Icecrown Strategy Notepad

[Kulldam]

As we're only focusing on Heroic Lich King, it seemed appropriate to finally make public our Icecrown Strategy Notepad thread for anyone still interested in seeing how we come up with strategies and the like.

Notes for Dances with Oozes (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4538):

15 seconds into the fight, and every 15 seconds thereafter, Rotface randomly casts Mutated Injection (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69674) on a random raid member. Once it expires or is removed, a Small Slime spawns. When two Small Slime contact each other, they merge to form a Big Slime. Thereafter, each Small Slime that contacts a Big Slime is absorbed by the Big Slime (despawns) and the Big Slime gets stronger with a stack of Unstable Ooze (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69558). Once a Big Slime absorbs five Small Slimes, it immediately casts Unstable Ooze Explosion (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69839), which is obviously what we want to avoid for this achievement.

Initially, I thought we could just assign some DPS to kill slime spawns during the fight so we're never at risk of getting a Big Slime to eat 5 Small Slimes. However, I finally found a 10-man video that shows health pools of the various Slime types (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPKylrFHJcA), both of which are extremely high values.

Small Slime HP: 2.8 million
Big Slime HP: 6.7 million

To be able to kill a Small Slime before the next Small Slime spawn, each of our six DPS would need to do 31,111 DPS! The good news, however, is with such high HP values, it's clear that another tactic is required and not even worth trying to DPS.

The next obvious answer is a burn -- can we kill Rotface outright before we'll get a Big Slime to explosion stage. It takes 7 Small Slime spawns for an explosion, which are 15 seconds each, plus the final cast we'd wait the full 12 second debuff duration until a spawn, so that's 15 * 7 + 12 = 117 seconds from engage. Rotface has 8,645,000 HP, so that would mean each of our six DPS would need to do 11,898 DPS from engage to death to beat that 117 mark. Obviously that's super impossible, so need a new plan.

The next option is some sort of kite method and this is where unknowns come into play. First, things we do know about the Slimes.

Small Slime Knowns:


Small Slimes spawn on top of the player that had Mutating Injection and immediately agro that player, dealing melee damage and shooting slime projectiles out.
Small Slimes run faster than 100% movement speed.


Small Slime Unknowns:


It appears from video that Small Slimes will attack the target of the initial Mutating Injection with impunity. Likely they spawn with a huge initial threat on that target.
May be untauntable.
May be unsnareable.


Big Slime Knowns:


Created from two Small Slime merging.
Move very slowly (maybe 20-30% of normal run speed).
Have normal agro tables (unknown if Tauntable, but definitely can be agroed by normal threat and will remain on target).
Deal huge melee damage/slime spit to close melee targets.
Pulses AE damage to any players within 10 yards, so must be kited away from the raid.


Big Slime Unknowns:


The biggest question that needs to be answered, is do Big Slimes 'store up' their Unstable Ooze (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69558) such that a 2-stack Big Slime merging with another 2-stack Big Slime will create a 4-stack Big Slime or will the merge only cause one Big Slime to gain a new stack, thereby leaving a single 3-stack Big Slime?


We're left with two possibilities really.

Scenario A: Big Slimes merging together cause an increase of the Unstable Ooze (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69558) stack totals by greater than one.

If this is the case, we cannot allow two Big Slime to merge, and thus must force Big Slimes to ever merge with Small Slimes only:


Start the fight as usual with one player designated as Kiter A.
The first person to get Injection moves to Kiter A and gets dispelled and Small Slime #1 spawns (hereby referred to as "SS#1").
That player gets healed for a while with SS#1 beating on them until SS#2 spawns. They merge to form Big Slime #1 (BS#1) which is immediately agroed/taunted by Kiter A and moved to one of the four cardinal directions of the room to be kited.
Each subsequent Injection target moves near Kiter A (such that they are between Kiter A and the Big Slime chasing Kiter A) and gets dispelled to spawn the Small Slime, which is merged into BS#1.
After 4 stacks of Unstable Ooze on BS#1, the next Injection target moves out of the raid to the opposite side of the room and waits for Injection #2, which then spawns BS#2.
BS#2 is picked up by Kiter B.
The process continues with Injection targets moving near Kiter B until BS#2 reaches 4 stacks of Unstable, then Kiter C emerges and repeats until we down Rotface.


The main challenge with this method is controlling positioning. There are four sets of two pipes around the room, one attached to each of the four cardinal walls. Every so often, a pair of pipes will graphically start oozing and shortly after the ground around that wall is covered in Ooze Flood (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69789). This effectively blocks off 1/4th of the kiting area in the room at all times (the previous flood area clears away just as a new Ooze Flood is being formed on another wall). Therefore, once we reach three active kiters, each will be utilizing one cardinal wall to kite in a circular fashion with the fourth unused wall containing the current Ooze Flood. When the graphical warning indicates an occupied wall is about to floor, the Kiter at that wall must immediately move to the now empty wall being very careful not to cross paths with another Kiter's Big Slime.

Meanwhile, Big Slimes cannot be moved within 10 yards of the raid so the raid will likely need to be bunched up in the center of the room, perhaps kiting in a tight circle around the center to avoid slime pool spawns if needed.

The timing on this strategy is also crucial. Since this is basically a tank and spank for DPS, and based on our recent performance logs, we can assume about 5250 average DPS from each of our DPS raid members, plus 2,000 from the MT. Obviously, each Big Slime that spawns after the first requires another Kiter, which removes one of our DPS from Rotface, so our actual damage will slow down as the fight progresses. The following spreadsheet shows the timing, for Scenario A with 2 Healers and thus 6 DPS, will give us a kill at the 300 second mark (just after 5:00). However, at that rate, we'll be right on the verge of a fourth Big Slime spawn, so if our DPS is even slightly weaker than expected, we'll certainly get that fourth spawn and be super screwed.

If, however, we can manage the fight with 1 healer and have Kheelan DPS, that cuts the fight time by nearly 20% to 4:05, which means well before a fourth Big Slime spawn.

<iframe width='1000' height='600' frameborder='0' src='http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=toxl66mdzzPDl2NvxNUJ8kg&output=html&widget=true'></iframe>

Scenario B: Big Slimes merging together do not increase the Unstable stack count beyond transferring their own stack totals to the newly formed Big Slime.

This scenario doesn't seem as likely to me, but if this is the case, it greatly simplifies the kiting by only have two Big Slimes up at any given time. The fight would play out as follows:


Kiter A grabs BS#1 as before and moves to designated wall to begin the kite.
The very next two Small Slime spawns are allowed to merge to form BS#2, near enough to Kiter A so he can taunt/agro and pull it near BS#1. BS#1 now has 1 stack of Unstable.
This repeats until BS#1 reaches 4 stacks of Unstable.
Now the next pair of Small Slime to merge into BS#6, which is picked up by Kiter B, who kites BS#6 on a different wall away from BS#1/Kiter A.
Similar to how BS#1 was handled, Small Slime spawns are allowed to merge near Kiter B, so Kiter B can taunt/agro, which increases the Unstable stack on BS#6.
Repeat until Rotface drops.


Looking on the above spreadsheet again, Scen. B with 2 Heal, 1 OT, 6 DPS actually shows a kill time of about 272 seconds, or about half a minute faster than Scenario A.

Further, there would be one big advantage to Scenario B -- with only two Big Slimes being kited at any given time, there's very little chance any one 'group' will run out of space (between the raid/dps, Kiter A, and Kiter B).

As before, if we can cut down to 1 healer, the kill time for Scenario B drops to 230 seconds -- nearly 25% faster than Scenario A with 2 healers.

Finally, there are a couple more Scenarios that I won't go into too much detail, but they are basically the same as Scenario A & B, except instead of using potential DPS for kiters, we utilize healers as kiters (think Wildhide on Algalon). There are many unknowns here, however, especially the biggest question, which is can we ensure threat is held? Moreover, do Big Slimes keep their threat totals upon merging? If so, what if two Big Slimes merge and the one a healer has built up threat on is the one that vanishes rather than the newly spawned one, and thus threat is lost/must be built again? Druids obviously have taunt, but going Bear to taunt and popping out may or may not be enough time to build threat from HoT ticks before Taunt wears off a few seconds later.

In any event, if healer kiting proved possible, for Scenario B-type setups, even with two healers we could cut the kill time down by a full minute, or using 1 healer cut it down by 30 seconds. Or if a healer isn't possible, even a ranged DPS might work if a taunt isn't required to grab Big Slime agro. A quick couple spell casts might do the trick and would still allow some DPS on Rotface.

We'll have to test some stuff out to get this one going, as a lot of unknowns right now will determine the true difficulty of this achievement.

[Kulldam]

Notes on Flu Shot Shortage (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4577):

Festergut has 9.41 million HP, so our kill time should be approximately 265 seconds, or 4:25. Every ~45 seconds he casts Gas Spore (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69279) on two random people, which will explode in a small AE around them after 12 seconds causing players in the AE to get a stack of Inoculated (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72103).

Then, every 2:15 (or more likely every 2 minutes but the first cast is at the 2:15 mark), he casts Pungent Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69195), raping everyone without sufficient protection.

Obviously the key to this fight is keeping the Inoculated stack down while finding a way to survive the Pungent Blight.

There are a couple ways to handle this.

Scenario A: Manage Gas Spore/Inoculated stacks by juggling positioning and using Hand of Protection.

Essentially, the first Gas Spore we split into two groups and everyone gets one stack of Inoculated, which puts as at 25% resistance.

The next cast of Gas Spore, we all stack up again to get us two stacks for 50% reduction.

The third and final cast before Pungent Blight, we do not stack up but instead have our Paladins each cast Hand of Protection on the two people targetted with Gas Spore, which will probably remove the debuff if done within the 12 second time frame (as Gas Spore is a physical debuff).

Then we eat Pungent Blight with a well-timed Divine Guardian (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53530) from Khrash just as Pungent is being cast, and we all safely skate by on 70% minimum resistance to the 50,000 damage hit.

The downside of this scenario is it requires we kill Festergut in under 4 minutes or we'll get a 6th Gas Spore cast (and our Hand of Protection will be down), so without severe luck on the targets of those 6th casts by having it hit someone that can go immune and remove the debuff, we'll be SOL. A sub-four minute kill, assuming two healers and two tanks (which seems required from the videos I've watched), requires 39,203 Raid DPS, or an average of 5,865 DPS per DPS member, which would be very much on the high end for us.

Scenario B: We utilize only one stack of Inoculated per person and instead rely on self-cooldowns to survive the Pungent Blight.

The first Gas Spore we split into two groups as before and everyone gets one stack.

The second and third Gas Spore casts, we stay completely split up and assume there will be no repeats of targets for Gas Spore on those two casts. If there is, we'll have to use a Hand of Protection or other immunity to remove the debuff from the particular player who has two stacks already and has Gas Spore on them.

Then, everyone has 25% reduction from Inoculated but considering our makeup, we have a lot of self-cast reductions that may allow survival.

Khrashdin: Ardent Defender + Divine Protection (100%)
Kilwenn: Ice Block (100%)
Thawfore: Divine Shield (100%)
Mattingly: Cloak (90%)
Fides: Dispersion (90%)
Rofldat: Anti-Magic Shell (75%)
Kulldam: Shield Wall + Last Stand (40%)
Wildhide: Barkskin + Dire Bear Form (20%)
Kheelan: Barkskin + Dire Bear Form (20%)
Ugra: Sadface (0%)

We'd also have Divine Guardian from Khrash for another 20% reduction, so before Shadow Resist comes into play, everyone except Ugra *should* have a minimum of 25% + 20% + 20% = 65% reduction, which means Pungent should hit for about 17,500 on Druids and less for everyone up the chain.

For Ugra, I don't know offhand if they can be used in conjunction, but if so, Thawfore could be tasked with using Hand of Sacrifice (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=6940) on Ugra for 30% reduction to Ugra since Thaw will be bubbled. In addition, Ugra, Wild, and Kheelan will be grouped with Khrash and myself so they will get the effects of Khrash's Divine Sacrifice (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64205). Unfortunately I do not know the 'order of operations' that things like Divine Sacrifice work in conjunction with Ardent Defender, but that should add a very nice buffer and easily allow Ugra and Druids to survive the Pungent damage.

Therefore, everyone in the raid should have a form of damage reduction with a 2 minute or under cooldown, allowing us to use these methods for every Pungent cast required. This makes Scenario B the best option imo for this achievement and a rather simple one at that.

[Rofldat]

from MMO-Champ

Two Big Oozes can also merge to combine their stacks.

Since it doesn't say that Big Ooze spawn with ANY stack, and option would be to keep making another Big Ooze and feed it to the one being mainly kited, so 0 + 0 stack = 0.

If 0 stack Big Ooze add 1 stack to another big Ooze, then it'll still be beneficial to feed a big Ooze to antoher big Ooze(since 2 small ooze is required to make 1 big ooze)


Also on Festergut

You have become resistant to the blight, decreasing Shadow damage taken by 25% for 2 min.

Since the debuff last for 2 minutes, if we all stack up and get 2 stacks right away and then can avoid sets of the debuff from going off. It'll fall off letting us start the stack up again.

Another option is to only stack up the debuff for people that require it to survive. Since as you mentioned some of us have high dmg reduction on cooldown, those of us with higher than 70% reduction pre-shadow resist should be able to take the full blast of Pungent with said cd and survive.
So assuming we don't get unlucky Spore application, then we can have something like
1st cast - 1 stack on 2 players + any(Ugra) who need it(and maybe let Ugra have 2 right now so his debuff will run out after the blight and he'll be ready to re-stack on the next cast)
2nd cast - 2 other players
3rd cast - 2 more players, so by now ideally we'll have 6 people with 1stack and Ugra with 2
Pungent come, cooldowns used(if Thaw have Aura Mastery to use with Shadow Resist, that would help since it's on 2 min cd as well)
by this next cast(let's say 45s per Spore) it'll be 135s since the first spore, or 2.25 minute, and the first set of Inoculate should've fallen off.

And if there's only small amount of people having 1-stack, even if someone get unlucky and targeted again, he can run off alone and have 2 stacks instead of ruining the ach by hitting 3rd stack. And if the person with 2 stacks(Ugra, or the unlucky person with spore choosing) get hit by another Spore, we can Hand of Prot them to remove it(or in my case, I 'should' be able to AMS to avoid the debuff again.


The Doctor's achievement simply require the person that drink the potion to turn into abomination to never use the ability(if it is normally used when the doc go into minor enrage of some sort(like Tyrannus in PoS) then we simply should have the tank use defensive cooldowns to survive it)

[Wildhide]

Notes on Flu Shot Shortage (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4577)

I had been looking at this one last night and came up with some similar ideas.

First, I don't believe two tanks is required. He doesn't do anything that requires a tank switch, like, say, Deathwhisper's threat reduction debuff. I believe the only reason some people used two tanks was to make the damage during Inhale Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69165) easier to manage using cooldowns, but, I think we can suck it up manage with one tank staggering their CD's.

This will free up Khrash to heal and Khee to DPS. Beacon should prove useful for healing the random Vile Gas (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69240) damage. Also, aura mastery with shadow resist aura should negate a large portion of the Pungent Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69195). I am sure on the numbers, but it should enable most people to survive if they somehow only had one stack of inoculate. It would definitely be enough to make the damage manageable if everyone had two stacks.

When it comes to managing stacks, I believe I have a way to minimize the amount of RNG and get everyone two stacks. Assuming three Gas Spore (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71221) casts per expunge, we can have the first two Spore targets let their spores explode only on themselves, so, after the first cast, we only have two people with 1 stack of inoculate each.

For the next Spore cast, everyone, save the first two targets stacks up with spore targets to get one stack. We should use one marked person for the ranged and one for the melee/tank to avoide giving two stacks of inoculate from one cast - if it even works this way. Assuming one of the first targets isn't targeted again by the second cast, we should have one stack on the entire raid with one more spore cast incoming. If a repeat target is chosen, we will have no choice but to hope they are not repeated again for the third cast. Hand of protection(s) can be utilized if necessary.

For the third cast, assuming no repeat targets, everyone will bunch up accordingly and get their second stack of inoculate. This should reduce the damage from Pungent Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69195) to a maximum of 22550 pre-resistances.

Using this strategy to manage the inoculate stacks, we should be able to easily survive two Pungent Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69195) casts. Using aura mastery on one and self cooldowns (Ugra can get a PW:S as his "cooldownlol") the other, we should be able to win the game. We just have to hope the RNG is nice to us on the second spore cast.

PS. I suppose a super easy way to do this would be to HoP the first two spore targets, so we are guaranteed to only get two inoculate stacks on the raid. But, I think it's more important to save the HoP's for the second expunge, since timing could get hairy later in the fight with spore casts. Also, this would do nothing for the first two spore targets after the first expunge. Perhaps then would be a good time to use the HoP's? asdf

[Kulldam]

from MMO-Champ

Since it doesn't say that Big Ooze spawn with ANY stack, and option would be to keep making another Big Ooze and feed it to the one being mainly kited, so 0 + 0 stack = 0.

Yeah I try not to trust stuff I just read, especially when the encounters aren't even out.


If 0 stack Big Ooze add 1 stack to another big Ooze, then it'll still be beneficial to feed a big Ooze to antoher big Ooze(since 2 small ooze is required to make 1 big ooze)

I think this one is more likely and is exactly what is described in Scenario B in the above spreadsheet.

You can see that each Big Slime spawn is staggered by 30 seconds (time for two Small Slimes to spawn and merge) and then that newly formed Big Slime is merged with the kiting Slime (BS#1 until 4 stacks, then BS#6 until Rotface drops).


Also on Festergut

Since the debuff last for 2 minutes, if we all stack up and get 2 stacks right away and then can avoid sets of the debuff from going off. It'll fall off letting us start the stack up again.

That's not exactly how it works.

The Gas Spore is cast 3 times between Pungent Blight no matter what, so if everyone gets 2 stacks, we need a way to clear the Gas Spore from the final two targets during the third cast to ensure no one hits a 3 stack -- again, exactly what I described in Scenario A. Hand of Protection may work as mentioned, but that would require a sub-4 minute kill to pull off.

Also, Pungent Blight removes all existing Inoculated stacks on the raid, so the 2 min timer is irrelevant.


Another option is to only stack up the debuff for people that require it to survive. Since as you mentioned some of us have high dmg reduction on cooldown, those of us with higher than 70% reduction pre-shadow resist should be able to take the full blast of Pungent with said cd and survive.
So assuming we don't get unlucky Spore application, then we can have something like
1st cast - 1 stack on 2 players + any(Ugra) who need it(and maybe let Ugra have 2 right now so his debuff will run out after the blight and he'll be ready to re-stack on the next cast)
2nd cast - 2 other players
3rd cast - 2 more players, so by now ideally we'll have 6 people with 1stack and Ugra with 2
Pungent come, cooldowns used(if Thaw have Aura Mastery to use with Shadow Resist, that would help since it's on 2 min cd as well)
by this next cast(let's say 45s per Spore) it'll be 135s since the first spore, or 2.25 minute, and the first set of Inoculate should've fallen off.

And if there's only small amount of people having 1-stack, even if someone get unlucky and targeted again, he can run off alone and have 2 stacks instead of ruining the ach by hitting 3rd stack. And if the person with 2 stacks(Ugra, or the unlucky person with spore choosing) get hit by another Spore, we can Hand of Prot them to remove it(or in my case, I 'should' be able to AMS to avoid the debuff again.

I think it would add unnecessary risk not to purposely have everyone get the first Inoculated cast, rather than trying to limit it to 6 only. Once the first cast is complete, our only concern is the probability that the same two people will be selected twice in a row for the 2nd and 3rd Gas Spore cast. Assuming each Gas Spore target is truly randomly selected, each Gas Spore target is a ten-sided die and getting the same two people is equivalent to rolling exactly a total of 3 with two ten-sided die.

Therefore, the probability of rolling exactly 3 twice in a row and thus getting Gas Spore on the same two people in a row, is 0.04%, so it's very unlikely we'll see that happen.

What is more likely, is the probability of getting a 3rd Gas Spore on one of the people who got the 2nd Gas Spore cast. That comes out to 11.56% chance, but even that leaves nearly 90% chance it won't happen. When it does happen, however, we need use only one of our Hand of Protection cooldowns so we can then save the other Hand of Protection should it happen a second time on the next round of Gas Spores.


The Doctor's achievement simply require the person that drink the potion to turn into abomination to never use the ability(if it is normally used when the doc go into minor enrage of some sort(like Tyrannus in PoS) then we simply should have the tank use defensive cooldowns to survive it)

Try as I might, there simply wasn't enough information available to even bother writing something up on this one. The Abomination's Regurgitated Ooze (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70539) ability sounds like it's meant mostly as a form of controlling the Volatile Ooze spawns. They cast Volatile Ooze Adhesive (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70447) to a random raid member, which as described in the tooltip, roots the raid member while the ooze runs toward them. When the Volatile Ooze reaches said player, it uses Ooze Eruption (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70492), doing big AE damage if there aren't a lot of raid member stacked up.

Therefore, it's likely this achievement will mean keeping the raid somewhat close together such that anytime a Volatile Ooze Adhesive is cast on someone, we can stack up on them to ensure no deaths from the Eruption cast if we can't kill the Ooze before it reaches the targeted player.

[Kulldam]

Woops, delayed my reply to Rofl too long and didn't see Wild's message!


First, I don't believe two tanks is required. He doesn't do anything that requires a tank switch, like, say, Deathwhisper's threat reduction debuff. I believe the only reason some people used two tanks was to make the damage during Inhale Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69165) easier to manage using cooldowns, but, I think we can suck it up manage with one tank staggering their CD's.

It seems odd to be that people would use two tanks if they didn't have to, but who knows.

That said, if Khrash doesn't tank, we have no Divine Sacrifice/Divine Guardian/Ardent Defender, which is a huge damage reduction for the weaker self-cooldown classes (Ugra/Wild/Khee). Yes we'd have Aura Mastery, but there's no way the extra 130 SR from Aura Mastery can match the 20% damage reduction of Divine Guardian.

If we really find we want Aura Mastery and Beacon, probably better off having Kheelan DPS and Thawfore heal so Khrash can remain tanking.


When it comes to managing stacks, I believe I have a way to minimize the amount of RNG and get everyone two stacks. Assuming three Gas Spore (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71221) casts per expunge, we can have the first two Spore targets let their spores explode only on themselves, so, after the first cast, we only have two people with 1 stack of inoculate each.

For the next Spore cast, everyone, save the first two targets stacks up with spore targets to get one stack. We should use one marked person for the ranged and one for the melee/tank to avoide giving two stacks of inoculate from one cast - if it even works this way. Assuming one of the first targets isn't targeted again by the second cast, we should have one stack on the entire raid with one more spore cast incoming. If a repeat target is chosen, we will have no choice but to hope they are not repeated again for the third cast. Hand of protection(s) can be utilized if necessary.

For the third cast, assuming no repeat targets, everyone will bunch up accordingly and get their second stack of inoculate. This should reduce the damage from Pungent Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69195) to a maximum of 22550 pre-resistances.

Using this strategy to manage the inoculate stacks, we should be able to easily survive two Pungent Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69195) casts. Using aura mastery on one and self cooldowns (Ugra can get a PW:S as his "cooldownlol") the other, we should be able to win the game. We just have to hope the RNG is nice to us on the second spore cast.

This sounds like the best option by far; great idea Wild!

The chances of one of the two initial Gas Spore targets getting cast on again by EITHER the second or third cast is 22.8%. So still, even if one of our initial targets gets a second stack on the second cast, the chance they'll get that third stack is still 0.04%, so virtually impossible.


PS. I suppose a super easy way to do this would be to HoP the first two spore targets, so we are guaranteed to only get two inoculate stacks on the raid. But, I think it's more important to save the HoP's for the second expunge, since timing could get hairy later in the fight with spore casts. Also, this would do nothing for the first two spore targets after the first expunge. Perhaps then would be a good time to use the HoP's? asdf

Yeah I'd say no reason to waste HoP unnecessarily. Also even though we're speaking of this like we get one shot at it, even if we have super shitty luck, we can just wipe and try again and again until the stars align.

[Wildhide]

Woops, delayed my reply to Rofl too long and didn't see Wild's message!

It seems odd to be that people would use two tanks if they didn't have to, but who knows.

That said, if Khrash doesn't tank, we have no Divine Sacrifice/Divine Guardian/Ardent Defender, which is a huge damage reduction for the weaker self-cooldown classes (Ugra/Wild/Khee). Yes we'd have Aura Mastery, but there's no way the extra 130 SR from Aura Mastery can match the 20% damage reduction of Divine Guardian.

If we really find we want Aura Mastery and Beacon, probably better off having Kheelan DPS and Thawfore heal so Khrash can remain tanking.

What are the breakpoints for resistances? I don't quite remember, but isn't 105 the breakpoint for a minimum resist of 10% with a maximum of 30%? So, 130 would skew the resistances a bit more towards the 30%, and 260 would make the minimum at least 20% with a possibility of more. Wouldn't this be better divine guardian's 20%?

Also, again, I am stupid and don't remember, but aren't resistances calculated before damage mitigation? This would make them slightly better than another damage mitigation, but I have never been one to crunch numbers - so I don't know.

About the tanking, I just figured Khrash's healing gear was better than Thaw's, so he was my first choice - either one would be fine. If Thaw heals, you and Khee could DPS with Khrash tanking. Ardent defender is the hax, especially on progression content.

We'll just have to wait and see just how hard this stuff is.

Moving on: Any thoughts on Putricide's achievement? Does anyone know what the Abom is supposed to use his special ability on?


EDIT: I found a site with the resistance formulas and the like http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/02/general-druid-new-resistance-math-and.html

A rough overview, with at least 215 resist (aura mastery gives 260), the minimum possible resist is 20%. So, this is at least as good as divine sac, and most likely better as the chance to not get a minimum resist is higher than the chance to get a minimum resist. I ramble.

[Kulldam]

Moving on: Any thoughts on Putricide's achievement? Does anyone know what the Abom is supposed to use his special ability on?

Apparently you're a hater and didn't read my post above. :(


Try as I might, there simply wasn't enough information available to even bother writing something up on this one. The Abomination's Regurgitated Ooze (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70539) ability sounds like it's meant mostly as a form of controlling the Volatile Ooze spawns. They cast Volatile Ooze Adhesive (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70447) to a random raid member, which as described in the tooltip, roots the raid member while the ooze runs toward them. When the Volatile Ooze reaches said player, it uses Ooze Eruption (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70492), doing big AE damage if there aren't a lot of raid member stacked up.

Therefore, it's likely this achievement will mean keeping the raid somewhat close together such that anytime a Volatile Ooze Adhesive is cast on someone, we can stack up on them to ensure no deaths from the Eruption cast if we can't kill the Ooze before it reaches the targeted player.


EDIT: I found a site with the resistance formulas and the like http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/02/general-druid-new-resistance-math-and.html

A rough overview, with at least 215 resist (aura mastery gives 260), the minimum possible resist is 20%. So, this is at least as good as divine sac, and most likely better as the chance to not get a minimum resist is higher than the chance to get a minimum resist. I ramble.

Sort of, except you're ignoring that we'll already have 130 SR, so we're not gaining 260 SR, we're gaining 130. Also the table below shows the average resistances, rather than just the minimum, and we'd be going from 20% avg at 128, to 30% avg at 219. Whereas Divine Guardian (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53530) (don't confuse Divine Guardian (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53530) with Divine Sacrifice (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64205)) will give us 20% flat damage reduction, which adding the 20% from 130 SR, is no doubt better than just 260 SR.

Average Resist|Level 80|Level 83
10%|45|57
15%|71|90
20%|100|128
25%|134|170
30%|172|219
35%|216|275
40%|267|340
45%|328|418

Again, may be irrelevant. As mentioned, if needed we can just make Thaw heal so we can get both, no biggie.

[Wildhide]

Sort of, except you're ignoring that we'll already have 130 SR, so we're not gaining 260 SR, we're gaining 130. Also the table below shows the average resistances, rather than just the minimum, and we'd be going from 20% avg at 128, to 30% avg at 219. Whereas Divine Guardian (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53530) (don't confuse Divine Guardian (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53530) with Divine Sacrifice (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64205)) will give us 20% flat damage reduction, which adding the 20% from 130 SR, is no doubt better than just 260 SR.

Average Resist|Level 80|Level 83
10%|45|57
15%|71|90
20%|100|128
25%|134|170
30%|172|219
35%|216|275
40%|267|340
45%|328|418

Again, may be irrelevant. As mentioned, if needed we can just make Thaw heal so we can get both, no biggie.

I fail at written communication. By saying aura mastery gives us 260, I meant that as our total resistance after it was activated - not that our resist would be 130 + 260. Even at 260 resist, it'll be an avg resist of 30% vs a lvl 83 mob.

Also, unless the tooltip is incorrect, Divine Sacrifice (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64205) is not raid wide. It be only party members, but I suppose if we put Khrash with the weaker members it would serve it's purpose.

Anyways, like you said, we can get both - making the expunge trivial.

Oh, and for the Putricide stuff, I fail at reading. That doesn't sound too bad; kinda fun actually.

[Kulldam]

Also, unless the tooltip is incorrect, Divine Sacrifice (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64205) is not raid wide. It be only party members, but I suppose if we put Khrash with the weaker members it would serve it's purpose.

ASDF!

Divine Guardian (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53530) is the crucial part -- not Divine Sacrifice (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64205)! I even reminded you not to confuse the two above just to make sure! :D


Whereas Divine Guardian (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53530) (don't confuse Divine Guardian (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53530) with Divine Sacrifice (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64205)) will give us 20% flat damage reduction, which adding the 20% from 130 SR, is no doubt better than just 260 SR.

Divine Guardian is a side effect of using Divine Sacrifice.


I fail at reading

QFT.

[Wildhide]

My bad. I was basing my assumptions on the thought that it was either between divine guardian and aura mastery, but I neglected to realize using divine guardian would give us the 20% on top of our normal shadow resist of 130 - aura mastery alone would just give us the resist, which would be less than divine guardian + 130 SR. So, I figured you were thinking that divine sac's additional damage mitigation was the determining factor, but, alas, I fail at reading.

Anyways, I think we (I) have talked too much about something that will probably end up being relatively easy anyways.

PENIS

[Kulldam]

Anyways, I think we (I) have talked too much about something that will probably end up being relatively easy anyways.

Hey, we gotta find something to do the other six days of the week...


PENIS


PENIS


PENIS


PENIS


PENIS



























































PENIS

[Kulldam]

Few more notes on Festergut/Flu Shot Shortage (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4577):

More info has come out now that these bosses are live and one of those tidbits is the reason we've seen tank swaps on this fight.

Festergut casts Gastric Bloat (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72219) on the current Main Tank every so often (unknown how long between applications, probably 10-15 seconds). This deals a bit of Shadow Damage to the tank but also increases the Tank's damage output by 10% per stack. If the stack reaches 10, causes the tank to instantly explode and deal AE damage from Gastric Explosion (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72227). Therefore, we'll have to use two tanks and transition appropriately to survive.

Notes on Professor Putricide/Nausea, Heartburn, Indegestion...:

Watch this video to get an idea of what to expect:

<object width="853" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/35p21sdb4us&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/35p21sdb4us&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="853" height="505"></embed></object>

Some key points to completing this encounter:


Khrash is probably best to MT, backpeddle-kiting around the central circle of the room until an green or orange Ooze spawns ("Professor Putricide casts a wicked/unstable expiriment."), at which point kite him to the South of the room (opposite of where the Ooze is spawning. Of course, if DPS fails to kill the spawned Ooze before it reaches it's target it will pause and reform quickly, choosing a new target, so quickly kite away from that location to maximize distance between Putricide and the Ooze. Lastly, move him slightly if a green puddle or orange gas cloud appear under you or nearby DPS.
Kulldam is probably best doing the abomination since the last phase requires an OT and I'd be doing virtually no damage otherwise until the final phase. Further, without me tanking Putricide, we lose a chunk of melee DPS due to no Sunder Armor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=7386), but the Abomination ability Mutated Slash (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70542) I assume can be used on Putricide and thus would allow me to somewhat keep Sunder up on Putricide when not doing other stuff. As the Abomination, I will focus on doing two things: removing slime pools around the room and hitting Ooze spawns with Mutated Slash (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70542) to help DPS them down. Also, of course, avoid using Regurgitated Ooze (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70539) for the achievement.
Melee DPS (Rofl, Matt, Thaw) should focus on Putricide full time except when he casts an experiment and thus spawns an Ooze. Since we do not know who the random target of the Ooze will be, melee must take care to stay far away from the Ooze spawn location (hopefully that's where Putricide is anyway) until the Ooze selects a target, then melee rush in and beat it down asap. In the event of a Green Ooze that is going to reach it's rooted target before dying, melee should ensure they are within melee distance of the rooted target before the Ooze arrives to help soak the AE damage from Volatile Ooze Adhesive (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70447). Once that explosion goes off and is soaked, run the opposite direction again (at this point, the Ooze should be in the South part of the room, so run North), wait to verify the target is not you, then rush and kill the Ooze again, repeating the process until it dies.
Ranged DPS (Ugra, Kilwenn, Fides), like the melee DPS, should focus on Putricide full time except when he casts an experiment and spawns an Ooze. However, unlike the melee DPS, ranged DPS should all stay away from the Ooze spawn location (again, near Putricide, somewhere South), and if a Green Ooze, immediately stack on top of the targeted player and wait there, spamming DPS abilities on the incoming Ooze so DPS will be maximized until it reaches the target. This will ensure there is no mad scramble to reach the Green Ooze's targeted player if it suddenly looks like it won't die in time (and again, the point of this achievement means no snare, so that's likely going to be the case for every Ooze spawn).
Healer (Khee and Wild) should stay near Putricide of course to be in range of everyone at all times. Otherwise, the only thing to worry about is, like the Ranged DPS, watching for a Green Ooze spawn and quickly stacking up on the targeted player. This will ensure there is always at least 5 people stacked up even if every melee DPS fails somehow, which means the maximum a Green Ooze explosion will do is 14,000 to all 5 targets. Obviously, when this is about to occur, make sure everyone is topped off healthwise so no sudden killing blows can happen.


