First night working on Nefarian 10 man normal - Oh god!

[shaft4783]

My guild started raiding late in Cata, just downed Nef for the first time last night. We spent 3 nights on him and it was easily the most frustrating fight of the 12 regular mode bosses. We had -

1 x Blood DK, 1 Prot Warr
1 x arcane mage, 1 x fire mage, 1 x destro lock, 1 x rogue, 1 x ret pally
1 x holy pal, 1 x resto sham,1 x resto druid

P1 we had the ret pally gather up the adds, 1 mage slowed them with cone, when they got into position frost nova, then RoF. Once the RoF was about to wear off drop another RoF from second mage. By the time the first RoF is wearing down the adds are dropping and they are dead when the 2nd RoF is gone. By this time Onyxia is at 33% or so, we switched and focused on Nef, leaving the rogue and tank on Onyxia

P2 pretty standard

P3 we had the prot warrior gather the adds, he'd move them when Nef had 2 seconds to cast his shadow attack, cant think of the name, and the adds would be pulled from the shadow attack. This phase was by far the hardest for us.

You need good coordination with your Nef tank and your add kiter. If anyone can help calling things out do it, as well as anyone helping snare the adds in anyway if the kiter needs it. good luck

Also, for P3, the adds have to die. If they keep getting hit by the flames you will fail. On our kill they died twice. For so long we couldn't get them to die at all, then they died once, then again. Once they died a second time I knew we had it, I popper time warp and we burned Nef down.

[Cowbino]

So, you doing are doing something wrong. We already did 10m normal mode with an enh shaman tanking adds on phase 1 and a mage casting ring of frost on him when the 5 adds are stacked.

Have your frost DK with blood presence take the adds, take them to the side of nefarian (where all other who are DPSing Nef should be) and let them die there. Mage can cast Ring of Frost on adds and, I don't think they are immune to stun, your locks can time some Shadowfury as well. Put on healer on each tank. They will have some work to do on the beggining but after adds are down it is easier until phase 2.

For phase 3 we have found that tanking Nef in the middle is much better. Add tank on p3 just kite in a big circle, Nef tank rotates him accordingly and raid moves with Nef always at his side. I would sugesst keeping your resto druid on the add tank on p3. He has a easier time healing while moving with the tank and he can still heal the raid casting Wild Growth on on of the DPS.

[Deleted]

Hay for p1 im guessing your only issue is the adds? if so your best bet is deff to have your DK (as frost) pick up all the adds and kite them around the "back" of the room for my raid we tank Nef next to the west piller faceing south and ony alternateing from faceing east and faceing south. that gives your DK alot of space to kite

IF your dps is high enough you could have your mage /hunter break away from the boss to throw out RoF or icepatch trap to help your kiter just rember you should be able to get 2 crackles from nef before killing ony. once youve got the kiteing down p1 is a really easy part =D

[Goyf]

I just wanted to agree with the couple of posts that suggested using a Hunter's turtle pet to do it. We have our Survival Hunter do it (No Beast Master necessary). We put one tank on each tank and another healer on the turtle. Have the hunter use all of the turtle's defensive CDs and it should be really easy. Just make sure the hunter has Misdirection glyphed so that he can use it as much as he wants on his pet.

[Firehorse]

Hi all,

My guild killed al'akir last week for the first time and we wanted to kill nef before the firelands patch so we started work last night on him on 10 man normal.

Now we didnt have our ideal team, eg one of our 2 main progress tanks wasnt there so we had one of our healers go on tank alt and i switched to my healing offspec on shammy.

So our raid config for last night was

1 Pally tank, 1 dk tank
2 destruction locks, 1 arcane mage, 1 hunter and 1 dk dps (frost but also has blood offspec)

We started out with dk trying to tank adds in first phase but he was dieing too fast so we got him to go tank spec but this didnt help a lot either... we spent the entire night trying to figure out phase 1 with little success.

Only the final 2 trys of the night where i had my pally tank pick up adds instead (he is one of my normal main tanks btw) and had the 2 dks tanking drakes that we managed to get to the first electrocute but we ended up wiping there.

Can anyone offer some advice on the simpleist way to handle phase 1


Thanks in advance for the helpful posts and /ignore to the elitist morons who will no doubt be flaming us for being noobs

regards

Gren

Couple of things you could try?

Can't tank the adds, have to kite them around.

