H Gundrak: Drakkari colossus [Archive]

gitcho

10-07-2009, 02:36 PM

I *think* I'm geared enough for this heroic, but for some reason I cannot beat this boss. I am NOT running shamans, so maybe that's my problem. My tank is 36.5k buffed, priest has almost 2000sp buffed, and my 3 mages are putting out about 1.8k dps. Can do Moorabi, Eck and Sladran, but the colossus is wiping me every time.

The puddles are killing me. Seems like either I spend all my time moving my toons, or desperately try to heal through the damage. How are people doing this one? Thx for the tips

Tank: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Team%C3%A2wesome
Priest: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Team%C3%A4wesome
Mage1: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Team%C3%A0wesome
Mage2: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Team%C3%A5wesome
Mage3: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Team%C3%A1wesome

Multibocks

10-07-2009, 03:22 PM

you are using 4xAB and then AM rotation?

Zzyzxx71

10-07-2009, 03:28 PM

Is there such a thing as "Potion of Nature Protection"? With +130 Nature resist from the NR totem, I don't even move out of the puddles anymore... just DPS through it.

Multibocks

10-07-2009, 03:32 PM

You also have healing totems so he needs to AE heal on his priest, but ya NR pot would be nice. I think all that exists is the damage absorb one.

Volch0k

10-07-2009, 04:39 PM

The puddles are all about Nature resistance. Like Multibocks said, with +130 NR totem I don't even have to move from them.

Buying drums with +37 all resistance is a start i guess, but i think you would need more for not moving out of em. What i did before this, was i simply spread 4 slaves in each 'corner' like this;

http://i36.tinypic.com/dz9pnc.png

Of course, you should heal through the first slave-puddle, and move all forward when at least two/three are in puddles - That way you don't have to move them several times if you got some good DPS.

When the he changes back to stone, simply move everyone backwards again.

gitcho

10-07-2009, 04:52 PM

My cast sequence is: /castsequence reset=combat Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Missles,Arcane Barrage (should i drop the barrage at the end?)

is that how everyone does it ? no one moves out of the puke? if that's the case, 1.8k (with 2.1k spike) dps is not sufficient to beat this guy while the 2000sp priest is spamming AE heals ...

*EDIT* i've tried moving out of the puddles, but i'll only get a cast or two off before I have to move again ... lose 70% of my dps

Bollwerk

10-07-2009, 04:58 PM

Do either Arcane Barrage or Arcane Missiles at the end of 4xAB, but not both.

I move forward/back during the puddles, with my guys spread out.

heyaz

10-07-2009, 05:07 PM

I run shaman so I have NR totems, but I think it's possible without. What I do is spread out the shaman towards the back, one on each pillar. Puddles hit only 1 shaman at a time and I can easily heal through that with chain heal.

Your tank should need very little healing, I believe if you put your priest in the middle and use aoe heals you can heal through the 1-2 dps that are in puddles. Your DPS is a little low for the fight so you may have to deal with more damage from the water elemental but I think it's doable.

The problem with moving out of the puddles constantly is you kill the DPS, even with my shaman doing 3-4k each, it keeps the water elemental up too long and I have to deal with way more damage than I should.

I'd save all your cooldowns for the water elemental, the collosus hits hard but you can take your time with him, the only issue you should have is if he lands a mortal strike, but you can still heal through that.

Rocky Rhode

10-07-2009, 05:21 PM

With +130 Nature resist from the NR totem, I don't even move out of the puddles anymore... just DPS through it.

**Looks at team make-up in the signature; hmmm Hunter has nature resistance ….Shaman has Nature Totem…**

/facepalm

I did it the old fashion way; blind ignorance, moving the girls out of purple puddles of death, Chain heal …the last transition he does at 1% really hurt me but my team managed to burn our way through it….

TONIGHT – headed back to visit the purple freak wielding some nature resistance to see the difference….

To be continued….

Schwarz

10-07-2009, 06:08 PM

when I first started I had problems with the puddles also. My buddy who stopped boxing swears that you can almost kill him from when he first spawns to grows big. I have yet to make this work out but it might be something to try. If you watch during the fight he/she starts very small and is targetable at this point. The purple thing grows bigger quickly (~4seconds) then starts attacking/pooping purple puddles. The idea is to dps the hell out of it before it even attacks you.

Good luck it will just take time and you will get it.

