Twin Emps

Shdw · 04/26/06, 7:55 AM

Hey guys,

I'm from an EU Guild currently working on the Twinemps Encounter. After putting severe effort into it and working 2 weeks on them I am still curious about the Twin Teleport. We do it with 2 Tanks / 2 Warlocks. It usually works without any problems that the Warlocks snag the aggro from the Tanks after 2 or 3 Imp. Searing Pains.

Sometimes however the following happens: Twin Teleport Occurs, Vek'lor comes to my side (I'm one of the Warrior Tanks) and shadowbolts me 2 or 3 times. That's okay so far. But as soon as the Warlock snags aggro on Vek'lor, he runs towards him, melees him, slaps the Arcane AE right into his face and shadowbolts him right afterwards. Sometimes it does not happen, but when it does, the WL most likely dies. We just don't understand why Vek'lor runs after the Warlock instead of just shadowbolting him, as the Warlock always is in SB-Range, neither too far away nor not in meleerange. And ofcourse he is in LOS.

For a better description of our positioning: I'm tanking Vek'nilash right unter the torch facing him to the wall. The Warlock just stands behind me. When it comes to the Twin Teleport, I run out of meleerange to get the shadowbolts until the WL snags aggro.

Well, now my question is: what are we doing wrong? I thought you guys maybe have an idea and can hook us up with some hint.

Thank you in advance.

Leviandan · 04/26/06, 8:00 AM

Vek'lor is weird like that. Happens alot to us too, but your warlock tank just has to pay attention. Turn around and run for his life as soon as it happens, and Vek'lor should stop running and start Shadowbolting again. Of course, with lag or something it gets really annoying, and it has caused us a few wipes, but it's not really that hard to counter if your warlock is awake :)

Crimsonjade · 04/26/06, 11:05 AM

It is because of this that we stopped using warlocks to tank Vek'lor. Using a warrior, on each side, with 115 shadow resistance does us just fine.

But yes, Vek'lor will go into melee range when aggroed. However, if the person he aggroed starts running, Vek'lor will stop at the original point of melee contact and continue shadowbolting. So if the warlock can shit and get fast enough Vek'lor will stop before getting into range of the arcane explosion.

♦ Praetorian · 04/26/06, 11:08 AM

Are we the only ones who have warlocks pick up teleport aggro directly instead of having them grab aggro with searing pain? When we killed Emps last night, zero shadow bolts hit warriors for the entirety of the fight. Done right, neither Emp ever really moves at all.

Leviandan · 04/26/06, 11:14 AM

Hm. Guess we're too worried about getting Arcane Bursted if the Warlock is in melee-range of Vek'lor as they Teleport.. Never really thought of doing it like that :huh:

Works fine either way, the warriors can easily live through a 1-3 shadowbolts!

Jipakazoid · 04/26/06, 11:21 AM

We are currently on twin emperors, and before trying the encounter, after reading various boards and available information, i came to the humble understanding that after a teleport, both of the emperor's aggro lists reset. Thus the person closest to him in range will be the one to start eating bolts.

Happy with this conclusions i even came up with this drawing
http://jipakazoid.googlepages.com/emp-trans.gif
in order to explain warlock-warrior pairs the transition stages.

After our night of trying though, our warrior/warlock pairs reported strange behaviour, that sometimes the warrior will be the one to first get the aggro, even if a warlock was standing closer. While this ringed weird to me I decided that perhapse it is a known issue with the encounter. Futhermore, due to the fact that Vek'lor's AOE after teleport was rather devastating, i advised the pairs to focus more on avoiding the AOE then getting the transitions perfected.

Today will be our second day of trying, hoping we will be able to progress much futher. The question i pondered over was if my assumptions were correct (first in range = first in aggro) or would spending more time on perfecting this would be a complete waste.

I can assume from Gurg's last post that there is a certain way of verifying being first on aggro. The question would be, is it what i think it is, or there are leet-ej-tricks yet to be revealed :)

Shdw · 04/26/06, 11:27 AM

Yeah, we're afraid of gettin' Arcane Bursts on the WLs. So, Gurg, when you pickup teleportaggro directly with the WL he neither gets hit by Arcane Bursts nor does Vek'lor run after the WL? I assume you just put your WL as near away as possible to just not get arcane-raped and/or meleed?

