The Stone Guard

[petesakan 0]

The chance for epics from world bosses is so small that depending on them for gearing up is futile at best. The curious part on Blizzard is this...

WotLK entry Blues = ilvl 200

WotLK entry Raids = ilvl 213

Cata entry Blues = ilvl 346

Cata entry Raids = ilvl 359

MoP entry Blues = ilvl 463

MoP entry Raids = ilvl 489

Not sure if intended, but that's twice as big a jump in ilvl, so not sure if the difficulty was adjusted, but I am pleased with the difficulty. There were some obvious mechanics that weren't noticable, noted the limit of 3 chains. That is so immensely useful that I cannot describle how appreciative I am of that tip. That is HUGE and would relieve all the pressure of those chains being everywhere then breaking them all during Jasper petrification.

I heard the 2nd boss is much easier. I honestly think that chains trick is what we need to push through. We got the Overload pattern down...just dealing with a PuG tank who had some mental lag...thanks for all the tips!

Trust me the second fight is much much harder

[Zagam 1,982]

I heard it was much easier, just needed healer throughput. I have three of the best healers in my raid group that I've ever played with. The mechanics look pretty simple. Don't get hit by Shockwave, use Nullification Barrier correctly, stack and separate at the right time. At least they're using neat mechanics!

[petesakan 0]

I heard it was much easier, just needed healer throughput. I have three of the best healers in my raid group that I've ever played with. The mechanics look pretty simple. Don't get hit by Shockwave, use Nullification Barrier correctly, stack and separate at the right time. At least they're using neat mechanics!

Maybe because our healers are undergeared but the damage from second phase is high and if you phase the boss when he does one of his fire explosion thing..that will carry on to the last phase making it impossible to heal

[Peelyon 416]

We didnt get a kill tonight but had some really good pulls, our best being 18%. A lot of us under geared etc. Found it took a while to get the taunts and energy sorted.

One observation - if it starts to go wrong then it goes wrong. If you let the energy stacks get too out of hand then they will wipe you. With the 275k overload its pretty much a wipe mechanic.

Really enjoyable fight though. For our skill level its a great challenge. Compare that to the likes of Morchok etc and its brilliant

[Devah 1]

Our best attempt was 30% and I think it was a very very fun fight. I was tanking (blood dk) along with prot warrior. We got in to the rhythm of tanking pretty quick. Our problem was under performing healer. The thing we got a hang of at the end of the fight is if you have jasper chains just stack until Jasper is petrifying this is the point where you break your jasper chain. Some one can correct me if I am wrong but we were noticing significant damage reduction once we started doing that. People confused with petrification just need to grasp a simple concept. The main tank should have the guardian that is petrifying and the guardian who has lowest energy. I asked for taunts when the 2nd guardian would reach 60% energy. While the off tank just tanks the one with the highest energy. In our best attempt we didnt had any full overload. Our main problem was with crappy healer dying to pools. Hopefully we will kill it on Fri.

[Peelyon 416]

Not sure about everyone else - but we currently have Jade + Amethyst + Cobalt. Is that the same as the rest of EU? I know on Halfus the EU and US had different setups for the drakes available.

I dont want to presume too much, but personally the worst for us was Jade when not under Jade protection. The Jade shards really hurt and obviously combining a "bad" overload + the shards was an instant wipe.

[Boradan 17]

Your loot-table needs an item added.

I got Claws of Amethyst last night.

[ehivar 0]

• I must prove that big amount of damage we were taking last night. We did about 30 wipes there. Both tanks warr and bear were taking shit load od damage from bosses. I, as warr, was using my shield barrier and other CDs as soon as I had enough rage, but healers were not able to keep me really save. We all have ilevel arround 455 or so. We were able to get to 62% once, but then all our healers were out of mana. I did not check the logs yet so I can not say if DPSers did avoid void zones/mines corectly, but still. It is pretty hard fight. On the other hand I like it even when it is pretty frustrating. :D Finally some challenge. Perhaps we still need to gear up a bit ?

[Vlad 411]

Your loot-table needs an item added.

I got Claws of Amethyst last night.

Thanks. Will do :)

• I must prove that big amount of damage we were taking last night. We did about 30 wipes there. Both tanks warr and bear were taking shit load od damage from bosses. I, as warr, was using my shield barrier and other CDs as soon as I had enough rage, but healers were not able to keep me really save. We all have ilevel arround 455 or so. We were able to get to 62% once, but then all our healers were out of mana. I did not check the logs yet so I can not say if DPSers did avoid void zones/mines corectly, but still. It is pretty hard fight. On the other hand I like it even when it is pretty frustrating. Finally some challenge. Perhaps we still need to gear up a bit ?

