Category: WoW Tips
All of the WoW item mouseover links will completely break until I update all of the tags. All of the entry images will too until I do the same. I'm going to probably also condense some of the guides (like all of the gemming and resist gear articles) for the sake of organization. I also took the liberty of pruning off all of the really really short posts and all of the really really pointless posts. Ideally, everything will get re-tagged whenever...
Cheap Raiding Consumables
I'm a cheapskate. These are all of (or most) the instance specific consumables, which are usually pretty easy to obtain. Also, though not listed below, the unstable mana/healing potions are available via the repeatable Skettis daily quest if you can catch the NPC. My bank is perpetually full because it is half filled with odd BoP items :/
Unstable Flask of the Sorcerer: Only usable in the Blade's Edge Mountains Plateaus and in Gruul's Lair. If you are too lazy to actually kill the mobs and manually buy the potions from the BEM NPC, like me, the flasks are usually available on the Auction House for really cheap (50s to 3g on my server, depending on the flask). There's no excuse NOT to be flasked it Gruul, these are seriously easy as hell to get.
Shattrath Flask of Fortification: Same as the normal Flask of Fort. You can purchase these with one Mark of the Illidari, a BoE token that drops randomly off of trash in the higher end 25-man raids (depends on how your guild distributes these). Only usable in said instances.
Red Ogre Brew & Blue Ogre Brew: 3 Apexis Shards each. Only usable in BEM and Gruul's
Crystal Healing Potion & Crystal Mana Potion: 50 Apexis Shards and 40s each. Kind of expensive but equal to a super mana/healing potion and usable anywhere.
Bottled Nethergone Vapor & Bottled Nethergon Energy. Only usable in TK; They drop off of any mob in any TK instance.
If you don't already use it, WoW Web Stats is an excellent performance analysis tool. It's probably the most accurate and detailed out of all the current mods and combat log parsers out there. It doesn't display information in real time though like DamageMeters or Recount. You have to instead, enable combat logging (/combatlog or something, that will write everything in your CombatLog to a txt file in WoW/logs) and then upload it to the site. If you don't want to manually toggle it, there are mods that will do it automatically in accordance with what zone you are in. LoggerHead is a good Ace2 mod with said functionality.
Things that I found interesting, based off of a rather small sample size:
- I migitate roughtly 25% of all normal incoming damage via block/armor (normal as in not a special attack or spell). Roughly 54% of all damage is avoided.
- In a night's run, I seem to let a few crushing blows slip by. I've noticed that when I engage a boss, I don't always get Holy Shield up by the time I'm within the mob's hitbox. I'm not sure if the rest are from spell lag, me not minding my spell rotations, or positioning issues.
- Consecration does roughly 30% of my total damage on a boss fight, followed by Holy Shield at around 20% - 25%. Seal of Whatever comes up third at around 15% to 20%.
- On fast attacking bosses (Halazzi), Holy Shield comes out on top at around 40% of my overall fight damage (it's uber nice, TPS goes way over 1.5k)
- In my off-tanking gear Lay on Hands crit heals for 25871, lol.
Halazzi is more or less a, "tank n' spank gear check add fight". Have your off-tank pickup the Spirit of Halazzi immediately, have your melee DPS focus on taking down the totems as soon as they pop, and have healers keep both tanks topped off because Halazzi does major damage.
Tanks: Halazzi's most annoying ability is Saberlash, an 18k cleave that splits between 2 people (not unlike Nalorakk's Brutal Swipe). Both tanks need to stand on top of each other for the entire fight. At 75% and 50% HP, he will split into two: Halazzi and Spirit of Halazzi (kitty cat). You need to pick up the Spirit ASAP, without moving off of the MT (soaking a full Saberlash = insta-wipe). Halazzi does not crush.
DPS: Totems will spawn throughout the fight. All melee DPS must take these down in seconds, they kill. The totems will spawn more frequently after Halazzi hits 25% health. When he splits, ignore the add. Hunters can tranq shot off frenzy.
Healers: Keep the tanks alive, it's not unreasonable to need 3 or 4 dedicated healers. The MT will take a ALOT of burst damage.
