For once, I’m at a loss here and I’m hoping to garner some insight or advice from the readers. My Guild had started to work on Gurtogg Bloodboil. We were working on Bloodboil for a few hours on Sunday. I used to think that Najentus was considered a heavy healing fight.
Boy was I wrong.
I won’t go too much into an explanation, but here’s the WoWWiki link for the strategy.
Loadout
- 4 Holy Paladins
- 2 Holy Priests
- 1 Discipline Priest
- 1 Resto Shaman
- 1 Resto Druid
Directions
Phase 1
3 Paladins on each tank. We use 3 to rotate aggro on the boss. I, the Holy Priest, heal the tank who is actively being attacked by the boss. The rest of the healers are assigned to the bloodboil groups healing (Resto Shaman, Priest, Paladin) or raid healing.
Phase 2
This is where things get dicey. The 3 Paladins that were on the tanks immediately jump the player with Fel Rage. I heal up the melee before switching to tanks and then raid healing. The Resto Druid covers the 3 tanks. 1 Paladin and 1 Resto Shaman are raid healing. The other Holy Priest and Discipline Priest are also on the player with Fel Rage.
If the player is a clothie, Pain Suppression gets applied.
Problems
A player with Fel Rage has the following effects:
- increases armour by 15,000
- increases health by 30,000
- increases healing done by 100%
- increases damage done by 300%
- increases size by 100%
The raid gains a buff called Insignificance where every spell they cast has no threat. One problem is that if a clothie gets hit with Fel Rage and Pain Suppression is applied, the player dies just as Fel Rage is about to wear off. Gurtogg gets progressively stronger during this phase. I can’t help but wonder if it would be a better idea to delay Pain Suppression for about 5 seconds before it becomes applied.
In our case, it’s not just the person with Fel Rage who is dying. Other members of the raid seem to be dying from a lack of heals or other miscellaneous reasons.
I can’t help but wonder if it would be better to stack all four of the Paladins on the Fel Rage’d player immediately along with the Discipline Priest and then have the Holy Priest switch to raid healing instead. This would essentially give us a picture of something like this:
- 4 Paladins and a Disc. Priest on Fel Rage
- 2 Holy Priests, a Resto Shaman, and a Resto Druid on the raid divided up accordingly
By switching the Holy Priest to the raid, this opens up a lot more options that the healer can use other then Flash of Light spamming.
Another problem that isn’t so urgent is our DPS output. Gurtogg has a 10 minute enrage encounter. I notice that when we hit the ~50% mark, the timer is around 4:45 or less. Granted we did lose 1 or 2 players at this point.
I seriously hope the Recount Death meter gets fixed as soon as possible. With that tool being down, we have no way of ascertaining the cause of death when players die. As a result, healer blame has increased in recent weeks and has gotten me irritated. Most of the time, it’s never justified. It tends to be the result of a fight mechanic that players seem to forget about (some raiders mysteriously forget that Najentus’ spines can be removed). Therefore, the "blame healers" catch all is used. I’m afraid that I might one day lash out if I see another "healers fault for wiping" comment in the raid.
We paid a visit to Mr Bloodboil last night for the first time. We had just killed Gorefiend (I think, the one who “finger of death”s) for the first time and figured we’d check him out to have an idea of the fight before we start working on him next week. We got him down to 3% on our third and last try. He’s dying next time, for sure.
We had 8 healers: 1 druid, 1 CoH priest, 1 23/28 priest, 2 shamans and 3 pallies.
Groups 3-4-5 were the bloodboil groups, with a couple people from 1 and 2 as backup in case someone from 3-4-5 died. You don’t want anyone to eat bloodboil twice in a row. So group 5 ate the first one, group 4 the second one and group 3 the third one.
We had 3 tanks.
Phase 1: The two shamans and regular priest were each assigned a specific tank to watch at all times. The pallies healed whichever tank was taking dmg. The druid raid healed and the CoH priest healed the bloodboil. Everyone stood together, aside from the appropriate bloodboil group who’d step over the line. Made CoH easy.
