Heroic Blackhand

Hi,

Does anyone have any tips for heroic Blackhand. He seems to hit like a truck. Our monk tank is doing all right but sometimes i'll just be hit by two melee attacks and drop. I'll try and link my combat logs on Monday after we try him again. It seemed to help switching to Divine Purpose instead of Sanctified Wrath. I usually don't have a problem with Shield of the righteousness up time.

I almost tried just putting on a stam trinket instead of a bonus armor one just to make sure I could soak two hits.

Its the first phase that is sometimes killing me (about 50% of the time), short of someone exploding a bomb on me second phase seems fine for tanking. We haven't gotten to third phase. I'm not getting hit by the little swirls and I'm as far as I can be, with our kite around the edge strat, from the big one. I'm not being hit by bombs or being killed by the shattering smashes. I'm trying to save my major CD's for the shattering smash but I feel like I need to use one every time I pick him up.

Our Raid comp is a monk/paladin tank and a priest/shaman/druid healers in a 14 man.

Also side note. Anyone know of a good weak aura/add on for tracking seraphim... how much is left on the CD, and if the buff is currently up and how much is left on it.

edit: my ilvl is 683 so I should be fine for this boss.

Here is a Seraphim Weak aura I've used in the past

http://pastebin.com/ukcnFhER

I havent used it in a while since I've just resorted to using Holy shield full time since its tough to raid leader and keep good uptime with seraphim. I basically made the switch when they nerfed it to 750 which really closed the gap between the two.


So your list of things you are not dying to just seems to leave his normal melee attacks, so not sure what to tell you exactly so I'll just mention what I do.

My comp is a warrior and myself, with me tanking first.

* The First Shattering Smash is during the DEmolition so I just stand still, use Glyphed Divine protection, a SotR and get a Hand of Sac from our Ret pally.

* The 2nd smash is on the warrior, Not sure what he uses, but I sac him for his Smash.[/*]

* 2nd Demolition I am Tanking through the entirety of it. I use Divine Protection again, and take another Hand of Sac from our ret paladin. Healers are generally Concerned more with the raid during this so sometimes I'll use Guardian during Demo. Note: The little circles aren't as dodgeable as you think. They actually deal damage based on distance in a 12 yard radius, so even if you are outside of the graphic, it still hits you. That plus blackhand hitting you plus healers preoccupied can lead to tank deaths during Demolition.[/*]

* The third Smash happens and I just use my Divine protection, a trinket, and SotR again. Sometimes I pop Ardent Defender if I'm not topped off from after demolition. We have always pushed to the 2nd phase by this point. [/*]

I'm using Heroic Turnbuckle usually (got mythic last night) and Heroic Eidolon from Imperator for trinkets. Stam Flask and Haste food.

Hopefully this helps.

I am the second tank and so I'm taunting during the demolition. If I die its a few seconds after that. I think your right about me actually being hit by the demo swirls if they are larger than the graphic. I'll try using a bigger cd as I take the boss to mitigate the fact that the healers are busy during that time. and use divine shield plus ret sac for smashes.

I normally use Holy shield. I tried Empowered Seals and staying in insight only to help on this fight and the healers said I was easier to heal but I don't know if it actually helped. My death percentage was about the same.

I will try and help the best I can here. If u are take low damage the general fight and high for a shorter window, I would suggest looking at your talents. For smash I would run Seraphim, strictly because this can be used as an extra CD for the hit. Also, for Demo, I would run Holy Avenger because that will guarantee that you will have 100% up time on your SotR. Finally, remember that Ardent Defender is a "take a big fucking hit" free card. Also, I would make sure you set up a rotation for sacs, assuming you have another pally in the comp. If you can run without Seraphim and live fine during smash, I would suggest picking up Empowered Seals and swapping, aka not staying with one. With the haste buff, SotR should be around an 80+% up-time. Couple that with Divine Purpose and you should be good to go. I would not suggest running Holy Avenger with Empowered Seals, unless you run it with only one seal 100% of the time, because you already have an extremely high SotR up-time and the insta 3 holy power would seem wasted. Thinking about swapping seals might seem daunting, but I got it completely down after a few WA's and a few hours of raiding Normal. If you decide to run Empowered Seals, I will post all the different WA's I use to track both seals and when to swap. Good Luck on the Heroic BlackHand kill though.

I'd like to see those WA's. I noticed some prot pally parses using Empowered Seals for more damage, so may mess around with it on farm nights.

I do have a macro for switching seals and don't usually have a problem with it. I was practicing before highmaul came out but found it too high maintenance for not much payoff in there.
If you have a weak aura or the seal buffs and can link it please do tho. I would love to see it.

I might try it for blackhand since I have to go on the balconys and kill the adds the extra damage from Seal of the righteous might help.

I've been using it for maidens heroic and my damage is very good. (staying mostly in righteousness and switching to insight to keep up the buff).

