Onyxia Postmortem

[mjdoom]

Hello all,

Just wanted to share a few quick thoughts I had about last night. I'm not sure that it should go here or in the crossroads; move it if you see fit.

Phase one

Our biggest problem of the night seemed to be in Main Tank positioning. This is to be expected in my mind as there is no way to practice this other than a trial by fire smacking the big dragon on the nose. With time we will get that down (we got it on the 4th attempt) and then we can concentrate more on other things. That said, everyone should constantly be aware of Onyxia's positioning. If she turns slightly don't just stand still and get hit by a flame breath or a dragon tail; move yourself to a position to the left or right of Onyxia and you will take no damage. I don't see any reason why you can't adjust to the opposite side of the dragon if necessary even. During phase one you should never take more damage than you can bandage back yourself if you are smart about it. Even standing up on the ledges has little to no benefit in stage one; move around if you have to to live! Also note that melee characters can hit Onyxia from far away. You do not have to walk right up to her to smack her.

That's it for stage one. Once MT position is set it is pretty easy. I have a phase three suggestion that could also be applied to phase one but I will discuss that a bit later.

Phase two

Everyone say it with me: Clumping causing Deep Breath is a myth!!! I have a theory that Deep Breath is actually a timered ability that goes off after a certain period of time. The calls to keep up dps on Onyxia are designed to get through Phase two faster so that this timer never goes off. Having a smaller raid disadvantages us slightly in this regard. This means that everyone must maintain max dps during Phase two. With the exception of whelp killing everyone should be doing their best to damage the dragon during phase two. Here's the idea:

Hunters: Keep her in range and keep plinking away and feel free to use special shots (I believe). You are our easy main dps for this segment due to range issues.

Mages: When not combating whelps fire frost bolts on the dragon regularly. If you are in a whelp handling group make sure to save some mana to be ready for when they come out, possibly by using your wand on the big dragon. This may be a good stage to use your Evocation to keep going.

Warlocks: Make sure CoS and CoE are up at all times (coordinate which 'lock is doing which). You will combine with priests to attempt to keep a full suite of DoTs up on Onyxia at all times.

Rogues/Warriors: Yes, you can hit that big flying oaf. The trick is that you must use special attacks. This means things like Sinister Strikes for rogues or Heroic Strike for warriors. You can also use bows or guns if you like. The Main Tank should be aware of attempting to rebuild aggro at around 43% in preparation for Onyxia landing, Anger Management is your friend here.

Priests: If you are not healing a whelp group then you should always have SW:P up. If you are healing a whelp group then you should always have SW:P up; just make sure that your whelp killers are alive first. As Onyxia approaches 45% look to start regening mana in anticipation of Phase Three but do not completely abandon dps. Wands can also be useful

Druids: Throughout the whole battle you are watching out for chances to battle rez. This doesn't change in Phase Two. You can also cast a few spells to keep damage up. Just like priests look to start regening mana around 45%.

Paladins: I'm really not certain if you have an easy way to damage the dragon. Feel free to throw BoP and a few extra heals at whelp groups. These can both be life savers for the primary IAE mage. Always be ready with Divine Intervention if necessary.

Also, even though clumping does not cause Deep Breath, excessive clumping can lead to lots of splash damage from Onyxia's fireballs. Always try to stay in range of the dragon to do damage but don't stand in one big pile. This is very important: IF YOU ARE A REZZER and you find yourself out of combat (battle rez, DI) make sure to stand at range from targets while rezzing. This greatly lessens the chance of getting hit by a fireball or splash damage which will interrupt your rez and put you back into combat. For those that get rezzed during this stage please move away from the rezzer immediately after coming back to life. It should also go without saying that these rezzers should stay clear of the whelp pits to reduce the chance of a whelp aggroing them.

Also note that you should never expect a heal during this phase unless you are in a whelp group. If you get hit by a fireball back away from the pack and bandage yourself, then rejoin the battle. Everyone should have plenty of heavy runecloth bandages on them which will help you heal back up. The healers will generally need their mana elsewhere. DO NOT stand around at half life expecting a heal. This is just asking to get wiped out by the next fireball. If you are still recently bandaged then you can try gently poking a healer for a heal if you feel it is necessary.

