One of the most common questions that I’ve been asked is how to handle Baleroc 10 man normal as a druid. It’s something that a lot of druids struggle with, so if you are struggling a bit, it’s ok! You are not alone! As such I decided that it might be worthwhile to do a guide of this encounter from a 10 man normal perspective from my alt druid, Elentari. Now, I’ve offered a strategy for the fight that works for us. However, there are many ways to skin a cat, so please keep in mind that just because this works for us, doesn’t mean that it will necessarily work well for your team! However, it was my hope and goal with this video that I could answer some of the more common questions that I get regarding this fight in it’s 10 man iteration. Additionally, if you run a 10 man regularly, and have additional advice or tips and tricks that you use, please comment on them below! I am confident that others would be thrilled for the feedback.
Before we get to the video, there are a few things that I’d like to note. Elentari is in gear that is a mish mash of what she had available to her. She doesn’t have any set bonuses (well, so does now, but didn’t at the time I made the video) and she doesn’t have any neat haste trinkets or racials. This is the reason that I wanted to capture her healing it and not Beru. Because she is likely geared similarly to a lot of other druids out there looking at Baleroc for their first time. She doesn’t have full BiS gear from any tier and she’s just doing her best to make magic happen! In the actual video, I make an enormous number of mistakes and it is far from my best performance. However, the video is meant to be more of a “this is how we tackle this in a 10 man setting” and I wanted to get it out timely, rather than wait to see if I can get a “perfect” capture of the fight were I make fewer errors. So you have me not playing my best with all my warts out for everyone to see, but with what I’m hoping is insightful commentary. 🙂 I’m not setting any records here, but that’s ok! My goal isn’t to dominate the fight, it’s to try and help druids at all gear and skill levels who are struggling on the 10 man version of this encounter. As such, I hope you will forgive me my flaws. Lastly, and this is very important, please do not be like me and keep your LB active!
Phew! I honestly think I’m more nervous about posting this video than I have any of my others! Well, now that is out of the way, here is the guide.
(please note that it will be best viewed in one of the larger resolutions)
A few additional comments!
- I know that in my video we commented that we have a paladin solo heal his shard/tank. We always have a paladin for this task, because if the paladin from the video isn’t available, I heal it on my paladin. That being said, if you do not run with a paladin do not despair! I think that a disc priest could probably do the job equally as effectively. Not only that, but I think that probably any strong healer that was comfortable with it can probably do the solo part, but paladins and priests do really well at this fight and their bubble mitigation is amazing. Ultimately, try having your strongest healer run solo and pair up the other two and you will probably be fine!
- 2 tanks and 3 healers means that your DPS does have to carry through a bit. Our first kills on this in our alt run shaved very closely to the enrage timer. However as long as you have solid DPS you should be fine. I am a pretty firm believer that a two tank strategy is more stable and far easier on your healers. It does put the burden on your DPS, but if they can pull through you will have a much easier time of it!
- I just wanted to reiterate that there are many ways to skin the cat! Just because this strategy works well for us does not mean it will translate well to your raid team. Don’t hesitate to mix it up a bit and take the pieces of it that you like, and discard the pieces that you don’t like!
- In the video, I make a comment regarding mana gain from two piece T11. I really mean 2 piece T12!
- You can also find some additional information on the fight (including my power auras) in my 25 man version of the guide.
Falling Leaves and Wings 
I should really talk more about 10-man resto strats it seems! 🙂 We run a 3-healing setup as well with a druid/shaman/paladin and a single tank. During the first two crystal phases the paladin/shaman only focus on crystal healing to build up stacks while I handle the tank. Beginning on the third crystal, I take over all crystal healing and the other two healers work only on the tanks. It’s been quite successful for our raid team!
I can’t speak to heroic mode (yet) as we’re starting next week. We’re planning on two-healing the encounter with the single tank, so I might come back with an update ^^
I agree! More 10 man resto strats! I don’t mind offering advice on it, but I feel a little bit out of my element. (Hence the nerves!)
Your set up is very similar to how we ran our heroic healing set up for 25 mans! (except with two tanks). It sounds like it probably works quite well 🙂
Our alt group had a lot of trouble when we tried to heal it with just one tank, and couldn’t consistently keep him up through the decimation blades, but I bet now that we’ve all got a touch more gear we might be able to manage. Of course, now that we have a strategy that works for us and we aren’t coming close to the enrage, I don’t know that we’ll change it up! That and I think our holy paladin really enjoys being able to let loose on the fight 😉
Thanks for the video, Beru… it’s nice to see your perspective on the 10-man.
