Patch 3.3

[Fordel]

Healers and Ranged DPS just need to move out of the corner once everything is in the corner. It was pretty common in TBC heroics, but WotLK has trained everyone to just plow ahead.


I still prefer the open space/hallway myself, the corner is for cowering cowards!

[Selby]

Healers and Ranged DPS just need to move out of the corner once everything is in the corner.

The tank I was healing kept yelling "get back in the fucking corner you idiots!" every time someone would move out of the corner.  And the mobs always targeted us in the corner first anyways.

[Fordel]

Yea, that's just someone parroting the "talking point" of the instance without understanding what or why.


The Range/DPS just has to reset into the corner every wave, wait for mobs, wait for pickup, back out pewpewpew repeat.

[K9]

I still prefer the open space/hallway myself, the corner is for cowering cowards!

From a healer's perspective the open space is preferable. As it was the first time in there we tanked it on the podium half the time because we didn't know what was coming. The corner is for bad tanks and bad dps.

On another note Rankwatch is an astonishing and sometimes amusing addon.

[Selby]

Oh I got to heal H-HoR again.  From the corner.  Again.  Warrior tank.  3rd wave begins, the pally gets aggro somehow and starts going down.  I assume we are fighting now with the tank going to pick up whatever has caused the pally to go down (being in the corner it should be melee, right?), so I maneuver a bit to get a heal off.  Then I get 4 mobs on me.  I die and everyone says "hey, stand in the corner until the tank gets aggro!" to which I respond with "if you want me to not heal people next time, I'll gladly let them die" to which the person who was going down says "fuck you, I was in the corner like I was supposed to be" at which point I say "all righty" and leave.  I really hate this instance because it brings out people's inner retard so strongly.  I am much too old and tired to put up with kids yelling at me over some game.

I'm sure someone will say I was in the wrong for moving, but when I am in the stupid corner and get a LoS issue trying to heal you, I assume we're fighting and am going to treat it as such.  And it's not like I had even moved too far away from their precious fucking corner but got ate up by the rogue and footman anyways.

[Merusk]

No, your group was just a bunch of failures and idiots, like most used to facerolling instances these days so they don't think when in HOR.  I won't even run it in pugs anymore.

[Sjofn]

I may be EXTRA dumb, but I really do not understand the appeal of the corner strategy at all. Maybe because I've never actually done it that way.

[Gobbeldygook]

I may be EXTRA dumb, but I really do not understand the appeal of the corner strategy at all. Maybe because I've never actually done it that way.

Instead of the adds being spread out and aggroing on everyone, they are all nice and tightly packed for the tank to pick up with consecrate/swipe/death and decay/fail to with thunderclap/.  Then the DPS can AOE the adds down.

[Sheepherder]

Same as a LoS pull in the days of yore, really.

[SurfD]

Yeah, its all about getting the mobs where you want them as a tank.

I occasionally tank the place as feral, and I would flat out refuse to tank it in a pug in the middle of the room.  Why?  Because 90% of the time, the puggies are spread out across half the room, and when the wave spawns, you end up with 4 mobs (or 5 in some waves), aggroed on 4 different people.  DPS almost ALWAYS start wailing on something (usually not the same something at that), one of them always ends up aggroed on the healer, and meanwhile i am left to try to get and hold aggro on often 2 ranged mobs, and 2 mele mobs spread across the whole room, with only Taunt, Faerie fire, and feral charge + mele, pretty much all of which have cooldowns long enough to let someone pull something off of me again because i am working on the mob WAY over there beating on random DPS number 3.   I spend 45 harrowing seconds mashing every hotkey, macro and ability I have trying to keep the mobs on me as my personal stress level goes through the roof, only have to repeat the WHOLE process over again 5 seconds later, and then do it 10 more times......

No thanks.

If everyone hides in a corner (or really anywhere line of sight) the mobs all conveniently run pretty much into my lap, where i can just swipe, mangle, maul and then leasurely cruise through the rest of the pull.

It really does make a world of difference.

