Blade Lord Ta'yak

[MichaelTheys 10]

But if the timer is 60sec per stack then the Intensify should speed up at some point? do you think it has a quicker apply on him in p2? with that timer he only get's around 8stacks but i saw him hitting 20. so at some point his stack regen should increase and it seems to happen in p2. but how this work i badly enough can't help you out with :(

[vyxaryx 0]

1. Dispersion actually works well with Unseen strike (10 man normal). Shadow Priest will have ~50% of his max HP after strike.

2. Hand of Protection removes bleed debuff from Wind step.

[Vlad 411]

Oh, this is in my updated version of the guide which isn't up yet - in Phase Two he stacks Intensify every 10 seconds. And getting to 20 stacks seemed to have no relation to the enrage.

[Guest hm]

Oh, this is in my updated version of the guide which isn't up yet - in Phase Two he stacks Intensify every 10 seconds. And getting to 20 stacks seemed to have no relation to the enrage.

Wind step damage others for full duration or only when it cast?

[Vlad 411]

Wind step damage others for full duration or only when it cast?

It places the bleed on all targets within 8 yards of the main target, so yeah, they will take damage for the full 30 second duration of it.

[Guest Zegyra]

cheat death doesn't work for rogues on unseen strike.. dispersion for shadow priests does.

[Guest Zegyra]

We just killed this guy.

First of all, go with 2 healers; period. 3 healing is a waste for last phase.

As a resto druid, prehot at around 21-22% (just before 2nd phase). A reju blanket will keep everyone at 75%+ when you regain control of your character, then Stampeding Roar and gogo. And use Heart of the Wild, every bit dps is required for last phase's 2nd part.

Symbiosis goes perfect with Warlocks (as they get reju, golden for last phase; shammies as you get moveable casting, Shadow priests as you get leap of faith which can pull people out of tornados)

Sidenotes:

Shadow Priests can use Dispersion to get rid of the stacking attack.

Rogues CANNOT use cheat death.

Leap of faith on last phase WORKS to get people out in the last phase. Though, use with real care, as turning around, using, turning back around, and avoiding tornado requires real focusing.

[Fel 42]

I think some of these have already been covered but I'll add our findings for Unseen Strike too for folks' reference:

As a general rule, immunities seem NOT to work.

Works:

Dispersion - Spriest

Dark Bargain - Warlock (make sure heals know to bomb him when the DoT comes up)

Does not work:

Iceblock - Mage

Cauterize - Mage. This one is weird, it saved him when we were stacked poorly, but he died anyway when by himself.. worth testing more.

Divine Shield - Paladin

Hand of Protection - Paladin

Deterence - Hunter

Still to test:

Guardian Spirit - Priest

Have fun!

[Krazyito 521]

If Ice Block and Divine Shield does not work, then Guardian Spirit definitily wont work

[Guest Taerina]

In addition, Hand of Protection does not remove the tank debuff.

[Guest Ezzored]

Hi,

a quick and effective way to handle the 10% side witch (i know, i explain it badly, maybe it helps):

When the boss reaches 12%-11,5% percent, only the two tanks and one healer stays on the boss, everyone else runs to the side, into the "windwall". This windwall is there to prevent people running on the side of the room when switching sides, BUT when the boss is staying on one side, this windwall actually helps you to get to the other side! So when you're on side A, and the boss will switch to side B, it looks like this:

>>>: windwall

*: tornado (-> marks the direction)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

* * * -> * * * -> * * * -> * * * *

A* * * -> * * * -> * * * -> * * * * B

* * * -> * * * -> * * * -> * * * *

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Everyone (except the two tanks+1 healer, you can use DPS instead of tanks if you want, in our case the tanks are the best tornado dodgers) jumps into the wall (>>>>), it will quickly transport you to the other side of the room. If this is handled correctly, the boss will follow you soon, and you can start DPSing again. You can gain 30-40 seconds of DPS time with this, and ease the healing a LOT.

I hope it helps I've attached a video, you can see the method in work from 6:10:

Br,

Ezzored

[Vlad 411]

Alright guys. I've read all these extremely helpful and useful posts you've been making about things that do and do not work. I'll make an edit to the guide to incorporate most of them, including Ezzored's suggestion (which I can confirm as working).

