Sindragosa 10N - Trying to get P3 down

P1, P2 (or P1 Ground P1 Air) are easy (unless people get lulled to sleep), but P3 is just a complete clusterfrack.

Our typical DPS makeup is Fury War, Combat Rogue, Ele Shammy, and Arcane Mage x2.

DPS output are usually similar to this fight with the mages alternating with the rate of unchained magics:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/4...?s=9182&e=9633

What I'm looking for help with is given out raid makeup (which is fairly stable and not likely to change as far as DPS is concerned) what is the best way to manage P3?

We've tried melee on tombs and everyone on tombs, neither works well. Once we tried Melee on Sindragosa and range on tombs, that didn't go well (though I think it was more due to new experiences).

Are the ramp up times normal? Does Fury really represent that much of an advantage not having a ramp up time? Are there tricks from the mages out there for less spiky output? Suggesting for what to do in P3?

Do you see something I (the Fury warrior) am doing wrong or could be doing better? (Besides taking the cold damage in P1, our healers don't have a problem keeping me up, if I hit 8 stacks then I stop, but short of 8 stacks in P1, the damage is pretty inconsequential). (I don't remember why I got hit by the blistering cold, I'm usually farthest from her when those hit)

Your DPS in general seem to have bad positioning. Several of them took Blistering Cold. At least one of the mages died to Cleave. You had people die to things such as a 14k Backlash.

In short your execution even on the beginning of the fight isn't quiet perfect, and once you enter phase 3 those minor differences will kill you.

I've killed her both with 4 Melee 1 Ranged and 4 Ranged 1 Melee. We found the heavier ranged setup tended to work better, as they are better able to break the tombs.

We tend to have everyone stack under her belly for the 3rd phase. That way there is less risk of people randomly freezing other people. We had two DPS assigned to put tombs on priority during spawn, and if one of them were the one to be frozen, a 3rd DPS would 'swap' in for that particular tomb.

Ranged Caster DPS will be spikey because it they really have to pace themselves during Unchained Magic. As Fury your weapons are slower, so you can spend more time attacking then say the rogue.

It doesn't appear some people are using Frost Resist Gear, that may help them. It definitely helps the tanks. It also doesn't seem some of your people are clearing the Buffet stacks, Your shaman, for example was hit for Frost Aura damage in excess of 6k. On the fight you linked you had a healer die to both Backlash and Blistering Cold. If you are not wearing frost resist, not clearing Buffet and lose a healer, things are going to get rough very very quickly. You are also going to start being pressed for time to kill the tombs before the next one hits if DPS start to die.

if everyone stacks under he belly, aren't they at risk of either being too far forward and being cleaved or too far back and being tailstomped?

With stacking under her belly, are you following a clear the debuff every other tomb?

Thanks

Just talking about P3 it's rather simple.... easiest way I know is you have everyone in a loose stack a few yards away from her middle. First tomb goes out and it should be placed towards the head a safe distance away from the group. At this point I'd advise everyone move closer to that tomb after it goes down to give the second tomb some room in case the person who gets it is a moron. The second tomb should be placed in line with her rear legs... just go back and forth with this tomb placement.
As far as reseting stacks ... on normal its perfectly safe to reset every other tomb for the most part... apply intelligence though.
Breaking tombs.... 1 melee (IE you) should be sufficient for breaking the tombs in p3... they dont have to be downed immediately... no rush or reason to have more than you unless for some reason you cant do it before the person dies or in a timely enough fashion to not fall behind on tombs. Also... be aware of the tanks switching when you break tombs as theyre gonna wanna reset their stacks ASAP and get back in there.. so dont go breaking a tomb as a tank hides behind it.. have them calling out on vent when theyre good to go.

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Originally Posted by Loganisis

if everyone stacks under he belly, aren't they at risk of either being too far forward and being cleaved or too far back and being tailstomped?

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Yes, but it also solved our issue of people being in the next town over when they got frost tomb'd. Only so far you can run when you have frost beacon.

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With stacking under her belly, are you following a clear the debuff every other tomb?

Thanks

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Yes

The way we do it is to have everyone stay with the tombs all the time, even when they're not hiding behind them. This eliminates the problem of having to run through a crowd to get into position for the next tomb; everyone is by a tomb near her feet but a few yards out, and when another person gets marked for an imminent tomb they move up near her her front legs, breaking away from the pack. Even if they don't get quite close enough to the tanks as we would like, they won't get anyone else tombed with them unless they just stand still. Our meleers (rogue and warrior) focus on the tombs, while our ranged (druid, warlock, hunter) stand by the tombs and attack the boss. When its time for them to drop their stacks they hide behind the tombs and attack the tomb. The healers usually have two behind the tomb, healing the raid (and, since everyone is so closely stacked together, it's an ideal way for me to CH and get everyone but the tanks) while the outside healer heals the tank(s).

