1. #1

    Details on Heroic Sylvanas

    Summary: Fight is hard, everyone has to know what to do in P3, including their jumps.

    --For P1 assign groups to general areas so there aren't chains on the edges that no one is working on.

    --P2 is much more difficult than on normal. She will cast Ruin 60 secs after the large adds are killed. This means that after first set of adds are killed there's bridge animation / crossing / killing / bridge animation / crossing / interrupt--all in 60 seconds.

    --P3 is 95% making sure no one has a stack of Banshee's Bane (aka a puddle) when the cast of Fury completes.
    ----This includes players not even on the platform. (See *** note below.) https://youtu.be/uL9eyH6KobE Edit: In that video I didn't even realize that it's the stacks on me + the stacks on the players that are killing everyone.
    ----Check logs for damage taken from Banshee's Fury #357526, that's the bad one. #357527 is the unavoidable ~40k or so.
    ------https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/Mg4qyYjFz1RvAcPm#fight=12&type=damage-taken&ability=357526
    ----There is no animation for this damage.
    ----It's easy to miss this as the source of deaths because it blends in with the large amount of unavoidable damage.
    ----It's only at the very end of the cast this goes off. https://youtu.be/J91fSlYs7jk?t=239
    ----At higher gear levels 1 person having only 1 stack is survivable but it's still an extra 10k damage to every single person in the raid at the worst possible time.

    --Not clearing puddles enough = slow wipe. https://youtu.be/WIp3QvKe784

    --Banshee Scream with ilvl 235-240 player at 50% health = fatal.

    --At lower ilvls healing and damage reduction CDs are a requirement to get through some of the mechanics like Banshee's Fury and the final platform Wailing Arrows.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    ***Despite doing a ton of research on the fight it's interesting to note that I was wiping my own raid in Phase 3 - Platform 1 because I didn't realize that Banshee's Bane will explode the raid from any platform. I literally only found this out after my first kill because I came to update this post. The sequence on platform 1 includes: --Tank gets marked. --Fury. --Tank gets shot.

    I was "helpfully" leaving platform 1 with my arrow early to clean puddles off the fourth other platform, not realizing that having stacks of Bane on me was causing my own raid to blow up at the end of the Fury cast. And there is also no animation for this extra damage AND Banshee's Fury does a ton of damage anyway so it was very easy to miss this as the cause.
    ------

    Spreadsheet of the timings of most her abilities here:
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

    And a video of the wipe I used as source is here (don't do what I do, I hadn't done any research on the fight yet):
    https://youtu.be/9frxw1x3Ocs

    A video I made that explains some of Phase 3 and visualizes just how many puddles there are (it's probably more than you think) is here: https://youtu.be/WIp3QvKe784 (The video needs some updating, there's some stuff I didn't know and I should also discuss the proper time to jump with Wailing Arrow.)

    Here's a list of ability names since they do similar things and half have "arrow" in the name:
    Wailing Arrow = Arrow at tanks in phase 1, and in P3, tank + dps + dps in succession. Damage reduced by distance.

    Bane Arrow = Cast once per platform in P3, it adds Bane puddles directly to the ground Of All Four Platforms
    Bane Puddles = P3 puddles on the ground that if walked over give the...
    Bane Debuff = P3 debuff on a player (tank preferably) that can be dispelled, and for every stack the player had, a puddle is created. Having a stack of Bane at the end of Banshee's Fury will cause the player to explode for an additional 10k on top of the 40k or so Banshee's Fury already does, aka raid wipe. i.e. Puddles can be moved around by picking up the debuff and dispelling but not destroyed. (However they can be dealt with by bringing them to platforms that are being Razed or prevented by Anti-Magic Shell.)

    Heartseeker = The ability that heavily damages the tank. In Phase 1 the debuff is ticking shadow damage and falls off after a few seconds. But in Phase 3, the tank gets the Bane Debuff instead. i.e. Every time she casts Heartseeker in P3 she's indirectly shooting three more puddles on the ground. DKs can AMS the debuff in P1. The only Heartseekers she'll cast back-to-back in phase 1 are #4 and #5, it's a good idea to have the tank taunt during #4.

