Metrosexuelf

It's all academic now with the 2.2 changes going through three days from now. Escaping from FA is much more forgiving and overall raid DPS will skyrocket assuming most guilds either could not or did not raid stack.

 

wizzy

I found this week on Mother somewhat enligtening, we in essence killed her about 15 times without reciveing loot so to speak thats to the unforgiving nature of the fight.
We are running the eggs in one basket strat tanking her in the middle of the path & raid hugging the pillar on the left facing Mother.

We had nothing but chain FA ports on the raid and tank constantly throughout the night, it seemed with more and more practice at it the more survivable it was. I think we had about 3 strong attempts where we had 2 FA ports on the raid, and on our kill had 2 on the tank and 1 on the raid.

Im not sure if is the amount of healers we run for Mother (11 including the 2 pally offtanks) that makes it so much more forgiving, albiet we still wipe to some ports for whatever reason, but it seems my experience with the bad FA's are somewhat different to alot of other raiders around this site, food for thought.

 

• Falk

More academic facts, but ports on the raid or melee camp are usually nonlethal, but what they do is drain much-needed mana, since all damage that occurs has to be accounted for by healers.

I think another significant change that 2.2 will bring will be the huge drop in the mana strain of this fight. Firstly, less FA damage, especially on bad ports (assuming people play smart). Secondly, the fight goes much faster with each caster pulling at least an additional 300dps. Thirdly and something not mentioned much yet, are shadow priests actually regenerating respectable amounts of mana, rather than the paltry joke it is at the moment.

 

◊ Quigon

Actually you missed fourthly, and probably the most important: no chain wicked beams.

 

wizzy

Point I was getting at Falk was if your guild can comfortably sustain FA ports on the raid/tank, in my example 3, its not always a wipe due to mana issues, the fight seems alot more flexible then people give it credit for from our experience on it.

Although the 20ish attempts it took to down for the second time (more then our initial kill) may speak our louder then my arguement...

 

• Playered

?

She picks a new beam every 3 casts rather than every 5, a chain is still possible or am I mistaken in my understanding of this & the upcoming change?

 

Junpei

- Mother Shahraz is now significantly less likely to cast the same beam many times in a row.

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....01970360&sid=1

 

Nytro

Chain beams for some players ( all mt, off tank healers that is ) in the raid isnt a problem as they will never get any hits from any beam ever in the fight using the LOS strat.

If she cant see you, she cant target you or anyone with you with a beam.
If she cant see you, she cant port a group onto you.

While healers can be selected from with thin the LOS area and ported elsewhere along the linear paths you have primed, no beam damage, or mana drains for them makes the fight considerably easier for them and the raid healers.

Hell if you wanted to and you can, you can have your whole range group dodge the fa ports if you wanted to and beams as well to help bandage themselves to keep raid healing optimized as to raid slots allocated to that position.

 

• Playered

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> 02/08 Raid and Dungeon Encounter Update

"Mother Shahraz
- The players targeted by Saber Lash now gain the immunity to Sinister Beam and Fatal Attraction, regardless of whether or not Saber Lash actually landed.
- Shahraz will now pick a new beam to cast after every 3rd cast, instead of every 5th.
- The first two seconds of Fatal Attraction now deals reduced damage.

So either every set of beams was a chain (of 5) and now a set of 3 is not considered a chain at all, or there was something done to Wicked beam im unaware of? thats what I was asking.

 

◊ Praetorian

She switches more often, is all. That should make the beams better distributed. More switches lets the law of averages do its thing.

 

Junpei

Would be preferable if she could only use the same beam twice within a single cycle, 3 wicked beams is still going to be pretty nasty regardless. But still better then 5.

I was hoping for a quicker resolution on the parry mechanic, I can understand that it's a deepset game mechanic that needs adjusting, but sitting there doing nothing but sitting down to try ensure I take Lash every 15s or so is kinda boring : (. Faerie Fire every 35s or so to be rebellious

 

Charsi

Well, you won't have to sit anymore, you can even turn around and try and dodge/parry Saber Lash. You just shouldn't retaliate.