[Zetor]

When I run H-HOR on my feral tank, I usually do it with a ret guildie. I also prefer tanking in the entranceway, allows for much cleaner CC. Repentance, turn undead, holy wrath aoe stun all make a lot of difference. Same if a feral guildie is tanking - I get on my unholy DK and deathgrip / strangulate loose casters, gnaw stun melee when the tank gets stunned, interrupt heals/fire spells, use army of the dead to ease tank/healer stress during the last waves. Plus as a dk I can solo a phantom mage with almost zero healing required by abusing bone shield, IBF, anti-magic shell, ghoul stun, and my own interrupt / silence.

Actually I think most classes have their own tricks and CC to make H-HOR easier on tanks, it's just that most pugs only use their aoe faceroll buttons. Oh well. :p

[Ingmar]

Hallway, as a warrior tank is better for a number of reasons:

- Mages stop far enough away to be CCed, and you can bring them in with heroic throw/gag order later when you want to. Without CC you can still just tank them with spell reflect. True to a lesser extent with riflemen, but you have to charge/disarm them to get them to move, these are the #1 choice for CC if you only have one CCer, or for a DK dpser to be designated to death grip into the pack.
- There's actually enough room to use intervene if something gets loose and starts chasing a healer
- People have space to get out of flamestrike
- You can actually see exactly what the fuck is going on without the alcove tight space camera issues, and have room to maneuver piles of mobs for shockwave purposes, and can plan ahead when to use your shockwave/thunderclap on the guys coming in to the room so you don't miss any
- The healer will by default be far enough away that the warrior guys won't shield bash them, so they don't have to think about where to stand (important for PUG healers)

I kill mages last, just leave them CCed/reflect tanked til it is time to stunlock them to death so they can't duplicate themselves. There's literally no advantage I can see to using the alcove as a warrior except for the rare 2 rifleman pulls, those are the only ones that are better in the alcove.

EDIT: Nobody is suggesting tanking out in the middle, that would be dumb. The choices are alcove (better for bears especially without CC) and hallway (better for everyone else basically.)

[Merusk]

I may be EXTRA dumb, but I really do not understand the appeal of the corner strategy at all. Maybe because I've never actually done it that way.

Instead of the adds being spread out and aggroing on everyone, they are all nice and tightly packed for the tank to pick up with consecrate/swipe/death and decay/fail to with thunderclap/.  Then the DPS can AOE the adds down.

DK's don't really care which strat, because D&D is huge and fills the hall or the alcove if placed right.  Pestilence should be glyphed as a tank, too, so diseases will hit in either position as well.  The hall's my preference because it allows for actual CC. If you get classes that are bight enough to remember to use it or will actually listen to you when you say to lock it down.  That's not many these days.

[Dren]

Our groups useed to use the corner, but stopped due to the things said here.

The group stays with their back to the door that closes behind you.  The tank always stays out a bit in the opening to the middle of the room.  There is plenty of time for the tank to pick everything up before the dps and healing begins.  This strat works as long as people are patient enough to let the tank do their job up front.  From then on out it is all about focusing on each target at a time and doing the targets in the right order.

Precedence is typically: merc-priest-mage-tank target for rest.

[Dren]

We had two 10-mans go into the new wing of ICC last night.  Talk about ratcheting up the difficulty a bit.  You know it is going to be hard when there are traps that insta kill you directly on the other side of the portal to get in.  I think half the raid died trying to get through the "Frogger 2.0."  I can see this being a PITA for a long time coming now, much like the original Frogger in Nax.

Ran out of time to down the first boss, but got a few shots at him.  We'll be trying again tonight.  Hard, but fun.

*Edit:  Oh, Rogues can disarm these traps!  Our rogue in the group was yelling, "I finally have something to do again!"

[Selby]

We had two 10-mans go into the new wing of ICC last night.  Talk about ratcheting up the difficulty a bit.

