War-Crafting

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Troubleshooting Gurtogg Bloodboil: A Healer’s Perspective

by

breaking

syderatagimageIn my mind, Gurtogg Bloodboil is the toughest boss to heal in Black Temple. Many guilds stagnate at 4/9 in BT, and others continue to have difficulties with Bloodboil long after their first kill. From my own personal experience, nothing turns a happy tree into a miserable pile of mulch faster than an untimely Fel Rage! This boss is never truly on farm status: every time you bring a new healer or try a new group composition, you might spend hours relearning the fight. The lessons of Mr. Bloodboil are important ones for any healer to learn–they reveal how Blizzard conceptualizes endgame healing and healers’ roles in a raid. The skills you must master in order to take this boss down consistently are the same ones that will allow you to succeed in any of the demanding fights at the finale of the Burning Crusade.

This article will help your raid win at the Bloodboil encounter even if you do not have the ideal group makeup. In a perfect world, a guild would always have ten healers and two shadow priests just itching for a chance at this encounter, but in practice, we all have to learn to work with the tools we have available.

gurtoggbreakfast

The Boiling Basics

This encounter alternates between two phases, both of which are fairly hectic.

Phase 1

Tanks: The fight requires three main tanks, all of whom will trade Gurtogg’s aggro around like a hot potato. They will suffer a stacking debuff called Acidic Wound, and all three will need consistent healing even when they are not the boss’s active target.

Healers: Split them between the main tanks and the bloodboil groups. Melee needs some, but not much, attention. Heals over time are extremely useful for the two tanks who are not Gurtogg’s current target.

DPS: Your mages, warlocks, and other aggro monkeys can pew-pew as usual, with the caveat that they must stay below all three tanks on threat.

Bloodboil: Gurtogg applies the “Bloodboil” debuff to the five players furthest from him every three seconds. This damage over time spell is En-Ay-As-Tee-Why. To survive the dreaded boils, a raid must rotate the players who soak them–the ability stacks, and if a person gets “double-boiled,” well, she’s a goner. Typically ranged dps and healers make up the bloodboil sponges. We designate groups 3-5 as bloodboil groups, and we have a caller whose main job in the fight is to indicate when groups should move into the waterfall area furthest from the boss to take the DoT.

Phase 2

Fel Rage: Gurtogg afflicts one lucky player with Fel Rage. If this is you, congratulations! On the plus side, you become a giant version of yourself and gain 30,000 health and 15,000 armor (sweet!). Moreover, your healing done increases by 100%, and your damage output increases by 300%. Sounds great, right? However, on the minus side, Gurtogg has been buffed too, and now he’s targeting YOU. If you are the victim, you must do everything you can to heal yourself or mitigate the damage.

Bloodboil: You guessed it! Still ticking.

Geyser: Gurtogg casts this AoE damage spell on the Fel Rage target at the beginning of the phase. Spread out to avoid too much splash damage.

Tanks: Acidic wound continues to tick, so they need maintenance healing. Heals over time are ideal.

Healers: Healers must pick up the Fel Rage target immediately and spam that player with with their largest heals, always of maximum rank. If the Fel Rage target dies, Gurtogg will revert back to the tank with the highest threat, and in his strengthened form, he will make mincemeat of him. Meanwhile, raid and tank healing must continue.

DPS: Every player except the Fel Rage victim receives the (resistable) debuff “Insignificance.” The insignificant ones can unleash all the pain they desire on the boss without fear of pulling aggro.

In order to take this boss down, your raid has to survive the horrors of Phase 1 and Phase 2 multiple times. How is this possible? It isn’t easy, but the tips below will certainly help. These tips will carry over into the rest of your Burning Crusade healing–master them, and you will be ready for Illybeans, Archimundo, and the whole Sunwell gang, who deal out the splash damage like candy on Halloween.

gurtogg defeated

Four Key Tips
Tip #1: Make detailed assignments

For this boss, healing assignments must be exact and phase-specific, and they must suit the individual healers’ abilities. See the table below for sample healing assignments by phase and class. Many groups, including my own guild, find that this fight is easiest with ten healers, but an experienced raid can use eight. If your raid is learning this fight, asking a priest to re-spec for Pain Suppression can be very helpful.

