Who are the PVE 10Boxers? - Call to arms :) - 3 Bosses Down

[Deekhay]

I think it's a good idea to find out who's ten boxing PVE content, who's going to or even just planning. The reason I post in this section of the forum is that we can make this thread the place to share our experiences and tactics.

One step forward the 10 boxers please :).

I intend to do my first 10m this weekend. My progress and my fail will be posted in this thread.

[Bunny]

Well
as stated in the other thread here I am. All my toons are on [EU] Thrall - horde.

Group 1 (lvl 80 and geared with heroic stuff):
Protection pala
resto sham
ele sham
Moonkin
Mage

Group 2 (lvl 79 and grinding lvl 80 instances (boooring)):
protection pala
resto druid
lock
shadow priest
ele sham

I'll be starting 10 man content this weekend or next week depending on work and other activities. I will start with the specs mentioned above altough that means i have 2 tanks, 2 healers, 6dps. When 3.1 hits I will respec the mage to frost and the priest to disc to act as a 3rd healer. All those plans may change when I have first experience in 10 man content. One of the paladins collects a healer set so I can switch specs for fights where only 1 tank is necessary.

Thats it for now - I am going to tell more when I actually started.

Bunny

[Coltimar]

I'm at least a week, prolly two, from starting 10 boxing level 70 content. I can 5 box kara with team 1, but I want to go through it with team 2.

Team 1
1 Prot Pally
1 Resto Shaman
1 Elemental Shaman
1 Elemental Shaman
1 Elemental Shaman

Team 2
1 Unholy DK
1 Shadow Priest
1 Balance Druid
1 Destro Lock
1 Frost Mage

[Bigfish]

My group consists of:

Prot Pally
Resto Druid
Shadow Priest
Fire Mage
Affliction Lock

Frost/Unholy DK
Resto Shaman
Fury Warrior
Beast Mastery Hunter
Combat Rogue

I've been trying archavon for about two weeks now, but he keeps stomping me. My best attempt got him down to 500k. I'm noticing a couple of things that I really need to fix, but I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with the random nature of the fight.

[Deekhay]

I've been trying archavon for about two weeks now, but he keeps stomping me. My best attempt got him down to 500k. I'm noticing a couple of things that I really need to fix, but I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with the random nature of the fight.Please share your thoughts, strats, what is killing you, etc... Btw you're at which server/continent?

Thank you all that answered the "call" so far ;)

[Bigfish]

Oh, right, Shadow Council NA.

Archavon has given me a whole slew of problems, among them:

Effectively managing 6 ranged classes who occasionally get jumped on, knocked back, or end up in clouds.

The tank switch. Not uncommon for Archavon to resist taunts by the off tank. I need to Glyph for that.

Characters that end up facing the wrong direction or out of range due to knockbacks.


My best attempt happened when the group was mostly spread out, so I'm thinking its largely a matter of finding the right positioning and managing the variation of whack-a-mole that involves moving individuals out of clouds.

[Greythan]

Only a lowly five boxer here, but I wonder if creative use of /follow might help with your facing problems? (Having multiple hotkeys to have DPS /follow a close toon to get him/her facing the right way again?)

[Deekhay]

Oh, right, Shadow Council NA.

Archavon has given me a whole slew of problems, among them:

Effectively managing 6 ranged classes who occasionally get jumped on, knocked back, or end up in clouds.

The tank switch. Not uncommon for Archavon to resist taunts by the off tank. I need to Glyph for that.

Characters that end up facing the wrong direction or out of range due to knockbacks.


My best attempt happened when the group was mostly spread out, so I'm thinking its largely a matter of finding the right positioning and managing the variation of whack-a-mole that involves moving individuals out of clouds.Both my tanks have the +% taunt glyph.
They're jumped on because taunt is resisted? Or is it random?
Can't the ones being aoe spotted be just healed instead moved out of the zone? So they can keep dpsing?
Nature resist totem helps?

Thanks!

[Bigfish]

Both my tanks have the +% taunt glyph.
They're jumped on because taunt is resisted? Or is it random?
Can't the ones being aoe spotted be just healed instead moved out of the zone? So they can keep dpsing?
Nature resist totem helps?

The jumps are random, just like his Spike Shots. It knocks back anyone near where he lands, and leaves the cloud. I'll try a Nature Resist my next attempt, but its still preferable to get out of zone since it also increases cast time by 100%.


