EC: Firebrand and Stormcaller (Hard Mode)

[Titan]

(06-23-2012 08:59 PM)Sturrm Wrote:  Sounds like you are making the fight harder for yourself than it needs to be, and that the guilds you are competing against arent that good (if it took them 30+ tries to down this fight).

1. Why dont your tanks just do the swaps instead of depending on a third person to taunt? The mechanic is not hard at all, and you lose nothing by actually performing the swap.

2. Sounds like healing problems.

3. A good tank doesnt have to take any route... and can instead just stack the lightning domes/rods right next to each other. I start i range of the healer and stay in range of the healer the whole time during this phase.

Good luck downing it on your next raid... just dont over complicate simple fights/mechanics.

1) It works for us, and keeps everything nice and simple, plus I'm afraid that we'll be in a tank swap, and our healer on the ground might take a hit from SC's cone.

2) Yeah it was healing problems, we worked it out though.

3) So, for example say SC's adds spawn in the back, the tank runs back there too, just goes off to the side and stacks them tightly around eachother, staying within range of our group the whole time, and making sure they dont get too close to the adds/shield?

[Sturrm]

(06-23-2012 11:08 PM)Titan Wrote:  3) So, for example say SC's adds spawn in the back, the tank runs back there too, just goes off to the side and stacks them tightly around eachother, staying within range of our group the whole time, and making sure they dont get too close to the adds/shield?

Correct!

[azazael]

For my group the SC tank taunting FB and getting IA was actually easier for us and easier for the healers. The swap isn't hard, but neither is the 2nd tank taunting.

[Kazar]

Guys got a question that I'd like solid confirmation on. We're working on 16m HM now, done it on 8man and tbh it was a lot easier than I expected. But on 16man it is proving very difficult. I'm quite certain it is just down to 1 of our healers being a bit slack and our dps struggling a lot, mainly because we've got a lot of new people who arn't as well geared or experienced.

Anyways those issues aside, about the DPS. We're not hitting Defensive Systems quick enough and are getting 2 DD per phase. The second DD is killing us, our healers just cannot keep up. We tried stopping DPS until it finished ticking so that healers could deal with it, and well they still struggled (because of the slack healer) but even then we would not have met the enrage timer using that tactic.

My main question is, can we stack extra DPS on Firebrand (or Storm) so that one hits 80% early enough that we only get 1 DD? Some guilds have said yes, that they do this and even the healths out, making it a lot smoother/easier.
Where as other guilds are saying Defensive Systems starts when the AVERAGE of the two bosses HP is at 80%. So which one is it, I'd really like confirmation before we head back in there, to prepare the group. But I guess if it's not answered we might just try 1 attempt with all dps on Stormcaller just to see if it switches at 80%.

[Izzo]

(07-05-2012 01:16 PM)Kazar Wrote:  Guys got a question that I'd like solid confirmation on. We're working on 16m HM now, done it on 8man and tbh it was a lot easier than I expected. But on 16man it is proving very difficult. I'm quite certain it is just down to 1 of our healers being a bit slack and our dps struggling a lot, mainly because we've got a lot of new people who arn't as well geared or experienced.

Anyways those issues aside, about the DPS. We're not hitting Defensive Systems quick enough and are getting 2 DD per phase. The second DD is killing us, our healers just cannot keep up. We tried stopping DPS until it finished ticking so that healers could deal with it, and well they still struggled (because of the slack healer) but even then we would not have met the enrage timer using that tactic.

My main question is, can we stack extra DPS on Firebrand (or Storm) so that one hits 80% early enough that we only get 1 DD? Some guilds have said yes, that they do this and even the healths out, making it a lot smoother/easier.
Where as other guilds are saying Defensive Systems starts when the AVERAGE of the two bosses HP is at 80%. So which one is it, I'd really like confirmation before we head back in there, to prepare the group. But I guess if it's not answered we might just try 1 attempt with all dps on Stormcaller just to see if it switches at 80%.

You can definitely stack dps on firebrand and push him faster. Defensive systems happens when the lower of the two bosses hits a multiple of 20%. We keep 3 DPS on Stormcaller the whole fight, and leave the other 6 on Firebrand, then after 20%, 5 of the dps switch over to Stormcaller, leaving just a tank, a dps, and the third tank (tank in dps gear) on firebrand to finish him off. They die roughly at the same time.

[Jorel]

What exactly is the mechanic with IA and Missile Blast? We've been experimenting with swapping vs. non-swapping of tanks. I'm a Tankassin and start on Firebrand, while our Jugg tank starts on SC. Whether we swap or not, it seems like whoever gets the IA gets hit for 26k+ shortly after it wears off. It was consistently happening tonight. It happened less when I stayed on FB and just popped CD's and our ops healer kept filling me up non-stop, but it still happened once or twice.

Is that just part of it or am I missing something? My logs are showing that within a second of IA's effect wearing off is when the Missile Blast comes in.

[Kapoue]

I think I need help with this fight.

We've had 2 good nights of tries on this one and we keep getting enrages. We got like 4-5. Some around 5% and 10%, but one was when they were at 10% and 30%. We didn't have any dead DPS on these tries.

We never hit an enrage on Toth and Zorn HM so I guess our DPS should be good.

We Have 3 gunslinger (2 sharpshooter and 1 dirty fighting) and 1 commando as our DPS. For most of our tries we had our commando on the ground dodging the lightning rods and yellow reticules.

Last night after a few enrages we tried putting our healers (2 sages) on the ground instead of the commando and they had trouble healing everyone while running around. The one on Stormcaller had so much trouble that the firebrand one was solo-healing both tanks.

