This tier was incredibly grindy and tiresome, however Sinestra was an enjoyable fight, and this helped quite a lot with morale.
We have a video of the kill:
We had about 115 wipes before getting it down, not a bad number! (Conclave of Wind and Nefarian took us more) Our logs are public, can be seen on our WoL page.
Overall, this encounter was pretty good. It`s also my favourite style of encounter, in terms of tuning. By having multiple DPS checks throughout the fight, it`s made quite challenging without adding over 9000 one-shot mechanics. The DPS checks become easier with gear, thus providing adequate scaling of the encounter (without making it an insanely long grind, like Nefarian). The orbs are also pretty cool, because they aren`t trackable via combat log, thus no addons, which in turn makes them a cool awareness check.
Sinestra was a good ending of this tier, "redeeming" it quite a bit. I hope more fights in Firelands are tuned similar to her.
Sinestra strategy tips
The purpose below isn`t to write a strategy guide as those can be found easy via the web. Instead, I will detail a bit about a few of our "highlights" and way of thought.
1. Wrack dispelling
Dispelling Wrack is a stressful and difficult part of the encounter. I worked together with Posix (our dispeller, who did an exemplary job, /bow) and in the end we had a pretty good plan for it.
What we did was to make sure that the first victim lives past 20 seconds (by using Hand of Sacrifice in a rotation, and Guardian Spirit when available), and then let it tick for around 14-16 seconds on the next two victims. This was pretty well-established and we sticked to it pretty much every try. It`s a safe plan, because for these timings, breaths won`t come at dangerous times.
After Wrack was on 4+ people, we just did single-target dispels, letting Wrack about 10 seconds on each target (GCDs taken into account, so some lasted more, some less, but around 10). It went a lot better with single-target dispels instead of Mass Dispel, simply because it was far more controlled. This was very helpful in P3.
The scary moment comes at the third breath, because at that point Wrack ticks are high due to timing. We used raid cooldowns (more on this below).
In my opinion, the most important thing about Wrack isn`t the exact tactic itself, but having a very clear plan which involves as little decision making as possible from the dispeller. He/she has orbs to dodge too! There are some addon settings to be done as well, we used Sinestra Wrack Helper for monitoring wracks.
2. Raid cooldowns
The biggest part here (for us) was having 3 warriors rotating Rallying Cry for every 3rd breath after a Wrack, because at that point Wrack ticks + breath was a very risky combo. Like this, Phase 3 was incredibly safe for us, and we never lost people to "just damage" - it was either orbs or dispel problems.
We also had a DG ready for the first breath in P3 (when we just get in position from P2), and after the buff was gone we thrown everything else: Aura Mastery, Tranqs, etc. That part wasn`t as scary as it first seemed (in terms of raid damage), but that was mainly because we had Wrack completely under control.
3. DPS benchmarks
From the start, we aimed to push P2 before a second wrack and P3 within one egg phase. This was doable for us with 6 healers, but at first we used 5 simply to get the hang of the fight and have an easier time with P1. However, it helps in P3 to have 6 healers.
For the eggs, it helped to have 4 of the 6 healers helping with DPS too, and we assigned all mages on one side because they have incredible burst. This way, that side could get away with 1 less DPS and melee got some extra help on the Spitecallers.
When it comes to orbs, each raid will have it`s own tactic. The key is to play safe, if everything is executed properly, the DPS benchmarks aren`t hard to beat at this point (due to gear), so there is no need for risks.
If you are currently working on Sinestra now, good luck before Firelands!
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