Only a lowly five boxer here, but I wonder if creative use of /follow might help with your facing problems? (Having multiple hotkeys to have DPS /follow a close toon to get him/her facing the right way again?)

That has been one thing I've played with just to get them facing the right direction, but I also don't want them close together to avoid the spike shot, and there is also the issue of their follow-lead being behind them, which would turn them in the wrong direction, not to mention they aren't always in range of their target. Not that facing was an ovely large issue, just one of the ones I noticed.

[Deekhay]

I just tested Heroic training Dummy in Orgrimmar. The healers didn't dps oc.

I did a bit over 20k dps and almost 6million damage till near oom (no potions).

Of course it's not the same thing as a real boss fight but do you have any idea on your current dps Bigfish?

[Bigfish]

Off the top of my head, I want to say 15k on a Heroic training dummy, but those never seem that accurate in a real situation due to factors the training dummy has difficulty representings, such as life percentages, armor values, rage generation, etc.

On Archavon himself, it varies widely at the moment because, naturally, things are a bit chaotic.

[Bigfish]

Anyway, I'm going to make some more attempts either tonight or tomorow. I'm thinking I may have to just take the first 30 seconds and fan my ranged DPS out in a Hezagon/circle around the boss and memorize their location to reduce my reaction time. Also need to reglyph my tanks, and see about a bit of aggro-management on my lock.

[Deekhay]

And the Vault is down! I'm soooo happy ^^.

7 attempts mostly because I never did the fight even single boxing.

here ('http://www.armyofone.biz/wotlk/VOA_190209.jpg') and here ('http://www.armyofone.biz/wotlk/VOA_190209a.jpg')
Strategy:
My OT, the Paladin has no bindings on movement, it makes things much easier as he'll always follow no matter what happens.
His tanking macros are based on assist with the name of the MT.

All totems placed including Nature Resistance. Paladin Aura is devotion since damage done by the AOEs seemed(?) to be mitigated by armor too.
The whole group is packed because it makes much easier aggro gain after charges and grabs (tried to spread them and it's chaotic!).
Never moved for any reason, just spammed chain heal*5 and a random of priest aoe healing everytime the clouds or spikes were there.
Group stays at third step of the stairs, dk moves in with paladin following, pulls comes back tanks very close to the group. Got a key binded only to both tanks to gain aggro. Did lilke 30k before starting to dps.
It seemed (next time i'll FRAPs it promise :/) that there is aggro wipe after grabbing so I just redo the tank only aggro gain. Got two healers they both heal both tanks.
I also have one key binded to both tanks taunt and spam it during the grab. Sometimes did some "manual" tuning to OT positioning.

The down was far from perfect. Got one dead (damn Mages!) and several wild aggros.

It'll get better (I hope).

For the anecdote, I forgot to remove instance difficulty from Heroic and I was really worried. I downed the adds but damn they were hard to kill and really hurt!
When I saw a 9.900k Boss I told to my self smart person something was wrong...

[Bigfish]

Good job.

Edit: Interesting stuff. I might have to try out this clumped up method. Maybe I'll leave my priest out of Shadow Form and have him spam Prayer of Mending and Prayer of Healing. What were some of your initial attempts like?

[Souca]

And the Vault is down! I'm soooo happy ^^.

7 attempts mostly because I never did the fight even single boxing.Awesome!

I'm not where I want to be in comp yet, but 10 boxing has been the goal for a while. I'm planning to do a large chunk of RaF boosting in a couple weeks to get a nice selection of classes to work with as I play around with comps in the raids. I'm leaning toward tailoring the group to the encounter instead of trying to find a single comp I stick with for everything. That said, I might change this strat and just run 10 blood DKs. Either way, I think having a good selection of characters will give me the flexibility to try things, and thats the fun for me.

- Souca -

[Deekhay]

Good job.

Edit: Interesting stuff. I might have to try out this clumped up method. Maybe I'll leave my priest out of Shadow Form and have him spam Prayer of Mending and Prayer of Healing. What were some of your initial attempts like?The best try before the down was 23% and already using the clumped method. All tries spread out were simply awfull and messy.

[blast3r]

I plan on 10 boxing but not sure exactly what I want to do yet. Still need to level a lot of teams up. One team I know I want is 5 rogues and 5 druids for pvp fun. I have to figure which toons to move to new accounts and which to keep in place.

