Monday, July 28, 2008

ZA: Guild Run Akil'zon to Halazzi

Saturday we had a scheduled ZA raid which Included several of our guild Vets and a few newer members. Pretty much the goal was to get the Dragonhawk Boss Jan'alai. Was kinda nice to be back raiding a bit form the hiatus of leveling a alt and more so doing ZA which to me is much more fun than Kara. I really don't sign up much to do Kara either and couldn't tell you the last time I was there in recent memory.

Akil'zon - Eagle Boss
So to ZA we went. I was MT for this run and we had one of our great Feral Druid Aero OTing. We quickly did the Eagle Boss Akil'zon which we have done a few times now and have pretty much got the fight down with our dps and healing team. We ended up trying the boss two times as we wiped the first time at around 2% or so the first time. It appear that as the boss was almost down the healers eased up on healing or just about stopped it appears and we wiped at around 1%. Hate those kind of wipes. On second try we got the boss down easily but that cost us a bit of time on the time events. Really fun boss though. Its a matter of time I know, but hope Boss drops the Amani Punisher soon. My 2 Blue Swords my Continuum Blade and Crystalforged Sword have seen almost 2 entire compete gear change and they are still primary piece of my gear set. My weapons are old enough to be antiques or permanent armor pieces.

Nalorakk - Bear Boss
So then we headed off to the Bear Boss Nalorakk and were pretty used to him by now a few times and we got him easily without any real problem. Bear Boss was real nice to drop me a pair of Jungle Stompers. I already have Sabatons of the Righteous Defender from badge gear so more options for gear variations as they are a nice pair. We were then off to the Dragonhawk Boss Jan'alai.

Unlike Kara I really find everything in ZA just more fun, even the trash is Fun. I say overall we were just having a good time the raid. Getting to the boss wasn't that much a problem. From the Bear Boss we just kept going straight all the way around straight through the Egg Hatchery. At the hatchery I just pulled a hatcher who then brings several dragonhawks with him. Just AoE then down in pulls all the way through the Egg Hachery to the other side. Allot different to the first time we ever went there we had no idea where to go or how to get through there in a good way and wasn't fun. From there was one or two pulls on scout and then pulling a patrol and then was at the bosses platform. Pulled a patrol at the boss platform which was fun to just AoE the packs down. These trash are just fun to me. Then were pretty much at the dragonhawk boss.

Jan'alai - Dragonhawk Boss
We had Aero the Druid tank the Boss and I tank the Dragonhawks as they spawn. It took 2 tries I remember the first time we wiped which wasn't quite clear why. Its always good to know just why we wiped, but I could not really tell being busy with the adds. One the second try we found it was much easier to just let ALL the eggs hatch on one side having killed one the Hatcher and letting the other hatch them all. I'm still uncertain other than the DoT from consecration what target the Dragonhawk chooses initially to aggro. Seems a few times they headed to the healer but then snapped back in consecration. Now that was really allot of dragonhawks though when they hatched. I had BoS up to make sure got all the birds which seemed to have helped. Yet was a bit starved on mana a bit after as well. All I could see on screen was birds! They don't seem to hit all that hard and die fast on AoE, just a bad debuff.

We found dropping a frost trap by a Hunter on the very edge of the bridge really did help in slowing down the brids to get DoT from consecrate as they seem to fly real fast. I had more debuffs than I can count, actually couldn't count them at all they were so many. Only real way I found easy to remove all those dragonhawk fire debuffs was just to Devine Shield and clear them quickly as just did not have the mana to keep decursing. I find Mana was really a problem here and pretty much had to pop a potion when the other Hatcher was up for the other side to hatch.