    Phase 1
    The first phase is fairly easy, a basic understanding of mechanics is mostly all that's needed.

    Heartseekers that don't naturally fall off without a taunt / immunity are 2&3, 4&5, and 7&8. In particular 4&5 are back to back and a DK with the anti-magic barrier talent can get 4 or more of them with one AMS.

    The deadliest thing in phase 1 is people getting chained from across the platform. It's very important and an underrated detail to try and get the raid spread out so no one gets chained from 60 yards away. Because if it does it also means there's no one in that section to clear chains and it's going to be very dangerous. Generally the chains are cleared from the center to the edges (because of Veil of Darkness and everyone is already there anyway) but for the final intermission chains it's very important that there aren't chains up that no one is working on. I recommend pushing during Windrunner 4 as it gives the raid a TON of time to spread out, like 15 seconds or more.

    I don't yet know what classes are really good or bad at dealing with chains. I do know DKs can Death's Advance the suck-in so they're at least decent at it. I'm guessing venthyr and fae can also get out of a Rive if needed.

    Veil of Darkness seems to go at the largest group of players.

    I recommend taunting at:
    :29 Wailing Arrow 1 debuff appears on tank (and goes off 8 sec later)
    1:07 Wailing Arrow 2
    1:26 Heartseeker 4, taunt during the cast as Heartseeker 5 comes basically back-to-back
    1:36 Wailing Arrow 3
    2:08 Wailing Arrow 4

    --People underestimate Wailing Arrow because it's not that bad on normal and the tank is normally really far in P1. https://imgur.com/a/GIARyby


    If for some reason you want a tank (or even dps or healer) to eat all the Wailing Arrows that's completely possible. In that case I recommend just starting the in-game stopwatch 5 seconds before the pull and then taunting when the stopwatch says the times above as it'll be 5 sec before the debuff appears. This may cause the other tank to wind up with six stacks though.

    Sylvanas teleports every time she casts Chains of Domination and the tank can wind up really far away if they go all the way to the edge with Wailing Arrow. If the tank has several stacks of Heartseeker plus barbed arrow and they're out of range of heals for 15 seconds it can be a problem. One counter-intuitive thing is that the tank that's marked for the Wailing Arrow can actually run TOWARDS Sylvanas and then continue going past her to the edge of the platform. (There'll be enough time 90% of the casts but use common sense.) If the tank does go to Sylvanas and then past her the healers will always know that if they're next to Sylvanas they'll also be in range of the tank eating the arrow and that works very well especially for holy paladins and mistweavers. Tanks should also not be using CDs on Wailing Arrow, it tickles--unlike Heartseeker.


    I listed a few callouts in a column on the spreadsheet. To me callouts are important when action has to be taken before an animation appears. There aren't a lot of moments like that in the fight, but a crucial one is that the raid spread out before chains in phase 1. There's also some spots in Phase 3 that a spread before the ability appears is important, still working those out.

    DBM by default tells tanks to taunt after every Heartseeker. This is unnecessary and should be turned off. Only between Heartseeker 4 and 5 will a taunt be worthwhile.

    There is some advantage to watching the cinematic after Phase 1 as the battle rez timer will continue running. Edit: I've heard it rolls back after P2 begins. For the most part though they seem to have done a pretty good job of pausing everything else. I also think people underestimate how important breaks are...a 30-second pause mid-fight is enormously helpful to bring people's adrenaline levels down and keep them focused and calm.

    I was in a group, all pugs, that had enough DPS that with Hero/BL we were running in to the intermission right after third chains which was a problem. I wound up stopping DPS at 87-88% or so, which worked, but eventually I stopped calling for hero altogether and we popped it in the beginning of Phase 3 which I feel is much less hectic than any other platform.

