Twilight Vanquisher Acalan!

[TheDragoon]

After a couple nights of painful wiping, we finally put it all together and pulled out a Sarth3D kill in 25-man mode! I had particular fun by going a 50/14/7 blood spec to tank Sarth through the fun parts of the fight! :)

EDIT: Here's a screenshot!

[Tal]

After a couple nights of painful wiping, we finally put it all together and pulled out a Sarth3D kill in 25-man mode! I had particular fun by going a 50/14/7 blood spec to tank Sarth through the fun parts of the fight! :)

Grats guys. Wish I could have been there.:(

[Zyn]

Grats guys. Wish I could have been there.:(

Gratz yo! Ill be sure to snag the title with ya next Sat >.>

-Z

[LochnarITB]

That was actually my thought when I realized we were finally going to do it, I wished that you guys were there with us.:(

[Zyn]

That was actually my thought when I realized we were finally going to do it, I wished that you guys were there with us.:(

Next time my pint sized little Frostbolter! Next time!

-Z

[Tuftears]

Gratz yo! Ill be sure to snag the title with ya next Sat >.>

Monday, s'il vous plait!

[Tal]

Monday, s'il vous plait!

Seafood plate? No more tuna for you kitteh.

[Sir_Die_alot]

Wow is too pretty for video settings that low. You make my eyes bleed!:wacko:

[Zyn]

Wow is too pretty for video settings that low. You make my eyes bleed!:wacko:

As pretty as it may be -- having everything set up on high not only slows the game to a crawl for many people in fights like Sarth +3 but it also hides important things like void zones under all the AoE.

-Z

[Tal]

Wow is too pretty for video settings that low. You make my eyes bleed!:wacko:

I didn't realize you were so delicate.;)

[Tuftears]

Seafood plate? No more tuna for you kitteh.

Except replace 'bacon' with 'tuna'. :shuriken:

[TheDragoon]

Wow is too pretty for video settings that low. You make my eyes bleed!:wacko:

Actually, most of the settings are quite high on my computer. I did, however, turn spell effects down to the minimum so I wouldn't miss any void zones while tanking Sarth. Next time I'll turn the details up before taking the screenshot. ;)

[Mordekhuul]

Grats Acalan.

We just got our second heroic+3 kill last night. Felt good to repeat it, even if we had to wipe for 2 hours first and take a 5 minute break before reaclearing trash as preparation for a really clean kill:P

Now if we can just close the deal on 10 man sarth+3 tonight....soooo close.

[Mordekhuul]

Now if we can just close the deal on 10 man sarth+3 tonight....soooo close.

We did it tonight! Some images here, including a view of my elite random number generator skills. Whew.

Just one more achievement left in Glory of the Raider for me now (6m Malygos).

Do give tips if you've done it.

[WimpySmurf]

We did it tonight! Some images here, including a view of my elite random number generator skills. Whew.

Just one more achievement left in Glory of the Raider for me now (6m Malygos).

Do give tips if you've done it.

Grats Morde & other keepers.

-WimpySmurf

[bonemage]

Grats, Morde!

I'd love a breakdown on how you guys did the fight. Who (class/spec) was there, and what were their roles? We've been trying Sarth +2d, but I'm having trouble getting all the whelps in time. They scatter immediately on spawning to one or another healer, and I can't be everywhere at once. I'll be very happy when I can use exorcism to wrangle them. Is a Righteous Fury using healing pally nearly a must?

[Tuftears]

Woo, congratulations!

The whelps spawn in a fixed location, so I would suggest making sure to have your consecrate down there.

[bonemage]

Edit: removed

[Mordekhuul]

Here was our raid comp:

Teluvian (feral druid) - Sarth MT, 50k+ raid buffed HP
Mordh (tankadin) - The 3 drakes
Johndoe (unholy AOE spec DK) - whelps/blazes

Velion (disc priest) - Sarth tank healer
Zajind (healadin) - drake tank and add tank healer

Scyklin (enh shaman)
Keldor (elem shaman)
Cortha (mage)
Niflhel (mage)
Elmindreda (shadow priest)

General Notes
Having two bloodlusts is pretty essential to Sarth+3 work. It allows you to rapidly pull and re-pull and still have a bloodlust ready to go.

Healadin
Having a holy paladin heal the drake and add tanks is also very, very good. Most of our nights of attempts (about 2.5 total before our kill night) we had no healadin, and he made a huge difference last night. He put beacon on the whelp/blaze tank and got a ton of mileage out of his heals on me, the drake tank that way, much more than a priest, druid or shaman could.

The holy paladin also kept righteous fury up and we moved him to stand in the middle (not east or west) of the island where he wouldn't have to dodge north waves and only had to move for south waves. This was important because it put him closer to the whelp spawn points and such, so our death knight could peal adds off of him without running across the zone.

