Yes. He turns, looks at the person, that person gets ported, but there will not be a clickable portal for you to enter.
I really think the portals are just random. I don't think he ever "skips portals," it's probably some screwy coding behind Blizzard's sake. If he "skipped" a portal, then you're still lacking an explanation for the long delays. I personally have had an entire raid have spectral exhaustion fade around 30% (90 seconds without a portal). If he truly "skipped" the portal, wouldn't the timer still be predictable? (rather than casting at 30 seconds, he casts at 60 seconds)?
Sounds like buggy coding. Possibly there's some trigger to the portals? Who knows.
If your entire raid, save the Kalec tank has the exhaustion debuff, he will skip a port. It's possible with some portal rotation configurations.
I disagree with this. We had this same situation once, and he ported someone the very second that they became eligible (as soon as the debuff faded). I still don't think he ever actually "skips" a portal.
We've gotten very close to dropping Kalec on a number of attempts, but we're still having trouble sealing the deal -- that is, we can't seem to keep our Dragon tanks up during the enrage. This is possibly because it's taking our DPS too long to zerg him down past the 10% mark, but I'm wondering if there's anything more we can do to stack the odds in our favor. As of right now, our tactic is simply to have our tanks and MT healers try to save their cooldowns for the enrage, and possibly to drop an Imp LoH if it's possible or practical. Even if this does end up working, I have some concerns as to its reliability. Are you just boned if your tanks haven't got Shield Wall up when the enrage hits, or are there other things you can do to ensure a win?
For one thing, I'm wondering if we can afford to have a few of the raid healers up top switch to MT healing once we hit the mark. Any wisdom to share on that note? Our healers and DPS are all running with the AR cloak and trinket, so it seems to me that the raid could probably get by with somewhat less healing for the last leg of the fight.
You could try to make sure there's only 1 group left at demon before he is banished, and no one enters next portal. Between 2-3 tanks, there's plenty of cooldowns to survive, and damage increase isn't really that bad, considering that you can have pretty much entire raid up there. Even if you don't heal anyone but the tank, they'd only die after 10 seconds, and that's assuming they already have 10+ buffets - less can be healed by SP(and to lesser extent JoL/LotP) quite easily.
Enrage isn't really *that* bad, it's just 10%attack speed/dmg, slowly stacking, so unless Sathrovarr gets to 10% too early, it shouldn't take long enough for it to stack. At worst, you could chain taunt with all cooldowns, that's over 30 seconds to get his 200k or so hitpoints - a lucky double crit wild magic could get like 30% of that by himself.
As a sidenoty - you might consider this a warmup for Stomp healing
Its only a rumor, but we try not to stand to close to the hedges, we heard that people who would spawn a portal in a hedge wouldnt open it, thus a portal is "skipped". We do this because we got owned by missing portals. But it´s no real explanation.
Maybe its just something religious .
"Believer in the portals!"
A small tip that helped us smooth out our 1-3-5 rotation. We do nothing special, 8 healers broken into tank/raid pairings in groups 2-5 that take portals together. Whichever group gets portaled first, that group's tank healer is responsible for calling the taunt to let the 3rd tank take a portal. We had some issues where our tanks (both the 1st portal tank and the last tank with stacking Arcane Buffets) would get antsy and taunt early. Kalecgos promptly portals the former tank, and no one can join him leading to a fatal span of no healers in the demon realm. So instead a member of the first group is responsible for calling out when Spectral Exhaustion falls off them, and therefore the tank is clear to taunt.
My guild has been working on Kalecgos for I'd say probably 8 nights of attempts now and people are really starting to get frustrated. We have been doing it with 3 tanks and 9 healers, using a 5 portal rotation. We set up groups with 2 healers and a decurser in each, with the tanks, a floating dps, and a floating healer. So we have 2 healers going in the first 4 portals, and the Paladin goes by himself in the 5th. We have tanks taking the even numbered portals with the first being the second. We position the dragon on the far wall with his tail facing us. People have been complaining that there isn't enough space and that the strat can't work. Some people are suggesting we completely change strats, even though we have got him to 2%, albeit that was almost two weeks ago now.
Are people just getting frustrated and over thinking things or should be consider trying something different? Any input would be appreciated.
We position the dragon with his side against the entrance way (our MT runs in on the right, picks him up, and then walks backwards around the circle past the entrance). This puts both breath/cleave and tail somewhat out of the way in the hedges and opens up a lot of space (the entire center and far side).
