Trial of the Crusader Strategy Notepad

[Wildhide]

So, I just did some reading about the Dedicated Insanity achievement in this thread.

According to what the blue poster... posted, the rewards from Ony's head can't be used to earn the achievement.

Also, later in the thread, people have reported that even equipping an item that does not meet the above criteria while not fighting a boss (aka, between pulls), will prevent your group from earning the achievement. So, basically you gotta bank that crap to avoid a silly situation like itemrack equipping the banned item for you when switching specs/gear.

[Wildhide]

Small anub note:

We should probably have Ugra drop a nature resist totem in phase 3. Leeching swarm deals nature damage, so resisting 10-30% of this damage would negate a large amount of healing. I would suspect that this would more than make up for the loss of wrath of air (5% spell haste).

[Rofldat]

The Traitor King:
-Seems like the most common way is to have a rogue FoK with really weak weapon, with Anesthetic and Cripppling poison, FoK the scarabs, while a ranged class with low-damage spell(or any high threat spell) poking them now and then to avoid the rogue getting aggro.(though kinzie could swap out some gear to do even less damage too, as long as he's not too low that Anub's DoT kill him)
-There's no confirm number on how many scarabs spawn, just that it's 10+ per ground phase. So we could survive 2 ground phases, then during 3rd phase start killing them when there's less than 30s left before Anub emerges and that should be enough.
-since killing anub is not required, I think except a few to kill the adds, the rest should avoid killing anub and just go around dropping ice patch(if there's enough in one spot, he might be stuck there trying to spike someone and run into one of the remaining patches)

[Kulldam]

The Traitor King:
-Seems like the most common way is to have a rogue FoK with really weak weapon, with Anesthetic and Cripppling poison, FoK the scarabs, while a ranged class with low-damage spell(or any high threat spell) poking them now and then to avoid the rogue getting aggro.(though kinzie could swap out some gear to do even less damage too, as long as he's not too low that Anub's DoT kill him)
-There's no confirm number on how many scarabs spawn, just that it's 10+ per ground phase. So we could survive 2 ground phases, then during 3rd phase start killing them when there's less than 30s left before Anub emerges and that should be enough.
-since killing anub is not required, I think except a few to kill the adds, the rest should avoid killing anub and just go around dropping ice patch(if there's enough in one spot, he might be stuck there trying to spike someone and run into one of the remaining patches)

We should definitely start discussing this achievement as on the surface, it seems it may prove very difficult, depending on a few unknowns (that we just haven't tested).

The main issue, by far, that I think you neglected in your thoughts Rofl, is threat. We need to find a method of controlling the Scarabs for an extremely long time and not allowing them to damage anyone.

First, remember that they spawn out of the ground with ~14k threat on a random target. They are tauntable, but as with any method of Taunt, must then receive additional threat during the Taunt duration to remain on the player using the Taunt.

Now, that's all fine and dandy, because big deal, someone Taunts the scarab, hits it, and now it's on the tank with ~15k threat. However, the next issue is -- they have only about 14,000 total health each, so keeping agro becomes the next challenge.

We'll need to brainstorm on the best method(s) to try for this, but a few I've thought about so far:

Raid Kite

Prior to the burrow phase, all ranged DPS are shooting down all the ice patches possible.

Once the burrow phase begins, the entire raid stacks up and auto-follows a single player such as myself. Kinzie is the only player not auto-following. The train leader, myself in this case, runs the raid in the most ideal fashion among the ice patches while Kinzie follows just behind, ready to FoK any Scarab that becomes enraged with his weak weapons and otherwise basically naked equipment setup (ideally, a bunch of random +STA greens from the AH would be good).

This forces all scarabs, no matter who they initially agro, to run to the same location (wherever the raid train is currently at) and they'll be snared by the ice patches (I'm fairly certain scarabs move slower than normal run speed when not enraged so the same principle should hold true when on ice patches).

