Nefarian (and Onyxia)

Nefarian strikes again?
Locked
moon
Posts: 22
Joined: 02 Jan 2011, 21:47

Nefarian (and Onyxia)

Post by moon » 11 Jan 2011, 07:59

Throughout the entire encounter every 10% of Nefarian's health will cause Nefarian's lightning machine to strike the raid with Electrocute.

Nefarian's Lightning Machine

Electrocute—Generates a massive bolt of lightning that strikes the ground, inflicting 103950 to 106050 Nature damage on all enemy targets.



Phase One

Undead Onyxia is the first part of the encounter. She awaits players following the intro.Onyxia - 6.6 million (10-man) / 24 million (25 man) HP

Electric Discharge—When the lightning orbs on Onyxia's sides are glowing inflicts 19500 to 20500 Nature damage per second to enemies on Onyxia's sides. Damage increased by Onyxia's lightning charge level. Can be avoided by line of sight behind the pillars in the room.
Shadowflame Breath—Inflicts 35,000 Shadowflame damage to enemies in a cone in front of the caster every 0.5 seconds for 1.5 seconds. Also resurrects Animated Bone Warriors in the area of effect.
Cleave—Inflicts 110% of normal melee damage to an enemy and its nearest allies.
Tail Lash—A sweeping tail strike hits all enemies behind the caster, inflicting 15750 to 20250 damage and stunning them for 2 sec.
Children of Deathwing—Nefarian and Onyxia attack 100% faster when they are within 60 yards of eachother.
Nefarian

Hail of Bones—Nefarian will cast this six times in phase one before landing, each time spawning an Animated Bone Warrior and doing 23987 to 26512 Shadow damage to nearby enemies.
Cleave—Inflicts 110% of normal melee damage to an enemy and its nearest allies.
Shadowflame Breath—Inflicts 54,000 Shadowflame damage to enemies in a cone in front of the caster every 0.5 seconds for 1.5 seconds. Also resurrects Animated Bone Warriors in the area of effect.
Tail Lash—A sweeping tail strike hits all enemies behind the caster, inflicting 15750 to 20250 damage and stunning them for 2 sec.
Children of Deathwing—Nefarian and Onyxia attack 100% faster when they are within 60 yards of eachother.
Animated Bone Warrior

Have an energy bar that slowly depletes over time. It will be reset to full if they are touched by [Shadowflame] effects. While they have far too much HP and are too numerous to be killed, they will 'lie down' and despawn if they run out of energy. Their damage increases steadily while melee-ing, so they should be kited. They can also be feared and crowd controlled.
Animate Bones—Shadowflame energy animates these bones, taking 2 energy per second.
Empowering Strikes—Melee and Ranged attacks empower the caster, increasing all damage dealt by 100% and movement speed by 10%. Stacks infinitely.
Phase Two

Nefarian in the airLava

Magma—Swimming in Magma deals 5,000 fire damage per second. Increases damage taken from Magma by 2000. Stacks.
Nefarian

Shadowflame Barrage—Spammed on the raid the whole of phase 2. Inflicts 22500 to 27500 Shadowflame damage to an enemy.
Shadow of Cowardice—Inflicts 30000 Shadowflame damage to an enemy and increases Shadow damage taken by 100%. Appears to only be used when trying to exploit the encounter.
Chromatic Prototype

Will stand in place and constantly try to cast Blast Nova, which can be interrupted. 2.6M/8M HP. Does not melee.
Blast Nova—Deals 30050 to 40950 Fire damage to all enemies every 2 seconds for 30 seconds. Interruptable.
Phase Three
Nefarian

Cleave—Inflicts 110% of normal melee damage to an enemy and its nearest allies.
Shadowflame Breath—Inflicts 54,000 Shadowflame damage to enemies in a cone in front of the caster every 0.5 seconds for 1.5 seconds. Also ressurects Animated Bone Warriors in the area of effect.
Tail Lash—A sweeping tail strike hits all enemies behind the caster, inflicting 15750 to 20250 damage and stunning them for 2 sec.
Shadowblaze Spark—Creates a shadowy blaze at a nearby location that spreads quickly. It will expand from its starting location in a circular shape and will follow players and speed up if it is touched.
Shadowblaze—Inflicts 50,000 Shadowflame damage per second to enemies within the Shadowblaze. Also ressurects Animated Bone Warriors in the area of effect. Breaks crowd control effects and roots on Animated Bone Warriors in the area of effect.
Animated Bone Warrior

Same as Phase One.

