Icecrown Strategy Notepad

[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, 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, 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. 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 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.



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.