Ulduar Strategy Notepad

[Kulldam]

Random note for Algalon:

Ardent defender will allow Khrash to eat a bing bang every 2 minutes without using any active cooldowns.

Combine this with the fact that Paladins are generally stronger tanks on Algalon, and we should have a little bit of an easier time on him.

As we were discussing, this should allow us to theoretically use Khrash to soak all Big Bangs between this and his normal CDs. I'll have to look a bit deeper into the timing of tank debuffs throughout the fight (the attacks Algalon uses that force tank swaps), but ideally we can split tanking so I'm tanking 60 out of 90 seconds between Big Bang casts and Khrash is tanking either end (thus the final 30 before a Big Bang and the follow up 30) or whatnot.

There is one major downside to using Ardent defender, in that in the event it procs during normal battle for whatever reason, we'll need a backup plan to soak that Big Bang (such as me blowing my CDs or what not). It also may be ideal to have me spec back into 60% damage reduction Shield Wall for this fight since we're expecting 3 Big Bangs at most before we wipe/get the kill and Khrash can soak all of them or at least 1st and 3rd.

This would turn the Big Bang formula for me into:

59,832 - (88,687 * (1 - 0.6)) = 24357.2 HP remaining

Anyway, bottom line is we have a lot more options now which should only help.

[Rofldat]

Some ideas on Firefighter I see from reading around:
Ignoring phase 1-2 since they're pretty much basic.
Transition 2-3
-stay near/in the middle to have the fire stay there, to give more room to kite during phase 3
Phase 3
-one option is to kill all emergency bots, as Mimiron can spawn only so much fire, killing them all will limit the amount of fire in the room as well as letting the head tank stay in one corner.(probably Guidon, since he can misdirect any assault bots coming after him to Kull)
-(not applicable to our group, yet) an arcane mage, with mage armor and the resist talent, can resist a large chunk of the head's damage
Transition 3-4
-Leave up only 1-2 emergency bots so they deal with the fire (assuming they will only attack players when there's no fire around), ideally we will be able to use normal mode position if the 1-2 emergency bot work fast enough(and only move from the usual AoE/Frost bomb)

[Kulldam]

Notes on Algalon:

• We really need to get Collapsing Stars down quickly, especially the first set of four. That seems to be the hump in that if we don't manage that, we'll get behind on the spawns of Constellations. Obviously this comes down to Guidon primarily and obviously you're still getting upgrades, so anything you can do to maximize your damage on stars before the first Big Bang will be very helpful.
• I can't think of anyway around it, we're going to have to put Ugra on MT healing duty. Ancestral Healing is just too strong to ignore when we're dealing with such massive spike potential on the tanks. Plus, Ancestral Awakening procs and Chain Heal jumps from MT will help with raid heals a bit. Lastly, we lose a great deal more overall raid DPS when we don't have Huggey's 13% magic damage buff from Earth and Moon rather than the 136 SP loss of trading Totem of Wrath for Flametongue Totem Ugra, how is your healing gear right now? If you need help with gems or enchant mats please let me know ASAP and if you need to practice healing a bit I'd be glad to help so you can be ready for Sunday/Monday.
• With this setup, Kheelan will be on MT heals with Ugra, and Wild will be on raid healing and Constellation management, which is preferable to having the OT do it since we'll need all the extra DPS we can muster to beat the enrage timer.
• Everyone please take the time to look over some more information and especially videos (many can be found in HD streaming by clicking here).
• Guide: Please watch this and this for some good Hunter PoV examples. Notice how they blow through mana very quickly at the start to burn down the stars with a good 10 seconds left before the Big Bang so the raid healer can recover everyone's health before they enter the Shadow Dimension. Also notice in the first link at 4:15 how an unexpected star collapses and drops the raid low so he pauses killing his current star target until the raid is healed back up.
• Wildhide: Please check out this movie which is a decent view of Druid Raid Healer PoV also managing Constellations.
• Everyone: Please watch this movie (the same one I linked to Wild above). Notice how the raid generally stays somewhat close together to maximize the efficiency of group heals such as Wild Growth and Chain Heal. That is something that may prove very useful to us.
• Lastly, I may have everyone throw on a Flask of Stoneblood these next attempts to provide a bit of a buffer to random gibs (namely Constellation barrage + Star Collapse simultaneously). Some people probably don't need it (Rofl comes to mind), but most of you are fairly low HP DPS and it could make or break surviving a burst.