[Bigfish]

Well, Just killed Archavon. He dropped 2 Priest pants. The same pants. Only one priest. /sigh. Oh Well. Dropped Archavon.

HELL YEAH!

As it turns out, clumping does work best as long as you tank him close enough to the group that he doesn't jump. Turns out it functions like any other random charge: He doesn't do it if you are too close. So for future reference, stay close, keep your clump healed, and Archavon is cake.

[Souca]

Well, Just killed Archavon. He dropped 2 Priest pants. The same pants. Only one priest. /sigh. Oh Well. Dropped Archavon.

HELL YEAH!

As it turns out, clumping does work best as long as you tank him close enough to the group that he doesn't jump. Turns out it functions like any other random charge: He doesn't do it if you are too close. So for future reference, stay close, keep your clump healed, and Archavon is cake.Awesome!

The info about the jump is good to know as well. I assume if he never jumps, he never creates clouds? Then the only raid damage you need to handle is the spikes, right?

- Souca -

[Bunny]

Great news :)
Graz to you guys and thanks for all the valuable tips. Cannot wait to try it myself.
Keep them strats coming.
Bunny

[Deekhay]

5 Tries on Anub - Best at 37%.
Even if I dual tank I grab everything with my MT and it just goes smoothly. I spread raid in a semi circle in front of boss and tank everything in the middle.
It's the swarm that kills me due to silence. If I'm not mistaken the DK (nor the Pala) just can't use runes and therefore he has lousy avoidance stats. Aggro isn't a problem, I just die ^^.

5 Tries on Patchwerk - Best at 21%
Extremely easy fight. It just shows I'm not geared for it. I haven't updated my gems and DK is crittable (535 Def). I also do everything without food nor elixir buffs. Just isn't worth it while I learn the fights.
Started by keeping the two tanks alive (I only have two healers) and my best was at 47%.
Put Pala healing (humiliation lesson to a tank!) and just kept DK topped. It went pretty well. Raid is doing around 20k dps on this fight. The shaman are all above 3k (one at almost 4k) but Mage and Moonkin are around 2.5-2.7k.
Another issue I have is that both healers are recent lvl 80 as well as Mage and Moonkin. I have to do more heroics with them to get some gear but I'm pretty happy with the performance so far nevertheless.

As a note, trash is ridiculously easy so far.

[Los]

Watch out though, the thing from anub is also a dot, it tikes for dmg. Just let a (or both) healer(s) spam you with healing, should be fine

[Deekhay]

Watch out though, the thing from anub is also a dot, it tikes for dmg. Just let a (or both) healer(s) spam you with healing, should be fineThanks for the tip! Thing is, without aoe tanking I'm not able to take care of the swarm and the occasional corpse scarabs. I also think that an Crypt Guard pops at that time too.
Do you think it'll be better to kite him? Does kitting bring everyone along with tank?

I believe that he won't have time for the second swarm if I manage to survive the first.

Thanks!

[puppychow]

Many can be gimmicked - for example on Gothik you actually can keep everyone on one side (put everyone in the corner near Gothik, top left as you enter room) and everything runs to you from both live and dead. Of course you really need geared tanks, healers, and DPS to do this strat. for 10 man 4h you can make 2 "pits" of bosses instead of 4, one containing the melee bosses and one the caster bosses, and just swap sides that way (still a lot of coordination!).

For Sarth, you can ignore portals on left and top drakes (take more dmg or adds spawn), just the right side one requires you to enter (boss immune to dmg).

I imagine Ulduar however is going to grow the concept of splitting up raids into different tasks, since its a concept Blizzard likes and does make fights more interesting/challenging.

[Bigfish]

Question -

How are you 10 boxers going to handle encounters where the raid gets split? Such as the drakes in obsidian sanctum where 8/10 raid members have to enter the portal and DPS adds while the MT and MH keep the boss at bay?

Or the 2nd boss in the Naxx Military Wing where you need to split the raid in half (live and dead sides). etc?

I was semi-considering moving to a 10 box setup this year - but after reviewing a lot of the current raid encounters, I changed my mind. lol

My raid splits up pretty naturally on its own. Just a matter of swapping a few focuses.

[Zzc2]

5 Tries on Anub - Best at 37%.
Even if I dual tank I grab everything with my MT and it just goes smoothly. I spread raid in a semi circle in front of boss and tank everything in the middle.
It's the swarm that kills me due to silence. If I'm not mistaken the DK (nor the Pala) just can't use runes and therefore he has lousy avoidance stats. Aggro isn't a problem, I just die ^^.

