Thoughts on Majordomo Executus

[Icebird]

The guild I run with on Gorefiend is also starting attempts at Majordomo, as we have just now downed Golemagg for the first time tonight, and made a preliminary attempt on Majordomo.  (Golemagg should've gone down last week.  He was at about five percent when our MT went down, and we got him to less than 1 percent before the last of us fell.  And we only had 36 people then.  One more player of any class and he'd have dropped.)
[right][snapback]92724[/snapback][/right]

Heh - exactly the same thing happened to us while fighting Golemagg Bob. Main tank goes down when he's almost dead, everyone falls over at 1%.

Good luck with Domo.

Chris

[Mirajj]

Ok, I was thinking some at work about this encounter, and came up with a scenario I think would work.

For the pre-battle setup, there would be two changes from what we did last time. The first would be a hard hitting hunter or two added to the MT's group. The second is that each offtank would also be given a Mage to /assist. This becomes important later.

The battle starts off with a hunter peelpull. The MT's hunter hits Domo, either bringing him through the pit or around it. At that time, the hunters for the offtanks peel their targets to their tanks, and the mages sheep the priests.

The first offtanked elite is killed. That offtank now /assists his assigned mage and goes to sheepbabysit.

The second offtanked elite is killed. That offtank now /assists his assigned mage and goes to sheepbabysit.

The third offtanked elite is killed. That offtank now /assists his assigned mage and goes to sheepbabysit.

While babysitting, the tanks do nothing but watch the sheep, and the mage resheeping the sheep. This gives their healer some regen time. Or gives the healer the ability to lend a hand elsewhere if needed.

The fourth elite is brought to 20%, and then left alone.

The first offtanked sheep is popped, and killed. The raid then immediatly switches to the neardeath elite and kills it as the last three priests autopop.

The offtank on the now killed sheep and the fourth offtank all head over to lock up the last priest while the raid burns down the two already locked down priests.

By the time we deal with them, one of the two tanks should have a good hold on the last priest for a burndown.

Adds all dead, Domo gives up. ;)

[Skandranon]

The first offtanked sheep is popped, and killed. The raid then immediatly switches to the neardeath elite and kills it as the last three priests autopop.
[right][snapback]92758[/snapback][/right]

Don't let the sheeps autopop. They'll immediately break for the mages and if a tank misses a taunt or sunder they'll go flying around the back of camp killing stuff. Before the fourth add dies, tanks should be manually popping all the sheep and tanking them.

[Lissa]

The first offtanked elite is killed. That offtank now /assists his assigned mage and goes to sheepbabysit.

The second offtanked elite is killed. That offtank now /assists his assigned mage and goes to sheepbabysit.

The third offtanked elite is killed. That offtank now /assists his assigned mage and goes to sheepbabysit.

While babysitting, the tanks do nothing but watch the sheep, and the mage resheeping the sheep. This gives their healer some regen time. Or gives the healer the ability to lend a hand elsewhere if needed.

The fourth elite is brought to 20%, and then left alone.

The first offtanked sheep is popped, and killed. The raid then immediatly switches to the neardeath elite and kills it as the last three priests autopop.
[right][snapback]92758[/snapback][/right]

I disagree, you want to go from five (with some sheep) to one or two as quickly as possible (so when #5 add is killed, two or three more adds are killed quickly).

From looking at all the ways people handle this, you don't want to go from five and sheep to three and no sheep. You want to make as big a jump to just being Domo and one or two others as quickly as possible.

To me, if people can just be disciplined enough and follow the main assist, which was our biggest problem on our last attempt, we can do this easily. We know what we need to do, it's a matter of executing it (also didn't help that it was quite late when we made the go at Domo for a lot of people and sleep deprivation wasn't helping).

[Mirajj]

To me, if people can just be disciplined enough and follow the main assist, which was our biggest problem on our last attempt, we can do this easily.  We know what we need to do, it's a matter of executing it (also didn't help that it was quite late when we made the go at Domo for a lot of people and sleep deprivation wasn't helping).
[right][snapback]92765[/snapback][/right]

Also, I didn't explain the following me/MA well enough. People thought that there'd be a DPS off call, target switch, dps on call, burn, etc. They didn't know that when they saw the mob at 20%, I'd be switching targets, and they were supposed to be switching with me.

I'll have to make that more clear the next time.

We've several things to try.

[Icebird]

I'd suggest you don't be afraid to change strategies if the first plan doesn't work. As I mentioned we started with the kill 3 elites - last elite to 20% - kill first healer plan, but it got really messy when the 3 sheep broke - no one was quite sure which sheep they should be grabbing.

The 1 elite - 4 healer - 3 elite is probably the easiest to explain, and the easiest for the raid to follow. (That's not the same as being the most efficient order to kill them in though).

The advantage of the paladin shield pull over a hunter is that gives your mages / hunters time to pull all the adds off a target that isn't taking any damage. Their aggro range is pretty large so the paladin doesn't have to get to far from the main group. We more or less tanked the elites in a line along the back wall.

