Strats

aka the double dragon encounter
moon
Posts: 22
Joined: 02 Jan 2011, 21:47

Strats

Post by moon » 11 Jan 2011, 08:18

Overall the fight differs alot from the first fight in Bastion of Twilight, Halfus Wyrmbreaker which I wrote about a couple of days ago. If Halfus is a gear check, Valiona & Theralion can be seen as mainly a skill check. As such it is both more fun and easier than Halfus, totally depending on the skill of your group and your gear (with really good gear, Halfus is probably easier, but in the gear we have now, V&T are easier). It also means that the difficulty of the fight is mainly decided on how good your raid is at working together, moving from stuff on the ground and other fight mechanics like it, because V&T has plenty of them. It can become healing intensive at times, but I'll talk you through it and hopefully you'll have a good idea as to what to expect!

Our average gearscore was at about ~347, I had 344.

Preparation
Although raid setup won't make or break this fight (as long as you bring skilled people) there is a slight advantage to bringing an even amount of melee and casters. Around 4 people in the melee group and 5 people in the caster group is an ideal setup because of the Meteor and Fabulous Flames in phase 2, which I will explain shortly. You also only need one tank for this fight, but we had a backup Bear (dpsing) just in case.

Phase 1 - Valiona Grounded, Theralion Flying
You will only ever fight one dragon at the time, Valiona going first. In the tactic that worked best for us we engaged Valiona where she was standing, with the tank having her face away from the rest of the group. Have the rest of the raid spread out behind her. None of the dragons have a Tail Swipe or Cleave Mechanic, so there is no need to take any regard to this when positioning yourself. In the first phase you will have to think about;


Engulfing Flames - Valiona will turn towards a random player and do a breath which engulfs about 45% of the room. You'll have a couple of seconds reaction time before she does this, so everyone should simply run out of the way by getting behind the fire (aka behind her head). This works exactly as when you fight her in Grim Batol.
Twilight Meteorite - Throughout the phase people should stand spread out. 10 yards apart is ideal. This is because of the Twilight Blast that Theralion with throw at a random raid member, dealing 30k damage to everyone within 10 yards of the target (and the target of course).
Blackout - Two times during the first phase (depending on dps), you will get a Blackout on a random raid member. It is a debuff that absorbs 20000 damage, so it can either be dispelled or healed through, the previous definitely being preferred. Have people stack up on melee some 2 seconds before this debuff is applied, and dispell it as soon as possible. Have a designated dispeller for this! This is the only thing you need to dispel throughout the fight. The damage done is divided among everyone within 10 yards, so if you're less than 4 people grouped up this will really hurt (250k divided between targets)! If you're around 6-7 people this is fairly easy to heal back up. After the grouping and dispelling people must spread out asap to avoid stacking damage from the Meteorite.

Tank healing will be easy in this phase, so the trick lies in handling the Blackout primarily (and everyone moving from the flames). People will take alot of damage from Blackout, so you want to be prepared to top them off just afterwards so they can survive a Meteor strike.

Phase Transition
It's not a transition per se, but the short time when Valiona will go up in the air and Theralion land. Have the tank meet him in the middle of the room, where you will want to tank him. Have a designated ranged on which all ranged stacks up asap. Valiona will start to place huge pink swirls on the ground which you must avoid. You can stand in it for some 2 seconds before you get transported into the Twilight Realm.

Twilight Realm - If you do get in here, you have to find a portal to get out, while avoiding the pink shiny things on the ground as they are mines, and probably will kill you if stepped on. You can also be hit by the phase 2 meteor here (not the same as phase 1 meteor), and that will kill you for sure.

Phase 2 - Theralion Grounded, Valiona Flying
If you're a holy priest like me, this is where you will want to pop a Lightwell. This phase is a lot about movement for the caster group, so be prepared to pop instants. There will also be alot of raid damage, so placement of stuff like Healing Rain/PW Bubble/Sanctuary will be important.


Fabolous Flames (aka Void Zones) - Theralion will target a random ranged member and place a void zone on the gorund underneath. Everyone has to move out of it, in a group, asap. Move in a circle motion around the dragon, decide which direction to run beforehand! If there are no ranged, or ranged are standing too close to melee, a melee target can be chosen.
Engulfing Magic - Will deal damage to everyone within 10 yards equal to the healing/damage you inflict, divided among all targets. This means some people will deal alot more damage when having this debuff than others. As a holy priest I usually only had one renew up, on the tank. It ticks for some 4k, divided among 5 targets. You still want anyone who gets this debuff to run out of the group asap. Some people, like dpsers, will do alot of damage to the group if they don't move fast enough. You will see who is targetted some seconds before the debuff is cast, so everyone has some seconds of reaction time to move out of the group.
Meteor - Another meteor (for which I don't know the right name) will be cast during this phase. You can see who is the target by an arrow that appears above their heads, and everyone should stack on that person asap (although everyone should already be stacked). It is not like the one in phase 1. This Meteor needs to have it's damage split, 3 or less people will probably be killed if hit, depending on hp. The person who gets Engulfing Magic can get targetted by the Meteor! If he does he has to stop all casting at once and group with the rest. If the person happens to be someone who has alot of hots/dots up, pray you have a better solution (I used wings on our affliction lock when this happened).
Deep Breath - Just before you get back to phase 1, you'll have Valiona do Deep Breath on the raid. It looks alot like the one Onyxia does, only it leaves fire on the ground. She will do it either on the upper or lower third of the room (seen from the entrance). Standing in the fire will do damage and send you into the Twilight Realm. You can tell which side of the room she will breathe in well in time, giving everyone a good chance to move out of the way.

This will be the most healing intensive phase, and the phase where you'll wipe the most (at least we did). What killed us most times was people not running away fast enough with the Engulfing Magic Debuff. If you get hurt by this and then get a meteor strike or faboulous flames, you'll probably die. Keep people topped off as much as possible, be ready to place aoe heals as soon as you've moved out of one Void Zone (Faboulous flames) and have people use the lightwell (if you have one). In the new phase transition, have everyone move to prepare for Phase 1 again.

Rinse and repeat! It usually only takes 2,5 phases to get this done.

Priest Specifics
Above is the recount for healing on this fight. As you can see this fight is mainly about raid healing, so I chose to use Chakra: Sanctuary for the bigger part of the fight (especially in the second phase). I also reglyphed, replacing Guardian Spirit with Prayer of Healing glyph, and that worked alot better! In the first phase you will have to concentrate to heal people up after a Blackout. If everyone moves like they should, this phase is fairly easy and you can depend on Heal.
The second phase is a little trickier, in that the raid healing becomes alot more intense, while you also have to concentrate on more things happening, and movement. It is also easy to forget the poor melee, but remember that they too are targetted by Meteors (but not by Engulfing Magic or Fabulous Void Zones if your ranged are doing their job). Having them use the Lightwell is perfect in this phase, so place it so that they at least have easy access to it. Ranged will probably move away from it sooner or later, but as long as they can target it they should use it too of course. This phase will require alot of Prayer of Mending, Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing, and I was really greatful that Blizzard had doubled our mana regeneration through talents, it was needed!

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oldone
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Re: Strats

Post by oldone » 11 Jan 2011, 12:23


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oldone
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Joined: 08 Jun 2010, 09:30

Re: Strats

Post by oldone » 04 Feb 2011, 10:28


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