[Kulldam]

Notes on Alone in the Darkness:

• As most of you (should) know, Alone in the Darkness is basically identical to our One Light in the Darkness fight, except we have 20% less health (fairly big chunk for me as the tank, but not as much for the rest), we deal 10% less damage of course, and most importantly, the Immortal Guardians in phase 3 will never die which requires some trickiness to avoid having them all heal each other too much or even worse, heal Yogg.
• The ability in question is Empowering Shadows, which Yogg casts every 45 seconds on 1-2 random Immortal Guardians that have been in the fight at least 20 seconds or longer. As you can see, it heals the target Guardian and any other enemies within 20 yards for a huge amount of health over 20 seconds.
• There are two main strategies used for this fight and both are fairly viable, so I've outlined both strategies below and how they might best work for us.

Strategy 1: The Pull-Out Method (if you impregnate Yogg-Saron, your child will have tentacle cock and/or tits):



Explanation

This was really the first strategy conceived for this fight primarily because it doesn't take away much overall raid DPS to deal with Empowering Shadows.

The idea is: The tank grabs all Guardians as normal and a DPS burns them down to 1 HP (since they cannot die outright in Alone). Eventually, 1 or 2 Guardians get Empowered and 10 seconds later will heal everyone in 20 yards. Therefore, 1 or 2 people (Hunters or Tank-capable classes) will each pick a Marked Guardian and taunt it far away from Yogg and the unmarked pack, let the heal go off, then bring it back to the pack. Now only 1 or 2 Guardians at max are being healed.

Pros:

• Requires 1 additional DPS (not counting full-time Guardian DPS) for 15 out of every 45 seconds at most.
• Tank-gib chance much lower than other method as most Guardians will be at 1 HP at all times regardless of how long the fight lasts.

Cons:

• Requires a great deal of movement for both Mark assigned DPS and MT, which could risk insanity.
• Can be hectic and difficult to perform, as 10 seconds from time of mark to properly assign both Marked Guardians and ensure the two DPS are not targeting the same one can be difficult, especially under the pressure of this fight.
• No reliable interrupt method for Drain Life, which while not a huge HP boost and should be DPSed down by Swipe, still increases tank damage intake.

Strategy 2: The Bust-In Method (gross dude, gross):



Explanation

This method is very basic in execution: choose some consistent AE DPS (i.e. non-mana users that can sustain forever) that can outdamage the 11,000/sec heal Guardians will get when Empowering blooms and simply have them AE DPS nearly full-time, or at least for the full duration of Empowering.

Pros:

• Very simple to execute -- once we try it once we'll be able to tell quite quickly if it can be successful
• Virtually no movement from anyone except occasional movement from melee DPS, so accidental Insanity chances are very low.
• If prior to 3.2.2, will provide a reliable interrupt for Drain Life which will lower tank spike damage and greatly lower raid damage.

Cons:

• Drops raid DPS on Yogg a great deal, by possibly requiring 2 additional DPS for 30 out of 45 seconds.
• Tank spike chance *may* be higher with this method than with Strategy 1 -- hard to say how much health Guardians can heal up with melee AEing during Empowering.

Kinzie/Kheelan: Can you estimate for me what your single target DPS might be when spamming Fan of Knives/Swipe respectively? Our goal is 11250 * 0.50 (with Wound Poison) or 5625 total DPS on each Guardian during Empowering Shadows. Any feedback?

At any rate, it's entirely possible both strategies are viable for us, it will likely just depend on the speed of our P1/P2 and therefore how much time we have going into P3. Obviously Strategy 2 is simpler to execute/more reliable and thus would be easier to do if the rest of the DPS would be able to drop Yogg in time.

We shall see!

[Kheelan]

With myself and Kinzie AEing we can easily hit 5625 dps, might even be possible for one of us to hit that dps mark.

[Kulldam]

Notes on Alone in the Darkness:

Found an addon that helps Phase 3 by raid marking Marked Immortal Guardians with Raid Icons.

