Razorgore Thoughts

[TheLuminaire]

Blast wave would be great.  It's basically that same piercing howl.  And yep AoE daze is great.
[right][snapback]95279[/snapback][/right]

That's exactly what I was going to say. B) Piercing Howl makes the job of the kiter(and his backup) much, much smoother.

Another tactic I've seen is to have only paladins heal during the first phase, since their heals draw much less aggro than a priest's heals, and even if the paladin does get aggro, it's much more likely that he'll be able to survive. The downside is, you need 7-8 paladins for a good shot at phase one. This might not be readily available within Avarice, but I've seen the strategy work to amazing success in other runs.

What it means for priests is that they get to stand around fearing, SWP'ing, sheilding, and generally trying not to attract attention. During phase 2, when it's just Razorgore, they can resume their normal duties.

[Bolty]

Last night we knocked out all the eggs, and had Razorgore down to 41% health before wiping, mostly because we didn't know what to expect from Phase 2. Next time, we'll be ready.

Some notes from Monday night from the healers' perspective (crosspost from CA boards):

The Razorgore encounter involves lots of aggro control. Aggro on the orb controller, aggro on the kiting warriors (you guys were awesome last night), and aggro on the healers. In our best attempt last night, only 2 people were dead at the start of phase 2. It was not a coincidence that it was the run that required by far the least amount of healing on DPS characters - those of you on TS might remember me exclaiming how I hadn't needed to heal anyone yet after the first full minute or so of action. I was happy. Not having to heal means not having to die!

When a new mob spawns, it's going to go for either the controller, razorgore, or a healer. This is why the healers were all dying first. Not that we mind - that's our job - but it's the old "We die, you die" concept that causes trouble there. When the first 10 deaths in the raid are all Priests and Druids, that's telling you something.

In healerchat, we eventually made it our goal to keep the Druids up for phase 2, offering us Priests up as bait. Druids would avoid healing until I signalled that the Priests were all down. Due to the Priests' superior aggro control, we could cycle our fades and psychic screams to keep all mobs off us - something that Druids can't do. Besides, if we had 4 or 5 Druids standing for phase 2, we figured that they could keep the tanks up with their awesome single-target heals, and maybe combat res some Priests to boot.

In theory, it should work flawlessly. Unfortunately, the massive lag we had that night nixed that plan. Every time I died, it was due to lag - my inability to see I was being attacked until 2-3 seconds AFTER I was actually being hit, and then an additional 2-3 seconds to get off my "instant cast" scream or fade spell. In that time, I'd be on the floor as a spectator. The Priest players were a little frustrated by this - healing can be a real twitch game at times and you can't play well when an instant cast spell takes 2 or 3 seconds to cast. Thursday night will hopefully be better in that regard.

After our last run, a few DPS players suggested that the Priests and Druids simply not heal at all in phase 1. This gets me a little nervous. I understand the thinking, but it's fairly common that DPS players don't notice how much healing they get in fights. Especially for mages and warlocks, who have no solid way to get out of a jam, we were throwing a lot of heals around to keep people vertical - far more than simple bandages would have covered. There's two ways of addressing this:

1) Have more Paladins along for Thursday, and use their low-aggro heals in phase 1 to keep the DPS alive. Druids can sleep and do a little DPS, saving their mana, and Priests can Mind Control/Scream any legionnaires that make their way into the DPS crowd.

2) All DPS players must watch their aggro carefully and only go after DPS calls. Those who don't will die right away and we'll get to see **very** clearly who's been naughty without a healer around to transfer their aggro off them by healing. Think of it this way, DPS'ers - if you get aggro, you're basically murdering a healer.

Also, all DPS players must use bandages when they get hit.

So I'm all for having Priests/Druids not heal in phase 1, but if it ends disastrously on our first tries of that, I want to go back to what we were trying on Monday - hopefully in a less lagged environment. I can be a pretty effective kiter when I'm not lagged, using my fades and screams at just the right moment to buy people more time. But not in that lag.

Other healing notes:

It's clear that our kiting warriors are so well geared and so good at their jobs that they need very minimal healing. Even a dedicated Paladin might be overkill, but we do need SOMEONE looking after them. I'm considering that if we want to use Paladins as phase 1 DPS healers, that can free up a Druid or Priest to be the kite warrior healer, just for some heal over time spells. If we're going to have our Priests and Druids wait for phase 2 anyhow, let's free up a critical Paladin for DPS healing and put the Druids/Priests back on low-aggro kite heal maintenance.

-Bolty

[KiloVictor]

Last night we knocked out all the eggs, and had Razorgore down to 41% health before wiping, mostly because we didn't know what to expect from Phase 2.  Next time, we'll be ready.

Yay, progress! Congrats!

The Razorgore encounter involves lots of aggro control. Aggro on the orb controller, aggro on the kiting warriors (you guys were awesome last night), and aggro on the healers.
[right][snapback]96899[/snapback][/right]

It sounds like you guys are well on the way, and you probably don't need to switch strats at this point, but if your kiting isn't rock-solid and keeping the mobs off your healers, you might want to consider changing the classes that do the kiting. We found that warriors kiting worked OK as long as everything went perfectly, but when things went wrong they would often go way wrong, fast.