There should be one person designated for each whelp group to call out whelp waves on TeamSpeak. As a healer I can say that it is a billion times easier to keep a whelp group alive if I can anticipate it a half second early instead of having to wait to see health bars darting downward. This can easily be the difference between a mage living and dying. As another point with whelp groups; this stage is the time for every warrior to burn his/her challenging shout. There is no other time in the battle where it will be useful so you might as well use it here to take some of the pressure off of the IAE mage and healer. Just coordinate which warrior is going to shout when so that they do not go to waste. With 4 warriors we should be able to get a shout off on virtually every whelp group before we hit Phase Three.

During Phase Two aggro does not matter! Just whale on the dragon with all you've got and force her big rear end back down to the ground. As she goes to land aggro matters again and at this point mages should all cast Detect Magic on her in order to wipe all DoTs off of Onyxia so that we can allow the MT to rebuild some aggro.

Phase Three

Now the fun begins. I do not have as much experience with Phase Three so my comments will be a bit more general. Phase Three is much like Phase One, but with fear and lava. The lava impact can be minimized; the fear just has to be dealt with. If you can get up on to one of the ledges in the NW or NE corner of the lair you can completely avoid the lava cracks on the floor. I have found that the most reliable way to get up there is to start at the north end of the ledge and jump up to it while jumping in a southerly direction (SW or SE depending on side). You can test this out during the beginning of Phase One pretty easily. Fear simply needs to be dealt with. I have read that walking backwards helps to minimize the impact of fear but I can say from experience that being feared while on the ledge will not knock you off. Just be ready to quickly reengage in healing or damage when the fear wears off.

Healers note that Onyxia increases her damage when she gets down to 5% life. There is no trick to this; just continue to spam quick heals (flash heal for priests; I don't know druid or pally healing as well) in an attempt to keep the MT up.

General Comment

This could apply to Phase One and/or Phase Three. We had an instance of our MT going down at one point last night and the ensuing chaos took us all down. My proposal is this: We designate a backup tank from the start. This person will start attacking Onyxia long before the remainder of the group in Phase One and Phase Three. They will stick to standard autoattack in order to minimize any chance of them pulling aggro off of the MT but this should allow them to reliably stay second on the hate chart. That way if the MT goes down for some reason all of the healers know who to switch to and keep the new tank up. Warriors can not match the standard dps of some other classes if they open fire simultaneously (mages especially come to mind as they have no way to shed aggro). This person can start attacking about a minute into the fight and roughly two minutes before anyone else (following the timing we used last night). They will position themselves to the side of Onyxia so that they should not be taking any damage (and thus not taxing the healers). Ideally the MT will not go down; but this seems to be a reasonable safety valve with no downside (and it will even help us damage her faster). The fact that the MT is using special skills and already has a head start means that the backup tank should never overtake him on the aggro chart. It would also be preferrable that each of these tanks has the same level of defiance talents so that that will not be a confounding factor.

I think that is all that I have for now. I would appreciate if everyone reads through this and makes any comments (things I missed; places where I'm wrong, etc.) so that we might be able to transform this into a document to help everyone prepare. Minor details like which side people stand on can be taken care of at raid time but I think it is very helpful to have an idea what to do ahead of time. I'm hoping that this post can serve that purpose.

- mjdoom

Edit: Added bandaging in Phase Two.

[NotSoDarklord]

Fear simply needs to be dealt with. I have read that walking backwards helps to minimize the impact of fear but I can say from experience that being feared while on the ledge will not knock you off.


For the rogues/warriors: Ground shakes before onyxia fears, simply start running and try to not be on top of a crack when the fear goes off. Effect? Feared in place and if youi're not on a crack you (most of the time) take no damage.

[TheDragoon]

Good write-up. I have just one addition to the Phase 2 tactics:

When you initially enter Phase 2, I've found that a greater number of whelps leave the egg area than at any other time during Phase 2 (assuming no one runs in and hatches them all). This makes the transition to Phase 2 the hardest part of Phase 2, assuming you can avoid deep breaths and chain fireballs.