Here's another idea for a kill order I've been tossing around (as yet untested in battle):

Kill 2 elites
Damage 1 elite to 20%
Kill 2 healers

The two remaining healers will break sheep - you have 1 elite at full health, 1 almost dead and 2 healers.

Kill elite at 20%

Then you have the option of killing the 2 healers and leaving the elite for last, or kill the last elite and leaving the healers for last.

The tank of first elite killed would the warrior the DPS follows for their target. The tank of the second elite would be responsible for grabbing one of the sheep that break when the second healer dies.

The plan tries to balance killing off the elites quickly (to reduce the healers's workload) versus leaving too many sheep to break when the 4th add dies (which creates confusion with target assignments).

Chris

[mcgurk]

We've recently got Domo to pretty much farm status on Earthen Ring (EU) and, like all the encounters, it's just a matter of getting the hang of it.

We usually have just 5 warriors so assign the MT to Domo, three to an elite each and the remaining warrior (MT2) to the last elite. The dps will always follow MT2 who selects targets once the first elite is dead.

For the pull the MT will shoot Domo then move in. Hunters will peel the elites to the other tanks and priests will all be sheeped by mages.

A hunter (the one with highest hit %) will stay with the MT and use distracting shot to pull Domo back whenever he teleports.

Our order is quite simple; elite, elite, the four priests, elite, elite. With the dps all focused on one target they go down quickly and with a good healing rotation (our healers use an 'MChealers' channel) there's not too much strain on the healing. We did once try burning mobs to 20% but we made such a mess of it we've just stuck to the above 2,4,2 order.

The fight is much easier to us that way. Following MT2 from target to target means that aggro rarely goes to dps or healers as the aggro is usually well established as warriors made spare by their targets going down move to cover the priests.

[Tuftears]

How does the transition from sheeps to no sheeps work? As I see it, going into the battle, you have:

Majordomo: tank 1 (MT)
Elite 1: tank 2 (MA)
Elite 2: tank 3
Elite 3: tank 4
Elite 4: tank 5
Priest 1: mage 1
Priest 2: mage 2
Priest 3: mage 3
Priest 4: mage 4

Now let's say you've killed two elites and one healer:

Majordomo: tank 1 (MT)
Elite 1: dead
Elite 2: dead
Elite 3: tank 4
Elite 4: tank 5
Priest 1: dead
Priest 2: tank 2
Priest 3: mage 3 + tank 3 waiting
Priest 4: mage 4

Okay. Priest 2 dies next. Priests 3 and 4 both pop. Tank 3 can get priest 3, no problem... But that means tank 2 has to jump for priest 4 pretty quickly, no?

Can the healers still be stunned when they become sheep proof? If so, maybe stationing a paladin next to priest 4 will work to cover that small gap. Or have a druid go into bear form long enough to growl the aggro off and hold the priest until tank 2 can get there.

Of course if you have 6 warriors, this is easy.

[mjdoom]

How does the transition from sheeps to no sheeps work?  As I see it, going into the battle, you have:

Majordomo: tank 1 (MT)
Elite 1: tank 2 (MA)
Elite 2: tank 3
Elite 3: tank 4
Elite 4: tank 5
Priest 1: mage 1
Priest 2: mage 2
Priest 3: mage 3
Priest 4: mage 4

Now let's say you've killed two elites and one healer:

Majordomo: tank 1 (MT)
Elite 1: dead
Elite 2: dead
Elite 3: tank 4
Elite 4: tank 5
Priest 1: dead
Priest 2: tank 2
Priest 3: mage 3 + tank 3 waiting
Priest 4: mage 4

Okay.  Priest 2 dies next.  Priests 3 and 4 both pop.  Tank 3 can get priest 3, no problem...  But that means tank 2 has to jump for priest 4 pretty quickly, no?

Can the healers still be stunned when they become sheep proof?  If so, maybe stationing a paladin next to priest 4 will work to cover that small gap.  Or have a druid go into bear form long enough to growl the aggro off and hold the priest until tank 2 can get there.

Of course if you have 6 warriors, this is easy.
[right][snapback]92817[/snapback][/right]

Have tank 3 break the sheep on priest 3 right before they will pop so he can get a few seconds of lead aggro. Kill that priest next and have tank 2 go get priest 4.

This is just like any other sheep breaking in the game; a quick taunt followed by a bunch of sunders should get that healer's aggro to your tank. He has the duration of the time while priest 3 is being killed to build some aggro. Healers tend to go down fast so this should be enough aggro to hold the priest while your dps burns it after priest 3 is dead.

Edit: Note that it helps immensly if someone is "spotting" priest 4 so that tank 2 knows exactly where he is going once his first target dies.

[kandrathe]

There's a couple fights like this where you get your aggro zeroed out and the squishies are in trouble.  You need to have a couple people who can do really high levels of ranged threat.  Distracting shot is good but like you said - it's not enough.  You have to lay in with everything you've got.  Good to do in pairs in case you get resists.  I've also heard of folks using shadow priests to Mind Blast but that seems nuts to me.