We found that warriors were well suited to surviving the beating from the melee, but didn't have enough tools to generate a lot of hate quickly against multiple melee mobs without needing a bunch of healing. The more mobs they have to work on, the more healing they need, and the harder it gets... so when things start to come off the rails, it's a self-amplifying problem that spirals out of control quickly.

So we built our strategy around picking kiters that have the ability to aggro multiple mobs at a time, hitting for solid damage to get above heal aggro quickly, ideally from range and with a snare effect. And we found that a nimble squishy can be a pretty damn effective kiter. We've dropped warriors as kiters now, and our two designated squishies can round up all the melee into a single pack more effectively than we ever did with other strats.

NB: We're playing Horde, so we do have earthbind totems helping us out, but I don't think they're key. They're really more of a crutch at this point.

Anyhow, just thought I'd post an alternative that works for us. You guys sound like you're well on the way without it. :)

Good luck with Vael! :D

~Kv

[Trien]

Re: "Warriors" kiting...

What we basically found when we were learning this encounter was that it eventually became the priests kiting, since after a certain time, heal agro got to the point where the mobs were after the priests and not the warriors. So we assigned each priest a warrior to stick with, had them run together and kite, with the warrior keeping piercing howl on the mobs to keep them slowed down (alliance side). So it became more of a dual kiting trick, with the priest using their instant skills to keep the warrior alive through the cleaves/etc. which happen, while staying ahead of the pack. I'm not sure how often the priests were fading to keep their agro down, but I know it's doable as a druid throwing rejuvs on the warrior once when we were down some priests... just have to stay well ahead of the pack (and be wary of latency effects).

Druids chain sleep dragonkin and pretty much forbidden from healing. Warlocks chain fear dragonkin. We haven't had a lot of luck with hunters kiting dragonkin... use Razorgore's sleep on the dragonkin that cause too much trouble.

DPS classes take out the mages. Stray heals for stray cleaves... paladins take care of those.

[Bolty]

Update on the Avarice Alliance progress, and thread revival:

After our heady victory over Razorgore around two weeks ago, we have failed to take him down again. Two nights of unending wipes are forcing us to re-examine our strategy.

Here's what we're currently doing, and what we used during our one and only successful attempt:

Two warriors kite the mobs around the room. Generally, a warrior is the orb controller, switching off with another warrior, paladin, what have you. Priests are the sacrificial lambs and play aggro bounce games, fading, psychic screaming, and running for their lives in phase 1. The goal being to keep the druids and paladins alive for phase 2. Druids sleep Dragonkin and help out on DPS.

What goes wrong: it's so random. The margin for error is just nonexistent, which is the problem. Last night we did have one run with a fairly clean move to phase 2, and lost because the healers couldn't keep one of the two Razorgore tanks up (a real shame, we would have won). But still, that was one clean move to phase 2 out of the last 10-15 attempts.

Couple of things I noted:

1) Holy Nova is out. It should not be used - as Treesh noted, it breaks the crowd control we have in place on the Dragonkin. This is a real shame, since it's a no-aggro heal, and the whole problem of this encounter is aggro.

2) A maximum of 12 Dragonkin will be in the room at any one time. We have GOT to find a way to crowd control *all 12* of these. Strategies I read online mention having the druids keeping them hibernated, while warlocks chain fear them throughout all of phase 1. Our problem is: we don't have enough warlocks and druids. We'd need 12 total. We're way short on warlocks! Even still, we need our warlocks to chain fear a dragonkin in phase 1, and make that their sole duty.

Why is it important to keep the Dragonkin controlled? For starters, I noticed they move pretty quick. It was hard for me to get away from them once they came for me. Secondly, our kiting warriors noted that they kept getting dazed by the Dragonkin.

We need to get it so only the Legionnaires are active and moving around the room after our kiters and healers.

3) Randomness. Best quote of the night was from Treesh, who was playing the priest Aleri: "the less I heal, the more aggro I get." Aggro is so WONKY in phase 1. I've had runs where I'm throwing flash heals around like a maniac and I'll still go a full minute before getting aggro and starting my kiting maneuvers. Other times, I'll have a renew up on one player and have two Legionnaires going for me.

It all has to do with the timing of the heals - as mobs run out of the walls, they see a heal going on someone and then take off after you. This randomness makes things so very difficult.

4) Chaining. I see it happening almost every run. CTRA will give me the signal that I have aggro. No problem. I move around, buy a little time, and as the mob comes close to me I fade out. That mob moves to another priest, who does the same, along with another mob they have. Then the next priest. And the next.

What happens is that one mob I had turns into a roaming death squad in short order. Every mob a priest picks up joins this squad as they move from healer to healer. On a run where I'm the "lucky" last priest standing, I see this in full force, as the squad of 6 to 10 members come for me. You can only last so long, especially once the force grows over 5 members, since Psychic Scream only fears a maximum of five targets.