For Everyone -- What to do if a Green Ooze targets you

As you saw in the video, if a Green Ooze picks you, you'll see a green energy beam between you and the Ooze (similar to Yogg beams) and you'll be rooted. You'll also get a raid mark from DBM I imagine. Therefore, it's important that as Putricide is casting the experiment (and thus spawning an Ooze) everyone runs to the opposite side of the room to maximize your own distance from that Ooze spawn point. Seemingly, Oozes always spawn from the North side of the room, so moving to the South corner or in that direction is best.

Otherwise, no much to do as a Green Ooze target since you can't move. Once it reaches you and explodes, immediately run to the opposite side of the room with the rest of the raid because the Ooze will pick a new target at random and it could be you again.

For Everyone -- What to do if an Orange Ooze targets you

This one is more difficult than the Green, because the targeted player gets 10 stacks of Gaseous Bloat. It does a very minor amount of DoT damage, but more importantly, the Ooze will chase you and if it gets in melee range of you, casts Expunged Gas (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70701) which does big AE damage to the entire raid.

Therefore, as soon as an Orange Ooze spawns, check if you are the target (raid mark, debuff, size increase, orange beam) and if so, run the opposite direction and find the longest path to keep you away from the Ooze. Every tick with Gaseous Bloat lowers the damage that will be dealt when it reaches melee range, so buying time is the name of the game. Again, without a snare from the Abomination, unless our DPS is insane, expect at least one explosion from the Orange Ooze as well before we can kill it off.

Phases 1 & 2

Very little changes between Phase 1 and 2. Phase 1 will not last long enough to notice really, so Phase 2 is the majority of the fight.

The name of the game is the same in both though: Don't stand in any green or orange shit on the ground. Move away from Ooze spawn locations quickly and kill the Ooze fast if not targeting you. Stack on Green Ooze targets before Ooze reaches them but stay away from Orange Ooze targets. DPS Putricide when not dealing with Ooze.

Phase 3

Phase 3 is a DPS race/burn phase. Oozes stop spawning and the green puddles he'd been casting on the ground throughout that were removed by the Abomination will now be unremoveable and slowly grow. Just before or just after Phase 3 starts (about 35% health), Khrash should move Putricide next to any wall of the room (doesn't matter which). As he casts green puddles, once they threaten to surround or move to close to the raid, backpeddle kite him around the outside of the room, similar to Grobbulus in Naxx, until in a clean/safe spot then stop and DPS some more, until slimes are on you/too close, and repeat. Do not move constantly as it drastically lowers our DPS. Instead, move only when necessary.

Also in Phase 3, he casts a stacking debuff on the Tank called Mutated Plague, that causes raid wide damage for every stack. Therefore, we will need to transition tanks at some point (3-4 stacks is ideal) so the AE damage to the raid doesn't get too high.

[Rofldat]

I should try to see if I can CoI the ooze. If yes, this will be fairly easy(except the time when I don't have Frost rune up)

Also, the comment page on the Abomination's slash ability:

Does not stack with Sunder Armor or similar effects.

So yes, you are the best peson to do this, unless that 100% weapon damage/second spam can do some serious damage from a 2H user like Thaw.

p.s. zomg a female player o O.

[Fideslol]

I don't know if the strategy we're implementing for Dances With Oozes is viable.

Rotface has 8,645,000hp. He releases Mutated Infection about every 14 seconds in the beginning of the fight and faster as the fight progresses. If we intend to save bloodlust for the end, where he will be inflicting the infection on us almost two at a time, then we're looking at roughly 30k raid dps for the first 70%. This means that even if the rate of Mutated Infection does not go up, by the time he reaches 30% (about the time a bloodlust would be planned for the final burn) we would have two big oozes, one with 4 stacks and one with 3 stacks (201 seconds into the fight at 14 second intervals between mutated infection means 14 separate small oozes, which, if controlled perfectly will make the oozes I listed)

At this point, just over three minutes into the fight, we would have to remove another dps for to kite a big ooze that would spawn, and have to burn through 2.6M hp while hoping that neither of the two kiters get Mutated Infection.

I believe that there is either a steep gear requirement to this fight or a trick that we are overlooking.

[Rofldat]

Well, I wouldn't call this reasonable yet since it'll require pretty heavy much a perfect 'dance' from some members. But I'm posting it here mainly as a self-note.

First, tank him in the middle, with the raid spread around him in melee range(so only a few get hit by the breath have to move)

The first 2 oozes can go spawn anywhere outside the raid without being near the pipe ooze(they can be if really necessary, but if possible less damage to kiters would be safer)

First kiter(me) pick up the ooze and kite it on the 'thick ring' of the room.

-I WILL kite it through the ooze pipe if it's in the path, since trying to go around have the larger risk of me getting melee'd.(and the 4k/s from Ooze Flood is not as lethal compare to the 40k/s(the big ooze have .5s melee swing) coming from the big one))
-The next person(small ooze) run in front of me in the ring, but not near enough to combine(or just run far ahead, so they don't have to constantly move)
-The person after(combining to Big) run to the small ooze, timing it so that I'll be close by when the big ooze is spawning(best case scenario is to have the big ooze spawn on top of the big ooze I'm kiting, but that's rather tricky)
--Obvious, but don't do it so far in front that if I taunt the big ooze I'll be trap between the two(or have to run through the raid to have those two merge without melee-ing me)
--Another option is to spawn the big ooze at the edge of the room as I pass by, so I can simply taunt it and align the 2 oozes.
Repeat until I get to 4 stacks. Next kiter do the same in front of me on the path(or behind me)

So healers might have to heal kiters from
-Ooze Flood (4k/s, better than risking a melee(30k every .5s or so, pretty much instant-kill for anyone below 20k armor)
-The breath Rotface does(since kiters can't stop, they will have to run through it)

Other kiters I think might be possible:
-Thaw(healing) using something like http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxAzgz0sVu0tgdZVcb0b (remaining points up to him to decide) to give him both extra movespeed and a ranged attack(judgement/shock)

If the kiter need to 'slow down' their ooze in the ring position, they simply need to kite to the outer edge of the room and back on the ring. This will cause the ooze to take extra travel time compare to other oozes on the ring.

Still pretty much a complicated setup, with people actually have to have the tank's awareness of the situation while still DPSing/healing/kiting. And having to hope the kiters doesn't get target for the ooze again.

p.s. or it could just be one of those achievements where you NEED better gear(like Hodir's, where it's unlikely to be possible with starter gears)

[Kulldam]

Well, I tried analyzing our logs a bit to determine how the speed increase of Mutating Injection works, but it's difficult to tell from such small sample sizes, so I encourage you to look over this as well and help us analyze:

[22:58:40.000] Fight Start|Seconds Since Previous|Damage Dealt|Remaining HP|HP %
[22:58:52.309] Thawfore afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|12|358580|8286420|95.85%
[22:59:06.572] Kilwenn afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|14|418343|7868077|91.01%
[22:59:21.011] Rofldat afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|14|418343|7449734|86.17%
[22:59:40.508] Kheelan afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|19|567751|6881983|79.61%
[22:59:52.725] Kilwenn afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|12|358580|6523403|75.46%
[23:00:04.597] Wildhide afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|12|358580|6164823|71.31%
[23:00:16.665] Fideslol afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|12|358580|5806243|67.16%
[23:00:34.896] Rofldat afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|18|537870|5268373|60.94%
[23:00:43.863] Kheelan afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|9|268935|4999438|57.83%
[23:00:53.891] Kilwenn afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|10|298816|4700622|54.37%
[23:01:04.013] Fideslol afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|10|298816|4401806|50.92%
[23:01:16.469] Kulldam afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|12|358580|4043226|46.77%
[23:01:24.398] Kheelan afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|8|239053|3804173|44%
[23:01:32.709] Fideslol afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|8|239053|3565120|41.24%
[23:01:49.570] Wildhide afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|17|507988|3057132|35.36%
[23:01:56.623] Ugra afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|7|209172|2847960|32.94%
[23:02:04.425] Kilwenn afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|8|239053|2608907|30.18%
[23:02:11.474] Kheelan afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|7|209172|2399735|27.76%
[23:02:17.507] Kulldam afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|6|179290|2220445|25.68%
[23:02:24.415] Rofldat afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|7|209172|2011273|23.27%
[23:02:29.495] Thawfore afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|5|149408|1861865|21.54%
[23:02:35.440] Kilwenn afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|6|179290|1682575|19.46%
[23:02:42.246] Mattingly afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|7|209172|1473403|17.04%
[23:02:48.180] Fideslol afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|6|179290|1294113|14.97%
[23:02:49.000] Fight End|1|29882|1264231|14.62%

This is derived from the output of a log query (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/3o6aj5mtjgaxqmqn/xe/?s=9254&e=9528&x=spell%3D%22Mutated+Infection%22+and+fulltype%3DS PELL_AURA_APPLIED) then applying some basic math to get the damage figures. The damage and therefore the health remaining percent values are not very accurate and are instead derived by taking the known damage dealt for the entire fight, and dividing it by the total fight time to get our average DPS, then determining what our damage output would be for any given interval and totaling that damage. Then subtracting that damage dealt interval from the total health pool/damage dealt thus far.

There are some definite outliers in the intervals between casts and again, with such a small sample it's difficult to say with certainty, but if I had to guess based on that, I'd say the delay between Infection casts is on a degrading 2 second reduction timer starting at 14 or 15 seconds and dropping 2 seconds each interval.

Unfortunately, from this it's still difficult to tell if the drop is from time or health percent. If you look around the center at:

[23:01:24.398] Kheelan afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|8|239053|3804173|44%

and look ahead to the end with:

[23:02:48.180] Fideslol afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|6|179290|1294113|14.97%

There's about 85 seconds difference and 30% health difference and both areas are within "8 seconds" and "6 second" intervals, respectively.

However, go up the chart to about 85 seconds prior to the first entry to about here:

[22:59:52.725] Kilwenn afflicted by Mutated Infection from Rotface|12|358580|6523403|75.46%

And the time difference is about right (92 seconds prior to that first entry) but also the health difference is about the same (31% higher than first entry). Yet, considering both these metrics are approximately the same relative to the first two entries, the interval delay here is very clearly in the 12 second margin.

We could argue that the middle entry (with 44% HP) should be rounded up to 9 seconds, which would then put everything equivalent between the 3 entries (same time spread, same health spread, same interval spread of 3 seconds). If that's the case, we can look at a linear reduction in the intervals based on our our variables:

Time-based Interval Reduction

To figure if it's time-based, we know a few things to be true based on all previous time-based encounters. First, that the change will be linear based on the time -- that is, if Blizzard reduces a cooldown timer in a fight based on time elapsed, the elapsed time trigger and effect modifier are linear and won't exponentially increase.

Second, we can assume the time trigger interval will be a common/simple number (30 sec, 60 sec, 45 sec, etc.).

Therefore, looking at our data, we have a few good timestamps to use.


[22:58:52.309] 12 sec
[22:59:52.725] 12 sec
[23:00:53.891] 10 sec
[23:01:56.623] 7 sec
[23:02:48.180] 6 sec

Now, knowing the interval numbers aren't exact due to script delays with Rotface's own triggers and such, we can safely assume the first interval is in the 14 sec category. Same with the 7 sec which is likely 8 seconds, so it would really look like:


[22:58:52.309] 14 sec
[22:59:52.725] 12 sec
[23:00:53.891] 10 sec
[23:01:56.623] 8 sec
[23:02:48.180] 6 sec

That gives us basically a very handy 60 second split of each timestamp with 2 seconds between each (or even perhaps 30 second split with 1 second interval drop between each).

However, it could be coincidence because now we look at the health-based setup...

Health-based Interval Reduction

It seems 15 second interval at 100% and a 1 second interval drop for every 10% roughly matches our data. 50% health has about 10 second intervals, many 6 second intervals in the 10-20% HP range, etc.

So, I still have no solid answer. However, we can easily solve this question with one simple test next raid: Run through the fight as normal except don't do damage to Rotface. Run a live-log on World of Logs and after we wipe 3-4 minutes in, check the numbers on a table similar to above again and see if the intervals dropped or stayed roughly the same at 14ish seconds.

Raid Configuration

The first thing we should optimize is our raid setup for this fight. As I eluded a few times during our attempts last night, using me as a DPS is truly hurting our raid DPS as I simply don't have the gear level to match others, especially without full-time melee buffs. We're also wasting a great deal of potential DPS using Rofldat as our kiter virtually from the start.

Therefore, I would propose the following changes:


Kulldam MT Rotface
Wildhide & Khrash heal
Kheelan Feral DPS
Rofldat DPS


Now, the pure number gains from this setup will be fairly substantial even on the surface.

First, we have a great deal of physical DPS boosts that will be 100% present with a Warrior MT and Feral DPS that would not be present 100% with a Paladin MT, Arms DPS, and no Feral.

Sunder Armor, which is obviously used by me even as Arms DPS, cannot be reliably kept up 100% of the time when Arms on this fight due to running away for infection/oozes and of course when I start my kite phase, it's gone altogether. Further, my bleeds are no longer present to boost Matt's damage.

Add to that the Feral buffs of Leader of the Pack and Faerie Fire, where the only lost physical buff is Blood Frenzy, and I get the following rough calculations from Rawr:


Mattingly w/ Arms Buffs: 7242
Mattingly w/ Prot War/Feral buffs: 7765
Difference: +523

Thawfore w/ Arms Buffs: 6607
Thawfore w/ Prot War/Feral buffs: 7007
Difference: +400

Kheelan's armory profile doesn't have his feral spec atm and I don't know enough about DKs to setup Rofl's Rawr profile correctly, but surely they gain similar numbers from 100% Sunder uptime. We'll low ballpark it and say 400 DPS for Rofldat and since Kheelan always has his own buffs as Feral, 200 DPS for Kheelan from Sunder Armor alone.

That comes to ~1523 Raid DPS gain just from the buffs by swapping our roster around. Then add the DPS difference Kheelan would have over me as Arms, which is probably 1800-2000 (less the 200 we tacked on already, so 1600-1800) on this fight since he'd never have to kite. Finally, add the gain of Rofl's DPS (6000ish?, less the 400 we added already, so 5600) for 70% of the fight (I'll get to that later), so about 3920 (5600 * 0.7).

That's a grand total Raid DPS gain of ~7143 over the duration of the fight. Our DPS is on track with other similar kills to be around 4:30, so that's an additional 1,928,610 damage (270 sec * 7143 DPS), which is 20% of his health.

Again, these are all ballpark figures, but if we can manage this, it would drastically increase our DPS throughout the entire fight, especially later on when we're starting to become overrun.

Ooze Kiting

Now, obviously the big question is still, what about the kiting? Well, Wild and I discussed it briefly and Rofl even hit on it a bit in his below post, but it seems we'd be best off going back to the central tank position and kiting Big Ooze around the outside of the room. Further, instead of infected people running out of the raid (which might put their Small Ooze too close to a Big Ooze), they get instant dispelled and we just heal through the Small Ooze damage as it sits on the raid. As Wild suggested, if the Ooze spawns on a ranged DPS/healer, they can step out slightly so it doesn't have to AE the melee constantly, but either way if we can heal that damage the next infection can be instantly dispelled and a Big Ooze will form and be instantly taunted by a kiter.

This has a few big advantages that our previous door strat didn't:


The kiter is always within Taunt range of Big Ooze spawns near the raid.
Once taunted, a Big Ooze will always have to take a path slightly longer than the current Big Ooze, forcing the newly taunted Ooze to run right into the path of the currently kited Big Ooze and merge them.
We can utilize Tricks of the Trade if necessary from Mattingly to 'force' new Big Ooze spawns onto a particular Kiter.
Infected raid members will not be prone to getting killed by Slime Spray (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69508) because they will simply be able to rotate around Rotface even with their slime on them, rather than the door setup where infected people were always to the North side of Rotface and ate the full brunt of any Slime Spray that cast in that direction.
In a pinch, I as the MT, can Thunderclap/taunt a fresh Big Ooze spawn if the current kiter is otherwise occupied/out of range, since I'll be getting constant heals and can likely survive a few extra hits from a slime if needed before the kiter can taunt it off.


Now, who kites and when? Well, while Rofl did a fairly good job all things considered, as mentioned above, it's a huge DPS loss for us to not have him on Rotface as much as possible, especially the initial burst time when we're lusting and all that.

Instead, I think we should use Khrash as Holy Spec with a mix of heal/tank gear (high stamina pieces to give him a buffer) with Righteous Fury up for threat. He can then keep Beacon up on me but still has a 40 yard Judgement, a taunt with damage, and consecrate/holy shock to help keep agro on taunted Big Ooze. Once agroed, Judgements/Consecrate in kite path/Holy Shock on raid, will be plenty to keep Big Ooze angry at him and he'll still have two ranged taunts to quickly agro new Big Ooze spawns and continue his circular kite. Finally, he'll have self-freedom in the event he needs to run through sewage for any reason (though our kite path should not require it).

Now, with this sort of setup means healing may be very stressful for Wildhide, especially adding the AE pulse damage of a small slime 10 out of every 20 seconds or so. However, if his can produce the output, I think two innervates + replenishment should be plenty to keep mana high enough by the time we get through the 4:30ish fight.

Examples

First, this movie shows a similar method (also with a Paladin kiter) but they utilize what I can only assume was the bug that was fixed in the recent hotfix statement by Blizzard. If you notice around 1:14-1:20, just to the left of Rotface in the background, the two Big Oozes are merging and instead of reforming into one larger one, they both cancel each other out.

I cannot recall this even happening for us, so like I said, I assume this was the bug that they hotfixed, because I can't see anything strange about their method (the original kited Big Ooze gets a second Big Ooze fed to it, then the third matchup they both despawn).

<object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mTNteATtcDE&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mTNteATtcDE&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object>

Here's another example using the same bug (see 1:48-1:53 for the first occurence). Unfortunately that somewhat soils the entire thing but still worth watching to get a feel for a central setup.

<object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OXblQZJJSXs&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OXblQZJJSXs&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object>

This is the only example I could find that doesn't seem to abuse the "merge bug." It's also a great example of sort of what I expect Khrash to be able to do as a Paladin kiting for this fight. This team doesn't merge every 2 into a Big Ooze before allowing it to meet with the kited Big Ooze, and instead just drops singles, but it worked for them.

The big things to take home is the paladin's methods (for Khrash), using his own heals and ranged attacks to keep agro and help himself survive even through slime. Also, their method of despawning Rotface at the start to get position is a great idea and something we should employ as well.

<object width="480" height="387"><param name="movie" value="http://www.wegame.com/static/flash/player.swf?xmlrequest=http://www.wegame.com//player/video/rotface-dances-with-oozes-10"></param><param name="flashVars" value="xmlrequest=http://www.wegame.com/player/video/rotface-dances-with-oozes-10&embedPlayer=true"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.wegame.com/static/flash/player.swf?xmlrequest=http://www.wegame.com/player/video/rotface-dances-with-oozes-10&embedPlayer=true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="387"></embed></object><div style="display: block; font-size: 11px">Watch more videos of <a href="http://www.wegame.com/games/wow/" target="_blank">WoW</a></div>

[Wildhide]

Rotface's health was just hotfixed, 15% less now:

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/22418863610-rotface-nerfed.html

Yay?

[Kulldam]

Rotface's health was just hotfixed, 15% less now:

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/22418863610-rotface-nerfed.html

Yay?

Interesting...

This makes me think all the more a solo-healer (1.5 really with Khrash kiting) is the way to go and just try for a burn.

Glad we didn't burn our entire raid week on Wednesday night this time!

[Thawfore]

Putricide fight animation... a bit funny and a bit serious

http://i46.tinypic.com/14sd16p.gif

Version2: http://i47.tinypic.com/xqet8h.jpg

[Rofldat]

About raid damage from Putricide's debuffs in p3.

After looking up the debuffs on wowhead. Rather than it working from the combined stacks on both tanks. It seems to be just the debuffs ticking from both tank that's doing the damage. So while we have say Kull 2 stacks and Khrash 4 stacks. It's not 6-stacks damage we're taking, it's 2 stacks + 4 stacks(because the debuff's damage is exponential, this is not the same as 6 stacks on one tank.)

I do have an idea on how to increase damage done to the gas cloud on Putricide, but still uncertain on the ooze so until I figure out something besides "need better gears"(we will most likely need it already) I'll keep on pondering.

[Kulldam]

Following up on Rofl's post, I looked through our logs and found the simple formula that determines the damage increase from Mutated Plague.

First, this URL (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/1ega92iizaud1q1r/xe/?s=11129&e=11715&x=spell%3D%22Mutated+Plague%22+and+(fulltype%3DSPE LL_AURA_APPLIED+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA_APPLIED_D OSE+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_DAMAGE)+and+(targetname%3D %22Kulldam%22+or+targetname%3D%22Kheelan%22+or+tar getname%3D%22Khrashdin%22)) shows the stack counts on both Khrash and me, and I picked Kheelan to display the damage dealt to the raid as he has no damage reductions and takes the base value damage each time.

Based on that we get the following chart showing the damage dealt to the raid by each tank for each stack of Mutated Plague:

stack #|damage tick (kull)|damage tick (khrash)
1|182|186
2|455|464
3|1137|1160
4|2842|2898
5|7105|7246
6||18116

I couldn't find a 6 stack but me in the logs, but it doesn't matter, as determining the next value just requires multiplying the previous value by 2.5. In Khrash's column:
186 * 2.5 = 465
464 * 2.5 = 1160
1160 * 2.5 = 2900, etc.

One strange thing is that the damage differs slightly from Kulldam and Khrash having the debuff. It's very minor and won't change our strategy at all, but it must somehow work around our talents before applying damage to the raid and Khrash has more damage multipliers or something.

At any rate, we'll obviously improve as time passes and our DPS increases, making Phase 3 even shorter, but we definitely need to find a reliable way to avoid making the jump to that 5th stack on either tank.

It's also worth noting that this damage is completely unresistable (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/1ega92iizaud1q1r/xe/?s=15314&e=15762&x=spell%3D"Mutated+Plague"+and+(fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA_APPLIED+or+fulltype%3D SPELL_AURA_APPLIED_DOSE+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_DAMAGE )+and+(targetname%3D"Kulldam"+or+targetname%3D"Kheelan"+or+targetname%3D"Khrashdin")) according to our logs, so while resists may help other parts of the fight, for Mutated Plague it does nothing.

Finally, one big flaw in logic we made was assuming a few incorrect things about the Mutated Plague Heal (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72745) that goes off when a tank dies or the Mutated Plague debuff expires.

First, we incorrectly assumed it was not affected by Wound Poison/healing debuffs. Second, we didn't notice it healed for 300,000 per stack of the expiring debuff, rather than 300,000 total.

Example 1 (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/1ega92iizaud1q1r/xe/?s=12936&e=13440&x=(type%3DTYPE_HEAL+and+targetreaction%3DREACTION_ HOSTILE+or+(spell%3D%22Mutated+Plague%22+and+(full type%3DSPELL_AURA_APPLIED+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA _APPLIED_DOSE+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA_REMOVED)))+ or+(type%3DTYPE_DEATH+and+targetreaction%3DREACTIO N_FRIENDLY+and+(targetname%3D%22Khrashdin%22+or+ta rgetname%3D%22Kulldam%22+or+targetname%3D%22Mattin gly%22))+or+(spell%3D%22Wound+Poison+VII%22+and+ta rgetname%3D%22Professor+Putricide%22+and+(fulltype %3DSPELL_AURA_APPLIED+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA_REM OVED))): 4-stack & 3-stack Heal, with Wound Poison (50%) active

Example 2 (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/1ega92iizaud1q1r/xe/?s=14550&e=15018&x=(type%3DTYPE_HEAL+and+targetreaction%3DREACTION_ HOSTILE+or+(spell%3D%22Mutated+Plague%22+and+(full type%3DSPELL_AURA_APPLIED+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA _APPLIED_DOSE+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA_REMOVED)))+ or+(type%3DTYPE_DEATH+and+targetreaction%3DREACTIO N_FRIENDLY+and+(targetname%3D%22Khrashdin%22+or+ta rgetname%3D%22Kulldam%22+or+targetname%3D%22Mattin gly%22+or+targetname%3D%22Fideslol%22))+or+(spell% 3D%22Wound+Poison+VII%22+and+targetname%3D%22Profe ssor+Putricide%22+and+(fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA_APPLI ED+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA_REMOVED))+or+(spell%3D %22Improved+Mind+Blast%22+and+targetname%3D%22Prof essor+Putricide%22+and+(fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA_APPL IED+or+fulltype%3DSPELL_AURA_REMOVED))): 2-stack, 1-stack, & 6-stack heal without Wound Poison (50% reduction) but with Improved Mind Blast (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=15316) (20% reduction)

As you can see in the above examples, healing reducers do in fact affect his heal. Further, the 300,000 is a per-stack basis, so the question is how do we manage without letting the stack reach 5+ (and thus too much damage to reliably heal) but still not let the heal push back our kill time too severely.

3,416,000 health to start Phase 3
Took us 87 seconds to burn through Phase 3
39,264 RDPS


[22:47:42.386] Khrashdin afflicted by Mutated Plague from Professor Putricide
[22:47:53.211] Khrashdin afflicted by Mutated Plague (2) from Professor Putricide
[22:48:03.269] Khrashdin afflicted by Mutated Plague (3) from Professor Putricide
[22:48:14.140] Khrashdin afflicted by Mutated Plague (4) from Professor Putricide
[22:48:24.140] Khrashdin afflicted by Mutated Plague (5) from Professor Putricide
[22:48:35.044] Kulldam afflicted by Mutated Plague from Professor Putricide
[22:48:45.450] Kulldam afflicted by Mutated Plague (2) from Professor Putricide
[22:48:56.276] Kulldam afflicted by Mutated Plague (3) from Professor Putricide
[22:49:06.824] Kulldam afflicted by Mutated Plague (4) from Professor Putricide
[22:49:09.186] Professor Putridice dies.

If first tank (Khrashdin) reached 4 stacks then Kulldam took over (thus Kulldam would get first stack at the 22:48:24 marker), Kulldam would reach 4 stacks at 22:48:56. At this point, just as Kulldam reaches 4 stacks at 22:48:56, Khrashdin still has 26 seconds left on his Mutated Plague debuff. Further, at 22:49:06, 10 seconds later, a new stack must be applied to one of our tanks, both of which have 4 stack currently.

There are two ways we could potentially deal with this:

Option 1 is to purposely have Tank 1 (Khrashdin in the above example) run off into a slime puddle after 4 stacks and not get heals/die, causing a 600,000 heal but after battle res, ensuring his Mutated Plague stack is reset back to zero. Based on our above DPS, another 600,000 HP to burn through would add another 15.2 seconds to the fight. Now our DPS is inflated above due to Bloodlust for half of it, so lets be generous and say 20 seconds longer from that 600,000 heal.

This means when Kulldam in the above scenario hits 4 stacks at 22:48:56, and Khrashdin (now ressed/rebuffed) takes back over, we have 49 seconds to finish Putricide off before a 5th stack would apply again. The extra 20 seconds would draw the fight out from ending at 22:49:09 to 22:49:29, which is 33 seconds after the 22:48:56 marker we had previously, or well within the 49 second timeframe we had planned.

Even so, this method requires better management of slime pools going into and throughout Phase 3 as we'll need a safe place to position during those extra 20 seconds we're tacking onto the fight.

Option 2 is to have a specific DPS grab agro JUST before a 5th stack is about to land (above, taunting at 22:48:22 or so, 2 seconds prior to when the 5th stack would hit Khrashdin), blowing helpful cooldowns to keep that DPS alive those few seconds, and then having the new tank taunt just after the DPS grabs that Mutated Plague stack.

For example, we know the plague stacks every 10 seconds, so we can easily countdown to having Rofldat Taunt just before the 5th stack. Divine Guardian/Divine Sacrifice from Khrashdin and Hand of Sacrifice from Thawfore *may* be enough to let Rofl survive 3-4 seconds of melee until he gets a single Mutated Plague stack at which point Kulldam, tank #2, taunts and continues from there. Unfortunately, this means we're letting the first tank's stack expire 10 seconds earlier than usual, which in the above log from our kill, means we would've hit a 600,000 heal (1.2 mill actually since we had no wound up) if the fight had lasted 5 seconds longer.

Still, we can find solutions to these problems. One possible solution is something Wild touched on, by having the tanks swap more frequently. Doing this won't affect raid damage intake near the end of the fight (we'll still end up with 4-stack, 4-stack, 1-stack on three targets), but it would allow us to prevent ever getting close to letting a stack drop and causing a heal. Something like this:

Cast #|Target|Target Stack Count
1|Khrashdin|1
2|Khrashdin|2
3|Kulldam|1
4|Kulldam|2
5|Khrashdin|3
6|Rofldat|1
7|Kulldam|3
8|Kulldam|4
9|Khrashdin|4

Obviously this complicates the process a great deal, especially healing during tank swaps, but if manageable, we'd never have to worry about a heal going off.

All in all, as I said before, this fight will only become easier and we'll soon get to the point where none of this fancy transitioning is required as our DPS will drop him before a 9th stack can go off regardless of the tank.

[Kulldam]

Notes on The Blood Council & The Orb Whisperer (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4582):

When the original PTR videos were released, this seemed a very confusing fight, but after looking things over in detail for quite a while, it seems actually to be simpler than I thought.


There are three bosses (Princes) that must be tanked at all times.
Each Prince has a two primary special attacks.
One of these special attacks will become "Empowered" whenever that particular Prince has the Invocation of Blood (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70982) buff. Only one Prince will have Invocation of Blood (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70982) at any given time, and it rotates between Princes every ~45 seconds.
The Princes share one health pool, and that health pool will "travel" with the Invocation of Blood target. When a Prince has no Invocation of Blood (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70982), it's health drops to 1 HP and is unkillable. Therefore, DPS must attack the Invocation of Blood (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70982) target Prince and rotate with the transition.


For full details on each Prince's abilities, rather than write it all up, I'll just let you look through the ability list on MMO-Champion's article here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=891

Tanking

Due to the requirement of 3 "tanks", Prince Keleseth has luckily been designed as a non-melee NPC, so he only uses ranged attacks and can be tanked by a DPS member.

Due to the 15% damage reduction of Shadowform (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=15473), it's likely ideal for our raid to have Fides be the Keleseth tank for this encounter, as the 15% reduction is only 1% lower than the spell damage reduction I'd have as a tank. Obviously health pool and cooldowns are not quite as strong, but I suspect trying to tank both the other two Princes with one person and more importantly, stacked on each other, would present some major headaches for the rest of the raid, especially melee DPS.

Therefore, our current tanking plan is:

Kulldam on Valanar
Khrashdin on Taldamar
Fides on Keleseth

Obtaining the Achievement: The Orb Whisperer (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4582)

Looking over the ability list and damage values on each, it appears likely the only ability that this achievement is meant to challenge the raid on reducing is Prince Keleseth's Empowered Shadow Lance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71815). Everything else seems normally survivable (except perhaps empowered Flame Explosion, but no tooltip information indicates the actual value of that hit).

Normally, Keleseth will chain cast Shadow Lance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71405) as his main attack on Fides, which obviously is under the 23,000 damage limit before resists. However, when Keleseth has Invocation of Blood (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70982), he instead chain casts the Empowered Shadow Lance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71815), which must be mitigated to succeed in the achievement.

Dark Nuclei: Controlling the Adds

Every 15 seconds, Keleseth will cast Shadow Resonance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71943), which summons a floating Dark Nuclei which, much like the Constellations on Algalon, do not seem to use any sort of melee attacks. Instead, Dark Nuclei will target the nearest player character and channel a different Shadow Resonance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71822), dealing 1,000 damage per tick on the player and lowering the incoming shadow damage on the player by 35%.

It appears Nuclei have normal threat mechanics and thus must be agroed by Fides upon spawning with a spell or two to get them near him before focusing back on his boss target.

The Nuclei also deal damage to themselves, similar to Collapsing Stars on Algalon, but I cannot confirm the rate they damage themselves (assuming 1% per sec, as they have exactly 100,000 health in 25-man so 1,000 a sec would make sense). Also, it must be considered if Nuclei that are absorbing damage on a player take the damage they absorb via the 35% reduction thus lowering their health drop by spikes (rather than just a constant 1% or whatever reduction).

Nuclei management will be a fairly simple process:


Upon a new Nuclei spawn, Fides will quickly find it around the room, throw a DoT and/or Nuke to get initial agro, then pull it back to his designated tank location and make sure he's the closest target so it begins channeling Shadow Resonance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71822) on him alone.
This process repeats, ensuring Fides has all active Nuclei channeling on him at all times.


Unfortunately, I was only able to find one video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyAw4yT-aUU&feature=player_embedded) of this fight long enough to give some indication of how exactly Shadow Resonance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71822) works.

The first, and most important thing to note, is that multiple stacks of Shadow Resonance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71822) are not additive, meaning Fides won't cap at 100% shadow absorb and therefore take zero damage during Empowerment. Instead, the Keleseth tank is taking spikes of 30-50% of his total health in the 25-man video I found. Warlocks with full HP buffs have what, 28-29k HP?

If so, a hit for 50% would be about 14.5k, so lets say 15k to be safe. This means the unmitigated Empowered Shadow Lance hit is being reduced by 83% or so, even though at the time, there were some four Nuclei channeling Shadow Resonance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71822) on the tank at the time. Therefore, it must be assumed the 35% reductions are multiplicative, and thus in the above example, came out to something like:

87500 initial damage less 35% = 56875
56875 * 0.65 = 36968.75
36968.75 * 0.65 = 24029.6875
24029.6875 * 0.65 = 15619.296875

Four multiplicative 35% channel effects processing in turn comes out to 15,619 damage per hit, which is fairly close to my 15k estimate above.