Thanks for the replies so far guys. I really appreciate your help! :)

Somnambulist · 04/26/06, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by Praetorian,April 26th, 2006 @ 10:08AM

Are we the only ones who have warlocks pick up teleport aggro directly instead of having them grab aggro with searing pain? When we killed Emps last night, zero shadow bolts hit warriors for the entirety of the fight. Done right, neither Emp ever really moves at all.

We've only been working on the Twin Emps for a few nights (tonight will be our 3rd real night of working on them), but this is how we do the transitions.

The problem for us is people paying attention to the blizzard and exploding bugs... :P

♦ Praetorian · 04/26/06, 11:29 AM

The Emperors are stunned for a few seconds after each teleport. The key is that the aggro assignment happens at the moment of the teleport, NOT at the moment they start moving/attacking. The proper approach follows fairly straightforwardly from that realization.

Shdw · 04/26/06, 11:39 AM

Yes, that sounds absolutely right. We had a nice fuckup yesterday, where one drood tried to get out of range from an exploding bug. Sad thing was that he jumped into Vek'lors direction. At the moment the teleport occured he was nearer to him than I was. During the 2sec stun I tried to pickup aggro by sundering the hell outta Vek'nilash. Unfortunately this was a no-go. ;)

So yeah, proximity aggro is being made exactly when the teleport occurs and not afterwards. From mere assumption I think the key is having the warlock nearer to Vek'nilash than the warrior BEFORE they twinteleport. The question that remains to me is if that solves the problem with Vek'lor running after the warlock once they teleported. ;)

♦ Praetorian · 04/26/06, 11:41 AM

Warlock stands inside Vek'nilash's model while the warrior is at max melee range. Teleport happens. Warlock immediately runs away at full speed. By the time Vek'lor begins casting, the warlock is surprisingly far away. Try it out.

Shdw · 04/26/06, 11:43 AM

Thank you very much Gurg. I'm looking forward to our next Twinemps tries. :)

Vodos · 04/26/06, 11:44 AM

Have you tried using 2 warriors to tank the whole thing?

Unless I'm missing something, there are only 2 reasons to use warlock tanks - they have an easier time getting full shadow res, using up less healing than warrs and they can hold aggro better so your casters can dps Vek'lor more.

We've never even tried the lock approach as we never have a caster heavy raid and because our healers were doing fine on mana. There's close to no risk of teleports going wrong, no AE, shadowbolt damage is very predictable. You should try it if you haven't already.
Unless of course you're low on healers, the caster emp does more total damage to me than the melee one.

Doomcrusher · 04/26/06, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by Somnambulist,April 26th, 2006 @ 10:28AM

Originally Posted by Praetorian,April 26th, 2006 @ 10:08AM

Are we the only ones who have warlocks pick up teleport aggro directly instead of having them grab aggro with searing pain? When we killed Emps last night, zero shadow bolts hit warriors for the entirety of the fight. Done right, neither Emp ever really moves at all.

We've only been working on the Twin Emps for a few nights (tonight will be our 3rd real night of working on them), but this is how we do the transitions.

The problem for us is people paying attention to the blizzard and exploding bugs... :P

I swear those damn bugs have stealth or something :(

♦ Praetorian · 04/26/06, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by Vodos,April 26th, 2006 @ 11:44AM

Have you tried using 2 warriors to tank the whole thing?

Unless I'm missing something, there are only 2 reasons to use warlock tanks - they have an easier time getting full shadow res, using up less healing than warrs and they can hold aggro better so your casters can dps Vek'lor more.

We've never even tried the lock approach as we never have a caster heavy raid and because our healers were doing fine on mana. There's close to no risk of teleports going wrong, no AE, shadowbolt damage is very predictable. You should try it if you haven't already.
Unless of course you're low on healers, the caster emp does more total damage to me than the melee one.

We don't really DPS Vek'lor either. First off, our warlocks with 315 SR take so little damage from Vek'lor it's laughable. Most bolts hit for like 600. With warriors, it seems to me that either the warrior takes massive damage (when we've done it with warriors, Vek'nilash would do 140k and Vek'lor would do 200k+ to a given warrior over the course of a given fight) or he wear some SR gear and then opens himself up to a greater risk of Vek'nilash instagib.

But the real reason I don't like it is aggro. Basically every single time we've tried that method, at some point during the 10+ mins involved in the fight, some healer will at some point pull Vek'lor aggro from across the room.