The obvious problem with this method would be dealing with scarabs once Anub is back up. Obviously we can send Khrash to some specific spot with a healer to tank Anub while the raid continues to kite, but if a scarab targets either Khrash or his healer, or even worse an enraged scarab does so, there's no guarantee the train will be close enough to grab it before it starts stacking it's debuff crazy fast. Also the burrower must be handled, which can obviously be easily be OTed by Rofl, but DPS would need to stop and kill it which means scarabs would catch up.

Bottom line is this is a stupid idea and not sure why I bothered writing it down!

Camp the Iceberg

Another method that might be viable is, since we have an unlimited supply of frost orbs, and at least 10 up at any given time(?), prior to the burrow phase, we find a patch of frost on the ground with multiple patches touching each other so it forms one large frost patch. The entire raid stacks up on this location on the Northern side (I think small scarabs only spawn from the areas where the Burrowers spawn).

Kulldam and Kinzie are in charge of handling the Scarabs and are not stacked up. I'll run in a circular pattern around the raid location, taunting new Scarab spawns and immediately using a ranged throw (if I can afford to stop movement) or a Shout if not to get that initial 14k threat bump from Taunting off the Scarab's initial threat value when they spawn.

In the event that two Scarab's are approaching the raid at the same time, Rofl will be assigned to Chains of Ice the one I cannot Taunt right away to buy me another 5ish seconds until Taunt is up again to grab the second. While obviously we can afford to let a Scarab beat on someone for a while and heal through the dot damage, we really cannot afford the threat from heals during this phase, so we'll be ideally not using any heals during burrow phases.

Kinzie will remain between the Scarabs and the raid to FoK Anesthetic when one enrages (and we'll have to test if that scarab then requires a re-taunt or not).

Meanwhile, Kilwenn is in charge of keeping a steady supply of Frost Patches around the rest of the room, so he will be the third person not standing in the designated spot. Obviously Anub's burrow attack must still be handled, so just like our normal fights, once a player is targeted by Anub, they will run from the designated raid spot to a far ice patch.

Fuck.

This method won't work either! Anub will cause issues as the first chase target might be fine going South, but the next target will have to use a patch somewhere near the north (near the raid spot). That means the third target will not be able to move from the raid spot before Anub is right on top of the raid, and the pattern will continue faster and faster until the raid has to move or he busts the patch we're standing on.

Combination Platter!

Maybe if we combine the above two ideas a bit. What if we take Wild, for example, and make him the engine for our 'raid train'. Everyone has a macro to auto-follow him and we raid mark him to boot, and we do nearly everything like the 'Camp the Iceberg' method except once the first Anub kite target is selected, Wild leads the rest of the raid train to a new frost patch on the same side of the room as Anub, but far enough so the next person targeted can react before he gets too close and shatters another patch/selects yet another target.

Non-Burrow Phase

With anything, I'm still concerned about threat once the above-ground phase starts. Obviously DPS classes won't build much if any threat on the Scarabs (just threat from resource gains like mana/energy via procs), but we need to keep healer threat below that of our primary kiter, who is going to have virtually no strong method of building threat without dealing damage to the Scarabs. Further, if the rate of 10 Scarabs per phase is accurate (which sounds low but who knows), we have to heal Khrash from Anub's damage (plus Rofl from the Burrower adds) for 75 seconds per phase, times three phases. We'll have to think very carefully about how to help manage threat on Kheelan and Wild.

First, some numbers.

For now we'll assume I'll be the primary kiter since I've done the math for my own abilities. Just like healer threat, threat from my AE abilities is split among all agro targets, but unlike the days many of you will remember from the Fankriss hallway in AQ40 or the suppression room in BWL, my shouts apply extremely low threat values now.

Commanding Shout is the best at a paltry 166 threat per cast, or assuming GCD spam, 110.67 TPS. Now divide that for each target agro on me, and it gets much much worse. Assume in reality I can use 50% of my GCDs on CS and the other 50% are on Taunts and the like, so it's really 83 threat per cast or 55.33 TPS. Rage gain produces 6.67 threat per point of rage, so with Anger Management talent, that's 2.22 TPS (AMAAAAZING). So, this calculates out to...

