Majordomo Staghelm 10m Help needed

[Tankbound]

Thanks to everyone in advance for any help they offer. Our raid is currently struggling on Majordomo. The farthest we were able to get to was to ~25% as we were transitioning from Scropion to Cat and the orbs were spawning.

Our composition is:
Tanks: Prot Paly
Melee DPS: Frost DK, Mut Rogue, Enh Shaman (later replaced with an aff lock)
Ranged DPS: Aff Lock, Arcane Mage, MM Hunter
Healers: Resto Druid, Holy Priest & Holy Paladin

We were attempting the fight as followed: 1st Scorpion Phase: 11 stacks. No Raid Cooldowns, Lust @ 4th Stack
1st Cat Phase: 6 stacks. All ranged + Healers spread (6 players) in a circle around the tank who is tanking in the center of the room. We all start moving at 80% energy to avoid any damage from the leap. Melee burn down spirits, ranged stick to the boss. at 70% after the 5th stack we all move in to avoid the leap and restack for the 2nd scorpion.
2nd Scorpion Phase: 6 stacks. Players run out when 5s remain on their seed debuff.
2nd Cat Phase: 6 stacks. Same as before.
3rd Scorpion Phase: 6 stacks. Same as Scorpion Phase 1 without lust.
3rd Cat Phase: Spread to normal locations and swap orbs at 5 stacks as needed.
4th Scorpion Phase: We've never gotten this far.

We generally wipe during the 1st Cat Phase or the 2nd Scorpion phase. The boss still seems to leap someone in melee on occasion and we can't really figure out why. Any help you have for us at all is greatly appreciated, tips, anything you got.

Here is a world of logs of our nights attempts
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-5wk4bw1gjy9vodx5/

[Deleted]

Blow lust in the first scorpion phase. there will be less running around and thus more dps uptime on the boss. If you get a leap in melee, that measn ranged aren't moving properly. they need to move to the side, not towards the boss. Also, if you are close to a spot left by a leap, stand right next to it so a future leap will overlap. That way you have more space to move when the seeds are on their way.

Also, it seems to me that either your tank is slightly undergeared or your healers aren't doing their job. There have been deaths where you tank simply died in the cat phase, which comes down due bad cooldown usage or bad healing or slow killing of the spirits. I can also see people dying because of Flame Scythe. So you should adjust your cooldowns properly.

[Ssith]

the numbers for stacking and for spreading are funky. my group couldn't get him to NOT jump into melee with more than 2 people (tank and one melee DPS) in melee range. fortunately, we only HAVE that one melee (the other tank, in a DPS spec) so it's not an issue, but i was also under the impression that it was 7 at range and he doesnt' jump in melee. but that hasn't been our experience.

it's annoying, because (due to our raid comp) we wanted to leave a healer in (thus having three in melee range, and still within the bounds of the fight mechanics, as we understood them to be) so she didn't have to move, as most of our wipes were from stupid tank death during transition phases, when all the healers were running.

other than "make one of your melee stand around like a boob for ~30% of the fight or get a ranged to replace him", i really dunno what to tell ya.

[HarleyM]

I would save hero for the second scorpion phase, and push more than just 6 stacks. Use all your cooldowns during the first stack phase, when he is getting to higher stacks they can last for two attacks. Also consider having the holy go disc. For us they were coming up again during the second (AMS) or third stack phase, which lets you use them twice throughout the fight.

Don't be afraid to have someone taunt sacrifice a flame scythe either, if you need it. We have had our resto druid do it before if he was OOM, and have had a DK do it otherwise, when absolutely necessary. Have EVERYONE switch to the spirits, they hit hard, and there is no reason to not have everyone who can do reasonable burst DPS switch.

[Deleted]

Your dps seem low. We had the boss down our first week before the third cat phase, and we only do 8 stacks the first scorpion phase.

After looking at WoL, it clearly is your low dps. None of you are regularly above 20k. Having people pulling 13-17k dps is quite unacceptable imo on a (almost) patchwerk kind of fight. Your dps must step it up, since it is a dps race for sure.

