Kalecgos

[Etrigana]

Stealing Norts thunder...

Strategy: Here (http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild/index.cgi?action=view_guide&guide_id=341&sid=gBsIAN9t7G)
Video: Here (http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=71149)
Discussion thread: Here (http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t23771-kalecgos_-_more_than_one_way_save_dragon/)

-Etri

[Vand]

From what I read in the strategy guide linked by Etri, decursing in the Kalecgos fight is not the simple matter it is in most fights because you do not want to remove curses as soon as they pop up. Instead, you are supposed to let them remain in place for some period of time before decursing.

There is a new feature in Decursive that may have been implemented for exactly this fight. If you use Decursive's micro unit frames (MUFs), you can see the number of seconds a person has been cursed. This may be very useful for Kalecgos.

I know there are several different cleansing addons out there, but for the druids and mages who don't use Decursive, you might want to check it out before we get to Kalecgos if your preferred addon does not have a time display.

[Wenge]

I believe I've seen a similar module for Grid, but have not tried it.

[Vand]

I believe I've seen a similar module for Grid, but have not tried it.
I found the addon in WAU. It is called GridStatusKalecgos. I will install that and see whether Decursive or it works better for Kalecgos.

One question I have about Grid is if I want to use it to decurse somebody, is there any way I can just position my mouse over somebody in Grid and then hit a key to decurse that person without clicking that person and thus changing targets?

[Etrigana]

/cast [target=mouseover] Remove Curse

-Etri

[Wenge]

Yeah, or install Clique, which will give you click-to-cast.

[Vand]

Something that I am having difficulty with as we start to survive longer in the fight is being in range to decurse somebody dragon-side. In the demon realm, it is a non-issue. But up top, people are very spread out and I have trouble knowing if somebody is down below or simply out of range. I am not sure what the solution is to this, probably something along the lines of making sure that there is one decurser on the north side and another on the south side of the dragon, but we need to come up with something that works.

[Zhek]

stand in the middle of the dragon

[Raptace]

There has to be some mod or filter or something that shows when a person is in range for the decurse? I know there are mods out there that will highlight the people in your healing range for healers, I would assume that there is something similar with decursing.

[Vand]

Yes, I know when a person is in range to decurse. The problem is that I cannot tell if they are out of range because they are demon-side, or because I need to take two steps to the right (left?) to get in range. Maybe we need to put symbols over the decursers (maybe make us the ones with the group symbols), and make it cursed people's responsibility to make sure they move within range.

[Nortibiry]

Yes, you can. My guild has killed Kalecgos and Brutallus with 7 Illidan kills to our name.

On the last two kills our entire raid went in with [Cloak of Arcane Evasion] (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30831) (enchanted with +15 AR) and [Violet Badge] (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31113). I highly recommend this to anyone have trouble with Kalecgos, it completely trivialized healing in the normal realm, we have about a 1/2 resist ratio on the arcane buffet.
http://elitistjerks.com/732704-post281.html

[Vand]

Do we have anybody with the +15 ar enchant?

[benseac]

Since one of the issues we're having is the demon not dying as fast as Kalecgos, would we consider using, perhaps, a protection paladin for this fight? My reason for asking is that, from everything I've read about prot paladins, their tanking is based more on damage reflection than dodge (or whatever). Seems if we put a prot paladin on the demon, he could (possibly) be doing more damage while tanking via holy shield, ret aura, consecration and exorcism.

[attic]

Do we have anybody with the +15 ar enchant?Tier's warlock

[Etrigana]

Yes, you can. My guild has killed Kalecgos and Brutallus with 7 Illidan kills to our name.

On the last two kills our entire raid went in with [Cloak of Arcane Evasion] (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30831) (enchanted with +15 AR) and [Violet Badge] (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31113). I highly recommend this to anyone have trouble with Kalecgos, it completely trivialized healing in the normal realm, we have about a 1/2 resist ratio on the arcane buffet.

http://elitistjerks.com/732704-post281.htmlWe are going to do this. Id like everyone to have the back with the enchant by Tuesday. There is NO reason people cant get it by then and if you dont have your violet badge (which I dont know why youd have gotten rid of it...) then petition a GM to restore it or get in to Kara to get it.

-Etri

[benseac]

I know there are others who can do it as well but I can make the cloak so if you need it, give me a shout.

[Vand]

We are going to do this. Id like everyone to have the back with the enchant by Tuesday. There is NO reason people cant get it by then and if you dont have your violet badge (which I dont know why youd have gotten rid of it...) then petition a GM to restore it or get in to Kara to get it.

-Etri
Given the fact that void shatter has no more CD, and the fact that we have so many void crystals in the guild bank, would you consider providing the shards for the enchant, Etri (4 each, or 2 crystals)?

[Etrigana]

Given the fact that void shatter has no more CD, and the fact that we have so many void crystals in the guild bank, would you consider providing the shards for the enchant, Etri (4 each, or 2 crystals)?

I personally plan to use my own shards for my cloak enchant since its my gear and I need it to kill a boss. If there are people to impoverished and desperate for hand outs that they cant afford 4 shards to see progression than sure...mail me and Ill send you crystals.

