How to handle certain melee group mechanics?

[jddc78]

I've instanced this group through almost every instance on my way to 70 and took my melee group (see sig) into Setthek & Mechanar last night for the first time. Their gear is completely made up of quest greens/blues, so the general whooping I received didn't surprise me too much. I finished both instances after many, many deaths. Better gear may alleviate most of these problems, but I wanted to see if you guys have some strats to deal with these mechanics:

Seth - When you kill prophets, the ghost goes after healer/melee. I tried to stay mobile with the group, but that didn't seem to help me much. Someone almost always bit it. Eventually just burned the whole group with the melee (prophets last) and ran away when one died.
Seth - Last boss. As much as I tried, I could not get all of my guys out of range from this thing. Same would be true for the bloodfurnace end boss. The only way I see this working in my current setup would be to use a separate set of movement keys for the dps & tank. This way I could pull the DPS out before the tank and only have to worry about 1 person when the warning comes up on the screen.
Mech - Tinkerers. It's sad that these were the guys I feared the most in the instance. All the strats I've read involve ranged DPS ... which I don't have. These guys pummel all of my guys at a pace that my chain heal can't keep up with. Send the tank in by himself till those guys are dead?
Mech - 2nd boss. From what I've read, this boss is just a pain regardless. I ran around with fire resist aura backwards kiting this boss and for the most part it worked. The major difficulty I encountered in this fight was trying to put my healer in a place where she wasn't under attack & still in range of my group while they were kiting.

I expect to take my licks while learning these instances, but would love to know if there is something major I'm missing so I can correct it before the eventual 70/80 heroic runs.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

My experience is the same on the prophets. My pallies had a hard time, just gotta be fast with the running away. I usually find lining up so that when he's about dead, I strafe-run everyone off to one side which is faster than trying to /follow your alts out of the way. 5x consecration helped kill 'em off that last little bit, so your experience may be slightly different.

The last boss (Ikiss) is definitely painful, though it's like a 5 second cast time. Fight him right next to a pillar and then just run around the corner. I rarely get hit by him anymore.

The tinkerers were definitely a problem, though some careful CC (which you'll have plenty of once you get Hex on the shams) worked pretty well for me. Stun 'em AFTER you run into melee range and they should die before the judgement wears off. Granted, I had 5 judgement stuns so I had a little less trouble with multiple tinkerers.

2nd boss in Mechanar was definitely a problem and for me was more about luck with the elemental AoE than anything else.

[Ualaa]

The second boss in Mechanar and the party are quite a bit faster then the Fire Elementals.
If the party is split (not an issue for boxers) then fire is all over the place.
With everyone together, it doesn't matter who the fire guys chase, just make a slow big circle around the room.

Quite a few people will clear Parthenon first.
And once he's dead, you can kite the fire lady down that hallway too.

[Khatovar]

Healer should be at range, create a button for your DPS to /follow Healer and use that to pull them out of range while you continue to tank until the last second. This should help with a lot of your problems, but a lot of that stuff is a problem even for single players.

For the fire boss, you can try putting the healer in the middle and kite around the outside of the room. You should almost always be in range.

[jddc78]

Healer should be at range, create a button for your DPS to /follow Healer and use that to pull them out of range while you continue to tank until the last second. This should help with a lot of your problems, but a lot of that stuff is a problem even for single players.


Holy crap ... I never thought of that! My healer is already on a different follow mechanism than the other 4 so that I can park her and not worry about casting interrupts for fights where I have to stay mobile. I can see this working for all kinds of little things that were previously a bit of a pain. Facing comes to mind. On fights where you need to turn the boss away from the party and some of the melee creep through to the tank side could be corrected by following the healer & then re-interacting with target. Can't wait to give this a try!



My experience is the same on the prophets. My pallies had a hard time, just gotta be fast with the running away. I usually find lining up so that when he's about dead, I strafe-run everyone off to one side which is faster than trying to /follow your alts out of the way. 5x consecration helped kill 'em off that last little bit, so your experience may be slightly different.



Glad to hear that this is even a problem for veteran boxers. Dying over and over to trash wears your spirit down. The bosses is no big deal. I expect to die to bosses especially on a first encounter. But dying to trash just makes me feel like I'm doing something very wrong.

Tried the instance again tonight with mixed results. For those prophet packs I took my time and killed the prophets last. While there were no surprise ghosts clobbering my guys, there were extra fears that sometimes put guys out of range or LOS. I'll give it another go with the follow healer tactic and see if that eliminates issues altogether.

Thanks for the advice guys ... I learn something new on here all the time!

[Ualaa]

I'll assume your signature is the PvE group you're using for this.

If you don't already, have two Tremor totems down.
Stagger when you drop them, ideally 1.5 seconds after the 1st drops, drop the 2nd.
That way, fear should not last longer then 1.50 seconds, which will help a bit.

I remember a lot of groups pulling the Prophets very far back, to make their fear less of an issue.
You could possibly nuke one hard, with the goal of dropping it before the mobs get to you.
And then dealing with whatever is left aways from the ghosts/prophet corpse.

[jddc78]

Khatovar - your method works great! It was easy enough to incorporate into my current setup and for the first time I was able to go through Sethek & Mech without a wipe. This should also come in very useful when fighting Murmur.

Looking forward to the upcoming instaces and beyond. Thank you all for your suggestions!