Is your Ony tank moving her when she does her little electrical move, I have seen groups just eat it but i find it easer to turn her sideways and let the raid eat a tail swipe then soak up that dmg(turn her when she starts to glow, then move her back after she does her spell).

Other than that phase 1 is all about add control/healers/and controlled dps. Your dps have to be on there A game and not push crackels before the raid is ready. If your kiter/tank is lower than 80% health and a crackel pushes you can all but say its a wipe so thats really all you need to really make sure of in phase 1 other than add placement. Also from a healing stand point phase 1 is where you are gonna wanna burn as many of your regen cds(trinket/mana tide/whatever) with your goal to go into phase 2 as close to 100% mana as you can.

Second i would change up your group comp if ya can. The healer combo you have is pretty good, but the tanks take such massive dmg in phase1 that you would be much better served with a pally/disc priest in the mix with your sham/druid. I am not saying you can't do it with your healer set up, just the dmg in phase 1 is really spikey and would really help ya to have a pally sitting on the tank or a disc helping mitigate the dmg spikes. The way my guild does it is A) Pally Heal on Ony tank, A) resto shaman on nef tank/helping out druid during crackels, C) resto druid on kiter, and the druid and my self(resto shaman) just take care of the raid as needed.

Would also change up your dps group a bit. You have two replens going on despite having two intervates and a mana tide in your raid, i would deff get rid of one of the locks and replace him with either a dps shaman(preferable ele for natures grasp) for the extra interupt on a platform with your blood dk(the 1st interupt in phase 2 can come pretty quickly and melee interupts can be really hard to get off while trying to swim up to the platforms. A warrior wouldn't be bad either as rallying cry/sprit link totem can save a raid from a screwed up crackel .

Hope this helps.

[Ciddy]

My 10m group just got our first Nef kill last night. We did it with a prot warrior tanking Ony, DK tanking Nef, and me (fury warrior) running around gathering up adds in P1 (our prot warrior took that job over once we were in P3). Once I had them all gathered up I'd just pop all my defensive cooldowns, shield wall, etc and stand in the middle with them til they fell over, then I'd get back on DPSing Nef. We had a mage in group helping CC them as much as possible with frost nova, etc. Best advice I can give from what I've seen on this fight...

1. Be very coordinated and vocal on vent, especially about crackles. We usually had someone calling out percentages on Nef when he was within like 3-4% of a crackle to make sure healers were ready for it.

2. Crackle is a really good time for short defensive cooldowns if you have them. Not just tanks, but everyone in the raid. Do everything you can to help your healers on crackles by taking less damage or using any self heals you may have to help heal yourself back up afterwards.

3. Do not miss interrupts on the pillar phase. Make sure each pillar has a designated interrupt and healer and burn them down as quickly as possible. There is a lot of damage going out in this phase and missing interrupts on the blast nova will usually result in a wipe. Also make sure everyone knows how to jump out of the lava properly (we had a few issues with that).

It's very important on this that you time crackles properly and make sure everyone has enough health to survive them.

If you can get through the pillar phase and back on Nef afterwards without any deaths you are in really good shape. After that it's back to same mechanics as P1 except Ony is gone and now you have to watch out for fire on the ground. Most of the trouble my group had was dealing with the pillar phase (someone would die getting up on the pillar, someone would miss an interrupt, etc). Once we got that worked out we had the fight down.

[grenraven]

Hiya Guys

Thanks for all the tips, we worked on it last night and are now pretty much have phase 1 sussed out, we were however dieing very fast indeed at the beginning of phase 2 but to be honest i think thats because we werent all topped up before we went into phase 2.

Alternatively it might be we werent getting the first interupt as we literally were just dieing while getting onto platforms.

I thought at the time it was the damage from the lava but i find that hard to believe tbh

Anyway if anyone has an idiots guide for dealing with phase transition for our next raid which will be tomorrow that would be massively appreciated.

Btw we had a slightly different raid composition this time, we were 2 pally tanks, 1 feral dps (in bear for the adds) 1 arc mage, 2 destro locks, 1 hunter and healing was 1 pally, 1 druid and 1 shammy

hopefully we will have a similar composition tomorrow night if all turn up

Thanks

[Irisel]

Nef is all on the healers. Way to make a fight hard blizzard, just tax the healers and give the dps one thing to interrupt. WOOT! epic design.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

not very much info provided but I guess you are all familiar with basic strategy right?

http://www.wowhead.com/npc=41376#article
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTlEAnZBF_k

few tips for your hunter

- Ice Trap to help your kiter
- Aspect of the Wild for Electrocute
- glyphed Raptor Strike for Electrocute

Tankspot are terrible guides, try searching through Learntoraid.com or youtube.com/learntoraid
Best guides out there from the 6th best guild in the world, best guild US.

