Council of Elders nutshell guide

[Zlinka]

Council of Elders nutshell guide

Okay, we've all seen this in LFR. Four bosses, with one being "empowered" at a time. When a boss is empowered, it will gain a new offensive ability. It will also eventually do high raid-wide damage -- it acquires a dark energy bar that slowly fills; when full, the boss will start casting casting Dark Power which will deal increasing raid-wide damage every second.

A troll gets broken out of empowerment by receiving 25% of its total health in damage. When that happens, another one gets empowered. The old one will gain a 10% damage buff.

If a troll dies while empowered, no biggie, the empowerment jumps to another troll. If a troll dies while NOT empowered, then the currently empowered troll will stay empowered until it dies (25% damage is no longer enough). This can be a problem if it's at high health.

TROLL ABILITIES

1) Frost Kind Malakk

Regular abilities:
* Frigid Assault: Frost damage + debuff to tank. When the debuff reaches 15 stacks it sill stun the tank for 15 seconds, necessitating a TANK SWAP.
* Biting cold: random frost attack on a player + damage to everyone within 4 yards for 30 seconds.

Empowered ability:
* Biting cold becomes Frostbite: random frost attack that does damage AND applies 5 stacks of frostbite. This does damage to everyone within 4 yards according to the number of stacks. Stacks can be removed in 10-man by having people close by -- every player within 4 yards will cause the afflicted player to lose 2 stacks of the debuff. The debuff can't be reduced below 1 stack.


2) Kazra'jin

Regular abilities:
* Reckless Charge: he charges a player, damaging everyone in his path and knocking back everyone still at the target location.

Empowered abilities:
* Overload: after each Reckless Charge he'll cast overload, which will stun him for 20 seconds during which time he will REFLECT 50% of the damage he takes as nature damage.


3) Sul the Sandcrawler

Regular abilities:
* Sand Bolt: random Nature attack on a player and to all players within 5 yards. Ability can and should be interrupted
* Quicksand: creates a pool of sand at a random player's location. Does damage to players standing in it and applies a debuff called Ensnared, which reduces movement speed. At 5 stacks, player becomes Entrapped for 30 seconds.

Empowered abilities:
* Sandstorm: Every 40 seconds he'll cast sandstorm (twice per empowerment). This transforms every Quicksand into a Living Sand, a 92 elite add, which attacks players. When it dies it leaves behind a Quicksand pool.

4) High Priestess Mar'li

Regular abilities:
* Wrath of the Loa: random player Holy attack. Can and should be interrupted.
* Blessed Loa Spirit: Summons a Blessed Loa Spirit at her location, which runs towards the troll with lowest health. If it reaches him it will heal him for 10% of max health. If it's alive after 20 seconds it will jump straight to the target and heal him for 10%. It must be slowed, rooted, and killed.

Empowered abilities:
* Empowered wrath of the Loa: random player attack that does Shadow instead of Holy damage.
* Shadowed Loa Spirit: fixates on a random player. If it comes within 6 yards of that player that player will die. If the spirit is alive after 20 seconds it will jump to the targeted player and kill them. The spirit must be be slowed, rooted and killed.

STRATEGY

Main concerns

Positioning:
* Stay spread out 7 yards to reduce damage from Biting Cold and Sand Bolt. Melee can't spread as much so they will take more damage.
* Get out of the way of Kazra'jin's Reckless Charge.
* When Malakk is empowered, make sure 2 players are close to the player afflicted with Frostbite.
* Get away from Marli when she casts Shadowed Loa Spirit (except for the tank, who is never targeted by this).

Interrupting:
* Interrupt Sand Bolt, Wrath of the Loa (normal and empowered)

Dealing with the Living Sands:
* Quicksands will become more and more numerous as long as Sul is up, and when Sul casts Sandstorm they all become adds. These need to be picked up quickly by one of the tanks and AoE'd down -- that's a top priority. Get out of the pools as they die -- melee get out.

Tanking concerns:
* One tank will take High Priestess Mar'li and the other will take Sul the Sandcrawler. They will also need to alternate tanking Frost Kind Malakk so they never reach 15 stacks of his Frigid Assault debuff.
* When the Living Sands appear, the tank that is NOT currently tanking Malakk should pick them up.

