Fallen Protectors Heroic Guide

[Zabuzan]

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Fallen Protectors Heroic Guide
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If you'd like to motivate me to make more guides in the future, please check out www.vengeanceking.com follow me on Twitter @Zabuzan and like my Vengeance King page on Facebook

Introduction
Hi all,

I created a guide for my guild as reference for Fallen Protectors Heroic, describing our original kill strategy.

I'm a big fan of text guides in conjunction with video guides and I feel that each has their own merits when preparing for a new encounter during progression. I'd also recommend the Fatboss, Evrelia and Gabestah video guides as a great resource ahead of any progression. Links to these video guides can be found below the text guide I've created.

Hopefully this guide can be of use to other people as well.

Disclaimer: This guide is aimed at the 10-man Heroic version of the Fallen Protectors encounter and not all of the information presented may be applicable to 25-man Heroic. This is not a definitive strategy and also assumes a basic knowledge of the normal encounter and the changes to mechanics on Heroic. Other strategies and kill orders are entirely plausible, but this is what we will be using for our first kill and I can vouch that it works for us!

For links to my other Heroic boss guides, check out the Index Thread.

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Raid Composition
Recommended composition - 2 tanks, 5-6 DPS, 2-3 healers.

With better gear, it will undoubtedly become more easily 2 healable regardless of healer composition, but if you don't have 2 well geared and strong healers, 3 healing it should still leave no problem meeting the enrage.

Ranged DPS are preferrable over Melee, as they can stack more easily for AoE healing.


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Overview
The major change on Heroic is that during any one Desperate Measures phase, the other 2 bosses continue using all their normal abilities, resulting in a much higher damage output on the raid.

The bosses will be pushed into Desperate Measures in the following order: Rook > He > Sun. If you are struggling with the Garrote damage on Rook's 2nd Desperate measures, it may be preferable to swap Sun and He. Bear in mind that a Paladin with Clemency talented is ideal for this as they can use Blessing of Protection to cleat 2 raid members of Garrote early on and then an additional time later in the fight, but other abilities such as the Dwarf Racial Stoneform also work. As the damage during Sun's Desperate Measures is much higher on the raid than during Rook's Desperate Measures, this is unlikely to be the case.

After all 3 have been pushed through Desperate Measures once, the process begins again, meaning that the fight works out as follows:
Rook to 66% > He to 66% > Sun to 66%
Rook to 33% > He to 33% > Sun to 33%
Finish them all off within 30 seconds of one another.

There is a 10 minute hard enrage timer, which shouldn't be too much of an issue for most guilds unless one of your DPS dies too early in the encounter.


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Strategy
P1 (A)
Heroism at the start and stack all of the adds up until Rook's Desperate Measures. Cleave off Rook.

Rook's Desperate Measures
He tank picks up Misery as it knocks back and puts crap on the ground, as does He, so he can focus on the Gouges and keep the ground clear near the raid. Raid stack on Sorrow and bring Gloom in, interrupt rotation to not let any Shocks through. See the Useful Macros section for an interrupt and yell macro.

P1 (B)
Tank He and Rook on Sun all the time, as the Noxious Poison will reset when He goes into Desperate Measures so that Sun's Desperate Measures isn't a pain. Cleave off He.

He's Desperate Measures
Most raid comps will have a couple of classes that can fully mitigate the damage. We throw the Mark of Anguish to our Death Knight with externals on him (Hand of Sacrifice, Vigilance, Iron Bark) and when the damage starts getting sketchy, the Mark is thrown to a Hunter for double Deterrence and then a Mage for Iceblock. See the Useful Macros section for a mouseover macro for throwing the Mark of Anguish between raid members.

P1 (C)
Tank Rook and He on Sun, but make sure not to cover the entire area in Noxious Poison before Sun goes into Desperate Measures. A couple of % before Sun goes into Desperate Measures, pull Rook away from Sun so that a badly timed Clash doesn't fill the protective shield as soon as it spawns. Cleave off Sun.

Sun's Desperate Measures
Each tank on a different big add outside the bubble, defensive tank CDs are only really needed in this phase. Cleave off the big add so that the little adds and He / Rook are taking damage as well. Healing CDs are used during this phase, Devotion Aura is very useful. Watch out for any Noxious Poison left by He in the protective shield and line up round the edge of the shield on the same side as where He is, so that if Rook Clashes within the shield it doesn't pwn the raid. During Sun's Desperate Measures, any cleave damage done to the small adds is mirrored on the big adds, which means that cleaving should be encouraged. During Sun's Desperate Measures, any cleave damage done to the small adds is mirrored on the big adds, which means that cleaving should be encouraged.