Therefore, I think the healers should do as follows:

1. When Onyxia initially turns around and heads south, cast SW:Pain immediately.

2. Ignore Onyxia for a bit and focus on pre-shielding/healing the whelp group AoE'ers for the first wave of whelps. One healer (the one from the whelp group) is very hard-pressed to keep them alive. Yesterday, I was spamming flash heals and shields as fast as possible and the whelps still dealt more damage to the AoE whelp handlers than I could heal. It would really help to have all healers focusing on the first wave of whelps.

3. Once the first wave of whelps has been dispatched, things should be much easier and so then you can focus on dealing damage to Onyxia & regenning your mana for Phase 3. It's a good idea to keep an eye on the whelp groups, at this point, but once the first group has been taken care of, the subsequent whelp groups are much smaller and, thus, more managable for a single healer to deal with.


As for the rest of the group, more AoE is also helpful for the first whelp group. If someone shouts it out or you see the first wave descending on the whelp groups, wait a second and then drop a ranged AoE attack to supplement the IAE'ing/Hellfiring of the whelp groups to help drop that first group a bit faster. Then focus on dishing out as much damage as quickly as possible to Onyxia over the course of Phase 2 since you'll have plenty of time to regain mana at the start of Phase 3.

[mjdoom]

When you initially enter Phase 2, I've found that a greater number of whelps leave the egg area than at any other time during Phase 2 (assuming no one runs in and hatches them all).  This makes the transition to Phase 2 the hardest part of Phase 2, assuming you can avoid deep breaths and chain fireballs. 
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If this is indeed true (and from my limited experience it seems like a fair assessment) then a warrior using challenging shout on each side during the first whelp wave may be an excellent idea. Just wait until the aoe engages and then hit challenging shout to buy a little bit of time to soften up the targets and the healers to be set.

- mjdoom

[Lissa]

Hello all,

Just wanted to share a few quick thoughts I had about last night.  I'm not sure that it should go here or in the crossroads; move it if you see fit.

Phase one

Our biggest problem of the night seemed to be in Main Tank positioning.  This is to be expected in my mind as there is no way to practice this other than a trial by fire smacking the big dragon on the nose.  With time we will get that down (we got it on the 4th attempt) and then we can concentrate more on other things.  That said, everyone should constantly be aware of Onyxia's positioning.  If she turns slightly don't just stand still and get hit by a flame breath or a dragon tail; move yourself to a position to the left or right of Onyxia and you will take no damage.  I don't see any reason why you can't adjust to the opposite side of the dragon if necessary even.  During phase one you should never take more damage than you can bandage back yourself if you are smart about it.  Even standing up on the ledges has little to no benefit in stage one; move around if you have to to live!  Also note that melee characters can hit Onyxia from far away.  You do not have to walk right up to her to smack her.

That's it for stage one.  Once MT position is set it is pretty easy.  I have a phase three suggestion that could also be applied to phase one but I will discuss that a bit later.

Phase two

Everyone say it with me: Clumping causing Deep Breath is a myth!!!  I have a theory that Deep Breath is actually a timered ability that goes off after a certain period of time.  The calls to keep up dps on Onyxia are designed to get through Phase two faster so that this timer never goes off.  Having a smaller raid disadvantages us slightly in this regard.  This means that everyone must maintain max dps during Phase two.  With the exception of whelp killing everyone should be doing their best to damage the dragon during phase two.  Here's the idea:

Hunters:  Keep her in range and keep plinking away and feel free to use special shots (I believe).  You are our easy main dps for this segment due to range issues.

Mages:  When not combating whelps fire frost bolts on the dragon regularly.  If you are in a whelp handling group make sure to save some mana to be ready for when they come out, possibly by using your wand on the big dragon.  This may be a good stage to use your Evocation to keep going.

Warlocks:  Make sure CoS and CoE are up at all times (coordinate which 'lock is doing which).  You will combine with priests to attempt to keep a full suite of DoTs up on Onyxia at all times.

