Trial of the Crusader (10) - Mon. 8/24

Did this on 25 in a pug. Was fun, fairly easy.. Phase 2 is the more difficult of the phases. And that's mainly if ppl are not focused/mechanical players.
 
Did this on 25 in a pug. Was fun, fairly easy.. Phase 2 is the more difficult of the phases. And that's mainly if ppl are not focused/mechanical players.
Got him down last night in 10 man. Disarming the Elite Adds (Onyxian Lair Guards?) made it a lot easier and no one (in Phase 2) got hit with Flaming Weapon. We split our ranged DPS on Ony and Elite adds. AoE and ranged rule this fight as Melee really contributes big time in Phase 1 & 3.
 
We gave her elite adds to tanks/melee and range stayed on ony for ph2 to get her into ph3 asap. (I guess we had the heals in 25 to keep melee up on the elites)

So it was: Ph1: Hard dps.
Ph2: Everyone Collapse mid to make it easier to round up welps for aoe (Shaman and mage ice/roots) Melee on elites, range on ony with hero and watch for DB.
Ph3: Tremor totem, finish her off.

Rolled 100 on the 22slot bag.
 
FACTION CHAMPIONS

So last week we got Onyxia down and we'll pay here another visit this Friday. :D

We seem to have the Northrend Beasties fight down pretty well and Lord Jaraxxus is relatively easy. Now to one of the harder fights in the instance, The Faction Champions :eek: . They can be quite the struggle and it's a PvE fight using PvP tactics. Tactics and abilities are the key here. Using ALL of your toons abilities is necessary to be successful. This includes stuns, disspells (lots of them), CC, disarming, etc. CC abilities last 15 seconds and are subject to diminishing returns. We've made progress, but getting down just the one healer won't quite cut it. Please take a look at the fight strategy link from www.bosskilers.com:


This raid encounter is not really something that can be prepared for via a traditional strategy guide. It is, essentially, a PvP encounter versus NPCs. In the 25 man version, your raid will face off against 10 champions of the opposing faction. In the 10 man version, your raid will face 6 champions. You will be able to see who you will fight before engaging them, so it is possible to plan things out a bit ahead of time; but the main challenge of this fight is quick adaptation and reaction to the various abilities the NPC team uses (each champion mimics a specific player class and spec, and uses a selection of the same abilities available to that class and spec). Go into the encounter with a PvP mindset.

In general, the smoothest route to success in this fight is going to be killing the healers first, then DPS in order of their danger to your raid. The NPCs range in HP from 320k to 400k in the 10 man version, and 1.2 million to 2.4 million in 25 man.

Main Considerations
The most important considerations going into this fight are:

1) Working Out The Best Kill Order For Your Raid:
- When you talk to Barrett Ramsey after defeating Jarraxus, the NPCs will jump down from the faction section of the Coliseum stands. If your raid makes sure to stay on the other side of the room, you will have ample time to see which champions you will be fighting, discuss strategy, and mark up your kill and CC targets.
- Tailor your kill order to the needs of your group, and don't be afraid to change it if a particular champion gives your raid trouble.
- It is generally a good idea to burn down the two pets (hunter's cat and warlock's felhunter) right at the beginning to get them out of the way. They have significantly less health than the champions, and most times aren't re-summoned as long as the hunter and warlock themselves are kept CC-ed or distracted.

2) Offensive Dispelling Of All Heals/Debuffs/Etc. Used By The NPCs:
- Make sure everyone with a means of dispel has raid frames up to dispel debuffs as fast as possible.
- Make sure that the kill target has every HoT/shield/buff possible dispelled off him/her, and every offensive debuff put on, especially heal reducing effects if any NPC with access to heals is alive.
- Make sure CC gets removed any time it is applied to a raid member.
- Make sure defensive abilities like Iceblock and Divine Shield are removed with Mass Dispel, if possible.
- Silence and interrupt as much as possible, especially on NPC healers.

3) Effectively Crowd Controlling As Much As Possible:
- PvP rules regarding the duration and diminishing returns of all CC spells apply. This means that all forms of CC have a maximum duration of 15 seconds, and that they last an even shorter amount of time each subsequent cast, until the mob is immune from their effects all together for a few seconds. Pair up raid members with different schools of CC to take turns on a single NPC or a pair of NPCs.
- Have those raid members who are assigned to CC a particular target communicate if their target becomes immune to their CC, so fellow raid members can help out, or get away from that NPC.
- Make sure that every raider with forms of CC use them at every opportunity, even your healers.
- Assign specific raid members to distract/engage NPCs that they are strong against (i.e. have a warrior disarm/stun/slow the rogue, have a rogue kick/stun a healer or caster, etc.) However, remember that this needs to be balanced with having enough damage focused on the kill target, as well.
- Slowing melee NPCs and having whoever they are focusing kite them is very effective.
- Taunts will work on the NPCs, but will not hold their attention for long.
- Mind Control is the only CC that doesn't work on the NPCs.

