Wind Lord Mel'Jarak

[Tinderhoof]

This topic is for discussing Feral DPS tactics and/or general raid strategies for the Wind Lord Mel'Jarak encounter.

Please feel free to post tips, tricks, videos or ask questions. I will do my best to keep the top post updated with information as it arrives.

When discussing, please mention raid size (10/25) and difficulty (normal/heroic).

[Signas]

Managed to drop (10N)Mel'Jarak last week (with HOTW), but I would like to know what other Ferals are doing as far as targeting and multi-"dot"ing is concerned.

[Bethany]

Managed to drop (10N)Mel'Jarak last week (with HOTW), but I would like to know what other Ferals are doing as far as targeting and multi-"dot"ing is concerned.

If you have enough competent interrupts and are single tanking; thrash/swipe/hurricane seems to be the best way to go - maintaining FF/Rake/Rip on Mel'Jarak where possible. If you've been assigned to interrupt then you can still do the same on the healers though you'd be wasting boss dps leading into Phase 2.

Log for reference: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-n ... 778&e=6266

[threeeyedcat]

This is definitely a HotW fight. thrash+swipe... HotW+hurricane.

The boss's thrown boomerang blade has a large radius. So when the boss makes the call to throw it.. Run out a little behind him [or pop a def cooldown]. It is kinda amazing how easily he can hit melee from behind with it. And it happens twice. So save your healers some work.

I would definitely be ready to use HotW+ tranq in the last phase during rain of blades . It should be coming off cooldown around this time. This phase can be rough on the healers.

[Dravenor]

Just started working on this fight on 25man heroic. Been using Sotf/NV for this fight and popping beserk/NV after first set of adds dieing to add to the 600 percent increase in damage to boss for 30 secs, had a couple 2 million ferocious bites along with putting up a buffed rake/rip right at the end of buff timer seems pretty nice. We have not killed it yet but i was sitting at about 350k dps at end of first recklessness.
I was just curious if anyone else has used a different setup on this fight or has different strats.

[kaiadam]

It really depends on your strat. For example, my guild now basically single targets the boss to 80% then starts aoe (1 of each add type cc'd), so we get 3 back to back recklessness and burn him from 75% to 0 in those 90 seconds. I wouldn't recommend NV there.

On our first kill, we cc'ed 0/1/2 so had well staggered recklessness phases. I still wonder about whether my NV spec there was helpful despite being able to pop it on first and third reck.

Anyway, these days I just stick with HoTW still. For some reason it just does more overall damage for me.

[Bearnakked]

Hey guys, tonight my guild starts work on wind lord mel'jarak heroic...... and just recently noticed all the hurricane / hotw spam in WOL parses. I've been behind in the times apparently on this one trying to thrash /swipe my way into ranks. So i was just curious to what tips are out there for mastering this strat.

Switching to a spell power 2hander? prepotting + opening up with hotw/hurricane to line up with bloodlust/hero (depending on when your guild wants to use it? Should i change my reforge around for more crit over mastery?

Any tips would be awesome

[Instaqueues]

There is a raid strategies forum, and you can check out this boss specifically here:
http://fluiddruid.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=945

[Bearnakked]

yeah i know, but there is hardly any activity there

[Instaqueues]

Ah, heard that!

Well, I think HotW + Hurricane is still the best AoE in the game. I made a macro to activate it + equip my int staff, and then cast wrath (have it from when wrath spam was beast), but I just spam that macro a few times then hit hurricane In the group of mobs, it's best to swipe a couple times. I like to berserk asap on this, to get that on CD then HotW after berserk, and you basically get a free minute off the berserk CD while you hurricane.

[Vaporgriffin]

I macroed equipping the int weapon into popping HOTW but left the other spells out of the macro because I use it for a Tranq at the end of Wind Lord usually. My starting rotation on that fight is:

- Berserk on the pull, thrash + swipe spam until Berserk and TF run out of steam.
- Step slightly out of the melee group, pop HOTW and equip int weapon.
- Hurricane the full duration of HOTW, then go back in to continue thrash + swipe until the adds drop.

I don't think you get any benefit from wrath-spamming on this fight, especially when there are so many juicy aoe targets available. I actually thought that they had changed wrath-spam so that it's only worthwhile if you need to maintain dps from range for some reason (maybe on Elegon?) but since it's not a dps increase over our melee rotation it's not worth switching just for wrath anymore.

[Instaqueues]

It's def. not an increase in DPS (unless you use a 463 weapon still), I just haven't bothered taking the spell out of my macro cause I'm lazy, and sometimes use it on Elegon if we have 3 melee in our 10man.

[Tinderhoof]

Merged this thread here. While there may not look like a lot of activity questions here are answered fairly quickly.

- Berserk on the pull, thrash + swipe spam until Berserk and TF run out of steam.
- Step slightly out of the melee group, pop HOTW and equip int weapon.
- Hurricane the full duration of HOTW, then go back in to continue thrash + swipe until the adds drop.

This isn't the best opening if you plan to use HotW. HotW Hurricane is the beefist AOE in the game. Why would you not want to make use of your pre pot with it?
At the start I will usually pre SR, and throw a Thrash, Swipe, TF, Swipe, Swipe while the tanks are getting them all together. As soon as they are grouped hit your HotW and Hurricane. This gives you a few things.
1. Some early damage prior to all of the adds being grouped.
2. TF will be off cooldown again before HotW is over so that gives you a little extra starting damage.
3. The Swipes will give you some combo points to get started on the boss as soon as HotW is over.
4. Using HotW as early as possible will give you the best chance of having it be up for the end of the fight when a Mega Tranq will come in handy.

