Melee DPS, parry and tank insta-death

I’m sure most people are aware that, after damage reduction by armour and resistances, there are 4 ways that we can avoid incoming damage – the attack can miss, or we can dodge or parry, or block some or all of the damage with a shield. Enemies in the game do the same.

I guess people also realise that it’s impossible to block or parry attacks coming from behind. That is why melee DPS always attack from behind an enemy – the enemy can still dodge attacks, and can still be missed, but they can’t parry or block. Since most bosses have a 10.8% combined parry and block chance (although this can be reduced by your weapon skill), standing behind an enemy should give melee an improvement in DPS of about 10%.

If you play a melee character you probably know all that. What you might not know is that there is another reason to stand behind the enemy, and it has to do with a special property of the parry ability.

A lot of people aren’t aware that, when you parry an attack, your swing timer is reset. Imagine that you are running around with a massive slow two-handed weapon with a 4 second attack speed. Usually, you will hit things every 4 seconds. However, if you attack, and then 1 second later you parry an enemy’s attack, your swing timer is reset and you can attack again immediately. Sounds pretty good, right?

The trouble is… mobs in the game can do this too.

Imagine Gruul, under the effect of 15 growths, hitting the tank for about 10000 damage every 4 seconds or so. Those are big hits, but that’s quite healable, especially on a tank with 17000 or more health. Now imagine there are 10 melee DPSers standing in front of Gruul. Even worse, imagine they are all dual-wielding rogues who are attacking the boss about once every second. Gruul is receiving a lot of hits from in front, and he has a 5.4ish% chance to parry each of them… and each parry would reset his swing timer.

Gruul could be receiving up to 20 melee attacks per second from our rogues, with a 5.4% chance to parry each of them. Statistically, Gruul is going to parry an attack every second…

Suddenly Gruul could deal multiple 10000 hits to the tank in the space of a second, if he had a string of parries.

I think we all know what happens next!

So melee DPS, make sure you stand behind the boss… not only will it increase your DPS, but on tough content - especially slow, hard-hitting bosses - it will greatly increase the chance that the tank will live!

Obviously, there is also a chance that the tank's attacks will be parried. Not much that can be done about that - except using a slower weapon, or stacking weapon skill, which is hard to come by.

One last thought… bosses can parry pet attacks too. Even shadowfiends. So if you really want to take this to an extreme, I guess the tank would always need to turn the boss away from the raid, so that released pets arrive at the back of the boss. And yes, I know this doesn’t work for all fights… like Gruul, since we are standing all around him. Just a thought!

P.S. There is a little bit of conjecture in here. The jury is still out on exactly what effect parrying has on the swing timer. It definitely reduces the swing timer, and it looks likely that it completely resets the timer, although that is kinda anecdotal - lag makes it hard to be sure. Even if it’s just a swing timer reduction, and not a complete reset, the point still stands.

Molten Core at 70

A few tips for those who never saw the place at 60.

The first molten giant pair gain buffs at the same time that the players do, so pulling them early is a good idea. In fact, it's probably a good idea to run to them as soon as you zone in.

There are numerous other double giant pulls in MC. Generally, we deal with those as we would deal with double pulls anywhere else - CC one, burn down the other. Sapping one is usually easiest.

Typically, bosses in MC don't become hostile until you speak to them. Also, they usually give a special buff to the first person to approach them. There is often a lot of competition in the raid group to see who can approach a boss first... act fast and it could be you!

There are locked chests in the bottom of some lava lakes. It's usually a good idea for a rogue to drop down to get them - don't worry, a lock will summon you back up.

Lucifron, the first boss, comes with 2 adds - Lucifron enrages when the adds die, so he must be killed first. Behind him are several Core hound packs - they don't hit too hard, can probably be tanked by a warlock.

Magmadar, the second boss, is a giant dog, and responds well to /pat, /rollover and /playdead emotes. Areas of firey goodness appear around him during the fight - stand in them for a special fire damage buff.

Gehennas is another boss who must die before his adds. Also, he is susceptible to fire damage, so it's a good idea for the tank to walk backwards into the lava river.

Garr is surrounded by 8 smaller versions of himself - it's a good idea to pull them separately and kill them before engaging Garr himself. Buff up as much as you can for this fight - food, elixirs, flasks, whatever you have. Be careful when you kill the small copies of Garr, as they explode on death - well, except the last one.