 

Junpei

Yeah thats true, I guess it'll be down to stacking avoidance while staying within a decent SR margin and just dancing the fight away : b

 

s[orc]ery

Are these mechanics confirmed? I saw some anecdotal evidence on MS attempts both supporting and not supporting them. It would explain a certain number of wipes we had..

 

• Falk

The first is already confirmed. The second... I'm not so sure.

Could be very easily tested by stacking the entire raid behind the MT with no DPS (just to avoid parries <_<) till the first FA port happens. If it's true, there's only one possible direction it SHOULD happen. Shouldn't take more than one pull and leash to confirm.

 

◊ Quigon

Using a 1 group strategy for a while now I think we would've noticed the majority of FA's going between her and the raid/melee stack if mechanic 2 was accurate. The vast majority are sent out into open space where no one is.

I'm not sure I see a huge advantage in most of that other than in maybe protecting a few healers. But I believe the chains bounce anyway. And FA should pick targets out of LoS, move them into LoS, and then put you in range of a gib situation. It doesn't seem to "help" a guild that is executing fine on all accounts other than the unavoidable ones.

As for the chain wicked chain - the average number of beams will be the same - but streakiness is what matters as most people implied.

 

Junpei

Using a 3 group strategy with groups spaced in an odd triangle around the tank spot (we tank her in the middle of the path) the number of FA ports on actual groups of people is kinda low. I can imagine if you got more spread out than 3 groups you'd end up with quite a few people munching on FA ticks.

Not that this matters with the patch, FA will still be a hard hitter, but practice on running will virtually nullify the danger from the ability, especially that 1 tick reprieve to start with

 

Nytro

Chains do bounce, but having healers inside the los at max healing range means they take none of the beams whatsoever since they are out of range of any chains that could possibly hit them. The only time 1 chain could get to them is if someone was careless in running to that group and had a chain hit them at the time.

As for the Fa portal mechanic, having tested this on raids, its consistant. The fa portal path is any line from point 1 being herself and the 2nd point being anyone she can see, now draw a line connecting those 2 dots and run it till that line connects with a wall either way, that is the possible path for fa ports. Remember that pets, totems, and people count for any of those targets.

Something other players have noticed but not verified is if somone was parked at spot X at the start of the fight or on first FA, the game seems to keep that spot or path marked even though someone has moved from it, thus perodic ports to no one on the current line, but from people that were there previously.

These two things do help a guild learn the encounter and the patch soon will make this fight easier as well but this takes some of the edge off the fight since you can 100% protect your mt healers from Fa's ported onto them and eliminate chains on them. Whether you take use this and have your range dodge the fa portals is another question and possibly bad since you thus eliminate visable targets for her to port along a path with the greater chance of it being ontop of the melee/mt. Thus we keep Range outside the los box visable but alert to move into LOS to dodge fa ports when they are incoming with seem to be on a 18-25 sec window.

 

◊ Quigon

It just doesn't match at all what I've seen in practice. Almost all ports go out into open space for us, and some where no one is standing. If it even does that once I would think that shatters your hypothesis.

I mean I could be wrong, and I enjoy hearing about new mechanics and strats, but it doesn't seem to place FA's as you state.

 

Ghando

It's not just that clumping reduces the chance of extra FA damage. Clumping is also desirable because it ensures everyone will be in healing range of everyone else 100% of the time, and most importantly clumping really lets Chain Heal work its magic. In my mind that's a convincing argument for the 1-camp strategy in itself, but obviously your mileage may vary and plenty of people have success with more camps.

 

Dawme

That's wrong. Definitely. We have a very basic positionning for shahraz : everyone is in the middle "normal" path aligned like this :

Tanks <=> Shahraz <=> Melee <=====> Ranged/Healers <========> Where she stands before pull.