Overview
The encounter begins with an introductory event in which Nefarian (as Lord Victor Nefarius) resurrects Onyxia. He then turns into his dragon form and flies into the air, landing 30 seconds into the fight. Although he is present, in Phase 1 his Lightning Machine will electrocute the raid if they DPS him, while Onyxia's lightning charge ability will build up to dangerous levels if she is not attacked. The two dragons should be separated, because they gain a 100% haste buff when within 60 yards of one another. Phase one ends when Onyxia dies.

In Phase 2, Nefarian will lift off again and fill the area with lava. There will be three raised pillars amid the sea of lava, each with a Chromatic Prototype on it. The raid should split into groups and head to their respective pillars to deal with the mobs. This phase ends when either the Chromatic Prototypes are slain or three minutes have passed; an achievement, Keeping it in the Family, rewards players for getting Nefarian below 50% before the end of phase two and subsequently defeating him. There are no Animated Bone Warriors during this phase.

When the Chromatic Prototypes are slain or three minutes are up, the lava subsides and Nefarian lands once more, beginning his final phase. Animated Bone Warriors can be raised by Shadowflame effects and should be kited. The fight becomes a DPS race at this point.

Strategy
Phase 1
DPS Onyxia down while tanking Nefarian once he lands. You must also deal with the bone warriors.

Phase 2

Stay out of the lava.Split the group evenly between the pillars and DPS the adds down together, interrupting them and leaving one alive while you DPS the boss a bit. It is important to get him as low as possible while not wiping the raid. If the healers are running low on mana, finish off the final add and start Phase 3.

Nefarian's shadow bolts during this phase do splash damage in a very small radius, so spread out some to minimize the damage.

Phase 3
In addition to his Phase 1 abilities, Nefarian has his Shadowblaze Spark (flame ring) ability, which starts off as a patch of fire and grows in an O shape before it despawns. It is not too difficult to deal with at first but because Nefarian casts it more and more quickly it will become unavoidable as the phase goes on. It is therefore important to have him as low as possible prior to the start of this phase, and once it starts, the phase is a DPS race.

Tank the boss at the outer edge of the room, which will give the raid more warning time and wiggle room to move around and avoid the flame rings. This has the added benefit of more space to deal with the adds.

Videos are out there ...

User avatar
oldone
Beheerder
Posts: 619
Joined: 08 Jun 2010, 09:30

Re: Nefarian (and Onyxia)

Post by oldone » 11 Jan 2011, 12:20


moon
Posts: 22
Joined: 02 Jan 2011, 21:47

Re: Nefarian (and Onyxia)

Post by moon » 30 Mar 2011, 08:32

Tactics to follow. Please find the diagrams on http://jinxedthought.blogspot.com/2011/02/nefarian-10-man.html
Our raid comp was as such;

Blood Dk
Prot Warrior
Disc Priest (me)
Resto Druid
Resto Shaman
Feral Cat Druid
Balance Druid
Unholy Dk
Survival Hunter
Assassination Rogue

Preparation
This fight is about assignments, assignments and more assignments. For many periods in the fight will people be spread out, and you will rarely be in range of everyone. Therefore it is important that everyone know exactly where to be and what to do in order to get this right. It wasn't until we managed with that that we finally downed this, and we had several areas in which we had more trouble than others, I will try to highlight them in this guide for you to think about. Another really important part of this fight was positioning.
In some tactics they suggest taking 3 electrocutes in phase 1 or one electrocute in phase 2, we noticed we had a lot easier time dealing with the extra electrocutes in phase 3 instead. What you choose to do depends alot on your raid setup. If you have a good add kiter in phase 3, it's not much of a problem to take electrocutes in that phase. If you have good healers, you'll probably be able to take an electrocute in phase 2. Druids are great in this fight for reasons I will discuss in the healing section at the bottom of this post.

