Pages

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Sindragosa!

We killed her!

So- I'm going to put down lots of words that you can read. They're essentially our strategy to the fight. It took us a bit short of three hours allotted to her to kill her- however, due to the long encounter time and the assessing/rebuffing period we got in about 6-7 attempts total (I would guess- maybe more).
So, we've been having some issue with killing Sindragosa. Now, it isn't a surprise that it has been taking us this long because she is supposed to be a very difficult fight. However, we have not been changing our strategy much, so it seems kind of insane to think that our success will change. Additionally, looking at our raid history, we've had the hardest time with fights that require coordination and control- not sheer output. Fights that require a lot of DPS like Festergut and Blood Queen were very easy for us to do. Fights that required coordination and add control, like Deathwhisper, Blood Princes and Valithria, have been much much harder for us to progress beyond.

Now, Sindragosa (Especially the final phase) is significantly about control and debuff management. I've spent some time looking at various strategies to figure out what would be best for us. The strategies I looked at are as follows:
Bosskillers
TankSpot
WoWHead
WoWWiki
WoW.com

Just as a heads up, I'm counting this is a three phase fight, not a two phase with a diphase in there. Phase 1 is ground phase, phase 2 is air phase and phase three is the ground phase where she is permanently grounded and is casting Mystic Buffet.

After running some with Immortal, they asked how we were doing in ICC and I talked to them about our difficulties on Sindragosa. They suggest that the Main Tank get a (at least partial) set of Frost Bane gear. Alenena had some left over from her Naxxramas days, so she can now soak alot more of what Sindragosa can throw at her.

Phase One

Sindragosa's primary phase begins as soon as we kill the two dragon mini-bosses. Once we're comfortable with the fight, we can engage her right away, rather than running back to the gauntlet room. She will be pulsing a Frost Aura for about 3k/ 3 seconds. With Frost Resistance Aura (or similar effect) up, her frost damage will be reduced by about 20% on average for everyone in range. The Main Tank will take some damage from her Melee, Cleave and Frost Breath.

Players who attack her with Melee attack get hit by Permeating Chill which gives them a 20% chance to get a stack of Chilled to the bone which deals 1000 frost damage every two seconds. In phases one and two, its safe for players to have up to 8 or 9 stacks before they should stop attacking. Casters have a chance to be affected by Unchained Magic which makes all of their spells give them a stack of Instability. When Instability falls off, it deals 2000 frost damage per stack. Again, in phases one and two it is safe to have up to 8 or so stacks. It is important to note that healthstones and trinkets count as spells, giving you more stacks. However, wanding her does not give stacks, so if you want to get some little damage in, you can do that.

Her final ability in phase 1 is Icy Grip followed up by Blistering Cold. Icy Grip will grab everyone in a Death Grip like manner, bringing them to the middle of her hit box. Players already somewhat into it, will not get pulled in. As soon as she casts Icy Grip, she will begin a 5 second cast of Blistering Cold. This hits for about 30k frost on everyone with 25 yards. This makes it important that everyone (except possibly the MT) is out of range when it goes off. Warlocks (or rogues) can slow the cast time using either Curse of Tongues or Mind Numbing Poison. Hunters can put up Aspect of the Pack for increased raid movement speed as the Aura pulse does not cause the daze. It is important that everyone is used to running in the same direction so that in phase 3, people will not be too far away if they are targeted by Ice Tomb. If everyone also returns to the same side, it is easier for you to get back in position and continue attacking Sindragosa.

We have been tanking her North/South, facing towards the stairs with DPS and Healers on the east (her left). I may change this so that we are tanking her East/West and have the DPS and healers on the stairs (South/her left). This could make later phases easier to coordinate.

Phase Two

At 85% and everyone 1:50 after that, she will go into phase two. She will lift off into the air and beacon two people. Everyone needs to be at least 10 yards away from these targets. After a few seconds she will launch an Ice Tomb on them with approximately 450k health. She will then drop four Frost Bombs onto the floor, which need to be LoS'd. These hit for about 16-20k in regular, but any mana we can save for the healers will be appreciated. Between the time the fourth bomb and Sindragosa land, the Ice tombs need to be destroyed. If they are destroyed earlier, then part of the raid will not be able to protect themselves from the Ice bomb. However, approximately 12 seconds after she lands, anyone still in a Tomb will die. Additionally, anyone near the Ice tombs when they hit will take a significant amount of splash damage. If they manage to survive it, they will also be entombed.

Currently we have just had everyone spread out and do their best to avoid the Beaconed targets. However, if we are tanking her parallel to the stairs, those with the Beacons can go to the base of the stairs while everyone else runs up them. When the Tombs land, players can then descend the stairs and not have to significantly worry about moving because she only targets the flat area, not the stairs.

Phase Three

After alternating between phases one and two, at 35% she will be permanently grounded. She keeps all of her abilities from phase one, but adds a couple more to her repertoire.

She will cast a raid wide debuff, Mystic Buffet it stacks up to 99 and will be applied every 6 seconds and lasts for 8. It increases magic damage taken by 15% per stack. However,it can be cleared by breaking LoS with her. Again, she will be putting down Ice Tombs (one at a time) to help us. Everyone will need to stay away from the Beacon'd target. DPS and Healers should be able to clear their stacks every other Tomb and spend the rest of their time on the boss.

Currently, we pretty much have everyone shoot the boss > shoot the Tomb > shoot the boss. Again, I think our strategy could use some fine tuning. It would be beneficial to have a distinct set up and locations for two Tombs, in case we have two up at the same time. One should be placed near her front legs and the other near her back legs. However, it is important to keep the Tomb away from the tank and the melee DPS so that they do not get frozen. The Beacon should also try to avoid casters and healers, but those players have less movement restrictions. Once one tomb is up everyone who needs to clear their stacks should get behind it and bring it down. You don't need to be behind it the entire time, just long enough to miss the pulse. The second tomb should be near her back leg, not all the way at the end of her tail- it doesn't need to be that far away.

Of course practice makes perfect. Then we get to wipe on the Lich King himself.

No comments:

Post a Comment