H Grand Empress Shek'Zeer 10m help

[subtletuna]

Hi forums, my guild just killed H Amber Shaper last night and started on shek zeer, and realized this fight is gonna be a pain, especially since strats are limited on the interwebs. So, onto the questions.

1) raid comp: who should I sit? Our available options are: guardian druid, blood dk, frost dk, mage, warlock, boomkin, hunter, rogue, ret pally, rest sham, disc priest, mw monk. I need to keep the warlock and the hunter - the rest of the dps are expendable. Moonkin can also be resto if 4 Heals are still required
2) how are people handling the corruption in p1? We tried ignoring cry of terror until one got corrupted to ensure the wrong one wasn't brought too low. This ended up costing the healers mucho mana.
3) how are adds handled? In normal mode we have our guardian kite all the windblades and our dk take the reavers while our ret or frost dk taunts one wind blade at a time to a kill spot where we nuke it. I assume this won't work on heroic due to increased damage.
4) I assume the heart of fear ability in p3 is handled like exhale and it's gg when we reach that phase (common theme among bosses this tier)

Thanks everyone for your help in advance!

[Dracodraco]

Go with 4 healers to learn the fight. If the damage seems manageable, you can always drop down to 3 later on, but there's no point getting to the add phase with dead people just because you didn't want to take an extra healer.
Generally, melee are alot weaker than ranged, because they risk a much bigger chance of getting dropped instantly by a windblade's fixate - I imagine this especially holds true in 10 man, as you have 5-6 windblades stacked together instead of 3 (although their initial damage output should be lower).

So setup:
Tanks:
Druid.
DK.
Healers:
Shammy.
Priest.
Monk.
Druid.
DPS:
Hunter.
Warlock.
Mage.
Ret pally (brings BoP's and Aura mastery).

As for zones, the way we deal with them in 25 man, just have the person enter the zone and wait. If the person in the zone isn't being healed, then the zone won't really drop at all - so make sure your healers do not hot up the target the instant he gets the cry, or you'll get screwed. As soon as a zone becomes corrupted, the person runs into the zone, and your healers are free to throw heals at him to make the zone explode. Resto druids are especially great for this due to hots - every tick is going to take a charge of the field, and you can have lifebloom/WG/rejuv/regrowth ticking on the person in a matter of four global cooldowns.
BoP the person right before the field explodes so even if (s)he is low, the damage won't be deadly - it's physical, so it'll be completly absorbed.

HoF is basicly exhale, yes.

Don't pin me on this as I haven't done it, but the most common tactic for adds in 10 man is usually 1 tank on 2 reavers and a windblade, and 1 tank on 5 windblades. Both your guardian and your DK are gonna get beaten up badly as they're not shield tanks, but you should probably use the DK for the windblades as he'll have more cooldowns to cycle through, and a passive 50% slow if chillblains is picked up, allowing for kiting if neccessary. Not 100% sure, but the Remorseless Winter talent might also be able to stun them all for 5 seconds (normal stuns works, like shockwave etc, I see no reason it wouldn't, but truthfully, haven't tested it).

[bals]

Don't pin me on this as I haven't done it, but the most common tactic for adds in 10 man is usually 1 tank on 2 reavers and a windblade, and 1 tank on 5 windblades. Both your guardian and your DK are gonna get beaten up badly as they're not shield tanks, but you should probably use the DK for the windblades as he'll have more cooldowns to cycle through, and a passive 50% slow if chillblains is picked up, allowing for kiting if neccessary. Not 100% sure, but the Remorseless Winter talent might also be able to stun them all for 5 seconds (normal stuns works, like shockwave etc, I see no reason it wouldn't, but truthfully, haven't tested it).

I would probably put the druid on the windblades instead of the dk (not really familiar with druids at all this xpac). Either way both of them are going to get hit really hard so make sure they are popping cds (major cd when first picking them up) and chaining cds and use externals as well. We do the 5 windblades - 2reavers+1. Mark one of the windblades to burn down asap. don't stun when all 5 are together otherwise the tank will likely be one shot. after 1 is dead and 1 is fixated so outside the group you can start using stuns but wouldn't recommend that before then. This is where you can stop chaining as many cds as well. The windblade tank should grab the windblade off the reaver tank after 2-3 are dead.

[Genju]

don't stun when all 5 are together otherwise the tank will likely be one shot.

The tank just has to move a bit while stunned, so they dont sync their swingtimer after the stun, and have to walk to the tank instead.

[Teekays]

It is completely unnecessary to use only 3 healers, and just makes things rougher for a first kill, though later on you could always drop 1 to get farm done quicker, pushing her to the last phase in only 1 set of adds. It should also be noted our first kill was a 4-heal with an alt disc priest that we geared to 480 2days prior.

As for Cry, we just let the debuffed person pick one, and if it's the wrong we we simply raid cd both explosions. You have a disc priest that can spirit shell, it really isn't bad at all when combined with 1 more CD. (We once had a healer DC, and phased into the last phase with 2 zones still up and managed just fine with cd's)

During add phase I tank all the windblades, and our monk tanks the 2 reavers. (I am a warrior) I imagine this may be a bit more difficult with your tanks, so you may need to peel a windblade or 2 onto the reaver tank.

Last phase was pretty much nothing for us on our first kill, we tend to pull before reading so on our kill video we are trying to figure out the last phase in the middle of our best attempt. It ended up we just were able to completely ignore the focused beam with 4 healers, and really it was just like normal, we laughed about it afterwards since we made a big deal over the last phase in the middle of our pull.