Strategies:

I've been thinking of alternative ways we could run this encounter. Here are some ideas:

A) Four corner modification: we branch out our DPS and tanks to the four corners. Healers stand in a fairly tight group in the middle of the room, in range of these corners. As healing aggro is built up, the Priests protect each other with fear bombs in rotation - a "circle the wagons" approach. Kiters continue to do their thing, and all DPS concentrate on wasting mages the moment they appear. Liberal crowd control whenever possible - lots of sheep, lots of sleep, lots of fear, nonstop.

What's good: this could probably protect the healers better.
What's bad: it doesn't matter how much armor you have; those Legionnaires HURT. Trying to actually tank a few in each corner will only lead to the death of our warriors - I saw this firsthand in our original corner-based attempts. Even if the warrior lives through the tanking, the amount of healing required to keep them alive means our Priests will see a lot of aggro, possibly more than could keep them vertical even with consistent psychic screaming. I wouldn't mind giving this a shot, though. The idea intrigues me. :)

B) No more warriors as kiters: leave the kiting to other classes. Perhaps it's time to see what our mages are made of - take our best, most nible, most fleet-of-keyboarding mages and have them use Arcane Explosion to gain aggro, Ice Armor to slow anyone who hits them, Blizzard to slow others more, blink to dash away, etc, to form the kiting trains. Mages with PvP experience would be best suited for this, since they're used to the quick-action gameplay. Warriors still are the controllers, and can assist with grabbing aggro on the stray mobs that come for our oh-so-squishy priests (since we'll have extras now that they're not kiting).

What's good: it's my favorite new strategy to try, and the one I think gives us the best shot. I'm sure some mage players would be itching to have a go at this challenge. If the Priests are made aware of who our two kiting mages will be, they can focus on them and keep the shields and heals up on them at all times - in fact, we'd have Priests dedicated to doing just that. Since more warriors are freed up, they can help chase down those mobs that are wiping out our priests and fling Intimidating Shouts and aggro gains on them. Survival rate of healers might soar.
What's bad: it would be difficult to keep Dragonkin sleeping if the mages are running around the room blasting with Arcane Explosion/Blizzard. However, since this is the Druid's primary job for phase 1, they'd just have to be ready to re-apply sleep whenever their Dragonkin gets woken up. Margin for error on the mages is just nonexistent; if one of them lags, misses a step, or blinks the wrong way, they're dead in a heartbeat and all the healing in the world won't save them. Of course, the same is usually true for the warriors, too, once those trains grow to 10 or more.

C) Priests stay with warriors: the priests jog around in place with the kiting warriors and only use Renews and Shields for healing other players, since these are the two instant-cast heals all Priests have. As priests get aggro, the kiting warriors wind up picking those mobs up simply because the priest aggro trains join in with the warrior aggro trains.

The good: high protection ratio for priests. Can renews and shields do the job? Mana isn't really a concern in this fight; aggro is, so it's not like the poor-efficiency Shields are a problem. I've never run out of mana in this encounter, except for our one successful try when we lasted the whole time, and even then plenty of other healers had mana to spare. Remember, our Druids and Paladins are generally saving their mana for phase 2.
The bad: priests won't be able to use flash heal, so death rate for DPS will probably rise. Rogues will likely not survive phase 1 - they're the ones who require the flash heals the most, from my experience. Also, it's extremely difficult for the priests to stay with their kiting warriors because it's so hard to predict their exact movements. Lag behind the kiting warrior by even a second and you're likely to get cleaved to smithereens. It may prove just too difficult, even with lots of practice and knowing the exact kiting path each warrior will take. I'd still love to try it, though. Making kiting group 1 a warrior and 3-4 priests, kiting group 2 a warrior and 3-4 priests (so that the priests can easily see on the minimap where their warrior is), and go to town...


I'd love to try all three of these strategies and see how they work out. I figure anything's better than what we've been doing lately, since a success rate of 1 out of 20 obviously isn't going to cut it. Sure, we were close last night, but we have to reduce our margin for error if we ever want to reliably just walk in and farm this prick like we do Molten Core. On paper, our current strategy should work, but we all know how TheoryCraft goes.

Also, if you know of another strategy, do tell. If the strategy involves a Shaman doing something, please keep in mind that we don't have any, and yes, Earthbind totems make a HUGE difference in this encounter. The margin for error is far, far larger when every mob in the room is slowed down to walking speed, allowing all your players (especially healers) to just run away from them with ease. I'm not complaining about "easy mode," I just don't want to hear from Horde players that "this really isn't that hard," etc. :) Try running it without the earthbinds or frostshocks (FROSTSHOCK!!!!!) sometime.

-Bolty

[sosostress]

I snipped this from the CA boards. It's my reply to your post there:

C) Priests stay with warriors: the priests jog around in place with the kiting warriors and only use Renews and Shields for healing other players, since these are the two instant-cast heals all Priests have. As priests get aggro, the kiting warriors wind up picking those mobs up simply because the priest aggro trains join in with the warrior aggro trains.