    DPS metrics:
    Using hero/BL and pushing before third chains: High
    Not using hero/BL and pushing before fourth chains: Medium
    Using hero/BL and pushing before fourth chains: Low
    Not pushing before fourth chains: Insufficient

    Phase 2:
    In phase 2 the DPS check is that Sylvanas will cast Ruin a maximum of 60 seconds after the Summoners/Goliaths/Souljudges are killed. (This is roughly 40 seconds of DPS and 20 seconds of bridge summoning / running.) This is quite tight, as it means after the first set of adds are killed the raid has to wait for Jaina's bridge to the second set of adds, kill them, wait for Jaina's bridge to the third set of adds, cross it, and interrupt her. Then backtracking a little bit, after the second set of adds were killed another 60 sec timer began where the raid has to wait for that same bridge from Jaina, cross it, kill the third set, wait for Thrall to make the final bridge, cross it, and interrupt Sylvanas where she's standing far off to the left side.

    In Phase 2 really the only things that need to be called are the Veil of Darkness casts. I recommend having the raid all stand on the side of the chain the raid arrived on and then moving to the far side after the animations appear. I have seen some pugs use a warlock gateway for the first Veil of Darkness which is fine but IMO it sends you too far; the circles aren't that hard to dodge. The worst thing is to have the raid completely spread out in which case it's fairly likely people are gonna get hit. Another thing that I've seen pugs do which IMO is overkill is stacking the raid and having them click a gateway. This sends people too far from Sylvanas during a burn phase and puts all the circles near the raid but since there's a random element it can actually be difficult to get out of. Having the ranged spread out hugging one side of the chain is probably best as it's the least likely that all three Veils are going to hit an area in such a way that there's no safe spot.

    Also on the first Veil I typically see people not using the bridge to dodge the stacks. The graphic for the bridge shows a small hole where it meets the chain but I'm not sure if it's actually something that people can fall through. At any rate dodging on to the bridge is frequently a lot closer to Sylvanas.

    The other thing that should be called out is during the second DPS phase of phase 2, the raid needs to back off slightly to dodge Haunting Wave (8 or 9) but can go right back to DPSing after sidestepping it.

    In Phase 2 the chain sections are:
    1--Dodge Waves
    2--First DPS phase, callout recommended to stack Darkness
    3--Souljudge / Goliath, callout recommended to stack as much as possible for Darkness without messing up souljudge circles
    4--Summoner / Goliath, can stack before Darkness because there's no souljudge. During this part the bridge to the next segment is far away and the raid can slowly move towards Jaina which goes right in to...
    5--A Wail happens as the raid is walking to the Souljudge and Summoner. This is also one where the bridge to the next segment is far away and the raid can move towards Thrall as they DPS.
    6--2nd DPS phase, callout needed to dodge Haunting Wave and to stack Darkness. Wail is also possible if she isn't pushed in time.

    The following target macro should get the priorities right. Notice it's in reverse order:
    /tar Sylvanas
    /tar Mawforged Goliath
    /tar Mawforged Summoner
    /tar Mawforged Souljudge

    and optionally /tar Decrepit Orb

    Decrepit Orbs have a 17-second cast. If killed in 5 seconds they do about 4k when they die and if not killed at all...they do about the same? https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...29&view=events

    https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...29&view=events
    two different pulls, decrepit orbs go off 10 sec apart but they all do the same damage which is not what the dungeon journal says they do.

    Also as a final detail for groups that are close to a kill, the little trash guys can actually be a bit of a problem. I kind of ignored them when learning, but they will occasionally go bonk a DPS for 15k which during an orbs can be fatal. I personally had problems with it because tanking the large adds takes a lot of attention but the plater addon also didn't differentiate between when the adds were attacking Jaina and Thrall and when they were attacking raid DPS. It's possible that they're only attacking DPS that attacked them but I'm not sure about that.


