So, after trying 3 different browsers, I still cannot get the Search feature to work, and after about 35 minutes of skimming through Karazhan threads I haven't found what I was looking for, so here's a new topic that I hope can spur up some discussion the Nightbane encounter. (Or hopefully someone can provide me with a link to a discussion I missed regarding my questions)
After dealing with some issues as far as dealing with the smaller raid sizes, and balancing for raid composition this week my guild has finally gotten in 2 "A Teams" into Karazhan to push for first kills on Nightbane this week. We cleared the second half of the instance last night, and started putting some work on Nightbane.
The encounter itself seems well designed, and the mechanics of the fight (as most know) aren't anything too incredibly challenging. As we were progressing smoothly along during the evening, we were consistantly living through the Bone Rain, and competently handling the skeletons that were spawning, but after they died, and Nightbane was landing was where things stopped going so smoothly. Nightbane just seemingly landed along the terrace where ever he felt would be nice, and upon touch down, wound up either aggroing upon one of our healers, or a dps class, even though our protection spec'd tank, sundered him twice, and shield slammed him once on the run to Nightbane (this was on the lucky attempt where he landed near our tank). Other times, Nightbane would just land haphazardly seemingly anywhere along the terrace.
I understand that upon first summon Nightbane will land near the little skull that is on the terrace, every time. However upon completion of the "phase 2" flying stage, what determines where he will land along the terrace, and second, does he retain his threat list from his flying stage? ... Or perhaps is the threat generated during his ground phase given back upon touch down? Again I apologize if this topic has been discussed, but any insight into the mechanics of these 'transitional' phases of the fight would be quite helpful.
Last edited by Cyrithor : 02/23/07 at 1:56 PM.
Reason: typos!
He resets aggro when he lands. Have your hunter (if you have one) Misdirect to your tank at the end of each air phase, and he'll stick to him with no problem.
Ah alright, so I assume (based on our group composition) that either healing threat, or the threat generated from the warlock's dot's applied to him during the last part of his flying phase would be generating the threat that was causing them to pull aggro. Our raid doesn't have a hunter, but I think we can work around it. Does he land on the person with the most threat after his threat reset?
Having tanked it, I can tell you there are a lot of facts, rumors, myths, and bugs on this fight.
If you stand on the terrace and look toward the village, and a "flattened bucket" is on your left by about 5 yards, this is where nightbane will spawn in the first phase 1.
After phase 2, he will attempt to land. The myth is that he will land more readily if you are against the rail... trust me this isn't a fact. Maybe it applies to other members of the raid, but I don't think so.
The terrace itself is a semicircle. With the circle itself broken into many straight and small pieces each with an angle off of the next. The bucket represents a vertex between two of these adjacent straight pieces. Where he lands after phase 2 is roughly 3 sections further to the left if facing toward the village, off the terrace, from where he usually lands in phase 1.
You can actually shift the raid in the 2nd and 3rd phase 1's to pick him up at this new "spawn" point. You can SS and HS and whatever him before he lands, and MD for extra aggro.
But be warned, you can land 2-3 attacks, burn your rage, and he will take off and fly again once in a while. For us, he always takes off at least 1 additional time, and always lands on the 2nd attempt. Perhaps if he landed immediately on me it would be closer to the bucket from the first phase 1, but this is my experience. Moving the raid is unrealistic however, unless they know its coming. YMMV.
I also recommend bandaging yourself as you transition out of phase 2. However, he moves so fast that you're going to need luck if you don't hit him as he lands to retain control. You'll be lucky at best to land an attack as he speeds past you faster than the speed of lag.
Furthermore, if a fear is incoming, you have to chooose: break fear and lose a member from direct? get feared, get aggro, and then lose someone while feared but retain immediately after. If you're alliance, you needn't worry about such petty things like fear I suppose.
He can also bug out and stay indefinitely in the air in phase 2. And he can also bug out and require a soft reset to actually properly summon again. At least he's not Gruul I suppose.
Can people stop making the assumption that every Alliance guild runs every encounter with fear in it has a Dwarf or Draenai priest? Just because the option exists doesn't mean every guild has them, because quite frankly most priests for whatever reason decided that shadowmeld, 1% dodge and Grace of Elune would clearly be more useful than outright fear prevention and stoneform. It is in fact possible that Alliance players just might have the same frame of reference as your perpetually downtrodden selves.
