While I have no actual facts to back up this statement I do believe that most casual guilds like mine like to run with a three healer set up. There are actually many advantages of having such a set up but I find that this raid tier was the first one I recall that pushed us to two heal.
It made me wonder if my healers have been over healing stuff or if we really needed three healers to begin with. It made me wonder if the damage dealers started to develop bad habits of moving slow sometimes because they knew that there was an extra healer to keep them up. It made me wonder if the tanks have fallen a little lax on using cooldowns because they did not always have to for every little thing. It made me wonder if three healing things has made the players in my group worse players, not better ones.
I usually like to use three healers to learn the fights. But once you learn it, when is the right moment to downsize. It is even right to downsize? If you can down stuff with three healers no problem and don't really need to move down to two, why have someone sits that helped you during the learning process?
When we first got to garrosh back in november was when I first started to think seriously about this. Should we start 2 healing all the bosses so the healers can get some practice two healing things? We went in with our standard 2 tank, 3 healers and 5 damage dealer set up and we wiped over and over that first night. Now, because I had read a lot about the fight by that point being it has been out for a while I knew this fight was better as a two healer fight but my guild has always had a strength in the damage department so I figured I would give it a try. Not to mention, I was not about to switch out the group for an optimal set up in the middle of a raid basically. I figured we would keep what we had and work on learning the mechanics.
See, that is why I like the three healer approach. It gives more time to work on mechanics, it allows your group to stay up longer so they see more mechanics and even if it extends the fight it is that extension that gives everyone the chance to work on those mechanics a little more. It never felt like we needed to change that because we never even came close to an enrage timer. Heck, I would be hard pressed to tell you what the enrage timer on most fights was because we never came close to most of them. So it always made me feel as if it was okay to three heal things because it was not like we needed another damage dealer for anything. That is until garrosh.
I question blizzards design here quite honestly. Like I said, I believe many casual groups three heal things and if we can make it all the way there three healing it, it felt a little off that we were basically forced to two heal it or to wipe 100 times while we figured out a way to make it work with three healers, and I am sure we would have made it work if we attempt it. But why should we be forced into that position?
We suffered a fail deal of wipes when we moved down to two healing it because our healers were not used to that. It was added pressure on them and these are not top tier healers, they are not heroic healers, they are casual healers with casual ability. Good at what they do but not exceptional and more importantly not used to two healing things, nevertheless two healing the hardest boss in there.
It makes me wonder what we could have done differently to speed up that process, save us 30 or so wipes while the healers were learning how to two heal something because they were not used to doing so. Should I have started two healing things sooner being I knew what was coming?
And that is the question really, how do you decide to two heal or three heal?
It makes the problem even larger when none of the bosses really had any serious DPS requirements so we were never put into a position where we needed to question the use of three healers.
Two healing and three healing each have their strengths and their weaknesses. I guess it comes down to weighing which are more important to your group.
For me, and my experience, I think I am going to try and lean toward two healing things more often next expansion. Not because I want to, not because we need to because we need another damage dealer, but because blizzard apparently can not make up its mind how it wants to deign things and make a balanced raid. If the raid was balanced than the last boss should have been able to be done with the same group that got up to him with no problems and that means a group with three healers.
Could we have managed it with three healers? Sure, in time we would have finally managed it, I am sure of that. We could do that now if we really wanted to. But we should not have needed to change things up at that last moment for just one fight. That is something heroic guilds should have to worry about, that is not something a casual guild should ever need to worry about.
From a healers stand point I both like and dislike two healing things. Thok scares the crap out of me as a healer and I have never two healed that one, just can't do it. Maybe I can but I am afraid to try it. I am just not that good of a healer. I like two healing because it feels more active, it feels as if my decisions matter more but in the same I dislike two healing because any time someone dies, even if I did everything in my power to save them and their death was their own fault and completely avoidable, I always feel as if I did something wrong.
It is easy to talk about two healing vs three healing as a raid leader because they are just cogs in the machine that get it done. They are roles to be filled, not people. You are looking at statistics of what will work and only after you make your decisions for what works do you have to deal with the human factor of telling someone that has raided with you for years they either need to get their off spec up to par with the rest of the damage dealers or they are going to be sat and rotated in and out on occasion because their cog is just not needed to build this win.
