Will of the Emperor 10 Heroic

[Bonsaii]

So my guild got spirit kings heroic and we're going to be progressing on heroic will tonight after a quick Elegon kill. I'm looking for any tips you guys may have for our raid comp before we begin.

Prot Pally
Brewmaster Monk

Holy Pally
Resto Shaman

Shadow Priest
Boomkin
Rogue
Warrior
Mage
Hunter

So boomkin, priest, rogue, hunter, holy pally can all take sparks right? Would it be good for us to CC every other wave with polymorph and hunter trap?

Also should we have our warrior "tank" the rages?
Will it really take a DPS sitting on the boss to do it?

[Daerio]

IMO, you want the rogue spamming feint / soaking practically all of the sparks - rogues can do this with ONLY feint+heals. Our rogue spec'd cheat death over elusiveness for the extra soak. (but elusiveness is good too) This is how my raid killed it. Have your prot pally bubble the first 2 rage sparks, (no other time to use it - but make sure he doesn't have bubble active when there's a courage out, it WILL bug them) and for ease, probably have your hunter soaking all the courage sparks. (deterrence) My guess is you probably will be better off if you have a DPS camping the boss fulltime, but it's a tough call with your raid comp. I feel like you need the hunter soaking courage sparks, you need the warrior tanking strengths, and you absolutely need the rogue soaking.

Our rogue did practically no damage on our kill, but we were still able to kill it fairly easily before hitting enrage, without a melee sitting on the boss.

Don't forget to have your boomkin symb cloak of shadows, and having him and the rogue immune extra sparks when possible. Rogue soaking every single spark with feint up, and getting him healed fast enough that he doesn't get behind on soaking them.

I probably wouldn't have the holy pally soaking on a rotation, it isn't the easiest fight to 2 heal. Mage can soak also (greater invisibility is probably the best for this) but not often enough to make a huge difference - Shadow priest too. I'd probably have them on backup if sparks start piling up.

Big thing, too - make sure you're careful with detonating sparks as the bosses are coming out. It's very easy to kill those 2 rages right before they spawn, and buffing a boss for 2 minutes is a pretty big mistake. You can kite sparks through enemies - they will ONLY 'pop' if you kill them or a player runs into them, and they will buff any enemies too close. Buffing rages, strength, and (unlikely) courages doesn't matter much, but buffing either boss is really bad.

You could also have the warrior dancing on the boss, and hunter tanking strengths. This means you'll have to work out some sort of soak rotation on courage sparks. It might also mean you can have the hunter soaking every strength spark. (not sure on timing for strength, I know courages are ~1:15 between spawns which work out great for deterrence)

[Deleted]

So boomkin, priest, rogue, hunter, holy pally can all take sparks right? Would it be good for us to CC every other wave with polymorph and hunter trap?

Don't bother, this is just a viable tactic if you are struggling to get enough soaks, your line-up has plenty.

Also should we have our warrior "tank" the rages?

Unless he's prot specced that'll just kill him. Having him spec prot (better soaking+to get the courages to that side) could be viable, but honestly not something I recommend with your line-up.

Will it really take a DPS sitting on the boss to do it?

No, the enrage is very forgiving, you'll have breaks where the dps can go on the boss and your tanks deal massive damage, have every dps focus on the adds primarly (at least on your first kill).

For your setup (which is amazing for this fight) I'd do the following for soaking:
Have the rogue pick up and tank all the strengths (spec him into elusiveness, that+feint gives him a decent margin), and have him take these sparks. Have your hunter take every second set of sparks (get crouching tiger hidden chimera), have your mage (greater invis) and your sp (dispersion) or moonkin (symbiosis cloak) take every fourth set. Have the guy who isn't taking the rages (sp or moonkin) take care of the courage.

You still have the rogue, mage ice block (and possibly blink), warrior shield wall (+defensive stance), hunter readiness & pala bubble as backup soakers when things go haywire (on your first kill it kinda always does:P).