What are we doing wrong? Should 1 dps be on the ground. Should the 2 healers be on the ground? Should they be able to heal while on the ground or is that too much to ask them?

[Izzo]

(07-17-2012 03:17 PM)Jorel Wrote:  What exactly is the mechanic with IA and Missile Blast? We've been experimenting with swapping vs. non-swapping of tanks. I'm a Tankassin and start on Firebrand, while our Jugg tank starts on SC. Whether we swap or not, it seems like whoever gets the IA gets hit for 26k+ shortly after it wears off. It was consistently happening tonight. It happened less when I stayed on FB and just popped CD's and our ops healer kept filling me up non-stop, but it still happened once or twice.

Is that just part of it or am I missing something? My logs are showing that within a second of IA's effect wearing off is when the Missile Blast comes in.

Basically, Incinerate armor makes you take more damage from firebrand, so you have to either make sure the firebrand tank never gets it by someone else (SC tank or a dps with a taunt) taunting before the cast and then the firebrand tank taunting back during it, or by switching as soon as he starts casting it on the tank. To my knowledge IA doesn't do any damage itself, or if it does it is pretty minimal. Firebrands damage is all kinetic/energy and stormcallers is all elemental/internal, so losing all your armor doesn't matter if you're tanking stormcaller. Also if youre not switching tanks, this means your higher armor tank (probably not an assassin) should be on firebrand, and your tank with more resistance to internal/elemental attacks should be on stormcaller.

(07-18-2012 12:33 AM)Kapoue Wrote:  I think I need help with this fight.

We've had 2 good nights of tries on this one and we keep getting enrages. We got like 4-5. Some around 5% and 10%, but one was when they were at 10% and 30%. We didn't have any dead DPS on these tries.

We never hit an enrage on Toth and Zorn HM so I guess our DPS should be good.

We Have 3 gunslinger (2 sharpshooter and 1 dirty fighting) and 1 commando as our DPS. For most of our tries we had our commando on the ground dodging the lightning rods and yellow reticules.

Last night after a few enrages we tried putting our healers (2 sages) on the ground instead of the commando and they had trouble healing everyone while running around. The one on Stormcaller had so much trouble that the firebrand one was solo-healing both tanks.

What are we doing wrong? Should 1 dps be on the ground. Should the 2 healers be on the ground? Should they be able to heal while on the ground or is that too much to ask them?

If low dps is your problem id keep a healer on the ground, and stack all the dps on the tanks. It should probably be the firebrand healer on the ground since that side takes like no damage anyway, and let the stormcaller healer stay on the tank to heal without any distractions. Definitely no need to have both healers on the ground (in 8 man).

Another thing you can try if your dps is too low is to have 3 people killing firebrand (1 ranged shooting across but staying on SC for Double Destruction) to that if you have to deal with an enrage its only one tank, which is actually pretty manageable for like 10-15%, since stormcallers attacks at that point are all single target so he can only kill you off one at a time. People will start dying but you should have enough time to finish him off before he kills everyone. (I think the first time we killed him we had like 1 or 2 people left alive)

Also i don't know how you handle DD, but id recommend letting the dps stay put and having the tank run through them instead of the other way around, just so they have one less thing to worry about and can focus on their dps.

[Jorel]

(07-18-2012 02:17 AM)Izzo Wrote:  Basically, Incinerate armor makes you take more damage from firebrand, so you have to either make sure the firebrand tank never gets it by someone else (SC tank or a dps with a taunt) taunting before the cast and then the firebrand tank taunting back during it, or by switching as soon as he starts casting it on the tank. To my knowledge IA doesn't do any damage itself, or if it does it is pretty minimal. Firebrands damage is all kinetic/energy and stormcallers is all elemental/internal, so losing all your armor doesn't matter if you're tanking stormcaller. Also if youre not switching tanks, this means your higher armor tank (probably not an assassin) should be on firebrand, and your tank with more resistance to internal/elemental attacks should be on stormcaller.

The problem I'm having though is that even if we swap and I'm on SC with the IA debuff, I'm still getting shot by FB, even though our other tank has aggro on him. Something I'm missing?

[Izzo]

(07-18-2012 10:14 AM)Jorel Wrote:  

(07-18-2012 02:17 AM)Izzo Wrote:  Basically, Incinerate armor makes you take more damage from firebrand, so you have to either make sure the firebrand tank never gets it by someone else (SC tank or a dps with a taunt) taunting before the cast and then the firebrand tank taunting back during it, or by switching as soon as he starts casting it on the tank. To my knowledge IA doesn't do any damage itself, or if it does it is pretty minimal. Firebrands damage is all kinetic/energy and stormcallers is all elemental/internal, so losing all your armor doesn't matter if you're tanking stormcaller. Also if youre not switching tanks, this means your higher armor tank (probably not an assassin) should be on firebrand, and your tank with more resistance to internal/elemental attacks should be on stormcaller.

The problem I'm having though is that even if we swap and I'm on SC with the IA debuff, I'm still getting shot by FB, even though our other tank has aggro on him. Something I'm missing?

Hm, that is pretty weird. If you're sure you dont have aggro on him, all I can think of is that your FB tank has him positioned badly. He does that huge frontal cone AOE which has enough range to hit anyone standing on stormcaller if hes facing that way.

either that or your SC tank is taunting too late so you get hit by IA and the shot right after it which will hurt a bit? although it probably shouldn't kill you unless youre at low health.