Repeat
This is then repeated as follows:
P1 (D) = P1 (A)
Rook's Desperate Measures
P1 (E) = P1 (B)
He's Desperate Measures
P1 (F) = P1 (C)
Sun's Desperate Measures

P1 (G) - Final Burn
At this stage, all 3 bosses will be sub 33% and must be "killed" within 30 seconds of one another, or they will heal up. The final burn can be handled in exactly the same way as P1 ( A ), tabbing between the bosses to bring them down evenly, as you would on normal difficulty.


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Summary:

1. P1(A) - Heroism and CDs
2. Rook Desperate Measures #1 - AoE healer CD if needed.
3. P1(B)
4. He Desperate Measures #1 - Aim to line up some DPS CDs and can use either single target mitigation CDs or immunities to survive the add.
5. P1(C)
6. Sun Desperate Measures #1 - Aim to line up some DPS CDs and will need some AoE healer CDs.
7. P1(D) - Heroism and CDs
8. Rook Desperate Measures #2 - AoE healer CD if needed.
9. P1(E)
10. He Desperate Measures #2 - We use our second pots here to ensure that nobody dies to the add! Aim to line up some DPS CDs and can use either single target mitigation CDs or immunities to survive the add.
11. P1(F)
12. Sun Desperate Measures #2 - Aim to line up some DPS CDs and will need some AoE healer CDs.
13. P1(G) - Finish them off, bringing them down as evenly as possible.

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General Tips:

• As previously mentioned, the Garrote that He applies to random raid members can be removed using Blessing of Protection or Stoneform. This is probably best done just before Sun's Desperate Measure to reduce the damage on the raid during the high AOE damage that ensues at that point, but could also be used to reduce the damage going out during Rook's Desperate Measures as more Garrotes will be on the raid at that point. I have no doubt that other abilities will also work, Divine Shield and so on.
• Sun's Sha Sear is very painful on Heroic. At any time when the raid is "stacked", bear in mind that it's still possible to be slightly spread - within the boundaries of an Efflorescence or Healing Rain is a good guage. As soon as you are targetted by Sha Sear, it's imperative to move away from other raid members. This ability is interruptible as well, but is Sun's standard nuke and is rapidly recast.
• I recommend using a mouseover macro to transfer the Mark of Anguish between raid members. See the Useful Macros section for an example.
• The damage going out on the person fixated with the Mark of Anguish increases over time, if you don't have any outright immunities to soak it, use external cooldowns such as Hand of Sacrifice and Pain Suppression, in combination with personal mitigation to survive it for as long as possible. Pass the Mark on before it gets too sketchy, don't risk a death.
• If you aren't using Blessing of Protection to clear Garrote from raid members, it can be used to fully negate damage whilst holding the Mark of Anguish.
• Some groups have reported success pushing Sun and He into Desperate Measures at the same time. The reason for this is that the Noxious Poison is cleared from the ground and reduces risk when stacked in the protective bubble Sun creates. However, as long as the He tank is careful not to totally overload the area around Sun with Noxious Poisons, this shouldn't be an issue. This would only be necessary if you were doing the Rook > He > Sun order anyway.
• Create an interrupt rotation for Gloom during Rook's Desperate Measures. For instance, we use:
  
  1. Frost Deathknight
  2. Elemental Shaman
  3. Prot Paladin
  4. Hunter
  Repeat this twice and Gloom should be dead before a 3rd set. Prot Paladins in particular can always hold off on an Avenger's Shield for an extra interrupt if someone messes up. Calling who is next on your voice communication software of choice and/or a macro letting the next person know it's their turn makes it run a lot more smoothly. Glooms Shocks deal massive damage if let through and are likely to cause deaths! See the Useful Macros section for an interrupt and yell macro.
• Use your second pots wherever your raid is struggling most, ideally lining it up with some kind of DPS cooldowns. I wouldn't advise using Heroism other than at the start as it makes the best use of everyone's CD and Legendary procs, however if you aren't having any issues on the enrage timer, you could use it in another place, or even delay your whole raids cooldowns for use with it should you be having trouble with a specific Desperate Measures.
• More to be added.