Always focus on killing the adds before touching the boss, courages>rages>strengths (just toss out a ring of frost on the rages if everyone needs to swap to the courage). Keeping the rages under control is just as cruical as killing them, they should always be slowed, use roots, stuns, knockbacks, etc and make them die at the same time (for easier soaking).

[Daerio]

Have the rogue pick up and tank all the strengths (spec him into elusiveness, that+feint gives him a decent margin), and have him take these sparks. Have your hunter take every second set of sparks (get crouching tiger hidden chimera), have your mage (greater invis) and your sp (dispersion) or moonkin (symbiosis cloak) take every fourth set. Have the guy who isn't taking the rages (sp or moonkin) take care of the courage.

While this is certainly all viable, I just want to say that I think it's a lot less confusing to just have one person (rogue) in charge of soaking the majority of sparks, and calling out for a backup when he needs it. It's a bit of extra damage soaking them with feint instead of using an immune on each one, but it's a lot easier.

Your raid comp is really good for this fight.

[Squirl]

Without a Disc, Feinting every Spark gets really sketchy and is really healing intensive no matter what, plus your Rogue's DPS will be fairly diminished. I would not CC every other set since you have more than enough immunities to kill every set; it's just easier in my experience. I would do this:

Have your Warrior go prot (3 tank) and pick up Strengths, dragging them near where the Rages spawn. This will cause all Courages to focus him rather than the boss tanks, giving you more time to kill them and a more favorable kite path. Your Warrior will also be able to soak every single Strength Spark without being in danger of dying.

Soaking Sparks:

• Rages (2 at a time): Hunter (1m Deterrence) > Rogue (Cloak) > Hunter > Boomkin (Sym Cloak) > repeat
• Strengths: Warrior (tank CDs+Shield Barrier)
• Courages: sPriest (Dispersion)
• Backups: hPally (Bubble), Mage (gInvis, Ice Block, Cauterize), Rogue (Feint)

As far as leaving someone on the boss, it's nowhere near necessary and usually detrimental. The entire fight is controlling adds; the actual bosses are really just consequential and beating the enrage should never be an issue. Your Hunter should keep his pet on a boss (otherwise it just runs around and loses a ton of uptime), and your Boomkin and sPriest should keep the bosses DoTed when possible, but do not ignore adds.

Good luck on your kill!

[Deleted]

While this is certainly all viable, I just want to say that I think it's a lot less confusing to just have one person (rogue) in charge of soaking the majority of sparks, and calling out for a backup when he needs it. It's a bit of extra damage soaking them with feint instead of using an immune on each one, but it's a lot easier.

Your raid comp is really good for this fight.

That's simply putting a lot more pressure on your healers (topping him when the tanks aren't dancing is a bit sketchy) and (without elusivness) he will get close to death every soak. That's simply removing all responsibility from the rest of the raid but increasing said rogues (and the healers) massively, while also suffering an overall dps decrease.

[Bendeis]

Mage can soak also (greater invisibility is probably the best for this) but not often enough to make a huge difference.

Gonna have to correct you a bit there, mages are excellent soakers on will. As they can soak with blink

[Daerio]

That's simply putting a lot more pressure on your healers (topping him when the tanks aren't dancing is a bit sketchy) and (without elusivness) he will get close to death every soak. That's simply removing all responsibility from the rest of the raid but increasing said rogues (and the healers) massively, while also suffering an overall dps decrease.

750k*.35(elusiveness feint) = 262,500 damage per soak.

I don't agree that it's "an overall dps decrease" to have the rogue soaking - it is in fact an increase. Having half the raid doing a soak rotation definitely decreases their damage, and multi-dotters do good on this fight. It decreases the rogue's damage, it increases everybody else.

---------- Post added 2013-02-23 at 01:03 PM ----------

Gonna have to correct you a bit there, mages are excellent soakers on will. As they can soak with blink

Pretty big risk there depending on blink, but do what you feel I guess.

[Deleted]

750k*.35(elusiveness feint) = 262,500 damage per soak.

I don't agree that it's "an overall dps decrease" to have the rogue soaking - it is in fact an increase. Having half the raid doing a soak rotation definitely decreases their damage, and multi-dotters do good on this fight. It decreases the rogue's damage, it increases everybody else.

