[WoW] Steamvault (normal)

Group setup: Paladin, Priest, Mage, Warlock, Hunter
Software box on 1 machine with AHK.

Trash:
Bog Lords hit like a truck, heal early and often and dps like crazy without pulling aggro.

The sirens cast a short duration fear that can be dispelled so be careful near other mobs. The oracles heal and cast an AoE silence that last for a long long long time. The oracles are arguably more dangerous than the sirens. I found the best technique for my group setup to deal with the 4-packs (2x siren, oracle, warrior) is to pull the pack well away from other mobs and CC the oracle. Nuke down the sirens asap, dispel the fears or just ride them out. Just watch the aggro as you will need a lot of healing tanking 2x sirens and a warrior. If you are really unlucky you will get feared into your group followed by another siren fear on the group. Rarely happens though, what happens more frequently is you get feared out of range of your dispeller. I will probably set up my hunter to distracting shot / trap on the warrior at the start just to reduce the incoming damage on the tank and ensure the healer don't pull aggro.

Hydromancer Thespia

Your first concern is dealing with the water elementals. Tactics below suggest misdirecting Thespia out of the way and taking care of the elementals or just nuking the elementals down. I have a warlock in my group so I prefer banishing one elemental, nuking the other, dpsing Thespia till the banish drops and then finishing off the second elemental. The water elementals will random "spit" at party members so pay attention to healing.

Your second concern is the lightning cloud. If your tank is your main then avoiding the cloud on your main should be pretty easy. The problem is the lightning cloud on the group. Suvega pointed out the little nook you can squeeze into to avoid the lightning cloud altogether and it works! Whether or not this is an exploit or an intentional game mechanic is debatable. It probably leans to the former and the latter is more wishful thinking so use this at your own risk.

Most tactics deal with strafing left and right out of the lightning cloud. Your group can be bunched up or split whichever way is easiest for you to deal with. You need to respond very quickly to the cloud as 2 or 3 ticks will usually kill low hp clothies.

Thespia will also "cyclone" a random player now and then and this could be your tank as well but you don't lose aggro. It can and should be dispelled as quickly as possible so the character cannot get trapped in a lightning cloud. Thespia will also place a DoT on a random player every now and then that should also be dispelled. It doesn't do too much damage though and a Renew or other HoT can probably take care of it if not dispelled.

Mekgineer Steamrigger

Easiest boss in the instance. If you use AHK you can use the macro suggested by Nixi to auto target something other than what the tank is targeting (also useful for other encounters that periodically spawn mobs that must be nuked down).

If you are using a pally tank then consecration interrupts the healing of the gnomes and trivializes the encounter to a certain extent. My pally is heavy defensively geared and has a small mana pool and pitiful mana regen so downranking consecration might be a good idea as the fight goes on for a while. The boss also does not hit hard and the pally doesn't get much mana from being healed. Putting Blessing of Wisdom on the tank also helps with mana regen.

He does do an AoE attack that seems to hit the entire group and does sizeable damage. My healing during this fight was predominantly a group heal. Very very occasionaly I would give the tank a little top up.


Warlord Kalithresh

The fight is all about dealing with the distillers. Kalithresh does not hit hard until he enrages at which point he hits like a truck. Don't let him enrage. His attacks are also all physical so use Amplify Magic on the casters and Wizard Oil if you've got it. It is all about the dps on the distillers.

I am using AHK so I used the same macro I used for the Steamrigger fight to make my group automatically attack the distiller as soon as it becomes targetable. With my undergeared team I allowed for 4 distillers. I planned the order in which I would engage the distillers beforehand and positioned the group facing the 1st one.

The pally pulls Kalithresh so he is positioned right next to the 1st distiller and I just DoT him up and use quick cast spells while waiting for the 1st distiller to activate. Soon as it happens I unleash hell and get the distiller down asap.

Soon as the distiller is down I put the group on follow, position them so they are facing the 2nd distiller, break follow and move Kalithresh right next to the distiller. Rinse and repeat.

At the moment it takes me 4x distillers and then Kalithresh is <10% health and I just burn him down.

He also does a random attack, Impale, that needs to be healed but I found a renew or two takes care of it easily.

If there was a mod it'd probably be Littlewigs, but I'm not sure if it's in there.

If you search on the boss, we have discussed strategy on it before.

I read the discussion and my problem is not the movement itself. My problem is spotting the cloud.

Your tactic is splitting into 2 groups of 2 and moving forward and backwards. I prefer to just have all 4 clustered like Fur and move them as soon as I spot the cloud and just Prayer of Healing up to full.

However, I need to MOVE asap when the cloud appears, if I am a just a tad slow at noticing the cloud someone dies. So I am looking for easier ways to notice the cloud. Getting my camera maneuvered into a decent position is difficult due to the smallness of the room and the low roof.

At the top of the ramp leading to her room, i arrange all my toons in a line.

X X X X

I have a warlock but i don't even use banish on an elemental. I do however use the frost protection aura and i suggest you use your nature res aura with your hunter. Pull an elemental with avengers shield, immediately switch to Thespia and bonk her with a judgement, then start meleeing the 2nd elemental.

Turn your paladin to look at your clones! I have my finger on the 'forward' key that moves all my clones forward in anticipation for a storm cloud. If the cloud hits my paladin i move him. Just stare at your clones to watch for the cloud. Don't worry about losing the kill target, the elementals die fast. just make sure thespia is not running around uncontrollably.