Phase 2: Raid spread out. Everyone healed the Fel Raged player. That’s the official version. In fact, I was still healing the bloodboil (I’m the CoH priest) and the people specifically assigned to a tank kept an eye out for their tank. But in general everyone was on that player.
It worked well. I had to use pots, trinkets, an innervate and a shadow priest but I was able to solo heal the blood boil.
Couple things/tips.
You have MORE then enough healing. For our first kill we had 7 healers (2 CoH Priests, 3 Holy Paladins, 1 Resto Shaman, 1 Resto Druid, me-Prot Paladin in healing gear).
Target Macro: As stated earlier use the target of target macro for all MT healers. In your situation the 4 Paladins should be using that macro when the Fel Rage is about to kick in. 4 Paladins all spamming their MAX RANK HEALS on one target should be plenty of healing. ALL OUT! No downranking, no flash heals, BALLS TO THE WALL healing!
**Also of note: P1 is not the DPS phase, it’s the keep your ass alive and get your groups in and out of the Bloodboil. Since P2 is Zero Threat DPS phase that’s when the majority of the DPS needs to be done. Hit em in P1 but don’t blow trinkets / heroism etc. That should be done in P2.
In P2 if you have raid healing ability you should be using it and not wasting heals on the Fel Raged person. Looking at your setup it’d be better to have the 2 Holy Priests+Resto Shaman do the majority of the raid healing and have the 4 Paladins+Druid heal the Fel Rage. You can help AoE heal, give PW:S, renews and a bit into the Fel Rage give Pain Suppression to the Fel Raged person if they’re a squishy Mage. Nearing the end of P2 people’s bloodboil should be healed up and everyone can focus on the BB Target.
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Now, I’m going to give you a little secret here.
/drumroll
Amplify Magic
Huh? Yep, you got it, Amp Magic. But, but, but….
No buts, Bloodboil is a Physical dot. So once the Bloodboils are ticking and P2 comes into play the AoE healing will be increased dramaticly.
That’s really it in a nutshell. MT stop attacking at 6 debuffs so the other tanks can rotate in and out. Keep the raid alive in BB P1, P2 GO CRAZY ASS HEALING! Trinkets, hero, CD’s everything.
Rinse, repeat.
We just Dropped Bloodboil on sunday. As a mage i am one of the most suceptable targets to the fel wipe.
For a mage you must have icearmor up and rock your pvp/stam gear and consumables i had over 12k buffed for this fight. Spec frost for ice barrier and cold snap so you can take/clear extra boil rotations if other people die.
A big help in this fight is everyone who can have over 200 resilience should, this will make you uncritable eliminating the 30k one shot chance.
Pray for rogues to get fel enrage too, evasion = ezmode.
Another healing tip we used is the [targettarget] macro you use for Solarion. This eliminates a second of targeting when he enrages. The other raiders should not need any heals at all for the rage except for maybe MT getting rage for the pick up when it ends. Everyone needs to be aware of their positioning. This fight sucks for healers and the other raiders need to do their part to make it easier no matter what. Blaming healers here is as dumb as blaming a solo DPS for not being able to kill him at 20%. Take personal accountability and be alert and you’ll get it.
Also try this if recount isnt working its a ncie tool as well:
http://wowwebstats.com/
I’m also the designated CoH priest on this fight. One of the more helpful things that we found was for my group to include a shadow priest and 3 other healers. My job is:
1. Heal my group of healers, so they don’t have to heal themselves. (I do this with a very, very heavy rotation of Prayer of Healing. Rotate in Inner Focus as much as possible to make this happen, and chug pots. Sometimes, I also have a Mana Tide in there. the T6 2-piece set bonus is nice, too, if you have it.)We are one of the groups taking bloodboil.
