Gruuls Compared; wipes on May 26

Our last runs on Gruul emphasize the importance of solid team members, even in a 25 person instance. The stats from our successful run, and the wipes this weekend, display the following roster changes by each side:

Our successful run included more dps, particularly from the following:

Longhammer at 939 per second.
Soren, at 763 per second.
Kimbelice, at 608.
Erollas, at 595.
Anisicoria, 494

Total DPS: 3399

Substitutes for these members, were weaker dps stats by other characters:

Bingo, at 534.8
Yagomi, at 703.6
Vhaldria, 536.7
Myraa, 366.7
Highfever, 411.1
Mysh 404.3

With these six members, rather than five, there would still be 2957.2 dps on the boss; at over 400 dps per second off on this fight, and fighting for roughly eight minutes, or 480 seconds, we lose 192,000 damage over that time period without the appropriate team members on board.

His total health is reported as 3,416,600; so we are not removing 5.6% of his health in that time period, and allow the fight to go on that much longer. We were able to get him to 18% on one try, or 614,988 left; and 20% on another; with a greater dps rate earlier, we should be finishing him by his 12th grow rather than wiping on number sixteen. He grows every thirty seconds, augmenting his damage 15% each time; since he starts at roughly 3200 dps on heavy armor, 16x.15= 2.4 times more damage after 480 seconds, or eight minutes of time.

This fight can apparently go on longer than normal; our longest run last night was through his 15th grow, into number 16; when he supposedly "one shots" tanks. This turns out not to be true, since I tanked him successfully until heals ran out. His hurtful strike can be dodged, and mitigated; from 15k as a crushing blow, down to 8k on my armor. We simply need more dps in a smaller package in order to win this event.

The easiest comparison is through a fairly simple calculation; if he has over three million health, and we have less than 480 seconds to kill him, the math works out to be

3,416,600/480= 7,117 total dps per group.

Without this average dps throughout the entire group, with no deaths during the eight minute time period, you would expect to win this fight. That assumes no losses of major casters at the same time. Our total average during our wipes was 9,650.9 dps; however, during the Shatter phases, we do no damage to him at all, and this removes portions of the possible damage time. His Slow is cast over the course of five seconds, and Ground Slam and Shatter take a few more; I assume ten seconds total time when no dps is done, and four Shatters throughout the eight minutes, or forty seconds lost. Now the calculation becomes:

3,416,600/420 = 8,134.76 total dps per group.

Through losses in the group we automatically are susceptible to failures; we simply cannot afford to lose more than two of the major dps members or we drop below the minimum.

Heals

We also learned that immediately after a Shatter, when everyone is damaged to some extent, heals must go primarily to tanks; because when we pick him back up, he immediately starts to deal damage from Hurtful Strike and melee, and late in the fight can pile on 12 or 15,000 damage in the time it takes to cast a single heal.

Our healers should be above 360 hps, ideally; even Koalat, with a quick holy respecc, was above this range. Our two lowest healers were Silverclaw and Koalat; they need quicker hps, either through healbot, addons or gear. Silverclaw appears to be a resto druid in mostly PVP gear, which we can confirm is not suitable for raid runs; the other healers are double his HPS rate. Spartanvenim was able, in one day, to increase his rate of heals from 387, to 573, by gearing for raids with a major weapon upgrade.


Tank Threat

Tanks are a vital part of the team against Gruul; and the loss of a tank is a serious problem since the second aggro target is hit by Hurtful Strike for over 12,000 damage per hit. However, at least one suggested solution to loss of a tank was proven last night; Vharlion died, after the tenth grow, and was quickly combat rezzed; within ten seconds he was third on the threat list in Omen, and when I died on the fifteenth grow, he was second on aggro and took over, becoming first on the threat list again. A tank can therefore come back from a rez, and re-acquire Gruul, within about a minute. Misdirection by a hunter, upon a tank, after suitable buffs, would result in quicker acquisition in the event a tank falls. Threat is not generated in a way that compares to dps classes; most dps classes have threat mitigation, and tanks are expressly geared and specced to multiply threat generation. Prior to the tenth grow we should not be losing any tank, if heals focus on him immediately after Shatter; however if we lose one prior to the twelfth grow, with 90 seconds left, we should rez the MT or OT, misdirect onto him, use threat generation as quickly as possible, and allow the fight to proceed.