During first burrow:
10 targets (10 scarabs) = (55.33 + 2.22) / 10 = 57.55 / 10 = 5.755 TPS * 60 seconds = 345.3 Threat Per Target

So, assuming a starting value of 14,500 threat post-initial Taunt, at the end of the Burrow #1, my Threat on each Scarab should be approximately 14,845. Likewise, assuming we were able to prevent most damage on the raid, this means the healers have a 14,845 threat value buffer.

Once burrow ends, Khrash picks up Anub and Rofl gets the burrowers as usual while Kinzie and I continue kiting adds. Top-phase lasts 75 seconds, so I'll build another 680 threat assuming 80% GCDs for Commanding Shout. Meanwhile, Kheelan and Wild are building healing threat, which is calculated at 1 threat per 2 health (effectively) healed. For the sake of this achievement, we'll assume both have 3/3 Subtlety for 30% reduction, so 1 threat per 2.6 health healed.

Since healing is also split amongst all valid targets, with 11 targets up during Top-Phase #1, we can multiple 2.6 by 11 to give the actual healing required to create 1 point of threat on a Scarab -- 28.6.

Therefore, to pull agro on a Scarab, one of the Druids would need to heal for 28.6 * 15464 * 1.1 = 486,497 effective health over 75 seconds, or 6486 HPS. Obviously that is far more healing than is required to keep the raid alive from Anub/Burrower damage.

Once the phases keep going, and more and more Scarabs enter the mix, the numbers get more complicated, but the formulas stay the same basically.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...3azhkMmc&hl=en

Above is the spreadsheet I made up to figure out the threat values. It should be open for anyone to edit so you can play around with the "Assumed HPS for Phase" column values to see how it affects the overall "Healing to Gain Agro" (how much total healing up to that point in the fight is required to gain agro on a initial Scarab) and "HPS to Gain Agro" (HPS average throughout that phase to gain agro on a initial Scarab). Each row is a Phase (T1 = Top Phase 1, B2 = Burrow Phase 2, etc.), so the interesting values are really the HPS for T1/T2/T3/T4 (top phases). By changing the HPS values in these phases, it gives a good idea of how much healing will be allowed up to that point before threat is an issue. Remember, that's effective healing per person, so assume that value can be doubled for actual total raid healing requirements.

I found about 3500 HPS for Top Phases and 300 HPS for Burrow Phases to be ideal numbers, but Khee/Wild will be able to better approximate the actual healing requirements we're used to seeing for those. At those values, however, the "HPS to Gain Agro" is about 3800 HPS at the end of Top Phase 3, just above the expected 3500 HPS output, and then the "HPS to Gain Agro" drops to 3184 HPS by the end of Burrow Phase 4, which means assuming an average of 3500 HPS throughout the Top Phases, Druid's would not pull agro until partway through Top Phase 5, by which point we should have killed or be prepared to kill Scarabs.

Again, this all makes the assumption that 10 Scarabs spawn per Burrow Phase and that we can control all 10 without the need to kill any -- both very big assumptions until we can try stuff out.

Also, obviously there are measures we can take to help with Healing threat. Hand of Salvation can drop 20% Threat off a Druid every 2 minutes. With 2 Paladins, we can basically do that once every Top Phase which would dramatically increase threat thresholds. If opportunities arise, I can also Intervene a Druid every 30 seconds, which is 10% Threat reduction. Then of course 10% constant reduction on one of them from Vigilance. Lastly, I am assuming Cower only lowers threat on whatever target you 'use' it on as a Cat, but if not, that'd be even more options.

Bottom line, if our control methods work in keeping Scarabs off the raid, healing shouldn't be too much of an issue.