Now, that doesn't account for resistances or Fides' 15% Shadowform reduction, but to be safe we'll continue calculating without any such benefits.

For 10-man spells, the Empowered Shadow Lance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71815) damage based on number of Shadow Resonance (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71822) stacks is as follows:

Shadow Resonance Stack Count|% Damage Reduction|Lance Damage|Damage After Shadowform
0|0%|80,000|68,000
1|35%|52,000|44,200
2|57.75%|33,800|28,730
3|72.54%|21,968|18,672
4|82.15%|14,280|12,138
5|88.34%|9,328|7,928


Unfortunately I don't know when Shadow Resist would come into play here, since the buff from Resonance is not resist, but is pure damage reduction. In any event, 130 SR would give another 10% or so off those somewhere.

Therefore, it's safe to assume we'll need 3 Nuclei on Fides at all times when Keleseth is Invocated/buffed to ensure not only that he can survive the hits but that we don't go over the 23,000 damage limit.

Based on the two videos I saw, it seems Invocation always starts on Valanar, but then can pass randomly to either of the other two Princes next. It may be a simple matter of luck whether we are lucky and it passes to Taldaram second, or whether it instead goes to Keleseth second. If Keleseth gets the second Invocation, there will not be enough Nuclei spawned yet to ensure Fides can survive the Empowered damage, let alone meet the achievement requirements. Then again, resists may cut it close, since pre-resist it's 28.7k. Still, obviously "normally" doing the fight without the achievement is intended for a high health target (tank or otherwise) to take Keleseth so even with just the initial 2 Nuclei channels, if Keleseth gets the first Invocation, the tank can still survive.

At any rate, this doesn't seem like it will be too difficult of an achievement, relatively speaking. Time will tell!

[Rofldat]

Blood Queen's observation from PTR video/reading the skills on MMO-champ:
-The tank swap mechanic is basicly Gormok's impale again.(based on the number and duration, it seems to be 2-stacks swap)

-Blood mirror makes the person closest to the MT to take the same amount of damage as him, so the OT will basicly stands on top of MT to avoid anyone else getting it.(This also means Holy Pally is instant win on this)

-She has Saurfang's style Blood Nova(dmg a target + anyone near that target)

-Also Lord Jaraxx's Legion Flame, though it also seemingly proc http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/72985/swarming-shadows/ (wowhead's comment says otherwise, that it's vampire's bite that make you generate 0 threat)

-raid-wide damage aura, which increases in damage as more people are bitten

-the opposite of Mother Shahraz's Fatal Attraction, a debuff that do AoE damage the linked players(you see red beams leading to other players) get close together.

-the vampire buff(100% dmg, 15% lifesteal, 60s duration like Steelbreaker's buff) that after it runs out give you 10s to bite someone else(does 10k+ dmg to the person, and give them the buff too) or you'll get MC(after you bite the person, your debuff refresh to 60s)
--the way it's described right now means that you effectively must defeat her in 4 minutes after the first person getting bite or you'll have no more people to bite and someone gets MC'd(since the debuffs doesn't get removed, you get 1->2->4->8->only 2 person not bitten so 6 people will go berserk or have to sacrifice themselves)
---though if biting another player give him the debuff and remove yours, and that she simply bite more people over time, then the enrage timer will depends on how often she bite someone

-every 2 minutes or so she'll fly into the air and bombard everyone with damage, somewhat like Kazzak(it's 3 barrages of her blood bolt).

I can't confirm if dying/bubbles will remove the debuff or not, but otherwise the vampire bite and the raid wide aura will be her soft-enrage mechanics.
If dying do remove the debuff, I wonder what'll happens when the first person to get bitten(assuming she doesn't bite anyone else after the first) simply die to avoid spreading the debuff.

If we obliterate Professor Putricide again(0 wipes), I'd like to do first attempt seriously to make sure we can kill her normally. Then intentionally wipe to test out anything that might be necessary for getting the achievement(ideally we should want 5 or less people to be turned into vampire, so the other 5 can get their turn in the next week)

Since Khee and Thaw can swap their duty of DPS/Heal, I guess one of them is on the list of "not bitten" and the other "must be bitten" so the next week they can swap role and get the missing part from their achievement.

[Rofldat]

Some ideas on Heartburn(Putricide):
1. Someone else be abom - based on some comment I read, it seems that the abomination's attack do much more damage when it's a DPS riding it. If this is true then someone like Thaw(mainly because he's 2H user) can be Abom and just start meleeing the ooze as soon as it spawns.

2. Range DPS don't get close - Basicly, since the time while we're flying back from the explosion nobody could really do any damage to the ooze, we lose quite a lot of damage on it. So what I suggest is that after the green ooze picks a target, have the rest of range DPS spread out to avoid the explosion, and only the melees soak the explosion(and maybe 1 of the healer, if the damage threaten to kill Matt with only melee)
Hopefully this will let us kill off the green ooze before it picks/reaches a second target.

The orange cloud is simpler, since it's just buying as much time as possible before it reaches the target(supposedly you WILL ends up with at least 1 hit as well, but with enough kiting the stack will be low enough to not be lethal, and again the DPS should be enough to kill it before a second target is picked)


Though if we're going to attempt this, maybe we should clear the Crimson Halls first(without spending any wipe on the blood queen, if all goes well and we can get 5 or less people becoming vampire when killing her) then use the remaining attempts for this.

[Khrash]

When being the Abom I was seeing hits from 7-15k.

The only thing to keep in mind is my time in combat is quite short. I can only melee the slime while heading towards the next slime pool to eat it. You cannot melee the slime too long or you cannot finish eating the 2 slime pools before the next slime spawn. Eating slime is pretty static assuming I get there ASAP. Each global cooldown eats (I would guess) 20% of the pool. It takes about 5 'eating' to complete 1 pool and there are 2 pools to eat.

I cannot be anything but Protection for this fight and my DPS would be laughable at best.

I think putting a DPS on the Abom sounds like a good idea, but there is not enough in combat time to make up for much of anything in my opinion.

[Kulldam]

IF NOTHING ELSE, PLEASE READ THE POSITIONING SECTION BELOW

Thanks for taking the time to write up some stuff on Blood-Queen Lana'thel Rofl. A have a few corrections and some additional information to add.


-The tank swap mechanic is basicly Gormok's impale again.(based on the number and duration, it seems to be 2-stacks swap)

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71623


-Blood mirror makes the person closest to the MT to take the same amount of damage as him, so the OT will basicly stands on top of MT to avoid anyone else getting it.(This also means Holy Pally is instant win on this)

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71510


-Also Lord Jaraxx's Legion Flame, though it also seemingly proc http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/72985/swarming-shadows/ (wowhead's comment says otherwise, that it's vampire's bite that make you generate 0 threat)

I think you typed before your brain caught up with your fingers, because the above seems like multiple thoughts and makes little sense. :p Still, Swarming Shadows (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71265) is the Jaraxxus-style effect randomly cast on a raid member. As with Legion Flames, it must be "kited" away from the raid for six seconds, after which the raid member can move back to as close to original position as possible.


-raid-wide damage aura, which increases in damage as more people are bitten

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72981 & http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70995


-the opposite of Mother Shahraz's Fatal Attraction, a debuff that do AoE damage the linked players(you see red beams leading to other players) get close together.

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71340


-the vampire buff(100% dmg, 15% lifesteal, 60s duration like Steelbreaker's buff) that after it runs out give you 10s to bite someone else(does 10k+ dmg to the person, and give them the buff too) or you'll get MC(after you bite the person, your debuff refresh to 60s)
--the way it's described right now means that you effectively must defeat her in 4 minutes after the first person getting bite or you'll have no more people to bite and someone gets MC'd(since the debuffs doesn't get removed, you get 1->2->4->8->only 2 person not bitten so 6 people will go berserk or have to sacrifice themselves)
---though if biting another player give him the debuff and remove yours, and that she simply bite more people over time, then the enrage timer will depends on how often she bite someone

My understanding is she'll only Bite a random player once near the start of the fight, then the exponential increase takes care of itself. Assuming it takes ~5 seconds from when Frenzied Bloodthirst is active on a Bitten player to when they actually Bite a new target, that means each Bite phase is ~65 seconds. This means, as you point out, the maximum we can reach is 8 Vampires, with 2 people leftover. This means a fight time of 275 seconds maximum (maybe 280 as charms will kick in and wiping takes a while), or 4:40 total.

Anyway we slice it, I can't calculate a scenario where we wouldn't easily meet the enrage timer on this fight. Using our DPS from our recent Rotface kill, I come up with the following DPS timeline assuming worst case scenario (a healer gets the initial Bite):

Time|Status|Kull|Khrash|Matt|Khee/Thaw|Fides|Rofl|Ugra|Kil|Total
15||2400|2400|8500|6600|6000|5600|5400|5300|633000
75|1 Vamp|2400|2400|8500|6600|6000|5600|5400|5300|25320 00
80|1 Searching|2400|2400|8500|6600|6000|5600|5400|5300| 211000
140|2 Vamp|2400|2400|17000|6600|6000|5600|5400|5300|3042 000
145|2 Searching|2400|2400|17000|6600|6000|5600|5400|5300 |253500
205|4 Vamp|2400|2400|17000|13000|12000|5600|5400|5300|37 86000
210|4 Searching|2400|2400|17000|13000|12000|5600|5400|53 00|315500
270|8 Vamp|2400|2400|17000|13000|12000|11200|10800|10600 |4764000
275|8 Searching|2400|2400|17000|13000|12000|11200|10800| 10600|397000
280|Charm|2400|2400|17000|13000|12000|11200|10800| 10600|397000
||||||||||
|||||||||Total Damage:|16331000
|||||||||HP Remaining:|-2131000

This illustrates that at the 270 second mark, our total damage dealt would be ~15.5 million, or 1.3 million higher than necessary. Furthermore, if we look at a more likely scenario (where a DPS gets the initial Bite), it looks more like this:

Time|Status|Kull|Khrash|Matt|Khee/Thaw|Fides (1st Vamp)|Rofl|Ugra|Kil|Total
15||2400|2400|8500|6600|6000|5600|5400|5300|633000
75|1 Vamp|2400|2400|8500|6600|12000|5600|5400|5300|2892 000
80|1 Searching|2400|2400|8500|6600|12000|5600|5400|5300 |241000
140|2 Vamp|2400|2400|17000|6600|12000|5600|5400|5300|340 2000
145|2 Searching|2400|2400|17000|6600|12000|5600|5400|530 0|283500
205|4 Vamp|2400|2400|17000|13200|12000|11200|5400|5300|4 134000
210|4 Searching|2400|2400|17000|13200|12000|11200|5400|5 300|344500
270|8 Vamp|2400|2400|17000|13200|12000|11200|5400|5300|4 134000
275|8 Searching|2400|2400|17000|13200|12000|11200|5400|5 300|344500
280|Charm|2400|2400|17000|13200|12000|11200|5400|5 300|344500
||||||||||
|||||||||Total Damage:|16753000
|||||||||HP Remaining:|-2553000


In this case (where a middle-of-the-pack DPS player gets the initial Bite), we do nearly 16.1 million by the 270 mark. In fact, if a DPS gets the initial Bite, we could even remove one DPS player entirely (thus using 3 healers) and still reach ~14.6 million by the 270 sec mark; close, but over our threshold to be sure.

Moreover, these numbers are very crude as the fight mechanics obviously differ from Rotface to Lana'thel, and the 100% damage boost from Bite is not simply a plain 100% increase in damage, but a fair bit more due to crit scaling and other mechanics specific to each class.

Having said all that, it's difficult to estimate what our actual damage will be in a live situation on paper, but I suspect it will be some time before we can kill Lana'thel before the 200 second mark (the point which our current 4 Vampires would have to bite 4 more targets). Therefore, it seems unlikely we'll be able to consistently get more than 2 people this achievement a week. That said, it should be a very simple and reliable process to get those 2 done in a rotating manner.

Positioning - Please Read

The big thing on this fight seems to be positioning. As mentioned, it has elements of previous fights, which require careful raid spread and safe exit strategies for everyone in the raid, similar to Lord Jaraxxus. Therefore, I've put together a simple set of diagrams to illustrate how I think we could best position for this fight (Note: these diagrams assume 2 healers, but if we find 3 healers is easier/required, simply replace the central ranged dps with a healer and everything else remains the same).

Take a look at the attachment for a screencap of the room to get a visual idea in-game of what is being represented in the presentation below. The scale indicator is approximate but close enough for our purposes, however it should be noted that the presentation orients the room such that the arrows are N-E-S-W whereas in-game they are actually NE-SE-SW-NW. A minor change to make things easier to see visually, but in-game won't change anything once we try it out.

The presentation can be viewed below, or click here (http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dccp4mjw_51cw5fbjdj) to view in full screen.

<iframe src="http://docs.google.com/present/embed?id=dccp4mjw_51cw5fbjdj&interval=60&size=l" frameborder="0" width="700" height="559"></iframe>

The reasoning behind these positions is due to the three requirements:

All ranged/healers must be 10+ yards apart at all times to avoid spreading damage from Twilight Bloodbath (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71446).
All non-tank players must have a safe exit path (in this case, straight backwards toward the wall) when afflicted with Swarming Shadows (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71265), leaving a trail of Shadow flame behind them for six seconds similar to Jaraxxus' Legion Flame.
All non-tank players must have a relatively empty path between themselves and every other non-tank player should they be afflicted with Pact of the Darkfallen (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71340). As Rofl mentioned, Pact targets two random players and a red beam will connect the two. They pulse a short range AE damage effect until the two players get within 5 yards of each other, whereupon the Pact removes itself.


Knowing all that, this is the best positioning I could come up with. It gives everyone out of melee plenty of distance from each other to avoid chaining AE from Bloodbath. This also applies in Phase 2/Flight Phase where positions can be slightly altered for melee and the MT while the rest can remain stationary to heal/continue DPSing while she's hovering.

Any two randomly selected non-tanks will have no one or at most, only the tanks, standing between them and their meet up partner/the center of the room. This also allows healers Pacted with a DPS to remain stationary and focus on healing rather than moving around to find Pact partners.

Finally, escape paths are identically setup to that of Jaraxxus (except Melee and tanks are swapped so that melee can run straight out without covering the center of the floor, which is the ranged + melee Pact meet-up spot, with Shadow flame), making learning very simple.

[Rofldat]

Blood Queen got nerfed, she's going to be just a loot whore now.

* Blood Queen Lana’thel will only be available after the Blood Prince Council is defeated.
* Blood Queen Lana’thel's Essence has a longer duration.
* Kinetic Bombs no longer aggro Blood Queen Lana’thel during the Blood Princes encounter.
* Blood Queen Lanathel should no longer cast Vampiric Bite on pets.

If my guess is correct, I'd say the buff duration increases to either 75s or 90s(from 60) which means she'll hit her berserk (estimated 315s by some people) before anyone actually get charmed from not having a biting target.

An alternative option(doubt it) is to make it 120s(conciding with her flight) but double the initial bitten targets(so it's 2->4->8 and enrage before the next bite)

Also, this video use an interesting trick, which relates to how dying(and I'm guessing bubble too) removed the vampiric bite.
Though with the changes to the buff, using this trick will result in DPS loss and might hit enrage timer, thus no longer viable with the fix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6VMysQNIZM&feature=player_embedded

EDIT: An amusing thought just came to my mind, maybe the 60s duration buff is for heroic mode(and maybe more HP), if so, we just got our tactic for heroic mode done already.
EDIT: Another batch of "fix" to Crimson wing

Blood Prince Council

* Prince Keleseth will no longer melee players. So if you get knocked into Keleseth or happen to move by him, he won't swipe in between his casts and kill a non-tank.
* The first Shadow Resonance should appear earlier in the fight, which will allow the Keleseth tank to have more orbs on him or her if Keleseth is empowered second instead of third. We didn't want which Blood Prince was empowered second to be a major element of the difficulty in the fight.
* We reduced the melee damage for the Princes by 10% for the 10 player difficulty. They were doing less damage than the 25 player before the hotfix, but this change lowers the damage further.
* Empowered Flames will now run out of power after shooting fewer firebolts in the 10 player difficulty. We did not change the initial impact damage.


Blood-Queen Lana'thel

* The Blood-Queen is no longer spawned until the Blood Princes dies. This will prevent any unfortunate entry of her highness while a raid is fighting the Blood Princes. The initial hotfix for this causes the Blood-Queen to not spawn at all in a particular circumstance, but this was also fixed last night.
* We increased the duration of Essence of the Blood Queen to 60 seconds in 25 player difficulty, and 75 seconds in 10 player difficulty. A strategy developed for managing the Essences throughout the fight that involved intentionally killing a player, and this change addresses that strategy. The new timing does interact with some of her other abilities in new ways, but there are methods that players have to lessen that impact.

[Kulldam]

Seems like the limiter now will be he hard enrage rather than the charm limitations, which seems rather inelegant compared to the fairly tight balance it was set at before, but I suppose if Normal is meant to be more accessible, the previous DPS check was pretty unforgiving for even moderately undergeared raids.

Didn't expect the Blood Council damage reduction nerfs though -- that one struck me as pretty on the money in terms of balance.

[Wildhide]

Some of my thoughts on the Frostwing Halls achievements:

Portal Jockey (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4579):
From videos, it looks like she spawns 3 portals every ~20 seconds. I am not sure if portals despawn over time, but it would make sense if they did (thus the difficulty of the achievement). Anyways, jumping in a portal despawns said portal, and upon entering a portal you gain a debuff that will kick you out of the "dream world" after 20 seconds - there doesn't seem to be any way to prematurely leave the dream world.

When inside, you can fly around the room killing dream clouds. The clouds are in a circle around Valithria about 20-30 yards in the air. They have very little HP (40ish?) and look like clouds of green gas. Killing them gives you Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) which stacks to 100 and lasts for 35 seconds. The clouds seem to have a quick respawn rate, so more than one person in the dream world will not limit how quickly they gain emerald vigor.

So, depending on how quickly the portals spawn. We may need to have two groups of portal jumpers. Group one should consist of two healers (myself and Khee) and one DPS, and group two should consist of two DPS and a third healer (Ugra, assuming we use 3 healers for the fight). Depending on portal timing, these two groups could alternate portal set spawns while also not letting their stack of Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) drop off. That would ensure that these 6 players would become increasingly stronger as the fight goes on.

Also, when Valithria is just about fully healed (ending the fight), we may want to stop heals on her to prevent new portals spawning just as the fight ends. Obviously, we can just enter the 3 new portals and then "finish" her off.

All You Can Eat (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4580):
This one seems a bit difficult to execute and has some randomness involved. I won't go over the whole fight, since I am too lazy and lack Kull's penmanship.

Anyways, the point of the achievement is to prevent Mystic Buffet (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70128) from stacking beyond 4. This spell is cast on the whole raid every 5 seconds during phase 3. It only affects those who are in line of sight of Sindragosa, so, obviously, we want to somehow get out of line of sight to reset the debuff stack (much like Forgemaster Garfrost in Pit of Saron).

During phase 3 she will continue to cast Frost Beacon (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70126) on the raid. Once the beacon expires the targeted player and anyone within 10 yards will be hit by Ice Tomb (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70157) and begin to take damage every second due to Asphyxiation (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71665). This tomb is much like the tomb cast by Sapphiron; it blocks line of sight, allowing us to reset our Mystic Buffet stacks.

So, the general strategy seems to involve someone staying Ice Tombed for the duration of the 3rd phase - allowing the remaining raid members to use the ice tomb to reset their stacks.

However, this is not as simple as it seems. We will need to use two tanks to ensure that the current Sindragosa tank doesn't receive more than 4 stacks of the buffet. The offtank will have to taunt as soon as the main tank receives their 3rd or 4th stack of mystic buffet. I say 3rd or 4th stack, because depending on how Ice Tomb protects (or doesn't) the tombed target will determine how far the Ice Tomb must be from Sindragosa.

Throughout the fight, Sind will cast Icy Grip (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70117) which pulls the raid into melee range. This is followed by Blistering Cold (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70123) which is a 5 second cast that hits everyone in 25 yards for 30k frost damage. This spell creates complications.

If the Ice Tombed target can be hit by Blistering Cold (they appear to not be affected by Icy Grip), they will need to be at least 25 yards from Sindragosa. This will cause our tanks to have to taunt at the 3rd stack of mystic buffet, so the previous tank has enough time to run the 25 yards and behind the tomb to reset their stack.

If the Ice Tombed target doesn't take damage from Blistering Cold, then they can be a bit closer to Sindragosa. However, being too close could cause them (and anyone hiding behind them) to get cleaved during a tank switch or even not during one.

Also, during tank switches, positioning Sind could get hairy. She might move too close/far from the tomb, she might decide to cleave half the raid's face, or she might do nothing.

Another thing, raid members will have to be aware of their stacks at the time of a Icy Grip cast. Assuming Icy Grip can pull you through a tomb (that I believe is solid and cannot be walked through), you may run into a problem where you were about to reset your debuff stack and get pulled into line of sight by Icy Grip thereby giving you another stack. Yeah.

All this sounds difficult in my eyes. I also failed to mention how threat might be an issue with all the tank switching, and taunt DR might come into play.

Anyone have any thoughts on this one?

[Fideslol]

I just watched the PTR video of Valithria Dreamwalker (By Alpha of Greymane) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s2MyVHAiJ0&feature=player_embedded It's from the PoV of one of the tanks. It doesn't give much info in the way of getting the achievement, but I did find the general chat interesting. At 6:12 you can read in general chat "Cause if the dps don't get buff, adds get out of hand" (When talking about using the portals) Not sure if we'll have any issues when it comes to dps, but with Kull's theory of four healing (three healers constantly jumping into portals and one healer staying out on raid) we may become overwhelmed.

[Kulldam]

Some of my thoughts on the Frostwing Halls achievements:

Portal Jockey (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4579):
From videos, it looks like she spawns 3 portals every ~20 seconds.

Actually it looks like portals spawn every 45 seconds. The "green markers" that indicate where a portal will spawn come 15 seconds before the portals actually open and are useable.


I am not sure if portals despawn over time, but it would make sense if they did (thus the difficulty of the achievement).

Aye, they despawn after 10 seconds of being "active" or immediately upon use. So the full timing seems to be:

Time|Portal Set #|Status
0:30|1|Position Indicators
0:45|1|Portals Active
0:55|1|Portals Despawn
1:15|2|Position Indicators
1:30|2|Portals Active
1:40|2|Portals Despawn

And so on. Check out the following video for some good timing examples, as sometimes the recorder uses portals, and sometimes not:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGLT7A-JBRY


When inside, you can fly around the room killing dream clouds. The clouds are in a circle around Valithria about 20-30 yards in the air. They have very little HP (40ish?) and look like clouds of green gas. Killing them gives you Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) which stacks to 100 and lasts for 35 seconds. The clouds seem to have a quick respawn rate, so more than one person in the dream world will not limit how quickly they gain emerald vigor.

Are you sure they must be attacked? It looks like people just fly near enough to them and they explode, but I can't say for 100%. I do know that if it can be managed, multiple people can gain the buff from a single explosion if they're both in range, though that may prove more hassle than it's worth.


So, depending on how quickly the portals spawn. We may need to have two groups of portal jumpers. Group one should consist of two healers (myself and Khee) and one DPS, and group two should consist of two DPS and a third healer (Ugra, assuming we use 3 healers for the fight). Depending on portal timing, these two groups could alternate portal set spawns while also not letting their stack of Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) drop off. That would ensure that these 6 players would become increasingly stronger as the fight goes on.

Well, as mentioned portal spawns are 45 seconds. The "dream phase" lasts 20 seconds as you mentioned once someone clicks a portal, and the Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) lasts 35 seconds. Therefore, with proper management, it seems overlap could be achieved by 3 individuals while the other 7 members stay out full-time to deal with adds.

That said, based on the strength of the Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) buff (for those too lazy to click and see the real buff, it provides 10% healing, 10% damage, and 200 MP3 per stack), it seems to me this fight, much like the inverse of Deathbringer Saurfang, would be infinitely easier the faster you can burn it down. In this case that obviously means adding more healing.

The question is, how do we manage the portals/Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) stacks best? My first inclination is to use our 3 stronger HoT-based healers as the full-time portal team (obviously Druids and Fides) but it's difficult to say if 1 Paladin healer could manage the rest of the raid healing for the 44% of the fight those healers are in the dream world. Obviously pre-hots before entering portals could help, but it feels like virtually any GCDs used by the portal team healers that are not spent spamming Valithria are a waste.

I'm 98% certain I learned/read somewhere that the rate the adds spawn increase as time passes, hence a soft enrage of sorts, which also indicates maximizing healing early and often would help the most. However, the timing is still up in the air and since the PoV on all available videos is so sporadic it's difficult to truly tell what the add spawn rate is.

Still, we can plan ahead somewhat by the info we have. We have to heal Valithria for 6 million HP before we win, and using Wild, Khee, and Fides approx. HPS numbers, we get the following table:

Time|Status|Portal Spawn #|Vigor Stack Count|Healing?|Wild HPS|Khee HPS|Fides HPS|Wild Healing|Khee Healing|Fides Healing|Total Healing
0|||||8742|8554|6500||||
45|Indicators Spawn|1|0|Yes|8742|8554|6500|393390|384930|292500| 1070820
60|Enter Portals|1|0|Yes|8742|8554|6500|524520|513240|39000 0|2498580
80|Exit Portals|1|5|No|13113|12831|9750|524520|513240|3900 00|3926340
125|Indicators Spawn|2|5|Yes|13113|12831|9750|1114605|1090635|828 750|6960330
140|Enter Portals|2|5|Yes|13113|12831|9750|1311300|1283100|9 75000|10529730
160|Exit Portals|2|10|No|17484|17108|13000|1311300|1283100| 975000|14099130
205|Indicators Spawn|3|10|Yes|17484|17108|13000|2098080|2052960|1 560000|19810170
220|Enter Portals|3|10|Yes|17484|17108|13000|2360340|2309580 |1755000|26235090

In the interest of information, I left the table a little longer than required, since as you can see, the Total Healing column breaks into 26 million range by the 220 second mark, which is obviously far above the required 6 million healing we need.

I triple checked these numbers and ran HPS tests with both Fides and Wild and I also assumed a safe "Vigor buff count" of healers getting 5 stacks for each Dream Phase, even though a few videos show 6 and occasionally even 7 being possible. However, I think 5 stacks of Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) should be the desired goal for each of the three portal healers per Dream Phase for a very good reason -- primarily, achievement success will solely depend on your ability, as a portal healer, to never let your Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) stack drop off. Each refresh of your stack refreshes the duration to 35 seconds. Once a portal is active and clickable, the Dream Phase lasts 20 seconds. Therefore, if done with machine-like timing, a portal healer that gets one last Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) stack just before the Dream Portal 20 sec timer is about to expire (at the 18 or 19 second mark) will then have a full 35 second buff duration while waiting for the new portal spawns. The overlap is 10 seconds -- meaning if you touch a green orb and refresh your Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) while in the Dream Phase with 2 seconds left on the Dream Phase debuff timer, the next set of portals will become clickable when you have 8 seconds remaining on your Emerald Vigor (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70873) stack. Obviously 8 seconds is plenty of time to swim up and touch another green orb and keep your stack going and not drop off. However, if a portal healer refreshes their stack with 7 seconds left on the Dream Phase and doesn't hit a new one, that will leave only 3 seconds from the next portal spawn to click it and swim to an active orb, which doesn't seem to be enough time.

Long story short, if micromanaged, portal healers can all keep their stack going up and up for the entire fight, and doing so will be the key to this fight (both achievement and otherwise) as the 10% healing per stack is HUGE.

Now, it appears there is only one thing that can lower those above healing output numbers on Valithria, and that is Suppressor adds. They seem to spawn every ~45 seconds (at least early on) in packs of three. They will spawn from the same location as the rest of the adds in the fight (in the left or right cages) and have no threat list. They have 38k HP each and are undead and will walk straight toward Valithria. Once in melee range or so of the dragon, they begin to channel Suppression (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70588), meaning if left alone, they would reduce healing incoming on Valithria by 30%.

However, with such low HP and being susceptible to all forms of snare/root/etc., it seems with a little foresight and communication in Mumble of when they spawn and what side, the DPS can blow them up very quickly. One video I saw used a Rogue and an OT only to kill the 3-pack Suppressor spawns and from the time they started to channel to the time all three were dead was only 7-8 seconds. Obviously we'd utilize our tools (such as Thawfore's Undead AE stun, Kilwenn's roots, etc.) to either kill them completely before they reach melee, or at least stop them from reaching channel range at all. Even then, a few seconds of 10 or 20% reduction won't make or break things.

Other than Suppressors, there are no hindrances that would prevent our portal heal team from spending every GCD on spamming.

As for the rest of the fight, it's not particularly interesting. My initial thought is to use one tank only and have Khrashdin as the sole healer (since a beacon on me is basically the same as having two healers in that situation). Once the portal team gets through their first portal, their mana regen will be so huge they'll be able to give Khrashdin Innervates if needed, but even then, it truly looks like the raid damage is extremely low. For example, watch this video and just stare at the raid health bars on the left side. They barely drop and often the only one even slightly dipping is one of the tanks.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUfmOH_g6Uw

The mob types are basically:

Melee abom to be tanked with frontal cone attack that spawns small larva on death.
Melee zombie that stacks a armor reduction debuff that explodes in short range AE on death (this may be the only issue I can see with a one-tank strategy, but I would suspect if Khrash was warned ahead of time, we could very likely have Rofl swap to Frost presence in his DPS gear/spec and solo the zombie away from the raid)
Caster that channels raid-wide fire AE pulse -- stunnable so between HoJ from Thawfore and Concussion/Shockwave for myself, I doubt the damage will be a problem after one or two ticks.
Caster that does Frostbolt and has some avoidable "void zone" type attacks.


All in all, as Wild and I were discussing this and praying Hard Modes are actually Hard last night, he pointed out this will likely be an extreme pushover once we sit down to try it and all our work will have been for naught. Oh well ><


All You Can Eat (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4580):
This one seems a bit difficult to execute and has some randomness involved. I won't go over the whole fight, since I am too lazy and lack Kull's penmanship.

[...]

However, this is not as simple as it seems. We will need to use two tanks to ensure that the current Sindragosa tank doesn't receive more than 4 stacks of the buffet. The offtank will have to taunt as soon as the main tank receives their 3rd or 4th stack of mystic buffet. I say 3rd or 4th stack, because depending on how Ice Tomb protects (or doesn't) the tombed target will determine how far the Ice Tomb must be from Sindragosa.

Throughout the fight, Sind will cast Icy Grip (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70117) which pulls the raid into melee range. This is followed by Blistering Cold (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70123) which is a 5 second cast that hits everyone in 25 yards for 30k frost damage. This spell creates complications.

If the Ice Tombed target can be hit by Blistering Cold (they appear to not be affected by Icy Grip), they will need to be at least 25 yards from Sindragosa. This will cause our tanks to have to taunt at the 3rd stack of mystic buffet, so the previous tank has enough time to run the 25 yards and behind the tomb to reset their stack.

If the Ice Tombed target doesn't take damage from Blistering Cold, then they can be a bit closer to Sindragosa. However, being too close could cause them (and anyone hiding behind them) to get cleaved during a tank switch or even not during one.

I bolded part for emphasis, but you hit the nail on the head there Wild for sure. The difficulty of this achievement is going to GREATLY hinge on whether Ice Tombed players are affected by everything else happening in the fight (primarily the Blistering Cold and/or Sindrigosa's assumed cleave/breath attacks).


Also, during tank switches, positioning Sind could get hairy. She might move too close/far from the tomb, she might decide to cleave half the raid's face, or she might do nothing.

It's safe to assume we'll never swap tanks without the taunting tank being in melee range already, so she'll never be forced to turn/move/etc. just from the tank swap. However, as you pointed out, the timing window is going to be razor thin with the stacks casting every 5 seconds. Something like:

Time|Tank 1 Stack|Tank 2 Stack|Tank 1 Action|Tank 2 Action
0|0|0|Tanking|Hiding
5|1|0|Tanking|Hiding
10|2|0|Tanking|Hiding
15|3|0|Tanking|Hiding
20|4|1|Running|Taunting
25|0|2|Hiding|Tanking
30|0|3|Hiding|Tanking
35|1|4|Taunting|Running
40|2|0|Tanking|Hiding

That's the only way I see it being doable without risking getting too close to hitting a 5-stack. Essentially, once in motion, every 15 seconds a transition happens, whereby as soon as the currently hiding tank (who has zero stacks due to hiding) sees the active tank hit a 3-stack, the hiding tank immediately runs out into position, calling a 2 or 3 second taunt countdown on the way, and immediately taunts and grabs agro. If done properly, the taunting tank will grab agro just around the time the next stack cast is happening (meaning time elapsed since third stack hit Tank 1: 5 seconds). Meanwhile, the previous tank, who's just hitting a fourth stack, is running out to safety.

Still, as Wild mentions below, Icy Grip is going to be extremely challenging.


Another thing, raid members will have to be aware of their stacks at the time of a Icy Grip cast. Assuming Icy Grip can pull you through a tomb (that I believe is solid and cannot be walked through), you may run into a problem where you were about to reset your debuff stack and get pulled into line of sight by Icy Grip thereby giving you another stack. Yeah.

Unfortunately none of the videos I saw lasted long enough to confirm Icy Grip has a set recast timer, but we *have* to assume it does because even if there was a small window of uncertainty, it would make keeping stacks under 5 extremely challenging to say the least. We'll see I guess, but if there is a set recast time, then at least all non-tanks can plan accordingly by clearing stacks early/staying hidden.

