So we got our first Vashj kill this evening. I know that a benchmark number for phase 2 dps is 10k dps to get her down comfortably. Our raid has slacked pretty hard on dps, I think averaging something closer to 9k. The way we closed the gap was by having only a couple of melee on the naga, and not really expecting them to go down. Since the first person to loot a core died almost immediately after picking it up, we ended up going in to phase 3 with five-ish naga on our offtank.
Our warlocks spammed seed of corruption on them until they all died, everyone else (save 2 hunters on bats) proceeded to work on Vashj. I think we ended up going about 45 seconds into the enrage, but with decent pathing could have continued further.
It's been repeated often in this thread, but having everybody alive all the time is key. Druids are especially nice for this, and with the annoyingly long run back you can use battle resses on many of your attempts.
Again, there seems to be confusion about this fight. You can't afford to blow Cloak of Shadows just to rid yourself of static charge when standing out of range of other solves the problem and costs at most a few thousand damage to Vashj. If you say, "Meh, I'll CloS and keep fighting" and then get rooted and kill anyone or force your healers OOM healing people who didn't need to take your damage, you were penny wise and completely pound foolish.
I can tell you that our melee get the charge often. I can also tell you, it never kills anyone. If the tank gets it, people move. If another melee gets it, he/she moves. If they are rooted and get it and they are not a rogue, some people get some damage until the roots are gone or some other solution is applied (like freeing them).
Everything can be handled if and only if dumb solutions like blowing cloak of shadows when it isn't required are used. I happen to play a gnome and happen to have imp sprint, so basically I can get out of all the roots with ease. But even non-gnome rogues with imp sprint can essentially match that. And anyone with a living action potion can.
Taking your highest single target dps off Vashj for the duration of the static charge on the off chance they might get it again before CloS CD has finished prolongs phase 3 and is in my opinion counterproductive. If it's the last escape mechanism left then maybe but as long as there is Imp Sprint, Vanish or Living Action potion I really don't see a problem with using CloS to get rid of Static Charge anytime it's up.
Taking your highest single target dps off Vashj for the duration of the static charge on the off chance they might get it again before CloS CD has finished prolongs phase 3 and is in my opinion counterproductive. If it's the last escape mechanism left then maybe but as long as there is Imp Sprint, Vanish or Living Action potion I really don't see a problem with using CloS to get rid of Static Charge anytime it's up.
I agree, there is no reason to not use CloS provided you have another way to break the root and run away from others if you get static charge. If you are our of cooldowns and you get a static charge and are not rooted, maaybe then and only then is it worth it to NOT CloS out of just the static charge effect.
As long as you have 1 ability up to get out of jail free, then CloS should be saved to allow as much DPS time on Vashj as possible. Makes no sense to sit out away from the fight and maybe never use CloS as you never get rooted + static at the same time and just get the static charge.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem is, it's often an incoming train.
Generally i save the imp sprint / vanish for when i get stuck on a green patch.
Clos when i'm stuck with the charge, or stuck next to somebody with the charge and low on health with no HS or Potion off CD.
If i got the static charge, i generally Clos out of it, because 2-3x 1500 damage to all the melee around me puts a lot of extra stress on the healers.
Jump up and down to reduce the chance to get stuck on top of a green patch. (it doesn't do damage when you get rooted midair)
It looks pretty silly to see half the melee jumping
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Everything can be handled if and only if dumb solutions like blowing cloak of shadows when it isn't required are used. I happen to play a gnome and happen to have imp sprint, so basically I can get out of all the roots with ease. But even non-gnome rogues with imp sprint can essentially match that. And anyone with a living action potion can.
I find this advice baffling. It is very efficient to CoS a static immediately, it is also highly unlikely a rogue would get a 2nd static before his CoS CD is up. In the event that said rogue does get a static while on CD, then he is in the same boat as the other melee classes (fury war, enhance shaman, others) and runs out just like anybody else. In the event he gets static+root while on CoS CD, he is _still_ in the same boat as other melee classes, hence Living Action pots (or talented sprint or gnome racial, etc). Using CoS on static is just very efficient and plays to "most likely" scenario while still having a plan for when CoS is on CD (ie, what the other melee classes have to do anyway). With a 1 min CoS CD, it is often that our rogues will cloak out of multiple statics in p1 and p3, it just saves so much time/healing/dps.