Healer

Ideal Class

Other Options

Phase 1

Phase 2

1

 Paladin Priest Gurtogg’s Current Target Fel Raged Player

2

Paladin   Gurtogg’s Current Target Fel Raged Player

3

IDS priest (extra credit for Pain Suppression

 Paladin Gurtogg’s Current Target Fel Raged Player

4

 Druid Shaman

HoT all tanks

HoT all tanks

5

 Shaman Priest Melee

Fel Raged Player

6

CoH Priest

 Shaman

Bloodboil Group #1

 Bloodboil Group #1

7

CoH Priest

  

Bloodboil Group #2

Bloodboil Group #2

8

CoH Priest

  

Bloodboil Group #3

Bloodboil Group #3 (until the debuff clears, then Fel Raged Player)

9 (optional)

 Druid Any

HoT all tanks / Swing Healer

 Fel Raged Player, subs for any other healer who is Fel Raged
10 (optional) Any Any

Gurtogg’s Current Target

 Fel Raged Player
Tip #2: Change targets efficiently (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Macros)

Make sure you have macros that let you switch targets in a timely manner. To pick up Gurtogg’s target, my guild’s healers use the following macro:

/target gurtogg bloodboil

/cast [target=targettarget,help] [] Holy Light

For “Holy Light,” sub in your largest heal. You will need it for the Fel Rage victim!

Even as a resto druid, I find this macro very useful, as it helps me identify either the tank of the moment or the unlucky soul with Fel Rage. I use it with Regrowth, but if I am healing the Fel Rage target, I will switch to Healing Touch spam after some initial HoTs. I also use a separate macro to help me pick up each of the three tanks. In this fight, there is no time to waste on targeting! If you hesitate, someone will die. I find some version of this basic macro useful in many different fights.

Tip #3: Don’t be a hero

In earlier content, a healer might get away with covering someone else’s assignment. In this particular encounter, it will always look like there isn’t enough healing on group 3, or the tanks, or the Fel Rage target. Healing is a scarce resource in this fight, and the whole darn thing is an emergency situation. You must stick to your assigned target, no matter what. Several weeks after we first killed Gurtogg, my guild spent an entire evening wiping to him. When we looked at wws, we found that healers were not adhering to their assigned targets–when you try to “save” people in this fight, you let your whole raid down.

Tip #4: Do a post-mortem analysis

It’s entirely possible that your healing team is already following tips 1-3. Yet, Gurtogg is still laughing in your faces as he slaughters the Fel Rage target every single time. In order to identify problems and difficulties, use both your own powers of observation and diagnostic tools like Recount and wws. When my guild has had trouble with Gurtogg, it has always been due to one of the following five classic blunders. Take this boss as a primer in troubleshooting: if you can diagnose the problem with Bloodboil, you can do so again when you face the end bosses of T6. For each boss you encounter, keep notes on the usual causes of failure–never let your research go to waste.

Potential Problem Areas
Problem #1: Your bloodboil rotation is off

This is the primary thing that has killed Collateral Damage while we were supposed to be “farming” Bloodboil. Check and make sure that people are moving in and out of the waterfall area with perfect coordination. The bloodboil groups are performing a lovely little dance–make sure everyone else isn’t spoiling the ballet by being too far off to the sides. You must also have designated bloodboil substitutes in case one of your original soakers dies.

Problem #2: The healing assignments don’t suit your group

Healers should confer with each other after unsuccessful attempts. If someone was unable to do his job properly, find out why! It may not be his fault. Many times, the arrangement that worked for a previous group has to be adjusted when new players enter the field. You can still win if your healing roster isn’t ideal–try scrambling around the assignments after each attempt until you find what works.

