Blackwing Descent - Chimaeron

[Priégorius]

We have started raiding Blackwing Descent with Magmaw and Omnitron going down in 2 successive nights.

With Chimaeron we are having issues with Feud. Our healers are struggling to bring everyone up to a sustainable health level and without much issue the caustic shots are taking us out 1 by 1.

Healers are in average ilevel 346 with the exception of one into 350ilevel, Running Holy paladin, Holy Priest and Resto Druid.

Question is do we stack constantly through the encounter or do we spread and stack for feud, Alot of clips and guides are a mixture of both.

Wondering if anyone out there is having the same issues as us.

Priegorius

[Colonel Mustard]

During our 25man kills we've had everyone spread out in Phase 1. A few healers assigned to tank, and spreading out the healers on the raid, much like Penetrating Cold on Anub'Arak in Trial of the Crusader, as to not waste mana. If you can be pretty sure that no two raid healers are healing the same target, you can use faster heals without wasting too much mana. As for the massacre, utilize priests prayers and group heals, you don't need to keep anyone above 10k so it should be fairly easy.

In Phase 2, when the bot is recovering, stack everyone in the middle and try to rotate healing cooldowns in this phase. Once it's over, you should wait for the first massacre, since everyone is grouped already, heal that, then spread out again. The time between the first massacre after feud and the next spit thing is enough for everyone to spread out again.

Then just keep doing that until it feels alright, healers will learn to conserve mana where possible. Just make sure the tanks are topped before Phase 3, and have everyone use their last mana on nuking the boss.

[Kalinga]

We're having problems on 10 man using a "OT soak strategy". Basically an OT taunts when he gets the buff for double strike and soaks it while the MT only needs to be above 10k hp after spikes, taking single hits only.

The problem is when he gets the double strike buff and then casts massacre before he strikes twice. Several attempts we had a normal melee swing after massacre and then a double strike. Also happened once or twice that he got the buff, then cast massacre and then feud and while we thought he would double strike after the feud, occasionally he never did a double strike at all and the buff just vanished until the next one popped.

Anyone had similar problems?

A little bit OT maybe but it's still concerning the fight.

[Priégorius]

Kalinga

We found that the Double strike was not on a set timer, or appeared to be at odd times. it is a little distressing as as i would soak the strike now and then and get chomped with an 180k hit, with the buff from the bot active it was somewhat hilarious but kinda of an dampener at the same time.

[Kalinga]

The problem is that he keeps the buff during his casts of massacre and feud and it seems abit random whether he makes a normal swing first or if he consumes the double strike buff first after these casts. Regardless of strategy with tank switching this is a big problem.

[Colonel Mustard]

Just have the tanks soak the double strikes, and switch along with the debuff instead. It's only really dangerous when the debuff makes the damage so intense that the tank can't survive another. You can bubble away the stacks as well.

Don't know any other way of doing it, we had two paladins and a resto druid healing the tanks in this fight I believe. We used to switch around more, but it didn't work out as well.

[klausi]

Question is do we stack constantly through the encounter or do we spread and stack for feud.

Sorry but why would anyone bother stacking outside of feud? That sounds like they haven't understand the basic idea behind the fight at all. Caustic slime is the reason to spreat out, it's a oneshot on a person (but it isn't thanks due to the robot) while decreasing their dps (-75% hit). If you would stack all the time you had to heal everyone up to 10k constantly after every slime while doing less dps.

You only come together at feud to spread the damage equally between all targets because there's no robot up during that phase that prevents you from dying. Use your big group healing & cooldowns for it (holy radiance + wings, swiftmend -> effloresence, ..) and otherwise find a good healing strategy to bring your raid up to 10k hp after slimes while not running out of mana and keeping the offtank topped. If you still struggle you can bring 4 healers, only the offtank needs to be a real tank *hint*

[Riemu]

We had one Tank stack up the 4 Debuffs and an OT taunt off the double strike Debuff. DK Tank as Maintank works quite well, since he can heal himself up after every normal hit, leaving your healers without any problems.

Try to advice your healers to not overheal your MT - you dont really need more than 15k HP at any moment in the fight prior to 21%. You will have to keep your OT at 100% HP at all times though.

Try to heal up your OT ASAP after massacre. If Double Strike + Massacre is active, use cooldowns for damage reduction. If your OT is at full HP + has 1-2 cooldowns active, it shouldnt be a problem to survive the first 2 of the 3 hits. We found that block + dodge cooldowns/gear work really well as OT. Avoiding the Double Strike completly saves tons of mana.

