Funny how each new encounter in Sunwell makes the previous one appear childish in comparison.
During our learning curve we actually bumped upon the 'right' tactic (as in, the one that eventually got us a kill) however not having enough healers that day forced us to try new approaches... which also seemed to require more healers than we had available - in short, it was a rather frustrating experience. What we did end up with was an LR style of approach - we didn't really consider killing Sacrolash first as we were much more interested in killing Alythess asap and reduce the raid damage, which was our bane for most of the time.
Basically we had 3 paladins in SR healing the MT's, a druid healing mainly the paladins, all those spaced out in order to avoid conflagrating each other and the rest of the raid bunched up near Alythess, with the warlock tanking her dancing upon the ledge.
Another thing I discovered during our multiple wipes was - Sacrolash is easily kiteable in phase 2. More than once she'd Conflag one of the tanks, Confounding blow the other and run rampant towards the casters - usually me. Now, I'd be standing at the top of the right hand ledge while she'd be tanked in the middle of the room below, so by the time she could climb up I had more than enough time to run to the upper ledge, wait a bit for her to come close, then jump down to the tanks, buying enough time for one of the tanks to recover from whichever Incapacitate effect they were under, at which point she'd lose interest in me and run back to them. Funny thing is, even if the tanks were still incapacitated, jumping down from the upper ledge would mean I'd have enough space and time to repeat my stunt
. Obviously though, and depending on how healer heavy you run for this fight, that's a lot of time wasted.
This was the first fight in TBC that forced one of our enhance shamans and our retribution paladin to respec resto/holy, just so we could meet the healing requirements. I dread the day when we won't have 10, or at a push 9 well geared dedicated healers, or enough shamans for the chain heal paradise that phase 1 is, or paladins for the MT healing and shadow images 'tanking'.
In conclusion, I'm kinda dissapointed at the fact that healers are the only ones being challenged by each new encounter so far in SP. There's really nothing in Sunwell that has been 'difficult' for a competent, well geared DPS class, but on the other hand the sheer healing power required and burdens placed upon the healers seem to be all the more grave at each encounter. Once upon a time Illidari council was a raid damage nightmare, nowadays Twins make IC look like child's play, (which, considering the raid progression from BT to SP is understandable) but the difficulty level has only increased for the healers. In essence, you have to expect your healers to play more and more like small deities. This, in my humble opinion, is rather sad.
But, we've still got two encounters to go, and seeing how each end boss so far in WoW incorporates all elements and strategies that you'd use to deal with the bosses before it, I expect a Kil'jaeden fight that will be nothing short of epic, just as long as there's a balance between healing and DPS requirements and tanking duties.