Apologies if this has already been addresesd in this thread, but I didn't see it as I skimmed through. We are having trouble with melee blowing each other up when a port spawns in their group, especially if it is the 3rd or 4th port. There dosn't seem to be enough room for them to spread out enough and still hit the dragon. Are you guys encountering the same problem, and if so, what are you doing to aleviate it?
Apologies if this has already been addresesd in this thread, but I didn't see it as I skimmed through. We are having trouble with melee blowing each other up when a port spawns in their group, especially if it is the 3rd or 4th port. There dosn't seem to be enough room for them to spread out enough and still hit the dragon. Are you guys encountering the same problem, and if so, what are you doing to aleviate it?
The melee just spreads out about 5 seconds before their debuff runs out, if a few of them can't hit the dragon its no big deal. At least in our raid's experience DPS on the dragon is never a problem, we blow cooldowns on the demon to make sure we get to 10% around the same time.
Apologies if this has already been addresesd in this thread, but I didn't see it as I skimmed through. We are having trouble with melee blowing each other up when a port spawns in their group, especially if it is the 3rd or 4th port. There dosn't seem to be enough room for them to spread out enough and still hit the dragon. Are you guys encountering the same problem, and if so, what are you doing to aleviate it?
Only 2 melee attack until their group's first port comes, after which we use the stacking north side, move south side before your group gets portaled. In general this slows down dragon DPS a bit at the start, but it's nothing that adjusting cooldown use can't fix so that you're not running a 10% difference at enrage.
We've spent a few hours on Kalecgos at this point, definitely not a ton, but I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with a lack of improvement. If I felt we were making progress, that would be one thing, but 1.2-1.5m damage is just where things always tend to plateau and fall apart. Plenty of it is just silly silly mistakes and not having a raiding pool deep enough to fix those mistakes by replacing repeat offenders (not leaving the middle area where we're grouped up as your exhaustion is wearing off and spawning a portal on the entire raid, etc), but my numbers and gut say that a lot of it is our healing is just lacking.
We brought TEN healers for part of last night's attempts (all we had online, then one was DC'd and we 24 manned the last few attempts), but I feel that the average healer's HPS is just amazingly low. People (most importantly, tanks) just die all the time because of what feels like a lack of healing all over. It's obvious that shaman and coh priests will do well on this fight, but I don't feel that the other classes are doing what they could be by a long shot. Some of it is stubborn people who have been yelled at in the past for breaking off their assignment(s) and doing nothing but healing the tank (which would be fine if the tank was living, but they're not, and these people are still a mile at the bottom of the list).
One of our pro priests wasn't available last night, and another 4 piece T6 shaman wasn't around, so we had two shaman apps in instead, but this seems beyond bad.
EDIT: We tried a two tank strat initially this time around, and then went back to a three tank (portals 1, 3, and 5) strat, and we keep the middle clear for spectral exhaustion, spreading back out to assigned areas as your portal group has 5-10 seconds left on the debuff.
...
Personally, we don't use the floating healing strategy anymore. We've moved on to a five group strategy where each of the five groups has a dedicated tank healer and a dedicated raid healer. Technically, this requires 10 healers. If you have 10 healers, that's great. Otherwise, shadow priests can fill in as raid healers with Imp VE. To offset the large amount of arcane damage being taken by the people waiting for the 5th portal, we have everyone wear an AR cloak and AR trinket. This strategy has proven to be much more repeatable than the floater strategy for us.
Just to understand this, you're still going on three tanks so that you have 2 grps of five people and 3 of four with a fixed tank in it? Or are you using 5 compelte grps with 5 tanks? As mentioned in this thread, wouldn't it be a waste of dmg? Although dmg is not quite that issue in the fight imo.
