Combat/Watchman for NiM?

[mynameisbugged]

Hello,

 

I don't play sentinel/marauder but i do lead a raid group which is starting nim progression. We have raided 1 night on draxus but have difficulty with wave 5->wave6 transition with DPS. My team uses double sentinels, sage and mando for DPS. I am wondering if any nim experienced sentinels/marauders can advise if the sentinels should respec to combat for this fight?

 

Thanks

[JMagee]

Hello,

 

I don't play sentinel/marauder but i do lead a raid group which is starting nim progression. We have raided 1 night on draxus but have difficulty with wave 5->wave6 transition with DPS. My team uses double sentinels, sage and mando for DPS. I am wondering if any nim experienced sentinels/marauders can advise if the sentinels should respec to combat for this fight?

 

Thanks

 

Can't speak to the specific Q about sentinel spec, but I think some more generic info on your raid comp and how you handle wave 5 and 6 would be useful. Draxus requires a good mix of burst and AoE

 

What specifically is the problem with wave 5? Corruptors in the back? Bulwarks on the sides? Not enough DPS to push Draxus up leading into wave 6? What spec does your sage and mando run for Draxxus?

 

What are your two sentinels responsibilities for that phase?

[vdbswong]

I personally respec to Rage/Focus for Draxus (and Grob and Corruptor).

 

As the previous poster pointed out, it's mainly dependent on how your group is doing... my current guild runs an Annihilation Marauder because we aren't missing the AoE dps.

 

Likewise, another guild I raided with used to have their Sents run Combat.

 

It's really up to which spec they're most comfortable in, you'll probably get the "best" results going from:

 

Focus -> Combat -> Annihilation

[mynameisbugged]

Can't speak to the specific Q about sentinel spec, but I think some more generic info on your raid comp and how you handle wave 5 and 6 would be useful. Draxus requires a good mix of burst and AoE

 

What specifically is the problem with wave 5? Corruptors in the back? Bulwarks on the sides? Not enough DPS to push Draxus up leading into wave 6? What spec does your sage and mando run for Draxxus?

 

What are your two sentinels responsibilities for that phase?

 

the sage plays balance and mando is playing gunnery. Our tanks are a guardian and a shadow

 

in wave 5:

 

healers will interrupt south corrupters first and sentinels will pick up the next interrupt. They target corrupters first and then bulwark, and then get draxus. Ranged will kill side bulwarks and leave 1 dispatcher before going on boss, our offtank guardian meanwhile goes to south and applies force sweep armor debuff. Draxus still has quite a bit of hp before the dismantlers appear in wave 6.

 

wave 6:

 

healers get the dismantlers and i assign the sage to stay on boss with the shadow tank while 1 of the sent's get the despoiler, the other sent & mando on the corrupter. Well at this stage we still haven't got this cleanly and boss is still up after the first swipe from healers.

[KeyboardNinja]

the sage plays balance and mando is playing gunnery. Our tanks are a guardian and a shadow

 

Balance is awful for this boss. There are many who play it, but honestly TK is just better here. If your sage can play TK, have them do so.

 

healers will interrupt south corrupters first and sentinels will pick up the next interrupt. They target corrupters first and then bulwark, and then get draxus. Ranged will kill side bulwarks and leave 1 dispatcher before going on boss, our offtank guardian meanwhile goes to south and applies force sweep armor debuff. Draxus still has quite a bit of hp before the dismantlers appear in wave 6.

 

If you are focusing down a single corrupter, you shouldn't need a second interrupt. If you are focusing just one and you still need a second interrupt, then either your first interrupt is too early or your DPS is too low. That would be a place to look for improvement.

 

If you have confidence in your healers but your DPS aren't quite cutting it, you can apply more damage to the boss by leaving all of the dispatchers up. Just kill the side bulwarks and get on the boss. If you have time, you can send your focus sentinel to one side (most of my guild's groups pick the right side) to clean things up. However, since you have a shadow tank, it doesn't actually matter, because…

 

wave 6:

 

healers get the dismantlers and i assign the sage to stay on boss with the shadow tank while 1 of the sent's get the despoiler, the other sent & mando on the corrupter. Well at this stage we still haven't got this cleanly and boss is still up after the first swipe from healers.

 

You cannot have a healer get the right dismantler. Or rather, you can, but it's a monumentally bad idea. The right dismantler (facing the boss) hits much, much harder than the left dismantler. Also, the healers are busy catching up after phase 5. Here's a slightly revised strategy which you might find a bit easier…

 

Ignore the boss in Phase 6. He'll get pushed by AoE splash.