But what about everyone else? Deciding to two heal over three heal effects everyone in your group. Can your damage dealers be faster on the move, do they know how to use their personal cooldowns, if they are a hybrid are they comfortable helping out with a healing cooldown here or there, do they even have it key bound, or on their bars at the worst. Are the tanks really actually good being they never seem to die or take serious damage or was it the fact they always had three healers that was making them look good.
There is an old joke in the healing community that is so true, healers are the only role that the better they get at doing it means someone ends up unemployed.
Moving down from three healers to two healers feels like that. When you are able to make that move it does not feel, at least to me, that you are improving your group going down to two healers, it feels like you are kicking someone to the curb that helped you get to where you are. Great job healing, now go sit on the bench until we reach a boss we need a third healer for. Sucks to be that third healer.
Lets say a guild is just starting SoO right now and recruiting people that have never been in it and do not over gear it. What would you suggest for them, 2 healing or 3 healing? I would suggest 2 healing and get a hybrid with a solid healing off spec.
Why? Because it is better to do it that way and let that person be in on all your kills than to tell them, sorry, we need to two heal this fight so we need to sit you.
Perhaps that is the key, people with two quality specs. And that is the problem with a casual guild like mine. Most of these people barely keep their main spec up to par, nevertheless an off spec. Hey, at least one of my healers as a damage dealer of another class he does not mind switching to. So problem solved, for me. But for everyone else out there the two vs three healer question still lingers. How do you decide?
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Anon, Grumpy's former GL:
ReplyDeleteTaking a trip down memory lane you are the first raid leader we had that consistently went with three healers as opposed to two. You are also the first raid lead that got us through current content before the end of an expansion pack and have done it twice now.
Historically, me and the Druid (who was our guild lead at the time) were the two healers. I am egotistical enough to think that the healers were not the reason we had not finished current content. Hell, I am egotistical enough to honestly believe me and her could have two healed us in heroic content, though that is not something we had been interested in.
There were times when we went with three healers to specifically learn fights but normally that was quickly reversed once the fight was learned. Our problem mostly lay in the lack of DPS, not that we did not have some outstanding players over the years, just usually not all the best DPS at one time, which is an advantage you do seem to enjoy. So the reason for us being a two healer setup was usually to try to squeeze in another DPS, with more damage done translating into less healing needed.
There was reasoning behind both setups which was valid. The three healer setup gives up DPS potential but the extra healing keeps the 5 DPS (and tanks) alive longer. The two healer setup gains DPS with the resultant strain on heals increasing somewhat but usually not to an unbearable level as the extra damage causes shorter fights.
That is the theory of it and up through Cata we generally went with the two heals, but when we switched over to three healing we finished the expansion on time. Make of it what you will, that is still the fact.
SOO is terrible with this respect some fights are 3 healable for us some are 2 and then we have the fights that are better for 1 tank 2 tanks or 3 tanks ugh we run with a standard 12 people for our raid we rotate them in to make sure each person gets the boss's they want (RNG loot table) have made it thru thanks to some very skillful offsets and good teamwork.
DeleteIn started to go with the three heal method because I felt it was needed. Nothing more, no real change in concept or anything. Some fights need 3 healers, some need 2.
DeleteIn the end I think it was more me pushing for more out of the damage dealers. I have always said and will always say that the role of a damage dealer is the most important in the raid. I demand the best people can be to fill that role. If anything pushed us forward it was not three healing, it was more DPS for the 5 damage dealers.
@Tiggi
SoO makes me wish I played more 25. There are so many fights that three tanks make a hard fight into a cake walk. Something I have never done in 10 man. However we do 1 tank thok and sometimes one tank garrosh. Usually 2 tank everything.
I wish my raiders had more desire to play their off spec as they do their main. Two of my healers have off specs that they are not good at and alts that are also healers, so no switching. Only one healer, which I am thankful for, has a DPS alt that is raid ready and can do a fair job.
I can't say much for me, as a hunter my off spec is my main spec, nothing much else I can do. But I do keep a tank and a healer raid ready should I be needed to fill in for someone. I wish my hunter could have an off spec. I would support a hunter 4th spec that was a pure tanking spec.