Tankadin note: Halazzi has a very fast attack speed, it's not uncommon for your TPS to break a steady 1k or so! The screenshot (which is sort of large, didn't shrink it down...) has my updated UI, I'll make a separate post about that at some point.
The trash: The eagles and the trolls don't stop spawning until
you kill the Amani'shi Tempest, who is located on the stairs. So just
keep pulling
Akil'zon is a, "pay attention and move" fight. You have exactly 8 minutes to down him before enrage happens and people start dying (8 minutes is way more than enough time). Make sure that everyone in the raid is on the stone platform before you pull. Anyone on the stairs will get shut out of the encounter by a magically invisible door.
MOST IMPORTANT POINT: Every 45 seconds Akil'zon casts Electrical Storm: An 8 second channeled spell. Electrical Storm is cast on a random player, a cloud will appear above that player, anyone not under the cloud will take mega damage and die. So for that reason, everyone should run to and collapse onto the main tank before Electrical Storm is cast so that everyone will be under the cloud.
- The new Deadly Boss Mods has a timer for his abilities. I usually call out and have everyone collapse onto the tank 8 to 10 seconds before Electrical storm. You can manually time it too but I loathe doing that.
- Once Electrical Storm ends, spread out immediately. If you stand too close to someone, both of you will take mega AoE damage and get a debuff.
- Around a minute or so into the fight Akil'zon starts summoning eagles who will swoop down and randomly hit people. They are near impossible to target and respawn when they die, so just heal through them. Have a paladin put up Concentration Aura to help the casters, make sure that everyone is topped off health wise.
...as long as everyone pays attention and MOVES when they need to this isn't a really difficult fight. I don't have the specific details on Akil'zon's abilities.
Edit:
- Be wary of being overly dependant on the DBM timers or any mod timers. I'm not convinced that they are accurate at all.
I might compile a ZA guide at some point. Nalorakk is a dual tank fight. He rotates between a troll form and a bear form every 40ish seconds or so; a tank is needed for each form. Nalorakk is tauntable and doesn't deal any Crushing Blows (go wild with odd gearing :P). The encounter is resettable by running down to the base of the stairs.
Positioning
Tank him at the base of his platform, have everyone else spread out in a semi circle.
- If you are concerned about surge, have someone with a high amount of HP stand slightly further from Nalorakk than everyone else to soak the charge. Honestly though, it doesn't do a whole lot of damage as long as everyone is spread out to avoid splash damage.
-
We have both tanks standing on top of each other to divide cleave. However if one tank dodges, the other tank will soak all 14k damage. To make sure this doesn't happen, we had a third raid member standing with us playing Cleave tampon (a healadin).
Troll Form
Mangle: All bleed effects cause 100% additional damage
Surge: Charges someone (pretty sure it is whoever is standing furthest away from him) knocking them back and hurting anyone in the vicinity (around 1.5k on plate 3.5k on cloth)
Brutal Swipe: A cleave (frontal damage) that does 14k damage on plate, divided evenly among up to 2 people.
- He doesn't do a whole lot of damage in troll form, so have your healers conserve mana.
Bear Form
Lacerating Slash: Bleed for 1735 damage every 2 seconds for 18 seconds
Rend Flesh: Bleed for 2335 damage every second for 5 seconds
Deafening Roar: AoE, 2 seconds silence and around 1k damage to everyone (don't know the range).
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He does A LOT of damage in bear form. Keep the bear tank topped off, the AoE silence sucks.
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Whoever is tanking the bear needs to taunt him off of the troll tank ASAP to prevent Mangle + Cleave. If taunt fails for some reason, have a paladin BoP aggro off.
It's pretty much a gear check. Your tanks, the bear tank in particular needs to be well geared as do the healers since this is a pretty healing intensive encounter. So summary: Keep the tanks alive, spread out, make sure that each tank grabs aggro when Nalorakk changes to their assigned form.
Edit:
- I'm not 100% sure how the cleave mechanics work. Specifically, I'm not sure that the full Cleave amount gets pushed onto one tank if the other dodges/misses/parries.
- Bear tank: save your potions for a double bleed + silence. If you get all three effects, there's a good chance that you will die.
