Vael

[Magicbag]

So Vael and I have been spending a lot of time together recently, and I'm not sure I'm happy about that:)

This is actually only our second week on him, and we're getting under 10% consistantly. Would anyone be able to share any strategies they find helpful?

I play from a mage perspective, and Mage DPS has been subpar on this fight compared to others. The constant interrupts and fire immunity presents some problems for us (mages).

Since this is primarily a DPS fight, we've been concentating on keeping the rogues healed and soul stoning the hunters. It seems that in order to have a really good attempt we have to be lucky with the BA. Is this always the case? Do guilds never really put this guy on farm status until the gear is just so sick that DPS can rip through him no matter what?

Our priests are relying on Holy Nova for the most part because it's not affected by the casting interrupt. Do other guilds use prayer of healing? Are 8 priests necessary for this encounter?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

EDIT: Bleh sorry about the title typo, I can't seem to edit it out:)(Fixed --Mav)
-MB

[oldmandennis]

I play from a mage perspective, and Mage DPS has been subpar on this fight compared to others. The constant interrupts and fire immunity presents some problems for us (mages).

Since this is primarily a DPS fight, we've been concentating on keeping the rogues healed and soul stoning the hunters.

Our priests are relying on Holy Nova for the most part because it's not affected by the casting interrupt. Do other guilds use prayer of healing? Are 8 priests necessary for this encounter?

I'm not a mage, but wouldn't AM be enough damage? It wouldn't be affected by the intterupt, if you had the talents. Vael is worth a respec for a while.

Are you saying you are letting your hunters die then soulstone, because they are still effective without mana? That's an interesting way to get back at them for all the repair bills they skip.

If you are going to such lengths, and considering stacking 8 priests, it sounds like you have a raid wide lack of fire resist. Since there is no mana to worry about, alot of very gimpy gear looks alot better. If everybody has enough FR, healing should not be a problem. One healer should be enough to keep a group up, with some time left over for the tank.

Everybody should have a stack or two of Fire Protection pots. I recommend against popping one at the start of the fight. It will just get boiled away at a time when you should have adequate healing anyhow. If you get an unlucky string of BA's on your healers, you can pop the pots then to save healing for the tanks.

[Delc]

Since this is primarily a DPS fight, we've been concentating on keeping the rogues healed and soul stoning the hunters. It seems that in order to have a really good attempt we have to be lucky with the BA. Is this always the case? Do guilds never really put this guy on farm status until the gear is just so sick that DPS can rip through him no matter what?

I can't really see soulstoning hunters to all that valuable on that fight. Essence of the red gives everyone unlimited mana/rage/energy and hunters really don't benefit much from that since they rarely have mana problems anyway. Also once you die you lose the buff and most likely aren't worth ressing at that point.

Rogues, warriors and priests are the key to the fight. Rogues can do an insane amount of damage with the buff. Warriors need to all be in tanking gear and ready to tank when their turn comes up. For us this was the easy part for a long time since we had a pretty good idea of what order our tanks would get aggro based on gear and spec. Also make sure they are spamming execute once he gets to 20%, its a huge amount of damage.

Our priests are relying on Holy Nova for the most part because it's not affected by the casting interrupt. Do other guilds use prayer of healing? Are 8 priests necessary for this encounter?

Holy nova rocks if you have priests with it, but PoH works too, not every priest wants to spec holy. 8 priests would be nice but you would lose dps. I think we usually have 5-6 priests with druids picking up the last couple. A couple times we have had a shaman keep a group up, but that only works if you are horde, and have one group with really solid FR gear since its hard to keep up with the heals like that. I don't know much about paly heals but I doubt they could keep up.

FR gear helps a ton here. Everyone needs as much as they can get, and it needs to be good gear. Green 'of fire resistance' stuff doesn't really help much. Fire protection pots can help the mages and warlocks to avoid spell interupts for a little bit. We have been killing vael for quite some time and we still wipe. Its really hard to save an attempt when the first 4 or 5 people to get BA are priests. The key is to make the most of the fights where a bunch of hunters get it. (Sorry hunters:P)

[lfd]

Everyone needs as much as they can get, and it needs to be good gear. Green 'of fire resistance' stuff doesn't really help much.

/disagree ;-)

This is the one fight where it pretty much doesn't matter how gimped you are, thanks to Essence of the Red. You can pile on the damage *especially* when you have burning adrenaline. It's worth trying to keep whoever has it alive as long as possible.