Problem #3: The Fel Rage targets are caught by surprise

Everyone who gets Fel Rage must do everything possible to lessen the burden on the healers. Panic is deadly–every player should have a Fel Rage plan before the boss is pulled and stick to it when the time comes.

Problem #4: Fel Rage healers are over-confident

Some Fel Rage healers forget that healing needs increase throughout Phase 2. You have to keep spamming those heals, even if your target looks stable. In a moment or two, they won’t be.

Problem #5: Your raid’s dps is low

Sometimes it’s just not a healer’s fault. Even if the team is doing everything right, Gurtogg will eventually overwhelm the raid if you go through too many Fel Rage cycles. I’ve seen us lose people to Fel Rage and still win, but only if the dps is good. The bad news is that the wipes will always look like the healers’ fault. You will need to check wws to see if your dps was on track for the attempts in question.

In summation, Gurtogg Bloodboil is a complex fight, and a win or loss depends on many factors. Keep these tips in mind, and you’ll be well on your way to that perfect one-shot.

SYTYCB: The Humble Checklist

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veleda-post

This is Veleda’s SYTYCB week 2 entry.

This post is about lists. Yes, don’t worry, Matt, there’ll be an actual list in here, too. But first, I want to sell you on the virtues of a particular type of list — the checklist.

You’ve got a flying mount, right?

In flight training, pilots have the use of checklists drilled into us from the beginning. It doesn’t matter if you’re a student pilot who has yet to solo, or an airline pilot with thousands of hours logged. Almost any repetitive series of tasks is done with a checklist. You might think that after doing the same sequence every time we fly, we’d be familiar enough with the routine that we wouldn’t need the list to remind us. But it’s that very familiarity that is in some ways the problem!

Huh? What? Where was I?

Flying, like WoW, can have many things interrupting you as you try to do something. Sometimes, you just need to talk to someone else, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s Air Traffic Control on the radio, or the whisper you just got from a friend in game that you need to respond to. You’ve paused your tasks, and when you pick them back up, where were you? You have many memories of doing these tasks previously. But did you just do it?! Have you marked it as complete on the checklist? If so, you’ve done it, and if not, you haven’t.

But… But…

Okay, you say, but WoW is just a game. Why would we need checklists there? Because there are many times we, too, have to go through a number of repetitive tasks, and we sometimes do them when we’re bored or tired or dealing with several other things at the same time. The most useful place in WoW that I’ve found checklists is in post raid restocking.

Are you the weakest link?

I suspect most people have been in a raid when someone has indicated they’re out of some consumable they need to continue to contribute effectively to the raid. Perhaps they want to borrow mana potions from others in the raid. Or, they might need a portal to a city and a summons back, so they can buy some reagents, or ammunition. This interrupts the raid and makes everyone else wait for the person that isn’t prepared, at best. At worst, they might not have noticed the lack until the pull, and have just wiped the raid because they didn’t have something that they needed.

I sleep now?

If, however, you have a checklist of everything you consume during a raid, you can use that to restock right after a raid, so that you’re always ready to go. You might be tempted to wait until just before you’re next scheduled to raid to take care of this, but I’d caution against that. Some consumables might not be available at all times, so it’s better watch for them early. And there are the opportunities that arise unexpectedly. Do your restocking right after a raid, and your character is ready for anything the next time you log in.

Making the list

So, here’s a generic restocking checklist, that you can use to build a list customized to each of your characters.

  • Repair your gear

    It’d be awkward to charge into battle in the future only to have your armour fail you because a strap that was on it’s last legs broke.

  • Replace ammo

    Particularly for hunters, who should always completely refill the largest quiver or ammo pouch they can carry. Other classes that use a ranged weapon to pull, check your ammo level to make sure that will still be useful.

  • Replace reagents

    Many classes need reagents for the abilities they bring to a raid. My shaman only has to deal with Ankhs, but other classes will want various other things for the abilities they’re counted on for while raiding. Figure out how many you might need on a bad night, and set that as the minimum.