5 Tries on Patchwerk - Best at 21%

For Anub, your dps has to stay at max range so they dont get the silence. I usually tank him at 3'oclock if his starting position is considered 12'oclock. Have the OT tank the add at 12'oclock and have all your dps assist the OT. when there is no add, just have the OT target the boss. Heal through locus and make sure your healers dont get silenced.

Patchwerk, your tanks need to be uncritabble without buffs / relics. tank and spank as normal.

also, you could try noth. he is semi easy if you got fast dps and can beat him before 2nd teleport.



How are you 10 boxers going to handle encounters where the raid gets
split? Such as the drakes in obsidian sanctum where 8/10 raid members
have to enter the portal and DPS adds while the MT and MH keep the boss
at bay?



Or the 2nd boss in the Naxx Military Wing where you need to split the raid in half (live and dead sides). etc? Obsidian sanct sucks for multiboxers. Its all about macros. Have the dps assist the ot, have the Ot enter first followed by healer + dps. dont clump up around portal entrance or you will get void circles their and is a pain.

as for Gothic, 8 boxing it is easy because i just have 3 dps on live side assisting that tank, while im more focused on dead side. 10 boxing would be harder because if you dont keep up dps on live, you will get over run, and if you dont keep up dps on dead, youll get over run.

[BobGnarly]

Anybody try Thaddius, or have any thoughts?

I can see maybe working out the first phase, and maybe even the jump, but the swithcing...hmmm.

[Souca]

Or the 2nd boss in the Naxx Military Wing where you need to split the raid in half (live and dead sides). etc?Actually, you don't have to split up. I believe you can all stay on live side and when the gate finally opens, all the undead waves come at once. I think you can also go dead side and teh gate will open so the live side mobs will trickle over to you. I know it has been done single sided, just don't remember which side they chose.

I think the trickier fight will be Four Horsemen, as you have to split up. In theory you could just take the front two bosses to the back, but the marks refresh at slightly different durations between front and back.

Thadius will be very hard if you want to take advantage of the polarity buffs, but he can be done by placing all the dps in a circle so none of them buff or debuff each other. Downside is lower dps and that you need to have mostly ranged. The first half of the fight will also require two groups as both adds much be killed and I believe they need to die very close to each other.

Grobulus will be annoying, but its doable. I think every other fight is pretty much feasible, but will require some initial positioning or creative following.

- Souca -

[Deekhay]

It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it ;)

Patchwerk ('http://www.armyofone.biz/wotlk/Patchwerk_022109.jpg') has been 10Boxed!

Got some nice tank shoulders ('http://www.armyofone.biz/wotlk/Patchwerk_022109_a.jpg') ^^

Strat:
Not a real Strat ^^ more of a tank and spank but will nevertheless share my experience. Tried to solo tank it, although I believe it's doable, it isn't with my current gear.
Put both tanks on it with one healer on each. OT died at 23%. Spammed heal till end of fight on MT. Only one dead, the OT.
Most important here is mana regen mainly for healers. The previous try I had him down to 6% so I decided to go for food and flask. Good decision :).

[Deekhay]

Noth ('http://www.armyofone.biz/wotlk/Noth_022109.jpg') has been 10Boxed!

Druid ('http://www.armyofone.biz/wotlk/Noth_022109_a.jpg') 's happy not me...

Strat:
I think I made the fight more complicated than it actually is...
I tanked him around 20y away from group. Group stood packed. Everytime the adds popped I just taunted them with MT, both PH1 and PH2 adds. Be sure to get PH2 adds to you asap, I didn't and they do bad things to your group. Fortunately having 5 shaman is a real luxury for Raid Healing. I got two teleports but I think I'll be able to do just in one. Adds aren't tough, Boss neither. 3 Dead. main healer died really early...

[Deekhay]

I need some help on Heigan please.

The fight is quite abstract to me. Read all you posted here, checked his abilities and I have the following problems:

I don't know when eruptions are coming, so not sure about when to move;
I can't have the raid close to tanks because of the debuff.

Can someone please post a more detailed idea on how to 10box this?

Thank you.

[Bunny]

gratz on the successes so far

I have started 10 boxing a few hours ago (my 2nd group hit 80 and i dropped a few thusand gold in epic craftables and started toying around).