1.) You said that your rogue was doing it without elusivness, which is extremly risky (and requires even more healing).

2.) You may disagree, but in one case we have a melee running all over the place doing absolutely no damage (according to you), in my case we have one range moving for a short moment (~5 sec to get in soak the spark and bk into position) every 30 sec and apart from that has just as much uptime as normal, you do the math.

3.) Regarding mages, if you have somewhat spikey latency they are just "really good soakers", with both greater invis (not significantly higher cd than most soaks) and ice block. With low/consistent latency they can simply soak every spark with blink without taking any damage, the best soakers in the game at that point.

[Ichifails]

So my guild got spirit kings heroic and we're going to be progressing on heroic will tonight after a quick Elegon kill. I'm looking for any tips you guys may have for our raid comp before we begin.

Prot Pally
Brewmaster Monk

Holy Pally
Resto Shaman

Shadow Priest
Boomkin
Rogue
Warrior
Mage
Hunter

So boomkin, priest, rogue, hunter, holy pally can all take sparks right? Would it be good for us to CC every other wave with polymorph and hunter trap?

Also should we have our warrior "tank" the rages?
Will it really take a DPS sitting on the boss to do it?

We had problems with him trying to figure it out by reading forum strats so I made our kill strategy myself and we 2-shotted him.

Fury warrior tanking strengths with an Enh Shaman soaking them
Kill 2 rages, CC 2 so you can kill 4 after and it 2 rages - 4 rages - 2 rages - 4 rages... our hunter was soaking all the rages + helping on Strengths
Me, Warlock just soaking all the Courages.

You have a rogue so he can just take all the sparks himself.
Powershot is EXTREMELLY useful here.

[Squirl]

You can soak Sparks with Blink, Demonic Circle, Shadowstep, Leap of Faith, Displacer Beast, Wild Charge (caster form), and Transcendence (could be some I'm missing too), but those are all very high risk for relatively low reward. It's cool and fun to pull off, but not something that's ever necessary.

[Sierra85]

but not something that's ever necessary.

depending on your raid comp they may be necessary.

[Squirl]

depending on your raid comp they may be necessary.

Considering the Sparks only have 2m hp and can be slowed, no, it's never necessary.

[PBitt]

Unless your dps is very, very good, you will want to CC some adds or you're going to have a bad time. We CC the second to last set of rages in the opening phase (or the fifth spawn) and the middle ones in each of the regular ones, so we are killing 4 rages at the start of intermission each time. But if you can afford to not do that, than don't.

As for soaking, again, it really depends on how good your dps is. For our group, having one person to soak failed pretty miserable, a lot of extra healing and they can only get so many sparks, and they can't really do any dps while doing them (the rogue was also someone's alt in blues). However if they are particularly good at it and that person isn't even needed for the dps to keep up, it's worth trying as long as your healers can keep up as well. You also have many soakers and the hardest part with that is just figuring out who will soak what and once that is executed well a couple times, it's an easy boss kill.

[Deleted]

We used a rogue to do a fair bit of soaking with Feint and heals, ended the fight on something like 50k dps or something but it worked out well.

With the gear people have today, damage shouldn't be an issue - as has been said the soft enrage isn't too rough (i.e. when the 'breaks' stop occurring).

[Deleted]

Unless your dps is very, very good, you will want to CC some adds or you're going to have a bad time. We CC the second to last set of rages in the opening phase (or the fifth spawn) and the middle ones in each of the regular ones, so we are killing 4 rages at the start of intermission each time. But if you can afford to not do that, than don't.

How would forcing your dps to kill 4 instead of 2 rages possibly be more lenient for them? If you have the dps to beat the bosses previous to wote (and your tanks can dodge the blows) you will not hit the enrage timer, with or without the slight extra time you'd get on the boss with that strat. Ccing one set is only beneficial if you don't have the soakers to take it, which requires a really poor setup.