-Etri

[Vand]

I don't mind paying for my own. I guess I'm just uncertain about what the purpose is of having nearly 100 void crystals in the guild bank...thus the question.

[Lad]

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info8624-KalecgosHealth.html

An addon that displays the health of both the dragon and the demon.

[phewl]

if you have DBM it can already display that, at least mine does.

[benseac]

If you need the cloak, the below can make it:

Ladunch
Zostrous
Xaandria
If you need the +15 arcane resist to cloak, the below can do it:

Zostrous
Xaandria

[Tierran]

So, in another strat for Kalecgos I saw this diagram: http://www.bosskillers.com/pix/bbguild/feature/kalecgos-angarr-1.jpg

I don't know if finding the portal is still a problem or not for people, but I could see several benefits to this.

1) Should eliminate tail swipes.
2) People should be able to see the portals and get to them without getting tail swiped.
3) Possibly more open area to work with (more area away from his hit box for casters)


Anyways, was just a thought, and came from this guide:http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild/index.cgi?action=view_guide&guide_id=349

[Assault]

Tier, I like that strategy a lot more than the other one I read on Bosskillers (is this one new..?). Even if we don't follow this strategy regarding positioning and such, there are numerous valid points in there that look like they will apply to any successful kill.

Everyone should read that in detail.

[Lad]

That strategy is very similiar to the one I read on raidguru a long time ago. It just seems better.

[Jackal]

Here's my 2 cents worth of thinking. Last night it was brought up that all of our decursers if not most of them were down in the demon realm leaving our tanks up top, specifically Nort, in need of immediate decursing. Now I'm not pointing fingers, I'm merely making a suggestion so please don't take it the wrong way. From my understanding of how we're doing the fight, once all the teams have gone down once, we're pretty much on our own, to take the next portal once the debuff wears out. If this has been thought of already, then disregard it. I was thinking that maybe assigning a decurse team 1 and a decurse team 2 who would communicate who is going down thereby creating a rotation. No changes need to be made to the groups. The people assigned to decurse team one and team two need to know what team they are on. For example, once everyone has gone down once either team one or team two would call out over vent, "Decurse Team One (or Team Two-depending on how long debuff is still ticking), Taking Portal." "Once the team in the demon realm comes up or is about to come up, they need to let the other team know they should get ready for portal. Maybe a Pally and a Mage in one team and the same composition in team two. The extra decursers fall in the same rotation as everyone else unless a decurser from a team goes down. Hash it out however you guys want. Merely making a suggestion. Now it is possible that one person from team one and one from team two could be in demon realm the other two up top. In that situation, it needs to be said over vent and the two people from opposite teams need to pair up. Hope this helps.:D

[Etrigana]

Here is how this works. We currently have four groups all of which takes one of the first four portals. Each portal spawns every 30 seconds, each person spends 1 minute in the spectral realm and each person then spends 1 minute with the dragon while Spectral exhaustion wears off. So the "rotation" should look like this:

Portal 1 (15s): Group 1 goes down
Portal 2 (45s): Group 2 goes down, group 1 has 30 seconds
Portal 3 (75s): Group 3 goes down, group 2 has 30 seconds, group 1 pops up
Portal 4 (105s): Group 4 goes down, group 3 has 30 seconds, group 2 pops up

Thats exactly how the first four portals should go. Each group has one decurser and 2 healers in it so after the second portal, there should always be 4 healers and 2 decursers in either realm. Given the nature of the portals, there can be like 5 seconds of time where there may be an extra decurser or an extra healer...but it shouldnt be more than 5 seconds ever. It is INSANELY IMPORTANT that everyone in their group takes the first portal or else it throws everything off - and thats what we are messing up.

Now, the next four portals will look like this.

Portal 5 (135s): G1s debuff wears off, they move to the back and take the next portal, group 4 has 30 seconds, group 3 pops up
Portal 6 (165s): G2s debuff wears off, they move to the back and take the next portal, group 1 has 30 seconds, group 4 pops up
Portal 7 (195s): G3s debuff wears off, they move to the back and take the next portal, group 2 has 30 seconds, group 1 pops up
Portal 8 (215s): G4s debuff wears off, they move to the back and take the next portal, group 3 has 30 seconds, group 2 pops up

If every person is doing whats asked and moving to the back of the circle as their debuff is wearing off and taking the next possible port than the rotation in the first four portals pretty much stays the same. Even if it doesnt, unless decursers somehow mess up more than one portal they should still be spread out between the realms so that there should be at least one in each realm (at least for the first 215s of the fight).

Now we've said that you cant think of yourself in terms of groups after the first four portals. Thats simply because your 'group' after the first four portals will have to be autonomous and each person in it is going to be moving around freely. Given the debuffs wearing off over time, spectral blasts and random placement of people popping up, it doesnt make sense to assign given areas for groups after the first 4 portals. Its just easier for you all to be self-aware, follow your debuff timer and move to the back as it wears off. If people did this, the 'groups' would be the exact same and there wouldnt be a shortage of healers or decursers in either realm.

