Sinestra Tonight

[Breccia]

My guild is looking at Sinestra and I have some questions to those brave, talented players who have actually fought and/or killed her.
1) The strategies I have read suggest that the players targeted by Twilight Orbs run to the back of the room, crisscross, then run back. What is the purpose of the crisscross? Is it necessary?
2) Do the Twilight Spitecasters need to be tanked?
3) Can the Twilight Spitecasters be stunned? Some sites say yes, some say no.
4) Assuming everyone is in full 397 gear, about how long can you survive Wrack before it has to be dispelled?
5) How many healers should be put on Calen?

[Deleted]

1) To optimise dps uptime, when it was relevant you really need every dps you could do. Since the soft enrage was quite tight.
2) You can do that, but during t11 we also just used plate dpsers (dk) to take it.
3) No, when you try to stun them they do an aoe shadow spell that deals damage, and makes the spitecaller immume to interrupts for the next 5 seconds or so (can't remember the exact timers on that) You DONT want that to happen. As far I can remember the only things that work are incapicates (rogue's gouge), normal interrupts and death grip. I can't remember if pushbacks work, or if they would trigger the immunity as well.

[Herecius]

The crisscross just makes it simpler. You can also run outwards towards the walls, but the cross is easier.

The Spitecasters don't need a tank, they just need to die, very fast. They can be stunned, but as they'll cast and be immune to stuns/kicks if you do, I don't recommend it. Death grip the cast or gouge it, they should die super fast if everybody is on them anyways, since DPS is so high now that you can kill the eggs before the spitecaster even spawns.

As for Wrack, I have no idea, but the longer you let the first and second Wracks go, the easier it is.

As for Calen, the phase goes so fast he shouldn't need any healing.

[Deleted]

Everything has been stated already. Feel free to check our video below(signature) for some more clarification if you need it.

Good luck!

[Oratory]

1) Another reason you crisscross to stay in range of the healers/dispellers
2) In DS gear the drake should be dead before the spitecaller spawns but it doesn't melee too hard anyway
3) If you stun or interrupt the spitecaller it will aoe/knockback and go immune to the next interrupt. To stop the cast use knockbacks/deathgrip/sleep or other non-stun cc that works on dragonkin. It doesn't have a lot of health so it dies quick.
4) I think our dispeller dispelled after around 14 seconds
5) In DS gear you might need one healer, but probably zero for Calen. In DS gear the mana shield will run out quick enough before Calen dies.

[Nuckels]

1) To optimise dps uptime, when it was relevant you really need every dps you could do. Since the soft enrage was quite tight.
2) You can do that, but during t11 we also just used plate dpsers (dk) to take it.
3) No, when you try to stun them they do an aoe shadow spell that deals damage, and makes the spitecaller immume to interrupts for the next 5 seconds or so (can't remember the exact timers on that) You DONT want that to happen. As far I can remember the only things that work are incapicates (rogue's gouge), normal interrupts and death grip. I can't remember if pushbacks work, or if they would trigger the immunity as well.

You can normaly interrupt them yes but the same thing will occur as if stunned, blow up your raid.

As for wreck, we let it sit till 25seconds with a cooldown like painsupression or a personal one.

[Breccia]

I have passed these bits of info along to the rest of my group. Thanks for the help everyone, these made some big changes to our strategy!

[Darkfrosty]

Just run in with your 400 ilvl gear and do the fight its a joke now all you need is a healer who can handle dispelling.

[Herecius]

Just run in with your 400 ilvl gear and do the fight its a joke now all you need is a healer who can handle dispelling.

If you've never seen the fight before, Sinestra can, and will wipe you in short order. Not doing a tank switch properly will obliterate a tank thanks to the shadow damage debuff, for example, having a cast go off from the spitecaller is very dangerous (though can be recovered from if healers are strong enough), and the Twilight Orbs can and will still kill you.

[Tehterokkar]

If you've never seen the fight before, Sinestra can, and will wipe you in short order. Not doing a tank switch properly will obliterate a tank thanks to the shadow damage debuff, for example, having a cast go off from the spitecaller is very dangerous (though can be recovered from if healers are strong enough), and the Twilight Orbs can and will still kill you.

Just did Sinestra last night with my guild(We are 25m, but split into 2x 10m for T11 funzies), Our prog. is 8/8H 25 and Sinestra is still "hard" tactic-wise, it's not like you can overgear some parts of it(whelp debuff, Spitecaller cast).

Many fights you cannot simply overgear, Warmaster, Sinestra and Nefarian require proper execution to get the kill.

[Mnevis]

My group learned it last fall, to get our Mage a Shard of Woe to go with his Dragonwrath. It was pretty challenging and fun. Our first kill was a Mirror-Images Tanking Whelps/Shaman ankhing for the KB; good stuff.

1. We went side-to-side instead of back to front with our orb kiting. It's definitely necessary to learn how to cross over without hitting the beams when doing it that way; there's simply not enough room to kite them till they despawn. And, as mentioned, you don't want to outrange your healers, at least not for long.
2. Spitecasters don't really need to be tanked. They should die very quickly, even moreso in t13 gear.
3. They can indeed be stunned. Our method of dealing with them was to have our phase1 whelp tank toss his shield at it while it was coming up to us, then wait (so as not to be in GCD) till it started to cast, then HoJ it. If it gets out of the HoJ it will be enraged, and you won't be able to gouge/grip/blind/whatever the next cast, but like I said, its death is a priority and it doesn't really have much health. Once we set on that strategy we didn't have troubles with it getting off a second cast.
4. Not sure; if you don't use a cooldown on the person probably around 15s; with a cooldown you could get more I'm sure. Wrack probably isn't changed much by gear, you'll lose people less often to one extra tick + Flame Breath, but you still have to learn how to handle it.
5. Calen still required a fair bit of healing when I was there, from what our Druid said, but there's not a lot else to heal at that particular time. Throw some HoTs on him, keep an eye on him, but it really shouldn't affect your healing strategy.

Meeting the throughput requirements shouldn't really be a challenge, but there are still a lot of mechanics to learn.

Good Luck, Have Fun.