Mailbag: Where Do We Go Now?
Today, you'll find an interview I did with WoW In an Hour. We talked about playing and raiding on a short schedule. I hope you enjoy it.
Now from the HammerMail:
Hi Honors, My guild and I are currently progressing through ICC-10, and we can now consistently with few wipes down the first four bosses. We got Festergut down on our 3rd attempt, but Rotface gave us fits for many weeks. We finally downed him this week and we feel confident we could do so again. From what I've read here and other places, Putricide might not be the best boss to progress to next. In your experiences as a raid tank and healer, should we try Blood Princes or Dreamwalker instead? Thanks in advance for your input, and keep up the good work with your blog.
First of all, I'm so happy I don't have to make these decisions for my guild. Boston does a fantastic job of evaluating our strengths and weaknesses on any given night and determining the right targets for our raid.
Both fights will take some time to learn. Both require your DPS to be good at target switching. Blood Princes tends to be a bit more compartmentalized with each person having a couple of tasks. Dreamwalker has your healers doing some things they don't usually do. Blood Princes seems to be a very repeatable fight. Dreamwalker is a little more RNG on when and where you'll get Blazing Skeletons. For what it's worth, our guild learned Blood Princes first, but that was partially (largely?) influenced by the fact that the Frostwing Halls weren't open yet.
The first issue you want to consider is if your Keleseth tank is ready. Keleseth is generally tanked by a Ranged Damage Dealing class. He gathers up the Shadow Orbs which makes him heal-able. Our guild has used a Boomkin, Hunter and Warlock with success but we prefer Jagdorc (our Hunter) to be in this role. This isn't so much because he is a Hunter but because he is an avid PVPer. The PVP gear gives him a truck load of Resilience and Stamina and makes him a great Keleseth tank. If he misses and Orb the Resilience and Stamina keep him heal-able by our fantastic healing team. If your Keleseth tank isn't ready, Dreamwalker is your best best. You need to also evaluate your team. Where are your strongest players. If your healers are strong players, then Dreamwalker would be the better option.
But in general, most people think Blood Princes is easier to learn than Dreamwalker.
But even if you choose to learn Blood Princes first, you should be clearing Dreamwalker's trash every week. There is a mini boss who gives one Frost Emblem at the end of her trash so it's worth it, plus it's some of my favorite trash in the place. Blood Princes trash and especially Technicians are some of the most annoying trash I've seen in a Raid since Sunwell.
Now from the HammerMail:
Hi Honors, My guild and I are currently progressing through ICC-10, and we can now consistently with few wipes down the first four bosses. We got Festergut down on our 3rd attempt, but Rotface gave us fits for many weeks. We finally downed him this week and we feel confident we could do so again. From what I've read here and other places, Putricide might not be the best boss to progress to next. In your experiences as a raid tank and healer, should we try Blood Princes or Dreamwalker instead? Thanks in advance for your input, and keep up the good work with your blog.
First of all, I'm so happy I don't have to make these decisions for my guild. Boston does a fantastic job of evaluating our strengths and weaknesses on any given night and determining the right targets for our raid.
Both fights will take some time to learn. Both require your DPS to be good at target switching. Blood Princes tends to be a bit more compartmentalized with each person having a couple of tasks. Dreamwalker has your healers doing some things they don't usually do. Blood Princes seems to be a very repeatable fight. Dreamwalker is a little more RNG on when and where you'll get Blazing Skeletons. For what it's worth, our guild learned Blood Princes first, but that was partially (largely?) influenced by the fact that the Frostwing Halls weren't open yet.
The first issue you want to consider is if your Keleseth tank is ready. Keleseth is generally tanked by a Ranged Damage Dealing class. He gathers up the Shadow Orbs which makes him heal-able. Our guild has used a Boomkin, Hunter and Warlock with success but we prefer Jagdorc (our Hunter) to be in this role. This isn't so much because he is a Hunter but because he is an avid PVPer. The PVP gear gives him a truck load of Resilience and Stamina and makes him a great Keleseth tank. If he misses and Orb the Resilience and Stamina keep him heal-able by our fantastic healing team. If your Keleseth tank isn't ready, Dreamwalker is your best best. You need to also evaluate your team. Where are your strongest players. If your healers are strong players, then Dreamwalker would be the better option.
But in general, most people think Blood Princes is easier to learn than Dreamwalker.
But even if you choose to learn Blood Princes first, you should be clearing Dreamwalker's trash every week. There is a mini boss who gives one Frost Emblem at the end of her trash so it's worth it, plus it's some of my favorite trash in the place. Blood Princes trash and especially Technicians are some of the most annoying trash I've seen in a Raid since Sunwell.
Comments
For example in our 10 we have a warlock and a dps DK and its infinitely easier to have the DK go tank spec/gear and tank it than have the warlock. First off you don't need tank stats just hps. So Honor's comment about a huntard with pvp gear & sta makes perfect sense.
This is not a dps race its a stay alive fight. You don't actually have to dps keleseth *any* at all so agro is literally a non issue...its only about staying alive.
We tried that strategy initially, but for our group it was too much damage on the tanks. We 3 heal it with each healer having one tank.
Yeah I can see that. My warrior sits at 33k armor and 46k health unbuffed atm and together they still hit like a truck. This is one fight that, even though its on farm, I still use an indestructable pot on the pull and then after 2 mins.
After that it is wise cd management. Having a holy paladin healing helps a lot too.
For us though we just found that the ranged tank would get gibbed too quickly or the fight would just take too long. Also its kind of a rush to tank both melee because they hit so hard.
If dps can calm down and not die (too much) to obvious mechanics. If the tanks can take the hits.
Then the 10 minute enrage timer will give you all the time you need. It's not as bad as 2-man Heigan, but there is still no rush. Run 3, heck try 4, healers in 10man. Run 6 to 8 in 25 man. It's all good, especially if your players keep getting thrown across the room.