What went right and wrong with Majordomo?

[Tuftears]

Thread for people to post their after-action review of how the Majordomo Executus fight went. Some notes I saw going by in raid chat:

• Gnollguy(?) suggested hunter pets on Majordomo Executus. The idea here is that the hunter pets run only growl and help keep the big guy in place when he clears aggro on porting someone.<>
  
• At four down, all guards become immune to polymorph. Ace points out that we need a raid call for mages to back away and for warriors to be ready to pick up the sheeps that are going to become unsheeped.<>
  
• Flyndar(?) pointed out the smokestacks as convenient landmarks for tanks. Tanks could bring the guards they're tanking to specific smokestacks. The one that's being killed can pretty much be anywhere.<>
  [st]
  Any other observations or thoughts people had?

[kandrathe]

Thread for people to post their after-action review of how the Majordomo Executus fight went.&nbsp; Some notes I saw going by in raid chat:

• <>
  
• Gnollguy(?) suggested hunter pets on Majordomo Executus.&nbsp; The idea here is that the hunter pets run only growl and help keep the big guy in place when he clears aggro on porting someone.
  <>
  
• At four down, all guards become immune to polymorph.&nbsp; Ace points out that we need a raid call for mages to back away and for warriors to be ready to pick up the sheeps that are going to become unsheeped.
  <>
  
• Flyndar(?) pointed out the smokestacks as convenient landmarks for tanks.&nbsp; Tanks could bring the guards they're tanking to specific smokestacks.&nbsp; The one that's being killed can pretty much be anywhere.
  <>
  [st]
  Any other observations or thoughts people had?
  [right][snapback]88347[/snapback][/right]

Maybe since it is hard to find the sheeped healers a hunter could mark the one that everyone should kill. This means a hunter needs to know (and follow) the kill order, and a backup or two in case that hunter is killed. I think people spazzed a little due to the unleashed healers running around after the mages. As for order, I almost think it would be better to do Healer, Elite, Healer, Healer, Elite (sheep pops), Healer, Elite.

[Lissa]

As for order, I almost think it would be better to do Healer, Elite, Healer, Healer, Elite (sheep pops), Healer, Elite.
[right][snapback]88387[/snapback][/right]

They're no longer polymorphable after the 4th kill, so we actually want to go; Elite, Healer, Healer, Healer, no longer polymorphable, Healer, Elite, Elite, Elite.

[Pesmerga]

Maybe since it is hard to find the sheeped healers a hunter could mark the one that everyone should kill.&nbsp; This means a hunter needs to know (and follow) the kill order, and a backup or two in case that hunter is killed.&nbsp; I think people spazzed a little due to the unleashed healers running around after the mages.&nbsp; As for order, I almost think it would be better to do Healer, Elite, Healer, Healer, Elite (sheep pops), Healer, Elite.
[right][snapback]88387[/snapback][/right]

I mentioned in passing that a hunter might be the best choice as the MA for each target after the first. It boils down to when I was MAing UBRS a ton a few months back. Since I was sitting at range, I could see more of the battlefield, and could quickly pop over to a new target as the last one dies. A melee class has to search for one anew when their target goes down.

Edit: Remembered what I was going to say.

Casters would also be at range... however, casters all have a specific goal in this encounter (cept maybe Warlocks), so it makes sense to have a hunter do this.

[Lissa]

Thread for people to post their after-action review of how the Majordomo Executus fight went.&nbsp; Some notes I saw going by in raid chat:

• <>
  
• Gnollguy(?) suggested hunter pets on Majordomo Executus.&nbsp; The idea here is that the hunter pets run only growl and help keep the big guy in place when he clears aggro on porting someone.
  <>
  
• At four down, all guards become immune to polymorph.&nbsp; Ace points out that we need a raid call for mages to back away and for warriors to be ready to pick up the sheeps that are going to become unsheeped.
  <>
  
• Flyndar(?) pointed out the smokestacks as convenient landmarks for tanks.&nbsp; Tanks could bring the guards they're tanking to specific smokestacks.&nbsp; The one that's being killed can pretty much be anywhere.
  <>
  [st]
  Any other observations or thoughts people had?
  [right][snapback]88347[/snapback][/right]

Other thing I noticed, people are missing the Raid cues as well as missing the damage shield colors. I noticed a number of people still hand to handing during the purple shield (which only gets you killed quicker and makes your healer in your group spend unnecessary mana) and people still casting spells during the white shield (reflects the spells back, again unnecessary mana usage by healers). This is probably the prime endurance fight where we need to pull as little mana away from the healers as possible while killings Domo's guards. I think once everyone gets use to which color shield means which, this fight won't be that bad.