Hello again. I got all the strings and a picture of my Empowered Seals WA. For a brief overview, I have a timer for tracking the Insight buff and a timer tracking the Righteousness buff.I also have a progress circle, showing me that I have 8 seconds left on my buff, and I need to start swapping soon (it also plays an annoying sound because why not). I have a blue one for Righteousness and a gold one for Insight. I also have a red circle that will pop up if my Righteousness buff completely falls of (it plays a siren warning sound). Lastly, I have a golden wing, telling my that I am not in Insight. Generally, I will swap to Righteousness to get the buff ,and I will stay in Insight. I find that this setup makes it really easy to know when to swap. Also, the progress circles show up at 8 seconds because I find 8 seconds enough time to let judgement come off cd and for the tank to swap to the other seal.

Seal of Insight Timer
http://pastebin.com/NhhSGU4Z
Seal of Righteousness Timer
http://pastebin.com/pNJ042Bu
Not currently in Insight
http://pastebin.com/mv80NiUU
Need to re-apply Insight buff Soon
http://pastebin.com/hSdNXevT
Need to re-apply Righteousness buff Soon
http://pastebin.com/EYManH6K
Seal of Righteousness is NOT up
http://pastebin.com/sP8y4HQS

Picture for added Flare
http://imgur.com/tBmVZcs

I recently started working on Heroic Blackhand, having wiped on him most of Thursday and all of Sunday evenings. Last night we got him to 12%, but while we had several attempts on Thursday that got us to phase three, last night in 20 attempts we really only had 1. I'd like to think that after these two nights I've got the fight down enough that I'm not screwing up the raid (I'm joining this guild as it's progressing), but I can't be wholly certain. I'm certainly being told by the healers and the other tank that I've both improved since the first night and am not holding them back, but I'm hoping someone can nitpick my awfulness.

Log from last night here.

I know there are things I can do to tighten my rotation, and I'm still in the process of catching up to the other tank in terms of gear. But I'm also wondering what I can do in terms of strategy. The major issue we had last night involved phase 2. Our DPS was off the chains, and at one point getting the siege down before the second impale, to the point that we had to hold back. This guild has been having the tank about to pick up Blackhand soak the pair of Impales for the third toss, but I noticed I was dropping HP like it was no one's business. Would it be better to have the tank about to go up take the Impales, do I just need better gear, or am I clearly not getting something?

Torquemada wrote:I recently started working on Heroic Blackhand, having wiped on him most of Thursday and all of Sunday evenings. Last night we got him to 12%, but while we had several attempts on Thursday that got us to phase three, last night in 20 attempts we really only had 1. I'd like to think that after these two nights I've got the fight down enough that I'm not screwing up the raid (I'm joining this guild as it's progressing), but I can't be wholly certain. I'm certainly being told by the healers and the other tank that I've both improved since the first night and am not holding them back, but I'm hoping someone can nitpick my awfulness.

Log from last night here.

I know there are things I can do to tighten my rotation, and I'm still in the process of catching up to the other tank in terms of gear. But I'm also wondering what I can do in terms of strategy. The major issue we had last night involved phase 2. Our DPS was off the chains, and at one point getting the siege down before the second impale, to the point that we had to hold back. This guild has been having the tank about to pick up Blackhand soak the pair of Impales for the third toss, but I noticed I was dropping HP like it was no one's business. Would it be better to have the tank about to go up take the Impales, do I just need better gear, or am I clearly not getting something?

I'm not tanking at the moment so cannot provide a lot of help, but quickly I do see a few things that are off in the log...

1) You never used Divine Protection, not even once. Very strange/poor.
2) You're not using a pot, and your co-tank is using the wrong one. Should be using the Bonus Armor pot, it provides more AP than the strength one and armor as well - pre-pot and then probably save the next usage for phase 3 if you're consistently getting there (unless those more experienced in this fight disagree).

1) I was definitely using Divine Protection, as I did on this pull (Glyphed, since the majority of damage I've been taking seems to be physical): Not every time it came off cooldown, as I typically tried to save it for points where I was lower. That may be a bad strategy, and I can accept that I might need to change that. The major issue I ran into was in phase two, where I was definitely using DP and my other cooldowns to try to mitigate the Impale ticks.

2) Guilty as charged, I was not using a pot. We were saving pots, runes, and good food for once we were reliably able to make it to phase 3 without it immediately collapsing into a wipe. I also haven't transferred to their server, so I don't have access to the gbank, nor do I have a max level alchemist ATM. I will remind the other tank of this factoid and apply it to my own strategy in the future though, so thanks.

Optimally you want to use DP when you know a damage spike is coming. I've only tanked it on normal as I'm just a backup, but I usually used it for the slams. Have SotR up for those as well.

I assumed it was missing on that pull due to a brain fart or something, but wanted to point it out to be sure

No worries. For the slams in Phase 1 I was using GAnK and AD, if I had to eat 2. I was mostly using DP in Phase 1 when tanking him to mitigate the damage from debris/he hits like a truck on Heroic.

Phase two I wasn't using CDs for slam since having 5 people soak it spreads it out. I was mostly saving it for after getting Impale while tanking him while the other tank was knocked up top, along with my other CDs. We didn't really have a lot of luck getting to Phase 3 with enough people to make a serious go, so it wasn't used for that.

I think the log defaults to the final pull which was a complete goat rope anyway.