I also realized similar to tank swaps, we'll probably need some form of "healer swap" as well. Now, it may be possible that a healer can position such that they have LoS on the tank but not the dragon, thus allowing them to never get debuff stacks built up but still heal. If not, however, healers will need to transition somewhat so at least one healer is always in LoS to tank heal.


All this sounds difficult in my eyes. I also failed to mention how threat might be an issue with all the tank switching, and taunt DR might come into play.

Since swapping doesn't occur till 30% or whatever, by then threat will be extremely high for the primary tank so it shouldn't be an issue. Also I doubt she has Taunt DR flag enabled, since she runs super fast (thus making Taunt ping-ponging impossible).


Anyone have any thoughts on this one?

Yes, it sounds hard as fuck! But I guess that's what we wanted (though not on an attempt-limited, leading-to-unlocking-heroic based boss however, ASDF!@#&^#@)

[Rofldat]

Melee zombie that stacks a armor reduction debuff that explodes in short range AE on death (this may be the only issue I can see with a one-tank strategy, but I would suspect if Khrash was warned ahead of time, we could very likely have Rofl swap to Frost presence in his DPS gear/spec and solo the zombie away from the raid)

I believe those aren't meant to be tanked at all, just like the adds in Kel'Thuzad, range is supposed to kill them asap(I can keep its attention for a few seconds with CoI + taunt if needed, that should be all the time they need to kill it).

Also, would Khrash being Holy give better HPS than Fides? Holy Light spam on Vali with Beacon on Kull(or Beacon Vali and spam other people) and Fides's shadow healing should cover most of the damage.

And depending if the Portal Jockey is a raid wide achievement or personal achievement, we might need to do 2 Healer + 1 DPS per portal at some point(when Kull need to be the DPS to go, we can have Khrash tank and Thaw heal instead)

[Kulldam]

I believe those aren't meant to be tanked at all, just like the adds in Kel'Thuzad, range is supposed to kill them asap(I can keep its attention for a few seconds with CoI + taunt if needed, that should be all the time they need to kill it).

Quite sure they're normal mobs meant to be tanked (as in, they'll melee someone) and the sunder would indicate as such. That said, yes they're meant to be killed by ranged ideally so melee DPS can avoid the AE explosion, but with the HP levels and speed with which we're plowing through adds, I can't imagine CoI/trying to kite while range kill it is in anyway faster than having you just 'tank' it to provide your DPS.


Also, would Khrash being Holy give better HPS than Fides? Holy Light spam on Vali with Beacon on Kull(or Beacon Vali and spam other people) and Fides's shadow healing should cover most of the damage.

We'll definitely need one full-time raid healer, and because HoTs can provide 9-15 seconds of Healing on Valithria after the portal healers have entered the Dream Phase, that's just too big of an advantage that a Paladin healer can't overcome as a portal healer. Yes Khrash's HPS would obviously be much higher than Fides, but as a raid healer with Beacon on the tank, a Paladin can basically perform the duty of two people provided not a lot of movement in the encounter (which there is virtually none in this one). Moreover, with Beacon on me, when Khrash isn't having to heal misc damage to the other 6 raid members, he can use his extra GCDs to throw heals on Valithria, which will still activate beacon heals on me and of course provide a bit more dragon healing.


And depending if the Portal Jockey is a raid wide achievement or personal achievement, we might need to do 2 Healer + 1 DPS per portal at some point(when Kull need to be the DPS to go, we can have Khrash tank and Thaw heal instead)

It's very clearly a raid-wide achievement, just read the description carefully and think about the mechanics:


Enter every portal spawned by Valithria Dreamwalker before healing her to full health in 10-player mode.

As a solo achievement, it makes no sense because it's impossible to meet the criteria -- you're limited to entering one portal as a solo player maximum per spawn. If it intended a solo player to enter a portal each spawn, it'd be worded differently I think.

[Rofldat]

So, I was bored and found the livesream of Lich King encounter. Here's what I observes from it:
Phase 1:
-He spawn adds(ghouls and varkul), the ghouls can be mostly ignored and let it die to the occasional AoE, but the varkul should be OT and kill asap.

Phase 2(looks like at 75%):
-Lich King run into the middle at this point everyone must run out to the outside edge of the room, since he'll make a huge AoE damage aura http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/73793/remorseless-winter/
-Different add will spawn, it look kinda like a mage of some sort.
-There's some glowing orbs that channel something to player(doesn't look lethal)
-Lich King spams these black lightning bolt that hurts slightly.
After a bit the outer egde will light up, everyone must run back in or they'll fall when this part of the room disappear.

Phase 3(currently where the group on stream keep wiping):
-The add in this phase is a Val'kyr that'll grab onto a person and attempts to fly off the edge(haven't seen anyone die to it yet, DK can Death Grip it to gain some extra time, not sure about slow/stun)
-The Lich King will drop "Defile" http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/72754/defile/, which is a black slime pool that grows when a player take damage from it.
-At some point, there was a room-sized black pool, which I assume is Infest http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/73780/infest/
-He also uses Necrotic Plague in this phase, I assume it was dispel immediately.

I think he uses http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/74325/harvest-soul/ during the first phase too(or http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/73797/soul-reaper/, but definitely another one of his abilities is used in p1), but I can't be certain. I assume the souls harvested will be what spawns the Vile Spirit later on for the achievement.
his spell list also includes http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/73790/pain-and-suffering/, so just to be safe he should be faced away from raid.

Some of these will most likely be wrong, but what I confirmed should at least prevent a few wipes(from, say, people getitng killed instantly when he enters p2, or someone not running back in and die when he enters p3)

[Kulldam]

Note: Some of the Wowhead tooltips for abilities aren't displaying the full information of the spell in the tooltip. Open the ability links in a new tab/window to actually see what they do/damage they deal/etc.

Yes, this is a lot to read, but please do so and understand what you role is to be for each portion of the fight.

Edit: Forgot to add Soul Reaper info. Now listed in Phase 3.

Phase 1

Hits for ~20,000 per melee swing but 2 - 2.5 sec between swings.

Rounding up slightly, that's a worst case scenario of tank healing being 8400 HPS required, which would be a full-time duty for one healer alone or non-full time for a mix of healers. The question is whether we should play it safe and use three healers and prolong the fight quite a bit, risking hitting enrage or simply allowing more time in-combat for us to screw up, or if we should stick with two healers as we've been doing for most everything?

Infest (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70541)

Cast every 20 seconds on entire raid with 2 sec cast time during both Phase 1 and Phase 3.
Initial hit damage of 7k and tick damage is resistible.
Two healers should each be assigned a group to heal from Infest to maximize the time everyone is healed up past 90% health (and thus the effect is removed).
Druids would be wise to use Regrowth/Nourish the moment Infest hits to likely heal that player up past 90% right away and then throw a Swiftmend on a pre-hotted member the next GCD, which would remove 4 of 10 debuffs in basically 1.5 sec after the Infest hit. Spot heals from there to clean up the remaining debuffed players before it spreads too much.
Another option is using Fides for Infest healing, as Prayer of Healing, I suspect, could heal up an entire group within 3-4 seconds if the first cast was timed to land just after Infest hit.

Drudge Ghouls (mob)


[18:30:55.817] The Lich King begins to cast Summon Drudge Ghouls
[18:31:27.108] The Lich King begins to cast Summon Drudge Ghouls
[18:31:59.585] The Lich King begins to cast Summon Drudge Ghouls
[18:32:30.508] The Lich King begins to cast Summon Drudge Ghouls
[18:33:01.416] The Lich King begins to cast Summon Drudge Ghouls

Arthas summons a group of ghouls every 30 seconds during Phase 1.
Melee on tank for 1200-1800.
No special attacks that I can find.
HP: Unknown
Should be gathered by current OT and once enough threat, OT will call for AE.

Shambling Horror (mob)


[18:31:06.259] The Lich King begins to cast Summon Shambling Horror
[18:32:08.424] The Lich King begins to cast Summon Shambling Horror
[18:33:10.223] The Lich King begins to cast Summon Shambling Horror

Arthas summons a single Shambling Horrow every 60 seconds during Phase 1.
Melee on tank for 10,000-11,000.
Casts Enrage on self every 20 seconds, lasts for 7 seconds, increasing melee damage by 200% (tank hits for 25,000ish), but like Arthas, swing timer very slow (2.5 sec).
Uses Shockwave every 30 seconds, hitting everyone in frontal cone for 10,000 and stunning for 2 seconds (seems it can be affected by Enrage 200% boost).
Should be killed ASAP once spawned and OT has agro.

Necrotic Plague (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70337)


[18:31:16.315] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Vejsinii
[18:31:46.793] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Benita
[18:32:17.668] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Narugmor
[18:32:24.304] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 50000
[18:32:29.274] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 50000
[18:32:34.296] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 18637 (O: 31363)
[18:32:39.565] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 100000
[18:32:44.536] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 100000
[18:32:47.775] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Vejsinii
[18:32:49.573] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 14686 (O: 85314)
[18:32:54.764] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 72452 (O: 77548)
[18:33:02.817] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:33:07.821] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:33:12.792] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:33:17.796] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:33:17.898] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Aztek
[18:33:22.833] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:33:27.787] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:33:32.858] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1308
[18:33:37.795] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1308
[18:33:42.799] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1308
[18:33:47.819] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1293
[18:33:48.320] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Cinarius
[18:33:52.827] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:33:57.794] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1293
[18:34:02.781] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:07.818] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:12.822] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:17.793] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:19.261] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Benita
[18:34:22.797] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:27.784] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:32.805] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:37.792] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:42.813] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:47.800] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:49.706] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Gliidaren
[18:34:52.821] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:34:57.824] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:35:02.778] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:35:07.799] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:35:12.819] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:35:17.807] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:35:20.261] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Chimpah
[18:35:22.811] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:35:27.815] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1293
[18:35:28.031] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 50000
[18:35:32.818] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 1294
[18:35:33.069] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 296 (O: 49704)
[18:35:38.056] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 96513 (O: 3487)
[18:35:38.299] Drudge Ghoul afflicted by Necrotic Plague (7)
[18:35:41.308] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 68102 (O: 281898)
[18:35:46.479] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 45853 (O: 354147)
[18:35:50.336] The Lich King casts Necrotic Plague on Gliidaren
[18:35:51.701] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 69445 (O: 380555)
[18:35:56.938] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 162245 (O: 337755)
[18:36:02.158] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 199234 (O: 350766)
[18:36:07.413] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 227510 (O: 372490)
[18:36:12.616] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 213741 (O: 436259)
[18:36:17.871] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 236080 (O: 463920)
[18:36:23.058] Unknown Necrotic Plague Drudge Ghoul 228823 (O: 521177)
[18:36:28.296] Unknown Necrotic Plague Shambling Horror 72938 (O: 831062)

Cast on random raid member every 30 seconds during Phase 1.
Must be dispelled ASAP (Disease effect so Khrash, Fides, or Thawfore ideal for removing it) or deals 50,000 damage to target.
This debuff can stack infinitely it appears. When first cast on a player, the stack is at 1.
Anytime it is dispelled by a player (which should only occur when it is cast or jumps to a player), the stack size decreases by 1.
Anytime it kills a target and jumps elsewhere (which should only occur when it kills a Ghoul or Horrow), the stack size increases by 1.
Each stack multiplies the damage tick amount by 50,000.
Increases Arthas' strength after every jump to a new target, but Arthas' damage dealt in the logs does not seem to increase very dramatically from the start of the fight to the end of Phase 1, so unknown the actual boost he gains per stack.

As you can see by the log above, the effect will jump to a player or enemy whenever it is dispelled or kills the current target. Therefore, ideally someone who gets Necrotic Plague cast on them would move near the OT who is tanking the Ghouls and Horrow and let the Plague deal it's damage to them in turn. However, with only 5 seconds from the time it hits someone till the first 50,000 damage tick, dispellers can't wait very long to dispel or risk the person dying.

Still, the Been Waiting a Long Time for This (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4601) achievement obviously forces the raid to keep the stack jumping in the pack of Ghouls/Horror on the OT and ensure all new casts are also brought to that pack. Likewise, I assume in order to reach a 30 stack, the OT must tank many, many sets of Ghouls at once (rather than kill them as they spawn) and once enough are active, start the Plague process and watch it stack and jump and stack and jump until it kills 30+ Ghouls, then the raid pushes into Phase 2.

Knowing this, I wonder if it's not in our interest to let the OT keep Ghouls on him full-time and only have DPS attack the Horror but otherwise ignore the Ghouls and let the Plague do the damage? This would potentially keep damage higher on Arthas

Phase 2

"Phase 2" appears to last exactly 60 seconds with a 5 second "transition" time. Below is the final cast of Infest timestamp (denoting the end of "Phase 1") and the first hit of Remorseless Winter (start of "Phase 2"), followed by the opposite in final Phase 2 Pain and Suffering and first melee hit back into "Phase 1" or normal fight.


[18:36:16.837] The Lich King Infest Vejsinii 1618 (R: 693)
[18:36:22.463] The Lich King Remorseless Winter Gliidaren 521 (R: 1533)
...
[18:37:23.289] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Nijntje 428 (R: 100)
[18:37:29.160] The Lich King hits Sariah 19620

Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68983)
Channeled so everyone must spread out to be 45+ yards.
Damage is resistible.

Pain and Suffering (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72133)

[18:36:23.275] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Sariah 2137 (R: 611)
[18:36:23.275] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Narugmor 1972 (R: 583)
[18:36:23.275] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Nijntje 2172 (R: 914)
[18:36:23.275] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Chimpah 2613 (R: 290)
[18:36:24.276] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Chimpah 400 (R: 100)
[18:36:24.276] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Nijntje 408 (R: 100)
[18:36:24.276] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Narugmor 338 (R: 100)
[18:36:24.276] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Sariah 394 (R: 50)
[18:36:24.476] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Narugmor 1827 (R: 926)
[18:36:24.476] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Nijntje 2841 (R: 310)
[18:36:24.504] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Caribald 2654 (R: 307)
[18:36:24.504] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Sariah 1913 (R: 938)
[18:36:25.271] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Nijntje 712 (R: 300)
[18:36:25.271] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Narugmor 762 (R: 100)
[18:36:25.271] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Sariah 612 (R: 300)
[18:36:25.360] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Chimpah 400 (R: 100)
[18:36:25.493] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Caribald 432 (R: 50)
[18:36:25.677] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Aztek 2726 (R: 303)
[18:36:25.677] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Vejsinii 2272 (R: 568)
[18:36:25.677] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Gliidaren 230 (R: 300)
[18:36:26.311] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Nijntje 815 (R: 200)
[18:36:26.311] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Narugmor 762 (R: 100)
[18:36:26.311] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Chimpah 450 (R: 50)
[18:36:26.311] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Sariah 699 (R: 200)
[18:36:26.511] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Caribald 432 (R: 50)
[18:36:26.711] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Vejsinii 400 (R: 100)
[18:36:26.711] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Gliidaren 39 (R: 50)
[18:36:26.711] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Aztek 450 (R: 50)
[18:36:27.261] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Nijntje 713 (R: 300)
[18:36:27.261] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Sariah 787 (R: 100)
[18:36:27.261] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Narugmor 677 (R: 200)
[18:36:27.495] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Caribald 384 (R: 100)
[18:36:27.674] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Gliidaren 383 (R: 50)
[18:36:27.674] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Vejsinii 400 (R: 100)
[18:36:27.674] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Aztek 400 (R: 100)
[18:36:28.663] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Vejsinii 450 (R: 50)
[18:36:28.663] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Gliidaren 297 (R: 150)
[18:36:28.663] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Aztek 400 (R: 100)
[18:36:29.713] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Sariah 2402 (R: 305)
[18:36:29.713] The Lich King Pain and Suffering Chimpah 2167 (R: 929)

Looks like this is the 'shadow bolt' effect Rofl mentioned.
Based on the use of this during Phase 2 the same time he starts using Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68983), it's a safe bet he'll randomly select targets to cast Pain and Suffering on, similar to Mimiron Phase 2, and we must position properly to spread enough so we don't have everyone eat cone damage from Pain and Suffering but aren't in 45 yard range of Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68983) either.
We obviously don't know the width of the cone effect, but it's probably best if, when Phase 2 begins and we're running out to avoid Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68983), that we spread on one side of the room rather than a circle around, so that healers have range on everyone if possible. A half-circle spread at 50+ yards from Arthas with healers near the center would be ideal.

Raging Spirit (mob)

[18:36:24.859] The Lich King casts Raging Spirit on Chimpah
[18:36:47.736] The Lich King casts Raging Spirit on Gliidaren
[18:37:10.996] The Lich King casts Raging Spirit on Nijntje

Cast upon a player every 20 seconds during Phase 2, spawning a mob at that location.
Either duplicates the player's form or charms the player (I think it duplicates their form).
Normal tanked mob, hits for ~11,000 on tanks.
Casts Soul Shriek (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69242) fairly frequently.
Should be killed ASAP by DPS during Phase 2 since attacking Arthas is impossible anyway at 45+ yards out.

Phase 3

Quake (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72262)


[18:37:21.358] The Lich King begins to cast Quake

Cast at the start of Phase 3, destroying the outside edges of the room (crumbling areas).
Raid must move inward to the solid ground of platform before this occurs.
Once cast (1.5 sec cast), graphical outline around room shows the edge that will be sheared off and ledge falls 6-7 seconds after the cast, so as long as raid pays attention, getting off the edge in time should be easy (see 3:35-3:45 in Movie 1 listed below for an example of how it looks.)

Val'kyr Shadowguard (mob)


[18:24:12.472] The Lich King casts Summon Val'kyr
[18:24:59.387] The Lich King casts Summon Val'kyr

Summons a Val'kyr every 45 seconds during Phase 3.
Appears they do not melee and may be just non-threat type mobs.
They summon Ice Spheres frequently, which seem to pick a random raid target to chase and will cast Ice Pulse (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69099) every few seconds to anyone within 5 yards, dealing ~3,000 frost damage.


[18:36:37.706] Unknown Ice Pulse Sariah 2151 (R: 585)
[18:36:37.706] Unknown Ice Pulse Wolfenstein 2360 (R: 590)
[18:36:37.706] Unknown Ice Pulse Narugmor 1714 (R: 869)
[18:36:37.706] Unknown Ice Pulse Chimpah 2795 (R: 310)
[18:36:40.956] Unknown Ice Pulse Sariah 2839
[18:36:40.956] Unknown Ice Pulse Narugmor 2601
[18:36:40.956] Unknown Ice Pulse Chimpah 2783 (R: 309)
[18:36:45.726] Unknown Ice Pulse Sariah 1911 (A: 145, R: 588)
[18:36:45.726] Unknown Ice Pulse Narugmor 2543
[18:36:45.726] Unknown Ice Pulse Chimpah 2679 (R: 298)

Defile (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72754)


[18:24:29.297] The Lich King begins to cast Defile
[18:25:03.006] The Lich King begins to cast Defile

Casts under a random player every 30 seconds during Phase 3.
This ability is the crux of The Lich King encounter! If we can manage this ability properly, we will win.
It has a 3 sec cast time but does not seem to indicate the intended target in logs and therefore probably not in emotes either.
Like Putricide's green puddles, it puts a Black Pool of shadow damage under the targeted player. However, every tick of damage the pool deals to anyone increases the size and damage of the pool.
Again, to reiterate: If ANYONE is slow to move out of the pool, it will spread so quickly we will not be able to move fast enough.
Unknown if it prefers ranged targets to melee targets (sort of assume it will), but either way, the first step is obviously proper positioning. Everyone will need to spread out 10+ yards from everyone else. Ideally we'll position all ranged/healers in a half-circle with their backs toward the edge of the room, similar to Phase 2 positions, with melee/tanks in the center with Arthas.
The instant he starts to cast, everyone stops what they are doing and looks at their feet for the pool graphic. If under you, which means you were the target, immediately run forward as fast as possible (blink, rocket boots, etc. to get out faster). The faster you move out, the less of the platform will be covered.
We'll then carefully reposition clockwise around the edge and prepare for the next cast 30 seconds later.

Soul Reaper (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69409)


[18:24:33.351] The Lich King casts Soul Reaper on Sariah
[18:25:05.425] The Lich King casts Soul Reaper on Narugmor

Casts every 30 seconds during Phase 3 on the Main Tank.
First cast is ~40 seconds into the fight.
Deals 50,000 shadow damage before resists, so some form of damage reduction is virtually required to survive.
I don't foresee tank swaps helping a great deal as the fight must go on for quite some time at this point so tank cooldowns would be gone well before the fight finished.
Also unfortunate I do not have my 4-piece set yet, which would give a 60 sec health cooldown ideal for this ability.
However, if Arthas is tauntable, we can swap Khrash to MT during Phase 3 which will give Ardent Defender bonus. That plus normal resistance of Shadow Damage should allow Khrash to survive every Soul Reaper hit assuming he's topped off when it's about to go off.
There is no cast time it appears, so we'll have to manually track when it's about to hit and make sure healers are spamming Khrash during that time.
Also, Fides might be able to ninj a Power Word: Shield just before it hits though again, if no cast time, will be very hard to weave that between melee hits.

Movies

Movie 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXc8cqql81M

Movie 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROZAqYUhww

[Rofldat]

Well, since none of these infos include the other necessary NPC, Vile Spirits, for http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=4581#criteria-of , I think it's safe to assume there's phase 4 at some point later on into the fight.

There's also the not seen so far spells, the 3 colored beams and the 30% buff given by the other leader of the Horde(Garrosh Hellscream, in this case) - http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/73822/hellscreams-warsong/

And with Tirion's existence in the screen shot of dead Lich King, there's potential of the 3 heroes helping in this fight(Lich King frozen Sylvanas at the start of combat).

My guess is at some point Garrosh will joins the fight with the buff, which should be around the same time the vile spirits spawn. During which part I assume it'll be a DPS race.

The beam could make the fight into http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=15689 v2 at some point.

A recent post on MMO-champ:

# Anti Magic Shell no longer resets the Mystic Buffet stacks in the Sindragosa encounter.
# The Val’kyr in the Lich King encounter are no longer affected by Death Grip and will head to ledges faster.
D: damn, DK hated

[Rofldat]

MMO Champ is updated with the (almost) full encounter video of Lich King, with the "Frostmourne room" missing(player get randomly teleport to it)

Phase 3 continue until 50%, then he jumps back into phase 2(regrowing the edge of the room) afterward going into phase 3.5.

This time, he only cast Defile and spawns the Vile Spirit(they seems to appear around him, similar to Devourer of Souls, except these start out above LK).
It seems these will float around for a bit, then at some point one of them will start heading toward a player, and will explode if it reach that person. so this achievement doesn't seem too hard since I saw the DK Pestilence hit those adds so they can be kill before they move.
-Because they are out of melee reach, melees will stay on LK while all ranges will be killing the ghosts.

And, as if Blizz is being a jerk for lulz, at 10%(I think, you'll know) you WILL WIPE. But don't release just yet, Lich King has some plan for you. (Also, to correct my previous post, it's not Sylvanas that got frozen, it's Tirion)

Enter some speaking(don't worry, not as long as CoS), then everyone will get res(you must click accept), and at this point it seems to be just an all out DPS him down (yes wild, it's time for Ninj Fire)

This concludes that the achievement is done in phase 1 and 3.5. With necrotic plague being impossible to stack up otherwise and vile spirits only spawn in phase 3.5.

I assume that since we don't see it in the video, the beams and Hellscream Warsong will come into play inside the frost mourne room.

That's all my update for now, nex up is pondering on a trick to Sindragosa(and how to get myself the not-bitten achievement).

[Fideslol]

That's all my update for now, nex up is pondering on a trick to Sindragosa(and how to get myself the not-bitten achievement).

I could... just not bite you :)

[Kulldam]

Some notes on Sindragosa:

I think it's fair to say given another 30 - 60 minutes, we'd have downed this fight regardless. However, I think a more systematic approach to Phase 3 may benefit us in the long run in terms of repeating the fight and preparing for the Heroic version. One idea I came up with is the change our positioning slightly such that we have two Ice Tomb locations instead of one. Further, we push melee DPS to the opposite side of the dragon as they can then stay in the center but not be within 10 yards of an Ice Tomb explosion. Here's a (crappy) presentation to explain:

<iframe src="http://docs.google.com/present/embed?id=dccp4mjw_56c2mjp9d2&interval=30&size=l" frameborder="0" width="700" height="559"></iframe>

Obviously the first frame shows our previous setup, which worked reasonably well but it felt a little too hectic in terms of who is LoSing to drop their Buffet, who is healing the tank, etc. Instead, Frame 2 shows the normal positioning for my proposed new setup.

Essentially, we turn the dragon 90 degrees on the same axis, so now our original green smoke location is still fine, but we then add a second white smoke location on the opposite side. Further, we put melee on the south side of her but still in the center and close to her body so they are in heal range (during grip, melee can likely just run forward, running them toward the rest of the raid so they can get heals if needed rather than running south out of heal range and potentially dying from random damage).

Also healers/ranged are stacked in the northern center. This puts both the ranged/healer & melee locations out of 10 yard range of both smoke positions.

Frame 3 shows the first beacon target runs to the first location (white smoke) and gets entombed. Once entombed (Frame 4), everyone from Group 1 only runs behind the tomb to drop their Buffet stack and meanwhile DPS the tomb. Meanwhile, Group 2 remains in normal positions and continues to DPS Sindragosa, heal the tank, and so on.

Once the next beacon target is marked (Frame 5), that person runs to the second smoke position (green) and once entombed, Group 2 only runs behind the tomb, drops stacks, and kills it (Frame 6). Meanwhile, Group 1 has moved back to normal position and is killing the dragon/healing tank.

Group composition is balanced so each group has 1 Healer, 1 Tank, 1 Melee DPS, 2 Ranged DPS. This means every swap will transition the tank so tank healing is never insanely high.

The only time this could get dicey is when a healer gets tombed and it's the other healers' turn to hide and drop their buffet stack. Still, that scenario would/did occur in our previous setup so we'll just have to plan accordingly (like non-tombed healer stays out to heal tank for extra stacks and just plans to hide during next tomb at some point or something).

Thoughts or vetoes?

[Wildhide]

Sindragosa stuff
I suppose I don't have a problem with this, but I, as a healer, prefer to have everyone drop their stack as much as possible.

My only suggestion would be to consider using 3 healers. With only 4 possible targets (me, Khee, Kil, and Ugra - it doesn't seem to choose Nig since he gets permeating chill), it's likely that one healer could be tombed and one could be hit with unchained magic. This, combined with the higher healing needed in phase 3 makes it tough for only one healer with unchained magic on them already. Adding a 3rd healer would ensure that there is always one healer free to pick up the slack.

[Fideslol]

For Sindragosa, it is suggested that physical dps focus on ice tombs during phase 3, where magic dps focus on Sindragosa. This is because it is quite difficult to regulate stacks of the Permeating Chill debuff on melee, and, to the best of my knowledge, it only stacks if you're attacking Sindragosa, not the ice tombs. That is, unless, we believe we have the DPS to down Sindragosa before the buffet gets out of hand, which may be possible with two healers. I do know that a lot of 10 man strategies for this fight focused on just burning Sindragosa, probably resetting stacks as you dps ice tombs.

[Kulldam]

I suppose I don't have a problem with this, but I, as a healer, prefer to have everyone drop their stack as much as possible.

My only suggestion would be to consider using 3 healers. With only 4 possible targets (me, Khee, Kil, and Ugra - it doesn't seem to choose Nig since he gets permeating chill), it's likely that one healer could be tombed and one could be hit with unchained magic. This, combined with the higher healing needed in phase 3 makes it tough for only one healer with unchained magic on them already. Adding a 3rd healer would ensure that there is always one healer free to pick up the slack.

Fides (Disc) is the best bet then.


For Sindragosa, it is suggested that physical dps focus on ice tombs during phase 3, where magic dps focus on Sindragosa. This is because it is quite difficult to regulate stacks of the Permeating Chill debuff on melee, and, to the best of my knowledge, it only stacks if you're attacking Sindragosa, not the ice tombs. That is, unless, we believe we have the DPS to down Sindragosa before the buffet gets out of hand, which may be possible with two healers. I do know that a lot of 10 man strategies for this fight focused on just burning Sindragosa, probably resetting stacks as you dps ice tombs.

Hmm, I've read reports of both (that melee do and do not get chill stacks from attacking tombs). Either way, everyone has to reset their buffet stack fairly frequently anyway so they may as well attack the tomb during that time. Also, the videos that have been released so far are all high-end, high-geared 25m players doing a 10-man fight and are thus able to ignore the mechanic because they severely outgear the encounter. We won't have such privilege, and even if we did, it would be a bad habit to get into since we surely will need to do it the "proper" way once we get to the Heroic version.

Either way we're very close on Sin anyway and will get her next raid.

<hr/>

Few more thoughts on The Lich King:

Discussed this fight at length with Wild tonight and he and I came up with some more stuff on how to handle the various abilities. Also a few corrections to my previous post now that we have more information.

Raid Composition

Due to the usefulness of Power World: Shield (explained a bit later) and strong tank healing during Phase 1 & 3, we've deduced we're probably best off with Wild and Fides (Disc) healing, with Kheelan feral. This will also give us a balance of 3 ranged DPS and 3 melee DPS (good for Phase 4, see below).

Phase 1

First, Wild pointed out that by using Power Word: Shield just before Infest (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70541) is cast (remember, it deals 7k raid damage and a stacking dot until members are healed past 90% health), the absorb from Shield can mitigate most if not all of the initial hit, leaving all full-health raid members already above 90% and thus immediately removing the DoT portion of Infest (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70541). Further, because of the 25% haste after Power Word: Shield casts from Disc talents, I'm told Fides will have basically a 1 sec GCD during Shield spamming, so ideally we'll want Shields cast on all 8 non-tanks during Phase 1 & 3 before each Infest (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70541), which means 8 seconds out of 20 (Infest (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70541) is cast every 20 sec) shielding, leaving a good chunk of time after or between shields to help tank heal.

Since Infest (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70541) is such a huge part of the potential raid damage, mitigating this ability alone is a huge boon (rather than trying to manage it reactively as other healers would have to, which would take at least 7-8 seconds of GCD spamming per healer per 4 non-tank players).

Phase 2

It seems I greatly overestimated the damage the raid takes from Pain and Suffering (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72133) during this Phase, and thus the raid does not need to spread out nearly as much as I first suspected. Due to this and the only other damage being minor tank damage from Raging Spirits, the healing here should be very simple.

Phase 3

Wild discovered an error I made about Soul Reaper (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69409), which is the big hit damage cast on the MT during Phase 3 & Phase 4. First, take a look at the log below which is where I grabbed our infos earlier:


[18:38:01.969] The Lich King casts Soul Reaper on Sariah
[18:38:01.969] The Lich King Soul Reaper Sariah 10360 (R: 5811)
[18:38:01.969] Sariah afflicted by Soul Reaper from The Lich King
[18:38:07.007] The Lich King Soul Reaper Sariah 22287
[18:38:07.007] Sariah's Soul Reaper fades

I incorrectly assumed the first hit there, when Soul Reaper (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69409) landed, was the 50,000 Shadow Damage mentioned in the tooltip, but as Wild pointed out, the 50,000 actually isn't until the second hit, 5 sec later (note that the above log the MT, a DK, just used Ironbound Fortitute just prior to this occuring). We then deduced the initial hit is an ~40,000 Shadow Damage hit when the debuff is applied to the MT, and when it wears off 5 sec later, the 50,000 hit lands.

A few important things to note, is as seen above (and verified in other logs), the application damage is resistible, but the 50,000 big hit damage is not resistible, which I incorrectly assumed it was previously.

We spent a while trying to decide if tank swapping for cooldowns was necessary or if Ardent Defender reduction + a Power Word: Shield right before the debuff expires would be enough, but luckily I remembered a Protection Warrior talent I can pick up that is virtually never used: Safeguard (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=46949). That 30% reduction (which I can use every 30 seconds, which is the cooldown of Soul Reaper) plus Khrash's 20% from AD, should easily mitigate the risk factor of the 50k big hit and make tank healing Phase 3 & 4 virtually the same as Phase 1.

Also, since I need to Intervene Khrash to get Safeguard (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=46949) to proc, that will drop his threat by 10% each time, but I suspect the nature of the fight where DPS are often swapping to adds, plus frequent Misdirections from Nig, should be plenty to keep his threat on top.

Val'kyr Shadowguard

Well we now know why they never showed any damage output in logs, since they spawn and randomly pick a raid member to throw off the edge of the platform. Doesn't seem to be that difficult of a DPS check to hit as long as all DPS immediately swap and burn them down. It will probably be wise to have Khrash save his cooldowns (Divine Guardian) for the event that one of the healers gets picked by a Val'kyr, just to be safe.

Defile (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72754)

Wild pointed out in a video that Defile (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72754) can in fact be cast on a melee player even with plenty of ranged targets available, so we'll need to keep close track of the cooldown timer on this and have our 3 melee DPS each assigned a specific direction to run when Arthas starts to cast this, such as Kheelan strafe left, Rofl strafe right, Thaw turn and run backwards, and Khrash remain in center. Since Defile (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72754) has a 3 sec cast, this should allow each melee to spread out enough that no matter which raid member Defile (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72754) lands underneath, it should only hit that one person until they run out. Then the raid readjusts our positions for the next cast 30 sec later.

Vile Spirits

As Rofl mentioned and we can now see in the video, it seems Vile Spirits are the primary focus for ranged DPS during Phase 4. It appears since they sort of randomly float above, that cleave-type attacks are not likely to hit often/reliably, but Rofl can spread diseases and Thaw can Holy Wrath. That plus our 3 ranged DPS on them full time should be quite capable of downing most of the spawns.

As you've seen in the video by now, those that don't get killed fast enough will randomly chase a raid member and explode when reaching melee range, so everyone needs to keep their eyes on the horizon for spirits rushing them and start kiting away if being chased, but otherwise that's the only thing to watch for (aside from Defile of course!).