Malekyth

10-07-2009, 07:03 PM

I used to strafe out of the puddles, but decided it was more fun (and less dangerous) to occasionally hit my follow macro, let the tank lead the alts (and boss) around the battle area while parrying and thrusting, then hit the move backward and spread out keys to resume DPSing. Fire off a few shadowbolts, then do the follow thing again. My priest is specced for Holy Nova, which I find to be pretty sufficient for this fight. I do this for the ethereal boss in Violet Hold too. He leads you on a merry chase throughout, so instead of getting tricky with placement, I just indulge him and chase. Nooo problem.

(Mind you, I run warlocks, not mages, so I probably have at least Curse of Agony if not Corruption, and a pet beating the boss down during the follow parts -- you'd be doing less DPS overall, unless you're specced Fire or have your elementals out or somethin')

Greythan

10-07-2009, 09:10 PM

Drop arcane blast at the end. Four arcane barrage and arcane missles. Odds are like 90+% you will have proc'd missle barrage each rotation.

Glyphy holy nova on your priest, keep three mages within range of holy nova, keep prayer of mending up and spam holy nova as needed. Your dps will make short work of this boss once you get a rhythm.

I will admit the presence of my shaman makes this trivial now with NR totem and healing stream.

Also, I've learned that taking the transitions slow to ensure you have good aggro on your tank is key.

wowphreak

10-07-2009, 09:20 PM

Are yeh using mana shield and damping magic?

Maybe pickup magic attunement and arcane shielding?

I would respecc the priest to holy for circle of healing, that way yeh can spam circle of healing/holy nova

Bigfish

10-08-2009, 08:13 AM

Psych

10-08-2009, 10:44 AM

What I do is set my characters up in a line so that none of them are standing on each other, and then watch the elemental for his puddle toss. when he tosses puddles, move everyone up a few steps. I also have to spam prayer of healing when not healing the tank.

That's basically what I do as well on my 5 druid group, granted I have Gift of the Wild which gives 75 resistance, but that's minor really.

Space them out (but within Wild Growth distance of each other), when a puddle lands (or when I see a slave taking big damage) I move all of them forward a few paces. By the end of the fight it gets pretty messy on the floor, but strafe around and find a decent spot for each of the transitions to the golem and you're good.

That's with lower gear and dps on my toons.

Rocky Rhode

10-08-2009, 10:45 AM

So I went back last night to pay a visit to the Purple People Eater – Set up my girls in the opposite room with their backs to the pillars. I don’t like loosing my Healing Stream totem; I opted to add a change of aspect into the hunter rotation for the phase change.

With Nature at 130 this guy is a joke…Tossed out a few chain heals but never really saw my group drop below 50% at any given time standing in the puddles; they took more damage from the phase change due to the agro dump.

Gundrak went down with a whimper after that; we cleaned up the instance save one wipe on the Snake boss due to an unfortunate wrap around my shaman. Eck was the biggest joke of all; set up the girls in the little alcove at max range; he never once jumped making it a simple tank and spank. Came real close to the “Share the Love” achievement; the Spriest’s dots killed the last boss before he could impale the 5th team member.

EaTCarbS

10-08-2009, 12:10 PM

if you don't have nature resist then move out of the puddles.

bartholomeo

10-11-2009, 11:12 AM

I wiped good week ago on the drakkari boss aswell, so i ran Toc multiple times to gear up the shamans a bit.

Today i tried it again, one shot the snake boss with ease.

For the colossus i wiped the first time due to my tank not picking up the purple blob fast enough. The shaman's and the dk tank swapped aggro a few times, resulting in 2 dps down, causing a wipe.

The 2nd time I used the same totems as before ( 3x healing, 1x Nature Resist ) and started dps-ing hard.
When the purple bubble maker came out the i picked it up well on time and give myself a few seconds to build threat before nuking it down. I moved my guys twice during the first purple menace. Just hit "W" half a second wich was enough to move them out of the puddle of death. Halfway his health i moved them again just a bit.
When the colossus became active again, dps-ed the hell out of him. Result : 5k health left and another purple bastard. frustrating ....
Again the same tactics were used, dps hard, move once or twice and kill it. I had to use chain lightning once to top off the team once they came below 50%. Healing stream helps alot, but not enough :)

after the colossus came active again it took 0.1 seconds to kill him permanently.

now i'm off to continue on my first clearing of gundrak :)

LokNarash

10-11-2009, 08:26 PM

Space them out (but within Wild Growth distance of each other), when a puddle lands (or when I see a slave taking big damage) I move all of them forward a few paces.

This. Never let them on follow to eat 4x more dots.

gitcho

10-12-2009, 04:21 PM

Queshank

10-12-2009, 04:46 PM

OK - i've posted a video of my attempt ... don't know if it's just me, but he's dropping puddles really fast ... seems I have to move way too much ... since H Gundrak is today's heroic daily, I would REALLY love to be able to beat this guy and say i have my first heroic down =)

Any strategies would be super helpful. I'm willing to re-record if asked ...