And to clarify incase someone asks what I mean be move to the back - we tank him in the east. People with spectral exhaustion cant be ported so they should be comfortable sitting closer to him. As the debuff wears off (5 seconds or so) people should be moving to the west (where we enter the circle from) in order to cut down on the spectral blast damage and give a more static place for portals to spawn.

-Etri

[Nortibiry]

Basically even though we're not calling out groups after the first four portals, groups should end up taking the same portal every time anyways.

[Aurorawind]

A mistake I made once was getting closer to the dragon since I just came out of the demon realm in accordance with the concept above...then got hit by the portal explosion of a melee person getting ported. So just be aware.

I've also been hit when coming out of the demon realm close to the dragon, but then somebody else never moved back as their debuff faded and ported right after I appeared. So please be aware of your time and stay mobile.

[Zhek]

one time i closed a car door on my hand when i was seven

[Raptace]

one time i closed a car door on my hand when i was seven

Did you not cry or nothin? And thats why you are called Tough?

[Zhek]

The way we are aproaching rotations are "as groups" the failing in that is your "group" is not all on the same timer, if that were the case the timers for people being in the demon realm might look something like this:

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In reality they look much more like this, say the star is when a new portal spawns, it doesent really lend itself to keeping the groups together propourly

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I feel very strongly that something needs to be done to ensure that healers and tanks are being rotated in a much more rigid fassion, the portals are up for what, 9 seconds? that means that a healer has a possible 9 second variation in their rotation, how long can a tank survive with no heals?

[Raptace]

Like everyone else is saying, something needs to be done. I think Haythan's idea is the next step, because what is happening is maybe a portal doesn't show up or something of that nature. And we have 10 people running through one portal just because their debuff is down. I like the idea of calling them group 1,2,3,4 etc after the initial portal has taken place. I think if we stay with our groups, we're golden. Question I'm wondering now is with Etri saying "we're doing BT every other week, will we be going back to Sunwell or back to BT this coming week?

[Assault]

What Haythan mentioned is EXACTLY what I suggested in our post-raid officer discussion on Thursday. So I would expect to see more rigid portal rotations all the way through next time we see Kalecgos.

[Etrigana]

I feel very strongly that something needs to be done to ensure that healers and tanks are being rotated in a much more rigid fassion, the portals are up for what, 9 seconds? that means that a healer has a possible 9 second variation in their rotation, how long can a tank survive with no heals?


Portals are up for about 15 seconds and you can feel strongly about getting healers in first, but unless you can find a way that doesnt jeopardize the portal rotation, then its just not going to happen. Anyone missing their portal (even a DPS) will throw the following portals off and since there is such a small window of time to get everyone down, waiting to get healers in just isnt going to work.

And yes Haythan, that seems to be the consensus. I dont know why we would switch to group numbers instead of just keeping the shapes and have anyone in the original shape group that gets ported say something and have everyone continue to identify themselves as being in "X" group or whatnot, but we will definitely be doing this.

-Etri

[Zhek]

so if having healers go in first is too difficult because it risks dps not getting in at all, have healers go in last, anything that is not just random would be better, dbm has a timer for how long the portal is going to be up for

[Tierran]

If healers don't get in near the beginning of the portal, people will die. It's really that simple. How to fix this, not really sure, maybe if you see a healer at the port with you then wait to see them go through first?

Also, doing some reading, I saw that the portals spawn every 20-30 seconds. Perhaps this is where we lose all our healers to the demon realm. Admittedly though, one groups healers should be able to keep the tank up? If not, this is something to look at also, if 3 portals go 20s apart, that's 3 groups in there for 20s before the first group comes out.

[Etrigana]

so if having healers go in first is too difficult because it risks dps not getting in at all, have healers go in last, anything that is not just random would be better, dbm has a timer for how long the portal is going to be up for

You cant micro-manage the portals to assign people to go in any particular order. Certain groups (melee comes to mind) have 7 people when they rotate in with a tank. You cant help it IF they rotate in with a tank, its totally subject to chance when they get that first port. 7 people fitting through a 15 second portal with a 2 second use cooldown...do the math. Given distance, latency and human response, you have no time to figure it out on vent if healers have gone or if healers should wait for another DPS to go down. Its just not feasible. On top of that, you have the random 'forced' port of that first person. If said person is a tank who just moved from Kalcegos while the rest of the group is in the back, then you cant expect people to queue up to take their port and still manage to get down.

I wont deny that it sounds great but it is near impossible to implement. There isnt enough time to manage the portals in such a way.

If healers don't get in near the beginning of the portal, people will die. It's really that simple. How to fix this, not really sure, maybe if you see a healer at the port with you then wait to see them go through first?

Also, doing some reading, I saw that the portals spawn every 20-30 seconds. Perhaps this is where we lose all our healers to the demon realm. Admittedly though, one groups healers should be able to keep the tank up? If not, this is something to look at also, if 3 portals go 20s apart, that's 3 groups in there for 20s before the first group comes out.