Also, just in case you haven't seen the videos yet, watch these (Note: If you don't want lore spoilers, DO NOT watch Video 2 after the 6:00 mark. You've been warned!):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlxcNMltpU8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_3eDWwDKfE

[Kulldam]

A bit more on The Lich King:

Phases & Transitions

The reason the phases were so confusing is because the part of the fight where the raid must run far away to the edge of the room to avoid his Remorseless Winter is actually not so much a Phase (since you can't damage him during this time), but a transition between Phases. I'll explain below to show what is happening for each percentage of Arthas' health.


100% - 70%: Phase 1 (Ghouls & Horrors + Infest (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70541) + Necrotic Plague (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70337))
At 70% (Lasts 60 sec): Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68981)/Transitional Phase (Raid runs to edge of platform to avoid Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68981), melee DPS kill Raging Spirits, ranged DPS kill Ice Spheres)
70% - 40%: Phase 2 (Defile (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72754) + Soul Reaper (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69409) + Infest (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70541); raid must kill Val'kyr when they spawn, use stuns/roots/snare to slow their movement progress)
At 40% (Lasts 60 sec): Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68981)/Transitional Phase (Raid runs to edge of platform to avoid Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68981), melee DPS kill Raging Spirits, ranged DPS kill Ice Spheres)
40% - 10%: Phase 3 (Defile (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72754) + Soul Reaper (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69409) + Infest (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70541) + Harvest Soul (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68980); raid must kill Vile Spirits above Arthas before they randomly target and explode on people with Spirit Burst (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70503))
10% - 0%: Victory

Phase 3 & 4

Defile (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72762)

It appears that while there's no debuff or combat log entry for who Arthas is casting Defile (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72762) under, he DOES turn to face the player he's targeting while casting the spell. Therefore, if we properly spread out when it's about to hit, we can have the person he faces immediately start side-stepping during the cast. Think of it like being faced by Icehowl before his charge in ToC. ><

Phase 4

One yet unmentioned ability is Harvest Soul (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68980), which he casts only during Phase 4 on a random raid member, dealing 7500 DPS for 6 sec. Healers must be ready to spam that person (Power Word: Shield, Swiftmend, Pain Suppression would all be useful here), as if the target survives the channel, they get ported to the Frostmourne room and seemingly fight a boss (the sword?) in there. Still can't find much info on this aspect of the fight. Also, we need to consider what happens if this gets cast on a healer, whether the remaining healer can manage until they get back. I suspect so if our Vile Spirit damage is decent enough, but might be worth saving tank cooldowns if this happens. It looks like the Harvest Soul (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68980) target spends 35 seconds in the other room before they are ported back into the main room/fight. I also heard a Vent comment that players that go inside the Frostmourne room "should interrupt the boss to decrease the damage a lot". We'll find out what that means soon, but keep that in mind for now.

Also, I suggest watching these videos which, imo, are even more useful than the Blood Legion videos as they include Vent and it's clear what is going on for most of the fight if you watch through them a couple times. Look at the phase transition information above as you watch/pause your way through and you'll be able to really see how each ability plays out during the fight. Again, stop Video 2 at 1:45 to avoid spoilers if you wish.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbN5ZklPFsI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2-QG3CuXEE

[Kulldam]

Another video for The Lich King:

Doesn't show anything we didn't know already, although they handle the Vile Spirits differently which is a consideration (they basically ignore killing most of them and move Arthas to the opposite side of the room and have a few ranged soak/run/soak/run when the Vile Spirits chase to explode. It seems unnecessary with our DPS setup but something to consider. Otherwise, I suggest just watching to get a better feel of the fight from a new perspective. (WARNING: Lots of loud Douchebaggery in Vent going on!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5ScfVfN6_0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKAT4kw59pU

[Kilwenn]

A bit more on The Lich King:

Phase 4

One yet unmentioned ability is Harvest Soul (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68980), which he casts only during Phase 4 on a random raid member, dealing 7500 DPS for 6 sec. Healers must be ready to spam that person (Power Word: Shield, Swiftmend, Pain Suppression would all be useful here), as if the target survives the channel, they get ported to the Frostmourne room and seemingly fight a boss (the sword?) in there. Still can't find much info on this aspect of the fight. Also, we need to consider what happens if this gets cast on a healer, whether the remaining healer can manage until they get back. I suspect so if our Vile Spirit damage is decent enough, but might be worth saving tank cooldowns if this happens. It looks like the Harvest Soul (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=68980) target spends 35 seconds in the other room before they are ported back into the main room/fight. I also heard a Vent comment that players that go inside the Frostmourne room "should interrupt the boss to decrease the damage a lot". We'll find out what that means soon, but keep that in mind for now.


Found this video showing the port to the Frostmourne Room from a healer's perspective.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbOac8my-kY

[Kulldam]

Found this video showing the port to the Frostmourne Room from a healer's perspective.

Awesome Kil, good find!

Looks like the Frostmourne room isn't too complex based on that -- DPS kill/stun the bad spirit when it casts; Healers heal the good spirit.

[Kulldam]

More on The Lich King:

Edit #2: Super balls! I also just realized I didn't subtract Kheelan's DPS from the original 120 seconds of Phase 1. This means Phase 1 would actually last 143 seconds, or prolong the fight 23 seconds over what I have below.

I need help figuring something out. Trying to determine the enrage timer for sure based on video stuff and there seem to be conflicting results. If you mark the time from the Blood Legion #1 video where the engage (1:24) till the end (10:06), that's 8:42 total. Then the time in the second video when The Lich King gains Berserk (you can see it pop up in the target debuff frame of the Mage), which is at 6:19. Combined, that's 15:01, so obviously 15:00 minutes from engage to Berserk.

However, looking at the Adept videos, the recorder has a /stopwatch going on the left of his screen, and you can see it reads 6:38 when the fight begins. The transition is smooth from Video 1 to 2 (they are obviously the same clip), but in Video 2, watch at the 1:52 mark -- The Lich King suddenly gets huge. However, I see no Berserk icon on his unit frame (I assume it would show up at the top somewhere with the default frames as in the video?) We also know DBM has the Berserk timer set to 15 minutes, so I'm wondering what that size increase is.

The only thing I can think is if you look at the Adept #2 video, at the 0:45 mark, one of their healers, a Priest name Heygirlheeyy (retard alert), gets the Harvest Soul cast on them and is ported into the Frostmourne room. Then, forward to the 1:52 mark, just as The Lich King grows in size, watch the Grid frame for that Heygirl priest and listen to Vent -- it seems that Priest dies inside the Frostmourne room just at that moment.

So, best guess based on that is that having someone inside the Frostmourne room buffs him in some way, but I can't tell how exactly. Anyone know anything about this?

Anyway, I originally wanted to discuss the Berserk timer to talk about raid composition. 15 minutes gives us a total fight time of 900 seconds; less 60 seconds for each Transition Phase where we aren't able to attack him, that's 780 seconds of fight time where we can potentially be attacking The Lich King.

Obviously we've got Phase 1 down and are doing virtually maximum DPS to him from engage to 70%. Below are a couple links to some of our logged attempts tonight:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/86eggpl1w6ukrm2x/analyze/dd/source/?s=12476&e=12589&target=58
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/86eggpl1w6ukrm2x/analyze/dd/source/?s=11727&e=11845&target=58

They show the raid damage dealt to The Lich King during Phase 1 only (100% - 70%). A few things to take note of:

First, making assumptions off the Damage Meters in-game will often mislead -- I'm guilty of this too, but Ugra and Kilwenn are #1 & #2 on Lich King damage in that second link, even though in-game meters will report all the misc AE damage during this phase and show them far lower.

Second, it gives us a rough idea of our DPS when on the Lich King only (about 42,000) and how long we're taking on Phase 1 (120 seconds). This leaves us with 11 minutes until the Berserk (after 120 from Remorseless Winter phases too). Each of the three Phases requires getting through 5,220,000 HP on The Lich King. However, once Phase 2 starts, we have to DPS adds.

We also will have a Raging Spirit to kill that's alive at the start of Phase 2 and Phase 3, so the easiest way to calculate that is to add the Raging Spirits' HP (885,000 * 2 = 1,770,000) to the total damage we have to deal to The Lich King after Phase 1 ends. That comes out to 5,220,000 * 2 + 1,770,000 = 12,210,000, or 6,105,000 per Phase.

What I ultimately want to know is if we can lose Kheelan's DPS and still beat the important timers (namely Berserk and various add spawn timers). So, I'll assume our Raid DPS is 36,300 (the original 42,000 single-target DPS less Kheelan's 5700ish average).

Val'kyr spawn every 50 seconds and have 450,000 HP. If we assume it takes us 3 seconds to get all DPS ramped up on them, we're down to 47 seconds remaining. Once DPS engages, we will kill them in about 450,000 / 36,300 = 12.39 so about 13 seconds. Assume another 3-4 seconds to move back in positions, and we're talking about about 30 seconds remaining. Defile is cast every 30 seconds as well, and since that usually affects only 1-2 people ideally, hard to calculate, but we'll assume we lose 3 seconds of Raid DPS per Defile. Over a 50 sec Val'kyr spawn time, we'll get 1.66 Defile casts, so that's 5 seconds lost to Defile for each Val'kyr we see. Therefore, we're looking at approximately 25 seconds out of every 50 in Phase 2 we are spending on stuff besides attacking The Lich King. Therefore, we can assume our DPS is 50%, or 18,500.

So, for Phase 2, we have to deal 6,105,000 damage in total, which will take us 330 seconds at 18,500 RDPS, or 5.5 minutes. This, interestingly enough, works out to be exactly half of the 11 minutes we calculated having after Phase 1 plus two Remorseless Phases. That's pretty crazy actually, but anyway...

Phase 3 with Vile Spirits is of course the hardest to figure out. They spawn every 30 seconds but people like Rofl and Thaw won't be able to directly attack them ever. I can't think of a reasonable way to calculate how much DPS we'll have on Vile Spirits, however, it's worth noting that the previous videos spend 3:47, 3:54, and 4:07 respectively, to go through all of Phase 3. Obviously they have higher gear and therefore DPS than we do, but I doubt it's 90+ seconds worth of difference.

So, ultimately this leads me to believe we should use 3 healers on this fight. It would stabilize a lot of the "oh shit" moments that we had tonight and also better let Fides concentrate on Shielding, which is hugely beneficial for numerous reasons beyond just Infest.

Thoughts or comments?

Edit: God damn, I just realized after all this shit that my original DPS numbers were taken during a time when 45 seconds we had Bloodlust. Balls! Oh well, still worth discussing if 2 or 3 healers would be best...

[Nigma]

This looks pretty doable. I could also raise my dps by not misdirecting to you Kull since im only sending one mob your way every spawn. And i'm sure there is something everyone could do to up the dps a little. As long as i dont MD myself i think Krash will be fine on agro. And once we get more used to the fight trasitions between phases and knowing when and what to dps will help a bunch.

[Wildhide]

More on The Lich King:

I'm going to have to agree due to my healer bias.

Healing in phase one isn't too bad. If we manage the disease properly, the LK shouldn't hit too hard, and if Kull interrupts/stuns the big guys he shouldn't be taking huge bursts. Oh, on a side note, is the shockwave ability the Horrors cast something with a cast time? It might be wise to interrupt/stun them when they attempt to do that. Being stunned with 238748923 mobs on you = dead kull. Yeah.

Phase 2 healing is where it starts to get a bit more tricky. If a healer is targeted by a Val'kyr, the remaining healer will have a tough time keeping up with any potential damage spikes (infest, soul reaper). Then again, this is kinda the argument I used on Sindragosa, and that didn't work out. But, seeing as it's not a DPS race like Sind P2, I think having another healer to avoid oshit moments will go a long way.

Phase 3 healing is where even more oshit moments could happen. Between soul reaper, harvest soul, infest, and vile spirit explosions the potential for gibs is fairly high. Having as much healing as possible (hots/shields on the raid, full hots on tanks, etc) will help us avoid someone going boom.

When it comes to DPS, having one less DPS'er will make the transitional phases even more gay. I guess it is assumed that a vile spirit or two is to remain after the phase, so we will have to be ready to kill them off after any other threats are dealth with (Val'kyr dead, defile cast, whatever).

Also,the 3 healers will be pretty bored during the transitional phase, since the incoming damage isn't that high provided we spread out properly. So, why not have a healer (me) kill the frost spheres and let Kil focus on bringing down the spirits. It'll only take 2-3 wraths to bring 'em down, and any more dps on the spirits is welcome.

Random stuff that isn't in a particular order:

Infest:
Its damage doesn't really seem to be that big of a deal. A couple wild growths and a rejuv tick or two should mostly do the trick. A shield on some of the higher HP targets and not the lower ones would be ideal, from a mana perspective. Fides blows (lol?) through his mana pretty quickly putting shields on everyone, but if he would only put them on Rofl/Thaw and the tanks his mana consumption would go down. Seeing as it's such a long fight, he'll probably need every bit of mana, and if Khee is healing he(Fides) will probably not be able to get his(Khee) innervates. SO, if he shields 4ish people, he will have more mana and time to worry about the tanks - which is a disc priest's ideal role.

Krash:
Would it be wiser for Khrash to use a stam trinket or two? I know poor pallies were nerfed in the stam department, but he only had 45k hp pre-commanding. Sacrificing some avoidance for more HP to survive big bursts (hi, soul reaper + a melee hit) would seem to be the best bet, or maybe it isn't the best. Too bad we don't have a 25man geared druid tank with 60k hp, so we can almost ignore the mechanic completely.

Remaining raging spirits:
While Kull is OT'ing these leftovers from the transitional phases, he might not be able to intervene Khrash for the first soul reaper cast, or maybe he will. Something to think about I guess.

That's all I've got for now.

[Rofldat]

Shouldn't Fides shielding be the other way? since his shield absobs full Infest, he should put it on lower HP people.

Take for example, I'm at 30k HP
If Infest hits me for 7k, I would need 4k healing to get back to 27k and drop Infest off.

If it hit, someone with 20k, they'd actually need 5k healing to get them to 90% HP.

Factor in resists, me having AMS AND Bone Shield, and some other stuffs, I think at least I for one should be pat of the not-shielded players.

Also, I don't know how much it helps, but if Khrash can tank close enough to the adds that my pestilence(15 yrd) can hit them all, the mobs will at the very least take increased damage from Necrotic Plague from Ebon Plague debuff. I can't be certain if they take extra 30% more damage from Cypt Fever part of it though.

[Kulldam]

Oh, on a side note, is the shockwave ability the Horrors cast something with a cast time? It might be wise to interrupt/stun them when they attempt to do that. Being stunned with 238748923 mobs on you = dead kull. Yeah.

I'll try to save my Shockwave for their own, but they use it frequently enough I can't do much about it usually. I also tend to save my trinkets/last stand/shield wall for when they enrage and I have two on me, which for the most part has worked well enough.


Also,the 3 healers will be pretty bored during the transitional phase, since the incoming damage isn't that high provided we spread out properly. So, why not have a healer (me) kill the frost spheres and let Kil focus on bringing down the spirits. It'll only take 2-3 wraths to bring 'em down, and any more dps on the spirits is welcome.

This is an excellent idea!


Infest:
Its damage doesn't really seem to be that big of a deal. A couple wild growths and a rejuv tick or two should mostly do the trick. A shield on some of the higher HP targets and not the lower ones would be ideal, from a mana perspective. Fides blows (lol?) through his mana pretty quickly putting shields on everyone, but if he would only put them on Rofl/Thaw and the tanks his mana consumption would go down. Seeing as it's such a long fight, he'll probably need every bit of mana, and if Khee is healing he(Fides) will probably not be able to get his(Khee) innervates. SO, if he shields 4ish people, he will have more mana and time to worry about the tanks - which is a disc priest's ideal role.

Well I started to do some math to see which option was the best and realized it was pointless because while Shielding 8 non-tanks is the best way to go for survivability, if we can't sustain it mana-wise, won't matter. Instead, at 666 mana per cast, Shield is obviously pretty spendy compared to reactive healing Infest. However, Wild Growth isn't enough to counteract the heal + DoT by itself, and even with both Druids casting Wild Growth, it's not going to necessarily hit the right targets (right?). In fact, by the time the Wild Growth finishes ticking (assuming it is cast the GCD after Infest hits), the Infest DoT would be at 6 stacks, or about 11,000 additional damage taken from the DoT portion alone. Now, double-Rejuv on everyone, with a tick of 3k or so, would counteract ever Infest, but that's 16 GCDs every 20 sec between both Druids, and a decent chunk of mana.

Instead, I'd argue our most efficient method would be Fides again, but a Holy build for Circle of Healing & Prayer of Healing. A single Prayer of Healing, depending on how many crits, could heal up and remove the DoT from 1-5 people according to Rawr, with a Average heal of 4982 and a Crit Avg of 7473. At about 1483 mana, even having to cast twice to ensure all 5 people get healed/DoT removed, is 2946 mana and 4.2 seconds (or 3 GCDs). 5 Shields for Disc would be 3330 mana and 5 GCDs. Circle of Healing can also be used between casts on the other party members (though my understanding is CoH will smart-target players based on health, not their party, so cross healing may happen). Maybe Fides can provide feedback but it seems in terms of a sustained method, a Holy AE build would be the ideal way to handle Infest.

The other option of course is to assign healers 3 people each to manage Infest on solo. My only worry is chances are it will require 4-5 GCDs per healer per 20 sec Infest recast, and if other important shit is going on, there's a higher chance a healer may forget to top people off, or have to heal the tank instead, or something. Also when a healer gets ported to Frostmourne, someone else has to pick up their 3 assigned people.


Krash:
Would it be wiser for Khrash to use a stam trinket or two? I know poor pallies were nerfed in the stam department, but he only had 45k hp pre-commanding. Sacrificing some avoidance for more HP to survive big bursts (hi, soul reaper + a melee hit) would seem to be the best bet, or maybe it isn't the best. Too bad we don't have a 25man geared druid tank with 60k hp, so we can almost ignore the mechanic completely.

Might be worth a try since Khrash gets a huge boost from extra HP through AD. What STA trinkets do you have available Khrash?


Remaining raging spirits:
While Kull is OT'ing these leftovers from the transitional phases, he might not be able to intervene Khrash for the first soul reaper cast, or maybe he will. Something to think about I guess.

It shouldn't be a problem. I realized after our attempts last night that since the first Val'kyr is coming down so quickly into Phase 2, there's very little point for me to drag my Spirits into the center with the raid since no one is attacking them until the Val'kyr dies anyway. Instead, I'll stay outside the raid a bit facing the Spirits away so no one gets silenced and this will also give me proper range for the first Intervene. I'm fairly certain Val'kyr can't select the OT as a valid target (I hope!) and my DPS on Val'kyr is irrelevant, so it should be fine.

[Kulldam]

Question on The Lich King:

Perhaps a "well duh" question, but anyone know if Death Grip (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=49576) works on Val'kyr during Phase 2? Would seem to be a super-overpowered ability for one class to have during that Phase if so, but figured worth asking.

[Kulldam]

Another note on The Lich King:

For Khrash only -- Check out 7:02 marker in the below Adept video. This is when they transition from Phase 2 to the Transitional Phase where he casts Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69781). Obviously when we first go into the Transitional Phase after Phase 1, the platform is already up on the outside so we don't have to wait, but going from Phase 2 to Transitional Phase, we have to wait for the outside platform to spawn which means the raid gets hit by Remorseless Winter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69781) for a couple ticks. Again, at 7:02 in the video, watch as they stand near the edge waiting for the platform but get hit by a good chunk of damage before it spawns and they can move (see the Grid health boxes on the bottom).

So, this would be a good time to use Divine Sacrifice (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64205) as this is the only time in the fight that has a foreseeable, raid-wide big damage hit so it's easy to plan for.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbN5ZklPFsI

[Fideslol]

Question on The Lich King:

Perhaps a "well duh" question, but anyone know if Death Grip (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=49576) works on Val'kyr during Phase 2? Would seem to be a super-overpowered ability for one class to have during that Phase if so, but figured worth asking.

It used to. I believe they hotfixed it.

[Kilwenn]

Death Grip does not work on the Val'ky any longer.

[Rofldat]

Some changes on ICC.


# In all difficulties of the Lich King encounter, players who are tanking raging spirits are no longer valid Harvest Soul targets during phase 3, Vile Spirits in phase 3 now spawn at a greater height, and Vile Spirits in phase 3 will not be spawned as often.
# In the 10 player Lich King encounter, Raging Spirits have had their health decreased in both normal and heroic versions and then fewer Vile Spirirts will be summoned in just the 10 player normal mode.


* Sindragosa's Mystic Buffet will now pulse every 6 six seconds, up from 5 seconds. In the normal 10 player encounter the debuff increase has also been slightly reduced.

[Kulldam]

In the 10 player Lich King encounter, Raging Spirits have had their health decreased in both normal and heroic versions

$$

On the nose Blizzard!

[Rofldat]

Observation from today:
-CoI definitely helps, however since I was the only person to apply both CoI and Ebon Plague, things seem to went downhill when I got grabbed(the chaos caused by Defile doesn't help either). Another person to apply the slow would be nice(or if they can apply it consistently, the person being the main slow while I'll throw CoI out if that person get grabbed could work too)
-Partly due to people not paying as much attention since we were going to lose, but after the 2nd or 3rd Valkyr we should keep constant track on LK's %, and try to force him into the 2nd transition phase if it can be done before the next Valkyr kill a player(at around 41% we could go tank him next to the edge).
-This seems to be THE make/break phase, since anyone who got killed by Valkyr can't join the rest for the final part and Vile Spirits aren't 'lethal', maybe saving Bloodlust to try and burn through this phase will be more ideal than 1st phase.
-At the start of the fight everyone should still burn their 5-min or less cooldown, since it'll be back up by the time Valkyr phase hit(and should be up again during Vile Spirit phase, and because of how long the speech is, most likely will be up for the finale)

I didn't check it, but does the Valkyr have DR from stun?
If not then Khrash could throw in Holy Wrath while the Valkyr is in his range to get some initial stun in. Then Thaw's HoJ/HW, after that I could try using my Ghoul's stun. Hopefully by then we should have it close to dying.

[Kulldam]

-CoI definitely helps, however since I was the only person to apply both CoI and Ebon Plague, things seem to went downhill when I got grabbed(the chaos caused by Defile doesn't help either). Another person to apply the slow would be nice(or if they can apply it consistently, the person being the main slow while I'll throw CoI out if that person get grabbed could work too)

Anyone know if you can cast on the Val'kyr while it's doing it's "spawn animation" where it's frozen above us before it swoops to the target? Would be worth testing, because that'd be a great time to apply CoI/Plague (and similar spells for other people) since we can ninj it in before target is picked.


-Partly due to people not paying as much attention since we were going to lose, but after the 2nd or 3rd Valkyr we should keep constant track on LK's %, and try to force him into the 2nd transition phase if it can be done before the next Valkyr kill a player(at around 41% we could go tank him next to the edge).

Yeah, looking back at the video, we just didn't expect to get to Phase 3 I think and most people I imagine (myself included) weren't thinking about preparation for the transition. But yes, obviously determining if we can burn him to 40% before the next Val'kyr is needed, even if it's close and the Val'kyr picks a target, if the raid follows the Val'kyr (but killing The Lich King), that player is safe and won't die if the ledge has respawned.


-This seems to be THE make/break phase, since anyone who got killed by Valkyr can't join the rest for the final part and Vile Spirits aren't 'lethal', maybe saving Bloodlust to try and burn through this phase will be more ideal than 1st phase.

While I agree this is probably the hardest Phase (though who really knows what Vile Spirits will be like in practice), I'm not sure if saving Bloodlust for Phase 2 would help that much. With the amount of time we're spending moving around and killing Val'kyr, the actual "stand still and DPS" time we'd get from the 45 sec of lust is pretty low. Moreover, we'd lost two bloodlusts in reality since we wouldn't be able to do a second one in Phase 3 if we waited till mid-fight. Personally I think speed isn't the factor, but control -- even if we sped up Phase 2 enough to skip another potential Val'kyr/Defile spawn, we'll still have to deal with 5 Val'kyr (as we had 6 in our final attempt last night).

That said...


-At the start of the fight everyone should still burn their 5-min or less cooldown, since it'll be back up by the time Valkyr phase hit(and should be up again during Vile Spirit phase, and because of how long the speech is, most likely will be up for the finale)

This is a good idea though I'd like to expand on it a bit. Based on our fraps of tonight's best attempt, we're actually entering Phase 2/getting our first Val'kyr at the 3 minute mark into the fight. I was thinking somewhat along the lines of what Rofl suggests, is to have DPS that won't lose a huge static DPS gain, to utilize 1 or even 2 clickie trinkets for this fight, specifically for Phase 2. The Val'kyr come every 50 seconds, so the line up isn't perfect, but if we had 1-2 trinkets on each of our 5 DPS, we could "rotate" groups of DPS (2-3 in each group) to blow a trinket for each Val'kyr spawn, which may give a slight boost to our burst DPS during those key moments.


I didn't check it, but does the Valkyr have DR from stun?
If not then Khrash could throw in Holy Wrath while the Valkyr is in his range to get some initial stun in. Then Thaw's HoJ/HW, after that I could try using my Ghoul's stun. Hopefully by then we should have it close to dying.

They do have a stun DR unfortunately as my Concussion Blow gets reduced after a Paladin HoJ. Still, I think our method is the best we can do in terms of maximizing stuns: HoJ 6 seconds > Concussion or HW 2.5 or 1.5 seconds > Shockwave 4 seconds.

One thing I'm thinking a lot about is how we can better manage Defile. Using our fraps to confirm, here are a few key things we know:
The Lich King targets the player he's casting Defile under at the start of his cast.
Has a 2.0 second cast time
The location of the puddle is determined by the location of the target player at the end of the cast.
The graphic is slightly smaller than the area of effect.

Given that we have a 2 second window before the puddle drops for the targeted player to move, what if we did a stack-up position and designated two directions the raid members can move, where 9 people are all going one way, while the 10th person who is getting Defile goes the other? This may prove too difficult in practice given the short window in which to react, but it would greatly control Defile and allow us to stay virtually dead-center of the room for Val'kyr.

An example of how it might play out:

<iframe src="http://docs.google.com/present/embed?id=dccp4mjw_58d97tqbhc&interval=30&size=l" frameborder="0" width="700" height="559"></iframe>

Very crude as usual, but the principle is there. Essentially, at any given moment, the chance for the player being targeted by Defile to be the player targeted by an incoming Val'kyr is only 11%. Therefore, we have an 89% chance that someone from the "stacked raid" position will be chosen and the raid can safely engage the Val'kyr immediately. Moreover, because the raid started (before moving) in the direct center of the room, after the raid sidestepped slightly to the right, the Val'kyr's flight path will never cross the position of a Defile puddle and will instead go off to the right. If the pattern outlined can be repeated, this rule will hold true for every Val'kyr cast no matter the timing.

There are two potential issues I see with this method.

First, as mentioned, 2 seconds is a pretty short window in which to not only recognize which target you are (good or bad, Defiled or safe) but also to react to it. Obviously, having the whole raid move at the same time is meant to counter this issue somewhat so even if the Defile target doesn't move super fast, we will still get out of the effect. Second, is this doesn't account for Defile casts while a Val'kyr is alive and being killed. Obviously the Val'kyr is the priority and we can't stop DPSing it just to try to stack up and face a certain direction. However, Defile's cast well into killing a Val'kyr are not as relevant since the pool is likely only underneath 1 or 2 people at most and if we position correctly, never in the center.

If we decide this method might work, I can even make up a little mod to help us with directions (similar again to Thaddius bossmods) with arrows pointing the direction for each person to move based on whether they are the Defile target or not.

Obviously this Phase will get easier as time goes on and we practice and our DPS increases. However, just as we're getting comfortable with the requirements to breeze through this, we'll come up against the numbers for the Heroic version, which will in all likelyhood boost the HP pools of the Val'kyr, damage/spread of Defile, etc.

Also, one last note I wanted to add which is good news: Our DPS looks just fine for beating the Berserk timer. We hit 40%/Transitional Phase with 6:30 left on Berserk, which means we'll have 5:30 to get through Phase 3, which is far more time than we originally budgeted given our previous DPS estimations. We also got through Phase 2, on that first moderately successful Phase 2 we've seen, in 5:05, so I can't foresee any issues getting through Phase 3 with plenty of time to spare.

[Nigma]

Anyone know if you can cast on the Val'kyr while it's doing it's "spawn animation" where it's frozen above us before it swoops to the target? Would be worth testing, because that'd be a great time to apply CoI/Plague (and similar spells for other people) since we can ninj it in before target is picked.

The Val'kyr can only be attacked after it swoops down to molest it's target. At least that is when my shots go off as i spam the Val'kyr.

[Kulldam]

More on The Lich King:

Soul Reaper (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=69409)

I was looking through our logs (http://worldoflogs.com/reports/zjxml5yq584vm6fa/xe/?enc=wipes&boss=36597&x=spell%3D%22Soul+Reaper%22+or+spell%3D%22Safeguar d%22) to try to determine exactly how much damage reductions were kicking in on Khrashdin for Soul Reaper damage, and how badly it hurts when I miss Safeguard, and I am noticing a few strange things.

First, however, here are the possible damage reducers I can come up with that would apply to Khrash during this fight:

Effect|% Reduction
Righteous Fury|6%
Guarded By Light|6%
Blessing of Sanctuary|3%
Shield of the Templar|3%
Glyph of Divine Plea|3%
Safeguard|30%
Ardent Defender|20%

Now, given those, I found a couple common numbers in the logs were 30,956 and 29,098.


[22:51:16.322] The Lich King Soul Reaper Khrashdin 21975 (R: 10649)
[22:51:16.322] Khrashdin afflicted by Soul Reaper from The Lich King
[22:51:20.744] Khrashdin gains Safeguard from Kulldam
[22:51:21.354] The Lich King Soul Reaper Khrashdin 30956


[22:53:18.700] The Lich King Soul Reaper Khrashdin 25143 (R: 3360)
[22:53:18.700] Khrashdin afflicted by Soul Reaper from The Lich King
[22:53:22.667] Khrashdin gains Safeguard from Kulldam
[22:53:23.661] The Lich King Soul Reaper Khrashdin 29098

Both of these common hits indicate the 20% reduction from Ardent Defender is not calculated into the hit (and in fact, I didn't find a single instance in the log of a hit indicating a reduction from all effects simultaneously, which would be 22,580). This seems to indicate that either Khrash was never at the health level where a Safeguarded hit would take him below 35%, or more likely, that the order of operations for Ardent Defender's sub-35% reduction is such that it comes prior to other outside damage reducers, meaning it wouldn't proc off a Safeguarded hit because it thinks the hit will be 30% higher (before Safeguard) and therefore assumed death will occur and thus proc the heal rather than the 20% reducer.

For 29,098, it looks like Righteous Fury, Guarded by Light, Blessing, Shield of the Templar, and Safeguard are in effect, giving:


50,000*(1-0.06)*(1-0.06)*(1-0.03)*(1-0.03)*(1-0.3)=29098.2734

For 30,956, however, I'm getting some strange results. The only possible combination of multiplicative reductions come from the following formula:


50,000*(1-0.06)*(1-0.03)*(1-0.03)*(1-0.3)=30955.61

Which means either removing Righteous Fury (6%) or the Guarded by Light (6%) reduction along with Divine Plea. However, this makes no sense in a logical sense because all the effects except Divine Plea are talents that are always active (Guarded by Light, Shield of the Templar), or are reductions from spells that Khrash would never have off during the fight (Righteous Fury, Blessing of Sanc). Anyone know why this would come out this way, where some of the always-on reduction effects for Khrash are only sometimes working?

Perhaps not that important, but makes me wonder.

Another interesting thing I noticed in the log, is it seems even when I miss Safeguard on Khrash, the 20% reduction from AD will seemingly only proc if it takes him below 35% but not below zero:


[21:37:55.159] The Lich King Soul Reaper Khrashdin 19925 (R: 6177)
[21:37:55.159] Khrashdin afflicted by Soul Reaper from The Lich King
[21:37:59.172] Ugra gains Safeguard from Kulldam
[21:38:00.201] The Lich King Soul Reaper Khrashdin 36558 (A: 3764)

Don't ask how I managed to screw that one up, I just love Ugra I guess. In any event, the damage he took was equivalent to all reducers except AD or Safeguard:


50,000*(1-0.06)*(1-0.06)*(1-0.03)*(1-0.03)*(1-0.03)=40321.89314

So, obviously this shouldn't occur since I'd normally Safeguard correctly (I made a macro for Khrash specifically after that screw up on Ugra during the raid), but it looks like we don't actually get the 20% AD reducer exactly as I thought it worked, and will therefore only really help us if Khrash is 100% full HP when Soul Reaper hits and without Safeguard. =/

Another interesting note while I was curious on this spell, it turns out there are only 2 different power levels of this ability (whereas usually there are 4, for normal 10, normal 25, heroic 10, and heroic 25). Instead, there is the 50,000 for Normal 10, then a 60,000 for the remaining Heroic 10, Normal 25, and Heroic 25. Seems odd they'd make a Heroic 10 group have tanks with the same excepted gear level as the Heroic 25 groups, but I'm not shocked -- slutty 25 manners!

The good news is the damage taken from the Heroic version only increases to 33,870 - 37,146, depending on which reducers are active at the time. Still a rapeage hit but very doable especially with another 2k HP from upgrades by that time.

[Rofldat]

Anyone know if you can cast on the Val'kyr while it's doing it's "spawn animation" where it's frozen above us before it swoops to the target? Would be worth testing, because that'd be a great time to apply CoI/Plague (and similar spells for other people) since we can ninj it in before target is picked.

I tried, doesn't look like you can target the Valkyr until it actually swoops down to grab someone.


