Gruul's Lair - Gruul the Dragonkiller

[Air]

Found this at mmo champion:

[Arcdelad]

we have maulgar down easily now...he dropped last weekend on the second attempt...koth is doing a really amazing job of staying alive through while tanking the mage boss...

i think we can safely put maulgar on farmed status...

now...how to keep a non druid tank up for gruul...therein lies the problem...khader, who is as well geared as any prot warrior youll see, is having a hard time lasting against gruul, largely becuase of the AOE silence gruul does...I take over and seem to have a better shot becuase of my dodge rate and high HP (20.6k for the raid then), but then our OT's get systematically one shot until gruul runs out of OT's and starts in on high dps and our healers....

[genny]

With the guild my horde characters run with, the MT is a bear.  - I believe he runs with 20K+ HP high dodge and high AC and does really well with an intervening warrior to take the strikes.

[khader]

As Arc pointed out, it's a 2 tank fight so even if the MT can be kept up the second tank is going to be tough to keep alive Growth gets to 11 or 12 stacks.  Second tank will be taking 16-17k hurtful strikes at this point.  Getting Gruul down at or before 11 Growth stacks seems to be imperative.

On our best attempt Gruul was down to 25% at 11 or 12 Growth stacks.  Really not going to be possible to keep any tank up much beyond this point nevermind keeping 2 tanks up.  According to various guides we are lasting long enough but need to up the DPS to get Gruul down in time.

Keeping the tanks up later in the fight is tough on the healers.   Will probably take 2-3 full time on the 2 tanks to keep them close to full health to get through the silence and during the recovery from groundslam.  Repositioning following groundslam was where I had most difficulty staying up.  I would get back to Gruul then take 3-5 hits without heals then take a dirt nap.  Might help to have the healers setup some type of rotation where 2 of them are responsible for the MT and second tank after each groundslam - others would check tanks then heal other raid members.  just a thought/suggestion.

We've made progress each attempt - Gruul's health went down faster in the same amount of time.  Next time Gruul should fall.

As for my gear, I still need a few upgrades from Kara so if anyone has an influence with the servants of Kara or Blizz please pass this along.
Khader's Kara wishlist
[item]Battlescar Boots[/item]
[item]Wrynn Dynasty Greaves[/item]
[item]Panzar'Thar Breastplate[/item]
[item]Shield of Impenetrable Darkness[/item]
[item]Gloves of the Fallen Defender[/item]
[item]Helm of the Fallen Defender[/item]

Too bad there's no spell to transmute healing plate into other 'useful' items.......

[Lynette]

On our best attempt Gruul was down to 25% at 11 or 12 Growth stacks.  Really not going to be possible to keep any tank up much beyond this point nevermind keeping 2 tanks up.  According to various guides we are lasting long enough but need to up the DPS to get Gruul down in time.

I think this is our biggest challenge with Gruul at this point.  Seeing that we were able to get to growth 13 before Arc went down, we really need Gruul to be at 50% health before growth 7 hits - worst case scenario - ideally by growth 6.  Even on our best effort, I believe he was already at growth 8 before he hit 50%.  We really had no shot at taking him down on this night, based on my math.

Personally, I know I had a bad night and was really a laggard on the DPS meters.  I had a hard time detecting the falling rock debuff and my UI was messed up.  I really struggled trying to find a rhythm with my cds & skill rotations, with all the running back and forth after the ground slams and running from falling rocks.  Frequently, I was dead by growth 4.  I'm not sure if other meelee dpsers had similar struggles.  I installed BigWigs basic and will ensure my UI is setup properly next time.

I'm wondering if we need more range dps in place of meelee & fewer healers.  Just a thought.

[Air]

Considering our current level of gear for dps classes, its not possible to down him by growth 11.  Everyone in the raid would need to be fully kara geared with no blue gear whatsoever.   Im pretty sure we could get him by growth 13 or 14, which I think is normal for guilds at our level.

Like Ive suggested, we really should have a 3rd prot warrior intervening a few hits on Arc and Khad after growth 8 or 9.

For myself atleast, having two healthstones and bandages, I can keep myself alive the entire time.  I remember having one bad knockback that almost killed me, but that was it.

