Next Boss After Curator - Suggestions for new KZ raiders?
This group really seems to know KZ well, so I'll ask this here: What target should we do after Curator? We downed him last weekend for the first time, and suddenly our RL seemed to think we could do anything. However, honestly, we got lucky and people finally clicked. We wiped ~10 times, although this was our first run at him, and threw about 1k in pots into the attempt. We scrambled together, finally pulled off the win, then easily won the chess game, and then tried Illhoof and got smoked.
I see no reason to avoid the chess game (do you even die if you lose?) since it's simple enough, but what target is the "easiest" skill wise after Curator? After 6 attempts on Illhoof, I bowed out of the raid due to time and they ran Shade a few times to no avail.
I'd like to see us continue success. Selfishly, I'd like to see us be more successful on Maiden so my priest can get that freaking hammer, but that's beside the point. Which target would be the best for a young KZ raiding group to cut it's teeth on?
Side question: Seems like Illhoof requires a Devastation lock. True? If so, do your locks just respec for this fight? We almost won with me spamming seed, but in the end my healer couldn't keep up the heals on me and the interrupts were slowing me down.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 13:52:22 · Reply to this
SixOfNine
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Chess is free loot, and you don't die if you lose the event, and you don't lose.
After Curator we usually hit Shade of Aran and then chess, though we might reverse that order if we don't have that much time left and want to make sure that we get our free loot.
Besides, when you clear to chess you reach the Consortium guy who does repairs and sells rep-based jewelcrafting designs and other goodies.
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to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 14:08:54 · Reply to this
Clipper
join:2002-05-23
Stoney Creek, ON
reply to Ozzie4
You'll want to tackle Aran next.
He isn't the easiest, but clearing him erases all the trash between curator and The Library (except the homoculus' they are linked to Illhoof).
Chess is free loots, Prince is very difficult if your tank is undergeared, Illhoof is one of the hardest bosses in there, and netherspite is a coordination nitemare.
Aran is your next challenge. He's hard, requires coordination and everyone has to pay attention. Plus it's one of the more fun fights in the whole instance, IMO.
The only time I would advocate skipping aran and going straight chess is if you can't reliable kill aran within 4 attempts and are running out of time before the raid is called. The trash from Curator->Chess isn't worth the reclear if you can kill Aran reliably.
If your working on Aran, I would say unless you can get 4 or 5 solid attempts in before you have to call the raid, go for chess and then call it.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 14:15:56 · Reply to this
hsindogg
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reply to Ozzie4
After Curator, I think the next bosses are a mix of gear check and learn2play check and are about equal in difficulty.
Shade, Ilhoof, and Netherspite require some gimmicky tactics.
I would go for Shade though, once you master him, you'll start saving time by being able to port to his room from the front door.
Some tips for Shade:
1) Make sure everyone understands his three NORMAL spells (Fireball, Frost Bolt, Arcane Missiles) and assign a rotation to interrupt the Fireball and Frost bolts. You can interrupt his Arcane Missile, but then you lock him out of his 3 normal spells and he will melee and he actually hits harder melee than casting. Also, if you interrupt all 3 spells, he will start moving around away from the center of the room...bad.
2) Make sure everyone understands his three SPECIAL spell abilities.
- Flame Wreath - raid leader should make a macro to announce a raid warning to not move. Also yell it on vent. Hopefully melee DPS will learn to anticipate this and be in melee range at all times so they can DPS the bejesus out of him while in flame wreath.
- Blizzard - casters/healers really only need to worry about this, unless your interrupters mess up and lock him out of his spell casting and he runs amuck around the edge of the room. Example I use is, if the blizzard starts at the 12'oclock position, and you are at the 4'oclock position, if you run clockwise around the room to the 11 o'clock position - you will never get hit by the blizzard. If it starts at the 12 oclock position, and you are caught at the 1 oclock position, you are better off running counterclockwise and taking maybe 1-2 blizzard hits. If you get hit with it, you cannot out run it as you will be slowed and killed. Casters should avoid running thru the middle where Shade is, he does a counterspell.
Arcane Blast - Easy...he pulls everyone to him in the middle, and you have to side step/run out to the edge of the room, plenty of time to do this. No one should ever get hit by it. Ever.
