Monday, September 6, 2010

Heroic Professor Putricide

Yeah, you thought I would never do it, but here it is! HPP for your reading pleasure.

HPP is very similar to normal mode for the most part.  There are still 3 phases, there is still an abom to control, malleable goo to dodge and adds to kite and kill.  However, I am going to outline a new way to stand in order to deal with the new bits more efficiently.

By now, everyone should have a good idea of where the green goo spawns and where the orange goo spawns.  The new standing strategy goes like this:  Everyone spread out on the right side of the room (and by right I mean as relative to facing Prof Puke's experiment table).  The centre(ish) of the room must be kept clear for reasons I will outline in a moment.  Also, for the same reason people need to spread out as much as they can.

So, one of the new abilities Prof Puke will be using is something called Unbound Plague.  This will bounce around the raid if the raid is stacked up too closely together.  Why is this a bad thing? because once it bounces off you, you get a debuff.  So, the thing is, if it bounces around too many of the raid, then it might bounce back onto someone and that will pretty much kill them.  So, there are 2 things you need to change to manage this issue.  One is spread out, like I explained above, the second is why you need to keep the centre clear.

There are mods out there that help you deal with this debuff, but really, you don't need them.  Just pay attention and organise yourselves and you will be fine.  Being vocal on vent will help a lot with this debuff management.  Alrighty, pick 5 ranged DPS to allocate a rotation to.  DPS 1->2->3->4->5->1 and so on.  To start with, DPS 1 sits in the centre.  When the first plague is cast, that person needs to stop what they are doing and wend their way to the centre without (if possible) giving the debuff to anyone on the way.  This is not as easy as it sounds!!  If that debuff pops off onto someone else, the new person needs to move to the centre.  Hopefully, all goes well, and the person in the centre gets the plague, the carrier then needs to get the hell out of dodge and back to whatever they are supposed to be doing.

The person in the middle needs to count out about 10s - healer note the person with the plague will be taking an increasing amount of damage, keep them alive! - and then DPS 2 needs to run in and take the debuff off DPS 1.  DPS 1 needs to also get the hell out of dodge.  After 10 or so seconds, DPS 3 needs to swap over.  I think you get the idea.  This needs to continue until the timer on the plague is 0.  The plague has a global timer of 60s, and this is not reset when it is passed around.

Ok got that clear?  This mechanic is the main reason for the positioning change.  The positioning change has one further aspect to it.  Since everyone is hanging out near the green goo spawn point, we need to look at dealing with green goo add differently.  We know where the spawn point is; when the green goo add is about to arrive, everyone needs to stack together so that when the green goo hits (because it will... you are very close to it) you all get blasted in the same direction, and minimal damage is taken.  This is really important, and you will notice the difference if people don't stack properly, they will be flung in weird directions.

The other major change is during transitions.  Instead of smacking everyone with tear gas, Prof Puke will mark everyone with an Orange Affinity or a Green Affinity.  He will then distract you all with spawning 2 adds, an orange one and a green one, of course.  So, those of you with the orange affinity can affect the orange add, and those with the green affinity can affect the green add.  Simple eh?  Well, you better smash those adds down by the time Prof Puke comes back, or you will lose time on the boss, because those adds need to go down as a priority!

The rest is exactly the same.

We are still wiping NER, what's going on?
Are people spreading out?
Are people not moving the plague to the middle?
Are healers forgetting to heal the plague team?
Are the plague team holding on too long?
Are people DPSing the right affinity?
Are people standing in bad?
Are people not stacking properly for green add spawns?

Those questions should address the changes in this fight that cause wipes.  Good luck guys, sorry it was so long between drinks!