Obsidian Sanctum or Archavon (Vault) on Friday?

Bah, sry about my vault D/C. My connection must have re-routed through Danny's server or something and didn't come back in a reasonable time. I finally get to play a bit with you all and this happens. I walked away for a while and it was fine later. I hope you all were successful.
 
Friday, Feb. 6th Run

I've posted our weekly OS run on GC for Friday, Feb. 6th at 6:30 server. Some folks were having trouble viewing it, so please let me know if you can or can not view the event. Also, Artaioz is now 80 and capable of over 2,000DPS so I will most likely bring him as we are usually well-stocked on tanks.

If we can get 2.5 Healers, I would like to make another serious run at Sarth +1. We have the regular fight down and no one really needs any loot, so +1 should be fun and give us the extra drop.
 
Bob, I've found that you have to wait 5-10 minutes for it to show. (Once it connects)
SGAG chan is what I use. It just takes a bit of time to show up.
 
Sartharion + 3 Drakes Video

If you get a minute, please take a look at this well-narrated video which describes the timing, positioning, and coordination of a Sartharion +3 Drake fight (25 man heroic). Warcraft Movies: Sartharion + 3D Video

Two things here stand out for me:
  • DPS virtually ignores Sartharion at the beginning of the fight and works on getting in position for Tenebron.
  • Sartharion is tanked at the other end from where we normally tank him in order to make a pick up of Tenebron and his adds easier.
Depending on our raid make-up tonight I'd like to give this strategy a shot. (Meaning trying it with + 1D - Tenebron).
 
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I've heard the 25 is actually easier because the ratio of ppl - difficulty lvl is 2-1.

Looks like both tanks here are temporarily getting hit with lava walls, then it looks like only the MT is, but if we have the gear It's worth a shot. If not, we can position Ten to the side of Sar so that tank can avoid the middle and right side lava wall. In this video setup best geared tank might be able to tank Ten + welp adds (even with their debuff) if we have the aoe/healing to burn them all down fast. Fire adds could also be kited or MD'd over to the Ten tank to be killed by aoe.

And yeah, all dps should only be on Ten/welps/fire adds until Ten is dead.
 
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Yeah we are still having issues with this fight. Part of it is a lack of dps and part of it is still placement/coordination. Avoiding lava walls and making sure no one eats a breath-blast from the drake add when trying to do so.

Tanking Sarth/add separated with 3 tanks..I think we would need a tank with good aoe to gather up the whelps / Fire ele (DK or Pally). The problem here is..that if our dps is to low...Ten will be up longer as we will be spending a lot of time/dps keeping adds (Fire/whelps) dead..

Tanking everything together around sarth (As john was talking about), would make it easier to control adds and keep them rounded up and off none-tanks, keeping all dps on all mobs.., but we would need the dps to burn down the whelps fast. (volley, hurricane etc) Otherwise all tanks will get the stacking debuff and strain the healers.

Then there is the issue of whether or not 2 healers is enough. Perhaps it would be if our dps was better and our coordination (avoiding dmg from lava walls) and ability to keep adds off others was improved.

Anyways, discuss.
 
Woven said:
Yeah we are still having issues with this fight. Part of it is a lack of dps and part of it is still placement/coordination. Avoiding lava walls and making sure no one eats a breath-blast from the drake add when trying to do so.

Tanking Sarth/add separated with 3 tanks..I think we would need a tank with good aoe to gather up the whelps / Fire ele (DK or Pally). The problem here is..that if our dps is to low...Ten will be up longer as we will be spending a lot of time/dps keeping adds (Fire/whelps) dead..

Tanking everything together around sarth (As john was talking about), would make it easier to control adds and keep them rounded up and off none-tanks, keeping all dps on all mobs.., but we would need the dps to burn down the whelps fast. (volley, hurricane etc) Otherwise all tanks will get the stacking debuff and strain the healers.

Then there is the issue of whether or not 2 healers is enough. Perhaps it would be if our dps was better and our coordination (avoiding dmg from lava walls) and ability to keep adds off others was improved.

Anyways, discuss.
Click to expand...
Thanks Danny,

Agreed on many points. First of all, our DPS is too low. Part of this is from the confusion around the fight when Sartharion and Tenebron are both up. The other piece is simply the DPS output. It's important that in a fight like this we all do our job and contribute at 100%. Please know your class, are you using your best DPS rotation? Are you using a "cookie cutter" raid build/spec? Have you brought food/flasks? Our DPS burning down Tenebron fast is the key with Sarth +1D. My goal is for this to be a fun and weekly guild event. However, we have Sarth with 0 Drakes up on farm and the better loot only drops with more drakes up.