[Bokoshoko]

Hiya Guys

Thanks for all the tips, we worked on it last night and are now pretty much have phase 1 sussed out, we were however dieing very fast indeed at the beginning of phase 2 but to be honest i think thats because we werent all topped up before we went into phase 2.

Alternatively it might be we werent getting the first interupt as we literally were just dieing while getting onto platforms.

I thought at the time it was the damage from the lava but i find that hard to believe tbh

Anyway if anyone has an idiots guide for dealing with phase transition for our next raid which will be tomorrow that would be massively appreciated.

Btw we had a slightly different raid composition this time, we were 2 pally tanks, 1 feral dps (in bear for the adds) 1 arc mage, 2 destro locks, 1 hunter and healing was 1 pally, 1 druid and 1 shammy

hopefully we will have a similar composition tomorrow night if all turn up

Thanks

From an resto druid perspective this is how we handle the phase transition:

Firstly this is based on 2/1/6 crackles (2 in phase 1, 1 in phase 2 and 6 in phase 3)

Our combo is H Priest, Shammy, Druid - shammy on Nef tank, druid on Ony tank, priest on raid.

After Onyxia dies immediately get the druid to drop a tranquility before people have run to the pillars this should lift everyone up to maximum or near maximum health.

Make sure people are jumping on the pillars quickly but also that the first people up are very quick on the interrupts - if you get this right you should be getting into Phase 2 with the majority of the raid at sensible health levels. If you're opting to taking a crackle in Phase 2 get people to use defensive CDs and hope someone doesn't get hit by a shadow bolt immediately prior to crackle.

If you really want to understand why Ph1 -> Ph2 transition is killing people consider either logging and then uploading to WorldOfLogs so we can take a look or installing something like Deathnote so you can see whether the Chromatic Abberations are being interupted or if people are spending too much time doggy paddling in the lava.

[Christan]

eg one of our 2 main progress tanks wasnt there so we had one of our healers go on tank alt and i switched to my healing offspec on shammy.

that is the main part of where you went wrong, people generally do not play their alts / offspecs as well as their mainspecs / mains.

2. TB resist trinket for any class that does not have an aoe reduction ability on less than a 1 minute cd (rogues have feint --- etc) this will turn the massive 100k hit to each player, down to 50k, very manageable (also locks using VW's to tank adds in P1 can just sacrifice for a bubble, then summon felguards when their platform add dies during P2, since P3 is the burn phase)

3. dk tanking as frost OS, is he using the aoe stun, and is he spec'd into the slow for things with frost fever? also the mage, did he use ring of frost when adds dropped to 50 or less energy? adds will have higher stacks, so will hurt more, ring of frost is a must, as well as the dk not getting hit.

aside from that you can do what my guild has been doing(no true kiter-frost dk),

stick one dps on ony, everyone gets / kites their own add(making sure it dies in a pile for nef to breath on, so they all come up for the kiter tank to pick up in P3)
exclusion of 1 dps staying on ony, for your setup i'd say mage so they can still ring of frost when needed.
have both destro use void walkers to tank, each VW can pick up say... 2 adds if glyphed for health funnel, 1 add if not.

make sure all the adds die in a relative pile(very important for P3)

then stick 1 tank on each platform + dps dk on third, solid interrupts for each.

now...dps isn't their complete goal, INTERRUPTS are. if the dk's don't have enough RP for mind freeze.... it is a wipe... but back to P1 for a second.

adds go down in a pile... everyone heads to the opposite side of nef - from ony(out of ony's tail lash range if ony tank pulled her as far to the edge as possible before turning her side to the center)

everyone on nef, first crackle, Mdps on south platform goes to ony, second crackle everyone switches...well it's how we do it... depending on dps maybe only 2-3 ppl will need to switch.

i would suggest hunter / mage switch first, and after adds are down, maybe leave the dps dk by nef so he can scoot to his platform for interrupts...


