Shadow Fang Keep - Commander

[econ21]

Has anyone tried this guy since the 4.06 patch? Before the patch, I'd found him hard done properly - in his room - but trivial if kited to the courtyard to stop his adds respawning. However, last night, we wiped about 7 times on him in a guild run.

A lot of the wipes were from me being caught while running from his room to the courtyard. My warrior alt did better at that than my pally main who we brought in towards the end, due to heroic leap. The pally just could not make it without being cut down. The runs with the warriors where she made it to the courtyard failed when he butchered us there in short order. I don't know why he was cutting us down, but his melee strikes seemed large - 25-44k damage getting through on a blow.

We skipped him, cleared last boss and came back to try again out of pride. He died at that final re-try due to brute force tactics. Nuked the boss with no movement - tank and spank, my pally just eating the desecration and his cone attack. The adds naturally were picked up by my AOE. It seemed remarkably effective, but quite contrary to the intended fight mechanics. It may also require a certain level of gear and party dps.

Should I just keep with that strategy or do others have a better one?

[Hokahey]

You may have noticed he now gets a buff that increases his damage by 200% whenever you kite him out of his room. Its signaled whenever he calls the player a coward, and tells them he knows about the trap they have planned.

Doing him the "intended" way is now probably the most attractive way to attempt the fight.

My suggestion is-

Pull him to one doorway. Doesn't matter which. Ranged DPS and healer stay at back of room, or move up to the stage where he was standing.

Pick up adds. DPS need to burn them down, as quickly as possible. I've heard the adds heals can be interrupted, but I've never been in a position to know for sure. If they can be, people should, you know, do that.

Kite across room to opposite doorway when he puts down Desecration. This keeps his cone AoE (hopefully) facing to the outside of the room.

I am not guaranteeing this will work, but it did work for me once. Since I only end up there in PuGs, I don't even bother with him now. "Legitimately" beating him once was enough for me.

[econ21]

You may have noticed he now gets a buff that increases his damage by 200% whenever you kite him out of his room. Its signaled whenever he calls the player a coward, and tells them he knows about the trap they have planned.

OK - I did not notice the buff, but that fix certainly explains the failure of our attempts at the courtyard strategy post-patch.

I like your dual doorways tactic - I will try it next time.

[Flex]

I always have tanked him on the "stage", we have righteous defense so you need to make good use of it. /cast [target=focus] Righteous Defense and focus your healer as they'll get add aggro first. Healer should move in closer to you when they are summoned as well. Then you just AOE tank the adds while they die and just switch between the two sides when he Desecrates you.

[Njall]

Well, that tears it. I haven't been able to persude guildies or pugs to do the "To the Ground" achievement for this guy and it looks I never will now...

Oh, and now Manastorm now aggros if you attack any of his backup teams. Ugly.

[fuzzygeek]

Well, that tears it. I haven't been able to persude guildies or pugs to do the "To the Ground" achievement for this guy and it looks I never will now...

Bring a pair of hunters and it's trivial, assuming you have the DPS to kill him before the hunters run out of traps ... (we did it once this way before the Courtyard trick was all the rage)

Manastorm's Backup teams?

[Njall]

Well, that tears it. I haven't been able to persude guildies or pugs to do the "To the Ground" achievement for this guy and it looks I never will now...

Bring a pair of hunters and it's trivial, assuming you have the DPS to kill him before the hunters run out of traps ...

Manastorm's Backup teams?

Yes. A way of dealing with Manastorm was to wipe out the two packs of mobs behind him. These are the groups he flees to. If they are dead, he goes back to where he meets his IMPENDING DOOOOM! and you only fight him the once.

Edit: Trying to do this now will aggro Manastorm.

[Gracerath]

I had a harder time with the final 2 bosses post patch.

The red mixture does a ton of damage even when standing still when fighting Walden. Not sure if that is intended or not.

The final boss is a real pain now. Cursed bullets is a 1s cast time and can be somewhat difficult to interrupt. If you can't cleanse curses and it gets through, that person is most likely doomed. My friend just couldn't keep up with his disc priest so he swapped to his resto shaman so he could cleanse the curse. Oddly enough that time around, we were pro on interrupts and only 1 got through. Worse though is the pistol barrage now has a massive cone, faces a random target AND he seems to just face another random direction mid cast, spraying the entire room on his way to a new position. I hope to crap that isn't intended either.

[Aerron]

How we did it, and got the achievement on the first go:

Basically we CC'd the first two adds, popped heroism and just burned him. Our healer switched to his DPS spec and I kept myself alive and healed. We completely ignored the other adds.

We did a variation of the opposite doorway method, where I would drag him to one door, then to the back of the room, then the other doorway, in a triangular pattern.

We were able to burn him seconds after his second group of adds arrived (first were still cc'd) and were able to dps through the healing he started receiving. I think our kill time was just over a minute and we got the achievement.

[PsiVen]

If you have enough DPS to do that, you have enough DPS to do it safely and easily by burning down adds and interrupting maybe 2 casts total.

I have to say one of the more amusing things to come from 4.0.6 is hearing about all the SFK runs that end in multiple failed attempts at kiting Springvale out of his room, followed by giving up without ever noticing the buff. The game is trying to tell you something.

The red mixture does a ton of damage even when standing still when fighting Walden. Not sure if that is intended or not.

The red mixture has never had any different effect for moving; boss mods invented the "stand still" bit. It used to be a pretty sissy DoT and 100% crit buff.

[Belloc]

Well, that tears it. I haven't been able to persude guildies or pugs to do the "To the Ground" achievement for this guy and it looks I never will now...

Oh, and now Manastorm now aggros if you attack any of his backup teams. Ugly.

The achievement can be completed with no outside help, other than a full group to kill the boss.

Get initial threat on all of the mobs and then target one of the adds. Focus target the other add. If you see either add casting Unholy Empowerment, interrupt it. Save your Avenger's Shield, Holy Wrath, and Hammer of Justice for cases where your interrupt might be on cooldown. Realistically, Rebuke and Avenger's Shield will be more than enough to get you this achievement.

As long as your group are actually killing the adds, you can solo interrupt them -- I know this because I've done it myself

edit: Also, doing it this way causes the boss to cast his more dangerous abilities less often, as far as I'm aware.