[25] Yogg Saron (Normal Mode)

So my guild had a disapointing and short visit with yogg 25 last night. Our first ever attempt on him. Only 10 of us has done him in 10 man.

We prepared by going over tankspot video. Ensuring all video setting were turned up. No lag. Everyone knew their role.

I put trust in my raiders and tell them they can use their best judgement on positioning. Wrong choice.

The melee followed adds to the very middle, and one would inevitably touch a cloud and or kill the add on the way resulting in a quick wipe.

So we switched it up to telling all except my chosen few melee, and our 8 ranged dps to move as needed. The rest stayed by the door and so only had 1 cloud to watch. Problem here was the unless the add was DPSed very low, and the people in the middle killed it very fast. The ferry time where we stop dps on it makes us too slow, and adds pile up faster then they die.

Then i tried having the melee camp a bit closer, now they have to dodge 2-3 clouds. Fail.

Then I try to just be a more pro tank. The warrior picks up all adds and holds them at melee, I taunt the lowest hp one out at <20% and bring it to middle. But again either the add dies son the way, or the add dies to slow in the middle and adds pile up on the warrior. Or since he is normaly fury and he had not gotten used to his tank buttons, he actualy taunted the adds back off me twice, making them immune and wiping us.

Since monday is a hard day for us to raid, most people are tiered and unwilling to pull all nighters. Some people show up late, some people have to leave early. And even my awsome server has it's limits when it comes to pugging fights most people havent even seen. Only reason we had as good a group as we did (best ever for monday showing) was because we 1 shot mimiron 25 on our first ever attempt 2 days before. 2 shot thorim for progression, and 2 shot general for progression and first time there. So expectations were high. But after only 7-8 tries, about 1.5 hours, had to call it.

Got to P2 once, but with 5-6 adds up that wiped us form killing them in the raid. 2-3 times we got fairly close to p2. Other times were almost insta-wipe.



Im thinking I could either get more ranged/third tank to make phase 1 easier.

Assign more people from the melee group to follow adds to middle to kill.

Let the melee group stand closer.

Hope and pray that someone doesen't touch a cloud. I think about 7 different people in total touched a cloud in our attempts, mostly near the start. Towards the end it was slow DPS / killing adds before they get to the middle that was wiping us.

Anyways as always, any tips, suggestions, strats, links, words of moral support, anything would be appreciated.

Do you have a feral druid? We have a feral druid as a third tank. Go bear with feral gear and you can tank enough dmg to tank one of the dudes. We also pop an extra one up front, while positioning is good. That way we can get ahead of the pace needed. And since the feral just goes back to kitty in later phases we dont lose much dps when it matters

You could probably do the same thing with a warrior throwing on a shield

We had a DK going frost to help OT in phase 1, but that was basicly only after it became too big of a mess to recover.

We might pop 1 early, if I can start it when clouds are all away and melee can all come in fast to burn on both before going back up to safety.

I would say we have about a 40% chance of succesfuly killing an add without incident. And we have to do it 8 times. With room to mess up only 1 thing once. I need to bring up those odds.

Threatco wrote:We had a DK going frost to help OT in phase 1, but that was basicly only after it begam too big of a mess to recover.

We might pop 1 early, if I can start it when clouds are all away andf melee can all come in fast a phase burn on both before then back up to safety.

I would say we have about a 40% chance of succesfuly killing an add without incident. And we have to do it 8 times. With room to mess up only 1 thing once. I need to bring up those odds.

We found that the easiest way to learn this fight was to just tank everything in the center from 100% -> dead. The adds are always in the right position, so you never waste them. Additional adds can easily be grabbed from the center of the room, and the splash from melee/explosions helps burn them down as well. Melee/tanks barely need to move on Yogg+4, so it's solely up to the ranged and healers to figure out how to move and DPS effectively without tunnel visioning and triggering clouds.

Throw your ranged into the deep end and they'll learn to swim pretty fast.

I love your idea Baleog,

I just have a nightmare of every attempt 3-4 clouds being popped, and so many people being in the middle we would have no way to know who to blame.

Is it realy that easy for melee to chill around th middle, killing adds, avoiding their dieing AOE explosion, without much trouble?

I mean its pretty easy for me as a tank, It as easy for me as ret in 10 man, should be easy for them, right? But you know that doesen't always seem realistic.

We found this to be the very best way to deal with P1. In 10man...
I just dont trust our raiders in 25man to do it so we take them down outside and then bring them so Sara.
I can trust those raiding in our 10mans (esp when doing yogg+1) but i really dont think a raid with 25ppl will be able to keep away from the clouds at the same time as avoiding the explotion and their debuffs.
It just doesnt work for our 25mans, but hopefully everyone doesnt have those problems, its a great idea, and it should be much easier and less to worry about, but the sad truth is that it just doesnt work for us.

