Ursoc strat

[Brewschii]

Wall of furry Ursoc text inc.

TLDR: I think we should change to a simpler strat, where the tanks kite the boss around the room without turning him toward the wall, and all charges go toward mid.

Here's the deal: The main problem on this fight is that we're short on DPS, on both the boss and the add. When we get feared, it means the add didn't die fast enough. We also run out of space in the room (this is at least partially a DPS issue, but probably not entirely). We also have multiple unnecessary deaths on every attempt. I think a change of strat could help with all these things.

Here is a proposition: The tanks should just kite the boss around the room without turning him toward the wall repeatedly. Most guilds do it without the turning. Then there are two main ways to deal with charges. I like #1 better. In fact, if we switched to strat #1, I bet we'd kill the boss in a few pulls. But I'll include #2 as well.

      1. Charges always go toward the middle of the room. The soak group goes out to the side of the boss, toward the back end if possible. Here is a video: https://youtu.be/t1yKIZ6xI94?t=62. Sometimes the non-soak group might need to move in front of the boss a little to be out of the way. It depends how much of the boss's body is out of the Miasma before the charge.

Benefits:

- tanks never need to worry about getting charged

- tanks can keep the boss closer to the wall, giving us more space in the room

- the add will be easier to hit b/c it will be positioned better. it will end up stacking on boss and getting kited with him. that means fewer fears and less miasma damage to DPS trying to kill the add

- fewer tank fears not just b/c the add dies faster, but b/c even if he doesn't, the tanks don't need to go stand near him to avoid getting charged

- much less miasma damage on the tanks because they don't need to stand in it to position the boss or to dodge charges

Drawbacks: ???

 

      2. Continue to put the soaks in two different places, one in front of the boss and one to the side. But have the tanks soak with the group that's out front. If you make melee the "front" group with the tanks, then there are two further things you can do: (1) The tanks can move the boss a lot less for each Miasma. Melee barely need the boss's front paws to be sticking out of it. (2) You can put melee by the wall, on the opposite side from ranged, reducing the chance that anyone is hit by the wrong charge. Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UuwXIbkR1k

Benefits:

All of the benefits from #1 above (with one change), plus three more possible benefits:

- tanks never need to worry about getting charged getting charged at the wrong time

- slightly less charge damage overall b/c more people are soaking each charge

- if melee soak with the tanks out front, then we get more space overall because the boss doesn't need to be moved as far out of Miasma

- if melee also go on the opposite side of the boss from ranged: maybe everyone gets to be less concerned about getting clipped by the other group's charge

Drawbacks:

If one of the tanks happens to be really low, then the extra damage from soaking charges could contribute to a tank death. That's probably not going to happen much, but it could make a difference in a close fight where there have already been some mistakes / deaths. It's an extra 550k damage to each tank when they soak (from Momentum), although that damage is offset a little bit by getting more DR on Barreling Impact (I think about 145k per soaker). (Back on the benefit side: The DR applies to every raid member. So it's ~145k x 20 for a ~2.9m reduction raid-wide. Not a bad tradeoff for 1.1m more tank damage (550k x 2), so long as the tanks don't get killed by taking around 12% more of their health pools in damage once every 80 seconds.)

All things considered, I'm not sure it's worth doing this strat over #1, unless the healers are really excited about the raid-wide DR. (It amounts to about 4.8% of total healing over the fight, if you assume he charges 8 times.)

 

3. Now let's talk about our current strat.

Benefits: ???

I'm not sure what our strat is supposed to accomplish, since we never discussed it. Here are two possible benefits, and I think both are either overstated or mistaken: 

   a. Saving movement for the ranged/healers so they can cast more.

Response: It's not clear that this strat saves much, if anything. We move very frequently during this fight no matter what, and ranged need to move basically the same total distance no matter what. The only difference is the timing. In theory, putting ranged in front of the boss lets them plant their feet 40 yds away and cast more consistently for a few seconds, rather than move 20 yds, cast some, then move 20 more. But 1 x 40 isn't necessarily better than 2 x 20. Which one is better turns on which movement pattern lines up better with rotations and cast times (which vary by class), as well as random procs (which will vary for a single player during the fight). At the end of the day, there's probably enough "give" in when ranged need to move -- they have a window of a few seconds each time -- that they can probably keep up a good rotation most of the time with either movement pattern. I'm no expert in this, of course, and am happy to be corrected. But it's also true that ranged shouldn't plant their feet 40 yards away anyway because they need to help soak Roaring Cacophony, which has a 25-yard range.