I would say your gear level is definitely a little low for what's intended. My guild went in with, on average, I'd say 464 item level, but some even had higher than that. Just get a few more heroic dungeon pieces and you'll be fine :)

[Zagam 1,982]

If your ilvl isn't 463, you're not taking raiding seriously and you cannot expect serious results. I have read that people aren't "wasting" enchants on 463 gear. Do you expect your poorly itemized gear to carry you to brand new 489 gear? Well designed raids require the same type of effort as real life; the effort you put in greatly affects the outcomes you experience. If you want to be successful in the first couple of weeks raiding, you have to put forth that effort to overcome the challenges of these fights. If you could walk all over it with unenchanted sub 460 gear and an underperforming healer, what would the full 463+ raid groups be doing? They'd be 9 manning it and quitting the game shortly thereafter.

[Peelyon 416]

Zagam I suppose it depends on your approach to the game I guess. Were a bunch of socials who have never taken the game too seriously and real life always comes first the majority of us. I managed to get an ilvl of 467 before we started the raid, but that was mainly due to the fact I had the time to spare and the gold to buy some craftable 476 epics.

We had a few players who did everything they could just to get to 90 and hit capped in the hope we could at least see the boss. Even then with majority of our raid who never got past 5/8hc DS managed an 18% wipe, so not too bad.

More importantly its a challenge again. We had a lot of players who had previously taken breaks / quit raiding come back to the game to see what the bosses and content would be like and we all left the raid extremely happy that we had a new challenge for normal modes (weve never really been that interested in heroic content).

I think that the 18% wipe could have easily become a kill if everyone had the gear, but gearing is half the fun. Apart from the odd slot I'm 463+ so having to hang around waiting for the rest of the group to catch up :P

[Zagam 1,982]

Well it appears YOU'RE taking it seriously and were likely a HUGE contributor to the partial success of your attempt. If everyone else took your approach, many shinies would fall to your group. You can have fun AND take it seriously at the same time. I'm pumped for the difficulty in normal modes (world first normal clear didn't happen until last night) so we all should have fun helping each other come together to assist in kills.

[Guest Necroshammy]

From log above ... dps must be about 40-45k per raidmember (without heals)?

We try pug group :-) And we all3 healers have on our tries about 40k hps,

and people offen get rand flash .. is there way how to better avoid aggro from bosses when tanks are taunting new one?

[Krazyito 521]

Things to take into account, on top of what was said already about just taunting overload target and it moving around you want to have ONE tank getting a high constant stream of vengeance by tanking 2 guardians the entire fight. The vengeance damage will greatly out weigh the ease of only taunting one boss.

Second, when you are being petrified by, say, Jasper. You then have 90% resistance to fire damage. Which coincidentally makes it the perfect time to fully break Jasper chains.. Same applies for cobalt mines during cobalt petrification

Edited October 4, 2012 by krazyito65

[Peelyon 416]

So just to confirm US have Cobalt - Jasper and Amethyst up currently? And EU have Jade Cobalt and Amethyst?

Edited October 4, 2012 by Peelyon

[Krazyito 521]

I think it's kinda crap that 25 has all 4 and is forced to 3 tank in lower levels of gear. 10 man has to deal with 1/4th things then us and use a normal comp =/

Edited October 4, 2012 by krazyito65

[Zagam 1,982]

The comp we dealt with was Amethyst, Jade, and Jasper. No Cobalt. Cobalt seems easy as crap to handle.

As for 10 v 25, 25 man is FAR easier than 10 man. Sure, you have 3 tanks, but you also can use 7-8 healers comfortably. You also have a much easier time covering all buffs and debuffs. If you watched wowprogress.com, you saw 25 man guilds pouring in with victories FAR before 10 man did. It's not even able to be debated. And if you have some sort of backing to your statement that we deal with 25% of what you deal with, I'd love to see it.

[Clisis 5]

The comp we dealt with was Amethyst, Jade, and Jasper. No Cobalt. Cobalt seems easy as crap to handle.

As for 10 v 25, 25 man is FAR easier than 10 man. Sure, you have 3 tanks, but you also can use 7-8 healers comfortably. You also have a much easier time covering all buffs and debuffs. If you watched wowprogress.com, you saw 25 man guilds pouring in with victories FAR before 10 man did. It's not even able to be debated. And if you have some sort of backing to your statement that we deal with 25% of what you deal with, I'd love to see it.

To touch on what Zagam said and I agreed if the heals are geared that 25 can be a cake walk and also the Colbalt is increadably easy to handle as a tank. The only really 2 macanic's that Visage on Mal'Ganis on 25 man was having was chains and tanking. The tanking strat we came up with all three of our tank (including myself) loved. Basically keeping the assign add we were put on and taunting the peterfided dog clockwise. So at the start of the fight our main tank (druid) would pull the far 2 off to the right and the DK and myself (Warrior) would do the left 2. So it would be myself on Colbalt always (unless peterfied) and most likely the peterfied one would be on the druid so the DK with taunt at 25 energy of it then once at 50 energy I would taunt it and so on until overload (which I would call for pain supress or pop a CD) and continue that this way. The chain's I will suggest tonight as a buddy system from these forms ;D and we will get our first 25 man kill along with our 10 man kill from tuesday night

~Clisis

Edited October 4, 2012 by Clisis

[Peelyon 416]

I wouldnt 100% agree with cobalt being super easy either. Along with the pools it meant the room got VERY cluttered very easily. We ended up using our hunter with deterrance just run through them to clear them out but it does make the room feel a lot more crowded. We ended up moving up and down the room to reach areas of space.