Everyone please download/install: http://www.voximmortalis.com/files/a...s_Parallel.zip

No setup required, it's very basic, but will check targets/mouseover targets/etc. at regular intervals and set raid icons in a specific order. This will allow us to quickly and reliably have Khee/Guide target different Marked Guardians and taunt them away if we elect to try that strategy again this evening.

If interested, the full details of this addon can be found here.

[Rofldat]

A recap on what I think is the plan we have/I think we should have for next day of Alone in the Dark.

1. Kinzie will FoK to put wound poison on all guardians when marked guardian appear.
2. Me and Khee pull one each away, Kull and the rest stay next to Yogg(so the AoEs will hit Yogg too)
3. After Empowering Shadow hits, both myself and Khee will move back so Kull can taunt the mob off us. Then AoEs proceed.
-If the 10m version is http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64468 , with a wound poison on the guardian's healing about 6k/s. I should be able to keep the guardian from healing too much before a taunt come my way, so it might not be necessary to taunt mine before Khee's, or even the new spawn.
-With ideally only up to 4 guardians at high HP(again, both me and Khee can probably cut a decent chunk of its health while it's on us), it might not be necessary to call everyone on AoE and let the people with more direct damage ability(Ugra, for example, since with enough guardians around his CL probably won't hit the ones with high HP) to remain on Yogg full time instead.

This way should let Kull remains in one position and the occasional AoEs can still hurt Yogg(like how Kull tank the adds on Anub near him)

[Kulldam]

Notes on Herald of the Titans:

We really need to try using Thawfore as a Holy MT Healer for this fight. I've put together a fairly decent Herald gearset for Thaw to work on, which can be found by clicking here. Thaw, we need to go over your current banked gear to see how much of this you have (or similar).

With Thaw healing, we'll also have Ugra MT healing for 10% Physical Reduction and Mana Tide, so Kheelan will Feral DPS (assuming Khee has a Herald Feral set?).

The above set may not be a BiS set, but close enough, and plugging it into Rawr (with matching talents and glyphs), shows full-time HL spam will not be possible without Judgement of Wisdom/Seal of Wisdom procs (which we kind of knew). However, Rawr doesn't have Mana Tide Totem models and since Mana Tide is 5 min cooldown and thus can be used twice in 6 minutes, it's hard to say how accurate the times are.

That said, Rawr estimates the following output stats:

Health:				23,951
Mana:				31,967
Spell Crit:			47.08%
Spell Haste:			41.55%
Total Healed:			3,637,106 healing
Total Mana:			137,122 mana
Average Healing per sec:	10,103 hps
Average Healing per mana:	26.52 hpm
Holy Light Time:		173.4 sec
Flash of Light Time:		100.9 sec
Holy Shock Time:		0.0 sec
Sacred Shield Time:		12.7 sec
Beacon of Light Time:		6.4 sec
Judgement Time:			27.0 sec
Holy Light Healed:		1,796,797 healed
Flash of Light Healed:		501,805 healed
Holy Shock Healed:		0 healed
Sacred Shield Healed:		160,067 healed
Beacon of Light Healed:		459,720 healed
Glyph of HL Healed:		718,719 healed

That includes normal raid buffs and Flask of Distilled Wisdom + Fish Feast. The important things are the Holy Light Time vs. the Flash of Light Time. Keeping Sacred Shield/Beacon/Judgement up is a fairly trivial amount of GCD usage, but with the calculated stats, Rawr estimates about 36% of the fight time must be spent casting Flash of Light rather than Holy Light.

Again, however, this doesn't include two Mana Tide boosts nor occasional melee swings for mana procs, so it's likely much lower Flash of Light cast time than Rawr estimates.

Either way, having a Holy Paladin and Resto Shaman on Tanks will probably provide the HPS we need to survive the tank damage on this fight, while letting Wild continue to do raid healing with occasional Beaconed Holy Lights from Thaw when collapses hit the raid.

We should also start using Amplify Magic on the tanks which is something I always forget about but is ideal for tanking this fight since it's all incoming physical damage.

Depending how much of a set Thaw already has and if Kheelan has a decent Feral Herald set, we'll likely plan on doing this a week from now, Sunday the 22nd or Monday the 23rd, rather than this coming Wednesday, to give us a few more days to collect gear if needed.

[Kheelan]

I should have all my older feral gear still. Also if I am dpsing that is two innervates available as well and even innervates from Skotty possibly.