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Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - MongoJerry - 11-10-2004

ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Lord Lakmaeran
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Healer Rotations

Last night, while preparing to write up the adventures of Neriad and friends completing the Stormwind raid event, I logged on to briefly check up on the followup quest to that event to see if it was worth mentioning in the writeup. Within 30 seconds of logging in, however, I received a whisper from Connacht:

Connacht: Want to help us kill a level 62+ named in Feralas? It might have some good loot.

I didn't care about loot, since I figure that our beta characters are going to get wiped at retail anyway, but I'm always up for a challenge. I was also curious, because I thought I knew Feralas fairly well, and yet I couldn't think of any level 62+ nameds in the area. So I told Connacht I'd come. I figured that I could swing by Feralas, help kill the named, swing up to Winterspring to look into that followup quest, make a few notes, and then head off to bed.

I accepted Connacht's invitation to join the party and quickly noted that I had in fact joined a raid rather than a normal 5-man party. That threw me for a second, because I had pictured some normal level 62 elite named out in the wilderness. But then perhaps this guy was really tough, and maybe Connacht wanted to get a 10-person party together for some extra firepower. I checked the raid screen and saw that I was the 18th person to join the raid party, and Connacht was continuing his recruiting efforts. This wasn't a simple farming run on a named boss. This was a raid event on a raid boss I'd hadn't heard of. My curiosity was peaking even as my dreams of a full night's sleep were diminishing.

[Image: lakmaeran.jpg]

Feralas, on the west coast of Kalimdor, is far away from just about everything, particularly if you are an Alliance player. However, it is a beautiful zone and a major elf town, Feathermoon Stronghold, resides there. Like the Hinterlands, about half the quests for Feralas seem to come from outside the zone, which often leads to the mistaken impression that there's not much to do there. In consequence, the zone tends to be nearly empty of players. There are in fact a fair number of quests in the zone, though, and the zone is fun to explore. Every twist of the road or curve of hillside seems to reveal a new ruin with its own character. At some point (maybe at retail), I'd like to make a Horde character and see what quests Horde players get in Feralas, since there is also a major Tauren town in the zone. Incidentally, you can see on the map a region called The Dire Maul. It's an enormous cluster of ruins, complete with a Roman Colosseum-like ruin. A passage off to one side takes you do an instance portal -- to an instance that is not yet implemented, of course.

Our target resided in a valley in the middle of the Isle of Dread, the island just to the south of the island housing Feathermoon Stronghold. I kicked myself for not having explored the Isle of Dread more thoroughly in the past. I knew there was more than just nagas there!

[Image: lakmaeran2.jpg]

The valley is home to dozens of level 60-61 elite chimaeras, and the target boss was Lord Lakmaeran, the lord of the chimaeras. Connacht did a great job of organizing the venture, and one of the best things he did was recruit Kronos, a warlock, early on. When Kronos got to the valley, the raid settled into a system:

1. Connacht continued to recruit players for the raid.
2. The other assembled members of the raid helped kill chimaeras one after another to help Kronos get soulshards.
3. Whenever Kronos got a soulshard, he would summon one of the players Connacht had recently recruited.
4. Rinse and repeat as needed.

[Image: lakmaeran3.jpg]

One of the nice things about this system was that it gave the group something to do while waiting for the raid to get filled out and assembled. In fact, people got so enthusiastic about killing chimaeras that Kronos had to ask the group a few times to slow down and not kill chimaeras until he got close enough to cast Drain Soul, which would allow him to actually collect a soulshard off the chimaera.

[Image: lakmaeran4.jpg]

Slowly but surely, the raid grew until finally we were ready to take on Lord Lakmaeran.

[Image: lakmaeran5.jpg]

Lord Lakmaeran casually flies about the northern end of the valley on the Isle of Dread. I understand that this whole venture to kill Lakmaeran started with the remnants of yet another doomed expedition to kill Onyxia. The remnants decided to try to take on a little more possible challenge. They had thought like I had that he would be fairly easy by comparison but after their smaller group had gotten destroyed 3-4 times, they knew they would have to assemble a full raid to take Lord Lakmaeran down.

