We’re getting there
Last week we spent 3.5 hours on the Lich King and we consistently getting roadblocked at the second Defile. Last night we spent another 3.5 hours on Arthas, and this time we saw Phase 3 a few times. It’s definitely getting better.
We still have work to do on Defiles, and the slows on Valks were definitely not as optimal as they could be. For the former I’ll continue to hammer home constant vigilance and training everyone to keep an eagle eye on their focus target frame. For the latter I’m looking up the best slows to use. It seems like a DK specced into Chilblains can be a huge help, as well as a Warrior using Piercing Howl. I don’t think we’ve been doing slows correctly at all, and I’m kicking myself for that.
The foundation is there. There are improvements to be made, and I think next week we’ll make a much better showing.
Armory Feed
We’re now consistently getting into P3, as part of our tactic we tend to have a DK on Arthas as MT with a Paladin as his taunt buddy, having the dps camp collapse close to Arthas for the flappy girls, which means the Tankadin is nice and close to pop a holy wrath for the initial instant slow. Seems to work quite nicely.
@Rhidach
27 May 2010 at 2:18 pm #
Holy Wrath, I’ve heard, is a bad idea. It’s only a three second stun and will jumpstart the stun diminishing returns with a bad start. So, for example, if a Valk is HW’d for a 3 second stun, then HoJ’d for 6 seconds, the HoJ will actually only last 3 seconds. That’s 6 seconds of stuns. If you reverse them, you’ll get 6 then 1.5, for 7.5 seconds.
On our attempts up to our first kill we had similar problems – it is easier on 10 man than 25 man for sure! My best advice is this:
1) Have everyone (including hunters but not warlocks) stack up on one spot perfectly. This way you can direct the valks (if you aren’t doing it already).
2) To slow the valks we used a rogue with slowing poison (I think it’s crippling…) and use FoK. This slowed them all since they were all going the same way. We also used a feral druid specced into infected wounds. He then went bear, pop’d beserk and used maul slowing them all. Although this gimped their DPS we only lost 1 person on our kill (albeit a messy one).
Tango
For our attempts, and eventually all kills we’ve made so far (the second is so, so much easier), we’ve always had at least one paladin tank, usually two. On top of that, we have a ret pally as one of our top DPS. This basically means that there are always at least two non-healing paladins in our raid. So long as ALL raid members (minus warlocks) stack up properly, the valks are together and going the same way. Therefore, two paladins can chain Holy Wrath. After, make sure no one is blowing stuns and pushing them into DR’s (make it extremely clear that unless otherwise called for, no one should be blowing stuns but the designated people) and let them fly through Earthbinds and CoI’s until the edge, when rogues/paladins/etc should blow stuns on their designated target.
If you have two shaman, ideally you want one dropping Earthbind when they’re in the middle, and another re-dropping as soon as they leave the AoE.
Second defile is always the worst because the cooldowns on defile and the valk’yr summon line up so closely that he will, occasionally, switch up which he does first. Be prepared for that and make sure either everyone knows what to do or someone is calling out on vent constantly.
Eventually you’ll start getting into Phase 3 consistently and at that point you’ve got it. Your first trip into phase 3 with everyone up is usually a win; just make sure Shaman and Paladins know ahead of time how to soak (Earth Ele, bubble) in case your ranged can’t handle all the vile spirits.
As for you, just be ready to soak a wave or two of spirits and try to save a cooldown in case someone dies in the Frostmourne room, and you’ll be fine.
Best of luck!
P.S. I was wondering if you guys had issues with Raging Spirit spawns at all; We have a few trigger happy DPS that would unload between tank taunts and established aggro, and I was wondering if this was an issue other people were having. We’ve been waiting as long as possible to taunt so the fixate is in effect after they activate and reset aggro, but even still we’ve had a number of people insta-gibbed by spirits after they spawn–regardless of fixates still in effect. Eventually we had the groups move away from the spawns. Did you run into the issue at all?
@Rhidach
27 May 2010 at 2:21 pm #
We did actually have a few… incidents… with Raging Spirits last night. Usually one would spawn and I would pick it up and start walking it back and some melee dps would immediately pull it off me and get killed. Or, even better, there were two or three occasions where ranged went hog wild, ignored Omen, pull threat, and then go a huge chunk of the raid dead or silenced. That was delightful.
Could you tell me what boss mod you are using to display those very informative and nice looking bars you have on your screen ?
@Rhidach
28 May 2010 at 7:59 am #
That’s DXE, Deus Vox Encounters.
Nice, tnx m8. And keep the post coming. Love to read this blog. Alot of usefull tanking post’s and nice post’s about you encounters as GM and Tank in general.
@Rhidach
28 May 2010 at 1:07 pm #
Thanks for reading! :)
We are where you are except on 10, not 25.
We’re finally breaking through to Phase 3 with only about 2 real nights of attempts so I’m thinking maybe we have a shot at this.
Your 10-man LK guide has been a great resource, so thanks for that. :)
saif’s last blog ..Almost There Is An Inch Too Far
@Rhidach
28 May 2010 at 1:08 pm #
Awesome! I’m glad the guide is helping you.
Best of luck with your further attempts Saif. You can totally do it, just got to keeping trying.
On top of the Raging Spirits being finicky with regards to threat, they also put a silence on the tank occasionally which really kills your threat when you haven’t really laid into them long enough.
@Anafielle
30 May 2010 at 11:14 am #
Oh yes. Raging spirits. I hate them.
The last raging spirit spawns and I say, “I’ve got it!” Two second later: “No, __(insert dps’s name here)__ has it.”
Nothing like getting silenced and watching some poor dps eat it while I can’t build threat and both my taunts are on cooldown. And then if it stays alive through Valkyr spawns, playing the “avoid the defile and position conveniently while not cleaving the whole raid” game is always fun times.
I really can’t wait for phase 3. We have him!!! I know it! This week his ass DIES!!!