[sosostress]

When Gnolack and I were tanking Majordomo he had that nasty lava teleport spell which constantly broke our aggro. Majordomo would then go straight for healers after one of us was teleported. Is there a spot where we can drag him? The other thing I'm not sure about is the timer on taunt/sunder for him. It seems that everytime I tried to reacquire his aggro, he had no debuffs, eg. sunder or taunt.

I also think their shields have something to do with the maintenance of aggro. Perhaps the shields are why some of my sunders and taunts got wiped (speculation).

My brief stint as an MA suggests that we really need to pour on the damage to the MA's target when they call out for DPS, which is seemed complicated by the fact that the Mages were sheep-chaining (During the second attempt, Anadrol mentioned he had no DPS support).

I'll think of more observations/ideas as the day goes by.

[kandrathe]

They're no longer polymorphable after the 4th kill, so we actually want to go; Elite, Healer, Healer, Healer, no longer polymorphable, Healer, Elite, Elite, Elite.
[right][snapback]88388[/snapback][/right]

Ok, I thought it was after a number of Elite guards were killed. My bad. :-)

[anadrol]

Maybe since it is hard to find the sheeped healers a hunter could mark the one that everyone should kill.&nbsp; This means a hunter needs to know (and follow) the kill order, and a backup or two in case that hunter is killed.&nbsp; I think people spazzed a little due to the unleashed healers running around after the mages.&nbsp; As for order, I almost think it would be better to do Healer, Elite, Healer, Healer, Elite (sheep pops), Healer, Elite.
[right][snapback]88387[/snapback][/right]

Psybies idea that we have an assist macro that cycles through the active mages sheeping is a good one as well, that would assist in finding the latest sheep or broken sheep even.

The problem that I was having was that healers were sometimes broken and all over the place, and other times it was hard to see existing sheep with how much activity was going on. Half the time domo was allup in the sheep area so even if you were looking the entire time as your killing the previous boss it was hard to find sheep.

On a solid note heals on me were fantastic and i can honestly say that most of the guards are wussy....unless you have to constantly tank them for awhile due to healers going oom. Domo aggro is what i'm most concerned with there seems to be no solid way to lock him down no matter what you taunt or throw at him, he's just difficult to keep locked down.

A few times even during the 2nd and 3rd fights I was teleported into the lava by domo when i wasn't even touching him also, that makes targeting harder.

[anadrol]

I mentioned in passing that a hunter might be the best choice as the MA for each target after the first.&nbsp; It boils down to when I was MAing UBRS a ton a few months back.&nbsp; Since I was sitting at range, I could see more of the battlefield, and could quickly pop over to a new target as the last one dies.&nbsp; A melee class has to search for one anew when their target goes down.

Edit: Remembered what I was going to say.

Casters would also be at range... however, casters all have a specific goal in this encounter (cept maybe Warlocks), so it makes sense to have a hunter do this.
[right][snapback]88389[/snapback][/right]

I have to agree with this, when your in the heat of battle its hard to find your next target especially if they are running around, a hunter could just target the next one early because their vision is not blocked and get everyone on the next target faster and with more efficency than anyone else....of course a tank will need to assist immediatly to control aggro.

[Kevin]

I'm all for trying improved Sap before the pull as well. Less things moving around makes it easier for people to do the jobs they need to do.

I did suggest pets on majordomo with a warrior. He doesn't hit hard for a MC boss. 400-550 damage to my 7000 armor or so self with regular attacks with an occasional 1K hit in there. You would still have a warrior there to do most of the taunting and damage taking. The biggest problem with this is pets attacking with a white shield up and smacking themselves down. You could put priest (one with holy nova prefered) in that group and they could really help the pets with a holy nova or prayer of healing though, that would cover 3 or 4 pets depending on how that group was set up. Even if all the pets are dead by the time you get 2 or 3 of the adds dead it is worth it. Domo would probably hit for about 1k on a cloth wearer and he moves faster than I do. That damage to a healer is something we don't need and the longer we can delay it the better. The way a druids growl works (basically a combo of tuant and mocking blow it has a longer effect) also means that if we have one to spare from healing that they might be a better choice on that bugger than a warrior as well. The problem is having one to spare from healing. Pets on him means he might decide to teleport a pet as well which is fine since I don't think anyone minds if a pet dies as much as if a player dies or takes more damage. Hence the idea of only giving them PoH or Holy Nova healing anyway. A druid or paladin should have no trouble keeping the domo warrior alive. A paladin as the domo tanks MH might have benefits of potentially putting someone who can stand near domo and wear plate near domo. Heck the paladin who is healing the domo tank could probably even try to be hitting the bugger to stay higher on the hate list and have domo not go running as far. If that paladin is in the priests group who is healing the pets (and provding an armor aura for the 3 pets we don't want to lose) the no aggro holy nova would do a lot of healing on the paly as well since you could expect maybe only 2 or 3 hits for 1500 to 2500 damage on the pally (if the pets don't get domo back soon) and 500-800 from a Holy Nova puts much of that right again. I would think a shaman as the domo tank healer would work well horde side as well. But yeah a few thousand more armor on the domo pet tanks would help. Or a pally as the pet healer and back up domo tank healer might work. If you put a priest as the pet healer that priest can also be the domo tank healer easily. Or since they are in the middle of the room the free for all spot healer.

