Ra-Den

[ZaneBusby]

Well, this week my guild managed to down Lei Shen on our first attempt of an off-night (raid leader asked if everyone was free for 1-2 hours to throw out some quick attempts, and everyone was keen, due to having a 1% wipe during one of our final attempts on our last raid night last week), so we've got 10 hours on our regular raid nights this weekend to pump in to Ra-Den (take our time between attempts to refine our issues, I guess? Lol).

We gave him like 4 attempts after Killing Lei Shen to see what it was like, and get a basic jist of the fight, but we were failing miserably to Unstable Vita (but that's just something we'll have to work the kinks out of), and killing the Essence of Anima. We had no trouble blowing up the first Essence of Anima that spawned, due to having all our procs/CD's up from the pull, but would have issues with all the ones coming out after that. I wasn't really reforged optimally for the fight, due to my raid leader just telling me to try out Destro but stick with all my Demo reforges and whatnot, but on some of the Essences of Anima that spawned, we were NOWHERE near killing them. He's only having our ranged switch to them as he claims we need the melee to stay on the boss to be able to get it to 40% before the 10th wave of orbs (following the Vox Immortalis strat). Currently our ranged are myself (as destro), our mage (who was fire at the time, but is most likely going to go arcane this weekend for Orb damage), our Ele sham (MS resto, so isn't the best at it), and our Survival Hunter.

Basically my #1 priority at this point is blowing up the orbs, so I'm looking to find out how I can burst them down to the best of my potential...

Starting with Reforging... Hit cap > Mastery > ?? > ?? (Haste or Crit, which is better to burst them down?)

As far as talents, I'm guessing GoSac would be best for the slight increase of damage to Conflag + Chaos Bolt? I recall seeing something somewhere about micromanaging a Fel Imp with the glyph of Demon Hunting, but that just seems too complicated to me.

Currently planning to save up 2 conflag charges for each spawn, dump them into the orbs straight away, then dump 2 backdrafted Chaos Bolts into them right afterwards... Although I think that might be pushing it for time? Not sure. Would it be better to get the 6 backdraft stacks from conflag on the boss, then dumping the 2 Chaos Bolts into the Orb, and hope I can pull off a Shadowburn before it dies to get an ember back?

Then finally there's the issue of what to do when the Essence of Anima spawns on the opposite side of the room from our Unstable Vita receiver point, and I'm due to receive the next Unstable Vita. This happened twice in our four attempts, which meant I couldn't DPS the Essence of Vita at all from where I was standing, and they reached the boss. (This is how our raid group is currently positioning ourselves).



Green is tank location, Blue is raid stack point, Purple is location of person currently holding Unstable Vita, Yellow is location of person next-in-line to recieve Unstable Vita. (Red glowy shit on right is boss spawn). It's not the conventional method that most guilds use, but since we're so melee heavy, it means the melee are able to DPS while they've got Unstable Vita, and their only downtime is when they're out at yellow. The drawback of this, though, is that if I'm out at yellow waiting for the Unstable Vita and Essence of Anima spawns out in the direction of the boss spawn point, then I can't touch it at all, and chances are it's going to reach the boss, screwing us over...

Any and all tips on how to overcome our problems would be much appreciated.

[Deleted]

Your setup is exactly the same as how we do it so i'll just post what i generally keep in mind:

- If the ball damage is what you're struggling on, go gosac.
- Use your 2 conflags on the boss, otherwise your second Chaos Bolt may finish casting but never hit the ball.
- If the ball comes close, don't waste your time on waiting on server reaction to Shadowburn it, you're better off throwing in a fel flame or conflag.
- Since you got a gateway, you really don't need to be at yellow for very long. Play safe, but you can stay till like 3-4 seconds before the chain happens.
- If you play with a set order the vita, try to calculate if you'll be on yellow on a ball once you know who's the first target. This takes a while to figure out but once you know that you'll be possibly in trouble to dps ball X if Y is the first person to get the vita, you'll be able to anticipate and warn the raid.
- Obviously play with KJC, it's golden on this fight if you need to dps a ball while moving between markers.
- Reforging should be straight mastery, especially on progress. If the ball dps is all that matters, go crit second, then haste.

If you're not planning on using melee on the balls, can i ask you what the actual setup is? You realistically need at least 3 good ranged classes to get the ball down without help from melee.