Eating the explosion isn't that bad if you are doing this with 4 keepers up. You have 20% more health, 20% less damage taken, 20% more healing received, and 40% more damage done. The only time its an issue is if you have an enraged add and sara's buff that makes you do more damage, but also take 100% more damage. Hunter's can tranq the enraged adds and should be on early attempts. As long as people are focus targetting and you don't get multiple adds low it should be fine. The explosions hurt the adds also, and one blowing up can make the other blow up right after if they are both low on health.

If you don't trust your melee not to hit that inner cloud then have them all stand on top of Sara and not move. Your tank can then position the add and move with the inner cloud. If you can't trust your tank to do this then you are in deep trouble.

Also, have people take some time and just stare into the room and watch the circles so they can see the patterns. There is one very bad spot where 4 clouds line up and basically closes off much of the map and people can get trapped.

Another thing you can do is time when you engage. You can either wait for the 4 could line up so you won't get it again if you are downing it in time. Or you can wait for the 3rd and 4th cloud to pass. the 3rd and 4th cloud move in the same direction making that a good spot for your ranged to stand or your group to stand for ferrying. You will always be moving clockwise to stay ahead of those clouds and their revolution is fairly long. And its out of range of the explosion, but in range of the center for them to dps the add. Just wait for them to pass then park there, and when one of the clouds get somewhat closer you all run clockwise to the other side of the room. You should have to move at most twice before u kill the 8th add. Life is easier when you know which way you are going to move.

Also the adds speed up their spawn rate as time goes. If you let them spawn naturally the last one will spawn 10 seconds after the 7th and one more each 10 seconds after. Spawning an extra give you more breathing room at the end. If you can spawn 2 extras then its even better, but don't spawn them both at the same time. Spawn an extra as you move in, then spawn another a few seconds after the next natural spawn lights up on a cloud(the 3rd add in this case). You can also gauge your dps before spawning an extra. If the first one isn't dead or near dead when the cloud for the second one lights up then you are too slow to keep up with the faster spawn rate near the end. When we didn't spawn extras going for our no death kill the first 4 adds were so slow that the second tank didn't even need to pick them up. I was back from the middle before they even spawned.

Also, going with more dps and less healers makes it alot easier. You can easily get away with 5 healers on normal mode, or less if they are good. Just be sure that people are assigned to interrupt the shadow volley as that is the majority of the raid damage. Always have a mage or shaman assigned to interrupt shadow volley as the add is being ferried or it will stop and stand there while casting.

I'm seeing some incorrect information here. Phase 1 was hotfixed to help with spawn times. If you have the DPS to get to Yogg, you have the DPS to kill all adds before the next ones spawn. You just need practice.

For the record, after the first add spawns, the next 3 will spawn 20 seconds apart. After those 3 have spawned, all further spawns occur 15 seconds apart. This was the effect of the hotfix. If you can kill the first 5 adds in time, you can kill all adds, indefinitely (Well, until you start running out of mana ). Prior to this hotfix, we were spawning an extra add... but there is no need to do so anymore.

Just practice on getting the adds to the middle without blowing them up prematurely. Players will need to work on this for a long time to get it right, but it'll be worth it. Hell, if I were to log on tonight and we got to Yogg, I guarantee you that our group would continue to fail at adds, even though we've killed Yogg a few times. Just practice


Also, tanking in the middle is a great strategy, but it requires every single member of your raid to be proficient at dodging clouds. Be honest, do you expect them to be able to do that? My guild, aside from my 10 man, certainly cannot.

edit: Oh, and don't be like my 10 man. The first time we killed Yogg on 10 was the first time we actually got to phase 3 with everyone alive. We hadn't gone over the phase at all and I just called it out as we were going. It was an easy kill. 25-man will NOT be the same. You will almost certainly wipe to the enrage in phase 3, even if you did really well in phase 2. Again, just keep at it.

Belloc wrote:Also, tanking in the middle is a great strategy, but it requires every single member of your raid to be proficient at dodging clouds. Be honest, do you expect them to be able to do that? My guild, aside from my 10 man, certainly cannot.

That's the way we do it every week; overall proves to be a much more controlled environment than kiting adds to the center. The melee need only dodge clouds until they get to the center; after that they can mindlessly follow the add being killed as the tank kites it in a slow circle opposite the nearest cloud that orbits Sara. If they can't do that, you should get in the market for some replacement melee

Belloc wrote:edit: Oh, and don't be like my 10 man. The first time we killed Yogg on 10 was the first time we actually got to phase 3 with everyone alive. We hadn't gone over the phase at all and I just called it out as we were going. It was an easy kill. 25-man will NOT be the same. You will almost certainly wipe to the enrage in phase 3, even if you did really well in phase 2. Again, just keep at it.

The pass/fail to learning phase 3 in [25] Yogg+4 seems to be having tanks who can quickly pick up and put threat on the adds. Having two tanks who can solo tank [10] Yogg is tremendously helpful when attempting Heroic. We also like tanking the Immortals right next to Yogg to maximize the benefit of melee splash damage effects.

