My 10 man raid hit the Lich King last night for the third serious time. It ended ….. poorly. I really wish we could take the same group every week, but real life keeps getting in the way and we’ve always got two rotating spots.
Sindragosa was a pain again this week. I’ll look forward to the day when we can kill her without losing anyone to the AE, without messing up ice blocks, and without killing her right on the enrage. Anyways, we had about two hours on LK last night with two people who’d not seen the fight before.
Well, not all was bad. I privately compete with two other 10 man teams on the server run by friends, and I know we’re doing better than both. One of them can’t get out of phase one due to cleansing troubles, and the other is still stuck on Sindragosa. So that’s a yay! \o/ At least we’re on phase 2.
For reference, my 10 man usually 2 heals but switches to three for K. We have two pally tanks (I am the OT) and 5 DPS around 6k.
Phase One
Phase one is easy as long as the offtank cleanses herself on time (lawl). We haven’t had a rogue to FoK Tricks me for two weeks, and I was worried about grabbing enough ghouls, but it doesn’t honestly seem to matter. The MT always ended up with most of them while I grab as many as I could, and even a few ghouls on me was just fine. Phase 1 is easy for is now.
The MT is often complaining that Arthas jumps around if the adds are tanked too close- yay for unfixed positioning bugs! So I end up backing up a bit more than I expected at first. This makes it a little bit more difficult to grab ghouls – and if I get too far away, I can’t really get back without being extremely careful about where I point Shambling Horrors. So I often find myself with just 2 or 3 ghouls & too far away from the MT for my cleave damage to pick up more.
This worried me at first. But after a while I realized – it’s ok.
I keep encountering this situation in tanking – a problematic situation is sometimes much easier to deal with if I just relax, don’t panic, and avoid overcorrecting. It’s OK if I’m a bit further away. My raid is smart and knows how to run over to the adds to get cleansed, even if they have to run a few extra steps. If I’m really short on ghouls, I can just taunt a few, or warn my MT on vent and RD him, or RD off a dps or healer if they snag some ghouls. By the time I’m short on ghouls, phase 1 is almost over and plague has jumped enough that it’s gonna kill my second Horror just fine when it hits him.
I roll Seal of Command in p1 since I like the cleave effect to pick up ghouls.
We didn’t bother to tranq any of the Horror enrages. I just saved my stuns. Between Holy Wrath, Captain America Shield, and Hammer of Justice, I was fine.
Anyways, like I said, phase 1 was easy. Our healers especially appreciated the fact that we had a disc priest along this week. Apparently his bubbles are OP for Infest.
Phase Transition
Things that make Phase Transition more interesting: OT forgets to cleanse herself! \o/ Or, ranged runs towards OT as she is clearing herself of the raid to cleanse herself! No, don’t do that! I only have a few seconds to clear myself of the raid, don’t make my life harder! Anyways…. the phase transition is not difficult for us either.
Our lock solos the ice spheres.
Raging Spirits seem to die with agonizing slowness. I don’t know why they die so slowly. Our DPS is not low – although we are very, very used to 2 healing everything, so it’s odd to have one less DPS. Maybe they have a ton of HP – I don’t know. I’m always looking at percentages. I guess they must be pretty hard to kill.
The MT takes the first one, and I usually grab both the second and third. In practice, this means I’m tanking two at full HP as the LK moves into Phase 2.
Phase Two
Phase two is made much more fun and interesting by the fact that I have never seen all my spirits die before we wipe. I get into phase 2 with two very live spirits on me; the best we’ve done is kill one. Therefore I spend the whole time tanking hard-hitting adds with an awesome frontal silence! I drag them to the center, pile them on Arthas, and strafe over- so the adds are sitting on top of the LK but they’re not facing the raid or the MT. And theoretically they get burned down first, before the Valkyr comes out and becomes a priority.
The Valkyrs are problematic. They have a ton – just an absolute ton – of HP. I mean it. Damn things don’t die. I try to get a Hammer of Justice on them; if I see someone stun them first, I wait and throw my HoJ when I see theirs wear off. At least, that’s how it should go. We seem to be pretty short on snares. I did a WOL search though and all three of our pallies – me, the MT, and our pally healer – are stunning them. What other snares do we have access to? IDK… the fucking things just don’t die fast enough.
We managed to save one or two raidmembers this week, which was an improvement over last week.
And we also managed to not cover the entire floor with Defile four out of seven times! \o/
Look, it’s the little things that count, OK?
Final Note
A clarification on my Raging Spirit whining.
I realize that the third one spawns right before Quake; the mechanics of the fight are such that I will always have that third one in phase 2. Here is my problem with them. I end up in the center in phase 2 with an add at 100% and one around 80%. IN PHASE 2. The valkyr spawns when one raging spirit is half dead and the other is untouched. So yeah… my opinion is that DPS on them is being slow right now >>
Tankadin Errant 