Post by Belber on Apr 7, 2006 10:21:16 GMT -5
Prepping for the run:
(information borrowed from http://www.wowwiki.com)
Many of the mobs in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj use poison or nature-based attacks, so nature resistance gear would be ideal. However, nature ressitance in Ahn'Qiraj seems not to be near as critial as fire resistance ot Molten Core.
Guilds who attempt the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj should not be required to be decked out in epic-quality equipment. A 20-man raid can be managed with mostly blues, and even some greens.
Likewise to nature resistance gear, Greater Nature Protection potions have some potential use in Ahn'Qiraj. However, the formula for these potions is known to sell for more than Greater Fire Protection potions.
Since the progression for the instances of this size is to go from Blackrock to Zul'Gurrub to the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, the type of gear to have would be ZG-level or above. Those wearing Molten Core gear and above will find this instance a lot simpler.
Strategies inside the instance:
Most of the "trash" mobs in AQ20 are immune to conventional crowd-control. Having assigned main-tanks and off-tanks is necessary for controlling most multi-pull encounters. Druids can root most mobs and hunters freeze traps are still effective.
Special info for certain trash mobs:
Hive'Zara Stinger: Will randomly charge anyone within a 5-25 yard radius. Have casters and ranged DPS at max range or use the "everyone in the red ring" technique as used in Molten Core.
Hive'Zara Sandstalker: Can "burrow" to a new location and begin attacking anyone near there. Hunter's Mark will allow people to continue attacking the creature as it doesn't really "burrow" but turns invisible and moves to a new location. Pets told to attack the Sandstalker will move with the mob to the new location as well. Once attacked while "burrowed" it will reappear.
Anubisath Guardian
Will always have two of the following abilities active:
Plague
A powerful Nature Damage DoT that also affects targets nearby the infected player.
Shadow Bolt Volley
A volley of shadowbolts that hit roughly ~2000 damage. Hits mostly casters, use Prayer of Healing to outheal it.
Self Destruction
When he gets low on life he stops attacking and starts getting ready to blow himself up. Takes 10 - 15 seconds and deals 4500 damage to everyone in the area.
Meteor
Summons a meteor from the sky that deals a large amount of damage 10K+ divided among all the players in the area of effect.
Warstomp
An aoe warstomp that deals 1000-1500 damage to everyone near him.
They should all be tanked at the entrance to the Watcher Terrace since they have long wandering patrol routes throughout the area (they never enter the area just about the stairs where you enter, however). Detect Magic needs to be cast right away so the mages/warlocks know what spells to use. Once this has been figured out the raid will have to adjust to whichever two abilities he has. The shadow bolt is largely insignificant and nothing special needs to be done to counter it. The raid needs to be aware of the self-destruction. If he is close to death and stops attacking everyone needs to get away from him. If he starts casting meteor everyone should clump up in one group so that the damage is distributed throughout the entire raid. If he has warstomp only the tank should be within melee range. The only real hard part is a warstomp/meteor combination. In this case everyone needs to group up out of melee range and an off tank needs to be ready to take over in case the main tank gets hits by a meteor (since he will be the only one there he cannot survive it). The mobs he will summon can easily be dealt with with fears and stuns. Don't bother trying to kill them until the Guardian is dead. Without having an actual timer it seemed like they were summoned every 30 seconds or so and despawned after about 2 minutes, s you should never get more than 4 trash mobs out at once. Everyone should be aware of the trash mobs and do their best to keep them busy. They can be chain feared, stun locked, ice blocked, etc. so everyone can do a little something to help. Warriors should put some sunders on and try to get agro on them so when they come unstunned, feared, etc, they don't immediatly go after the cloth wearers (this is largely the reason we lost people, the mobs came back and kill the clothies before they could refear, etc).
First Boss: Kurinnaxx
Strategy One:
As befitting a first boss, this is a relatively straightforward fight. The fight takes place in a flat, featureless open room, and as long as you clear the trash mobs in the area beforehand there should be no surprises.