We still want domo by the pit because you want him as close to where the warrior gets ported as possible especially if the pets do keep him there. Never know how many warriors we have but another warrior roaming the field who can slap a taunt or dem shout on something that needs to be resheeped or if someone goes down early is a good thing. Don't want to attack the sheep targets but even a few more seconds of that caster looking at you and not the mage is good. If you can have a warrior that stands around the sheep and spams dem shout and/piercing howl you might have the breaks run to them anyway. I know a few dem shouts in defensive stance for me will usually make a sheep break go my way and not the healers or mages in a 5 man. A piercing howl or slowing trap form a hunter to give the mage more time isn't a bad idea either.

The guards hit for about 800-1100 physical damage on me (~7K armor). They have fire attacks that do ~1100 damage if not resisted. There were also shadow damage attacks that were doing around 1200 not resisted though those may have only been from the healers. They did fire attacks almost as frequently as physical. Good fire resist and defense to minimize crits are important for them on the off tanks.

Damage shield attention for the off tank warriors and domo warriors is important. When tal went down early and I tanked his guard I smacked myself hard with a reflected shield slam and even my low damage on swings was hurting me. Warriors need to stop attacking what they are tanking as well. Your sunders and revenges shield bash and shield slam will generate enough hate to keep it there against healing as after that first shield I stopped attacking when the damage shield went up and my guard went no where but on me till I died.

Much harded with the shields on domo because he moves fast and he takes off as soon as he teleports someone if you miss your sunder or taunt he is gone and you can not catch him without an intercept or him stopping to hit someone. Scrambling after him and paying attention to the shields was hard. Just 2 seconds worth of tuant without extra threat on him wasn't going to make him my punching bag again, I had to risk damage reflection for sunders and attacks to get him back. As was noted I'm suspecting that the damage shield wipes sunders on him as well but this is not something I got to pay a lot of attention to.

Without enough tank windows to put all the mages and such in there a hunter MA might not be a bad idea at all. In Garr it works well for the warrior who kills his first to handle it because you put him in the tank window for everyone to easy target off of and they can then grab all the other targets from the tank window with the exception of the first one which you can just slap in a quick macro. This worked really really well for us when I MA'd Garr. It is nice since the raid is used to warriors being the MA/DPS callers as well. However in this more chaotic fight with more to track it won't work as well. A hunter with the big bouncing arrow and wider field view would be a pretty good idea.

The initial pull is still an issue. Trying to charge domo is nice but doesn't work in practice as I'm usually put in combat by something before I can. So I just def stance with a bloodrage at the start of the 5 second call. I will try charge again and having the MA warrior charge isn't a bad idea (you can still have an MA warrior just assisting the hunter as well the big beast Anadrol going in and trying to get aggro on everything that is being killed actually seems like a good idea to me his healer will get some mana back while he moves and now the off tank healers get a little breather if he manages to steal aggro).

[oldmandennis]

I have 2 cents, but I know you guys have a strong "figure it out ourselves" streak, so I'll withhold them unless GG or somebody wants them.

[TheDragoon]

• Flyndar(?) pointed out the smokestacks as convenient landmarks for tanks.&nbsp; Tanks could bring the guards they're tanking to specific smokestacks.&nbsp; The one that's being killed can pretty much be anywhere.<>
  [st]

I think this observation is key for priest mana consumption in this fight. As an endurance fight, you ideally would like to see the healers being able to heal their tank using only as much mana as their mana regeneration allows. This is also key for other fights, such as Golemagg, but I think it's much more realistic for Domo's fight.

