Onyxia

[Magicbag]

We've had 3 serious runs on Ony now, and we can usually get her solidly held in Phase3. The problem is that things can get very crazy very fast. We'll be sitting there with a full raid and her at 18%, get a fear, then our MT gets spiked. He'll get a druid rez or a SS, but he'll be unable to regain agro until half the raid is dead.

As alliance does anyone have any healing tips to prevent spiking? Our tank is well outfitted, we've dropped everything in the core up to Domo. It seems to be a combination of bad fear attack and extreme helping of DPS from our dragon friend.
Thanks,
-MB

[Legedi]

If your MT goes down another warrior (who should have some aggro) will have to step in. Being taunt immune means that losing all aggro from a death makes it about impossible to get aggro back.

High FR is actually better for resisting spikes than +def. Her normal hits are around 700-800 I think. But the fire breath is about 3200. Now you either resist it all, or don't resist any. But if you can get your tank over 200 FR he'll be resisting over half of them.

Or if you don't have the FR, or don't want to use FR gear with low life, buff the heck out of hte MT's HP. With a few MC items, buff, and potions 7500 HP would be a great goal.

[Zarathustra]

Heals over time are your friend during phase 3. Renew, Regrowth, and Rejuvenation can be cast before everyone's sent scattering, and will continue to heal the tank through the end of the fear duration.

[Magicbag]

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm pretty sure we're sitting right around 200 FR and 7000 hits fully buffed, but I'll check back with the team. I'll also make sure we have a large HOT rotation going on.
-MB

[Zarathustra]

Another area for improvement can be how you handle the fear. Do you have a Dwarven priest along for the ride? If so, he can cast Fear Ward on himself to be able to heal during the mass lava spouting panic.

A word of caution on this tactic, though. If the MT gets feared, Onyxia will go after whoever ISN'T feared... which would be the priest. This is only advisable if the MT can handle stance dancing and Beserking every time she's about to fear.

[Magicbag]

Another area for improvement can be how you handle the fear.  Do you have a Dwarven priest along for the ride?  If so, he can cast Fear Ward on himself to be able to heal during the mass lava spouting panic.

A word of caution on this tactic, though.  If the MT gets feared, Onyxia will go after whoever ISN'T feared... which would be the priest.  This is only advisable if the MT can handle stance dancing and Beserking every time she's about to fear.
[right][snapback]97604[/snapback][/right]

MT has been able to stance dance a lot, but the fear often comes more often than he can dance it. We've been using our few dwarven priests to prevent the tank from being feared. If we get 2-3 of them on a raid, we'll keep it up on both the MT and a healer. Good advice though.
-MB

[Tal]

MT has been able to stance dance a lot, but the fear often comes more often than he can dance it.  We've been using our few dwarven priests to prevent the tank from being feared.  If we get 2-3 of them on a raid, we'll keep it up on both the MT and a healer.  Good advice though.
-MB
[right][snapback]97606[/snapback][/right]

There is your problem. She fears when there isn't enough DPS on her.

[Onan]

IIRC we always have a second tank buillding aggro behind the MT, just incase we loose one, if we do loose a tank we have about a 50% chance of recovering. The best answer is of course to not loose your tank. Now in our experience if we can keep the DPS pressure on she fears far less often. Which makes for a very smooth run. I'm not sure exactly what the MT does, but as Ony is landing in phase 2-3, the MT hits her with a few sunders, as rend etc... once she is under control and at the north side DPS goes on almost immediately, full on.

As a priest in phase 3, I always target the MT as soon as I get feared and go directly to heal the MT when I recover, if the MT is under 2K I shield, otherwise I flash to 50% and go for a bigger heal, self heal (if i need to) or start regening if I am LoM. Don't forget to have a Pally JoW her, the wanders can regen a lot of mana that way (the extra DPS also helps with fears), make sure there is communication between healers on who is regening and who is in. We tipically go with a FFA healing rotation, which means there is no set rotation but try not to blow your wad, and trust your friends. Another personal favorite is the Dreamless Sleep potion, since you are asleep after you use it you don't move while feared (thus take no damage from fissures) use it with caution though as you cannot choose to break the sleep. As a healer, I only go to about 100 unbuffed FR, I find the Mana and regen I loose by going full out FR hurts too much. I think every priest that comes with us has "Unbreakable Will" at 5 points.

You may know some or all of this info, but thats what I have to offer.

[Zarathustra]

There is your problem. She fears when there isn't enough DPS on her.
[right][snapback]97610[/snapback][/right]

Oh? I wasn't aware there was a direct relationship between the two. It'd make sense, though. Aggro issues are easy if people are keeping their dps low.

