01-10-2013, 05:26 PM
The Spirit Kings
The biggest difficulty in this fight comes from the large amount of MOVEMENT that we must do.
This is a coucil-style fight with 4 bosses, and a 10-minute enrage timer.
FIRST BOSS: Qiang the Merciless
The raid STACKS UP for this boss. Tank the boss in the center of the room. Raid stacks in FRONT of him.
* Flanking Orders: get out of the way. Then move back to center of the room.
* Massive Attacks: frontal cone attack with shared damage. Get out of the way, promptly and together.
* Annihilate: AoE with 3-sec warning rumble effect in front of him. Run THROUGH him to avoid it. Then remain on the other side.
SECOND BOSS: Subetai the Swift
The raid SPREADS OUT for this boss.
* Pillage: The boss will charge a raid member and debuff all players within 8 yards with a 15 second "Pillage" debuff that reduces damage and healing done, and increases damage taken. Players run apart, spread out.
* Volley: 3-step frontal cone effect. (1) He fires a volley of arrows in a frontal cone, dealing moderate damage. (2) He fires a narrower cone that does more damage. (3) He fires a final very narrow cone doing massive damage. Get away from the front of the boss.
* Rain of Arrows: Targets random raid member and fires a volley at that location. All players in an 8 yard radius are stunned by "pinning arrows" which deal damage every second. Kill the pinning arrows immediately. Note: players can escape the arrows by using immunity and escape abilities (e.g. blink).
You'll STILL be dealing with flanking orders -- just avoid the line.
THIRD BOSS: Zian of the Endless Shadow
This is a SPREAD OUT and INTERRUPT phase.
* Undying Shadows: Zian selects a random player, then summons an attackable add at that location. This add fixates on the nearest raid member and follows that player around, doing damage to all players within 10 yards. When it's killed, it forms a big void zone. Over 30 sec, the void zone shrinks in size until it finally transforms back into the original add... which fixates on the nearest target again, and the process repeats itself. After the second void zone shrinks, it vanishes altogether, and no add spawns for a bit. THE FIXATED PERSON MUST KITE IT TO THE EDGE OF THE ROOM, WHERE RANGED DPS WILL KILL IT.
* Shadow Blast: interruptible spell cast at the location of a random raid member. Deals a lot of damage to everyone within an 8 yard radius of that location. Always INTERRUPT.
* Charged Shadows: deals a lot of Shadow damage to a player, then jumps to any targets within 8 yards, damaging them too. Spread out.
Continue dealing with Flanking Orders, AND stay spread out to deal with Pillage.
FOURTH BOSS: Meng the Demented
This phase is all about handling Maddening Shout and managing Meng's insanity.
Ability note: Meng has an "insanity bar" that increases over time. When it reaches maximum capacity, it triggers one of two alternating passive abilities, then resets to zero and begins to increase again. The two passive abilities are:
* Crazed: Increases Meng's damage by 200% of his current insanity. At high insanity, the tank will require a lot of healing.
* Cowardice: Reflects damage back to the raid equal to 50% of his current insanity (so, if he has 60 insanity, he'll reflect 30% of the raid's damage back). So the more insanity he has, the more damage he'll reflect back to the raid. AT HIGH INSANITY DURING COWARDICE, THE RAID SHOULD STOP DPSING.
STRATEGY:
* Maddening Shout: turns all raid members hostile to each other and inflicts shadow damage every 3 seconds. The effect ends when each player has sustained 40,000 damage.
--> The raid should be loosely spread around Meng. When he casts Maddening Shout, everyone move in. Certain players will be assigned to cast AoE spells that deal the minimum amount of damage needed to break the effect (TBD). Do NOT use stuns, fears, or other debuffs on each other. After the effects have worn off, the raid spreads out around Mengagain.
* Crazy Thought: interruptible spell that increases Meng's insanity by 10. He casts this every 5 seconds.
--> At LOW insanity, always INTERRUPT Crazy thoughts.
--> At HIGH insanity, DO NOT interrupt Crazy Thoughts.
Why? Because the goal is to have Meng spend MORE time at low insanity (where he does less damage) and LESS time at high insanity, (where he does a lot more damage.)
NOTE ON CONFLICTING RETAINED ABILITIES:
Undying Shadows vs. Flanking orders: If your path to avoid flanking orders is blocked by a void zone, run around it, or run THROUGH it. The void zone does less damage than Flanking Orders.
Undying Shadows vs. Maddening Shout: If players are stacked up (e.g. to deal with Maddening Shout), the player who gets Undying Shadows should STILL run to the edge of the room. Kiting the add to the edge has priority over being in the bunch. Note, however, that a badly placed void zone probably won't wipe us.
Maddening Shout vs. Pillage: it's more important to be stacked up for Maddening Shout than to spread out for Pillage. Fortunately, these abilities are not cast at the same time very often.
BLOODLUST: early or late, TBD.
We'll learn this encounter one boss at a time!
