[Zuvassin]

With 2 tanks, do you then range tank Acidmaw with all DPS on Acidmaw (What classes work best? Warlock or hunter?). Also, do you have all rogues and hunters MD/TotT that target so they are able to keep threat while still popping Bloodlust. I know some guilds do it during Icehowl, but the few times we get to the worms, the poison debuff kicks our ass even if we stay spread out so our strat so far has been to burn down Acidmaw as fast as possible.

Thanks

[Murdog]

We use 2 tanks on the moving worm at all times till Acidmaw is dead then we switch and have one tank take care of stationary Dread and one tank take care of moving Dread (Mainly due to the fact that the tank on moving dread will get burning bile and in turn will hit melee and others if he tanks stationary Dread afterwards)

[bludwork]

Source: swelt So to summarize the addendum: tank 1: 3 impales (No CDs) tank 2: 4 impales then bop (minor CDs) tank 1: 3 impales then bop (minor CDs) tank 2: 1 impale only (major CD) tank 1: 1 or 2 impales (major CD) Is that right?

according to the addendum yes but please note, the maximum listed here is 13 impales. If he goes the full 150sec duration that's 15 impales. If your raid dps isn't high enough you might have to rely on external cooldowns towards the end.

[Faction]

We use three tanks, but our feral (me) went in with a hybrid spec. We do a tank swap every 2 impales. I use my cool downs when I tank it for the second time (Impales 11 and 12) and then get a BoP. With smart gear/spec choices I can do twice the damage of a Pally/Warrior/DK tank on Gormok.

This allows for more control in phase 2 because you don't have to worry about a ranged tank getting aggro and can hero the second Acidmaw comes out. Also, since Icehowl is no longer taunt immune, there is some benefit there too.

More importantly though, debuff management needs to be perfect for smooth kills on the encounter. Fully talented Demo Shout/Vindication and Thunderclap/Judgement along with Scorpid Sting/Insect Swarm need to be up. Also, making sure the tank next in line to taunt has Inspiration/Ancestral Fortitude before he does so is key as well. Having both Improved devotion Aura and Improved Stoneskin totem helps as well. These things sound easy enough, but I bet a lot of the people who find Gormok hard forget something from the above checklist. While we still wiped like noobs to Icehowl enrages because people cant move, we had maybe 1-2 wipes due to tank deaths while learning this.

[Trondhjem]

Actually we did it in our 10man raid like that:

lower geared tank takes 1 impale
better geared tank takes 5 stacks while using shieldwall when stack 3 is around 21s. after the 5th he gets bubbled
first tank again takes 3 stacks and gets bubbled
second one takes 1 impale
first one taunts again and gets 1 impale as well.

done

[Eetabeetay]

My guild uses this tank rotation:

Tank 1: 5 stacks
@37s remaining on 1st impale stack hit heart of iron or royal seal of king llane
a trinket will last through 2 stacks.
@ 37s remaining on 3rd stack hit LS
it will last through the remaining 4th and 5th stacks

Tank 2: 4 stacks
Trinket off the bat
@ 36s remaining on 2nd stack hit SW (also pop a 2nd trinket here if you have one)
shield wall should last through the last 2 remaining stacks


Tank 1: 3-4 stacks
Trinket off the bat
Judge how long till gormok dies and time SW to last to the end of the fight.

Notes:
Tanks can double pot with Indestructible potions. If you have dbm, use the Next Boss timer and pop ur first pot @ 2:31. Pain sup can also be used wherever in this rotation that you see fit. Tank 2 will pick up dreadscale and Tank 1 will need a BoP at the end of P1.

[Lore]

Source: bludwork according to the addendum yes but please note, the maximum listed here is 13 impales. If he goes the full 150sec duration that's 15 impales. If your raid dps isn't high enough you might have to rely on external cooldowns towards the end.

There's an absolute maximum of 14 impales before the two worms start eating your raid, and if it's taking you that long to kill Gormok you're not going to make it through Icehowl anyway

[Horacio]

This thread has been helpful in getting a better idea of what's going on but I am uncertain as to whether or not we possess the necassary firepower to get it done. We currently run 3 tanks with 6 healers and generally lose one tank somwhere in there on Gomok but the best we've gotten is 25% when the worms appear.