Running into this problem ourselves as we are currently working on Garrosh and have healed everything but Spoils 3 healers. If you don't mind I'd like your opinion on a few things for our best chance of success on this fight.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of why you want 2 healers is to get to the phase 3 before the 3rd shadow realm transition. And to help burn in phase 3. We have one fairly low dps and our swing healers shadow spec isn't great either.
When we went 2 healers we definitely had problems with both the slams in the shadow word and the empowered spins. And even doing that I'm not sure if we can push phase 3 before the 3rd shadow world.
Just curious what sort of recommendations you would have for this fight for a more casual guild than those who killed it months ago with much better teams than ours.
My plan was to try to 2 healers, not kill weapons in phase 2 to just maximize damage and try to push him before the 3rd shadow realm phase, but I honestly don't know if we can push that even if we do heal thru it.
Anyway, great article that our guild struggles with as well.
Okay, here goes with the advice. I had wrote this long reply about how we did it and then realized it would not work for you being you said you have one lower DPS and a switch healer that is not all that high either. Short version of our kill, we killed him so damn fast he never even had a chance to do that empowered whirlwind thing which was the only issue we ever had in there. For some reason my group always screwed up if we got that and it was a wipe. So we just poured on the DPS and completely skipped having to deal with it.
DeleteWith that said, every group has its strengths and weaknesses, and you have to work with what you have. You can do it with less DPS than my group had, surely thousands have, but you will need to handle the mechanics better than my group did which forced us to skip that problem area.
If your group is good with target switching, burning, and keeping apart until it is time to stack again, you can do it.
After you come down, kill the weapons, trust me, if you are having an issue with not enough DPS to push him before he goes into the third shadow phase, you will need all those weapons dead or you will run out of space. I could be wrong of course if you place them extremely well and use the whole room. But my thinking is if the DPS is low to the point you need to pull them all off it, you will not kill him fast enough in the last phase before you are overwhelmed with weapons and no place to put them.
After you come back down the second time, then you can stop killing them. But kill them the first time you come back down.
For healers in the shadow part, tell the DPS to watch what is going on. And no, I do not mean not standing in the smash. But to get the little bubbles. You would be amazed how many people never realized they were there. On a flex kill I mentioned it and more than half the group did not even know about them, three of them even had normal kills and did not know about them.
In the straight shadow realm one there are a lot, everyone can get one easy. In the jade serpent there are fewer, but if it lands on 3 people at the same time all three can get it. Watch for the one that has the buff, when it dies a swirly will come from it and land in a predictable traveling path once you see it, anyone standing where it lands can get the buff that protects them. In Chi ji the big sha only throw one each which means you need everyone on each side to be in it when it lands. I find this one to be the hardest one to see, but it will either go up the stairs a tiny bit or down the stairs a tiny bit. If people get used to seeing where and all stand together, all 10 people can get the buff to protect them even if only 2 bubbles are thrown.
Have ranged and healers stand on the sha as they fight so they can move back or forward ASAP. If a ranged is standing even a little back and it throws it at the bottom of the stairs, they will never get it.
Once everyone has the buff that reduces the damage they take from the smash and the healers will have a much easier time. Being I do not know what classes the healers are I can not really give you specific tips except to use whatever you can. There is enough time to get one good cast time cast off between smashes, make it count with an AoE.
Now, as for empowered spins, the thing that wiped my group more than anything else in there. Oh my god they can be a nightmare.
DeleteAs I said, we skipped this, but you will most likely have to deal with it. I am guessing 3 maybe 4 based on where you say you are transitioning him, trying to keep form getting the 3rd one. You should not, repeat, should not be having these until you come down the second time. If you have them after you come down the first time that means garrosh got to 25% and that can just not happen. You need to do the shadow phases faster, a lot faster.
We got to the point where we were not dying to the spins before we decided to go for more DPS and skip it completely (that is when we switched to one tank to add another DPS and it worked for us), so I will give advice on that.
Remember the little sha guys that pop up on sha of pride, where you said side step them not to get hit by them? Well, same thing, but with pulsating damage as well. Tell people move from the swirls, move from the shas popping, then after you survive that, then you can get into working on how to handle the ads.
It is the most overwhelming part of the fight in my opinion. The rest of the fight is cake, but just like with the MC, one mistake here and the fight is over.