FYI - I ran H. OS with the SGA last night and they "ignored" the whelps and just burned Tenebron down fast - something to consider. (We only had 22 so we did not do Sartharion +1 D.) I also believe that Sarth +1D is easy on Heroic vs. 10man.

And last, I have regular OS posted for the 20th but added a Heroic (25man) run for the 27th. I have even "PUG'd" the Heroic version. We should be able to handle it with no problems.
 
Well...

We are getting closer on Sarth + 1D. Had a strong DPS group this past Friday, but we are still working out coordination issues. Danny has a good suggestion, that we just may have to all agree to spend a bit of time (all at once) wiping and grinding out the fight. I'm willing and we can discuss here and in WoW.

I have also posted a Heroic OS run for the afternoon of Saturday the 28th. It will be open to the SGA and with a strong DPS group, we should be able to do Sarth + 1D easier (IMHO) than in regular 10-man mode. Hope we can pull that one off as the lewt will really be epik and l33t! :p

Thoughts, suggestions, and input most welcome.
 
What Fun!!

I must say, despite having to reach out to the SGA to fill a couple of spots last night, our OS/Vaults run was a ton of fun! We first eight-manned OS for the achievement, then joined the Alliance in winning back Wintergrasp (another achievement for doing so in under 10min.). Then we downed Archavon in regular mode with ease with Renee (Yesmina) winning the coveted 3-person Reigns of the Grand Black War Mammoth!! According to WoWhead, this has a less than 1% drop chance in Vaults.

Finally, we did and SGA and PUG group for H. Vaults and Alan won the Tier 7.5 Valorous Spellpower Leggings for his newly minted lvl 80 Shammy. W00Ts all around! :D
 
Sartharion +1D (Tenebron)

I'd like to make a serious run at Sartharion +1D on Friday (the 27th). Natural Selection (Dan - Atavus' Guild) has downed Sarth +1D in 10 man mode. Their raid composition was 3 x Tanks, 3 x Healers, and 4 x DPS. We have the properly geared toons to do this. Here is what I am thinking for potential raid make-up:
  • Tanks: Bob (Apollux), Eric (Guilo), John (Shahmat)
  • Healers: Renee (Yesmina), Jason (Jermayan), Danny (Wovenx)
  • DPS: Mark (Dantzor - signed up for this week), Sean (Pandacution), Jacki (Chaska) & 1 more geared DPS (Meaghan, Dave, etc.)
We have some flexibility here too. If we get another healer, Danny can Tank & I'll bring my hunter. Having one Hunter would be nice for tranquilizing the Fire Elemental adds. Strategy would be similar to what we have tried before. One Tank on Sarth, one on Tenebron, and one more to pick up Whelps. DPS Tenebron down, Whelps go away and finish off Sarth. :D

Comments & suggestions welcome.
 
My. game. time. is. being. cut. back. by. the. beautiful. weather. But this is one I'm up for, so count me in. I'm happy to heal or tank. (I'm healing spec atm anyways) Yeah, that was our conclusion..3 tanks, 3 healers and 4 dps. We will need 4 of our best dps (buffed up, flask or elixirs, food etc)

Dps/healers/tank inbetween sarth tank spot and ten tankspot. (Middile, where one of the holes in the lava-wall is) Welps/fire adds come, healing aggro, tank grabs them, kill, back on ten.
 
We tried it with one drake up and instead of Tenebron we left up Shadran (I think). This drake gives a 25% reduction in health during the Sarth fight but he has no whelps. His portal add causes shadow dmg to the raid (~1K per tick). One big difference is the time between engaging Sarth and when the drake arrives. it's almost 2 minutes. This let us DPS Sarth down to about 50% before the drake arrives. I think one attempt we had the drake down to 50% as well before people started dieing. As usual it seems, it was the lava waves more than anything that killed us too.
 
Emalon the Storm Watcher - Vault Boss #2

So,

Something interesting/fun to add into our OS/Vault run on Fridays. Emalon the Storm Watcher is the new boss added in 3.1. He is a major step up in difficulty from Archavon and drops Tier 7.5 (Valorous) Loot in 10 man and T8 in 25 (Heroic mode). I would definitely like to "pay him a visit" after we down Archavon (assuming we own/win Wintergrasp) on Friday. Here are the usual comments/strategies from WoWHead. Below is a major wall of text on one of the better write-ups I have seen on the fight:

This is a fun, fun, fun fight, one of the best-tuned Blizzard has ever created. It had better be, because the fight has many moving parts. In terms of complexity and overall difficulty I'd easily put it on the level of Malygos (including phase 3), and above any Naxxramas fight except, maybe, Kel'thuzad. (You know the twenty seconds before and after the Lich King sends Kel'thuzad help in phase 3? This fight is sort of like those forty seconds looped over and over again in a room half the size.) Yes, it's definitely harder than Thaddius, Sapphiron, or Gluth; I'd put it slightly above Grobbulus, too.