[Sifonology]

In my opinion, stacking point(blue) and unstable vita point(purple) are too close. We put unstable vita point on opposite site of yellow and put gateway between purple and yellow. The person who is next in line for unstable vita goes to yellow, gets the unstable vita, uses the gateway to purple, dumps unstable vita to next person and goes back to stacking point. Melee not losing dps is a good point but ra-den is a nothing but gear check and most guilds overgears it already so its not neccessary. Method got world first with same method too iirc.

Also about bursting orbs, have a macro for /target essence of anima /target corrupted anima /cast chaos bolt, use 2x conflag on boss before orbs spawn, havoc the boss and cast 2 chaos bolts on orbs, sometimes you can cast a 3rd one too so try to have 3 embers before orbs spawn. You can try to shadowburn instead of 3rd chaos bolt but it rarely happens on 25m.

I don't reforge for ra-den so I keep my 10k haste and 14k mastery but obviously crit is better for chaos bolt damage.

[ZaneBusby]

Your setup is exactly the same as how we do it so i'll just post what i generally keep in mind:

- If the ball damage is what you're struggling on, go gosac.
- Use your 2 conflags on the boss, otherwise your second Chaos Bolt may finish casting but never hit the ball.
- If the ball comes close, don't waste your time on waiting on server reaction to Shadowburn it, you're better off throwing in a fel flame or conflag.
- Since you got a gateway, you really don't need to be at yellow for very long. Play safe, but you can stay till like 3-4 seconds before the chain happens.
- If you play with a set order the vita, try to calculate if you'll be on yellow on a ball once you know who's the first target. This takes a while to figure out but once you know that you'll be possibly in trouble to dps ball X if Y is the first person to get the vita, you'll be able to anticipate and warn the raid.
- Obviously play with KJC, it's golden on this fight if you need to dps a ball while moving between markers.
- Reforging should be straight mastery, especially on progress. If the ball dps is all that matters, go crit second, then haste.

If you're not planning on using melee on the balls, can i ask you what the actual setup is? You realistically need at least 3 good ranged classes to get the ball down without help from melee.

Awesome. You pretty much covered off like every single one of my questions.

As for raid comp.

Brewmaster Monk

Unholy DK
Windwalker Monk
Feral Druid

Elemental Shaman (MS Resto, so gear and DPS not 100% optimal, but it's the best we have)
Arcane Mage (Was Fire for the 4 attempts we pumped out last night, but said he's going to change to Arcane for further attempts)
Survival Hunter
Destruction Warlock (Me)

Disc Priest
Holy Paladin

In my opinion, stacking point(blue) and unstable vita point(purple) are too close. We put unstable vita point on opposite site of yellow and put gateway between purple and yellow. The person who is next in line for unstable vita goes to yellow, gets the unstable vita, uses the gateway to purple, dumps unstable vita to next person and goes back to stacking point. Melee not losing dps is a good point but ra-den is a nothing but gear check and most guilds overgears it already so its not neccessary. Method got world first with same method too iirc.

Also about bursting orbs, have a macro for /target essence of anima /target corrupted anima /cast chaos bolt, use 2x conflag on boss before orbs spawn, havoc the boss and cast 2 chaos bolts on orbs, sometimes you can cast a 3rd one too so try to have 3 embers before orbs spawn. You can try to shadowburn instead of 3rd chaos bolt but it rarely happens on 25m.

I don't reforge for ra-den so I keep my 10k haste and 14k mastery but obviously crit is better for chaos bolt damage.

I think I know what you're getting at... Something like this? http://i.imgur.com/5ciyeBj.jpg
The problem is how melee heavy we are it reduces their uptime by making them have 2 away-from-the-boss spots to sit at for unstable vita to jump on, then off them again, vs. just having 1. Though since we do overgear it so much, it may be a possibility. I don't know. I'll put it to my raid leader and see what he says...

I also have a macro to do exactly that, made it on the spot after the first attempt realising it'd help me switch easier lol. Thanks for the tip though

Also just remembered our #1 reason for not having melee switching to orbs, and that was that if the melee are running out to the orbs, there's a risk they could be further away from the person with Unstable Vita than the person who's at yellow and due to get it next, which could fuck us over. Not sure how to overcome that really.