You have to have everyone switch to an add ASAP and kill them ASAP. They will be spread out, because they were spread out for the swirls. They should each pull one, kill one and get back to your stack point because a weapon will be coming shortly after.
Once you get used to killing the adds apart from each other and can get back to that stack up in time you will be fine. You will wipe on that part a lot, a hell of a lot, if you are anything like my group. We wiped to healers not being able to keep up, we wiped to people not killing the adds fast enough, or killing them too close to each other, or a couple dying to a high vengeance tank that just accidentally killed them and then the boosted empower thing just started one shotting people.
So my advice here. People can use cooldowns to help the healers. A hunters deterrence completely deflects all damage from it. Other classes can use abilities to help healers as well.
Instead of going all the way deep into the fight to get practice at that part, let him power up a little the first time you go up.
Most people get to him before he reaches 25% (as you should be doing) which means after you come down he has no empowered abilties, if you let him get to 25% before you kill the adds in the shadow realm, when you come down he will have the empowered spin.
This will allow for more attempts being it will be coming way earlier in the fight, and it will let you get to work on what I call the make or break of the entire fight.
One day I would like to do a kill the right way and actually deal with that mechanic. Feels like we cheated by doing it with 1 tank and 2 healers. It was not a very friendly DPS requirement for the casual guild, that is for sure.
Good luck, if I babbled to much I'm sorry.
No this is great, I'm actually going to add a follow up question since I havn't seen too much with people talking about 1 tanking. I am a pally tank btw, and I love 1 tanking anything I can (only thok in this tier, but lots last)
DeleteThinking about this the stacks in phase 2 will get pretty high 8-10 or so, but fall off during the whirling corruption. Which seems pretty scary but must be doable, then the one shadow realm where you need to spread out. Do you just have a warrior go prot stance or how do you handle that.
Okay, if we get chi ji on the first shadow phase we wipe it. I can be done, and we try it, but someone will usually die if we split up. Kind of 50/50 on that. If we both go the same way we will not get him before he hits 25% and it makes the fight harder than it needs to be.
DeleteIf we get one of the other two you only need one tank really.
If we get chi ji as the second one, we all go left, then right, this also works better with everyone getting the bubble. Reason being it seems one of the two always puts the bubble at the bottom of the steps. If everyone stacks on the bottom both times, every gets the bubble.
As for stacks, one in a rare while the stacks will not drop. Had our tank get up to 30 something stacks once. We wiped. Otherwise they usually drop off and it is not as much of an issue. It would just take some getting used to it to be able to handle it. If you can add another DPS doing 200K+ (normally on single target) it would be a huge boost. The more the better of course.
FOr the bubles in the temples (jade/crane) there is an even better way than run to where the bubble land. We learn to do it in HC cause there the smashes hit for 600k, so no bubule->dead.
DeleteAnyway, once thebubble land, do NOT take it, wait for ppl to gather around, do a countdown, and then one person run through it.
When the bubble is burst it doeas a small AOE, meaning anyone close enough will get the buff, even if not standing in the bubble.
As for weapons, not killing them at all is perfectly doable, in HC we can't afford to kill them at all, and we get out a p3 with a total of 10 weapons, of which 3 are placed more or less randomly (just not in the middle of the room). Tbh even in normal I doubt you'll manage a kill if you can't kill him in less than 10 weapons if you're not attcking them, BUT you'll need to place them carefully.
One thing also that can help to increase you damage/healing output : for the weapon to be thrown in range, you only need at least 3 players out, so if you have 3 mobile ranged, send them, and let the healers stand on the boss and not move at all.
Nice tip, never even considered that. We usually just stay stacked and I guess being we are all together that AoE you mentioned gets us all even if only one person steps on it.
DeleteI wonder if we can push it without even going back up a second time if we did not switch to weapons. Going to have to give that a try. I think 17% was the lowest we had him before going back up. Would be cool just to completely skip that. I might try that the next time we do it.
I thought the weapons targeted one "ranged" player, not one player at range. That could be a very helpful tip for placement.
3 at range definitely works in HC, so no reason it doesn't work in normal. You may still want to send your range/healers away for the whirlwinds though, since the farther you are, the less damage you take (but with CD it is definitely survivable in mele).