Also, I eyeballed some top logs that use other strats, and our ranged / healer active time didn't look significantly different from theirs.

   b. Saving us some parries b/c in theory the melee are never near the front of the boss.

Response: TLDR: The benefit here is trivial at best.

Long version:

- Sometimes the boss faces the melee using our strat. Our strat takes boss positioning that should be simple matter of kiting and turns it into a lethal precision dance for the tanks. As part of that dance, sometimes the tanks need to move the boss away from the wall, which means he turns toward the melee group while that's happening. Also, sometimes the melee cheat ahead of the boss / tanks to avoid Miasma.

- Even if we had all the melee stand directly in front of the boss for the charge, they'd only need to do that for a few seconds once every 80 seconds over the course of the fight. Let's say it's 5 seconds each time, which is probably more than necessary. If we assume 8 charges total, then they take half, or 4 charges. At 5 seconds each, that's just 20 seconds of 3% parry over a fight that's 300+ seconds long.

- A look at some logs also suggests that the strat is not saving us much in the way of parries. I compared our best attempt from last Thurs (#17) to the top two logs for speed, from guilds that always have the boss charge out to the center. I looked at the first in detail, and we barely come out ahead on parries. I eyeballed the second one, and it looked roughly the same.

Here are some details:

- Volrog got parried more than the top speed guild's Shammy

Volrog: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/HJzR7xvdf3cqQnrG#type=damage-done&fight=22&source=19 

Steeldrago: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/AMGna29gJDcXRqVQ#fight=19&type=damage-done&source=79 

 - Their Assassination Rogue only had 3 more melees parried than Sentokii, and 5 more than Cheatz

Moondel: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/AMGna29gJDcXRqVQ#fight=19&type=damage-done&source=72 

Sentokii: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/HJzR7xvdf3cqQnrG#type=damage-done&fight=22&source=4 

Cheatz: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/HJzR7xvdf3cqQnrG#type=damage-done&fight=22&source=31 

- Novax got parried once more than their DH.

- And so on.

To be fair, their fight was 1:20 shorter than ours, so that affects the parry numbers. But the point is, they're not getting parried much, and we're not entirely avoiding parries. We're getting parried almost as much as them.

Drawbacks:

a. For starters, there's just something fishy about our DPS numbers. Basically every one of our DPS is under-performing compared to what he/she usually does. That's a yellow flag suggesting maybe something about the strat is lowering our DPS.

Here, I cut off attempt 17 (a 5% wipe) at 4 deaths. That's right after hero and (I think) before we run out of space. If anything, it should make us look better than we are. (To be fair, it includes only 26s of time with the boss below 20%. But it runs up until 13 sec before the enrage, so it's not like there's supposed to be a ton more execute time. If someone wants to do the math on how much it matters, feel free.) Anyway, the DPS (and tanks) are all doing worse than we'd expect:

Omitting healers, we have a single player ranking purple for his ilvl (and there are only 24 parses), 6 blue, and 1 green. That's just 8 players ranking above 25th percentile, with a total dps rank of 9th percentile. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/HJzR7xvdf3cqQnrG#type=damage-done&fight=20&cutoff=4 

On attempt 19 (a 7% wipe), the numbers were 1 orange, 2 purple, 3 blue, 4 green (10 above 25th percentile), with a total rank of 9th percentile. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/HJzR7xvdf3cqQnrG#fight=22&type=damage-done&cutoff=4 

And here are other logs for comparison:

On Nythendra on Tues, we had 5 purple, 6 blue, and 4 green (15 players > 25%), with a total rank of 77th percentile. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/TaZRJVY4A3HhkWb8#fight=18&type=damage-done 

On Renferal, it was 5 purple, 4 blue, 5 green (14 players > 25%), for a total rank of 64%. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/TaZRJVY4A3HhkWb8#fight=46&type=damage-done 

If it seems unfair to compare Ursoc progression to "farm" on other bosses (not that the farms are a cakewalk yet), here are the numbers from our first Nythendra kill: 5 purple, 4 blue, 4 green (13 players  > 25%), total rank of 70%. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/gYHMzGFdnDtKJQNw#type=damage-done

And our first Renferal kill: 1 orange, 3 purple, 5 blue, 3 green (12 players  > 25%), total rank of 57%. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/ngQBrFqvtx86TkV9#fight=21&type=damage-done

Anyway, all this stuff is admittedly a little speculative: "Our DPS seems low across the board, so maybe it's the strat . . ." The DPS numbers just seem fishy.