Our group struggled with the DPS requirements for 5 dps, so we opted for a 1 tank strategy. A fun “trick” mechanic we used on our most recent kill was that I respecced my druid tank with 2/2 Nurturing Instincts, and I switch to cat form during Decimation Blade. With the reduced health from cat form, I take less damage from the blade itself, which is less the healers have to heal, and with Nurturing Instincts I receive 20% additional healing. All-in-all it became far easier for the healers to bring me from 5% to 100% in a few quick casts.
Currently we run with 2 druids and a paladin as well, and have them paired just as you do. We do, however, change things up slightly at the beginning of the fight. Since I can pre-pot with some armor for the opening seconds, we give one of our druids an opportunity to start building stacks on the first shard with the paladin, then have her switch to tank healing with her partner while the paladin continues with shard stacks. Following that shard the pairs switch off on each shard as you do. They’re getting quite good at communicating about their cooldowns and mana situations and we’re getting more confident in our ability to steadily bring him down. 🙂
Excellent video Beru 🙂 WIll have to check it again when we are about to do Baleroc
Thanks Beru for a solid strat video. I had not thought of teaming up to heal the shards. Going to attempt this Monday.
We dont have the dps to double tank this on ten man so we have had some rough attempts which were more reliant on DK parrys etc.. If you cant get the hasted Nourishes from three rejuves then it takes a lot longer to build stacks without resorting to tree form instant regrowths and all the mana that uses.
Always nice to read other peoples strats. We tried several different setups but finally went with 1 tank 3 healers, 6 dps (our dps was not good enough to kill him with 5 of us). One of the healers switched between healing the shard soakers and the tank when a blade was up. The other two healers alternated between healing the tank and the soakers swapping on each crystal. This was not as efficient at building up stacks as several other healing rotations we tried but turned out to be simpler for the healers to work out what they needed to do. Anything to make their job easier was seen to be a good thing.
We also tried 1 tank, 4 healers, 5 dps (our pally tanks offspec was holy) and the healing went very well though 2 of our 5 dps were not upto it to meet the enrage timer. Worth trying if you have good dps but slightly weaker tank or healers.
cheers
Hey Beru!
Moar 10 man stuff pleeeeeeeeease! 😉
we found that raid awareness is the biggest issue on this fight. Specifically the raid moving in and out of the shards. Initially we had issues keeping the shard tanks alive due to stacking mechanics and not moving (or moving too soon) and of course decimation on the tanks. The next couple nights was figuring the spark stacks, the amount of damage the shard tanks were taking, the timing of Decimation and balancing it all with mana efficiency.
Our final solution (which worked on the first try incidentally) was to use 3 healers and 2 tanks. We would start with everyone healing the tanks and front load the spark stacks when the shard came up (I forgot where I got this strat).
When the first shard appeared 2 healers (Holy Priest and myself – Resto Druid) would heal on the first shard and our Resto Shaman on the MT & OT (the tanks would need to use cool downs of course). At the end of the first shard, I would then switch to the MT & OT with our Shaman and our Priest would continue on with the shard tanks (solo) during the second shard.
Once the second shard was done he would swap to the MT/OT with me, and the Shaman would build her stacks once the third shard came up. After that, we would alternate till he was dead. 🙂
Our rotation was:
Shard 1 – Priest Druid
Shard 2 – Priest
Shard 3 – Shaman
Shard 4 – Druid
Shard 5 – Priest
Shard 6 – Shaman
repeat Shard 4-6 as needed till dead
Since then, we continue to use the above method and are now single tanking it (last week was our first try with success) and the increased DPS certainly helps.
If you or others would like to see the above strat, it can be seen on YouTube by searching “OiS vs Baleroc (guild first) Resto Druid PoV 2011-08-05”. In the video, i did a horrible job keeping LB’s on the tank(s) (still do on this fight) and not using SM or WG as often as I probably could have. Essentially, I’ve tasked myself with keeping my “rotating” assignment alive. 😉
I only mention this as another possible solution that may (or may not work) for others that read your blog as an alternative solution to this fight. I know I certainly have looked here for help!
GL this afternoon!
*shiver*
We downed 10 man Normal Baleroc on our 3rd attempt!
1 tank
4 healers
5 dps
We barely beat the Enrage timer, our OT (pally) went into his resto spec cannot remember which one and was not really well geared.
We did this by having all of the healers on the DPS with torment and 1 healer on the tank, when Decimation would hit all 4 healers would spam 1 quick heal on the tank to get him back up. Also by popping Hero at the start of the fight when the first crystal pops.
We rotated by assigning 4 dps for torment then assigning a healer to each dps, when your assigned dps was up for torment it was your turn to tank heal.