DeleteIf you go for the "don't kill weapons' strat, I'll advise you to place the first one IN the throne of garrosh. No one will ever get there during the fight anyway.
Then just place the next weapon as close from the previous one as possible.
As an afterthough, I think it was stupid from us to kill weapon in normal to begin with since the room is really huge, and with some planning you will still have plenty of space.
Based on my observations I believe there is room for a total of 25 weapons if you place them in good spots.
That is really cool, gives me some things to play around with next time. The healers will be glad to hear that for sure.
DeleteIt just seems so simple to down the weapons, at least in normal, so I never considered just leaving them be. At worst they might last 8 or 9 seconds. But that 8 or 9 seconds more on the boss would push it sooner I am sure and we would never have to do a second shadow realm making the fight so much faster, and easier for that matter.
This is part of why 20 player mythics are such a great idea. 5 healing them will be like having a 2 and a half healer 10m. And every team should come with a boomkin for their oh-shit-tranq.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I haven't done ten player raiding in a couple of tiers now. So maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I feel like our casual teams have always been a good mix of newish players who are just getting started in raiding, as well as former hard-core raiders who didn't like or don't have time for that anymore. So we never had trouble finding one good player with a solid off spec.
Is your 25 player raid still going? or are you just doing the 10 player teams now?
~Delirium
I still do 2 10s and a 25.
DeleteThe 10s (if not going to do heroics) will continue where the 25 left off on its one night running. We can continue 2 groups, or in some cases, 3 groups from where ever we leave off on the 25.
My main 10, being they are now heroic minded, so to speak, do not raid in the 25s any longer, we all bring alts to help the 25. But do not like that fool you, my alt hunter is 557, so for an alt he is in good shape. lol
This post hits very close to home. I am in 2 casual raid teams (2 hours for 2 nights a week). 1 team has downed Garrosh on normal the other hasn't. Neither team has set foot in heroics this tier. The team that has beat Garrosh is the team that was able to go to 2 healers. That team is slightly stronger all around, but both teams made it through Paragons with relative ease.
ReplyDeleteThe difference is the team who hasn't killed Garrosh already has one weaker DPS and none of the healers have very good DPS off specs. Can this team eventually get Garrosh down? I think so but, we will need to keep farming until everyone has their 4 pieces, trinkets, weapons and full normal gear with some war forged boosts. So we stay 3 heals and wait a month or 2 or longer or sub out our worst healer for a big DPS to clear the tier. Either way you're going to hurt feelings.
On my server there are 15 guilds sitting at 13/14 normal many have been sitting there for quite some time and I'm sure it's for similar reasons. I have very little doubt that we will see a Garrosh normal nerf in the next month or 2 in order that these guilds can progress (assuming we're still sitting with so many at that point).
As far as 2 or 3 heals goes... I think you are right 2 heals with 1 DPS with a solid off spec is probably the way to go. It is unfortunate to get this far along to be hit with that requirement though.
by the way... it is the last boss of the tier he should be tough, and I think he is appropriately tough. The only frustrating thing is having that toughness compounded very heavily due to raid comp.
DeleteI don't think my server has as many at 13/14 but then again, we do not have that many decent raid teams. Only 6 have even cleared normal, us being one of them.
DeleteOur second 10 is in the same place as your second 10, but from the first 10s experience they are now 2 healing all the previous bosses so they can get used to doing it. When the time comes for them to get to garrosh they will be in a better place than the first team was when we basically needed to completely relearn how to work as a team because we always used three. The second team will be used to it and it will save me a nice chunk of wipes while the healers learn.
I think blizzard made a small mistake with balancing garrosh the way they did. I would be hard pressed to believe that any casual raid team went in with 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 DPS and did it as it without needing to make some serious changes and maybe even having people that did the first 13 sit out because the fight could not support having only 5 DPS.
Basically the 3rd healer/DPS would be the key to a winning team with this design.
It is unfortunate that we all made it that far and then blizzard decided to say, nope, you need to change everything you have been doing to get here now. As you said, unfortunate indeed.
Yes, as the last boss he should be hard, but not hard in the sense that he is, where you need to switch your group up to get it done.
DeleteThere is something I'm wondering though.
ReplyDeleteWhere does this idea of 3 healing 10 man comes from?