    Phase 3:
    One detail that people learning the encounter may not realize is that in Phase 3, when she casts Bane Arrows, Bane puddles are added to ALL FOUR platforms. These puddles must be cleaned up or the raid will arrive to the final platform with 15+ puddles already on it. This is an easy thing to miss if watching tutorial videos as the person doing this task is typically not visible from the point of view of someone on the platform with Sylvanas. Here's a tank point of view, Phase 3 starts at 2:01:30. Although they don't clean the platforms up all that much as it's a mythic raid team re-clear with the DPS to overpower the fight. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1107452709?t=01h51m18s

    The only mechanic that forces people to stack is Banshee's Fury, other than that the raid should be spread.

    Phase 3 the DPS marked with Wailing Arrow have a very short window in which to jump. The tank's arrow has to be shot by Sylvanas and land before the player jumps (correct me if I'm wrong). The player can likely watch the time remaining on their debuff as well and therefore there's probably already a WeakAura for it. It's like an Olympic Swimming Relay where the guy has to touch the buzzer before the next person jumps (except the first "swimmer" doesn't really have to get all the way back before the next person jumps...so I need a better analogy.)

    --Healers will probably want to have their UIs set up so that Phase 3 DPS marked with a Wailing Arrow turn a different color on their raid frames. Those players are gonna take a 15k hit from the AoE of the first arrow, then 15k directly, then they'll return and immediately take another 15k from the AoE of the third, which means that in 6 sec they're not only taking 45,000 damage but they're also 80 yards away from heals. Plus some of these arrows come after a Fury where everyone takes 40k damage.

    This is every ability she casts in order, but I suggest looking at the spreadsheet especially for the timings on the fourth platform:
    P3 Begins
    Banshee's Fury
    **spread**
    Bane Puddles Land
    Heartseeker 1
    Veil of Darkness
    Shadow Dagger
    Heartseeker 2
    Wailing Arrow Debuff Appears On Tank
    **stack**
    Banshee's Fury 1-2
    Wailing Arrow on DPS
    Wailing Arrow on DPS 2
    Shoots tank
    Shoots DPS 1
    Shoots DPS 2
    Raze

    Night Fae / Ardenweald Platform
    **spread**
    Banshee Scream
    Veil of Darkness
    Bane Arrow
    Heartseeker 3
    Heartseeker 4
    **stack**
    Banshee's Fury
    **spread**
    Tank marked
    Daggers
    DPS marked
    Heartseeker 5
    DPS marked
    Wailing shot at tank
    Wailing shot at DPS
    Wailing shot at DPS
    Scream
    Veil of Darkness 3
    Raze

    Kyrian platform
    **stack**
    Banshee's Fury
    **spread**
    Tank marked with Wailing
    DPS marked with Wailing
    Bane Arrow 3
    Heartseeker 7
    DPS marked with Wailing
    Tank shot with Wailing
    DPS shot with Wailing
    DPS shot with Wailing
    Heartseeker 8
    Banshee Scream
    Daggers
    Heartseeker 9
    Veil of Darkness
    **stack**
    Banshee's Fury
    Heartseeker 10
    Raze
    Tank marked with Wailing Arrow
    DPS marked with Wailing Arrow
    DPS marked with Wailing Arrow

    Venthyr platform
    **clump on venthyr icon arrows to other corners**
    Tank shot with Wailing
    DPS shot with Wailing
    DPS shot with Wailing
    **spread**
    Banshee Scream
    Bane Arrow
    **stack**
    Banshee's Fury
    **spread**
    Veil of Darkness 5 begins cast
    Dagger
    Heartseeker 12
    Tank marked with Wailing
    DPS marked with Wailing
    DPS marked with Wailing
    Heartseeker 13
    Tank shot with Wailing
    DPS shot with Wailing
    DPS shot with Wailing
    Banshee Scream
    Raze

    So a few notes about the timings:
    Heartseeker 3 and Heartseeker 4 are back-to-back, probably worth using a tank CD on

    If the in-game stopwatch is started at the beginning of phase 3, the tanks will get marked with Wailing Arrow at:
    0:57
    1:52
    2:47
    3:40
    4:36

    And if at all possible yah really want to have her almost dead before that final set of Wailing Arrows goes off as the platform is gonna be a mess by then.