The spawn timers on the striders all seem rather inaccurate.
Bigwigs for instance can tell you there is as much as 10-15 seconds of time left until one spawns, but hey may still spawn at that time.
Could there perhaps be a hidden timer that starts running after you kill the earlier strider to ensure you have at most 5-10 seconds after killing a strider before a new one spawns?
We've been having horrible luck with striders spawning at the end of phase 2, when the Bigwigs timer listed at least 10-15 seconds being available until the next one was supposed to spawn.
How does your guild handle this usually? Just pop the pillar when there's 20-25 seconds before the next strider?
Time tends to get really tight if you missed 1-2 green cores due to bad luck.
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On our third night of attempts last night, we finally saw a breakthrough to phase 3. We got her to 5% before the raid wiped.
We were able to mostly repeat our control of phase 2, bringing her back to phase 3 a few times, but little things kept adding up - a Rogue would eat a cleave, a slow BoF would mean a Priest got Multi-Shot and died, etc.
I expect that with 4 more full hours to use on Sunday (and 4 more on Monday, if that's what it takes), we'll put her in her watery grave this week.
Out of personal curiousity, what has learning time for guilds that weren't among the first to see Vashj back in the spring/summer been like? We were very happy to see phase 3 on our third night, but we've rarely ever been held back by any encounter for over two weeks. I'm guessing Kael'thas will make a joke of that claim, but as it stands, Vashj would be the same - ignoring the week of Thanksgiving, since we couldn't raid enough to get back to her, this is our second week of seeing Vashj, and we're definitely on-track for a kill this weekend.
Putting 6-7 people on the stairs and making sure they had dedicated healing, along with people really seeming to finally understand their priorities, made all the difference. We had ~10s gaps between Naga and Striders all the way through our 5% attempt. Having two tanks to ensure that Naga were picked up quickly (and for additional Intercept/Conc. Blow stuns on Striders when not tanking) was also very useful.
Out of personal curiousity, what has learning time for guilds that weren't among the first to see Vashj back in the spring/summer been like? We were very happy to see phase 3 on our third night, but we've rarely ever been held back by any encounter for over two weeks. I'm guessing Kael'thas will make a joke of that claim, but as it stands, Vashj would be the same - ignoring the week of Thanksgiving, since we couldn't raid enough to get back to her, this is our second week of seeing Vashj, and we're definitely on-track for a kill this weekend.
My guild probably failed exceptionally, relative to anyone else, but we downed Leotheras on August 13 and didn't get Vashj until September 30. Our first three weeks or so after killing Leo were filled with failures to farm deep-farm bosses like Hydross and even, at times, Lurker, and then when we got to Vashj we simply had no consistency whatsoever when it came to attempts. Our September kill was essentially luck.
After the guild lost about half its raid force and subsequently pulled everything back together, it took us about two serious nights of work on Vashj to re-kill her (November 11) and, the next time we attempted her, we got a three-shot (November 21).
By comparison, we worked two nights on Kael during the raid week of Nov. 13-19, and we have worked two nights on him this week, and we currently have him at phase 4, expecting a kill this coming Sunday.
(edit) To make this less of tooting my own horn and more of a general contribution: I'd say given the difficulty of the fight, having about two solid weeks' worth of attempts to learn her seems pretty good. Obviously it depends on the length of your raiding week.
I'd say given the difficulty of the fight, having about two solid weeks' worth of attempts to learn her seems pretty good. Obviously it depends on the length of your raiding week.
We're currently raiding 4 hours a night, 4 nights a week. We've got Sunday and Monday left on our calendar this week. I think that it's reasonable to expect a kill on Sunday night, provided all the necessary people are available. I'm looking forward to it in a big way.
i really dislike fights that are stack friendly and vashj is definitely one of them.
bring a bunch of range dps and profit.