After unsuccessfully attempting the boss from 3.1's arrival on with four different pickup groups on both 10 and 25, my first kill tonight was in a 10 group I led made up of people I knew could perform under pressure; definitely not your average pickup group. Most of us had seen the fight before, too. Thankfully, with the resurrection site now right outside the instance entrance, wipe recovery is 30 seconds flat. With all that going for us it still took us a full 90 minutes and two heartbreaking wipes with the boss under 5%!

What makes the fight so fun/complex is how its various elements directly conflict with each other:
Ranged DPS is preferable: On 10, at least, it's possible for a smart ranged DPS to find a nice spot away from everyone else and just hit whatever needs to be hit. There is no raid damage for ranged if positioned right.
Melee DPS is preferable: Well, certain kinds of melee, at least. If I have a choice of a lower-DPS ranged or a higher-DPS melee--especially a burst-capable DPS like a rogue, DPS warrior, or enhancement shaman--I'll take the melee every time. The boss has a big hitbox and a melee-heavy group can definitely succeed if everyone takes care.
This is not a DPS race: It is, 75% of the time, a survival fight. The boss does not have a ginormous number of hitpoints. DPS should save their long-cooldown attacks for the adds, and meanwhile focus on positioning (because of the Chain Lightning) and, if melee, running away from the Lightning Nova when cast.
This is a DPS race: DPS must understand that when the raid emote occurs they must drop whatever they're doing and shift to whichever add has the growth buff. This is the time to use every long-cooldown attack.
Threat matters at the start of the fight: The adds and the boss hit hard enough that tanks will need healing almost immediately, which risks an aggro pull. Ideally, a pull will go like this: a) Add tank rushes in and gets aggro on the adds and the boss. b) A rogue or hunter uses Fan of Knights and Tricks of the Trade/Volley and Misdirect to reinforce the aggro lead. c) The add tank's healer starts healing. d) The boss tank taunts Emalon and moves it to the designated spot. e) DPS only now start hitting the boss.
Threat does not matter after the initial pull: As a paladin tank I found that my normal threat rotation was damaging the adds too fast, risking an eventual "off-cycle" add spawn from Emalon. After the first 10 seconds of the fight I simply switched to autoattacking, Holy Shield, and Consecrate, while mentally preparing myself for the frenzied search to come for the buffed add. Once that add died, I looked for the newly-spawned add and taunted it. (Have the boss tank grab the new add first; then the add tank can grab it at his leisure, instead of it possibly rushing to a healer or DPS and killing him.) Hit-capped gear to eliminate taunt failures is highly advisable.

The strategy I favor is for the boss tank to pull Emalon to one of the two back niches (the green-colored ones visible from the top of the stairs, while the other tank pulls the adds to the middle of the room to minimize travel time for melee. When Emalon casts Lightning Nova, the tank and other melee should move to the other back niche, and wait for the boss to come to them (Remember what I said about it not being a DPS race?), meanwhile adjusting positioning to avoid Chain Lightning. Continue fighting until Lightning Nova occurs again, the move back to the first niche.

I don't recommend marking the adds ahead of time. Extra raid markers make it harder to pick out the right add out of the crowded group, especially when enemy healthbars are enabled. Instead, a) have the add tank quickly look through the adds to find and mark the buffed one, but b) it's also important that each DPS use his own eyes, find the add that's been healed to full health (that's why enabling enemy healthbars is important), and target it themselves. Every moment counts.

In closing, this is not a fight that groups will be able to anytime soon overpower with gear and without strategy. The combination of Chain Lightning and needing to quickly shift targets to one of four random choices means that Tier 9-geared pickup groups will repeatedly wipe. I'm glad I was able to finally beat Emalon, I'm glad I helped get two players what might be (given random numbers and the level of progression on the server) server-first T8 pieces, and I can't wait to fight the boss again. Thank you, Blizzard.​
 
From what I understand in a 10 man with 5-6 dps, around 2k dps is needed to kill adds before they explode (24sec)

We have the dps. I think the only challenge is finding the add with the buff and killing it fast enough. I like the idea of using enemy healthbars (Nuke add that's been healed full) as it should be faster then the tank looking for the right mob and calling it out. (Where every second counts)
 
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Emalon the Storm Watcher - Vault Boss #2

Vault of Archavon

The Emalon encounter has received the following changes: The total health of the Tempest Minions has been reduced and Emalon’s Chain Lightning spell will now have a limit on the number of targets it can hit.
Click to expand...

Looks like they have nerfed the Emalon encounter (and Ulduar too...).
See you for Vaults on Friday May 1st?
 
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