Grand Empress - Skip 2nd Phase?

[Hound02]

Hey all,

Last night we tried to do something a little different on normal version of the Grand Empress for fun and wondered if anyone else had done it this way to confirm it works. We have and can kill it normally, we just wanted to make it faster, less boring and make it more fun

It was our first time trying with 2 healers on this encounter, so we tried to add some extra spice to things to see if we could get Empress to 3rd phase without getting any adds! Our best attempt was 29.7%, however, this was about 1 second before she retreated, so I was wondering if it is possible to get this done before she retreats and actually goes straight to phase 3? We wasn't sure if we are still to slow (as no one looked to see if she was casting retreat when we reached the 30% mark, or if we just can't skip that part of the fight).

I'm interested in what you guys have to say about this and would be awesome to hear that it can be skipped with confirmation!


As for our setup we have:

2 DK Tanks
1 Fury Warrior
1 Enhance Shammy
1 Ass Rogue
1 Survival Hunter
1 Elemental Shammy
1 Warlock
1 Disc Priest
1 Holy Pally

- It's a very good setup for a full set of buffs we find and we all pre-pot + pot asap with Heroism 2 secs into the pull... We could better DPS after the next lockout reaching ~30% easier, but we wanted to know if anyone could confirm it's possible before we attempt it again on a fun raid :P

[edlike]

absolutely possible. several months ago someone posted a video here of no-add-phase solo healed Empress normal. healed by a holy pally iirc

[Seregon]

I haven't done it myself, but I see no evidence to suggest it's impossible. Her retreat is about a 5 second cast though, so you may be able to bring her below 30 and still have her retreat (like was the case with your attempt).

With just a little more dps I'd say it's possible.

[Deleted]

absolutely possible. several months ago someone posted a video here of no-add-phase solo healed Empress normal. healed by a holy pally iirc

yeah they had a holy pala solo heal it with a little help from brewmaster monk healing, shadow priest halo (done perfectly for some really nice heals) and a few other hybrid cooldowns, i think there was a tranq in there somewhere aswell

[Deleted]

It's doable on HC as well, at least 10man.

[Raugnaut]

You just need an extreme amount of dps. Your guild should be able to get it done with a few more upgrades from ToT
I wonder if you get chieve from doing it like that, the kill 2 big adds at same time one...

[NightZero88]

We always used to skip the second add phase so yes I'd say it's possibly now with the nerfs. Would need some big numbers though I'd think and if you can push out that much DPS why not move to ToT?

[Waltzinblack]

You just need an extreme amount of dps. Your guild should be able to get it done with a few more upgrades from ToT
I wonder if you get chieve from doing it like that, the kill 2 big adds at same time one...

I assume not, because the criteria wouldn't be marked complete.

[Hound02]

Thanks for the confirmation guys We already have the achievement also - but you won't get it due to not actually killing them.

We are going into ToT, we've sort of hit a little stump on Horridon currently using 2 healers with the new tank (We're using a new tank who we just got to 491 in this weeks lockout + a Holy Pally who we're gearing up at the same time who's our second healer) We hope to see some good progress in ToT next lockout Our DPS is pretty strong, specially since we're all between 495-504 ilvl