Hypothetically, there should only NOT be healers for a few brief seconds during the first portal. And people in the demon realm should really be ready to blow whatever they can to keep alive. The damage down there is incredibly spikey on everyone, especially the tank. Everything Ive read since Tuesday pretty much says the demon realm is a bitch, be ready to chug a pot and bandage until a healer shows up. It also says tanks need to be very careful with tanking and watch to see how many healers are in the demon realm. There are even people who say you watch for the knockdown, taunt off and just auto attack and wait for Kalcegos to steal aggro back. Then you repeat it.

I never get to see the NPCs life...but I assume hes pretty healthy given we dont usually wipe to him being dead so Im thinking tanks dont need to worry as much about tanking and can take the time in the demon realm to see if there are healers before taunting.

As to your second point, you are 100% correct. Its why I hate this fight...20s ports lead to 15-18 people being down below while 7 people are up above. Trying to heal a MT with 6-10 stacks of the debuff eating 5k health on each person while the tank is taking steady damage isnt easy. Its near impossible. But we cant skip a portal to keep people up top or stacks get to high and people just die anyways....

There are currently a few strategies of how to handle this. One involves healers moving in a first portal heavy way. So healers would rotate in a 3-1-2-2-1 manor. That means by the time the last group of two healers are going down, the first three are coming up. A second is to run with a spread out 2-2-2-2-1 which is something we have tried (and Im convinced its the best possible healer rotation). On Tuesday, I had Malicyte switching up and tried a 2-2-2-2-1 and a 2-2-2-3 healer rotation. The 2-2-2-3 healer rotation was horrible. Some guilds claim a 4 port rotation works...it didnt for us. Making Malicyte and T1 a port of their own during the first few ports should help to even things out I think and is really the only thing Im aware of that can cut the lopsidedness of a string of 20s ports out of the picture.
It, however, is subject to chance like any of the other portals. If Malicyte is forced early, it means a whole group is required to stay up top a bit longer and try to heal through the debuffs...

-Etri

[Tierran]

Hypothetically, there should only NOT be healers for a few brief seconds during the first portal. And people in the demon realm should really be ready to blow whatever they can to keep alive. The damage down there is incredibly spikey on everyone, especially the tank. Everything Ive read since Tuesday pretty much says the demon realm is a bitch, be ready to chug a pot and bandage until a healer shows up. It also says tanks need to be very careful with tanking and watch to see how many healers are in the demon realm.
-Etri


And I stand corrected, the first group SHOULD be the only group that needs to worry about the healer.

[Raptace]

I never get to see the NPCs life...but I assume hes pretty healthy given we dont usually wipe to him being dead so Im thinking tanks dont need to worry as much about tanking and can take the time in the demon realm to see if there are healers before taunting.

-Etri

I actually make a point to look at the NPC's life when I'm in that phase, and honestly? We're not doing that hot alot of the time. Many of times when we're wiping at 40%ish for the Dragon and Demon, I'm noticing that the NPC has 20% or less HP. Its completely possible that its not always like that, but I've seen it quite a few times.

[Malicyte]

One thing i've noticed about this fight is that larger heals really do come in handy. I personally find myself using Holy Light/bigger heals for most of the fight, just usually not at the beginning. I know there will be mana issues with bigger heals but everyone especially the tanks is taking massive damage. It can be hard to keep up with smaller heals and also there are breaks in the healing when some of the other healers have to access portals.

I know it's a long fight and our mana has to last but Flasked up, with man oil and food buffs, mana can last pretty long. Personally I'm thinking of just potting earlier and using more pots per attempt, just to play it safer.

I'm not trying to sound cool or anything, I just figure a tank taking massive damage who gets hit with a curse, will be in better shape if he's getting more HP pumped into him, until he can be decursed, however long that may be.

I hope I haven't offended any of you, it just something that I noticed when I was asked to skip the first portal and bubble off my debuff. I couldn't just rely on small heals when more and more people were leaving for the Demon realm. Same is true for the demon realm because the damage is spikey and we want to keep the NPC in good health since we can't heal him.

Just my 2cents about healing this fight, please don't be shy with the big heals, I think they are needed.:D

[Mithwen]

I totally agree with Malicyte. I only got to heal this one night (and I'm not sure I helped much) but I basically just kept up the greater heal spam and hoped brain heal, lifebloom, and CoH were covering the raid. It really seemed like it took Lyre dropping 6 or 7k heals (on the tank) and me dropping my 5k heals to keep up. Incidentally that wasn't NEARLY as mana intensive as doing shadow priest pew pew dps. Even with my castoff healer gear (which is admittedly darn good) I get close to 300 mp5 without being flasked. (oh freaking pee)

For raid healing, though, I didn't find I had time to get more than a flash heal off on people. Seemed like if I looked away the tank either dropped dangerously low or died. Course, I've not actually healed a bigger raid since before BC so its entirely possible I just suck. (I also blame the laptop and 5 fps I've been getting in Sunwell since the beginning of May.)

Finally, I could totally swear that there was a portal's worth of time where I didn't have a tank to heal in the demon realm, and I know that there were no dead tanks. Probably a portal glitch, but that's gonna be a problem when we're looking to kill the dude. Human Kalecgos was down to 20% health before things started going to hell in a handbasket that attempt.

so yeah. Off I go before the hotel internet kicks me off.

Pika.