On the second round we let all the eggs hatched on the other side and did the same thing again. We got all the birds down without much problem. That really left us with a whole lot of time to just finish up the boss. having hatched all the eggs was surprised how much time we had to just dps the boss. Avoiding the bombs wasn't that hard as you could see clear spots to move to all around in the time before they detonated. Our Druid tank eventually went down right before the boss went down and had to pick the boss up and tank him the rest of the way. We got the Boss down for a progression kill for our guild which made it now 3/6. Boss was real nice and dropped a Shield. In all of raiding I've never been that lucky with loot or two pieces of loot on the same run or even lucky enough to have ever gotten T4. Since we had no Warrior to compete with for loot, thank goodness I was able to get the Bulwark of the Armani Empire Shield. Woot! I got those fully gemmed and enchanted later before I logged out for the night. That makes about 5 Shields I tote around at all times now.

Halazzi - Lynx Boss
We decided to head off to see the Lynx Boss Halazzi. We didn't have a any real problem getting to this boss. We just followed the path staying to the right then clearing a troll hut getting all the patrols outside then the inside patrol guy and one on top of building. That allowed the lone NPC troll there inside the hut to move walk down the stairs and open up access for rapairs. That helps allot. Reminds me of the Blacksmith in Kara after Midnight or the NPC guy before Chest event for repairs. All the trash Lynx was just fun as well the handlers, most were real easy. Just have to watch for hidden adds or patrols. Some the Lynx were stealthed and appear when your close. Was just easy to just drop a Judgement and AoE all of these all the way to the boss area. Really allot of fun! So no real problem getting to the boss. At the Lynx Boss room we just pulled the patrol group each back and wasn't a problem.

We wasn't quite sure what to do on the boss but we tried him anyway. I hadn't had time to read anything much on the Boss either. We has one person in raid that had seen the fight before in another guild. However we weren't all quite clear how the fight progressed. However we tried the boss to get a feel for it. Didn't last too long. Did all my research for the boss later after the raid and pretty much understood the fight for the boss. On Sunday ZA reset and we did all three bosses again, this time we had our Guild Warrior MT and I OT. Had a few hickups due to having several different raid member team than the day before mainly on the dragonhawk boss. We had different healers as well as dps. We didn't have a Hunter this time and that made it a bit more difficult to effectively slow down all the fast flying dragonhawks which seem to always go straight to the healers it seem. Can only suspect they aggro to healing. We did again eventually get to the Lynx Boss and tried him a few times.

On the Boss on this raid our warrior Zan MT and I was on the Lynx Spirit. Best I can recall we got the boss to 2 Human Phases at best that I can remember. I didn't have a real problem picking up the Lynx as he spawned close by while I had a consecration down before the boss changed phase. I just dropped a Instant judgement as the Lynx spawned. One time the Lynx did spawned a bit away from the Boss and took a sec or two to pickup. I had a Macro to cast a instant Judgement to the Lynx but he was out of range of Judgement. Wasn't much a problem on the Lynx otherwise. The first Human >Troll/Spirit Phase or Phase 2 we did not have as much a problem I could tell.

Where we seemed to have much a problem with is not so much as keeping up both tanks in Phase 1 when the boss is in Human form but more so in Phase 2 when the totems are up. Seems dps was having a hard time getting the Corrupt Totems down quickly and we wiped a few times due to excess raid damage. I would help out at times while tanking on the boss dispelling the Flame Shock when it was up since was just OTing. However usually don't like to do dispelling MT as that always clashes with my Global Cooldowns doing that MTing. We ended up trying the Boss 4 times and kept running into the same problem mostly it seems with the Totems being up too long and raid members going down. We ended up calling it a night after that.

Ask the Reader?
The question we kept asking and wondering was which way was best?
  • Was it easier to just burn the Spirit of the Lynx down so the boss changes phase back to Human and less time spend dealing with Totems and Shocks?
  • Or was it easier to burn down the Boss in Shaman Phase since he already had all the buffs up and ticking on Boss already and just control the Lynx while he's up? Challenge with that is it seem more healing intensive in the Human Phase. Yet you don't have Totems or Shocks to deal with for extra damage either.
Either way the dps team still seem to have problems with the Totems getting them down in time. We had dps try and focus on the Totems to get them down quickly whenever they were up, but it wasn't sure how many people we needed on Totems at best as seemed to cause dps problems. From what I had read the Totems had something like 9k health and needed quick burst dps to get them down. Either way we seem to have had much problems with these. I'm also not sure if the Boss Earth Shock or Flame Shock contributed to the problems. However I know I was helping dispelling the Flame Shocks whenever it was up on a raid member. But that was not indicated as a problem. I just remember being silenced a few times at best. Hopefully next time we can get a better try at this boss.