*no editing or sound* = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WgU2VxPaZw

I think you're boxing yourself in too much.

I made it a point to pull the colossus and fight him still in the other room. That way I had more visibility to all the slaves.

Then I would fight the elemental dude as far away from my toons as I could. And do exactly like others have suggested. Just step forward a few.

I think your arcane missile spec might be hurting you on that fight too. My 2 mages are both frost (just too easy with quick alttabs and blizzards). Having to channel thru the full cast time for maximum dps is really hurting I think.

But the main thing is I think I would try to tank the colossus and the elementals farther away, so your slaves have room to step forward several times. Then it's clear behind you and you can start walking backwards.

Schwarz

10-12-2009, 07:07 PM

Watching your video helps

You need to work on healing better. I see the priest draw agro get smacked around a couple times then try to heal someone before they heal themselves.

If you use focus you can make us a macro to heal the target of your focus (ie who the boss is hitting). This might make healing who the boss is after a little easier.

Maybe get ahold of him in that phase and just try to see if your healer can keep people up by standing in the pools.

Can you easily heal anyone of your team while still doing dps/tanking a mob?

Take your time and watch wants happening, don't make panic moves.

This is key I don't know how many times I end up doing stupid crap b/c I panic. For example pull like 4 extra guys on a pull do you
a) drop everything AOE and chain lightning away
b) treat it as the same just more healing needed.

I have gone from almost wipping to beating bosses by being cool headed (sometimes)

jimbobobb

10-12-2009, 11:04 PM

Stop moving. It's an awful tactic and not needed at all. The puddle does like 500 damage per second to people with zero resistance. toons with even just 15k life should be fine.

Across from where the colossus spawns, put your guys with their backs against the wall, spread out. With their backs against the wall, when the elemental surges them, they won't get knocked around. If you get multiple puddles on top of each other is when the problems start. That's why you never move your guys and start them spread out.

Pull the colossus. Tank him a bit away from your group. Make sure he is facing away so that as soon as he spits out the guy, you have a second to pick him up. Save a taunt or something for this.

During the puddle phase, simply HIT YOUR AOE HEAL ON EVERY SINGLE COOLDOWN. EVERY single one. Put it on a button next to your spam button or in your healing rotation and smash it. I only say every cooldown because you're new to this, and keeping your guys topped off will make you less likely to lose your mind and do something silly. I personally hit wild growth once now, and then forget about it.

In short, stop moving. It's silly. You are taking so much damage because you seem to have tank aggro problems to start, so work on that. Also make sure your toons have their back against that railing/wall and that they are a bit spread out. Do not make this fight more difficult than it is. It is simply a tank and spank with a completely negligible aoe and some aggro wipes. Concentrate on your tanking.

Simulacra

10-13-2009, 03:19 AM

I park my guys in a star formation at pillars of the circle with their backs to the pillars, each has a healing totem and their all within reach of a chain heal. Just eat up the damage and be aware of the timing of the transformation/surges as it seems to be an aggo wipe. I postion the camera of the tank really high up in the ceiling so I can keep track of everything and grab aggo with hand of reckoning - works everytime. Agree with jimbob above, moving will kill you.

Schwarz

10-13-2009, 08:22 AM

21 more idea

go try the boss on normal. Should be less HP and allow you to learn to heal threw the puddles.

gitcho

10-13-2009, 08:42 AM

Thanks for the tips ... tried the strategy of pulling to another room so I could have more space to move forward. It does not work. As you can see by the video below, it is not possible to continually move out of the puddles - the puddles are dropped way too often.

Watching your video helps ....
drop everything AOE and chain lightning awayNot sure what video you were watching ... unless I just haven't trained healing stream and nature resist totems on my MAGES. I don't have shamans. I also am not using shamans on my team. To further add to the difficulties I'm facing, there are currently no shamans in my comp.

Attempt # 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNdzwq6ZgJ8

Going to try jimbob's idea and figure out a way to heal through it while trying to manage the aggro better.

Feider

10-13-2009, 08:57 AM

I had not thought of it until now (and I run a mage also) but are the puddles magic or a kind of poison effect? If they are not magic there may be no magic in the fight. Amplify Magic would certainly help on heals.

Any thoughts?

Fef

10-13-2009, 09:04 AM

What Jimbobobb said. I never could beat that boss until I stopped moving. This colossus has been my bottleneck in this instance for weeks.