[PBitt]

How would forcing your dps to kill 4 instead of 2 rages possibly be more lenient for them? If you have the dps to beat the bosses previous to wote (and your tanks can dodge the blows) you will not hit the enrage timer, with or without the slight extra time you'd get on the boss with that strat. Ccing one set is only beneficial if you don't have the soakers to take it, which requires a really poor setup.

We have to do it and it has nothing to do with soaking, it has to do with not having great dps and thus not being able to take out two rages while taking out a courage and finishing off a strength and getting back for the next rages all in 30 seconds, which is pretty tight, and causes you to fall behind with adds going out of control quite quickly. The reason why most people cc adds like that has nothing to do with lack of soaking CDs, it's lack of dps, certainly what it was in my guild for our first kill. As I said, if you have the dps, you want to *avoid* ccing, as I very very very obviously stated, I said nothing about it being lenient to do so for the hell of it as it's quite frankly a pain in the ass having to kill 4 adds at the same time. But cc'ing them allows you very smooth control for finishing off the current strength, rages, and courage, soaking them, etc. Good for you if your guild doesn't have to do it that way, some guilds like mine have their heroic progress greatly fucked up the ass because we have to carry 2 dps that do ilvl 470 damage in ilvl 495+ gear so catering to them is a regular process, and I know my guild is far from the only guild what that problem.

[Ichifails]

How would forcing your dps to kill 4 instead of 2 rages possibly be more lenient for them? If you have the dps to beat the bosses previous to wote (and your tanks can dodge the blows) you will not hit the enrage timer, with or without the slight extra time you'd get on the boss with that strat. Ccing one set is only beneficial if you don't have the soakers to take it, which requires a really poor setup.

Oh I don't know... maybe because that set of the rages SPAWNS WITH THE FREEKING COURAGE? :3 So you don't force your DPS to split between Rages, Courage and Strength ?

[Deleted]

We have to do it and it has nothing to do with soaking, it has to do with not having great dps and thus not being able to take out two rages while taking out a courage and finishing off a strength and getting back for the next rages all in 30 seconds, which is pretty tight, and causes you to fall behind with adds going out of control quite quickly. The reason why most people cc adds like that has nothing to do with lack of soaking CDs, it's lack of dps, certainly what it was in my guild for our first kill. As I said, if you have the dps, you want to *avoid* ccing, as I very very very obviously stated, I said nothing about it being lenient to do so for the hell of it as it's quite frankly a pain in the ass having to kill 4 adds at the same time. But cc'ing them allows you very smooth control for finishing off the current strength, rages, and courage, soaking them, etc. Good for you if your guild doesn't have to do it that way, some guilds like mine have their heroic progress greatly fucked up the ass because we have to carry 2 dps that do ilvl 470 damage in ilvl 495+ gear so catering to them is a regular process, and I know my guild is far from the only guild what that problem.

Oh I don't know... maybe because that set of the rages SPAWNS WITH THE FREEKING COURAGE? :3 So you don't force your DPS to split between Rages, Courage and Strength ?

I'm entirely on board with ccing them until you get the courage down (which can't take even close to 30 seconds, no matter how bad your dps is), but why you'd leave them cc'd until the next set spawns if you are having dps issues is eluding me. I'm not out to get you or your dps (god knows we have people who aren't pulling their weight), I'm simply interested in your reasoning.

[PBitt]

I'm entirely on board with ccing them until you get the courage down (which can't take even close to 30 seconds, no matter how bad your dps is), but why you'd leave them cc'd until the next set spawns if you are having dps issues is eluding me. I'm not out to get you or your dps (god knows we have people who aren't pulling their weight), I'm simply interested in your reasoning.

Because we still have the first strength up and at about 60% at that point, and so by the time we kill that and the courage it leaves us maybe 2 seconds to work on the rages before new ones spawn, keeping in mind our lock finishes off the last 10% or so of the courage and stays back to soak and our feral has to get ready to pick up the new strength in a couple seconds. It's just really not possible in 10 man at least, unless your dps is really on it's game and can afford to split, and a lot of guilds actually prefer to CC them whether they need to or not because they find it easier to nuke them all down together. And since the OP is still progressing on this I'm going to assume they have as much world-class dps as we do and they're going to have some rages to cc.