A few questions we must answer:

• When a Scarab Enrages, we know it selects a new random target. A) Does that new target selection give the Scarab an inherent amount of threat on the target or is it a temporary effect, as if Taunt were in effect? B) If a temporary effect, will the Scarab return to it's original target prior to Enrage once Anesthetic is applied?
• Do scarabs only spawn from the 6 spawn points that Burrowers emerge from? If not, we can always assume they will come from the South if the raid is in the Northern hemisphere of the room.

I type too much...

[Rofldat]

I think having Kinz use crippling + anes would be better than just anes

-Crippling poison does not do extra damage
-It slows for 70%, Ice patch in normal only slow for 30%(not to mention Crippling will still slow them while they're not on ice patch)


There's a few questions I still have on the scarabs spawn:
-Does it increase over time, as in the 5th or 6th wave would have noticably more spawns than 1st.(We never get far enough to really say so)
--If the spawns will reach 40 on its own, then we can opt to surviving enough phases to get the 40 spawn at once instead of surviving multiple burrow phases.

-How many scarabs does one alive scarab spawn.
--If we only need 5 alive to spawn the 40 necessary during 2nd phase, then we can kill the rest to reduce the hassle in controlling the rest.

-If the DoT reset the tick timer every time a new stack is applied, or do they keep ticking with a new number.
--If it's possible for a person to keep getting hit by scarab so that the 3 seconds for the tick never come, then we can have Kull or Khrash in block set tank them all without moving, doing so should keep the stack constantly refreshed and never tick (while taking little damage from blocking the scarabs).

[Kulldam]

More notes on The Traitor King:

So, it turns out a pretty important fact we failed to look up on Wowhead, is that Acid-Drenched Mandibles that the Scarabs cast from melee range has a stack limit of 40 maximum.

Obviously, that's still an insane about of damage (40,000 per tick every 3 sec), but, I had always assumed there was no stack limit hence any form of 'tanking', even if the threat methods were worked out, would not work.

Knowing that important fact, it now makes sense why Nature Resist would turn a seemingly unsurvivable damage intake into something manageable.

As with our kiting strategies, the initial threat values (20k) for each Scarab must still be managed, but, by using a form of tanking, we can greatly simplify the tactics for all involved.

Strategy: I Miss You, Huhuran

Setup

• "Tank" Team: Kulldam (Wearing 400+ Nature Resist), Khrashdin (Wearing 400+ Nature Resist with Holy Spec/Gear), Rofldat (Normal Tank Gear)
• Healer Team: Kheelan, Wildhide, Thawfore, Skotty, Ugra
• DPS: Kilwenn (Frost Spec for Replenishment), Kinzie (Wearing Traitor Set for low DPS Fan of Knives)

Khrash is wearing all healing gear except where Nature Resist pieces must be equipped. Khrash is using Righteous Fury and has Vigilance on him from Kulldam. All Druid healers are purposely specced into max threat reduction talent Subtlety and Ugra specced into max rank Healing Grace.

Khrash is specced in this spec or similar, being sure to get the following talents:

• 3/3 http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=31830
• 5/5 http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=63650
• 5/5 http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=20100
• 3/3 http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=20470
• 5/5 http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=20064

Those talents will help lower damage intake a fair bit, otherwise normal healing build. Other than threat reduction talents, other healer builds should be normal healing specs.

Kull spec will be normal but 0 points in Damage Shield to prevent accidental scarab deaths.

Burrow Phase 1

Healer team positions in NW corner of the room against the wall, with Khrash and Kull just in front barely out of melee range. Kinzie stands with Khrash/Kull, able to quickly move in front or behind to FoK any enraged Scarabs.

Kilwenn freely roams, killing a small handful of Frost Orbs for patches throughout the room. Ideally killing only those near the middle/south of the room, away from the north area where raid is positioned. If Scarab attacks Kilwenn, he roots it to avoid getting hit, but if Scarab enrages on him, immediately runs/blinks back to the raid until it can be taunted away and resumes Frost Orb kills as needed.

