Small update:

Last night I applied everything I worked for past day considering mechanics in this fight. I know they are not totally accurate but idea is that we went with 2 disc priests, splinting raid in 2 and the result was amazing: only 2 marks and 32 BP when he died.
Logs here:
number of marks: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/mwhw ... 691&e=3966
Boiling blood: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/mwhw ... 691&e=3966

I am still working on knowing exactly how much BP abilities gives and witch absorption work or not.
And... as a final note, I did also a 10 man last night: 2 healers: 1 holy and 1 disc (i was). The boss died at 37 BP gained and the most of it was from rune of blood because we had a tank lagging. As a test I was putting some heals on people with boiling blood and weakened debuff on... and, the boss didn't gain BP even from that small partial absorption that Divine Aegis did. The damage was still on people with debuff, partial ofc but it didn't give BP.

By the way, I am assuming that Divine Aegis works the same way.

Yes it does. What I am assuming that is not working is the proc from Val'anir.

Did you find a way to see in the log when Saurfang gains blood power or were these calculations just on how much he should have gained if the bubbles didn't prevent gaining blood power compared to the amount of marks he casted? I tried to look for it under buffs gained and in the log after our own fight last week, but couldn't find anything.

My own experience is that the gaining of marks is rather slow with when shielding, but I haven't found proof for it yet.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to see this through WoL; however, it definitely seems that any kind of absorb stops the power.

We got to Saurfang for the first time Monday night and were taken to school by him. We got back in to see him last night and got four good cracks at him before we had to call it a night, couldn't take him down, but made very good progress.

On the first night any of our three 'best' attempts (>5 minutes) saw Saurfang cast Mark of the Fallen Champion three times. Healing team was a Pally (me) and a Holy Priest. I did a great job of Sacred Shielding the tanks. The priest used no shields throughout the fight. Tanks did a good job of switching to avoid Rune of Blood damage, dps was very good at dealing with adds, we were OK about Blood Nova, but we paid no attention to Boiling Blood.

Last night we had me and a different Holy Priest on the scene. Our best attempt bumped up against the enrage timer. In that fight, Saurfang only cast one Mark -- even when the victim died and was mistakenly battle rezzed and promptly died again (oops -- that might have been the difference between winning and losing right there). The difference in the fight was that the priest was throwing PW:Shield liberally around the raid, and I was hitting up Boiling Blood targets with Sacred Shield whenever I could. It made a huge difference in his BP generation

We fought him in 25m yesterday. The first attempts were made without Disc priest and shieldspam. It was a hard race against the marks and we lost several players to it in each attempt. Eventually we took along a Disc priest who did spam shields around. It still took us a long time to kill him (9 mins and then some) but he only got 1 mark. This was the only real change we had made so I'd say the shields definitely stop a very big portion of the blood power

Zusterke, 25m 9 minute kill with one mark is unbelievable. Do you have a WoL from that?

Our pretty typical kill (for us) from this week, he died right after the third mark at 5:41. I'd like to see how many people you had sitting the boss vs kiting/killing adds. This week's part alt/casual run was 9 on boss, 2 tanks, 5 heals and 9 ranged on adds duty while they were up. Once again our disc priest was vital (in WoL, the disc was Heartmender).

WoL from this week: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rsgkjiuj ... 685&e=4027
--Don't laugh though cause there were like 10 or 11 alts/casuals.

This is the log: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/wpru ... 05&e=14982
But it seems I spoke too quickly. We had 2 marks, only 1 person died from it.

My guild we've had to two heal it. It does seem like anything that will prevent damage slows it down. At one point we had him at 95 blood energy for about 20 seconds because of this.

Things I've noted from a Paladin perspective.

Divine Sacrifice w/ a bubble will prevent it from building.
Divine Protection will reduce it to some degree.
Hand of Protection will work since it is all physical damage.

Our mage was ice blocking at one point and using his mana shield. I am not sure if the mana shield prevents it though.

If you will read my absorption analysis... or an attempt more like it I can say for sure that NOT all kind of absorptions works. I believe the one from val'anir doesn't.

About a fight with 1 mark in 25... yep, it is possible:
here is the log:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/3rf1 ... 06&e=12881
@ Zusterke - your fight lasted 4.37 not 9 min.... at least that I see in the log you linked and had idd 2 marks.

I would say yes, but it depends how quick you are on your bubble button. We just got out of a 25 man followed by a 10. I usually run as holy, but I went disc just for this fight. My personal mission was to just bubble the entire raid and wait for the Blood Boil to fall. In the 25man, Saurfang still dropped marks on the raid as I could not possibly bubble everyone in a timely manner. We had 6 healers- one of which was another priest- but he did not bubble at all that I could see. Here's a recount from the 25-man.