I made the suggestion today that we really get down on it with rotating cooldowns (Pain Supression/Guardian Spirit, Shield Wall, Last Stand, etc) Moving to 2 tanks seems awfully risky but....that said, having our pally tank go ret isn't going to produce the needed 25% more health to remove.

Last night I got nailed, through Last Stand (61,000hp) in .4 seconds......eww. But aside from that, we are not far off making it through with tanks still alive. I think we just need to confer with the healers and come up with a plan. At that point....we just have to pull out some more DPS.

[feji]

Not sure if it's been clearly pointed out yet, but Gormok gains a stack of Rising Anger each time a Snobold comes out. On Heroic 25 man, only 4 Snobolds will come out. The timetable looks like this :
00s : Gormok Active
10s : Impale 1
20s : Impale 2
24s : Rising Anger 1
30s : Impale 3
40s : Impale 4
44s : Rising Anger 2
50s : Impale 5
60s : Impale 6
64s : Rising Anger 3
70s : Impale 7
80s : Impale 8
84s : rising Anger 4 (final)
90s : Impale 9
100s : Impale 10
110s : Impale 11
120s : Impale 12
130s : Impale 13
140s : Impale 14
150s : Impale 15

At 4 stacks of Rising Anger, any tank will be in danger of getting combo'd to death within 1 second by a melee swing+impale (from my experiences, I've seen a 27k melee swing max, and a 30k impale direct damage @ 4xRising Anger). We tank swap every 4 stacks, so I don't know how the 2nd tank manages his cooldowns while he tanks. I do not use any cooldowns for the first 4 impales, since Gormok only has 1 stack of Rising Anger at that point. For the 9th-12th Impales, I usually take the 9th Impale without any cooldowns, use Last Stand on the 10th+11th Impale, and Shield Wall on the 12th+13th Impale (if needed). however, I did get gibbed on the 11th Impale once by a 30k Impale + 15k Impale tick + 25k Melee swing, over a period of 1 second (I'm at about 65k HP with Last Stand active). Healing early on is not an issue, so use bubbles on the 2nd and 3rd tank transition; this also lets us enter the worm phase with minimal Impale's rolling on tanks.

For the worms, I think it's handy to have people realize that :
1) the worms alternate their stationary/mobile state every burrow.
2) the mobile worm will ALWAYS do it's special ability on it's tank/primary agro
3) the stationary worm will ALWAYS target a random person to do it's random ability
4) the mobile worm is the only one who will do it's breath attack, while the stationary worm is the only one that will do it's Sweep (15yard knockback)

So basically, the stationary worm can be faced any way, but people should be atleast 15 yards away from it to avoid getting knocked back. When Dreadscale is mobile, toxin people have to move towards the Dreadscale tank, and the Dreadscale tank can move around inbetween Molten Spews (there's 15-20 seconds inbetween each breath attack). When Acidmaw is mobile, burning bile people have to move to the Acidmaw tank to get his toxin off.

[Krete]

Source: Trondhjem Actually we did it in our 10man raid like that: lower geared tank takes 1 impale better geared tank takes 5 stacks while using shieldwall when stack 3 is around 21s. after the 5th he gets bubbled first tank again takes 3 stacks and gets bubbled second one takes 1 impale first one taunts again and gets 1 impale as well. done

This is how we were looking at doing it as well. We're in 10 man only gear, so our major concerns are a) can we survive (pally and warrior at ~45k buffed) b) can we 2-heal it c) can our 10 man only geared dps take them down quick enough. My gut feeling is that we'd have to 3 heal it, and with only 5 dps we wouldn't be fast enough. I think we're going to give it a try tonight. Just curious about your group setup and average gear level.

[Andenthal]

Krete:
10 man is designed to be done in 232 gear. If you're still wearing a lot of 219 from Ulduar you might have a rough time. Otherwise according to Blizz, you're geared enough for it.

[Crystalhaze]

my guild actually does a little different rotation to combat the debuffs. I don't know if it is intended, so it might get changed, but we have the first tank get 2 stacks of impale, and when the debuff is at 23sec left or so, the second tank taunts. The first tank taunts again when he has about 3 seconds left on his 2 stacks. Don't worry! You will not get a third stack! I have found that the 10 second internal cd on the impale will reset when he switches tanks. So the first tank will be tanking for 3 seconds with 2 stacks, 7 without any stacks, and then the process starts over again. Second tank taunts when there is around 3 seconds left on his 2 stacks of impale.