I went to obsidian sanctum and learned some trash pulls - then i found out about the portals and decided to hit naxx instead and do some trash pulls. Main things i learned are: I it really crowded and i need to gear up especially my second group.

Anyways, i am going to try that wintergrasp guy as soon as the occasion arises.

This leads me to to a noob question about wintergasp: how do i get there when we control it? the dalaran portel seems to be there only occasionally. Is there any other way?

Bunny

[Los]

Fly :)

[Bunny]

Well - i can fly to wintergrasp but i cannot get into the keep where the entrance of the instance is. At least when I went there to have a look I found no way although we (horde) owned the keep. Any other tips?
Bunny

[puppychow]

you have to use the little teleporter pads outside the keep to "port in" if your faction is in control.

[Bunny]

Thanks for the tip - I will try and find one of those.

[Bigfish]

Now that I've got two raid bosses down, Tuesday becomes Lootsday.

[Hachoo]

Thanks for the tip - I will try and find one of those.What hes saying is, unless your faction controls wintegrasp you cannot run the wintergrasp raid.

[Deekhay]

Now that I've got two raid bosses down, Tuesday becomes Lootsday.Gratz Bigfish! Which one is the second one? Any strats to share?

I started this thread here ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=19552') . We need to fill it up ;).

[Bigfish]

Archavon and Noth are the two I have down. Likely capable of a number more, but I'm taking it slow for the moment so I can finish gearing up and build a sizable repair cushion, as I wipe a great deal while learning encounters. (cut me some slack, I have to actually LEARN all this stuff myself)

Oh, I'll hop in that other thread as well.

[TheBigBB]

I am ready for ten boxing raids but I am taking a break from the game for a few weeks.

[Bigfish]

Update: Currently have Archavon, Noth, Heigan, and Loatheb down.

[Deekhay]

Update: Currently have Archavon, Noth, Heigan, and Loatheb down.Awesome! Gratz! Can you please share Heigan and Loatheb starts on the other post? Thanks a lot!

[Bigfish]

Heigan is tricky. I had a disease cleansing totem dropped for one party, and the other I had my priest focusing on casting Renew, PW: Shield, Circle of Healing and Cure Disease for the 5 not covered by the totem. My druid kept hots up.

I kept everyone on the platform for phase one. My caster DPS took a hit, but it saved on the confusion of managing two independant groups, and my Melee DPS didn't notice at all. When Phase two starts, I would run my lead out to the first safe spot with everyone on follow, and used strafe keybinds to keep everyone moving. Took some getting used to, but not too bad once you get the movement down. If you can get everyone through Phase 1 and Phase 2, its just a wash, rinse, repeat. I even managed to get The Safety Dance.

Loatheb isn't nearly as tricky, although will still be bad if you don't do it right. I've found it best to run my tank away from the group and try to avoid getting him the spore "buff" until about a minute in to the fight, at which point I find it shouldn't really matter. I kept PW: Shield up on my tank at all times, and when there were 2 seconds left on Necrotic Aura, I'd cast Wildgrowth and start a Healing Touch on my druid, and start casting Prayer of healing on my priest, and follow with a Circle of Healing and a Holy Nova on my priest. This kept everyone topped off until near the end of the fight. Once Healing and Threat Building are figured out, its just a DPS race to kill him before damage becomes unmanagable.

[Bigfish]

Going to try Spider Wing tonight. Not sure how I'm going to handle any of these fights, but should be interesting.

[Ruodhaid]

i dont box, anymore but im sure you can handel sartharion easy, all you have to do is awoid walls on 9 of your toons it dosent matter if your tank eats the walls, iv 4 manned the instance, so if you bring your 10 toons im sure you can handel him

[Bigfish]

I tried Sartharian instead of spider wing last night. Got 2 drakes down, but the one that goes immune caused a few problem. I think it's doable, its just a matter of positioning and control.

[Ruodhaid]

ah ye i totaly forgot about shadron, he might make give you a ghard time since you must enter the portal there

[Bigfish]

Arachnid wing down. Will post strategies tomorrow.

[Bigfish]

I have to say, the difficulty of bosses in some of the wings seems kind of out of whack. Spider wing goes Hard, Easy, Easy, while the plague wing goes Easy, Hard, Easy. Seems kind of weird. Just an observation on my part though.