We laughed at the new frogger.  It wasn't particularly difficult as it's just 2 places to avoid, and it's pretty lengthy for the on and off phase.  At least when you get past it you get the teleporter from down below and never have to worry about it again ;-)

That said, the trash is quite difficult in and of itself.  I don't see many PUGs getting past Stinky and Precious alone as they are essentially mini-boss Gluth part 2 in their own right and require ALOT of coordination and things going well to not wipe to them.  Rotface himself wasn't *overly* difficult, once we figure out how to get the slimes to move correctly and be managed, we'll have it.  As we said, it's a fight that looks really easy and really hard at the same time.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I like that precious has a big red ribbon.

[Fordel]

I may be EXTRA dumb, but I really do not understand the appeal of the corner strategy at all. Maybe because I've never actually done it that way.

It's just LoSing the ranged mobs, instead of pulling a pack, they have to magic themselves in so it takes a few moments longer. You would do it if you tanked it on your Druid, I have little doubt. On your DK, pffft 

[K9]

Rotface himself wasn't *overly* difficult, once we figure out how to get the slimes to move correctly and be managed, we'll have it.  As we said, it's a fight that looks really easy and really hard at the same time.

Can you elect to do either Festergut or Rotface? World of Logs sugegsts that Festergut is the easier, so I'm planning to take my group that way tonight.

[Soulflame]

Festergut seems to be overtuned, guilds that can clear 4/5 ToGC25 are downing him with seconds to spare.

On our best effort, which was actually pretty close to perfect (for us) he enraged with 10,000,000 health left, out of 40,000,000.  We're not downing this boss... ever.  As he currently stands.

Of course, the forums are filled with gleeful postards declaring that anyone can pull 7.5k dps in ulduar gear, and so the rest of us should man up and suck down not being able to clear current content.  At last!  At long last!  This accursed tyranny of average players clearing content that is obviously only meant to be done by 1% of the playerbase or less has come to an end!  I really hate those people.

[bhodi]

Festergut is a DPS check, Rotface is a retard check.

We went for rotface; just ran out of time. We'll get him tonight.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Festergut is a DPS check, Rotface is a retard check.

We went for rotface; just ran out of time. We'll get him tonight.

You'll need about 150k raidwide dps for festergut on 25m and anyone saying they pull 7,500 in uld gear is a liar.  Either way it's rough and not JUST a dps check, he'll hit your tanks HARD. Festergut is the patchwerk of ICC but more like level 60 patchwerk.

[K9]

I calculated that you need around 5.3K DPS per DPS (counting the tanks combined as equal to a single DPS) with a 2 tank, 3 healer 5 DPS setup in 10 to down Festergut, which doesn't seem unreasonable.

Does that seem right?

[bhodi]

Yeah but it's more like 7.5k on 25man. Which is what people are complaining about.

[K9]

I figured, we can't get past lady DW on 25, due to the way failure scales upwards; but out 10-man groups are solid and clear the first four in an hour or so.

edit: On another note, World of Logs is reporting that the failure rate on Rotface is higher in 10-man than 25-man; is this a case of awful tuning?

[Lakov_Sanite]

I calculated that you need around 5.3K DPS per DPS (counting the tanks combined as equal to a single DPS) with a 2 tank, 3 healer 5 DPS setup in 10 to down Festergut, which doesn't seem unreasonable.

Does that seem right?

Haven't tried him in 10m, my group is gonna try two healing since our 10 rolls with two spriests we'll try and keep the raid up through VE.

With our 25m though we did 150k raid dps and had about..20 seconds on the clock to spare? our dps ranged from 6800-9k depending on class(it's an easier fight for melee, no movement) but one attempt we had two dps down and couldnt beat the enrage which isnt really an enrage, its an instant raid wipe(no last minute saves here)

[Dren]

We did 10 man Rotface and failed twice before stopping for the night.  The way it went, I'm sure we'll get it tonight.  We have plenty of dps.

As for 25 mans being more successful than 10 in general.  That seems right to me.  If you have a group that is raring to go for the new content the night it opens on 25-man, you are most likely (not all) a hardcore raid group.  Those typically will have everyone peaked out on gear prior to the new content coming out.

