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Starting ICC 10 Hard Modes - Need Tips
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Post by
rocketw
Hello forums,
My ten man team is starting hard modes this week and it would be just fantastic if someone could compile a list of hard modes you suggest we try as well as any tips you might have for them. We have been clearing 11/12 for about 2-3 weeks, and had about 6-7 hours of attempts on Lich King before we got him. (Should have been way sooner, we just needed a better P3 strat.)
Raid Comp:
Tanks
Prot Warrior
Blood DK
Ranged
Shadow Priest
Mage
Melee
Unholy DK (Me, 7th most geared on server, no it is not a fail server. /flex) (Can also go Blood DPS, which I prefer for Saurfang/Fester/Rot/BQ, 40k crits on BQ for the win!)
Arms/Fury Warrior
Enhance Shaman (Semi-geared Ele offspec)
Healers
Druid (Boomkin Offspec)
Resto Shaman
Holy Pally - (Ret Offspec)
I personally was thinking of doing Marrogar, Lolboat, Saurfang, Festergut, Rotface, and BQ.
All of these people are 5700+ GS and very capable players. I would say the average dps from each person is about 7.5-10k. (Lowest being the Shadow Priest, highest being me/warrior)
Thanks,
Dossou
Post by
365547
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Post by
rocketw
Ya that's what I was thinking.
Should we have ranged burning the add in P2?
Since we don't have any MD or tricks, it's quite tough to keep the tanks at top on aggro.
Our main group in our guild did Council and said it's a pain to get used to.
Post by
219211
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
rocketw
We actually three shot Marrogar, one shot Deathwhisper, and couldn't get gunship (I kid, we one shot it). Saurfang possed major problems.
We started with our holy pally solo healing, and have our ele shaman help out if we ended up getting a second mark (usually got around 15%, that would wipe us)
We swapped over to two healing, kept getting a third mark around 5-10% that would wipe us every time.
Our last try of the day we managed to get Saurfang to 150k HP (you win at about 120k) when our resto shaman with a mark died about 0.1 seconds before his cast finished.
Other wipes happened when a nature's Swiftness got broken, or Divine Plea was used at the wrong time, or a Beast zips off and kills our holy pally with rightous fury on.
We did have two DKs, so we were each chaining one and I helped by throwing some Death Coils at the target.
Our enhance shaman ended up tanking on his prot warrior so we had a warlock instead (didn't turn out to be so bad.)
Pro tip.
Deathwhisper is easy, don't skip it.
Post by
skribs
Our guild is currently 7/12 ICC 10H. Here's what I can tell you:
Marrowgar isn't too bad from a DPS perspective, but it becomes very difficult to heal with fires all over and bone spikes in the fire. People need to stay away from the fire but stay near healers, and healers will have a lot of work.
Deathwhisper is fairly easy for a hard mode, it took us 3 attempts our first try and 1 attempt our second. In a ranged heavy group, having ranged burn the add might be helpful; but in our melee heavy group we found simply tanking her near the back and bringing the add into the cleaves/whirlwinds/splash that melee do anyway would kill it fairly fast.
Gunship is probably the second easiest in terms of loot per time spent. Stay out of rockets and you'll be fine.
Saurfang is probably the most difficult HM we've gotten. Here's what each person needs to worry about:
Tanks, especially after frenzy, need to worry about not taking too much. If they take less, then more heals can go to the raid. As a Paladin, I usually beacon the first mark instead of the tank because the tanks switch so often, so even with a pally you're more at risk for tanks dying in frenzy.
DPS needs to
not
get hit by adds as they burn them down, and DPS the boss hard enough to limit the effects of the marks. I recommend cooldowns after frenzy to burn him through the frenzy faster.
Healers need to be putting a lot of throughput, and need to communicate. For example, with a resto shaman and a holy paladin 2-healing the fight, we would call out as marks came who would take them. I'd beacon first mark, and then the second mark he would pick the melee (if there was one) or stay on tanks. It depends on your group, but it works better to communicate as marks come instead of just "you get first I get second" which may not play to class strengths.