 

Have your commando get the left dismantler and your off tank get the right dismantler. Make sure they are tanking them at the base of the stairs, facing directly toward the boss (such that when they're swiped, the dismantlers will just walk toward the boss. When the swipe goes off, have the shadow tank (who still has the boss!) pop an AoE Taunt and then Deflection, holding both adds and the boss. Commando must agro dump at this point and target swap to the other dismantler. Guardian tank should go to the back of hte room and help clean things up there. Shadow tank goes into AoE tanking mode and holds both Dismantlers. As soon as the swipe is about to go off (hint, the right dismantler is usually a hair behind the left), push Resilience. Your group how has until the next swipe to kill both Dismantlers and push the boss, otherwise the shadow tank will die. This gives you a total of three swipes worth of time.

 

Send the focus sentinel and the sage (ideally in TK!) to the back. Sage gets first interrupt on the corrupter. Second interrupt shouldn't be needed. Kill everything in back. The second sentinel should grab the despoiler and get the first interrupt, pulling him back into the shield on top of the bulwark. The focus sentinel gets the second interrupt on the despoiler if it is needed (two AoE specs on the corrupter/bulwark combo plus a dedicated DPS should melt the despoiler long before the second interrupt). Once everything in the back is dead, nuke the crud out of the dismantlers. Here is where both Focus and TK are really, really, really helpful, since you can AoE down both dismantlers and the boss simultaneously. (random historical note: my guild developed this strategy pre-NiM when we were 8 manning 16 man HM, since the DPS check with just four DPS is actually worse than nightmare mode)

 

Once the dismantlers are dead and the boss is pushed, clean up the remaining lightning adds (left over from phase 5) and get on the guardians. If you're really, really slow you may have a lightning add left up going into the guardian phase. Just finish the lightning add, then work on the guardians. Don't worry if you have a subteroth remaining going into phase 8. It won't kill you. If you have trouble with DPS on the guardians, try holding them together (just make sure you have the commando agro a subteroth and pull it away from the AoE ball of death).

[JMagee]

KBN provided some good situational ideas to help you get through waves 5 and 6.

 

I'll be a little bit more generic. You should be able to push Draxus up in wave 5. As he mentions, if you can't get his HP down (sub-30%) in phase 5, have your DPS focused on the bulwarks on the sides peel off after killing just the bulwark and leave both dispatchers up. It will get easier as you progress and get more drops, but ideally you shouldn't have to worry about Draxus in wave 6.

 

I would say TK/Focus/Combat/Gunnery or Assault would probably be your best spec comp for the fight.

 

Work on positioning for the transition from wave 4 to 5. Are the Mando/Sage standing on top of where there bulwark spawns to have 100% uptime on burning him down? Everyone topped off?

 

Just learning the fight will help your DPS get more damage out more quickly as well.

[JouerTue]

we struggled a bit but cleared that boss with thi set up/ tactic:

1 guardian tank

2 sage healers

1 sentinel (myself), i use combat for that fight

1 vanguard tactics

2 gunnery commando

1 tkk sage

 

1 of the commando was assault but the hard switching was too hard for his ammo so he had a respec

 

wave 5 : inspiration, sentinel on south bulwark, providing backup if a corruptor dps is pulled, sage tkk and 1 mando on the corruptors, vanguard on left, the other commando on right, healers do the first interupt, when south is down, i go left helping, the other dps go on boss, we leave one dispatcher up at right. we pop adrenals once we are all on boss.

 

wave 6: sentinel takes despoiler with the sage dps, two mando kill the corruptor, the bulwark and the dispatcher at south, healers aggro the dismantlers, push, tank+ vanguard taunt and do not build threat, sentinel and sage take the dismantlers, get pushed, tank+vanguard taunt again, burn dismantlers, burn dispatcher from wave 5.

 

i felt good with combat, dps is lower, but there's a lot of slacking ( 36-37 apm vs. 46-47 at dummie), and being on the despoiler in 6th and 8th wave burst is handy..i even use a clicky relic. i was afraid by set up, but if we done it with two sages i started thinking that without bonus it may be doable with any set up..

[KeyboardNinja]

i felt good with combat, dps is lower, but there's a lot of slacking ( 36-37 apm vs. 46-47 at dummie), and being on the despoiler in 6th and 8th wave burst is handy..i even use a clicky relic. i was afraid by set up, but if we done it with two sages i started thinking that without bonus it may be doable with any set up..