We use prayer of healing rather than holy nova; as it heals for more, you can cast it less often and spot heal/dot vael in between.

[Skandranon]

How many tank transitions are you going through?

[Concillian]

I'm not a mage, but wouldn't AM be enough damage? It wouldn't be affected by the intterupt, if you had the talents. Vael is worth a respec for a while.

You don't need the talent. Interrupts lower the duration, not the DPS. Since mana is no concern, cast it again when the duration runs out.

I haven't seen Vael, but I've read of mages using Arcane Explosion there since it's higher DPS than Arcane Missiles.

[Fangar]

Casters should have at least 150 and melee should be well into the mid 200s as they should hold out longer.

Rogues dominate the fight, if you want a nice boost bring 6-7 rogues and you will see the damage pile up on him. Also remember to have the rogues vanish when the MT gets burning adrenaline.

Our mages pop ice barrier/fireward and GFPPs and are usually able to spam the frostbolts.

As Delc said we have killed him on Tich for many months and occassionaly have a wipe or two.

As for healing - we have our shamans spam heals on the MT - I dont know how hard the pallies heal. Both holy Nova and POH work. The key to the fight is to keep the rogues alive, so as you lose priests to BA start moving druids/priests to the tank/rogue groups.

[Mavfin]

/disagree ;-)

This is the one fight where it pretty much doesn't matter how gimped you are, thanks to Essence of the Red. You can pile on the damage *especially* when you have burning adrenaline. It's worth trying to keep whoever has it alive as long as possible.

We use prayer of healing rather than holy nova; as it heals for more, you can cast it less often and spot heal/dot vael in between.

I wear ~255 unbuffed FR, I HS/Shield Slam/sunder in def stance till 19%, then all the warriors execute. If a tank dies and I've got aggro, I move to the tank spot, and keep executing. After 19%, no def stance needed. A warrior with Essence of the Red can execute-tank ftw.

Tanks for this fight: It's very important to be flexible and not tied to a particular order. Be ready to move when *your name* pops in that target-of-target box. If you don't move fast enough, people get tailswiped, and that slows down DPS. I build as much aggro as I can for my place in the order, but I always err on the side of *not pulling aggro off the current tank early*.

[Magicbag]

Thanks for the advice.

My spec allows me 3 points in AM, so I'm 60% able to get em off, with a pally I'm sitting pretty well.

We figured that Hunters could do the most damage without BA, hence SS them.

I don't mean to imply that we had 8 priests on the raid, but I confess wishing it. Druids are struggling to keep their assigned DPS class group up. Mages, Warlocks and hunters are going 150 min FR (unbuffed) to max DPS. We're well geared (in ZG/MC terms) and able to craft any MC stuff we need.

Personally I could go to about 225 (self buffed), but I'd lose out on some damage. With a priest in the group spamming holy nova I don't have any problems staying alive, never even have to take a fire pot. If the priest get's BA'd though, the group is toast:)

We're going through a 5-6 tank rotation. However, I think that the "everyone executes" at 19% could be a big help to us. I think we had some people staying in defensive. What about the use of an undergeared tank or a druid to take the first BA hit? What gear order do your put your tanks in? Is your MT first or last? Would SSing a Warrior for executes be better than a hunter?
-MB

[Kevin]

As for healing - we have our shamans spam heals on the MT - I dont know how hard the pallies heal. Both holy Nova and POH work. The key to the fight is to keep the rogues alive, so as you lose priests to BA start moving druids/priests to the tank/rogue groups.

Druids heal the tanks, paladins heal the groups of people that have better FR and don't get priests with them. This is because the paladins give another 60 FR and the damage rates on those people are slow enough (thanks to the higher FR) that they can cycle Holy Light, a 2.5 second cast, through the group. The 1.5 second cast paladin heal is pointless. Most paladins are happy when it crits for over 900 damage on a target that has blessing of light up. It's not a heal, 600 damage healed is just something that might buy you enough time for someone else casting a real heal to get it to land when the next regular hit comes in. So you can heal for ~2400 damage every 2.5 seconds or ~1300 damage every 3 seconds (that is figuring about +300 healing and blessing of light on the target).

Just have a few druids spamming regrowth, and a few spamming healing touch and you get plenty of healing on the tanks fast enough. Paladins will also throw heals at the tanks now and then (as will priests between PoH or Holy Novas) but the druids are what we use to heal the tanks.


