So we have killed Anub'rekhan and Razuvious several times each now. Neither are easy one shots or near farm status yet, but we are getting smoother. Yesterday we did the trash between Faerlina and Anub'rekhan to see if we could get a few attempts on Faerlina. Frankly, this trash is just annoying. We could generally kill the skitts and poison spiders with maybe 2-5 deaths, but would only have 15 mins or so left when we actually got to the Acolyte/Cultist packs.

These packs gave us all kinds of trouble on the first couple of pulls, after which we figured out that they are not immune to spell inturrepting effects and used that to our advantage to kill them. But this generally resulted in 10-15 people being dead by the time we killed all 8 of them. So we decided to try challenging shout/mass AoE a couple of times, but that didn't really work that well either.

So at this point, do we just need to practice more on the acolyte/cultists with single target dps, or is there a better strategy that we are missing? Any tips are appreciated =)

Thanks in advance.

We had the same problems for the most part when we first started pulling them. Your biggest source of deaths I'm sure is too many acolytes being bunched up near the front and all of the rogues/warriors going in to kill them at once. Its pretty tough to heal through all of the aoe those guys put out if its hitting more than a few people.

What we do is have the packs pulled back to the room just after the Anub'Rekhan gate (squarish with ledges people can get on) and have the raid stay in the middle of the room while the warriors (tanks) stay near the chokepoint. Have all the dps kill the cultists first as they come in and by the time those are dead your warriors should have been able to pick up the acolytes and spread them out along the outside, at which point you just run around and take the acolytes one by one. Kicking the shadow bolt volleys helps a bit too.

This trash is a lot of fun in my opinion. We basically wiped in about 20 seconds the first time we pulled Cultists and Acolytes. Once we figured out the room right after Anub was the perfect spot, we just chain pull them in there with no strategy whatsoever except 'spread out'. Puts all the onus on survival to the individual player since the shadowbolt volley can be outranged or LOS blocked.

Ghostz, where do your healers/ranged DPS stand?

We just pull them to just outside Faerlina's room, and DPS them down, which works okay even if it's a bit messy.

okay glad to know we weren't totally offbase. We used the room right after anub's gate too for these. We will get better with practice I guess. Another question would be that once we do clear Faerlina's room, we only have to worry about the skitt patrol in that room every 30 mins correct? or do we have to clear all the spiders up to her every 30 mins?

No one should be getting close enough to agro the spawns in the cave. No need to clear them (unless of course you wipe and have no soulstones etc available)

We have a very simple approach and do them pretty much where they are. We have the Warriors tank the Acolytes at the entrance to Faerlinas room. All acolytes are tanked right on top of eachother. We leave the cultists untanked and just have everyone except the 3-5 tanks on Acolytes going nuts with DPS on the cultists in the camp. Once the cultists are dead (should be 30 seconds tops) ranged DPS takes out the Acolytes. Noone except the 5 Warriors tanking take any damage from Acolytes at all the entire time. Very easy and generally noone (or very few, at worst) die.

Edit: The camp is about 30 yards up the ramp where we came from.

Yep we do it the exact same way. Hunter multishot pulls, runs up the ramp to where the DPS is waiting, warriors pull off Acolytes down towards Faerlina's room, and all the Cultists follow the hunter. Very rarely have any deaths.

We actually pull them back to the room with the ramps and kite the cultists while dpsing the acolytes. Usually no deaths and we clear all the groups in about 15 minutes. Hunter pet pulls and we raid mark the acolytes and assign each warrior to a mark.

I break out my shadow resist for these packs, it helps negate a bit of the burst they put out. After that we just single them out and focus fire them down pretty quickly.

We also use the room described above, with hunter pulls.

