10/25 Kelthuzad - heavy melee group

[Zeruvar]

ive only done KT as MT on a 10man. most of the time, we have about 3-4 melee and the rest being ranged which makes positioning on phase 2 to deal with his abilities easy.

the one time we did him with a heavy melee group (only 1 ranged dps, the rest were melee) we always ended up having someone chain an ice block on me. and now that were going to do 25man on him, thats gonna make positioning harder with more melee dps going in. how did you guys work this out? I was thinking of just having me stand on one corner of a triangle, while the melee dps split into 2 groups on the other 2 points of a triangle and just pray Chain heals/hots or CoH heals are enough to keep either one group alive from a chain ice block.

and lets not talk about mc's just yet. In not sure how the other classes would be able to handle that. (aoe fear or stun maybe?)

[dmok]

You have it exactly right for dealing with the iceblocks in melee. No matter how many melee we have, we always form a triangle with the MT solo at once point of it.

Most of the time, we have our OT for adds (in 25man) as a pally, standing out with the ranged throwing around flash heals to help get people through iceblocks. Too many times we've had the OT get iceblocked with a string of melee and end up dying.

[TheHonage]

I did it with the following group in ten man:

Holy Pally
Resto Dr00d x2

Frost Death Knight Tank

Ret Paladin (me ;P)
Ret Paladin
Unholy Death Knight
Enhancement Shaman
Rogue
Blood Death Knight

Yes, all Melee.

Phase One: the resto dr00ds pretended they were rocket chickens and killed the banshees. Pallys exorcism'd the skeles, DKs used death coil, etc. Just don't be dumb and keep pets on passive. Enhance shammy lightning bolted some.

Phase Two: His hit box is preety huge. We accepted double iceblocking would happen. So we stood 2 on top of each other and just burned the crud out of KT. I ended up putting out something like 6k dps with heroism and Hysteria. It was hot. <3 1.8 second swing timer.

Just don't fail.

[Lewid]

Yesterday, 25 man.

3 Rogues
3 Dk's
2 Ret pallies

We just did two stacks of 4 each and myself as the main tank. Took a few attempts but we were able to keep the groups of 4 up without too much trouble.

[Samilyn]

We use a 4-point positioning system, stacking 2-3 in each Melee group


M1

M2 KT M3

Tank


When the tank gets a void zone under him,


M1
M3
M2 KT

Tank

Edit: My pictures fail. Basically what's said in the post below this one is what we do.


Either M1 and M3 are within range of each other for a few seconds (also inside Chain Heal range), or they can simply step backwards until after the Void Zone explodes. If your melee aren't on the ball about moving, the triangle positioning strategy is the way to go.

Another thing we do to reduce stacking is to have the off tank(s) stand by where the adds spawn the entire fight. It lowers raid DPS by about 3k, but is much safer and leads to a cleaner kill.

[Elsie]

We use the four point (behind boss, left/right). Put the melee in the same groups and mark one. Stack up on your group's mark. Put a priest in the group for CoH -> Prayer of healing. We had Twelve melee last night and this worked out pretty well.

Kel'thuzad does not void zone and ice block at the same time (from anecdotal evidence of every time I've done him) so positioning during a void zone doesn't need to change. You do need to get back into position really fast, though. Typically I rotate to my right, and that group rotates to the back (so 2 groups are stacked). Then I rotate back.

[Cowadin]

im not providing any new information here -- but just providing further evidence.

my guild is extremely melee heavy -- as in 2+ groups of melee at times, which makes KT a nightmare. we have 2 stack points for the melee to group up on, and their priority is to make sure to never be too close to me to get me iceblocked.

when the melee are blocked you'll hear 10-15 voices in vent yelling "BLOCK ON MELEE" and healers just spam and pray. granted, we have times where 1 of the groups will die (in which case the remaining group splits in 2), but the rest of the raid still manages to hold it together, just drawing the fight out a bit longer.

it's not easy with a ton of melee, but it is very doable. and yes -- our melee stunlock as necessary to handle MCs, for the most part.

-Cow

[Seloei]

We have about ~7-10 melee at times in 25 man and the only way they live through is when our priest runs near and splashes CoH. Altho now after it's been nerfed i'd hate to think what would happen to most of them

One CoH was enough to heal up most of em so they live through, altho some died still.

[Ferrix]

Well even for melee heavy groups its easy once you realize that there is enough room for 3 groups + 1 MT to stand. Everyone just has to stand at the edge of his hitbox. Even if you have 12 melee, that way at any given time, the max amount of people hit with an iceblock is 4. Your healers should also know that they don't even need to top the person off, they just need to heal over 4% of the target's max hp. I don't think any type of healer in particular has a hard time getting off 1 or 2 casts in 4 seconds, I think pallys are really good for this type of healing also.

And one tip that really helps is, have your melee dps click off any stamina buffs they have. The ice block damage is based off total hp, so the bigger your health pool is, the bigger that 4% heal needs to be. Because the ice bolts he hits the raid with aren't that life threatening, if your healers are undergeared and can't do that 4% heal, the lower health pool on the melee makes it easier for them.