 8-9 screeches to bring him to P2 again.
In this one try which is linked after this we get him to 40%. We lost 10% in first P1 due to bad positioning (got him to 75%, the usual is 65-62%) and we lost some time in the third P1.
I think we can stabilize the whle thing a little bit more over time. The mainproblem i see is: How should we ever get him down before the end?
Some hints, special tricks or something?
Link to the longest try: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...3&type=summary
Rest u find the usual way.

[brookllyn]

Well, in the fight you linked, the boss phased at 6 or less stacks in each P1. You need to clean that up. That is easily 20% more of the boss's health. You should never end up phasing the first p1 early, you should almost just wipe instead of phasing early if you mess up. That phase is almost 40% of the bosses HP and is important to do properly.

You should also look up the spots for the 3rd P1 and stick down worldmarkers. You won't ever get hit by yeti if you put them in the right spot and you won't phase early if people are on their world markers. You need to make sure the boss is in the correct place though or the markers don't work.

> How should we ever get him down before the end?

Well, if you are doing all three gates, you should have no problems assuming you don't phase anything early. 3 gates should give you at least 8-9 minutes of fight time.

I think your issue is just that everyone needs to play better with less mistakes. This was the same issue my group had. One or two people would mess up every pull and we would wipe because of it. Eventually we starting stabilizing and repeating attempts with no errors and suddenly we ended up with a sub 10% wipe and then killed it the next pull.

Are your melee DPSing the boss during the first few fixates?

[Gardiff]

Did not get to see the logs.

If AFTER you make adjustments for the regular phases and find its not enough, try to extend the fixate phase BUT ONLY if you change up the kite pattern completely. If you do door / back / door / back, in general, melee have to back off between fixates. If, instead, you kite thok in a sort of triangle for the first three fixates with 3 markers being the 2 actual cages + the location where a '4th' cage would be if it existed, melee can stay on the boss full-time on fixates with no worry about backing off when he changes directions for the next fixate. It sounds confusing but I am sure there are videos of what I am trying to say and it really isn't hard. Then for later fixates (we usually take it to 7 fixates, opening it on fixate 6 so that he doesn't reach person 7 on fixate 7) we just use door / back / door / back strat. But I realize you have no lock so no way can you take it to 7. You can still do 5 fixates like this with still allowing melee to do full-time DPS for those 5 fixates. That jailor still needs to die, more-so if 1 tanking, but the mw monk can still disarm it for a good bit and it is not a huge concern as long as it is killed sometime before 4th fixate.

I am not sure about druids, but make sure your solo tank is comfortable living to 20+ stacks. Losing a person here isn't good. I see you are BL'ing during bats? IMO you really shouldn't. You need to use it at the start where you have full procs with your CDs where you can burn it even harder (especially if DPS is a problem). HOTW is fine for the druid if he wants to do it, but make sure the frost dk grips them in and if you do at least 5 fixates, CDs should be up if they were popped at the start of the fight.

Make sure there is an MS on the boss when he eats whatever door person. Find a nice spot for the yeti so that you don't have to deal with it.

[Wrestler10307]

As a bear tank, survival shouldn't be an issue as long as you manage cooldowns correctly. It is easy to get one shot if you use the wrong cooldown too early, which means it won't be up when you need it in the first phase 1. It isn't uncommon to use all of your defensives in the first phase 1, I usually will go with barkskin early, then shield wall, then finally at the end around 25 boss stacks, I'll pop last stand if the healers look like they're having a hard time.

If you do phase 2 right, tank cooldowns should be back up for the bat phase, which should still be tanked by the MT. Use AG from the shaman along with lust and other cooldowns to keep everyone healed up. I wouldn't use the feral as another tank here. If healing is an issue, have the feral HOTW tranq and toss rejuvs up on people then go back to dps and just have the bear use shield wall and barkskin etc if needed with an armor pot or something. AOE stuns are always good here as well.

On the fixate phase, we usually will go 2 fixates down the left side of the room, then 2 to the right, then the 5th one down the hall, and open the cage about half way through the 5th fixate, which will make him phase around 40-50% into the 6th fixate, which is just kited down the middle of the room, but should end a little further than where the jailer comes out. This makes it easy to get him into position for the bats. Have the bear face Thok towards the center of the room, and position him to where the bats will fly through the tank to get to the raid. Bear pops incarnation, spams thrash to pick up the bats (and taunt them if necessary.)

Will add more if I can think of things when I have time.