I would suggest putting the rogue on tomb duty. Due to the fast offhand combat rogues have, he's going to stack up chilled to the bone very fast if he dps's the boss.

Other than the good tip about people taking damage that they should be avoiding, #1 reason for P3 wipes is people panicking and not playing properly. Every toon should get an idea of how much they can SAFELY push the boundries. ie, healers knowing how much healing they can do before needing to reset their stacks, casters judging how many stacks of unchained magic they can afford on p3 relative to their mystic buffet stacks etc.

Usually healers will find that they can stand out way more than they had planned. I remember reaching 20 stacks of unchained magic while healing - all it needed was to keep casting (it doesnt go off if you keep casting - the trick is to be able to still do it during the blistering cold pull - instants are win there). Warning: this is A VERY BAD IDEA when you get to heroic version :P

One other panic moment is hiding behind iceblocks to clear buffet stacks. If the tombs go down too fast, people tend to run over to the next tomb target, even before it lands, resulting in half the raid getting tombed instead of one person. A good idea would be to wait till the last moment to break the tomb. Ideally, your rogue should be able to start dpsing the tomb when the next tomb target is selected and bring it down when the 2nd tomb actually lands. Adjust per your dps level.

One other panic time is people messing up the tomb positionings when it's THEIR time in the tomb. They might have seen it a dozen times but they still panic. Smoke flares would be a good idea here.

Frost resist on the tanks, even in minimal amounts makes the life of healers very easy. The frost breath doesnt hit hard. But when one of your healers is in a tomb, the other has unchained magic, the tank taking an extra 25K breath really isnt easy on the remaining healer. Any one (or two) frost pieces plus a lesser resist flask should be adequate to turn that spike damage into managable numbers.

The fight is long and people mess up when they get panicky over the last phase. I think you should have a little rehearsal before you pull the boss and show exactly where you want tombs and where ranged/healers/melee should stand to be safe / reset stacks.

It is a learning curve. Be patient.

We have discussed this before on sindi threads remember the longer the last phase goes the more likely failure is.

By stacking in close to the middle everyone inc healers can hit her like pally healers dropping consecrate and anyone who needs to dump the magic buffet doesnt have to run a mile to hide. Save all cd's for the phase and launch pets and even healers dot etc.

I am not a great fan of everyone running to tombs thats a metric ton of dps time lost. By far the easiest way is to have one dedicated dps to break the IB's with a backup who does it only if the breaker is the target of the IB. The break rate can easily be controlled by 1 person anymore than that and it gets popped too fast or slow.

I would agree with everything fledren has said really just adding the blow CD's, launch pets and healers use what they can as well you want the phase definitely as short as possible.

I'd been thinking of suggesting at 60% everyone stop using CDs so they'd be up for sure at 35%.

The group seems to be set on clearing every block. As a middle ground, what if we split the team up into two parts. Part A clears the first tomb, part b clears the second tomb. If the group isn't clearing a tomb, they're DPS-ing the boss. That would seem be an option for transitioning to an ever-other tomb switch?

Probably Wednesday will be the next attempt on her.

It could "work" but i dont see why you want to complicate it unnecessarily. Sindi is a fight that looks like a controlled ballet but has enough elements thrown in that unless people can react to a situation intelligently, you end up messing up. Consider this a prep for lich king. People really need to trust their teammates to do the job and mind what they should be doing personally first.

Blocks really dont need more than one person to break them and your rogue is the excellent choice for the job. Everybody else dpsing tombs is a major dps loss and as uglybbtoo has put it nicely, you want it as short as possible.

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Originally Posted by Loganisis

I'd been thinking of suggesting at 60% everyone stop using CDs so they'd be up for sure at 35%.

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I recommend not doing that. P3 is not a burn phase; P3 is all about staying alive and minimizing incoming damage. The enrage timer is very liberal and as long as you don't lose people, you'll be fine; it's not a DPS race by any stretch of imagination, while healing output can be severely limited due to Unchained Magic and Ice Tombs. But if people start going into burn mode, there's a serious risk of tunnel visioning.

In short, there are lots of ways in which one can screw up in P3, and it's best to allow everybody to focus on not screwing up.

