Finally cleared H Gundrak!

[Greythan]

It lasts a little while - not sure the exact amount of time but < 30 seconds I'm guessing. You shouldn't run out of mana or anything. I believe he hits for like what, 6-9k when hes enraged? I was able to spam 1.5s heals enough to cover the damage when I first started the encounter - I had to do nothing but heal really. Have you done the encounter yet where you do nothing but spam your heal and tank macro when hes in rhino form? You want to keep aggro on your paladin of course so you should keep smacking the boss with the tank, but then with your healer just spam your fastest most efficient heal as fast as you can and hope it keeps up You could probably heal with your paladin also if you had to.

I wonder if one priest and one elemental spec'd shaman spamming their respective fast heals would be enough? I'll admit, I'm trying land the priest's big heal during this phase and she's either getting interupted too much and/or the time between casts leaves too big a window for a series of hits.

To be honest, I never use the fast heal on my tank.

[Taliesin]

Greythan, it appears we have the exact same group makeup. I had some issues initially trying to work out the strategy with him as well (wiped 3 times before I got the fight pretty stable).

First thing I can suggest is throwing Divine Protection on your tank shortly after he changes. It reduces all damage you take by 50% for 12sec. Granted this only lasts for about half of his rhino phase, but it allows me to keep my DPS rotations going without really worrying any more about healing the tank. I actually wait a couple seconds to let him get a shot or two off, as it is easy enough to heal back while protected, and reduces the amount of hits he can get in after the protection wears off at the end. Honestly, you should be paying more attention to anyone else that gets hooked on his horn to keep them alive during this time. Group heals are enough to keep every going while Protection is active, though I still use direct heals on the tank if nobody else needs a heal.

Once Divine Protection drops, I keep the priest constantly trying to get a big heal off on the tank; keep them coming non-stop whether it's needed yet or not. He'll interrupt every now and then, but if you start another heal right after an interrupt, it should land before he tries to interrupt again. At this point, don't even worry about healing anyone but the tank. If one DPS dies, its a small price to pay, but even then it seems pretty rare for me (usually because they get hooked/charged twice in a row).

Worst case, be ready to use Lay on Hands on yourself for an instant full-self-heal if you think your priest isn't going to save you. As dwarf, I also have stoneform (10% more armor, among other benefits that don't help me here) to hit right after Divine Protection wears off. Point is, be aware of all the tools you have available to your class/race that will benefit you here. This is one fight where you don't pull any punches.

Should he live long enough to switch back to troll form (likely, unless you have all your DPSers geared well), then he should be almost dead and hardly any more trouble. If he lives long enough to change to rhino a second time, you should seriously take a look at your DPS rotations and make a lot of fixes and/or get better geared from regular instances.

[Dominian]

I kinda disagre with the above poster, mainly because i feel this fight is about control.

Ofc burning bosses down works, and some bosses simply require it. However boss fights who has no enrage timer or stacking debuff, should be controled rather than burned since you can handle unexpected situations way better.

[Taliesin]

I kinda disagre with the above poster, mainly because i feel this fight is about control.

Ofc burning bosses down works, and some bosses simply require it. However boss fights who has no enrage timer or stacking debuff, should be controled rather than burned since you can handle unexpected situations way better.

I assume this is in reference to my post? The whole post was dedicated to controlling the fight. No where did I say that he should focus on just DPSing him down. Closest I came to saying that was the DPS can continue as normal while Divine Protection is active, reason is because now you've just turned his high damage into something very easy to heal through. And if he makes it to a second rhino phase, he will already have blown all his best abilities and he will lose control of the fight quickly, unless he outright bubbles on the second phase. He'd have to make sure to taunt right away after a bubble though to prevent a wipe.

But you are right. This fight is all about control. That is, unless you are Hachoo and can do super insane DPS so that he doesn't even have a chance to change to rhino. But we all can't be gods.

[Dominian]

I kinda disagre with the above poster, mainly because i feel this fight is about control.

Ofc burning bosses down works, and some bosses simply require it. However boss fights who has no enrage timer or stacking debuff, should be controled rather than burned since you can handle unexpected situations way better.

