[FIRELANDS] Alysrazor (10 man - but look anyway)

[Fungi]

Fungi's bi-weekly nasty streak

People, yesterday I didn't have a very good day, which resulted in me getting into a discussion with raidleaders Elunara and Lithasola in the raidleading channel. When I don't have good days I tend to not sugarcoat my ideas, points and opinions (and I'm pretty stubborn and rude then). My apologies to the 2 people mentioned above and I'll try to bring across my points more diplomatic here.

Point 1): Getting the hatchling to a worm.
Yesterday I wondered why Lith has issues getting a bird to a worm in time. My reasoning was that you can basicly tank the hatchling nearly on top of the worm, since the fire they spew turns around pretty slowly and you can easily keep behind it (even while walking backwards). I think the problem that was mentioned is that getting a hatchling to a worm on the other side of the area while walking backwards doesn't guarantee you being there in time.

My idea was to strafe towards that worm. Double the speed and you don't turn your back towards the worm (It's basicly what I do when I used to kite complete packs of Firelords when solo'ing trash). Then stick around the worm, so whenever the hatchling goes nuts, he's already near the worm.

Point 2): Flying dps
Yesterday I pointed out to Elu that I think her dps in the air isn't enough of an increase to warrant her that spot. I think she'd be more valuable on the ground, since she can interrupt there and the difference in dps/damage done will be minor. (The way I'm saying it here is about 12 times more diplomatic than I said yesterday ... just to give an indication of my rudeness). Reason I said this is because I see Sapros/Daeg/Raha do 5-10k more dps while she has an increase of 2-4k. People in the air should make the most of it, cause we need every point of damage on Alysrazor we can get.

Anyway, I'm (more) open to opinions now since I've calmed down a bit, so feel free post ideas/tips/flames here. Once again, apologies for being ass yesterday, I'm still behind the points I wanted to bring across, but I shouldn't do it when I'm annoyed.

A.

[Sarri]

I'm not getting into the discussion again, mostly becos I have little to no internet for the next 5 or so days and by the time I rejoin this discussion I will be behind the times.

Anyway, I just want to point out that the classes u mention there, rogue, warrior and DK, all scale well with crit and haste (to the point of Vrugs hand injury from spamming HS). Cats like crit cos it gives free combo points when u crit, and to a certain degree haste for energy regen, but both are fairly meh for us, current optimisation being agi>hit>exp>mastery>crit/haste. Sadly they dont scale anywhere near as much for us as the classes you mention. It's been a problem for cats since the start of Cata.

Regarding points to improve, yes I am aware of certain shortcomings and have worked hard to improve on those, to the point of actually getting the Alysra's Razor buff (twice I think) last night. I'm not averse to being on the ground, I just dont think its a viable choice to be chasing around after things and being forced to move thru bad stuff to maintain a behind position for optimal dps. I'm much better suited to being behind in the air...

/2c

[Stumble]

Anyway, I just want to point out that the classes u mention there, rogue, warrior and DK, all scale well with crit and haste (to the point of Vrugs hand injury from spamming HS). Cats like crit cos it gives free combo points when u crit, and to a certain degree haste for energy regen, but both are fairly meh for us, current optimisation being agi>hit>exp>mastery>crit/haste. Sadly they dont scale anywhere near as much for us as the classes you mention. It's been a problem for cats since the start of Cata.

arent you saying that the classes fungi mention deserve the flying dps spot? since they are doing better?

[Lithasola]

My idea was to strafe towards that worm. Double the speed and you don't turn your back towards the worm (It's basicly what I do when I used to kite complete packs of Firelords when solo'ing trash). Then stick around the worm, so whenever the hatchling goes nuts, he's already near the worm.
A.

One minor detail I did notice (since I was trying to do this anyway) if the bird isnt in tantrum and you accidentally get too close (Im unsure just what the range is for this), the chick will eat the worm wether hes in a tantrum or not screwing up your number of worms and positioning. Therefor being near but trying your damndest to avoid fire from worm by swinging around it in a huge arc (which takes longer than being close in and circling) walking backwards and strafing at times and trying to avoid bushfires and when Alys sweeps across the middle of the room makes life far more difficult. I prefer to get as close to a worm as I can whilst being in a relatively safe spot and stand still tanking until the bird tantrums. Bear in mind also that Im supposed to be the one nuking the chick down as well so Im also trying to put out as much dmg whilst avoiding all the nasty mechanics and keep my mitigations up....forgive me if this takes a little getting used to lol. The problem is that tantrum isnt on a timer so u have no idea how long you have to get to the next worm or if youve run out of worms where the next ones gonna spawn while the chicks having a hissy fit.

[Fluttermouse]

Without wanting to get too deeply into what sounds like was a heated discussion on a channel I don't usually listen to, I feel it might be worthwhile pointing out that I'm reading on a lot of forums that it's the dot classes being sent into the air and not melee e.g. afflic lock, SP, moonkin in particular as their dots will continue to work even after they have come down (and the obvious points that dots gain extra ticks with haste and can crit as well). How much of this is due to 10mans I have no idea though, as obviously the smaller raid composition leaves you much less option on the interrupts and ranged can theoretically dodge the fires better than melee.

