Forged Alliance

Melee DPS MUST be attacking from behind.  Very few exceptions to this rule -- mainly you have to have the expertise to not be parried.  Hit rating <> Expertise rating -- Educate thyself here: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/tankspot ... rtise.html When a mob parries, he gets an almost immediate retributive strike -- most mobs a swing timer so that with thunder clap up, my shield block charges wont get used up between his attacks.  Gruul hits about every 2 seconds for around 5k -- this is what happened however: 22:48'26.218    Gruul the Dragonkiller's Swing hits Chuunks for 4332 Physical damage (215 blocked)
22:48'26.234    Mutamo's Sinister Strike parried by Gruul the Dragonkiller
22:48'27.843    Adulim's Slam parried by Gruul the Dragonkiller
22:48'28.031    Chuunks's Heroic Strike parried by Gruul the Dragonkiller
22:48'28.031    Gruul the Dragonkiller's Swing hits Chuunks for 6287 Physical damage (crushing)
22:48'28.843    Xvin's Bloodthirst parried by Gruul the Dragonkiller
22:48'29.109    Adulim's Whirlwind parried by Gruul the Dragonkiller
22:48'29.296    Gruul the Dragonkiller's Swing hits Chuunks for 6844 Physical damage (crushing) Now I can't help but second guess myself, I could have been a second slow on my shield block -- though I click the heck out of that key in effort to keep it up.  But the point is - I can potentially eat one crushing blow, and it's somewhat of a tradeoff between my own avoidance -- occasionally he will get a cr6ush in because I get parried, occasionally I will dodge/parry his attack.   But if he parries other people - it's just additional damage.  

Doh, I made it on there twice. I never realized how important Expertise is. I got myself 1 under the cap, but still only 5 expertise. I'll look for places where I can upgrade my gear into some expertise stuff so that I'm no longer on that list.

Trinket from Heroic Magisters FTW

you could just stand  behind the boss also

drp wrote you could just stand  behind the boss also

  Yes -- I was probably misleading in my post.  Standing behind the boss is exactly what you should do.  In fact expertise is really only found recently on badge gear and that one SSO faction neck at the current content level.

Not trying to detract from the importance of standing at the back of the boss while dps'ing, but something I noticed last night was that there was an abnormal amount of cave-ins directly at Gruul's backside.  If my fuzzy memory serves me right (it's been too long since I've gotten the chance to raid =\) usually Gruul was moved some when that happened.  Personally, I had a harder time finding a good spot last night than on previous kills since he was mostly at a static location throughout the fight .  I'm not sure if the purpose of standing in one spot was to help healers or some other reason, but moving Gruul's position as a reaction to cave-ins at his backside is definitely something to keep in mind as an option if there's no downside if we don't want to cripple our melee dps in the case of crappy cave-ins.   That being said, standing at the back is not only important for making sure Chuunks and your other awesome tanks don't take damage, but also ensures that you max out your dps since you're eliminating parries and prevents you from taking cleaves to the face (which not all bosses will do to you, but it's just better to always be safe). So, gogo rock face...err, I mean do it from behind! - RIggins

yeah it did seem like a lot of cave ins right  on him that made it hard to stand behind, also as far as weapon expertise goes there is that ring from   lower city rep

Yea, but he has a pretty big hit box, and there's usually lots of places on the side of him that still count as the 'back'

caveat emptor - my melee experience on that fight is just two fights, each with a different melee character.