Holy Nova is used simply to add a bit more DPS to Vael and it does work as mentioned. You might still have to PoH every now and then during the HN spam, but it works well from what I've seen.

[oldmandennis]

Druids are struggling to keep their assigned DPS class group up. Mages, Warlocks and hunters are going 150 min FR (unbuffed) to max DPS.

Personally I could go to about 225 (self buffed), but I'd lose out on some damage.

We're going through a 5-6 tank rotation. However, I think that the "everyone executes" at 19% could be a big help to us.

If a healer can't keep a group up, you are low on FR. They should be able to keep a group up, plus have some left over.

5-6 tanks should be enough. Execute spam should close the gap in damage. If you are currently losing people to the fire aura, fix it with more FR gear. That will help more damage, because a live mage in greens > a dead mage in damage gear. If you are still going 5-6 tanks, without losing people to the aura or cleaves, and you still can't kill him, you fail the gear check. Spend a couple more weeks in MC, try to clear zg and aq as often as possible for more weapons, and try again later.

[Icebird]

In our raids we soulstone rogues - our reasoning being that they lose the least damage potential from missing Essence of the Red.

I tend to disagree with Mavfin - for a group learning Vael, I think you want tanks getting aggro in the right order. Warriors shouldn't be moving into position when they get aggro - they should be moving into position when the previous tank gets BA, so that Vael will not move one millimetere following the transition.

I've heard the KLH Threat Meters can be useful for determining the aggro order.

Things that can go wrong in the Vael fight:

1) A tank dies early. This means you usually lose another tank to the BA the previous tank should have got. Warriors are a primary source of damage at 19% and below so you want to keep as many alive as possible for as long as possible.

2) Someone gets aggro that shouldn't (rogue or ranged DPS). Vael turns, breaths, and cooks half the raid (his breath has a nasty DOT component as well as the direct damage).

3) Not enough damage. Typically this happens because people die too early. You want non-BA deaths kept to an absolute minimum.

I'd stack on all the fire resist you can when you're learning the fight - you can even use the Blackrock spire fire buff. Once you've mastered the tank transitions, you can start skipping the buff, and replacing some resist gear with damage gear.

Vael is a very technical fight - it took our guild a long time to beat him, and even longer to beat him without at least one wipe.

Chris

[Magicbag]

We're using threat meters and in general have a great transition going. All signs point to FR problems although I think we all have 150+. We have done the UBRS buff thing before, and would consider it again.
Thanks for all the helpful hints.
-MB

[TheDragoon]

We're using threat meters and in general have a great transition going. All signs point to FR problems although I think we all have 150+. We have done the UBRS buff thing before, and would consider it again.
Thanks for all the helpful hints.
-MB

If people that aren't BA'd are dying, then you probably either have a healing strategy problem or an FR problem. :)

[Mavfin]

[snip]
I tend to disagree with Mavfin - for a group learning Vael, I think you want tanks getting aggro in the right order. Warriors shouldn't be moving into position when they get aggro - they should be moving into position when the previous tank gets BA, so that Vael will not move one millimetere following the transition.

I've heard the KLH Threat Meters can be useful for determining the aggro order.

[snip]
Chris

That's all philosophy, and how skilled and flexible your tank corps is. The way I posted works better for us, but YMMV.

[Tal]

I tend to disagree with Mavfin - for a group learning Vael, I think you want tanks getting aggro in the right order. Warriors shouldn't be moving into position when they get aggro - they should be moving into position when the previous tank gets BA, so that Vael will not move one millimetere following the transition.

The issue with that is that if a tank is too quick to position he goes with the BA'd tank. I've found that the best place to be when I think I'm close to being the next on his list is to inch forward until I'm just in cleave range and then run when the tank BA's. Its worked pretty well so far and has less reliance on me having perfect timing. Plus if it turns out I'm not the next I can slip back into place easily enough. And we won't mention the times I execute tanked him down with the UTB. >.>

[oldmandennis]

All signs point to FR problems although I think we all have 150+.

Use CTRA to find your secret slackers. Also, have you considered all of your DPS buff options? Wizard Oil, arcane pots, mongoose pots, sharpening stones, flasks....

[Sir_Die_alot]

My guild wiped on this guy for the better part of 2 months, but now he is utterly farmed. The only time we wipe on him is when we get 3 or 4 priests BAed in a row or we have a new app with us who didn't listen to instructions and blows up the raid. Icebird's guild seems to be closest to mine with what is done.