The goal is to turn whatever boss it is around and have him head towards the distracting team.  Generally there's two warriors standing in between the boss and the distracting team who'll both try to taunt the boss inbound.  (Having only one warrior means you have a scary moment if the taunt is resisted.)
[right][snapback]92499[/snapback][/right]

I like the hunter pulling Domo onto the MT idea, and I use alot more than distracting shot. The key is to know how to shed the aggro once the Mob is ready to be locked down by the tanks. Due to FD, in almost every wipe we have there are 4 or 5 hunters that pop up afterwards. :D This is driving my desire to drop herbs and take up engineering.

[Kevin]

I like the hunter pulling Domo onto the MT idea, and I use alot more than distracting shot.  The key is to know how to shed the aggro once the Mob is ready to be locked down by the tanks.  Due to FD, in almost every wipe we have there are 4 or 5 hunters that pop up afterwards.  :D  This is driving my desire to drop herbs and take up engineering.
[right][snapback]92845[/snapback][/right]

Disengage works wonders for dropping aggro. If you do your job domo will be standing on you so if FD isn't ready just hit disengage then stand there and if you need to disengage again. Hunters should never have problems shedding aggro.

[Zippyy]

Alternately, another thought could be to have Anadrol and Starkos on the non-Domo side of the pit, and have Anadrol shoot Domo, pulling him through the pit. On that shot, the hunters peel their Elites off, and the mages go to town.
[right][snapback]92570[/snapback][/right]

I think this was the method we used during the infamous MC blitz weekend. Like I've said before, I don't pretend to understand all the tactics floating around during a fight, but those three attempts using that technique seemed far more controlled than our latest attempts.

The problem in those fights seemed to me to be that when the MT was teleported, domo went out of control. The ideas being bandayed about having a paladin stand in domo's abdomen or having a hunter use distracting shot sound like they would solve that problem quite handily.

On the DPS side of things, it would be extremely beneficial, I think, to have very clear CTRA messages sent throughout the fight.

DPS ON Mirajj's Target! Kill it!
DPS ON Mirajj's Target! Take it down to 20%
DPS OFF Mirajj's Target! 20% and holding!
DPS ON Mirajj's new Target! Take it down to 20%

instead of...

DPS ON...
DPS ON...
"You guys weren't supposed to kill that one!"
...wipe

Etc. I'm not sure if I speak for the whole DPS crew, but for me it was hard to keep track of everything during the chaos of the fight (especially when it seemed like all three of our latest attempts began with a mistake). The strategy for the whole fight also seemed unclear to me at the beginning of our attempts. Then again, I don't NEED to understand the strategy, I just need to respond to the DPS calls, which brings me back to that issue. I don't think it's feasable to assume that the DPS crew will know which elites/priests to kill and which to take to 20%. If DPSers job is as simple as following concise orders, I think that will simplify execution of about half the raid, and make the entire encounter simpler.

[Icebird]

We killed him again on Saturday with the 1 elite - 4 healer - 3 elite order. I think I would recommend this approach until the group gets more familiar with the battle. There are probably methods that are "easier" (less damage taken, less time spent) but that seems to be the order that minimizes the chances of mistakes when you're learning the fight.

For the initial pull, we use a paladin walking up to Domo, then shielding when they grab aggro. A hunter is assigned to each off-tank warrior to pull the assigned add to their target.

Once the pull is complete, two hunters stand beside the Majordomo tank with the job of pulling him back when he aggro-wipes.

In terms of positions, we line the elites along the back wall, while Domo is tanked more or less where he starts.

The healers and DPS need to stay away from the elite's AOE attacks, and be alert to the shields. I called out warnings on Vent (in addition to the CTRA warnings) plus I called out the DPS targets.

[KiloVictor]

I called out warnings on Vent (in addition to the CTRA warnings) plus I called out the DPS targets.
[right][snapback]92995[/snapback][/right]

Another way to organize the fight is to have a kill spot at the top of the ramp. Designate a kill order by tank name (Fred's, then Betty's, etc.) and have all your DPS set up down the ramp from the kill spot. It cuts down on the amount of healing needed by the DPS because they're away from most of the mobs that are being tanked. And it simplifies targetting: if something's being tanked in the kill spot, kill it. :D

We also have two rogues named as assists for the DPS (i.e. always assist Barney, he's on the target that needs to be killed next, and Betty will be assist if Barney gets killed), and they simply call "next" when the mob under fire is near death. It's probably redundant, but it keeps us all on target.

Kv

[Gort]

I like the hunter pulling Domo onto the MT idea, and I use alot more than distracting shot.  The key is to know how to shed the aggro once the Mob is ready to be locked down by the tanks.  Due to FD, in almost every wipe we have there are 4 or 5 hunters that pop up afterwards.  :D  This is driving my desire to drop herbs and take up engineering.
[right][snapback]92845[/snapback][/right]

Aye. It's that moment of tension: "cables warming up - time to pray" :)