I mean, I started raiding in cataclysm, I went from casual guilds to more and more hardcore ones, and I ALWAYS did the vast majority of the fights with 2 healers since T11.
The few notable exceptions were healing bosses (Tsulong, Imersseus), or bosses with ridiculously high damage incoming (Shek'Zeer, Thok) or bosses like conclave of the 4 winds(stupid boss).
Not sure, I just found 3 healing to always be easier. It allows you to survive longer to learn the mechanics faster and then once you do it with 3 healers there is no reason to downsize to 2 because you do not need to, 5 damage dealer is more than ample to beat any boss in the game way before the enrage timer.
DeleteThat is where the idea comes from in my mind, others might think differently.
In truth how we first started using 3 was in cataclysm. All our healers quit at the beginning of the expansion and all we had were under geared alts and slow to gear up healers, so if we wanted to raid we had no choice, do it with 3 "okay" healers or wait to get 2 "decent" ones. We started doing it with 3 and got stuff down no problem and never stopped using 3.
4. Because my raid leader needed 3 more along him to heal through thok.
ReplyDeleteDid I somehow miss 1, 2, and 3?
DeleteThok is the only fight we have not managed to two heal.
I meant 4 healers. Bet you did not expect that. Yes, my raid leader has been pretending to be a healer for years.
DeleteSorry to be so laconic, I type off my phone most often than not so I don't go into very much detail.
It's all good, sometime things are read wrong on the internet. I read it is a number 4 bullet, not the number 4 as an answer.
DeleteIn 25 man you can probably do 4 with skilled players, it makes sense. When we do flex with 25 we use 4, so no reason better players can not do normal or heroic with 4.
We're a 10m, though... I'm trying to insult my raid leader's healing capabilities and I think I keep failing :))
DeleteYeah, I think that one kind of failed. lol
DeleteHave him roll a priest and go disc so that way he be bad at two things at once. :)
Am I getting it right now?
Yes :)
DeleteI have to be more clear next time, insults are not my specialty, but I'm trying my best.
Remember, if all else fails you can always go back to the old classics like "you're ugly and your mother dresses you funny".
DeleteGoing back to when I was raiding regularly with a semi-serious casual group (casual mindset, high performing), how many healers we carried was primarily up to the healers when we weren't hitting enrage timers... they dictated whether we'd run 2 or 3 on particular fights or nights. We had a healing "lead" (yeah, in a 10-man, it helped) who made the decision in conjunction with the RL, the RL always had the last say if he disagreed or if things weren't working, he's the one who was ultimately responsible, as it should be.
ReplyDeleteGenerally, we'd run 3 healers through most of the content until we were good/geared/experienced enough that the healers were getting bored, then they'd 2- or even 1-heal. It was pretty organic. When we hit a wall for whatever reason (not enough healing if 1-healing, not enough dps if 3-healing) we'd adjust. We always had a couple of players who could do multiple roles well enough &/or had alts who could, we'd intentionally cycle those roles/alts in occasionally during normal times so they'd have some experience when required, we didn't just spring it on them under pressure.
Today, though, I'd do it a bit differently... there's definitely more 2-heal pressure from the fights themselves, even if you simply look at something like Spoils. I'd make my default 2 and only if necessary make the switch to 3. I'd be fine with running 3 for the first half dozen attempts when learning mechanics but once you've figured those out, I'd switch back to 2. Once you get to the point where you have enough dps to 3-heal and the healers are comfy 2-healing, I'd again leave it up to the healers... do they want some relaxing early fights or do they want to keep closer to the edge to maintain focus?
Same thing when it comes to tanks, too, since some fights you can run anywhere from 1 to 3 (not sure any on normal+ can be fully done with 1 but I suspect some might... Thok, maybe Imm). Play to your group's strengths and weaknesses, if a 3rd tank makes an encounter significantly simpler (DS) and your dps can support it, why not? Just bear in mind at some point you'll likely have to be able to 2-tank something. :)
Something along the lines of what you said it how we ended up keeping to three heals most of the time. We were never close to an enrage timer since the week SoO came out and we hit it on our first attempt on the third boss. We never saw another enrage timer this whole tier. So there was never a need for more DPS so never a need to sit a healer. I would love to see one of those healers go off spec for the fights just so they can learn to DPS. Will make life easier later on. Maybe I should do that now that all we really do is normal and that really is no longer a challenge any more.