I had an extended talk with some <Critical Mass> folks. They do a similar thing to what we do in terms of mob kiting, however they have a slightly different philosophy. The point that you raise here sounds like their strategy.

First off, they use 3-5 warriors for kiting. Warriors spam Dem. Shout and Piercing Howl as they run around in a circle. As the kiting warriors get healed, the priests eventually become kiters as well because of heal aggro, so the warriors eventually become the buffer for the kiting priests.

In the end, what they said was as long as you have 2 MT's to swap Razorgore aggro and a plethora of healers, you're golden. Having DPS stay alive will speed up the fight. They also emphasized that stationary priests are dead priests.

[Kevin]

I snipped this from the CA boards.&nbsp; It's my reply to your post there:
I had an extended talk with some <Critical Mass> folks.&nbsp; They do a similar thing to what we do in terms of mob kiting, however they have a slightly different philosophy.&nbsp; The point that you raise here sounds like their strategy.

First off, they use 3-5 warriors for kiting.&nbsp; Warriors spam Dem. Shout and Piercing Howl as they run around in a circle.&nbsp; As the kiting warriors get healed, the priests eventually become kiters as well because of heal aggro, so the warriors eventually become the buffer for the kiting priests.

In the end, what they said was as long as you have 2 MT's to swap Razorgore aggro and a plethora of healers, you're golden.&nbsp; Having DPS stay alive will speed up the fight. They also emphasized that stationary priests are dead priests.
[right][snapback]98575[/snapback][/right]

I'm willing to go with more kiters. I'm the one who was putting more objection to it last night as the times I've kited if I somehow crossed paths with another kiter and wasn't careful I ended up getting hit by mobs in their pack. Or so I thought. Maybe I wasn't seeing what I thought I saw maybe that was a new spawn mob that wasn't focused on anyone yet that was hitting me. I was just terrified of jumping down onto a pack that was regrouping after another warrior.

So next time for the first thing we do, let's try having more warriors kite and have the priests be ready to run with them too. This might get holy nova back into play a little bit as well since that more mobile priest might have a few chances to use it as they may end up in a spot where there are no CC'd mobs but some of the people in their group are near by. As you mentioned the horrible efficiecy of it won't matter, it will just add one more minor bit of healing for a kiter or maybe someone else.

The priests might even be able to stop and flash too. If you are near a kiter what is your train may very likely become theirs as well. Bloodrage is 335 hate on each mob, dem shout is 175, Piercing Howl I can't find the number for but is 80 or so iirc. Bloodrage will only put hate on the mobs focused on the warrior though. But I know that if I got something in my train (with one weird exception last night) I didn't lose mobs in my train. If a priest running by a kiter hadn't pulled a lot of aggro (just a tick or two of renew say) that mob will very likely be the warriors soon with the rate of dem shout usage. Or at least I don't see how I could have a train of 10+ and be losing them to heal aggro when things are still spawning in. Again maybe my observations are wrong.

So we could even start more like we do but have some of the free warriors just be ready to get aggro of things that are loose in the middle and start running with them. More kiters up the margin of error for the warriors too as they should (but might not) have less mobs on them too. More kiters means a higher chance of a kiter being the first thing the mob latches onto as well as they hopefully be spaced out better. I still prefer a shorter kite path but the other warriors seem to prefer using the whole room. With more kiters I'm not so sure that we can't have both. Kiting is nearly as much an art as it is a science. You have to be fluid on your pathing. I know on another attempt last week where we had a relatively smooth phase one Skybreak and I each ended changing the direction we ran the room a couple of times because of how the mobs got spaced on us.

I personally think everyone should enchant a pair of boots with minor speed. 8% run speed all around will help more in this fight than pretty much anything. Rogues will track down mages faster, priest will be able to get a bit more distance if they need it. Kiting warriors will improve their margin of error. Most people want this enchant for PvP anyway. The one time we won we had the hakkar buff for most of the successful phase one (it went down with like 3 eggs to go). That buff is the margin of error buff with 10% run speed and a boost to all stats so everyone has more life.

We also need to pay more attention of keeping a PW:S on the orb controller. I know that I had said we weren't needing it on a previous run, but last night was a time where things were random with that again and I was getting many more stray cleaves hitting me, many more stray explosions from mages. We need to go back to doing that as going from a full controller bar to the bar being nearly empty sucks and can make it so that I can't control at all again for some time.

I was using Razor to sleep dragonkin when I could, it's a little tricky but it keeps those guys CC'd some more. I just can't garuntee that I'm hitting a dragonkin that a druid isn't. Breaking the eggs in the middle and leaving the platform stuff for later seems to be a better way to go too. Mobs that come for Razor are closer to the kiting paths then so I'll keep that up. Egg break order isn't all that important as long as you still break the max eggs per control to keep phase 1 as short as possible.

