Sartharion + Drakes Feedback Thread!

Saw this "alternative" strat yesterday, worth looking at... note though that it's written more as a story and less as a detailed strat.

http://blog.plaguechill.com/?p=170

Basically, instead of them stacking DPS, they bring 3 *real* tanks and 3 *real* healers, focusing on control rather than speed.
Worth a look, atleast.

Who needs strats? Sartharion/3D down in 76 seconds.

WWS: http://wowwebstats.com/f233hiufbwua5?s=38795-45937



Raid composition:
Resto Shamoo
Rogue
Feral Druid
Prot-adin
2 DK
4 Fury Warriors (lulz)

WWS ranks the fight as #7

Damage taken indicates they only used one tank (second highest damage taken player is druid with ~10% of the tank's damage taken and 2nd highest damage source is "Mangle - Cat" (33%).

Their DPS is 42 427.

Our highest Sartharion DPS kills are:
18 214: http://wowwebstats.com/armmimyv5cayi?s=72411-101634
17 612: http://wowwebstats.com/y4zdhp1d2pwge?s=38843-49214 (8man)
16 768: http://wowwebstats.com/byxvk1v5s5i2s

Other than the fact that they are wearing 25-man gear (Which should be higher DPS, but not THIS much higher (then again, our 2nd highest DPS Sartharion parse is an 8man one) - in my case, the top DPS DK is not wearing that much better gear than I am - other than using a significantly better 2Her than I have... then again, *shrug*
Also, I guess it's a lot down to group composition.

Eh, I'll have to look into this.

Fury warriors for the win....Time to roll Braith.....

D

Next week, if 3.1 isn't out, we will have a go at this tactic.

I find this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6lQ_2rzCgA by a different raid group gives a clearer view of what to do.

We will need 1 healer (Derky), Marv as Feral, and the rest will be DPS. I've seen this done with a mixture of classes, but the 8 DPSers will need to be doing about 4k.

When the 2nd drake lands, Marv must taunt it and run for the entrance. We have until the drake gets back and one-shots us all to finish the job, as the drake will be enraged and hitting for 65k.

This is also dependent on insanely good healing as much as it is by DPS, because I will be tanking the first drake and Sartharion AND all the fire elementals.

It also depends on luck, as ideally you want all the fire walls coming from the right so the DPS doesn't have to move.

If the zerg doesn't work, we just need enough dps to kill each drake as the next one spawns. Which is about 1 million damage in 45 seconds, three times (once for each drake). This translates to just under 22k dps (or 3.7k dps for each of 6 dps excluding 2 tanks and 2 healers). Of course, slower dps is doable too, but we want minimal overlap of drakes or the risk of having tanks oneshot increases dramatically.

Interesting raid last night, especially the Sarth1D attempts. I think we tried attacking him from just about every corner of the island he is on! Towards the end we had him down to 50% consistently before Shadron landed (with only 6 dps), 75 seconds into the encounter. We found the bottom east corner (the near left corner as you see him from the entrance) to be the easiest tank position for a Russian-style zerg. It was also my first run as dps here and I inevitably ate a couple of firewalls... >.<

Malygos was a good solid oneshot kill, with a record phase 1 (guess the grabbing of sparks must've been spot on!). I was hoping to get the flying disc achievement, but phase2 was also over relatively quickly - it is a frustrating phase when you're 4th in line for a frisbee and can't do much more other than run with the main murloc pack in catform.. In phase3 I took over healing from D once he was out and before I knew it I saw that the blue heart and the ruby had dropped...

All in all a very solid last pre-3.1 raid, murlocs!

Just a thought for tonight.

Do we have/can we make the DPS required for a zerg? What is required?

Should be Deconstructor-heart-style all-out DPS race.

I believe I mentioned the 76 sec kill did some 40k DPS, but I haven't looked at it in a while.

