Al'akir Difficulty (10M Normal)

[Martinussen]

BRo tip, priests can lifegrip you out of tornadoes so you can time it so you will get in tornado before wind burst, then lifegrip out again before too much dmg is taken. more time to dps and less dmg taken if done correctly

i think we had like 8 wipes on him,
3 cho'gal
and like 10 on nef.
none of these are hard and i hope we can start on V&T HM, 3 windguys hm and some in Bwd

[Darkelementz]

Al'akir is quite difficult due to the debuffs in phase 2 NEEDING to stay up the whole time. What is your normal raid composition like anyways?

My group uses 2 tanks 3 heals and I handle the adds myself (we wait for the third add to spawn before we start killing off adds) and we usually have about 12 stacks of acid raid when we push phase 3

[DeulonUS]

Honestly, Al'Akir (normal mode) is one of the easiest boss fights in current content. Yes, there is a lot of random bad shit that can happen in phase 1, but you can push him into phase 2 so fast that it's really a non issue. In addition to our main run, I lead 2 alt runs weekly and Al'Akir was the first end boss we were able to kill with alts on a regular basis.

The tornadoes can get annoying if people are constantly being picked up by them, but they are easy to keep track of and if you are paying attention they are an easy mechanic to avoid. I will normally just call out over vent which side they are coming from and where the safe spot is, something like "right side, very front" or "left side, middle" "left side, very back", just to give people a heads up so they don't tunnel vision and get sucked into a tornado.

In phase 2 the only potential issue is add control. We normally just let 3 sparks spawn before we kill any. After the 3rd spark spawns I assign 1 dps to killing sparks, everyone else stays on Al'Akir. Basically just kill sparks fast enough to keep as many Feedback stacks on Al'Akir as you can get without letting them fall off. We normally hit phase 3 with 7-8 stacks on him if we don't fail and let them fall off. This normally leaves us with 1-2 sparks still active in phase 3, which is pretty nice. We end up killing the last 1-2 sparks in the last phase which gives us a little dps boost and also the achievement if you don't already have it.

Phase 3 is similar to Malygos back in WotLK. The easiest way I have found to do it is to group up at the VERY top, right behind Al'Akir's head. There is an invisible wall you will hit if you just spam your space bar and fly up. Have everyone group up at the very top make sure you are close enough to Al'Akir that you won't be knocked back and killed when he uses Wind Burst). Move down a little at a time to avoid clouds and have the person who gets Lightning Rod move out of the group to the right or left (don't go up or down if you have the Lightning Rod, you will screw up cloud placement).

[skylla05]

There are no wipes to RNG, just wipes to people who didn't prepare sufficiently far enough in advance to cope with the the unexpected.

So that being said, Al'Akir is entirely dependent on your raider's ability to dodge an extremely slow moving projectiles, heal through huge but predictable raid damage, and burst DPS precisely when needed so as not to kill an add too soon or late. If you wiped that many times on Cho'gall due to raid awareness, I think you are in for a very rough ride on Al'Akir...

While I'm not going to disagree with the fact that most RNG situations *can* be avoided, please stop regurgitating Paragons arrogance. If everyone was on that level where RNG isn't a deciding factor in their success, there'd be far, far more guilds competing for world firsts and finishing content.

[eternalwhitemoon]

There are also these if you did not find my video sufficient:

Phase 1: http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/5278/alakir01v.jpg

Phase 2: http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1220/alakir02.jpg

Phase 3: http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/7718/alakir03.jpg

Shamelessly stolen from somewhere around these boards because they strike an amazing balance of hilarious and accurate.

[Astalnar]

By what you are saying there should not be too much problems on Al'akir.

Things to watch out for:
- Survive 1st phase with all people, those tornados and winds are random evils that you need to be aware of all the time, it is better to fall of platform then be caught in wind wall.
- In 2nd phase have someone to call out wich mob to kill for buff, you should be able to have a kill streak of at least 6 stacks of buffs to finish Al'akir successfully
- in 2nd phase don't attack mobs randomly but instead have focused fire on them, you should be able to bring them down in about 10 second if I am not mistaken.
- in 2nd phase watch out on those tornado walls, they are still active.
- In 3rd phase, make sure that all of you are on same level of height and that you are moving in same direction, those that havedebuff shouls stand aside, but not too far, and go full nuke, this phase has soft enrage timer so either you win or you die.
(this is purely form melee dps perespective)

For additional information about grouping you should watch the video at tankspot.com
I know it was of great help to us.

[Subbversion]

Okay maybe 100 was a bit ridiculous. I looked through DBM logs and it's more like 45 wipes. Haha. It sure felt like 100.

[Deleted]

My group uses 2 tanks 3 heals and I handle the adds myself (we wait for the third add to spawn before we start killing off adds) and we usually have about 12 stacks of acid raid when we push phase 3

Why the hell would you bring two tanks to Al'Akir? Oo
I really fail to understand the logics behind this decision since 1 tank is sufficient.

[Darkelementz]

We have the other tank pick up the adds since my threat gen is so absurd. Ideally our DK would do it, can't tell you why he doesnt, but it became my responsibility and it works for us. I'd love to dps the boss sometime, but oh well : /

[kaelleria]

The only rng on Alakir is who the lightning rod stuff goes on in P3.