WWS isn't very good for this encounter due to logging issues between the realms, and healing numbers are a poor way of evaluating healers at the best of times. What worked for us was being absolutely clear on assignments (each tank has a dedicated healer and each group has a dedicated healer) and then when someone dies, find out exactly why and who is at fault. So tank death - there's a healer responsible. Make that person accountable (if they got portalled early or debuffed with the cast time debuff, it's their responsibility to communicate that to the other healers in their realm so the slack can be picked up). Raider death - find out why. If it was a curse ticking for 1600 or more, a decurser messed up. If it was a portal blast, there was a positioning error. If it was buffets or shadowbolts, a raid healer messed up. Find out what happened, make sure the person who made an error knows they made an error (not in an unkind fashion, but people have to know that they need to be doing something differently).
We had major issues with tank healers healing themselves instead of the tank. I had to drive it through their heads - if the tank dies, it's YOUR fault. If you die, it's your raid healer's fault. Stick to your assignments and trust other people to do their jobs.
Just to understand this, you're still going on three tanks so that you have 2 grps of five people and 3 of four with a fixed tank in it? Or are you using 5 compelte grps with 5 tanks? As mentioned in this thread, wouldn't it be a waste of dmg? Although dmg is not quite that issue in the fight imo.
Yes. Typically the tanks are in groups 1,3,5 (their portal numbers) along with 2 DPS and 2 Healers (or 1 Healer and a Shadow Priest). Damage output is fine. Group synergy is kinda weird, but this isn't a DPS race fight.
Yes. Typically the tanks are in groups 1,3,5 (their portal numbers) along with 2 DPS and 2 Healers (or 1 Healer and a Shadow Priest). Damage output is fine. Group synergy is kinda weird, but this isn't a DPS race fight.
How do you force a tank group through the odd-numbered portals? If a member of a non-tank group gets ported first, do you flip a tank into that group, or do you flip the ported person into a tank group?
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
- Four groups. Group 1 and 4 are tank groups with a tank and 3 healers (one of whom is a tank healer, one of whom is a group healer, and one of whom heals whichever needs it more). Group 2 is the melee group and group 3 is the caster group (both have shamans).
- Group 5 is composed of an extra tank, three healers, and usually an extra decurser. People in group 5 are assigned to one of groups 1 to 4 so as to make sure both DPS groups have a healer and all groups have a decurser. The extra tank is assigned to group 3 and has a healer with him.
- The portal rotation is set in stone. Group 1 goes (make sure the tank is the first one through and then everyone else follows) first, group 2 second, group 3 third, and group 4 fourth (again, tank through first). The tank in group 1 will get back up top in time to pick up the dragon so the tank in group 4 can make the fourth portal. Tank healers stick to their tanks, raid healers heal the raid, etc. The extra tank tanks from the time the group 1 tank leaves the spectral realm until the time the group 4 tank arrives. The remainder of the fight, this tank DPSes (this is a feral).
Using four (rather than five) portals reduces arcane buffet damage, and we wear 150 AR each to mitigate it further. The set portal rotation means everyone knows when they're going down and no one needs to think on their feet. People portalled out of order can be dealt with as both tank groups have an extra healer who can cover the slack. We use a safe zone (melee range of the dragon) where people can stand while they have spectral exhaustion and where people cannot stand when they are eligible portal targets. This method also allows much more DPS synergies as we have two fully stacked groups, both capable of bloodlusting at the enrage.
We usually end the encounter when group 2 goes below for the third time (at which point group 2 is below and group 3 is above, bloodlusts go off, the demon drops first and then the dragon is taken down). We have run this strat with two tanks and it is doable, although it places a time limit on the fight as Kalecgos will not last for too long (with the third tank Kalecgos still does a small amount of tanking below, but not enough to seriously threaten his health unless something goes wrong).
First of all thanks to all the posts, nice information throughout the, at this point, 15 pages.
We killed Kalecgos a few times and this is just my way of helping guilds, like this thread did to my guild.
Let me start by giving raid leaders a good addon that will help people remember their portals: KalecgosIcons | World of Warcraft Addons | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com
This addon whispers ppl with 10 seconds left of debuff and tell them they are about to get ported. Will probably help your learning days to decrease dramatically. It did for us atleast. It's important that ONLY 1 raid leader uses this addon - otherwise your screen will be filled with spam. RL needs to have a good overview since his chatbox will be spammed and therefore all whispers during the encounter will with 95% certainty be lost unless he stores them a specific place with another addon.