Rogues/Warriors:  Yes, you can hit that big flying oaf.  The trick is that you must use special attacks.  This means things like Sinister Strikes for rogues or Heroic Strike for warriors.  You can also use bows or guns if you like.  The Main Tank should be aware of attempting to rebuild aggro at around 43% in preparation for Onyxia landing, Anger Management is your friend here.

Priests:  If you are not healing a whelp group then you should always have SW:P up.  If you are healing a whelp group then you should always have SW:P up; just make sure that your whelp killers are alive first.  As Onyxia approaches 45% look to start regening mana in anticipation of Phase Three but do not completely abandon dps.  Wands can also be useful

Druids:  Throughout the whole battle you are watching out for chances to battle rez.  This doesn't change in Phase Two.  You can also cast a few spells to keep damage up.  Just like priests look to start regening mana around 45%.

Paladins:  I'm really not certain if you have an easy way to damage the dragon.  Feel free to throw BoP and a few extra heals at whelp groups.  These can both be life savers for the primary IAE mage.  Always be ready with Divine Intervention if necessary.

Also, even though clumping does not cause Deep Breath, excessive clumping can lead to lots of splash damage from Onyxia's fireballs.  Always try to stay in range of the dragon to do damage but don't stand in one big pile.  This is very important: IF YOU ARE A REZZER and you find yourself out of combat (battle rez, DI) make sure to stand at range from targets while rezzing.  This greatly lessens the chance of getting hit by a fireball or splash damage which will interrupt your rez and put you back into combat.  For those that get rezzed during this stage please move away from the rezzer immediately after coming back to life.  It should also go without saying that these rezzers should stay clear of the whelp pits to reduce the chance of a whelp aggroing them.

Also note that you should never expect a heal during this phase unless you are in a whelp group.  If you get hit by a fireball back away from the pack and bandage yourself, then rejoin the battle.  Everyone should have plenty of heavy runecloth bandages on them which will help you heal back up.  The healers will generally need their mana elsewhere.  DO NOT stand around at half life expecting a heal.  This is just asking to get wiped out by the next fireball.  If you are still recently bandaged then you can try gently poking a healer for a heal if you feel it is necessary.

There should be one person designated for each whelp group to call out whelp waves on TeamSpeak.  As a healer I can say that it is a billion times easier to keep a whelp group alive if I can anticipate it a half second early instead of having to wait to see health bars darting downward.  This can easily be the difference between a mage living and dying.  As another point with whelp groups; this stage is the time for every warrior to burn his/her challenging shout.  There is no other time in the battle where it will be useful so you might as well use it here to take some of the pressure off of the IAE mage and healer.  Just coordinate which warrior is going to shout when so that they do not go to waste.  With 4 warriors we should be able to get a shout off on virtually every whelp group before we hit Phase Three.

During Phase Two aggro does not matter!  Just whale on the dragon with all you've got and force her big rear end back down to the ground.  As she goes to land aggro matters again and at this point mages should all cast Detect Magic on her in order to wipe all DoTs off of Onyxia so that we can allow the MT to rebuild some aggro.

Phase Three

Now the fun begins.  I do not have as much experience with Phase Three so my comments will be a bit more general.  Phase Three is much like Phase One, but with fear and lava.  The lava impact can be minimized; the fear just has to be dealt with.  If you can get up on to one of the ledges in the NW or NE corner of the lair you can completely avoid the lava cracks on the floor.  I have found that the most reliable way to get up there is to start at the north end of the ledge and jump up to it while jumping in a southerly direction (SW or SE depending on side).  You can test this out during the beginning of Phase One pretty easily.  Fear simply needs to be dealt with.  I have read that walking backwards helps to minimize the impact of fear but I can say from experience that being feared while on the ledge will not knock you off.  Just be ready to quickly reengage in healing or damage when the fear wears off.

Healers note that Onyxia increases her damage when she gets down to 5% life.  There is no trick to this; just continue to spam quick heals (flash heal for priests; I don't know druid or pally healing as well) in an attempt to keep the MT up.