[Wenge]

Some commentary on EJ suggests that missed portals were due to people being in groups 6-8, and possibly pets being targeted; removing standby players from groups 6-8 and dismissing pets made the portals work correctly.

Mages have reported being portaled while iceblocked, so I imagine other immunity effects will still make you get ported.

[Raptace]

Thats interesting about the pets, maybe we'll have to try that and see what happens?

[attic]

I was trying to figure out how we can beat this fight. It seems to me that our attempts are usually failing when a tank dies due to too many healers up or down. I can't recall Etri's groups but it might be worth a try to have each tank have two assigned healers that go up and down with that tank - possibly a decurser as well. Tanks have priority going up and down and the rest of us poor sods pot/bandage as best we can and fit into the portal where we can. If the tanks stay up to the enrage then I'd consider that a victory and we can tune from there.

[Zhek]

I was trying to figure out how we can beat this fight. It seems to me that our attempts are usually failing when a tank dies due to too many healers up or down. I can't recall Etri's groups but it might be worth a try to have each tank have two assigned healers that go up and down with that tank - possibly a decurser as well. Tanks have priority going up and down and the rest of us poor sods pot/bandage as best we can and fit into the portal where we can. If the tanks stay up to the enrage then I'd consider that a victory and we can tune from there.

your almost guaranteed that one of the portals that is not suposed to involve a tank one of their attatched healers will be targeted and the rotation will break

[Raptace]

Ok, this may be part of the issue here if you look continually this is the same way. This has been spoken about before and the fight with Kalegos is becoming a bit tiresome. But something needs to be done about this... I'm pulling out random days here...
Decurses
Chasidy 366
Wenge 274
Etrigana 127
Vand 59

And just the other night...
Chasidy 225
Nerathil 54
Etrigana 51
Vonsprokit 23
Vand 20

If you go back into further history, the theme is the same. The differences in all these is ridiculous. Etri and Nerathil are healers, they are constantly throwing up hots on different people and trying to keep tanks and the raid alive, they have an excuse for not having 100's of decurses, they try to decurse only when they can/ have to. Chasidy, Wenge have no issues decursing people.

I don't know what the issue is here, but having Kastus jump on a alt he should not be outdoing one of our main raiders in any aspect, no offense to Kastus but he hasn't put in the time that Vand has on his mage I don't think. This decursing thing has been brought up before by Wenge I believe, but this has reached the point of ridiculousness and I'm growing tired of it. Something needs to be done here. Chas runs on a horrible computer usually getting like 7-10fps during alot of boss fights and she manages just fine, I don't get what the issue is here.
Especially during Kalegos where mages really don't need to dps very much or at all really, its really frustrating to see stuff like this. I know I've died to the curse many of times, not sure if other people are getting the same issue, but its annoying to me to see numbers like this.
p.s. Sorry if this angers anybody, but I had to voice my opinion here.

[Assault]

I agree with the gist of what you're saying. However, I do think Chasidy potentially decurses too early sometimes. By that I mean within the like first five seconds I have the curse, which is really not necessary. On the other hand, if you don't run out of mana then there's not really a good reason I can think of (other than potentially squeezing a tiny bit more dps time while you're not decursing) to not just decurse everything at 5 seconds when it ups to 200 damage a tick instead of 100.

[Raptace]

I can agree with what your saying, and I'm not trying to say "Chas and Wenge and Etri have so much and Vand has so little" But the numbers shouldn't be so crazily stacked one way like they are. If we can get the curse off everyone within 10 seconds even, that'd be great. But that doesn't always happen, which is a issue.

[Zhek]

vand and vonsprokit might suck because wws doesent record what happens in the realm alternat to laiquendi. its a possibility

[Kastus]

Raptace, if you would really like to know the major disparity in curse cleansing, or so I have seen while attempting it, it seems to be the speed at which the curse is being dispelled. I pop down into the dragon realm, immediatedly put up scorchs and pop some CD's, then go to town on the demon, if when down there I see a curse go up on my one of my group (Im having difficulty seeing it on others outside of said group, Ima get grid for next time I go.) I wait, do a couple fireballs, then decurse it, because ping ponging it around with decurses would be a waste of time, mana, and most importantly DPS on this fight. Now not every time, but the vast majority, I'm seeing it cleansed off in a few seconds, like 1-3 seconds. I'm not quite sure what the rapid fire decursing is about, but this may help explain why the decurse table is kinda lopsided. (And my horrid failure when it comes to targeting other groups, would slapping on grid help with this maybe?) Iunno, shoot me if I'm wrong. <333

[benseac]

Raptace, if you would really like to know the major disparity in curse cleansing, or so I have seen while attempting it, it seems to be the speed at which the curse is being dispelled. I pop down into the dragon realm, immediatedly put up scorchs and pop some CD's, then go to town on the demon, if when down there I see a curse go up on my one of my group (Im having difficulty seeing it on others outside of said group, Ima get grid for next time I go.) I wait, do a couple fireballs, then decurse it, because ping ponging it around with decurses would be a waste of time, mana, and most importantly DPS on this fight. Now not every time, but the vast majority, I'm seeing it cleansed off in a few seconds, like 1-3 seconds. I'm not quite sure what the rapid fire decursing is about, but this may help explain why the decurse table is kinda lopsided. (And my horrid failure when it comes to targeting other groups, would slapping on grid help with this maybe?) Iunno, shoot me if I'm wrong. <333

Grid works wonders. It will help you immensely with seeing who outside your group has a curse.

