Hagara Heroic Ice Lances

[Axolus]

Do any of you guys employ a special strategy for the ice lances? We can manage them just fine in the beginning of a fight but after certain phases, they become a pain to "soak" due to the randomness of their spawn points.

Any help would be appreciated because this is the only obstacle between us and a heroic kill.

Thanks!

[Deleted]

On 10man they can be annoying just simply spread the range/healers out around the room at the start of the fight

if you have 3 stacks move out of the laser

if you dont have any stacks you should be trying to get stacks

If you have a rogue make him use Smoke i nmelee on CD as it stops all melee from getting hit

Make sure the melee arnt on top of each other as there is a small splash range.

If you are melee heavy u can use things like PW:B and SL to help reduce the damage on the 1st lasers after the 100% +dmg phase.


If your melee get 3 stacks just run through the boss to the other side and it shud either go on another melee or tank, but there should be a range/healer running ot get into it at the same time

[muxx]

in 10 man just try and keep two people on each of them. its ok to let a melee take them as well in 10 man since it dont really effect them other than movement speed. Also to soak the shattering ice have shamans use their grounding totem. helps a ton!

We've also found marking the platform into 4ths helps out to have areas for the groups of 2 to cover. only go up to like 3-5 stacks and then transfer to someone else then as soon as ur debuffs fall off get back in the ice lance beam.

[Balfous]

They target the 3 closest people to the boss when they spawn, so it's fairly easy to know who it will be on. (if you have 2 melee and a tank, it will always be on those 3. If you have 3 melee and a tank, it will pick the 3 closest. If you only have 1 melee and a tank, i would designate a ranged to "sit in melee". Demo locks and fire mages are nice for that.)

Make sure after a lightning phase that any ranged who are in the middle get away from the boss before the lances go out, or you can have them get targeted. Ice lances that target a ranged are more difficult to deal with.

Also move when you GET 2 stacks. As you'll 99.99% of the time gain the 3rd as you're "running out of the beam". It's not so important now with everyone having gear and the nerfs, but previously 4 stacks + shattered ice was death for most classes.

[gr3vitas]

We just ignore them really. Generally have a set group that's 'supposed' to try and soak them but we don't really care that much who actually does. Ice lances should be the least of your worries.

[Herecius]

If you've got a shaman, have them dropping grounding totem for Shattered Ice whenever possible. It'll make soaking the ice lances less dangerous in general, since accidentally getting high stacks will be less likely to result in sudden insta-death.

[Fimbulvetr]

Do any of you guys employ a special strategy for the ice lances? We can manage them just fine in the beginning of a fight but after certain phases, they become a pain to "soak" due to the randomness of their spawn points.

Any help would be appreciated because this is the only obstacle between us and a heroic kill.

Thanks!

balfous has such an incredibly helpful post - so I'm just going to add onto that. if you're not quite as melee-heavy, you could go so far as to designate a buddy system for ranged. I have a healer I tend to park myself next to during that phase.

Also: is it just ice lance stacks getting too high that's killing your team, or is it the stacks getting high enough to one-shot you with her Shattered Ice spell? If you have a shaman in group, make sure Grounding Totem is being dropped, other than that, maybe consider raid cooldowns for the latter part of that phase.. Rallying Cry/Aura Mastery, maybe? I'm grasping for straws since we don't know your raid comp. Hope this helps, and good luck!

[Deleted]

We say let anyone who is close take them, try and have 2 people on each, both stand on the line, one in front one behind, take 5/6 stacks then run in front of the other person so they take some stacks, normally its either gone by that point or if needed the 1st persons debuff has reset. You just have to be quick and get to them

[Slonato]

Two questions:

1. Does it really always target the 3 closest to the boss? I thought it still targeted ranged, but if thats true it won't.

2. Does grounding totem really absorb this? That could negate every shattered ice o.0

[Balfous]

Two questions:

1. Does it really always target the 3 closest to the boss? I thought it still targeted ranged, but if thats true it won't.

2. Does grounding totem really absorb this? That could negate every shattered ice o.0

1. Yes it is the 3 closest players. (from wow-head: Ice Lance – Hagara conjures crystals of ice that launch Ice Lance missiles towards a random player standing near Hagara. Ice Lances inflict 15000 Frost damage in a 3 yard area around the first player the missile impacts.) It picks it's target when the "ice lance" ability is used and locks onto those.

2. Nearly every one if done correctly. We don't often run with a shaman, so i don't remember if it's up for EVERY one. But it definitely helps.

[Deleted]

If you've got a shaman, have them dropping grounding totem for Shattered Ice whenever possible. It'll make soaking the ice lances less dangerous in general, since accidentally getting high stacks will be less likely to result in sudden insta-death.

If you're not having anyone else but the tank in 180 degrees in front of her, she will not cast Shattered Ice. You will have 3-4 casts at most.
Other than that? Assign teams of two soakers that cover an area of the platform behind her. If the tank gets targeted, just let him/her soak (IF it's a DK tank).
That's how we did it.

[Fimbulvetr]

We say let anyone who is close take them, try and have 2 people on each, both stand on the line, one in front one behind, take 5/6 stacks then run in front of the other person so they take some stacks, normally its either gone by that point or if needed the 1st persons debuff has reset. You just have to be quick and get to them

Ah HA. That right there. Switch to each person taking 3 stacks and moving out. The first shattered ice spell of the phase will never one-shot someone, so dropping grounding after that will help immensely.

[Axolus]

Hey guys,

Thank you all for the responses already. I did not know that it was confirmed Hagara targets the three closest players to her. That will make life much easier for us.

Our raid comp for the Hagara attempts was comprised of: 1 DK tank, feral druid, 2 warriors, mage, warlock, spriest, resto druid, resto sham, surv hunter

[timoseewho]

We pretty much have 3 pairs soaking the 3 lances, each bouncing off around 3-4 stacks of the debuff.

[Benefits]

We have the same rule for these as we did for Majordomo orbs...."don't die". It's as simple as that. If you die, it's your fault. A lot of people over complicate these 2 mechanics, when in reality it's as simple as moving your character so that you don't receive subsequent stacks. When the stacks reset, relieve someone from getting stacks. Then, repeat.

Unfortunately, some of our raiders still don't really understand the mechanic and end up dead. I would imagine this would be a tad harder to control in the 10 man version, but still dealt with the same way. Even if you are the target of the actual ice lance ability and it follows you when you move....position your character so that there is someone else between you and the actual origin point of the damage source.

[Sanji]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ua3F...layer_embedded

If u pay attention, you will see that nobody in the raid except for the tank gets hit by Shattered Ice, the key to this is not to stand in a 180 degree frontal cone in front of hagara, therefor we tank her on the "edge" of the circle where its almost impossible for people to be standing in front of her. This allows us to fuck up on the ice lance stacks.

We have never wiped in the normal phase, not even during progression.

What we actually do is; there are 3 ice lance targets (and 3 healers). There is a blue beam between each one of them, we assign every healer to a single beam and to stand into them, we assign 1 ranged to each healer and that ranged just moves into the beam of his assigned healer, gets 3/4 stacks, moves out until his stacks wear off and then go back into it again, healers just stand still in the beam to take over whenever the ranged DPS assigned to them needs to reset his stacks.

PS: Obviously the first Shattered Ice is not avoidable as we still need to bring Hagara to her position.

Good Luck