Our healers are better aware of how much the conflag bait warrior moves under conflag as well so that should fix the biggest phase 2 issue we had. Don't start at 40 yards, start at 30 or so because I can and have moved more than 10 yards in one direction. Everyone needs to be aware of that too as the conflag bait may end up in a spot that flips razor around when I come out of it and I could be standing so that his conflag cone will hit you. Be mobile. Be ready to run the hell away from me. Sometimes I have 5 seconds after a conflag before the next one hits, sometimes I have no time at all. I keep trying to move to help try and force the camera to stay with me but sometimes I still come out of the conflag disoriented a bit and it can take a second or two to try and get back to the good position. If anyone else gets conflagged it's likely we don't have the healing to keep them up. Razor does good physical damage and conflag will chew like 5K HP (before any potential resist of the damage and in the 250-305 resist range I was happy to resist 1/4 of the pulse damage, conflag seems to be harder to resist than the lava, which you can generally resist about 1/4 of the damage from at 250 or so resistance) so you won't live without healing in most case.

[Bolty]

I'm willing to go with more kiters.&nbsp; I'm the one who was putting more objection to it last night as the times I've kited if I somehow crossed paths with another kiter and wasn't careful I ended up getting hit by mobs in their pack.&nbsp; Or so I thought.&nbsp; Maybe I wasn't seeing what I thought I saw maybe that was a new spawn mob that wasn't focused on anyone yet that was hitting me.&nbsp; I was just terrified of jumping down onto a pack that was regrouping after another warrior.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

True - Theorycraft states that the mobs going for the other warrior shouldn't have swung at you. But it's very hard to figure out what's going on with 80+ PCs and NPCs in this small room sometimes.

One time I was trying being an OOC resser, and standing by the orb controller. A train of orcs ran by me and, for no reason I could see, put me into combat. Why? I have no idea to this day. I didn't see any cleaves, and I didn't take damage.

So next time for the first thing we do, let's try having more warriors kite and have the priests be ready to run with them too.&nbsp; This might get holy nova back into play a little bit as well since that more mobile priest might have a few chances to use it as they may end up in a spot where there are no CC'd mobs but some of the people in their group are near by.&nbsp; As you mentioned the horrible efficiecy of it won't matter, it will just add one more minor bit of healing for a kiter or maybe someone else.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

Agreed and agreed. It was Genkar who popped the idea in WhackAMole yesterday - why don't we have every tank in the raid go kite? Forgive my ignorance of Druids: can they Hibernate while in bear form? If so, we could potentially have 8-10 kiting tanks, right?

It comes down to this, really: who do we want to be our sacrificial lambs? Who's going to take the hit in phase 1?

Under the current system, it's our Priests who get creamed. Note: I don't mind this at all, if it's my job to die for the cause then so be it - all I care about is winning for the raid.

If we engage a lot more kiters, then we'll have fewer Priest deaths, but likely more tank deaths (Druids and Warriors). But let's consider a ratio: say we try this and it leads to one Warrior and two Druids dying in phase 1. Wouldn't that be a good tradeoff compared to what happened last night - a whopping seven Priests on our last run, and all seven dying less than 2 minutes in?

I don't know. If kiters start dying, the mobs they were kiting are going to go to one place - the healers. So the end result may wind up being the same, unless that healer really starts booking it. I know that once I see 5+ mobs coming for me, I simply stop healing (except for myself) and start kiting. Sure, I could fade, but that means they'd just go and plaster some other Priest instead. I can help the raid more by turning into a kiter.

I like the idea of having Druids waiting around by our squishies, seeing mobs coming in to kill them, and dropping to bear form to kite them away. We had six Druids on some runs last night - that's a lot of extra protection waiting to peel mobs away, and perhaps bring them to another kiter.

The priests might even be able to stop and flash too.&nbsp; If you are near a kiter what is your train may very likely become theirs as well.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

Only one catch. I know when I get aggro, because CTRA tells me so, and it's pretty obvious when the mobs are gunning for me. So, let's say Cleoboltra runs over to Gnolack screaming "My Gnomish Hero! Save me!" Gnolack bravely stands down the evil bad guys, and as we're running along together, manages to get their attention.

How does Cleoboltra know that, though? How can I know that the mobs have switched over to you? If I stop to flash heal and "test the waters," I could be taking a nap within a second. It will be difficult for me to tell that you've peeled away everything chasing me, and so I'll have to keep running with you, limiting myself to renews and shields. Which I don't mind - perhaps that's what we'll have to do.

Bloodrage is 335 hate on each mob, dem shout is 175, Piercing Howl I can't find the number for but is 80 or so iirc.&nbsp; Bloodrage will only put hate on the mobs focused on the warrior though.&nbsp; But I know that if I got something in my train (with one weird exception last night) I didn't lose mobs in my train.&nbsp; If a priest running by a kiter hadn't pulled a lot of aggro (just a tick or two of renew say) that mob will very likely be the warriors soon with the rate of dem shout usage.&nbsp; Or at least I don't see how I could have a train of 10+ and be losing them to heal aggro when things are still spawning in.&nbsp; Again maybe my observations are wrong.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

Your observations are spot on. Once Warriors have a mob, they keep it, as I've observed as well. The problem isn't Priests "peeling" mobs off the kiters via healing, it's the *new* mobs coming into the room. The ones that slip through the cracks, missed by both kiters because you guys can't be everywhere at once. This is where the suggestions for more kiters are coming from. More kiters, in a solid rotation around the room, increases the chance that the *new* mobs coming in are picked up by a kiter, and not a Priest. Once those mobs get on the Priests, they stay there. Priest A fades, so it moves to Priest B, who fades, so it moves to Priest C, and it's hellacious for a kiter to try to pick it up because it's going all over the room. Never mind that we're Screaming to send these guys flying - two kiters just aren't enough to pick all these wandering mobs up.