We used 2 Holy Paladins + 1 Resto Shaman, stacking up for every Feud on our Tanks until the next massacre cast was finished. Try to heal both your Tank to Full HP shortly before Phase2 and have your Maintank stack all his Cooldowns. If youre able to bubble the Damage Debuff, now its the time. Soon as your Maintank dies (and he will die), your OT needs to stack his Cooldowns. Try to use Mirror Images, Evasion etc. as soon as your 2nd Tank dies.

[Kalinga]

seems it's only bugged for us then.

[Kalinga]

We had one Tank stack up the 4 Debuffs and an OT taunt off the double strike Debuff. DK Tank as Maintank works quite well, since he can heal himself up after every normal hit, leaving your healers without any problems.

Try to advice your healers to not overheal your MT - you dont really need more than 15k HP at any moment in the fight prior to 21%. You will have to keep your OT at 100% HP at all times though.

Try to heal up your OT ASAP after massacre. If Double Strike + Massacre is active, use cooldowns for damage reduction. If your OT is at full HP + has 1-2 cooldowns active, it shouldnt be a problem to survive the first 2 of the 3 hits. We found that block + dodge cooldowns/gear work really well as OT. Avoiding the Double Strike completly saves tons of mana.

We used 2 Holy Paladins + 1 Resto Shaman, stacking up for every Feud on our Tanks until the next massacre cast was finished. Try to heal both your Tank to Full HP shortly before Phase2 and have your Maintank stack all his Cooldowns. If youre able to bubble the Damage Debuff, now its the time. Soon as your Maintank dies (and he will die), your OT needs to stack his Cooldowns. Try to use Mirror Images, Evasion etc. as soon as your 2nd Tank dies.

We know the fight, it's just the somewhat buggy mechanic of his doublestrike that screwed us over last time and we lost alot of morale.

I would really like to hear from anyone about this issue (if it's still there) or maybe if someone has it in mind next time they go there and check it out. Thanks

[fr0d0b0ls0n]

Pets counts for Caustic Slime. Send all pets together with the players during feud.

We are having problems in 25 man, as we get 1 Feud every 2 massacre 99% of the time (first one after 1 minute, next one after 35 seconds) and our healers can't stand that much AOE healing. Almost all kills I saw had a Feud every 3 massacre... is totally random?

[gacktt]

Be sure everyones 525 first aid, they can channel a few seconds and restore 40-50k hp before the first slime wave connects. The stored double strike->massacre bug is annoying, but I don't think I've ever died to it, lolrng.

[Fetzie]

As the boss has such a massive pause between swings, and you are not able to realistically soak the hits, would it be better to go for a more avoidance heavy setup with avoidance trinkets etc?

[Riemu]

As the boss has such a massive pause between swings, and you are not able to realistically soak the hits, would it be better to go for a more avoidance heavy setup with avoidance trinkets etc?

We Maintank with a Deathknight, who is pretty much able to heal himself up until each hit till the next one lands - so he requires no heal at all (beacon + earthshield will do the trick).

Our OT for the Double Strike is a Prot Paladin with focus on 100+% Avoidance with Proccs/CDs etc. (Dodge+Parry+Block). He sits at around 85% Unbuffed. He pretty much blocks every Double Strike and avoids 1-2 out of the 3 hits (if its buggy and you get the queued melee hit aswell). Since you dont really need maximum HP in this fight and the critical damage can be avoided/mitigated, avoidance/block gear really is the way to go for this encounter.

@Kalinga: Yeah it seems to be bugged (or intended, dunno) atm, we get 3-hitted regularly after a Massacre but it hasn't really been a big deal for us so far. Just have a Block Tank OT for the Double Strike and use CDs/Trinkets etc. when the timing is right (Massacre and Chimaeron has an active Double Strike Buff). It shouldn't really happen more than 2-3 times / fight.

@All: As gacktt stated already, First Aid is a mandatory skill for raiding progression in Cataclysm. Chimaeron is a perfect example. Just have all your players use first aid on voice command after the Feuds - use Healing Cooldowns for the others where you cannot bandage.

@Feud Timers: The first 2 Feuds pretty much have the same timer - 2 massacres and the third one goes into Feud. After that, it seems to be speeding up the longer the fight goes (at least thats whats happening for us) - shifting from every 3rd massacre to every 2nd massacre.

@Tips: When you're going for the Achievement or you're having problems surviving phase2, using Health Trinkets (10k+ Health on Use) is a good solution. As a DK Tank, I can just Vampiric Blood (remember to change the glyph though!) after the first hit that takes me down to 1HP and use another HP Trinket the 2nd time it brings me down to 1 HP.

[Kanzer]

Hotfixed so he loses the doubel attack buff and resets his swing timer after a massacre.

As for the stacking phase the quicker the raid stacks and AoE heals go down the better. Useful abilities obviously would be tranquility, power word barrier, raid wall, hymn, etc. Its the only time lots of healing is critical so don't be shy to use those cooldowns for then.