Lakmaeran has three powerful nature damage attacks. The first is a lightning shield that clobbers melee attackers. The second is a wide-field aura that does about 300 nature damage per tick. And finally, he uses a nasty chain lightning attack. This guy's AoE attacks are nasty nasty nasty, and the group would be need to be ready to deal with them.

[Image: lakmaeran6.jpg]

For the first attack, we organized ourselves in the default configuration most people have been using -- basically making each group of five act as individual parties. In other words, each party was composed of a a warrior, a priest, a secondary healer, and a couple of damage dealers whenever possible. The groups with more warriors in them might get extra healers, but essentially the various classes were spread evenly through the different 5-man parties that composed the larger raid group. After this experience with Lakmaeran and the other raid events I've been involved in over the last few days, I think this configuration is going to quickly go the way of the dodo bird.

Looking through my folder of a over a hundred and fifty screenshots taken during this adventure, I was at first surprised to find that the above screenshot was the only one I had taken during the first battle. Then, I remembered what happened. I was assigned to a group of four (the fifth member of our party ended up leaving right before the battle started) that included a rogue, a mage, and a hunter -- none of whom I had ever played with before. I don't know if the others were inexperienced with raid parties or if the problem was a matter of a lack of trust between players who hadn't partied with each other before, but whatever it was, our 4-man party ran into difficulties quickly.

The raid charged forward to attack Lord Lakmaeran, and I set myself at a distance that was far away from Lakmaeran and yet close enough to cover our rogue with heals. At first things worked smoothly. I reasoned that the way to answer enemy AoE attacks is to meet them with AoE heals -- that is Prayer of Healing. I got a couple of Prayers of Healing off, but then the third one didn't heal our rogue at all. I thought that was strange, so I targeted him with Flash Heal and it turned out that he was out of range. He later told me that as a rogue he wasn't used to being covered by priest heals and so had followed his instincts by flashing and running -- in a direction away from me. As I tried to move in range of the rogue, the hunter and mage got pummeled by the Lakmaeran's aura and chain lightning and as they tried to move out of range of those attacks, they moved in opposite directions from each other and both away from me. The result at one point (as I could see it on the minimap) was a nearly perfect equilateral triangle with vertices that were so far apart that it was impossible for me to be in healing range of any more than one person at a time. If you want to piss off your priest, do that. Naturally, two of my party died quickly, and after running around ineffectually, I just said, "forget this" and started selecting and healing random players in other parties. At least I felt like I was accomplishing something.

While I doubt that any other parties in the raid group had as many difficulties as my group, I suspect that all of the groups had some communication and coordination issues of the kind that any group made up of strangers would face. The raid group had only taken off about 40% of Lord Lakmaeran's life when it was finally and soundly defeated.

[Image: lakmaeran7.jpg]

Still the group was hopeful. First, taking off 40% of his life was a whole lot better than what people had experienced in their Onyxia raids, so we at least knew it was possible to kill him. Second, we may have had problems, but they were fixable problems. In my group, for example, we spoke calmly about how to coordinate and stay together so that I could provide healing to the entire party. ("If you want my heals, stop f***ing running around!"). Third, Airetnas made a great suggestion for how to deal with Lord Lakmaeran's lightning shield. If mages would cast Detect Magic on Lakmaeran, then his Lightning Shield buff would be revealed, and priests could then dispel it. It was a simple and yet brilliant observation, and a small test attack on Lakmaeran showed that it worked. Removing that lightning shield would greatly decrease the pounding that the melee attackers were receiving.

And so with that in mind, the second battle began.

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - MongoJerry - 11-10-2004

[Image: lakmaeran8.jpg]

Lord Lakmaeran is one tough cookie and there's no doubt about that. In the screenshot above, you can see his aura going off on everyone in the vicinity as well as his devastating chain lightning attack running through the back ranks of spellcasters.