I've been occupied lately poking around with the guild forums/vBulletin, apparently I alternate between what I "feel like" working on lol. This is actually just something that I posted in my internal guild boards for a fairly recent 70. I figure that this might be useful to at least one person who still peruses my site. Well that and I can't think of anything else to post.
Basic Raid Etiquette
Pay attention and work as a team. Raiding is a team effort, adjust your thinking accordingly.
- Don't come to the raid flagged for PvP.
- Don't inch ahead of the raid: In general, stay behind the Main Tank.
- Watch range and LoS. I can't heal what I can't see.
- Mind your surroundings: It is very easy to become so focused on
healing/DPSing that you neglect what is happening around you. Example:
If black circle of unholy death forms at your feet, MOVE!
- Come prepared: Repair, buy reagents and potions to last you for the entire raid, read strategies.
- Be Keen: Keep an eye out for special attacks and special situations.
- Let people know when you have to AFK.
- Watch your aggro: What should you do when the Main Tank first pulls a mob? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
- When fight strategies are given out, pay close attention. If you aren't sure about something, by all means ask a question!
Healing
Though we don't have a whole lot of healing spells, paladins are one of if not THE BEST single target healers in the game.
- Flash of Light is your primary healing spell. It is the most efficient heal
in the game (efficiency = highest HP healed/mana ratio).
- Topping off: Spam Flash of Light on people to top health off. Time it so that you aren't overhealing.
- Heal aggressively: Base your heals off of what you think your
target's health will be AFTER you finish casting. Basically:
Preemptively heal and ANTICIPATE DAMAGE. If you know that the MT will
be taking a huge chunk of damage, cast an early Holy Light...you can
always cancel it right before the spell lands.
- It's okay to overheal during certain situations, knowing when to do
this is part of being a good healer. Wasting a little mana is better
than a dead tank.
- Some bosses use special abilities on regular intervals.
DeadlyBossMods will show a timer for these...watch it and time your
heals around it!
- Learn to budget mana around fight length and potion use (you can
use a potion every 2 minutes). Example: If a fight lasts 10 minutes,
you might not want to burn through all of your mana within the first
minute.
- Coordinate heals with other classes.
- While you are casting: Use this time to select your next healing target, it will save a lot of time in the long run.
- Begin the fight by using any trinkets and spells on short cooldowns
(Divine Favor, Divine Illumination, almost all trinkets). Most fights
last around 3 to 5 minutes; If you time your cooldowns like this you
can use them twice.
- Remember that bandages, potions, and even buffs generate a small
amount threat (using a 5g potion and then getting 1-shotted and wiping
the raid shortly after sucks hard).
Cleansing
Whether you like it or not, it is your duty to cleanse! No one else can
do it nearly as effectively as a paladin. Most importantly: Cleanse or
you will get bitched at repeatedly lol.
- You must always keep an eye out for debuffs at all times. Cleanse FAST and cleanse OFTEN.
- Keep in mind that cleanse has a 30 yard range, that's shorter than max healing range.
- SmartDebuff is a very good cleansing mod that is easy to setup.
It's a grid of names, when someone is afflicted with a cleansable
debuff it will highlight in red. To cleanse you just click the name,
very easy.
- Otherwise, use Clique + Raid bars (harder to setup).
Other spells
Exceptional paladins not only know how to heal and cleanse effectively,
but also know how to utilize all of their spells during appropriate
moments.
- Blessing of Protection: Protects the target for 10 seconds against all MELEE
attacks, also prevents them from using melee attacks. This is PERFECT
for casters who have aggro'd a trash mob or something. Don't be afraid
to use BoP liberally. If you BoP a rogue or a warrior they will
probably hate you for life.
- Auras: Know what aura to use and when to switch, mid fight if
necessary. Remember that resist auras do not stack with class resist
buffs.
- Most trash mobs are stunnable. If one strays, try to stun it.
One of the big downsides to the protection tree is that it offers pretty much zero single target damage. I think it's one of the issues that turns people off (well okay, in addition to raid needs and recruitment issues, but that's a different post). If you know how and where to do it, Protection offers by far the most efficient method of grinding. How? AoE farming.