Im pretty unsure of how healing is handled for Gruul, so I cant say for certain.  But I think healers should really focus on healing the tanks only after growth 8.  Everyone in the raid should really be able to keep themselves alive during the entire time.

[Arcdelad]

well..the problem with intervening, and I will be the first person to admit I dont know the mechanics of it (except lazy warriors use it to catch up to people in their groups ), is that it means that intervening warrior has to still take that blow..

this is how it was last saturday:

- Khader charges in...i wait a sec, then make sure im #2 on threat meter...I get hit for 3k hateful strikes to start and they seem to add 1k damage per growth on me. I have 20.6k health, 45% dodge, and 30k armor (all buffed).

- khader dies, I now become gruuls main target.

- Goss becomes #2 on aggro...he gets one shotted.
- Gutboy comes in...he gets one shotted.
- <Insert next tank name> steps in, gets one shotted.

Gruul now looks around, sees no other tank types, and starts in on mages, moonkin, and priests. Our DPS now suffers and were hemorraging healers, meaning its harder to keep me alive since gruul is hitting harder and were gettng less healers.

I think even if a warrior intervenes (again, not sure if interveneing splits damage at all), that warrior still needs to survive that hit, or else hes just sacrificing himself for one hurtful strike.

We need a MT and OT here that can sustain huge damage from gruul...like i said, khader (despite his wishlist) is about as well geared as youll find, and hes having problems...DPS withstanding, having two well geared bear tanks, with their high health and huge phyiscal damage mitigation, would be our best bet right now I think

[Air]

Friend of mine told me about using a U formation around Gruul with the curve would be around the entrance.  What we would do is have all the range classes form the U, and then leave the open part for melee to run to for shatter.  The area north of entrance would be the open area where melee would head to.

[Buzan]

As Arc pointed out, it's a 2 tank fight so even if the MT can be kept up the second tank is going to be tough to keep alive Growth gets to 11 or 12 stacks.  Second tank will be taking 16-17k hurtful strikes at this point.  Getting Gruul down at or before 11 Growth stacks seems to be imperative.

On our best attempt Gruul was down to 25% at 11 or 12 Growth stacks.  Really not going to be possible to keep any tank up much beyond this point nevermind keeping 2 tanks up.  According to various guides we are lasting long enough but need to up the DPS to get Gruul down in time.

Keeping the tanks up later in the fight is tough on the healers.   Will probably take 2-3 full time on the 2 tanks to keep them close to full health to get through the silence and during the recovery from groundslam.  Repositioning following groundslam was where I had most difficulty staying up.  I would get back to Gruul then take 3-5 hits without heals then take a dirt nap.  Might help to have the healers setup some type of rotation where 2 of them are responsible for the MT and second tank after each groundslam - others would check tanks then heal other raid members.  just a thought/suggestion.

We've made progress each attempt - Gruul's health went down faster in the same amount of time.  Next time Gruul should fall.

As for my gear, I still need a few upgrades from Kara so if anyone has an influence with the servants of Kara or Blizz please pass this along.
Khader's Kara wishlist
[item]Battlescar Boots[/item]
[item]Wrynn Dynasty Greaves[/item]
[item]Panzar'Thar Breastplate[/item]
[item]Shield of Impenetrable Darkness[/item]
[item]Gloves of the Fallen Defender[/item]
[item]Helm of the Fallen Defender[/item]

Too bad there's no spell to transmute healing plate into other 'useful' items.......

Didn't you win the gloves and helm already Khader?

[kaylasb]

I think another option is to start tanking him with Arc as MT and me as OT and Khader as 2nd OT to let him save Last Stand and Shield Wall after my death, i have a large stamina pool and i think i can do it trough growth 11 maybe more. The reason of this is that if im third tank, im not going to be healed enough to replenish mana and build a solid aggro. When Khader is the OT  if he dies, Gruul just go after a dps'er and its a sure wipe cause Allo or me are below the dps'ers in the aggro list.

[khader]

Yes, I've picked up a several gear upgrades T4 helm and gloves, legs from badges - [item]Unwavering Legguards[/item], boots - [item]Ironstriders of Urgency[/item].

