What happened to Patchwerk?

[Tarkonn]

I didn't see any notes about him being modified, but it seems he's being a bastard now with his hatefuls, especially knocking out the MT off the bat because for some reason he eats a hateful right after a melee when starting.

Has anyone else been noticing this?

[Kazeyonoma]

I didn't catch that last night but I did notice he was hitting me a LOT harder last night than previous nights. Often dropping me <20% from just MT'ing him. I think one of our problems though were that our OT's were splitting their hatefuls and thus ability to put out threat between 3 OTs instead of 2. Is it likely your OT's weren't high enough on the threat meters so ole pudgeface punched you instead?

[Rustik]

I thought he'd never go for the top threat person unless they were the only one in melee? We did not have any problems last night.

[Kazeyonoma]

yes, he goes for melee only for hatefuls but I am pretty sure I ate a hateful last night while my OTs were trying to catch up in threat.

[Krenian]

Haven't seen any problems honestly. We did Patch last night and down'ed him no problem. Could be just weirdness but I found no problems. I'd have to review both a new patchwerk and an old one to see if the damage is different but we've yet to have a serious problem with him pre or post patch.

[Talisman]

While it didn't cause us any issues I also noticed last night that I was copping more hatefuls than usual (in fact I sometimes go the whole fight not getting any). Wasn't sure if it was some kind of mechanic change or just the heals being a little slower on the other OT.

[Niian]

I believe Patch has been changed in regards to Hateful strikes.
The MT, I don't think, gets them any more, only the person second on threat in melee range.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but lately when I've been off-healing for it I've noticed only the MT and one OT getting hit.

[Satorri]

Well, there are a couple things. I actually healed Patch this weak instead of tanking him, and we had no real problems or extra dmg (and it feels so much better patching people up than being the one soaking those hatefuls).

So far as I understand it, Patch has a triple filter:
He hits the highest health** not threat, target in melee range who is not his main target. That is, unless, the MT is the only one in range. We've had little slips where the OT(s) aren't quite in melee range for the first hateful when positioning him, and the MT has gotten essentially one-shot because he took the melee AND the hateful.

I'm fairly confident that threat is only a factor in terms of equivalent health, but when does that ever happen? This is why you can lose melee dps who aren't too high on threat if the heals on the OT are slightly sluggish. On heroic, he hits me and the other OTs usually between 20-25k depending on who is getting hit, with hatefuls. If we have only one OT, he'll swat me down to a third of my health, and if the heals don't bring me up above one of the melee before his next swing, he'll one-shot them. Some of our melee have taken to dipping for a moment in the slime before the pull so their health is low. I'm a bit on the fence about the strat, but it does reduce the threshold of when they'll get hit and can buy our healers some grace sometimes.

Also, side note, resto drooding that fight is delightfully awesome. 3 tanks, 2 resto druids, and we get PILES of healing with rolling hots, while our priests/pallies (no shamans at the moment) do the big step healing. The 2 sets of rolling hots make it a lot gentler work on the tanks/healers.

[Tarkonn]

Yeah, I actually found out that our healers were not on the ball this past week. Ran with a 2nd group and found we took him down just fine.

[Conreeaght]

Some of our melee have taken to dipping for a moment in the slime before the pull so their health is low. I'm a bit on the fence about the strat, but it does reduce the threshold of when they'll get hit and can buy our healers some grace sometimes.

I do not reccomend the slime bath (nor does EJ or anyone else that has done a serious study of patch25's mechanics)

- Whomever patchwerk hits gains some threat.
- Patchwerk will target the top 3 players on his hate list. The primary threat will recieve regular auto attacks (~11k-ish)
- The next two on his list are those that will recieve a hateful strike, the reciever being the one with more health. Depending on the max health difference between the HS tanks - the higher max HP one can recieve up to 3-4x the strikes (and usually dies first.)

Note: This is my personal interpretation of the boss' mechanics.

Slime should not be employed because the reasons for it aren't that great while there's insermountable proof why one shouldn't.

-Lost DPS.
-DPS should not be taking hateful strikes unless he is 2nd or 3rd on threat list and the other HS tank is low for too long.
-If a DPS takes a HS, dead is dead.
-Disallowing group-heal mechanics might hinder some healer types (glyphs etcetera) from being able to (over)heal at their full potential.
-Did I mention lost DPS?

I've noticed that most of our problems are traced back to healers (no offense, please don't get mad and stop giving me green numbers!) Basically, some have been trained to be conservative, don't overheal, and use effective healing. In this fight they have to go...well basically ba**s out. Slamming back potions and whatever they can even if it's an overheal. It's actually difficult for some to undo all their training. Of course, this is based on personal experience.

