The Undercity

WARNING: GEEK POST!!! LIKE, MASSIVE GEEK NUMBERS AND STUFF.

My new guild struggled on phase 3 of Putricide two weeks ago.  We wasted all 10 attempts and the lowest we got him was just under 900,000 health.  I said struggled but it wasn’t that we were literally having problems figuring out what to do.  Everything was fine, we thought we understood the mechanics and all, but then around the same time on each attempt (90ish seconds into p3), everyone would die.

We complained about the damage from Mutated Plague but didn’t fully understand what was going on.  Our tanks established a rotation where each would get 4 stacks and then the next would taunt.  By the time the third tank taunted (so two had 4 stacks), death ensued for the dps. 

The last two weeks, we got him down on 2 or 3 attempts (first we’re noobs, the raid leader tells us so, then we’re good and kill him).  What has changed?  Our tank rotation in phase 3 and a better understanding of what exactly is happening.

Mutated Plague is a stacking debuff that is applied to the tank on melee hits, approximately every 10 seconds.  It lasts 1 minute, then wears off.  If it wears off, or if it gets dispelled in any way including death, it heals Putricide for 500,000 health PER STACK.  So the tanks cannot let it drop. Obviously.  The tricky part is that is also pulses aoe damage on the raid, unavoidable damage.  The amount of raid damage it does depends on how many stacks there are on any given person.  The following is what I gathered from pouring over actual combat logs and piecing together the times.  (That’s also how I decided that it hits roughly every 10 seconds, since the times it would be applied varied from 8.2 to 11.3 seconds).

It goes further and further, if a tank had 6 it would do somewhere around 20,000 or more damage to every person in the raid every 3 seconds.

Now, this goes per debuff, so if two tanks have it, each of their debuffs plays by the rules of the above table.

For example, if two tanks both have 4 stacks, the raid will be getting hit by 4500 damage per person per 3 seconds from 1 tank AND from the other tank as well.  Total of 9000 / person / 3 seconds.  If three tanks had 4 stacks, we’d have 3 x 4500 / person / 3 seconds worth of damage going out.

Our initial strategy was to let a tank hit 4 stacks, another 4, another 4, and then let the first tank get a 5th.  We didn’t understand the relatively exponential damage per stack.

The Solution

It was really simple to write a quick table to analyze the best tanking rotation.  The possibilities (assuming 3 tanks, because with less you wipe and with more you miss enrage timers most likely) are the following.

(format used indicates how many stacks at each taunt.  Taunts indicated by – )

A.  4 – 4 –4 – 5 – 5 – 5

B.  2 –2 – 2 – 3 – 3 – 3  – 4 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 5

C.  2 – 2 – 2 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 5

D. 1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 5

E. 3 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 5

By far, the least raid damage done by Mutated Plague is when option B is used.  Tanks taunt off each other at 2 stacks, and then at every stack from that point on.  This means the following (another table).  (Option D also works but it’s just a pain in the ass, ignore the taunts every 10 seconds, they’re stupid.  Stick with option B)

WE ARE ASSUMING TANK KITES THE BOSS TO THE DOOR BEFORE ACTUALLY TANKING.  THIS GIVES ABOUT 10 SECONDS OF STACK-FREE DPS AS A BONUS.

To compare this method of tanking with our initial approach (4 stacks each, then a 5th each), at 80 seconds into phase 3 we would be getting 9000 raid damage, 9275 at 90, 9750 at 100 and finally 11000 at 110.  No healers in the world can keep up with 9500 average raid damage PER PERSON for 30 seconds while keeping the tanks topped off, and not even mentioning the slime pools and oozes being thrown.  They may save you for 10 seconds or 15, maybe 20 if you pot and use healthstones.  That’s it.  So if at 2 minutes into phase 3 you still have not killed Putricide, you will not kill him anymore as your dps is all dead and the tanks and healers have one foot in the grave already if they are not.

Our raid actually chose to go with the 3-3-3-4-4-4-5-5-5 method because it’s simpler to let one tank position the boss for a longer period of time at the beginning.  We take more damage from the 20-80 second mark but then rejoin the same type of damage as the chart above until the end (our or the boss’s death).  If you’re wondering how much more damage, it’s substantial, almost twice as much.  I don’t think my guild’s leaders paid concrete attention to the chart I posted, but they got the general idea and put their own twist on it to keep things in order.  What matters is that from our initial strategy, raid damage was cut in half if not more for the near entire span of 2 minutes.

If your guild is struggling on 25 Putricide’s phase 3 (if you’re struggling on the others, it’s just execution and Tankspot does a much much much better job of helping you than I ever could here), read this post and understand the mechanic involved.  Once you do, you’ll be able to grasp exactly when/why it goes wrong, and whether it’s possible or not for your guild.