[Mithwen]

People dying to curses is a waste of dps AND healing on this fight. Sometimes you fill a support role and you let other people have the glory. Almost all of us have a secondary role except for those rogues ... and maybe Slamina. :P It's a coordination fight more than a damage fight so ... falling back on 'fireballz lol' is kinda weak.

That being said, I'm not pointing fingers about the decursing on this fight. The WWS isn't gonna be super accurate, and Chas was in Basement's group on Monday. However, the decurse numbers from last night ... well, they should be as accurate as they can be and they're kinda lopsided. Like kinda really wow lopsided. SO when it comes to fighting Archimonde, I'm gonna remind decursers that your job is to STICK with your group, help run that fire away, and don't curve in to get your licks back on Archimonde as soon as possible. That fight is another coordination fight and no one gives a crap what your final dps number was if we don't actually kill him

Having grid or something like is a must, but it's cool not to have when you're just plunked into it. Still, it's not hard to get these things. I run with grid and I'm hardly ever called on to dispel or heal. The fact is that I *can* and I should be prepared to.

If early decursing is happening, that's a problem cause it's gonna cause curses to propagate faster than they should. We are *all* tired of wiping on this fight so it'd be super if people could try to figure out whether they could do something better. With a minimum of finger pointing and maximum of constructive suggestions.

Pika.

[Chasidy]

I have an addon that tells me when to decurse (after 10 seconds) so I may do it a little sooner sometimes but the fact of the matter is I don't waste mana that fight and after the second round of portals theres no room for dps its pretty much all decursing at that point which is ok to sacrifice some dps for that because I know everyone will pull through without that extra dps because they are alive and not a lot of healing is needed on them. I dunno I just want to kill him and I don't know where the problem lies but curses could be part of it.

[Etrigana]

In regards to early (or late) decursing...I can honestly say Im really scatter brained on this fight and often will let curses around me go for 15 seconds. Ask Slamina, he has to be clenching his asshole while waiting for me to decurse him on this fight.

That being said, the numbers Raptace posted are really not acceptable. Even if they are skewed in one direction....Im slack-assing on the decurses while trying to keep people alive and still posting higher (more than double) the decurses of Vand? That shouldnt be right.

-Etri

[Nortibiry]

I just want to point out that unless we put more work into saving multiple logs and making poor Laiquendi merge them, the WWS numbers for this fight are going to be completely inaccurate. Anything that happens in a realm that Laiquendi isn't in is just not going to be recorded, and since we go through in consistent groups half the raid is going to be dramatically underrepresented. We could work on getting a more accurate WWS but I'm not sure it would be super useful on this fight.

I really need to go digging for more ideas, off the top of my head: Are decursers aware/working with the timers for various people leaving the demon realm? ie if someone is going to go back to the dragon realm in two seconds and has eight seconds on their curse, maybe you should bump it immediately before it is out of your reach and potentially a problem. I know that DBM can give a list of timers for everyone in the demon realm, I'm not sure if bigwigs can. Yeah it's a lot of information to keep your eye on but it's one of those fights where I think clever, adaptive play will buy us a lot.

For that matter, are curses even what's killing us? Maybe we are going to have to return to our early Archimonde attempts and start picking apart the first 2-3 deaths of each attempt to try and puzzle out what is going wrong. With such a complicated fight it's really hard to see where things are breaking down, for me at least.

[Nortibiry]

Oh yeah one thing that's killing me in Sunwell right now is how few attempts we get on Kalecgos in a given night. I'd really, really like to try and tighten up our trash clearing and speed things up. I'd say we're getting around ten attempts per trash clear and often only getting one full trash clear in a night. Part of the delays are the leaders not being prepared with subs and we're working on this, but part of it is just pulling faster, making fewer mistakes, and being at the portal ready to go at 6 sharp.

Plus we're often finding ourselves starting a new trash clear at 9:00, as an officer this breaks my heart because I know we're not going to get ANYTHING useful done, but do not want to get into the habit of quitting early. If we can shave 15-20 minutes off each trash clear we can probably double our boss attempts per night.

[Vand]

The strategies that I have read suggest letting the curse tick for 10-15 seconds. I have a Grid addon that turns red when somebody has had the curse on them for 10 seconds. I finish casting whatever spell I'm doing and then immediately decurse once a person's box turns red. That means that a person decursed by me has had the curse for an average of about 12 seconds, which falls very well in line with what the strats suggest.

Chasidy, on the other hand, seems to decurse as soon as somebody gets it, making it so that nobody within range of her has the curse for even 10 seconds (heck, usually not even 5 seconds). This week, I was in the same portal group as Chasidy, leaving me with little decursing to do within the 10-15 second rule.