General Comment

This could apply to Phase One and/or Phase Three.  We had an instance of our MT going down at one point last night and the ensuing chaos took us all down.  My proposal is this:  We designate a backup tank from the start.  This person will start attacking Onyxia long before the remainder of the group in Phase One and Phase Three.  They will stick to standard autoattack in order to minimize any chance of them pulling aggro off of the MT but this should allow them to reliably stay second on the hate chart.  That way if the MT goes down for some reason all of the healers know who to switch to and keep the new tank up.  Warriors can not match the standard dps of some other classes if they open fire simultaneously (mages especially come to mind as they have no way to shed aggro).  This person can start attacking about a minute into the fight and roughly two minutes before anyone else (following the timing we used last night).  They will position themselves to the side of Onyxia so that they should not be taking any damage (and thus not taxing the healers).  Ideally the MT will not go down; but this seems to be a reasonable safety valve with no downside (and it will even help us damage her faster).  The fact  that the MT is using special skills and already has a head start means that the backup tank should never overtake him on the aggro chart.  It would also be preferrable that each of these tanks has the same level of defiance talents so that that will not be a confounding factor.

I think that is all that I have for now.  I would appreciate if everyone reads through this and makes any comments (things I missed; places where I'm wrong, etc.) so that we might be able to transform this into a document to help everyone prepare.  Minor details like which side people stand on can be taken care of at raid time but I think it is very helpful to have an idea what to do ahead of time.  I'm hoping that this post can serve that purpose.

- mjdoom

Edit:  Added bandaging in Phase Two.
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On thing I would like to add concerning Warlocks in Phase 2...having Warlocks on Whelp duty is a bad idea. Of all the classes in the game, we have the most DoTs available. Between my talent build and Arethor's talent build, we could have singlehandely put 6 of the 8 debuff slots on her between Corruption, Siphon Life, and a Curse (this can net around 300 to 400 DPS per Warlock). Of all classes, we're best left to keeping the damage up on Onyxia (hell, our SBs hit like a ton of bricks with CoS up on her with potential crits in the mid to high 2000s). Looking at the Damage trackers alone shows just how much damage me and Arethor were putting out last night.

[mjdoom]

On thing I would like to add concerning Warlocks in Phase 2...having Warlocks on Whelp duty is a bad idea.  Of all the classes in the game, we have the most DoTs available.  Between my talent build and Arethor's talent build, we could have singlehandely put 6 of the 8 debuff slots on her between Corruption, Siphon Life, and a Curse (this can net around 300 to 400 DPS per Warlock).  Of all classes, we're best left to keeping the damage up on Onyxia (hell, our SBs hit like a ton of bricks with CoS up on her with potential crits in the mid to high 2000s).  Looking at the Damage trackers alone shows just how much damage me and Arethor were putting out last night.
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Also noting that fire mages will be using "inferior" frostbolts is another reason that Warlocks should probably be left to blasting the dragon and fire mages with high stamina should be first choices for whelp duty.

- mjdoom

[LochnarITB]

Good writeup and pretty solid strategy. I just have a couple comments.

Strategy: I have a couple suggestions for the whelps. I am assuming one whelp group for each side with at least two mages per group. Through phase one, or at least near the end of it, these mages should have their mana at or near max. Using wand shots or even time staggered frostbolts should achieve this. The instant Onyxia announces the transition to phase two, the mages should position themselves to each cover half of the mouth of the whelp pit, far enough out that aoe won't impact the pit itself. Each mage could have one priest assigned to throw up a shield or (and?) put up their own shield, be it mana shield or ice barrier. At first sight of the whelps, aoe would start covering their half of the opening. I would actually like to see if blizzard would work better than IAE for this. Having the opening split would, hopefully, split the aggro of the initial wave which seems to be believed to be the largest. Subsequent waves could then be picked up as they came out. Keeping the whelps under control with the fewest breakouts using the minimum number of players seems to be key in getting through phase two with the party in good health.