I assume this is in reference to my post? The whole post was dedicated to controlling the fight. No where did I say that he should focus on just DPSing him down. Closest I came to saying that was the DPS can continue as normal while Divine Protection is active, reason is because now you've just turned his high damage into something very easy to heal through. And if he makes it to a second rhino phase, he will already have blown all his best abilities and he will lose control of the fight quickly, unless he outright bubbles on the second phase. He'd have to make sure to taunt right away after a bubble though to prevent a wipe.

But you are right. This fight is all about control. That is, unless you are Hachoo and can do super insane DPS so that he doesn't even have a chance to change to rhino. But we all can't be gods.

You talk like that its impossible to survive the Rhino phase wich it aint. You cant assume that everyone have good enough gear to burn him down before the 2nd phase. I did this encounter on heroic before the major shaman changes with 1250 spelldamage and a protadin that had 22k hp. It took me 3 rhino phases but i survived completley fine by just healing in the rhino phase. Cant see how you lose control in the rhino phase???

Hachoo's shamans have 1800 spelldamage totaly unbuffed and a DK tank who has 26.5k hp, no fresh teams can show off with theese stats. 4 Shamans with a well geared tank can put out a insane amount of dps compared to a team with a dedicated healer. It wasnt always easy for him either when he had crap gear and i bet he regret abit for frapsing it now! :P

[Hachoo]

I kinda disagre with the above poster, mainly because i feel this fight is about control.

Ofc burning bosses down works, and some bosses simply require it. However boss fights who has no enrage timer or stacking debuff, should be controled rather than burned since you can handle unexpected situations way better.

I assume this is in reference to my post? The whole post was dedicated to controlling the fight. No where did I say that he should focus on just DPSing him down. Closest I came to saying that was the DPS can continue as normal while Divine Protection is active, reason is because now you've just turned his high damage into something very easy to heal through. And if he makes it to a second rhino phase, he will already have blown all his best abilities and he will lose control of the fight quickly, unless he outright bubbles on the second phase. He'd have to make sure to taunt right away after a bubble though to prevent a wipe.

But you are right. This fight is all about control. That is, unless you are Hachoo and can do super insane DPS so that he doesn't even have a chance to change to rhino. But we all can't be gods.

You talk like that its impossible to survive the Rhino phase wich it aint. You cant assume that everyone have good enough gear to burn him down before the 2nd phase. I did this encounter on heroic before the major shaman changes with 1250 spelldamage and a protadin that had 22k hp. It took me 3 rhino phases but i survived completley fine by just healing in the rhino phase. Cant see how you lose control in the rhino phase???

Hachoo's shamans have 1800 spelldamage totaly unbuffed and a DK tank who has 26.5k hp, no fresh teams can show off with theese stats. 4 Shamans with a well geared tank can put out a insane amount of dps compared to a team with a dedicated healer. It wasnt always easy for him either when he had crap gear and i bet he regret abit for frapsing it now! :P

Hey to be fair my DK has 29.5k hp

But yes, when I first started doing the fight (which at the time I probably did have around 22k hp, and my shamans did have around the same amount of SP), I pretty much had to only heal during the rhino phase. Now normally I would say bubbling for -50% dmg reduction would probably work just fine, but at the time Icebound fortitude was -50% damage as well, and even popping that during the rhino phase I still had to spam heals because he still did retarded amounts of damage even with the reduction.

The whole fight is really about trying different levels of dps and healing, and then using the one that works for you. For me, at the beginning, it was about only healing during rhino phase - now I pretty much brute force damn near every Heroic boss - almost every single one can be completely owned by just DPSing so hard and fast they never get a chance to do their special moves. Of course for this to work you really have to be geared well, have a good rotation, etc. I do kind of wish I had FRAPSed my heroic runs back when i was first getting them on farm, before I had all the gear and experience I have now - it probably would have made them better "tutorial" videos. To me, some of the videos I made are less helpful just because I end up killing the boss before it uses half of the moves you have to learn how to dodge/avoid/get around/etc.