[Tech614]

With the heal comp you have you shouldn't have any trouble going to 26-29 stacks in the first phase 1. You have 3 ridiculously good throughput healers for the fight, hell they might not even need CDs to reach that number. If your tank is having trouble living that long he needs to play better.

You don't need BL for the bats. You have an amazing comp for them. Frost DK, Ele Sham and Enh shaman along with the tank should be able to make short work of them in 10 seconds or so, not even factoring in the mage dps. On top of that the Enhance and Ele should also be able to cover all the extra healing needed and then some with AG+Bat AoE.

If you have your tank tanking the bats, which you should make sure he is moving them underneath the boss so the melee can be in cleave range of them without being in the acid breath.

Phase 1 26-29 stacks. Stack up at 25.
2nd Phase 1 15-20 stacks. Stack up when the healers start getting behind.
3rd Phase 1 20-25 stacks.

Boss should be almost dead.

[kaib]

Phase 1 26-29 stacks. Stack up at 25.
2nd Phase 1 15-20 stacks. Stack up when the healers start getting behind.
3rd Phase 1 20-25 stacks.
Boss should be almost dead.

staying 20 stacks in poison is more then unrealistic. dispelling is going to be super annoying without priest/warlock. you do have one revival, which is super awesome. but that's about it.
and your setup is terrible in general. 3 druids, 2 mages, 3 shamans. I guess you are using a scroll for stamina buff? but not having a raid wide dmg reduction CD at all and no paladin (aura, 2 hand of protections) makes this fight a lot more annoying then it usually is. your healer setup is good at least as druid and shaman are two of the better classes. but then without a hand of protection their personal CDs are much, much worse.

as said before, you really want to BL on the pull. getting the boss below 60% before the first fixate phase makes everything much easier. try to get to 24-25 stacks with a cooldown rotation, then stack up and use a spirit link and resto healing tide and hope that you last another 1-2 screeches before you go into fixate. but without a raidwide dmg reduction CD it's somewhat unlikely you will, as every screech should proc bloodied at this point.

Use the dps shamans AG early on in p1 so they are up again when the bats come in. that's a major amount of healing output when they are aoeing. aim for 6-7 stacks, then group up. all your healing CDs are up again for the frost phase and you need to to 15-20 stacks, but no need to overdo it really, the boss should be pretty low by now.
if you get to the fire phase, it's generally easiest to just stack up immediatly but constantly move to avoid fires. but you want to go right back to fixate and then finish it off kiting. but if you do 25, 7-8, 15-20 he should be dead in the kiting phase following the frost phase at worst. your dps in general could be a bit highe though, only looking at the average dps throughout all wipes and I realize people were dead and stuff - but pretty much everyone averaging 300k isn't great.

also, once again due to having a bad setup, you don't have a healing reduction debuff available. that means that whenever he eats one of the prisoners, he gets a full heal in. that's several million of extra damage you have to do ... :/

[announced]

also when bats are grouped if u have people with aoe stuns they can really mitigate bat dmg, when bats enrage just have the monk do his aoe kick to stun all of them at once maybe. other classes possibly could stun maybe the dk with remorseless winter? idk.

[Deleted]

First of all thanks for all the friendly replies!
Stunrotation for bats is planned but i think we didn't get it down correctly.
The tip with the massgrip is great. In the first tries we let the tank grab all bats and he couldn't manage it. So we decided to try it with the feral as offtank.
The other things are more practicing things.
We have a hunter, holypala, tankpala and warlock in our roster but the first 2 are on vacation for august, the tank has not the best equip and the wl couldn't log on on sunday.
So we will try it again next week, try some of your tips and hope we can get another person in to get a litte bit better setup.
Thanks to all of you.

[Deleted]

Can anyone somehow show the best places for the tanking thok - mainly where you put the raid to avoid the yeti on the ice part (I believe you can place the raid so you dont have to move at all?)

Thanks

[Hypasonic]

Just stack the raid hallway side, yeti won't be an issue.

[Wrestler10307]

First of all thanks for all the friendly replies!
Stunrotation for bats is planned but i think we didn't get it down correctly.
The tip with the massgrip is great. In the first tries we let the tank grab all bats and he couldn't manage it. So we decided to try it with the feral as offtank.
The other things are more practicing things.
We have a hunter, holypala, tankpala and warlock in our roster but the first 2 are on vacation for august, the tank has not the best equip and the wl couldn't log on on sunday.
So we will try it again next week, try some of your tips and hope we can get another person in to get a litte bit better setup.
Thanks to all of you.

