I really liked Conclave of Wind actually. It is tricky and requires good timing from most people involved, without being too repetative like I felt Magmaw became pretty fast.
Our raid comp was;
- Blood Dk
- Feral Bear Druid
- Holy Priest (me)
- Resto Druid * 2
- Arcane Mage
- Fire Mage
- Fury Warrior
- Balance Druid
- Subtlety Rogue
Preparation
You'll be fighting three bosses at once, each one on their platform. This fight is alot like Four Horsemen in Naxxramas in that the raid will have to split up to handle the bosses, and no boss will ever have to be left alone or there will be hurt. One big difference to the Four Horsemen fight is that the bosses differ significantly from eachother in matter of skills, and must be handled very differently. Some tactics we saw and read recommended using a DK tank for the Frost Boss, Nezir, since a Dk tank would be able to remove the frost debuff with Anti-Magic Shell. Either our dk tank sucked (which he doesn't, he's awesome) or they've fixed it since, because that didn't work anylonger. This means you will have to switch tanks between platforms, and that does make the fight tricker. It's still not a very tricky fight, and I especially like it because it's equally challenging for all involved, be it healer, dps or tank. Everyone has to think about alot for it to work, without it turning into an RNG fight like Lich King. Passive raid buffs won't reach across the ramps, which makes stacking melee and casters into the same groups preferrable. Since the groups are rather small on this fight however, I don't think it will make a huge difference. Just remember that bringing a certain class for their pasive raid buff is a little wasted on this fight.
You get to the boss by jumping onto the ramps. The ramps work by increasing your movement speed, so if you're a class that can already increase your movement speed (mage blink, cat/rogue sprint, rocket boots) you might fly off so fast that you miss the platform. Out of fight this doesn't matter since you'll me transported back to the first platform again, alive. In combat this could be troublesome since it wastes alot of time.
Each boss has an energy bar that when loaded to 90 (why 90 and not 100?) will have them do an ultimate attack that has be dealt with in separate ways. I will discuss this as a final. The bosses don't share hp, but have to die within 1 minute or they will kill you. The fight also has a 8 minute enrage timer, and each energy build up takes about 1,5 minute.
The bosses
Anshal - Life Boss (West when entering) - Tank, Healer, 3 dps
Anshal has two abilities which need to be handled properly;
- Soothing Winds - Looks pretty much like the druid skill Efflorescence, only bigger and with some added textures. It heals Anshal and his adds for alot, so you don't want to have him or they to ever stand in it if you can help it. Have the tank kite Anshal around the platform edge. You don't want the circle to get into the middle, since that will make things difficult when Anshal goes into his Ultimatum (more explanation below).
- Nurture (aka Adds) - When Anshal is about 30 energy he will start summoning adds. I don't know if the summon is energy dependant or time dependant, but it was always around this time we got the adds. You can clearly see where the adds will spawn, as they first pop up as little flowers. All dps on the platform should go for them asap, and nuke them down with single target dps. You don't want to aoe them down since that usually goes too slow, giving the adds too much of a chance to heal back up (which they do when crossing a green circle). They do an aoe damage, which is manageable by a healer. Each dps could tank one add, but the tank should try to aggro as many of the as possible. Just note that having one or two slip won't be the end of the world. In the case of a wipe these adds don't always despawn as they should and can be found aggroable on the platform. They can safely be killed without engaging the boss.
Nezir - Frost Boss (North, behind Al'Akir, when entering) - Tank, Healer
Nezir too has two abilities which need to be handled;
- Permafrost - Cone attack. Have the tank face the boss away from other players on the platform (which in turn should avoid getting in front of Nezir). This attack won't kill non-tanks, but it hurts.
- Ice Patch - Nezir will place an Ice Patch underneath a random player of the group. Try to avoid getting it exactly where the jump ramps are. It will slow anyone in it and deal a fair amount of damage, so get out of it asap.
Rohash - Wind Boss (East when entering) - Healer, 2 dps
Rohash has hurricanes going around the platform throughout the fight, these need to be avoided of course. Rohash is the easiest boss, you don't need a tank here and you can safely put your least geared healer to do the job, as long as they're fairly good at moving and healing at the same time. You'll want to avoid having melee dps on Rohash, since meleeing him and avoiding the hurricanes is alot trickier than being ranged.