So, presumably with the people availible this evening we'd be looking at:

Blobb tanking
Zuzu healing

The rest DPS? (Purely because their offspecs put out lower numbers or are non-existent)

Of course we've gained a lot of experience and gear since attempting to do it the normal way, so I guess it's best to give that a shot first.

I've been told I'm on Growl + Catform + Dash duty tonight We'll see if this is at all doable or whether I need to be able to survive at least one hit in which case I may need to dash out and respec to feral.

*goes to watch videos*

It's a simple DPS test, with the luck factor of fire walls. You need the fire walls to come down sides so the DPS don't have to move.

We will need to do the same kind of DPS we did on XT's heart to succeed. We have 80 seconds to kill him. We'll either do it or we won't, but we should be able to tell whether it's doable quite quickly.

When the first drake lands, Blobb will need to taunt and tank it. He will also need to tank as many fire adds as possible. This is going to be a lot of damage. However, he is best to tank it as he has sunder armour, which will boost our DPS noticeably.

When Sarth hits 30%, Marv needs to go bear, taunt the drake, go cat and dash for her life. ONE HIT from the drake will kill her, no matter what spec she is. I suggest running to the entrance and up the slope to where the drakes are before the fight starts.

The drake will kill her, and Sarth must be dead before it comes back. Either way, we will all die, but hopefully as winners.

Feral kite-tank's macro:

/tar Tenebron
/castsequence [stance:1] Growl, Cat Form; [stance:3] Dash; Dire Bear Form

Stance 1 is the Dire Bear, Stance 3 is the Cat. This macro works excellently if you start as boomkin/caster, but if you're already in cat form you need to switch to bear manually before mashing it. Just hope you don't get caught by a fire wall or tailswipe or have your Growl resisted... -.-

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

*stares at crotch*

...

/facepalm

What a cool evening! 29 wipes and 30th time lucky, we had some RNG factors (fire walls, drakes breathing on the pull), but we never gave up - and focus stayed crisp and sharp throughout. And grats to Taqwa on the new drake (and to Dahl for Zuzuna's surprise Oracle prize)!

I've been looking at the meters and can't figure out how Zuzu did the healing, staying alive with elementals, drakes and firewalls can't have been easy, and 3 rets ganking themselves can't have been fun either - but you made it look easy! When did you switch to Discipline btw?

Speaking of easy, did you notice a drop in mana regen Bal, using JoL? That spell seems to be a cheap resto druid, showering the raid in golden love.. It will certainly come in handy on hardmode fights with loads of splash damage, and may free up one healer at Hodir so we can do the hardmode!

Damn great dps from all the Coastrunners, even having to dodge firewalls and voids, and the occasional tailswipe/stun (I kept getting caught in those, think I was too far behind him on most tries). I decided to switch to feral because (a) I do more dps as that spec and it's less random, and (b) the feral aura would boost everyone else's dps. And it did! I tried waiting to run with Tenebron as close to 30% health on Sarth as possible - I can race off with him sooner and be safer from the 2nd fire wall, but it's a drop in dps for everyone as you lose my aura (and my claws). Was damn exciting racing away with a drake in tow throwing voids and nastiness at me and seeing the rest of you burn that bastard down! So many very close calls, but we did it in the end. The start-of-fight Heroism was definitely a winner, and I can see us making the stacking special-pets-THEN-heroism-THEN-cooldowns tactic a Murloc staple in future fights - we just need a cool name for it!

Finally, thanks to Blobb for facing the big dragon for us. It's not an easy fight and there's flapping drakes and elementals spawned and it all hinges on the tank being able to grab it all and hold it when it counted. You did it! The High Tinker best give you a promotion for this feat..

I'll try and piece together an optimal time to use Heroism in the majority of the Ulduar fights so we can make the most out of it.

Things like on Ignis: I generally use it when a healer is in the pot - since then all the DPS can make use of the buff.

I noticed a small decrease in my mana regen whilst using JoL, but nothing that can't be fixed with a Divine Plea every minute or two.