4 hunters makes this boss really easy, lot of melee dps makes it very difficult. in t4/5 gear, a hunter can take a cardinal direction stairway alone, whereas it'll take 2 melees to keep it clear. you also need at least 5 range dps killing striders (not including the kiter)
melee are also vulnerable in p3 when she is rooting a lot on top of goo, not to mention any time any melee gets static they're going to automatically generate at least a couple seconds of raid damage. this isn't an issue for range. again a couple hunters killing sporebats in p3 will make this a lot easier.
imo, vashj >> kael (especially now, but before as well)
We're currently raiding 4 hours a night, 4 nights a week. We've got Sunday and Monday left on our calendar this week. I think that it's reasonable to expect a kill on Sunday night, provided all the necessary people are available. I'm looking forward to it in a big way.
We killed her on our second night of attempts. Two nights, five hours a peice and she went down. Its all about your players understanding the fight. I went through great lengths to make sure my people understood every mechanic of the fight and new their jobs. To top it off we were under geared. Just take your time explain it all and trust your players. So your statment is correct and good luck on your kill. You need to catch up with my homie Eldi in Spire! Someone has to give them a little competition!
We killed her on our second night of attempts. Two nights, five hours a peice and she went down. Its all about your players understanding the fight. I went through great lengths to make sure my people understood every mechanic of the fight and new their jobs. To top it off we were under geared. Just take your time explain it all and trust your players. So your statment is correct and good luck on your kill. You need to catch up with my homie Eldi in Spire! Someone has to give them a little competition!
Spire was 5/6 and 3/4 when we killed Lurker for the first time. We're catching up just fine. :P
On-topic, what consumables are worth really pushing for? I think I've got everyone flasking as necessary, and health/mana potions are assumed, but what do you guys really, really demand of people? Drums? Nets? Blacksmithing runes/wards?
Strider DPS having nets is a big help in getting them in position for the kiter to start on them.
Food buffs, especially +sta, is always helpful. Given how unlucky/streaky her bolts+poison damage can be, having every it of health people can get will go a long way.
Really, Vashj and Kael should be about the point where you guild should be looking for everyone to start hitting 9.5k-10k buffed hp. it gives a good buffer for both fights, and you will need that much hp for most fights in Hyjal/BT.
Dont like the nets.... get feared while one is trapped and it can hit you if unlucky and maybe 1shot a clothie, just keep it slowed and you're laughing.
One of our druids was bad at dodging striders when we started working on vashj, after 4 deaths because of getting feared in a netted strider he now actually moves away from striders coming in his direction.
There is no excuse for anyone getting feared by striders, as long as your kiter runs in a predictable path, and the extra threat the kiter can ccreate because of the nets is huge. I saw a poster higher up mention you need 5 ranged to nuke the striders, we only use 3, and the only reason those 3 are enough is because our warlock can create insane ammounts of threat as long as he has stunned / netted striders so he can cast spells instead of dot.
There is no excuse for anyone getting feared by striders, as long as your kiter runs in a predictable path, and the extra threat the kiter can ccreate because of the nets is huge. I saw a poster higher up mention you need 5 ranged to nuke the striders, we only use 3, and the only reason those 3 are enough is because our warlock can create insane ammounts of threat as long as he has stunned / netted striders so he can cast spells instead of dot.
This is some good advice that I hadn't seen mentioned here before - it helps to look at your WWS and see how much DPS your kiter is putting out. If they are low, then you will end up with more people needed to take down a Strider. We also had more success when we ensured our Strider group got salv/tranquil air. We also use as many stuns and nets as possible, including a warrior intercepting>concussion blow>hamstring.
If you can up the dps on Striders then you free up more people elsewhere, although I am curious if you only use 3 on Striders, what does everyone else find to do?
This is some good advice that I hadn't seen mentioned here before - it helps to look at your WWS and see how much DPS your kiter is putting out. If they are low, then you will end up with more people needed to take down a Strider. We also had more success when we ensured our Strider group got salv/tranquil air. We also use as many stuns and nets as possible, including a warrior intercepting>concussion blow>hamstring.
If you can up the dps on Striders then you free up more people elsewhere, although I am curious if you only use 3 on Striders, what does everyone else find to do?