The encounter itself: I had been in one other attempt prior to this. That encounter had left a sour taste for it. We had been given seemingly contradictory directives and chaos and diminished attack strength was the result. I was disappointed in the encounter. It actually seemed trivial with the only difficulty being out pacing damage from Onyxia with damage to her. This attempt was much better. We went in expecting to be learning. We encouraged players to be active participants rather than player controlled damage totems. I actually think we are very close to taking her down already. We have a solid group with good tactics that just need refining. We will do this. I am going to start carrying some sauce for when we turn the tables and put her on the BBQ. :D

[Mirajj]

A few things to add at the moment (It's been a long, long day at work, and my brain isn't working too well) is that Mages need to keep some mana handy for the end of Phase 2. At about 40-41% health, when she is just about to go into her landing mode, every mage we've got needs to spam Detect Magic at her. A hunter can hit her with Hunter's Mark, but as they don't stack and only take up one slot, having more spam it at her is pointless.

But the DoT's MUST be wiped off her before she lands, or she'll re-establish her aggro list with the DoT caster at the top, before the MT gets a chance to knock her around. This isn't a good thing, as the DoT casters are usually either Priests or Warlocks. ;)

~
About the ledge...it takes a lot of practice to get up there in any manner of reliable fashion. Thus, I usually use the first few minutes (while keeping my eyes peeled for Onyxia bouncing the MT my way) to try to get up there. I know that I don't NEED to be up there, but honestly...while the MT builds aggro and the priests keep his butt alive...pretty much no one else has much to do. To me, that's the perfect time to see if I can find some way of getting up there every time I try. It has also been noted that ledge jumping on the East side is trickier than on the West (my personal experience, and Leeah's)

~
Teh Phear and Teh Fyre...The hunter's trick with Aspect of the Pack will only last until the next patch, so we'll have to figure out ways around that. I hear that walking (The / key on the numberpad) helps with this, as I have yet to figure out some way to 'jiggle' back and forth, and still shoot. That's probably just me needing more practice. ;)

But if you can get onto the ledge, the fear point is moot, as you are away from both fear and fire effects.

~
The whelps....I've never been on a whelp group. I can offer no advice here. =/

~
The charge. That warder last night really ate us up (though it liked me!), but we seemed to figure out pretty well timing our charge with Darian's. Looked to me like we were about 20' behind him. Far enough down the ramp for the warder to not eat us on respawn.

~
Phase 2...The more DPS the better, works for me. I've found that standing almost center in her lair I can hit her pretty much anywhere she goes (I do have the full +range skill, though) except when she's completely south. Then I have to relocate by about 5 meters or so (3-6 steps) to bring her back into range. A big note for hunters here...she only flies around the outside, so being closer in towards the middle will take care of that "target too close" problem. I've never had her "too close" when standing in the middle. Also...if you see her with 4 DoT's or less, use your Serpent Sting on her. The more powerful SW:P's look like they push it off when they are added, so we don't have to worry about stepping on priestly toes. ;) Even if it only get's one tick before a battery of SW:P's hits her...that's one more tick of damage we get on her. ;)

~
I'm quite excited about this! She's going down!

[LochnarITB]

But the DoT's MUST be wiped off her before she lands
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Hmmm my density strikes again. I now understand why detect magic removes the DoTs. When that was mentioned previously, I was thinking that it was to see what she has that can be dispelled. Would the frostbolt debuff also push off DoTs? My thought is that it would but would this then make the mage tops on the aggro list at landing? If not, it would be nice to be able to add a little damage while removing a DoT, but that is probably too much to hope for.

[Mirajj]

Hmmm my density strikes again.  I now understand why detect magic removes the DoTs.  When that was mentioned previously, I was thinking that it was to see what she has that can be dispelled.  Would the frostbolt debuff also push off DoTs?  My thought is that it would but would this then make the mage tops on the aggro list at landing?  If not, it would be nice to be able to add a little damage while removing a DoT, but that is probably too much to hope for.
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While I'm not certain that the Frostbolt Debuff would or would not get a mage some aggro, I'd not take the risk of it. More likely than not, any damage done to her as soon as she hits the ground is what makes it to the top of her aggro list. A DoT (in any form) will be faster at that than the MT.