[Zevoa]

Orbs > Stalker > Boss

If you are having issues with Orbs dying, regem and reforge for int/mastery; possibly with Grimoire of Sac if your group's damage distribution is that awful.

WATCH TIMERS.

Ball is about to spawn = save backdraft stacks.

@ <1sec remaining on Ball spawn timer - Havoc Boss or Stalker and start spamming your target macro.

Your melee should be more then capable of switching to the orbs.

[Deleted]

If you use a set order for the Vita and always start at the start, you can make sure there is never a DPS out of range of the orb spawns. Using this method, you make a list of 8 of your players, excluding the tank and your most aware ranged/healer. Those 8 will always go in order. Obviously the person who gets the debuff initially goes purple first, and then the 9th ranged/healer takes his spot in the list. If you make that list properly, you can avoid having anyone out of range for the Essence almost always.

Having 3 melee and not even trying to have them do any damage on Essence might be impossible. Destruction/arcane are great, but as far as I know the rest of your ranged is not. You will have a much easier time if you can get another ranged in, or can get the melee to do some damage on them.

[Deleted]

Ball is about to spawn = save backdraft stacks.

A basic to remember this is not to use any conflagrate at all unless you're skipping the next orb. Then you just use both charges 2 seconds before the orb spawns.

Having 3 melee and not even trying to have them do any damage on Essence might be impossible. Destruction/arcane are great, but as far as I know the rest of your ranged is not. You will have a much easier time if you can get another ranged in, or can get the melee to do some damage on them.

SV is very decent too. We manage to get it down with the exact same combination, bar the shammy. Our melee changes when possible though, but their dps is neglectible most of the times.

[Deleted]

One more thing that can help if you are really struggling for Essence damage is saving Dark Soul for the 2nd, and then something like 2nd potion on the 3rd. That way you don't have your whole raid stacking all cooldowns on the first one.

[leaderavia]

If you use a set order for the Vita and always start at the start, you can make sure there is never a DPS out of range of the orb spawns. Using this method, you make a list of 8 of your players, excluding the tank and your most aware ranged/healer. Those 8 will always go in order. Obviously the person who gets the debuff initially goes purple first, and then the 9th ranged/healer takes his spot in the list. If you make that list properly, you can avoid having anyone out of range for the Essence almost always.

This. We don't keep a set list; rather, our tank calls people out on the fly. But he makes sure that healers instead of dps go out when it's time for anima balls, and he always has me (the destro lock) go out as soon as possible in a rotation, usually first, so I will be free for the rest of the rotation. You'll probably be doing the most damage to the balls, so getting your turn out of the way early is wise.

[Deleted]

We usually run with 3 melees, and that's exactly what we did for progress as well (WW, DK, rogue for progress).

Last few weeks we've had 2 eles (1 OS, 1 alt) and an undergeared hunter (was ~500 when he joined, at about 532'ish now). Enough about us though, here's what I can hope to help you with from my own experience:

instead of running a fixed order a la strmstrike so that youre never out of range, we set our soak order generally:

healer>ranged>melee>healer>ranged>melee>ranged(weak)>ranged(weak). From our 4 ranged, at worst 1 will be out of range, and if more than one we'll always have atleast two strong ranged available in melee.

Melees need to help out. If they cant watch a timer - DBM very clearly gives you a 12 sec timer for each vita discharge - they're just bad. If the timer is <5sec, they wait. If they have more time, they go for the orb, simple as that. If an unstable vita has just been sent out, EVERYONE can attack the orb (running is hard!) and be back to their positions in under 12 seconds. Some people might do less damage because of initial out of range issues, but everyone should do some atleast.

Damage on boss isnt that important, and losing some melee uptime is rather trivial - remember that the tank will do about twice the dps of anyone else on the boss, so any single dps contribution is rather small. Have your melees switch, in your case both the WW and the feral have extremely good mobility to hit the orb. Leave the DK on the boss. If both the feral and WW use their feral charge / FSK to get to each orb and time it with the 12 sec window between vitas you should never have a problem with them. Tell people to use short duration / cd procs/abilities for the orbs

Feral: Tiger's fury
ele's: lava burst /lava surge proc!
arcane: make sure to always have 4(or is it 6 nowadays?) charges of AB
hunter: look pretty and suck. or LnL procs, I dont know :P
destro: plenty of people told you how to play

destro, arcane, feral, ele, you will own those adds

GL mate