Dead simple : I couldn't deal with moving my team and re-grabbing aggro fast enough. That was just too much for my brain. As soon as I tryied healing through the puddles, the fight became almost trivial.

Feider

10-13-2009, 09:10 AM

The healing is cake. I'm having a hard time with the aggro dump though. I need to go into that fight with a calmer head. Good point.

gitcho

10-13-2009, 09:22 AM

The healing is cake.?? i'm gonna have to try spamming heals through it ... certainly don't remember it being "cake" - maybe it's because I wasn't managing aggro properly .. I'm using mage armor for the minor resistance - is there ANYTHING available to mages that will up nature resistance?

moosejaw

10-13-2009, 10:02 AM

You can glyph mage armor to raise the resists a little. You might need to invest in some Motw drums to help the resists out.

I stand still against the pillars when I fight him and heal my ass off. It is important to burn the elemental fast and go slow on the colossus to catch up the healing. Moving will make the elemental phase take too long and create more purple stains.

For your priest get shields up, if you have time, and spam flash heal until the group is about 60-70% then group heal. Glyphing for the group heal helps because it puts a Hot on the group. When the colossus comes back group heal to full and start putting on shields again.

Another note for locks, park your imp away from the lock and other toons because the imp will get blobbed and if he is too close to the lock it will stack fast.

Feider

10-13-2009, 10:24 AM

The healing is cake.

Sorry for the exaggeration. I mean to say that almost spamming Prayer of Healing and throwing Renews seems to be ok for me. With that said, I can not get him down. When he dumps aggro the last time, he runs amok and slaughters the healer.

Feider

10-13-2009, 10:26 AM

Another note for locks, park your imp away from the lock and other toons because the imp will get blobbed and if he is too close to the lock it will stack fast.

Wow, thanks for the note. I had not thought of that.

gitcho

10-13-2009, 10:47 AM

oh man ... i always pop mirror image on all my mages - and they're glyphed for it ... that's 12 extra mages hanging out eating purple soup ... maybe i should rethink that ...

Rocky Rhode

10-13-2009, 10:50 AM

Since you dont have access to nature resistance you could try getting some BC love with Flask of Chromatic Wonder

For the aggro wipe I usually do like others, tank Stone guy well away from my team with his back to them; once Elemental guy pops I grab him with a quick taunt.

SmartJelly

10-13-2009, 12:11 PM

When the boss charges the team, you can taunt him half way through the charge cast and he’ll charge the tank instead.

This has probably already been mentioned, but you could try keeping the team a few steps away from the healer and aoe through it? (it may be that the pool damage doesn’t even stack when there’s multiple pools under a char, which may not help anyway).

If you have the stamina trinkets from Brewfest, then they may help.

This may seems a little extreme, and I really doubt it would work, but if you park your team on/in/under water does the poison settle at the same depth as your team?

Schwarz

10-13-2009, 12:55 PM

Thanks for the tips ... tried the strategy of pulling to another room so I could have more space to move forward. It does not work. As you can see by the video below, it is not possible to continually move out of the puddles - the puddles are dropped way too often.

Not sure what video you were watching ... unless I just haven't trained healing stream and nature resist totems on my MAGES. I don't have shamans. I also am not using shamans on my team. To further add to the difficulties I'm facing, there are currently no shamans in my comp.

Attempt # 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNdzwq6ZgJ8

Going to try jimbob's idea and figure out a way to heal through it while trying to manage the aggro better.

Ok that was an example on what I do wrong. Sorry for trying to help you with ideas

Kill him on Regular first. Get that done then work on getting him down on Heroic

Schwarz

10-13-2009, 05:58 PM

Ok bad day at work. Looked at your 2nd video and if you watch the casting of the toons when they are in the puddles it doesn't look like they get anything off.

Maybe try a different dps macro. The channeling might be messing up with the dot on you.

Here is a challenge to all the shaman teams (myself included) can anyone beat this on heroic with no healing streams and no nature resist totem? Shit might as well say don't use chain heal also.

gitcho

10-13-2009, 09:54 PM

SUCCESS! Was finally able to beat him today by standing still. There was a few things that made the difference without any nature resist:

- stand still and spread out
- power word:shield the whole party before the elemental spawns
- SPAM prayer of healing (better range than holy nova, and hits tank as well)
- make sure to pick up the elemental aggro
- make sure to pick up the colossus aggro after the merge

That being said, I lost my healer way before the elemental merged back to the colossus for the first time. I have no idea how I was able to last the rest of the fight without dying, but I just barely got him down. Better strategy would make this much smoother.

