[10] Algalon

[Malthrax]

(possibly) dumb question: Do you have to defeat Yogg'Saron each week before getting your one hour's worth of attempts on Algalon? Or can you just do FL->XT->hallway trash->Planetarium?

[Dobbelsteen]

Or can you just do FL->XT->hallway trash->Planetarium?

Yes you can.

[itankforcash]

used 2 healers and killed it after the 2nd big bang, lolz.

[Arianne]

Can anyone who has killed stars go over that a bit? I've been telling our star killer to just dps the stars full out and make sure that he warns right before they die and make sure the tank isn't low. I've seen others in the thread mention that they take breaks in between their star deaths though.

[fafhrd]

I'm still kinda shaky at star killing since our first few kills I was just on the boss (*waaay* easier job) but the past 3 weeks our original star-killer is AWOL so I've had to take over. Here is what I remember of it:

People do it differently, but just chain killing them wasn't working for us. I kill 3 before the first bang, switch to the boss, then after bang kill all 4 that are up, switch to boss, then after the 2nd big bang kill all 4 that are up, then just ignore stars and help zerg the boss down.

The idea is that when he respawns stars, he will only respawn enough to make a total of 4 up. So kill the first 3 (we have a lock help zerg down the first one only), mark the remaining 4th. By the time you've come back up after the first bang, he'll have spawned 3 new ones, and your marked one will be near death from Algalon's own damage (with timing you can even get it to die while everyone is downstairs, although check that you won't be killing your tank if you're trying this) - you kill this one off asap when you come back up (marking it is really important, because it's very easy otherwise to start on one of the new ones, in which case the old and new will die at the same time and probably kill people with back to back explosions), then only really have 3 stars to kill before the next bang.

After the next bang you'll have 4 stars to kill, but they'll all be a bit damaged from algalon's damage. Kill them all, then switch to the boss, because any new stars spawned will despawn when he enters phase 2.

I've seen people doing things like just dpsing each of the stars down a bit without killing them, leaving them at staggered healths so that they'll die on their own, but at different times. This lets you add your starkiller's dps to the boss for most of the fight, and kill him really quickly, but it seems rather hairy and dependent on your starkiller having a better head than I do (I'm *really* bad at estimating how quickly I'm killing them, they don't have much health on 10 man).

I call out when the star I'm killing is at 50%, 20%, or when I'm holding off killing one because the raid isn't all above ~15k hp. I also put a raid symbol on the one I'm killing so people know to avoid it. Having a raid healer watching your starkiller's assist frame to judge how long he has before the next one dies can be better than relying on him calling it out + vent roundtrip.

Also since you mention it, I'm not really worrying about the tank's HP when I'm killing stars. They do about 12k damage. If the tank is dropping that low and not getting healed up in less time than it takes me to notice his HP and avoid pressing killshot, the tank is probably about to die algalon's melee damage anyway. The rest of the raid are the ones who need to be topped off before killing a star.

Things to watch out for (i.e. the nice sequence things we wiped to my having to relearn):
- not watching raid hp
- killing the wrong star after coming out of the first bang
- being slow to notice a smash next to me while chasing down a star
- noticing a smash next to me and disengaging into a black hole... (this one is generally recoverable, unless you are forced back out of the hole just as big bang goes off...)
- miscounting how many stars you've killed and leaving an extra up which explodes at a bad time.
- shooting the boss while you're buffing (to make it even worse, if you decide to feign after shooting him, he won't obligingly go to the tank instead of you, he will just ascend to the heavens without bothering to fight. This will kill everyone. Also if this is your first pull, it won't start the timer).

[Kishandra]

It depends on the star dpser's dps.

Here's how I think stars/constellations work:

Algalon "maxes out" stars and constellations when he summons them. 4 stars and 3 constellations can exist, maximum, at any given time. If you already have 2 stars up, and it's time for Algalon to summon them, he will only summon two new ones at full hp and leave the ones partially dead. Same with constellations. I'm not terribly certain of the timers, but it appears that he summons the first 4 stars about 10 seconds into the encounter, then refreshes them every 90 seconds starting at 1:10 or so. He then summons the first 3 constellations around a minute into the encounter, then every 90 seconds thereafter.

Stars/black holes aren't really that much of a hazard, but you do need to kill enough to suck out the constellations as they spawn because the constellations do hurt. You also have to stagger the star kills so that multiple don't blow up within ~15 seconds of each other, or on top of cosmic smashes.

What I like to do (and many other star killers, from watching videos) is to start off killing 3 stars, full dps. Then turn to Algalon and dps him until the star refresh comes, after which I drop the last original star, and go to work on one of the 3 new ones. The big bang is inc soon, so I run in, come back out, and clear out the wounded new star, then kill another, leaving 1 up. Because you only kill 2 stars this phase, you have plenty more time to dps Algalon.

You do the exact same thing in preparation for the 3rd big bang, except you don't even bother dpsing the new stars that come out, since he despawns all of them at 20%, so even more time to dps Algalon then.

If that's confusing, rough timeline:

4 stars spawned.
Kill star 1
Kill star 2
Kill star 3
Dps Algalon for a bit
Stars are refreshed, 3 spawned (5,6,7).
Kill star 4, wound star 5.
Big Bang #1
Kill star 5
Kill star 6
Dps Algalon for a bit.
Stars are refreshed, 3 spawned (8,9,10).
Kill star 7, wound star 8
Big Bang #2
Kill star 8
Kill star 9
Dps Algalon for a bit
Stars are refreshed, 3 spawned (11,12,13)
Kill star 10
Switch dps to Algalon permanently
Big Bang #3
Continue dps on Algalon.