From what I have been able to tell, the curse is not the reason we are struggling with Kalecgos. I could probably count on one hand the number of times anybody died to it on Tuesday, and every one of those times that I could see was when 4 of the 5 decursers (everybody but Zhek) was on the opposite side of the person who died. I am not trying to point a finger at Zhek, since I know he's got his hands full healing and is pretty new to things like Grid. It's just that except in those very limited circumstances, decursing really does not seem to be what's holding us back. From my viewpoint, the issue is keeping the tanks alive, but I really have no constructive advice how to improve on that.

[attic]

your almost guaranteed that one of the portals that is not suposed to involve a tank one of their attatched healers will be targeted and the rotation will breakIf the healer gets ported then the next tank taunts and the associated tank goes. After the first round of ports the debuff prevents this from happening.

[attic]

Does anyone disagree that tanks dying is our biggest problem? The curse is not what's killing the tanks from the attempts I looked at logs for, it's lack of heals for >4 seconds. Unless I've missed something, we need to address that. Decursing is of secondary importance.

[benseac]

Does anyone disagree that tanks dying is our biggest problem? The curse is not what's killing the tanks from the attempts I looked at logs for, it's lack of heals for >4 seconds. Unless I've missed something, we need to address that. Decursing is of secondary importance.

I would agree that tanks dying is our main concern. However, I know from my perspective, having the curse is a major hindrance in healing the tank because in some cases I'll be the only healer or one isn't close. With the curse ticking away on me, I not only have to keep the tank up but I have to heal myself as well.

I could bubble it off if necessary. However, given that I'm a floater (i.e. I should be staying up to longer than others), I need to be able to bubble off the arcane stacks and if I use it prematurely due to erase a curse, I'm unable to use it to prolong my stay up top.

[Assault]

Bubbling (iceblocking/cloak of shadowing) off the curse is a terrible idea anyway and should only be done as a very last resort to save yourself from dying. If you use those means to get rid of the curse it goes to someone else but continues ticking on them to the SAME DEGREE IT WAS TICKING ON YOU. So if you're taking 500 a tick and you bubble it off rather than waiting for it to be decursed it'll switch to someone else and probably end up killing them.

[Vand]

To clarify something in response to what Xaan had to say: The rule I follow about letting a curse tick for 10-15 seconds does not apply to the tanks. I decurse a tank the moment I notice that they're cursed.

[Raptace]

I agree that keeping tanks up is the overall issue, but its like Etri said he's healing, he shouldn't be doing twice the numbers of anyone else.
And for what Nort is saying, maybe its not the 100% issue of this fight, but this is something that has been going on for a really long time with decursing and any fight where its important. People should really be giving 100% on these new bosses, I know I'm doing everything I can... is everyone else?

[Zhek]

If the healer gets ported then the next tank taunts and the associated tank goes. After the first round of ports the debuff prevents this from happening.

there are portals that are not suposed to involve a tank changeing realms at all, and if one was forced into it there would be a point in time that bosses had no tanks

[Vand]

this is something that has been going on for a really long time with decursing and any fight where its important.

FYI, on Wednesday's Hyjal trash clear, I did about 20% more decurses than Chasidy. Maybe you would not put those curses into the category of "any fight where it's important," but the point is that I take my decursing job seriously. I am not sure why you are trying to push this issue when the consensus is that a) it's not the curse that's holding us back on Kalecgos and b) the reason Tuesday's results were so lopsided was that I was in the same group as Chasidy who left no room for proper decursing within the 10-15 second window suggested by strats.

[Aurorawind]

If Laiquendi is not able to conveniently handle/merge/post multiple logs then I will gladly volunteer to do it (he's done enough for us already :) ) That way we make sure everyone is getting credit for their performance.

[Vand]

If Laiquendi is not able to conveniently handle/merge/post multiple logs then I will gladly volunteer to do it (he's done enough for us already :) ) That way we make sure everyone is getting credit for their performance.
Are we really sure that a person's combat log does not capture events in the opposite realm? My Grid seems to work fine for people in the opposite realm. That's how I know the approximate number of people who died to the curse on Tuesday when they were in the opposite realm as four decursers.

[Etrigana]

This (http://wowwebstats.com/cuto33mstnbnu?ab=368) is (http://wowwebstats.com/cuto33mstnbnu?ab=370) why its coming up Vand. Although you may have done '20% more' on Wednesday than Chasidy in Hyjal, your 50% behind me. I had to switch out and decurse most of the night because the curses came off way to slow. Thats all there is to it. It may not just be you, but that doesnt mean its not an issue.

You may also be waiting the proper amount of time on Kalcegos, but people are still dying to the curse (even if only a few) and lack of heals. If you decursed half as much as Wenge or Chasidy and I could decurse half as little as I am now, there would be a lot more raid healing to keep people alive. And the fact that Im not prioritizing the curse in order to heal and still managing to remove more than you...well, thats just disappointing.

Also, previous weeks decursing numbers are just as lopsided when you werent in Chasidy's group. It was covered in Raps original post.

-Etri

[Aurorawind]

Are we really sure that a person's combat log does not capture events in the opposite realm? My Grid seems to work fine for people in the opposite realm. That's how I know the approximate number of people who died to the curse on Tuesday when they were in the opposite realm as four decursers.