I'll leave out the stuff that golfinguy already told you

Analysis of Try 16 (7:02)

I cut at 6:06 as it was here that you died.

you notice how your TMI and EHRPS is way higher than that of your partner:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/VtA9GNxfd2pQmy1F#fight=17&type=damage-taken&options=130&start=8479454&end=8846030

damage taken by ability, comparison:

you:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/VtA9GNxfd2pQmy1F#fight=17&type=damage-taken&options=130&start=8479454&end=8846030&source=8&target=54

Partner:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/VtA9GNxfd2pQmy1F#fight=17&type=damage-taken&options=130&start=8479454&end=8846030&source=5&target=54

you notice how melee damage hits you for 24k more than your partner?

you also took a massive shattering smash which you should not.

you took damage from impaling throw in Phase 3, which you shouldn't (this is also what killed you).

in phase 2 you also should not take damage from it, yeah you soak the 3rd on (No 1 and 2 HAVE to hit the siegetank) but use Bubble or BoP so you won't take damage from it AND you won't get kicked away.

Buff uptimes:

you:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/VtA9GNxfd2pQmy1F#fight=17&type=auras&start=8479454&end=8846030&source=8

Partner:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/VtA9GNxfd2pQmy1F#fight=17&type=auras&start=8479454&end=8846030&source=5

75.25% on sacred shield. that's NOT good. you should never be < 100% on that. use a Weak aura here to help you. I got one on my blog, the blog is in German but there is an English version of the WA: http://www.afk-festival.de/geheiligter-schild-weak-aura-update-fuer-warlords-of-draenor/

or maybe your partner has a good one, as his uptime IS 100% as you see.

you're SoTR uptime is pretty low (35%), but still higher than that of your partner (28%).

you also both play with Holy shield (which is great for this fight), but you also both play with sanctified wrath (why? Divine Purpose is better in every way, you just have to get use on using the proccs correctly, but a well played HS/ DivPurp can get you a very high SoTr uptime. in my ilvl 700 gear I'm above 70% mostly)

you used DP 5 times in those 6:06 minutes your partner 9 times.

Code: Select all

I typically tried to save it for points where I was lower.

which is a bad strategy but a typical mistake a lot of less experienced Tanks do. you should use your Cooldowns to prevent getting to that point of "being low" you have to learn when you are susceptible for damage and use your DP / SoTR and what not at exactly that point. but only experience will give you this edge. learn the fight and find out with is hurting you and when. if there is no such thing use it on Cooldown as 30s is a pretty low cooldown.

also a cooldown is way more effective, the more HP you got. imagine a tank with 500k HP using GoAk (50%) what does it do? it effectively doubles the HP to 1 Mil.
Now if he is low already, let's say @ 100k. Goak only effectively changes his HP to 200k. same principle with every Cooldown. now it is easier for your healers to keep the first one up as it is the second one.

Resources:

you:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/VtA9GNxfd2pQmy1F#fight=17&type=resources&start=8479454&end=8846030&source=8&spell=109

you wasted about 9 Holy power. This can be improved but I've seen a lot worse.

Partner: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/VtA9GNxfd2pQmy1F#fight=17&type=resources&start=8479454&end=8846030&source=5&spell=109

he wasted 11 so yeah same as you, not perfect but "ok"


in short:

pay more attention to your SS uptime, play more intelligently with your cooldowns, prevent damage rather then react to it, try out Divine purpose, pay more attention to your environment in order to prevent unnecessary damage (Massive Shattering Smash, Impales you should not soak) and then you're on a good way.

you can check for the same things in other tries to find out if there is sth else to improve.

if there is something specific in one try you want to have explained, don't be afraid, just ask.

Schroom,

Thanks, I appreciate the candor. This was my first full night of attempts on Heroic Blackhand (Second overall), and the third night I've raided with this group. I definitely have a lot to learn, and a lot of rust to shake off, as the last time I raided seriously was back in ICC with the 969 rotation.

I've started using a rotation aid (Hekili) to help with things like Sacred Shield refreshing during gaps in my rotation and not wasting HP, but at least for SS it looks to not be good enough. I will give your WA string a shot. I'll also try to be more proactive with my CDs, especially Divine Protection. I'll also start getting more used to Divine Purpose during our farm night tonight. I was using SW because I'm more useed to it, but that just means I've grown complacent. Thanks.

If that attempt in particular is the one I think it is, then yes, I screwed up the movement on phase 3, partially because of lack of experience with the group's strategy. I moved when I should not have. I had been using a cooldown for the soak in Phase 2, and I was having more trouble with the lingering damage than the actual Impales themselves. That said, I'll try to use BoP and DS more often.

Thanks for all the tips. I'm by no means perfect, but my Sacred Shield time is up (Thanks for the WA string). My SotR time looks to be up as well, and between the changes and some much needed upgrades (4pc bonus, everything but one trinket at 685 or higher) I'm able to take the Impales, not die from it, and then use my toolkit to remain not dead.

We're still tweaking how we do some of the mechanics, but I no longer feel like I'm a liability, or at least, not as much of one. Next step I think is going to be to play with one of the WA strings that reminds me when I've hit 5 HP, as I'm wasting far too much.