    The number of pools the raid has to deal with is 7*4 + 7*3 + 7*2 + 7 + 13*3. (4 sets of bane arrows and 13 heartseekers). Anti-Magic Shell CAN prevent the application of stacks to the tank. All told that's a 109 pools which is a LOT considering that a dozen pools will take up at least a quarter of the platform. To spread the pools evenly there needs to be 27 per platform, which means that it's pretty important to get as many as possible on that first platform or it just gets very unmanageable at the end. If, for example, the first platform is left with only 20 pools on it (which will still seem like a lot) that means that each other platform will have ~30 per platform. And 30 puddles is about the number at which a 20-man raid won't be able to spread out enough to dodge Wail or Veil. Tanks have about a minute of downtime to gather pools on platforms 1 and 3, but on platform 2 there's a Wailing Arrow 30 sec in so they don't have as much time.

    Banshee's Fury does roughly 35k damage (5 ticks x 7k/tick). In WCL Banshee's Fury #357526 is the bad one that people with Bane exploded. Banshee's Fury #357527 is the unavoidable one.

    Shadow Dagger does 16k damage (4x4k) which is surprisingly low for an avoidable mechanic (in phase 3 at least).

    1 stack of Banshee's Bane will do about 1250 every second. This means a raider with 40k health could run around with 5 stacks for about 30 seconds without heals (if they took no other damage from anything else).

    Banshee Scream does about 13,500 damage to someone at full health but this increases to 20,000 on someone at 50% health and 25,000 to someone at 25% health or below. Therefore anyone under 50% health is in serious danger of dying.
    https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...8&end=21188575 I was at roughly full health, Hvalati was at 15%, doompro was at 25% and Phoenixjin was at 50%.

    A Wailing Arrow closer than ~twenty yards (corner of the platform to middle of the platform) will do fatal (45-50k) damage. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...5&end=21205326 Jumperwild 9:44.474

    A Wailing Arrow on a different platform will do about 15,000.

    A Wailing Arrow on the far side of the same platform will do about 20,000, so to survive the fourth platform and its three Wailing Arrows in succession some damage reduction is nearly required.

    Random Factoids:
    —Kyrian flask clears barbed arrow stacks
    --Sylvanas can gain the stacks of the ability that make her cast Heartseeker over time.
    --If Sylvanas is casting things for a long period of time (she won't cast Heartseeker during a Windrunner (swirlies) or Veil of Darkness) it's possible that she'll come out and do two Heartseekers back to back, for example Heartseekers p1-#4 and p1-#5 and p3-#4 and p3-#5. It's all in the spreadsheet.
    --Sylvanas can put the Wailing Arrow debuff on a tank in the middle of a Veil of Darkness cast
    --Tank has 8 seconds to run Wailing Arrow out
    --Debuff from chains does roughly 1.2k per stack to a tank, if it's physical it'd more to DPS
    --In my sample raid there were 20 people and 7 stacks of Bane per platform from Bane Arrow
    --A DK's AMS will prevent them gaining debuffs and therefore prevent them from picking up puddles. Presumably immunities will also.
    --Banshee wail does about 12k to everyone + 12k more for each other person they're next to, e.g. 4 or 5 is a one-shot
    --I'm still working out damage from Bane Stacks, but as a tank I felt 10 stacks was where it started to really sting
    --Phase 3 starts at the SW platform which is the Necrolord/Maldraxxus platform
    --The first syllable of 'rive' is 'rye' and apparently it means to split or crack asunder
    --It is somewhat difficult for tanks to move Sylvanas because she's animation locked a lot and teleports when she casts Chains and Veil in P1. I do recommend in P1 to try and get her back to the center whenever possible so that she will never wind up on the far edge of the platform.
    --DBM warnings for Unstoppable strike can be turned off.
    --If the raid has an over/under geared tank it’s not too hard to have one tank doing Wailing Arrow most the time and the other actually fighting her.
    --The timings in Normal and Heroic are different. Very similar but different. Her heroic timings on the four videos I watched were all in the same order if not identical.