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Useful Macros
Mouseover Macro for Passing the Mark of Anguish between raid members:

/stopcasting
/click [@mouseover] ExtraActionButton1
/target mouseover
/yell PASSED MARK OF ANGUISH TO <%t>
/targetlasttarget

Interrupt and Yell Macro for Gloom:
(note: replace INTERRUPT with the name of your interrupt ability and replace XXXX with the name of the next person in the rotation.)

#showtooltip
/cast INTERRUPT
/yell GLOOM INTERRUPTED, XXXX UP NEXT!

If you are putting Gloom on focus and nuking multiple targets, then the makro can be amended to:

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus] INTERRUPT
/yell GLOOM INTERRUPTED, XXXX UP NEXT!

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Video Guides:
Below are some video guides for further reference, bear in mind that not all aspects of the strategies or tips described in the videos may be shared with my own information, but can be used in conjunction with the guide for a better overall idea ahead of progressing on this encounter.

Fatboss Video Guide:
LINK

Evrelia Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah Long Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah Short Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah Tank Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah DPS Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah Healer Video Guide:
LINK


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Reference Links
For a full list of Gabestah Video Guides, please check out his thread HERE

Icy Veins Fallen Protectors Guide: http://www.icy-veins.com/the-fallen-...d-strategy-wow

Healer CDs Tips: http://www.healercds.com/siege-of-or...trategy-guide/

Shadow Priest Tips: http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?t=4538

MMO Champion Discussion Thread: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...len-Protectors


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Change Log:

1. Added line breaks and colour formatting to make reading easier.
2. Added a Video Guides section, with Fatboss guide.
3. Added Evrelia's heroic guide to the Video Guides section
4. Added a Useful Macros section, with Gloom interrupt macro.
5. Added a mouseover Extra Action Button usage macro to the Useful Macros section.
6. Added some additional tips for Mark of Anguish.
7. Added some additional tips for interrupting Gloom.
8. Amended the kill order to reduce the number of Garrotes going into Sun's Desperate Measures.
9. Amended raid composition advice.
10. Amended Sun's Desperate Measures info to advise cleaving the small adds.
11. Added the long, short, tank, DPS and healer Gabestah video guides.
12. To make the thread a bit easier to navigate, replace the embedded videos with links.
13. Added a Reference Links section and some links.
14. Added link to index thread for other Heroic guides.
15. Added links to Facebook, Twitter and Blog.
16. Fixed link to website.

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[Kraineth]

No real reason to push Sun before He, not only does it clear poison but it also clears garrotes. Dps should not be touching the small adds since they disappear when the phase ends, so just kill the 2 big adds. We use pots during second Rook Desperate measures at that it the phase with the most garrotes out before you push He for the second time.

For reference we wiped on heroic protectors about 15 times on the first week before we swapped to Rook-->He-->Sun and then one shot it

[Zabuzan]

Thanks for the feedback, will bear it in mind. We chose to push Sun second so that the Calamity damage wasn't risky at all until later in the fight and with 2 BoPs and some other drops the Garrote wasn't a big deal either. However, I can see your point, it would allow me to save BoPs for a difference point in the fight by doing it.

Will see what we decide to do and amend as necessary, I'll have this matching whatever we decide to do for our first kill

Cheers,
Zab

- - - Updated - - -

Do you also send your melee out of the protective bubble during Sun's Desperate Measures, to nuke the big adds?

[Yohassakura]

We've 2 healed it from the first week, and we don't particularly "out-gear" it. No idea what ilevel you guys are, or your raid composition, so maybe we just have better CDs.

18th September

Tank (Blood DeathKnight) 545.73	
Healing (Restoration Druid) 547.19	
DPS (Beast Mastery Hunter) 555.00	
DPS (Arcane Mage) 549.44	
Tank (BrewMaster Monk) 547.00	
DPS (Shadow Priest) 551.00	
Healing (Discipline Priest) 554.00	
DPS (Assassination Rogue) 543.44	
DPS (Elemental Shaman) 540.33	
DPS (Destruction Warlock) 550.81

[Zabuzan]

Amended after the sound advice given by Kraineth!

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We've 2 healed it from the first week, and we don't particularly "out-gear" it. No idea what ilevel you guys are, or your raid composition, so maybe we just have better CDs.

