So my guild is starting to bring all of the "elements of success" together in order to take down Vael.

1. This last weekend, we took Ragnaros to 13% before sons. Check off raid DPS.

2. We have 4 warriors with 255+ unbuffed FR. Two more are close. Check off tank FR.

3. We're pushing the entire guild to reach minimum levels (based on class) of FR. Can't check this one off yet.

4. Execution: at least 25 members of the guild have had over 30 wipes on Vael. So our collective understanding of the encounter is pretty high. A handful have seem him drop (tagging along with other guilds or in previous guilds); most have seen 5-7% on a "best attempt".

So this brings us to the question of which consumables to use on Vael. I've considered the following options:

(A) Flask: Distilled Wisdom. NO! Duh!

(B ) Flask: Supreme Power. I'm inclined to believe that this isn't worth the cost. Not a high enough ROI for the encounter.

(C) Flask: Titans. Again, I don't think the ROI is high enough.

(D) Elixir: Mongoose. Yes. It makes sense (to me) to have every rogue and every hunter pop this for each attempt.

(E) Potion: Great Fire Protection. Yes. Every single person should be popping these. The damage mitigation will greatly help bridge the healing gap for the first couple take-downs.

Side note: I think it would be good to come in for a serious attempt with both the Onyxia and the Hakkar buffs. Sure, we'd only get one shot with them, but if we've practiced the night before...

So there's my thinking on consumables and Vael. Here are my questions:

1. Do I have the right consumables in mind?

2. Are there other consumables to think about?

greater fire pots actually really aren't worth it except in the cases that your healers are dying and you're getting really low on health. infinite mana/holy nova/prayer/etc makes it really hard to actually lose people to the fire nova, and assuming you're using these, all you're doing is wasting fire pots if you pop them pre-fight.

it's really more important to identify why you're wiping in the first place, and seeing what might give you the boost to avoid that.

So why are you wiping?

Overkill. BA makes consumables that don't last through death near worthless on this fight. Waste of money. Infinite Energy/Mana means you shouldn't need any damage consumables like Mongoose. At 30 attempts with no kill you need to be thinking more about fixing nuances of execution rather than consumables. Besides, the only one worth using is maybe Fire Protection Potion. But even that should be unnecessary.

Greater Stoneshield Potions for your tanks as their turn to tank comes up. You'll be absolutely amazed.

No other consumables are necessary. If you're having trouble, these are what I'd recommend.

Mythological/Sicks - this is a new guild, with pretty experienced people. We haven't really tried Vael as a guild yet. So the wipes people have been on were with an old guild.

No kidding?? Intriguing!! Very good to know!

This is probably your biggest problem.

Ok, on that subject, here's what we're asking for (all numbers UNBUFFED):

Priests/Mages/Warlocks/Druids/Paladins: 125 minimum.

Hunters/Rogues: 150+ minimum.

Warriors: 200+.

Tanks: 255+.

You are not telling us what is exactly causing the wipes.

Not enough DPS ? DPS pulling aggro ? Tanks dying before BA takes them down ? Bad tank transitions causing cleaves and tail swipes ?

The fact that you are asking about what consumables are needed lead me to think that you need more DPS, but then you are taking Rag down to 13% pre-sons.
My guild kills Vael weekly and we never managed to get Rag sub-30% pre-sons (although we always end up killing him anyways).

Last night we got Vael on the first attempt for the first time. Usually it takes us a couple tries, mainly because tanks weren’t moving in position fast enough during a transition or getting unlucky BA on key healers.

EDIT : Nevermind, you actually didn't attempt him yet.

So, actually try the fight then?

You should quickly realize you don't need all that crap.

Perhaps, but since this guild's membership is composed primarily of folks who have had bad experiences with Vael, I'm trying to maximize our chances for success.

Gurg's recommendation of Greater Stoneshield potions might be the best bet, combined with upping FR.