 

This boss *is* doable with any setup, really. It's just easier with some rather than others. I would seriously take four scrapper scoundrels in here with a pair of sage healers and two vanguard tanks (both in tank spec). It wouldn't be pleasant, but it would be clearable. For first clears especially though, I think it's prudent to try to min-max specs and classes within reason.

[justinplainview]

This boss *is* doable with any setup, really. It's just easier with some rather than others. I would seriously take four scrapper scoundrels in here with a pair of sage healers and two vanguard tanks (both in tank spec). It wouldn't be pleasant, but it would be clearable. For first clears especially though, I think it's prudent to try to min-max specs and classes within reason.

 

I'd argue that Combat is better for pushing the boss, which makes that transition from Draxus to Dismantlers in the middle of the fight a much easier transition for groups not used to it. Rage is great AOE, to be sure, and you can pull stupid numbers in that fight with it, but at some point, if your group comp has too much AOE to begin with, it's a waste of a spec, because everything dies in a few globals anyway and then you have to push the one part of the fight with actual HP. I'd say you use Rage if you have a lack of AOE in raid, you use Combat if there's an abundance. I will say Watchman/Anni is FUN on that fight with the multi dot potential, but that's almost entirely fluff damage.

[KeyboardNinja]

I'd argue that Combat is better for pushing the boss, which makes that transition from Draxus to Dismantlers in the middle of the fight a much easier transition for groups not used to it. Rage is great AOE, to be sure, and you can pull stupid numbers in that fight with it, but at some point, if your group comp has too much AOE to begin with, it's a waste of a spec, because everything dies in a few globals anyway and then you have to push the one part of the fight with actual HP. I'd say you use Rage if you have a lack of AOE in raid, you use Combat if there's an abundance. I will say Watchman/Anni is FUN on that fight with the multi dot potential, but that's almost entirely fluff damage.

 

One of our guild groups runs two focus sentinels and one focus guardian for this fight (paired with two gunnery commandos). All three focus knights go to the back during phase 5. Sure, it's overkill, but very few things are more fun than watching three targets instantly and simultaneously lose almost 35k HP.

 

A good focus sentinel and TK sage are just enough to push the back without any help before a third interrupt would be necessary, which gets them onto the boss faster than otherwise. Also, it times out really well with the TK cooldowns, so in general I find it isn't much of a loss to have both in the raid.

 

I definitely wouldn't recommend running more than one focus sentinel though. Justin is right: Combat is just better unless your AoE needs shoring up, in which case Focus is excellent.

[mynameisbugged]

wow this is some next gen stuff, thanks all for the advice. I'll be sure to relay this to my team, and try some of this great stuff on our next pulls.

 

Cheers

[TACeMossie]

wow this is some next gen stuff, thanks all for the advice. I'll be sure to relay this to my team, and try some of this great stuff on our next pulls.

 

Cheers

 

The other thing no one specifically stated was that due to a lack of tank swap requirements, you can also get your guardian tank running focus instead for this fight.

Just as long as he has the gear for it (have him stance swap when facetanking a guardian)

[JSitruc]

in my progression raid group we run

Guardian tank

Shadow tank

2 sentinels (both watchmen and never respec)

1 Sage dps

1 GS

1 Sage healer

1 Scoundrel healer

 

Both sentinels did change spec to combat for NiM DF during buff, but i for one didnt feel comfortable being in the spec. The only issues we have on draxus is with healing when too many ppl get hit with the green debuff and are under shields.

 

As long as you organize the group to cover the specific waves the best way your group make up can, then you can do it with any specs.

[mynameisbugged]

The other thing no one specifically stated was that due to a lack of tank swap requirements, you can also get your guardian tank running focus instead for this fight.

Just as long as he has the gear for it (have him stance swap when facetanking a guardian)

 

is this with tank gear or dps gear if i may ask?

[TACeMossie]

is this with tank gear or dps gear if i may ask?

 

Try get him some DPS gear, but even in tank gear he'll be doing ~50% more DPS in focus than he would be doing in Defense tree

 

Though he will need enough armor/health to facetank a guardian in wave 7 and 2 guardians in wave 9 so dont have him swapping to artifact gear or something stupid like that for more dps.

Edited September 30, 2014 by TACeMossie

[DuEldrvarya]

I personally respec to Rage/Focus for Draxus (and Grob and Corruptor).

 

As the previous poster pointed out, it's mainly dependent on how your group is doing... my current guild runs an Annihilation Marauder because we aren't missing the AoE dps.

 

Likewise, another guild I raided with used to have their Sents run Combat.

