Heroic Zorlok vs. Heroic Protectors

[Tojara]

While it's true some guilds are better at numbers than mechanics, protectors really isn't just about numbers. If you mess up one interrupt in P3 you will wipe. If you mess up a lot of interrupts in P2 you will probably wipe as well. If you mess up interrupts towards the end of P1 you will put yourself in a very bad position.

Lightning storm is a one shot mechanic, bad dispels with the touch in P1 will also probably cause a kill. Failure to manage debuffs from the adds (keeping them up but not exceeding) can also cause wipes as well.

While a lot of the difficulty of protectors is in the numbers, it's simply just not numbers. If your guild sucks at interrupting you will wipe constantly.

[Oatz]

Started on Heroic Zorlok tonight (btw-- we had already killed 2-4 in HoF).

Any pro tips on the sonic rings? :P Seems like sometimes what would appear to be a safe lane ends up not being and so forth. Any handy rule of thumb or way of looking at it that worked for people?

[Deleted]

Any pro tips on the sonic rings? :P Seems like sometimes what would appear to be a safe lane ends up not being and so forth. Any handy rule of thumb or way of looking at it that worked for people?

Stand at designated spot (pattern varies based on tank position)
Left: Wait for the first 2 green orbs to pass by and get into the spiral that starts after the 2nd orb. Cut into the 2nd spiral if needed and possible
Right: Start moving before orbs go out and get into the first spiral. If you aren't fast enough you will need to wiggle through a green and enter the second spiral, but that is riskier.
examples of both in a highlight: http://www.twitch.tv/blindlad/c/1761033

[Frozendekay]

Started on Heroic Zorlok tonight (btw-- we had already killed 2-4 in HoF).

Any pro tips on the sonic rings? :P Seems like sometimes what would appear to be a safe lane ends up not being and so forth. Any handy rule of thumb or way of looking at it that worked for people?

Here's what we figured out: it doesn't matter where the boss is facing, the pattern is always the same when considering the room.

If you have zorlok facing the attenuation platform, or away from the stairs on that platform, stand on his bottom left. If you then turn him, you will not move at all. You always want to be below and to the left of him when considering where he is in the room. Once you grasp that it really isn't that hard. You can also be top right, the diagonals are the safe lanes.

[Recom]

Try to stay close to the orbs which are closest to the boss, the hitbox is much longer behind the orbs than it is before them.
If you run o the right, stay close to the orbs on your left.
If you run to the left, stay close to the orbs on your right.
I hope that's clear and understandable

[Ashrr]

Zorlok is actually quite easy. However, you can have some shitty RNG and be killed by stuff which appear to be far away. We're even killing off the echo now in Phase 2 and still have over one minute for the enrage.

[EruptorNZ]

Any pro tips on the sonic rings? :P Seems like sometimes what would appear to be a safe lane ends up not being and so forth. Any handy rule of thumb or way of looking at it that worked for people?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lROW0QscOpc - This video is the best for explaining how to dodge attenuation every time (when the echo is not up)

[Gondlem]

Kinda surprised people unanimously think Zorlok is easier, definitely wasn't that way for my guild. Vizier took us well over 100 pulls for a first kill, a lot pre-nerf admittedly, and Protectors took like 10-15. The relative lack of a gear/dps requirement on Vizier does help and it's probably gotten easier since it came out, but Protectors is definitely easier on the execution IMO. Just rotate groups for the buff, hit interrupts and do good DPS and it'll die. Attenuation has a learning curve that everyone in the raid will need to go through, something Protectors really doesn't have. Overall I'd rate them as having similar difficulty.

But if you feel like you'll have more trouble meeting a DPS check than just execting mechanics, Vizier is definitely the way to go.