[Tal]

IIRC we always have a second tank buillding aggro behind the MT, just incase we loose one, if we do loose a tank we have about a 50% chance of recovering. The best answer is of course to not loose your tank. Now in our experience if we can keep the DPS pressure on she fears far less often. Which makes for a very smooth run. I'm not sure exactly what the MT does, but as Ony is landing in phase 2-3, the MT hits her with a few sunders, as rend etc... once she is under control and at the north side DPS goes on almost immediately, full on.

As a priest in phase 3, I always target the MT as soon as I get feared and go directly to heal the MT when I recover, if the MT is under 2K I shield, otherwise I flash to 50% and go for a bigger heal, self heal (if i need to) or start regening if I am LoM. Don't forget to have a Pally JoW her, the wanders can regen a lot of mana that way (the extra DPS also helps with fears), make sure there is communication between healers on who is regening and who is in. We tipically go with a FFA healing rotation, which means there is no set rotation but try not to blow your wad, and trust your friends. Another personal favorite is the Dreamless Sleep potion, since you are asleep after you use it you don't move while feared (thus take no damage from fissures) use it with caution though as you cannot choose to break the sleep. As a healer, I only go to about 100 unbuffed FR, I find the Mana and regen I loose by going full out FR hurts too much. I think every priest that comes with us has "Unbreakable Will" at 5 points.

You may know some or all of this info, but thats what I have to offer.
[right][snapback]97612[/snapback][/right]

When I've played Sharanna in Onyxia I've found it very effective to shield on first fear and use my /target main tank macro and start dropping heals on him. Since I didn't resist the fear I'm able to avoid Ony aggro until the real healers can take over. =)

[Tal]

Oh?  I wasn't aware there was a direct relationship between the two.  It'd make sense, though.  Aggro issues are easy if people are keeping their dps low.
[right][snapback]97614[/snapback][/right]

That has been our experience. :)

[Kevin]

We actually have at least 2 other tanks that stance dance (but don't get fear wards) as best we can. These tanks because of getting less fear will almost always be second and third on the aggro list. The MT who is getting the fear wards and stance dancing when a ward is not available (assuming she is fearing that fast) stays on top. If we don't have fear ward, which isn't an issue now, we have two tanks plans their dancing so that they can change aggro around if she fears too much to keep her in place.

Keep HoT's on the MT, but keep in mind that you can only have one renew, one rejuvination, and one regrowth on them. To save mana on your healers it is probably best to only have 2 priests and 2 druids that cast any HoT's at all on the MT. I say two because fear can run you out of range sometimes so just those folks getting overwritten if that happens isn't as bad. Your people with the best +healing are the best choice for this as well. Keep a Judgement of Wisdom and a Judgement of Light on Ony. Yeah 61 health every other hit or so isn't a lot, but it does help not only the MT, but some of your DPS people maybe able to stay in a little longer before they have to bandage themselves. Keep a thunderclap on her to slow incoming damage, use mind numbing poisons on her to slow incoming damage, keep insect swarms on her to slow incoming damage. Little things like that might give that little edge that it sounds like you need, you sound very close to getting her.

As mentioned your healers always need to look to the MT first after a fear and throw a fast cast heal towards them. Priests should flash, paladins should throw flash of light right away. Druids can throw a slower cast healing touch (unless they are one of the HoT'ing druids) which will probably hit and be the finishing touches on the healing if the spike was bad enough that all those little flashes didn't keep them up. After the fast casts are done some of the slower cast ones can be used.

The MT having Last Stand and shield wall as "Oh #$%&" buttons can help. I know that I have to force myself to watch my own health when tanking Ony, our healers pretty much only let me die if something kills them but the spikes in this fight can be pretty nasty. Have a warlock with improved healthstone and one without the talent each give the tank a healthstone. As long as the stone heals a differnet amount you can carry more than one. Yes they use the same timer, but it is different than potions and the fight can be long enough that you will uses both of them.

For tanking her I look to have about 200 buffed FR then go for defense on my gear. The spikes are all fire damage but the majority of the damage she does is physical, it just comes in at a steadier rate (I think it's generally a 70/30 split or so, would have to double check). So the more physical damage you mitigate the longer the mana pools last. The more FR you have the less often a spike in damage will happen.

As a healer I've learned her head motions with and without mind numbing on her (the animation actually hitches with mind numbing up) so that I can start my long cast healing touch or divine favor + Holy Light (only 60 paladin and Druid, not a priest yet) so that the spell will land almost immediately after the breath hits. This is much harder to do in phase 3 after a fear but it still helps. Have your healers watch her to see if they can get that timing down as well.