Our Resto Druid is sub 530ilvl geared - our DPS is pretty high though (even without a Warlock or Shadow Priest on this fight!), so figured it's easier to play it safe and 3 heal with the enrage not being a risk providing no one dies.

[Kicksplasher]

I'd really reccomend phasing Sun and He at the same time for each desperate measures phases. It leaves no poison or garrotes ticking during the pulsing aoe damage. This also allows your meele DPS to do something other than DPS Rook (who will probably be the lowest HP due to his "First target" choice) and doesn't add any real complexity to the fight. As long as you have proper order/cooldowns for the mark of anguish the fight continues as normal


Also. This is a real boon sub 33% because you have all 3 bosses around 33% going into p3 instead of having either Sun or He sitting sub 33% (therefor stacking calamity, or dropping posion) For the longest time in the fight.


We were using the "one at a time" method for about 15 attempts, switched to the double DM phase and one shot it.

[Spiralphoenix]

Dps should not be touching the small adds since they disappear when the phase ends, so just kill the 2 big adds.

Icy veins claims the following:

Additionally, during Sun's Desperate Measures, small adds called Despair Spawns and Desperation Spawns will spawn from random raid members. These adds have no abilities, and any damage taken by these adds will be mirrored onto the two large adds (Embodied Despair and Embodied Desperation, which technically create the small adds).

And wowpedia's copy/paste of the dungeon journal seems to agree:

Manifest Emotions — Embodied Despair and Embodied Desperation focus their negative emotions, creating Sha manifestations which attack players. Any damage taken by Manifest Emotions will also be suffered by the creature that spawned them.

So, since potential AoE and cleave damage for most classes is typically far higher than potential single target damage, AoE/cleave should really be encouraged.

[Zabuzan]

I'd really reccomend phasing Sun and He at the same time for each desperate measures phases. It leaves no poison or garrotes ticking during the pulsing aoe damage. This also allows your meele DPS to do something other than DPS Rook (who will probably be the lowest HP due to his "First target" choice) and doesn't add any real complexity to the fight. As long as you have proper order/cooldowns for the mark of anguish the fight continues as normal

Whilst I can see the benefit there, we run with a single melee comp and the time in between Desperate Measures phases is pretty low anyway. When I said in the disclaimer at the start that there were other strategies, that is the main one I was referring to, but it's making either the Mark add take longer or the adds Sun spawns take longer and it's not worth the risk of someone getting gibbed by the mark if we run out of immunities.

@ Spiral Phoenix - good find, I knew there was a reason I asked our DK to sit on adds in the bubble other than just lower incoming damage on him! However, it didn't work massively well because most of the adds stayed on me so he'll just be cleaving at my big add from now on. Will get something included in the guide to highlight this mechanic as either way, it's going to make the phase shorter.

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I've added the Gabestah long, short, tank, healer and DPS video guides for further reference.

[Yohassakura]

I'd really recommend phasing Sun and He at the same time for each desperate measures phases.

Sounds like a terrible idea to me, having to dps both the mark and the other adds. You'd still need to focus on He first.

Your tank can just kite He around the edge of the circle, while everyone else stands in the middle - this means that nobody should be in poison, and there's general minimum damage going out.

[Zabuzan]

Sounds like a terrible idea to me, having to dps both the mark and the other adds. You'd still need to focus on He first.

Your tank can just kite He around the edge of the circle, while everyone else stands in the middle - this means that nobody should be in poison, and there's general minimum damage going out.

We have a tank on each of Sun's adds, the aoe damage outside of the bubble isn't that bad and there aren't any other high tank damage parts of the fight so you can just chain CDs through that phase, that way the poison will be miles away from the raid.

The Fatboss tactic for Sun's Desperate Measures is exactly as above; simple and it works!

[RickJamesLich]

Good guide, my guild 3 healed it just incase dispels messed up (although having one healer delay a second seems to work, or if the healers have the same mods add-ons, one can get the highest person and the other will always dispel the lowest). Beyond that, with the mark of anguish I would strongly recommend passing it as soon as your immunity is up, just because that whole time the add is stacking more and more damage and he can one shot you as soon as you are out if not careful. An immunity rotation is very helpful, although I would recommend mostly giving immunities to people that can dps first (or have a healer ice block with symbiosis) just because getting out of that phase fast is always important. Very handy guide tho.

[Zabuzan]

Very handy guide tho.

That's all I could hope for Thanks!