[Image: lakmaeran9.jpg]

The group fought hard, but that aura and chain lightning attack overwhelmed what the healers were able to dish out. People started dropping one by one, and as I lay there dead, I settled in to take a few last moment screenshots of the battle before getting ready for the next attempt.

[Image: lakmaeran10.jpg]

The surviving remnants of the raid continued to fight valiantly, however.

[Image: lakmaeran11.jpg]

Even when they were down to just a few people, they fought on. I continued to take screenshots of the surviving few, while waiting for that proverbial last person to fall.

[Image: lakmaeran12.jpg]

And they kept on fighting for a good four to five minutes after I and much of the raid had died. It was at this moment when Chonnacht sent out the call:

Connacht: IF YOU'RE DEAD, RUN BACK ASAP!

[Image: lakmaeran13.jpg]

I hit myself on the head. What the heck was I doing?! The graveyard was nearby (next to Feathermoon Stronghold). Instead of taking screenshots, I could still be in this fight! Cursing, I released my spirit and raced back to the battlefield. (I love the new Night Elf wisp spirits, don't you?) I made it in time to rez two people before Lakmaeran finished off the raid remnants and swooped over me and the two people I had rezed. I cursed myself for what a boneheaded moron I was. If I had released immediately and run back to the battlefield from the start, I could've rezed a dozen people or more, and maybe that would've been enough to have turned the tide of battle. Gah! Idiot! I had just kept thinking that the last of the raid was going to die "any second now," even as that "any second now" turned into several minutes.

[Image: lakmaeran14.jpg]

While I was busy berating myself, though, the people who had been part of that valiant last stand were laughing and cheering. What allowed them to fight on for so long was an impromptu healing rotation. Kyanmehwulfe, the principle surviving warrior, tanked Lord Lakmaeran, while the surviving healers stayed far away and rotated heals on him. The surviving mages and hunters then fired small barrages at Lakmaeran. By the end of the battle, the whole raid party had taken Lakmaeran down below 50% health and a decent chunk of that was due to the long and valiant efforts of the raid remnants. If a subset of the raid could do that much damage using this tactic, think of what an entire raid could do using it!

So taking a page out of Everquest healer rotation raid tactics and melding it with some WoW tactics, the Connacht and Rynin hunkered down and organized the next and final attack. It worked like this:
  1. Kyanmehwulfe would solo tank Lord Lakmaeran. Connacht was designated as the backup tank in case Kyan fell. (The new way that taunt works makes such a substitution easy. All Connacht would have to do is taunt once and he would immediately have slightly more aggro on him than everyone else in the raid).<>
  2. All of the priests and paladins would cover Kyan with heals in addition to taking care of any healing of members of their own party. Of course, several healers were placed directly Kyan's party as well. One priest and one druid were placed in charge of keeping Renew and Regrowth on Kyan at all times, respectively.<>
  3. Everyone else would stay far back and use ranged attacks to fight Lakmaeran, preferably staying out of range of Lakmaeran's aura and chain lightning attacks. If a person got hit, they were instructed to back out of range of Lakmaeran's attacks and wait for heals there.<>
  4. A couple of mages would cast Detect Magic on Lakmaeran, and priests were then to dispel Lakmaeran's lightning shield whenever it appeared. This would help reduce the beating Kyan received.<>
  5. One paladin was assigned to stay out of the fight, so that he could rez people as they fell. This was a more difficult job than it sounds, because now you can't cast resurrection in combat. The paladin would have to make sure to never get in range of Lakmaeran's aura, chain lightning, or aggro radius.<>
  6. Finally, and most importantly, people were instructed to spread out their attacks and heals so as to never draw aggro away from Kyanmehwulfe.<>
    [st]


Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - MongoJerry - 11-10-2004

[Image: lakmaeran15.jpg]

We charged forward, or rather Kyan charged forward, and battle commenced. Casters were told to hold their fire at the beginning of the fight while Kyan build up aggro on Lakmaeran using sword attacks. Taunt has been changed in this patch in that it gives the warrior barely more aggro than everyone else on the mob's hate list. This means it no longer does any good to spam Taunt multiple times at the start of a fight (even if one could -- it has an 8 second cooldown timer now). The only way for a warrior to build up aggro is to use his or her regular attacks, so the ranged attackers had to remain gentle throughout the fight to make sure not to pull aggro off Kyan. Similarly, individual healers had to make sure not to heal Kyan too often or risk drawing too much aggro on themselves.

