High Tinker Mekkatorque

[Zlinka]

This is a three-phase encounter.  In Phase One we'll be dealing with Mekkatorque and his adds, called Spark Bots.  Phase two is an aerial phase in which we have to handle mechanics while the boss is in the air, then he comes back down and Phase Three begins.  Phase Three is a lot like Phase One, but the the abilities are stronger.

PHASE ONE

Tank swap mechanic:  Tanks need to keep an eye on Mekkatorque's Electroshock Strike stacks, which increase with each hit on the same target.  Taunt to reset his stacks, roughly around the 8th stack.

The raid needs to watch out for the Buster Cannon.  After a cast bar a cannon fires toward a random player's location.  Deals a lot of damage and applies a nasty DoT.  Be read to dodge it whenever it's cast.

Watch out for Blast Off, a jump attack. Two orange targeting circles will appear, one around him and one around a random ranged player.  After his cast he will jump to the far circle, and do a lot of damage to anyone in either zone, so get out of those.  There will also be some flat, raid-wide damage regardless of where you stand.  May need a cooldown for each cast.

Track the Gigavolt Charge debuffs.  This is applied to three random players, and does light ticking damage for 15 seconds.  It looks like a bomb over your head.  After 15 seconds it explodes, applying a nasty DoT to all players within line of sight.  There are many rock piles in the corners of the room -- the affected players should go hide behind the rocks to break LoS with the raid.  

Spark Bots

Throughout the fight, the boss will call Spark Bots.  These will land and fixate on random players.  They will frequently cast Spark Pulse, which does damage and stuns anyone within 8 yards.  They can be CC'd (knockbacks into Roots is best).  They slowly gain a stacking speed increase (called Wind Up) which at 5 stacks greatly reduces the effects of CC.  --> we need to kill the Bots before they reach 5 stacks.

But there's a catch.

The Spark Bots have a shield that protects them from 99% of all damage (Gnomish Force Shield).  So we can't just DPS them down.

The boss has an ability which will help us.  After calling three Spark Bots, the boss will cast World Enlarger.  This will shrink three people in the raid.  While shrunk, these players do 99% less damage AND can be trampled by other people in the raid (if a normal sized person runs over you, you'll be stunned and take a burst of physical damage). So everyone in the raid needs to watch out for these little players and not step on them.

BUT while you're small you can also ENTER the Spark Bots and tamper with them.  You can interact with the Spark Bots and enter them as a vehicle.

Inside, you'll gain 5 buttons.  Each one has a color and a shape on it.  You need to enter a three button code to access a self-destruct button.  This needs to be done within 45 seconds.

BUT...  you don't know what your code is.  Only OTHER shrunk players in OTHER robots know what your code is.  Your code will be displayed, one button at a time, over your own bot's head.  So all three shrunk players need to communicate with each other to tell each other what their code is.

Here's one way to handle this:

1. Place raid markers on each Spark Bot as it spawns, so you can tell them apart.
2. As soon as three players are shrunk, assign one person to be the 'leader.'
3. Get in to your bots.
4. Your first color will be displayed over your heads.  The leader will call out the color displayed over the other two bots.  They will press their first buttons.
5. Once the first caller has called out the first buttons for the other two, he will ask for his button, and one of them will respond.  He will press his button. Now they have all entered their first button.  A new color will now appear over each of their heads.
6. Repeat this two more times, so that each person has typed in their own three-button code.

So it may sound like this:  The leader says, "square robot, you are yellow.  Moon robot, you are red.  What is my color?"  And one of them says "green."  Everyone pushes their buttons, and the cycle repeats twice more.  After the third round the self destruct button appears, and they all push it.  The fight continues as normal.

This needs to be done throughout the entire fight to keep the bots under control.

If you push the wrong button, or take longer than 45 seconds, you will be stunned, removed from the robot, and you will receive a nasty 12-second DoT (Anti-tampering protocol).

But don't panic -- 45 seconds is plenty of time to communicate three bits of information.  Be cool, and it will be fine.

At 40% health, the Boss enters Phase Two.

PHASE TWO

The boss will jump into the air and take 99% less damage.

He will begin to spawn exploding sheep around the room.  They explode for lethal damage within 8 yards shortly after they spawn.  They also send fire in all directions -- avoid these.

During this phase you'll still need to run behind objects for the Gigavolt Charge explosion.

He will also shrink a lot more players in Phase Two with World Enlarger, so you'll need to make sure not to trample your friends.