Personally, I get about 15 seconds of Algalon dps before the first big bang, and about 30 seconds for the second and third big bangs. Sometimes you don't -want- to do so much dps that you take him below 20% as he's casting or right before he casts his 3rd big bang (although, if you can do it over 5 seconds before he starts to cast, that's fine).

If your star killer's dps is lower, then he'll have less dps time on Algalon. If it's extremely low, then he'll even need help or a bloodlust in the first phase to kill 4 stars before big bang (roughly 210k damage in 70 seconds, although it's on targets without any debuffs).

[Threatco]

Kishandra/Fafhrd Thank you so much, the time you put into your posts is greatly appreciated.

I am going to have our star guys study your posts. I think they had no clue what so ever of how many stars they had to kill. All they knew is them dieing at same time, or with CS, or as we came out of big bang was a bad thing. This will help even it out a lot. Can you link any of the better star killer PoV videos you have seen? I had a very hard time finding any.

[fafhrd]

Well there's the old Uk video, but they use a different kill order: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y77XohzA ... re=related

Found http://www.wegame.com/watch/Escaper_vs_ ... _Observer/ too, also with a different kill order :/

Bad night for us on algalon, missed herald of the titans because someone was wearing a 232 ring from ToC - that or a PvP libram are the only things we could think of. Did ask people not to wear any ToC10 gear, guess we'll actually have to inspect everyone next week if we try again.

Annoyingly, we would have gotten He Feeds on Your Tears too, but he enraged and killed the tank, which wouldn't have happened if we weren't trying herald...

[Dalithe]

Has anyone ever had Big Bang miss them? Was doing attempts last night and after the first Big Bang it appears that it missed me because Ardent Defender didn't proc. Forgot to mention, I checked to see if anyone else put something on me, only had a Disc priest and Holy Pally, neither used anything.

It's really a comfort to stay out as a prot paladin now with Ardent Defender. So long as you don't have it proc'ed before a Big Bang you got a free cooldown to stay alive, I love it!

[Candiru]

Blood elf racial might be letting it have a 2% miss chance? I wouldn't count on it though! (or massive disc priest with legendary mace bubble?)

[amh]

After three weeks of attempts on him, we don't seem to get anywhere at all. Last week was good, got past the first bang without issue, but this week he just raped us continously. Tanks dying to normal melee damage.. :/

Healing set-up: Holy paladin + disco-priest on tanks, resto-shaman on raid.

Raid-healing seems to be solid, they're usually topped off in time for the next star. But again, tanks are just dropping like flies. Even when we're not dying, we aren't topped off for 10-15 seconds at a time. I tank it on my DK, either together with a paladin or a warrior. I don't have a parse to point to, but I seem to be taking 20-30% more damage. These numbers are taken from recount after a wipe, so hardly accurate, but I seem to be spanked a lot harder. Are DKs that bad for this one?

The tank-healers surprised me a little. The holy paladin says he can't spam holy light, so he's spamming FoL. Yet the disco-priest is spamming Gheal to make up for the lack of hps by the paladin.. How are your healers dealing with this?

[Belloc]

Consider putting your disc priest on the raid and the shaman on the tank.

I believe it is holy priests that provide the armor buff to tanks, is it not? In that case, putting the resto on your tank will provide the missing armor buff, which will make a big difference in tank damage. PW: Shields make for excellent raid "healing" (also, 8 or 9 PW: Shields being fully consumed at once will result in major mana gains for the priest, since they all occur before the internal cooldown is triggered, as opposed to a single PW: Shield being consumed on the tank every time the internal cooldown is finished).

As far as paladins spamming Holy Light... I guess they need more MP5. Most paladins aren't used to having to heal that kind of damage and I get the impression (could be wrong) that they're just stacking certain gear stats and skimping on regen.

[amh]

The disco-priest (I believe they all do) has Inspiration. Disco is supposed to be awesome for single target, and likewise shamans for raid-healing. Are shamans stronger single-target healers than priests? Is a disco-priest capable of raid-healing this encounter, or would he have to go holy?

The paladin is stacking int, and he's fairly good at paladin healing, so I think he uses his nifty abilities on cooldown (divine plea while phased out and shit like that). Just wondering if they are in fact capable of HL-spam these days, or if it is as he says, and they've got to spam FoL while mixing in the odd HL.

[Belloc]

Well, afaik, flash of light spam can work. And if the disc priest has inspiration, then there's that out of the way.

Resto Shamans aren't bad at MT healing, though. If your current healing set up isn't working for one reason or another, it can't hurt to mix it up.

And, yeah, disc priests are fine raid healers on this fight. The PW:Shield spam will keep the raid from dropping too low in the first place, and the rest of the damage can be healed up with little issue by a disc priest.

So, it's worth a few tries at least.

[Joanadark]

A good rough spell use balance would be 1 holy light for every 2 flash of lights. Obviously you'd adjust based on the incoming damage being taken but thats about what our holy paladins do. Any less than that and your output will suffer, and any more and you'll be overhealing alot and have low efficiency. Obviously holy shock and refresh sacred shield and beacon every time you have to move.