As mentioned the more DPS we get on her the less the she fears so DPS needs to go as soon as she is under control and keep going. Because the fear will reduce your aggro you don't have to worry as much about holding back. The MT should resist most if not all the fears for dances or wards, and the secondary tank will have stanced danced through several as well (the second tank staying in battle or zerker stance but using a few high aggro attacks like sunder or shield slam is a good way to help keep the aggro up for them without giving them a chance at passing the MT since they won't have the def stance aggro bonus). The MT can also smack an execute when in zerker stance after hitting zerker rage for the dance to put some more damage on her and make that last stage go faster.

Hope that helps you guys sound like you have the hardest part for us down, and that is just getting her under control between phase 2 and phase 3.

[Darian]

Yeah, as GG says, start laying into her as soon as she's locked down. Being more specific... as the DPS caller for our runs, I basically call full DPS on her once three things are true: (1) she is aggroed on the MT, (2) she is in the proper position, or she is locked in an "acceptable" position and the raid has moved itself to safety, and (3) there's three sunders on her. If you make the phase three transition in a fairly clean manner, and you have enough surviving DPS to bring to bear, she really should go down without a problem at that point.

[Magicbag]

Excellent summary folks (especially GG) I think you've filled all of our gaps. I am really looking forward to dropping her shortly!
-MB

[Drasca]

Have a warlock with improved healthstone and one without the talent each give the tank a healthstone[right][snapback]97630[/snapback][/right]

Each different talented rank of improved healthstone (iHS) is considered a 'different' healthstone (HS). You may keep 0/2 rank iHS, rank 1/2 iHS, rank 2/2 iHS, and lesser forms of healthstones too

Ever since giving other people improved HS has been fixed, this has been discovered. So far, it is considered a feature rather than an unintended bug.

Also, consider having a hunter with "aspect of the pack--dazed when hit" up. You'll likely be dazed, and headless chicken around less when feared.

[Tuftears]

One thing we found useful in phase 3 transition was that sometimes she's just ornery about where she wants to be. If the MT has her jammed up against the NW corner, trying to move her to the east is perilous because then her breath faces half the raid - so the raiders who'd be normally in the NW corner should move to the NE instead.

Yes, it's nice if the MT can get her positioned exactly, but between fears and the adrenaline rush of trying to yank her to a wall as fast as possible, it's understandable if things wind up in a difficult position.

After that, have your healers stand with their shoulders to the wall, in the middle of a rock tile. When they get feared, they will tend to move in a circle around their starting position. For whatever reason, this seems to minimize the amount of lava crack damage you'll take.

[Concillian]

We've had 3 serious runs on Ony now, and we can usually get her solidly held in Phase3. The problem is that things can get very crazy very fast.  We'll be sitting there with a full raid and her at 18%, get a fear, then our MT gets spiked.  He'll get a druid rez or a SS, but he'll be unable to regain agro until half the raid is dead.

As alliance does anyone have any healing tips to prevent spiking? Our tank is well outfitted, we've dropped everything in the core up to Domo.  It seems to be a combination of bad fear attack and extreme helping of DPS from our dragon friend.
Thanks,
-MB
[right][snapback]97592[/snapback][/right]

Is there a reason you can't alternate between priests and druids trinketing out of the fear to keep the tank upright through several fears?

Forgive my lack of knowledge of the encounter if this is a fear that you can't just trinket out of.

[Zarathustra]

Is there a reason you can't alternate between priests and druids trinketing out of the fear to keep the tank upright through several fears?

Forgive my lack of knowledge of the encounter if this is a fear that you can't just trinket out of.
[right][snapback]97747[/snapback][/right]

In the case that the tank doesn't get his dance moves right, a non-feared healer would immediately become Onyxia's target, would he not? That not only gives a high chance the healer's about to become a rather tasty snack, but also means Onyxia's going to move from her preferred spot.

Or am I wrong on that one?

[Legedi]

Yes. Everyone else should purposely have low shadow resist. And other warriors should be dancing in hopes that they have aggro instead.

This is one situation where talents (that resist fear) are bad :(.

[Quark]

In the case that the tank doesn't get his dance moves right, a non-feared healer would immediately become Onyxia's target, would he not?  That not only gives a high chance the healer's about to become a rather tasty snack, but also means Onyxia's going to move from her preferred spot.

Or am I wrong on that one?
[right][snapback]97750[/snapback][/right]

Somebody who resists fear will be looked at if the tank didn't avoid fear. I've never had her turn on me, however, when I broke a fear with my PvP trinket.