In the 10 man, we had three heals: me, shammy, and a druid. They healed and I bubbled the entire raid over and over and over again. The good thing is some people were already bubbled when Blood Boil hit them. Even when I got it, I could see that the bubble was absorbing most of the damage from Saurfang. I tried to keep an eye on his Blood Power. He topped out around 65 Blood Power when he died, and he never dropped a mark! Not a one! So, yes, it works. It makes the fight much easier!

My suggestion is- and I will share it with my guild for the 25-man- is to have your preist(s) go disc just for this fight and watch what happens.

I'll get proof, if possible, from ICC 10 this week (or 25). You can confirm this with a raw combat log parse and filters in Excel really. Find someone without a shield and see what happens and then someone with a shield and see what happens.

I'm positive that absorbs prevent Sauerfang from gaining Runic Power since if I 2-heal this fight in 10-man with a disc priest, between sacred shield and divine aegis and PW:shield, we get 0 marks before Sauerfang dies (even with alts in the group). If I 2 heal the same fight with a druid, we have at least 2 marks before the end with nothing else different.

We finally got through him last night on 25

The key for us was the management of blood beasts hitting people. Not sure if we were just missing that mechanic, but I don't think they were being handled very well on our early attempts and we;d get a mark at 70%.

When ranged were able to get blood beasts down quickly without them hitting raid members, blood power remained in control.

We still got a mark at 55%, but we decided to let that person die on purpose.

When a wave of blood beasts didn't get killed right away by the mages, and made it back into the raid, stuff got crazy.

We had 2 disc priests bubbling most of the fight.

The key here is to assign people to heal the marks, usually i assign 7 marks put 1 healer on Tankduty and 1 healer on raidhealing.

Typical assignmetns:

MT healer - Random noob
Raidhealer - Shaman or druid

Mark 1 - Pala 1 beacon
Mark 2 - Pala 2 beacon
Mark 3 - Pala 1 spam
Mark 4 - Pala 2 spam
Mark 5 - Random skilled healer 1
mark 6 - Random skilled healer 2
Mark 7 - Random skilled healer 3

Usually we manage to bring him down within 4 or 5 marks, if we get more then 7 marks our healingsquad usually picks it up rather good

That's odd... I must have confused it. I recall my guildie claiming it took us 9 minutes. No point waylaying it though... the log clearly shows a 4:37 duration. My apologies for the confusion.

It was 4 minutes, but felt like 9!

Just in the way that Twin Valks was a druid-friendly fight, this is a disc priest friendly fight, and I gotta say, about time too!

I can't tell you how many times I've been accused of being a crap healer when playing my priest because some deathtard looks at the healing meters and doesn't understand the contribution discipline brings. Never mind the absorption, or the -3% raid damage. Nonono, recount doesn't report those!

*grmbl*

Anyway, yeah, I know it wastes my save on the priest but from now on with my guild runs, I switch from my druid (who is my main) to my priest (alt) just for this fight, to get it out of the way quickly. It's hilarious to see the difference, really it is!

Edit: Afterthought ----> Actually Twin Valks is kinda a nice fight to have a disc priest in as well, if they're going to "bubblespamlol"

IMO Anub favored Disc priests quite a lot too
But it seems Saurfang does as well. Not that I mind... I'm just annoyed by the fact I'm starting to need 3 specs (holy, disc & shadow) to serve my guild properly..

Ditto on that 3 spec point Zusterke, I just disc/shadow though. Anyways, wanted to add additional confirmation on full absorption preventing blood power gains, but also state that partial absorbs from PW:S do not seem to prevent blood beast attacks from adding blood power.

Our mage on this attempt was hit by a blood beast, its attack completely absorbed, and then when hit again, it finished the shield and hit the mage for partial damage. Saurfang gained one blood power and the little red buff thingy flew towards him.

It wasn't an issue as we got him before one mark, but thought it might be nice to know.

ZOMG! /wave @ mah priest buddy! I saw your sig and was like ?!? I know that sig.... clicked on the parse and low and behold it was one of our parses!

I also agree w/ Z in that I would love tri-specs, hehe. I honestly don't know if I would ever want to try this encounter without a priest, esp a fabulous disc priest, such as my healy partner in crime. <3 Of course, if we could keep our kiters from actually getting touched by the beasts...

smiles,
V