- Wind Blast - Every now and then Rohash will do an attack similar to Mimirons "Spinning Up". He'll face a random direction and start doing a Wind Blast, going slowly clock wise around the platform. It doesn't deal much damage, but it will knock you off the platform and should be avoided.
Ultimates
Each boss has a special attack that they do when reaching 90 energy, and that has to be dealt with in a special way. All bosses transport to the middle of their platform and channel their Ultimate. Because of this you don't want a green circle ever in the middle of the platform where Anshal is, since it will heal him while he channels his ultimate.
Anshal - Zephyr - Heals all targets on the platform to full health and increases their damage by alot. You must have all adds dead before this happens. This is a great opportunity for the healer on this platform to regen some mana for a short while, since Zephyr deals no damage. Just afterwards, Anshals damage will be greatly increased however, so both the tank and the healer should be ready with cooldowns. Kiting Anshal is tricky, and it worked better for us to just bite it through.
Nezir - Sleet Storm - Deals about 30.000 damage to all targets on the platform each second, this damage is divided among all targets. This is the most difficult Ultimate to handle. When the bosses are at 75-80 energy have all dps jump over to Nezirs platform. This is also the best time to do a tank and healer switch, which is the only way to reset the stacks you get from him that increase frost damage taken, stacking. The tank and healer from Anshal and Nezir will switch at the same time as the dps are jumping over to the frost platform. Timing this is crucial, since anyone left behind on the platform for too long will risk being killed by the rampaging boss. You also don't want to leave a platform empty of players since the bosses then silence everyone which will lead to a wipe pretty fast. The bosses don't hit so hard that a non-tank is one shot. I could survive two strikes as a clothie (the third killing me). Once everyone has landed on Nezirs platform, have them stack up. We did this in melee range so that we could get some dps on him while he channeled. Ice Patches will still be thrown out and must be cleared asap. There will be heavy aoe damage, so have anyone who can help out with some aoe healing. Once Nezirs Ultimate is over, all the dps will return to their platforms but the tank and healer will wait until the next switch.
Rohash - Hurricane - Is pretty much what it says. A hurricane launching people in the air, but not knocking them off the platform. This doesn't deal much damage (~ 40.000 over 15 seconds) and can easily be healed through.
This tactic will allow you to get the Wind Boss and the Frost Boss fairly low. Once they're at below 10% (depending on how much your dps can burst), you'll want to nuke down Life Boss, then Frost Boss and finally Wind Boss. Anshal goes down low too, but will self heal during each Ultimate, which means he has to be re-nuked, although not entirely from scratch. The bosses don't have much hp, so handling the various mechanics is alot more important than nuking each boss down. The healer that starts at the Frost Boss should be your best geared healer, since that is the one that will have to handle the most Slate Storms, and therefore oom fairly easy.
Priest Specifics
Unfortunately my recount decided to die on this fight, so I didn't manage to get any data on my healing. I was one of the healers jumping between Frost and Life and overall my healing depended much on which platform I was on. Life required more single target healing (although the dpsers took damage from the adds occasionally), so I chose Chakra: Serenity here, and Inner Fire. Frost mainly needed single target healing as well, except during the aoe damage of course. Timing a Chakra: Sanctuary for the incoming aoe damage did help alot. Ideally I should have switched to Inner Will when on the frost platform, since that would've allowed me to get out of Ice Patches faster. Unfortunately I wasn't skilled enough to think about this during the fight ^^. Fortunately that didn't make a big difference. I'd recommend using the Lightwell on the frost platform during the aoe damage. Don't place it too close to the boss since his footplate is alot bigger than he is and that obscures targetting the Lightwell. Placing it on the Life platform isn't a bad idea either since it allows dpsers to heal themselves when they had aggro from adds. People were pretty spread out on that platform, and having range to everyone was difficult at times. Being ready for the various amounts of incoming damage was the key here, and we wiped a couple of times because I was caught off guard. When healing Life/Frost, remember Anshals increased damage after the ultimate and don't underestimate the amount of damage that your raid will take from Sleet Storm. Good luck!
thanks very much! Great read and thanks for the pointers! ::thumbsup::
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