Hey guys, I'm raid lead for my guild and we hit a wall on spellblade normal (we're pretty casual) and just wondering if we're just missing some obvious strategy. Arcane add phase is what's getting us, they seem to be up too long. Popping hero there but stuff gets hectic once frost marks start again. Is it just a dps check to kill those adds quicker cause we do have some low dps. Also my healers kept requesting taking the frost stacks to 15 before bumping in to each other, but everything I see says 4-6 max. Weirdly enough going to 15 seemed to work better for us. Just trying to see if I'm missing something obvious.
We're a similar guild in that we're generally strategically okay but do have to adjust our tactics a bit to accomodate poorer DPSers. That specific moment you describe is the place where we were having issues, but moving Heroism to that point alleviated them significantly - we got our first kill after moving it.
There's a few things worth bearing in mind:
For people who have significantly better single-target than AoE DPS, try to make sure they're attacking the *same* add. Reducing the numbers of adds will reduce the overall raid damage intake.
Frost Stacks: We started out going for 12, which is manageable, but risky when it gets hectic. After realising that point, cutting down to 9 was more effective. Do make sure, though, that you're not getting extra explosions. I think 4-6 may be talking heroic or Mythic.
One other arcane-related problem we had was managing the Annihilate that comes immediately before the orbs start falling and fogs start appearing - the tanks need to move, but in sync with one another and along a path that's clear of fog, and in a way that doesn't hit the melee with the attack. If you're losing tanks at the spot just before the adds arrive, might be worth planning around that moment of the fight, because it caused us problems.
All that said, have you pinned down exactly where and how things get out of control? That can be useful information to work with. Healer distraction? Just the sheer quantity of AoE damage? People not being ready for the first frost orbs because they're so focussed on the arcane adds?