We had the problem with boss jumping in melee for us aswell when we had a healer there. (me, dk + healer in melee, and the tank ofc) After we sent the healer out he never did that again. So I'm guessing either the boss tracks specs on people and jump on "ranged/healer" specs, or he just goes WTF when there are too many people in melee. Are you using only melee in melee range?

[Deleted]

So I'm guessing either the boss tracks specs on people and jump on "ranged/healer" specs, or he just goes WTF when there are too many people in melee. Are you using only melee in melee range?

That is very, very likely to be correct.

[quantaron]

I would NOT recommend wasting lust during a Scorpion phase. The flame scythe constantly wipes peoples stacks of concentration

This is a thread about Normal mode, not Heroic.

[Dranged]

To me it seems 11 stacks on the first scorpion is too much tbh. A waste of healer's mana, and since there is such short time between the scythes at the end you won't get much extra dps done between them. We usually go 7-6-5 in scorpion phases, and always 6 in cat phases. Although in 25m.

The whole secret to beating this fight is organized use of raid cooldowns on the scythes. Barrier, rallying cry, spiritlink totem, aura mastery, divine guardian, snake traps, pets pulled back etc. Especially during the seeds-phase. I have done him both 10m and 25, and I find him a lot easier in 10m since he seems to die a lot faster than in 25m.

Our first 10m kill: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/t...?s=3405&e=3868
Our first 25m kill: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...=11799&e=12371

[Bokoshoko]

We (10 man) killed it using 8,6,6,6,4 - Bloodlust in first scorpion phase. Our numbers are very similar to yours; no DPS over 20k, healers output pretty much the same; be prepared for a long fight which will put more emphasis on your execution.

We found the 2nd scorpion phase (seeds mechanic) to be the most healing intensive - you need people to be awake and move out when neccessary but not too soon. They only need to be 12yds away, not running back to Orgrimar - you want them out and back in as quickly as possible.

We encountered no issues with the boss staying in the "wrong" form. On a Scorpion -> Cat transition we have everyone move out immediately after the Scythe goes off and heal them up once into Cat form. On Cat -> Scorpion people simply need to watch the leap and as soon as it happens they run back. If you're seeing issues with form swapping it's because people are not moving quicky enough.

[Merendel]

Looks like your DPS needs to step things up a bit. My guild goes 8 6 5 on the scorp phases. Generaly he's down in the 20% range by the time we get the cat phase with the orbs and its a strait out burn. Depending on that nights DPS we may collapse into a scorp for 1 or two scyths and back out to cat at the end there but normaly he's about ready to keel over when the orbs expire.

For the early wipes during cat 1 or scorp 2 thats all positioning and movement you need to work out. A couple of those attempts you wiped to second scorp it looks like you did not have enough soaking the scythe and people died. DBM warns and 3-4 seconds. Make sure everybody knows dont move out before that warning, Soon as you detonate get back in as soon as your HP is high enough to survive a scythe, and never run over someone on the way back in. If done properly you should rarely ever have more than 1 person out at a time during the scythes although you might have 1 otw out and 1 otw in depending on scythe timeing with the seeds.

The one other thing to look out for is make sure your pallies are in range of the scythe. One thing we found was our holy pallies liked to step back behind the group to fire their cone at the raid. If they were not careful they'd step back out of range of the scythe but still close enough to keep the boss from shifting. This reduces the split and jibs those with lower hp. If they must be behind the raid for healing force your ranged to get extreamly cozy with the tank so they have room or make the pallies stand between the tank and the boss and fire the spell backwards.

As far as cat goes you need everybody to know wich pounce is the signal to colapse. They also all need to make sure they are positioned so that as soon as the pounce fires they are runing into melee and are close enough to get there before his energy finishes filling. Most of our wipes to cat involved a couple of slow pokes that delayed the shift a second too long and we got a pounce in melee.

[Dorfie]

If you get a melee leap ranged didn't stack quick enough. I don't know why you go to 11 stacks on the first scorpion but if you insist. I just see it as pointless and a mana drain since the aoe will get so close together by the end.