Another way to time it is to watch the main tank's stacks at the time. When there is 23seconds left on his 2 stacks of impale, the other tank taunts.

I for one think this might not be working as intended and could be hot fixed. So if for some reason in the future this strat no longer works, it got fixed. For now, it has worked the past several weeks in 10m for us.

[Krete]

Source: Andenthal Krete: 10 man is designed to be done in 232 gear. If you're still wearing a lot of 219 from Ulduar you might have a rough time. Otherwise according to Blizz, you're geared enough for it.

Thanks, we've been clearing the Coliseum every week, but I'd say we're as a group 40% geared in 232 or higher (a few of us have picked up the 245 shouders), the rest is 219 with a little t8.5 sprinkled in. I feel a little better about the dps situation after tonight. We tried IC hard mode for the first time. It took 3 tries to get it right, but on the successful attempt our 5 dps took him down with the 2nd tank having about 30 seconds left on his debuff. I know its not a straight comparison with the impaler, but it made me think we may have a shot at it as far as dps is concerned.

[Mr.Winkle]

Tried 10man HC lastnight, initally i was worried that our DPS might be a little low but actually we found we had much bigger troubles with keeping the tanks alive.

Initally tried 2 healing it and that's just a big no-no for us atm, although pally/shammy is a good combo for hps if you get a snowbold on a healer you're in trouble, 3 healers seems more sensible.

[Trondhjem]

Source: Krete This is how we were looking at doing it as well. We're in 10 man only gear, so our major concerns are a) can we survive (pally and warrior at ~45k buffed) b) can we 2-heal it c) can our 10 man only geared dps take them down quick enough. My gut feeling is that we'd have to 3 heal it, and with only 5 dps we wouldn't be fast enough. I think we're going to give it a try tonight. Just curious about your group setup and average gear level.

We did it quite easily with a holy paladin and a priest, next ID with a holy paladin and a resto druid. I dont think you have to manage this with 2 healers since the damage should suffice with 3 as well

Actually we had only one melee (besides 2 tanks ofc) in our setup, so the damage through Staggering Stomp wasn't much of a threat.
Last but not least, we were Ulduar25 (226) geared.

[Deathstryke]

So, to be clear, all dps focuses down snobolds on Gormok? Or does ranged stay on the boss?

On the Jormungar's, does all dps focus down Acidmaw and then focus down Dreadscale? Or is dps split, with just more on Acidmaw so that he goes down quicker?

[Crystalhaze]

Source: Deathstryke So, to be clear, all dps focuses down snobolds on Gormok? Or does ranged stay on the boss? On the Jormungar's, does all dps focus down Acidmaw and then focus down Dreadscale? Or is dps split, with just more on Acidmaw so that he goes down quicker?

My guild has only done it once on 10m hard mode. If you have enough ranged (3 or more) you can put them on the monkeys and have melee stay on boss. If a monkey gets onto a melee, you can have everyone switch to it since there is no run down time. Sometimes it can get hairy if a ranged dps gets a monkey and you start to get behind, but I have found this works best.

For the Jormungar's, we still burn down Acidmaw first then Dreadscale. We had our best tank on Acidmaw first while he gets burned down (for higher tps, the other tank couldn't hold it) and then had that tank go pick up dreadscale and just cycle cooldowns. I tanked it (feral druid) and just cycled through like so: barkskin, surv inst + trinket, pain suppression, barkskin again, and frenzied regen. By that time, he was dead.

Hope this helps.

[Vetrosian]

Krete, as another 10 man raider that recently downed this I can tell you our biggest struggle was keeping tanks alive, I cannot see this being possible with 2 healers as bad luck with snobalds or fires will mean one can't heal and you're looking at a dead tank.

Our dps tended to average 4k+, casters a bit lower due to snobalds most people in 219 gear with a few bits of 226 from Ulduar hard modes and any 232 loot from our normal mode Toc clears.

We found it best to have all dps switch to snobalds as every snobald out either gimped a healer (potential deaths) or a dps (this is a dps race) once the 4th snobald launched people started using CDs before to burn that last one and Gormok down and to survive his blows until then.

With 5 dps it is doable, but it'll depend heavily on player skill/gear, buff synergies and maybe a little luck.

For the worms, we had ranged on Acidmaw at all times, melee on the mobile one, when Acidmaw became mobile we used CDs + Hero. Also had a ranged tank the rooted one and both tanks on the mobile one so they could swap and go help cure people.