In one case, we had a paladin that liked to use Flash of Light probably attached to some kind of turbo mechanism so he could walk away and watch some T.V. This paladin was removed from raid and guild when the tank they were responsable for died with relative consistancy.

P.S. Patch10 is smaller, one HS tank, and is just a trivial dps race.

[smackers]

I did patch on 10-man three nights ago, the first three hatefulls were on me, dodged one parried the second ate the third then my Pally OT came in. All remaining hatefulls were on the OT with a pally DPS and a DK in melee range. Healers did a great job keeping OT topped off so he was the primary target for hatefulls. I've only done Patch once this week (no 25-man) but didn't notice anything different from previous weeks.

[Kazeyonoma]

the mechanics are different between 10man and 25man patches. 10man is solely health based I believe, while 25man is threat and health based.

[smackers]

the mechanics are different between 10man and 25man patches. 10man is solely health based I believe, while 25man is threat and health based.

Ah, nm then didn't realize that. I've only done Patch on 25-man once and I was one of the meatshields so was expecting to take tons of Hatefulls and kept threat up just out of habit.

[Kazeyonoma]

At least that's what I've observed and my Raid agrees.

[Conreeaght]

the mechanics are different between 10man and 25man patches. 10man is solely health based I believe, while 25man is threat and health based.

I could get behind this.

I re-read posts because when I see 3 tanks or "2 OT(s)" I make the assumption that it's patch 25, as naxx10 doesn't require more then 2 tanks (though dps and healing permitting - not against the idea of 3 either.) Either way, you shouldn't be using the slime.

[traysurfer]

We got in this conversation in 25man naxx raid last week when somebody said they changed the way hatefuls worked.

The way we thought it used to work was a mix of HP and threat for the hateful eaters. Which is why we had melee dip into the slime every so often so their HP stayed low. Because occasionally a DPS'er would eat a hateful if their HP was higher than a tanks and they were 4th or 5th on aggro

They were saying that it's based entirely off threat now, so we didn't have the melee do the slime thing and not a single one of our melee who a few times had more HP than one of the tanks got hit.

So it seemed to be true, but I guess it's a moot point cause we still kill him every week, just one less thing the melee have to do.

Not really sure if it's the same for 10man, I would imagine if they made 1 work entirely off threat, they would do it to the other, but who knows really.

[sawzz]

It looks like theres an understanding about the difference between hateful target on 10 vs 25 man. I must admit I was not aware of the difference. But there is one other goofy thing Ive seen patch do. Maybe some of you have seen it also and can comment.

Once of 10 man and once on 25 man. Ive seen him switch his primary target in the first 5 sec or so of the encounter. We verified this with the combat log. I am our hateful strike tank and in these two instances our main tank made two melee strike before my first and within the next 2 strikes strikes I became the primary target. In the 10man it was no big deal on the 25 man our main tank went down like a sack of potatoes.

Anyone seen this?

[Nicki]

I think your off tank over aggrod...

People forget that hatefuls add to the offtank's threat, its pretty hard to test the theory of highest health (in 10 man..which should only hit the second highest person on threat according to EJ) as hatefuls keep adding threat to the tanks.

WotLK: Naxxramas - Page 17 - Elitist Jerks post 407+408 explain hatefuls accurately...

[Eemo]

the mechanics are different between 10man and 25man patches. 10man is solely health based I believe, while 25man is threat and health based.

While I agree the mechanics are different, are you sure about the basis of 10 man HS targetting?.

Based on my guild's experience I'd be inclined to disagree; we've done him with a lot of melee, and he's never bopped anyone but the second on the aggro list with an HS.

We regularly run 10 man w/ 3 melee dps and we've never had anyone other than our main tank and OT get hit. I'm pretty sure that on the nights we've run with two healers or that we're kind of slow getting to him so it's late and people are off their game we'd have had a dps get hit at least once if it was health based.

[smackers]

While I agree the mechanics are different, are you sure about the basis of 10 man HS targetting?.

Based on my guild's experience I'd be inclined to disagree; we've done him with a lot of melee, and he's never bopped anyone but the second on the aggro list with an HS.

From reading the EJ forum post that Nicki linked to above, it seems that on 25 man that you will have 3 threat targets after the MT and the choice of which of those targets gets nailed is based on their HP. In 10 man it's 1 threat target after the MT so HP wont matter.

In 25 man it's (hopefully) not very likely that a non HS tank is going to get hit because the DPS would have to get up above slot #4 on the threat chart and they would have to have the highest HP. (I think that is correct)

On 10 man the #2 threat is going to take the HS regardless of HP. (again I think that is correct)