I went on to take Gal'darah down first time with everyone still alive - and got my first heroic down!! Feels so good. Thanks for all the tips.

For those that don't use shamans, this is how I did it (a very lucky kill given that my healer went down early): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVHMf2Dne5M (video just uploaded - may still be blurry)

Feider

10-13-2009, 10:32 PM

Grats. That was a hard fought challenge. Did some homework and got it. Grats.
I think I'll get him soon.

Fef

10-14-2009, 05:42 AM

Congratulations. It will only get easier. Now that pressure of the first kill is down, you will take him in a more relaxed manner, and everything will go smooth next times.

Well done !

Schwarz

10-14-2009, 08:27 AM

Does popping your mirror image help a lot? The last video it looked like you just got unlucky having the healer draw agro. Good job and congrats.

daviddoran

10-14-2009, 03:30 PM

I did it successfully with my mages before i switched to a 5 class team, so it is possible.

For your mages,
First, just do 4x Arcane Blasts and 1 Arcane Missiles, Barrage doesn't do as much damage any more.
You need to reglyph. There's a Glyph of Arcane Blast which adds 3% more dps. You can keep glyph of mirror image if you like. Ditch the glyph of Ice armor, arcane mages should either be using Mage armor, or Molten armor. Mage armor gives you more resists, and more mana regen. My dps macro pops Icy Veins, Arcane Power, and presence of mind whenever they are up, and I manually do my mana gem and mirror image. Popping all the cooldowns at the beginning of the fight helps enormously, all of those CDs add a lot of DPS, and mirror image makes the mages not do any threat until the images die. I wasnt using icy veins on every pull for a while cause i wanted to "save it" but its on such a short CD, popping it every time its up just makes everything go that much quicker. Your dps will skyrocket once you start popping CDs.... on target dummies, at the beginning of the fight (i cheat and use heroism, and totem of wrath, which gives me a shit ton more dps but still) i see 6k dps on my mage, and it usually ends up at 4.5-5k.

Don't forget Ice block either. If the mages are about to die to the goo, iceblock, then you should have time to get some heals on them.

BTW, your mage spec looks identical to mine... did you copy mine? ;)

Edit: I should really read all pages before posting.... Grats on getting him down. I had to spam a lot more healing when i was first starting out, but now that I do 3x more dps, its a totally different fight.

abodeofravens

10-16-2009, 06:41 AM

Gitcho-

I had the same problem that you had. my team was paladin tank, Disc Priest, 2x Destrolock, 1x Demolock. The priest just kinda sucks when it comes to group aoe healing (worse at raid level). anyways, I wanted to offer you some points that I have gotten down because the colossus is just the first encounter like this that is going to be a pain in your rear (halls of lightning ionar and loken come to mind also).

1. there is no reason to keep the colossus at that range from the rest of your team. as far as i have seen he has no cleave or AOE abilities of consequence. Keep your team lined up against that far wall as you are but when you pull with your tank pull all the way back until you are 5-10 yards out from your other toons then turn him around facing away. This gives you time to help start your aggro before you even get to your team. I typically pull with hand, then avengers, then judge, at at that point your are in position and can start the dps burn. This allows you to keep all your movement to a minimum during the encounter and keep the colossus in your consecrate no matter where he surges or turns.

2. when you line your group up you can keep them pretty tight like fursphere suggests... the objective is you only want them far enough so they are not sharing puddles. You can do this easily with everyone in range of your holy nova whcih is good for getting Divine Aegis procs on your team. If you prefer to use divine shield make sure you create a click macro so that after you cast PW:S you immediately cast your AOE prayer of healing to take advange of your Borrowed Time proc or by the time you get to casting the final shield your will be in danger of losing folks due to all the global cooldowns you have to go through.. I would also recommend for now at least getting Glyph of Prayer of Healing to get the 20% HoT.

3. If you are having issus with your Paladin and threat you may want to consider changing your build slightly. Mine is :

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormrage&n=Limper

Reckoning becomes less and less effective as you go and would probably be better off with Conviction or Seals of the Pure. With your current weapons speed you are never going to get 4 swings out of it and while the white damage is definite good you might be better otherwise. I would also consider changing one or two glyphs.

I know all too well that feeling of success and I know the road you have been leading to this without nature resists. I spent a couple weeks trying to get past that encounter and when i did i went to HoL to punish myself there :).

hope maybe some of this helps. Ionar really blows. I don' care what the sites all say, the lightning spiders NEVER follow me up the stairs. hehehe.

Bloodcloud

10-16-2009, 11:56 AM