He has two attacks in his repetoire:
His main physical attack is a cleave that will do heavy damage to anyone in front of him. It also inflicts a fifteen second debuff called Mortal Wounds to the tank that reduces healing by 10%, stacks to 100%, and is not dispellable. This necessitates a great deal of tank swapping in the fight. Once a tank get 3 debuffs / 30% reduced healing - he stops attacking and the next tank gets agro from him. This will continue throughout the battle.
His other attack is called Sand Trap. This is a ground targeted explosion roughly twenty yards in diameter that inflicts around 1900 damage and inflicts a debuff that silences, and reduces hit chance by 75%. There is a short delay to this explosion though, so as long as players remain aware of the animation, they can run out of the targeted area. Sand Trap seems to be targeted at random, and the trap is placed directly beneath that target's feet. Mages uses blink, rogues can use sprint, other classes just move as fast away as you can.
Tip. Do not stand close to each other on this fight, spread out real good to prevent more than 1 getting hit by the same sandtrap.
The strategy with this boss is simple. The tanks all attack Kurinnaxx while moving backwards. This ensures that if Kurinnaxx targets one of them with Sand Trap, the tanks will have moved away from the targeted area before it explodes. The extra tanks should attack from the side so they can avoid the Mortal Wounds cleave. The tanks need to keep their aggro within a reasonable range of each other, as the Mortal Wounds debuff lasts much longer than the Taunt effect, so you can't risk Kurinnaxx switching back to the original tank before they are fully healed. The ranged DPS and casters all space themselves out for the fight and watch for the Sand Trap animation. As long as you never get hit with the Sand Trap, you have nothing to fear, but the movement debuff ensures that a second Sand Trap in your area will probably hit you. If you do get hit by a Sand Trap dont stand around waiting for the debuff to expire. Take the opportunity to bandage yourself or drink healing/mana potions. Rogues should position themselves near the secondary tanks. When they start to run low on health, they should Vanish, move away from the fight, and bandage themselves (Healers will mostly have their hands full with the tanks.)
Casters need to be careful not to steal aggro from the tanks. Tanks will be limited in their ability to gain a lot of aggro by their need to trade off as Kurinnaxx's target.
Kurinnaxx is quite near the entrance to the instance, which itself is very near to the graveyard. Party members who die early in the battle can easily rejoin before the fight is over.
Strategy Two:
Instead of having the tank move around, tanking Kurinnaxx in the center of his room has proven to be an equally (if not easier to strategize) effective tactic in defeating him. The strategy requires at least two tanks, but three is recommended as Kurinnaxx will enrage at 20% and begin tearing the plate wearers a new one. The tanking warrior will hold Kurinnaxx's attention until the debuff stacks up to 3. This will give time for the OT to grab aggro before heals become useless for the MT--sometimes Kurinnaxx has so much aggro on the MT that it may take two or three more applications of the debuff before the OT can successfull peel him off (rest assured, when the debuff stacks up to 8, healers are basically wasting mana). Rogues can beat away at Kurinnaxx's sides, running THROUGH him in case he spawns a sand trap under himself. Do not backpedal--you won't make it out of range in time.
Another method is simply to have two tanks fight over aggro the entire fight, applying sunders and essentially trying to be the more macho warrior.
Meanwhile, casters and ranged DPS will surround Kurinnaxx in a loose circle, preferably as far away from each other as possible. This minimizes the chance of sand traps hitting and silencing multiple casters. Should anyone be hit by a sand trap, a single heavy runecloth bandage is usually enough to heal whatever damage you took. Casters should wand while waiting for the silence to wear off. At 20%, any non-healer should immediately blow all their cooldowns to DPS Kurinnaxx down as quickly as possible.
Previous attempts at trying to train Kurinnaxx around in a circle have proved to be difficult for a number of groups. The problems that occur when a boss is constantly moved around generally results in the ranged DPS (and melee DPS/off-tanks) having to keep up with the constant position changes. It is important to note that most healing spells have a range of 40 yards, and offensive spells have a range of 30 yards--it is easy for a tank to simply wander out of range of these spells, or cut the circle too tight and force casters to stay in a very limited battlefield, increasing the chances of multiple casters being silenced by a sand trap. The sand traps actually have a rather impressive radius (perhaps 10-15 yards) and are far more devastating to casters than melee attackers.
(information borrowed from http://www.wowwiki.com)
Many of the mobs in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj use poison or nature-based attacks, so nature resistance gear would be ideal. However, nature ressitance in Ahn'Qiraj seems not to be near as critial as fire resistance ot Molten Core.
Guilds who attempt the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj should not be required to be decked out in epic-quality equipment. A 20-man raid can be managed with mostly blues, and even some greens.
Likewise to nature resistance gear, Greater Nature Protection potions have some potential use in Ahn'Qiraj. However, the formula for these potions is known to sell for more than Greater Fire Protection potions.
Since the progression for the instances of this size is to go from Blackrock to Zul'Gurrub to the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, the type of gear to have would be ZG-level or above. Those wearing Molten Core gear and above will find this instance a lot simpler.
Strategies inside the instance:
Most of the "trash" mobs in AQ20 are immune to conventional crowd-control. Having assigned main-tanks and off-tanks is necessary for controlling most multi-pull encounters. Druids can root most mobs and hunters freeze traps are still effective.
Special info for certain trash mobs:
Hive'Zara Stinger: Will randomly charge anyone within a 5-25 yard radius. Have casters and ranged DPS at max range or use the "everyone in the red ring" technique as used in Molten Core.
Hive'Zara Sandstalker: Can "burrow" to a new location and begin attacking anyone near there. Hunter's Mark will allow people to continue attacking the creature as it doesn't really "burrow" but turns invisible and moves to a new location. Pets told to attack the Sandstalker will move with the mob to the new location as well. Once attacked while "burrowed" it will reappear.
Anubisath Guardian
Will always have two of the following abilities active:
Plague
A powerful Nature Damage DoT that also affects targets nearby the infected player.
Shadow Bolt Volley
A volley of shadowbolts that hit roughly ~2000 damage. Hits mostly casters, use Prayer of Healing to outheal it.
Self Destruction
When he gets low on life he stops attacking and starts getting ready to blow himself up. Takes 10 - 15 seconds and deals 4500 damage to everyone in the area.
Meteor
Summons a meteor from the sky that deals a large amount of damage 10K+ divided among all the players in the area of effect.
Warstomp
An aoe warstomp that deals 1000-1500 damage to everyone near him.
They should all be tanked at the entrance to the Watcher Terrace since they have long wandering patrol routes throughout the area (they never enter the area just about the stairs where you enter, however). Detect Magic needs to be cast right away so the mages/warlocks know what spells to use. Once this has been figured out the raid will have to adjust to whichever two abilities he has. The shadow bolt is largely insignificant and nothing special needs to be done to counter it. The raid needs to be aware of the self-destruction. If he is close to death and stops attacking everyone needs to get away from him. If he starts casting meteor everyone should clump up in one group so that the damage is distributed throughout the entire raid. If he has warstomp only the tank should be within melee range. The only real hard part is a warstomp/meteor combination. In this case everyone needs to group up out of melee range and an off tank needs to be ready to take over in case the main tank gets hits by a meteor (since he will be the only one there he cannot survive it). The mobs he will summon can easily be dealt with with fears and stuns. Don't bother trying to kill them until the Guardian is dead. Without having an actual timer it seemed like they were summoned every 30 seconds or so and despawned after about 2 minutes, s you should never get more than 4 trash mobs out at once. Everyone should be aware of the trash mobs and do their best to keep them busy. They can be chain feared, stun locked, ice blocked, etc. so everyone can do a little something to help. Warriors should put some sunders on and try to get agro on them so when they come unstunned, feared, etc, they don't immediatly go after the cloth wearers (this is largely the reason we lost people, the mobs came back and kill the clothies before they could refear, etc).
First Boss: Kurinnaxx
Strategy One:
As befitting a first boss, this is a relatively straightforward fight. The fight takes place in a flat, featureless open room, and as long as you clear the trash mobs in the area beforehand there should be no surprises.
He has two attacks in his repetoire:
His main physical attack is a cleave that will do heavy damage to anyone in front of him. It also inflicts a fifteen second debuff called Mortal Wounds to the tank that reduces healing by 10%, stacks to 100%, and is not dispellable. This necessitates a great deal of tank swapping in the fight. Once a tank get 3 debuffs / 30% reduced healing - he stops attacking and the next tank gets agro from him. This will continue throughout the battle.
His other attack is called Sand Trap. This is a ground targeted explosion roughly twenty yards in diameter that inflicts around 1900 damage and inflicts a debuff that silences, and reduces hit chance by 75%. There is a short delay to this explosion though, so as long as players remain aware of the animation, they can run out of the targeted area. Sand Trap seems to be targeted at random, and the trap is placed directly beneath that target's feet. Mages uses blink, rogues can use sprint, other classes just move as fast away as you can.
Tip. Do not stand close to each other on this fight, spread out real good to prevent more than 1 getting hit by the same sandtrap.
The strategy with this boss is simple. The tanks all attack Kurinnaxx while moving backwards. This ensures that if Kurinnaxx targets one of them with Sand Trap, the tanks will have moved away from the targeted area before it explodes. The extra tanks should attack from the side so they can avoid the Mortal Wounds cleave. The tanks need to keep their aggro within a reasonable range of each other, as the Mortal Wounds debuff lasts much longer than the Taunt effect, so you can't risk Kurinnaxx switching back to the original tank before they are fully healed. The ranged DPS and casters all space themselves out for the fight and watch for the Sand Trap animation. As long as you never get hit with the Sand Trap, you have nothing to fear, but the movement debuff ensures that a second Sand Trap in your area will probably hit you. If you do get hit by a Sand Trap dont stand around waiting for the debuff to expire. Take the opportunity to bandage yourself or drink healing/mana potions. Rogues should position themselves near the secondary tanks. When they start to run low on health, they should Vanish, move away from the fight, and bandage themselves (Healers will mostly have their hands full with the tanks.)
Casters need to be careful not to steal aggro from the tanks. Tanks will be limited in their ability to gain a lot of aggro by their need to trade off as Kurinnaxx's target.
Kurinnaxx is quite near the entrance to the instance, which itself is very near to the graveyard. Party members who die early in the battle can easily rejoin before the fight is over.
Strategy Two:
Instead of having the tank move around, tanking Kurinnaxx in the center of his room has proven to be an equally (if not easier to strategize) effective tactic in defeating him. The strategy requires at least two tanks, but three is recommended as Kurinnaxx will enrage at 20% and begin tearing the plate wearers a new one. The tanking warrior will hold Kurinnaxx's attention until the debuff stacks up to 3. This will give time for the OT to grab aggro before heals become useless for the MT--sometimes Kurinnaxx has so much aggro on the MT that it may take two or three more applications of the debuff before the OT can successfull peel him off (rest assured, when the debuff stacks up to 8, healers are basically wasting mana). Rogues can beat away at Kurinnaxx's sides, running THROUGH him in case he spawns a sand trap under himself. Do not backpedal--you won't make it out of range in time.
Another method is simply to have two tanks fight over aggro the entire fight, applying sunders and essentially trying to be the more macho warrior.
Meanwhile, casters and ranged DPS will surround Kurinnaxx in a loose circle, preferably as far away from each other as possible. This minimizes the chance of sand traps hitting and silencing multiple casters. Should anyone be hit by a sand trap, a single heavy runecloth bandage is usually enough to heal whatever damage you took. Casters should wand while waiting for the silence to wear off. At 20%, any non-healer should immediately blow all their cooldowns to DPS Kurinnaxx down as quickly as possible.
Previous attempts at trying to train Kurinnaxx around in a circle have proved to be difficult for a number of groups. The problems that occur when a boss is constantly moved around generally results in the ranged DPS (and melee DPS/off-tanks) having to keep up with the constant position changes. It is important to note that most healing spells have a range of 40 yards, and offensive spells have a range of 30 yards--it is easy for a tank to simply wander out of range of these spells, or cut the circle too tight and force casters to stay in a very limited battlefield, increasing the chances of multiple casters being silenced by a sand trap. The sand traps actually have a rather impressive radius (perhaps 10-15 yards) and are far more devastating to casters than melee attackers.