Going into Firelands: Shannox

And there is the wall again.

After two weeks farming trash, pulling some bosses just to see them (spider and steering giant). And also clearing BoT and BWD to get some more gear for people, last night we had our first real Firelands-Raid. Target:Shannox.

At the end of the night, some conclusions where made. First: we where making progress, but Second: to low dps from the raid, so we went over the 10-minutes mark.....ouch.

At the end someone threw the number of 23k dps average around, which made me and Gunho go into a little theorycrafting. First that number 23k is unreachable at the moment. At our last attempt, I think I made almost no mistake. Focusing on Rageface till second spear, then dotting all three up, with almost all the spells cast at the right time. I may get 500dps more if it was earlier on the evening (hey, I am human after all), but that would be it. I had 15.8k dps, and was the highest of the raid, with Gunho following closely, and 3/4 others also around that 15-16k dps-range.

But that 23k is way to high. I took my calculator, and came to a raid-average of 17k with 15 dps, and the 3 tanks doing 15k. Well, that number is reachable methinks. This week some people will probably get 2pT12 (not me though), and than 18k is doable. Problem is, 18k is the average.... and we still have some people with to low gear, because of some new recruits.

But, there are some problems we face now. The most important is players getting Iceblocked. On our last attempt, I turned around to DoT Shannox, and saw three, yes THREE iceblocks, that weren't there 5 seconds before. I don't know the exact hp of the blocks, but they will probably cost you 500dps-average methinks. So getting out of these traps should be a high priority, forget everything, run out of them.

And then there are the times Rageface jumps into an Icetrap, RNG happens. I saw that that Iceblock was also targeted for destruction. It shouldn't. He will get out of it, and all dps on that iceblock is wasted. Everyone should ignore rageface for those 5 seconds, and hit Shannox probably.

And third, the Immolation-traps. Now, let's be clear, I myself am not familiar enough yet to keep the two traps from each other, although I am almost there :p. But if Rageface is alive, he should be immolated as often as possible. First of, he will be damaged by them, which helps the raid-dps. But most importantly, immolation will place a 9-second debuff on the hound, which increase damage taken by 40% (iirc). That will help A LOT. It will potentially lower the dps-average needed by around 1.5k.

With all this in mind, I actually think that he is almost beatable at this moment, it requires no mistakes though, and a high uptime of immolation on the dogs.

And for the record. My average Ilvl at the moment is 360, Innovation hasn't done any heroics, so most people will be around that now. Also raid-dps-average goes 1k up/down with the amount of dps present, so 14dps should bring 18k, and 16dps should bring 16k, and this is with a little safety-factor build in.

Mathemathics:
Rageface:33.7M hp + Riplimb:33.7M hp + Shannox:81.6M hp = 159M hp
159M hp / 600 seconds = 265k dps
265k dps - 15k dps (tanks) = 250k dps
250k dps / 15 dps-players = 17k dps-average (rounded up)

TL;DR-version:
1. Get out of the Ice-Traps
2. Don't target the Iceblock containing Rageface/Riplimb, hit Shannox.
3. Immolate Rageface whenever possible.
4. Bring 17k dps on average. (with 15 dps-players that is)