Thaddius

[Xyriin]

From last night the Thaddius attempts ranged from 60.4k to 79k raid dps. To kill Thaddius before the enrage timer 84.4k raid dps is needed. Our best attempt which had everyone alive left him at 4% and recorded 79k raid dps.

This leaves us about 5.4k dps short right now on a flawless attempt which would require about 300dps per dpser (counting the two tanks as one dps) based on last nights raid manning. Accounting for the stacking buff on the fight this isn't impossible, but it will require a flawless attempt and a slight damage boost from everyone in the raid.

Other raids are killing Thaddius because they can hit 84.4k dps with the lag present. Granted they aren't squashing the encounter and are barely beating the enrage timer but they are getting the job done with good damage.

If anyone has tips for boosting any dmg in any way please share them so we can get past this hurdle and finish the Naxx clear. This would also be a good time to take a look at gems/enchants to maximize in any way as well.

Some obvious ones I can think of...
Time cooldowns to coincide with the start of the buff stacks after a polarity shift.
Do not use cooldowns on the first two mini-bosses if it will cause you to get one less cooldown cycle on the boss. (Enrage timer doesn't start until Thaddius is engaged)
Stack multiple cooldowns when possible for the largest boosts.

Hunter specific...
Refresh Hunter's Mark on a polarity shift where you have to move.
Refresh stings on the polarity shifts between buff stacks going away and coming back.

[Mithwen]

One thing I was having a problem with was whether to cast my treants, or whether they just would cause more lag! I've looked at parses of good boomkins, and treants can account for 2-4% of their dps (so enough for that 300 dps more). Probably no one was paying attention, but do you think pets and things just make the lag worse?

Another one that I was worried about is starfall. Again, it's a low overall percentage of my dps, but it counts. However, it's kind of graphics intensive. How are other people approaching spells like that?

Finally, maybe I just am terrible and should just be a shadow priest for that fight (although I'm thinking the loss of haste and crit to the other casters would be a blow). I do find it really frustrating (and a massive dps loss with the lag the way it is) to keep FF up, so perhaps having Lad be shadow just on this fight till we get past to keep misery up would help?

P

[Nortibiry]

From our experiments it seems that the lag is server side and based on the positive/negative debuff calculations, so I would think that graphical effects (or addons) are not a factor, and pets (who don't get the aura or take damage from it?) shouldn't be either.

[Wenge]

I noticed no additional lag from my mirror images, as guardians are not affected by the charge debuff.

[Lad]

when i was shadow i was using all level 70 spells. i forgot i hadnt trained the new ones since i hit 80. so i can suck a lot less

[Xyriin]

From reading over forum posts about raid lag it seems to be purely related to server load processing and not related to user internet connection or system lag. I don't know about all the current talent choices for different specs. But I think an elemental shaman can offer the only other spell crit (Elemental Oath) and paladins the only other spell haste (Swift Retribution). I know with the fight going the full six minutes I was having to switch to Viper for regen, not sure if any of the other classes ran into mana issues.

[Mithwen]

I'm not playing a moonkin because I like the funny dance and doing mediocre dps because I don't know what I'm doing. Trust me, I'd love to be a shadow priest still. Sadly, all a shadow priest does now is bring spell hit (which a moonkin can do too via an admittedly clumsy mechanic) and replenishment via a clumsy mechanic.

Check my talent build (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?tal=501220312533100321330530123100000 00000000000000000000000020500331200000000000000000 ) and specifically look at Moonkin aura and imp moonkin aura. In addition, imp FF. (Incidentally I'm open to suggestions on this if you wanna ask in game ... I've tried a couple of different builds and I can't really use a cookie cutter one because none of those include imp FF.) Also http://raidcomp.mmo-champion.com/ will easily tell you what buffs you're getting given your raid composition.

One thing I think I'm seeing from raidcomp is that Earth and Moon (and Ebon Plaguebringer from the other Al) provides the same debuff as talented Curse of Elements? So the warlocks probably already knew this but I guess they don't need to be applying it?

P

[Vahhn]

I don't know if it makes a major difference but if we save our first heroism until after first polarity I think it would give us more use than right off the bat.

It takes a good 3-5 seconds (with lag, human error, positioning etc.) for everyone (on average) to move to position (left or right) after his first shift.

He shifts polarities every 30 seconds so yeah we would maximize our output (slightly, but it helps) by doing this.


For Mages in particular, or even myself... I have yet to do the run around after my charge changes, I blink.

In our attempts last night and last week, not once have I done anything "stupid" while blinking, it actually will take me from one group on one side to the opposing group, then all it takes is to turn around and go on DPS.

Use cooldowns when they are available always, and if you find yourself able to go without using mana/health pots, use speed potions in there as well.

Always food buff and flask/guardian+battle.

Other than that it is just doing what you can in the circumstance you are in.

I know that although I was having bad lag, I continued to press my rotation of spells as if I wasn't lagging (after being a mage for 3.5 years, its pretty general what to do). I would find myself all of a sudden cast everything when the server would catch up.