I strongly recommend frost resist gear for the tanks. In P3, two thirds or more of total incoming damage and all burst damage will be frost-based; this is because all the magic damage is amplified by Mystic Buffet, but Sindragosa still melees like a wet noodle. As an aside, your DK tank does not seem to be using Anti-Magic Shell at all, unless I'm missing something; AMS is a short, very powerful cooldown for this fight (even though it no longer counters Mystic Buffet stacking). Icebound Fortitude also seems a bit underused.

Personally, I use frost resist gear for healing this fight, too. Throughput is less of a concern, and it allows me to skip an Ice Tomb to stay out and maintain LOS on the tanks if I'm the only healer who can actually do anything. Healing can be severely constrained in this phase. One healer will have Unchained Magic and can't do much; another healer may be stuck in a tomb; in this situation you may have temporarily just one healer who has to do everything. Note that Divine Hymn is a powerful way to get you out of a hole that you can easily use even with Unchained Magic; your priestess hasn't been using it at all. It should be one of your first considerations if you find yourself with Unchained Magic and lots of people low on health; she also could use Binding Heal more for those situations where she has to heal the tank while she's taking aura damage and everybody else is huddling behind a tomb.

As to caster DPS and healers, Backlash becomes absolutely murderous with stacks of Mystic Buffet and some of your players seem to be a bit reckless when it comes to that (healers sometimes have no choice, but DPS shouldn't be pushing the limit in P3; again, this is not a DPS race). Make sure that people actually drop Mystic Buffet; it's very easy to think that you've LOSed her, but haven't actually done so; if in doubt, hug the Frost Tomb. In your logs, I see plenty people with 10+ stacks of this, which doubles frost aura damage taken (at which point, the aura is worse than BQL's), so I'm pretty sure that didn't work out right (10 stacks means that you have been going for an entire minute without dropping stacks, as Mystic Buffet stacks every six seconds; Ice Tombs come on a 15 second timer).

Similarly, melee DPS and hunters need to be careful with Chilled to the Bone. If both Chilled to the Bone and Mystic Buffet start stacking up, you're going to hurt badly. Your DPS warrior died once from having Chilled to the Bone tick for 10k+ with 11 stacks of Mystic Buffet and 6 from Chilled to the Bone. That's just not healable in P3.

P3 of this fight as you know turns into chaos mainly because everyone is worrying about their stacks of buffet and there for running around trying their best to clear it before the ice block is taken down and add into this the pull in and random people chosen for another ice block and the fight can quickly get out of control.


One of the ways I found to deal with the chaos was to basically forget about all other mechanics, me being the main tank healer I would stand just behind the melee near the center of sindra with both ice blocks to my far left and right so neither would get in my line of sight of the tank and I would just stand there and heal and keep stacking buffet and ofc run away from the aoe blast.

This meant that I wasn't running about all the time, the tanks where getting constant healing and I could also heal the raid slightly, the last time I remember doing sindra on normal I stacked up around 50 mystic buffet but I could keep my self up with binding heal till the fight ended the same way a pally could with beacon ( side note I had very good gear nearly all 264 so test it your self how many you can stack before it starts to hurt, the rest of this post is based off of the first few times we downed her so our gear was much lower and so was the icc buff I think it was 5%, also the only person in our raids that had FR gear was the main tank there isn't much point in anyone else having it as it's mainly for frost breath ).

After I did this enough I talked the other healers into trying it behind the raid leaders back ( he is a perfectionist at making things more complicated then they are ) basically both raid healers would float around in the open making sure to keep everyone in line of sight so in a place where they could heal those behind an ice block while also having los on tanks.

Most of the time what would happen is one of the 3 healers would be chosen for an ice block and another would have unchained magic leaving just one healer to keep the entire raid up and so allowing healers to float and ignore stack clearing they can keep the raid healed up and clear there stacks at their own time or have it force cleared by an ice block.


So in short only 6 of the 10 raiders will be going behind ice blocks ( 3 healers 1 tank staying in the open ) and to cut it down even further if you split those 6 into two groups and have 3 clear on the first ice block and the other 3 on the second ( everyone dps blocks though ) this means there is a lot less movement at any given time.

If you don't want to change your tactics then that is fair enough but I suggest you give your healers some some freedom to move around and clear their stacks when they feel then need to, to be realistic all healers should start thinking about removing stacks at around 12 to 15 any more then 20 and they will need constant healing, Dps should clear stacks every second ice block around 6 or 7 stacks and if all goes well the raid will stay alive and you will have more then enough dps time to take her down.