Also, one last note I wanted to add which is good news: Our DPS looks just fine for beating the Berserk timer. We hit 40%/Transitional Phase with 6:30 left on Berserk, which means we'll have 5:30 to get through Phase 3, which is far more time than we originally budgeted given our previous DPS estimations. We also got through Phase 2, on that first moderately successful Phase 2 we've seen, in 5:05, so I can't foresee any issues getting through Phase 3 with plenty of time to spare.

Which means the 30 Necrotic achievement might not be that huge of a worry as we thought at first.

EDIT: Huh, somehow I didn't see Nig/Kull's post earlier until I post on this.

[Kulldam]

Some notes on Heroic Saurfang:

So looking at this expression selection (http://worldoflogs.com/reports/tk74tpe703izwdq0/xe/?s=16691&e=16916&x=(spell%3D%22Mark+of+the+Fallen+Champion%22+and+t argetname%3D%22Kheelan%22)+or+(targetname%3D%22Kul ldam%22+and+(fulltype%3DSWING_DAMAGE+or+fulltype%3 DSWING_MISSED))+or+(targetname%3D%22Khrashdin%22+a nd+(fulltype%3DSWING_DAMAGE+or+fulltype%3DSWING_MI SSED))) from our logs of last night, I was wrong in my assumption that Saurfang must "hit" the tank to actually transfer the damage via Mark. In fact, every swing he makes regardless of damage onto the tank, will then be dealt to the Mark targets. This seems bad at first, but it might actually be a helpful thing since it's damage we can plan around.

That said, the question really comes down to HOW do we plan on that damage? Obviously 3 healers is the way to go, and while I think Disc Shields would be helpful in some cases as it extends someone's health pool, since Shielding Marked targets would be removed within 1-2 seconds after the cast, it really can't increase the relative HP pool of someone very often. Therefore, since Beacon is so powerful, a Paladin still seems the ideal way to go. The question is, how do we deal with 3 Marked targets AND heal the tanks in a sub-30% Frenzy mode? Each Mark target will take about 8000 DPS, which is nearly max HPS for Druids, though HoTs will be spread a bit to other targets so it's not exactly a 1-to-1 comparison.

Assigning a healer to each Mark target seems the best choice for starters, and they can be swapped mid-fight if needed so Thawfore is healing the weakest HP Mark target and if someone with some mitigation is Marked, a Druid can grab them (Fides, Rofl, etc.). Another thing we'll need to do is set up some very specific IF-THEN scenarios for using cooldowns on Mark targets. For example:

IF: Saurfang is Frenzied AND Saurfang RP >= 50% AND Mark Target gets Boiling Blood
THEN: Khrashdin casts Hand of Protection on that target.

In other words, have some specific rules about who will use cooldowns on whom and when so we can preemptively counter the chances of gib-deaths.

Another simple thing to do that would greatly reduce Mark damage is to have everyone in the raid with a handful of Indestructible Potions (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40093) on them and ready to use if they are a Mark target when we hit 30%. Since Mark deals physical damage, and I confirmed this in our logs, it is mitigated by Armor. For example, without cooldowns going, Rofl is taking about 6800 damage max from Mark hits when Runic Power is 95%+, whereas Kheelan takes hits of about 8500. If every Mark target can bump their Armor by 3500 that will be a huge boost to mitigation.

Also, if anyone knows any other ways we can bump our Armor on Mark targets (without reenchanting our shit of course =P), speak up here.

Edit: More rambling thoughts...

So I realize a common strategy for Normal Saurfang back in the day was to let people die when they got Marked because it only healed him 5% of his health so they upped the heal to 20% of his health to counteract that.

However, I am quite certain that while Mark will remain on you through death, it cannot remain on you if you die and also release your body. Assuming this is the case, then the big question is:

Do we gain a damage lead by letting a Mark target die early in the fight?

My initial research indicates: Yes.

Looking through tonight's logs, when we were on our game, from engagement of the fight until the moment of the first Mark cast was very commonly 102 seconds on multiple occasions and 103 seconds on our final attempt of the night. Given that he has 100 RP, it seems a safe bet that the 102/103 second Mark casts are due to avoiding all unnecessary damage (not spreading Blood Nova damage or getting hit by Blood Beasts at all).

Now, looking through our logs, from the point of engagement until that 102 second mark (http://worldoflogs.com/reports/tk74tpe703izwdq0/analyze/dd/source/?s=15708&e=15810), when using our 2-healer setup, we're dealing about 5.25 million damage. This of course includes ramp-up time for debuffs and such at the start, but that's a solid number.

When a Mark target dies, Saurfang heals for exactly 2,459,898 health.

This means, theoretically, again assuming all the above assumptions are correct, if we let the first Mark target die immediately, release, and battle res them, we will still be "ahead" in terms of damage output versus healing.

Now, obviously it depends on the Mark target (I imagine if a Druid got Marked and died/ressed they'd have mana issues later on in the fight), but we will lose some of the above damage because that player has to die/be ressed/be rebuffed. Lets assume that whole process takes 10 seconds from the time they die (and thus stop dealing damage) to the time they are rebuffed and refighting. Even if our top DPSers are the Marks, that's only a loss of about 8,000 DPS * 10 seconds, or 80,000 damage. There's also a loss of globals from other people helping with buffs, so lets round up to 100,000 damage lost, or a total damage dealt in that timefrom now of 5.15 million.

Therefore, we can technically do this twice with two resses and "start" the fight (with basically zero Runic Power and no Marks) after dealing ~5,380,204 damage ([5,150,000 - 2,459,898] * 2) to Saurfang. We'd then deal another ~5.15million before the first "real" Mark hits that sticks around, which means he'd be down over 10million health at this point, or basically hitting the 30% Frenzy around the time of the first Mark. We'd then do our Lust and shit and burn him down.

Who knows, maybe someone will say they know why this shit doesn't work at all and it was tried before or whatever, but the numbers make sense to me and while it's somewhat cheesey, it sure would help if it worked in practice.

Thoughts?

[Kheelan]

Devotion aura and stoneskin totem are the only things I can think of at the moment to raise AC, but I'm assuming both of those were already up. Of course there is inspiration if we have a priest heal and ancestral healing if a shaman heals.

Elixir of protections are 800 armor but that would preclude using a flask.

[Nigma]

Kulldam your strat makes perfect sense. Of course it is just all number crunching. But it looks solid.

[Fideslol]

So I realize a common strategy for Normal Saurfang back in the day was to let people die when they got Marked because it only healed him 5% of his health so they upped the heal to 20% of his health to counteract that.

However, I am quite certain that while Mark will remain on you through death, it cannot remain on you if you die and also release your body. Assuming this is the case, then the big question is:

I'm under the impression that releasing doesn't remove the debuff. Zoning in again does. I'm not sure if this would work in practice.

[Kilwenn]

I agree with your strategy and I think it could work, but I think we are still missing something. Blizzard has always stated, "bring the player not the class", yet this strategy requires a battle rez. Are other 10 mans without a druid forced to 9 man him or is it possible to zone back in after releasing and get back in the fight? Sorry, long day here and I am posting odd thoughts.

[Wildhide]

Mark damage is unaffected by armor.

Take a look at try two on Saurfang.

Fides is taking roughly 15% less damage than Khee is (15% from shadowform), despite Khee having higher armor. Us trees have around 11-12k armor in tree form, and I am quite certain that Fides does not have that much.

Looking at the log:
[21:01:56.335] Deathbringer Saurfang Mark of the Fallen Champion Fideslol 4026
[21:01:56.335] Deathbringer Saurfang Mark of the Fallen Champion Kheelan 4700
There's proof of roughly 15% less damage taken.

In your example, Rofl is taking ~20% less damage than the other marked people due to Bone Shield (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=49222). Apparently mark does not remove charges, so Rofl has a nearly passive 20% reduction on mark damage.

Also, the base damage of mark is 4275-4725, and as his blood power increases (1% per point) the damage people are taking from mark gets closer and closer to double the base damage - this further shows that the damage is not affected by armor.

In regards to a healer setup, three healers is death. Since he generates blood power every time a marked person takes damage, the more marks out the faster he will generate power. Simply eating the mark damage will eventually overwhelm us, as more and more marks go out and his blood power generation increases even faster. During frenzy with 3+ marks out, the damage taken will be crazy stupid, not to mention he will definately mark 1-2 more people before death. It appears that there is a soft enrage in this encounter in the form of marks of the fallen gay.

Therefore, I propose that we have our two sexy paladins heal the fight. One pally should(?) be able to heal a tank and a marked target, while the other takes care of two other marked targets. If we will end up getting a fourth, well the paladins will have to mash holy light harder - we pretty much can't get a 4th.

As for who will take Khrash's place, I WILL. Yeah. My offspec gear and talents are already set up for tanking, whereas Khee's is setup for more of a DPS role. My gear is not quite up to Khrash/Kull's level, but I guess it would work.

It may be crazy enough to work.

[Rofldat]

Wild, they made Saurfang not gain RP from Mark a while back. So the period between marks is going to be mostly consistent(until the 30%)

I'm trying to ponder how to possibly push down the healing necessary such that we can use 1-1.5 healer instead of 2-3.

[Kheelan]

I like Wildhides idea here. Beacon healing might be the key. I was finding it fairly easy to keep up full hots on the marked people and the tanks. It was the spike damage as well that was causing things to break down. Once I needed to start using nourish as well I couldnt keep up a full hot rotation.

[Kulldam]

In your example, Rofl is taking ~20% less damage than the other marked people due to Bone Shield (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=49222). Apparently mark does not remove charges, so Rofl has a nearly passive 20% reduction on mark damage.

Well gay.


In regards to a healer setup, three healers is death.

Well to be fair, two healers was death too -- a lot. ><

Two paladins would certainly be strong and we can give it a shot, but there's also a fair bit of misc damage on non-MT and non-Mark targets from Blood Boil/Boiling Blood that I think is being ignored that normally HoTs would help cover. Without any form of fire and forget healing from Paladins, when we have 3 Marks and are sub-30%, Paladins will be virtually unable to afford spending a GCD outside of healing the Mark targets, lest a triple-8k streak hit someone again.

As for number of marks, I'd say you're on crack if you think we're going to get a kill in 3 doing it "normally". We're going to lose raid DPS just by swapping to Paladin healers, which is fine of course, but we're definitely not on track to dropping Saurfang before a fourth mark. Best case would be shortly after and hoping the target of the fourth can blow cooldowns or whatever to survive.

<hr/>

One thing I was also thinking about is we're doing the best we can with Blood Nova and Blood Beasts and we never spread Blood Nova and we virtually never (if we don't screw up) get hit by Blood Beasts. We're also transitioning tanks from Rune of Blood fast enough for zero or one melee swing per transition that generates Runic Power. So really, the only skill that leaves we might be able to improve upon is Boiling Blood.

I looked through our logs (http://worldoflogs.com/reports/tk74tpe703izwdq0/xe/?s=16691&e=16916&x=(spell%3D%22Boiling+Blood%22+or+spell%3D%22Blood +Nova%22+or+spell%3D%22Rune+of+Blood%22+or+spell%3 D%22Mark+of+the+Fallen+Champion%22)+or+(type%3DTYP E_DAMAGE+and+sourcename%3D%22Blood+Beast%22)) of our 102/103 second attempts (the ones where we avoid all Beast damage and all Nova spread and do near-perfect tank transitions), and from zero Runic Power to the first Mark cast, I get the following stats of abilities he's using that give Runic Power:

Boiling Blood ticks: 35 ticks, 7 casts, 195126 total damage
Blood Nova: 4 Hits, 42468 total damage
Rune of Blood: 2 Hits, 12721 total damage

Total damage dealt: 260,101
Total ticks: 41
Runic Power Gained: 100

I also ran the numbers in half a dozen other logs from our attempts, totalling the damage dealt from all valid abilities that increase runic power prior to first Mark (Boiling blood, Blood Nova, Blood Beast Melee, Rune of Blood Melee) and found the following total damage was dealt, regardless of timespan or tick counts or blood beasts hits etc:


265624
260101
263275
259794
264412

Those are from attempts ranging from 103 seconds till first mark and zero blood beast and perfect transitions to 90 seconds to Mark with Blood Beast damage. That seems a pretty good indicator to me that the Runic Power he gains is based on actual damage dealt rather than any arbitrary value for each various ability he uses (such as 1 power per tick of Boiling Blood), as most guides/players would have you believe.

Now, knowing that, we can basically calculate that for every 2600 damage dealt in any of those ability methods, he'll gain 1 Runic Power. Therefore, if we remove Boiling Blood when the opportunity arises, we can theoretically and reliably delay the first Mark cast for a while. Hand of Protection, Ice Block, and Divine Shield all for sure remove Boiling Blood. Each Boiling Blood cast deals 5000 Physical Damage a tick over five ticks, modified by his Runic Power boost at the time of the cast since it's a DoT. Now, while I'm assuming Runic Power gain is based on damage dealt, which the information above leads me to believe strongly, then it would be in our interest to remove Boiling Blood casts that go out when his Runic Power is higher. Obviously we can't wait till he hits 90 cause other abilities will push him over, but say we start at 60 Runic Power and try to remove each Boiling Blood thereafter. We'll get at least 2 from Hand of Protection, which means the damage of that Boiling Blood cast would be:


5000 * 1.6 * 5 = 40000 damage

The next Boiling Blood would probably be around 70 Runic Power, so 42,500 damage. Therefore, by using our two Hand of Protections early before the first Mark to get rid of Boiling Blood on targets that can't self-immunity, we prevent 82,500 damage, which translates into 31.73 Runic Power he'd normally gain that he won't have. The trickier part is to determine how long that would extend the time to the first Mark, but given he casts Boiling Blood every 10 seconds, we'd probably gain about 17-18 seconds (not quite 2 extra Boiling Bloods worth, since misc damage such as Blood Nova is still going to hit).

Still, if Kilwenn, Thawfore, or Khrashdin when not tanking also get Boiling Blood on them at some point, they can self-immune immediately to knock off another 10-20 Runic Power that otherwise we're completely "soaking" without the need.

The downside to Hand of Protection early like this is if we decide our strategy requires it later in the fight for Boiling Blood targets that are also Mark targets, then obviously this goes out the window.


Wild, they made Saurfang not gain RP from Mark a while back. So the period between marks is going to be mostly consistent(until the 30%)

This is correct as damage from Runic Power-based abilities between the cast of Mark #1 and Mark #2 remains the same (~260,000), whereas adding Mark#1 damage pushes total damage dealt to over 650,000, which would obviously mean the next Mark would trigger much faster.

All in all, I'd be interested in trying a combination technique of what's been suggested here. Double-paladin healer, HoProt/bubble/iceblock a few early Boiling Bloods to delay that very first Mark as long as possible, force the first Mark to die immediately, release, battle res, and repeat. I'd be very surprised if doing that we'd have more than two marks total by the end of the fight, which means each Paladin can keep Beacon on a separate tank full-time and spam a Mark target.

[Fideslol]

force the first Mark to die immediately, release, battle res, and repeat.

I'm quite under the impression that the Mark of the Fallen Champion is not removed until the encounter is over. Even releasing while the encounter is still in progress and zoning back in after a wipe will keep the mark on you (in which case you have to zone out and back in to remove it.)

[Wildhide]

I'm quite under the impression that the Mark of the Fallen Champion is not removed until the encounter is over. Even releasing while the encounter is still in progress and zoning back in after a wipe will keep the mark on you (in which case you have to zone out and back in to remove it.)

I have some anecdotal evidence to support this.

I saw someone get rezzed after a wipe (I believe it was Kil), and his mark stayed on him after he rezzed. It took a couple seconds - I assume for a check to see if the encounter was still going - for it to fade.

[Kulldam]

I'm quite under the impression that the Mark of the Fallen Champion is not removed until the encounter is over. Even releasing while the encounter is still in progress and zoning back in after a wipe will keep the mark on you (in which case you have to zone out and back in to remove it.)


I have some anecdotal evidence to support this.

I saw someone get rezzed after a wipe (I believe it was Kil), and his mark stayed on him after he rezzed. It took a couple seconds - I assume for a check to see if the encounter was still going - for it to fade.

Yes, we get it guys, you will be first to get mad props if it doesn't work mkay?

At worst it will cost us one wipe and 10 minutes to try this, so stop harping -- the fact is there's never been a case where Blizzard has coded a debuff that remains on a player once they have zoned from death in spirit form and my expectation is this is the same. If not and it rechecks for valid targets every so often, so be it, no skin off our nose and it changes nothing about the other proposed improvements.

[Rofldat]

About the usage of HoP/immunity to avoid Blood Boil.

Would it be better to use it early?

While it's true we prevent less damage from it, we also extend the time Saurfang do lower damage(because of low RP)

So it's a trade off between, say he's stuck at 60RP for 20s and we prevent the extra blood boil damage, or we keep him at 0 RP for the 20s and do lower damage on all abilities(Blood Nova, Rune of Blood, Bloodboil that didn't get HoP'd).

And if we do use HoPs near the start, they might be up again later into the fight(my Gargoyle(3min) usually comes up around mid-fight)

[Kulldam]

About the usage of HoP/immunity to avoid Blood Boil.

Would it be better to use it early?

While it's true we prevent less damage from it, we also extend the time Saurfang do lower damage(because of low RP)

So it's a trade off between, say he's stuck at 60RP for 20s and we prevent the extra blood boil damage, or we keep him at 0 RP for the 20s and do lower damage on all abilities(Blood Nova, Rune of Blood, Bloodboil that didn't get HoP'd).

And if we do use HoPs near the start, they might be up again later into the fight(my Gargoyle(3min) usually comes up around mid-fight)

Definitely something to consider, but my original feeling on this was that given we're doing it prior to the first Mark, thus the only high damage is on the tanks, we should have no issues healing the "high damage" output from him staying at higher RP longer than normal.

On the other hand, since he seemingly gains RP at a faster rate the higher his RP climbs (meaning his abilities are dealing more damage which is giving more RP, etc.), it may be a six of one half a dozen of the other situation where preventing early RP buildup extends the time till he goes into exponential increases, whereas doing it later stops a larger amount of RP for each cast.

*shrug* We can try both and see what the difference is.


Deathbringer Saurfang has parry haste.

Here are the first dozen or so, not skipping or selecting data, examples from this log and expression query during one of our attempts. I cut the two pre- and two post- parry melee swings for Saurfang in each instance. You'll notice his melee swing is almost certainly set to 1.2 or 1.25 seconds base and that holds consistent for the delay between every swing, regardless of following a parry or not.


[22:28:53.455] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Kulldam Parry
[22:28:54.682] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Kulldam 10835
[22:28:55.226] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:28:55.885] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry
[22:28:57.104] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry

[22:29:07.965] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry
[22:29:09.139] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 12329
[22:29:09.590] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:29:10.480] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 10377 (B: 1625)
[22:29:11.588] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 10991 (B: 1625)

[22:29:07.965] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry
[22:29:09.139] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 12329
[22:29:09.590] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:29:10.480] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 10377 (B: 1625)
[22:29:11.588] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 10991 (B: 1625)

[22:29:17.498] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 13536
[22:29:18.775] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry
[22:29:18.967] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:29:19.951] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 12444 (B: 1625)
[22:29:21.151] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry

[22:29:28.408] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Dodge
[22:29:29.578] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry
[22:29:29.760] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:29:30.796] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Kulldam 12463 (B: 3127)
[22:29:31.940] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Kulldam 12920 (B: 3127)

[22:29:52.348] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 16401 (B: 1625)
[22:29:53.659] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry
[22:29:54.301] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:29:54.727] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry
[22:29:59.059] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry

[22:30:00.271] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry
[22:30:01.466] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 7352 (B: 1625)
[22:30:02.279] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:30:02.678] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 8836
[22:30:03.887] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry

[22:30:37.576] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Kulldam Miss
[22:30:38.780] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Kulldam Parry
[22:30:39.159] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:30:39.988] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Kulldam 11412
[22:30:41.180] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 10132 (B: 1625)

[22:30:43.614] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 10824 (B: 1625)
[22:30:44.812] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Dodge
[22:30:45.594] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:30:46.030] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Dodge
[22:30:47.222] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Dodge

[22:30:59.266] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Parry
[22:31:00.471] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 13618
[22:31:01.490] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:31:01.679] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 13121 (B: 1625)
[22:31:02.893] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 13045 (A: 1229)

[22:31:31.757] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Kulldam 8226
[22:31:33.003] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Kulldam 8390
[22:31:34.012] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:31:34.219] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Miss
[22:31:35.436] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 7785 (B: 1625)

[22:31:34.219] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin Miss
[22:31:35.436] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 7785 (B: 1625)
[22:31:36.577] Kulldam hits Deathbringer Saurfang Parry
[22:31:36.633] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 7318 (B: 1625)
[22:31:37.860] Deathbringer Saurfang hits Khrashdin 8233 (B: 1625)

For further evidence, see the attachments for plot graphs of a MATLAB script output that parses logs for parry haste verification. Each dot indicates a melee swing, with the delay between the previous swing on the Y axis. Blue dots indicate a normal swing with no parry preceding it. A red dot shows a swing where 1 or 2 parries preceded it. Therefore, with enough data, a mob with parry haste will likely have some red dots below (thus a lower millisecond delay) the majority of the other dots. As you can see, Saurfang has no indication of Parry Haste, along with most of the mobs in ICC. Deathwhisper is the only known mob with parry haste but since her melee is so weak it's logical Blizzard would flag her as such and irrelevant to those tanking her.

Like it or not, your previous tank that was in love with expertise wasn't the best player in the world and neither am I, but I think you've been mislead if you were told expertise cap is required these days for Main Tanks. Parry Haste used to be prominent and a moderately big issue when tank damage was severe (the hits were large enough that two swings without between heals would kill you) but those days are long over. As mentioned before, Blizzard disliked the mechanic and has removed it from most bosses where parry haste would likely cause a gib situation. They've also purposely designed tank damage in ICC to be less gib-like overall, which of course further dilutes any parry haste that may occur.

Tanks who stack expertise nowadays do so purely as a threat boost, but I've personally never had issues with threat and thus prefer a pure mitigation/effective health set. For tanks that want higher DPS and higher threat, expertise is great, but I've never viewed that as my primary duty so I don't sweat it.

As mentioned before, based on data and what we know about the mechanics of the fight (that is, would it be illogical for Parry Haste to exist, which of course it would), it's almost 100% certainty that Saurfang doesn't have parry haste. Moreover, as I said it's irrelevant because he doesn't seem to do it at all, and if he does it's going to be such a rare occurrence it's pointless to try to counteract it for a loss of mitigation and avoidance stats.

[Rofldat]

Things confirmed today:
-Hands of Prot/Iceblock/Divine Shield do reduce the RP gained by Saurfang.
-Release-Battle Res do remove Mark of the Fallen Champion.

[Kulldam]

Things confirmed today:
-Hands of Prot/Iceblock/Divine Shield do reduce the RP gained by Saurfang.
-Release-Battle Res do remove Mark of the Fallen Champion.
-Khrash likes men.

Fixed.

Also looking back at our logs, it looks like Sun was alive after res for about 18 seconds without receiving a new Mark, so that seems a pretty strong indicator there isn't a recast script checking for previous targets (as if so, I'd imagine they'd make it much more frequent).

So, given that and the confirmation of the RP slowing through Immunities of Boiling Blood, if we manage Boiling Blood removal and Blood Beasts flawlessly and get at least 1 Boiling Blood on a Paladin or Kilwenn (very likely within the ~7-8 casts it will now take before first Mark), we can assume about 130 seconds from engagement until the first Mark. Due to DPS, tank gear requirements, and the ease for resses, we'll probably be best off using Thawfore and Wildhide as healers with Kheelan feral DPS. This will put us just slightly under our best-case Raid DPS from previous attempts, at around 50,000 RDPS. This means we'll deal about 6.5 million to Saurfang (47%) by the first Mark cast. Mark target will die about 7-8 seconds in, putting Saurfang back up to 8.26m (67%). We'll then have to assume ressed player loses about 5 seconds of DPS time coming back into the zone, but that's a slight loss of maybe 35,000 damage max.

Now we'll assume zero immunities on Boiling Bloods this round, so ~102 seconds to the next Mark. This will put Saurfang back down to 3m (24%) health, so if these numbers reflect reality, we're probably best off stopping DPS at 32% so he doesn't gain Frenzy AND get the Mark heal. Therefore, we wait till the next Mark target gets hit, and dies and resume DPS on Saurfang who is now at 6.26mill (51%). Then we burn him down once more, this time not stopping. We'll pass into the 30% Frenzy about 74 seconds into the next Mark phase, hitting our third (and first kept) Mark 28 seconds after Frenzy begins, where he'll be at about 1 mill HP (8%) remaining.

The above is really Scenario A, where we elect to get his health as low as possible (~8%) before we must heal a Marked target.

Another very valid option is Scenario B, where we instead allow a Mark target to be applied and kept just prior to Frenzy, but therefore reset his Runic Power so for the majority of 30% to dead, he's got relatively low damage output.

This would simply be the same as Scenario A, except at the point where we're expecting to stop at 32% for the next Mark, we do so again, and as soon as he starts casting Mark we pop Lust and lay into him, healing the Mark target via Beacon Holy Light spam from Thawfore.

By doing the Scenario B method, we should be able to go from 32% to dead in ~79 seconds, which should put Saurfang's Runic Power at about 77% when he dies.

So, Scenario A means we only have to heal a Mark target for about 20-25 seconds total but we'll have to heal the tanks at full Runic Power during Frenzy at some point.

Scenario B means we have to heal a single Mark for 80 seconds but the tanks never have to tank beyond a 77% damage increase.

Any opinions? We can always try both and see what is easiest and perhaps our real world DPS numbers will be off a bit (note that in the above, our sub-30% time frames don't account for Bloodlust at some point, which obviously knocks off a bit of time somewhere).

Edit2: One final thing I thought would help us (Druids) slightly is to have our Mark player(s) run to a designated spot before they purposely die so the ressing Druid can easily click on them since targeting a corpse can be a bitch.

[Kilwenn]

Edit2: One final thing I thought would help us (Druids) slightly is to have our Mark player(s) run to a designated spot before they purposely die so the ressing Druid can easily click on them since targeting a corpse can be a bitch.

Keep in mind that Marked people can also get Boiling Blood. Make sure to maintain the 12 yard distance when running because any ticks on other people will cause Saurfang to generate more RP.

In regards to healing, some posts I have read suggest that priest shields on Boiling Blood will prevent RP generation as well. This could help increase the time we have prior to the first Mark being cast. If we are looking for RP control then this may be an option as well and just have Thaw DPS.

Also, I had a question about healing reduction. Do healing reduction mechanics(poisons, Permafrost debuff, etc) work when the Marked target dies? If so then Nigma can use Aimed Shot for a 50% healing reduction when the Marked person is about to die. We may have discussed this already but I have slept since then.

[Kulldam]

Keep in mind that Marked people can also get Boiling Blood. Make sure to maintain the 12 yard distance when running because any ticks on other people will cause Saurfang to generate more RP.

Boiling Blood (DoT) isn't an AE effect (Blood Nova). But yes, Marked people can still get Blood Nova, though the chances are they won't get it as they're moving in toward melee/res position.


In regards to healing, some posts I have read suggest that priest shields on Boiling Blood will prevent RP generation as well. This could help increase the time we have prior to the first Mark being cast. If we are looking for RP control then this may be an option as well and just have Thaw DPS.

Definitely a possibility though I'd hate to lose a ranged DPS on the Blood Beasts and most of our previous attempts indicate Beacon is very strong for Mark targets (once we keep one).


Also, I had a question about healing reduction. Do healing reduction mechanics(poisons, Permafrost debuff, etc) work when the Marked target dies? If so then Nigma can use Aimed Shot for a 50% healing reduction when the Marked person is about to die. We may have discussed this already but I have slept since then.

No unfortunately his Mark heal cannot be reduced and always hits for the full amount. =(

[Kulldam]

Some notes on Heroic: Blood Princes:

It looks like this fight is mostly the same as Normal with one additional ability: Shadow Prison (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72999). This new ability, however, is cleverly designed in a fight that usually involves a lot of movement to handle kinetic orbs, avoid knockbacks, reach bosses, run from flame orbs, etc. For each second any player is moving, they will gain an additional stack of Shadow Prison, which deals 500 damage per stack while moving. However, the good news is the moment you stop moving, the DoT stops dealing damage within the next tick (the next second), regardless of the time left on the debuff. To get rid of the debuff, simply stop moving completely for 10 seconds and it will drop.

Of course, every other ability is bumped up in damage and shit, blah blah. However, with Shadow Prison now active, the fight dynamic changes a bit in that we'll need better overall positioning and a setup that limits most people's movement full-time.

One thing to consider is it may be in our best interest to go with 3 healers on this fight, given that all the outgoing damage is bumped of course plus extra damage from Shadow Prison and this is already a stressful fight for our healers.

That said, to counteract the DPS loss, I'm thinking we might better off going with two tanks for this fight. There are two options there:

Option A: Thawfore heals, Kulldam DPS, Khrash on both melee Princes, Fides on Keleseth

The advantage of this setup is, while we'd lose a bit of DPS dropping Thawfore's DPS for my own, we'd have 3.5 healers really with a Beacon on Khrash or Fides full-time. Moreover, I'd be able to Sunder on the current DPS target, which would offset the DPS loss slightly.

Option B: Thawfore heals, Kulldam on Keleseth, Khrash on both melee Princes, Fides DPS

The only advantage to this setup is that if Keleseth's damage output on Heroic is too high for Fides' health pool, an actual tank health pool may be required to mitigate it. However, Fides has a lot of practice in Keleseth tanking already, whereas I of course do not; moreover, I'm not certain how well I could grab Nuclei at range just by spamming taunt with a Vigilance on Khrash for instant refresh. I know Taunt works on Nuclei as I use it to grab them from the far side to move them closer to Fides, but without a form of DoT I don't know enough of how Nuclei work to keep them on me.

That said, the other big advantage to this setup would be trading a melee DPS (very weak in this fight for obvious reasons) for a ranged DPS (strong for this fight, as they require little movement, can swap targets faster, can help with Kinetics, etc.

Anyway, feedback or thoughts on any of this would be helpful (especially from Khee/Wild/Fides) as this is very likely the next fight we'll work on once Saurfang drops since Blood Queen seems the easiest wing-boss for Heroic to take on.

[Kilwenn]

Some notes on Heroic: Blood Princes:

The only advantage to this setup is that if Keleseth's damage output on Heroic is too high for Fides' health pool, an actual tank health pool may be required to mitigate it. However, Fides has a lot of practice in Keleseth tanking already, whereas I of course do not; moreover, I'm not certain how well I could grab Nuclei at range just by spamming taunt with a Vigilance on Khrash for instant refresh. I know Taunt works on Nuclei as I use it to grab them from the far side to move them closer to Fides, but without a form of DoT I don't know enough of how Nuclei work to keep them on me.



I think you tanking Keleseth is a great idea. Having Fides' DPS will help a lot as he very good at keeping his DPS up even in movement heavy fights.

The Nuclei only need a taunt or some form of damage once to keep them on you. They will only change targets if they are damaged by something else or if someone else taunts them. For example, I agro them with Ice Lance and drag them to Fides. He uses a very low level spell to get agro from me. There was one occurence where I accidentally had the Nuclei targeted and melee'd it while running out. I hit it for around 100 damage and got agro back. As you probably know, the key is to make sure that they are not damaged too much becasue they slowly destroy themselves anyway. It would suck to lose one at the wrong time during an Empowered Shadow Lance cast. I am not sure how long each stays alive but it is recommended that you have 5+ on you at all times. Fides can probably give more insight.

[Kulldam]

Some notes on Heroic: Blood-Queen Lana'thel:

For the Heroic version of this fight, my understanding is the only change other than higher HP/damage/etc. is that each time a Vampire is created, she gains a stack of Presence of the Darkfallen (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70995), which increases the damage of Shroud of Sorrow (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72981) pulse damage on the raid by 5%. I assume this is stacked once for each Vampire cast, therefore once we hit 8 vampires late into the fight, we'll have: 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15 stacks, or 75% damage increase of Shroud of Sorrow (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72981), meaning it will tick for 7875 before resist. With 130 Shadow Resist, the raid resists an average of 22.22% percent of this damage, so we'll be taking basically 6125 damage every tick, or 3062.5 per second for the raid.

So the big question is, how do we handle that extra damage output? More to the point and something Druids need to help me answer: Can a single Druid heal the entire raid for 3062 DPS or do we need two healers helping with this damage? I know Rejuv ticks for about 3k without a crit, but since that's not every second, obviously other healing is required. We're also fairly spread out so does Wild Growth hit 5 targets most casts?

In any event, something to discuss for Druids as we'll need to heal that 3062 raid DPS for at least 60 seconds near the end of the fight (plus misc shadow flame/blood bolt damage of course, though Tranquility should be able to handle the second air phase I think).

One option I was looking into is: can we add a third healer without losing any substantial DPS, by making Khrash heal while offtanking? Looking through the logs, there are a few key things to note that may lend some credence to this possibility.

First, as the offtank, Khrash only takes damage from two sources:

Blood Mirror (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70821) - This damage is an exact copy of the damage the main tank takes but it is Shadow. However, it is completely unresistible and is unaffected by any sort of damage reduction effects including talents, stances, etc. This is confirmed in all our previous logs (http://worldoflogs.com/reports/zjxml5yq584vm6fa/sum/damageTaken/?s=8483&e=8722) of this fight. Also of importance, is it seems having Blood Mirror active makes that player immune to Shroud of Sorrow effects -- Khrash never takes any Shroud of Sorrow damage in this fight, save a single tick from when we rush in on engagement and he's yet to get Blood Mirror.
Delirious Slash (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71624) - This is the only other source of damage to the offtank, and this is affected by Damage Reduction effects. Moreover, the initial hit and the bleed are both Physical and affected by armor reduction. Prior to mitigation the bleed deals 5000 damage on average, but after mitigation, the bleed damage hits Khrash for about 1500 on average. The majority of this reduction is from his Armor, which reduces it by about 66%. In Heroic, this Bleed would then deal 6000 pre-mitigation, or about 1800 post-mitigation -- virtually unnoticeable increase.