Keep it up! :D

[Guest Bel]

Quick note about why cauterize (along with cheat death/guardian spirit) does not work. Blizzard changed the spells so it can only absorb 200% of the players max hp, which is why it would save him from a 500k hit, but not a 2million one.

Only flatout damage reduction spells work, not immunites/life saves with a cap.

[finnmaccool 5]

question about the DETAILS of Unseen Strike

I have not done this fight, please excuse or laugh if some of these suggestions/questions are out of place due to that.

1) where does unseen strike hit, where the player was at time of cast (t=5), time of stun (t=2), time of boss appear (t=0+X?) ... ?

2)

Can a WELL timed leap of faith prevent the player from being hit ? (not recommended in general as poorly timed can end up killing either/both players - but just trying to understand the EXACT details of how this strike is preformed.)

3) can you leap of faith the marked player once they are stunned? (t=2)

4) what abilities can break this stun to allow those 1-2 extra seconds of movement? (stampeding roar, PvP trinkets, buble... is it a moving impairing effect, or is it a fear, 'stun' ect...)

5)

does this have merit?

i am thinking that instead of having EVERYONE try to see that faint outline - have an assigned stack up point that everyone goes to, and the marked player has to move to that point slightly off to compensate for the direction of the strike. (this point would have to be no more then 3 seconds away from everyone targetable, and 4-5 seconds of ppl not targetable...)

6)

if for some reason you can't see the faint outline, if you stack ON the marked players hitbox, will you share the dmg? - as in, how much of the hitbox do you have to be sharing from what angle - if this matters? (how much of a point does the cone go into instead of the a circle of the players hitbox)

7) napkin math question... (this is a pre smack to anyone who brings this up in 10 man.)

ONLY in a 25 man raid... ignoring this ability, letting it kill the player. This will make it easier to position for the rest of the raid - as they won't have to move to deal with this at all giving more room to spread out.

this ability will be cast 4-6 times ? use CR's for the first 2-3. this will allow the raid to NOT have to move to dps the boss, this will allow for greater DPS and get into phase 2 faster, with fewer stacks of intensity.

napkin math seems to support that this might be a dps GAIN - as people will be moving significantly less both for tornadoes and for unseen.

(as they can spread out more for tornadoes which adds to dps.. both in less movement for them + player concentration)

(yes you are playing a small RNG of loosing all healers and then be out of mana... but also saving a lot of mana of having to heal the dmg of the raid from unseen, or from splash wind/being hit by tornadoes due to lack of choice - might have to wipe if too many of your KEY players get chosen random, oh well.)

(we found this strategy worked in 25man Archimedes fight in BWD - by sacrificing the players to run down the room and die when tracked in air phase, and saving the gongs for other times.)

[finnmaccool 5]

25 man Archimedes HC that is, normal didn't need to bother with saving gongs ect.

[Stoove 347]

Good ideas finnmaccool. I don't have experience of the fight either, but I'd estimate that sacrificing healers would lead to major problems further down the line. It would probably be more practical in 25man to run with one less healer (thus more DPS) and reduce the RNG, rather than risk losing ~80% of a healer's manapool before the critical phase.

Archimedes

Atramedes? :)

[Vlad 411]

question about the DETAILS of Unseen Strike

I have not done this fight, please excuse or laugh if some of these suggestions/questions are out of place due to that.

1) where does unseen strike hit, where the player was at time of cast (t=5), time of stun (t=2), time of boss appear (t=0+X?) ... ?

2)

Can a WELL timed leap of faith prevent the player from being hit ? (not recommended in general as poorly timed can end up killing either/both players - but just trying to understand the EXACT details of how this strike is preformed.)

3) can you leap of faith the marked player once they are stunned? (t=2)

4) what abilities can break this stun to allow those 1-2 extra seconds of movement? (stampeding roar, PvP trinkets, buble... is it a moving impairing effect, or is it a fear, 'stun' ect...)