We'd know who "we" was if you'd fill in your profile.

we had some trouble with this trash for a while when we were learning spider wing until an inspiration hit me, and no i didnt crit a flash heal on myself...



how to kill faerlina trash, all of it, every time, with zero deaths:

http://www.bjhanish.com/faertrash.jpg


step 1: Form your raid groups 1 and 2 as follows:
1) warrior warrior warrior priest priest
2) warrior warrior warrior priest priest

step 2: send in a hunter to icon the acolytes to your warriors, and have him drop an exploding trap in the (top left) doorway.

step 3: hunter shoots a cultist and runs into the pit room, where dps destroys all of the cultists asap. They run allover the place and dont really need to be tanked anyways.


meanwhile: your warriors in 1 and 2 [dark browns] are on the other side of the little doorway walls from your priests [white], group 1 on the left, group 2 on the right. The warriors tank the acolytes there while the priests cast prayer of healing (healing their warriors through the walls), and once the cultists are dead the warriors bring their acolytes into the pit in quick succession after eachother to be grouned into mince-meat.


also- make sure the priests tuck themselves into the corners tightly so the cultist knockbacks dont hit them, should one happen to wander nearby

We've never used quite that literal control on the Acolytes.

We have a hunter a pull them and run to the square room just past Anub'Rekhan. You'll find the Acolytes and Cultists segregate themselves as they run, the Acolytes stopping occasionally to cast. The cultists keep running down to the floor of the room and we burn them as quickly as possible. We have a tank just run around the corner and grab the Acolytes there in the doorway once the cultists are through. Generally a priest or two will PoH heal the tank from around the corner.

Once the cultists are down we just AoE the acolytes.

The only time this ever gets even a bit risky is if there are five Acolytes, in which case we just call no-melee when we're killing the Acolytes. Usually need extra watchful healers on the Acolyte tank as well.

Regardless you should probably head for Noth before Faerlina as he's a bit more forgiving of a DPS test than Faerlina, and a much easier fight over all. Not to mention more fun.

We have all of our healers/ranged DPS stand in the middle of the room, around where the cultists are dpsed at the start, and the acolytes around the outside so their aoe doesn't hit the ranged.

Edit: I agree with Arc. Noth is a much easier fight overall. Faerlina is a big headache, especially with the RoF ticking even after you get out of it.

this is more or less what we do except with less assigning and more rogue death

I should also add that using the method I mentioned in post #15 we clear them with no deaths (except for the occasional dauntless rogue on a 5 Acolyte pull), and usually have pulled Faerlina before respawns start.

Uhh, unless we end up sitting around for 10 minutes saying "So who's doing healing assignments, guyz???"

I've never bothered to time the trash clear.

Any of the square room methods presented here sound solid though. If you're AoE heavy then grouping the acolytes would likely be best, if you're melee heavy, spreading them around the room and burning them would likely be best. None of them will be much different than the others though. Just prep one pull as you're finishing the current and chain pull the hell out of them and it won't matter.

We simply just spread out on the ledges of the big kiting room.. and pet pull the packs in.

Then we have a benny hill moment of just blasting them as they get all confuised running round.. its a good laugh and as long as ppl use LOS and heals keep coming.. nobody should die.

Its like shooting ducks in a barrel :)

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

the key lies in the benny hill music.

edit: what the hell, was this an old post ?:D

We use a firing squad pull. Hunters/Mages/Warlocks tee up nukes on my mark. The first cultist dies at my footstep.

We then put the healers on the high ground in the tunnel, the melee assist train zerging the middle open area, and the hunters on the far side. Hunters/Warriors/Rogues fight like hell to keep em interupted and outa the healer group. Works pretty well, and is alot of fun.

Also lets ya go faster since there isnt alota setup req's. Toss up raid icons just to see them better in the fray, and start the firing squad. Kneeling cultists are 100% crit, so aimedshot > multishot from all your hunters, paired with mages direct dmg and aoe, does quite a bit of damage before they even reach the group.

The only deaths generally occur from someone being out of LoS of the healer group, and/or letting a cultist get loose near the healers.

We pulled 2 packs at once on accident. It was some of the most fun I've ever had in WoW. If they could make a boss encounter like that it would be my instant all-time favorite.

(We won with like 10 people left standing.)

I thought we were the only guild to do this, after hearing the wide variety of complicated strats people use. MT pulls and tanks all the acolytes. Cultists aggro on healers and run to the main raid and we just kill them, then kill the acolytes. (Ideally the first 1-2 of them ranged only.)

Never have any deaths this way, other than the occasional suicidal warrior intercepting into the acolyte pack before any of them are killed and popping deathwish. And no setup time so you can chain pull...