So we're in agreement to try having more kiters next time. I'd like to try also having the Druids waiting around to peel mobs off Priests, if they can still Hibernate while doing so (what's the casting time on Hibernate?). Let's use our Warlocks, also, as permanent fear chainers of Dragonkin.

We also need to pay more attention of keeping a PW:S on the orb controller.&nbsp; I know that I had said we weren't needing it on a previous run, but last night was a time where things were random with that again and I was getting many more stray cleaves hitting me, many more stray explosions from mages.&nbsp; We need to go back to doing that as going from a full controller bar to the bar being nearly empty sucks and can make it so that I can't control at all again for some time.[right][snapback]98581[/snapback][/right]

My apologies; if you had asked for that last night, I missed it. We'll go back to an assigned shielder for next time.

Any more consideration on using the Razorgore fireball strategy? Have Razor fireball the room, immediate drop the control, and basically have every mob in the room going for that one former controller while someone else grabs the orb? Imagine that train. :) At least, that's how I understand that aggro transfer works.

-Bolty

[nobbie]

Forgive my ignorance of Druids: can they Hibernate while in bear form? If so, we could potentially have 8-10 kiting tanks, right?

No, you have exactly one "off skill" available in Bear form and that is "Faerie Fire" for animal forms.

[Icebird]

On the issue of dealing with the Dragonkin? Doesn't Razorgore have a "lull" ability that puts up to 6 dragonkin asleep?

Haven't done the fight so don't know how feasible using that (or the flame volley aggro transfer) strategy is, but it might reduce the workload on your druids.

If you have a warlock specced for Curse of Exhaustion they could probably also kite an add (like most curses you don't have to be facing your enemy so you could run away and just spam it over the shoulder every 12-15 seconds).

Just tossing out ideas for you. I imagine its frustrating not being able to repeat the kill.

Chris

[Kevin]

True - Theorycraft states that the mobs going for the other warrior shouldn't have swung at you.&nbsp; But it's very hard to figure out what's going on with 80+ PCs and NPCs in this small room sometimes.

One time I was trying being an OOC resser, and standing by the orb controller.&nbsp; A train of orcs ran by me and, for no reason I could see, put me into combat.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; I have no idea to this day.&nbsp; I didn't see any cleaves, and I didn't take damage.
Agreed and agreed.&nbsp; It was Genkar who popped the idea in WhackAMole yesterday - why don't we have every tank in the raid go kite?&nbsp; Forgive my ignorance of Druids: can they Hibernate while in bear form?&nbsp; If so, we could potentially have 8-10 kiting tanks, right?

As mentioned you can't hibernate while a bear. So a bear becomes a warrior with demoralizing roar (dem shout) and a once every 3 minute 200 HP/s self heal, and if they are spec'd for it, feral fire (OK it's Faerie Fire (Feral) but saying Feral Fire makes it obvious which you are talking about) to get aggro with. They don't have shield wall or a once every ten minute fear, or Last Stand (if they are spec'd for it)

It comes down to this, really: who do we want to be our sacrificial lambs?&nbsp; Who's going to take the hit in phase 1?

Under the current system, it's our Priests who get creamed.&nbsp; Note: I don't mind this at all, if it's my job to die for the cause then so be it - all I care about is winning for the raid.

No disagreement. We have too much random chance in our current system. When the other side zergs you (PvP or PvE) you'll probably lose a few healers. That is what we are doing in this encounter dealing with a zerg. :)

If we engage a lot more kiters, then we'll have fewer Priest deaths, but likely more tank deaths (Druids and Warriors).&nbsp; But let's consider a ratio: say we try this and it leads to one Warrior and two Druids dying in phase 1.&nbsp; Wouldn't that be a good tradeoff compared to what happened last night - a whopping seven Priests on our last run, and all seven dying less than 2 minutes in?

I don't know.&nbsp; If kiters start dying, the mobs they were kiting are going to go to one place - the healers.&nbsp; So the end result may wind up being the same, unless that healer really starts booking it.&nbsp; I know that once I see 5+ mobs coming for me, I simply stop healing (except for myself) and start kiting.&nbsp; Sure, I could fade, but that means they'd just go and plaster some other Priest instead.&nbsp; I can help the raid more by turning into a kiter.

I like the idea of more kiters too. Now that other discussions showed that my observerations were probably wrong about what was hitting me. If nothing else it should give a larger margin of error and keep even more people alive.