[Image: lakmaeran16.jpg]

Whoops! Some of us got a little too close.

[Image: lakmaeran17.jpg]

Lakmaeran liked to cast his lightning shield, but the priests in the group would quickly dispel it. Meanwhile, a battery of healers on the hill kept Kyan at full health. The gnome next to me died, but hey, he wasn't my responsibility, and he was only a gnome anyway.

[Image: lakmaeran18.jpg]

We ever so slowly and gently damaged Lakmaeran while gently continuing the heals on Kyan.

[Image: lakmaeran19.jpg]

You'll notice that in all these screenshots, very few people are ever firing at once.

[Image: lakmaeran20.jpg]

At first, I was one of the more active healers and I congratulated myself every time I managed to be the first to dispel a given lightning shield. But as my mana drained, I started holding off on my heals. I kept a lock on Kyan and would have cast a heal if he had ever dropped to less than half health, but the other healers were doing a great job and never let his health get down that far.

[Image: lakmaeran21.jpg]

By the time Lakmaeran had been whittled down to 20% health, I was back to having full mana. I was ready to jump back into the healing rotation if any healers started shouting that they were out of mana, but none did. I healed my partymates but otherwise kept myself in reserve (and also walked around taking screenshots).

[Image: lakmaeran22.jpg]

As Lakmaeran's health dropped below 10%, Rynin reminded the raid group repeatedly to keep the firing rate at the same steady pace. He didn't want us to ramp up our firing rate in our excitement and end up disastrously pulling Lakmaeran off Kyan. Incidentally, Kyan later said that other than in the initial moments of the battle, he never cast Taunt. All of the aggro he had built up was due to his regular attacks.

[Image: lakmaeran23.jpg]

Now, I am making up stuff to say so that I can post a pretty screenshot.

[Image: lakmaeran24.jpg]

And after nine and a half minutes, Lord Lakmaeran was dead. As far as we knew, it was the first raid-level boss to have been killed on our or for that matter any server. What'd we get? Pride, a sense of accomplishment, and not much else. But for most people in the raid, that was enough. Thanks to everyone involved in the raid for the terrific experience. Thanks, obviously, to Connacht for organizing things. Thanks for Rynin for some good raid-level tactics and coordination efforts in the final battles. And thanks to everyone for not giving up when things didn't go right the first few times. I had a blast and look forward to more raid encounters with this crew in the future!

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - lemekim - 11-10-2004

Very nice write up. I guess I want to comment on some technical things about the tactics and details in there. The taunt is actually 10 sec cooldown now, and 8 with talents. Sunder armor it seems is now the aggro spell, which what probably Kyan used. It causes a LOT of aggro, much more then any other warrior skill. Even though blizzard said they made a lot of other attacks cause more aggro, it's really not the case, and warriors just cannot hold the mob thanks to their DPS. Good strategizing though, perhaps it will help in killing Onyxia.

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - Rinnhart - 11-10-2004

Quote:So taking a page out of Everquest healer rotation raid tactics and melding it with some WoW tactics

/groan

Guess I won't be playin' that priest.

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - Ruvanal - 11-10-2004

MongoJerry,Nov 10 2004, 01:53 AM Wrote:ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Lord Lakmaeran
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Healer Rotations
Our target resided in a valley in the middle of the Isle of Dread, the island just to the south of the island housing Feathermoon Stronghold.&nbsp; I kicked myself for not having explored the Isle of Dread more thoroughly in the past.&nbsp; I knew there was more than just nagas there!