Healing concerns:
* When a tank is tanking Malakk, expect higher tank damage.
* Expect lots of damage on the tank taking the Living Sands.
* If a boss reaches 100 dark energy while empowered, they will start casting dark power every second until empowerment is removed. Damage will increase by 10% after each cast -- raid-wide damage can quickly get out of control.
* When Kazra'jin is empowered, he'll cast Overload after each Reckless Charge. This will cause a 50% damage reflect onto players.

DPS concerns:
* Kill order: Blessed and Shadowed Loa Spirits > Living Sands > Empowered Boss.
* A note on Empowered bosses: bosses should be broken out before they reach 100 energy, but this is not a desperate, top priority situation. In particular, Kazra'jin's empowerment does a damage reflect so he can't be burned down during that. So we can spend some time damaging other bosses while one is empowered. The exception is Sul, whom we should break out quickly, before he can cast a second sandstorm.
--> burn Sul down while he's empowered.
--> Try killing Kazra'jin and Sul first. This will reduce the #times they get empowered, reducing the Overloads (damage reflect) and Sandstorms (sand adds) that we'll have to deal with.
--> Refrain from damaging Frost Kink Malakk. This means he'll never be the lowest-health boss, which means that the Blessed Loa Spirit will never heal him -- which can be a problem if Marli and Malakk are being tanked by the same tank.
--> Second strategy: Just burn Sul first. To do this, tank Sul next to the Malakk or Mar'li if they are empowered, focus on Sul, but try to break the empowerment through Cleaves and AoEs. Use bloodlust.

[Zlinka]

Okay, I've done some more reading about the Council of Elders to help us tonight. Here 's a recap of the most important abilities we need to handle:

* Biting Cold and Frostbite, by Frost King Malakk. These are his two abilities. In his normal state he applies a Biting Cold debuff, which damages the target and anyone within 4 yards. So, get away from the person who has it and heal that person -- pretty straightforward.

However, when he's empowered, Biting Cold becomes Frostbite, which is much worse. Frostbite ticks TWICE as often, which basically doubles its damage (to 100K per second). If people stand near the afflicted person, however, it spreads out the damage.

--> So, if you are ranged and you get Frostbite, SAY SOMETHING in vent so other people can stack on you.

* Frigid Assault. This is Malakk's tank swap debuff. It applies a stun when it reaches 15 stacks. Tanks should swap Malakk at about 10 stacks.

--> Tanks must communicate and swap Malakk before they get 15 stacks of Frigid Assault.

* Blessed Loa Spirit and Shadowed Loa Spirit. These are Mar'li's two abilities. She casts Blessed Loa Spirit in her normal mode. This spirit walks towards the lowest-health boss and heals it. She casts Shadowed Loa Spirit in her empowered mode. This one walks towards a player and one-shots that person.

--> Ranged must take the Blessed Loa Spirits down. If one is up, it is your top priority. These spirits should also be slowed, stunned, snared etc. Melee will stay on the current melee target to avoid having them run around. If we have trouble getting the spirits down, we'll put some melee on them.

--> As melee will already be on Mar'li when she's empowered, melee will take the Shadowed Loa Spirits down as soon as they spawn. This becomes the top kill priority when one appears. Use stuns and slows etc. to keep them from waking too far off.

* Quicksand and Sandstorm. These are Sul's two abilities. He casts Quicksand in his normal state, which leaves obvious pools of sand on the ground. They do damage, slow, and eventually ensnare anyone standing in them. The snare can be dispelled.

--> Don't stand in the pools of quicksand.

Sandstorm is his empowered ability. It will damage the entire raid for a few seconds, then all the pools of quicksand will turn into small elementals called Living Sands. This is very hectic. When they die they revert to being pools of sand again.

--> When the Living Sands appear, a tank will need to pick them up so they can be AoE'd. Everyone needs to get out before they die.

* Reckless Charge and Overload. Kazra'jin can't be tanked -- he just randomly charges people and knocks them around. Stay out of the cloudy grey line on the ground, which is his charge path. When he's empowered he'll become Overloaded after each charge, which stuns him for 20 seconds but also does a 50% damage reflect. We can still DPS him, but make sure not to kill yourself in the process.