In the first attempt yesterday, I was healing Darian along with Vale back in the corner. We had things absolutely locked down for much of that fight and Vale and I were sitting at nearly full mana almost the entire time. This is because those elites really don't dish out that much damage, when separated. However, in the second attempt Darian's and Tal's targets were too close together and Darian was getting hit by the AoE attacks of Tal's target. This GREATLY increased our mana consumption for the fight. We had to call over another healer to try and help us out for a while because we were getting so long on mana. The difference was night and day.

If we can keep the various guards spread out so that there isn't any overlap in their AoE pulses, I think that 2 healers can EASILY keep a tank up almost indefinitely in this battle. We just need to take control of the chaos and get those guards split up. :)

[Darian]

If we can keep the various guards spread out so that there isn't any overlap in their AoE pulses, I think that 2 healers can EASILY keep a tank up almost indefinitely in this battle.&nbsp; We just need to take control of the chaos and get those guards split up.&nbsp; :)
[right][snapback]88414[/snapback][/right]

Yeah. On one of the attempts, I was one of the last four people to die, and when Silverflail got eaten by all the roamers, she was still at about 80% mana. Keeping us up on the guards is not difficult; it's keeping our priests up that's the issue, and that's going to require locking down Domo and the sheep. I think (except for the positioning epiphany) we had the guard situation down cold.

[TheDragoon]

Yeah.&nbsp; On one of the attempts, I was one of the last four people to die, and when Silverflail got eaten by all the roamers, she was still at about 80% mana.&nbsp; Keeping us up on the guards is not difficult; it's keeping our priests up that's the issue, and that's going to require locking down Domo and the sheep.&nbsp; I think (except for the positioning epiphany) we had the guard situation down cold.
[right][snapback]88426[/snapback][/right]

Yeah, it was the first try that I got eaten by 2 or 3 of the priests while my fade was still on cooldown. :) I'm looking forward to the next try, whenever we make it back to him, because I think we've got a good shot given how much progress we made in the second attempt along with all of the thinking we've done afterward.

[q4m]

I've been doing a bit of reading on this fight and came across a few interesting items.

I have only our experience with Domo, so I don't know how viable these random ideas are. I just thought I'd throw them out there for consideration/discussion.

Best kill order we have done is 2 elites, take the next 2 elites down to 25%, then kill 2 healers. By the time the 2 healers are dead, the remaining 2 elites are at 5% or lower just from the warrior holding aggro/dps. They both drop within 10 seconds leaving you left with only 2 healers to kill.

I like this strat, but might be just a little too "much".

That said, I was thinking about the possibility of killing the healers first even. They will, afterall have aggro on the mages, which is bad so we kill them first. In the mean time, wars continue tanking guards and have plenty of aggro when we switch to them. Of course, we've still got to contain domo somehow. Maybe some hunter pets can help with that.

Another thing I read that might help was to assign a healer to the center. That person specifically heals people that get ported. While it's not a huge deal, I can tell you from experience that lava HURTS. I have 6200 life buffed and almost died getting out, even while jumping. Not too big a deal if one person dies, but if a bunch do (especially tanks/healers/mages) it could be an issue. I didn't notice if this was an issue for us though.

I also read that Domo will port the person closest to him. The people who said this have a person actually stand "inside" domo specifically to get ported to keep the MT from being ported away.

Maybe throwing a mark up on the one we're focusing on. Even with an assist macro, sometimes it's tough to tell exactly which one it is to get in range in a decent amount of time (is for me anyway :P ).

Those are random ideas I had or read somewhere.

q

[Quark]

I mentioned in passing that a hunter might be the best choice as the MA for each target after the first.[right][snapback]88389[/snapback][/right]

Seconded. It worked well when Mirajj did it for Garr, and it worked extremely well on the Zul'Gurub run I did with Critical Mass (the entire run, not just certain places). We should consider having a Hunter as MA constantly, if you ask me.

[Quark]

Random observations from a Rogue's point of view:

Poisons - Only use Mind-Numbing. A white shield will reflect any poison back, and every other poison available to Rogues is deadly to them. I got Crippled a few times in the 2nd fight.

Damage (to us) - Cleaves, Shadow Shocks, Fireballs, Blast Waves, and (I think) some other shadow. Don't be in the front of Elites (for cleave), and wear as much Fire Resistance and Shadow Resistance as possible. The fire damage was very manageable after I put my resist gear on, but the shadow damage was still quite painful. Don't bandage close to battle. I found my best bet was to run, bandage, then sprint back in. Don't wait on the bandage. I waited one out, went to bandage, and got teleported into the lava with 176 life left. If you're low on life and can't bandage, run far away and start shooting your ranged weapon until you can bandage.