I don't know, but I want to do what I can to make sure we get the most accurate data since we are using that to analyze our performance. It "may" be accurate as is, but it would help to be more certain I'd think. Again, just trying to make sure any decursings aren't lost because of that transition.

[Vand]

I honestly do not know how you get so many curses, Etri. Maybe my method of decursing leaves something to be desired, so I'll post it here. I use Grid combined with a mouse-over macro to decurse. So basically whenever I left-click on somebody's Grid frame when in combat, it attempts to decurse them. I also have Grid configured to change the color of a cursed person's Grid border. So it's basically a game of whack-a-mole...see a blue border, click on same. When I notice that people are cursed, I immediately start to decurse until I see no more curses, and then resume DPSing. I do sometimes get carried away arcane exploding, and when in the middle of so many mobs with so many numbers flashing on my screen, it can be hard to notice new curses. That is why there were a couple of "oh shit" moments when Etri said something about curses over Vent and I realized that I had not noticed the curses.

I have no way to keep track of such things, but I would say that a majority of the time that I click on somebody, I get an error that says "Nothing to Decurse." I assume that means that somebody beat me to it, even though the border was still blue when I clicked. Note that I am talking about situations like the banshee curse where there are multiple people cursed and multiple people decursing. In situations like Archimonde where I am the only decurser, I rarely see that error, and when I do, it's when we're in close and another decurser must have been in range.

Could it be that my Grid is slow in displaying curses and their removal? If so, is there a way to speed it up? It can't be very slow, because for the Archimonde fight, if I'm on the ball, I can remove the curse often before it ticks even a single time, and almost always before the second tick.

[Vand]

Another thing that may cause lopsided decurse numbers in the Kalecgos fight is the fact that we never really have arrived at an "official" decurse strategy. In fact, I'm the only one who has explicitly stated his (10-15 seconds, tanks excepted). If other decursers are following a different strategy, that will naturally lead to very different numbers of curses removed.

Mine seems to be a widely accepted strategy, and conveniently falls right in line with the Kalecgos Grid addon, but it would be helpful if we had a consensus as to what strategy we want to follow as a guild. If we decide that it should be a shorter window, maybe Wenge could alter the code in the Kalecgos Grid addon so that the color changed at, say, 8 seconds instead of 10.

It would also be helpful if we could realize that the different numbers of curses removed in the Kalecgos fight is due to differing strategies, and not due to people slacking off.

[Aurorawind]

You are mentioning a Kalecgos grid add-on there Vand.... Do all decursers have this to assist in standardizing on the 10 second rule?

[Vand]

You are mentioning a Kalecgos grid add-on there Vand.... Do all decursers have this to assist in standardizing on the 10 second rule?
I do not know if everybody has it. The name of it is GridStatusKalecgos, and it can be installed through WAU. It works just like the standard Grid curse indicator, except that it is limited to the Kalecgos curse and it changes color after 10 seconds. One annoying thing about it is that it fills your chat box with debug spam every time somebody gets the curse. Maybe Wenge could remove that...

Another viable option is Decursive, which now has an indicator of the number of seconds a curse/poison/magic/whatever-can-be-cleansed has been on the target. However, I prefer the Grid approach because I find it simpler to watch for a changed color than to try to keep an eye on a whole bunch of (very small) numbers.

[Raptace]

I just wanna apologize for this becoming a witch hunt of sorts Vand. I really just wanted to put this as a "maybe people need to assess things and figure out why these numbers ARE so lopsided."
The fact that Chas has so many during Kalegos could be many things, it could be that your waiting longer or what not, if you guys decide that she needs to wait longer, then thats great and she'll do it, but not unless someone tells her so.
Hey if I was doing something wrong, I'd expect someone to say something about it right? I've had people call me out about not getting CoE up as much as CoS is up on mobs, and ya know what? I tried harder and made sure I put it up more and more. Thats all my post to begin with was about a maybe things need to be rethought and maybe, just maybe people needed to try a bit harder.

[Wenge]

FYI, with the GridStatusKalecgos mod, you can paste up the number of seconds into the Grid frame. I'll post a screenshot on the steps when I get back to town.

[Wenge]

Who got hit by explosions from portals:

http://wowwebstats.com/2rryz3d61l14g?s=bosses&a=x20af42000000#break

Decurses


277 - Wenge
211 - Chasidy (left early)
102 - Etrigana
84 - Vonsprokit
47 - Scribed (joined late)
41 - Nerathil
11 - Vand


I know that Chas does tend to decurse early, and I know that I take into account the cursed's HP, so that will skew the numbers a bit.

[Vand]

My numbers were really low because of a mistake I made in changing how I decurse. I use Clique to decurse people when I click on them in the Grid frame, but I wanted to change to a /stopcasting macro so that I could decurse whenever I choose to click on somebody, rather than waiting until I finish casting a spell. But when you tell Clique to run a macro rather than cast a spell, it does not target the person you click...it just runs the macro. It took me a few pulls to figure this out...I was unknowingly only decursing myself (even if I did not have the curse). I added a target=mouseover to my decurse macro, and things are now fixed.