Phase 1
In this phase you will fight Onyxia (who dies really easy), Nefarian and some Skeletonadds.

Assignments
Tanks: 1 tank on Onyxia, 1 tank on Nefarian, 1 tank on skeletonadds (we had the Feral Cat Druid tank them as bear, it is ideal if you can have someone offtank them in this manner).
Healers: 1 healer on Onyxia tank, preferrably one with alot of hots (ie druid), 1 healer on Nefarian tank, 1 healer on skeletontank/raid
Dps: Enough dps on Onyxia to kill her before Nefarian reaches 70% (if you don't she will wipe the raid), in our case the hunter sufficed with the balance druid going in and helping towards the last percent.




Positioning
Onyxia Tank - Needs to tank Onyxia facing away from the raid. Onyxia has two abilities (see further below) of which one should be avoided at all costs (Electric Discharge) and one won't be (Tail Swipe). If your tank can handle it, have him turn Onyxia, alternating having her tail facing the raid (to avoid Electric Discharge) and her side facing the raid (to avoid Tail Swipe). This is tricky to do however since Tail Swipe doesn't have a special timer.
Nefarian tank - Should stand behind Onyxia, along the opposite edge of the circle, far enough away to not be hit by the Tail Swipe.
Skeletontank - Will gather all the adds, that spawn all across the room and run to the back leg of Nefarian. Do not stand in front of Nefarian! His breath will awaken the adds, making them hit harder.
Onyxia Tank Healer - Will stand in the middle behind Onyxia.
Nefarian Tank Healer - Will stand by Nefarian.
Addtank/Raid Healer - Will stand by Nefarian.
Onyxia Dps - Will stand in the middle behind Onyxia.
Nefarian Dps - Will stand by Nefarian.

To watch out for;

Every 10% of his hp, Nefarian will do an Electrocute which does 100k nature damage to everyone in the raid. It is important to have everyone topped off before this, so dps and healers need to coordinate this between themselves, so that dps don't push Nefarian below a 10% mark when healers aren't ready for it. Everyone should try to use cooldowns to mitigate the damage as much as possible.
Electric Discharge come from Onyxias sides, and therefore the tank should try to have Onyxia facing toward the edges of the circle, with the tail pointing towards the middle.
Tail Swipe - Onyxia has a tail swipe, and anyone standing behind her will take it. It doesn't deal much damage at all however, and this isn't much of a problem as long as you don't get it exactly before Nefarians Electrocute. By having a healer with hots on the tank, the tail swipe is alot easier to deal with.

Amount of Electrocutes in phase 1 - 2.

Phase 2
In this phase the room will fill with lava which means you have to get up on one of the three pillars surrounding the room. On each pillar there will be an add that does Blast Nova, this needs to be interrupted. You need to spread the raid across the pillars in a way that allows you to deal with the Blast Novas. The adds do not need to be tanked.

Assignments & Positioning

At least one interrupter on each platform.
Druids with tranquility are good to separate as well, although we tried to save our tranquilities for the last phase instead.
One healer per platform.
Enough dps on each platform to kill the add before the healers oom.
There will most likely be 3-3-4 people on the platforms, try to position the 4 where you have your best healer (ie the healer who can deal with that healing situation the best, in our case the hotting druid).