Feral
Our feral stood in the south-east corner of the island to tank Sarth, so he only had to move a little to dodge north waves, and didn't have to move to dodge south ones.

Drake Tank
I picked up that first drake and pulled him to the spawn point of the 2nd drake so I'd be ready to pick it up when it came 45 seconds later. In fact, I only really pulled that first drake towards the general area, so I had room to maneuver for the first two lava waves, and just after the second lava wave I pulled the drake to the 2nd drake's landing spot.

You can time the drake landings based on lava waves. The 2nd drake ALWAYS lands just after the 2nd lava wave and before the 3rd lava wave.

With our DPS the first drake died just after the 2nd drake landed, so about 50-55 seconds after the first drake landed he was dead. I then waited for the next breath and ran him to the north side of the island to be ready for the 3rd drake to land.

I originally was the whelp/blaze tank, like I have done in our 25 man sarth+3 kills, but our DPS was getting threat capped while bloodlust-killing the first drake, so I took over drake tanking and could easily out-threat our DPS...by huge margins.

Whelps/Blazes
Our DK struggled here, no doubt. Healadin with RF simplified things some, though. As drake tank I helped a keep the healadin clear. I macro'd /cast [target=focus] righteous defense and made the healadin my focus. I just punched that every time I saw Grid light up indicating the healadin had aggro. I can tank some adds along with drakes in 10 man.

Having done add tanking in both 10 and 25, I think the key is to get that consecrate down just before the whelps spawn and pop wings as soon as they are about to show up, to maximize threat. You can time whelp spawns based on lava waves. I can't remember the exact timing...I believe the portal goes up around the time of the 2nd lava wave, and the whelps spawn just after the 3rd? You'll have to measure it yourself and keep in mind the lava waves have slight variances in when they appear.

A lot of times a lava wave would be announced and I would sit for just a few seconds until consecration was off cooldown, then drop one ontop of the portal before ducking to one side, to be sure it was up.

Even so, keeping both healers free is a chore without help. As a tankadin your happiest day would be having a healadin with RF, but I think Lurkers tends to be short on holy pallies, so what you are already doing is probably about what you can hope for (macro'd RD on one healer, macro'd BoP ready for the other, nameplates on and a mod that highlights nameplates that aren't aggro'd to you).

I tend to prioritize clearing healers first, then any DPS, then the sarth tank. Drake tank can just hold a few and live with it =)

Portals
We originally took portals once the 3rd drake's acolyte made an appearance, but last night we decided it was as problematic (dragging the fight out) as just skipping portals for a while, so we ended up burning down the 2nd drake without taking any portals, and then immediately clearing portals when the 2nd drake was dead.

We only killed Shadron's acolyte though (2nd drake). With that acolyte dead the fight was pretty well stable and we could just kill the 3rd drake, and then go below for a final time to kill the final acolyte.

Contrary to popular belief, the fight isn't "over" when the 2nd drake dies. That mentality probably cost us a couple of kills. When the 2nd drake dies you generally still have two acolytes up, potentially a bunch of blazes doing a lot of damage to your add tank, a good portion of the raid at below max health due to the frantic strain healers have been under, and still have to handle going down to clear an acolyte while void zones are dodged, etc.

Key there is to communicate lava waves with the 5-6 folks that went below so they do NOT come out of the portal just as a wave hits. Easy to lose half your raid that way.

Note that you need an off-healer to keep the acolyte tank alive. In our case Keldor (elem shaman) healed Scyklin (enh shaman) for the first portal, and then after the 3rd drake died I went down and tanked the last acolyte.

What else?
Not sure what else to say. Sarth+3 is about control. Wipe enough times and no one will get hit by void zones or waves much, and then its about managing cooldowns to keep the MT alive when it matters and everyone doing their jobs well.

If you end up with a DK tanking whelps/blazes, I can get more info for you. We had ours spec unholy for maximum AOE damage, and had both our shadowpriest and holy priest put their disease up on the drakes so that he could drag whelps/blazes over and spread it onto his adds periodically. You do not have time to help him burn down adds, at all. They have to die through his efforts, really, at least the way we did it.

[bonemage]

a mod that highlights nameplates that aren't aggro'd to you.

What do you use for this? I do use nameplates (wouldn't know how to tank without them), but not a mod that highlights ones not stuck to me. That would be incredibly useful.

If you end up with a DK tanking whelps/blazes, I can get more info for you. We had ours spec unholy for maximum AOE damage, and had both our shadowpriest and holy priest put their disease up on the drakes so that he could drag whelps/blazes over and spread it onto his adds periodically. You do not have time to help him burn down adds, at all. They have to die through his efforts, really, at least the way we did it.

Well, we don't have any tanking DKs that aren't alts. Mist's DK probably has the best tanking gear, but his tanking experience is minuscule. After that it's RTM, Wimpy, and me that have tanking DKs, and our gear is Naxx entry level and not up for this type of encounter.

Thanks for this, it is really helpful information.