Lith, there is a certain amount you can predict on the worms when it comes to tantrums. Your hatchling gets 15 seconds of a buff called "satisfied". While it has this buff, each hit you take has a 5% chance to cause a tantrum. Without the buff each hit you take has a 20% chance to cause a tantrum. So, OK it's not a perfect timer, but you must have at least some idea of how often the hatchling actually hits you, rather than you dodging it. Then it's more of a case of looking out for when the satisfied buff is mostly worn off, as one of the next 5 hits you take then is most likely to be when the next tantrum will happen, as the chance of it happening during satisfied is so small. If you've taken 5 hits outside of satisfied, you should always be expecting the next one to be the tantrum causer (even if it's still several hits away). Warriors/pallys are being advised to take poppable dodge/parry trinkets along for this fight as the "hissy fit and no worm" problem is obviously the point at which all tanks want to be avoiding getting pecked to death and it's the obvious time to use them. I'm guessing that's also when you want to be reserving any extra dodging abilities for, in the event that it does go nuts early.

[Caireann]

Without wanting to get too deeply into what sounds like was a heated discussion on a channel I don't usually listen to, I feel it might be worthwhile pointing out that I'm reading on a lot of forums that it's the dot classes being sent into the air and not melee e.g. afflic lock, SP, moonkin in particular as their dots will continue to work even after they have come down (and the obvious points that dots gain extra ticks with haste and can crit as well). How much of this is due to 10mans I have no idea though, as obviously the smaller raid composition leaves you much less option on the interrupts and ranged can theoretically dodge the fires better than melee.

Not only on 10 mans, I've browsed quite a lot of 25man logs from the fight and dot/bleed classes are really fit for the job - so spriest, boomkins, firemages, locks but also warriors and feral druids are pulling some REALLY good numbers there. I'm certain we can put more melee on the ground - I've done the fight as an enha shammy already and it's not harder than being on ranged, really. With the speed boosts it's really not a problem to get to the other side to kill an add, since there's only one at a time. Plus, tanks should be able to kill their hatchlings without much help from the raid. Some ranged helpes of course, but it's the same situation as above - we want to balance it to squeeze the most of everyone.

Some normal mode 25 man kills with different setups, but dot/bleed pattern is clearly visible:
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/ri9ryfdf ... 541&e=6310
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/hnetj87q ... 90&e=13427
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/fxjns2ga ... 382&e=3879
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/y7820gln ... 757&e=2456
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/99imh5tl ... 688&e=9385

[Lithasola]

interesting ika, flu, we could think about mixing it up with having some dot classes and some melee downstairs too, you know me I like to experiment

As for my tanking issues, I wasnt on top form but in my defense it was my first time tanking there the only other time Ive attempted this fight was as a healer. I like to think I learn from my mistakes

[Nocturni]

Picked up a tiny bit of info in the Tankspot weekly marmot on tri-specc, about 9min 50 sec into it's mentioned that fire mages does ridicoulus (high I assume) damage while flying due to combustion going through the roof. He's talking about heroic 25 but I assume the same would go for 25 normal. Take it for what it's worth (i.e unconfirmed).
Cheers Noc

[Fluttermouse]

Been having a few words with some friends I have in RL about strats for 25 man hc. Seems they go a different way to the rather nightmarish-looking attempts we've had. Not sure if/whether we'll get back to this before the patch but here's a few thoughts from the info I've gleaned.

1. Focus in hc is keeping the ground under control. This means sending only 3 people upstairs rather than the more usual 5 or 6.

2. ALL 3 of these people should be ranged dps (no melee), preferably including classes where dots are going to keep rolling on Alys when people are landed.

3. melee dps primary function is to deal with the 6 adds that spawn as normal. With melee on the adds there should be plenty of interrupts to go around, even if 2 are up on the same side at once. If they have downtime, then splitting some off to help tanks with the birds is the option.

4. Ranged on the ground are split both sides of the room as normal and primarily assigned to stopping the meteor (s). Obviously if the first meteor stops smartly, I'm told you might as well ignore the second. Secondary function is basically to dps whatever is still up (birds+adds)

5. One extra proviso with the ranged. Because it's not always clear where the meteors are going to come down it may be worth assigning one (maybe 2?) to stay around near each of our 4 normal marks and only shoot at non-meteor targets in their range, so everyone doesn't have to run the full length (e.g. from pink to yellow) to reach a meteor that comes down at the other end.

Thoughts?

[Caireann]

The main problem with that tactic would be that we haven't sent ranged up at all (with Fungi only at the start), despite showing here that they do nice job there. Some melee didn't feel like staying on ground as well ;) This means we have no experience there and it would require learning it from scratch again. Do we have time for that before the next patch...?

It's a pity tho, this seems like a nice idea since we have troubles with adds and need more interrupts just in case.