DeleteOh, absolutely, this is exactly the time to be doing it, planning for when it's necessary when you're doing farm content... designate a tank who can dps, dps who can tank and heal and a healer who can dps... otherwise you end up with a dps monk who's tanked nothing of importance, ever, suddenly called into duty with 9 other players staring in judgment.
Delete(pro tip - you want to avoid that scenario if at all possible, especially if you are the monk)
Even better, have a tank heal if possible... there's a surprising amount of value in being on the other side of the "WTF train just hit him?" equation.
I like when players play a little from another roll, it really teaching them what the other side of the world lives like. I think playing a tank or a healer makes a DPS better, playing a damage dealer and a tank make a healer better, etc. So having people switch up is good for that as well as just for a reason to practice.
DeleteWhat is more telling is the fact that a group that 2 tanked, 3 healed and 5 DPSed the entire raid never even coming close to seeing an enrage timer had to 1 tank and 2 heal garrosh for the first kill. Shows how horribly designed balance wise that fight is. It should be harder, sure, but it should also be capable of being completed by the same exact make up in the same exact rolls that did the previous 13 bosses.
I find it weird that you had to cut down a tank aswell. Cutting down a healer seems normal (since I think the instance was balanced around 2heals) but cutting down a tank is surprising. If anything our tanks were first on damage done on this fight thanks to the insane veangeance they get from garrosh.
DeleteYou only need one tank and that one tank can rock DPS even more if they are one tanking it. We went the other way to push the fight so we could kill it before we even had an empowered whirling corruption. That just made the fight so much easier.
DeleteHeh. "Balance" and last fights of a tier/expansion are rarely used together. The last-boss difficulty is always ramped up compared to the ones before. I'd have been disappointed if Garrosh hadn't required significantly more effort/performance than the earlier bosses... and if your dps didn't have enough with 5/6, if 7 was necessary but it worked, then so be it!
DeleteI disagree with one tanking making the solo tank rocking even more.
ReplyDeleteBoth oiur tanks were vengeance cap, surely that make for more DPS than one veangeance-capped tank.
Perhaps it was just our tanks not being good enough at switching to keep the buff up. If you had tanks that can do it, two tanks work, if you have tanks that drop vengeance it doesn't and you are better to use just one tank.
DeleteNot all fights in the game must be done the same way. What works for you might not work for me and what works for me might not work for you. You work with the tools you have.
BTW: A decent damage dealer would still be out DPSing the tank or at least damn near close to it.
Also, there are 3 people that post comments here that were having trouble with garrosh and when I gave them the advice to one tank it they posted the next week that they downed it and thanked me for helping them saying the advice was the only reason they downed it.
DeleteTrust me, one tanking is easier for a casual guild.
Probably depends on the tank... I just saw the report that a guild 5-manned normal Garrosh with 1 pally tank, 1 disc priest and 3 dps... I don't think it's a coincidence that it was a pally, they gain a lot of self-healing via vengeance, as do monks... not sure about DKs or druids... warriors probably wouldn't get much. Have you heard of any solo warrior tank successes on that fight?
DeleteOddly enough the one tank we had to sit was a paladin because he was talking way too much damage.
DeleteOn that fight, no, but last tier warriors could solo a few of the fights others might not have tried to solo.
He may have been doing it wrong. :)
DeleteThat's interesting, I saw fights where certain classes could do it all (pallies on Horridon, for instance) but I can't recall any where warriors had an actual advantage.
No may about it, he was doing something wrong. I tried explaining it to him, he just could not get it. Nothing wrong with that. We all have issues with something. And heck, even if I were able to tell him what to do because I saw what he was doing wrong doesn't mean I would have been able to do it either.
Deletenow heres a though - (just a thought) what if you had nothing but healers! Of course you couldn't kill things fast, but you could keep yourselves heal and stand in things!
ReplyDelete-roo (yes there are some wicked thoughts in me)
You would hit an enrage timers for one, plus even healers could not take the hits from bosses.
Deleteyeah, but think of it as a "challenge" with beauty heals and smiles as you die.
DeleteIt would be a fast wipe. Now with one tank and all healers, maybe, just maybe, but they would need at least one tank as no healer could take the hits.
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