The Lich King encounter is unforgiving on 10 man, and very unforgiving on 25 man. I’m not going to do a full guide here, but I am going to talk a little about how to handle the big raid blocks in phase two: Val’kyr and Defile.
The first phase is very easy. The transition to phase two can be rough, but phase two is what kills many raid groups. Especially on 25 man. The mechanics of this phase are that every so often, he’ll summon a single (for 10 man) or 3 (25 man) adds which will pick players up and fly them over the edge of the fight. Once they’re dropped, they can not be battle-rezed. Additionally, and sometimes simultaneously, he’ll cast the mother of all void zones under a random raider.
The hard part of this encounter is that you need to stack up in the middle for the valks, and you need to spread out for the defiles. Defile placement is incredibly important, because if you drop it in the middle of the room with a couple of other players in range, it will quickly cover the whole field. Even if everyone does manage to escape, there will be almost no ground left to actually fight on.
Luckily, Deadly Boss Mods has a fairly accurate cooldown timer for this fight. Make sure it’s up to date, because older versions seemed to be a little out of synch. Here are the steps you can take to get the best chance of killing this dude:
- If DBM is telling you that the next ability that will be cast is a defile, find your position before he casts it. Use stutter-stepping and disengage wisely to reduce DPS lost to moving, but when that cast goes off, you should already be in the perfect position in case you get it. Ideally, standing close to max range or next to another defile. If you’re the target, the defile you drop will overlap either the edge or another defile.
- If DBM is telling you that the Valks are next, DPS where you are until you have 5ish seconds left, and then stack up with the rest of the raid. If this means you’re in melee range until the valk picks a target and can’t DPS, volley. On your way in, drop a frost trap. Ideally where you think the valks will path over. If that’s not feasible, drop a frost trap before you volley.
- If DBM shows that the defile will happen first, but that the valks will be immediately after, spread out, but not as far. Instead of standing at the edge for optimal defile placement, just stand somewhere without anyone in range. If a defile gets placed close to the middle, but doesn’t expand, it’s recoverable. If the valks pick people who happen to be badly located, it’s also recoverable- you can pop DPS cooldowns, arrange for extra CC, or ignore a lock with a demonic circle. Having a defile go off and expand in a bad position is much harder to recover from than losing a person, especially with the 20% buff these days.
The valks will fly their victim straight to the nearest edge. Use this knowledge to choose a stacking point that will have all the valks going together in the same direction so any splash damage and AOE stuns are not wasted. If your raid is unable to keep them slowed or stunned for the whole flight, consider speccing into Concussive Barrage as marks. This will let your multi-shot and chimera shot daze them. Concussive shot should be a last resort, because it will cost you at least a steady shot. If it’s needed, use it, though. Missing a steady shot is better than letting the valk fly at full speed.
If you are the target of the valk, mentally prepare yourself to try to disengage back. Here’s how to do it:
- You will be facing inwards when you are dropped, so to have any chance of success, you need to disengage after turning around. Wiggle your mouse while holding the right mouse button (for mouse turning) facing outward. Just like when a rogue stuns you in PvP- as soon as you have control over your character, as long as your mouse is in motion, you’ll instantly snap your character 180 degrees so it’s facing outwards.
- Spam the disengage key while doing this, or if you have a really low latency, time it so you press disengage as soon as you’ve turned around.
- Sometimes, your valk won’t go down fast enough. If it’s carrying you over a defile, the melee can’t get to it, and that’s a large source of stuns and snares. If you feel like you’re going to be dropped, ask for a clutch slow fall. It seems to increase the chances.
- If you’re an engineer, you are far more likely to make this jump than anyone else, however you have to macro your chute to your disengage.
Interesting, as I have tried to do the disengage a few times to find myself twice as far out (and dead). But I will keep trying…also, I didnt even consider Concussive barrage, which I need to respec tonight…
Nicely timed, sir. My raid team steps into this fight for the first time tonight, with me at the helm. Amidst the wiping and general confusion, at least I’ll have the opportunity to look pro once or twice.