[Vahhn]

Also, I don't understand the mechanics of a bad server well enough yet, but for spell casters it would either benefit to have more haste and less crit... or more crit and less haste.

If you are getting bad lag, then a little difference in spell casting speed will be overcome with the lag, so if you add a little time onto your spells, and increase your crit, then it may actually increase overall DPS.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

[phewl]

When i was there on wednesday, i pretty much resorted to spamming my main nuke instead of keeping up all my dots and doing proper "rotations". Doing this is was able to add a fair bit to my dps, because rather than trying to watch instant casts or worrying if my dots were overwriting or not showing up at all, i was able to at least get out some solid damage. Not to mention my incinerate was critting upwards of near 20K. This might only apply to dot based damage though, where you dont want to cast it early and overwrite any of your remaining damage.

Perhaps people should just simplify there casting rotations to their primary damage and the raid buffs they give. With that amount of lag it seems alot easier to just manage 1-2 spells/debuffs. At least thats where i was losing alot of my potential dps i feel. I was of course lifetapping and dotting when i had to run, but at all stationary times using incinerate(after i realized it was more efficient).

I agree that we should be using heroism later in the fight, i see no reason to use it prior to getting our uber damage buff? i mean who cares if u waste 5 sec of heroism moving to another spot? the extra 30+ sec you get standing at that spot with a crazy increase in damage along with casting speed outweighs the initial stationary spot in my opinion.

[Lad]

I believe you pop heroism right off the bat so that when it cools down, you have 1 minute till the enrage timer, and you can pop it again for another 45 second dps boost. Could wait till 15 or 20 seconds into the fight to pop it though.

[Edit] After re-reading my post I realize it wasn't totally clear. Basically - 60 seconds of heroism with charges + 30 seconds of heroism without charges > 45 seconds of heroism with charges. 2 more than 1!

[Raptace]

One thing I think I'm seeing from raidcomp is that Earth and Moon (and Ebon Plaguebringer from the other Al) provides the same debuff as talented Curse of Elements? So the warlocks probably already knew this but I guess they don't need to be applying it?

P

To my knowledge no one has been putting up CoE Pika. I was usually the person doing that. And as I understand it if you have a boomkin or a DK in the raid. I've heard that CoE is basically wasted. like your saying. If someone is applying it... they shouldn't be. Because that was usually my job and I'm not doing it, if Pest or Phewl has been doing it... they shouldn't be and I think they know that.

Now as to the fight I'm thinking about anything I can do to make things faster. First and foremost I was paying WAY too much attention to throwing instant cast dots. So like Phewl was saying, wait till I'm running which makes sense. Also! Vahhn mentioning the blink thing reminded me that I have this nifty teleporting spell that, well atleast running from one of the charges to the other would be instant. And that might help a bit as well.

I'm also in a agreement that timing the Heroisms a bit better might give us some dps boost. Besides not having the charges buff yet, and this might be just my problem, but when making the platform jumps... my pet about 90% of the time does not follow me, and as such I have to resummon him, which fuckin sucks cause then he loses all the buffs which in turn gimps my spell dmg... And several times, I get into position infront of Thad, I'm casting to summon the Fel Guard and then heroism gets cast... and my pet comes out a second or two after and then he doesn't get that heroism buff, which has to be gimping dps as well.

[Nortibiry]

I'm also in a agreement that timing the Heroisms a bit better might give us some dps boost. Besides not having the charges buff yet, and this might be just my problem, but when making the platform jumps... my pet about 90% of the time does not follow me, and as such I have to resummon him, which fuckin sucks cause then he loses all the buffs which in turn gimps my spell dmg... And several times, I get into position infront of Thad, I'm casting to summon the Fel Guard and then heroism gets cast... and my pet comes out a second or two after and then he doesn't get that heroism buff, which has to be gimping dps as well.

I think it would be fine to jump, summon your pet, and then run into position, as long as you're ready to handle the first charge. I don't think there's any reason everyone needs to be right there as he spawns, although I could be wrong.

wrt heroism timing I'd have to know the exact duration of the buff and debuff (and whether the debuff is applied at the start or end of the heroism effect), but remember that it's less about taking advantage of the first heroism and more about being able to take full advantage of the second heroism at the end of the fight.

[Lad]

Heroism has a 45 second duration and a 5 minute cooldown. The way we are doing it right now is pop it as soon as we bunch up, which means we waste about 5 seconds of the heroism before Thaddius is even targetable, but more importantly waste about 15 more before he applies charges to us.

Heres an example of a timeline of the fight.

- represents cooldown
* represents heroism time
Each tick is 15 seconds.


<HR> -<cooldown>- <HR>
***-----------------***-
0:00 . . . . 3:00 . . . . 6:00


The most efficient way to do it is wait 10-15 seconds into the fight before popping heroism. Which would look like this:


-***-----------------***
0:00 . . . . 3:00 . . . . 6:00


And that timeline gives us 15 or so extra seconds of heroism.

[Vahhn]

Heroism has a 40 second duration, in my earlier post I thought it had 30.