To watch out for;

This phase is easy in theory and in my opinion the most difficult in practice, at least for the healers. You have to make absolutely sure to interrupt all the Blast Novas. Getting even one off could, and probably will, wipe the raid.
Getting up on the pillars is no easy thing the first couple of times. Be prepared on alot of wiping due to people failing on this. The easiest way to get up on the pillar is to stand some yard away from it (do not run towards it), wait for the lava to fill up, and pressing forward as soon as it has.
Make sure people are ready for the first interrupt, that was usually the trickiest to get right. Once interrupted the Blast Nova has 12 second cooldown before being cast again. It is raid wide damage.
During phase 2, Nefarian will use Shadowflame Barrage on 3 (?) random raid members, which deals some 25k shadowfire damage. This is fairly easy to handle, as long as the same person doesn't get too many of them in a row (which can happen!).
People should try to use any damage mitigating cooldowns as possible during this phase, especially the first couple of seconds before the healer has everything under control.

Amount of Electrocutes in phase 2 - 0. (1 if your healers think they can handle it, otherwise make sure dpsers don't dps Nefarian at all).

Phase 3
You will be fighting Nefarian and the skeletonadds. We tried several tactics, but on our first try with Nefarian in the middle instead of on the edge of the circle, did we down him, so that seems like a good tactic.

Assignments
Tank: 1 Tank Nefarian, 1 tank skeletonadds
Healers: 2 healers on Nefariantank and raid. 1 healer on Skeletontank.
Dps: All on Nefarian.




Positioning
Nefariantank will be standing in the middle with Nefarian, making sure that Nefarian is never facing the Skeletonadds, for the same reasons as in phase 1.
Skeletonadd tank will be kiting the skeletonadds around the room in a circular motion.
Nefariantank/raidhealers will be standing in the middle, at the side of Nefarian and with melee.
Skeletonadd tankhealer will be running around the room with that tank.
All dps will be standing in the middle, at the side of Nefarian.

To watch out for;

If you follow our tactic and don't push an Electrocute in phase 2, there will be one coming fairly soon after Nefarian lands in phase 3 instead.
This phase is "easy" in that you only have to make sure the tank lives and the raid lives, by spamming heals. Every 10% there will be Electrocutes, so manage all the cooldowns the raid has to make sure no one dies.
The trickiest part in this phase without a doubt is the kiting of the adds. Until the addtank as got the hang of this you will probably wipe a whole lot of times. Remember that you don't actually kite the adds to avoid their damage, that is impossible since they have 300% runspeed. You kite them to make sure they don't get into Nefarians Shadowblaze which he aims at the Skeletons. The way our addtank did it was that he stood still with the adds until he saw that Nefarian was casting Shadowblaze, at which point he moved them, in a circular path around the edges of the room.
The Shadowblaze will cover a fair amount of the room towards the last percent. It deals alot of damage so make sure not to stand in it!
Amount of Electrocutes in phase 3 - 6

Healing Specifics
Many healers, me included, will feel like Nefarian is a really tough nugget to heal. Why is this really, setting aside the massive amounts of damage that people take all the time? Everything in Cataclysm has taught us the value of triage healing, and most boss fights also require good triage healing to do a good healing job. Only rarely are we told to nuke heal and even more rarely to keep people topped off (except the tanks of course) continously. Chimaeron during Feud is a rare example, and that is only during a very small portion of the fight as a whole. What makes Nefarian so tricky however is that healers require to keep the entire raid, not just the tanks, topped off at all times, to make sure everyone will survive the Electrocute which deals some 100k damage. Even small amounts of hp loss could lead to a death, especially if you as a clothie only have some 120k hp. It doesn't leave much hp as a margin. For most healers this becomes a problem because our heals aren't designed to work this way and handle this kind of damage. Our cheap heals are slow and small, and don't work well to keep people constantly topped off. Instead we often have to resort to our fast or big heals, which will make us oom fairly fast. This is especially true during phase 2. Druids however, with their hotting system, do very well on this fight. Druids often have a lot of overhealing, because their healing work in the way that they keep people (usually tanks) topped off through rolling LB, and also keeping rejuvenation and WG up (which works on the few amounts of targets that each healer has in this fight). Shamans and priests (I don't know about paladins) that work mostly through direct healing, will have more trouble in this fight for sure.

Locked