M Mannoroth w/ 1 DK?

[tinef]

Hey everyone. I see M Mannoroth posts are all the rage today so here's another..

Our semi-casual mythic guild has just begun progression on Mannoroth. We've probably had 12-13 pulls now, and our #1 wipe factor was imps not dying fast enough. Our comp has no warlocks and only 1 DPS DK. We are 2 tanking and 4 healing the fight.

The current strategy is: in P2, immediately pull to pillar. Stand on one side, stack in for imps. Bait every felseeker in the middle. Restack on one side. We are using the Volley to do marks and it's worked decently well so far. We are immediately dispelling every mark. Our DPS isn't high enough to try to burn Doom Lord before marks, imo.

Any advice is appreciated.

[Nitros14]

When we had to do the fight without 2 death knights, we stacked up tight when imps were coming then moved as the timer hit zero so they all landed in the same spot. It's finnicky and if people move late they'll die instantly but it works for getting them grouped.

[BiggestNoob]

I believe we've done this with no DKs. There are a few things to note:

1. You completely control where imps spawn. You can stack up and then after they're in the air flying towards you, move to the side and take 0 damage from them landing. This way you can get them in a tight stack without a DK.
2. You can CC them to interrupt their normal fireballs. This is useful when you have dooms going out right after imps land if you can't kill them quickly enough. Just have a few rounds of stuns on them and you have a lot more time to kill them.

The only way they can actually really cause a wipe is if they pop dooms right after they go out or if you let more than 1-2 explode on you. When they start casting their explosion, they should die or you should get away from them. They can freely teleport around and they won't really cause a problem, you just need to make sure they don't complicate the other mechanics.

[CptAwesome]

It's much harder but you just need to have people stack up as the imps spawn.

With 1 DK, just try the fight a few times without him using grip at all and decide which waves are the most awkward for you then assign him to those. Also, you'll want to make use of other forms of cc like solar beam and aoe stuns to stop them casting but they really need to be top dps priority by far.

[Gardiff]

If it is progression (which it is), it is going to be a pretty big problem. I am sure it is possible to do (definitely is on farm), but expect a lot more wipes from that simple fact. You have already identified imps as the culprit for your wipes and not having any warlocks will make it tougher.

Most guilds who have done 0 / 1 death knight strategies have already killed the boss so they are familiar with a farm fight. Being unfamiliar with mechanics and having to learn everything in phase 2 / 3 (especially with no warlock gateways) compounded with only 1 death knight will result in a lot more wipes for progression. I am sure someone can go pull a log from 1 guild's first kill (out of the 1000+) where there weren't 2 dks, but it isn't worth it. If someone has an alt, even if poorly geared and no ring, you should seriously consider asking them to play a death knight as this will help you get a kill sooner.

What exactly is your comp?

[Nitros14]

We had a badly geared alt go blood and third tank the doom lords, then soak wraths. Worked for a second grip.

[tinef]

Plastkin - We've wiped a couple of times due to imps not being dead by the time 2nd marks come out.

Gardriff - here is a link to the logs, where you can see our comp as well (our rdruid was out, she will be in next week for the rsham). https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...xHQMJ#fight=23

[Dracodraco]

Plastkin - We've wiped a couple of times due to imps not being dead by the time 2nd marks come out.

Gardriff - here is a link to the logs, where you can see our comp as well (our rdruid was out, she will be in next week for the rsham). https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...xHQMJ#fight=23

Shamans are better than druids if you don't have two DKs.
Only way to combat imps if you want to kill them quickly is to stack as tight as possible and hope you've got good enough AOE. The closer you stack, the better your chances of imps spawning close enough to AOE. It also means more splash damage. Use a spirit link on every wave that the DK can't grip for everyone stacked for safety, and you should be allright.

Also, with just 1x DK -
Make sure the DK has grip ready for the first spawn in P2 (when Wraths are still up). This wave is the "hardest" in the entire fight, because 20% of your raid will be more concerned with wraths than trying to AOE imps, and it might mean your warrior, for example, isn't in range to bladestorm that wave. Having it be a spread wave PLUS people out of range? Not fun.

While it's an overall dps loss, try and tell your agility users to save their mirrors for each wave of imps that spawn spread. It's a *ton* of AOE damage while they're up, and the range on it is fairly wide. Imps spawn every ~45 seconds, which means every other wave (1.5 minutes) can be lined up with mirrors.

[BiggestNoob]

Plastkin - We've wiped a couple of times due to imps not being dead by the time 2nd marks come out.

Gardriff - here is a link to the logs, where you can see our comp as well (our rdruid was out, she will be in next week for the rsham). https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...xHQMJ#fight=23

Yeah, on that second set you can see when the Doom Lord is casting, then just hit the imps with AoE stuns/interrupts/incaps, etc. A few second stun is long enough for people to run their dooms over to the designated spot, and then you can safely kill those imps before they explode. Even if they shoot people once the dooms are spread properly, nobody should die.

As a tip: you may be able to kill that first Doom Lord if you split your ring on it. Try to have it in melee and have people switch to it, and interrupt the volley near the end of the cast. If you can do that, you won't lose DPS to the dooms and you can save your grip for the second set.

That set and the set that happens when you're stacked in front of the boss (just before transition, depending on your DPS, from the 3rd Doom Lord IIRC) are particularly important to have the imps stacked well and hit with CC if the lord starts casting before they're dead.

I checked, we've killed it ~4 times with 1 DK, and I remember us getting to sub 10% wipes with no DK, but it's always way more consistent with at least 1.

[Gardiff]

Plastkin - We've wiped a couple of times due to imps not being dead by the time 2nd marks come out.

Gardriff - here is a link to the logs, where you can see our comp as well (our rdruid was out, she will be in next week for the rsham). https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...xHQMJ#fight=23

So yeah keep the 2nd shaman in there and tell them to go EotE if not already. 4 SLTs can help you greatly through some of the phase 2 hard imp sets as well as shadowforce on wrath targets (if using the pillar strategy). There isn't that much else that you can do apart from what is stated here - you have to stack super tight and use cooldowns to offset the high damage from people who will invariably get hit by some of splash from imp sets.

Stress the importance to your raid (whether you do 1 dk or 2) of getting imps down before they phase explosion. There are a lot of good suggestions in this thread already. You will probably save a lot of progression time if you can grab a second DK. If not, it will become another variable you have to account for when trying to progress resulting in more wipes.

[tinef]

The other rsham is an OS healer, but I see the value in keeping him as heals. Thanks everyone for the input.