Only one catch.&nbsp; I know when I get aggro, because CTRA tells me so, and it's pretty obvious when the mobs are gunning for me.&nbsp; So, let's say Cleoboltra runs over to Gnolack screaming "My Gnomish Hero!&nbsp; Save me!"&nbsp; Gnolack bravely stands down the evil bad guys, and as we're running along together, manages to get their attention.

How does Cleoboltra know that, though?&nbsp; How can I know that the mobs have switched over to you?&nbsp; If I stop to flash heal and "test the waters," I could be taking a nap within a second.&nbsp; It will be difficult for me to tell that you've peeled away everything chasing me, and so I'll have to keep running with you, limiting myself to renews and shields.&nbsp; Which I don't mind - perhaps that's what we'll have to do.

Use fade before you heal. You might still not know if a mob is chasing you but you shouldn't have any of them on you for the heal. Throw a couple of heals out, if things come back, pick up with another warrior who should be coming along soon. I don't know if that will work but it seems like a good use of pre fading which is not something I'm a big fan of.


On PW:S. I don't know if I asked for it until it was too late last night or not. It wasn't an real issue until later runs. It is also something that may not be hard to deal with more kiting happening and priests running with them. Any priest with improved PW:S hits the controller on the run as they go by if there isn't one up. This is if you don't want a more "stationary" priest.

[Kevin]

On the issue of dealing with the Dragonkin? Doesn't Razorgore have a "lull" ability that puts up to 6 dragonkin asleep?

Haven't done the fight so don't know how feasible using that (or the flame volley aggro transfer) strategy is, but it might reduce the workload on your druids.

If you have a warlock specced for Curse of Exhaustion they could probably also kite an add (like most curses you don't have to be facing your enemy so you could run away and just spam it over the shoulder every 12-15 seconds).

Just tossing out ideas for you. I imagine its frustrating not being able to repeat the kill.

Chris
[right][snapback]98604[/snapback][/right]

I do uses Razors sleep whenever I can, but the dragonkin has to be in range (and they and Razor are mobile for much of the fight) and you want to break the eggs as fast as possible so you need to make sure that if you stop to cast this you can get close enough to another egg to cast the egg breaker as soon as it comes out of cooldown as well. I don't count razor as reliable for more than one or two dragonkin, at least not when I'm controlling him.


The fireball volley will get you aggro and you can do it so that you start kiting thing, but you will be kiting everything after you do it. So if you mess up you are dead. and now you have all the mobs in a pack for a bit with various levels of aggro on everyone else. It's an emergency tactic only in my mind. If you need 5-10 seconds more to get the last eggs down or to try and recover something and have a back-up controller ready to go, do it and go. But any slip at all you are back to 40 loose mobs again.

[castille]

Priests: At least one priest per corner assigned to mind controlling legionaires, hitting something with them and releasing the mind control. This causes the MCed legionaire to despawn. Also helps out with healing on kiters, and some healing on the groups. Healing over time spells are preferred, to cause less aggro.

SEE?! I told you to let me MC! HAH!

*struts around*

And with my Shadow Resist, and +% chance to hit, I have a VERY small chance of them breaking early ;)

[Icebird]

I'm sure our guild is going to have its own rude awakenings when we start trying Razorgore. The flame volley aggro transfer strat doens't really appeal to me because it sounds complicated - and the fight already sounds complicated without making it more so.

I figure its a bit like fighting Majordomo - you start with the most straight forward approach (eg the elite-healers-remaining elites strat) then as you master that strat and become more familiar with the encounter you can start ramping up the complexity.

Chris

[Treesh]

Couple of things I noted:

1) Holy Nova is out.&nbsp; It should not be used - as Treesh noted, it breaks the crowd control we have in place on the Dragonkin.&nbsp; This is a real shame, since it's a no-aggro heal, and the whole problem of this encounter is aggro.
[right][snapback]98572[/snapback][/right]

Absolutely not what I said last night. It should be used, but not in the role that I was in last night. It is better for a priest who is healing a kiter rather than someone in the thick of the battle. The hunters in the group I was placed in took very, very little damage ever so it would have been easy to use holy nova to heal them. However, they were also right by a lot of the slept dragonkin. When I use it to heal both those doing DPS and the kiting warrior, usually there are not as many slept dragonkin around and I place myself between the kiting warrior and the rest of my party. I hit it when the kiting warrior is close enough and there isn't CC directly around me. Most of the time, it heals me, the kiter, and at least one other person in the group (frequently the pally in the group) and since I can hit those three people, it's not nearly as mana inefficient as naysayers try to have you believe. If I hit three targets for the minimum heal, with Aleri's gear and spec, it's a 2.41 health per mana point, which is better than flash heal. Having me stuck in the middle where there is a much higher chance of me being close to a lot of CC mobs is a bad place to be for holy nova. It was great to use as a healer of a kiting warrior and definitely was not the mana drain that someone over teamspeak was claiming it would be. On our killing of Razorgore, I still had about 3/4 of my mana bar full at the end of phase one by using holy nova and renews as my primary source of healing on the kiters, with the occasional flash heal thrown in here and there.