[Deleted]

Also, if you have good healers, you can go with 2 healers on Vizier. It opens up possibilities for some additional RNG(like healer getting MC and tank exhale), but added DPS makes phase 3 easier, just zerg boss and you will have him down during third Force and Verve(not killing echo), much sooner if you manage to let him cast exhale just as he trasitions below 40%, making second phase start on 37-38%.
For attenuation: We had one pretty skilled player, who just couldnt dodge attenuation in phase 1 consistently. He would do it probably 80% of the time, but other 20% he would just die for no good apparent reason. We had warlock put Demonic Gate from Force and Verve platform to Attenuation platform, and he used it every time Attenuation started and ported back when it ended, worked pretty well. Granted he still had to run properly one attenuation in P2 before echo spawns and everything becomes messy, but i think it saved us many second platform wipes.

[Libertarian]

Also, if you have good healers, you can go with 2 healers on Vizier. It opens up possibilities for some additional RNG(like healer getting MC and tank exhale), but added DPS makes phase 3 easier, just zerg boss and you will have him down during third Force and Verve(not killing echo), much sooner if you manage to let him cast exhale just as he trasitions below 40%, making second phase start on 37-38%.
For attenuation: We had one pretty skilled player, who just couldnt dodge attenuation in phase 1 consistently. He would do it probably 80% of the time, but other 20% he would just die for no good apparent reason. We had warlock put Demonic Gate from Force and Verve platform to Attenuation platform, and he used it every time Attenuation started and ported back when it ended, worked pretty well. Granted he still had to run properly one attenuation in P2 before echo spawns and everything becomes messy, but i think it saved us many second platform wipes.

Isn't it easier to 2 heal it now with dps being higher? You will only probably get 2 force verve in p2. Most people can generally pull 90 and even 100+ dps with gear now.

[Ashrr]

Also, if you have good healers, you can go with 2 healers on Vizier. It opens up possibilities for some additional RNG(like healer getting MC and tank exhale), but added DPS makes phase 3 easier, just zerg boss and you will have him down during third Force and Verve(not killing echo), much sooner if you manage to let him cast exhale just as he trasitions below 40%, making second phase start on 37-38%.
For attenuation: We had one pretty skilled player, who just couldnt dodge attenuation in phase 1 consistently. He would do it probably 80% of the time, but other 20% he would just die for no good apparent reason. We had warlock put Demonic Gate from Force and Verve platform to Attenuation platform, and he used it every time Attenuation started and ported back when it ended, worked pretty well. Granted he still had to run properly one attenuation in P2 before echo spawns and everything becomes messy, but i think it saved us many second platform wipes.

Just curious, does he play with high MS?

[HamSandwichFace]

would love a full list of heroic bosses from the 3 raids from easiest to hardest and which requires a better dps (heavy dps check fights) healling intense or just coordination (lots of mechanics)

16/16 HC here (in order of difficulty, i play a mistweaver)

Sha of Fear
Grand Empress
Tsulong
Zorlok
Will of the Emperor
Ambershaper
Protectors of the Endless
Spirit Kings
Blade Lord
Elegon
Lei Shi
Garalon
Wind Lord
Feng the Accursed
Garajal
Stone Guardians

[Deleted]

So we decided to start on this tonight. Getting consistent final phase attempts, so it should go down next raid night. Definitely a lot easier than I thought it would be... We have two Paladins which makes the double attenuation easier (8/10 people in our raid are immune to physical damage in that phase).

[timoseewho]

16/16 HC here (in order of difficulty, i play a mistweaver)

Sha of Fear
Grand Empress
Tsulong
Zorlok
Will of the Emperor
Ambershaper
Protectors of the Endless
Spirit Kings
Blade Lord
Elegon
Lei Shi
Garalon
Wind Lord
Feng the Accursed
Garajal
Stone Guardians

To get a better gauge, is this from a 10 or 25 PoV?

[Viscera]

To get a better gauge, is this from a 10 or 25 PoV?