Meanwhile, Ugra and Rofl are positioned with healer team as we want 9 out of 10 Scarabs that spawn to initially agro someone in the raid position and there is little else to do during Burrow Phase.

Threat Management

As the Scarabs start to spawn and head towards the raid, Kulldam will begin chain Taunting every incoming Scarab. Meanwhile, Khrash uses beacon on himself or Kull and heals the other. The Taunt will keep most Scarabs on Kulldam until threat is surpassed via heal threat from Khrashdin. With the threat from Righteous Fury, most of Khrash's healing should outagro other healers and with so many other healers, no one else should ever really be at risk of pulling agro much.

Near the end of Burrow Phase 1, Acid-Drenched Mandibles will be at the max 40-stack on Kulldam and Khrash, and we will resist an average of 50% tick damage, with a minimum of 40% resistance. Therefore, both Kulldam and Khrash will take a maximum of 24,000 damage every 3 seconds, or 8,000 DPS. With talents/spec, this damage is further reduced by 16% for Kulldam and 9% for Khrashdin. However, Scarab melee damage still exists and while weak on a tank (500ish a hit), with NR gear and especially healing gear on Khrash, a fair chunk of physical DPS can be expected on Khrashdin.

That said, the actual healing requirements will be very reasonable with stacking so many healers. Likely the best option is to split healing evenly with one paladin and one druid on each tank, with an extra druid hotting both a bit and healing Rofl as the Anub tank and Ugra healing both via Chain or Wave combos and helping with Rofl during Anub/Burrower portions.

With all scarabs approaching from the south, both tanks should be able to remain stationary most of the time to keep scarabs from attacking from behind. They still will enrage and random agro other raid members and tanks will need to back peddle in small circle after regaining threat to keep them in front, but otherwise no movement is really required.

Kiting

Since Kilwenn is spending the Burrow Phase dropping Frost Orbs in the middle/southern end of the room, people targeted by Anub are expected to immediately run out from the raid to a far ice patch. No assistance can be offered, so it's up to individuals to recognize how far they can run before being caught and to find an appropriate patch. When a healer team member is targeted, other healers should communicate to take up any healing slack if needed.

If those targeted run out quickly and find a patch somewhat away from the raid, we'll never be at risk of Anub burrowing under the raid area as he moves so slowly to start during Normal ToC.

In the event either Scarab tank is targeted by Anub, Rofl will be in charge of finding a nearby Frost Orb and pull it down/kill it, so the Scarab tank must only move a small distance away from the raid and thus remain in heal range at all times. As before if a healer must kite, if Khrash is targeted, healing must be compensated by other healers while he's moving.

Top Side Phase 1

Once the first Burrow Phase ends, Rofldat or Kilwenn should find a Frost Orb as close above the raid as possible and drop it's frost patch. Anub is tanked again by Rofldat, who positions as close to the tank position as possible so that Thaw/Khrash and even other healers can melee for Wisdom procs for mana. Rofl will also pickup and tank the Burrowers, which will need to be tanked on an ice patch as normal to prevent submerging. Therefore, Rofl will move to that nearby frost patch while a burrower is up which is likely to prevent healers from meleeing during that time. One pre-assigned healer will be in charge of breaking off of Kull/Khrash healing to heal Rofl as necessary. Kilwenn, as the only DPS, is in charge of killing Burrowers before the next spawns.

...Burrow Phase 4

Now the process repeats. We'll reach 40ish Scarabs by the end of Phase 4, so melee damage intake on tanks will increase quite a bit each burrow phase, but otherwise healing requirements will not change, so once healers find a sustainable pattern, we can stick with it full-time.

Once we confirm 40 Scarabs are present we'll call for a root from Kilwenn, just like Freya+3 Lashers, then countdown to an AE call. Kilwenn, Rofl, & Kulldam will really be the only AE present as everyone else will likely be healing at this point but we should have no trouble getting them all down at the same time. With an AE taunt if needed, threat should be no issue by this time.