but yeah w/e nef is about controlling the fight, after you get P1 down well, P2 is all about interrupts, and not pushing nef to 70% unless everyone is topped off...
P3 is all about kiting the adds (mind you we've found slowing the adds in P3 to be BAD, as when flames come faster they might get hit and regain energy... i'd suggest pala, he can holy wrath at the appropriate time. a 3 second stun on fire that has a 5 second cd isn't bad at all. but slows hurt...
P3 kite adds, run like hell when you get to the front of nef, so adds don't get breathed on... also make sure nef is facing the add pile so the adds aren't coming up 1 by 1 (first breath will bring em all up to be kited / fall down all at once in a nice lil pile, because when you are constantly moving, if you have to backtrack to get in range for a taunt on 1-3 adds that fell off from the others, and well sigh... it is just about control really, don't let adds gain energy...

if you haven't downed it on mains, as mainspec's i would really not suggest bringing alts / offspecs into the fight.

[Lobstarrr]

Not to sound like an asshole, but all your questions could have been solved by 5 minutes of youtube or 15 minutes of google.

[Ninetyseven]

Have your frost DK be specced into 50% slow speed with howling blast. all he then needs to do is spam that whilst being in blood presence. have him popping hungering cold to freeze them for 10 secs with mage ring of frost right after. this will kill 3-4 of the 5 adds during that and the last add could just be spammed with chains of ice. w0t my guild does is having 1 crackle at p1 and 1 crackle at p2 and then the last 7 crackles in p3 (we have OT kiting adds along the edge) nefarian is tanked in middles facing sideways of the OT so adds enver get breath and fire despawns faster than ot move.

to me it just seems your healers is lacking a bit if the kiter dies that quick.

[grenraven]

WRONG! as most videos are done by top world guilds and tbh i want advice from similar guilds in similar situations to us, but dont worry theres always gonna be a few people who are just gonna make negative comments

Not to sound like an asshole, but all your questions could have been solved by 5 minutes of youtube or 15 minutes of google.

---------- Post added 2011-06-20 at 02:31 PM ----------

Unfortunately its not advice on phase 1 we are after anymore mate but thanks anyway

Have your frost DK be specced into 50% slow speed with howling blast. all he then needs to do is spam that whilst being in blood presence. have him popping hungering cold to freeze them for 10 secs with mage ring of frost right after. this will kill 3-4 of the 5 adds during that and the last add could just be spammed with chains of ice. w0t my guild does is having 1 crackle at p1 and 1 crackle at p2 and then the last 7 crackles in p3 (we have OT kiting adds along the edge) nefarian is tanked in middles facing sideways of the OT so adds enver get breath and fire despawns faster than ot move.

to me it just seems your healers is lacking a bit if the kiter dies that quick.

[Rudolpho]

I honestly don't see how anyone can suggest tanking the adds in phase 1 unless you have ludicrously good gear and are willing to have the add tank blow every cooldown he has. They start to hit HARD and FAST in a hurry as they wail on you.

Yeah, um I definitely tanked the adds on my warrior in arms gear using a sword and shield with an average ilevel of 352. We didn't down nef that night (was a pug \ alt run), but we our issue wasn't in the first phase. The OT just has some issues in last phase kiting adds (wiped at 6% once). If you have a decent healer and you know how to pick up all the adds and get a bit of range on them for a few seconds, its not a big deal to tank them. Just want to time your cooldowns so you have your biggest cooldown going right before they start dying (aka, when they are doing the most damage). I would always shield wall when the last one I picked up was at 50% energy, because that put the first one around 20%.

Edit:

Another option is to get your mage to go frost and kite the adds or help the DK kite the adds (can probably do it decently as arcane tbh, but frost has a lot more options). Our first nef kill we used a combo of frost mage + fury warrior to take care of them, and if you notice he took very little damage since the adds only hit him a few times each.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1-Yt...layer_embedded

(this is an unedited video with vent, so the sound is probably NWS)

Also, I see you are asking for help for transition to phase 2 now. Just make sure you get the raid topped up after you get your crackles from nef, and don't let anyone take ony lightning (your tank should be taking care of that). If all are topped when ony dies, you should be fine until you make it onto the pillar. Your healers should be using any instant cast heals they can as they go up, and then start spamming heals as soon as they get on the pillar.