That's it for offtank damage. So the question I'm wondering -- since tank-talents do nothing to mitigate damage for the offtank on this fight except for the Delirious Slash damage, could Khrash, in Holy gear/spec with perhaps a couple high-stamina tank items thrown on, soak the offtank damage well enough but basically be a our third healer in the process?

Unfortunately I don't have access to Khrash's healing gear setup atm but I just threw together a 245ish holy set of my best guess at what he's got, and in full-holy spec, looks like he could do around 10,000 HPS for the 5 minutes of the fight with 26,000ish health. If that health pool is too low, we could throw on two stamina trinkets and bump him close to 30,000 and drop his healing output slightly to about 9,500.

This would really help mitigate damage on both myself and Khrash with Beacon on himself full-time and probably having him focus heals on me. This would also help AE healing from Holy Light splash on Thaw and Rofl.

Khrash's incoming damage from Delirious Slash would be mitigated about 60.5% from his still-fairly-high Armor as a Paladin, which means DoT ticks of about 2370. The initial physical hit would also increase, as the normal hit is about 6200, but since Blood Queen's melee swings obviously will increase in Heroic, hard to say what that will be. However, safe to assume her melee hits will be well under 20,000, so 50% from Delirious Slash will be less than 10,000 on Khrash.

Other than that, he'll be taking Blood Mirror damage. Again, on normal this is very low actual DPS incoming (about 3800 DPS incoming on Khrash during Normal), so even bumping that up generously by 40% to 5390, that still falls well within Khrash's own healing output levels of 9500ish HPS.

Therefore, the real big unknown question is can his health pool sustain the burst damage moments? Again, it's difficult to determine based solely on Normal numbers and estimation of what Heroic will be, but we can make educated guesses.

For Normal, Khrash's biggest incoming Burst damage is when three things occur simultaneously:

A large melee swing on Kulldam (thus a large Blood Mirror hit)
A Shroud of Sorror tick on Kulldam (thus a Blood Mirror hit)
A Delirious Slash initial hit

The highest melee swing on Kulldam in our logs so far is 13,464. This has to be bumped for Heroic obviously, and from the numbers found in this WoL log (http://worldoflogs.com/reports/72wpgno7ycdty8q2/xe/?s=6918&e=7218&x=(targetname%3D%22Mielikinna%22+and+type%3DTYPE_D AMAGE)+or+(targetname%3D%22Littletoe%22+and+(type% 3DTYPE_DAMAGE+or+type%3DTYPE_MISS))) of a Heroic-10 kill with a slightly better geared Warrior tank than myself, it looks like the highest melee swing is about 18,500. I also take an average of 45% damage from Shroud of Sorrow, so at the worst point in Heroic (8 Vampires), that will tick me for 3587. Finally, Delirious Slash looks to do about 11,000 on a 70% reduction tank in Heroic, so that would be about 13,500 on Khrash. (One interesting sidenote is that Heroic log shows the actual incoming DPS on the tanks only jumps about 150 and 800 respectively. Assuming that would be slightly higher with our lower ilevel gear, we're still only looking at probably an additional 1300ish total incoming DPS boost on tanks combined, which means around 4500-4600 incoming DPS on Khrash; still quite healable even by himself, especially with misc HoTs).

Adding that all up, we get 13500 + 18500 + 3587 = 35,587. So, based on the worst-case scenario, it seems if everything hit simultaneously, Khrash could potentially be one-shotted with a 30,000 HP Holy Gear setup. However, before we call this setup impossible, a few things to consider.

First, the above worst-case can only occur during the last 60 seconds of the fight; prior to that, the damage will be lowered about 700 for every minute prior into the fight. Further, we could give Khrash a Stoneblood instead of healing output, bumping his health up another 1850. Finally, the chances are just plain low that all these worst-case scenarios will line up and occur at the same time: Meaning I, as the main tank, will 95% of the time mitigate more than the worst-case swing and when Delirious Slash is about to hit (the initial application occurs once every 20 seconds), there's a high-chance of further mitigating damage on me (even with Chill to the Throne, there's a 52% chance I will avoid or block any given swing). Shield Block, Critical Block, trinkets, Shield Wall, and Khrash's Sacred Shield will all go further to reduce the chance of a bad string for each of the 20-second applications of Delirious Slash during the final 60 seconds. Finally, both Khrash and myself can pop 3500 Armor pots for the final portion of the fight, which will greatly mitigate a huge chunk of that burst damage potential from Blood Mirror hits + Slash.

Long story short, again I'd love feedback or thoughts on this, but the offtank mechanics seem to really lend themselves well to a non-tank specced "tank" if the health and burst can be managed, and being able to add a sizeable amount of healing without losing DPS would greatly help us beat the Berserk timer.

[Kulldam]

I think you tanking Keleseth is a great idea. Having Fides' DPS will help a lot as he very good at keeping his DPS up even in movement heavy fights.

The Nuclei only need a taunt or some form of damage once to keep them on you. They will only change targets if they are damaged by something else or if someone else taunts them. For example, I agro them with Ice Lance and drag them to Fides. He uses a very low level spell to get agro from me. There was one occurence where I accidentally had the Nuclei targeted and melee'd it while running out. I hit it for around 100 damage and got agro back. As you probably know, the key is to make sure that they are not damaged too much becasue they slowly destroy themselves anyway. It would suck to lose one at the wrong time during an Empowered Shadow Lance cast. I am not sure how long each stays alive but it is recommended that you have 5+ on you at all times. Fides can probably give more insight.

Yeah if we elect to have me on Keleseth, I'd need more feedback from Fides on how to handle Nuclei. I know that there must be something beyond just damaging them since obviously they like to go for healer Druids at times as well even after Fides has hit them with something (I think?).

[Kheelan]

The nuclei only go to the healers when first spawned, once any damage is done on the nuclei it goes to the person that damaged it. I am not sure if we wil need 3 healers for this fight until we actually attempt it. The biggest problem I find healing this fight is many times at least one of the tanks is out of healing range.

The blood queen might be do able with just our normal two healers. Wild Growth rarely hits anyone except the melee close enough to the boss or tank in fights we are spread like this.

[Kulldam]

More notes on Heroic: Deathbringer Saurfang:

Obviously we're a bee's dick from dropping this fool and everyone should be fully prepared to do so on Sunday. That said, I'd ask that you all take a couple minutes to evaluate your own gear/spec/consumables/etc. and see if there is even a remotely minor DPS boost or other helpful addition you can change to prepare for Sunday night that will help us drop this fool. Even if we have to wait 10 minutes after the kill for everyone to run back to town to respec, that's definitely worthwhile.

A few proposed changes I've already heard about:

Rofl is going to pickup Desecration (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=55667)which should greatly help with initial snare on Blood Beasts and comes at no DPS loss.
Kheelan is going to pickup 5/5 Feral Aggression (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=16862) and 2/2 Master Shapeshifter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=48412) and drop the bear-oriented talents. According to Rawr, that increases overall DPS by 249. (Also side note to Kheelan: dunno how this works or if it's a bug, but noticed that Rawr shows a zero DPS loss by dropping from 3/3 Improved Mangle (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=48491) to 1/3 Improved Mangle (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=48532). Maybe something to look into though *shrug*)
Kulldam is going to drop 2/2 Improved Spell Reflection (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=59089), 2/2 Safeguard (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=46949), and 1/5 Shield Specialization (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=12298) (the only actual mitigation loss for this fight) to pickup 3/3 Deep Wounds (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=12867) and 2/2 Impale (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=16494). This gives provides a net DPS gain of 275.8.

Even those two changes, at say 80% effectiveness for real-life numbers, gives us another 419.84 DPS, or about 125,952 total damage for the fight, which is a win if we can identically produce our results from our best attempt last night!

[Fideslol]

More notes on Heroic: Deathbringer Saurfang:

Obviously we're a bee's dick from dropping this fool and everyone should be fully prepared to do so on Sunday. That said, I'd ask that you all take a couple minutes to evaluate your own gear/spec/consumables/etc. and see if there is even a remotely minor DPS boost or other helpful addition you can change to prepare for Sunday night that will help us drop this fool. Even if we have to wait 10 minutes after the kill for everyone to run back to town to respec, that's definitely worthwhile.

A few proposed changes I've already heard about:

Rofl is going to pickup Desecration (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=55667)which should greatly help with initial snare on Blood Beasts and comes at no DPS loss.
Kheelan is going to pickup 5/5 Feral Aggression (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=16862) and 2/2 Master Shapeshifter (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=48412) and drop the bear-oriented talents. According to Rawr, that increases overall DPS by 249. (Also side note to Kheelan: dunno how this works or if it's a bug, but noticed that Rawr shows a zero DPS loss by dropping from 3/3 Improved Mangle (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=48491) to 1/3 Improved Mangle (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=48532). Maybe something to look into though *shrug*)
Kulldam is going to drop 2/2 Improved Spell Reflection (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=59089), 2/2 Safeguard (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=46949), and 1/5 Shield Specialization (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=12298) (the only actual mitigation loss for this fight) to pickup 3/3 Deep Wounds (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=12867) and 2/2 Impale (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=16494). This gives provides a net DPS gain of 275.8.

Even those two changes, at say 80% effectiveness for real-life numbers, gives us another 419.84 DPS, or about 125,952 total damage for the fight, which is a win if we can identically produce our results from our best attempt last night!


I'll also make a concerted effort to not die like a bitch to blood beasts. I realize this happened far too often, and I will take steps to remedy this. Note: I found that putting nameplates up helped immensely for targeting the blood beasts upon spawning. I'm sure most of you already have nameplates up, they've just always bothered me so I rarely use them.

[Khrash]

So I looked closely at my Talents to see if there was something I could do to eek out a bit more DPS. I may be able to get some more if I drop Pursuit of Justice (makes me move fast) and get Seal of Command.

The only issue I see with this is it will strike up to 2 additional targets (Blood Beasts) which would more then likely give me threat on them which is a bad thing.

I would again drop Pursuit of Justice and pickup a another point in <a href=http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=31868>Crusade 3/3</a> and another point in <a href=http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=20118>Conviction 2/5</a>

Anyways, that's all I got.

[Rofldat]

So I looked closely at my Talents to see if there was something I could do to eek out a bit more DPS. I may be able to get some more if I drop Pursuit of Justice (makes me move fast) and get Seal of Command.

The only issue I see with this is it will strike up to 2 additional targets (Blood Beasts) which would more then likely give me threat on them which is a bad thing.

I would again drop Pursuit of Justice and pickup a another point in <a href=http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=31868>Crusade 3/3</a> and another point in <a href=http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=20118>Conviction 2/5</a>

Anyways, that's all I got.

On a long single target fight like this, Seal of Corruption is better than Command.

[Kulldam]

More notes on Heroic: Deathbringer Saurfang: ("Wait seriously, more?!" "Yeah I know, sorry! ><")

Regarding: Blood Nova (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72439)

Looking through our logs, I found some (potentially) interesting stuff. Below are different logs, with just Blood Nova hits extracted (either actual damage hits, or misses). In the cases where multiple people get hit (very rare, except near the end of #1 where we're wiping I presume), the first person listed on that hit is the target. Otherwise all people listed are the one and only target of the spell.

The thing I noticed (and hopefully this isn't just made up), is certain people tend to get hit far more than other valid targets, and I'm wondering if there is a reason for this that we can determine (and thus plan for).

The first thing to notice is in nearly every log, Ugra is targeted far more than most people, whereas Fides, Kilwenn, and Wildhide are targeted far less. Thawfore also gets a ton of targets from it in #3 and of course #4 is the real kicker and the one to focus on -- every single cast on either Gale or Thaw.

Assuming, based on the tooltip, the chance of any given ranged target is in fact purely random, we can calculate the odds of what happened in log #4 happening:

Out of 14 trials (meaning, 14 casts) for that #4 log, with a success rate of 1/3 (meaning 2 targets count as a success where either Thaw or Gale get hit, out of a total of 6 targets available, so 2/6 or 1/3), for all 14 trials to be a success, the probability of that is:

1/3^14

or

2.0907515812876897174119255215746e-7

or

0.000000209075

or

0.0000209075%

That's basically a 1 in 5,000,000 change if it was truly random. Obviously it is not, so the question is, what does cause Blood Nova selection?

If I had to guess, I'd personally go with distance from the boss. I don't know where Thaw is exactly (though I know he's in the back), but Ugra tends to be at range quite a bit and Fides is fairly close for Mind Flay distance. Also Gale didn't start getting hit a lot until later into our logs, which was likely around the time he started moving far left near the wall and maximized his range from Blood Beasts.

Any other info on this? Obviously if we can force it on one person every cast, that would really help with spike damage later into the fight. Moreover, we could potentially abuse our immunities to force Blood Nova casts on already immune players (Thaw and Kil both got a few immunities due to bubble/ice block in the logs, meaning he doesn't gain that Runic Power burst he would've).


#1
[20:01:02.328] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 8007
[20:01:27.257] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 8992
[20:01:51.745] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 10557
[20:02:12.637] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Kilwenn 11787
[20:02:44.739] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 13182
[20:03:03.216] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Galethorn 14149
[20:03:26.578] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Kilwenn 7610
[20:03:50.665] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 10222
[20:04:23.662] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Galethorn 12550
[20:04:49.384] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 7721
[20:05:06.236] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 9434 (B: 312)
[20:05:06.236] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Wildhide 9961
[20:05:06.236] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Fideslol 8412
[20:05:28.344] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Wildhide 13205

#2
[20:13:02.721] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Kilwenn 7601
[20:13:29.213] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 8903
[20:13:48.873] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Fideslol 8582
[20:14:07.763] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Fideslol 9987
[20:14:30.066] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore Immune
[20:15:11.640] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 8533
[20:15:40.568] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 10356
[20:15:57.412] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 12281
[20:16:50.874] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 13629
[20:17:16.196] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 8461 (B: 312)
[20:17:40.699] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 11417
[20:18:04.398] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Kilwenn 14674

#3
[20:23:06.801] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 8145
[20:23:37.755] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 9124
[20:24:00.224] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 11681
[20:24:29.563] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Kilwenn 14120
[20:25:17.020] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 10323
[20:25:39.489] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 12602
[20:26:01.993] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 14551
[20:26:19.279] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Galethorn 9312
[20:26:44.972] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Ugra 11278
[20:27:04.686] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 13205
[20:27:25.626] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 12163
[20:27:50.880] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 10332
[20:28:10.163] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Kilwenn 11711
[20:28:33.237] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Wildhide 7763

#4
[20:37:25.589] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 8455 (B: 414)
[20:37:48.883] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 10213
[20:38:11.376] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 11912
[20:38:31.877] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 13566
[20:38:53.964] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 8545
[20:39:14.868] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Galethorn 12031
[20:39:59.471] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Galethorn 14600
[20:40:16.754] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 8703
[20:40:41.253] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 10246
[20:40:58.921] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 11071
[20:41:22.648] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Galethorn 14736
[20:41:49.592] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Thawfore 9362
[20:42:16.111] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Galethorn 11286
[20:42:34.238] Deathbringer Saurfang Blood Nova Galethorn 12143

[Kulldam]

Some notes on Heroic: Festergut:

Regarding: DPS/Berserk

Our best attempt of the night we did 41,000 RDPS over 3min 45sec. At 13.7m HP, that puts us at 334 seconds, which is 34 seconds over the Berserk timer. Now, Bloodlust would reduce that slightly, but to make up a 34 second difference, Bloodlust would need to boost our DPS to 72,111 for it's 45 second duration, which is possible and is similar to numbers we've seen in the past, but not so on this fight where Malleable Goo or Vile Gas can stun or severely hinder output for a good chunk of time.

So, we have to find a way to not only increase tank survivability/healing output, but increase DPS as well.

One option briefly discussed with Wild is to have Wild as one of the tanks, such that he can go cat form while not tanking and utilize the +damage increase from Gastric Bloat (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72219) much more effectively than myself or Khrash can.

Khrash is a given for tanking this fight due to AD and raid-cooldown, so the second tank is between myself or Wild. After loading Wild and myself into Rawr, we get the following raid-buffed tanking stats for each of us:


Wild
35963 ac
58187 hp
49.49 dodge w/ idol proc

Kull
36823 ac
51537 hp
53.87 dodge/parry

So virtually the same Armor (effectively), wild has 6000 more HP buffer, and I have ~4% more Dodge. However, I only block about 1800 damage on 15% of the landed melee swings. For Wild, unfortunately I don't know how to read the results for Druid Bears, but it states:

76.431% to absorb incoming hit (from savage defense)

I don't know if that includes avoidance in that percentage or not. Still, even if it does, Wild's "block" is effectively double my own as he blocks 1818 damage as well and worst case, he'll block 30% of hits that aren't dodged, and at best he'll block 76%. These are all calculated with a 1 sec boss swing timer (when Festergut has a 3-stack going).

So, it's tough to say for sure and I don't know how to do the math to confirm, but I imagine the 6k HP buffer and extra block Wild has makes up for the ~4% avoidance I have over him, so it seems a good choice to have him tank with Khrash this fight.

The ultimate question is really then not about the tanking, but about what that takes away from us. We need Thawfore, Fides, or Gale to heal in Wild's place, and use me as a DPS replacement. I don't know how much experience healing/heal gear Gale has for Resto on his Shaman, but in terms of maximizing Raid DPS, he'd be the best choice and could provide 10% Physical Reduction for tanks. If so, based on our attempts, I suspect I can do about equivalent DPS to Gale for this fight, which means all extra DPS Wild brings to the table is bonus. This brings us to the next section...

Looking over our logs, the timing is as such for Gastric Bloat/Inhaled Blight stacks and taunt rotations:

Time into Fight|Event|Extra Info
0:00|Bloat #1|Tank #1
0:32|Inhaled Blight #1|+30% Damage
1:04|Inhaled Blight #2|+60% Damage
1:28|Bloat #9|Tank #1
1:30|Taunt|Tank #2
1:39|Bloat #1|Tank #2
1:41|Inhaled Blight #3|+90% Damage
2:14|Inhaled Blight Fades|+0% Damage
2:48|Inhaled Blight #1|+30% Damage
3:07|Bloat #9|Tank #2
3:08|Bloat Fades|Tank #1
3:10|Taunt|Tank #1
3:18|Bloat #1|Tank #1
3:21|Inhaled Blight #2|+60% Damage
3:54|Inhaled Blight #3|+90% Damage
4:26|Inhaled Blight Fades|+0% Damage
4:46|Bloat #9|Tank #1
4:47|Bloat Fades|Tank #2
4:49|Taunt|Tank #2
4:58|Inhaled Blight #1|+30% Damage
5:00|Berserk|Sweet, sweet death

Based on this timeframe, we get the following rough stats for various tanking aspects:

Total Time Tanking:


Tank #1
189 sec or 3:09

Tank #2
111 sec or 1:51

Time Tanking By Damage Increase Type:

Tank #1
23 sec 0%
43 sec 30%
59 sec 60%
32 sec 90%

Tank #2
41 sec 0%
24 sec 30%
2 sec 60%
32 sec 90%

Gastric Bloat Stack Uptime:

Tank #1
With Any-Stack Size: 4:50
@ 9-stack: 1:54

Tank #2
With Any-Stack Size: 3:08
@ 9-stack: 1:32

So, this basically tells us that Tank #1 tanks the most damage by far, spends the most time tanking overall, has a slightly higher uptime of Gastric Bloat (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72219) at max stack (+90% damage), but a much higher uptime of any Gastric Bloat (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72219) stack.

Therefore, to maximize our DPS, we're best off with Wild as Tank #1, so he spends most of the fight with Gastric Bloat, and can spend about 2 minutes (or say 1:50 to account for Bear swaps and movement) in cat form DPSing at 90% increase.

Unfortunately, based on Rawr, with Wild's tank spec/tank buffs/etc. in Cat, his theoretical DPS is 3800, which is only 500 higher than the theoretical Bear DPS while tanking. Of course, real world results never match theoretical numbers, but a 90% increase on, say, 3000 DPS in cat is still 5700 DPS, which is pretty good and certainly better than Khrash or myself can do. The real gain is simply the ability for Wild to continue DPSing with that stack without worry about threat (due to Cat form).

Anyway, feedback of course welcome, but some stuff to consider and try out.

P.S. Wild: Get Mongoose or something on your tank weapon!

[Kulldam]

Another thought on Heroic: Festergut:

We were trying to perfect our positioning obviously for avoiding Malleable Goo (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72548), but we can still definitely improve upon it. Looking through our logs, people getting hit by that is a huge DPS (and HPS for that matter) loss, even if it only hits one person each cast.

One thing to notice about Malleable Goo (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72548) is that the effect range is extremely short range from the spot it lands -- only 5 yards. It's such a short distance that if melee and tanks are at opposite ends of Festergut and one group gets targeted by Goo, the other won't be hit.

So, to allow everyone to avoid getting hit by Goo, we need to better work our angles and try to communicate where Goo is going so those players can look and move if necessary before it lands. The best setup for this is to keep Festergut facing 90 degrees away from Putricide (as we tried a few times at the end), somewhat far out in the room, and have the ranged/healers form as much of a straight line behind Festergut as possible, all 8+ yards from each other. This would allow us to easily tell by the angle of the Goo which area it was heading towards (tanks, melee behind festergut, or ranged behind melee) and perhaps even call specific players who need to move (but at the very least, alert those that should look up and see for themselves).

It also seems a poor idea to have Kheelan's position be the stack up position, rather than forcing him to also move to stack up. This way any Goo going out just before or just after a bunch up will not hit people. Also, those moving away when a goo is targeting their area need only move a few steps, as again, 5 yards is very short.

[Kilwenn]

The thing that kills ranged DPS is movement so minimizing that is going to be the key. Vile Gas (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71218) has an eight yard radius of effect so obviously we need to stay eight yards away from each other.

Now, ranged players have to move for Gas Spore (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71221) and for Putricide's Malleable Goo (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72297). Kull had a good setup on our last attempt to avoid the person that gets Vile Gas (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71218), however I think we can reduce movement if we set up in a square(4 people) or pentagon (5 people) arrangement. We can still stay 8 yards apart but when a spore is cast then all ranged run to the center of the square to get the Spore buff. This will reduce the distance that each player has to run by a minimum of approximately 2.5 yards and can save the outer people up to 13.5 yards. Remember to always be DPSing so use whatever spells you can in transition and make sure you are casting while waiting for the Spore to explode.

Additionally, on the last three attempts we had, I noticed that the ranged group always had a Malleable Goo thrown at them while we were waiting for the Spore to explode. The Goo was in flight when the Spore exploded. This means that ranged have to move immediately after the Spore explodes or risk getting hit with the Goo. Even if you have to stop casting, it is important to move out. It seems that the melee players also got hit by Malleable Goo as well 2 out of those 3 attempts. Melee damage is going to key for this fight so MOVE.

When we are in normal positions and a Malleable Goo is thrown at a ranged player then ranged players run away from the center of the square(basically run away from other players) if necessary. Malleable Goo only has a 5 yard radius so you do not have to move terribly far to avoid it. We will just have to get used to seeing the graphic to understand exactly where it will explode.

I really think we just need a little practice on timing and positioning and then our DPS will increase.

Now for other ways to increase DPS:

1. Melee classes have a distinct advantage for this fight. We only need 4 ranged players to prevent melee getting affected initially by Vile Gas. So if we have one of our Shaman go Enhancement then that should up our DPS(provided one of them have somewhat comparable Enhancement gear) due to the increase of time in combat. Also if we have Wild Tanking/DPSing then melee will also have Leader of the Pack. So ranged would be Me, Fides, Kheelan, and Ugra(or Gale) and the rest would be melee.

2. I can up my DPS by not going to get the Spore buff and just Ice Blocking the first Pungent Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71219). This means I would only have to move for the Malleable Goo. Fides can also do the same thing with Dispersion (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47585). I am not sure but he may already be doing that.

Well that is my 2 cents. Hope it is usable. :)

[Kheelan]

I'm thinking the easiest way to handle malleable goo is just have someone call out when it is tossed and everyone (mainly the ranged though) move 5 yards forward. This would avoid anyone moving into the spot the malleable goo is going.

[Kulldam]

Now, ranged players have to move for Gas Spore (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71221) and for Putricide's Malleable Goo (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72297). Kull had a good setup on our last attempt to avoid the person that gets Vile Gas (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71218), however I think we can reduce movement if we set up in a square(4 people) or pentagon (5 people) arrangement. We can still stay 8 yards apart but when a spore is cast then all ranged run to the center of the square to get the Spore buff. This will reduce the distance that each player has to run by a minimum of approximately 2.5 yards and can save the outer people up to 13.5 yards. Remember to always be DPSing so use whatever spells you can in transition and make sure you are casting while waiting for the Spore to explode.

Excellent idea; combined with your other suggestion below, a square of 4 people seems ideal with the meet up a smoke centered between.


Additionally, on the last three attempts we had, I noticed that the ranged group always had a Malleable Goo thrown at them while we were waiting for the Spore to explode. The Goo was in flight when the Spore exploded. This means that ranged have to move immediately after the Spore explodes or risk getting hit with the Goo. Even if you have to stop casting, it is important to move out. It seems that the melee players also got hit by Malleable Goo as well 2 out of those 3 attempts. Melee damage is going to key for this fight so MOVE.

When we are in normal positions and a Malleable Goo is thrown at a ranged player then ranged players run away from the center of the square(basically run away from other players) if necessary. Malleable Goo only has a 5 yard radius so you do not have to move terribly far to avoid it. We will just have to get used to seeing the graphic to understand exactly where it will explode.

More good points and I think with a 4-square position where the only point of collapse is never occupied by a player outside of collapse time, ranged should be able to all easily move from their position to the collapse spot and back to avoid every goo. If we position our 4-square somewhat like this...



Putricide ----> %



1 2
X
3 4

With the "sides" of our square pointing toward Putricide, then any given Goo should be easy to tell if it's going for left side (players 1 & 3) or right side (2 & 4) who can then both quickly step into the center of the square, marked X until goo lands then move back into position.

Another thing to consider, similar to your implication about having Goo thrown at them while they are stacked up waiting, is to delay our stack up. With a tight 4-square, we can easily watch the debuff and call for a stack only 3-4 seconds before (or sooner if needed of course), so Goo cast right as the debuff goes out will target the corners of the square and allow the center to be safe.

Really, this all hinges on us just getting used to the timing and communicating (which I should be able to do since I'll just be DPSing it seems.

I really think we just need a little practice on timing and positioning and then our DPS will increase.


1. Melee classes have a distinct advantage for this fight. We only need 4 ranged players to prevent melee getting affected initially by Vile Gas. So if we have one of our Shaman go Enhancement then that should up our DPS(provided one of them have somewhat comparable Enhancement gear) due to the increase of time in combat. Also if we have Wild Tanking/DPSing then melee will also have Leader of the Pack. So ranged would be Me, Fides, Kheelan, and Ugra(or Gale) and the rest would be melee.

Well, I don't think another melee-spec is required, just that we're having as many people in melee range, and thus invalid Vile Gas targets, as possible. We could force both healers out to range to Kil/Fides for example could stay in melee range and thus only have to stop DPSing to move for goo. However, I'm weary of the idea of letting our healers be valid Vile Gas targets, so perhaps first we'll simply start out by trying the positioning/goo avoidance changes and let healers stay in melee range to see how our DPS fares. If we need a bit more of a boost, we can swap 1 or 2 ranged DPS into melee range, but I suspect with Wild tanking we'll meet the criteria easily enough.


2. I can up my DPS by not going to get the Spore buff and just Ice Blocking the first Pungent Blight (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=71219). This means I would only have to move for the Malleable Goo. Fides can also do the same thing with Dispersion (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47585). I am not sure but he may already be doing that.

This seems like a fantastic idea, as the misc Shadow damage from the fight actually decreases over time (he sucks up the gas in the room) so I don't see any issues with not getting the Spore buff if you can immune the big AE.


I'm thinking the easiest way to handle malleable goo is just have someone call out when it is tossed and everyone (mainly the ranged though) move 5 yards forward. This would avoid anyone moving into the spot the malleable goo is going.

True enough, but ideally we want as few people to have to move as possible. As we sorta of were trying to do our few later attempts the other night, I wanted to set ranged up in a straight line perpendicular to Putricide so seeing who needs to move is very simple, but the spread out is too great and as Kil mentioned, so is the collapse distance.

Instead, I think the 4-square setup will work well enough, so we can just have 2 people moving (for a ranged-targeting Goo) at once rather than 4-5.

[Rofldat]

For the square formation on Festergut:
Since Kull will be on watch to keep track of it, I think we should tank Festergut at one of the wall to the side(either the gate or the opposite side of it), with the 4 range closer to the middle of the room, that way it's clear the goo is going to one of the range group, instead of the melee/tank.

And melee/tank can form a triangle/square of our own around festergut, so only one of us will get hit(if it goes for one of the melee)

Something like:


Putricide -----------------> P

M1 1 2
T F M2 X
M3 H 3 4


If we opt to have melee do a triangle around Festergut it should be easier to tell which of the melee group the goo is going for, though a square formation will reduce the chance of multiple people getting hit.

And if the melee spore person stand directly in the middle of Festergut, the spore should hit everyone in melee range still.

[Kulldam]

Yes, precisely what we should do Rofl for positioning, though I'd add one minor change:

Since melee lose no measureable DPS by moving to avoid Goo (due to the 5 yard range being so small), I'd say it's best to have melee stacked up behind at max range and then when we know Goo is inc on melee, announce and melee run through to Tank spot until Goo hits then go back. At most melee will lose one white swing, but should be able to avoid every Goo cast all fight.

Assuming we keep both healers in melee range to avoid their stuns, we're probably best off putting 1 healer with melee stack and one with tank stack.

Finally, we should try to put Festergut as far from the back-most casters (so #4 in the square) as possible, so we can angle the Tank-stack and Melee-stack positions perpendicular to Putricide's throwing angle, essentially trying to replicate the angle the ranged have setup but using a 2-point system instead of 4-point. The further we can get Festergut from square #4 player but still in cast range, the more severe the angle can be, making it easier for melee/tanks to identify which stack Goo is landing on.

So basically what you had except modified slightly:


Putricide ----------> P


TH

F

MH

1 2
X
3 4


And if the melee spore person stand directly in the middle of Festergut, the spore should hit everyone in melee range still.

Good call, I see a few people do this already but we should make sure everyone knows (and that melee don't have to move to be in range).

I was thinking more about Kilwenn's 4-square setup, and I realized the geometry of that setup will actually allow us to make one important change: No one has to move to the "bunch up" position except the player with the spore.

For example, check out the diagram below:
299

So sorry it looks like such a Easter Nightmare, but it illustrates the actual distances. This shows 5 equal diameter circles. Each circle is 16 yards in diameter hence with an 8 yard radius. Therefore, the central location (in center of the center circle) is the "Spore" target location, and is within 8 yards (radius) of the 4-square positions (marked with dots), so the Spore buff will properly spread while the other three players remain stationary.

As you can see, the other four circles illustrate the distance between any two outer positions is less than the 8 yard radius of any circle. We can calculate the actual distance between two points as:


|BC|^2 + |CA|^2 = |AB|^2
2*|BC|^2 = 16^2
|BC|^2 = 128
|BC| = ~11.3

So we have plenty of "buffer" room between each of the adjacent points in our square to give us a ~3 yard safezone.

Therefore, if we carefully layout our 4-square positions with some smokes before the pull, we can easily up our caster DPS by basically doing what Kil suggested for himself/fides by not getting Spore, but actually everyone will get the spore debuff without having to move positions.

This setup still requires ranged to move from Goo obviously, but at 5 yard range, that is still irrelevant.

[Rofldat]

Stupid idea(maybe) on Festergut:
New composition
Tanks: Khrash and Khee(cat gear/spec) (To be honest I'd like Kull to tank, but since I don't know if Hand of Protection alone is enough to remove the bloat, I'd leave it to Khrash to tank for now)
Healers: Wild and Thaw...and if that's not enough Ugra on tank healing added in.
The rest DPS...

The idea spawned when Wild or Khee mentioned that a single druid can covers the raid, so if that's the case than a Holy Paladin 'should' be able to keep up the tank through 0-1 stacks, and then the druid can shift his focus more toward the tanks when Fester get 2-3 stacks(where the raid damage drops by a huge margin).

With a 300s enrage timer and 30 'stacks' of the gas to go through(without anyone hitting 10 stacks), here's the basic plan.

Basicly, Khee will start tanking since his spec is made for DPS, and at 0-1 stack Fester shouldn't pose enough threat that he'll die from not being a full-bear spec(obviously, he'll switch to Cat when not tanking).

At anywhere between 4-6 stack, Khrash will taunt off Khee and tank from there. Khee go DPS with the 40-50% damage bonus.

Khrash tank until Festergut cast Pungent Blight( he should be at 8-9 stacks now), at this point Khrash will use Divine Shield(to remove his stack) AND Divine Sacrifice(for the raid-wide 20% reduction)
At the same time Khee should taunt off Khrash to avoid Khrash getting any stack.

Khee will continue tanking(and refreshing his blight stack) until he's at 8-9, where Khash will taunt off him(during this time Fester should be at 0-1 stacks so again there shoudn't be any reason for Khee to die, except maybe Goo + Gas + melee, in which case we may need to ask tank to move from goo)
**Khrash can use Indestructible Potion at this point, since he'll tank for only 100 more seconds and the potion last for 120.
**On that note, Khrash should use one pre-pull, since it should last a fair bit through his tanking(it'd run around near the time Fester hit 3 stacks)
**Thaw/Khrash may need to use Salv on Khee at some point since he will be pulling quite a lot of DPS now(10k+ with the 8-9 stacks).