2. Assist the Resto-druid with her bloodboil group via CoH.
3. Assist the Resto-shammy with his bloodboil group via CoH.
4. Toss a renew on anyone who seems to be taking more damage than they “should”
5. Shield, PoM, Vial of the sunwell on the Felrage target initially so the other healers can charge up their big heals. (The BEST thing that can happen is for the Fel rage to be in my group already, because then the Prayer of Healing I’m casting will hit them, too, and THEN i can do my emergency heal measures)
6. Once the other healers have taken over Fel Rage, I keep the tanks topped of with a mix of G.heals, Renews, and CoH.
Matt, Since I’m a CoH priest, and we don’t have a disc priest, I’m not sure how to answer your question about pain suppression. However, given that you will be learning RoS after BB is dead, I HIGHLY, STRENUOUSLY suggest that you guys recruit or respec a CoH priest – with excellent mana-management skills. (Spamming CoH without the proper gear, spec, and restraint will make you go oom, and therefore useless.)
I’m nervous that this will sound conceited, but offer it as a benchmark: On a typical bloodboil fight, with 8 or 9 healers, I do about 15-20% of the total healing. On RoS, I do about 25% of the total healing. I have heard similar healing distributions from other CoH-priest friends.
There is very little time that I’m NOT casting, and my time in the FSR for this fight is something like 85-90%. Supporting that amount of mana consumption became easier after 2.4, but even in 2.3 it was done with a liberal mix of super mana (and the occasional rejuv.) pots, Inner focus all the time, every time, and trinkets. Mana batteries are nice, if you can get them, but not required.
Hope that helps…
–Wynthea, Them, Nazjatar US.
Wynthea: Absolutely. I’m the CoH healer on this one. We also had a full discipline priest. The last holy priest was an Imp. DS hybrid healer.
And don’t sound conceited. There’s some things that are need to know regardless of how you sound. Don’t worry about that. Benchmarks are benchmarks.
Thanks for the input everyone. Our problem at this point is just finding the right balance in healing assignments.
@gb
Bloodboil does not crit at all during fel rage, he crushes.
@matticus
http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t12920-gurtogg_bloodboil_-_luck_strategy/
Get your lazy ass up and read!
“Phase 2 is ALL about keeping the Fel Rage tank up, no matter the costs.” – apathy
wrong, most important is keeping the tanks topped off even in phase 2 since they take damage from the DoT/debuff through this phase. if the fel rage target dies a tank can survive the rest of phase 2 if they pop trinkets or other “oh shit” abilities. but if a tank dies while you’re keeping the fel rage person up…better start running for the door.
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tell your druids to innervate after the first fel rage is over so they can do it again towards the end of the fight when everyone is OOM.
I have no experience on this fight whatsoever, so take this with a grain of salt. I’m drawing this knowledge from what I’ve read and heard.
Regardless of what your healing setup, you will need at least 6 healers to keep the Fel Rage tank up, and it’s best to have something besides reactive Paladin healing on him. A Druid will help tremendously in easing the incoming damage.
Sort of a stupid check, but make sure none of your Paladins are trying to spam Flash of Light on the Fel Rage Tank, or any of your healers are trying to downrank and save mana. Whoever is on the Fel Rage Tank MUST spam their greatest heal constantly. All worries about Mana conservation must be tossed to the winds. Your healers will need to learn this lesson VERY well for upcoming fights. This is not High King anymore.
I agree with what Andover said: do not waste raid healing abilities on the Fel Raged Person. Circle of Healing proves its worth once and for all in this fight, and Chain Heal is always ridiculous.
Id est, put the 4 Paladin healers, the Druid, and the Discipline Priest on the Fel Rage Tank from the start. Have the other three healers deal with the raid. However, make sure those raid healers don’t just stand there when their job is done. Once they’re confident the raid has been healed up enough they need to help out with the Fel Rage Tank as well.
Phase 2 is ALL about keeping the Fel Rage tank up, no matter the costs.
If the Fel Rage tank is a mage…you pretty much just have to close your eyes and pray.
Apathy: “They said CoH sucked. They… were wrong.”
That coming out in theatres this summer?
Leave no stone unturned. Even the best of us can forget the basics.
“Phase 2 is ALL about keeping the Fel Rage tank up, no matter the costs.†– apathy
@Vandito – Actually, Apathy is correct here. You lose the Fel Raged person chances are there’s going to be either dead rogue, DPS warrior, mage, warlock, shadow priests…basicly there’s going to be at least 2 people killed if a Fel Rage tank goes down by the time your MT/OT’s hit their taunt button. The absolute only chance you have is if he goes after someone at range and a MT/OT gets a tuant off and somehow survives the DMG that put forth on them for the rest of P2.
