Lich King Strategy

One was a pain in the ass...guess it's time to put the slow curse back in my spec.

Also something worth mentioning for locks that I picked up from watching the Paragon Heroic LK downing. Again, I don't recommend this if you aren't comfortable using your port or don't have the best reflexes or hell even a laggy computer. On Phase 2 I saw locks dropping their portal AND standing on the edge of the platform...always. They never bunched up and before you try to bite my head off, let me explain.

If your close to the edge when a valkyr grabs you, your going to get dropped of quickly. If your a lock, when you get dropped you can teleport back, mid drop. The reason one would stand near their portal is so they don't get taken out of range of it or get pulled an opposite direction of your portal. This also reduces the time your actually being carried and that much sooner you can get in the fight. The biggest advantage I see here, is completely not having to worry about 1 Valkyr, which drops it down to 2 we have to slow and burn down.

FYI - I was just doing some reading up to see if this little trick was ever fixed, I doesn't seem like it has been. It was also mentioned Mages can blink back and POSSIBLY Warriors to do their charge thing to a friendly target. Supposedly its harder to do as a Mage, because you have to turn around and then blink...just a thought.

Is it risky? Yes, but I feel the pro far outweighs the con, especially if your comfortable doing it. I definitely don't suggest EVERY lock to do this, but personally its something I'm giving serious thought to and have been ever since I watched that video a few weeks ago. It's not to say a Warlock is always going to get grabbed, but the time it does happen, it could be a nice sigh of relief.

Another heads up for everyone, coming out of the phase 2 transition (running back in after on the edge)...WATCH FOR THOSE ORBS! I know in 10 man, it's not always possible to drop them in time when we have to run back in and there may very well be a few left up. DO NOT GO NEAR THEM! They will launch you off the platform and you will die. Melee DO NOT engage them, they are only for ranged to worry about.

Not that it's a big deal to know, but it's nice to know game mechanics. Doesn't the Necrotic Plague become stronger everytime it kills someone/jumps?

K...now let's go kill the LK =D

who thinks of things like this.....

Something else about dealing with the valks, it doesn't appear that when this video was made DBM marked the valks, it does now though. We can pretty efficiently handle them by assigning groups of 5 to each mark, each having the appropriate stuns/snares. Combine good group coordination in directing the valks and use of cleave damage and you've got a pretty solid strategy.

I'm pretty sure I know how they work...but not 100%. My only question is, do they pick people at random or those who are closest to the edge? I've been trying to find Warlock videos of the LK 25 fight and for some reason, they seem to like the locks that stick to the edge with their ports.

They pick random people up. It's important with the valks to have everyone be clustered close to the middle as much as possible, to put the greatest amount of distance between the pickup point and the edge (the drop-off point). When we divide groups up, I'd like to have as many stuns/slows/snares as possible available to us, because it makes a WORLD of difference in getting them down. Valks will always be the dps priority so when they are up, get off LK and start hitting them hard ASAP.

Edit: What Tal said.

In hopes the maintence doesn't kill the raid tonight. Don't forget though, it's 10 man on Tuesdays, 25 on Thursdays. The strat doesn't differ to much between 10/25, I know we have one 10 man lock out now on LK and the other with Sindy and then the LK.

Few observations on phase timing and use of cool downs here

I've noticed that from pull to phase 2 is damn near exactly 3 minutes - never less than 2:52 and never more than 3:00. This should mean that everyone with 3-min trinkets or cooldown abilities can use them at the pull and they'll be available again later when needed.

Phase 1 is generally pretty boring from a dps perspective - it's just tank and spank, but you have to be sure to keep a close eye out for necrotic plague either being cast on you or jumping to you because it wasn't handled on it's initial cast. DBM has a ton of warnings going off in phase 1 though - I recommend turning off almost all of them except the ones about the plague

I can generally go balls out in phase 1 from the instant of the pull and right at the transition point I'll be at 40% mana - perfect time to evocate and I'm back to full mana by the time the first raging spirit spawns on phase 1.5. I probably have a bit more haste than most mages, so if you aren't naturally burning though 60% of your mana, then switch to a higher mana usage rotation (keep your AB stacked longer), and you may be able to squeeze out a little more dps.

Phase 1.5 is pretty boring again, but we seem to have a problem with pulling agro the instant a raging spirit spawns. I believe Phase 1.5 is exactly a minute long and the spirits spawn every 20 seconds or so, but the first one doesn't come until about 10 seconds into phase 1.5. This means the 3rd one spawns just a few seconds before the phase is over - you can use this to time when you have to move. If my usual 4xAB, AM rotation takes 7 seconds to cast - I can time my move across the line so as to minimise any loss in dps.

Phase 2: There's nothing that says you need run to the center as soon as P2 starts - you have to get off the very outer edge, but standing just inside that ring is perfectly safe. If you have a buff stack going that you don't want to loose, go ahead and finish of your rotation before you have to spend about 5 seconds running to the center. The first group of valks doesn't spawn until about 10-15 seconds into phase 2. The first defile doesn't come until about 10 seconds after that. I think this is about the largest gap between those events that we get to focus on dpsing the boss. If you pop'd your 3-min cool downs early in phase 1, they'll be available again for phase 2 - be sure you use them.

