Details on Heroic Jailer

[garicasha]

Not a bad fight, definitely a difference from Denathrius and Sylvanas in that P1 is the hard part instead of P3. Most "gotchas" in this fight will kill the player, except for defile, which will kill the whole raid. Most people in my first pug kill group had 70+ pulls on it.

First few pulls it's shocking how hard the Jailer's melee hits for and how fast the different mechanics come in. But due to the fact that the whole fight is scripted it gets much more manageable with practice.

The first insight I have for groups that are maybe 20-30 pulls in is that even though no one will die if the raid does a free-for-all on which pillars they hide behind, for healing reasons it's still much better to have the whole raid doing the same thing. Healing doesn't require the pumping that Lords of Dread does, but there are 3-4 places in the fight where the raid takes a big spike and having the raid together on those places will really help smooth things out. It also helps make every pull the same which helps people minimize movement and plan cooldowns better. Players will be doing phase 1 a lot; best to get good at it early. Another advanced play is that players should always be getting knocked and/or hiding in the direction the raid is headed (clockwise or counter-clockwise) and not the areas where there are no open holes.

Second suggestion, great play from the tanks can really help other players avoid getting knocked in to holes. Placing the tank combos in positions where there are no holes nearby is one example. But frequently there is a hole nearby, and if the tank stands right up next to the edge of it, it makes it nearly impossible for anyone to be behind the tank in a way that will knock them in to it. The worst thing a tank can do is stand in the center of three hexes that have two or more holes open, as this forces players to stand directly between the two holes.
Really bad positioning: https://imgur.com/vZxEzPH
Decent positioning: https://imgur.com/s6XW892 One small danger zone, and sub-optimal because players are getting knocked away from direction of travel...but good enough for a pug
Optimal positioning: when it's impossible for anyone to fall in a hole AND the raid is getting knocked in the direction of travel

To any raids whose raid leader is a melee or a tank, this fight is way, way harder for ranged and healers. When I did a couple of pulls on my healer after already having logged 30+ pulls on my tank, I was shocked at how many mechanics there were, how fast they come in, how much movement they required, etc. I had gotten frustrated one night leading a pug and instructing players to jump in to the three holes in a triangle next to a raid marker but people couldn't get it. After playing my healer I knew it was because the fight was fifty times easier on my tank than it was as a ranged.

I recommend a normal setup for the raid 2/3/8-10 or 2/4/12-15 as going too low on heals could cause a heartbreaking wipe to the healing debuff in P3, and going too many just pushes the fight out a couple more defiles which, the last parts of P3 being the parts that players are least familiar with, the more those can be avoided the better. I do not have experience doing the fight with more than 20 players and have no idea how such a large raid would spread for torment.

Death Knights can also hit Death's Advance prior to the cast of each chains which prevents them from being slowed down. This allows them to reach the next location early and drop an Anti-Magic Zone early so the raid can see where to go. There may be other abilities that prevent the slow as well.

Two players jumping in the same hole isn't that big a deal. However it might indicate that one of the players doesn't have a lot of experience on the fight because it generally doesn't happen much in good groups.

Phase 2 is fortunately fairly easy. The hardest part is obviously getting the mind controlled players to the correct spot on time, which takes some practice. At first I was tanking the Jailer in the center near Azeroth to help cleave damage on MCed players and the Jailer, however I eventually realized through video review that it was making the torment spreads too hard, and changed to tanking him halfway from the center on one of the closed holes, which seemed to go much better. Since the MCed players reach the middle pretty fast anyway the DPS loss was minimal but having the raid in one of the areas with no open holes gives much more flexibility for dodging torment and decimator.

I have seen tanks do some real flashy stuff for breaking pillars, which I don't think is necessary. The tanks never have to cross the room if the Jailer is moved once. For example, if the Jailer is tanked between pillars 1 and 2 and pillar 3 starts as the far pillar, the order could be 12-1*3-23-23, with the move at the *, and then pillar 1 becomes the wall. (You'd want to move again to start P3 though or you'd be in the middle of the room which is not optimal but not that big a deal.) Although I'm not 100% sure my example works out with the good times for moving the Jailer. There's a decimate cast or two where it's easy to move him. Before a mind control is a terrible time to move him. Most groups I was in there was a highly mobile tank that liked to flex on my Blood DK by running across the room really quickly. (But it is dangerous, that shattering blast does a LOT of damage and can run the player far from the healers for 10-15 seconds.)

Phase 3 is fortunately not all that difficult. Obviously the issue is getting there clean, but after accomplishing that feat a half-dozen times a kill is imminent. Defiles 2 and 4 are the tricky ones and need to be moved out of immediately. I have seen raids successfully clump up and collectively move out. I don't think it's strictly necessary, especially for the first one, as long as everyone is on the same side of the boss including the tank. What has to be avoided though is players can't be "blocking in" other players that would have to move with defile, for example if the raid is up against the wall, someone on the far side of the jailer from the wall gets targeted, and then everyone else is stuck.

There's no need to be all the way up against the wall, however, the fight will end far before the raid runs out of room.

I did not find it super scary to snap all the chains at once. It's not that Sanctum fight with Garrosh, although popping 2 and then 1 is probably ok.

Early in the phase there's an Azeroth soak in to a torment. A lot of times the raid would clump up right next to the Jailer for that, but I don't believe that's necessary and is in fact damaging as the ENTIRE raid is all clumped up and has to spread immediately. Although it does have the side effect that the adds will all spawn closer together. With a Gorefiend's Grasp the adds can be deleted before the Jailer even finished the Decimator cast after, which leaves the raid tons of time to pre-position for the second defile.

I have video of two different pulls, one where the Jailer casts a mind control right before the second defile and one where he doesn't. I haven't done P3 enough to quite know why that is, and unfortunately I started the recording right at that moment so I don't know the prior chain of events. Definitely any defiles that immediately follow a mind control stack are worth burning a movement CD on. As soon as he starts to cast the raid should get out.

Boss should generally be tanked between the outer and 2nd-most outer ring of hexes, it gives the most room to spread out. He should also be in an area where the area directly in front of him is solid so that ground effects like Anti-Magic Zone can be dropped in melee range for the Azeroth soak.

The adds are quite easy to kill...for me, because I play a blood DK and unfortunately don't know what it's like to do the fight without one. Gorefiend's and Slappy Hands (DK Necrolord ability Abomination Limb) trivialize this aspect so much it's clearly worth bringing or even rolling one, as the Jailer will again be current content in Season 4.

One thing I don't understand and am looking for info on is how exactly the healing debuff works in P3. I've seen him cast it at different times, I've seen different numbers of players affected, I've seen him cast 1 and 2 of them on a raid with 12 players alive. I've heard the impact itself does damage but most people have told me the debuff amount is the same whether the raid is completely stacked or venn diagramed.

My first kill came right as the fourth defile was being cast so definitely a lot of P3 can be avoided on a really clean pull where everyone is alive and pumping the whole fight. I'm not sure what exactly we phased at but I believe it was around 40% without using hero in P1.

I've seen hero popped in the beginning and with the boon of azeroth buff, I don't have super strong feelings about it either way. Anyone with more of a DPS background than myself is welcome to comment on that.