You don't really say what's giving you trouble. Is there a consistent theme to your wipes? Lots of missed portals? Lots of tank deaths? Lots of raid deaths?
Reading your description, two things stand out to me:
First of all, you're keeping your tanks upstairs too long. We portal on 1, 3, and 5 and then repeat on every 5-portal cycle, so: 1-3-5, 6-8-10, etc. (We use the same 2/2/2/2/1 healer rotation you do.) Having tanks cycle as frequently as possible keeps their debuff stack low and makes them easier to heal.
Second, we tried tanking in a position like what you describe and we just couldn't see what was going on with a big dragon ass sitting in the middle of the platform. We tank him sideways now across the entrance to his platform. It's easy and quick for the tank to position him there, and the entire raid can see the whole platform and know the global situation.
Also, in my experience there just isn't enough room for everyone to spread out perfectly for the first portal, so I've stopped yelling at people who get portal splash on the first 1-2 portals. The raid damage isn't high enough at that point for it to be an issue, anyway. Just make sure someone heals them up a bit before they go down (and tell them to hang back a second for a heal if they're low on health) and it'll be fine. After you have a group or two in the demon realm, there should be plenty of space for the other groups to spread out and not hurt each other.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
Well I would say our biggest problem would be the tanks dying. Our tanks die in both the demon and dragon realm. And we used to have our tank go in on the first portal, but he would always die by the time the second portal appeared. Should we have him go in the first portal, but not taunt until healers from the second one get there?
Bunch of things to fix that, depending on what the tank death issue is.
1. Make sure there are 2 healers in there with him before he taunts.
2. Make sure he has an iron shield popped and has demo and tclap on the mob.
If both of those dont work you can:
1. Only taunt after human kal takes a curropting(he looks stunned)
2. Wear a pvp trinket to trink out of the stuns.
Well I would say our biggest problem would be the tanks dying. Our tanks die in both the demon and dragon realm. And we used to have our tank go in on the first portal, but he would always die by the time the second portal appeared. Should we have him go in the first portal, but not taunt until healers from the second one get there?
Then yes, it sounds like you definitely need to tighten up the tank rotation.
We do fine with the taunk taunting as soon as he's sure he has a healer in the demon realm; it took our healers a few attempts (each, unfortunately) to get used to solo-healing the tank, but at this point they seem to be able to do it without trouble; they just have to be ready to pop CDs/trinkets and pump out maximum throughput until the second group ports down. (FWIW tanks should drink an Ironshield before taunting and then pretty much keep chugging them for the rest of the fight.) But yes, if that's not feasible, having a tank go down on the first port and not taunt til he has two healers would still be an improvement over what you're doing.
Also make sure tanks are cycling every 5 portals like the rest of the raid instead of every 6 (not sure if that's what you're doing, but your description implies that it is.) Aside from cutting off the two most dangerous ticks of the arcane debuff, this also means they're staying with the same healers throughout the fight and lets the healers get into a groove as the fight progresses (i.e., "okay, I'm going upstairs in 10 seconds and _____ is going to be on the dragon there, just like last time.")
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
The human-Kalecgos CAN and SHOULD tank for a large portion of the fight. If you're ending the fight with Kalecgos above 35% hp, your tanks did way too much work. We actually have had this fight on farm but wiped the other night because the human-Kalecgos seemed "too easy" to tank this week (all our TPS went up). The key really is to allow him to tank.
There are a few other little tricks too, especially for the first tank. You should wait to see Kalecgos get knocked down before taunting. If you have a tight tank rotation (odd portals), you can usually wait to see the tank before you get knocked down also. Worst case, you could use free-action potions, but we all use ironshield potions.
The demon hits significantly harder than the dragon, but does significantly less raid damage. While healers can focus more on the raid on the dragon, they really should focus on the tank up top. Resto Shamans should always be casting max rank chain heal on the tank and having it bounce to heal the raid (Kalecgos casts a buff that restores mana to make up for this).
Last thing is that the first tank in a portal really should wait quite a while before taunting. He should wait at LEAST till a corrupting strike hits Kalecgos. You should also save your "buttons" (bloodboil trinket, last stand, nightmare seed) for whenever a "rotation" is going (one group is getting teleported backup while another is about to port down). Your healers will be disoriented for a sec.