    Questions I still have:
    How much damage per stack of the phase 1 arrow debuff? (Edit: Think it's 5k a tick for two stacks)
    When is the best time to push? (Edit: Before a chains)
    Why does DBM keep spamming my about an "Unstoppable Force" ability. (Edit: just turn it off)
    What corner / center of the platform is she typically tanked in in P3 (closest to center, furthest from center, or if neither of those, the clockwise corner or the counterclockwise corner? (Edit: I recommend the raid use the center corner with the Covenant sigils on them to jump from one platform to the next, and then the "departure" corner I talk about in my video for tanks.)
    If the tank drops bane puddles in the corner furthest from the center of the room, is that too far for them to get out when they get Wailing Arrow? (Edit: Platforms 1 and 3 tank has almost 60 seconds to do nothing, Platform 2 = 30 seconds.)
    What's a good metric for DPS / knowing if the raid is on track? (Edit: Blowing up P1 with no deaths. All raid members alive for 12 minutes is almost certainly gonna be a kill.)
    Does she do things in the exact same order on normal and heroic? (I'm 99% sure there are fewer bane puddles however.) Edit: Looks like she doesn't, Heartseeker 3 went out at a different time on one of normal videos than one of my heroic ones. Although the new question is if she always does her abilities in the exact same order every time even on heroic.
    Are stacks of veil bugged in P3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitive...plying_stacks/
    What happens if a Wailing Arrow is shot at someone that's jumping off the platform to their death?
    What happens if a person with bane is dispelled mid-platform? (Edit: I think it drops it on the edge of the departure platform.)
    How valuable is the frost domination shard that does the absorb? Could a raid with everyone wearing one run an extra healer? The absorb is really good due to the explosive nature of the damage. edit: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...bsorbs/1061095

    Possible items to work out before a pull:
    Which tank goes first in P1 and P3
    What quadrants are people going to for the phase 1 transition to kill chains
    P2 Healing Cooldowns for souljudges
    Which healer is dispelling which tank in P3
    Healing CDs for Banshee's Fury in P3
    What CDs / DRs are being used on the Wailing Arrows at the beginning of the fourth platform?

    Health Values:
    Chains have 40,000 health

    20 man:
    Sylvanas: 90,459,000 (P1 ends at 75967k 84%)
    Goliath: 1,269,000
    Souljudge: 1,157,000
    Summoner: 1,091,000

    25 man: 113,670,000

    Phase 3 lasts five minutes. Assuming she is at 75% at the push a 20 man raid, counting healers and tanks as one dps:
    90,459,000*.25 = 22,614,000 health to burn through
    5 minutes = 300 seconds, 22,614,000 / 300 = 75.4 raid dps
    2/4/14 we'll count as 15 dps so 75.4 / 15 is roughly 5k per raider. But note that uptime will be affected by Raze, her disappearing for veil, etc.

    A 2/4/14 raid doing 75k dps total would burn through 14.5 mil health in about ~195 seconds, but with hero/lust at the start every pull I've been has pushed much faster than that, about 2:45 or 165 seconds. Getting four sets of chains before the intermission chains is almost certainly too slow.


    And my final recommendation: Turn off the damn DBM Air Horn sound for her casting Ruin (P2)! Unless you're the person assigned to it, the air horn is overkill...there's nothing else even going on when she casts it, it's not like you're gonna miss it because you're so busy walking across a bridge.
    Last edited by garicasha; 2021-09-03 at 07:56 PM.
    Raid bosses will always be very similar so long as encounter design requires DPS to always be pumping 100%.