4) Playing Defensively When Focused By Any NPCs:
- The NPCs will gang up and focus fire on random raid members. They don't really prioritize healers like in real PvP, but do work together to take down targets. So, it is critical that anyone getting focused, especially by the melee NPCs, know to move out of their range, use defensive cooldowns, etc.
- It can be helpful to set a healer or two with quick reaction times as main assists, to better coordinate rapid healing of those who are being focus fired by the NPCs. Make sure all healers have a way to see who has aggro from a target; this makes it easy to know who might need heals soon.
- Group slows/stuns/fears are very useful in helping your teammates escape from focus fire.
- Try to stay spread out (not too far, or you'll run out of range of your healers), and stay moving if any NPC is near you. They can change targets or pop out of CC at any time.
- Have those raid members who are assigned to CC a particular target communicate who that NPC is targeting, in case the CC breaks early.

5) Positioning:
- Try to keep the healers as far from the current kill target as possible; their heals have the same 40 yard range as player heals. So, if you can root them and then have the person with aggro from the kill target run away, or have a death knight Death Grip a healer away, etc, you will have a much smoother time killing the selected target.
- As much as possible, keep slowing ground effects in the centre of the room, and have anyone chased by a melee champion run directly through them to the other side. Running around the edges of the floor does no good, as the champions' AI is smart enough that they will cut corners and catch up with you faster this way.
- Try to have anyone targeted by a ranged DPS champion get out of range of it's abilities, to force them to spend time either swapping targets or running to get in range.

Please check out the link for full details and I'll see you on Friday! Keep in mind that this is a progression raid and invites will be prioritized based on gearing and experience with this group/raid.
 
Ony 10

Nice Ony 10 Video and Strategy write-up on Tankspot.com:

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/56736-dustwallow-marsh-onyxia.html

When the fight begins, the tank should turn her around and bring her to the far wall, while the rest of the raid spreads out around her. As the original dragon encounter, Onyxia has a frontal breath attack, a cleave, and a tail swipe, so everyone needs to stay at her sides to avoid being hit by any of these. The cleave and tail swipe in particular need to be avoided at all costs, as the cleave can instantly kill even plate DPS, and the tail swipe can easily knock a careless player into the whelp pits and spawn many whelps. Having a second tank ready to pick these up can make the fight go a lot smoother, especially in the later phases.

Phase 1 is very straightforward, and a simple matter of staying alive while bringing her down to 65% health, at which point Phase 2 begins. She'll walk to the other end of the room and take flight, moving out of range of melee DPS. Once she's in the air, a very large wave of whelps will spawn along with an elite Onyxian Lair Guard. It will largely be the responsibility of the tanks and melee DPS to handle these, as ranged should be continuing DPS on Onyxia as much as possible. That said, it's not a bad idea to have one or two AOE classes help burn the large whelp waves down.

The Lair Guards hit fairly hard and have a very high damage AOE that should be interrupted whenever possible. The whelps don't do too much damage by themselves but are very dangerous in large numbers. On top of that, Onyxia will be pelting the raid with fireballs from above, so there's a fair bit of healing to keep an eye out for.

All that being said, by far the most dangerous part of Phase 2 is the infamous Deep Breath. When Onyxia chooses to use this ability, she will fly corner to corner across the room, leaving a wide path of fire on the ground below her. This will make short work of any non-tanks, and isn't particularly healthy for them either, so avoiding this is top priority. Everyone will need to be mindful of where in the room Onyxia is at all times, and when the Deep Breath warning goes out, you must immediately get to the sides of her path to avoid it. For example, here you can see that Onyxia is hovering at the north point of the room. Once she begins her Deep Breath, everyone will need to get to the east or west edges of the room to avoid it.

Once ranged DPS has brought Onyxia down to 40% health, she'll land again and begin Phase 3. This is very similar to Phase 1, and the same positioning should be used. However, there's one very dangerous addition: Bellowing Roar. This is a raid-wide fear that last for three seconds, and is followed closely by an eruption of lava from the cracks in the floor, causing a fair amount of Fire damge. Worse than the Eruption, however, is the fear's tendency to cause players to wander into dangerous areas. It's very easy, especially for melee DPS, to get feared in front of her and cleaved, or behind her and knocked into the whelp pits. It's also very common for the tank to turn Onyxia toward the raid while feared just in time for a breath attack. Anything that can be used to break or resist this fear is very helpful, such as Tremor Totems, Fear Wards, and any racial or class abilities like Will of the Forsaken or Berserker Rage.

