Wow, he’s HUGE! Making the most out of bad positioning on Kologarn.
There’s nothing better than stomping the Iron Council into the ground and trekking back up the staircases to see a giant Titan dude emerge from the depths of Ulduar. If you haven’t seen him yet, Kologarn is so big that you actually only get to hit his regenerating arms and his giant-ass torso. For most folks, the strat is ridiculously simple—keeping everyone alive makes the encounter difficult. As always, having stellar DPS is an absolute must; however, there is no possible way to DPS any part of Kologarn from behind. What does this mean, kittens? No Shred. This is a Problem. Although Primal Gore boosts our Rip damage enough to keep us mostly viable for this fight, the sad reality is that you will be losing approximately 25% of your normal raid DPS (depending on the idol you use) here.
Fortunately, I had ample time last night to test out a variety of things in a patently unscientific manner to determine the best ways to make the most of your frontal DPS.
For what I did, you need this shit:
- 6.5% chance not to be dodged or parried. This is the soft expertise cap, and it’s CRUCIAL because you’re unable to stand behind the boss. Â Being hit capped or close to hit capped is also important.
- Elixir of Mighty Fortitude. EXCITING! This is only because you need a guardian elixir and it’s really the only choice.
- Elixir of Lightning Speed. I realize that this is surprising.
- A stack of Imperial Manta Steaks (40 Haste) or, if you’re not Expertise Capped, a stack of Rhinolicious Wyrmsteaks (40 Expertise). I used Haste food, because I’m just below the soft Expertise cap.
- Idol of Worship. This serves to maximize your DoT damage, which is essentially the only thing you’ve really got going for you. Especially useful because your DoTs will still be ticking when you inevitably have to kite an Eye Beam or become a victim of Stone Grip.
- Potion of Speed. Unless you really fail and will absolutely need a health pot.
- 5/5 Feral Aggression. You want the extra Bite damage.
These buffs will also help tremendously:
- Improved Icy Talons. This can boost your Haste (if you happen to be lucky enough to be with your DK pal) by 20% for 20 seconds.
- Windfury Totem. No DK? Windfury Totems are still pretty awesome and provide 16% Haste.
- Heroism. This is pretty self-explanatory, I believe.
The idea is to increase your melee Haste and boost your white damage—your auto attacks. The more auto-attacks you do, the greater chance you have to proc your Clearcasting ability. But hey, we can’t Shred! Why bother? Although you will ultimately have so many Clearcast procs that you won’t know what to do with yourself, here’s how how you can use up all that Energy:
- Mangle spam. No joke. You’ll (mostly) be using Mangle to build combo points.
- Savage Roar for four combo points. To start your rotation here, SR at two combo points.
- Keep up Rake. But don’t clip it. Refresh this only when it’s about to run out.
- Keep up Rip at five combo points. Same rules apply. Don’t clip your DoT here because you’re only going to lose out on damage. Refresh this only when it’s about to run out.
- Ferocious Bite like it’s your goddamn job. You will OFTEN have five combo points and seemingly nothing to do with them. Use that to your advantage.
- Use Tiger’s Fury and Berserk as appropriate.
So why does this work so well? I am also running at a flat, unbuffed 265 Haste Rating, which many of you other cats in similar gear may have. With onlythe Elixir of Lightning Speed and Imperial Manta Steaks, I’m bumped up to 350. I’m also gemmed for Armor Penetration and run with approximately 197 ArP unbuffed. If you count Grim Toll’s proc in there, that’s more like 809. When you combine the strategy outlined above (that has an emphasis on boosting physical damage done) with a significant armor reduction, now we’re talking.
Questions? Good luck with Kologarn!
Smirkfang
We did 10 man last night and our over anxious Pally tank ran in closely followed by our rogue and myself. The screams over vent as he popped out and the sudden retreat from his breath by myself and the rogue was priceless as the rest of the party came to investigate. Poor pally never had a chance as he retreated from melee range… lol
The 10 of us decided to keep it a secret to surprise our regular MT when we go back as 25.
Um, our bear tank said he could get behind the right arm. I’d guess you can find a spot on the left too. Just be careful not to fall off, it is possible!
Well that’s definitely something, especially considering none of our melee could at all. I’ll have to check it out again, but I’m wondering how much luck is involved.
Tried again, this time in 10 man. Still no dice. I wonder.
Huh. It was in 10man he tried. Well, maybe he hallucinated, it happens more than we think
I definitely fell when I came over to taunt the main body from our DK on our first attempt (LOL!), but thankfully it was at the end and we still made it through. For as menacing as he looks he was basically a pushover :-\
Agreed. He was bugged for awhile (aka, doing the final tick on the Stone Grip bullshit right when he grabbed people), but as long as folks aren’t being retards and are kiting beams where they’re supposed to be, it’s not bad at all. I actually wasn’t tanking at all for this fight.
I do enjoy the dead guildie.. Good picture though.
Yeah, I’m actually dead in the corner too. It was our first attempt and we were getting that Stone Grip bug where the last tick goes off early.
Still.
nice picture.
I just read this tonight. What are your thoughts on 2 T6 for this fight? I’m debating using my T6 boots and belt. I have consistently been 2 or 3 dps on 10 man and 3 or 4 on 25 with just using what I have currently, but I’m looking to see if this would boost me any more. Just wondering what your thoughts were about using T6.
Well, I don’t have any of my T6 left anymore because I’ve filled my bank with eighty million other armor pieces (although it wouldn’t be hard to go get it again). It’s an interesting idea, but the set bonus would have to make up for everything you’d lose statwise. As an example, if you compare what I’m wearing right now to the Thunderheart Treads and Waistguard (Flamestalker Boots and Belt of the Twilight Assassin ) you’d lose an absurd amount of AP and critical strike.
So despite the further energy reduction, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the stats on the newer pieces of gear more than make up for that.
Not counting clearcasts, consider the 34->29 Energy reduction an 17% increase in Mangle damage. Better actually because increased combo points generation. Did someone do some actual math whether it could be worth it ?
Not that I’m aware of. As I mentioned previously, I’ve long since gotten rid of my old T6 to make room for a million other pieces of gear. I’d be interested in seeing a WoL parse from someone trying that out; I’m not convinced it’s worth the min/maxing if you need to go rerun Hyjal/BT/Sunwell to get the piece you need (especially since really, you can do reasonably well without it).