heroic protectors, gear problem

[monopoly8 Profile]

hi, im having some issues with my guilds strategy to 25m heroic protectors, non elite mode. up until tonight i have been reforged into mastery like i should be, but the strategy involves me the feral to be back up interupt ASANI if one of the 3 rogues messes up the rotation, which is inherently often so i dont have much time up on the actual kill targets, and then im also in the last group of 5 players to get the dmg buff form the adds but we only are allowed one while every other group gets 3 stacks per rotation. im not sure if i should be going haste, crit or mastery for this fight to be honest. I am going to ask to be in a different group and not back up interupt duty so that i get the damage i should be doing at 500 ilvl for this fight. here is my armory, i undid the reforges for most items for a few attempts to see, but i could not gauge anything properly with poor play by others. Would appreciate any and all help before wednesdays late night raid from fellow you fellow kittys.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/k ... uid/simple

[Referee Profile]

Stick with mastery on this fight like all others. As far as interrupting goes, just /focus Asani and you won't even need to drop your primary target (if, for some reason you tank bosses apart, remember you can both kitty jump and interrupt your focus target).

[Dysheki Profile]

Few things:

Yeah, mastery should be fine.

Also creating a focus interrupt macro will do wonders. Just make sure you set your focus before each attempt, lol. This will give you 100% uptime on your kill target (minus the energy costs).

/cast [@focus] Skull Bash

Don't you have any other melee dps that don't need to spend resources to interrupt? Like an enhance shaman, dk, paladin, warrior, tanks? It seems silly to make someone (rogues/ferals) spend resources when others can do it for free. In 5.2, thankfully and finally, our interrupt will be free. Until then we are still constrained for no reason. But even though it's going to be a loss it shouldn't be a huge loss. I think I get near 25ish interrupts in a fight on average while on actual interrupt duty (not backup) in my 10 man. That leads to 250 energy spent on interrupting. If you're on backup duty and doing half of the interrupts I do you're likely losing 120-130 energy which is just a few shreds.

[Tinderhoof Profile]

Missing a few Shreds isn't a big deal. The big deal is the screwing up of the timing. Losing 15 energy at the wrong time is going to cause stuff to fall off. Nothing drives me more crazy then getting ready to refresh Rip and what ever mechanic makes me get parried (working on Sha now), and by the time I am able to apply it again I have to reapply SR instead. Having stuff drop, or applied late due to losing 15 energy here and there adds up.

I totally agree with Dysheki. You should be talking to your RL and finding out why the folks who can do it for free with no DPS loss are not doing it now. Don't forget all 3 brands of Shaman (healers included) can be perfect back ups with a simple macro that won't fuck up their rotations.

[Dysheki Profile]

For some reason it keeps popping in my head that the kick is 10 energy (as seen in my silly calculation above) when it's 15. Whoops.

Either way, point stands: not a huge dps loss, but definitely an annoying loss.

[monopoly8 Profile]

Alrighty, thank you all! I honestly didn't know other classes could interrupt without a loss such as war, dk, shaman, ret even though I have a ret lol. I'm definantly going to make the focus interrupts macro and ask to not be on backup for most of the fight so that I can actually do something. I didn't think about warriors till last night on vent after I had posted this the 3 rogues me and the warrior were talking and he was like, oh yeah I have 2 free interupts. Will post some results tonight!

[Dysheki Profile]

Well, technically it costs mana to interrupt as ret. But a normal rotation with an interrupt included shouldn't run them oom.

[kaiadam Profile]

There's a good reason to use a feral as an interrupt - skull bash is 13 yards vs basically every other melee's 5.

When you single tank this fight (and you should), the 3 bosses sort of get shuffled around, and sometimes you're simply out of interrupt range of Asani if you're dpsing your target - especially since you have to attack from a specific angle depending on whether or not you're the group that gets the next debuff or not. A rogue would have to dance around in melee range of both mobs while moving out when the debuff goes out, it's significantly more taxing than just hitting your button when you want and having the interrupt go off every time. Having done interrupt duty for this fight on heroic on three different classes, I far prefer doing it as feral over any other melee.

Enhancement shaman are not a good choice for interrupts as their lockout is low enough that you need 4 interrupters for full coverage, which sort of defeats the purpose, so there goes that - and the same goes for all ranged interrupts. All you have left are plate dps, and historically rogues have experience with the chain interrupts so it's natural for them to be set as interrupters.

Personally I'd say make you (the feral) + the two best (as in player skill) non enh shaman melee dps as interrupters, regardless whether it costs energy or not. For the purposes of the fight, successfully interrupting Asani is significantly more important than whatever dps you lost on bitch duty.

Edit: Oh, and mastery is still king.

[Dysheki Profile]

100% sure that the lockout being a second less even matters and it's not just on a cooldown? Either way, they only move right at the start and then during lightning storm (heroic normal). The only time I ever interrupt and I'm not actually in melee range of both is during lightning storm, which I don't follow the boss exactly because of the 13 yard leeway but could be not lazy if I had to.

/shrug

I haven't heard the DK or rogue that I play with complain.

[Paca Profile]

Either way, they only move right at the start and then during lightning storm (heroic normal)..

I would guess that the vast majority of guilds have their tank in the high debuff stack group(relevant for any other stack group too though) and the casters tend to refuse to follow the tank's movement.