[subtletuna]

Thanks everyone for the advice. We tried a whole bunch of strats last night and I feel none of them really worked. Has anyone tried 3 tank 3 healing? I've seen a video of this and it looked very viable.
Problems we were having last night were 90% related to our DK tank deaths. We tried the route where our druid does windblades - 1 and DK did reavers+1 wind blade. Didn't turn out so well. We then did each tank take a side of adds. Our druid was fine but then our DK was struggling again. At the end of the night I sat the DK and got our ret to go Prot and I think that worked a little better, but was still rough. Now, as I said, I want to try the 3 tank 3 healer approach. Guardian/protpally/dk mistweaver/disc/resto sham.

Can anyone give some advice regarding this? We tried 3 healing last night for a bit and we got through p1 fine-ish, but it was always very risky. I saw a video on this with h the same healer comp so I know it's possible, but they were extremely close to berserk.

Finally, our dpsin the add phase seems lacking a bit. Takes us over a minute to kill the first windblade. Is this normal? On our best attempt it looked like we would only get 3 dead by the time the phase was over (could be wrong, never actually reached that point). I assume the subsequent adds will die faster due to tank cleave though.

Sorry, 1 more point I just thought of. We were having a ton of trouble with dispatch. How do people handle this? I keptgetting an iimmune message when trying shadowfury as an interupt. We had best luck with typhoon, but that only works for 1 set of mobs.

Thanks again for the advic !

[Deleted]

We did 10 wipes or so last nite progressing on this, we were doin phase1 ok but phase2 just went all over the place.

Tank damage was insane, then raid damage was insane from dispatch... we sat all melees and took only ranged to avoid any windblade melee attacks when fixated, but still had ppl losing half their HP to dispatch.. we tried to focus more interupting/stunning/knockin back any add that did it but it still feels super hard.

We're goin agian 2nite with 2x warrior tanks, and gonna have each tank just take 1 side each, is this a good idea or should we take 2 reavers+1 wind with the other tank having 5 windblades?

We might try 3 tank 3 healing, as the 4th healer is an alt so hes not that strong any way... but im concerened about phase3, isnt that where u need the 4 healers more so than phase1?

[Deleted]

Tryed 3heal 2tanks, 4heals and 2 tanks but we killed it with 4healers and 3tanks like in 4-5 pulls.

Setup:
Tanks:
DK
Warrios x2
Healers:
Shaman
Priest x2
Paladin
DPS:
Hunter
Mage
Shadow Priest

P1 not much to do.

Add phase: DK grabs 2 Kor'thik Reavers and both warriors takes 3 Set'thik Windblades. Raid stacking in center, DK with 2 Reavers behind raid, warriors in front of raid on left and right side. About dispatch i think warriors are using shockwave, even with same swing timer there is not much dmg on them.After we get 1st trap all raid just moves a bit in front. We killing all small adds like 10-15sec before reappering of boss. After 1st add phase both warriors tanks boss and DK just spreading dmg buff for whole raid.

[Deleted]

4 heal 3 tanks seems like ull hit berserk / more than 2 add phases?

Are ur priests just smiting most the time?

[Deleted]

4 heal 3 tanks seems like ull hit berserk / more than 2 add phases?

Are ur priests just smiting most the time?

2add phases only. Till berserk have atleast 25-15sec remaining. Using bloodlust on start, and 2nd bloodlust right after we reach 30%. About smiting, we doing it anytime we have free time or raid dmg is low and our smite will heal in decent rate.

[Revvo]

Adds in p2 are going to be a game breaker if you don't have a shield tank. They rip apart our Blood DK.

[Justanoob]

2add phases only. Till berserk have atleast 25-15sec remaining. Using bloodlust on start, and 2nd bloodlust right after we reach 30%. About smiting, we doing it anytime we have free time or raid dmg is low and our smite will heal in decent rate.

Do you have logs or your kill? I'm curious to see what your dps was like doing it like this.

[Libertarian]

We did 10 wipes or so last nite progressing on this, we were doin phase1 ok but phase2 just went all over the place.

Tank damage was insane, then raid damage was insane from dispatch... we sat all melees and took only ranged to avoid any windblade melee attacks when fixated, but still had ppl losing half their HP to dispatch.. we tried to focus more interupting/stunning/knockin back any add that did it but it still feels super hard.

We're goin agian 2nite with 2x warrior tanks, and gonna have each tank just take 1 side each, is this a good idea or should we take 2 reavers+1 wind with the other tank having 5 windblades?

We might try 3 tank 3 healing, as the 4th healer is an alt so hes not that strong any way... but im concerened about phase3, isnt that where u need the 4 healers more so than phase1?

I believe it is ideal with two equal shield tanks ONLY to go 3 windblade 1 reaver on each side (how we do it with paladin and warrior). If you have a shield tank and non shield tank you will have the shield tank grab the 6 windblade and non shield grab the 2 reaver. If you have no shield tanks, you need to start recruiting. If you have a monk tank, they should kite with barrel rather than just straight up tank it.

Phase 2 just have everyone stack on one spot to build the trap quickly, and then move to another spot to build a second trap.

[Dorfie]

We got our first kill within 3 hours of our first pull with 3 healers. Fight felt really easy...

Wait for the corrupted field to spawn then hop into it with the debuff. There will be times when you have to heal through a cry of terror but you have to deal with it.

Put the 2 reavers and 1 windblade on a tank, then the other 5 windblades on the other tank. Focus a windblade down first to lower this number to 4. Then it's just kite around, use cooldowns well and make the traps.

If you 3 heal you should have the DPS to only do a single add phase, which is nice, but all 3 healers will have to do their jobs. I think 4 healing makes this fight a total joke and you should have a kill after an hour or two.

[Deleted]

I cant really imagine 3 healing it, would be tuff.. but I gues not having 2x ad phases would be good