10-mans?  Nah, that's still pretty casual in comparison. Those groups, on average, will probably be surprised by the new content for gear checks.  I'm just talking averages here, not absolutes, obviously.

[Sjofn]

I may be EXTRA dumb, but I really do not understand the appeal of the corner strategy at all. Maybe because I've never actually done it that way.

It's just LoSing the ranged mobs, instead of pulling a pack, they have to magic themselves in so it takes a few moments longer. You would do it if you tanked it on your Druid, I have little doubt. On your DK, pffft 

Yeah, upon reflection, I would probably want to do it as my druid. Not as anything else, though. And yeah, I was totally not saying I would tank it in the middle. Hallway would be my Default. :P

[K9]

We got Festergut down after about 5 attempts in my 10-man group tonight. Had a poke at Rotface too for jokes.

Festergut is a really run fight; I really like the way there are effectively three phases that transition in a very natural way. As a healer this fight varies in an interesting way; the spore and blight mechanic is new and well done. The fight is very tightly tuned I'd say. We're a group in a mix of ToC10, ToGC10 and ToC25 bits and badge gear and we only had about 13s spare on the timer. This was with our Bear tank going cat once he had the +80% damage stack and me popping heroism at the same time; we did run with three healers though. You need 33K raid DPS to beat this, which isn't impossible, but isn't a walk in the park either.

Precious and Stinky were fun too, but it would be nice if they dropped a badge, or something.

[Merusk]

We got to engage Festergut once last night, because several folks kept going AFK before bosses (pissing the RL right off) and two wipes on the lagboat.  Anyone else have the horrible, crushing lag problem that suddenly resolves itself at around 15% left on the enemy ship?

I got an awesome trinket off of Saurfang, though. Deathbringer's Will  Much fun was had with procs that are of questionable use.

Not sure how Festergut is going to go for us.  We seem streaky on our DPS, depending on how much attention certain mages are paying that night. (Guess who was afking randomly on us)  I keep wondering why they don't boot the flaky ones to the curb, really.

Oh, and screw entrance farming for rep.. Those Geists right before Precious respawn damn quick and give 16 rep each, plus 2 rep for the zombies the dogs spawn.  Awesome.

[Sjofn]

People need to learn to pee before the damn raid. 

[K9]

Oh, and screw entrance farming for rep.. Those Geists right before Precious respawn damn quick and give 16 rep each, plus 2 rep for the zombies the dogs spawn.  Awesome.

It did cross my mind that you could seemingly just stay in combat with previous ad infinitum to farm rep. Frankly though it hardly seems worth the effort. Everyone will be Exalted within a month or so anyway.

The geist packs were hilarious fun.

[Merusk]

Well that's been my opinion of rep farming, yes.  I'm still 2k from revered while others have been sitting at exalted since a week and a half ago.  I don't pretend to understand must-have-it-now personalities, I just know what to use to tickle their reflex.

[Selby]

Our only problem with Rotface is that the slimes that spawn absolutely will not respond to our off-tank in any way until more than one spawns and they merge (we aren't sure if it is intended or bugged or the tank was just using the wrong skill to grab it or what).  Then you have to dump the slimes at the one big one continuously otherwise you get slimes that can't really be controlled (they were ONLY going after who spawned them, regardless of tank efforts to get them off).  We still have some people who are not great players unless DBM is yelling at them specifically to go do X or Y and since DBM wasn't updated for these fights yet, that was a problem (stand in the spray?  okay!).  And the one brand new healer we were breaking in who didn't understand why he shouldn't insta-cleanse the disease debuff (he got it on the 3rd try) and insisted on healing himself through Rotface's slime spray when he could just run away from it.

And that giant slime hits like a freight train and pretty much destroys our OT if it gets too close.  More practice and we'll likely get it.

[Ingmar]

From what I've read the little ones have a fixate set on their first target. That person has to kite them into another small one to make a big one before you can hand off to the OT. I believe that's not a bug.

EDIT: And they spawn faster as time goes by, which is basically a soft enrage on him - when you get too many slimes, game over. Blow cooldowns from the start, in other words.