We use 3 tanks (any tank is fine - Paladins can tank this boss np, we prefer 1 warrior and 2 randoms), 9 healers (1 Paladin floater), and 13 dps.
Our tanks use a not so common tactic which is 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9 - tanks basically take every portal possible except 3rd portal. This is mainly due to threat issues and to burn Dragon for a longer time. I know some ppl stated portals will get messed up, but we never had it in our kill attempts.
Usually my grp is assigned to "bad portal grp" since I have the better overview of the fight as leader and are calling the shots on ventrilo. So if one of the tanks gets a portal my grp moves in it with him.
Portals for healers will look like this as with so many others: 2/2/2/2/1
Tanks + Paladin floater are not assigned to any grp.
G1: 4 melee (1 warr, 2 rogue, 1 sham), 1 resto shaman and 1 druid (decurser) If this grp gets first port, tank has to pop trinkets to ensure survival in demon realm and druid healer have to ensure curses + tank are kept clean, so assign one you trust.
G2: 1 mage, 2 dps, 2 healers - 1 shaman preferred, the other healer focus on tank only. If no shaman assign 1 to tank and 1 to raid
G3: 1 mage, 2 dps, 2 healers - 1 shaman preferred.
G4: 1 mage, 2 dps, 2 healers - 1 shaman preferred.
Portal 5: Floater only.
In the beginning we had ppl make a macro spamming when they got ported to their grp members, but after we started using the addon it is not a problem, if they forget, as long as the raid leader keeps reminding ppl to check whispers and generally communicates the grp numbers about to be ported next.
Using arcane cauldron/pots + trinket is enough to mitigate the dmg from Arcane Buffet imo and the AR pot is only used if our floater gets ported before 5th portal (he is sure to get this one alone since everybody will have debuff on them at this time)
We use the tactic where all ppl group up in the middle (apart from melees) when they have the debuff, makes healing considerably easier and ensures that ppl who get the whisper from RL have plenty of space to position themselves in during the 10 seconds in a "safe" distance from the bushes while having the missed portals in mind.
So basically the only time where you can miss one portal is in the beginning where everybody is spread.
This will mean with our tank rotation that when melees get 3rd portal to demon realm, they burn all cooldowns with 30seconds left of their demon phase and demon banishes. We will have our warrior tank upstairs (he is taking 2nd portal btw) popping SW + LS and he will be able to hold it during the 10% dmg increase pr. 2 sec for a considerable amount of time.
Just be sure to remind ppl to spread still - if all ppl go to middle in the end to get the max benefit of CH someone in your raid will blow 75% of your living members up and most likely cause a wipe within the last 10% of the dragons hp.
Hope this helped some who got so far in the thread. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.
So my guild and I have been butting our heads on this guy for quite a while now, and we just can't seem to quite get it down. I was looking at the 2/2/2/2/1 strat and had a question that I couldn't find an answer to.
So all is going well and bam, paladin takes the 5th portal. Since this is portal 5 a tank would go in, correct? If this is true and no one but the pally and the tank goes, what happens inside? Does the pally just heal through the curse? Does the warrior even tank at all?
I think those are my only two questions. I appreciate everything in this thread and I hope we can put a lot of this info to use and get this guy down finally.
So my guild and I have been butting our heads on this guy for quite a while now, and we just can't seem to quite get it down. I was looking at the 2/2/2/2/1 strat and had a question that I couldn't find an answer to.
So all is going well and bam, paladin takes the 5th portal. Since this is portal 5 a tank would go in, correct? If this is true and no one but the pally and the tank goes, what happens inside? Does the pally just heal through the curse? Does the warrior even tank at all?
I think those are my only two questions. I appreciate everything in this thread and I hope we can put a lot of this info to use and get this guy down finally.