Basically, Kalecgos is a pretty heavy healer execution check because healers have to be able to do their job with minimal backup should they mess up - with at times just two healers in the demon realm, they had better both know what they're doing.
It is entirely possible to solo-heal a tank in best-of-MH/BT gear with a healer in the same gear against either the dragon or the demon (though if the healer gets the increased cast time debuff they will obviously need aid). The demon hits hard, but one healer chaining max rank throughput heals (gheal, holy light) will, assuming appropriate debuffs are up, be enough, and there should be at least one other healer present (we put 3 healers with each tank but two is enough) who can lend a bit of help during the corrupting strikes.
Have one healer assigned to each tank whose sole job is to keep that tank alive and make sure that healer never heals him or herself when his or her assigned tank has aggro - we had a lot of wipes where our paladins dipped low and healed themselves while their tank died. Make sure all tank healers understand that they must keep their tank topped off at all times and should ignore their own health bar (apart from bubble/healthstones) - someone else is assigned to keep the tank healers alive so make the tank healers focus on the tanks.
Well I would say our biggest problem would be the tanks dying. Our tanks die in both the demon and dragon realm. And we used to have our tank go in on the first portal, but he would always die by the time the second portal appeared. Should we have him go in the first portal, but not taunt until healers from the second one get there?
It sounds like your healers aren't really very good - probably this is due to a lack of good healing leadership in this fight.
During a corrupting strike the demon will not shadow bolt volley and the 2 healers should be healing the tank, otherwise one healer should be healing the tank, the other should be healing everyone else inside (and you really want to divide up your healers to make sure you've got one person who's well setup to heal the group (not a pali or druid) and one person who's well setup for tank healing. 2 healers inside is plenty. obviously your tank should make sure he's keeping debuffs on the demon (demo shout/roar, thunderclap) but if you're losing tanks with 2 healers in the demon realm, something is pretty wrong.
Well we made some good progress tonight, and had some great attempts. I think we got them under 10% 8 times, with 4 attempts where they were both under 5%. We just need to finish the deal off now. A lot of people were panicking at the enrage. Is there anything else we can do at enrage to help?
A lot of people were panicking at the enrage. Is there anything else we can do at enrage to help?
Probably the most important thing to do on the Kalecgos enrage is.. not panic!
Everyone should remain quiet on vent, calm and listen carefully to the raid leader and tanks. The tanks should announce 'shield walled' and 'shield wall coming out' in addition to taunts. The raid leader should remind everyone to reset their stack (aka iceblock/cloak etc) to reduce healing required up top, thus letting the healers spend more time on the Dragon MT. Lastly, everyone should carefully listen to the Raid Leader call out whether the next portal needs to be taken or ignored (Aka if the demon is at 2% with 5 dps down there for another 20 seconds, a new group does NOT need to go down. They can stay up top and heal the Dragon MT instead).
The Kalecgos 'enrage' is one of the funnest examples of an enrage Blizzard has implemented. If you enter the 10% enrage confidently, its over fast. However things can spiral out of control if people panic and get complacent. Its not an enrage like a Brutallus 1% enrage: Where everyone can start screaming, forget what they are doing, lose concentration but still finish him off in the following 10 seconds anyway. The portals, large tank-damage , curses, spreading out required up top, taunt rotations etc still need to be handled correctly for a period of time. Being calm is your best asset here, be confident in your knowledge of the fight and simply keep doing what your familiar with - for a slightly-more-stressful last 30sec-1minute. Dont panic.
Well we made some good progress tonight, and had some great attempts. I think we got them under 10% 8 times, with 4 attempts where they were both under 5%. We just need to finish the deal off now. A lot of people were panicking at the enrage. Is there anything else we can do at enrage to help?
What Tyrian said, and basically if you're getting to enrage consistently you've pretty much passed the "check" of this encounter. Keep doing it, refine your endgame strategy, and you'll get it.
EDIT: To expand a little more, this is why I always tell people before we start Kalecgos that they need to focus on getting the fundamentals of the fight correct (hitting the proper portals, keeping themselves alive through transitions, etc) and that I really don't mind if we wipe 5-6 times on enrages. If you've moved from wiping in the beginning or middle of the fight to wiping on enrages, you're doing things right and the kills will come once you've got more practice on enrages.