[Meloree]

Source: Horacio We currently run 3 tanks with 6 healers and generally lose one tank somwhere in there on Gomok but the best we've gotten is 25% when the worms appear. ... Last night I got nailed, through Last Stand (61,000hp) in .4 seconds......eww. But aside from that, we are not far off making it through with tanks still alive. I think we just need to confer with the healers and come up with a plan. At that point....we just have to pull out some more DPS.

We run 3 tanks and 6 healers as well, because the tuning of the fight never really pushed us to take any risks. That said, I don't see how you can have a real problem with tank deaths with a 3 tank rotation. The first rotation through, there's essentially no dangerous burst. The second rotation, each tank can cover both impales with personal cooldowns. The strongest geared tank should probably be first on the list, he'll be the only tank to take a third rotation, and he/she can use their stronger cooldown to cover both impales. Said first tank only has to deal with 3 stacks of rising anger during his second rotation, so Last Stand + trinkets should be completely sufficient there, and shieldwall makes the third rotation harmless. Raid cooldowns are an option if required, but they really shouldn't be.

Running 2 tanks and 5 healers means you're a) subjecting yourself to more RNG, as a snobold on a healer is that much worse, b) offloading difficulty from undergeared/performing dps onto probably also undergeared tanks/healers, again subjecting yourself to more RNG, and executing a markedly more complex strategy, and with additional complication comes additional failure modes.

61k hp with Last Stand means roughly 47k hp normally, which is, I think, probably a little bit thin for 25man Gormok. Week one, our weakest geared tank was at 50k raidbuffed (a DK), and we've yet to see a tank-death on Gormok. We've also yet to see Ardent Defender proc. Our progression kill was tanked by Paladin, Warrior, DK. Paladin tanked first (not a FotM thing, I've been guild MT since mid-Sunwell), Warrior second, DK third. Warrior and DK blew all personal cooldowns to cover both impales in thier second rotation, I blew trinkets on 2nd rotation, and shieldwall on third. I was also at around 54k raidbuffed at the time (warrior and dk both at just over 50k).

If you do find yourself forced into a 2-tank strat, I can't offer any advice from experience.

--
Meloree, <Edge>, Garona

[PapaNasty]

We were initially trying this with a 3 tank rotation, but found that our warrior tank was repeatedly dying (So much so, that we would soulstone him each attempt). Thus we swapped to a 2 tank rotation between myself (prot paladin) and our feral druid, with our prot warrior dpsing (as prot spec / gear) and then he would tank the stationary worm in p2.

Likewise we only run with 5 healers since we were finding that the enrage timer was quite tight (1 pally, 1 disc priest, 1 holy priest, 2 rest druids). Also we found that tank deaths in p1 weren't due to lack of healing (well once or twice due to healers d/c until they sorted their connections, that was it), but rather tanks were either instant gibbed (Although this hasn't happened at all since they turned off parry haste etc for gormok) or died during the switch. With just 2 tanks however, healers already have their hots up + beacon set to the new tank without comprimising their healing at all on the existing tank. The bleeds themselves aren't really a danger at all, only the instant strike from impale itself.

In our 2 tank rotation, we each take 4 stacks of the debuff before the other tank taunts. We each pop an indestructable pot just before combat begins (as he says "battle on heroes") and then use minor cooldowns (trinkets / the 1min bearwall) once indestructable pots run out. As I'm taking the 2nd to last set of stacks, I bubble them off and then use divine sacrifice for 30% dmg reduction. Once Gormok dies I Hand of Protection our feral druid to remove his bleeds, and then immediately Hand of Freedom him to remove the immunity.

Also we have our ranged dps + most melee (ret pallys + rogues stay on boss as too much dps lost by changing targets), switch targets to snowbolds as soon as they jump onto someones back, as we need to eventually kill them anyway, and it's a large chunk of lost dps from their interrupts / stuns if we leave them up (and very dangerous if they are on our healers, particularly the holy pally)

This puts us into phase 2 without any bleeds up.



I will admit that our tanks are more consistently geared than most tanks on our server as we don't run MT loot (instead we run dkp and it just happens that all tanks end up equally geared since we all make just about every raid), so we were all 50k+ hp with full raid buffs (makesure at least 1 shaman drops stoneskin too since it stacks with devotion).


Anyway hope that my 2c helps some of the other guilds out there with it.