The rest of the fight is entirely phased and can be pushed at whatever time you need. Its an execution fight plain and simple.

The only real RnG I can remember in ~5 years of WoW that would cause a wipe was on 3d Sarth 10 back before 3.1. The stupid little lavaballs would more or less 1 shot anyone with 0 warning.

[Jinto]

Al'akir is quite difficult due to the debuffs in phase 2 NEEDING to stay up the whole time. What is your normal raid composition like anyways?

My group uses 2 tanks 3 heals and I handle the adds myself (we wait for the third add to spawn before we start killing off adds) and we usually have about 12 stacks of acid raid when we push phase 3

You can kill Al'Akir with the buff never going above 1 -.-"

[Subbversion]

As for regular raid comp:

Tanks - Prot Paladin + Prot Paladin
Healers - Resto Druid, Resto Sham, Holy Paladin (myself)
DPS - Warrior, Hunter, Shadow Priest, Rogue, Mage

Sometimes the warrior goes tank if our 2nd prot paladin isn't available, and we pull in a 2nd shadow priest for DPS. We manage to go 10/10 whatever. Our almost-kill on Nef this week was with the Warrior tanking and our 2nd spriest dps.

[Jinto]

Solo tank it. The Stormlings do like no damage on normal.

[Deleted]

Solo tank it. The Stormlings do like no damage on normal.

This. Make sure a ranged DPS keep an eye out for the adds and mark them when they need to die, just order the DD's to nuke it, they have like.. ~260k HP if I recall correctly.

[davidc95]

I would recommend Bloodlusting/Heroism in P1 since that phase is by far the hardest and you need to quickly get to P2.

[Deleted]

Blaming wipes in Al'akir normal to rng is just players being utterly terribly bad. If you aren't bad you can avoid EVERY SINGLE death in the so dreaded p1. We haven't had anyone die on Al'akir p1 in ages since our players actually can think what to do and strafe sideways slightly to time wind bursts correctly if they happen at a bad time otherwise. Hell, people rarely even have to jump down from the platform.

Bloodlust is not really needed in this fight if you handle adds in p2 well. P2 is the best phase for bloodlust though since i'ts the only phase which gets harder the longer it lasts: both p1 and p3 can be handled for ages without huge problems. If most of your raid is herp derp, P1 bloodlust can work, but playing with a herp derp raid is pretty stupid in my opinion. P1 is the only phase where a raid leader cannot hold everyone's hand and guide them to move to right direction all the time.

Use one tank. Stormlings can either be taunted by the boss tank or a feral dps druid or any plate dps can tank them with bear form / defensive stance / righteous fury / blood presence. For the minute you need to do that. No need for shield etc, just the extra threat generation. Hunter pet might well be able to do this too. Our exact tactic is for me (fury warrior in this fight) to get 3 of the mobs on me, bring them low, start popping them quick in berserker stance once fourth spawns and then call for BL and have whole raid zerg down the adds as soon as they spawn. We could probably start the add killing earlier too though.

When we went for Al'akir normal originally I feared the dreaded p1, but it turned out to be pretty easy and only cause a couple of wipes before people got the hang of it. We had more problems with p2 really until we started tanking the adds for a relatively long time.

[Chasey]

While I'm not going to disagree with the fact that most RNG situations *can* be avoided, please stop regurgitating Paragons arrogance. If everyone was on that level where RNG isn't a deciding factor in their success, there'd be far, far more guilds competing for world firsts and finishing content.

I love that everyone is pro around here. Seeing as only roughly 9% of the guilds world wide have killed him he MUST be a cake walk. I mean of the responding memebers of MMO champ say its easy...it must be right?
http://www.worldoflogs.com/zones/Thr...s/Al'Akir/
http://wow.guildprogress.com/Cataclysm

I have some questions about the fight as well, after seeing how the majority of the responders are only intrested in showing their EPEEN I guess I'll go somewhere where the responders are ACTUALLY intrested in helping and not bragging.

[Deleted]

I have some questions about the fight as well...

Proceed

[Kaneiac]

I love that everyone is pro around here. Seeing as only roughly 9% of the guilds world wide have killed him he MUST be a cake walk. I mean of the responding memebers of MMO champ say its easy...it must be right?
http://www.worldoflogs.com/zones/Thr...s/Al'Akir/
http://wow.guildprogress.com/Cataclysm

I have some questions about the fight as well, after seeing how the majority of the responders are only intrested in showing their EPEEN I guess I'll go somewhere where the responders are ACTUALLY intrested in helping and not bragging.

Proceed with questions, please. Don't be put off by the "retards my guild does X you're just bad" types.

[Yorkshire Geek]

Al'akir is quite difficult due to the debuffs in phase 2 NEEDING to stay up the whole time. What is your normal raid composition like anyways?

My group uses 2 tanks 3 heals and I handle the adds myself (we wait for the third add to spawn before we start killing off adds) and we usually have about 12 stacks of acid raid when we push phase 3

We run with 1 tank as we never really saw a need for 2, we also tend to fail at stack timing, we've still killed him.

I thought phase 1 was a crappy load of RNG until I mastered it, now I've gone from cursing crappy designers because wind shear and tornadoes aligned yet again to knowing how to deal with it and never eating a tornado or getting sheared off the edge. Definitely one of those fights that's frustrating until you master it but once you do you'll never get it wrong again.