Earth, Wind & Fire Complete - #2 Worldwide Strict

[Kulldam]

Another fantastic evening gave us a new achievement via Earth, Wind & Fire! After really systemizing our pull timing we pushed well past our previous attempts and dropped Koralon, the final Watcher, with a good 20 seconds remaining on the achievement timer. Well done Vox!

After our initial attempts on this achievement a good 3-4 weeks ago, we found the "usual" kill order of Koralon > Archavon > Emalon proved to be such severe damage output from Koralon after a while into the fight, that it was virtually unhealable. Even with two tanks with 375 & 415 Fire Resistance, respectively, once Koralon reaches 20+ stacks of Burning Fury, the Burning Breath damage was 23-24k per cast and tank hits during Fists were topping out around 40k. Even when we stacked the healing to ensure survival, there are situations that would cause a simply unhealable 'gib' state where a stomp from Archavon would stun someone in Flame just as Breath was going and so on.

So we went back to the drawing board strategically and tried to work out a method that would reduce that chance of 'random gib'. Obviously, the reason most tactics use the above kill order is because Archavon's 5 minute and Emalon's 6 minute Enrage timers point directly to engaging Koralon first, who has no hard Enrage and also has much higher total HP. Since the common tactic and our previous attempts had Koralon in the fight longer than any other Watcher his damage output was really causing all the major issues, in combination with other random abilities, so we decided to try reversing things. The math said it was possible with our DPS by making use of hybrids and rather than trying to utilize extra healing, we opted for even less.

Our final setup was as follows: 1 Paladin Tank (340+ FR), 1 Warrior Tank (Normal Gear), 1 Feral Druid (OT), 3 Ranged DPS, 2 Melee DPS, 1 Resto Druid Healer, and 1 Holy Paladin Healer. Our strategy revolved around engaging Koralon last rather than first, so that by the time we were in range of killing him, his Burning Fury stack would only be around 7-8, rather than the 22+ we'd faced in prior attempts.

We also opted to pull to a more central location rather than a Watcher's room, and the roomiest area was the southern hallway that leads toward the entrance. I, as the Warrior tank, would start the fight by pulling Emalon with the entire raid next to me and we'd immediately engage Emalon while pulling him back to the entrance to the southern hall. About 40 seconds after the pull, our Paladin tank would run off solo and pull Archavon, such that the moment Archavon is engaged is right around the 60 second mark into the Emalon fight. Since Emalon has a 6 minute enrage to Archavon's 5 minute, this maximizes the "free" time spent DPSing Emalon before Archavon must be pulled to give the best DPS time for both Watchers.

Meanwhile, all DPS are killing Emalon, including our Feral Druid in cat form (which is a great boost to DPS for this first leg of the fight relative to another full-tank specced player, such as Prot Warrior or Prot Paladin). When an Emalon add enrages, it's quickly raid marked and killed by the ranged DPS only, who generally use an assist macro for the main Emalon tank if needed to quickly grab a target. The actual DPS requirement to kill an add before it reaches 10 stacks and explodes is fairly low (around 7k DPS) but with targetting delays it's actually closer to 10k. At any rate, our three ranged DPS (Mage, Druid, Shaman) were more than able to handle it barring no other major issues. While using this method requires killing an add every 60-90 seconds or so, the other benefits of this setup certainly outweigh the slight DPS loss in my opinion.

At any rate, by the time Archavon reaches the raid group (about 1:20 - 1:30 into the fight), Emalon is approaching 10-15% health and is about to spawn his second add. All DPS swap to Archavon who is tanked directly on top of Emalon, simply because with our makeup I was the only form of armor reduction to apply to Archavon and since I was tanking Emalon, I had to stay close enough to get my 5 stack up and reapply it when needed.

After the first grip Archavon does on our Paladin tank, our previously DPSing Feral Druid goes Bear and taunts Archavon and from this point on MTs Archavon. Once Archavon reaches 60% or so, our Paladin runs off solo and pulls Koralon and starts dragging him to the raid. Meanwhile, Archavon is using his second grab, on the now tanking Feral Druid, so we had our Emalon tank Taunt Archavon during grip temporarily, which isn't severe damage as long as healers are aware it's coming.

Once the second grip ends and Archavon is back on the Feral Druid, we opted to pull Emalon and his adds to the back of the room (near the stairs) so Emalon's AE explosion would not hit anyone besides the Emalon tank. This also reduces the chances of a poor lightning jump taking out melee in combination with other effects. Otherwise, Archavon and Koralon are kept at the front of the room.

By this time, things are hectic, and melee DPS must be very aware of their position relative to the Koralon tank so they don't get too close and eat Meteor Fists damage. The Holy Paladin is extremely helpful here due to Beacon of course and it makes healing the raid during Meteor Fists much smoother overall. Ranged DPS and healers must also position such that they are spread enough not to chain lightning from Emalon as with Burning Breath and Archavon stomps happening randomly at this point, a bad lightning chain can be disaster (and in fact we faced exactly this one time tonight, when our Balance Druid ate Burning Breath + Stomp + Chain Lightning all within less than 2 seconds and went full to dead.)

Still, if DPS is strong enough and healing and positioning are managed, by this point we found the enrage timers to be very reasonable. We killed Archavon with ~25-30 seconds left on Enrage and Emalon dropped with ~15-20 seconds left, and by this time Koralon was at ~40% health. Popping lust at this point easily allowed us to burn Koralon down the rest of the way well within the time limit.

All in all, I'm very excited that not only did we manage to down this achievement in a fairly reasonable timeframe, but we did so with a very alternative strategy that favored our raid makeup and provided much greater stability in the long run.

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Also, a quick note on the Supermassive achievement. We tried for this achievement tonight after some attempts last week as well, and ran into the same bullshittery as before. The very first attempt of the night, while tracking the achievement as one is wont to do, we closed our three Black Holes after the first Big Bang, the achievement tracker updated to 3/3 appropriately, and all was right with the world -- except then retardation set in for a few people and we had some deaths and had to wipe.

Now, no matter what, each subsequent attempt when collapsing black holes, the tracker never updates. Furthermore, when we did kill Algalon, we for sure collapsed three black holes within the 10 second timer but after his chest spawned and all that goodness, we were not awarded credit.

ASDF Blizzard! ASDF!

[Thawfore]

Gratsness on the EW&F, sadness on the Supermassive.

Gotta one shot that business next week I suppose--Or perhaps first attempt supermassive, subsequent attempts at herald of the titans.

[Athia]

Aye, we (Three) had the same bugs with supermassive. It basically turns it into Tears but with added fun. Hooray. Congrats on EWF though.