OT1 taunts off MT when 5th healer gets ported, MT takes portal. At this point the 4th group with its 2 healers should still be down there for at least 20 seconds. When they are starting to go up Group 1's exhaustion should be over and should be getting ported shortly.
Was just wondering here if anyone had used the arcane resist paladin tank strategy? Paladin tank starts the fight in 225 arcane resistish, uses bubble to drop the Arcane Buffets if he ever gets too many.
I was never really sure what the advantage of the paladin-tank-in-AR strat was, since the dragon is the easy part of the fight. You need two tanks going below to have a chance of keeping human-form Kalecgos alive, and you need three going below to avoid making the fight a fairly serious DPS-check. A paladin who stays above for the entire fight can't be one of those three, so this strat just seems to involve an extra, unnecessary tank (the AR-wearing pally) - assuming a proper rotation there will always be at least one "Sathrovarr" tank standing around up top waiting on spectral exhaustion, so that tank may as well be the one tanking the dragon.
00:04'14.531 Sathrovarr the Corruptor's Swing hits Anthraxx for 14898 Physical
Have anyone seen Demon meleeing ranged dps? I was hugging him in the Demon realm, going bananas with bloodlust on and wham, he turns to me and smacks straight into face
I recall being over 110% aggro treshold a lot of times (I always hug him) and never pulling, until this reset...
I am curious how long of a fight this guy should be. Our guild can pretty much consistently get to 12 or more portals and we find ourselves with about 20% HP left on our DPS targets before Kalecgos dies in the demon realm.
We are thinking we need to drop a healer and add a DPS. Making for 8 heals, 3 tanks, and 14 DPS. But healing can be an issue more often than not especially on the first tank with the stacking arcane buff (which is me, 120 AR buffed). And then healing can be troublesome in the demon realm, usually on our druid tank.
How many portals does it take for the successful guilds to do this fight?
Number of portals is not really a useful metric, because portals can get delayed (people standing in bushes), and he doesn't always spawn a portal immediately when its cooldown is up. Total fight length isn't much better either. I can tell you my guild's kills have ranged from 6'15 all the way to 8'02 (nearly a 2 minute delta), and we typically have very fiddly portal spawns. Sometimes you end up having to curb dps in one realm or the other, to bring them to enrage together.
Human Kalecgos dying has more to do with what your tanks are doing in demon realm. Occassionally, it can be a real pain to hang on to Sathrovarr, Kalecgos is quite adept at pulling aggro, not to mention taunt resists (my personal best is first taunt resist, second taunt resist, third taunt lands but subsequent couple of attacks are all miss/dodge/parry, Kalecgos pulls back when taunt debuff wears off, fourth taunt resist .. he lost about 30% hp just on that one rotation, of course we went on to wipe at 4% when human Kalecgos died).
With a 3 tank rotation you should be able to (RNG shaftage nonwithstanding) keep Kalecgos mostly safe. With experience, your tanks will get better at protecting him as well, how to modulate their threat, how to effectively use cooldowns like taunt and (if applicable) AoE taunt/Mocking Blow, etc.
You have to make sure your tanks aren't afraid of taking some hits for him. While saying that though, there are times where you should let Kalecgos take a couple hits, for example if the tank is the first one into the portal and healers are the last ones in but whenever it is safe to you should try to take as many hits as possible, that way you can call on his health later when he is enraged and you have a dead tank.
"Oh he's a sad little man? He's thrown a kettle over a pub, what have you done?"
Honestly, why do people make the portals so complicated?
We learned the fight with just 4 portal groups and 3 tanks/9 healers and we're still killing it that way....
Groups 2,3,4,5 are portal groups with 1 raid/1tank healer.
All tanks are in group 1. Each person in group 1 is assigned to one of the other groups as "part" of that group, though the tanks have their own rotation and contingency is in place in case a tank gets ported.
So basically the logic is:
1st portal, tank and that group take the portal
2nd portal, tank and that group take portal
3rd portal group takes the portal
1st tank and group returns, tank taunts
4th portal spawns, retiring tank takes the portal too.