5)

does this have merit?

i am thinking that instead of having EVERYONE try to see that faint outline - have an assigned stack up point that everyone goes to, and the marked player has to move to that point slightly off to compensate for the direction of the strike. (this point would have to be no more then 3 seconds away from everyone targetable, and 4-5 seconds of ppl not targetable...)

6)

if for some reason you can't see the faint outline, if you stack ON the marked players hitbox, will you share the dmg? - as in, how much of the hitbox do you have to be sharing from what angle - if this matters? (how much of a point does the cone go into instead of the a circle of the players hitbox)

7) napkin math question... (this is a pre smack to anyone who brings this up in 10 man.)

ONLY in a 25 man raid... ignoring this ability, letting it kill the player. This will make it easier to position for the rest of the raid - as they won't have to move to deal with this at all giving more room to spread out.

this ability will be cast 4-6 times ? use CR's for the first 2-3. this will allow the raid to NOT have to move to dps the boss, this will allow for greater DPS and get into phase 2 faster, with fewer stacks of intensity.

napkin math seems to support that this might be a dps GAIN - as people will be moving significantly less both for tornadoes and for unseen.

(as they can spread out more for tornadoes which adds to dps.. both in less movement for them + player concentration)

(yes you are playing a small RNG of loosing all healers and then be out of mana... but also saving a lot of mana of having to heal the dmg of the raid from unseen, or from splash wind/being hit by tornadoes due to lack of choice - might have to wipe if too many of your KEY players get chosen random, oh well.)

(we found this strategy worked in 25man Archimedes fight in BWD - by sacrificing the players to run down the room and die when tracked in air phase, and saving the gongs for other times.)

There are some nice ideas here. I'll respond as best as I can.

1) The Unseen Strike works like this. t=5: boss disappears, player is marked. 5=~2: boss outline appears, player is stunned. t=0 boss attacks. The Unseen Strike will definitely not hit at the location of the player at t=5. It hits at their location at t=0. I don't know if this location is always invariably the same as t=2 or not, though; see below.

2, 3, and 4) I personally was marked relatively few times, and I have no abilities to try to escape with. I can at least say that you can't jump when the stun hits. I believe that Blizzard's thought process was this: give players a 2-second warning of where the attack will be, so that they can all get in the cone in time to soak it; but prevent them from using this to their advantage to move everyone outside of the cone. For this reason, I believe that the stun on the marked player is probably unremovable through any means. If it was removable, then you really could negate the mechanic through Leap of Faith (not Blink/Bubble etc, since you can't reliably always get it on a person with such a spell).

5) Currently, I advise in the guide to assign a player on the raid to collapse on for each Unseen Strike (the same player for all strikes). This seems to work very well, because it gives the raid roughly the same thing to do each time with little need for improvisation). The only time this is a problem is if the marked player fails to get to the stacking location on time (tornadoes in the way or slacky reaction times). Your raid generally won't have time to adjust their position for this, so you either hope that the boss attacks from such an angle that the cone hits the player and your raid, or you shout at the player for failing to move.

Your way seems a bit complicated here, and the problem is that you can't assign "a point", because you are moving throughout the room for the whole phase depending on where the tornadoes are.

6) 90% of the time, if you stack on that player's location, you are fine. A few times, we encountered some problems with a few players getting 1-shot, but funnily, not everyone, despite all being in the same location. This was either a bug, or those players were lagging to the server and it hadn't registered their new locations. In any case, it's safe to stack on the person. I can't tell you how much of the hitbox you need to be sharing, since I can't frankly see much when I'm doing it (25-man, so all I see is a few taurens blocking the way).

7) You will indeed get 4-6 Unseen Strikes (though for 4 you'd have to have really awesome DPS), maybe 7. What you are suggesting could work, certainly. And it would probably be a DPS gain, if you consider also that you can give those dead players an extra Heroism/Bloodlust in Phase Two, AND their potion cooldown is reset (so they can pre-pot, pot, and then pot again after they get ressed). This more than makes up for the missing food buff.

But the thing is, you don't need to do this. The enrage timer is not that tight. If you are getting 4 Unseen Strikes, your DPS is quite high indeed, and you can breeze through the encounter.