Seriously, there are like 100 Dwarf Priests serverwide. I can name 3 Dwarf Priests on my server, and at least 50 Night Elves or Humans.
We did notice that he seemed to shift (I believe the direction would be) South along the terrace, or if you're tanking him with your back to the rail, to the tanks immediate right. However like you said, moving the raid was what we eventually just decided to do, but I wasn't positive that it was just Nightbane's decision to shift south, if it was caused by a player standing south, or it was a seemingly random choice that he would shift south.
We are alliance but we have no Draenai or Dwarf priests . Our tanks have basically done the content since our dwarves quit their priests, like the horde do, sans WotF, and Tremor. Our current Karazhan raid is also without a shaman; but our tank doesn't seem to have an issue with fear breaks or sustained threat. He was getting a bit frustrated by the fact that he (seemingly) couldn't pick Nightbane up immediately. Thanks again for the responses, it should help make things a bit more productive this evening.
Can people stop making the assumption that every Alliance guild runs every encounter with fear in it has a Dwarf or Draenai priest? Just because the option exists doesn't mean every guild has them, because quite frankly most priests for whatever reason decided that shadowmeld, 1% dodge and Grace of Elune would clearly be more useful than outright fear prevention and stoneform. It is in fact possible that Alliance players just might have the same frame of reference as your perpetually downtrodden selves.
Seriously, there are like 100 Dwarf Priests serverwide. I can name 3 Dwarf Priests on my server, and at least 50 Night Elves or Humans.
Stop being such a drama queen. Surely you realize I was speaking to the option; perhaps you even caught the slight sarcasm in the diction. You don't have to defend overpowered abilities by claiming you don't have them. No one cares. Use it if you got it, perhaps that was the point of my "constructive" post. Sickening, seriously.
Nightbane fear isn't that bad. He does it pretty infrequently most of the time (I've seen 100->75 with zero fears more than once). Just pace yourself a bit on DPS, and have the tank build strong aggro for ~30 seconds after every fear, then stop as soon as his Rage cooldown is back up and just HS/block until the next fear. Nightbane provides basically infinite rage, so even with taking little breaks from more active aggro generation, threat really shouldn't be an issue.
Also, please, drop the "omg fear ward is OP"/"no way we have no dwarf priests but you have WotF anyway!" bullshit. Didn't that get old, oh... two years ago, on Onyxia?
No, its when you make a comment like that you are basically invalidating someones perspective on that particular mechanic. As I stated just because alliance can have fear warders, the reality on most servers is they are so rare its a fluke if a guild has 1. I would've thought when both got the opposing faction specific class the little easy mode jabs would stop, but clearly not. I'm not being a drama queen, it just gets old. Rather than sticking on point its an opportunity to get in a little "life is hard for the horde" commentary, its the kind of thing you see r&d trolls pulling out daily.
But on topic usually I find he has agro on whoever healed after the agro wipe, so its typically on the smoking blast paladin as he is usually still healing as he is flying to land. Misdirection has to be used basically right after the shout when he is still in the air, and it helps to intervene whichever healer happens to have agro on landing. The only good counter to fear on landing is just being prepared to dance it when it happens, but there is a small chance that he'll fear in mid landing and the screen won't shake if that happens.
Yeah like I said, our tank really hasn't had issues breaking fears without Tremor/WotF/FW ect. I really was more concerned with how Nightbane chose his landing position at the 75%, 50% and 25% marks, and how threat was working during those transitional times.
Originally Posted by Quigon
The terrace itself is a semicircle. With the circle itself broken into many straight and small pieces each with an angle off of the next. The bucket represents a vertex between two of these adjacent straight pieces. Where he lands after phase 2 is roughly 3 sections further to the left if facing toward the village, off the terrace, from where he usually lands in phase 1.
You can actually shift the raid in the 2nd and 3rd phase 1's to pick him up at this new "spawn" point. You can SS and HS and whatever him before he lands, and MD for extra aggro.
So is it safe to assume that upon the 25% landing or the third phase 1, Nightbane will again shift roughly 3 sections further south? Or does his position shift differently?
Well my experience is he lands in the same area on the far right of the terrace, every time. It just depends how far he runs to go after whoever he has agro on. Agro seems to be entirely dependant on who healed the most as he was landing, never seen a non healer have agro on landing from healing immolation damage or anything. This could be controllable too if just 1 person did the spot healing before landing.