A rampaging-through-the-ranks Onyxia is not a pretty thing. ;)

However...never having played a mage, this is all guesswork and "I think". I can offer no better, sorry. Skan or Lissa might be able to.

[LochnarITB]

A rampaging-through-the-ranks Onyxia is not a pretty thing. ;)
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I actually think it is kind of pretty, in a wow-that-is-one-big-isn't-she-gorgeous-for-such-a-nasty-baddie kind of way. It is also very deadly and not to be enjoyed until things have gone past the point of no return and that is the only part of it left to be enjoyed. That being said, I remembered that she doesn't get a debuff from the frostbolt because she is immune. Even if she did, the bigger danger would be that someone would make a mistake in timing a frostbolt and land the damage portion just after she landed. One dead mage. One very likely wipe by a big nasty pinballing through the ranks. Ouch.

[Skandranon]

Hmmm my density strikes again.  I now understand why detect magic removes the DoTs.  When that was mentioned previously, I was thinking that it was to see what she has that can be dispelled.  Would the frostbolt debuff also push off DoTs?  My thought is that it would but would this then make the mage tops on the aggro list at landing?  If not, it would be nice to be able to add a little damage while removing a DoT, but that is probably too much to hope for.
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Onyxia is immune to the frostbolt debuff, I believe. Even if she wasn't, it would be inadvisable to use it. One of the secrets of the Onyxia encounter is that she starts caring about aggro again once she shouts, not once she lands. There's about four or five seconds between her "It seems you'll need another lesson, mortals!" yell and her actually touching the ground, and if you hit her in that window she WILL remember it. Frostbolting during that period means that you'll be first to be squished once she reaches the floor.

[Arethor]

On thing I would like to add concerning Warlocks in Phase 2...having Warlocks on Whelp duty is a bad idea.  Of all the classes in the game, we have the most DoTs available.  Between my talent build and Arethor's talent build, we could have singlehandely put 6 of the 8 debuff slots on her between Corruption, Siphon Life, and a Curse (this can net around 300 to 400 DPS per Warlock).  Of all classes, we're best left to keeping the damage up on Onyxia (hell, our SBs hit like a ton of bricks with CoS up on her with potential crits in the mid to high 2000s).  Looking at the Damage trackers alone shows just how much damage me and Arethor were putting out last night.
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Unfortunately i was still of the mindset that clumpin=deep breath. Now that i know that's a myth I'll run around to keep my DoTs up more. I let them fall off too many times during our attempts. My shadowbolt crits with CoS only reach maybe 2000 with my current build. I've been planning on a respec, but with the possibility of the free respec from the patch anytime soon I've been putting it off. Common crits for me are around 1700-1800.

Thoughts for the future:

Phase one: My imp totem for Darian seemed to be a very good plan. I'll continue to run alongside the dragon as he's pulling her to the wall and drop my totem (no wonder i'm enjoying my shammy)

Phase two: As stated, I'll be more mobile, keeping DoTs up and spamming Shadowbolts. Lifetap+Bandage ftw!! I'll also be sure to stock up on more healing pots.

Phase three: Get on the ledge and when the DPS call goes out, cook the lizard with Shadowbolts at a sporadic rate.

Other thoughts:
As Lissa stated between 2 Corruptions (Useful for instacast Shadowbolt procs), 2 Siphon Lifes (So we can keep lifetapping and regening health), CoS and CoE, it might make sense to not have all priests spamming SW:P. Just a thought, but maybe have the priests in the warlock groups (who aren't in a whelp group) responsible for keeping SW:P up. That way we're never bumping off one of the DoTs that help to raise DPS or allow the Warlocks to spam Shadowbolts. It would also conserve priests' mana for healing as only 2 of the priests are ever casting SW:P

[LochnarITB]

if you hit her in that window she WILL remember it
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Another good piece of info, beyond what I had already said, that I think is good for all classes to know.

The pieces are coming together. We will take her down. I wish it wasn't so hard to get everything coordinated and get in there. I want to work on this NOW!! :lol: