[HEART OF FEAR] - Blade Lord Ta'yak

[Fagan]

http://www.icy-veins.com/blade-lord-ta- ... rategy-wow

[Fagan]

Seemed to work well on this boss to pull him to almost the end of the corridor at the start and ranged all hug the walls until he's cast to many Tempest slashes. Then move him along the corridor and ranged move up too.

No one should be in front of the boss/behind the tank, so we don't get tornadoes in the direction we want to kite him.

Got him to 10% last time.

[Mahmoud]

I was reading up on this boss & I came across an interesting strategy for the 2nd phase ...
Basically we all know that at 20% the boss traps every 1 in whirlies and go 2 1 side of the room leaving us 2 run 2 him while dodging tornadoes thrown at us and stuff ... and at 10% he ports 2 the other side and we have 2 run again . now wot the strat suggested was when he reaches 11% every 1 starts running 2 the other side, leaving behind a selected few dps to bring him down to 10% a healer to keep them alive , this shud allow the rest of the raid 2 b at the other side & ready 2 rain down hell on the boss when he jumps there , and it shudn't really matter if the left behind ppl make it 2 the other side or not since by the time they make it there the boss shud have already died.
1- if we r going 2 try this out the left behind damage dealers shud b specs with strong execute phase damage, I don't know about other classes but all 3 warlock specs have really strong sub 20% hp abilities ..
2- I don't know how many ppl shud b left behind but 4 10 man it was suggested 1 dps & 1 healer .

[Erian]

We are not really anywhere on this. As far as I can make out, we have not made substantial progress in the last couple of weeks. (Also, there are still, unbelievably, people turning up at this raid and not knowing what to do.)

Yes, we made P2 a few times, but my feeling is we get to P2 when we are lucky and not through good play and understanding.

The RLs can only do so much and they are already calling a load of stuff.

Some things still not right:

- Stacking. Has to be precisely on the stack point or stack person. Has to include everyone except the tank with aggro. It is a conal attack and with a variable direction, so just stacking loosely "in front" isn't good enough.

- Moving too soon for stacking. Can lead to a tornado in the wrong place.

- Moving too late for stacking. Means too much damage and deaths for those who are stacking.

- Location. Tanks are not moving the boss far enough forward, with the consequence that after stacking a lot of ranged get blown into tornados and die.

- Tank saves. The debuff can overlap. A save rotation has to be agreed and tanks need to call for it when needed.

- P2 beginning. People are taking too much damage, and then not waiting to be topped up. This is easiest to handle if you face the wall in the direction the tornadoes are taking you. When you get to the wall, step to one side. Otherwise you will continue to get high damage. Wait about 6 seconds then move to the boss; this should give healers time to top up. Any longer and you will start to take damage from tornados arriving at the sides as well as the centre of the back wall.

- P2 Use health CDs and whatever speed buffs you can get. Priests should be using Inner Will here, not Inner Fire. Arguably a haste pot is more use than a dps pot. Staying alive and getting back to the boss are the only concerns.

It is still my view that raid markers should be set up for each episode of unseen strike. As soon as the strike is landing, get to the raid marker. It's big enough that everone can see it even when stacked. Tank the boss just in front of the marker. After the strike, move forward to next marker. Repeat. Don't understand why we don't do this (enlighten me).

I am not convinced we are geared for this. i470 isn't cutting the mustard. I'd prefer a minimum gear level of at least i476 for HoF. Gear does compensate for bad play to an extent.

[Tan]

From a Tank's point of view:

Tank saves. The debuff can overlap. A save rotation has to be agreed and tanks need to call for it when needed.

I read on all strats that the debuff CAN overlap sometimes. From yesterday i ALWAYS got a second overlap, ALWAYS, no exceptions. This must surely mean there's something we're missing about the debuff countdown on the other tank before he can re-taunt...

Also, the very first time you all did this boss, you got 'm till 10%. This surely must have been without having to call healer saves? I feel like i'm missing something here...

I'm almost inclined to say that i'm lacking gear to do this. I shouldn't need a safe for a first Overwhelming Assault, yet it was a pretty close call sometimes.

I also died twice after a safe from Mothling (it saved me, but with very little remaining health). And pally's "saves" kill both pallies.

[Caireann]

It is still my view that raid markers should be set up for each episode of unseen strike. As soon as the strike is landing, get to the raid marker. It's big enough that everone can see it even when stacked. Tank the boss just in front of the marker. After the strike, move forward to next marker. Repeat. Don't understand why we don't do this (enlighten me).

I know that last time you have tried this, but to me, honestly, it's a very limiting option - there are too many variables in this fight to stick so stiffly into a marker placed on the ground. A marked melee, is, first of all, right beside the boss, so every ranged is <40y from the stacking point, which could not be the case with a marker on the ground if we moved even a tiny bit.
Secondly, even a single bad placed tornado can ruin the whole plan with marked ground. What if we found us between two markers, how much more confusing would that be? We know that rules are best to be kept simple and any alterations might result with some people doing the opposite of what we have called out. And, this gives more freedom to the RL and the tanks to move the boss more if there's a need to it.
Third reason is that last raid has shown that good marked melee can place us in the right direction with the red marked peron in between us and the outline of the boss - once Lir got the hang of it, we started to survive every single one, and it wasn't an accident or stroke of luck. In order to get this fight done, we need to understand how the boss does this ability. We are not able to stack on someone's hitbox, we know that already from Ultraxion's conga line, so this - to me, at least - was the only way to proceed. Ground marks wouldn't cover that bit.

Anyway, this was my line of reasoning. ;)

PS. Can we decide where are we discussing things? Do we use Raid Diary or specific boss threads for that? I'm utterly confused.

[Tan]

Lets take this further in here as these are Tayak specific comments.
The brief overview of last night was well placed in the Raid Diary though, tx Ika

[Erian]

A marked melee, is, first of all, right beside the boss, so every ranged is <40y from the stacking point, which could not be the case with a marker on the ground if we moved even a tiny bit.

Don't understand. Marker will be next to the boss and so within range of all, else they won't be able to hit the boss.

Secondly, even a single bad placed tornado can ruin the whole plan with marked ground. What if we found us between two markers, how much more confusing would that be? We know that rules are best to be kept simple and any alterations might result with some people doing the opposite of what we have called out. And, this gives more freedom to the RL and the tanks to move the boss more if there's a need to it.

This couldn't happen if the markers are at appropriate intervals. It's simple. Everything is moved up one marker after every unseen strike. Why would we be between two markers?

Third reason is that last raid has shown that good marked melee can place us in the right direction with the red marked peron in between us and the outline of the boss - once Lir got the hang of it, we started to survive every single one, and it wasn't an accident or stroke of luck. In order to get this fight done, we need to understand how the boss does this ability. We are not able to stack on someone's hitbox, we know that already from Ultraxion's conga line, so this - to me, at least - was the only way to proceed. Ground marks wouldn't cover that bit.

If everyone is stacking precisely on the raid marker, it doesn't matter from which angle of direction the cone originates. Should we really be designing raid strats because we feel guildees can't stack precisely? The original Easy GM would just shout at ppl who messed up something as simple as stacking. We are far too tolerant of ppl who mess up repeatedly. Yes, we can all make mistakes, I make mistakes too, but surely stacking and paying attention to raid mechanics is sufficiently important to progress that we should expect higher standards.

[Caireann]

Don't understand. Marker will be next to the boss and so within range of all, else they won't be able to hit the boss.

This couldn't happen if the markers are at appropriate intervals. It's simple. Everything is moved up one marker after every unseen strike. Why would we be between two markers?

To answer both of those points at the same time - tornados. It's too random. Sometimes we get a lot of them more to the end of the room and we don't need to move until the second strike, and sometimes we need to move even in between the strikes if we get a very unlucky set and all of them are cramped in path to the melee, cutting out those ranged more to the back.

All of my reasons get into account unlucky tornado placement, hence the additional movement, hence the mark doesn't have to be where the boss is, etc.

It's a RNG fight, so how can we not be more flexible? Thank you for your input, but I still stand to my opinion.

[Tan]

It is still my view that raid markers should be set up for each episode of unseen strike. Don't understand why we don't do this (enlighten me).

I also heard it's incredibly annoying if you have to run through all those in ph2?