3) At 40% he summons 4 water elementals with about 12K health.
We assign the Warlock to perma-fear and perma-banish 2 of the 4 until they despawn, about 2 minutes.
The other 2, DPS down. I usually take one down on my own.
Once you do that, get back on Shade and keep interrupting. If his mana drains to 30% I believe, he will sheep everyone and do a Fireblast, killing most people under 8K htpts. Everyone should get a healthstone, save it for this part. If it happens, everyone move to the wall, pop the healthstone, and start to bandage and hope your healers can get you guys back up quick.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 14:29:30 · Reply to this
SixOfNine
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edit:
July 18th, @02:40PM
said by hsindogg See Profile :
3) At 40% he summons 4 water elementals with about 12K health.
If his mana drains to 30% I believe, he will sheep everyone and do a Fireblast, killing most people under 8K htpts.
I think it's 20% mana, but the point I was going to make is that early on we had a couple of attempts where we got sheeped and the water elementals got summoned at the same time. Wipe.
You might have to speed up or slow down DPS to avoid this daily double.
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to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 14:39:51 · Reply to this
hsindogg
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said by SixOfNine See Profile :
I think it's 20% mana, but the point I was going to make is that early on we had a couple of attempts where we got sheeped and the water elementals got summoned at the same time. Wipe.
You might have to speed up or slow down DPS to avoid this daily double.
Yeah 20%, and definitely don't have both the sheep and elementals happen together or it will be a wipe. Sheep/Fireblast will take everyone to like 10%, and then the elementals will proceed to pwnface your healers along with Shade using his normal spells.
I think you should strive to avoid the poly at all costs. Combination of good DPS (which you should have if you made it to this point) and interrupts will achieve that. Also, if it wasn't clear, there is no tank in this fight as his aggro AI is random/semi-intelligent. When he selects a target to Firebolt/Frostbolt/Arcane Missile, he usually stays on that target for a few hits and tries to nuke them down.
Very fun fight imo.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 14:48:45 · Reply to this
Clipper
join:2002-05-23
Stoney Creek, ON
edit:
July 18th, @02:50PM
reply to SixOfNine
I always thought it was 10%..
Regardless, if he polymorphs your raid there's 1 of 2 problems:
1) Your DPS sucks. Pick it up.
2) Your interrupters aren't doing their job. By interrupting Fireball and Frostbolt you stop mana from being used. (no point in interrupting the arcane missile because the mana consumption is at the start of the cast, not the end, therefore an interrupt still results in mana being used)
You can see how your progressing in the fight by looking at his HP vs MP. MP should always be higher than HP, and as the fight progress, the gap should get larger.
If the MP is draining faster than the HP, tell your interrupters to pay better attention. Interrupting the spell is more important than dpsing. If they are interrupting every one, tell your DPS to kick it up.
As far as the elementals go, when your learning, you could kill 2 if you have difficulties with them. We usually ignore the 2 free ones, have an offtank pick them up, then we continue juicing Aran. We can kill him pretty quick now, so the elementals aren't usually a big deal as they are only up about 30 secs before he's dead.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 14:49:20 · Reply to this
SixOfNine
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reply to hsindogg
said by hsindogg See Profile :
Also, if it wasn't clear, there is no tank in this fight as his aggro AI is random/semi-intelligent. When he selects a target to Firebolt/Frostbolt/Arcane Missile, he usually stays on that target for a few hits and tries to nuke them down.
We healers use a macro that targets whomever Aran is targeting and (in my priest's case) casts a Flash Heal. In practice, that means I'm healing whomever Aran is spamming with Arcane Missiles.
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to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 15:04:52 · Reply to this
Ozzie4
join:2006-10-02
Palatine, IL Can you post that macro? Sounds useful for an emergency heal key in instancing as well.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 15:23:27 · Reply to this
SixOfNine
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edit:
July 18th, @03:36PM
said by Ozzie4 See Profile :
Can you post that macro? Sounds useful for an emergency heal key in instancing as well.