Last edited by Cathela : 07/13/08 at 10:08 AM.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
- We run a 4-portal rotation and we always reach enrage when group 2 (which is a DPS group) is going down for the third time (I think that's portal 10). At this point in the rotation we have our warrior tanking up top, our second tank (usually either a druid or paladin) having just gone below, and our third tank either up top or about to come up top. Group 2 goes down and is the last group to go down. Group 3 (our other DPS group) and group 4 (the warrior tank's group) are up top.
- Both DPS groups have shamans so we activate both bloodlusts. Group 2 (melee group) will finish the demon before they're ported out, and our second tank will tank it long enough to ensure that Kalecgos survives - that tank may be ported out just before the demon is neutralized, but it's never long. Group 3 will do the bulk of the damage to the dragon - if we're sloppy group 2 will begin appearing up top again and can help with a desperate zerging if he's still active at that point. Group 3 is the ranged group, which is important because they're going to become eligible portal targets during the enrage and so must stay spread out to avoid chaining portal blasts and costing us DPS through casualties.
- The warrior tank uses last stand when his health starts to spike, and then activates shield wall when last stand expires. There will be 5 healers up top when the enrage is triggered and another 3 healers will arrive with the tank below 30 seconds later. By the time shield wall is down our other two tanks will be up top and can taunt + blow trinkets and cooldowns to buy a bit more time, but basically it should be well over by then.
Thank you everyone for all your suggestions, we downed Kalecgos tonight! We were having a pretty bad night, people started getting a bit frustrated, and then everything just clicked for one attempt. The kill did end in chaos though, because at 5% the dragon tank died (shield wall on cd.) We ended up having a feral druid dpsing taunt and tank for 5 seconds, and Holy Paladins taunt and bubble. We ended up only having 8 people alive at the end, but a kill is a kill I guess.
It shouldn't matter either way. Whichever you kill first, you stop taking damage from that aspect of the fight. However you should always base dps so that they both hit 10% at the same time. It is the raid leader's responsibility to call whether or not to continue taking portals depending on the % of each boss.
We take the part of the fight that we can control. We shoot to have the demon die first, that way we have maximum dps and healing on the dragon for the last couple %.
It shouldn't matter either way. Whichever you kill first, you stop taking damage from that aspect of the fight. However you should always base dps so that they both hit 10% at the same time. It is the raid leader's responsibility to call whether or not to continue taking portals depending on the % of each boss.
We take the part of the fight that we can control. We shoot to have the demon die first, that way we have maximum dps and healing on the dragon for the last couple %.
If you kill the dragon first, he stops porting people. So you're left with what you got downstairs to try to finish the job. I'd say it's advisable to try to kill the demon first always.
Is this possible or am I missing something? I know most people run a 4 group rotation so how do you handle this.
Key:
G1,G2,G3,G4 - the 4 portal groups
T1,T2,T3 - the 3 tanks
P1,P2... - the portals
T=n - Time starting at 0 on the first portal.
T=0 P1 -- G1/T1 IN -- 1 in Demon / 3 in Dragon T=20 P2 -- G2 IN -- 2 in Demon / 2 in Dragon T=40 P3 -- G3/T2 IN -- 3 in Demon / 1 in Dragon T=60 P4 -- G4 IN -- G1/T1 OUT -- 3 in Demon / 1 in Dragon --> Dragon Tank T3 in danger as healers transition. T=80 P5 -- T3 IN -- G2 OUT -- 2 in Demon / 2 in Dragon --> only tank could take the portal T=100 NO PORTAL -- G3/T2 OUT--1 in Demon / 3 in Dragon --> Demon Tank T3 in danger as healers transition. May need to stop tanking. T=120 P6 -- G1/T1 IN -- G4 OUT -- 1 in demon / 3 in Dragon --> Exhaustion faded on G1. probably an instant portal on first person who was pushed in P1.
The worst times are T=60 and T=120 - you end up with almost the whole raid in either zone. You almost certainly have to have 1 healer keeping up a highly debuffed dragon tank, or a demon tank. Which is hard, but doable.
When this happens there is generally a ton of crying about someone missing a portal, but no one missed one, its just they came really fast. Do people normally have a tank getting pushed in solo for Portal5? This seems unavoidable and highly likely unless you leave Kalecgos on T3 untill P5 happens to someone else, which seems like a really bad idea.
Are portals really 20-25 secs? The exact time varies depending on what Strat you read.
07/09/08, 3:59 PM