Kill off the elementals and work on Thespia all the while having one finger on "forward". It took me several wipes to get used to it, but i can do it the majority of the time on my first try now. When i started doing SV i'm pretty sure all my toons weren't at 70 yet.

Side notes: Kill the oracles first and use LOS to pull. Have them all bunch up on your paladin with your healer and dps a mile away. AOE silence sucks.

OK take this with a grain of salt, it either could be luck, or a legitimate,(almost explot?)....

I throw my 4 gnome mages in this litte nook on the right. It's like a \| shape, and has some overhang above it.

I back them all up ALL THE WAY BACK, and leave them there. Only one who ever get's clouded is my warrior!

:)

I have all my shammies together and move them as a group when the cloud comes, then chain heal back up. Make sure your camera is looking at them, so you can see exactly when the cloud comes. If someone gets cycloned, dispel it quickly using your pally so that person can get out of any clouds that come up.

In general, don't worry too much about actively tanking; she doesn't do that much damage. The rest of your group is the main priority.

I also turn the tank so that I can see the group and spread them out a bit for the fight's start.

What made the difference on that boss for me was that I realized that besides the lightning there is a DoT that casually kills you while looking for the cloud. A pally's cleanse takes care of that. My way of doing that is using Clique to cleanse on alt leftclick on a party frame.

I hope this helps.

[quote='Fursphere',index.php?page=Thread&postID=455 42#post45542]thinus - are you hardware or software boxing? Meaning, how many screens do you have, and how big are they?

I've done this boss "all by myself" once with my warrior, and all I did was zoom out my healers screen so I could see the clouds, then strafe the dps/healer gourp out of it.

Your warlock can banish one of the elementals by the way.

And then have a voidwalker and hunter pet offtank the other while your pally gets the boss and kites it around in a circle.[/quote]

Managed to kill her eventually when I got lucky and she only "clouded" the group twice and did it on the tank the rest of the time. Think I lost 1 though.

Things I figured out:
- banish an elemental, they do frostbolt volleys on the group and if your health is not topped up you might die when she pops a cloud
- getting through the start of the fight is the most difficult part, once the two elementals are down it gets much easier
- my priest has only 6K hp fully buffed, two ticks almost kills the priest, keep everyone topped up
- strafing left and right a few times, especially into a wall, could cause your characters to "drift" and some might end up in very undesirable positions
- lookint at your group from the tank means right=left and left=right

PS: Single machine setup with AHK, 2 monitors, main on 1 and 4 alts on another

The Bog Overlords was much easier this time around for some reason. My healer was really quick on the heals and I think my pally got a lot more defense and armor (currently over 490 defense and 11K+ armor but lacking in spell dmg)

[url='http://www.wowwiki.com/Mekgineer_Steamrigger']Mekgineer Steamrigger[/url]

Easy, easy, easy after Thespia. Just pop consecrate so it hits all the gnomes when they spawn. I DPSed the gnomes down 1 by 1 and then got back on the boss. No healing problems, no dps problems, no tanking problems, no goddamn 2K/tic damage cloud that rips your party apart.


Warlord Kalithresh

O-M-F-G....

Epic fail. I can get the first tank down easily enough, the 2nd tank is the one giving me problems. I am thinking of mana burning with the priest as well but not sure how well mana will keep up. 10K hp in 10s sounds easy but usually you lose at least 1-2s in the switch. Can try and make a target macro for the pally that will auto switch to a distiller. I might have to tear through shards and put shadowburn in the rotation and maybe have the warlock imp attack the tank as well. Or go without the imp and use a succubus for some more dps on the tanks.

I have options to improve dps, was just a bit too fed up at this point in time to try any. I'll be back.

I forgot about a trick we used to use with a hunter in the party when we were going after thespia. Put the hunter pet in the water, the same pool of water that the arcane container is in (that has the karazhan key quest fragment). Miss direct pull thespia to the pet and then own the elementals. I think you still have to look for the storm clouds while she's off on her wild goose chase, but it's one less mob to deal with while you take out the ellys. If you use this method, i would suggest not banishing so you can just kill both while thespia is gone.

Remember your frost and nature resists.

There was a macro floating around the forums like

/assist party1
/targetenemy
/cast Spell

I use it for fights that need add control and it works wonders. I use this for the 2nd and final boss in steam vaults. You're guys will instantly switch to the distiller when it's up. The only problems I had was sometimes the alts would not target the distiller when i expected them to. This had everything to do with the camera positioning. Your guys have to be looking at the active distiller in order to pick it up properly. If your camera is pointed into the ground on the alt character, he might not pick up the distiller as you'd expect. I had to move my clones up closer to the boss and the distiller i was tanking him on and make sure their cameras were adjusted to see both objects on the screen. Once I started doing that this boss became trivial. Just stop blasting when the spell reflect is up.

Use amplify magic for this fight.

One last note on the above macro. If an add appears behind your group sometimes they will target him and not be able to attack it. This is a royal pain in the ass and is the only flaw I can find in that macro.

I've used a similiar macro for the elemental summoning boss in Sethekk and the final boss in Mana Tombs. I just didn't bother with it for Kalithresh as my pally was DPSing the tanks as well.

Updated after full clear.