Everyone now has a simple job, as soon as your debuff wears off take the next available portal.
It's tight on tanks sometimes as you have to be VERY quick to taunt so that the leaving tank can take the portal, but not a huge issue.
I am curious how long of a fight this guy should be. Our guild can pretty much consistently get to 12 or more portals and we find ourselves with about 20% HP left on our DPS targets before Kalecgos dies in the demon realm.
We are thinking we need to drop a healer and add a DPS. Making for 8 heals, 3 tanks, and 14 DPS. But healing can be an issue more often than not especially on the first tank with the stacking arcane buff (which is me, 120 AR buffed). And then healing can be troublesome in the demon realm, usually on our druid tank.
How many portals does it take for the successful guilds to do this fight?
It's worth bearing in mind that its pretty damn near impossible to pull aggro on Demon so feel free to nuke the crap out of him, but 20% is a long way off assuming you've got a well-geared BT raid.
On an average try I take 3-5 portals on a 3 tank rotation so you are in the right area but if your raid is in good shape and you're only failing because Kalecgos dies then you need to have a word with your tanks.
Bear in mind that the Demon is a real pain to keep aggro on and they will need to work hard at it. If they go too defensive with their gear then they will probably never manage it - they need to be pretty aggressive with armor choice. One of the better ways to improve threat on this fight is to try and use more +hit (up to 5%+) this also benefits the encounter with less chance for a taunt resist so its a win-win.
Honestly, why do people make the portals so complicated?
We learned the fight with just 4 portal groups and 3 tanks/9 healers and we're still killing it that way....
...complicated portal description...
Everyone now has a simple job, as soon as your debuff wears off take the next available portal.
It's tight on tanks sometimes as you have to be VERY quick to taunt so that the leaving tank can take the portal, but not a huge issue.
I still hate this fight though
What happens if the portals spawn later or sooner than you're expecting? Consistently fast portals will leave your tank up top with absolutely no healers available. Consistently slow portals will leave the human form getting wailed on downstairs with all three tanks chilling up top. What happens if the tank misses his portal (taunt resist + far side of the room)? Or the healers are the last down for the first port, and there's light healing in between. People make the portals complicated(ish) to try to reduce the randomness of the fight. (Also, your explanation of portals isn't significantly [or really, at all] simpler than most of the explanations of successful kills that have been explained on this forum).
Personally, I've found the tanking to be much more stable when a tank takes every other portal. I'd hate to have a resist screw up the entire tank rotation, and in doing so cause a wipe. And I'd much prefer to have a pretty balanced tanking set instead of having to sacrifice to meet hit cap.
If you haven't tried a 4 portal rotation, I thoroughly recommend it. You just "attach" people from group 1 to the other groups, and make sure each group has a decurser, MT healer and raid healer. It's an 8 healer strat which is reasonable, and simplifies the portal rotation significantly.
If you haven't tried a 4 portal rotation, I thoroughly recommend it. You just "attach" people from group 1 to the other groups, and make sure each group has a decurser, MT healer and raid healer. It's an 8 healer strat which is reasonable, and simplifies the portal rotation significantly.
I guess I don't like 4 portal rotation as much because there's no room for error. We have a 4 portal + tank and floating healer + whoever missed for the 5th. And often, while waiting on that 5th portal, the floating healer is the only reason the tank stays alive at all. 5 portals also keeps the portals at a pretty regular interval, keeps the tanks spaced evenly, makes things flow more smoothly.
Have anyone seen Demon meleeing ranged dps? I was hugging him in the Demon realm, going bananas with bloodlust on and wham, he turns to me and smacks straight into face
I recall being over 110% aggro treshold a lot of times (I always hug him) and never pulling, until this reset...
Yes, has happened to me, but only if I was in the first portal. Think i did 4 or 5 crits in a row then he jacked me in the mouph. This was also without any wild magic debuff. Maybe kalec human got a lot of parries Was probably 3 weeks ago or so since it's happened last.
06/16/08, 2:06 PM
Was probably 3 weeks ago or so since it's happened last.
