Seeing the ground in H. Maloriak

Okay, there have been some fights I've accepted I won't be pushing the guild for DPS (Council, Halifus, and now H. Maloriak) - but I've never felt so castrated as in our H. Maloriak fights.

I'm SMF/Prot atm (looking into Arms when I get a 372 2hander) and feel just so useless in the fight. I think the biggest hurdle, since I know I'm not catching our Fire mages or Demo locks, is I just can't see the damn slimes.

Between the black puddles, the 3 demo locks with their flame pulsing demons, all the visually cool AoE crap that every other class (hell spec) has but Fury, I can't see the damn slimes to stay within melee rage (let alone not stand in crap).

I've turned projected textures off already (great tid-bit in the PSTs Lore!) - I was wondering if anyone else has found ways to more easily see the slimes and the black puddles hidden under all the freak AoE colorstorm range throws down while they just need to look at a tiny spec of ground underneath themselves...

Is there something I'm missing? I used the default name plates and tidy plates for the fight and they helped a little, but I'm still getting lost in the visual vomit.

Isn't there an option in display to not display friendly/self spell effects?

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Originally Posted by Crittable

Isn't there an option in display to not display friendly/self spell effects?

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Other than projected textures?

Top-down view helps if you aren't doing that already.

Staying slightly ahead but to the side of the mobs helps.

Are you saying that the viles are not dying before the phase is up? If you're getting through the phase fine, then having an extra dps sit outside to bait puddles away from the viles is always nice. Healers love it especially since the Maloriak tank is needing to be spammed after every channel.

You could also make one of your warlocks go affliction or destro and dps from outside melee. The argument there is that while his AoE will drop, you'll be able to contribute more since you have no ranged option at all.

Big Wigs alerts me when I have dark sludge debuff so it's pretty clear when I have to move even if I can't see the puddle yet.

We have the DPS... just no thanks to me... I'm good for about 1-1.2 million damage each black phase, by far the lowest, most everyone else is up at 1.5 or the demo locks at 3 million each. The slimes *usually* die with a few seconds left in the black phase, I'm trying to figure out how to improve my contribution when I feel like I'm just running around like a chicken without a head.

Part of the problem with the puddles is even when I move out of one, I findmyself in another... It's just frustrating :-/

Running into a new puddle indicates someone was in front of you. If you want to avoid that possibility, be the furthest ahead and make the other melee deal with it. :P

Not really understanding the problem - the problem I thought you were saying was that you were having difficulty with not standing in the black crap on the ground... but re-reading, it seems to me like a nameplates issue. Perhaps a screenshot might help?

TidyPlates + ThreatPlates, tuned to be fairly small and with 'overlapping nameplates' enabled through the regular interface settings is what I use.

The whole clusterfuck of the black phase is something of a feature of the fight. Having a preset path that you stick to and ensuring that DPS position themselves around and to the sides of the path but not in the way of the tanks is something you'll want to do and that you'll end up doing with practice.

I'll try to remember to take a screen shot (what the hell, I have nothing better to do at that point in the fight :-/ ).

The problem is a visual problem.

I can't see the puddles and the slimes and the slimes have such a small hitbox you have to stand right on top of them or no rage :(

Part of the visual problem is the 2 or 3 locks going demo. All the range AoE visual vomit, ~7 melee running around trying to get out of puddles.

I litterally cannot see the slimes or puddles at some points in the fight when there are 3 of the fire-pulsing demons going at slightly different intervals.

I've used the default blizzard nameplates and tidyplates, and while I can see roughly where the adds are, I'm just not able to see them as well as I want right now.

A lot of my frustration is I'm usually the first to respond to stuff on the ground and the like and I can usually figure something out, but I'm just at a complete loss... We've spent like 5 nights between our 2 kills (2nd was as rough as the first as we get it to repeatble, though that was more a healing issue the second time as the range AoE really stepped up their game), but I've only DPS'd 1 (helped add-tank the other 4 nights) - so maybe it's just that they've got the exerpeince and I'm still gelling it together... :-/ I just hate feeling this useless in a fight.

I would suggest getting the addon BigWigs. I get an auditory sound when I am in the ooze. Trust me, it is a life saver.

I do use BigWigs - and it does help a lot at getting out of what I'm in... no so much in running into something I shouldn't XD

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-a...ails/gtfo.aspx

If your running into stuff, then talk to your range and tell them to get out of the kite path.

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Originally Posted by leethaxor

If your running into stuff, then talk to your range and tell them to get out of the kite path.

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I think he is DPS on this fight not the tank, that said, the logic of this quote still applies, let me try and explain.

When we were first learning the fight on hard mode, almost every first black phase we would waste all 3 battle rezes on a melee, healers just simply were not able to keep them up. So what did we do, naturally (since we have a huge running gag in our guild about melee favoritism) we blamed the ranged DPS. And oddly enough, after a dozen or so attempts of constantly yelling at the ranged DPS about positioning, melee stopped dieing. The thing is your tank needs to be consistent with the kite path so the melee have to worry less about following the mobs since they are just gliding along a conditioned path, almost all our melee deaths came when the ranged DPS dropped slimes directly on the kite path and the warrior had to do go in different directions than the melee were used to. Also means good initial threat is vital so he does not have to run around have 1/2 his kite path full of puddles before he even gets agro on all of them.

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Originally Posted by Loganisis

The problem is a visual problem.

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Darksends post explains in detail what I tried to say in summary: it's all about having a good kite path and good discipline from your DPS (melee and ranged) to not stand in the path. There's nothing you can do about the sheer number of bodies in range, the fact the adds are small and that the black sludge on the ground is going to be hard to see... so turn it from a visual problem into a planning problem. We call it the 'carpet of death' - a set line on the ground along the front of the room (using the pattern on the floor as a reference) and the entire raid is banned from standing on it.