We all know the phase 2 (and probably the biggest pain in the entire fight) is managing defiles and the valks. That's been discussed quite a bit already - the only point I'll add is that us deeps really need to focus our fire when the mechanics allow. Be sure you're planning ahead on when to pop your cool downs so that you don't blow one only to loose 1/2 the benifit of it because you need to move for a defile. This phase seems to be all about burst dps either on the valks or on the boss.

Phase 2.5 is pretty much a repeat of phase 1.5, except there's more raging spirits and no plague or spirits - watch your aggro here. You get a few seconds between P2 and when stuff starts happening in 2.5 - take this time to spread out nicely and take a quick inventory of what cool downs you have available. About 30 seconds into P2.5 we generally have multiple spirits to dps - hold off on your cool down until the RL calls for blood lust though to maximise dps.

Phase 3 seems similar to phase 2 in that we need to manage defiles, except we replace the valks with some ghosts that us clothies need to stay far away from - with the 30% buff, you probably won't get 1-shot, but a 2-shot is very likely if any of them start exploding around you. Where P2 is all about control with burst dps, P3 is much more about control and keeping yourself alive. If we can make it P3 and get the remaining raging spirits down from P2.5, we only really need about 1/2 the raid alive to dps down the rest of the boss. In P2 you have 10 second gaps (at most) to dps the boss - in P3 you have larger windows betweem movement so don't worry so much about burst, focus on sustained dps and keeping yourself in the right place (spread out for defiles and away from the ghosts)and alive.

Here's some tips and tricks we came up with for hadling the defile.  Again, not my work - but the strat is sound.  It looks like this is the same thing Tal posted at the top - hopefully some pictures will help.

The simplest way to deal with melee Defiles is to have all melee clustered on the throne-side of the Val'kyr, strafing sideways along their flight path, finger poised over the "W" key (or whatever mechanism you use to move forward rapidly) ready to hammer it down the instant you get tagged for Defile.

If you get selected, mash your forward-movement key/button, run through the Val'kyr, and keep going. If you're a second late and happen to poop out the Defile early, at the very least it will be on the OPPOSITE side of the Val'kyr from the rest of the melee, and since you're still moving, it will be a very small smudge.

Constant motion for the Defile-ee is key. Move as soon as you know you've been selected, and don't stop moving until you're well clear of the black oil slick. Its as simple as that.

My ms-paint skills suck, but here's what I'm talking about:

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The white circles are the Val'kyr, all flying in tight formation, moving east (white arrow). [yes, east... south is UP in this picture... blame Blizzard for not putting the Frozen Throne on the north side of the room.] Green oval is melee, yellow is me, red is Arthas. Pink & Blue are healers and ranged, who have started to spread out for Defile.

Melee sets up on the throne-side of the Val'kyr flight path, faces them, and DPSs while strafing to their right (green arrow). Cleaves will hit all 3 Valks and potentially Arthas too. If someone gets tagged for Defile, they run FORWARD (black arrow).

Regarding the "pile up for valks", generally there's one of two scenarios:

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-or-

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... depending on which side of the platform has the worse defile placements.

Arthas does not cleave, so feel free to PILE UP ON THE TANK. I will do my best to get him positioned to one side, or the other, of that red center dividing line. He's got a big-ish hit box, and when he stops to cast Infest its kinda hard to get him moving again, but I'll do what I can.

The tighter we all pile up, the more likely it is that the Val'kyr will all go in the same direction. If someone's off to one side, and gets picked up, they're going to go for a bumpy ride.

On of the biggest problems with 25-man is dealing with 3 valks at once.  They have a dimishing return on stuns - the first one hits them for full duration, the 2nd one for 1/2 and the 3rd one for 1/4 duration.  After that stuns will be ineffective.  The problem is that if not coordinated correctly people may pop all 3 stuns at the same time so that they cannot be stunned later. 

We ended up having somewhat set stunning assignments - that is we had a group of people who would do the first stun as soon as someone was grabbed.  Then we had a 2nd group to do the 2nd stun when the valk passed the inside ring.  Finally we had a 3rd group (some of which were people from the first group if they have a short cool down on their stun) that would do the 3rd stun just before they went over the edge.  It doesn't really matter who does the stun, but we do need to be sure that we don't have multiple people all trying to stun at once. 

Snaring wise - they can be snared up to 50% movement speed.  All manner of snares works and they can all be snared as many times as possible.  Several classes have abilities that will slow them at least 50%.  It works best to be sure that the classes that do that as part of their normal dps burn rotation are picking those up (e.g. Frost Mages and now Arcane Mages will slow as part of thier normal rotation, but Fire mages don't - they could do it, but only by dropping to a lower dps spell and we need all the dps we need to kill all 3 before they go off the edge.)

I did see some talk about the various "exploits" available to get out of being dropped.  There are a few than can work, but the only one that we ever got to work consistantly was the lock's portal.  If we had a lock grabbed, he'd call it out over vent and we'd all stop dps on that valk.  For all the other classes with escape techniques, we'd try to get the free as well - but it was just too inconsistant whether it would work or not - so they did not call out when they got grabbed. 

My God, Mage wrote a lot of his thoughts down.  I read them and they're REALLY useful.  EVERYONE DOING LK SHOULD READ THIS THREAD.  PERIOD.

Pushing this up so that those who need a refresher can see it