Firebird
Tuesday night, we returned to the fortress of Kael'thalas to do battle with his pet, the Phoenix Lord, Al'ar. This was going to be a much more serious attempt on Al'ar. Sunday, we were just kind of messing around with him since no one had really studied up on the fight.
This time, we were studied and prepared.
My job in the Al'ar fight is the tank the Embers of Al'ar that spawn throughout the fight. What we decided to do this time was have a Fury Warrior (Cyrak) up on the platform where Al'ar was being tanked. He would grab the ember and bring it down to me where we would kill it with the help of an Enhancement Shaman (Bonus).
Then he would go get the next one. Sometimes, I would have 2 on me at a time but it didn't seem to be a big problem.
One of our Phase 1 wipes was contributed to by your humble author getting himself killed by Quill, while on the ground. My understanding was that Quill only hits the upper deck, yet there I was on the floor, and clearly saw in my combat log that a Quill killed me.
It took a couple of attempts, but I think we got Phase 1 down. Phase 2 was another story. Picking up the first two Embers went okay, but that's when things got crazy.
I'm there trying to hold aggro on these two embers while the Fury Warrior and Enhancement shaman rip into them, when two more spawn. I can't go running all over the place to try to grab them, but they headed for our Shadow Priest or Resto Shaman. Flame patches were all over the ground and Meteors were falling. Our best attempt ended when I died due to one of the healers going to Battle Rez a fallen player. She blamed herself but it wasn't really her fault. We had lost too many healers at that point and it was too much to ask her to run across the room, battle rez and then get back to me. Even at that she said she only missed healing me by abut 1 second.
The fight is intense, complicated, and chaotic. It was a lot of fun and definitely the most challenging fight I've tried to tank thus far. It really stresses on one of my weaker points, situational awareness. I need to keep my threat rotation going while watching for new adds, and keeping an eye on the health of the current add.
We recleared Al'ar's trash but decided to go to Void Reaver instead. We had some new people in the raid who had not been there previously and our mages were still spec'ed frost from the Al'ar attempts.
We wiped a couple of times as people got used to the Orbs. Then in our final attempt before trash respawned, we had him down to 1% when we got a huge lag spike. Everyone in the raid reported their screens kind of froze up. When the game caught back up the tanks were dead and Void Reaver was happily wiping us.
It was a rough night, and somewhat frustrating.
After a night like this I expected to feel very upset and question a hundred things our guild is doing, but I didn't. We made some very solid progress on Al'ar and we are integrating the Alterac Mountains people into our core. As crazy as this sounds, ever since I got ALD, I haven't felt really frustrated to the degree I had been feeling before. I really think some of my frustration with the game and raiding was coming from losing out on that loot. Now that I've got it, I've calmed down some.
A week ago, I was ready to throw in the towel on my guild and start shopping. Man, how things have turned around. The raid was formed up and ready to go as soon as I logged in and people seem generally excited about progression. That, probably more so than getting ALD, has contributed to my renewed enjoyment despite the wipes on VR.
As I look at the people who have left our guild, I would say most have regretted their decision. I am glad I was patient enough to see it through.
This time, we were studied and prepared.
My job in the Al'ar fight is the tank the Embers of Al'ar that spawn throughout the fight. What we decided to do this time was have a Fury Warrior (Cyrak) up on the platform where Al'ar was being tanked. He would grab the ember and bring it down to me where we would kill it with the help of an Enhancement Shaman (Bonus).
Then he would go get the next one. Sometimes, I would have 2 on me at a time but it didn't seem to be a big problem.
One of our Phase 1 wipes was contributed to by your humble author getting himself killed by Quill, while on the ground. My understanding was that Quill only hits the upper deck, yet there I was on the floor, and clearly saw in my combat log that a Quill killed me.
It took a couple of attempts, but I think we got Phase 1 down. Phase 2 was another story. Picking up the first two Embers went okay, but that's when things got crazy.