[Kraineth]

Do you also send your melee out of the protective bubble during Sun's Desperate Measures, to nuke the big adds?

Yes, thats why we push sun right after He, no garrotes, melee just pop personals and the phase ends quickly. Mainly use that strat since we run 3 melee in basically every fight on 10man.

Also, for sun's desperate measures, are the big adds really losing health when the small adds get killed? Thats something we must have overlooked.

[Spiralphoenix]

Yes, thats why we push sun right after He, no garrotes, melee just pop personals and the phase ends quickly. Mainly use that strat since we run 3 melee in basically every fight on 10man.

Also, for sun's desperate measures, are the big adds really losing health when the small adds get killed? Thats something we must have overlooked.

Icy veins lists the Embodied Despair and Embodied desperation adds as having 27M health each on 10H difficulty. Since you encounter them twice, you'd expect to see 54M damage done to each one individually. Picking a semi-random log of a 10H Protectors kill shows this for enemy damage taken:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/b...?s=5562&e=6160

Embodied Desperation 38 105 963
Embodied Despair 34 656 484

Quite short of 54M each. However, if you add in the damage done to desperation/despair spawns:

Despair Spawn 22 623 332
Desperation Spawn 17 700 565

38.1 + 34.6 + 22.6 + 17.7 = 113M .... divided by 4, 28.25M. Pretty close to 27M. It probably takes a moment for the spawns to despawn after the main adds are killed, allowing dots/aoes to tick and hit more and possibly allowing for that inflation.

Checked another log and saw pretty much the same results.

[Zabuzan]

Yeah, I just confirmed this with some logs I scouted from other guilds' Protectors kills! Certainly looks that way.

- - - Updated - - -

Added some reference links at the bottom.

Working on a Norushen and Immerseus guide at the moment, not that they are particularly complex!

- - - Updated - - -

2 shot this boss tonight using the tactic described in the guide

Preparation ftw!

[Zabuzan]

Added links to the Index thread as well, have also now added guides for Immerseus, Norushen, Sha of Pride and Galakras Heroic. Juggernaut and Kor'kron Dark Shaman to follow soon!

[Zabuzan]

This guide is now also up on my new site: www.vengeanceking.com

Please check it out - and if you notice any errors or have any further questions, please let me know.
http://vengeanceking.com/raid-encoun...en-protectors/

[alanium]

My RL/co-tank keeps saying every strat he reads say put mark of anguish on a tank like in normal. He insists we do it this way instead of dps using cds. I keep trying to convince him but no luck. Should I keep trying or is his way viable?

[Spiralphoenix]

My RL/co-tank keeps saying every strat he reads say put mark of anguish on a tank like in normal. He insists we do it this way instead of dps using cds. I keep trying to convince him but no luck. Should I keep trying or is his way viable?

Is the tank that gets the -80% armor debuff then dying due to unhealable damage?

We've done it a handful of times at the end of the mark of anguish phase due to running out of DPS cooldowns every once in a while, but never for the whole phase, but I could see it being possible.

If he's not dying/not taking outrageous damage, it's probably okay. And it would affect certain tanks, like Brewmasters, far less than say, the plate tanks. Brewmasters have fairly low armor to begin with, and make up for that through other means. It's been a long time since I've played with a tank druid, but I assume their armor is still high as well, so it's probably only Brewmaster's that don't take that huge a hit in survivability.

[Zabuzan]

It is possible to throw it to a tank if needed - but the -80% armor debuff lasts for 4 minutes afterwards; so it's just generating unnecessary additional healing requirement. We did it by accident this week when the player soaking Mark died suddenly and it defaulted onto our Warrior tank. He was taking fairly high damage from He for the rest of the fight.

I wouldn't advise throwing it to a tank on Heroic at all; if you must throw it to a tank, then Brewmasters (who are minimally affected by armor) and Paladins (who have high SotR uptime and self healing as base) are probably preferable and I would avoid having the Rook tank getting it as the Vengeful Strikes will probably destroy them with -80% armor during stun.

It's way easier to just throw it to someone with a big reduction CD, then a couple of people with immunities in the raid. We use Warrior or DK with externals and personals, followed by Hunter with Deterrencex2 followed by a Mage with Iceblock. We've also used Rdruid, Holy Paladin and Warlock for soaking on kills so far (possibly boomkin as well). The number of externals in the average raid should mean that pretty much any raid member can soak it with minimal risk if the throw timing is good.