The Four Horsemen

[Sword_of_Doom]

Here is a basic description of the abilities of the Four Horsemen as taken from WoWwiki.

http://www.wowwiki.com/The_Four_Horsemen

The four horsemen have several common features:

Each horseman has about 800k health.
All 4 horsemen can be disarmed.
Enrage: The last horsemen alive will enrage at a low percentage health, do much more damage.
Summon Spirit: When each horseman dies, his/her spirit is summoned out, stay at the place and keep giving out marks. DO NOT go near them , they can 1 shot melee range target. This means the safe zone will remain the same even after you killed some of the four horsemen. There is a picture at the right side.
Shield Wall
All 4 horsemen will shield wall at 50% hp and 20% hp for 20 seconds
Horsemen Mark:
Unique to each boss and acts just like Firemaw debuff.
First Horsemen Mark is applied at 20 sec.
Horsemen Mark reapply every 12 seconds.
Mark does damage as 0, 250, 1000, 3000, 5000...., which means that you can only stay in for 4 marks max. Any more is almost certain death.
Lasts for 75 seconds since last time reapplied, then its timer resets.
Has a range of 65-70 yards.
Does not persist after death.
Applies regardless of LoS.
Classified as physical school (meaning it is unresistable) but deals shadow damage (SR does not mitigate it, shadow protection potion can absorb it though).
Nothing can remove the marks, including Ice Block, Divine Shield, Divine Intervention, or Flask of Petrification.
Ignores immunity shields.
Can be outdistanced regardless.
As well as a single unique ability:

Highlord Mograine - Righteous Fire
2160-2640 frontload damage + 4800 DoT in 8 secs. Identical to Ragnaros' Elemental Fire, mitigated by fire resist. Applied as a 25% chance on melee hit to proc.
Thane Korth'azz - Meteor
14250-15750 fire damage, share between all people within 8 yards from the center the meteor drops. Cooldown is 12 secs. Random target in ~ 20 yards.
Sir Zeliek - Holy Wrath
Holy damage 495-605, hit random target in 35 yards range, and continue to chain until no one is within the 5 yards distance of the last target (no loop). Every chaining will double the damage. Cooldown is 12 secs.
Lady Blaumeux - Void Zone
Summon a Void Zone that deals shadow damage to enemies that stand within it (approx 3500-4500 damage per tick). Small radius, approx 5 yards. Persists for 90 seconds when dropped. Range: 45 yards. Cooldown is 12 secs.

Tonight was our first full night of attempting our full blown strat. I am going to attempt to describe it and hopefully get some criticism/feedback from those who have done this fight.


Tank Rotation

8 tanks - 4 primary tanks and 4 secondary tanks.

The tanks use a circular rotation. The rotation is set up as follows:

0. At the start the primary tanks move their horsemen to the corners, the secondary tanks stay in the safe area.
1. On the second mark, the secondary tanks move in.
2. On the third mark, the secondary tanks taunt. If the taunt is resisted they taunt again when the cooldown is up. If both taunts are resisted they mocking blow/challenging shout and hope the next tank gets there in time.
3. On the fourth mark, the primary tanks move to the next horseman in the rotation.
4. The primary tank taunts as soon as he gets to the next horsemen.
5. The secondary tanks then move when they get a fourth mark (the first time, this would be the 6th mark from the beginning of the fight). The primary tanks also keep moving on the 4 mark.

Using intercept to close in on the horsemen is probably a good idea.

Another alternative would be able to set up a safe area rotation where four tanks tank a pair of horsemen. This would allow the tanks to stack up FR for Mograine. I haven’t been able to come up with something that allows the same level of taunt resist yet.

Healer Rotation

Healers use the circle rotation. We probably need a minimum of two healers in a corner at any time. To accomplish this the healers need to be out of phase, as far as what marks they move on. A minimum of 12 tank healers, divided into 4 groups (A,B,C,D) of 3 (#1, #2, #3), are needed.

The rotation is set up as follows:

0. At the start of fight healers #1 and #2 of each group move to their respective corners with the tank. Healer #3 in each group stays in the safe area.
1. On the first mark, healer #3 in each group moves to their corner.
2. On the second mark, the #1 healers move to the next corner in the rotation. The #3 healers should be in position and healing.
3. On the third mark, the #2 healers move to the next corner in the rotation. The #1 healers should be in position and healing.
4. From then on any healer moves on getting a third mark.

The only thing that may need refinement is exactly what time, relative to the mark, to move. My best guess is that moving immediately after the mark should be sufficient to get out of range of the next one.

After the first two are dead we can either keep doing the rotation as normal, or move to the safe area and manually count the marks.

With 16 tank healers we could either guarantee three healers in each corner, or guarantee two healers in each corner and reduce the number of marks they have to stay in for to two.

DPS Rotation
20 total DPS + DPS healers.

DPSers uses the safe area rotation. The reason for this is to maximize the number of people taking the meteor damage and to kill two of the horsemen more quickly (probably Mograine and Korth'azz).

Korth'azz is probably the biggest danger to the DPS, even split 10 or 11 ways the meteor damage is still more than 1500 every 12 seconds. Possibly use FR pots to minimize the healing needed?

A 3 group rotation may or may not work because of the timing of the meteor relative to the marks. Still working on details here.