Here are some more specific drawbacks of the strat:

   b. We have less space in the room b/c the tanks can't keep the boss tight against the wall, or they get killed by the charge

   c. More get fears because it's harder to kill the add quickly when it's not being kited along in straight line with the boss. Fears increase damage taken and player deaths, and they decrease DPS. even if people don't die when feared, it's probably the case that just a few fears result in a greater DPS loss than all the boss parries in an entire fight.

   d. More miasma damage to tanks, and to melee who are trying to hit poorly positioned adds.

   e. Spikier Roar damage on melee. Roar damage is split between all players within 25 yds. Sometimes ranged players are out of range and aren't splitting it with the melee group. (Example: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/HJzR7xvdf3cqQnrG#fight=20&type=damage-taken&ability=197969). This could happen with any strat, but it's probably more likely with a strat that tells ranged players to go stand as far as they can in front of the boss.

   f. Much higher risk of tank deaths (and tank fears). The two debuffs are supposed to be the big risk for tanks in this fight. We handle those fine. But our strat creates a new, bigger risk: getting charged with the Momentum debuff. Trying to avoid the charge increases all other risks. At times, it requires us to stand in Miasma and take extra damage; to go near the add and risk getting feared; to move the boss more, sometimes toward the melee; and so on. There is often a razor-thin margin, and sometimes no margin at all, between getting killed by a charge and getting feared. Any attention or resources (like CDs) spent on all this other stuff means less attention and resources for other things, like dealing with the main debuffs, getting the add into position, correcting for little mistakes, etc.

4. Regardless of strat, here are a few things we could do better:

   a. Kill the adds faster to avoid fears. Multiple DPS were not hitting the adds much. They need to switch. Even the DPS who need "ramp-up" time. Killing the add just a couple of seconds earlier would make a big difference. The adds only have 33m health. Our raid DPS is around 4.5m per second. There is a charge while the add is up, but that only affects half the raid, for maybe 7-8 seconds. In fact, even if only half the raid were hitting him, he would die in 15 seconds. On attempt 17 on Thursday, we were never faster than 17 seconds, and twice we took 23 seconds.

   b. Swap out some melee for some ranged. There are multiple benefits to having more balance. Are there no options for that?

   c. Even out the ranged and melee DPS in the two groups. If the add is in a tough place for melee to reach, and the ranged are getting charged, then we're screwed. Splitting the ranged between the two groups would help with this.

   d. Split the healers between the groups. This is similar to (c). The way we do it now, when the pure-DPS group is getting charged, then only 1/3 of our DPS are available to hit the add (the ones in the non-soak group).

 

[Brewschii]

Edit: OMFG I just remembered what really happened here. Sanc usually has the marker on his head to show the ranged where to stand. He wasn't there. Without him, the ranged were lost. And that's why they were so far out of position.

But whatever, blame the tanks!

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More wall of text.

Last night's heroic run showed another problem with our strat. On our 3rd attempt, ranged were too close to the boss when he charged the melee, and some of the ranged got hit by Momentum and died. I was trying to finish moving the boss out of Miasma at the time. I'm pretty sure this has happened on mythic progression at least once if not more.

People died to Momentum at 1:45. Huggum complained that the tanks moved the boss into the ranged at the last second. I said we were moving him out of Miasma, and we need to do that. Huggum's view: You had 20 seconds from the last Roar to move him! My view: It's not that simple, I was trying the whole time. This strat sucks!

Here's the basic problem: The boss can be hard to move, and his movements can be erratic. Sometimes ranged have trouble predicting where they need to go based on where the boss is heading, and positioning themselves behind the tanks properly. For their part, the tanks sometimes can't move the boss where they want, when they want.

Also, in general, it can be tough for the tanks to juggle all their tasks related to movement and Momentum, some of which contradict one another: (1) move the boss in a timely manner, even though sometimes he's hard to move; (2) avoid Momentum (which sometimes requires being on the opposite side of the boss from where we need to move him); (3) avoid too much Miasma (but sometimes we need to stand in it to avoid Momentum); (4) avoid fears (similar issue re: Momentum); and (5) don't wander too close or far from the wall. On top of that, of course, we need to do the main things we're supposed to do on this fight: stay on top of taunts and mitigate very high damage.