[right][snapback]59839[/snapback][/right]

You would not have found anything in that area prior to this patch. I have in general exploring during the last three patches ended up going down into that valley. There were no mobs in it on any of those occasions. The only mobs or anything to do on the Isle of Dread was the nagas up to the time of this patch.

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - MongoJerry - 11-10-2004

Rinnhart,Nov 10 2004, 12:38 AM Wrote:/groan

Guess I won't be playin' that priest.
[right][snapback]59847[/snapback][/right]


Haha. I didnt play EQ, so I only have what others have told me to go on. In this case, I *could* have contributed damage with some spells and wand shots. I chose not to to stay back as a reserve and as an observer for the writeups. I like the changes made to priests, and in particular night elf priests, with the patch. I feel much more actively involved even in raid groups.

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - Tal - 11-10-2004

lemekim,Nov 10 2004, 02:21 AM Wrote:Very nice write up. I guess I want to comment on some technical things about the tactics and details in there. The taunt is actually 10 sec cooldown now, and 8 with talents.&nbsp; Sunder armor it seems is now the aggro spell, which what probably Kyan used. It causes a LOT of aggro, much more then any other warrior skill. Even though blizzard said they made a lot of other attacks cause more aggro, it's really not the case, and warriors just cannot hold the mob thanks to their DPS. Good strategizing though, perhaps it will help in killing Onyxia.
[right][snapback]59842[/snapback][/right]

I believe demoralizing shout is also aggro-producing in the current patch. I know that my warrior, Shalandrax, had an easy time of keeping a mob off my party by using sunder, demoralizing shout and when the rogue got to aggressive, taunt.

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - lemekim - 11-10-2004

Tal,Nov 10 2004, 02:10 PM Wrote:I believe demoralizing shout is also aggro-producing in the current patch. I know that my warrior, Shalandrax, had an easy time of keeping a mob off my party by using sunder, demoralizing shout and when the rogue got to aggressive, taunt.
[right][snapback]59868[/snapback][/right]

Yes, it does, it's a very nice AOE taunt, even though the aggro it causes is not that large. It was actually producing aggro in last patch as well and was used by many good warriors as the AOE taunt. If anything, it feels like it causes less aggro then in last patch. And against single targets, sunder armor is still the best aggro spell.

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - Tal - 11-10-2004

lemekim,Nov 10 2004, 02:23 PM Wrote:Yes, it does, it's a very nice AOE taunt, even though the aggro it causes is not that large. It was actually producing aggro in last patch as well and was used by many good warriors as the AOE taunt. If anything, it feels like it causes less aggro then in last patch. And against single targets, sunder armor is still the best aggro spell.
[right][snapback]59877[/snapback][/right]

I've not tried out as much as I would like in the current patch. How does heroic strike rank in with the aggro spells?

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - IKKE - 11-12-2004

dEAD PICTURES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (i want em back)

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - MongoJerry - 11-12-2004

IKKE,Nov 12 2004, 03:34 AM Wrote:dEAD PICTURES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (i want em back)
[right][snapback]60023[/snapback][/right]


Yeah, my site hit my bandwidth limit. I'm looking into it.

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - MongoJerry - 11-13-2004

Man, you'd think that 40 Gigabytes of bandwidth in a month would be more than enough for any non-adult content site. I'm waiting for a reply from my host to see if there's a way I can get a temporary boost to my bandwidth allocation for this month. If so, I'll go in and reduce the quality of the images slightly (I had mistakenly kept the jpeg quality of the Lakmaeran images at 100% instead of the 80% I usually use). I can't afford to pay the full rate for an increase in bandwidth long-term, so my choice is either to get a temporary boost to my bandwidth allocation for a small fee or wait until the end of the month for the site to come back on-line.

Lord Lakmaeran, Raid Encounter - MongoJerry - 11-14-2004

Because of Bolty's generous donation of server space and bandwidth, the images are now back online. Enjoy!