Nature Resist Gear

The biggest issue is collecting the proper Nature Resist sets. I've started checking the AH a few times a day, but I'm going to post the NR items found here so that any of you that happen upon a better item can pick it up for the Guild. If you do find a piece better than listed here, please post the stats immediately (Slot, Armor Type, AC, STA, and NR) so I can update the lists so we don't duplicate any pieces. And of course the Guild Bank will reimburse you the cost (and no, we don't believe you paid 500g for that green BP! ><)

Remember, we need two full sets. Ideally level 80 "of Nature Protection" Plate greens, but other armor types will suffice if needed. We won't need a full set to reach our 400 NR goals, so we'll just collect the best for each slot we can find and build a set from that.

Wowhead is having issues atm so I can't find all the appropriate enchants/consumables we can use in addition to NR atm, but I'll add that later.

And also, yes I know about the level 70 Wildguard crafted pieces, but they have such low STA, if we can find high level greens we'll be better off.

NR Gearset #1

Slot	Type	AC	STA	NR
Head
Neck			40	26
Shoulder	Mail	500	50	33
Back
Chest	Cloth	207	97	64
Wrist	Mail	395	58	38
Main
Offhand	Shield	3278	29	19
Ranged
Hands	Mail	516	67	44
Waist	Leather	234	81	53
Legs	Leather	277	72	47
Feet
Ring1			39	25
Ring2
Trinket1
Trinket2
TOTALS		5407	533	349

NR Gearset #2

Slot	Type	AC	STA	NR
Head
Neck
Shoulder
Back
Chest
Wrist	Plate	567	42	27
Main
Offhand
Ranged
Hands	Mail	655	44	29
Waist	Leather	219	72	47
Legs
Feet
Ring1
Ring2
Trinket1
Trinket2
TOTALS		1441	158	103

[Kheelan]

Something to consider? Acclimation

[Kulldam]

Something to consider? Acclimation

Very interesting, had no idea about that shit.

gd death knights...

The real issue would likely be how well could Rofl hold threat on Scarabs. I assume his taunt is 8 sec cooldown (as I doubt he has t9 tank set) which means the majority of the scarabs will be beating on Khrash. Might be fine, might be too much physical damage, hard to say.

Anyway, keep your eyes out for NR gear guys and if you find something good (i.e. level 73+) grab it and post here.

[Rofldat]

Kinda useless now that we're geared/experienced enough to tackle the encounter and recover from some death, but I found this earlier:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...77866659&sid=1

It explains how the AI in Faction Champ decides who to gib.

[Kulldam]

We'll keep looking in the AH for high-level Nature Protection stuff, but unless we can find plate versions, chances are we'll have to stick with level 70 crafted pieces. For now, we'll plan on using two sets of the following:

For Kull - Total: 410 NR (50% Resist Avg, 40% Minimum)

• http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=58749 = 130 NR
• [item=31364]Wildguard Breastplate[/item] = 60 NR
• [item=31367]Wildguard Leggings[/item] = 60 NR
• [item=31368]Wildguard Helm[/item] = 50 NR
• [item=44939]Lesser Flask of Resistance[/item] = 50 NR
• [item=31399]The Natural Ward[/item] = 35 NR
• [item=44138]Arcanum of Toxic Warding[/item] = 25 NR

For Khrash - Total: 415 NR (50% Resist Avg, 40% Minimum)

• http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=58749 = 130 NR
• [item=31364]Wildguard Breastplate[/item] = 60 NR
• [item=31367]Wildguard Leggings[/item] = 60 NR
• [item=31368]Wildguard Helm[/item] = 50 NR
• [item=44939]Lesser Flask of Reisstance[/item] = 90 NR
• [item=44138]Arcanum of Toxic Warding[/item] = 25 NR

Yes this excludes the 20 NR Cloak enchant since that extra 20 doesn't reach another resistance threshold for either of us.