Need some help with Gruul's

[holysoldier]

Last night we did gruul's for the second time, the first time we just downed HKM and gave one unsuccessful attempt at gruul himself. last night we had 4 attempts at him and they went alright but we weren't able to get him down.

the first attempt we got him to about 30% and the main problem was half the dps got smoked on first shatter cause people didn't find space.

second attempt we got him under 20% and wiped at 15 growths.

last 2 times we got him to 9% and we wiped. both times he was getting to growth 15 and for the last attempt we had all tanks, most of our healers and dps, i would say 70% of our raid was still in tact at 15%. it always seemed that when the MT would go down the other 2 tanks would follow shortly after. we had a Pally MT, druid OT, and Warrior 3rd tank.

so my questions are is the dps to low that we are getting to growth 15 and not downing him or our healers slacking and not switching over their heals to the new tank when the MT dies? for healing is their a point were the MT tank is getting so hard and getting low that we just say let him die and start healing the OT and 3rd tank?

the fight does not seem to complicated and it's getting annoying that we aren't downing him, especially when we get under 20% with most of our raid in tact.

Thanks for any help.

[ulushnar]

If you're getting to Growth 15 then your DEEPS is insufficent to the task. He should be dead by growth 12-13 at worst.

[Sithy]

A 16 grow progression kill isn't all that uncommon but anything past 12 is extremely taxing on the healers.

From what your saying it seems to me that your dps is crazy low. Grow 15 at 9%? Thats 6% per grow, and you'd be looking at a 17 grow kill, ouch. Your going to need a ton more raid dps for fights after gruul so you should probably figure out what the dps's issue is now instead of later. If they aren't all covered in badge gear, make sure they are or at least are trying to. How many healers do you run with? 7 was a pretty typical number for us when learning him... now we're down to 5 or so.

Our first kill was around grow 14 or so, and now with a raid thats mainly alts we take him down at grow 9 or 10 depending on of anyone got aced by the first shatter.

[ulushnar]

Taking three tank-specs on your first few kills won't help things either. Back when we first downed him, I'd bring my Hunter after HKM for one week, the next week our Warrior MT would bring his Warlock. These days we outgear the fight and can easily allow a couple of protspecs in the melee group, but i don't reccomend it to a starting group unless your DEEPS is just imba.

[holysoldier]

our druid did cat the first few attempts and he has really good dps gear, he stepped in to tank when a warrior had to step out for last attempt.

our group make up was this
6 hunters
4 pallies, 3 heal 1 tank
2 druids, 1 heal 1 tank
3 warriorsl, 2 tank 1 dps
4 priest, 3 heal 1 shadow
3 locks
1 mage
2 rogues

when the warrior left we brought in another hunter.

[sucellus]

our druid did cat the first few attempts and he has really good dps gear, he stepped in to tank when a warrior had to step out for last attempt.

our group make up was this
6 hunters
4 pallies, 3 heal 1 tank
2 druids, 1 heal 1 tank
3 warriorsl, 2 tank 1 dps
4 priest, 3 heal 1 shadow
3 locks
1 mage
2 rogues

when the warrior left we brought in another hunter.

An easy way to increase your DPS would be to balance your classes a bit more. you could easily lose some hunters and grab some shamans, maybe a ret pally.

[ulushnar]

At least one Enhancement Shaman will boost your melee group a thousand fold.

[Refute]

I agree - 4 tanks aren't needed; also, having so many of the same class (such as hunters) hurts raid synergy.

Also, do you have a stats report for an attempt? It may very be that your DPS is lacking.

[holysoldier]

thanks for all the replies, how do you keep the stats for an attempt. i've seen them but never really looked to much into using them, but it would be very helpful.

[Refute]

www.wowwebstats.com is the easiest and best way. You'll need to do some reading of what you'll need to do to set it up. Basically, you just extend the range of your combat log, record everything to a text file (preferably have a few people do it so its more accurate), upload them the website, and it parses it all out in nice graphs, IIRC.

[holysoldier]

just noticed i screwed up our raid make up:) take out one of the rogues for a enhance shaman. also going over the raid we had i noticed we had 8 healers so i know that is definetly part of our problem them, not sure if replacing one healer for a dps class would make the difference but i'm sure we'll get a little closer.

[Refute]

just noticed i screwed up our raid make up:) take out one of the rogues for a enhance shaman. also going over the raid we had i noticed we had 8 healers so i know that is definetly part of our problem them, not sure if replacing one healer for a dps class would make the difference but i'm sure we'll get a little closer.

Personally, if you're going to remove people, I would take out one of the 4 tanks you have... after that, cut out a lower DPS hunter for another class if possible.

[ldeboer]

last 2 times we got him to 9% and we wiped. both times he was getting to growth 15 and for the last attempt we had all tanks, most of our healers and dps, i would say 70% of our raid was still in tact at 15%. it always seemed that when the MT would go down the other 2 tanks would follow shortly after. we had a Pally MT, druid OT, and Warrior 3rd tank.

Being at a very similar progression I can give you two perhaps useful things which finally got us over line.

1. Position your lowest 5 HP range and always dying retards in the safe spot as per map

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=104

2. Never have the warrior as 3rd tank they cant get any rage cause they aren't hit and so when MT goes down he will splat the nearest melee who will be higher that your warrior. Warriors can only really ever be MT or OT can't be 3rd up unless your tanks are going to alternate taunts. Preferably your 3rd should be a non rage class such as a pali or druid so they can stay 3rd on agro table

[2ndNin]

Umm druids are a rage class

And for the first 10 growths or so its easy to take damage as an MT/OT/OOT, stand in cave ins

[Zyxa]

Get some shaman - of all types! Resto are great for healing up the raid, Elemental will provide a nice boost to your caster dps, and Enhancements will boost your melee dps. Best of all you'll have bloodlusts to power through that remaining 9%. If you can't get hold of any shaman then ensure you're only taking 2 tank specs.

Hunters can actually be really good dps for this fight as they should be less impacted by silences then casters and have ranged benefit for positioning and avoiding cave-ins. But are they all performing? Its a hard class to dps well in, so check they're all doing as well as each other.

Try and convince everyone to be using damage increasing consumables. Simple flasks all round would probably cover that 9%.

Finally, if things do go wrong then remember the mechanics of Hurtful Strike:

Hurtful Strike: Occasionally hits the 2nd highest aggro in melee range. A second tank is needed to mitigate this, 12350–13650 physical damage. If no secondary target is within melee, this hits the first target available within melee range. This damage increases after each growth.

If your MT or OT go down towards the end then the Hurtfuls should work their way around the melee. Once the melee are all dead then the Hurtfulls will also hit the MT, which is basically gameover. But... if you shout at the ranged folk to get in melee range then they will become targets for Hurtful Strike, increasing the chance the MT will survive and giving you just that little bit longer to get a kill.