  2. #2
    Bumping for an enormous number of edits and to ask for more info on the following questions:

    --What mechanics does raid size affect? (aka How in the blue blazes does a raid of 30 spread out on the platforms, haven't gotten around to watching any 30-man kills yet.)

    --A link to the Wailing Arrow jump WeakAura

    --How tough is it for the second person to get the Wailing Arrow in P3 to get out and back in time? Note that when jumping platforms the game doesn't put you at the edge of the new platform, but a significant distance in towards the center. This means the second player has some ground to cover in only a 2-3 second window between when their arrow goes off and when the third player's goes off.

    --Groups that have pugged it successfully, can we see parses? What were requirements?

    I'm guessing that by September we'll see pugs asking for the following, a lot of which is standard already:
    --ilvl 240, maybe even higher
    --Rank 6 Legendary
    --Max Covenant Rep
    --Full gems and enchants, flasks, oils, vantus, the usual
    --Wailing Arrow WeakAura
    --AotC or Phase 3 parses
    --Domination Socket Bonus
    ----Possibly even a max rank Shard of Kyr (frost absorb rune) as it'd REALLY smooth out the enormous explosions she does.
    Last edited by garicasha; 2021-08-09 at 07:47 AM.
    Raid bosses will always be very similar so long as encounter design requires DPS to always be pumping 100%.

  3. #3
    Woah

    Tldr

  4. #4
    Brewmaster Julmara's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarym13 View Post
    Woah

    Tldr
    it reads Summary at the top open yours eyes

  5. #5
    I did manage to get the fight this week which obviously really helps and is a million times better than watching videos. A few notes:

    —Jumping at the right time for arrows is not as hard as I thought.

    —Increasing ilvls have made several abilities much less scary, as player health has increased from 40k to 50k from late July to late August. Banshee’s fury and wailing arrow in particular.

    Good play from the tanks can really make phase three easier. If tanks are experienced and know when they have to be ready to swap and when they can run around collecting puddles it really makes a difference.

    The fourth platform is quite difficult as not only are the obvious Wailing Arrows a problem but it goes right in to a bane arrow followed by a fury. This means the raid is already low, and if anyone gets a stack on what is likely the most crowded platform already it’s a real problem.

    I’m not 100% sure all these moves work but there are some out-of-the-box plays players could make with platforms if they’re really thinking about it. Most would be a DPS loss, for example leaving the platform before a Wail, but in a really tough spot if there’s no where to spread out it’s probably better to lose 5 secs DPS than to die.

    I’m also not sure about this but in a 2/4/12 raid it’d probably be stupid easy to have a healer leave the third platform early, grab the puddles on the fourth, jump back to the third, dispel themselves and possibly die to the raze. Three healing a clean platform is probably easier than four healing a clustered one.

    Less specifically there probably are effective (but not all that fun) strats that involve just saccing people. (Especially if a BR is available.)

    I know most groups pop hero in the beginning but I was able to put a pug together that was running in to problems with hitting the intermission with the third set of chains. I personally think Windrunner 4 is the best time to push because it allows people to spread out on the platform so no section has chains that no one is working on and/or healers in.

    Then I pop hero/bl beginning of Phase 3 which I feel is less hectic than most the rest of the phase. Ask yourself…isn’t trading 30 extra seconds in P1 worth it to pull 10-15 seconds off Phase 3 in a progression group? (That last set of Wailing Arrows in platform 4 is a real killer too.)

    Edit: I literally found out now, 3 days after killing the fight the first time, that I was wiping my own raid by having Banshee's Bane on me during the P3-Platform 1 Fury cast because I was running my arrow off to another platform and I didn't think the explosion radius was that large.
    Last edited by garicasha; 2021-08-30 at 09:38 AM.
    Raid bosses will always be very similar so long as encounter design requires DPS to always be pumping 100%.

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