[25] General Vezax Interrupt Question

[Corman]

I know there's no cure for fail, but does anyone have a strategy on how to handle interrupts for this guy?

We had 1 rogue, 1 dps warrior, 1 enh shammy and 4 DKs wholly commited to interrupts and they simply failed. Hardcore.
Theoretically we also had myself and a ret pally, but as HoJ isn't off the GCD, with our rotation, its not reliable to interrupt... the ret, maybe.

I presume you should expect NO searing flames to get through?

I can sometimes survive 1. 2... its the luck of the RNG though whether he hits me or I avoid streak.

I can theoretically even survive a single hit (though we lose random dpsers and healers, especially if theyre in the saronite while it happens or just took a shadow crash to the chin) as he hits for the low 40s I think with just Searing flames.

Searing Flames + Surge? I'm toast as he hits over my max hp.

It was only our first night of attempts and we used, at my request, the "stay in and take the surge" method.

I was constantly oom, even having dropped only two consecrates, so I'm tempted to try 2/2 spiritual attunement.
Oddly I had NO ISSUES whatsoever with threat. Except for one mage who went berserk.
Another option I'm going to try is dropping judgement glyph for Spiritual attunement glyph.

We also had issues with everyone being morons with Marks and Shadowcrashes: (RL and Tank shout for everyone in group one to move + someone has a skull in the middle of the group and there's a big purple blob slowly arcing like a softball at you and.... no one moves). Due to marks, the furthest we got him down was 75 percent but without marks, it would have been significantly more. However, these are problems 2 and 3 and I think we can fix these easier.

Total Raid Makeup:

tanks
1 Prot Pally - Moi, was 53/18 with DivGuard/Sac, now 54/17

dps
4 DPS DKs
1 Rogue
1 DPS War
1 Enh Shammie
1 Ret Pally
2 Mages
3 Huntards
1 Lock
2 Shadow Priests

heals
3 Holy Pallys
2 resto druids
2 resto shammies
1 Disc Priest

My recommendation (partially ignored) was to split the dpsers into two groups, group 1 assigned to odd searings, group 2 assigned to even searings, that way you have at least 3 people trying to interrupt each, and for them to set up a macro that is like
/cast mind freeze
/tell dude 1 NEXT SEARING YOURS!
/tell dude 2 NEXT SEARING YOURS!
/tell dude 3 NEXT SEARING YOURS!
/tell dude 4 NEXT SEARING YOURS!
in order to limit chat in vent.

[Invisusira]

I have two groups of two people each. Groups will have (in order of preference): Enhance Shammy, Rogue, DK, Warrior. (Most DPS warriors are severely nerfed if they're on interrupt duty unless they're fury.) There's one person on Vent calling out which group is up.

"Group one is up."
searing flames
The two people in G1 interrupt.
"Group two is up."
searing flames
The two people in G2 interrupt.

Etc etc. By having two people, you have backup in case one misses/resists/fails. By having two set groups, you will always have one ready and available - no "should I interrupt this or will someone else?" If you just have X number of people "on intterupt duty," it doesn't matter how many that X is. There will always be hesitation and too many people interrupting at once. You NEED to set groups.

As for mana issues, check out my spec/glyphs. I used to have a 2nd prot spec just for General tanking, but I've fallen in love with it and it's now my main prot spec. It's fantastic for running heroics or other trivial content, too.

People also need to learn to GTFO. If you guys can do Mim, you can do Genearl. If ranged sees a big skull, run away from it and then back in. If you see a big X, take a couple steps towards the boss while the person with the X TURNS 180 DEGREES COMPLETELY AROUND (this is important) and runs to the wall as fast as they can. Standing still means a wipe. Keyboard turning as you run through the raid means a wipe. Backing out means a wipe.

[Elsie]

We do the same thing, but with two groups of 3 people. If you have too many people, game theory begins to take over and they all think "Well, since 5 other people are doing it... I'm better off just skipping this one." The problem is all 6 people are thinking this.

edit: and curse you Invisuria for having that cloak drop. I can only take solace in having 200 more HP despite being an engineer. QQ.