Everyone else should work on getting to their pillar and practice jumping out of the lava asap to get the adds. This was a requirement back when we originally did nef, but with the way they changed him it can actually make it harder for healers. His adds used to start casting a blast nova right before the lava reached the top of the pillar, so if you didn't time your jump right, and immediately interrupt it, the raid was wiped out. It delays casting it for like 4 or 5 seconds now.

But anyway, the pillars are easy once people learn how to get out of the lava quickly, and if they are topped.

If you have a lock then lock stones are great for this phase, and even health potions. This fight is not a dps race in normal. Your dps don't HAVE to save their dps potion for your lust phase. If a health potion in P2 is more beneficial they should do that instead. If you don't have a lock and are still having trouble with this phase, try to see if anyone has an alt lvl 85 lock. You can actually have them log on their lock, zone in and summon a soulwell, then switch back to their main and everyone can still use the stones. They can even get one as well (the soulwell does not go away).

[grenraven]

Thanks mate, just watched your video btw, hope we can down him sometime soon, its ever taken us this long to learn a fight but this one we are finding hard work lol

Yeah, um I definitely tanked the adds on my warrior in arms gear using a sword and shield with an average ilevel of 352. We didn't down nef that night (was a pug \ alt run), but we our issue wasn't in the first phase. The OT just has some issues in last phase kiting adds (wiped at 6% once). If you have a decent healer and you know how to pick up all the adds and get a bit of range on them for a few seconds, its not a big deal to tank them. Just want to time your cooldowns so you have your biggest cooldown going right before they start dying (aka, when they are doing the most damage). I would always shield wall when the last one I picked up was at 50% energy, because that put the first one around 20%.

Edit:

Another option is to get your mage to go frost and kite the adds or help the DK kite the adds (can probably do it decently as arcane tbh, but frost has a lot more options). Our first nef kill we used a combo of frost mage + fury warrior to take care of them, and if you notice he took very little damage since the adds only hit him a few times each.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1-Yt...layer_embedded

(this is an unedited video with vent, so the sound is probably NWS)

Also, I see you are asking for help for transition to phase 2 now. Just make sure you get the raid topped up after you get your crackles from nef, and don't let anyone take ony lightning (your tank should be taking care of that). If all are topped when ony dies, you should be fine until you make it onto the pillar. Your healers should be using any instant cast heals they can as they go up, and then start spamming heals as soon as they get on the pillar.

Everyone else should work on getting to their pillar and practice jumping out of the lava asap to get the adds. This was a requirement back when we originally did nef, but with the way they changed him it can actually make it harder for healers. His adds used to start casting a blast nova right before the lava reached the top of the pillar, so if you didn't time your jump right, and immediately interrupt it, the raid was wiped out. It delays casting it for like 4 or 5 seconds now.

But anyway, the pillars are easy once people learn how to get out of the lava quickly, and if they are topped.

If you have a lock then lock stones are great for this phase, and even health potions. This fight is not a dps race in normal. Your dps don't HAVE to save their dps potion for your lust phase. If a health potion in P2 is more beneficial they should do that instead. If you don't have a lock and are still having trouble with this phase, try to see if anyone has an alt lvl 85 lock. You can actually have them log on their lock, zone in and summon a soulwell, then switch back to their main and everyone can still use the stones. They can even get one as well (the soulwell does not go away).

[Rudolpho]

Thanks mate, just watched your video btw, hope we can down him sometime soon, its ever taken us this long to learn a fight but this one we are finding hard work lol

Don't lose hope. Took us 230ish attempts to down heroic nefarian...so just remember that next time you feel like you are putting your face in a grinder on a fight. Unless it takes over 100 attempts, its not so bad.

[grenraven]

Ouch, 230 wipes... i think i will just5 keep quiet now lol

Don't lose hope. Took us 230ish attempts to down heroic nefarian...so just remember that next time you feel like you are putting your face in a grinder on a fight. Unless it takes over 100 attempts, its not so bad.

[Merrosextius]

Before my guild switched to 25man content we had our hunter pick up a turtle pet and tank the adds in p1 10man, when the adds get high stacks have the turtle pop shield wall. This ensures they all die in the same place, as well as doesn't create too much of a dps loss.

As soon as the adds die, our hunter will switch to ferocity pet.

The only downside to this is the extra strain on our healers, however if you have a setup with a skilled hunter the method works fine. (about 8-9 kills using this)