I'm there trying to hold aggro on these two embers while the Fury Warrior and Enhancement shaman rip into them, when two more spawn. I can't go running all over the place to try to grab them, but they headed for our Shadow Priest or Resto Shaman. Flame patches were all over the ground and Meteors were falling. Our best attempt ended when I died due to one of the healers going to Battle Rez a fallen player. She blamed herself but it wasn't really her fault. We had lost too many healers at that point and it was too much to ask her to run across the room, battle rez and then get back to me. Even at that she said she only missed healing me by abut 1 second.
The fight is intense, complicated, and chaotic. It was a lot of fun and definitely the most challenging fight I've tried to tank thus far. It really stresses on one of my weaker points, situational awareness. I need to keep my threat rotation going while watching for new adds, and keeping an eye on the health of the current add.
We recleared Al'ar's trash but decided to go to Void Reaver instead. We had some new people in the raid who had not been there previously and our mages were still spec'ed frost from the Al'ar attempts.
We wiped a couple of times as people got used to the Orbs. Then in our final attempt before trash respawned, we had him down to 1% when we got a huge lag spike. Everyone in the raid reported their screens kind of froze up. When the game caught back up the tanks were dead and Void Reaver was happily wiping us.
It was a rough night, and somewhat frustrating.
After a night like this I expected to feel very upset and question a hundred things our guild is doing, but I didn't. We made some very solid progress on Al'ar and we are integrating the Alterac Mountains people into our core. As crazy as this sounds, ever since I got ALD, I haven't felt really frustrated to the degree I had been feeling before. I really think some of my frustration with the game and raiding was coming from losing out on that loot. Now that I've got it, I've calmed down some.
A week ago, I was ready to throw in the towel on my guild and start shopping. Man, how things have turned around. The raid was formed up and ready to go as soon as I logged in and people seem generally excited about progression. That, probably more so than getting ALD, has contributed to my renewed enjoyment despite the wipes on VR.
As I look at the people who have left our guild, I would say most have regretted their decision. I am glad I was patient enough to see it through.
Comments
I would have to say that phase 1 is down..and on Thursday we will put his fire out..im still mad that they made a fire resistent boss:P
Make sure you're standing well away from the platforms and ramps when it lands.
when you were quilled on phase 1 were standing near the ramp or slightly on it, his quills fall down onto the ramps as well.
You didn't MC much did you?
grab the first 2 and position yourself just under the edge of either of the up ramps, this stops you getting blasted around.
get a promo so you can keep marking the add to be killed up. get the mellee to shout in vent if youre in a flame patch as its quite difficult to see if youre concecrating.
we usually assign an add collector, feral druid or dps a warrior should be fine, they bring em in shout in vent and i taunt em of. so i dont really move except to get out of the fire.
tbh getting people to move out of the fire is the hardest part of phase 2 as you will see.
We found it most helpful to assign one person to bringing adds to em during P1 - this is easy.
Quill hits the platforms and the dark ring ont he outside of the floor. You can safely stand with your back to the wall next to the door on the lighter ring. (its kind of like your back is to the 'side' of the door.
For P2 we have me (prot paladin) and a feral tank the adds.
I run around and grab the adds as they spawn - pursuit of justice FTW.
The adds spawn and there's about 2 seconds before Al'ar comes down and does the explosion.
The feral taunts one add off me.
DPS kills my target first so I can be ready to grab the next two.
The second add usually dies just before the next meteor.
In P2 nearly all the ranged DPS is on the adds - dots and melee on Al'ar, everything else on the adds - they can switch targets and hit the other add, or the boss easier than the melee. Remember every add that dies takes 3% off her life.
The adds don't hit hard at all - I found that a set that uses dodge/parry to eliminate crits from a lvl 71 with about 160 Fire resist works great. This makes my healer's life much easier.
Make sure everyone gets salv, even folks that normally don't want it (except tanks of course). That way they can go all out more of the time.