Heroic Spellblade Help

[Fayenoor]

We are a small guild and are struggling a lot on Heroic Spellblade.

We were running with 2 tanks, 3 healers, 5 melee, 3-4 ranged DPS.

Healing team is Holy Pr, Holy Pr, R-Druid.
Tank team is Prot Pala, Veng DH

Logs:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/fnbyZ8tAa4DVzq9m

Key issues we have which caused most of the wipes appear to be:

1. Random tank deaths
2. Lot of damage going out on Frost Phase
3. Tanks dying to Annihilate during arcane orb phase - i.e. when the raid is moving in a stack slowly while dropping the arcane puddle.

We are fairly casual. And dont have much choice of bringing anyone else. The pally could probably have gone heals to help out, but he is one of our highest DPS. So bit of a tradeoff.

Would love some feedback to help get over this.

Thanks,
Faye

[psukardi]

The first time during arcane orb phase. Have everyone stack on the tank and move very slow. You want to get those arcane orbs as tight as they can be so you can bring the boss next to the orbs and cleave down. You don't have to kill all of the orbs but you should have as many as you can. Cleave is your friend. AOE is your friend.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done Is a recap of a kill

[Fayenoor]

The first time during arcane orb phase. Have everyone stack on the tank and move very slow. You want to get those arcane orbs as tight as they can be so you can bring the boss next to the orbs and cleave down. You don't have to kill all of the orbs but you should have as many as you can. Cleave is your friend. AOE is your friend.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done Is a recap of a kill

How do you deal with the Annihilate when the Orbs are dropping?

Also, how do you recommend handling the frost stacks with 3 ranged and 3 healers. One of our constant issues over the night was melee getting Frost stacks and instantly exploding, because they are on top of each other. At one pull, both tanks had frost stacks and healing them through that and annihilate became impossible for us.

[ribthanwa]

How do you deal with the Annihilate when the Orbs are dropping?

Also, how do you recommend handling the frost stacks with 3 ranged and 3 healers. One of our constant issues over the night was melee getting Frost stacks and instantly exploding, because they are on top of each other. At one pull, both tanks had frost stacks and healing them through that and annihilate became impossible for us.

You pop healing cooldowns. Literally all of them are useful except divine hymn during this phase. Also tell your tanks to make sure that they have their major tanking cd for this instance, as it should only happen once during the fight, as the boss enrages after 2 arcane phases.

[Deleted]

How do you deal with the Annihilate when the Orbs are dropping?

Divide the group. The tanks tank the boss at normal position. The group comes together at another point and runs around. Usually the tanks get one add. The rest will follow the group. Maindisadvantage is loosing dmg. But you will never have a problem with annihilate. (we usually ignore the add which spawns at the tanks; one explo is healable)

Also, how do you recommend handling the frost stacks with 3 ranged and 3 healers. One of our constant issues over the night was melee getting Frost stacks and instantly exploding, because they are on top of each other. At one pull, both tanks had frost stacks and healing them through that and annihilate became impossible for us.

We are also very low on ranged and healers and we tried the frost debuff with different tactics but couldn't handle it on the start. After some time we get to a more organized solution:
For 6 ranged people u need two rows with 3 people. 3 in the front, 3 in the back. Something like (X are players, -| is 8 yards):
X-X-X
| | |
X-X-X
When the first pair of debuffs go out you need to switch people in this formation in the way that both debuffs are in one column. Something like(Y are debuffs):
Y-X-X
| | |
Y-X-X
When they need to explode the buff the front person runs back. So the debuff goes to the next two people without buff which results in:
X-Y-X
| | |
X-Y-X
Middle people have to be careful and meet on the left or right of the middle so the debuffs go left or right.
When the second debuffs come in you need to be careful with the timing. The general strategy is the same. But you need to alternate the explosions because the debuffs are holding on for a short time and while you have it u cant get the frost debuff.
With 6 people its difficult as hell. We normally have at least 8 ranged which is easy because you can form 2 groups of 4 people standing in a square and every "square" gets a pair of debuffs. (Replay from last kill)
The frost debuffs are another thing in the categorie: screw small groups.

[psukardi]

Are you letting people hold stacks long enough? Typically in that first phase where people get the frost, we advise hold until 6 stacks before you run into another person to clear it.

[Fayenoor]

Are you letting people hold stacks long enough? Typically in that first phase where people get the frost, we advise hold until 6 stacks before you run into another person to clear it.

We try to do that. But when it hops to melee, all hell breaks lose. Mostly because melee can't do the 8-yard spread specially since we are melee heavy. So they explode at 1-2 stacks further spreading the debuff -etc.

[ribthanwa]

We try to do that. But when it hops to melee, all hell breaks lose. Mostly because melee can't do the 8-yard spread specially since we are melee heavy. So they explode at 1-2 stacks further spreading the debuff -etc.

Popping the debuffs only replaces the buffs that get dropped off. So if you only have 2 people with the debuff, then popping those 2 will still results with only 2 debuffs out on the raid. The number will only increase when she casts replicate.

[Melida]

Popping the debuffs only replaces the buffs that get dropped off. So if you only have 2 people with the debuff, then popping those 2 will still results with only 2 debuffs out on the raid. The number will only increase when she casts replicate.

You misunderstand him, the melee get the debuff when it bounces because we don't have enough ranged to block the debuff from the melee or the ranged gets too close. We still have the same amount of marks, just on unfortunate targets.

[Deleted]

We have also a small raid group and more melees with us.

Our problem atm are the frost adds and the bubble with ice block... the dmg is heavy and the room so fast through the raid with much hp... if the adds can be handled the tanks die but if the tanks keep alaive the raid dies.

I think having more melees as ranged in this fight isnt a good choice but blizzard didnt handle the scale down correct if the raid is low on players and ranged.