Anub'Rehkan

The two difficult aspects of this fight are the Crypt Guards and Locust Swarm. I set up my off-tank as the main assist. I positioned my group at the edge of the arena, and pulled the boss tot he green circle in the center, just in range of the casters. With the boss in position, I run my melee up, and we DPS the boss until a crypt guard spawns. The off tank picks it up and all DPS switches to it until it is dead. DPS switch back to the boss. At around 160k left on the boss, the melee pull back to where the casters are in preparation for the incoming locust swarm. When the swarm hits, I spam the Main Tank with heals, while the off tank picks up the simultaneously spawned crypt guard, and the DPS kill it. Locust Swarm has worn off by about the time the guard dies, at which point the fight becomes a rinse and repeat affair.

Grand Widow Faerlina

This fight is a fairly simple tank and spank. She does minimal damage out of enrage, and she and her 4 adds can all be tanked together. A poison cleansing totem helps. When I fought her, her adds died more or less at nice intervals from AOE damage, although the last two died at the same time and she got a few seconds of enrage off just before she died.

Maexna

Another simple fight. Poison cleansing totem on the tank saves a lot of trouble. When someone get's wrapped, I would use a line of "/petattack [target=web wrap]" and just enter-alt up-enter to get the pets to kill it. It wasn't perfect, but with only a little over 2-million HP, the fight doesn't last long regardless. Remember to AOE the spiderlings.

Update: Apparently Maexxna didn't like my strategy. Turns out , Army of the dead REALLY helps out with this encounter, as the zombies help keep your actualy raid members from getting glued to the wall. Also, Ret Aura and Thorns really help during this fight.

[Mercurio]

Thanks for all the strategies and stories of success. They motivated me to finally put my toons together into solo 10 man raids. Here are the results:

VoA - couple of wipes figuring things out, but finished it... twice. I have 20 level 80s and once I was successful with one group I figured I'd try the less geared one. They downed him as well. Too bad 2 rogue pieces dropped - DKs and rogues are the only classes not represented in my teams.

Patch (Naxx) - Downed him on the 4th attempt. Setting up all the healing macros and getting things set up took a while. In the last two attempts he killed both tanks at his <5% enrage, then started after my healers/DPSers. The first time he took them out, the 2nd time I took him out with four toons left standing.

Noth (Naxx) - 1st attempt got him to 28% so I figured it would be easy. Took 5 more attempts to actually get him down. Ended up switching out my OT and adding another DPS. Makes it busy as the MT maintainng agro on everything but overall it is less complex.

Heigan (Naxx) - Spent the day wiping on this guy. Strafing is definitely the way to go when dancing - follow has way too much lag to have a chance. My big problem wasn't the disease or dancing, it was trying to do the slow dance with my tank while staying between 25 feet and 35 feet (or so - whatever that narrow band is between "out of range to heal, so dead" and "too close, heals take 3X as long, so dead"). The transitions between fast and slow dancing are a bit tough as well, but the hard part is staying in the "healing band". Those of you who have done it, any tips for this? I'm playing with 2 priest healers, so they are keeping up renew and PW: Shield, but those alone don't do it.

Haven't tried anything else yet. Would like to get Heigan down so I can do the easier boss with better loot (Loetheb).

Again, thanks for the encouragement and stories of success. I'm pumped at getting VoA and two Naxx bosses down, even if I have spent over 1K on repairs :P

[puppychow]

for heigan have your casters stay on the platform and your melee slow dance at 30 yards during phase1. When he teleports you have about 5 seconds for your tank to head to the start of the room and your casters to do the same (you can follow and hope they make it in time, throw off some COHs, holy novas, etc to heal everyone up), get into strafe spot, and then start strafe dancing during the fast phase. rinse and repeat, shouldn't hopefully have to go through more than 2 or 3 dances.

[Mercurio]

for heigan have your casters stay on the platform and your melee slow dance at 30 yards during phase1. When he teleports you have about 5 seconds for your tank to head to the start of the room and your casters to do the same (you can follow and hope they make it in time, throw off some COHs, holy novas, etc to heal everyone up), get into strafe spot, and then start strafe dancing during the fast phase. rinse and repeat, shouldn't hopefully have to go through more than 2 or 3 dances.