The feeling I'm getting from everyone is not to concentrate on consumables. Which is A-OK by me - heck I've been pushing the whole "guys we don't need flasks for Vael" point with the rest of leadership.

If you're getting some good attempts in and the tank transitions are good but people are just dying, then you can always take some time to get the UBRS fire resist buff.

Flasks are never a bad idea when learning encounters, if you can afford them.
Other than that, it depends on your tanks FR gear. If they have good FR gear (and enchanted) and are at around 4500 unbuffed, you're good to go.
If their FR gear is mainly greens and blues, flask them.

They are all running around with Dark Iron pieces. I think they are good to go. ;) REALLY don't want to waste flasks on Vael if at all possible when we need to stockpile them for Broodlord.

I like Gurg's suggestion of Greater Stoneshield pots...much less expensive and easy to produce.

If you're not as geared up with FR as you'd like to be on the fight to where you think you need consumables (you really shouldn't need anything besides some health pots) then once you clear razorgore send your raid over to UBRS and grab the FR buff from the mobs inside the front room. It'll give you that breathing room you need for the melee to survive long enough to finish the job.

So am I hearing that, in order of importance, we have:

1. FR gear + overall FR (buffs).

2. Execution.

3. Perhaps consumables (Greater Stoneshield, mebbe health pots, mebbe FR pots?).

Consumables are huge - definitely... but they get consumed FAST. They're also a crutch to buy you the last few percent... 5-6% on vael is not yet close enough IMO.

But in the end Vaelastrasz is not heavily favored in stacking consumables. GFPPs will be blown off rather quickly, and in the end they are largely un-needed.

On our first vael kill we had SIX tank transitions... and at the end of the day, what makes or breaks this fight is the tank transitions. Nail that down to the 5th tank or so and you should be golden. Download KTM threatmeters, and the transitions will be simpler. Make sure tanks maximize FR.

If you really are straight up losing tanks, increase your healers to 16, and give stoneshields to the "MT's". Don't worry so much about flasks and all that other nonsense. Many fights in this game are better solved from a control standpoint instead of a DPS one (although Naxx is definitely breaking this mold for us).

http://files.filefront.com/Vealastra.../fileinfo.html

Thats a video taken from our first vael kill... meaning essentially zero tier 2 on us... Its a healer perspective too, might give some insight.

In the end, you're better off farming Thorium brotherhood gear than you are GFPPs.

Which specific consumables did you guys use...per your first statement, it sounds like they were pretty important.

We used no consumables at all on our first kill. I thought the idea of using GFPPs that would be gone in 10 seconds was absurd... and we didn't even know about stoneshields at the time.

We used a null DKP system so we had 6 warriors who were almost equally geared, and geared really damn well... with everyone having "decent" FR because we were working rag back in the unkillable days. In the end, the FR, and tank/gear advantage helped tremendously.

Someone already asked the most important question, what is wiping you?

Edit: oh yeah we boxed in 2 alt warriors for execute DPS... in the end their dps wasn't that impressive.

I'd like to add, that unless you get consistent 1% attempts, doing the UBRS buff will be more of a detriment than a help. You need more practice, and you are losing 1 full attempt timewise by doing UBRS buffs instead of just trying the damn mob. Vaelastrasz is one of those fights that truly tests a guilds ability to stay focused - its like thaddius in some sense... you can WTFWIPE in half a second and be at each other's throats because it is often a 1 person wipe situation - much unlike MC... build your guilds morale and foundation around encounters like this imo.

Back in the day you only had an hour anyway... so it was important to hurl yourselves forward.

As I've said before...nothing has wiped THIS guild...yet. We haven't tried Vael seriously as a guild yet. Thing is, we're only 2.5 weeks old but filled with members of an older guild that imploded. This older guild spent months wiping on Vael...never seriously putting it together.

Then again, the old guild never got Rags to 13% before Sons...something tells me things are going to be different with the new guild.