  • Buff food

    No matter what you do, there’s probably a food that gives you a buff that helps you do it better. For my hunter, that’s warpburgers or grilled mudfish. For my shaman, it’s golden fishsticks. If you’re a hunter, don’t forget to add Kibler’s Bits, either, to buff your pet.

  • Replenishment food and drink

    Food for health, and drinks for mana, between fights. Many raids will have a mage make a table that provides conjured mana biscuits, but you shouldn’t depend on those. If you find yourself in a raid without mages, have enough to keep you going. Naruu rations are the best way to go, once you have SSO rep for them. Again, hunters also need pet food, to keep their pet happy through the raid.

  • Healing potions

    Sometimes, the healers are busy working on others. If you can use a potion to stave off death until the healers get around to you, that’ll keep you in the fight longer.

  • Bandages

    The biggest bandages you can use, which should be the biggest ones in the game. Same rationale as healing potions, but with a different cooldown timer, so they can be used if you recently used a potion.

  • Mana potions

    If doing your job requires that you have mana, you probably are going to be carrying some of these to help you out when your mana gets low before the end of the fight is in sight.

  • Elixirs and/or Flasks

    Which of these you prefer will depend on your specific needs. Sometimes, it makes sense to use one or two elixirs, and other times, the right flask. Elixirs are generally much cheaper, but they don’t persist through party wipes, so if you’re working new content, they might end up being more expensive than flasks. Make sure you have enough to get through a raid.

  • Weapon buffs

    This can be something that buffs the weapon, such as sharpening stones or poisons, or it can be another way to give you an unrelated buff, such as with superior mana oil.

  • Scrolls

    These can be pricey, but unlike an elixir, you can use a scroll to boost a stat while using a flask. Figure out if any scrolls are worthwhile to you, and make sure you have them stocked.

Checking it twice

vrc

Once you’ve got the list made, find a handy way to go through it after each raid. Ideally, you should have a way of keeping track of where you are on the list. You can print it out, and either check or cross off completed items, or follow while sliding a ruler down the list. You can use a to-do program on your computer to build and check off the lists as you go. I’ve recently taken to using one of the free to-do programs available for the iPhone to go through my restocking lists.

Are we there, yet?

Well, now that you’ve got raid restocking checklists for your characters, you can checklist other things. You might have a ready checklist for any given raid. It’s embarrassing to be on Nightbane’s terrace only to realize that you all left your summoning urns in the bank. Once you’ve harnessed the power of the humble checklist, such moments can be a thing of the past.

Assigning Healing Strategy – Part 4: Addons to Make Raid Life Easy

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heal-assign

Welcome to the fourth in a 5 part series here on World of Matticus. For the next several weeks, I?ll be covering the rare topic of assigning raid heals. No one really wants to do it but it?s the most important job in the raid and I?ll provide a basic overview of the process and some advanced tips!

In case you missed it:

  1. Week 1: Recognizing Class Strengths
  2. Week 2: Double Shifting Your Healers
  3. Week 3: The Pivot Healer

Yeah I slacked off for two weeks. Bad thing to do when writing a series. But I have an excuse! We’ve called our raids until the start of the school year and I couldn’t very well post healing assignment stuff without actual screenies now could I?

When it comes to raiding addons, players will typically use one or the other. Most players would never dream of mixing and matching addons because it feels redundant, it’s a waste of system resources, and it would add to the overall general clutter of the screen.

For assigning healing, we are blessed with a wide variety of addons to make our life easier than healing a full T6 Prot Warrior with the Bulwark of Azzinoth carrying the flag in Warsong Gulch.

Anyway, there’s a multitude of healing assignment addons that we can use to help quarterback and direct our healers in raids.

But who says we’re restricted to only using 1?

Why not use more than 1 for different parts of the raid?

Before the days of addons and mods and all these funky gadgets that make our life easier, healing QBs used to rely on the tried and true method of pen and paper in order to organized their thoughts. After they’d come to a satisfactory list of who-heals-who, it would then be painstakingly macro’d and transmitted in game in WoW.