The fear doesn't come very often and is easily avoided by a warrior, no real need for fear ward on it. Unless your karazhan group for the week was made up with the assumption that the druid would be main tanking every fight
We're gonna try and get our fury warrior OT some upgrades out of heroics in the next couple days before giving nightbane another shot. It's just kind of like being kicked in the balls when you easily MT every other encounter in the zone but are useless on the last boss because of a mechanic you were told would no longer be an issue.
I would've thought when both got the opposing faction specific class the little easy mode jabs would stop, but clearly not.
I'm not sure how to cordially say this, but perhaps get over yourself my friend. We were talking about how to grab Nightbane at the start of phase 1 after a phase 2. An early fear here makes the initial grab much more difficult, and had to be addressed with discussing what skills and abilities to be used to pickup. Thus - if he were alliance, and he had fear ward, he should use it because it completely removes the element. This is a fact, not some faction debate or emotional banter.
Trust me, from a tanking perspective, while trying to pull nightbane off someone, or grab him at the start of phase 2, an early bellowing roar will likely get you feared because you're simply not ready for it, concentrating on everything else - or before globals from initial grab aggro are reset. If he had the tools to remove this part, it would greatly help him in the pickup. I'm not sure why you feel as if your kill has been invalidated by the audacious claims that fear ward stops fears, especially since you don't have a dwarf priest, but it was an apt and very useful suggestion to someone having difficulty restabilizing phase 1. If you didn't have a hunter in your guild, would my claim of misdirection be as damning?
That being said, you don't need fear ward to kill this guy by any stretch of the imagination. But it helps with this particular part, as does MD, as does bandaging, as does positioning. I was being pretty comprehensive, if you read the original post for what it was.
You can pull aggro on nightbane for sure, did it myself last night at 76%, but that was really going for it as enhancement with both weapons over 80dps, no BoS etc.
As far as nightbane landing goes, there is a tiny little skull on the balcony near the dome side, he lands pretty much on this every time. And I have never seen a fear in the gap 5-30secs since a landing, so we have our tank zerg rage just before he lands to make sure he wont be troubled by a very early fear. You can also melee nightbane a second or two before he actually lands, if the tank is spamming abilities and standing in the right spot it should stick to him on landing, although clearly misdirection helps.
Personally, I'm just curious if anyone has actually downed him with a shadow priest, and what that miracle composition was. I'll assume mad consumables were involved.
Prot war, 2 holy pals, shaman, holy priest, frost mage, fire mage, rogue, hunter, warlock = barely getting past the first takeoff/landing.
Personally, I'm just curious if anyone has actually downed him with a shadow priest, and what that miracle composition was. I'll assume mad consumables were involved.
Prot war, 2 holy pals, shaman, holy priest, frost mage, fire mage, rogue, hunter, warlock = barely getting past the first takeoff/landing.
Out of the 4 or 5 kills we have now, all had shadow priests.
This fight favors healers, just bring a bunch.
Replace that rogue w/a shadow priest and you'd still be able to win.
Personally, I'm just curious if anyone has actually downed him with a shadow priest, and what that miracle composition was. I'll assume mad consumables were involved.
Prot war, 2 holy pals, shaman, holy priest, frost mage, fire mage, rogue, hunter, warlock = barely getting past the first takeoff/landing.
What's wrong with shadow priests on nightbane? We had two of them on our last kill.
He made a typo. He means "without" a shadow priest. And yeah, without a shadow priest on our early learning attempts, using the same 3-healer setup with which we'd done the rest of the zone easily, mana just seemed completely impossible. We could hold it together for a little while, but it wasn't at all clear how we'd possibly do four cycles of that.
You need a fourth dedicated healer and/or a shadow priest, I think.
Of course we also didn't have any paladins, so maybe if you use them as the lynchpin of your tank healing, you can sustain it regardless.
It's just kind of like being kicked in the balls when you easily MT every other encounter in the zone but are useless on the last boss because of a mechanic you were told would no longer be an issue.
