Gruul

[xaoxen]

My guild finally got abck to doing Gruul's layer after several months. We got the High King at farm status, but it seems our dps is lacking for Gruuls. I think it is also partly some people being new to the fight, getting caught in the cave ins, poor placement for shatters. With the recent changes to elixirs, what is your typical group make up? melee/ranged/healers.. as well as a class break down. Also what about positioning around Gruul. It seems we start off well balanced, but people are getting tossed around then we get owned by the shatter. Thanks

[bpaige]

We generally take the same raid to Gruul that we do to High King. 8 or so healers. 2-3 warriors, 2 rogues, 2 pallys 2 druids 2 shadow priests, 1-2 shaman, I think 3 or so priests. and the rest ranged dps.

I can be honest with you....I'm a holy pally and I no longer pop consumables for that fight. A few of our other healers do as well.

I think it's more important that your dps is popping the consumables as it is basically a dps race. Or if your having troubles with healers being oom then they may need some fish sticks and mageblood.

Positioning we start out in 5 groups positioned in a star shape about the room. After you get tossed around you go back to where your group was standing. Top off the raid and continue dps. We've been killing him for about a month and have improved from 16 growths at the beginning to 14 almost 13 growths now.

[Telmar]

We assign rocks for people to stand on when ground slam warning is up. We killed him in 14 growths last week, but that was mainly due to him being buggy and HSing the 3rd tank, so he ate all the melee dps.

We take whatever we had for king too.

[ocellaris]

Did it last night with 6 healers. 1 Tree Druid, 4 Paladins, I Priest. The more DPS you can pile on, the better. Take more healers seems like it would help, however that causes the fight to stretch out for longer. Anything after the 10th Growth can start getting sketchy so its best to make few healers work harder and get Gruul down before the OT is taking 13K Hatefuls.

[Qwertius]

the more warlocks the better, warlocks absolutly shine there (with 1 shadowpriest)

[xaoxen]

we made some prettu good attempts last night, with out best at 17%. DPS is our main problem, and people not paying attention and getting killed by cave ins and shatters. Think its going to be another week or 2 of gearing up our dps before we down this guy again.

[Malentra]

the more warlocks the better, warlocks absolutly shine there (with 1 shadowpriest)

No, that is extremely poor advice. There are good warlocks and bad warlocks. There are geared warlocks and ungeared warlocks. Not every guild can afford to get the best players of every class, whenever they want. They have to pick and choose from the players who they have in the guild.

As a mage, I was able to put out 350k damage by the 10th growth. Not many warlocks can manage that. (none in our guild got above the 300k mark in the same amount of time) Its about the player, the spec, the gear, the buffs, and the group-synergy before its ever about the class.

Shadow priests are good in this fight, but choosing the rest of the dps should go by *performance*, not by class. Look at who is dpsing the least (due to lack of skill/gear, not group buffs), and who is dying too easily and drop them for better dps or teach them to play better.

Remember that some people will do more damage because they're in a 'stacked group'. (e.g. Elemental Shaman + Moonkin + Shadow Priest + 2xMage/Lock, or DPS Warrior + Enhancement Shaman + Feral Druid + 2xRogue) Make sure your best dpsers are in these stacked groups.

As a general rule though, if your tanks are dying before the 12th-14th shatter, and your healers are focusing on your tanks, then its more of a healing than a dps problem.

[bpaige]

Well ya it is sort of a balance issue, you need to have 2 tanks that can live through a crushing blow, with one of them to eat the hateful strike. Your healers need to be able to heal that amount of damage. And your dps needs to be able to burn him fast.....stacking your dps groups is a good idea...our tank group is usually the 2 warriors with a pally with imp devo, a warlock for bloodpact and I think shaman for his totems. Makes healing a bit easier on them.

Once you can find balance with your healing and tanks it really does come down to your dps being able to pew pew hard enough to kill him before 16 Growths.

[CorinthianSC]

Well ya it is sort of a balance issue, you need to have 2 tanks that can live through a crushing blow, with one of them to eat the hateful strike.


1) Hurtful Strike can't crush, crit, whatever. It's just a straight melee hit. This is why many guilds use Feral Druids to OT Gruul, as they usually have higher armor and HP values and are better suited to take a hurtful.

2) If your tank is good and geared he won't get crushed unless Gruul parries and gets an extra swing in.