Thankfully, we don’t have to do that anymore. And now, onto the choices!

Heal Assign

Source: Curse

Pros
  • Lets healers assign themselves
  • Also allows raid leaders and assistants to assign healers accordingly
Cons
  • Requires everyone to download the addon
  • Command line interface, no GUI

Healing Assigner

Source: Curse

Pros
  • Really easy point and click interface
  • Assignments are saved in case of disconnect
  • Exports to Raid, Guild, Party, and custom channels
  • Can assign the same healers to multiple targets
Cons
  • Can be a bit tedious due to constant switching between bosses
  • Only 10 assignments can be dealt

Heal Organizer

Source: Curse

Pros
  • Drag and drop interface is a nice touch
  • Syncs with MT targets
  • Can assign Dispels if needed
  • Can save healing instructions for later recall
  • Allows people to whisper the heal QB if they forget their assignments (for shame)
Cons
  • Doesn’t seem to be able to handle multiple assignments for 1 healer
  • Requires MT targets
  • Up to 8 targets
  • Maximum of 4 healers per tank

Putting it to use

ho-1I did try using Heal Assign for a while but I quickly shelved it in favor of using Healing Assigner and Heal Organizer.

The two-addon method is especially effective in multi-stage encounters like Illidan and Leo. There are times when you have to change up the tanks or the tanks healers to adapt to the different parts of the fight.

If the bosses have been on farm for a while, then I’ll set up Heal Organizer for trash healing orders really quick. Note how Heal Organizer automatically pulls the list of tanks from the MT list. It saves you the effort of having to pick out specific targets. Each tank is limited to 4 healers. It doesn’t appear to be possible to assign crosshealers . For example, I am not able to assign myself (Mallet) onto Kimbo, Inscrutiable and Artillery.

The raid that this shot was taken in was a Gruul’s Lair pug. The total amount of possible healers we have 13. This is incorrect as we were packing 6 (or it might have been 7). The addon does not  differentiate between specs. In other words, you might end up having Ret or Prot Paladins as well as Feral Druids and Enhancement Shamans clogging up the list. You need to be aware of the individual specs that these players are in order to be effective otherwise your raid will be in a world of hurt (and surprise) when that Feral Druid is assigned to healing.

ha-1

The Gruul’s Lair example

Now that we get to the actual boss, things become a little more complexicated. I have to make sure there’s enough heals to go around. I need to make sure that the right tanks get the heals that are proportional to the amount of damage they take. I’ll end up stacking 2 – 3 healers on the MT (2 direct healers, and a HoT class). In this case, I picked a Priest and a Paladin to take care of our main tank (Kimbo).

The Shaman was going to be kited by 2 Hunters. Remember the Shaman boss only focuses on one target before he Polys the guy and peels off to another one. I assigned one Paladin to heal both Hunters (Khalis).

Our Mage tank, Sheeptoucher, would be healed by Stupyd, one of our other stronger healers. The rest were filled out accordingly.

The thing about using this mod is that you have to physically click and target members within the raid. Pick the healer first then press Set. Pick their assignment, then click assign. If no one is selected, it will default to either ‘Unassigned’ or ‘raid’. Between this and Heal Organizer, I use this mod more frequently as I’m given much more flexibility and control in what I need to do.

The inability for it to save certain profiles means I have to reconstruct from memory who I assigned to whom last week. That’s the one main criticism I have. It’ll end up taking me 3 – 5 minutes at a time per boss fight.

Tip: Start setting up your healers on the boss about 2-3 trash pulls before you get to the boss.

Raid chat

Here’s what the 2 mods look like when echoed in raid chat.

ho-2 ha-2
Heal Organizer

Includes a built in responder. When someone whispers you ‘heal’, it’ll automatically respond back with who they are supposed to heal. Warning: Feature may be subject to abuse by Huntards.