[kanst]

We use 2 groups, 4 people total. For example last time we did it we had 2 rogues in group 1, and a dk and a rogue in group 2. We have 1 person in charge of calling it on vent. He just says "group 1" "group 2". If they are dumb and try to interrupt the other thing they just call for backup and one of the dps warriors gets the next one.

[Invisusira]

edit: and curse you Invisuria for having that cloak drop. I can only take solace in having 200 more HP despite being an engineer. QQ.

That's because FL and Yogg10 are assholes and never drop their bracers/trink.

[Corman]

Ty all for the input, I liked the group idea, I see your point in the game theory and I'll dragoon someone into calling them out.

[Joanadark]

We once had a rogue solo-interrupt the entire fight. Most of the time we have two people do it though alternating. They just say "kicked" in vent each time they interrupt so the other guy knows he is next.

[Braundo]

Once we determine an interrupt order, all the interrupters make a macro:

/cast Kick (or whatever)
/w <next person> You're up next!

[fafhrd]

From listening to our melee, supposedly having shamans interrupting hurts more than it helps. Something about their interrupt being a shorter lockout than rogue/warrior/dk interrupts, leading to his casting the spell again before the other groups' interrupts are off cooldown.

Not sure how true that is, but i don't think we've ever had an interrupt missed since the attempt we switched to only rogues/warriors/dks interrupting - MM hunters macroing silencing shot into their dps would be a similar problem if the lockout issue is true.

I didn't know you could have a single rogue doing all the interrupts on 25, since I thought he always casts it too often on 25 to do so. I know you can have a single interrupter do it easily on 10 though (we brought my terrible warrior alt in once because we didn't have anyone in the raid able to do it and she got them all solo - after ranting about how easy it is, i was told it's harder on 25).

[Braundo]

I didn't know you could have a single rogue doing all the interrupts on 25, since I thought he always casts it too often on 25 to do so.

Yeah, I've seen him do two casts within maybe 3-4 seconds of each other. The only way a single rogue could do that was if they used Throwing Specialization + Fan of Knives to interrupt, and even then you'd run up against potential energy shortages if you relied on that too much.

[Invisusira]

Having one interrupter on 25m CAN work (as Jo has seen), but it requires some sacrifices to the RNG gods.

[Panzerdin]

And it won't do wonders for the interrupter's DPS, so you might be better off spreading the hit out (one guy doing 2x interrupts might well be a bigger DPS loss than 2x guys doing).

Of course, the reverse might also be true.

[Belloc]

Make a two person rotation (rogues and/or warriors) and stick them on it. Get a backup or two. Make macros, call things out, most has pretty much been explained here already.

What you don't want to do, however, is ever allow a cast to be interrupted by shaman shocks. If you've got an enhancement shaman, he will, inevitably, accidentally interrupt a cast as part of his rotation, and this will cause whoever was supposed to interrupt to waste their cooldown. Since the lockout on shocks is so short, Vezax will cast again and your primary interrupters won't be available.

Shaman interrupts are bad on this fight -- don't use them, don't allow them in rotations.

[Corman]

Thank you for the Shaman info! We had NO clue of that, but yeah, its only 2s i think vs 4 or 5 for the rest of them...

[Threatco]

Our group solo interupted 25 general, and I don't think our raid is in anyway compareable to Jo's.

It was a 2 shot on our first time there. Our 10 man interupter basicly had a shit fit in vent being pissed that we were all screaming in vent every time we saw a mark / shadow crash. Or every time I wanted a saronite killed it took FOREVER of me scremaing in vent for it to happen. So our DK interupter blamed the vent noise and crankily told us he was turning off vent and was going to listen to music.

The next try he did get every one, twice he called on vent that he missed it or his thing was on CD and someone else got it, but he pretty much got all the rest, and he still topped dps.

Mabey we just got lucky.