Now this is a great go for as high damage as possible. However if you are doing Heroic the strat will likely change some. His health pool is stupidly high and it requires the add packs to be brought down at different times to control the Recklessness debuff. My guilds first kill Monday used the same suggestion that Kaiadam posted prior which was to single target the boss down to 80% before doing anything to the adds. I was told I couldn't use HotW at all because I had to have mega tranq available for the end of the fight. Just make sure you are doing what your raid needs above doing your biggest possible numbers.

[Vaporgriffin]

This isn't the best opening if you plan to use HotW. HotW Hurricane is the beefist AOE in the game. Why would you not want to make use of your pre pot with it?

At the start I will usually pre SR, and throw a Thrash, Swipe, TF, Swipe, Swipe while the tanks are getting them all together. As soon as they are grouped hit your HotW and Hurricane

Pre-potting the hurricane does make sense, but it feels like a lot of the duration of the pre-pot is spent waiting for the adds to be gathered together. As you mention, it usually takes a little bit of time for the pack to be properly grouped up, so my thought was to get my damage in with berserk and have it off cooldown again as soon as possible. Are you pre-potting with Int, throwing out thrash/swipe/tf/swipe/swipe and then using whatever time is left on the potion to boost hurricane?

[Tinderhoof]

You use Agi pots for HotW, not Int pots.

[Vaporgriffin]

You use Agi pots for HotW, not Int pots.

Ahh of course... While I did know that agi boosted our spell-power, I somehow completely failed to make that connection.

[Grenache]

Hi guys, a question about guardian bear dps vs. guardian cat dps in this fight. Is there any point in our off-tank going cat for phase 2 (when all adds are down). Is the dps difference significant enough to go cat? I'm not a Guardian, so I really don't know.

[Vaporgriffin]

Hi guys, a question about guardian bear dps vs. guardian cat dps in this fight. Is there any point in our off-tank going cat for phase 2 (when all adds are down). Is the dps difference significant enough to go cat? I'm not a Guardian, so I really don't know.

There would be a damage difference for sure - while probably not a huge difference, it would definitely be worthwhile for the offtank to go cat rather than continuing to beat on the boss in bear form.

That said, you might find it more worthwhile having only one tank for this fight (on normal), and having the other tank go full dps, unless your healers are really struggling to keep the tank up. If you're fast about dispelling quickening, there shouldn't be an excessive amount of tank damage.

[Tinderhoof]

0 Vengence bear damage is still better then a Bear going into Cat form to DPS. The other advantage is the Bear can make use of Tooth and Claw procs to help reduce damage on the MT. Keep him in Bear.

[kuriara]

All da aoe!

Heroic wind lord is easier than normal with a competent group.

I have tried the hotw hurricane opener, did ok, not amazing, but the 3 charging adds (brainfarting the npc name atm) are out of the pack often enough to offset their hp so you need not worry about them all dieing at the same time and not being able to re apply a full stack of wrecklessness on the boss.

Last week i went with an incarnation/nv spec.(mind you i died because some silly healer decided to tag a windbomb during rain of blades and gibbed the 5 melee, doh, but he died, so will try again this week)

pre pot, pre savage roar
tank 1 pulls all (minus the 3 amber bugs--cc'd)
tank 2 taunts boss, and we stack em.
range spread all around us, minus to the rear of melee so as to not force us to deal with his "glaive toss"
targeting boss, fff, rake, thrash, swipe swipe, tf rake swipe swipe, refresh roar with 5 pts, refresh rake as necessary, refresh thrash as necessary, swipe swipe.
Now you find yourself totally energy starved and tf is on cd, it doesnt hurt to bear up, thrash, swipe, back to cat, and oo lookie, energy!

healer adds are interrupted, thankfully not by me , come 5.2 that will change (0 energy kick ftw)
as said above, the warrior type adds, charge out often enough to offset their hp from the healy adds.

1rst 3 adds die, boss gains wreckless buff
try to time your tf cd with this so that it is available. and be mindful to have 50 energy available for shatter if your symby is on a warrior.
shatter--incarnation--natures vigil--virmens bite pot--tigers fury--beserk--ravage spam for 15 sec ( ooommggg )
all the while maintaining savage roar, rake, rip, and try to squeeze off a few bites.

wrecklessness will fall off shortly, and its back to thrash, swipe, as above. they will die very soon depending on your cleaving teammates and thus refresh the buff. while the buff is up on the boss, single target is much more important.

New adds will be arriving shortly, so its rinse repeat, be mindful of threat as the tank brings in new guys, odds are his vengeance will be so high it wont matter, but, well you never know!

will find out for sure this reset if i like this vs hurricane(wut) spam

[Tinderhoof]

You might want to make a slight adjustment to the Incarnation MACRO OF DOOOOOOOMM!MMMMM!!MMMM. Reason being is Incarnation unlike every other cooldown we have triggers a GCD. You should do something like, Incanation -> Ravage, Shatter, MACRO OF DOOOOMMMMMM (TF, Berserk, Pot, yada, yada)! You won't lose anything from the Incarnation because it lasts longer then all the rest of your buffs, and you won't lose that first GCD of your TF, Pot, and Berserk with an empty place. Good luck tonight.

[Alpheus]

Interesting, we're just starting Wind lord HC (25man) as well and I'll give it a try. I'm still undecided which T6 talent to take, all of them seem to have ups and downs (with one big recklessness NV would be grand, with several DoC, AOE whoring HOTW would be the most appealing). If I'm not tanking tonight I'll give each a go and try to compare some results.