That being said our OT hasnt been able to play in 2 weeks and we have really been struggling to do this fight like every one else with 3 healers.
Hi there
We have gone with a one tank/two healer strategy on 10 normal that worked beautifully with a Holy Paladin/Disc Priest set-up on a Warrior tank, but was all kinds of struggle with Disc Priest/Resto Druid on a Paladin tank. Our tank died at 3% and we somehow managed to keep all but three other people alive to kill Baleroc, but it was incredibly rough.
Have you any tips or words of advice (other than ‘why would you do that, are you crazy??’) that might help our Resto Druid get enough stacks to keep the tank up with this kind of set-up, or how I as a Disc Priest might be able to make his work a little easier on him?
We’ve always done it with 3 healers, 2 tanks, 5 dps. Our first kill was about 5-10 seconds into the enrage, though, which was pretty exciting. Generally dps isn’t a problem.
Our strat initially revolved around our bear tank starting on the boss, and the pally tank blowing cooldowns (Tol Barad trink/glyphed divine protection/guardian, pally healer might have used hand of sacrifice) to soak an entire first shard himself, coupled with heroism so 2 of the healers can build their stacks faster. We also pair up 2 dps with good dmg reduction cooldowns for a shard, so they can each take 12-13 stacks (DK/destro lock works well for that). So, 2 healers pump their stacks up quick on first shard, then one of the healers switches to tank and the original tank healer and the 3rd healer work on that 2nd shard where each shard soaker is taking 12/13 stacks. By then, one of the healers has massive stacks and the other 2 have decent stacks. They rotate between shard soakers and tanks, I guess depending on mana usage (not sure since I’m a dps). The 2nd tank takes Baleroc after a blade to build up a few stacks, and once they pass 250k hp they only taunt Baleroc for decimation blades, with the original tank keeping Baleroc the rest of the time. With all 5 dps getting an extended burn phase with heroism due to ignoring the first shard and only 2 managing the 2nd shard, I guess that gave us the extra oomph to kill the boss before the enrage early on.
Now that everyone has more gear, we don’t have to worry about the specific strategy or healer/tank rotation we use too much, and since 5 better geared dps have no trouble with the enrage timer we still run 3 heals so they get to relax a bit more.
Here-in lies my problem. We can do it with 3 healers.
We know we can, and have done so previously, but our Resto Druid had only tried the encounter for the first time the day before (other than some, by all accounts horrendous, attempts with his previous guild), and I had yet to two-heal it myself on either of the healing characters I raid on. Basically neither of us were used to two-healing it, we weren’t used to working together on it in any capacity, and to top it off I realised later that we had made some poor decisions about managing our shard teams for best effect. All-in-all it was probably the worst case scenario for attempting to two-heal.
I would be happy to do it with 3 healers while our new druid learns the ins and outs of the mechanics in practice rather than theory, but the push is to ‘be ready’ for the Heroic Mode, so we either learn to get better this way fast, or probably continue to be judged harshly for our failure to excel and the reliance on the RNG of our tank’s avoidance to someone manage to get through it.
Stilmore, I don’t even have the words to tell you how far from relaxing that was.
Can you please post somewhere your user interface. What addon are you using to display these huge stacks in square window on your monitor? I am struggling with stacks I don’t see them at all and is this Grid or Healbot or Vuhdo? Please list your addons. Thanks
I run Firelands 10 man with my guild (The Risen on Thorium Brotherhood) as a resto druid (Mishtal), we’re the lower of the two groups, and only finally saw Ragnaros after the nerfs xD We only got our first kill on Baleroc just one day before nerf after a few weeks of attempting it, then one shotted him next day after nerfs. I’ve found, once I get into it, I actually enjoy healing 10 man Baleroc as resto.
Our group (on kill before nerf) was 2 tanks (warrior main/dk for decimation), 3 healers (resto shaman, disc priest, and me), and 5 dps. Dps was split into 2 groups for shards, the two melee (pally and enh shaman) taking one shard, and alternating with the ranged group (mage, hunter, lock). Healing was one healer per shard, and the other two on tanks, switching between the three. I had second shard in our rotation. I found, by keeping lifebloom and rejuvenation on the current tank, I could build my stacks on the shards while keeping tanks up, which of course helped the current shard healer. I ended with 135 stacks on that kill.
After nerf, our group that night was warrior and druid tanks, two disc priests and me, and a mage, enh shaman, pally, hunter, and lock dps. Same group separation for shards, and same healing rotations, though I was third shard that time. One shotted with no problems, though one of the tanks died once (while I was on shards) and I rezzed him. I ended up around 125 stacks that time.