Icy Veins' guide to The Spirit Kings
The biggest difficulty in this fight comes from the large amount of MOVEMENT that we must do.
This is a coucil-style fight with 4 bosses, and a 10-minute enrage timer.
FIRST BOSS: Qiang the Merciless
The raid STACKS UP for this boss. Tank the boss in the center of the room. Raid stacks in FRONT of him.
* Flanking Orders: get out of the way. Then move back to center of the room.
* Massive Attacks: frontal cone attack with shared damage. Get out of the way, promptly and together.
* Annihilate: AoE with 3-sec warning rumble effect in front of him. Run THROUGH him to avoid it. Then remain on the other side.
SECOND BOSS: Subetai the Swift
The raid SPREADS OUT for this boss.
* Pillage: The boss will charge a raid member and debuff all players within 8 yards with a 15 second "Pillage" debuff that reduces damage and healing done, and increases damage taken. Players run apart, spread out.
* Volley: 3-step frontal cone effect. (1) He fires a volley of arrows in a frontal cone, dealing moderate damage. (2) He fires a narrower cone that does more damage. (3) He fires a final very narrow cone doing massive damage. Get away from the front of the boss.
* Rain of Arrows: Targets random raid member and fires a volley at that location. All players in an 8 yard radius are stunned by "pinning arrows" which deal damage every second. Kill the pinning arrows immediately. Note: players can escape the arrows by using immunity and escape abilities (e.g. blink).
You'll STILL be dealing with flanking orders -- just avoid the line.
THIRD BOSS: Zian of the Endless Shadow
This is a SPREAD OUT and INTERRUPT phase.
* Undying Shadows: Zian selects a random player, then summons an attackable add at that location. This add fixates on the nearest raid member and follows that player around, doing damage to all players within 10 yards. When it's killed, it forms a big void zone. Over 30 sec, the void zone shrinks in size until it finally transforms back into the original add... which fixates on the nearest target again, and the process repeats itself. After the second void zone shrinks, it vanishes altogether, and no add spawns for a bit. THE FIXATED PERSON MUST KITE IT TO THE EDGE OF THE ROOM, WHERE RANGED DPS WILL KILL IT.
* Shadow Blast: interruptible spell cast at the location of a random raid member. Deals a lot of damage to everyone within an 8 yard radius of that location. Always INTERRUPT.
* Charged Shadows: deals a lot of Shadow damage to a player, then jumps to any targets within 8 yards, damaging them too. Spread out.
Continue dealing with Flanking Orders, AND stay spread out to deal with Pillage.
FOURTH BOSS: Meng the Demented
This phase is all about handling Maddening Shout and managing Meng's insanity.
Ability note: Meng has an "insanity bar" that increases over time. When it reaches maximum capacity, it triggers one of two alternating passive abilities, then resets to zero and begins to increase again. The two passive abilities are:
* Crazed: Increases Meng's damage by 200% of his current insanity. At high insanity, the tank will require a lot of healing.
* Cowardice: Reflects damage back to the raid equal to 50% of his current insanity (so, if he has 60 insanity, he'll reflect 30% of the raid's damage back). So the more insanity he has, the more damage he'll reflect back to the raid. AT HIGH INSANITY DURING COWARDICE, THE RAID SHOULD STOP DPSING.
STRATEGY:
* Maddening Shout: turns all raid members hostile to each other and inflicts shadow damage every 3 seconds. The effect ends when each player has sustained 40,000 damage.
--> The raid should be loosely spread around Meng. When he casts Maddening Shout, everyone move in. Certain players will be assigned to cast AoE spells that deal the minimum amount of damage needed to break the effect (TBD). Do NOT use stuns, fears, or other debuffs on each other. After the effects have worn off, the raid spreads out around Mengagain.
* Crazy Thought: interruptible spell that increases Meng's insanity by 10. He casts this every 5 seconds.
--> At LOW insanity, always INTERRUPT Crazy thoughts.
--> At HIGH insanity, DO NOT interrupt Crazy Thoughts.
Why? Because the goal is to have Meng spend MORE time at low insanity (where he does less damage) and LESS time at high insanity, (where he does a lot more damage.)
NOTE ON CONFLICTING RETAINED ABILITIES:
Undying Shadows vs. Flanking orders: If your path to avoid flanking orders is blocked by a void zone, run around it, or run THROUGH it. The void zone does less damage than Flanking Orders.
Undying Shadows vs. Maddening Shout: If players are stacked up (e.g. to deal with Maddening Shout), the player who gets Undying Shadows should STILL run to the edge of the room. Kiting the add to the edge has priority over being in the bunch. Note, however, that a badly placed void zone probably won't wipe us.
Maddening Shout vs. Pillage: it's more important to be stacked up for Maddening Shout than to spread out for Pillage. Fortunately, these abilities are not cast at the same time very often.
BLOODLUST: early or late, TBD.
We'll learn this encounter one boss at a time!
Icy Veins' guide to The Spirit Kings