PHASE THREE

He'll come back down and Phase One begins again, but the boss is now buffed with Hyperdrive, which increases his attack speed and does raid-wide damage.  He'll also cast Exploding Sheep during this phase.

He will also begin to spawn TWO robots at a time, instead of ONE robot at a time, so there will be six bots instead of three to deal with.  However, he will still only shrink three players.  These players must try to destroy whatever robots they can.

So the final phase is a race to the end, in which we try to nuke down the boss before we become overwhelmed with raid damage and bots.

[Zlinka]

Note: on normal, everyone can see the codes over the bots' heads except for the person inside the bot. So communicating the code is easier on normal.

[Zlinka]

Changes on Heroic

Gigavolt Charge:  THREE players will now get the Gigavolt Charge debuff, instead of two (this is the one where you have to go hide behind a rock).

Spark Bots:  the shutdown codes are now ONLY visible to players inside other Spark Bots.  AND players have only 45 seconds to enter the shutdown code, down from 60 seconds.

--> This forces the three players controlling the spark bots to communicate with one another without the help of other raid members.

Spark Bot adds get harder:  Uncontrolled Spark Bots will gain a stacking self-buff called Wind Up, which increases their movement speed and haste.  At 5 stacks, the add gains the Wound Up buff, which reduces the duration of CC effects.

-->  Shrunken players should get inside a Spark Bot ASAP.
-->  If an add does get the Wound Up debuff, we'll need to CC it more often.


New Mechanic:  Wormhole Generator 

Mekkatorque will mark a random player for 5 seconds.  Ad the end of 5 seconds the entire raid will teleport to the location of that player.

-->  The marked player should try to stand in the middle of the encounter space to minimize disruption from the mass teleport.

This ability CAN occur during Gigavolt Charge.

--> Players with Gigavolt Charge will need to move FAST to get behind a rock.

During Phase Two, Wormhole Generator will be cast once:

--> Marked player must move to a spot that is relatively free of exploding sheep.
--> Teleported players must be VERY careful not to step on shrunk raid members.  Wowhead suggests letting shrunk players move away from the raid pile before everyone else does.

[Zlinka]

Okay, I've done more research on Mekkatorque, and found some additional tips:

1.  Communication between the people in the bots needs to be carefully managed.  If it is not properly handled, such that two people finish their codes before the third does, that person may end up stranded in a bot.

One strategy I've seen is an "A, then B and C" call strategy:  Player A calls out the code symbol for B and C.  Then B or C call out A's symbol.  Everyone clicks.  (This may mean waiting a moment to click).  Now everybody is done with their first symbol.  That's round one.  Repeat two more times to get everyone through their bots.

The key here is to make sure that at least two players WAIT in their bots until everyone has the last symbol for their code, THEN click.

It can be difficult to decide on who A is going to be on the fly with so much going on and so little time.  One good suggestion is for the first person to speak to become A.

For wording, phrasing like, "X you're yellow, Y you're blue, what am I?" can help organize the information.

Another idea is just to make sure that everyone has the discipline to wait to click on the red button until everyone has their three symbols.

Advanced strategies make sure that tanks and healers get out first -- so you can speed call a tank or healer to get them out, then the remaining two people take turns to get each other out.

An additional difficulty is that we have at least three people in the raid without microphones.  The only way for them to communicate is via raid chat.  If we have one in a bot the other two can make the calls for all three people.  If we have two or all three of them in bots they will need to communicate via raid chat.

This will mean either having them make sure to raid chat (very difficult during the heat of an encounter), or having other raid members read raid chat and call the typed symbols into Discord.

Lastly, this is an intense time for the people in the bots, so chat should be kept COMPLETELY CLEAR, except for signal calls, when we are dealing with bots!

2. Shrunk first.  When the wormhole happens during a shrunk phase, the shrunk people need to run out of the stacked raid first or they will get trampled.  We will try to call "shrunk first" as a reminder.

3. Run to the corner with your marker when you have the bomb.

(Note: I've read one post that suggests it's survivable if two people with the bomb occasionally get behind the same rock, they'll just need more healing, and this is preferable to one of them blowing up on the raid in an attempt to get to a different corner.)

5.  The two pieces of rubble in those back two corners DO break LoS, so two people can hide in each of those corners, with one person behind each piece of rubble to break LoS to the raid AND to each other.

6. Grip or Root bots:  can have a DK grip the bots to the middle of the room, or a druid mass-root them there, to keep them away from the raid.  This reduces the pressure of having bots following right behind the boss.