Thanks for the reply puppychow. I understand the mechanics very well (after doing it like 12 times playing one toon in Naxx raids - never died in all those dance phases after the very first time). My problem is during phase 1 - keeping the tank in the "healing zone".
Too close = healer casting speed debuff = no heals = dead tank. Too far = heals don't land b/c tank is too far = dead tank. That's what causes me to fail. Is this not a problem for other people?

[puppychow]

his aura is 30 yards, so yeah you need to judge the distance pretty well since heal max is usually around 35-40 yards -- some of the healing spells with 30 yard ranges will be worthless during phase1. Usually you'll want your caster pit in the middle of the platform, and then your tank/melee about 15-20 yards away from the platform. I don't have any pics of his room but once you find that sweet spot its pretty easy to keep that distance always.

There IS another strat, especially if you have a druid healer. Remember, the debuff only causes 300% casting speed for mpm=instants. So you use only instant heals and tank and DPS him on the platform - the damage taken on the platform is minimal, especially if you have disease totem/cleansing. If most of your DPS is melee this is great, if most of your DPS is casters this won't work. You still need to dance in phase2 either way. Also remember in phase2 there is no aura debuff, so you don't have to maintain 30 yard distance from him - just remember his platform erupts as well so you can't stay on it.

[Mercurio]

I set up from the beginning to have only ranged DPS, so other than my hunter autoshots and a random dot from a druid, shammy, or lock, this would be a very slow process. With only priests to heal the best I can do is Renews, PW: Shields, and Prayers of Mending. Guess I could throw in a binding heal or 3 and even CoH or Holy Nova, but mana wouldn't last long.

Then again, I could add in two balance druid's HoTs and that would probably keep me up till the healers ran out of mana. It would give me lots and lots of time to practice dancing and the transitions and I suppose he'd eventually go down after 30 mins or so - depending on the healer's mana.

A halfway technique that would take the whole healing distance thing from wiping me would be to go ahead and dance in phase 1 as normal, make the druids solely HoT, use only instants on the priests, and attack with everyone else. If I got too close it would mean less DPS but staying alive. Well, off to try some of this stuff out...

[Poetry]

I tried Sartharian instead of spider wing last night. Got 2 drakes down, but the one that goes immune caused a few problem. I think it's doable, its just a matter of positioning and control.

We run this with 3 drivers so not quite your shoes, but I have one healer perma-spamming on the MT, and the other perma-spamming on the off tank. My MT healer is a paladin so I just have her keep beacon up on herself so if I miss moving out of a void zone while fiddling on the other side of the portal it's not fatal. Everyone else goes through the portal. All assists set to the OT. The add inside is pretty squishy and will go down fast. By putting the follow and assist on the OT you can more easily get everyone facing the right way on either side of the portal and hitting the right target. At least this system works well for our setup.

[Bigfish]

Instructor Razuvius down. Will post strat tomorrow.

[Bigfish]

Interesting obeservation on Razuvius: if you have a DK or warrior as a controller, you can't have a macro that uses /cast Blood Strike or /cast Taunt, as it tries to use the class ability instead of the pet one. Also, apparently the controller can still take action while controling (I think), so I may have to look in to putting in some ranged classes as controllers to see about upping my DPS.


Instructor Razuvius

For this fight, I had to write some specific /castsequences for my controllers.



Paladin MT macro

/target i
/castsequence reset=combat Bone Barrier,taunt,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/cast Blood Strike

DK OT macro

/target i
/castsequence reset=combat ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,bone barrier,taunt,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/click PetActionBar4

Fight starts with the MT taking control of an understudy. Takes position in green circle. OT taunts the other understudy, because the orb tries to take control of the nearest one, which is a REALLY stupid mechanic. Once the two understudies are under control, they begin their taunt dance, refreshing the control orb every 2 taunts. At this point, its just a matter of DPSing down the boss and hoping nothing goes wrong, spot healing as necesary.

[Bigfish]

Many can be gimmicked - for example on Gothik you actually can keep everyone on one side (put everyone in the corner near Gothik, top left as you enter room) and everything runs to you from both live and dead. Of course you really need geared tanks, healers, and DPS to do this strat. for 10 man 4h you can make 2 "pits" of bosses instead of 4, one containing the melee bosses and one the caster bosses, and just swap sides that way (still a lot of coordination!).

I tried this last night. Killed several waves on live side, and mobs just piled up on dead. Next thing I knew, gate opens and I had 20 angry ghosts Arcane Explosioning my Raid.

