Siege of Orgrimmar Preview: Fallen Protectors

Second in our initial preview series comes, of course, the Fallen Protectors. Information on the Protectors is a little more scarce in terms of explicit strategy, but consult Wowpedia for some basic information on abilities. Alternatively, consult this Icy Veins video.

The Protectors do not share health, instead demanding that they all be killed within a short window of time to stay dead (thus, think like Conclave of Wind). Each Protector uses their respective Desperate measures at 66% and 33% health. Since the Protectors do not share health, it's ideal to push each one separately through their Desperate Measures phases.

We'll start with Rook Stonetoe. He will do a Monk-like Clash occasionally, zerging out, and then will do AoE damage in an area around himself, as well as attacking his tank with a cone attack. When in Desperate Measures, he will spawn 3 mobs: Embodied Gloom does an interruptible 4-yard splash attack. Embodied Misery will have to be tanked, and anyone within 7 yards will take series AoE damage whenever it uses Defiled Ground, which persists as a void zone. Embodied Sorrow performs Inferno Blast on its aggro target, splitting damage with nearby targets. The strategy for this seems to be as follows: interrupt Gloom as much as possible, stack up for Sorrow, move Misery away from the group. Kill order is more of a question: Misery could be ignored for last. Stacking up ranged and killing Gloom first puts all the melee DPS interrupts in a good position.

He Softfoot also has to be tanked. He will Garrote and Gouge, but this Gouge will not disorient if the tank is facing away. Perhaps this mechanic can be effectively dealt with, then if the tank knows when it's coming. Otherwise, the raid will have to be creative while He is loose (in particular, he will only change targets when taunted after Gouge, in a fixate-type mechanic). He also uses poisons to put down puddles or deal extra damage to his tank. In Desperate Measures, Embodied Anguish fixates on a target, but the fixate can be shifted using the Extra Action Button. Icy Veins suggested this could be thrown onto a tank to effectively eliminate complexity here.

Finally, there is Sun Tenderheart, a shadow-priest-like boss. She is interruptible, and her DoT should be dispelled as soon as possible, for it will jump to two more targets with each tick (up to 3 total jumps). She will also deal increasing raid damage in big chunks during the fight, starting with 30% of everyone's HP and increasing each cast. In Desperate Measures, she spawns two types of adds and continually damages the raid, but she also erects a protective barrier that reduces damage taken. As many as possible should come under the barrier while the group kills adds.

Let's look at a video, this one by Blood Legion:

BL put Rook next to Sun for cleaving while moving He away to keep damage on him under control. As I thought, they kill Gloom first when Rook's Desperate Measures starts, and they do this using the He tank to tank Gloom as well (but this has the downside of putting Gloom next to poison puddles). You can't see it, but they seem to kill Sorrow next and then Misery.

For some reason, they decide to go on He next, even though he's at a higher health percentage than Sun. It makes sense that He is being kept largely away from the group due to poison puddles, however, and it could be they're counting on cleave damage doing most of everything on Sun while she's being kept near Rook's tank (or rather, while Rook is being kept near her). It's not clear to me how the tank knows when to turn, but it's clear there's some kind of cue (see 1:45) that he's looking for to clue him in on Gouge and avoid the incapacitation. At any rate, if the tank starts taking excessive damage, he should be able to throw the fixate on someone else for the last little bit.

When Sun goes into Desperate Measures, the He tank keeps He out of the barrier, as He is putting down poison puddles.

Beyond all this, it seems the main challenges will be execution: avoiding unnecessary damage, getting enough people stacked for Rook's Desperate Measures, killing all three bosses in the 15-second window.

Siege of Orgrimmar preview: Immerseus

So let's try this thing again.

I've been a raid leader since BC. It's part of why I haven't spent as much time with the WoW mage community. Of late, I've tried various things to get a better handle on preparation for new fights and new content. My guild, In Other News, isn't anything that will challenge top 100 US progression or anything like that. We raid only 9 hours a week, after all, and we just don't have that attitude. Still, I want to do everything I can to prepare myself, and my raiders, for the fights ahead of us.

