Twilight Ascendants (25 man)

[superworm]

After about 5 hours' practice we got him to 4%. However the healers were complaining that the lightning in p3 was doing too much damage. Does anyone know how the lightning works exactly? The animation looks like that the lightning is chaining endlessly around nearby targets. Do we need to let everyone scatter around to avoid the chaining? It just seems if we draw the boss around the edge of the room and let everyone stand inside, then we won't have enough room to scatter around.
Also we were using 6 healers due to someone being absent. I'm considering whether we should bring 1 more healer.

[Belloc]

After about 5 hours' practice we got him to 4%. However the healers were complaining that the lightning in p3 was doing too much damage. Does anyone know how the lightning works exactly? The animation looks like that the lightning is chaining endlessly around nearby targets. Do we need to let everyone scatter around to avoid the chaining? It just seems if we draw the boss around the edge of the room and let everyone stand inside, then we won't have enough room to scatter around.
Also we were using 6 healers due to someone being absent. I'm considering whether we should bring 1 more healer.

As far as I'm aware, the lightning will target random players, deal damage to them, and chain to anyone within a certain range. As the fight progresses, the boss will cast lightning on more and more players at a time. It won't chain endlessly (if it did, that would be an instant wipe), but it will chain to everyone within range of the initial target.

So, you do need to spread out as best as you can, but you'll probably need to double up. If everyone just tries to spread, they will fail. If you assign partners to stack on, you're guaranteeing chains, but not as many.

[Faro]

The best way to handle the lightning is to buddy system everyone up. Paragon has a really good Heroic kill video that shows excellent pairing and positioning. No reason not to use it for normal modes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLZJRHClFvU

5:50 in the video is a good place to look.

Edit: We've used 7 healers on every progression boss. The enrage timers are very generous, avoidable damage is not.

[inthedrops]

Just like Faro says, we assign positions. I believe for us we use 6 ranged positions.

The phase start looks like this

Code: Select all

Boss Steps
-------------------------


[1]                 [4]

[2]        +        [5]

[3]                 [6]


-------------------------
Entrance


We kite the boss going towards the entrance first. Notice how the groups follow while staying grouped.

Code: Select all

Boss Steps
-------------------------


                 

[1]        |        [4]
           |
[2]        |        [5]
           |
[3]        +        [6]
-------------------------
Entrance


When we run out of room, we turn the boss around and head straight back up again. The ranged maybe have to shift right a bit for range.

Code: Select all

Boss Steps
-------------------------

  [1]                  [4]
                 
  [2]        +         [5]
           | |       
  [3]      | |         [6]
           | |     
           | |
           \-/         
-------------------------
Entrance


When we run out of room again, we loop back down the other side of the center and head straight back again. Ranged will have to shift again left/right to stay in range.

Code: Select all

Boss Steps
-------------------------

         /---\   
         |   |   
         |   |         
[1]      | | |    [4]   
         | | |         
[2]      + | |    [5]
           | |
[3]        \-/    [6]
-------------------------
Entrance


In practice, it's a lot sloppier than this for us but this is the intent and what we tell people to do.

[superworm]

Thank you guys for your suggestions. We got him down with one more hour's practice, using the strategy of kiting him in a large circle around the room and arranging the people inside. In fact we set everyone's position before engaging the boss, and asked them to get back to predetermined position after each cast of lava seeds. The hp control of the boss was a bit mess in our kill, however with a better p3 we successfully got him down from 26%.
And we interrupted every iron skin in p2. In this way people only needed to get the "Grounded" buff once as there was no Quake.

[baleogthefierce]

In practice, it's a lot sloppier than this for us but this is the intent and what we tell people to do.

We use that exact same positioning and kite path and it works like a charm.

[laterna]

I disagree with this. You're forcing your ranged to move (a lot), which is bound to cause lighting to chain and make your healers stop casting.

When we killed this, we were pushing our gear/skill. We found that kiting on the circle in the middle of the room to be faaaar more efficient. Ranged don't move at all, which leads to minimisation of lightning damage.

Ninja-pirate-nazi-robot edit :

Look up paragon's 25man hc kill video on the tube. The utilise the exact same square formation we had (healers at take the horizontal line in the middle of the square so that you're always in range of atleast 2.