;-)
(anything i say is generally based on 25hrc but mostly still stands)
Our main reason to be brought into the fight is for our utility, its widely known that we will not be topping meters on this fight but it shouldnt stop us from putting a good dent in the meter.
Dont be cheap, prepot.. you bossmods (bw ftw imo) will show you the 10secs count down to fight start, pop it at the last secs for some extra nomnoms =D
I pop all my cd’s (on hrc) after the first shadow trap which is normally when bl happens, while my pot is still on cd.. long fight so call of the wild will be back up again to use.
Tranqin the horrors is the most important thing you do so dont screw it up while tunnel visioning lk dps.. thats what melee are there for /mock
The icy orbs have hardly no hp on reg 25 and go down like a cheap hooker on a saturday night.. on hrc def would have a hunter on both left and right side just for those as they’re not so fast to drop.
Raging spirits sometimes need to be md’d to certain tanks due to either some nub not getting to the tank on time with them or random pleb over aggroing them.. so be on the ready if your called on to md a new one that pops up.. in general if you got your md up i would md them to the newer ones to the tanks anyway, dpswhores tend to ignore the fact the tank may be slightly busy elsewhere etc etc
For valks i tend to stay at min range distance from lk so i can keep dps up on him before grouping up when the valks all appear. As soon as they have picked 3 people up.. i drop a trap, disengage out and (multi shot over aimed shot ftw).. and single target them down to hell.. don’t think i’ve ever bothered with volley personally.
On the disengageing from valks.. i did it once by pure fluke but its not something i hold my breath on when im caught and im gone over the ledge.
I haven’t used dbm since early kara days.. but i know bw’s has an awesome(sexylady) 10-1 countdown voice for defile which is helpful as hell for being ready for it.
Be ready to love it when you get both defile and valks together.. or when they pick up 3 healers /wrists.
Dunno about bothering with Concussive Barrage, tbh if your raid isn’t able to keep them slow /clatter them around the ear but in a worse case situation i guess its an option worth considering. And another reason to remind you raid ‘/boosted by hunters as usual’ =D
Only other thing is the vile spirits.. slowing traps ftw.. might not be needed but handy to have if they do get low and need to be kited or such by others who arent as awesome as us.. multishot and maul em.. first time we got lk 25 reg down my heart was going 666 bpm trying to get the spirits down fast enough. :o
Random bits n bobs there but hey insomnia makes me do random things. Hope some of it is useful and not utter nonsense ;p
There’s a lot of good advice in this- thanks :) As for concussive barrage, it’s only useful if you’re running without a full complement of stuns and snares. I don’t need it in my group.
watch out for frost traps covering defile
Watch out for crap people using the ‘amg i cant seez the defile cause of frost trap thats whay we wiped and i didnt move’… /abuse
It is a bit of a problem. The white covers the black defile. You don’t need to know where the white is, but you really need to make sure not to be close to the black.
And yeah, I’ve heard that. But it’s tough if it’s what’s needed.
If you turn off projected textures, the frost trap “slick” won’t cover the defile. Our group does this specifically for this fight.
This eliminates the whole “I didn’t see the defile so I didn’t move” BS abuse.
Good tip- thanks!
Side note: If you don’t know where “projected textures” option is, you want to bring up your options menus, and select Video. Once you are in the video menu, pick Effects (from the left hand “pane” below resolution). Once the Effects menu is open, projected textures is a check box in the bottom right.
This will turn off projected textures for all of your characters, not just your main one. So, the biggest thing I’ve seen affected by it, outside of the “ice slick” graphic from a frost trap is a pally consecration graphic on the ground.
I think there are also issues with some of the boss graphics if this isn’t turned on, but I’m not sure if any ICC bosses are affected. The only one I remember is Hodir’s snow crashes, off the top of my head.
Hope this helps :)
Thanks. One thing that hunter’s need to suck up and accept is that the LK is one encounter where damage meters dont matter.
Btw on Frost Traps, they do cover defiles. We agreed safest was to set one in advance dead centre of platform which guarantees Valk will be slowed from the start (and shouldnt overlap with defiles since if youve got one there somethings gone seriously wrong.)