Plain and simple fact is don’t let the Fel Rage tank die and it’s easy epics. As a Paladin this fight is where we shine. No other class can blast as much pure healing on a single target. Druids are very close on this since rarely do you keep your Fel Raged target at 100% the whole time thus all their HoT’s are extremely effective between all the Paladins casting Holy Light.
@Matt: You guys have the healers for this, just tweak your assignements and watch how easy it becomes. Seriosuly you’ll get him that night if you focus your AoE healing capable people of doing just that and telling your Paladins/Druid this is their fight to shine on. P2 is where it’s at. At most you should only ever see 4-5 Fel Rages. Keep your fingers crossed for no priests or mages. Locks/Paladins/Hunters/Rogues yea for Fel Rage! Mages and Priests start praying.
Good luck, I actually like this fight!
Ando
It kind’ve goes without saying that you need to keep the tanks healed up. I thought that was something of a given in raiding. 😛
The problem in this situation isn’t necessarily that the normal tanks aren’t living, but the Fel Raged tank keeps dying, which is, needless to say, bad. Having the Fel Rage tank die even a few seconds before the Phase ends usually winds up with a normal tank dead. Or a spent Shield Wall cooldown, which won’t be up the next time. Either way, it’s a highly undesirable scenario.
Secondly, having a Paladin do raid healing on a fight like Bloodboil is just…inefficient. It can and does work on a lot of other fights, but that focus and mana efficiency would be better spent on the Fel Raged Tank. They said CoH sucked. They…were wrong.
Definitely use pain suppression later in phase 2
UNLESS the target is immediately afflicted by
the MS debuff (in which case use PS to counter the 50% healing decrease).
If all goes perfect a PS damage decrease in the 15-23 sec period in P2 will help your healers
get the Fel Raged target back to full health so
they can easily live thru the last 6-7 seconds…
Getting Matt to be able to trust other healers to do their jobs is a Problem and maybe the biggest Problem in that fight
About DPS – I know I, at least, was just afkautoshotting due to both how some agro had been pulled earlier on (presumably in part due to all 3 tanks needing to be close) and because without everyone staying alive the DPS doesn’t matter (and because I was calling groups). It didn’t seem to me that anyone was really going allout, though, but if we get close I’m fairly sure that we can pick it up in the non-insignificance phase.
Matt,
Upon re-reading your post, you said DPS seems to also be an issue… and taking 9 healers to this fight DOES gimp your dps. I realize it seems counter-intuitive to drop a healer when people are dying, but sometimes the knowledge that everyone needs to work really hard forces them to out-perform, even when understaffed. It could be a thought.
Otherwise, one thing to check on the Paladins that are healing your Fel-Rage: Check recount. Are all of them FoL spamming? If they are, an average heal of 1.5k or so, even from 4 sources, just isn’t enough to keep up with the damage. The paladins in our guild have found success with a 2 HL/1 FoL rotation, supported by druid hots, renews, and/or PW:Shield.
Since you have the luxury of two holy priests, splitting them into different groups (if you only have one s-priest, give the non-coh priest your resto shammy), make them responsible for PoH-ing the blood boil, and keep your shammy on BB heals as well. This will free up your spare healer (the druid!) to hot anyone and everyone. The tanks, especially, benefit from full-on hots to hold them over when the healing-focus is on the fel rage. If one of the priests tends to have issues with the PoH spamming, the druid can burn Tranq to help them out in the clutch.
I find it interesting that Andover has found this to be the Paladin’s time to shine… my experience has been directly the opposite – our paladins play whack-a-mole and attempt to keep their targets from dying until an AoE healer and hots can catch them up and top them off. With so much massive raid damage, single-target healing is necessary, but not glamorous.
Really, your true enemy on this (assuming you already manage your mana consumption) is casting time. How do you heal that many people fast enough? As a troll, I get to cheat, but you may find bloodlusting healers, stacking a spell haste set alongside heavy +healing buffs, and trinkets like the Bangle of Endless Blessings or Vial of the Sunwell helpful.