Don't you think that's a bit of an exaggeration? Certainly it makes the fight simpler to have access to Berserker Rage -- and simplifying an encounter like this is extremely helpful when you're just trying to get him killed as early as possible -- but the fight is a far cry from rendering prot paladins and feral druids useless when not MTing. Given the relative utility of a Prot warrior on other encounters in the zone I'd say it's only fair.
Without shadow priests? We've done the encounter both with shadow priests & with them and I didn't really see it making much of a difference.
Its definately an encounter made easier with 4 healers but assuming you brought actual real hybrids in your raid composition instead of pure healers only for other encounters then you already have enough healers.
We run 2 warriors, 2 holy paladins, resto druid, shadow priest, rogue, and some combination of mage/lock/rogue for the last 3 slots. Druid recently swapped mains to a (lesser-geared) resto shaman. We've had a shadow priest every time but we've also had a kill where our shadow priest died on the first landing and mana wasn't too much of an issue. Major dreamless sleeps are awesome and ridiculously cheap on my server, and paladin healing efficiency and longevity are just so ridiculous it really wasn't an issue. If I use divine illumination/favor properly and every time they're up, I'm pretty sure there is not a single encounter within reach that can run me out of mana in current gear unless another healer dies or we're short handed. I normally chain the non-token cheap combat mana pots on some harder fights right from the start just so I can intentionally overheal with more margin for error. Chaining super manas and especially dreamless sleeps (provided you don't forget that a tremor totem is down in your group /cry) is basically unlimited mana and allows me to spam max rank holy light with reckless abandon for the majority of the fight.
It'd certainly be rough with only 3 healers, none of which were paladins, but if raiding has taught us anything it's that consumables > *. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if someone did it or even if they did it and thought it was easy (with mana pot chugging). I was just thinking to myself earlier that it'd be a FAR FAR larger improvement to my effectiveness/stats/"gear" if I just spent the ~6hrs a day I currently spend farming instances to get the last 1-2 pieces of gear I'd use from them just farming herbs instead, and just flask for everything with 70mp/5 or +2k mana.
Shadow priests are far from necessary, but great for mana retention. When necessary we just delayed the fight to wait for timers and such, it's a very controlled fight and not a lot of terrible should happen unless terribly undergeared. You can make the fight last forever assuming everyone lives and healers have potions. Paladin healers are pretty prime on this fight because of handling phase 2 (and will get even better after the next patch for this fight), but mainly because they are a beefy plate healer with bubble. Often our paladin pulls agro on landing and he could just bubble if so. The changes to Nightbane are going to make him quite easy imo, the immolation was the real problem in the first place, but at the same time make him quite odd. The change for melee only on skeleton seems like a silly way to make people want rogues (hunters are even better; hi multishot). Paladins were already gods on this fight, they're going to be outrageous when holy hits skeletons as well as phase 2 blasts.
Don't you think that's a bit of an exaggeration? Certainly it makes the fight simpler to have access to Berserker Rage -- and simplifying an encounter like this is extremely helpful when you're just trying to get him killed as early as possible -- but the fight is a far cry from rendering prot paladins and feral druids useless when not MTing. Given the relative utility of a Prot warrior on other encounters in the zone I'd say it's only fair.
I think he was pretty clear about his demand for being able to tank the boss and I fully agree. AE fear is a worn-out mechanic that shouldn't be used on raid encounters anymore. It's as old as Lord Nagafen, let it rest already.
Or really give Horde fear ward, it was fun when only warriors could tank but excluding the tauren druids? Not fair.
I think he was pretty clear about his demand for being able to tank the boss and I fully agree. AE fear is a worn-out mechanic that shouldn't be used on raid encounters anymore. It's as old as Lord Nagafen, let it rest already.
Or really give Horde fear ward, it was fun when only warriors could tank but excluding the tauren druids? Not fair.
Perhaps a fear more like the one used from the dragon boss in Heroic Ramparts should be used more, it seems to effect everyone except the one highest on threat - thus keeping the fear mechanic in and keeping the encounter-changing deviance that fearward provides out.
02/23/07, 1:54 PM
. Our tanks have basically done the content since our dwarves quit their priests, like the horde do, sans WotF, and Tremor. Our current Karazhan raid is also without a shaman; but our tank doesn't seem to have an issue with fear breaks or sustained threat. He was getting a bit frustrated by the fact that he (seemingly) couldn't pick Nightbane up immediately. Thanks again for the responses, it should help make things a bit more productive this evening.
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