Watch the Birdie

Mal Katai took another shot at Al'ar last night.
Al'ar seems to be the most complex fight I've seen thus far, especially as it relates to tanks.
We seem to have gotten Phase 1 about down. 2 of our wipes were caused when Al'ar tanks got quilled as they were trying to pick him up. It looks like there is a specific path or place the tanks must go in order to get back to Al'ar to prevent Flame Buffet but not get killed by Quill.
The other major problem in Phase 1 was that we still didn't completely understand where on the lower ring Quill hits. On one attempt, I was tanking the Ember and when he died, the explosion threw me, and I died. When I checked the combat log, I saw that I had received damage from Quill after the Ember died. My theory is that I got thrown into the Quill area.
I feel like I have a really tough job in this fight. I have to wait until the first add spawn, then wait while either a Hunter misdirects it onto me, or a healer pulls aggro and brings it down.
Then I need to pick it up and move it to a safe place to tank it away from the raid and any Quill area. All while I'm moving I have to keep generating good threat so DPS can kill the Ember. What seemed to be happening was that DPS couldn't kill the Embers fast enough at least in part because I couldn't get my aggro generation into full gear until I had it positioned. We lost so much time waiting for the Ember to come down and get positioned that the next one was usually up before the first one was down.
But after a couple of attempts we were consistently getting through Phase 1.
Our problem in Phase 2 was taunts. Al'ar puts a nasty debuff on the tank that basically requires that you exchange him between two tanks every minute. If one of those tanks gets his taunt resisted, Al'ar puts out massive (and almost certainly unhealable) damage to the other tank.
Our best attempt of the night was 15% to go in Phase 2, but both of Lanorah's (Warrior) taunts were resisted and Al'ar cooked our other tank, Brindall.
Meanwhile he's spawning two adds at a time. It was a real struggle to grab both adds, generating good threat on one and keep them positioned properly while avoiding the Flame Patches on the ground. It also appears that Warriors can no long Spell Reflect a Flame Patch to put it out.
Our final attempt of the night showed us a possible new way of us doing this fight.
I died near the end of Phase 1 to an Ember blowing me into a Quill.
What happened was 2 of our DPS Warriors picked up one add each. This worked great until DPS got split and blew up both adds within a couple seconds of each other.
So next time, what I'm going to suggest is to have the DPS Warriors, or Feral Druids (if we have any) pick up the Embers in Phase 2 and use me as a backup in case a taunt gets resisted. Also, if one of the other tanks gets a taunt resist while I'm tanking Al'ar, I can Divine Shield which should cause Al'ar to look for another target. I wonder if I can also clear the Melt Armor debuff with my "flash" Divine Shield macro (Divine Shield and then immediately click it off).
We are making some really strong progress on Al'ar. I think we would have had him in the 15% attempt if not for the taunt resist. We'll definately have him next time.

Comments

Raydz said…
We handle phase 2 with 3 tanks on alar. It would probably be a good idea if you switched over to alar in phase 2 and stuck 2 druids on the adds.
Anonymous said…
Our guild is at a similar stage in getting Al'ar worked out. Our last night we had a fair bit of trouble teething out the top tanks movements.

Several wipes seemed to be the top tanks not being in healer LoS, or healers not sure where they needed to be. We also had trouble with tanks getting back up fast enough after a quill - often having at least one buffet.

Our strat for the adds seemed to work really smoothly however:

First add I wait for it in melee ranged of Al'ar (since melee are up there attacking till first add, I might as well be there too) - I pick it up with consec and bring it down.

Later adds are generally picked up by holy pally with RF or by hunter (just grabbing agro so i can taunt off, if MD wasnt up).

Adds were burnt down by melee dps and our survival hunter, at about 15% they all make sure they have rip / deadly poison stack etc up on the add, and the rogue whose turn it is CloSs and kidney shots -this way noone takes damage, except the rogue if really unlucky. May help with the problem you had being blown into a quill.

Solïs of Proudmoore
Anonymous said…
hey

I'm a BELF pally with similar gear to yours, and our guild is 1/6 ssc 3/4 tk.. very comparable.

On phase 1 alar, I pick up the adds (first one with consecrate, the rest with avengers shield- and if that misses, judgement of righteousness). We have all melee kill the adds in phase 1, backing out as they are about to explode. on each of the ramps there is a spot with a lip that hangs out. If you explode the bird there, you get tossed up and back about 2 feet, then land right where you were.

In phase 2 my job (along with another tank, usually a bear) is to pick up the adds. They always spawn by the meteor, and you can tab target (because alar is temporarily "gone" after the meteor). Fire an avengers shield in (both adds are on top of each other) and drag them back to one of the 2 kill zones (either ramp i described earlier). Melee is on alar, range dps kills the birds. We usually do a main assist type of setup, with a hunter marking and calling which bird to kill. The hunter is also good for misdirects as needed.

if our DPS on the birds is high both are down before the next meteor, so I'm free to run, look up to see where meteor is going, and pick up the birds again.

Hope this helps.

Aesher- Runetotem

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