So on Sunday the 22nd, my guild finally got this:
Yep. Defeated Algalon for the first time. AND it comes with a snazzy title!
Woot!
Algalon is not exactly a difficult fight, honest. It’s just making sure the black holes are closed properly, you don’t stand near collapsing stars, you don’t stand near cosmic smash and that you avoid big bang. Oh, yeah, and the tanks are taking obscene amounts of damage, too. He hits hard and *fast*. To the point where me and the other holy pally use 4pc T8 for the Sacred Shield thing — it’ll proc the damage reduction by Sacred Shield every 4 seconds instead of every 6.
That said, my fellow holy paladin died. Twice. Subsequently, this is how I finished the fight:
That’s right. 816 mana. Divine Plea on cooldown. Divine Illumination on cooldown. Divine Favor on cooldown. Wings on cooldown. Mana potion on cooldown. And I couldn’t run to melee Algalon because if I stopped casting for too long, the tank would die, period. I’d rather get yelled out for being completely oom than be yelled at for whacking on the boss to regain mana and not spam healing the tanks. Basically, it’s a damn good thing we got him down when we did, or else it would have been a wipe. (Incidentally, that total mana pool is a less than my usual buffed mana pool, since I’m in 4/5 T8 instead of 4/5 T9. Normally, it reads 38,989 mana. Which is gross, but I love it.)
So after we downed Algalon, it was back to Trial of the Grand Crusader.
Twins were already down, so we were going to attempt Anub’arak.
We really haven’t had a lot of practice on the encounter, for two reasons:
1) Attendence has been crappy. And I really can’t blame people. TOC is a shitty raid instance.
2) Our MT, who is the add tank on heroic Anub, is trying to do the “I’ll tank all four adds by myself and will not be hit and will block every attack for more damage than they can deal to me” strat.
As I understand it, and I am not awesome at math, Nerubian Burrowers (there are four of them each wave) hit for a base of 6.8k damage. If your tank is wearing a block value set and is 102.4% unhittable (yes, that’s unhittable, not uncrittable), the tank takes 0 damage despite the fact the adds are buffing themselves with haste or something and you can AOE down the adds on top of Anub, doing double damage, basically.
Guess who doesn’t have 102.4% unhittable status? That’s right. Our MT.
So he’ll dodge, parry and block a LOT… and then he’ll be unlucky.
Now, see, here, he blocks a couple of time and COMPLETELY blocks all of the damage:
[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Miss
[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Block (3614)
[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Parry
[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 10347
[01:23:29.348] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.356] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.509] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Block (4505)
Of course, that’s 7 hits by 4 adds in the same second. Eek.
And then he gets unlucky. In the same second.
[01:23:29.746] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 12616
[01:23:29.762] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Miss
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 10486
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 2050 (B: 3410)
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 3651 (B: 3410)
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Miss
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT Dodge
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 2100 (B: 3410)
[01:23:29.951] Nerubian Burrower hits MT 9392
That’s like, 40k damage. And he doesn’t have much more than 40k health in his block gear.
Surprisingly, this is not what killed us, primarily because us healers are leet.
What killed us on our best attempt was Hand of Protection.
The goal is to basically use as little of the ice as possible on heroic Anub, because the frost orb things do NOT respawn. You get six for the entire encounter. So, when Anub pursues people during the burrows, this is what happens.
Burrow 1, first person chased runs towards a patch of ice we drop at the entrance. It’s far, they stand there and run Anub into the ice.
Burrow 1, second person chased stays with the majority of the raid over by where Anub starts out (which is where we fight him). A paladin (can you see where this is going? haha!) casts Hand of Protection on this second target when Anub is almost on top of them. They wait until the buff is down to about 2 seconds left and then strafe on to the patch of ice they’re standing next to.
Burrow 1, third person chased kites for ~7 seconds.
Burrow 2 works in exactly the same way. And if you have a third burrow, you’re fucked.
So my RL friend, the resto druid and healing lead, assigns us our BOP cooldowns (seriously, I can’t say HOP with a straight face. I’ve tried.).
Since both the other holy paladin and I have 2/2 Guardian’s Favor, this is how it was organized:
I have people on the odd burrows (1/3, if needed) and the other holy paladin has people on the even burrows (2/4, if needed). So the second person on the first and third burrows gets BOPped by me and the second person on the second and fourth burrows gets BOPped by the other paladin.
It was, I believe, our third time getting to the burrow. I’d been BOPping people as assigned.
Burrow 1: I BOP a warlock.
Burrow 2: I’m the person who needs to be BOPped.
The MT/RL says, in raid chat:
“BOP at the last second, Mad.”
And I’m like “boy, I hope the other holy pally read that…”
And then I die to the impales from Anub’arak’s spikes.
The MT/RL says: “or just die.”
So the other pally is like “but I bopped the warlock” and I’m like “no, I did”. My BOP still had 30+ seconds on its cooldown.
It was only after I logged off that I remembered that Hand of Protection CAUSES FORBEARANCE and that there is NO WAY both of our BOPs could have been on cooldown! And since mine *WAS*, he was LYING to me! And made me out to look like a complete, total idiot in the raid!
I was SO angry that I uploaded the logs and checked them… and then I got even angrier. Because I was wrong. And oooooh, I hate being wrong!
[01:43:18.796] Madranah casts Hand of Protection on Warlock
[01:43:18.903] Other Holy Paladin casts Hand of Protection on Warlock
[01:43:19.016] Warlock gains Hand of Protection from Madranah
[01:43:19.016] Warlock’s Hand of Protection fades
[01:43:19.016] Warlock gains Hand of Protection from Other Holy Paladin
[01:43:29.058] Warlock’s Hand of Protection fades
What the hell is that? That is some really fucking dumb luck right there. That we synched to the point where they BOTH landed on the warlock at EXACTLY the same time is just unfathomable to me. But the logs prove that he didn’t lie. He cast it.
Of course, he shouldn’t have cast it on the warlock. But at least he’s not a lying bastard.
Anyways, that’s basically all the news that’s fit to print.