8 comments:

The Distracting Shot said...

Only way Ive ever done it is to Dps boss till split, pick up lynx and continue dps on boss. This fight is about your dps. If the dps does there job and burn down totems fast, the healers dont go oom, with over heals. The macro "/tar corr" is good for targeting totems as soon as they are up. If you notice the rewards for Lynx boss are mostly dps rewards. I really see that as a hint as to who it needs most.

Argent said...

I've usually been the OT for this, and, as you noted, it's pretty easy to pick up the lynx half of the split with consecrate. This is actually kind of a nifty trick, because the lynx doesn't hit all that hard (and I don't think he crushes, either), so you can just hit consecrate every 8-10 seconds and keep a seal up while you do important stuff.

Important stuff:
- Cleanse Flame Shock. I haven't used a mouseover macro for this in the past, but I'm probably going start, since there's a number of times that it would be handy.
- Judge Righteousness on the Corrupted Lightning Totem when it spawns. Yes, you'll only do 1k or so of damage, but it's a little extra burst to help your DPS.

Your DPS needs to be quick on killing the totems -- everyone should jump on the totem when it spawns, as it will rapidly do more damage than your healers can heal, and also makes people vulnerable to being one-two-shotted in combo with Flame Shock.


During the regular phase, if I'm off-tanking, I judge wisdom and Seal either wisdom or Vengeance, and keep up Holy Shield while standing exactly on top of the MT. If you're maintanking, then you need your OT to stand right on top of you, or you might not end up sharing the Saber Lash. Healers need to keep the OT above 9k at all times, and the MT above 14k if possible. Hunters can tranquilizing shot the boss when he frenzies, and thunderclap/demo shout/demo roar/curse of weakness are handy for reducing his damage output. Of course, Curse of Elements is probably better for your DPS unless you have 2 warlocks.

Paul said...

We just keep nuking the boss, OT grabs the Lynx and drags him back on top of the MT.

This fight's easy if your tanks are geared enough to take the beating, your healers can sustain the silly level of healing and your DPS is disciplined enough to kill the totems quickly.

It's a stretch at your gear level, but a doable one.

Ardent Defender said...

If you just Nuke the Boss down in the Shaman Phase while the Lynx is up and you get the boss down on HP does he change phase then back to Human or does he die then if he goes down before the lynx dies assuming that the lynx is still alive?

Posolutely said...

The lynx is just a phase, once the lynx phase is over the Bosses hp jumps back up to where ever it was before the phase started.

Have all your dpsers make a macro, just like they did for Demon Chains in Kara.

/target Corr
/stopcasting
/cast super uber dps spell

The runs I've been in always stay on the Boss and ignore the Lynx, leaves the OT more time to do other things (ie cleansing), instead of him having to worry about generating super-crazy amounts of threat.

Having hunters running NR can help on this guy too, and remember to spread out, it is a chain lightning totem.

-Abs

Chase said...

As a Pally offtank here are my thoughts. During regular phase just sit there and eat up the cleaves. Don't autoattack even if you are slightly undergeared due to parry-gibs on your MT. Heal yourself to help your healers when he cleaves. During spirit phase auto-attack with SoR and judgement should be enough to keep aggro and open up GCDs for help with flame shock cleansing. Have your dps create and mash a macro /target corrupted. That is the most important thing. Hunter is nice both for tranq shot and aspect of the wild

Ardent Defender said...

Appreciate everyone above for all the helpfull tips listed above. They all will be helpful from the comments.

Should be in ZA this weekend so I'm sure we will get him then. I've got the strat down in understanding the fight so as long as everyone in our raid do what they suppose to do and DPS kill the totems fast we should be able to get the boss.

The Distracting Shot said...

i want a new profile picture with the new shield :)