Some observations:
1. The tank rotation worked fine.
2. The DPS rotation worked fine.
3. The healer rotation did not.

Is there a different way of healing this fight??? Our basic problem was keeping the MT and the OT's up. We would do one full transition fine then the healing was subpar or failed to keep up the tanks. I am just wondering if this strat is overcomplicated or just about right for a fight of this magnitude?

Thanks for any input that may come.

[The Gnu]

We're using the same healing rotation and dps rotation, (TK and HM first, then Zeliek and Lady Frenchname) and we're use the 4 tanks on 2 horses rotation, which allows us some fire resistance gear on the TK/HM tanks. The reason we're using this tank rotation is simple, every single time we lost a tank it was at Mograine. I think we currently have 6 of the tanks in four pieces of tier 3, for the set bonus.

Might be a very individual thing, but the most common problem we had with our healing rotation was that some healers tended to linger a bit too long at a tank in trouble, causing more trouble at the next one by showing up too late. You really have to trust that the guy coming after you will be there in time and do his job. You should waste the absolute minimum of healing on the dps as well, with fire protection pots and bandages in the safe zone, they can keep their own health up unless something has gone wrong.

The fight is pretty much over once you get the first two horsemen down, since you suddenly have a whooping eight tanks on two horsies, which makes taunt resists trivial.:)

[Sword_of_Doom]

We're using the same healing rotation and dps rotation, (TK and HM first, then Zeliek and Lady Frenchname) and we're use the 4 tanks on 2 horses rotation, which allows us some fire resistance gear on the TK/HM tanks. The reason we're using this tank rotation is simple, every single time we lost a tank it was at Mograine. I think we currently have 6 of the tanks in four pieces of tier 3, for the set bonus.

Might be a very individual thing, but the most common problem we had with our healing rotation was that some healers tended to linger a bit too long at a tank in trouble, causing more trouble at the next one by showing up too late. You really have to trust that the guy coming after you will be there in time and do his job. You should waste the absolute minimum of healing on the dps as well, with fire protection pots and bandages in the safe zone, they can keep their own health up unless something has gone wrong.

The fight is pretty much over once you get the first two horsemen down, since you suddenly have a whooping eight tanks on two horsies, which makes taunt resists trivial.:)

Interesting.

Our kill order is exactly as you describe. But interesting enough, our MT is dying always at Mograine as well. We did put our tanks in 200 FR but that did not seem to make any difference.

So you are rotating tanks between 2 targets?? How many marks are they allowed to pick up?? I am guessing 4 is the most. Do the tanks go to the safe spot after tanking Kor'thazz and Mograine or is there enough time between the two to have the marks wear off?

We do eventually have 3 healers at each tanking spot but 2 move every 2 marks. We have an OT healer and 2 MT healers. But i wonder if it is a trust issue as you mentioned and people are lingering or even leaving too early.

I am in the DPS rotation and i found it quite easy to survive and do the movement. But its our healing struggling right now.

[Skandranon]

Is there a different way of healing this fight??? Our basic problem was keeping the MT and the OT's up. We would do one full transition fine then the healing was subpar or failed to keep up the tanks. I am just wondering if this strat is overcomplicated or just about right for a fight of this magnitude?

Thanks for any input that may come.

Well...our strategy looks absolutely nothing like yours. Not much I can say about it.

That said, losing tanks on Mograine isn't a good thing. Of all the horsemen, he's the simplest: no movement or positioning requirements. All you need to do is heal the tank. Yes, Mograine does a whopping truckload of damage: he would be easy if he didn't. And if he chain procs Righteous Fire two, three, or four attacks in a row, your tank had better be FR'ed and flasked to handle it (you should Titans all eight, to be honest). Heal2 spam isn't going to cut it: yes, GH5 is in the game for a reason.

Something you didn't mention: your tanks should be disarming Mograine the first time he procs Righteous Fire so he isn't thwacking you with Ashbringer the whole time. He can still proc Righteous Fire with his fist, but his fist doesn't hurt so damn much and gives healers a bit of breathing room. All four horsemen are vulnerable to Disarm, in case you're wondering.

[Tal]

Something you didn't mention: your tanks should be disarming Mograine the first time he procs Righteous Fire so he isn't thwacking you with Ashbringer the whole time. He can still proc Righteous Fire with his fist, but his fist doesn't hurt so damn much and gives healers a bit of breathing room. All four horsemen are vulnerable to Disarm, in case you're wondering.

It amazes me that more tanks don't try disarms against mobs with special attacks - the Deathknights' ww don't hurt nearly as hard once you've disarmed them it seems giving the tank a chance to back out before the stun.

[The Gnu]

So you are rotating tanks between 2 targets?? How many marks are they allowed to pick up?? I am guessing 4 is the most. Do the tanks go to the safe spot after tanking Kor'thazz and Mograine or is there enough time between the two to have the marks wear off?

I think they're moving on a schedule similar to the DPS one, only independent due to the delays of taunt resists. TK -> S(afe)S(pot) -> HM -> SS
As far as I've understood it, they start the rotation on moving at ever 2 marks, even though it gets longer after a couple of taunt resists.

Just an interesting sidenote that I didn't mention. Our dps moves at every second metor, not every second mark. This is a bit trickier, but assures that there's always some people to soak at TK.