In our raids we soulstone rogues - our reasoning being that they lose the least damage potential from missing Essence of the Red.

We don't bother on this one. If we fail we wipe and reset.

I tend to disagree with Mavfin - for a group learning Vael, I think you want tanks getting aggro in the right order. Warriors shouldn't be moving into position when they get aggro - they should be moving into position when the previous tank gets BA, so that Vael will not move one millimetere following the transition.

I agree with Icebird. You want to know who will get aggro or you risk spraying the whole raid with his breath. This is a certain wipe. We have 3 melee spots, the MT, the next tank up, and the DPS. The next tank up sits just off to the side of the MT out of breath range but at an angle so that when he gets aggro it won't hit the rest of the raid. When he gets it he moves to MT spot and the next tank up takes that spot. We almost never need a 5th tank and because of which don't designate one. Occassionally we get some DPS deaths and we need a 5th, thanks to KLH we know who it will be.

Some tank BA tips:
I pop shieldwall when I get BA. This helps me last just a little bit longer when the fire damage just starts stacking like crazy.
When the MT gets BA top off the next tank up and keep him that way. A cause of many of our wipes were the next tank up didn't have the hitpoints to take the initial attacks.
Don't quit healing the tank when he gets BA. Keep him up as long as possible.

I've heard the KLH Threat Meters can be useful for determining the aggro order.

We originally got it for this fight, its now a required mod. Not only does it let you plan out aggro issues, it lets you see who is screwing up and pulling it way in advance.

Things that can go wrong in the Vael fight:

1) A tank dies early. This means you usually lose another tank to the BA the previous tank should have got. Warriors are a primary source of damage at 19% and below so you want to keep as many alive as possible for as long as possible.

2) Someone gets aggro that shouldn't (rogue or ranged DPS). Vael turns, breaths, and cooks half the raid (his breath has a nasty DOT component as well as the direct damage).

3) Not enough damage. Typically this happens because people die too early. You want non-BA deaths kept to an absolute minimum.

I'd stack on all the fire resist you can when you're learning the fight - you can even use the Blackrock spire fire buff. Once you've mastered the tank transitions, you can start skipping the buff, and replacing some resist gear with damage gear.

Vael is a very technical fight - it took our guild a long time to beat him, and even longer to beat him without at least one wipe.

Chris

[TheDragoon]

You want to know who will get aggro or you risk spraying the whole raid with his breath. This is a certain wipe.

Actually, our secondary tanks stand on the opposite side of Vael from the rest of the raid so the risk is getting the front row people tail swiped rather than breathed on. It's not a *huge* deal to get tail swiped, though the breath would be.

I would also like to clarify that we notionally set an order of tanks according to how they have done in the past. I usually tend to get aggro first or second so I usually end up tanking Vael first while our Thunderfury tanks take #'s 2 and 3. After that it gets tough to predict so we go more along the lines of how Mav suggested - everyone watches the MTT window and if they think they're going to have aggro, they start moving before they even show in the window. Then whoever has aggro makes sure he stays in the MT spot while everyone else backs off.

It's not quite as responsive as Mav has indicated. :)

[Kevin]

Actually, our secondary tanks stand on the opposite side of Vael from the rest of the raid so the risk is getting the front row people tail swiped rather than breathed on. It's not a *huge* deal to get tail swiped, though the breath would be.

I would also like to clarify that we notionally set an order of tanks according to how they have done in the past. I usually tend to get aggro first or second so I usually end up tanking Vael first while our Thunderfury tanks take #'s 2 and 3. After that it gets tough to predict so we go more along the lines of how Mav suggested - everyone watches the MTT window and if they think they're going to have aggro, they start moving before they even show in the window. Then whoever has aggro makes sure he stays in the MT spot while everyone else backs off.

It's not quite as responsive as Mav has indicated. :)

Of course lately we've only been using 2 or 3 tanks for the whole fight. It's been awhile since we've gotten to #4 unless something goes wrong.

But when we were learning the fight for the first time, when we had no one in the raid who had killed Vael, we were pretty concerned about tank order and we practiced to make sure we did have the order so that the healers and tanks could be more responsive. It helped. After pretty much everyone was used to the fight and had more experience with other fights that required flexibility like that we didn't care about it nearly as much.