We've been on HM's for two weeks. The first week we wiped and wiped until my GM/MT said "I think it's a healing issue" and I said "Look, the OT is always the one dying on the wipe, maybe it's a tank issue." He popped CDs next attempt and we got him. Second week we kept wiping because healers were going OOM. Hunter switches from MM to SV, gives us replenishment, and suddenly we have no mana problems and get an easy kill.
Festergut is a bit more difficult with the addition of Malleable Goo, but he's doable. What worked best for us was tanking him in the middle of the room, with ranged spread on the far wall from the balcony, giving plenty of time to escape malleable. It will appear as a small green dot, and will sometimes be targetted on melee or the ranged spore. I would recommend splitting healers between standing at range and standing in melee, and having all casters standing out (makes it easier to avoid the melee goo). When it is cast on the ranged spore, have everyone move in the same direction.
Rotface is the easiest fight per time spent. Just make sure if you get the vile gas you move away so you're not causing anyone around you to puke, and it's easy. We kind of just ran around like chickens with our heads cut off on our first attempt and still got it.
BQL is almost as easy at is was, just requires more DPS and heals.
Post by
240282
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
rocketw
We actually fourshot Festergut and twoshot Roface, which is a very simple encounter.
For Saurfang, we dropped our holy pally for a rogue and had our SP go Disc. We two shot on day two.
Skipped Prof and Princes, and got BQL to about 400k HP on our second try. Failed because of a MC on the first bite after that attempt, and by that time the raid was over.
Our plan for next week is to clear 7/12 hardmodes, the rest regular, and get Kingslayer for those that missed it our first week.
Thanks for the tips guys,
Dossou
Post by
365547
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Post by
240282
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Post by
Porcell
Yeah, I'm in a bit of a strange situation with my guild. We have amazing tanks, excellent healers, but only a couple of solid DPS with the rest ranging from average to pretty much awful. We have two guys in particular that sometimes fall in below the tanks on damage done and spend a lot of their time dead because they can't move out of fire (we're trying to help them but it's slow going so far!).
It's funny the situations we find ourselves in, isn't it. My guild is 3-night 25 man raiding and we had multiple consistant 10 mans. Now, we still run 25 man, working on hardmodes (9/12 ATM, missing LK, Sind, Putricide), and we are down to only 1 consistant 10 man (11/12 Hardmodes).
I've gotten spoiled by running with these guys so much. Our 25 man group is for the most part very very solid. I'd say we have 2 "average" DPSers and 1 "average" healer, and the rest are relatively top notch. Our 10 man is pretty much 100% leet though.
I always find it very hard grouping with PuGs, even PuGs with 5700 GearScores, and seeing 14 of the 17 DPSers pulling between 3k and 6k in a 25 man ICC (15% buff). Most recently I'm on my rogue (which is my Fourth alt and as only a 5650 or so GS), and am pulling either 2nd or 3rd damage on Marrowgar, DW, and Saurfang. Marrowgar was around 9k, DW was like 7.5k or something, and Saurfang was just over 10k.
As much as people complain about Tanks and Healers, finding really good DPS is just as hard, maybe harder. It seems like DPS feel like they don't have to put in effort and can slack, because the boss will die eventually anyway. Sorry, but if you can pump out 10K+ DPS, I'll give you some props. If you are pulling 6-7k DPS (as a Boomkin on Saurfang, for example), sorry but you are doing something wrong.
Post by
Porcell
Sorry, not sure why I went off on that "Bad DPS" tangent.
10 man Hardmode. We have a very solid group, geared in mostly 264, and with a few of them getting into the 277s.
Warrior Tank
DK Tank
DK DPS (Frost or Unholy)
Hunter
Ret Paladin
Elemental Shaman
Disc Priest
Holy Paladin
Resto Druid (Me, offspec Boomkin for Saurfang)
Our 10th slot fluctuates. Sometimes we have a Mage, sometimes a Warlock, sometimes some other random guy we pick up. We haven't had a solid tenth for a month.