 

It's really up to which spec they're most comfortable in, you'll probably get the "best" results going from:

 

Focus -> Combat -> Annihilation

 

Smash on nefra (its still easy-peasy to do 3400+ in smash which is loads of plenty more than you need for the fight. Smash isn't bad for clearing trash fast either for speed runs. Why bother respecing at all until brontes, rage is arguably the best mara spec for Draxus through CZ and nefra is a *********** joke?

 

EDIT: I do agree with above posters however that there is a limit to having too much aoe on draxus (although 2 smashers/ap and two nice single target dot classes sinergize really well imo)

Edited October 3, 2014 by DuEldrvarya

[g_mK]

Let me see if I can help out a little.

 

I'm actually on the group KBN previously mentioned.

Our composition is

1 Vanguard tank

1 Guardian tank

2 Sentinels (Focus)

2 Commandos

 

Since there aren't really any tank swaps this fight can be easily solo tanked. We have the guardian tank re spec focus (he has a full 180 set dps gear). since we 5 dps the fight our single target doesn't really suffer.

 

In phase 5 one commando kills the west bulwark and the guardian dps kills the east bulwark. Both sentinels (I'm one of them) and one commando go south. The other sentinel and the commando get the first interrupt I get the second one, however we hardly ever need the second one since everything is dead before the cast is finished. After everything in south is dead we leave one dispatcher and all dps move onto boss. Once the boss reaches 30% one commando starts moving toward the south as soon as the boss goes up we push the phase. The commando that is south gets the first interrupt while I get the second interrupt on the south corruptor. One healer interrupts the despoiler while one dps killls him. The tank and Guardian take the dismantlers and swap while the remaining dps kill them. We kill everything south and then move onto the dismantlers.

[fire-breath]

Your group how has until the next swipe to kill both Dismantlers and push the boss, otherwise the shadow tank will die. This gives you a total of three swipes worth of time.

 

Actually its a total of 4 swipes if you dont mind to cloak out.

1st swipe - on others

2nd swipe - resilience

3rd swipe - get knockback and force cloak (might want to use stunbreaker if needed)

4th swipe - on the 2 highest DPS

 

Only downside in phase 9 is that you need to AoE taunt the boss since he will be targetting someone else. But tbh ..... I personally never mind in that phase.

I try to catch 1 of the guardian of the fortresses if needed since as a shadow that last fight becomes a tad boring if you only tank the boss. (You know .... a rotation of kinetic bulwark, slowtime and force breach is not really my idea of tanking. Oh wait, single taunting after the surpressive fire cast).

[Mordacia]

Not sure how old this is, but I'm feeling helpful so I thought I would post.

 

I've been pulling this fight, and NiM in general, on my Mara for months now. I've tried every spec for the Mara, from Gore/Smash to DoT/Smash. I prefer, and always will, to play Carnage. It give great burst on any add that needs to die with in a certain time limit, and with the recent buff to the proc, or removal there of actually, it's a consistent amount of face ripping that never gets old. I would also go as far as to say on Brontes, that carnage is essential for any Mara even looking to pull that fight. While Anni is a viable option the out right burst in Carnage can make the droid phase or six finger phase an utter joke.

 

All that being said no fight "requires" a specific spec. In fact some fights that most people would smash on I would never even think of doing because I'm not particularly comfortable with that spec. It all boils down to what your play style is and how comfortable you are with the rotation and synergy of the class.

[orangebowl]

In my group we run a SS slinger, a DF slinger, a balance sage, and me as a focus sentinel on this fight. We don't even worry about popping inspiration for phase 5 to push the boss with 4 dps, and that's even with burning down all but 1 dispatcher. I would put both sentinels in focus and put the on the bulwarks and put your ranged in the back so your melee have to move less. Going from the front to the back then back to the front is counterintuitive as a melee. They can zealous leap immediately to the bulwarks to get a smash off the bat. Also if draxus pulls them they can get right back to the bulwark that way. plus healers will havemuch less healing to worry about. If after that you guys are still having trouble with the dps check I would recommend whichever sentinel gets to the boss first(so whichever is leaving up a dispatcher) have them pop inspiration because in a very short time all 4 dps will be on the boss. You can do just fine on this fight without 5 dpsing it and without using all burst specs. its just about sending the right people to the right places.

[orangebowl]

I would also go as far as to say on Brontes, that carnage is essential for any Mara even looking to pull that fight. While Anni is a viable option the out right burst in Carnage can make the droid phase or six finger phase an utter joke.

 

 

Anni is 1000 times better for that fight as long are you are smart enough to get through clock phase in it. You do so much more damage in burn phase that carnage is pretty much unviable in comparison.