[Tight]

Ok, i took the plunge yesterday to 10 boxing.
But im currently RAFing so it will take some time i guess before i make my first raid.
Anyway, I dont have much ells to do when the wife is working then to play wow waiting for summer to come so i can spend some time on the beach. :D

[Bigfish]

Anyone got Grobbulus down yet? How about 4 Horsemen?

Been a busy week, so I haven't had much time for progression. Mostly been farming. I am moderately annoyed at the loot tables so far, since I seem to be getting at least 1 repeated item per boss, if not 2. Staves off Loatheb I don't mind so much. Repeat drops of Holy Pally Plate kind of make me cry. Gothik and 4 Horsemen are next on my list. Gotta run some daililes for cash first though

[Bigfish]

Actually, come to think of it, I might take a break for a while. Not that any of this stuff is impossible, just that its overly frustrating and I'm only getting slight marginal improvements in gear. I'm just not a push-content-for-the-sake-of-pushing-content sort of guy.

[Mercurio]

Yeah, Bigfish, I know what you mean. I went and downed VoA twice this week on my two 10-man teams and got four PvP drops :\. (One wipe on one group.)

Went into Naxx and got Patch down on the third try (but between soulstones and shammy reincarnates not painful at all), downed Noth on the first try, then tried Heigan again. After dying twice I decided not to spend five hours on him like last weekend and left, happy with two bosses down in a couple hours.

Seems like once you get the fights down they are easy to farm, but I wiped seven times or so figuring things out last week the first times I did Patch and Noth. I'll keep farming those every week since they are pretty quick now, but I just didn't feel like blowing half a day figuring Heigan out. It'll come - there is no rush and there are plenty other things to do in-game. (Like doing a few more dailies and buying three more epic flyers to add to my current 17).

[XeR0X]

I just took the plunge in to 10 boxing after 5 boxing for the past year and a half, Just downed VoA and gonna move on to naxx soon! I got my original 5 man team which are pretty much got heroic and t7 stuff and my brand new all in blue shammys and dk

Prot pally, afflication warlock, fire mage, shadow priest, holy priest, elemental shammy x3, resto shammy, frost dk (on Arthas - PvP - Us)

[puppychow]

Has anyone downed the new boss in VOA as a solo multiboxer (ie you are the only person controlling all 10 chars)? Just curious, even after the nerf this week it seems pretty hard to multibox.

[Deekhay]

Has anyone downed the new boss in VOA as a solo multiboxer (ie you are the only person controlling all 10 chars)? Just curious, even after the nerf this week it seems pretty hard to multibox.I only 7 boxed it before nerf. As I posted in another thread, the key is positioning. I place them in a way that it becomes a totally static fight.
I'm sure I could at least 9 box it without many problems. 10 box it would, in my opinion require a tank with gear I don't have (so he could take both adds and boss).
The boss isn't the problem, since with a DK it can just mitigate almost all damage (magic), nor the adds by themselves, the problem is more the 5 sources of damage during the enrage.

The nerf on the hp was huge (220k to 140k). While 7 boxing it (6 dpsers 1 Healer) I was able pre nerf to down the add at around 7th mark. Now, I believe it's no longer a challenge. So, it also means that the tank tanking the adds will suffer less damage which might then make it possible to 10 box it. I don't think I'll try because it wouldn't be fair to my friends playing with me. Pugging it can still suck...

I don't know if they nerfed the damage they do but in reality reducing the hp in this precise case = reduce overall damage for the fight.

[puppychow]

they definitely nerfed the chain lightning damage too, before it would kill anyone it jumped more than 1 jump to (25k+ dmg) now it seems to do a flat 10k dmg no matter how many jumps it takes. it was funny in 25 last night it jumped to around 12 people, would have been a wipe but everyone lived haha

[Deekhay]

they definitely nerfed the chain lightning damage too, before it would kill anyone it jumped more than 1 jump to (25k+ dmg) now it seems to do a flat 10k dmg no matter how many jumps it takes. it was funny in 25 last night it jumped to around 12 people, would have been a wipe but everyone lived hahaGood to know but with this method it's 100% guaranteed 0 CL damage throughout the whole fight. Any idea about the damage on basic attacks they make? If it has been nerfed too?

[Mercurio]

I soloed Emalon last weekend. I made a couple posts about it in my Naxx thread that Aelly put on the main page. Check it out if you want.

Good luck!