Saving Nature’s Swiftness or Swiftmends for Fel ragers as much as possible is a good habit, too.
Imo, Bloodboil is Illidan 101. Healing the two fights is very similar. Multiple tanks, Lots of party-specific raid damage, and clothies getting insta-gibbed.
Oh, um…
Bloodlust = Heroism. (I forget I’m talking to the Pretty People!)
/embarassed
When my guild did this fight, they only brought 1 mage in for amp magic. One of the most important things is whoever gets the Fel Rage does whatever they are supposed to do to stay alive.
Resto Druid – barkskin and heal yourself like a madman
Feral Druid – Tank him (demo roar, and if you have dodge trinkets pop them over the 30s).
Boomkin – if your healers can handle it, barkskin, boomkin form, and then dps him.
Hunter – Aspect of the monkey, and if surv get deterence and pop it when your enraged.
Mage – Ice armor and Ice barrier if you have it, pop Mana Shield if you get really low. PRAY.
Holy Paladin – Heal yourself
Prot Palain – tank him
Priest – Heal yourself
Rogues – hold out for a few seconds then pop evasion and rock him
resto Shaman – put on a shield and heal yourself (keep earth shield up to avoid interruption).
other shamans – put on sheild and heal yourself
Warlock – drain life/syphon life
warrior – shield and defensive stance.
Make sure everyone does other things that reduce his dps, hunters scorpid sting, a druid should insect swarm/hurriance him. Make sure to keep the basic AP reducing things up as well, Demo roar/shout, have a hunter bring in a bird for screech even.
This fight is all about raid group cohesion. Knowing and trusting that everyone will be able to handle their assignments, take their Bloodboils, spread out, not pull aggro, and not get anyone else killed.
I have both DPSed and healed this fight as a priest, and never seen a situation that pain suppression would have altered the outcome, a disc priest is essentially unable to pull their weight due to their reduced healing output. As stated above, tweaking the healing assignments (and/or bloodboil rotation) to better suit your raid will help a ton. If you feel the need, have a Spriest toss a PW:S on the Fel Raged person, not a Hpriest because again as stated above, your cast bar (or the GCD) is your enemy. As a healer, HPS is everything in this fight.
How you set Bloodboil rotations, and how you have people spread out can make a huge difference in assignments as well. CoH priests need to be assigned heal to a goup that takes the same bloodboil to maximize the efficiency of AoE heals. Druids and Shaman should be assigned to heal groups that have 2-3 people with bloodboils up so that they dont get overwhelmed with trying to keep 5 people up at the same time, then not know what to do when it falls off. Paladins and non CoH priests should be on assist macro duty (/tar Gurtogg /assist /cast [insert your biggest heal here, to hell mana efficiency and overheal]) this macro will be SPAMMED! At least one person needs to be on the tanks at all times because of the debuff/DoT. In phase 2, when noone is taking damage from bloodboil, raid healers should top off the tanks/Fel Raged person as needed.
CoH Priests should be able to solo-heal a group. Warning: make sure to understand postioning when you spread out, and know which person to target with CoH so that the whole group gets it).
As a last resort, if you’re a Priest with a SS (and not required for wipe recovery, heal to OOM, eat 2-3 Bloodboils (to reduce raid healing needed), die, Spirit of Redemption+heal ass off, SS, Pot (timer should be up), and keep right on going.
So the healing makeup with this strategy would be:
3 raid healers (CoH priests preferred, but altering bloodboil rotations can help with non CoH healers, then move to tanks/Fel Raged as able, can be dropped to 2 CoH priests if available, as you get more experience with the fight)
3-4 Macro spammers (LARGE direct heals, (at least 1600 raw HPS (recommend 1800-2000) per person, and stagger when heals land to minimize 5% to full situations if possible) to heal the tank with aggro and the Fel Raged person)
1-2 full time tank healers (make sure the tanks without aggro are topped off (may take a considerable amount of healing, I have seen 25 stacks on a tank that couldnt drop aggro, again LARGE HEALS may be required)