STRATEGY TIPS

* Burn each possessed councilor down as quickly as possible.
* Any extra DPS that can be thrown on other councilors is really helpful. Tab-dot them and cleave whenever possible.
* If a councilor is almost dead and empowerment passes to another councilor, it may be worth it to finish up the current one just to be done with it and its abilities.

Start Configuration

* One tank takes Sul and Malakk, the other takes Mar'li (Malakk always gets empowered first, after that who gets empowered is random).
* The raid will start attacking Sul and will burn him until the first Blessed Loa spawns (it will head toward Sul). Use cleaves to damage Malakk as well as Sul, but focus on Sul.
* When the Blessed Loa spawns the raid will burn it down.
* The raid will then switch to Malakk, break him out of his empowerment, and go to the next empowered councilor etc.
* Keep DoTs going on Sul. We want him to be be the lowest health boss so that (a) he eventually dies first because he's nasty, and (b) the Blessed Loas will have a long way to travel to we have time to get them.

While all this is happening:
* Assign two ranged players to stack on the Frostbite person, plus one reserve player in case one of the original two is affected. Ranged will discuss who would be best for Frostbite assignments. Note: The Frostbite person will get a blue arrow over their head for 3 seconds before Frostbite lands so there's time to group up.
* When Frostbite is not up ranged will need to stay a few yards apart to avoid the targeted small-AoE attacks (Sand Bolt, Biting Cold)
* Ranged will burn down the Blessed Loa Spirit when it appears.
* Melee will burn down the Shadowed Loa Spirit.
* We all need to avoid Quicksands
* When/if Living Sand adds appear the non-Malakk tank will pick them up and we'll AoE them down, with melee running out before they die.

ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES:

* Stack up, nuke Sul, ignore Blessed Loa strategy: The goal of this strategy is to burn Sul before he empowers. Tanks stand together, one tanking Sul and Malakk, the other tanking Mar'li. The tanks swap Malakk before 15 stacks, but since he's close by the melee does not need to move. The raid burns down Sul while cleaving the other two -- the raid's DPS must be greater than the heals provided by Marli's Blessed Loa Spirit which cannot be stopped before it heals the lowest councilor (and is therefore ignored). Bloodlust on the pull to get Sul as low as possible (until Malakk reaches 40-50 energy), and switch to Malakk at the last possible moment to DPS him out of his empowerment as close to 100 dark energy as possible (OR just get Malakk down by 25% with cleaves -- depends on raid DPS). Interrupt Sul. In this strategy Kazra'jin, the damage-reflector, will be the 2nd councilor to empower. When this happens keep some DPS on Sul (two DoT-based DPS, 1 DPS, whatever works best). For the rest of the DPS, attack Kazra'jin and don't kill yourself on Kazra'jin's damage reflect, especially bursty DPS. When Mar'li empowers, it's the same as when the Frost King empowers: nuke Sul but cleave Mar'li and kill her add. With this strategy Sul should be dead before he gets empowered. After he dies, DPS attacks whoever is empowered.

* Interrupt Sul Strategy: This is a variation on the topmost strategy (bosses tanked apart, raid starts on Sul then switches to Malakk, Blessed Loas have a ways to walk and are killed). In this strategy one melee is kept on Sul to interrupt his Sand Bolts and provide ongoing damage to Sul. Interrupting Sand Bolts reduces the chance that a player will get Biting Cold/Frostbite AND a Sand Bolt, which is 360K damage in one second. Some raids keep two melee on him to make sure that NO Sand Bolts get through (possibly pulling one off just for Kazra'jin's empowerment). These players would also damage Malakk if he's nearby. If we do this it would be either Umu, Zlinka or both. Meanwhile, the non-Sul DPS attack the currently empowered councilor, break it out of empowerment, and kill the Loas.

[Zlinka]

The Council of Elders is down!!!!

We used the "group them up, ignore the blessed loas" strategy and it worked beautifully.

-Zlinka

[Sevdrith]

The Council of Elders is down!!!!

We used the "group them up, ignore the blessed loas" strategy and it worked beautifully.

-Zlinka

I used the "Tank-them-to-15%-then-watch-the-rest-of-the-raid-kill-them-while-my-face-was-in-the-mud" strategy.

It worked beautifully!