Healing Assigner

A lot more straight forward, Healing Assigner will simply spit whatever you throw in there out into raid. If someone forgets, you’ll have to hit the “Report” button to repeat their job again.

Wrath Content Patch Spells Doom for Raiding

by

armageddon

This is a guest post by fellow guild and Enhancement Shaman all star Aylii who has become worried by the recent announcement of the pre-Wrath content patch and what it could mean to current end game raiding.

A few hours ago, Eyonix posted that the pre-Wrath content patch will be released in the coming weeks, which means that Wrath is just around the corner.

Like in the pre-Burning Crusade content patch, we will get to experience many of the new changes that will be coming to wrath a bit early, without needing the new expansion (Inscription to 375 anyone?). However, there is one flaw in the release that has me worried, and that is the new class spells and talents.

So far in Wrath, we as bloggers have read and kept track of the many changes to our respecting classes in the coming days. From the addition of many AOE healing spells, the change in mana regeneration and it’s respective talents, the warrior dreaming of duel wielding his two-handers, we have watched it all. There is one darkness that looms over all of these changes, and it mostly revolves around something many of us do casually or hardcore:

We love to raid.

Many class mechanics in Wrath were drastically changed to handle the encounters for the future. Crushing blows were removed. Intense need for mana regeneration destroyed. Changes in how we attack and defend. All of this tuned for Malygos and Arthas.

Yet it is released now, when we are still killing bosses who will preform crushing blows, still begging for blessing of salvation because we know we will pull, still chugging our mana potions. The sad thing is, there is most likely nothing we will do to stop it. For, after all, the pre-BC bosses were never changed, so why should the post-BC bosses be changed for wrath?

Crushing Blows

When I read about these changes, the first thing that popped into my mind was, “Gridlock is never going to get his Warglaive now.” The reasoning, Illidan will become undoable with the changes to talents. In the new content patch, Shield Block will be changed to a 40 second cooldown with Improved Shieldblock. Your Warrior will be crushed if he saves his shield blocks for shear. Sure, you can use a paladin to tank Illidan, but then the flame tanks will be crushed. I’d hate to imagine Sunwell guilds trying Brutallus now.

Threat

Every boss in BC is tuned to have threat control. In the content patch, we will be losing the main ways we reduce threat, Salvation and Tranquil Air. The talents will be still there, but until tanks (mostly warriors and druids) get some new gear from Northrend, they will not be able to keep up threat, unless they tank in Arena Gear. Goodbye Reliquary of Souls.

Itemization

So far I know of three classes (specs) who are getting major itemization changes: shaman, druid, and warrior. The smart enhancement shaman currently wears leather gear, which will leave them weaker after the patch due to the new stat bonuses they get (1 ap per str, agi, int). Similarly, protection warriors, who focus on block value and stamina, will be unable to keep threat because none of their gear has strength. Blizzard has stated that they will make the transistion easier for classes such as these, but gear only accounts for one of the problems.

These are the highlights of Eyonix’s post, but it is just that, highlights. There are other things in the content patch that we might see that can kill raiding, such as:

Potions

Potions. Potions. Potions.

We love them, we need them, we crave them. Soon we will be without them. Currently, in Wrath, if you drink a potion, you get potion sickness, which makes you unable to take another potion. Current bosses are tuned to make us chug mana pots, and even with three classes now supplying mana, I fear the changes will not be enough until we hit Wrath itemized gear.

Downranking

If the downranking nerf makes it into the content patch, kiss your healers goodbye. As I write this now, there is currently no alternative to healing people up besides using the max rank heal, which means more mana, which means out of mana healers who have to sit on their butts and watch their aggro loving dps and tanks die. I sincerely hope that Blizzard does not include this in the content patch, ot better yet, unnerf the nerf!
Whatever Blizzard does, I hope they do something about this. Myself, and many other raiders, still wish to raid before Wrath.

Source: Eyonix Post

Now it’s your turn. Do you think raiding will become even more difficult? Would this alarming change add even more pressure to your Guild to start knocking out bosses and seeing more of end game?