Baron Geddon and Shazzrah - these 2 bosses are located in the same area, and so they should be pulled together. The best idea is to bunch up on both of them. If Geddon gives you a special debuff, then congratulations, you are 'da bomb'. Woot! Quick, run towards your friends and /highfive them.

Golemagg is another boss who won't aggro until you speak to him. Drop down to the left when you see him and stand behind him.

Sulfuron - his adds must be killed first. It's best to keep Sulfuron out of action while you do that. Sapping him is probably best.

Majordomo Executus comes with 8 adds, all of whom can be dealt with in different ways. The warrior adds should be seduced, while the casters should be frost nova'd and aoe'd down. Domo himself is usually evasion tanked by a rogue, a hunter pet, or a repair bot. Occasionally Domo will pick a special player and attempt to woo them. He'll probably pick you, as you are hot. Better get that armour off before you go into combat, as he will port his intended straight into his hot spa in the middle of the area.

Ragnaros - The more armour you have, the easier it is to tank this guy. Priests can use their Inner Fire hax very effectively here. When Ragnaros summons his sons, all hunters in the raid have 60 seconds to tame as many as they can before Rags resurfaces. The sons make excellent pets.

There you have it, enjoy your wicked loots. When in doubt, remember - it's a level 60 raid instance and most of us are now 70, so this is trivial content. If you pull aggro, don't worry about feigning, vanishing or trying to lose aggro in any other way... just dps harder and kill fast fast fast.

Raid target symbols

Here is the macro I use for marking raid targets. It checks to see whether you are in a party or raid, and announces your target in party chat or as a raidwarning.

This is the 'kill the skull' macro:

/script if (GetNumRaidMembers() > 0) then PR = "Raid_Warning"; else PR = "Party"; end;
/script SetRaidTarget("target",8)
/script SendChatMessage ("-- Kill the skull (%t) --",PR)

The number in the second line determines which symbol is put up:
1=star
2=circle
3=diamond
4=triangle
5=moon
6=square
7=cross
8=skull

I also have macros made for a few different CCs that we use, so I can throw symbols up on them too.

/focus

I've realised a few people don't know about the /focus command that was implemented into wow a while back, so I've dug up an old post on it. It's particularly useful for healers, or for anyone with a single-target CC ability that needs to be refreshed midfight. This command is most useful if used in conjunction with an addon like xperl (my favourite) or perl_unitframes. I'll explain why below.

It is now possible, either in a macro or as a simple typed command, to /focus on a target. This 'saves' that target as your focus. The command /target focus will change your target to your current focus. For example, the following macro will set your current target as your focus if you click it while holding the Alt key, or will target your focus if you click it without holding the Alt key.

/focus [modifier:alt]
/stopmacro [modifier:alt]
/target focus

Kinda useful for saving a target and being able to recall it later. Not the most useful macro in the world though. Here is a more useful one... Alt-clicking the macro will save your current friendly target as MA, and clicking without Alt will assist your preset MA.

/focus [modifier:alt]
/stopmacro [modifier:alt]
/assist focus

Not bad. But it gets more useful. 'focus' can be used in a macro as a valid target for a spell - so you can cast a spell on a preset focus without actually needing to target it. For instance, this spell for mages will set your current target as your sheep target if Alt-clicked. If clicked normally it will sheep your focus, even if you don't have your focus targetted - so you can keep your current dps target.

/focus [modifier:alt]
/stopmacro [modifier:alt]
/cast [target=focus,exists] Polymorph

You could tweak this with the appropriate spell if you were a warlock wanting to keep something banished or seduced, or a priest wanting to keep something shackled... or...

Anyhow, if you are a healer it is useful to keep your primary heal target focussed, so that you can keep an eye on their health even when you have something else targetted. This is mostly used to keep an eye on the MT's health, but it can also be useful in fights where you need to keep an eye on the health of an NPC, such as the last fight in Arcatraz.

Sadly, however, default WoW doesn't show a target box for your focus target, so I recommend using a good addon like xperl that will do that for you. In fact, I can't recommend xperl enough, it's great. This was my UI at level 60 using the perl_unitframes addon, which is pretty similar (I should probably make a picture of my current UI). Across the top, from left to right, are me, my current target, target of target, target of target of target, and focus target. I love it.

Anyhow, hope that helps some people. Check out the UI & Mods official forum or the Most Used Macros on WoWwiki for more info.