TLDR solution: Instead of pointing fingers, we could make this easier by using a different strat. Sending all the charges toward mid would avoid this situation ever coming up for ranged. It also would ease or even get rid of a bunch of the tank challenges I just listed.

 

Here's a play-by-play using the replay and the event log if anyone is interested. I am because I don't like it when tanks get blamed for stuff that isn't their fault, which happens too often. But I don't expect many others to care. (https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/f6MYt2ZGyKWn3Lz4#fight=10&view=replay)

- At 1:28, the boss starts casting Roaring Cacophony.

- At 1:29, I start trying to move the boss. This is 1 second into his 3-sec cast of Roaring Cacophony, or 2 seconds before he even finishes casting. Another way of putting it is that it's 16 seconds before people die to Momentum (at 1:45), out of a total of 17 available seconds. So much for the theory about crap tanks waiting too long to move the boss.

- At 1:30, I pause for a couple of seconds. I can think of two reasons: (1) to orient myself because we're coming up on a tricky turn, and (2) the boss is about to cast Rend Flesh. Swapping back and forth around Rend Flesh and Overwhelm is the key tank mechanic. I have Overwhelm. I might be watching Dragon and myself for a sec to make sure he grabs the boss for Rend Flesh and, if not, to be ready with emergency CDs. Just before this pull, or maybe the last one, we'd whispered about how we were both distracted and not playing our best. I want to shape up.

- At 1:33, the boss has still barely moved, and he won't go further for now. He starts casting Rend Flesh, a 2-sec cast.

- At 1:34, Dragon taunts for Rend Flesh. He's at about a 45-degree angle to where I was going, probably because he was planning to take the turn a little differently than I was. When the cast is done, the boss steps about 5 yards toward Dragon, off course from where I was headed. I taunt back and resume moving the boss.

- At 1:35, six seconds after I started moving him, I've moved 11.5 yards, and the boss has moved less than that. Three quarters of the raid is still in Miasma, including me.

- At 1:38, the boss has moved more, but a few people are still in Miasma, and I'm still trying to move him. It's time to turn. I swing around his giant hit box, pausing twice for a spilt second to get oriented, and continue moving him. This takes me to 1:42.

- Also, at 1:38, every single ranged player is closer than Dragon to the boss. Most are closer than I am. What are they doing? I don't know. But in retrospect, it's not very surprising that they will be out of position in a few seconds.

- By 1:40, the boss has moved just 2 yards, to 131.07, -122.60. It turns out those last two yards were enough to get the final few melee out of the Miasma. But I don't know that yet, and he's barely budged, so I'm still trying to move him a couple more yards. (Moments later, when Huggum complains, he doesn't say I shouldn't have been moving the boss to get out of Miasma; he says I didn't do it fast enough.)

- Also at 1:40, Meggle gets Focused Gaze. She'll take it behind the melee group.

- At 1:41, multiple ranged players are still closer than the tanks to the boss. E.g., Brew is 13 yards from the boss, while Huggum is 12 and Oshieet is 11. Again, what are they doing? I don't know, but at least they're moving.

- Also at 1:41, I get my second stack of Overwhelm.

- Two seconds later, at 1:42, some ranged are still closer than Brew to the boss. The boss hasn't moved since 1:39, though I've been trying.

- From 1:42 to 1:43 I'm backpedaling, still trying to finish moving the boss. He doesn't budge until I get 22 yards away, at 1:44. Then he suddenly decides to trot over to within 10 yards of me. Seven or eight ranged players are closer to the boss than I am. Some of them were always closer to the boss than I was.

- At 1:45, Momentum goes out, and five ranged get hit.

 

What conclusions can we draw?

   1. It's silly to blame the tanks here. We have to move the boss out of Miasma. Sometimes the boss doesn't follow quickly or consistently. We also can't be expected to know when we've moved him juuuuust enough. So we might go a few extra yards.

   2. Although it looks to me like the ranged were quite out of position for a long time on that attempt, I don't think it makes sense to dwell on that either. They're busy healing and pew-pewing, and the boss's movements can be erratic, like they were on that attempt. I was surprised that it took the boss so long to start moving with me again, so it's easy to understand why they would be surprised when he moved. Sure, they could have set up farther from the boss or paid more attention to where the active tank was. But why ask them to do those things if we can avoid it? There's a lot going on for everyone. We need less to keep track of, not more.

   3. The question is, can we make this whole sequence easier on ourselves? Yes, we can. It's our strat that allows this situation to arise, and we can change strats. If the charge always went to mid, this problem (and others) would never come up at all.