Well, don't forget that the melee has to run out before the add dies

And keep in mind that any guild just now getting to Yogg-25 is probably not going to have players that are adept at avoiding clouds. Some players are just not cut out for that part of the right.

Belloc wrote:I'm seeing some incorrect information here. Phase 1 was hotfixed to help with spawn times. If you have the DPS to get to Yogg, you have the DPS to kill all adds before the next ones spawn. You just need practice.

For the record, after the first add spawns, the next 3 will spawn 20 seconds apart. After those 3 have spawned, all further spawns occur 15 seconds apart. This was the effect of the hotfix. If you can kill the first 5 adds in time, you can kill all adds, indefinitely (Well, until you start running out of mana ). Prior to this hotfix, we were spawning an extra add... but there is no need to do so anymore.

Just practice on getting the adds to the middle without blowing them up prematurely. Players will need to work on this for a long time to get it right, but it'll be worth it. Hell, if I were to log on tonight and we got to Yogg, I guarantee you that our group would continue to fail at adds, even though we've killed Yogg a few times. Just practice


Also, tanking in the middle is a great strategy, but it requires every single member of your raid to be proficient at dodging clouds. Be honest, do you expect them to be able to do that? My guild, aside from my 10 man, certainly cannot.

edit: Oh, and don't be like my 10 man. The first time we killed Yogg on 10 was the first time we actually got to phase 3 with everyone alive. We hadn't gone over the phase at all and I just called it out as we were going. It was an easy kill. 25-man will NOT be the same. You will almost certainly wipe to the enrage in phase 3, even if you did really well in phase 2. Again, just keep at it.

I heard about the hotfix, but it didn't seem to change anything from what we saw before in our logs. Unless its only for the 4 Keeper kill, we always have at least 1 Keeper missing. Logs and behaviour still seem to show that 8th spawn being 10 seconds after the 7th. As soon as the 7th one spawns, the cloud for the 8th lights up, which means its 10 seconds later. I haven't kept a close eye on it but I did look at the logs just after the hotfix. We usually don't even get to that point cause we are spawning 2 extras in the beginning.

Belloc wrote:Well, don't forget that the melee has to run out before the add dies

Not with 4 keepers up they don't.

Belloc wrote:And keep in mind that any guild just now getting to Yogg-25 is probably not going to have players that are adept at avoiding clouds. Some players are just not cut out for that part of the right.

The DPS check of killing adds is so forgiving that you can have a few players just stand by the door instead of participating in phase 1.

baleogthefierce wrote:

Belloc wrote:Well, don't forget that the melee has to run out before the add dies

Not with 4 keepers up they don't.

Belloc wrote:And keep in mind that any guild just now getting to Yogg-25 is probably not going to have players that are adept at avoiding clouds. Some players are just not cut out for that part of the right.

The DPS check of killing adds is so forgiving that you can have a few players just stand by the door instead of participating in phase 1.

Tell me, what are you going to do if one of your melee has Sara's Fervor (increases damage taken by 100%) and another has her Blessing or Anger? Add blows up, one gets iceblocked, one dies. I'll tell you what you'll do -- you'll either call for a wipe or waste a battle res.

If melee aren't running out, you're just asking for deaths. Even if it works for your guild, it's foolish to suggest it to a guild just now learning the fight.

Belloc wrote:Tell me, what are you going to do if one of your melee has Sara's Fervor (increases damage taken by 100%) and another has her Blessing or Anger? Add blows up, one gets iceblocked, one dies. I'll tell you what you'll do -- you'll either call for a wipe or waste a battle res.

If melee aren't running out, you're just asking for deaths. Even if it works for your guild, it's foolish to suggest it to a guild just now learning the fight.

We beat our heads against this fight forever trying a strategy of keeping adds by the door and kiting them to the center.
Then we tried the strat we use in 10-man, where everyone is responsible for moving with the tank and running away from exploding adds.
Then we switched back to door/kiting and still couldn't control DPS.
Then we switched to melee/tanks in the center and got our kill.

I'm not suggesting it is a flawless way to do the fight, or that situations with fervor on a melee DPSer won't arise; just that it takes away a good deal of the frustration of learning it via the door/kiting strat (by holding adds in the center) or by the full raid mobility strat (by having a good chunk of the raid staying in the same place the whole time).

After our first night or two wiping horribly in P1 due to adds getting out of control, I didn't trust our raiders to try the center strategy either. But I got over it, and once we learned it it was much much better.

Think of it this way: Every time you have an add that dies away from Sara, that's a failure that will never happen if they were tanked in the center the whole time. The only way to pull that off with this strat is if ranged are utterly stupid and pull aggro repeatedly on the same add until taunt DRs.

Hunter's can tranq the enraged adds and should be on early attempts.

Huh? What adds in this fight enrage?