Call for Bloodlust near the time Festergut goes into 3rd inhale, possibly coincide wih Khee's remaining stack time AND last long enough to pass Festergut's 3 inhale phase (at this point, all healers should be spamming as if their lives depend on it, and Khee be ready to Innervate anyone who needs it, Ugra should also drop Mana Tide around this time) I expect this to be the make/break point.
*sadly due to the timing of Divine Shield earlier, Khrash won't have Divine Protection to use during this time.

After the pungent blight, and after Khrash's 8 or 9th stack, Khee's stack should drop off and thus allows him to tank Fester for the remainder of the fight(which is merely 30 seconds from enrage, and at 0 stacks so if we survived this far and Khee die to fester's 0-stack damage...well...crap)


If anyone feel curious at this point, Khrash can try to Hand of Protection himself after Forebearance drops off to see if it'll remove his stack(btw, if it does then Khrash can heal and Kull tank, and have Khrash/Thaw use Hand of Prot on Kull to remove his stack, and Kull can chain Last Stand/Trinkets and Shield Wall to hope fully survives the 30 seconds of the final 3-stacks)
*(if it works, the Khee/Kull rotation becomes 4 Khee - 8-9 Kull (reset) - 4 Khee - 8-9 Kull - 1 Khee(reset on Kull before Khee explode) - remainder Kull)

Hopefully without losing the stacks, and being a full DPS spec instead of tank one, Khee's damage overall should be similar to a full DPS(or better, seeing as he'll have that 8-9 stacks through Bloodlust) and can push us over the edge.
In case that it turns out 8-9 stack on the other tank is too much, we can try 4(Khee) - 7(Kull) - 5(Khee, use Barkskin when taunting on 3-stacks) - 9(Kull) - Khee til enrage.

EDIT: Really rough calculation:
Assumption
-Khee's normal Cat DPS is 6600.
-Khee's bear DPS is 1/3 of his Cat DPS(2200).

1st cycle:
Bear 0-4 stacks(0-40% damage bonus, so let's go with 20% average, I'm lazy) = 2200 * 1.2 = 2640 for 40 seconds. 105600
Cat 5 stacks til after Pungent(let's say 80 seconds) = 9900 for 80 seconds
average after 1st cycle = [(2640 * 40) + (9900 * 80)] / 120 = 7480 DPS.

And obviously the number will be higher for 2nd cycle.

[Rofldat]

Goddamn Darnavan:

Well, as much as Kull'd like to kill him on sight, I'd like to beat the fight with him alive if possible.

I can most likely just kite the bastard around using CoI/Taunt and minimal damage done to keep threat. However this one has a few possible flaw:
1. Because I'm most likely going to kite him far away(to avoid any adds coming to me and/or the guy going after someone else as I kite him around), I won't be in range of healer a fair amount of time(not a major concern, since I'll be doing this in blood spec and I have a few cooldowns to survive)
2. We lose damage/Ebon Plague, so there's less damage on Deathwhisper and less physical DPS to kill undead Adherent. I don't think we've ever run into enrage problem, so this shouldn't be a major concern.
3. If I get Mind Controlled, shouldn't be a problem since both me and Dar will be far away from people, but in case he gets close Khee should root him until I can get him back.

Another thing is if possible I'd like to try my suggestion above(even with Kull/Khrash tanking), just to see if it's any worth while(the DPS output should be higher by a noticable amount)

[Kulldam]

Some notes on Heroic: Valithria Dreamwalker:

So our logs are a little difficult to decipher from tonight because we spent so much time swapping roles and such, but if you check out our best/final attempt log (http://worldoflogs.com/reports/s3bdbh5fxsds0ab7/sum/healingDone/?s=10461&e=10820), it's clear that we absolutely can't afford to have healers lose their stacks. If you notice that fifth spike (which indicates the time outside after the 4th portal of course), Gale spikes to 40k HPS and if Khrash hadn't lost his stack, would be around there as well, and from there they should both climb higher.

That said, I'm still not convinced our setup for the rest of the raids and handling adds is ideal, and it may be worth modifying things slightly. First, a short list of things that kill us/force a wipe, in order of commonality:

Archmage melees non-Tank
Zombie melees non-Tank
Worms kill Tank
Abom melees non-Tank
Now, Abom on non-tank was just a screw up and only happened once, but the rest were fairly common reasons for death. Worms on tank we got pretty much handled later on as well by ensuring AE gets on them quick, but still worth mentioning.

That said, the big things are Archmage melee damage (and really we could've had twice the deaths/wipes from this that we did, but just got lucky and Archmage hit someone but didn't crit so they lived) and Zombie melee damage.

Zombies we were sort of handling, though it still seems a great deal of damage when a Zombie is on the tank applying a full 50% armor reduction just as an Abom is releasing worms. If not blocked, the worms hit for 4-5k each at that point, plus their stacking Nature debuff. And of course if an Abom is alive, the 50% Armor Reducer allows the Abom to hit for 18-20k.

And of course Archmages were just a complete toss up. The last couple attempts I started to actively try to move around a lot more to agro them, but even then I'm virtually doing the same thing as before and simply trying to get them on me every couple GCDs so they don't swing on nearby melee. It sort of worked, but at any moment they could turn and one-shot Kath or Ugra.

So what's the solution? Well, we'll lose some DPS, but we should probably try two tanks it seems, as that's the only possible way I can see avoiding these random gib deaths and stabilizing the entirety of the add process.

As for setup, since Fides is such strong DPS and is especially good at dealing AE damage, we'll keep Fides DPS and have Thaw and Gale on the Dragon, with Khee still on the raid and Khrash & me tanking.

Now, we obviously will lose some Raid DPS as we're basically trading Thaw's DPS for Khrash's. However, it isn't a straight trade of going from 6k to 3k, since due to the raid setup/positioning, it's very similar to 5-mans these days where the tank gets so much extra in-combat time due to always being with the mobs that actual damage dealt is bumped up quite a bit relative to other (mediocre) DPS. In other words, if Khrash and I are both at different ends of the room, Khrash, for example, can immediately agro all adds from his side so they start taking damage the instant they spawn and get pulled to his position into his Consecration/AE damage. Likewise we'll have position for tanks to AE and even stun Suppressor spawns near the instant they spawn, where usually Thaw or another DPS would have to spend a good 7-10 seconds traveling over there. At 3k DPS, that's 21-30k damage the tank would've dealt ahead of anyone else.

Also for the record, I know someone suggested a two-tank setup during our raid but I must admit I really thought the healing/DPS requirements were going to require using one only, but after our experiences, it seems we should really be focusing less on actual DPS numbers and more on in-combat time -- that is, position/setup the raid so that DPS don't have to wait around or spend a lot of time moving before they can deal damage. If two tanks can remove the gib-deaths and improve in-combat time, it may turn out the potential raid DPS loss is worth it.

Finally, regarding the Valithria healing -- it seems that we'll need to spend 5-6 minutes on this fight, of course with no stack drops from either Valithria healer, before we'll have the stack count/HPS to finish her off. The good news is we did that already in terms of survival (our last attempt was 5:59), so we just need the healer stacks to stay up.

One thing hopefully the tanking changes/positioning will help with is Suppressor uptime. Click here (http://worldoflogs.com/reports/s3bdbh5fxsds0ab7/details/115/?s=10461&e=10820), then click the "Buffs Gained" tab, then under "Debuffs" in the middle click the # symbol to the right of Suppression, then at the top under the "Buff Details" on the left of Suppression on Valithria Dreamwalker click the arrow to see the pull down. This illustrates the basic uptime of Suppression on Valithria throughout the fight. The top set of "green bars" shows the overlap, meaning the darkest shade indicates a 10% reduction from one Suppression channel, and each shade lighter means one more 10% stack. We do fairly well early on in the fight, though it seems one side of 3 spawns probably gets killed quickly and the loner is ignored for quite a while to deal with other stuff. However, later on we get more behind and Suppression really starts to ramp up. We're talking 20 second stretches of 20-30% healing reduction, and obviously if these stretches coincide with when healers are out, that's a pretty big loss.

Again, hopefully if we can position tanking spots properly, tanks can hold their adds right on top of Suppressor spawns so DPS can use AE attacks to kill both the normal adds and Suppressors underneath at the same time.

[Rofldat]

So, I'm guessing that we'll have 3 basic positions setup

Kull/Kath on one side(where the suppressors will be, since Kath have LK ach now he can join the ghost runs with the rest of us :P)

Khrash/Rofl on another(again, where the suppressors are)

With Kil/Fides/Ug(Ele, simply because Totem of Wrath in the middle can cover all 3 casters/healers, but Windfury totem in the middle might not cover melee on both side, not to mention this should balance out the DPS on both side) somewhere in the middle so they can switch side easily.

As for the 3 healers and the portal, I'm not sure who's taking the 3rd portal(Thaw/Gale are 2), but we could do either Kil/Fides/Ugra take turn in the portal so they won't run out of mana.

[Kulldam]

So, I'm guessing that we'll have 3 basic positions setup

Kull/Kath on one side(where the suppressors will be, since Kath have LK ach now he can join the ghost runs with the rest of us :P)

Khrash/Rofl on another(again, where the suppressors are)

With Kil/Fides/Ug(Ele, simply because Totem of Wrath in the middle can cover all 3 casters/healers, but Windfury totem in the middle might not cover melee on both side, not to mention this should balance out the DPS on both side) somewhere in the middle so they can switch side easily.

As for the 3 healers and the portal, I'm not sure who's taking the 3rd portal(Thaw/Gale are 2), but we could do either Kil/Fides/Ugra take turn in the portal so they won't run out of mana.

Actually, I think we're only hurting ourselves by not using all the DPS tools we have available. Meaning, we should try to split DPS so melee (Kath/Rofl/Ugra) are all on one side and casters (Fides/Kil) are on the other. 10% Atk and 20% haste are HUGE DPS boosts for you (Rofl) and especially Kath, and the casters can still get something from 5% haste and 144 Spell Power from Gale.

The question of course is whether one side can keep up by itself without help from the other side, but again I suspect lack of movement will help a lot. Also if we have me with the caster side, I imagine I can easily interrupt Archmages between Shield Bash, Concussion, Shockwave, and Throw long enough to get them down before they get a cast off. The cooldowns are fast enough I should be able to use at least 3-4 interrupts/stuns every Archmage, and in the event I'm short we have Kil as a backup for one.

As for DPS taking portals, that's really something we shouldn't focus on doing. Yes casters can run into mana troubles, but as mentioned above, that was because we were so deep into the fight (6 min) that we should've won by that point in terms of Valithria healing.

One question I have that I can't really answer but you DPS probably can: When Blazing Skeletons spawn, do they have any sort of basic threat mechanics or do they simply ignore all players and move outward a certain distance before channeling Lay Waste? My hope is they have basic threat so tanks can hit them as they spawn/taunt and pull them into the pack like every other mob type, as if not, DPS will need to break off existing mobs to run over to Blazing, which could be troublesome.

[Katheon]

One question I have that I can't really answer but you DPS probably can: When Blazing Skeletons spawn, do they have any sort of basic threat mechanics or do they simply ignore all players and move outward a certain distance before channeling Lay Waste? My hope is they have basic threat so tanks can hit them as they spawn/taunt and pull them into the pack like every other mob type, as if not, DPS will need to break off existing mobs to run over to Blazing, which could be troublesome.

Not 100% sure of this but from what I have seen here they have set locations they like to run to but I have noticed they target some people off and on possibly based on threat build from the DPS we doing to them or could be just random targeting with a castable DoT or something I do not know for sure. But they do seem to me to have pretty much a set location they like to run to once entering the area.

[Rofldat]

They follow basic threat mechanic, with occasional almost instant cast fireball on random players before it goes into Lay Waste.

As for me being with melee, I think the DPS loss from casters not having Ebon Plague would be more than what I'd personally gain from 20% haste/melee group gain from Ebon(the 10% AP have 100 yrd range, unlike the 45 yrd of Windfury totem, so even if I'm across the room I should still get that buff)

EDIT: Kath, the reason they 'seem' to run into set position is because they tend to aggro on Kheelan, who's usually in a set spot.

[Katheon]

Ok makes sense there. On the Archmage note I was looking through atlas loot alchemy tables this morning as well and was possibly debating if there was a flask or something to help up my survivability. Any thoughts on this idea since with the Archmages we want to be quick on killing them and I know I got a couple unlucky melee hits in on me befor I even got a chance to get a stun landed.

[Kulldam]

As for me being with melee, I think the DPS loss from casters not having Ebon Plague would be more than what I'd personally gain from 20% haste/melee group gain from Ebon(the 10% AP have 100 yrd range, unlike the 45 yrd of Windfury totem, so even if I'm across the room I should still get that buff)

Like I said we'll have to try it out and see, but I don't think we can afford having you with the two casters as then Ugra and Kath will be severely out DPSed and may not be able to keep up with spawns alone.

That said, your idea does bring up a very strong possibility I hadn't considered before:

What if Rofl tanks the caster group as Unholy and I tank the melee group? Khrash would then be with Thaw on Dragon healing and Gale would be back to Elemental which would give casters that extra damage from Totem of Wrath. Further, we'd then have Sunder Armor 20% on the melee side (which we wouldn't have had before).

The downside is, as I mentioned above if Rofl DPSed the caster side, we'd still have a severe imbalance on the caster DPS side (melee would have Ugra/Kath/myself, casters would have Fides/Kil/Gale/Rofl). However, perhaps that would be sufficient and we could just have the casters positioned so they can quickly turn around and help with melee side mobs when their side is clear.

The other option, which would balance DPS more (though actual raid DPS would drop a bit) is to keep Thaw/Gale on dragon healing and have Khrash tank melee side with me as Fury DPS. Melee would gain the 5% crit bonus and still have sunder for the tougher targets (Abom's basically). In this case, melee side DPS may be slightly higher than the caster side, but not severely so.

Again, stuff to discuss/consider/try out to figure out what may work best.


Ok makes sense there. On the Archmage note I was looking through atlas loot alchemy tables this morning as well and was possibly debating if there was a flask or something to help up my survivability. Any thoughts on this idea since with the Archmages we want to be quick on killing them and I know I got a couple unlucky melee hits in on me befor I even got a chance to get a stun landed.

Well that's really the whole point of trying two tanks, so there's a tank near the spawn every time and can quickly pickup Archmages to avoid these insta-gib deaths we saw so frequently.

[Katheon]

Ya I just wanted to throw that out there as well. I was playing with the idea befor checking in on this forum today but figured I would throw the idea out there while it was fresh on my mind should we goto a single tank strat plan again.

[Kulldam]

Some notes on Heroic: Marrowgar:

In an effort to find a more consistent strategy for him, it's worth looking at some possible tactics changes we can incorporate.

First, definitely one-tank is the way to go. Second, because of using one-tank, it's probably our best bet to use 3 healers. The question then is: which healers, or more importantly, which classes?

Looking through our logs from recent and past attempts, I'm quite convinced on-demand, direct healing is the strongest for Bone Storm. I'd also wager good money that, given enough mana/regen, a Paladin could stand still the entire Bone Storm with beacon on himself and spam Holy Light on the raid. As long as he wasn't in Coldflame, the Bone Storm damage on him would be healable.

Bone Storm "hits" every 2 seconds like clockwork. It also hits for a maximum of about 10k when he is directly on top of his target. Therefore, a sub-2-second Holy Light spam would seemingly keep a Holy Paladin alive through self-Beacon while healing the raid.

Also, it appears Bone Storm does not, in fact, get reduced by Armor (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/peukn10pcskptak4/xe/?s=7063&e=7358&x=spell%3D%22Bone+Storm%22+and+(targetname%3D%22Kh eelan%22+or+targetname%3D%22Kilwenn%22)). While it's difficult to tell from logs (since we don't know where players were positioned relative to Marrowgar's model at the time of a hit), we can see by looking at the maximum damage taken that both a Tree Form Druid and a Mage at some point took a max of about 10k, and obviously if armor affected it the max for the Druid should be significantly lower.

Finally, I think everyone knows, but worth spelling out: Bone Storm damage is dealt based on the distance from the center of his model, from about 10-11k max, down to about 1k minimum, and everything in between.

Now, having said all that, I looked back at our Fraps from last night's attempts and as I briefly mentioned, there is definitely a correlation between my Taunting/Movement as soon as Bone Storm starts and Marrowgar picking me as his first target for Bone Storm nearly every time. However, once I started trying to Taunt to see if it did anything, he definitely picked me more often, but not consistently beyond the first. Given that, and from just general past experience, I can say with 100% confidence that Marrowgar's Bone Storm target selection prefers people out of melee range to his current location.

I don't think the Taunt has any real affect, I think it was the position. As he'd start Bone Storm, I'd quickly run out to the side and often be the first/furthest out when he made his first selection, whereas the rest of the raid was not as far from his current position.

Another thing to test/consider, is whether his target selection works at all like Sartura (http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=15516) from AQ40. Most of you might remember, she was the hovering winged-chick with 3 guards that all "reset agro" very frequently and thus required many tanks stacked on her spamming abilities to try to be the first "hit" after every reset.

Well, obviously the threat reset may not apply in this case, but it's worth considering if Marrowgar's target selection has any similar mechanics in conjunction with the at-range preference. An easy way to test of course is to have all DPS stop a few seconds before Bone Storm and have two people at range keeping DoTs on Marrowgar. This may show us whether he has any sort of reset that thus checks recent attacks/threat generations for valid Bone Storm chase targets.

Still, even if no Sartura-like mechanics are found, the range-preference thing seems key. Also, remembering that his damage from Bone Storm scales based on distance from him, if we can prove that he does in fact prefer to chase targets not within melee range, we can position two people (tanks or similar) at somewhat far distances and have the rest of the raid "follow" Marrowgar, such that when he moves to one tank position, the raid isn't right up in his business, but is, in fact, positioned just inside his Bone Storm affect range. The key here is not to take no Bone Storm damage, but to take low and consistent damage. At the edge of his hit box, the 8 other raid members would each take, say 1.5k - 3k hits every 2 seconds. That's only 1125 DPS, which is of course a joke amount of damage. Add in "crossover" hits (where he's traveling the other tank and likely to hit everyone once) for high damage, 5-10k, one time, and it's still very healable. If Marrowgar does his thing and spins a bit then looks for a new target, he should see that the only valid target not near his melee range is the single tank off on the other side and begin moving.

312

The attachment illustrates the idea. One "tank" is the green dot on the top right (in the real room this would be slightly to the left of where the tank's normally stand) and the other tank is bottom left (back left of the normal raid position). We'll have to experiment with the distances since there is literally no valid information online showing what Marrowgar's actual Bone Storm Radius is in terms of in-game yards. But, we can guesstimate and setup some exact smoke positions via AVR and adjust from there.

The Red dots are the Raid Positions, such that in the event a Coldflame trails passes through the first raid position, the raid can simply step a few yards away to the other position (we'll assume at least one of those spots will be flame free for 30 seconds of Bone Storm).

Then of course the large blue circles show his Bone Storm Radius. As mentioned, I suspect that if he does truly prefer at-range targets for his next movement, while he's in one tank spot spinning (and of course tank is getting healed and can freely move once Marrowgar indicates he's coming toward that tank, as long as he gets back in position immediately), the rest of the raid, in either marked location, is still slightly within melee range/Bone Storm range and thus not valid chase targets, so he'll ping pong back and forth.

Also, the two red raid positions are offcenter, so when he travels between tanks, the Raid position doesn't pass directly through his center, and thus the "big hit" as he moves will be 4-8k rather than 8-11k, or what not.

During this of course Bone Spike would still happen, but because nearly the entire raid and most DPS are right next to where it will hit, it should be a simple process to heal/break that person out. Related to Bone Spike, we also need to experiment with what qualifies a player as a "tank" in the encounter script, so that, if possible, we can still use only one actual tank and have the script recognize Rofl as a second tank and thus he won't be Bone Spiked/can be the second "tank position".

Some possible ways the script might qualify a player as a tank:

Total HP (unlikely: They wouldn't want to limit people doing Marrowgar because they had a fresh-80 tank with only 30k health, even if healing could keep up)
Defensive Stats (Defense, Dodge, etc.)
Stance (Defensive Stance, Frost Presence, Bear Form, Righteous Fury -- if this applies, certainly not the only factor as Holy Paladins would often have Righteous Fury up and are still valid Bone Spike targets)
Threat

I suspect it's some sort of combination rather than just one factor, but my best guess is a combination of Threat and Stance. Holy Paladins with Righteous Fury or DPS with near-tank threat both wouldn't count as both high threat and a tank-stance would need to apply.

Again, we can test this, but the best thing to try is to have Rofl Taunt as soon as Bone Storm starts and move to his back left position. This will give him the Threat component and we'll see if he ever gets Bone Spike. If so, then we'll also have him try swapping to Frost Presence just before Bone Storm, then he'll Taunt as well while moving and see if that prevent Bone Spikes on him. If neither of those work, but our general position seems fine, we may just have to go back to two tanks (or alternatively, let Rofl eat the Spike and heal him through it while ranged DPS nuke it down from raid position).

More thoughts are welcome as always, but clearly we need some new options so we can find a consistent setup for this guy.

[Rofldat]

Observation of LK Heroic:
P1:
-New Spell: Shadow Trap, after marking a player, shortly after he'll spawn a void zone where the player was marked(not where the player is). Spreading the raid out and having people move to avoid catching someone else in it(Radius looks to be about 10 yrd). Up to 4 of these can be out at a time(though he seems to prefer target at range for casting the spell).

Transition:
-No visible change(for both of them).

P2(Valkyr):
-Defile pool seems larger on spawn.
-(most likely on successful kill too) After the Valkyr 'die', instead of disappearing, it floats up above the middle of platform and start nuking random people.

P3:
-Harvest Soul now hit the whole raid(and pull us toward him, so after we got out be ready to spread for Defile).
--Uncertain on what exactly we're supposed to do, but there's spirits floating about(range DPS killing them), some sort of shadow sparks dropping onto the floor and exploding(just stay away from them), and sticking around the wall(probably to avoid larger amount of sparks, but I see explosions on the middle NPC now and then).
--It's not necessary to kill all the floating spirits, since the video showed the raid ported out with spirits still alive.

Beyond those points there's no other visible changes(aside from obviously more HP/damage)

EDIT: Since Adept took about 14min to get him to 10%, I'd assume the Enrage is still 15 minutes.

[Rofldat]

(Note: Somewhere during the thought process while typing this out my brain may have gone haywire and my sensibility drops like a rock, so excuse any part that may seem weird)

All You Can Eat:
With the failure at 5 stacks and 15s between tombs, I think setting up the two tanks on opposite side of her and near each iceblock location so the tanks have easier time reaching it could work better.

And uses 3 healers, in case the healers that was supposed to be on tank got hit by Unchained, then the reserve healer(who usually heals the raid) can take over for a shot while(the reserve healer will be hiding behind each block with the DPS unless called for, since he won't be healing tank), that or have the tank uses cooldown until Unchained is over.

Position


H R H
1 M 2
T S T

(Ideally, the healers won't get stacks this way, but let's presume there's some mis-position and healers can't always do it)
Basically, each time a frost tomb hit, the tank who's near that tomb go hide, and the other one taunt.
-Example: If the tomb is coming to position 1, then the tank on 2 side will taunt and Healer/Tank on side 1 will hide if they have stacks on them.
--The respective healer's position is a good condensing spot , since the healer should be a fair distance from the tomb's impact point, and the spot should be out of Sindra's LoS while the tomb's up.

All range DPS are to remains on boss while not hiding, and only enough melees to kill the tomb in 10s(but not too fast) remains on Tomb to kill it. This is to avoid the scenario where we kill the tomb too fast and nobody lost their stack at all.

The primary concern is that the first tomb. Because both tanks will have some stacks at this point.
What I 'think' will be done is this:
-Have Tank 2 tanking her at the start.
-Tank 1 wait behind where the tomb will be, so as soon as the LoS is up he'll be affected by it.
-As soon as Tank 1's stacks drop. He go into position and taunt off 2.
-Tank 2 hide behind the first Tomb until the 2nd BEACON comes, at which point he'll go hide at Tomb 2 position.
--As soon as Tank 2's stacks drop, the DPS can immediately kill the tomb regardless of if the 2nd beacon is coming.
-After Tomb 2 dies, Tank 2 taunt Sindra and Tank 1 go into position to hide.

Afterward, I think what will happen is something along this line:
-Frost Beacon comes up. Kull says which side is the marked person going to.
-The opposite side's tank taunt, the previous tank go into position to drop the buffet and remains there(to avoid tail smash/avoiding as many buffets as possible)
-Tomb hit, DPS hide for 4-5 seconds to let the debuff drops(You can move out as soon as you see 2-3s remaining on your debuff timer)
---Alternatively, the DPS group(the ones not on tomb) could hide every other tomb as well.
Repeat.

[Rofldat]

Some less junks to put in the trunks, from the recent hotfix:

# The Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player) meta achievement no longer requires Neck-Deep in Vile to be completed.
# For the Sindragosa encounter, Frost Breath cast under 35% HP no longer has a snare component and there are no longer diminishing returns on Taunt effects.

So we only need Been Waiting A Long Time(probably 1 ghoul pack after the 3rd Horror would be a good mark?) and All You Can Eat before we only need to kill heroic bosses for this.

And the hotfix to Sindra leads me to believe tank swapping each ice tomb is the way to go for this achievement(and with our 2 smokes position, what I posted above would probably work).

[Kheelan]

A couple of add on that may make it easier to handle Unbound Plague in the heroic Pr. Putricide encounter.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/plaguebeacon.aspx or
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/plagued.aspx

Seems like the first might be the best one. Should we all grab this for next attempts?

[Rofldat]

Watching Valithria video, I think it would be safe to say that we can lust the portal after she hit 80%.

If possible, I'd like to spend this coming Sunday/Monday as follow:
Sunday - Sindra heroic from 6:30-10:00, then go for the achievement attempts from then.
Monday - Heroic putricide up to 9:30, then do Been Waiting Long Time(based on our previous kill, we had at least another 3 minutes left on enrage so this achievement should be quite easy to do)

[Kulldam]

TLDR: Everyone must acquire their 3-piece Crafted Icebane (http://wowhead.com/item=43586) equivalent pieces prior to raid time, Sunday, April 11th, 2010. If you do not have 3-piece Frost still from Hodir, take out supplies/gold from the Guild Bank for funds to craft the pieces, or ask the guild for assistance. Proper gems/enchants are required.

Some notes on Heroic: Sindragosa:

I need some help regarding how Beacon of Light works -- in essence, the question is this: Does the line of sight requirement for the Beacon-duplicated healing use the casting Paladin's line of sight or the heal target's line of sight? For example:



Tank


----------
Pal
Mage

I know in the above diagram, where the Paladin is hiding out of Line of Sight of the tank behind a wall, the even with Beacon on the tank, casting heals on himself will not heal the Tank due to line of sight issues. However, does anyone know if casting heals on the Mage in the above example would utilize the Mage's line of sight, rather than the Paladin's, and thus duplicate the heal to the Tank?

I have a feeling it only uses the Paladin's own line of sight but if not that would be an extremely strong method for handling tank heals during Phase 3.

Another thought big possibility is simple: Resistances

If you look over our previous night of Sindragosa attempts, and specifically the causes of death, the vast majority of deaths (http://worldoflogs.com/reports/1cxp0x0byja0cner/deaths/?enc=wipes&boss=36853) are (perhaps obviously) from Frost Damage; specifically Frost Aura (http://wowhead.com/spell=71050) ticks. I totaled up the damage the took during our Heroic attempts from Frost Aura and Chilled to the Bone (excluding tanks since they are using Frost Resist gear already), and get the following basic data:

Actor|Damage|Ticks|Average Tick|Resisted
Frost Aura||||
Thawfore|3023388|800|3779.2|720450
Ugra|2912306|838|3475.3|769500
Galethorn|2886225|769|3753.2|696150
Kheelan|2860346|765|3739|694800
Rofldat|2507303|857|2925.7|774000
Katheon|2480921|663|3742|600750
Fideslol|2459776|814|3021.8|719550
Kilwenn|2178579|661|3295.9|865800
Totals|21308844|6167|3466.5125000000003|5841000
|||Resist Percent|22%
||||
Chilled to the Bone||||
Ugra|1768800|896|1974.1|586726
Katheon|1716700|739|2323|517619
Rofldat|1211290|791|1531.3|473332
Totals|28184213|9254|2518.1625|8284477
|||Resist Percent|23%
||||
Total Frost Damage|49493057|15421|5984.675|14125477
|||Resist Percent|22%

As we can see, the non-tanks resist an average of 22-23% of the Frost Damage in this fight, which coincides with expected values from the actual resist table from the game mechanics, as everyone has 130 Frost Resist for the fight:

Average Resist| Level 80| Level 83
0.1|45|57
0.15|71|90
0.2|100|128
0.25|134|170
0.3|172|219
0.35|216|275
0.4|267|340
0.45|328|418
0.5|400|510
0.55|489|624
0.6|600|765

Now, one thing we can try which I feel may strongly help survival is using the 3-piece frost resist set for everyone in the raid, similar to what tanks are doing. This will give everyone 417 Frost Resist, which means an average resistance of 45%. Using the above damage from Frost Aura and Chilled to the Bone, this means the raid would negate an extra 14,502,863.3 damage!

Obviously the real important aspect is: what does this provide for life-saving mitigation, in real world application?

Obviously Phase 3 with Mystic Buffet is the challenge, and assuming we use a strategy similar to our achievement where we're clearing stacks very frequently, I'll assume an average Mystic Buffet stack of 3, which means 45% increase. This means the 4500 Frost Aura damage is actually 6525 damage a tick. Therefore, average resistances shows a tick table of the following:

Time (Secs)|Damage|Resist|Total Damage Taken
0|5056.875|1468.125|5056.875
3|5056.875|1468.125|10113.75
6|5056.875|1468.125|15170.625
9|5056.875|1468.125|20227.5
12|5056.875|1468.125|25284.375
15|5056.875|1468.125|30341.25
18|5056.875|1468.125|35398.125

So we see a player with 25k health will die at the 12 second mark assuming no heals. Now the same table showing resistance from 417 FR at 45% average value:

Time (Secs)|Damage|Resist|Total Damage Taken
0|3588|2936.25|3588
3|3588|2936.25|7177
6|3588|2936.25|10766
9|3588|2936.25|14355
12|3588|2936.25|17943
15|3588|2936.25|21532
18|3588|2936.25|25121
21|3588|2936.25|28710
24|3588|2936.25|32298

Now the same player can last another 6 seconds, or two ticks, with zero healing, before death. And since the resists are obviously percentages, the survival rate increases the higher the HP pool of the target player. A 30k HP player will survive an extra 9 seconds, or three ticks, without any heals.

Obviously going for 18 seconds without any heals at all is very unlikely, so really these resistances add a survival buffer that will greatly increase our margin of error for minor mistakes and allow healers to concentrate more on healing primary targets and let HoTs/Shields do more of the heavy lifting for raid damage.

Also the obvious downside to using Frost Resist 3-piece is a loss of DPS, especially for DPS that don't have enough T10 pieces to keep their 4-piece bonus without the chest slot piece. However, we know from our logs that most of our wipes had Sindragosa at 20-24% health and lasted 7:20-7:40, which means we have about 2:30 still remaining before the Berserk. I'm too lazy to actually load characters into Rawr to see what actual DPS losses are suffered from using 3-piece Frost, but I doubt it's enough that we'll see Berserk hit us. Even if it does, if we can survive long enough to hit it, we can adjust our DPS slightly from there as necessary.

[Kilwenn]

TLDR: Everyone must acquire their 3-piece Crafted Icebane (http://wowhead.com/item=43586) equivalent pieces prior to raid time, Sunday, April 13th, 2010. If you do not have 3-piece Frost still from Hodir, take out supplies/gold from the Guild Bank for funds to craft the pieces, or ask the guild for assistance. Proper gems/enchants are required.


I think you mean Sunday, Aprill 11th, 2010.

I still have my FR set and will do some DPS calcs. I am currently spec'd fully into Magic Absorption (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=29441) so I may be able to drop a piece of FR gear. One option I may consider is going Frost for the fight. I can get the Eternal Water Elemental. He is immune to frost and can DPS continuously. It would also help my survivability. As far as I know, Sindragosa is not immune to Frost.

Also, I can craft all of the cloth FR pieces and I may be able to do the Leather and Mail pieces this week on my dr00d, Kilwynn. He is at 440 LW currently but should be 450 soon.

[Kulldam]

I think you mean Sunday, Aprill 11th, 2010.

Woops, good eye Kil!

[Kulldam]

Regarding One-Tank Sindragosa:

I just realized a big thing we can do, even if we don't try the burn strategy and instead play normal (i.e. 3 healers), is still use only Khrash as the tank by having him create a simple Divine Shield macro to drop his stacks Phase 3.


#showtooltip Divine Shield
/cast Divine Shield
/cancelaura Divine Shield
/cast Hand of Reckoning

As long as it's not used during a Frost Breath, I am fairly certain it will bubble and cancel fast enough that Khrash won't lose threat for long enough to get anyone killed/attacked, though we'll have to test it of course. This would allow Khrash to wait for a reasonable Mystic Buffet stack count (12-14), reset the stack, and then go back up to the same # before we're in danger. The total time it takes to for 24-28 stacks to be cast is plenty of time to finish her off and it would let us gain a sizable chunk of DPS since normally I do fuck all most of the fight.

[Kulldam]

Obviously largely irrelevant at this point, but just read about a cool tactic that Guide will have to try out:

Apparently snakes from Snake Trap count as valid soak targets for Green Ooze explosions during Putricide. Might be worth dropping a trap under melee before phase changes if that's the case...

[Guide]

I will give this a shot on Wed...if this does work you will have to bow to the might of the Viper!

[Kulldam]

I will give this a shot on Wed...if this does work you will have to bow to the might of the Viper!

This truth cannot be denied!