On the 10 v 25 debate Im not sure, but having an extra guardian to use for energy gain surely would make life easier no?

[Krazyito 521]

The comp we dealt with was Amethyst, Jade, and Jasper. No Cobalt. Cobalt seems easy as crap to handle.

As for 10 v 25, 25 man is FAR easier than 10 man. Sure, you have 3 tanks, but you also can use 7-8 healers comfortably. You also have a much easier time covering all buffs and debuffs. If you watched wowprogress.com, you saw 25 man guilds pouring in with victories FAR before 10 man did. It's not even able to be debated. And if you have some sort of backing to your statement that we deal with 25% of what you deal with, I'd love to see it.

I'm sorry. I was pretty ambiguous with my post. I was typing from my cell phone and did not realize how I worded it. What I meant was for this specific fight that 10 man had 25% LESS to deal with (i.e. a guardian not being up, so they did not have to contend with one of the 4 abilities) I know that yea, 25 man can handle it with having more people and the DPS/Healer gain/loss is not so big, but its still not the same. Again, I'm sorry for being so ambiguous.

About 25 mans clearing it faster, most of the big guilds that are clearing it now were already 25 man. They would have cleared it regardless of being 10 or 25.

As with difficulty between the two, I can say for almost all fights after doing it so many times in 25 man, regardless of you having killed it before or not, and then try to do 10 man, the fight is much easier because there is less micromanagement having to be done between leaders and the over all damage is lower, while players still have the same gear, so it feel's like there is less damage going out even though there are less healers.

Edited October 4, 2012 by krazyito65

[Clisis 5]

So, does anyone know the exact HPS and DPS reqirement for each raid member? I am asking so I can see tonight who I can help and possably get them up to the reqired amount. Now if it's the abilitys of the boss they are having trouble with I won't be able to help those poor souls xD

~Clisis

[Krazyito 521]

So, does anyone know the exact HPS and DPS reqirement for each raid member? I am asking so I can see tonight who I can help and possably get them up to the reqired amount. Now if it's the abilitys of the boss they are having trouble with I won't be able to help those poor souls xD

~Clisis

I'm sure you can look at any 10 man log and see the dps they put out huh?

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/wnz9x0y2mwoz7s3a/sum/damageDone/?s=39&e=507

that is the first 10 man guild link i saw in the recent reports. I then navigated to their calendar and looked up their kill from wednesday.

It looks like their warrior tank did a lot of the damage.

[Clisis 5]

I'm sure you can look at any 10 man log and see the dps they put out huh?

http://www.worldoflo...one/?s=39&e=507

that is the first 10 man guild link i saw in the recent reports. I then navigated to their calendar and looked up their kill from wednesday.

It looks like their warrior tank did a lot of the damage.

This doesn't surprise me in the least. Vengence has made tanks so much more powerful then they use to be overal. Plus I love to see myself as a tank out DPS the DPS themselves lol. It also look that DPS have to be at least 35k+ to kill the boss. Edited October 4, 2012 by Clisis

[Guest Ronada]

We killed him on 10 man this week using a very unorthodox strategy. We had Jasper, Jade, and Amastyst. Here's our log: http://www.worldoflo.../?s=5106&e=5497

We tried the traditional strategy and found that our tanks (I'm the bear and main tank, and a Paladin OT) had alot of problems executing it, but that even when we did everything right we could still reliably expect the healer's mana to give out at 60%.

The strategy we used had all 3 dogs on one tank. I'd start out pulling 2 and then at 30% I'd trade one with the other tank. Then when the first doggy overloaded I taunted the doggy on the off tank, thus giving one dog at ~66 energy, one at ~33 energy, and one at 0. We bloodlusted, and I tanked all three the rest of the fight (until I died at 2% and the pally picked them up for the last 20 seconds).

The fight is quite a bit different using this strategy. You will get 'bad' overloads that will do a crap ton of damage to the raid, although you will never have 2 bad overloads in a row. When these happen you need to have the raid topped off before they go out, and then heal the raid back up right after. However, only one tank is taking damage from rend. Rend is such a huge amount of damage that your total damage taken is not actually higher with this strategy, it's just spikier and spread out to the raid more. Raid healing should be more mana efficient, and dps will of course be higher on three mobs than on two.

This strategy would never work on 10 man heroic, and I don't think it would work on 25 man, but on 10 man normal we found it far superior.

[specialk 3]

Here is a question i havent yet been able to see answered -

Can one Ice block or BoP out of jasper chains?