[Gab]

And we interrupted every iron skin in p2. In this way people only needed to get the "Grounded" buff once as there was no Quake.

Wait, so if you interrupt Terrastra's Harden Skin, he will no longer cast quake? So will he only cast the first quake, and no subsequent quakes as long as Harden Skin is interrupted?

My guild has downed the encounter twice in 10 man, once prior to the Electrical Instability nerf. But after the holidays we started up 25 man again, and our 25 man is having immense difficulty getting the correct buff (kind of sad). This would help out a lot.

Edit:

Never mind, saw Treck's post on page 2. Not sure how I missed it but this and the BoPs on p3 should really help! Thanks.

[Treck]

Wait, so if you interrupt Terrastra's Harden Skin, he will no longer cast quake? So will he only cast the first quake, and no subsequent quakes as long as Harden Skin is interrupted?

If you interrupt everyone, there wont be a single quake, not even the first one.
This means that the first raidwide aoe will come like 60? sec in, and it will be thundershock, that is completely survivable with a small CD up (using raidwall noone can die as long as they are topped before the shock)
Altho obviously you dont want to take the dmg.
Also note that if you have grounded, the debuff wont refresh if you get "grounded" again, unless you get swirling winds first and then grounded again.
And there is no rush going for grounded as you have more than a minute before thundershock.

[Juugimus]

Wait, so if you interrupt Terrastra's Harden Skin, he will no longer cast quake? So will he only cast the first quake, and no subsequent quakes as long as Harden Skin is interrupted?

If you interrupt everyone, there wont be a single quake, not even the first one.
This means that the first raidwide aoe will come like 60? sec in, and it will be thundershock, that is completely survivable with a small CD up (using raidwall noone can die as long as they are topped before the shock)
Altho obviously you dont want to take the dmg.
Also note that if you have grounded, the debuff wont refresh if you get "grounded" again, unless you get swirling winds first and then grounded again.
And there is no rush going for grounded as you have more than a minute before thundershock.

Does anyone know if this has been hotfixed?

Last night, we interrupted every Hardened Skin and we not once avoided a Quake. Are you guys still able to avoid Quake by interrupting Hardened Skin?

[Treck]

Does anyone know if this has been hotfixed?

Last night, we interrupted every Hardened Skin and we not once avoided a Quake. Are you guys still able to avoid Quake by interrupting Hardened Skin?

Yea, i can confirm that its been fixed.

[Iliketomoveit]

I noticed today that in phase 2 when tanking Arion, if you´re quick enough to run away when he casts Disperse, instead of blinking
to the other side of the room, he will blink to where you´re standing, allowing you and any dps that can interrupt to do so a bit easier.
Was a bit surprised when i tried to run to the spot i assumed he would blink to after Dispersing so i could (with some luck) get in
an Avengers Shield to not take so many Lightning Blast´s in the face, only to have him right next to me...
It doesn´t always work the way you plan it, not tried it enough times to know for sure if what direction he´s facing matters, or if it´s just his
range to the tank, vs range to his planned spot at some wall... hopefully get to try it a bit more tomorrow, with rebuke in my toolbox!

But i would guess he just needs x yards between him and the tank to be able to pop up next to you, so strafing around a bit will
have you on the move when he disperses and make sure he will land where you want him.

[culhag]

We have a minor annoyance with Ignacious' leap in P1.
We never really paid attention when we were doing it on normal, but now that we've started the hard mode it's screwing up our placement. We just can't figure out how he decides who he leaps on.

Anyone know what's the mechanism ?

[Hrobertgar]

My guild actually runs 10m, not 25m. However, we had an issue with the spiral pattern causing the ranged dps and healers to move a lot and the healers to go out of range on various people who of course would get hit with gravity crush and die without heals.

what we settled on was somewhat similar to the line pattern. The tank pulls the boss to the corner of the stage and kites him in a line about 3 waters wide, then up towards the entrance and lays another line, and so on. This allows the ranged and healers to spread out on the door side of the boss and minimize movement while keeping in range of most of the raid. This has made ph3 much easier than before. Boss tends to die at about 3-4 lines, although since the patch his larger hitbox seems to make kiting a bit of a pain.

Also, thanks for mentioning the hardened skin doing 10% dmg to the boss on breaking.