[Kevin]

SEE?! I told you to let me MC! HAH!

*struts around*

And with my Shadow Resist, and +% chance to hit, I have a VERY small chance of them breaking early ;)
[right][snapback]98624[/snapback][/right]

This only works if the max number of mobs is in the room. Becuase the one you MC gets replaced since it no longer counts as an enemy but as your pet. If you MC before all the mobs are in the room that mob will come after you.

Since we don't want to get rid of legos when we have all the mobs in the room what you should MC is a mage smack something and hope a lego comes in to replace it.

[LavCat]

Last night the Avarice Alliance ran a few attempts against Razorgore. With each attempt, we got closer to eliminating the eggs in the chamber and surviving phase 1. The record was 9 eggs left before 10:00 PM rolled around and people had to go.

I'm going to start this thread with my observations and ideas based only on what I saw. I didn't get to see every facet of every fight, of course, so input is needed.
...
-Bolty

We are just getting to BWL now. Any thoughts or observations more recent than this thread? Any help or advice would be most welcome.

Thanks!

[Sir_Die_alot]

We are just getting to BWL now. Any thoughts or observations more recent than this thread? Any help or advice would be most welcome.

Thanks!

My guild kites with hunters, mages and select shaman.

Nobody but priests heal, and only with holy nova, this includes bandaids since the room is very touchy with aggro.

We use the same warrior on the MC. This builds a HUGE amount of aggro, and this warrior is the MT. When this warrior is not conflaged people can go all out DPS because the MC aggro > all else the whole fight

Druids sleep a dragonkin until a hunter picks it up (only hunters kite the dragonkin)

rogues warriors warlocks and the rest of our shaman are grouped wtih a prest at each corner to DPS mobs as they come out. Originally we killed only mages, but we are slowly moving tward killing all (right now we kill melee until it starts to look out of control at which point its called to stop killing melee).

I probably forgot some stuff this is a complicated fight and the first few times is just chaos.

Edit: Mirajj reminded me that at the last i belive 3-4 eggs we use razorgore's AOE fire attack to releave the kiters of some pressure in those last critical seconds. It also helps with CCed mobs the dumber members of the raid forgot about un crowd controling.

[Mirajj]

We are just getting to BWL now. Any thoughts or observations more recent than this thread? Any help or advice would be most welcome.

Thanks!

Well, I don't recognize any of your SR toons, so I'm assuming here you mean how can Horde do this? Well, from what I heard, Earthbind Totem is a godsend here, slowing everything down. Set up a shaman circle, and keep those totems earthbinding.

We've found that having the MT as the controller with a pally for FR aura/auxiliary controlling works very nicely. Perhaps a fire resist totem wielding shaman would fit nicely in, as well as providing a good earthbind spot for the ramp/platform training. I don't know if you can use an Earthbind and FR totem at the same time though. If you can't, Earthbind is probably the most useful until phase 2, where the FR one is handy.

You don't have to be on the platform to control the device. Standing 'under' it on the main level works just as well, and keeps you out of a nice chunk of the kite path.

You want a 'corner gank squad'. Normally, this will consist of a rogue, a mage, and a hunter. The rogue is the DPS caller, and the mage/hunter help to burn down any mages that spawn. If you get a double spawn, you have two forms of CC, depending on who's faster, the mage or the hunter (if they are Scattershot specced). These corner groups (We usually have 5 in a corner, but the three classes mentioned above are considered critical) jobs is to stand around and just own mage spawns on their corner. A center DPS group consisting of a rogue/hunter or rogue/mage (depending on raid makeup, even a mage/hunter would work) is also assigned. These two help out with runaway mages. They need to be flexible, mobile, raid aware players, as it's not uncommon to have them running back and forth all the time.

Druids are mobile CC machines. They sleep every dragonkin they see, and help to keep stuff off the priests.

At some point in time (40 spawned mobs, but go ahead and try to count them..and keep track of them =P ) spawns will stop. You will have a room full of kiting/training people. At that point, everyone who's not directly involved in controlling the Orb kites, or pulls mobs off kiters in danger (IE:Priests). The key thing to press home about this fight is that in phase one, EVERYONE is very likely to end up kiting for a while. The only two exceptions are the Orb Controllers, who should have someone keeping a general eye on them, just in case a mob gets too curious about them. Depending on how fast your DPS is compared to your controllers, you will usually reach a "full spawn" room around the 8-10 eggs left mark.

When you have 2-3 eggs left, and the controller is on the last MC, the raid clears the room to the wall with the gate/hallway you came in on. This leaves the center clear, and gives Razorgore a clear path to the MT, who's built up a goodly bit of aggro through the MC.

Razor is a standard conflagration tank and spank. Have an OT around to either soak up the conflag, or pick up Razor if the MT eats a conflag, and burn him down.

[Tal]

Well, I don't recognize any of your SR toons, so I'm assuming here you mean how can Horde do this? Well, from what I heard, Earthbind Totem is a godsend here, slowing everything down. Set up a shaman circle, and keep those totems earthbinding.

Lav is Alliance on SR.