And we regularly see FA ports far behind the tanks, far behind the ranged camp or along the walls on each side.

Afaik, FA port destination is just a random around her, nothing more than that.

 

Lodekim

I find it really hard to see the line theory working in practice as well.

We keep the ranged in a clump to one side, tanks in front, melee behind, that should leave about 3 lines. However, just in the last kill I can remember people ported behind the tanks and to the side, with no one being along that line, though it's possible if you take it as a full line going both ways a melee was at that angle, but more solidly I've seen people ported behind the melee and to the side, that isn't along a line to where anyone stands or where anyone has been throughout the fight unless counting where they ran with FA.

My experiences don't fit with the line idea, and if it's forcing it by saying along a line anywhere someone's been, FA movements more or less make that not matter because people can't just always do the same thing with FA.

 

Nytro

Actually what you just stated supports this mechanic, as we tested to see if this works as well and we were able to set paths up for Fas.Remeber at the start of the fight even on aggro it seems, people out in the open can seemingly trigger or mark areas, thus why we hide our range group etc in los where she cannot port too until she is is set up in her mt position and range healers are already in their safe los spot.

I may not be coming across clearly to some as i had problems getting it across in raids until i actually set it up and showed the mechanic and was able to direct or predict where the ports where to be.

To test this we set up a letter V in the middle of the wallkway, with the tank at the apex of the V and 2 range groups split up at the top of each line of that V shape. Now if you carry 1 side of the V with a imaginary line past the mt until it intersects with the wall.. either wall, that is a possible path of ports. You cant set up where Fa ports will be along this path but knowing where this will be helps.

Almost all ports go out into open space for us, and some where no one is standing~ correct, it doesnt mean it will be on somone standing in a spot, but if you draw a line across 2 dots and extend those lines further, with 1 dot being the Boss and the 2nd dot being anyone, there is where your ports could possibly be anywhere along that line.

Tanks <=> Shahraz <=> Melee <=====> Ranged/Healers <========> Where she stands before pull.And we regularly see FA ports far behind the tanks, far behind the ranged camp

As you outlined above with the line in the middle, this is correct as you said u saw ports behind the tanks or range camp as this is a direct line across all of them. As to the ports along the side, i really dont know how to account for that unless somone wasnt stacked properly attacking from a angle or totems were slightly off stack and set up a new path thus along the wall.

Changing mt position in our strat to utilize LOS and using the above we have basically 2 fa portal spots now which are both in range of the FA healer which makes the fight even before the patch completely ez mode.

This thing in entirely is very easy to replicate, stack 1 main group with your mt out infront and pull the boss to you with no one, totems or pets etc off to the side and watch where the fa ports fall in line. They should 90% or better fall on that axis that connects the raid group and the mt with ports being on that line anywhere from past the mt and behind the main raid stack and anywhere inbetween. Just remember the line connecting the 2 points doesnt stop at the points, but extends past them as well, the longer your axis length, the better chance your ports can be from the main group as what spot it picks along that path is totally random.

 

• Falk

Like I said, the best way to prove/disprove it would be to convince a raid leader to sacrifice 3 minutes of time, get everyone clumped on one spot 15 yards away from the three tanks, which in turn are standing right at the edge of the leash area. Hunter misdirects Shahraz, spam heal on tank, do nothing else, wait for port.

Better yet, get it on Fraps.

Edit: Post-sniped. I hate you.

 

Nytro

This is what we did a for our testing, it only takes a few attempts, we didnt try any damage, just waited and watched for port locations to prove/disprove the mechanic theory and then we implemented it into our strat, 3 pulls later we had a 17% run, 3 more pulls and she was dead.

With 2.5 nights spent on her and half of that running around trying various tank spots (huge waste of time), the fight wasnt nearly as hard as what i had heard it was going to be.

The main issue in this fight is to set up how people will run with Fa on them and getting peons to not all run in the same direction O.o Once u get a system for that then the rest of the fight will fall into place.