This is mentioned many many many times in this thread, 3 times by myself alone =). I know this thread is huge and scary looking, but there is SO much useful information here that people skim over and so the same questions/suggestions get asked and stated over and over again.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem is, it's often an incoming train.
Well yeah ok, I realise it has been mentioned before, I was saying that one thing that worked for us was looking at the WWS of the kiter. He went from ~500dps to ~800dps and this made all the difference to us. Apologies if this is too much repetition, but I don't see the harm in emphasising a point which for us, led to a kill.
If you can up the dps on Striders then you free up more people elsewhere, although I am curious if you only use 3 on Striders, what does everyone else find to do?
We usually have a few more on striders, but we had a stupid ammount of healers yesterday, and found out using only 3 dps on striders works as well, the only result was that naga dps went down a bit since strider-dps usually also dot up the naga's.
(think our set-up was:
3 warriors
3 mages (all on the sides)
3 warlocks (2 on sides, 1 kiting the striders)
2 hunters (also on the sides)
2 rogues (nagas)
1 enhancement shaman (nagas)
3 holy priests
1 paladin
2 resto shamans
2 resto druids
3 shadowpriests (strider dps))
I wouldnt recommend this set-up by the way, we used it to attune the last few people.
Is the Strider kiter dying? If so work on keeping it snared more. Are people pulling aggro on the Strider? If so, give them something else to do (typically DPSing a Naga) for a bit while the kiter builds more aggro, and/or give Tranquil Air to your ranged group to help out.
I do Strider kiting and it's really not hard at all once you've got the hang of it. Just keep CoEx and all instant dots up. As you run you will be able to maintain some distance to the mob and every once in a while you can actually stop and throw in some searing pain to get extra aggro. If you're a tailor you can also use some netherweave nets to stop it for a moment and throw in some more dots and searing pain.
Important tips:
- keep CoEx up at all times, use amp. curse if you're affliction
- use netherweave nets if you can, they're nice especially when the strider spawn (throw net, searing pain, dot = instant aggro)
- remove any aggro reducing buffs during phase 2 (blessing, etc)
- move on the outside rim of the platform always. You do not want the strider anyhere near the middle, ever.
Mages and hunter can help with slowing them down, but it's really not that necessary. You really want them to focus DPS on the nagas and then the strider itself because the timewindow is really very small. Usually we focus the Nagas first because that allows me and the other lock kiting to build up a nice stash of aggro. We can then go all out on the strider, hopefully burning it down well before the second one spawns.
Also one more tip: Do not waste time with two striders. If you can't bring the first one down before the second one spawns you're pretty much toast. Just lay down and go for the next try, because in most cases two of them are just too much to handle and it also means DPS is not high enough on Nagas and striders.
We got our first kill this past week, after 3-4 nights of attempts. Putting ranged (Hunters/Mages) on the Elementals and having consistent full-time DPS on the Striders/Naga (Warlocks/Shadow Priest, Warriors/Rogues on Naga) worked out very well for us.
We actually discourage nets for the most part, although we do make liberal use of the intercept-hamstring-concussion blow option.
As soon as phase 3 pop's, our OT and his healer bring the nagas down and off to the side and we just start dps as soon as the MT has enough threat on Vashj. We did it this way, back when the dps wasn't so high, now we can just burn everything down... =)
Would just like to thank everyone for this thread. After a lot of raid attrition, recruitment, retirements, turnover etc etc our guild finally downed Vashj the other night. This thread was one of our prime sources of information and advice, and really helped us tune our strategy.
What worked for us was putting more DPS on killing elementals (we went from four to five, then to six DPS on elementals) and concentrating on getting through phase 2 as quickly as possible. Nagas are definitely the easiest phase 2 component that you can let go if you need to focus your DPS on other areas. It took us three tries once we got to phase 3... the first try we all panicked and wiped very quickly. The second try we didn't focus on the bats enough and there was too much movement in and out of green goop for our DPS to focus on Vashj. The third try we ensured that a warlock and a hunter were on bats full time and we won fairly easily in phase 3. Phase 2 is definitely the steepest learning curve.
11/29/07, 3:55 AM
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