Your bear is 581, which is more than enough, though I wouldn't use Harromm's for Thok. Better off using Rook's or another stam trinket imo.

[Tech614]

staying 20 stacks in poison is more then unrealistic. dispelling is going to be super annoying without priest/warlock. you do have one revival, which is super awesome. but that's about it.

TBH dispelling and healing should be the least of their worries with the 3 best throughput healers for the fight. The problem with the acid phase 1 I didn't take into account since I normally solo tank it on a brewmaster is the guardian will get wrecked at 3+ stacks of acid breath where as a monk simply laughs at a armor debuff.

Knowing that, I would transition shortly after the bats come down.

Also good point that your bear should be using Rooks if he has it. The screeches hurt at 5+ stacks of panic and that is 15 seconds of 40% reduced damage on them.

[Farabee]

Can anyone somehow show the best places for the tanking thok - mainly where you put the raid to avoid the yeti on the ice part (I believe you can place the raid so you dont have to move at all?)

Thanks

No spot is completely foolproof on phase 3. The best spot though is as close to the back-right cage (the one with the jinyu) as possible.

In response to OP, your raid REALLY needs to push 25+ stacks in P1 and get Thok down as much as possible. Have you guys thought about sticking a paladin in your raid somewhere? Devo Aura is without doubt the most powerful raid CD you can bring to this fight, and ret in particular does some great upfront P1 damage as well as insane bat damage if you time your CDs right. Stun rotation for bats is helpful but more importantly, make sure during that phase that melee are stacking up in FRONT of the left leg and ranged are stacking a bit back. Bats should get a Gorefiend's Grasp, then at least one AOE stun, and then melee should be walking slightly INSIDE Thok's hitbox (but not in front of him) at max melee range to AOE bats while they're on the tank. Personals and healthstones should be popped at this point and raid should stack when bats are at about 50% or when Thok is at 7 stacks (depends on your gear).

Here's our logs for more info. We one-shotted it this week on our 2nd kill, we pushed 7-8 Fixates on the first P2, 5-6 on the 2nd, and then let him sit in P2 after the 3rd until dead.

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...98QChV#fight=9

[Squirl]

No spot is completely foolproof on phase 3. The best spot though is as close to the back-right cage (the one with the jinyu) as possible.

The hallway is completely safe. The yeti never goes down there.

[announced]

honestly melee are garbage on thok heroic 10m, they tend to spend half the time on the jailer or running away from thok, but if u get a ret pally atleast they have devo aura every 2 mins for a raid cd so that helps. if the feral has a boomy set, enhc has an ele set, or the frost dk has something else he can sub in like a diff toon altogether that'd help your comp down the boss way easier.

range can be hitting thok all the time, esp a hunter with widows venom for -25% healing when hes changing phases.
heres our kill from a week ago. http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...zb4r1#fight=39
for our comp we have 3 hunters 1 boomy 1 destro lock. 1 guard druid 1 prot pally 1 mw monk and 1 disc priest who goes on a restro druid when hes bored for lulz.

as u can see hunters tend to do the most dps or near it just because of their uninterrupted skills, and our boomy is up there too, maybe hes just really good idk.

id say when u gain enough dps u can do blue-> red and skip green cause poison can be iffy without proper dispels, but sometimes its fun to give healers something to do.

[Dasani]

In my guild, we always 2 tanked it because we always aim to end phase 1 at 30 stacks. By staying in phase 1 that long, your tank is gonna get tons of debuffs on them and its just harder to heal them and the entire raid at the same time.

But by going to 30 stacks each time, we have him dead before the 2nd gate is over with, sometimes even before we open the second gate. Thok dies mad fast if you keep him in phase 1 for a long time.

If you do ever manage to kill him, i'd strongly suggest giving the healing trinket thok drops to the resto shaman (unless he sucks) because it works wonders with healing rain on that fight and can make a monumental difference in healing that will be very, very noticable.

Your group suffers from lack of paladins so you don't have the devo aura or bops to be used as cooldowns to extend the phase or to kill bats, and that hurts.