On concussive barrage: Worth it for my money, not just for this encounter but also for the joys of Saurfang and DW HCs to come, where dealing with mobs gets a whole lot harder…
If you can afford to take concussive barrage then i guess it would be fine to take it just to cover your bases if your guild has issues on some of the fights like you mentioned.
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#cxbZ0eVoRhdGIcguAox00b if you had no issues with hit rating i guess.. or lose the points in rapid recup if you needed points in hit and were not worried about your mana.
Sometimes it’s a comp issue, not a gear issue. Less often on 25s, but in my 10s team, we’re lucky to have the perfect storm of CC classes.
Damage meters dont matter much anyway. But that’s another topic.
You should never need Concussive Barrage. Stuns are far more important. One rogue with Crippling Poison on a weapon can hit FoK and slow all the Valks. If no rogue, most classes have some slow/snare ability, so don’t waste the talent points.
Snake Traps are useful for Valks. They won’t cause graphical issues with Defile and will slow the Valks. Not perfect as they’re a bit random, but better than nothing.
Good tips, thanks.
I find that the worst Defile/Valk combo always happens on the 2nd Defile. They always seem to be really close together.
My Horde guild is working on LK in 10-man tonight, I’ll have to try the disengage trick if something goes badly with the Valkyrs.
How do you feel about disengaging out of defile? I’m having a bit of a disgreement with my RL about it at the moment. I think it would be faster and safer to just run out because of server/client lag.
Most people want to run out because the server will keep growing the defile until you land and transmit that landing point to the server. I suspect the final size is smaller when you run out.
I swear i never disengaged off the ledge >.<
There’s a running joke about this in my guild, since I tended to disengage off the edge a lot when I was working with one of our 10s on LK. I’ve gotten better about not doing it in 25s, but that platform is awfully small sometimes, especially if there are a couple of defiles up.
Based on what I found on EJ, because of the server not recognizing where you are until after you land from your disenage, you shouldn’t disengage out of a defile. It’ll continue to grow and you could continue to take damage from it. So, running out is the best thing to do :)
big news – Misdirect and TotT going away in Cat:
http://wowleaks.com/general/the-tank-thread-blue-t507.html
The way I read that, they will still be there and still transfer threat, but won’t be usable every 30 seconds like they are now.
Not how I read it, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see :)
I think they are getting away from talents that reduce threat (like the priest ones that reduce holy/shadow threat, and the druid/DK equivalents). I know MD was introduced in BC, but at this point you’ve had 2 raiding tiers where groups have come to depend on things like MD for a distance pull (LK encounter [When the RP ends]/Ignis encounter) and helping to solidify threat in an untauntable encounter.
I think we’ll know more once the beta starts, and we get a better look at the rest of the talent trees.
As others have said, frost traps are risky because of defile visibility. We’re specifically asked not to use them in our guild but if your group is low on slows and doesn’t have a shaman to earthbind it may be necessary. Just check with your raid leader before dropping it.
I usually drop an explosive and snake trap while I’m in melee waiting for the valk to pick someone up. Free dps is always nice.
If you get picked up, be sure to put your pet on your valk for extra dps. It’s not like you have anything better to do while you’re flying through the air.
On 25 we don’t like for the hunters to be out far enough to shoot when the valks swoop in because having all 3 packed densely in one spot and all going the same direction is more valuable to us (due to aoe and whatnot) than having a hunter shoot a couple extra seconds on LK. I stand min range and as soon as I see the first valk swooping in I scoot on top of everyone else and drop all my damage traps then get back out soon as they’ve all picked a target.
In P3 there are a couple different ways groups do it. One useful thing is for hunters to put their pets stationed out of the raid then MD a few valks to them. If you see more than one valk heading for the melee area you can also distracting shot one so that it heads for you, or concussion shot to give the first one time to be healed up. In our raid the OT usually blows up the bulk of the spirits himself as they’re travelling to the raid so there are very few that get through.