The LK fight doesn’t seem that hard
First of all, the die is cast:
My first act was to kick all the Taurens out of the guild and put out all the basic campfires to prevent future challenges to my rule.
Moving on, last night we went back into ICC for our weekly 10man foray against the Lich King (I say weekly, though this is only the second night of attempts). There was some raid lockout shuffling because most of the people in the group went Wednesday night and cleared up to Sindragosa, so I ditched the raid lockout I was baby sitting and we starting the night two-shotting Sindragosa and then moving on to Arthas.
This just speaks to how disillusioned I seem to be with 25man raiding right now, but the group we had last night was so much fun. There was no impatience to speak of, everyone tried their hardest, no stupid mistakes were ever repeated. Spirits remained high the entire time. It got to the point on the last few attempts where we were just joking around during phase one because we had it down so pat.
But I get ahead of myself. Suffice it to say, 10 > 25.
Offtanking phase one
I’ve learned that tanking the Shambling Horrors in the first phase is something I excel at. I hold it off to the side, picking each up with a Hand of Reckoning and use my stuns every so often during enrages if Cendra (hunter) is otherwise pre-occupied. Picking up the little ghouls isn’t an issue either, saving the shield toss for when they spawn can usually pick them up. If not, I wait til they inevitably target the Ret pally and then Righteous Defense them all back to me.
We did an attempt or two at first with some issues killing off all the Horrors before Remorseless Winter began but afterwards we easily started coasting into phase 1.5 with the Horrors getting picked off by a disease megahit. We also got to the point where we were pushing it past 70% after the second Horror spawned.
Remorseless Winter we then had an attempt or two to streamline. Our biggest issue seemed to be when the phase ended and people would run for the middle but run smack dab into the orb chasing them. We had a few hilarious deaths with people getting blown right off the side of the Citadel.
Phase two issues
At this point I would take over maintanking Arthas because Soul Reaper was kind of a non-issue for me. The attack would hit, and provided I was at full health it would take me into the AD-reduced zone, paring down the 50k hit to a very manageable 47k hit. And, if worse came to worse, I had the extra life proc backing me up. Basically I could ignore the mechanic provided I was fully healed. If a healer got picked up by a Valk that’d be another issue, and then I’d pop a cooldown to be safe.
Defile was another one of those issues that popped up early but was quickly squelched. We got down a system of scattering a bit right before Defile’s cooldown was up, then the targeted person would hastily run out of the affected area. The first time we got to phase two, there was a hilarious Defile wipe where in short order the entire platform was covered in the oleaginous effect because we were so horribly stacked.
The last roadblock that we ended the night on was Valks carrying people off. This is easily fixed those with some discipline on stuns. It looked like everyone was blowing stuns immediately off the bat, which is a terribly dumb idea, if only just because it screws with the diminishing returns on stuns and makes future attempts to slow them down nigh impossible.
Our best attempt we got him to 43%. Next week I’m sure we’ll be cruising in the phase three territory… which honestly doesn’t seem that difficult. No Valks, just Defiles and keeping people alive during Harvests. Considering how amazing the healers are I’m not concerned about that in the slightest. I think next Monday or the Monday after I’ll be rejoicing in a LK kill here.
Armory Feed
Sounds like some good work on the LK! You’ve got the P1 survival thing down which is good, and you’ve seen some more of P2 and that’s the killer. If you can get around P2 without losing anyone, you’ll be set for some new epicz! P3 is a breeze… healers heal Harvest targets, ranged burns Vile Spirits, and Tirion stops wondering why everything is suddenly so cold. Good luck!
@hazmacewillraid
29 March 2010 at 1:14 pm #
I’m workin’ on posting our 10-man LK strat soon (maybe even today), so perhaps there’s something in there that will help things with your group.
Off the bat, though, if stuns are a problem for valks, what we did was to have the tank get the first stun with a HoJ and the second stun would be a 5-point or so Kidney Shot from the rogue. We had two pally tanks (your’s truly and Xthundrtaker) so we just communicated based on positioning and whatnot if we wanted the other to get the first stun (if HoJ was down for this, Holy Wrath is a decent substitute), although with your set-up which appears to be pally/warrior, you could alternate between HoJ/Holy Wrath and Shockwave/Concussion Blow.
If slows are a problem, you could have your blood DK (I’m assuming he’s blood, Armory isn’t working for me atm) glyph for Heart Strike, which slaps a 50% movement reduction on the target (which is the maximum movement reduction for the valk, because of Wings of the Damned).
Best of luck man!
Good luck being GM. It’s a rough road.
The Renaissance Man’s last blog ..At What Price, Victory?
@Rhidach
29 March 2010 at 1:46 pm #
@TRM: Thanks man, I’m not expecting it to be a cakewalk in the slightest. Consider my loins girded.
On a sidenote, everything ok with your guild? A tweet you had late last week worried me.
@Antigen: I always forget you tank now. Thanks for the tips man. Our DK is blood and I’ll mention the Heart Strike thing to him, assuming he wasn’t doing it already.
Several members decided to utilize the fact that I had take a one week trip to Hawaii as an opportunity to try and gut the guild. We lost at least 9 raiders, and they’re trying to poach more. It seems that my trust in some of them was sorely misplaced.
The Renaissance Man’s last blog ..At What Price, Victory?
@Rhidach
29 March 2010 at 2:37 pm #
Wow, that’s effed up. I’m sorry to hear that man.
Nice to see you guys doing some solid attempts at the Lich King fight. If you are struggling with the valkyrs i recommend positioning everyone a bit out to one side so that when the valkyrs spawn and pick up their targets they all fly away in the same direction. It makes the valkyr part of the fight easier, but a misplaced defile is then very dangerous. The trick here is to have the tank position the Lich King (and the melee because of it) at the opposite side of the last defile.
Kuro’s last blog ..Server stability
My collection of close friends and I have just pushed into 10 man LK over the weekend. Our MT is a Warrior and he considerably out gears me. In addition, we have neither a hunter or a rogue to assist me with enrages during phase 1. I have glyphed into HW since I am well over the expertise cap in my gear. We have been running into issues with the fact that if I am busy making sure I get enrage stuns out, I miss on a couple of the ghouls. By the time I get back to them i can’t pull them out of the pile with AS only and they have a nasty habit of attaching to the MT which leaves RD out since I end up with a face full of Arthas.
Anyway, I was wondering if you or any of your readers might have some tips short of booting an irl friend out of our run to pick up either a hunter or rogue.
Rylich-Hydraxis Alliance
Grats on the tries, hope you get him soon.
Btw which unit frames and bossmod / cooldown counter do you use? I like the look of them in the UI.
@Rhidach
31 March 2010 at 9:27 am #
I use Pitbull for my unitframes and Deus Vox Encounters for my bossmods. DXE is pretty awesome, and I’ll be doing a post about it in the near future.