So last night we were all set to get our Infernal titles (finish EV in under 2 hours).
Of course the whole night was messed up right from the start, but we pushed on. Gharj was stationary for about 30% of his health (no pounce, no frenzy, nothing). Finally he frenzied, but no other platform came. We kept going and when he frenzied again finally another platform showed up, so we went over there - then the platform dropped out from beneath us, leaving us all in the lava. We rushed back to the first platform - and from there the fight went as usual.
After this our usual person that solves the pylons was bugged in some kind of animation glitch and couldn't interact with objects.
The infernal council members were marked with the wrong names visually, but once you clicked on them the tooltips showed the proper information.
Even with all the above we made great time - ran all the way through EV and were looking at Soa in about 45 minutes. At this point we all figured we had it in the bag and were looking forward to adding to our list of guild achievements.
About an hour later we were jumping down during transition phase 1 and Accomp says - hey, where is the floor? Just another of the long headaches that we had to deal with.
Here is a listing of all the crap we had to deal with, and in the end we missed our titles and never did end up killing him:
- Balls zapping for extra damage after they explode, often resulting in dead people.
- Balls causing exploding damage twice
- People in the air during transition phase and can't see the boss or other players (we've combated this by halting all DPS on Soa if he is close to transitioning while someone is in the air, then pushing him when they land).
- Person who just blew up a ball getting immediately thrown in the air causing them to die (this is just bad luck, probably not a bug, but happening before they can even get a heal sucks)
- Pylons dropping and not shattering shield
- Random hate dropping in Phase 3 making it impossible for the tank to properly position Soa
- Balls that fall during transition transport on top of players killing everyone instantly
At this point it really is an achievement if you manage to kill Soa because you've just been really lucky.
After giving up on Soa we went in to KP for a more streamlined run. Bonethrasher started hitting people who were behind him instead of in front of him, Sorno decided not to jump on the ledge except once I think. The trash after Jarg and Sorno respawned and the speeder didn't work to take us back to Foreman ... Here we just quit for the night, no raiding this week, GG patch day.
We had the same problem with Bonecrusher last night as well. Peeps behind him were getting swiped while those in front where hit/miss it seemed.
ReplyDeleteI noticed this rarely before the patch - but it seems more pronounced since. He used to switch his direction prior to swiping and then still swipe his previous target, even if they were behind him. I think the delay between turning and swiping might have gotten larger, which lets more people get to the wrong side before it lands.
DeleteThe lightning balls are the cause of most of the wipes. Here are some general tips for handling them before I dig into some of the other mechanics or bugs?
ReplyDeleteStacking in the dead center of the room for Phase 2 is important for several reasons
a) Healers can see who is running out of the raid to take the lightning ball explosions easier
b) Players targeted by lightning balls keep the AE explosion out of the ops
c) AE heals from sages will hit everyone
Players targeted by lightning balls should run far left and far right of the balls to identify which ball is theirs (First name in raid warning is left, second goes right)
a) Let the balls cross over each other if needed giving you enough space to not get hit by two balls at once.
b) Stack back up in the raid immediately after taking the hit. The theory is if you get thrown into the air you will come back down where you left so you dont want to be on the outside edge and come down into an exploding ball.
Turn on your name plates for enemies. It is your best chance to tell which lightning balls are alive versus which are corpses.
Mechanics or bugs, these are some things to give you the best chance at survival.
1. Balls zapping for extra damage before or after they explode, often resulting in dead people.
a) The player targeted by the ball has to be > 90% health before running into the ball
b) It is the players fault if they run into a ball with less than 90% health, if you are not at 90% health run on the outter edge of the platform kiting the ball until a healer gets you above 90%
c) If the ops is properly stacked in the center of the room healers can identify players who are about to take the hit and put up armor heals, hots and damage reduction on them
d) The player targeted by the ball can not hesitate to run into the ball when above 90%, do not dance with the ball giving it time to zap you. Run straight through it and dont stop running in a straight line until you are 5 yards clear of it. This minimizes the time you are in the ball zap radius.
2. Balls causing exploding damage twice
a) Best chances of surviving this are following the steps in problem 1
3. People in the air during transition phase and can't see the boss or other players
a) Players in the air have to watch the debuff and call out when they are about to land so the ops knows when to push
b) It may be possible to kite lightning balls until someone gets picked up into the air. I want to try to time the lightning ball explosion with the person landing to minimize the chance of getting more lightning balls before the floor falls out. (Unknown if more than 2 lightning balls can be out at once)
4. Person who just blew up a ball getting immediately thrown in the air causing them to die
a) This is where the hots and damage reduction from healers gives the best chance for survival in this scenario see problem 1
5. Balls that fall during transition transport on top of players killing everyone instantly
a) Properly timed balls explosion with person in air coming down then immediate dps to force boss phase transition will give you best chance to avoid this. See problem 3.
Hey Carbon,
DeleteDidn't you run 16m Normal with us the other day? These are pretty much the strats we use and what I've got written up in the general sections. Curious if other people developed that "top name left, bottom name right" strategy independently.
Stacking up is pretty essential in HM and NM - Normal is forgiving since there is only one ball and it does barely any damage.
You're right in that the balls cause most of our deaths, either them doing far more than normal damage - we've had our sage die at full health with a shiled on - or just doing extra ticks after they explode, or even doing double explode damage. Making sure everyone is topped off helps you get through this portion, but even then sometimes it doesn't work.
If you kite the lightning Balls he will summon more even if the previous ones aren't exploded - if you get to this point it's pretty much a guaranteed wipe.
Yes during transition P2 make sure DPS doesn't push him into transition while someone is in the air. I doubt this will be fixed, you just have to pay attention. The real problem is someone getting tossed into the air while being targeted by a ball, or just after hitting a ball - both of those cause major issues with a raid.
Timing the transition in P2 is pretty critical at this point - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I'm sure with more practice we'll all get better at it ... but having to get better at dealing with bugs shouldn't be necessary.
Ya I just wanted to get my thoughts documented. We wiped all night because we weren't calling left right. We weren't stacking. This is a list of what I saw us doing wrong pretty much.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughts.
DeleteWe tried again last night and still couldn't get it. We can reliably get to P3 at least now, we've managed to time the transitions properly - but three times in a row last night, I'm running with our MT making sure we keep aggro on Soa. I run ahead to the far side of where a pillar is falling and Soa spawns a ball on top of me. Zap, Zap, Zap.
The first time I didn't notice and died almost immediately, the second time I noticed and got out of the way, only to die from Soa zapping me when he switched aggro. The third time I got out of the way, but the ball was assigned to me, and the pillar was about to fall so I had to take care of it so it didn't zap everyone. I healed, hit my 40% damage reduction, leaped the ball ... then the pillar fell on me and I died.
So, all in all, that sucked, a lot. RNG with Soa hates me, and apparently hated all of us last night.
Whenever anyone asks about EV, I just say - I hate smashing my head against Soa's balls. That about sums up the whole Ops.