So with that in mind, I'm trying a new thing here: an in-depth collection of information on new bosses.

Immerseus

First, let's look at some existing resources for information on this fight. WoW Insider put together a nice post on some of the basic ideas behind this fight, covering all the basic mechanics with accompanying images of a fight. Wowpedia has not only Dungeon Journal stuff but a bare-bones idea of what a strat will be like. Either way, the basic idea is the same: conal frontal attack forces a tank swap (and for raid to position away from the front); raid will have to place damaging puddles so as not to inihbit movement for the Lurker Below-type Swirl attack; DPS will try to kill as many adds as possible, staying together to get a stacking buff; healers will do the same for their adds, healing those adds to get the buff.

Let's look at a couple videos. First, we have Noah from Knights Of 67:

This video gives a good rundown of mechanics. What's of particular interest to me is the size of the hitbox (which Noah expected would be changed come 5.4 live) as well as the overall sizes of puddles and the size of the room. Immediately, what this gives me the idea to do is to have melee stand as close as possible to the boss, putting their puddles there, with ranged at a designated distance from the boss to put their puddles no closer than that distance. That would leave a channel of open space between two rings of puddles for people to run in during Swirl.

That said, there are quite a few puddles going out. How can this be managed? In 25-man, you might consider splitting the raid into groups with a roughtly equal number of melee and ranged in each group and dedicated healers. This would minimize movement--just have everyone stay in their own section of the room.

Now, what happens when we get Split? Well, it looks like all the adds come from roughly the same distance from the boss, and perhaps that they all come from designated positions as well. If so, it will be important to start at the end of a line, to get the DPS to go to that starting position, and to stay together as the group churns through adds. What's helpful is that healers' adds are mixed in rather evenly, so even though some healers will have to watch the rest of the raid for damage they're taking as black adds die, there shouldn't be range issues, and they should still benefit from the healing buff.

Now, should that be all the DPS? Or should we split into groups and cover areas? Given that the raid will take damage whenever adds reach the boss, Noah makes the suggestion that the raid should stay split up so that there's better coverage, and because the adds die too quickly to need the whole raid stacked in one spot to kill them. This seems sensible, even more so if the DPS's adds can be slowed.

To be honest, the adds look to move so fast that trying to get buffs from them would just be gravy on top of actually stopping a good number of them at all. Given how many one expects might be up, it also occurs to me that significant raid defensives might need to be prepared to deal with the damage from many adds hitting the boss at once.

Let's look at another video.

This is Echoes from Laughing Skull (EU) on PTR. This is a kill vid, and I like looking at kill vids over guide vids for a different perspective. This one is good also because of the vent chatter, which gives more of an impression of what gives people problems in a fight.

Like Noah's video, there are flares set up to keep orientation. At the pull, it seems only a few sections of the room are being used (sensible for 10-man to maintain range on everyone). If there's a strategy for dealing with puddles beyond this, it's not clear to me; their ranged seem to put puddles wherever they like.

Now, around 1:15 Swirl is cast, and in this case, the PoV character doesn't have to move very much. It's not clear to me if this is the result of good design (the group is in a position where they really don't have to move for Swirl at all because they know it will go clockwise from that position) or just luck.

At about 1:30 you can see adds going out of Immerseus's body for Split, emphasizing that they start out in many positions and supporting the idea of a split raid in designated positions.

By 1:45-1:50 many of the adds have either been killed or hit the boss, but some are still up. To me, this suggests they can be slowed.

Over the several Swirls, I see that it moves very fast and only being as close to the boss as possible gives a great chance of being able to outrun it. Picking up where the Swirl will start and getting the jump on it will be key.

Since Immersues starts with less and less health after each transition, it definitely seems that dealing with the first cycle, in terms of positioning and Swirl, will be hardest.

That's all for me. Got some nuggets of wisdom to share about Immerseus? Feel free to share. Otherwise, I'll be back in a few days looking at Fallen Protectors.