Realistically its not going to be possible for a 3rd tank to pick up for the OT late in the fight.  DPS'ers will far outpace any tank except perhaps a druid that can sustain high enough DPS(read threat) to stay ahead of mages/warlocks/hunters for that period of time.  Early, probably up to 4-5 growths, it might be possible but after that keeping the MT and OT is our best option imo.  I certainly can't pickup OT late in the fight since my DPS isnt any where enough to generate rage needed to use high threat attacks needed to keep up with the DPS'ers on threat list. 

Healing the MT, whoever it is, is a bigger issue than tank gear or health.  Our tanks are similarly geared and able to MT or OT Gruul at this point - specifically Arc, Kay, Felani, and me.(Moment of silence for Panzerflak.)  From what I've seen from reviewing data after fights, most times I went down were due to taking 4-5 hits(20k-24k total damage) without big heals.  Sometimes it was bad timing with AoE silence or an unlucky cavein after shatter, others were no heals.  Its a chaotic fight and I don't mean any offense rather its just my observations.

My suggestion would be to assign healers to the MT, OT and melee.  Late in the fight its probably going to be necessary to focus heals solely on the MT and OT leaving melee on their own.  Melee should not need much heals as they can run out and bandage/pot as needed.  Having 3 healers on the MT, 2 on the OT and 1-2 for melee later switching to MT or OT should help us get past those last few growths were Gruul is hitting like a truck on each swing plus handling any damage from shatter or caveins.  Healers assigned to MT only heal themselves and the MT, healers on OT/melee could help out with those caught with a bad shatter so we don't lose too much DPS but priority would go to healing the OT.  Sometime around growth 10 have healers focus on the MT and OT for the remainder of the fight.

[Shadowwolf]

No no Khader, no offense taken at all. It was a large problem and I think mainly due to the rest of the raids placement on the Shatter. The largest issue seems to be a majority of the raid taking a lot of damage on Shatter and so the healers are trying to bring people back up to health so they dont die on a cave-in or the next shatter that heals on the MT kind of slack for a few seconds, which at the later stages of his growths is all thats needed to 2-3 shot you down, and if you pool that in with a bad AOE silence, well, we get whats happened.

I think atop trying that "U" shape placement, we will have 1-2 dedicated MT healers for after shatter to avoid any issues and the rest of the healers can help spot heal the raid in prep for the next Shatter or cave-ins.

[Nasanna]

I definitely agree with assigning healers. However, the dpsers will need to make sure they are in the right spots, otherwise they will be out of range for heals.

The U shape is worth a shot and will probably help with assigned healers. That way the dps won't be spread out too far. But I don't know how well it will work for keeping the melee from getting hit by shatter. When everyone gets thrown in a random direction, it won't matter too much where we started- I've been close to the wall but not out of LOS, and gotten knocked into the middle before.

[LastDyingBreath]

I think it bears saying that this is a fight where all DPS needs to bring stacks of uber healing pots, heavy neatherweave bandaids, and a healthstone - and then USE 'em.  healers are under enough stress as it is.

I would wait for pot/healthstone until later in the fight when all heals will be on tanks, and then use them in a reactionary manner.  Shatter goes off, you take a hit, immediately slam down the potion.  If you don't dick around with it, a healer won't burn an unneeded heal on you.

Fun fact:  [item]Charged Crystal Focus[/item], farmed up in BEM, works identically to a healthstone and doesn't prevent you from holding a lock healthstone.

[Lynette]

A personal plea for everyone coming to GL tonight ...

PLEASE review the strategies posted here, either to refresh your memory or to learn what your role will be if you've never been.  Come prepared with EVERY consumable you have at your disposal and lots of it.  Flasks will be handed out by an officer, but you should bring all pots, stat food, bandages, poisons, oils, etc to completely max yourself in whatever role you are playing.  Also, gem and enchant your gear BEFORE tonight's run - even if said gear is gonna be upgraded tomorrow.  Bring stamina gear just in case you need more health.

Gruul is a tough fight ... very tough.  It requires 25 members working as a team ... not 24 or 23 ... but all 25 members!  If you aren't sure of your role, ask an experienced player BEFORE we enter the instance.  Mistakes are expected, but learn from them and improve.  It will take near mistake-free play by all 25 of us for 10 straight minutes to win tonight, so stay focused.

We have the right folks, right strategy, right leadership, and right gear to down Gruul TONIGHT - let's make it happen!

See you tonight, Twilight!