Hopefully some other people will pioneer some video making for WotLK and get a bunch of "starter" tutorials up

[Taliesin]

You talk like that its impossible to survive the Rhino phase wich it aint. You cant assume that everyone have good enough gear to burn him down before the 2nd phase. I did this encounter on heroic before the major shaman changes with 1250 spelldamage and a protadin that had 22k hp. It took me 3 rhino phases but i survived completley fine by just healing in the rhino phase. Cant see how you lose control in the rhino phase???

Hachoo's shamans have 1800 spelldamage totaly unbuffed and a DK tank who has 26.5k hp, no fresh teams can show off with theese stats. 4 Shamans with a well geared tank can put out a insane amount of dps compared to a team with a dedicated healer. It wasnt always easy for him either when he had crap gear and i bet he regret abit for frapsing it now! :P

I'm just getting confused now. I'm not even suggesting that's its impossible to survive the rhino phase. Quite the opposite. I'm responding to Greythan's post where he is having trouble surviving this phase, so I gave him suggestions on how to make it easier. This first rhino phase he (as paladin) has some tools to make it easier. I'm even talking about doing this with a tankadin with only 23K hps when I first beat him, with average spellpower of about 1400 on lock/mage/shaman (lock averaging about 1200 DPS, bad rotation I guess). My focus was primarily healing during the rhino phase, at least while Divine Protection was down. He still did not even come close to changing to rhino a second time.

If he's having trouble surviving the rhino phase without using these special abilities, my point is he'll want to try to down him before he gets to the second rhino phase, after he's already used them up.

Where are you reading into my statements that I am anywhere saying to "burn him down"? Perhaps I can better explain that part, since its clearly being misinterpreted.

[Dominian]

You talk like that its impossible to survive the Rhino phase wich it aint. You cant assume that everyone have good enough gear to burn him down before the 2nd phase. I did this encounter on heroic before the major shaman changes with 1250 spelldamage and a protadin that had 22k hp. It took me 3 rhino phases but i survived completley fine by just healing in the rhino phase. Cant see how you lose control in the rhino phase???

Hachoo's shamans have 1800 spelldamage totaly unbuffed and a DK tank who has 26.5k hp, no fresh teams can show off with theese stats. 4 Shamans with a well geared tank can put out a insane amount of dps compared to a team with a dedicated healer. It wasnt always easy for him either when he had crap gear and i bet he regret abit for frapsing it now! :P

I'm just getting confused now. I'm not even suggesting that's its impossible to survive the rhino phase. Quite the opposite. I'm responding to Greythan's post where he is having trouble surviving this phase, so I gave him suggestions on how to make it easier. This first rhino phase he (as paladin) has some tools to make it easier. I'm even talking about doing this with a tankadin with only 23K hps when I first beat him, with average spellpower of about 1400 on lock/mage/shaman (lock averaging about 1200 DPS, bad rotation I guess). My focus was primarily healing during the rhino phase, at least while Divine Protection was down. He still did not even come close to changing to rhino a second time.

If he's having trouble surviving the rhino phase without using these special abilities, my point is he'll want to try to down him before he gets to the second rhino phase, after he's already used them up.

Where are you reading into my statements that I am anywhere saying to "burn him down"? Perhaps I can better explain that part, since its clearly being misinterpreted.

I guess we misunderstood each others then! :P

But yes using divine protection on the first rhino phase and pop bloodlust on the second or visa versa should makes things easier!

[Greythan]

I absolutely need to work on my DPS rotations. (I'm open to any suggestions on that topic too )

I'm going back to Gundrak tonight and will try using all my paladin defensive abilities and using the shaman to augment my priest to heal through the rhino phase.

My dps in troll form has even been spotty due to my not being used to moving my tank around to avoid his spinning blade, so I bet I'll need to try and survive two rhino's. May go ahead and burn all trinkets/bloodlust if I survive the first and see if I can burn him down.

Its all fun. Great to have these boards as a resource!

[Taliesin]

We have the same classes, but I see that our specs are different on mage and lock, so I can't really give much assistance there. My mage is arcane and lock is affliction. Honestly, I think my lock would be better off in destruction as well, but he's getting replaced soon by boomkin so I'm not inclined to mess with him much right now.

For shaman, there's a whole long thread covering a lot of ideas, rotations, and macros in this thread:

Elemental Shaman DPS macro figured out