Best used for bosses with lots of random targeting, like Aran. One thing I didn't mention is that you have to have the bad guy targeted:
/cast [help] {Name of Healing Spell} ; [target=targettarget] {Name of Healing Spell}
So for a priest it would be:
/cast [help] Flash Heal ; [target=targettarget] Flash Heal
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to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 15:35:33 · Reply to this
footballdude
join:2002-08-13
Imperial, MO
reply to hsindogg
said by hsindogg See Profile :
Blizzard - casters/healers really only need to worry about this, unless your interrupters mess up and lock him out of his spell casting and he runs amuck around the edge of the room. Example I use is, if the blizzard starts at the 12'oclock position, and you are at the 4'oclock position, if you run clockwise around the room to the 11 o'clock position - you will never get hit by the blizzard. If it starts at the 12 oclock position, and you are caught at the 1 oclock position, you are better off running counterclockwise and taking maybe 1-2 blizzard hits. If you get hit with it, you cannot out run it as you will be slowed and killed. Casters should avoid running thru the middle where Shade is, he does a counterspell.
Having only done the Shade fight twice I had a couple of thoughts. As a warlock, can I just ignore the blizzard, stand still, and spam drain life during this? DPS suffers while running around, this would keep Aran's health bar moving down. Or, can't you just run up to Aran during the blizzard then run back after it's over? You can't cast while you're standing next to him but doesn't the silence fade when you back off?
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to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 16:05:05 · Reply to this
Clipper
join:2002-05-23
Stoney Creek, ON
does your drain life do 1000 ticks per sec? Cuz if it doesn't, get out of the blizzard.
It's easy to avoid. While he's casting it, you can see where it's going to start by looking for a single ice that falls from the sky, and it moves clockwise around the room. Stay near the ass end of it and you won't get hit.
If you do get caught in it, run through the centre or counter closewise through it and hope you get heals. I always go through the middle when I get caught in it.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 16:26:30 · Reply to this
hsindogg
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edit:
July 18th, @04:34PM
reply to footballdude
I wouldn't recommend standing still, you'll die if you don't get heals. Siphon Life and Drain life won't save you.
It really is easily avoided, just avoid it and save your healers one more headache to worry about.
Also, if you have a paladin in your caster group, Frost Aura helps mitigate the Blizzard damage a lot.
Oh yeah, the counterspell lasts for about 6 seconds.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 16:32:37 · Reply to this
Omega
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Go to Aran. Once you down him, you will get a teleport to his room, saving massive amount of time.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-18 16:57:08 · Reply to this
klambert
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20% mana is the polymorph point: »www.wowwiki.com/Shade_of_Aran
You can still take him down when he does this, but its better not to have to. The reason you interrupt the fire & frost spells (preferably near the end of their cast time) is that an interrupt means that the mana is not spent. The reason that you do not interrupt the arcane spell is that it is channelled & the mana is already bing spent,
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to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-23 15:58:06 · Reply to this
Ozzie4
join:2006-10-02
Palatine, IL
Well, we did him this weekend on the third attempt. First two times we really sucked on interrupts, although the second time the melees were cheering themselves on that they were getting a lot. As a frequent frostbolt target, I disagree:) Anyway, that pyroblast wasn't that bad, and one druid Tranq'ed us into full health after it. It definately happened at 20%. After that, it was it easy to take him down, knowing he had nothing crazy in store. Followed up with Illhoof on 3rd try (for the night) as well, then took a swing at Netherspite and learned something about that fight as well.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-23 17:42:36 · Reply to this
hsindogg
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reply to Ozzie4
Grats...how'd you do on Netherspite?
Are you having problems with aggro after his banish?
If so, I suggest everyone but the tank who is picking up the next red portal and a paladin stay in, while everyone else runs to the wall where that "telescope" is. That way they outrange the Netherbreath's and also don't pull aggro. Make sure no one does any DPS/heal until the portals are up, except for the next portal tank and paladin.
to forum · permalink · [Encourage,Ignore,Watch] · 2007-07-24 06:49:33 · Reply to this
Ozzie4
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Well, we were mostly asleep, and we really didn't have an understanding of how the beams work. We didn't have agro issues with the banish as much as not knowing that we have to get the tank in the red beam ASAP.
We did, well tried, Nightbane last night. He roasted us badly so we went after Prince. Got him to stage 3 once on 5 tries (usually lost ~40% due to infernal landing), then the MT and two healers lost their internet connection (all play from the same house). I really dislike a fight that has such a luck content, but what can you do.