Also, remember that accidental deaths can happen easily, due to people being knocked back by Unseen Strike right into tornadoes, so it's probably better to save the resses for those guys.

[finnmaccool 5]

There are some nice ideas here. I'll respond as best as I can.

1) The Unseen Strike works like this. t=5: boss disappears, player is marked. 5=~2: boss outline appears, player is stunned. t=0 boss attacks. The Unseen Strike will definitely not hit at the location of the player at t=5. It hits at their location at t=0. I don't know if this location is always invariably the same as t=2 or not, though; see below.

So, requiring further testing is if at T=2 (when boss shadow appears and player gets stunned) if by some means player moves what happens. (PvP trinket, Leap of Faith ect...)

Also, remember that accidental deaths can happen easily, due to people being knocked back by Unseen Strike right into tornadoes, so it's probably better to save the resses for those guys.

um... no i don't with my strategy as no living person is hit by the knockback :), so no accidental deaths should happen in P1 as tornadoes should be easy enough to dodge if your only movement constraint is dodging them (and then moving away from other people so the wind strike only hits target).

the goal of the sacrifice strategy is not necessarily to beat an enrage timer, but to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the complexity of P1 w/o the cost being so high. the napkin math looks like it works just to ignore this mechanic. avg raid dps should get 5-6 strikes, the questions is if

A) the raid can do P2 short 2-3 ppl

B) does the raid get into p2 sooner? // hence reducing the dmg in that phase from Intensity stacks being lower.

C) does A) in p2 negate B) if true, or only making p2 worse.

[Stoove 347]

A) the raid can do P2 short 2-3 ppl

does the raid get into p2 sooner? // hence reducing the dmg in that phase from Intensity stacks being lower.

C) does A) in p2 negate if true, or only making p2 worse.

The problem is that you seriously risk going into P2 either multiple healers dead or multiple healers with no mana. That's not something that you want to do, as it'll likely just lead to a wipe. Why not just run one healer short and increase the DPS that way? I don't think that simplifying one mechanic is useful if you risk such a massive healing problem.

[Vlad 411]

So, requiring further testing is if at T=2 (when boss shadow appears and player gets stunned) if by some means player moves what happens. (PvP trinket, Leap of Faith ect...)

um... no i don't with my strategy as no living person is hit by the knockback , so no accidental deaths should happen in P1 as tornadoes should be easy enough to dodge if your only movement constraint is dodging them (and then moving away from other people so the wind strike only hits target).

the goal of the sacrifice strategy is not necessarily to beat an enrage timer, but to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the complexity of P1 w/o the cost being so high. the napkin math looks like it works just to ignore this mechanic. avg raid dps should get 5-6 strikes, the questions is if

A) the raid can do P2 short 2-3 ppl

does the raid get into p2 sooner? // hence reducing the dmg in that phase from Intensity stacks being lower.

C) does A) in p2 negate if true, or only making p2 worse.

The problem is that you don't simplify Phase 1 by that much, because you cannot avoid all the Unseen Strikes that way. You just reduce their number. And as long as you need to stack for Unseen Strike and subsequently get knocked back, you will risk being knocked back into tornadoes. Of course, there are ways to minimise the risk, such as handling the first 2-3 Unseen Strikes properly (while there aren't many tornadoes around) and "skipping" the final 3.

But frankly, there isn't much point in complicating things like this, in my opinion :)

[Krazyito 521]

The boss disappears anyway. If you don't stack up, you're just sitting there twiddling your thumbs until the player dies.

[MichaelTheys 10]

well i also recommand you to stack up, i once mis blinked and i thought ice block would save me but badly enough ice block doesn't saved me so i died (this was funny enough our kill aswell).So stacking up really is nessecary tbh

[Tova 6]

Thought I'd share our ten man kill video

[Guest Guest]

I think in the loot section, the main stat on Drape of Gathering Clouds should be "intellect/spirit" instead of "agility", and of course, thank you for the awesome guide.

[Damien 1,514]

I think in the loot section, the main stat on Drape of Gathering Clouds should be "intellect/spirit" instead of "agility", and of course, thank you for the awesome guide.

Thank you for the report! I've just fixed it ;)