We go 7 stacks first scorpion

6 stacks cat

6 stacks second scorpion (raid cooldowns here. when someone runs out for bomb everyone else gets hit a lot harder)

6 stacks cat

6 stacks scorpion (blow lust as soon as he swaps and go hard)

6 stacks cat (this is the mushroom cat, if it gets hairy we just call the transition)

last scorpion until he dies. the raid damage here will be immense. if it's unhealable and the boss is <5% you need to call another cat transition, pop tank cooldowns and burn the boss down. shouldn't be neccesary though but if shit hits the fan its a good way to finish it off

[kenn9530]

try 9, 8/7, 6, 5 and that should ease up on the damage a little more and it should be dead easily enough, its always best to push at least 9 on the first and try and push as many as you can each cat phase since there is minimal damage from the cat anyway.

[Selynia]

He has a chance to leap on anyone that is ranged or heal specced. So only melee/tanks in melee will avoid leaps. With that one fix you shouldn't really have any other problems unless dps is low.

[Deleted]

2-shotted him yesterday with alts (so not overgeared, by far). DPS was lower than yours, fight duration was quite long so healer mana was an issue. But we managed it by reducing chances to die. Yes, our mage wasted our BR by pulling aggro at pull

We did the first scorpion with 10 stacks, using cooldowns for 7, 8, 9 and 10th.
Then around 6 in normal phases and only ~4 in "special-ability" phases to prevent deaths.
After the orb-cat-phase, we did a few scythes and then let him in the normal cat phase until he dies. If you have more dps, you are anyway faster and don´t see this anymore.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=4554&e=5076

[Deleted]

The strat you're running seems okay - I mean my guild run almost the same strat and we downed this the first week. Although we go to 13 stacks the first Scorpion phase with raid cooldowns because they're up again when we need them. Make sure all of your melee switch over to the Cat ad the SECOND it comes out, on the 4th/5th/6th one you might also want your Arcane Mage or MM Hunter to switch over too. Additionally I don't understand your Cat phase strat just have the Tank/melee be the center then everyone else spread out around them and when someone gets hit by the leap make sure they stand on the edge of the leap spot so that if they're leaped again the AoE on the ground gets overlapped thus saving more space. Oh and another bit of advice we have our Prot Paladin eat the last stack of Flame Sythe by himself with all his CD's and make sure he has 'Argent Defender' up if you try this, our Tank also uses the TB trinket on use ect for this; however with a Holy Priest you could put the wings on him too and he should be able to soak a whole cleave by himself.

Additionally I run Unholy on this fight and I must say 'Anti Magic Zone' is the best raid cooldown we have on this fight, it says it only absorbs 30k damage or something but it absorbs 75% of all incoming spell damage until then and seeing as a cleave is all at once it doesn't do the math to just absorb 30k it just absorbs the whole 75% from everyone in the raid, really nice CD.

[Tankbound]

Thank you everyone for your replies, I have read through them most carefully and have been attempting to devise ways we can improve based off the information given.

Currently we are stacking initially ~40yds from the bosses spawn point (max distance for range) and then shifting to the center of the room as we transition to the first cat phase. I think this is causing a somewhat substantial loss for our ranged dps, as some of them are moving upwards of 60yds to get in position around the boss. It, I believe, is also partly why we occasionally die to getting another cleave off when attempting to transition, because the group is moving somewhat together.

Other things I plan to have us do differently.
-We had one pug (enh shaman/aff lock, insanity) who did very mediocre DPS (~14k), who will be replaced with someone better.
-Have our DK (normally OT) go Unholy for the fight for AMS -Have our Melee + Arcane Mage and/or Hunter swap to spirits, I don't see much of a point in our Aff Lock swapping.
-Use some CDs during 1st Scorpion, others during 2nd, as well as have all dps and healers go behind the boss, and let the tank soak 1-2 entire cleaves with Ardent Defender / Guardian Spirit during the 2nd Scorpion to ease healing required.

[Mooq]

You should convince your priest to go disc. Bubbling/barrier mitigates so much raid damage during scorpion phase it almost makes it a joke.