[25] Gunship Battle

[Wrathy]

After last night, I am convinced that the encounters are quite easy to roll over with a coordinated group, however I did run into some issues with tanking Bronzebeard (Saurfang for Alliance), and I wanted to open a Discussion on tactics and strategy with respect to this encounter.

It seems to me that the most difficult part of this encounter is how you tank the enemy ship's captain. The stacks of battle fury grow quite quick with the incorporation of Chill of the Throne, and logically it seems as though stacking some sort of avoidance will help us in understanding how to tank this come Hard Mode. However, I wanted to see what other people thought when it came to this. So the question is are people stacking effective health to take the stacks, avoidance to prevent the rapid accumulation of stacks, or am I missing some thing with the encounter?

From what I can see, the easiest way to complete this is to bounce back and forth from the enemy ship to your own, while you let the charges of Battle Fury wear off. I was getting to about 20 stacks before I would retreat, but Meloree was saying that he could handle quite a few more. Here are my thoughts on positioning and use of the jetpack:

The most helpful thing I found was to tank the boss closer to the side of the ship where you can rocket back. Also, tank him with your back to your ship, so that you do not have to turn around and run to rocket back. Once you have mastered this, you can take a few more stacks before you have to retreat. Also, it is important to remember that each time you retreat, the enemy captain resets aggro, so you will have to pick him back up when you go back on the offensive.

[Dalithe]

I was only going to about 10 stacks and giving melee 5 seconds to finish what they were doing before I left. No need to stress healers. I did attempt to time it so that I was over there the same time the Sorceress was out so they could kill her then move back. As far as I can tell that's the only reason we need to go over there.

[Meloree]

I know this is really anecdotal, but: In 25man I wore full EH gear, and went to about 35 stacks. I was tanking right on the edge of the ship, so healers on our boat could easily crossheal. I called for the retreat just after we'd finished off a battlemage, so it went fairly quickly. We abandoned ship exactly once.

In 10-man, I wore full avoidance gear, and found myself needing to call for the retreat at 28-30 stacks. With about a 7% avoidance difference, and a similarily huge EH loss, it's tough to tell if the somewhat slower (on average) stacking made me retreat less than I otherwise would have, or not. We had to retreat twice on this one.

I don't think we have enough information yet to determine if EH or avoidance is the way to go for Gunship battle, but it's going to be an interesting discussion. Honestly, the majority of my avoidance gear is a full tier behind my EH gear, so that'll contribute to some of the discrepancy - although I tried it in a raid that's tuned, in theory, at a full tier lower of gear. The question is going to come down to: Does gearing in one way or another lead to needing to reset stacks less often? For me, that would mean that avoidance gear would need to allow me to not retreat at all in 25man... something that I might not have done anyway in EH gear, had we had a more balanced healer loadout.

[Belloc]

I wore my current gear set (minus my current weapon and ring. Switch them with anub 25 normal ring and toc-10 heroic mace) and was able to take up to 33 stacks before I decided I should probably leave the ship.

My professional opinion is that you should leave the ship as soon as the battle mage dies. Come back as soon as the stacks have reset.

[Wrathy]

I wore my current gear set (minus my current weapon and ring. Switch them with anub 25 normal ring and toc-10 heroic mace) and was able to take up to 33 stacks before I decided I should probably leave the ship.

My professional opinion is that you should leave the ship as soon as the battle mage dies. Come back as soon as the stacks have reset.

Nice new mace!

I guess I have to have my healers re-evaluate their strategy, because I was dipping low way to early. Then again, with all of you guys saying you were going into the thirties, I am afraid that my gear may have been *cringe* broken. There is no way i had to be 15 stacks below you guys in the gear that I wear.

[fuzzygeek]

I'm wondering if this is going to be a 3 tank fight on heroic, with 2 tanks on the boss while dps burns the frost mage.

[Meloree]

I'm wondering if this is going to be a 3 tank fight on heroic, with 2 tanks on the boss while dps burns the frost mage.

The boss stacks the buffs on himself, not on the tank. I don't know how a third tank would help. Unless it's just to stack up more cooldowns.

[Camaris]

We haven't got to this fight yet (should be there tomorrow night), but I was wondering why we'd need to have a group on the enemy ship if there wasn't a battle mage up. Are there adds on the opponent ship that need to be brought down aside from the BM?

Thanks

[Meloree]

Well, killing rocketeers prevents them from damaging your ship, and killing axe-throwers prevents them from doing any damage, and they, too, continually respawn as the fight goes on. Plus, it gives your melee something to do.

[Belloc]

Well, killing rocketeers prevents them from damaging your ship, and killing axe-throwers prevents them from doing any damage, and they, too, continually respawn as the fight goes on. Plus, it gives your melee something to do.

More importantly is that the rocketeers and axe-throwers get stronger over time if you don't kill them.



Also, about my earlier post -- you can heal your enemy-ship-tank from your ship if the tank pulls the boss closer to the edge. That way you won't have to worry about the tank dying while healers are in the air.

[Rojhaz]

I'm wondering if this is going to be a 3 tank fight on heroic, with 2 tanks on the boss while dps burns the frost mage.

The boss stacks the buffs on himself, not on the tank. I don't know how a third tank would help. Unless it's just to stack up more cooldowns.

Which is why you have someone else taunt from ranged, you run away and taunt him back onto you. The dwarf (I don't know what his name is) will then fling hammers at you from range, putting a stacking bleed on you. When his buffs drop just run back in and melee tank until you need to let his stack drop again.

[Senador]

The ranged taunt is how we handled the stacking buff. If you do it right, you're "Attack" team never even have to leave his ship.

Have one tank on the boss, the other sit about 10-15 yards away. When the first tank gets several stacks (We did it in the 15-20 range) have the second tank taunt. The captain will throw hammers at the second tank, stacking a bleed that does 2k per stack. After about 7-8 stacks, the initial buff on the captain will fade. Hand of Protection the tank with the bleeds, and send them in to tank the captain until they have the 15-20 stacks. Repeat, alternating the tanks to deal with Forbearance.

[PsiVen]

That sounds promising, and like the easy way to get I'm On A Boat. We might have to try that next week.

[Wrathy]

That sounds promising, and like the easy way to get I'm On A Boat. We might have to try that next week.

Yeah this sounds great!

Theck also had a suggestion in another thread where he used the rocket pack and the back of the ship. If you are limited to tanks this may be a valid strat till they fix it, however the taunt bouncing one seems as though we can say "working as intended" right back at bilzzard for the achievement. It also should speed up the encounter in general as your attack team can continually dps down the mages and the ranged (axe throwers/rifleman).

[Senador]

Yeah, we found it much easier, as we didn't have to deal with jump transitions, agro resets, and losing all the DPS time on all the adds, as well as the captain throwing bleeds on random people (If there is no one on his ship, he'll throw at people on your ship). It resulted in all the adds on the opposing ship dieing faster, no lost DPS time due to Below Zero being channeled during a tank transition, and a steadier amount of damage. While the upwards of 16k a tic damage from the bleeds can be painful, there is no one taking his melee damage so it ends up balancing itself out. Also the DPS lost from adding the third tank seems balanced by the fact that you gain more DPS by not swapping.