Improved Sap - I would like to try it. We have to set some pretty strict guidlines ahead of time, due to the 10% chance of Improved failing. Rogues should Sap one by one. If one Improved fails, that Rogue vanishes, and everybody has to try again (Vanish resets all Saps). Nobody else can help. If the Rogue dies, he'll probably have to walk back get summoned :unsure: .

[Olon97]

I noticed a number of people still hand to handing during the purple shield (which only gets you killed quicker and makes your healer in your group spend unnecessary mana) and people still casting spells during the white shield (reflects the spells back, again unnecessary mana usage by healers).

The damage shield does not have a thorns effect. Think of it as an intermittent shield wall. Rogues might want to hold off blowing 5 combo points while the shield is up (energy efficiency?), and it's probably not the best time to spend a warrior's rage bar on damage skills. It's a non-issue as far as healer mana goes. Sunder, revenge, and shield bash (skills that cause hate far beyond what their damage would explain) appear to still generate plenty of hate while the shield is in effect.

When Gnolack and I were tanking Majordomo he had that nasty lava teleport spell which constantly broke our aggro. Majordomo would then go straight for healers after one of us was teleported. Is there a spot where we can drag him? The other thing I'm not sure about is the timer on taunt/sunder for him. It seems that everytime I tried to reacquire his aggro, he had no debuffs, eg. sunder or taunt.

If Majordomo lays a finger on a healer at any point, you need to re-work your strategy, IMO. The teleport is a complete aggro wipe making Domo behave as if the pull had just started - first thing he'll tend to notice is a HoT tick somewhere. I've heard of various successful approaches to this problem, and I'm sure you guys will find one that works for your group.

Couple other minor food for thought points: the elites do a significant % of their damage as fire damage, and the "healers" do a significant % of their damage as shadow damage (but still majority melee in both cases). When he's bothering to hit a tank, Majordomo is all melee and he doesn't hit particularly hard. Shuffle your tanks around accordingly (and don't forget to at least shadow buff the tanks who will eventually have healer duty). Any warrior who can hold aggro decently in a 5-man could probably manage Majordomo duty.

Oh, one last thing. If the mages run away before the last sheep break, the offtanks don't grab the mob quickly (taunt isn't always enough), and the mages still have aggro, chasing a mob you're supposed to offtank halfway across the room isn't the ideal way to establish aggro... ;)

(note: In case I sound critical of someone in particular - I wasn't there. Just reflecting on my experiences with the encounter.)

[sosostress]

Out of cuuriosity, can the elites or healers be feared? Would be interesting to see if we could keep a batch of 'em running scared while we beat down on a select few.

[Alrin]

The damage shield does not have a thorns effect. Think of it as an intermittent shield wall. Rogues might want to hold off blowing 5 combo points while the shield is up (energy efficiency?), and it's probably not the best time to spend a warrior's rage bar on damage skills. It's a non-issue as far as healer mana goes. Sunder, revenge, and shield bash (skills that cause hate far beyond what their damage would explain) appear to still generate plenty of hate while the shield is in effect.

Actually yes, the purple shield does infact reflect damage back to the attacker. I don't think it negates damage done though, so if you were to hit a 3k execute attack, the mob would still suffer it, but it would also be reflected back.

Knowing the shields is key.
We have people in the raid that cannot use CTRAID for various reasons.
It is essential to be aware what color means what.
Purple means you will get hit back with skills/attacks if you are in melee combat.
Ie, a paladin that hammers a healer with a purple shield will stun HIMSELF.

Purple Shield = Physical damage/skills are reflected back.
White Shield = ANY magical spells cast have a 50%!!! percent chance of reflecting back to respective caster. However, your spells (if attack spells) will still inflict damage. But if you cast sheep and it reflects, only you will get the effects. So only damage spells will affect white-shield targets.

Also, when it comes to mages you do not have to wait for the sheep to pop before resheeping. They can be resheeped indefinately until we reach the 4 guard mark. But by then there should only be 1 healer anyway. A good way to handle sheeping (again this is for people with ctra that have the shield warning) is to resheep just before the white shield go up, or whenever there is a purple shield up. Again, know your shield colors.

And yeah, I agree we need to work out tank positioning a little more, as I was getting hit by aura from the dps crews target while I was busy tanking one of the guards. I was doing fine on the guard alone, but my healers had issues whenever there was a dps target nearby.

Don't worry though, a couple more attempts and we will get this. I am sure of it.

Without wax, Alrin.