Heroic Spine

Hi all. We've decided to extend our raid lock for Heroic Spine of Deathwing until we get it, so we can finish the raid.

On our attempts so far, the main block has been low DPS on the Burning Tendon.  On our best attempt nobody did more than 1.55M damage in two lifts;  however everybody in the group should be able to do 2M, with some classes doing 2.5M or even higher.

The major things you need to do differently for burst damage are:

• Use a burst trinket (with keybind)
• Use a targeting and attack macro (with keybind)
• Find out your best "rotation" for doing a 19-second burst of damage
• For most classes, make sure you've activated any damage bonuses (stacking trinket, stacking buffs, talent procs) before the Tendon is attackable, so you can start off right with maximum damage.

Optionally also:

• Reforging, glyphs (tanks and healers too!)

Burst trinket

You should have a trinket that has a "Use:" ability that you can use when the tendon comes up. There is a 397 valor-point trinket for every class: 

[Kiroptyric Sigil]
[Bottled Wishes]
[Reflection of the Light]
[Rotting Skull]

Note that for spell-casters for whom Mastery is a good stat (e.g. Arcane Mage) can use [Moonwell Chalice] which is about equal to the valor trinket.

This trinket makes a massive difference, maybe will add 20% to your damage in the 19-second window that the Tendon is up.

Targeting macro

Attacking the tendon as fast as possible, is obviously a key component of beating it. Here is a report from our log (I've selected the first attack by each person):

[22:35:50.259] Busyp Flame Shock Burning Tendons 3562
[22:35:50.367] Napdyn hits Burning Tendons 5409
[22:35:51.453] Indieqt Arcane Blast Burning Tendons 45952
[22:35:53.652] Trickssta Hammer of Wrath Burning Tendons 23175
[22:35:54.385]  Gallius Dark Command Burning Tendons Immune
[22:35:54.661]  Kavinsky Thunder Clap Burning Tendons 6673
[22:35:56.412] Mathilde Mind Spike Burning Tendons Miss

As you can see, Busyp got in first,  but some didn't cast anything for over 6 seconds. That's almost a third of the entire phase.

To fix this, set up a macro that targets the Tendons, and casts your first spell.  If your trinket lasts 20 seconds you can add your trinket into this macro, and any other off-GCD ability that might be useful. 

For example:

/tar Burning Tendons
/use Bottled Wishes
/cast Arcane Blast

Bind this to a key, then when the plate is finishing popping up you just mash your finger on the key over and over until the spellcast starts.  

Note that due to a bug you have to be standing on the right-hand side of Deathwing for the targeting to work (assuming we're popping the right-hand plate),  don't worry about an accidental roll as the healers will counterbalance it.

If your targeting macro still doesn't work for some reason, there is a boss frame to the right of the screen that you may find easier to click than the frame above the tendon.

Best rotation

Your best spells for a 19-second window will be different to your usual rotation for a 5-minute fight. You can afford to burn through mana and resources quickly because you can regenerate them before the next Tendons window comes up.

Also, you may want to stack up any stacking buffs before the window starts. For example, if you have [Will of Unbinding] then stack it to 10 and make sure you cast some useless spell on an add just before the tendon pops, so that your stack remains. I'd recommend adding the trinket effect to a timer bar so you can actually see how long your current effect has remaining.

Another example would be for arcane mages, build Arcane Blast to 4 stacks on an add just before the tendon pops.

Needless to say, any DPS cooldowns should be saved for the tendon. If you have a 2min cooldown it probably won't be ready for the next lift, but it would be ready for the next plate. And 5min cooldowns can be used on plates 1 and 3. (The fight can go over 11 mins, so a 10min CD may even be able to be used twice).

On-GCD power bursts should probably be used just before the plate lifts, and off-gcd ones can be used after. Macros are your friend again here, half a second saved could be the difference between winning and losing.

I'm not going to go into details for everyone here,  but just google "heroic spine your-class your-spec" , or talk to me or someone else in-game about it :)

Finally, you can practice on target dummies with your damage meter and the in-game stopwatch - time yourself for 19 seconds on a target (use a differently-named target dummy to build up power). Aim for 1 million damage in 19 seconds.

Reforging

Customised reforging for Spine is something you can do to really maximise your damage on the Tendon -- although there's much less to be gained here than by improving your rotation.

Melee: The tendon can't dodge or parry , so Expertise is wasted, you can completely reforge out of that.

Spell: A Miss will screw up your burst rotation, so it's best to be over the hit cap.  Tools like Mr Robot will normally prefer to give you 99.5% hit chance than a 101% hit chance, as the former works out to slightly more DPS on a long fight; but I think on the burst fight it's best to go with slightly over cap. You might need to manually make some changes.

For some classes, it might work out best to use a different stat weight for this fight. (Check web pages specific to your class/spec).

Tanks and healers can reforge too; for example I don't think healer Mastery which gives an absorb shield is much use on this fight.

Finally, you may be able to gain by changing around glyphs , for example you don't need to glyph a spell which you won't be using on the Tendon.