Considering he ranked Will pretty high I assume it's 25

[Aldur]

16/16 HC here (in order of difficulty, i play a mistweaver)

Sha of Fear
Grand Empress
Tsulong
Zorlok
Will of the Emperor
Ambershaper
Protectors of the Endless
Spirit Kings
Blade Lord
Elegon
Lei Shi
Garalon
Wind Lord
Feng the Accursed
Garajal
Stone Guardians

I wonder what this list would look like from a 10-man perspective...are Garalon and the Windlord really that easy on heroic?

[Dracodraco]

I wonder what this list would look like from a 10-man perspective...are Garalon and the Windlord really that easy on heroic?

From a 25 man PoV, I'd rate elegon much easier than garalon/windlord, atleast. He wasn't even hard with entry-gear doing 4-4 sparks (10 stacks total), he's a complete joke now.

[Wilderness]

I wonder what this list would look like from a 10-man perspective...are Garalon and the Windlord really that easy on heroic?

From what I've done, on 10 man, I'd put Garalon below Spirit Kings on that last but above Elegon and Blade Lord. Wind Lord really is that easy; we should have had it within our first hour of progression this past week but we instead decided to derp it up with stupid mistakes. Its a pretty simple fight though.

[HamSandwichFace]

I wonder what this list would look like from a 10-man perspective...are Garalon and the Windlord really that easy on heroic?

This is from a Mistweaver p.o.v. This is why it may seem weird. This is basically what happens:

Sha of Fear HC - Fistweaving doesn't work here, you need to adapt to Huddle and Spout immensely fast. If you fistweave and try to rely on Eminence, Renew and Uplift to heal Huddle you're going to wipe / get replaced because you wont keep your targets alive.

Empress - Fistweaving works here, but you have to be wary of your CDs for the final phase. My general practice is to not use Revival after the second add phase so we keep it for Visions of Demise. Not only that, but as a Mistweaver you need to be wary of your mana regen during the add phases as you're mostly SCKing the ranged cluster / spamming tanks with Soothings/Envelopings. Some Chi Burst knowledge required. Mostly it's because the fight is quite heavy on damage and we're lacking a proper raid CD - that's why I ranked it high.

Tsulong - Balancing your CDs and timing them requires some skill. I ranked it high mostly because it took a hell of a lot of time to start generating 400-500k HPS+, mostly I was hovering at 300-350k~ HPS while taking the Light of Day (Monks should get priority on this buff as we're beasts). Phase 1 is annoying ... I died a few times due to Chi Torpedo-ing into the Lights (to reset stacks) and got hit by the Dark of Night explosions. I am a huge noob.

Zorlok - this fight is just stupid. I hate it.

Will of the Emperor - Relearning it, with the additional mana costs, and needing to soak Sparks with Glyphed Zen Med. and Diffuse Magic is a real pain. Especially when Sparks are spread the width of Africa.

Ambershaper - Can get bursted down really quickly if you stop focussing, fistweaving is really strong here due to the damage buff.

Protectors - Hard, but ranked low because all you need is Fistweave. In the final phase I normally go SCK > SCK > Chi Burst repeat. The damage is too high (IMO) to warrant Fistweaving.

All others - They're generally easy. Lei Shi is really easy when your raid knows how to handle the debuff.

I'm sure as other classes the list would change, but from a Mistweaver P.O.V most fights are a change between 2 styles of healing, which sucks. Sha of Fear HC is the "only" fight where you need to switch it up a little. My experience on this fight was unglyphing Mana Tea and saving 20 stacks of Mana Tea for second phase. You shouldn't really go OOM in the first phase due to the resource regen orbs of happiness.

[Ashrr]

I wonder what this list would look like from a 10-man perspective...are Garalon and the Windlord really that easy on heroic?

I honestly found Windlord 10 HC easier than the normal version, so that's saying something. The way we do it, it's like the raid is nuking a dummy for 4 to 5 minutes. If you have a good comp for him, which we do, I'd rate him at the same level as Morchok HC.