We 3-heal everything except for Saurfang (and one of the healers takes a cannon on Gunship). We blow through all the hardmodes up to Lichking, with occasional trouble on Sindragosa.
Marrowgar, have the majority of your raid stay groupped in the middle, with tanks spread out and maybe one more person spread. Marrowgar should bounce to the people surrounding the center group and never actually latch to someone in the middle pile. Big thing here is to get out of fire and get those bone spikes down.
DW is pretty trivial. There's only three differences really; you can't taunt the boss, there are MCs like in 25 man, and you get a single add spawning throughout phase 2. Druid are nice for the MCs, I know that's my job when I'm healing to throw a cyclone out. MD and Tricks into tank and make sure DPS uses their threat drops.
Gunship is a joke. I won't waste more than these twelve words.
Saurfang, definitely 2-heal this. If you have a Paladin healer, this is where he shines (as I'm sure you know). When we do it, we normally get 2 marks, with a 3rd mark coming out very very late in the encounter. Assign healers. Paladin gets tank and first mark. Other healer gets the second mark, and should be able to partially cover the third mark as well. I know as a druid, getting late in the fight, I'm just alternating nourishes into the second and third mark.
Rotface and Festergut are actually both pretty trivial. You said you are having DPS problems on Fester, but that shouldn't be as much of a problem on Rotface. You can 2-heal Rotface as well. For us we three heal it just to be safe: the fight taking 30 seconds long is worth more to us than spending 10 minutes running back and rebuffing in the case of a wipe.
If you have good healers, you might give Dreamwalker a try. Take three portal phases, then hero and stay out, bombing heals. We normally four-heal this. Paladin beacons the dragon and stays out to raid heal, and the Shaman goes Resto along with Priest and Druid. Fight's over in about 3 minutes.
Post by
dervasavred
Rotface and Festergut are actually both pretty trivial. You said you are having DPS problems on Fester, but that shouldn't be as much of a problem on Rotface. You can 2-heal Rotface as well. For us we three heal it just to be safe: the fight taking 30 seconds long is worth more to us than spending 10 minutes running back and rebuffing in the case of a wipe.
If you have good healers, you might give Dreamwalker a try. Take three portal phases, then hero and stay out, bombing heals. We normally four-heal this. Paladin beacons the dragon and stays out to raid heal, and the Shaman goes Resto along with Priest and Druid. Fight's over in about 3 minutes.
Rotface is a cakewalk, but if you are having problems on Fester, just make sure EVERYONE is avoiding the goo. It's really that simple. One person getting hit makes them nigh-worthless for DPS/healing.
Dreamwalker is really, really easy with a Holy Paladin. Have him use Glyph of Holy Light and have the other healer in the portals stand near the dragon. The second healer will get splash heals from the Paladin's massive Holy Lights. Take 3 or 4 portals and Lust/Heroism. Watch the dragon's health jump from 69/70% to full in about 8 seconds.
For the record, if you have a Plate DPS in the raid, it makes Valithria slightly easier, moreso if it's a DK. In our 10 man, we single-tank the adds. The other tank goes DPS and handles Mages/Suppressors on one side and I (DPS DK) handle the other while using a macro to auto-Chains of Ice the Blistering Zombies so the ranged do not have to move too much to kill them in time. The only thing the tank actually tanks is the Abominations and the Rot Worms. Basically, the only raid damage going out at that point is on the two plate DPS handling Mages and your tank on the Aboms. Nobody else should take hardly any damage.
Post by
rocketw
We ended up going 7/12 in our first week, with the most problematic boss being Saurfang.
We two healed it with a disc/shaman because our holy pally was late.
We decided to get Kingslayer for the people that missed it instead of work of Dreamwalker (skipped Princes).
Our roster this weekend is very short, so we will most likely be doing Meta achievements or getting people Ulduar Drakes.
Thanks for all the great input so far guys!
Dossou
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