The way the bats work is sometimes (though not always) they'll have a buff on them that makes them do AOE damage. Not all bats have this, as near as I have ever cared to look I generally only see one with this buff, might've seen two before, but not all of them have it. The ones without this buff honestly don't matter, they do weak damage to the tank but don't otherwise hurt your raid. You'll still wanna aoe them down and kill them all as fast as you can, but if bat aoe is pushing you out of phase 1 too fast and with your lack of BOPs and Devo's, i would suggest identifying the bats that have the aoe buff and killing them first. Also after bats start AOEing, get your monk healer to leg sweep them and tell one of your DKs to start remorseless winter as soon as he sees the leg sweep go out, should hit the 5th stack and stun again right as leep sweep wears off giving you 8 or more seconds of hard CC and no extra damage. If you cleave from the AOE bats, it'll make life easier. Since you're 1 tanking, and the bats would be on your tank in front of the boss, that is probably hurting your dps on them as well because melee don't wanna get Thok cleaved by his breath attacks.

As others have said, having your raid stack up right in front of the fish jail makes you immune to the yeti. He only has a couple of set points he charges to and chooses between then at random, at no point moving to any other point can he go right in front of the fish people jail. It's not possible.

Also keep in mind you have all day long to move the boss after after a new phase 1 begins, just tell your raid to stack up where you want them stacked, then the tank can move the boss where ever you want it. He takes a fair amount of time before the first breath so as long as you move pretty quickly or if he is REALLY fast out of position face him away for a breath and after it happens keep trucking where you need to be, etc.

Another thing we started doing was originally we tanked him where he starts and told people to run up the hallway first. But we eventually changed tactics to pull him forward (toward the hall) until he is roughly between the first 2 cages and do this on the pull. Then have the very first fixate in phase 2 run to the BACK of the room instead of up the hall. This way when he hits 6 stacks, which is our cue to open the next jail cell, he will never be in a shitty position. He'll always be somewhere in the middle-ish of the room instead of starting up the hall or some shit which can happen if you do it the other way or take too long to open cells or whatever.

Hopefully some of that ^ mess will help.

[Tech614]

honestly melee are garbage on thok heroic 10m, they tend to spend half the time on the jailer or running away from thok, but if u get a ret pally atleast they have devo aura every 2 mins for a raid cd so that helps. if the feral has a boomy set, enhc has an ele set, or the frost dk has something else he can sub in like a diff toon altogether that'd help your comp down the boss way easier.

range can be hitting thok all the time, esp a hunter with widows venom for -25% healing when hes changing phases.
heres our kill from a week ago. http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...zb4r1#fight=39
for our comp we have 3 hunters 1 boomy 1 destro lock. 1 guard druid 1 prot pally 1 mw monk and 1 disc priest who goes on a restro druid when hes bored for lulz.

as u can see hunters tend to do the most dps or near it just because of their uninterrupted skills, and our boomy is up there too, maybe hes just really good idk.

id say when u gain enough dps u can do blue-> red and skip green cause poison can be iffy without proper dispels, but sometimes its fun to give healers something to do.

Melee will wreck casters on this fight if you are doing long phase 1s and short phase 2s. TBH any group complicating the fight by trying to do long phase 2s at this point in the game is doing it wrong, that was undergeared progression strat not 582+ ilvl over gear strat.

Hell this is probably the only heroic fight in the game that is 100% possible to do with a full melee comp, without some crazy change of strategy. Saying melee are shit for it is kind of laughable. Though obviously hunters are the best regardless of strat.

[Wilderness]

The hallway is completely safe. The yeti never goes down there.

This is correct, that's where we tank him for that phase as well.

[Dasani]

Melee are very strong on Thok because of the no interrupts in phase 1 and their dps isn't just "Wasted" in phase 2, because they can kill the jailer quickly to get back into another phase 1 again. You should always aim for long phase 1s and short phase 2s because it's just safer that way.

Melee will do strong DPS, but they still won't beat casters assuming they're skilled. Our top 5 dps are generally moonkin, warlocks, mages, and hunters and then the melee fall somewhere after that. But that's with our ranged all doing about 430ishk dps. Our best melee was only doing 390k dps on the fight from our last set of logs. I'm too lazy to look through more but that seems pretty typical from our experiences. Ranged just too good, even on thok.

[announced]

In my guild, we always 2 tanked it because we always aim to end phase 1 at 30 stacks.

Hopefully some of that ^ mess will help.

its nice to end at 30. but u do realize if u hit 31 the raid does wipe due to a 900k aoe hit. very risky.

also ive never seen a melee rank on thok, or even close to it. whatever a melee could do a hunter can do better. also at the speed thok runs i dont think melee would be able to catch him. u can use melee on the fight i mean ret pallys do contribute a ton on thok, but the less the better imo. they arent bad in the rest of SOO though, just not great for thok.

also as stated below again by Dasani, they arent even in the top 5. not exactly