Aside from simply breaking the fear, there's a couple tricks you can use to reduce the chances of something going wrong as much as possible. Never be within 3 seconds running distance of the whelp pits -- it's far too easy to wander in there and spawn a bunch of extras. Likewise, try to stay as far away from the front of her as possible. Given the choice, it's usually better to risk getting feared into her tail and knocked into the whelp pits than it is to risk getting feared into a cleave and dying. Ranged can almost completely avoid either possibility, but it's a bit trickier for melee. Fortunately, her hitbox is fairly large, so you can still hit her from a good distance away.

Some whelps will inevitably spawn on even the cleanest of kills, so your second tank should be keeping an eye out for them and rounding them up so that the DPS can handle it. Aside from that, it's simply a matter of keeping your positioning safe and bringing the dragon down.
 
On Faction Champs I've found the most important thing for the more squishy raid members is to keep an eye on the enemies at all times, and keep a good distance between you and them. They tend to have ADHD, and will not usually chase you for more than a handful of seconds (unless there aren't many of you left), so generally if you just run for a while, they'll find someone else to pick on. Remember to use any slowing or snaring abilities you may have to give them a hard time: Frost Shock, Earthbind Totem, traps, roots, chills, etc.
 
Seriously, decursing is of major benefit in this fight. I ran it with Wend on 25 man and looked at the decurse/dispell counter (recount) after the fight. I had 167 dispels, both cleansing our raid members and taking bonus spells off of the NPC's. I'm not sure what the breakdown of the of the things I cleansed cause damage over time vs movement impairing effects, but I know that both of them help the raid as a whole to take less damage while doing more damage.
 
Seriously, decursing is of major benefit in this fight. I ran it with Wend on 25 man and looked at the decurse/dispell counter (recount) after the fight. I had 167 dispels, both cleansing our raid members and taking bonus spells off of the NPC's. I'm not sure what the breakdown of the of the things I cleansed cause damage over time vs movement impairing effects, but I know that both of them help the raid as a whole to take less damage while doing more damage.
Agreed Anita,
We've never had the opportunity to have a priest along with us. :D
 
TotCrusader 10 and Ony 10 - Fridays

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to put a post up here regarding this run and how I envision it. First, this is a progression run. I'm looking for this group to consistently clear TotCrusader 10. We have only accomplished this once and frankly that's not enough. I'll be taking a harder look at who I bring on a consistent basis for ultimately we should be clearing Ony 10 and this place in 2hrs total. I am sorry to say, but a sign-up in GEM will not be guarantee of a spot.

Please evaluate your toon's gear and do your best to know the fights. Being situationally aware is huge in TotCrusader and is what keeps you alive. Last night we had too many people taking damage/dieing when they shouldn't be. One or two peeps go down and that results in a wipe, repairs, and lost time.

Icecrown (patch 3.3) is around the corner and I'd like us geared and ready for the place.

One last thing, feedback & chatter on boss strats is welcome. Please keep it brief and offer it when asked. We had a few too many cooks last night and too much chatter which was a bit chaotic and confusing. Everyone is showing up on time, repaired, with food, etc which I am greatful for. Please shoot me a PM, in-game mail, or chat with me in-game with any questions.
 
Bob, provided that RL doesn't interfere, and my energy isn't completed drained (these have both been factors in the past few weeks), please put Guilo down as very interested in an Icecrown progression run.

Thanks.

Eric
 
bob,

rob tom and I did 25 toc last night we killed the healers last it actually went well I just kept on the pally
 
So very late notice here,

But how flexible are folks in being able to do this run tomorrow? (Sat the 21st?) I have been gone all week in Las Vegas and haven't spent any time with the family. If not, we have plenty of toons who want to tank in my spot, I just need someone to volunteer for the RL spot tonight. :D

I'll know more later.
 
So very late notice here,

But how flexible are folks in being able to do this run tomorrow? (Sat the 21st?) I have been gone all week in Las Vegas and haven't spent any time with the family. If not, we have plenty of toons who want to tank in my spot, I just need someone to volunteer for the RL spot tonight. :D

I'll know more later.

I can't come tonight or tommorow. I will be on a date night tonight and at work tomorrow.
 
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