Al'ar is down, but wow, what a mess.

[NarfJones]

We got Al'ar down on our third night of attempts, and I have to ask this question.

Do you guys get a clean kill? Cause every attempt we had, including the kill was messy as sin. We kept losing healers and DPS. Tanks on occasion from molten armor. It just would seem like there is no clean way to do this boss.

[Thanehand]

The way we've found most effective is:

3 or 4 tanks on the platforms in phase 1.. (doesn't really matter)
1 pally tank on the adds.


In phase 1, the melee dps kill all the adds as they come

In phase 2, the hunters pick up the adds as they spawn, take them to the pally tank who aoe tanks them for the entire phase.
This is the simplest, least messy tactic we've found, except when the pally gets low-fps and dies

Its a bit of a gamble becasue it relies entirely on the pally tank. He stays alive = no-one dies. He dies = wipe

But it makes us feel important

It is a bit of a chaotic fight, but the simpler the tactics, the more effective I've found

[Drak]

Sometime we've had clean kills, others we just barely made it. We've done it with as few as 3 tanks though (2 Warriors and Me). The two warriors did platforms on p1 and I tanked all the adds (FR gear helps for eating the explosions).

[Worldie]

Practice fixes it.

[Rasmfrackn]

Practice fixes it.

If you can teach people to stop standing in the #*%$ing flame patches, it gets a lot cleaner.

We actually cleaned it up pretty fast... only 4 or 5 kills so far and we're down to losing 1 or 2 people. Sometimes the dps kills me in phase 2 by blowing up both birds at exactly the same time, but they're usually pretty good about staggering it 2:1.

For you, the practice will be mana efficiency in phase 1, i.e. out-threating people without burning too much mana, and picking up birds before they much anyone in phase 2. At least, if you do it the "kill birds all the time" way.

[Fridmarr]

Well what you can do is bring up this webpage (Audio NSFW) http://www.warensemble.us/troxed1.html and click on the 4th one down in the second column (the fire) and blare it into vent.

[Invisusira]

Phase two is kinda messy until everyone gets the hang of it.

[Pallypete]

It is a very messy fight (at least it was for us) until everyone gets the hang of it. AOE tanking all the birds in phase 2 and just burning A'lar down is probably the easiest way to go, lets people concentrate more on staying the hell out of the fire. Though it does suck if you've got a ton of birds on you and you get flame patched or meteored.

[Bryne]

There is no reason not to kill birds in phase 2, and doing otherwise (even while learning) is going to make it more difficult for you.

In phase 2, melee should be on Al'ar, ranged on adds. Everyone has to dodge flame patches equally, no matter if you're ignoring adds or not - but having your ranged DPS kill phoenix adds pulls double duty:

1) It damages Al'ar
2) It reduces the healing load and makes it less likely for something horrible to happen to your phoenix tank (flame patch, meteor)

It's also a hell of a lot easier to pick up phoenix spawns if you aren't tanking a bunch of them at the same time. It's pretty easy for your DPS to keep up with their spawn rate and take them down one at a time.

[Dassandic]

Have the warrior tanks spell reflect the flame patch if it pops under Al'ar.

[NarfJones]

If you can teach people to stop standing in the #*%$ing flame patches, it gets a lot cleaner.

That was a lot of the issue on our first night of attempts. We got him to 27%, but just couldn't pull it through.

Phase 1 is absolute cake, killing the adds as they come. Phase 2 happens like this.

1. I pick up the adds as they come.
2. Our third tank from phase 1 taunts one off me at a time.
3. They focus fire his target.
4. Rinse and repeat until dead.

This seems to work well because I can hold as many as need be, and theres little chance of more than one dying at one time. This seemed to keep myself and the other add tank from dying. It also gives our third tank something to do. The DPS seems quick enough that there is never more than two to three up at a time. This basically means that I act like a buffer. In retrospect i think it'll get a lot easier as the weeks pass. At the time, however, it almost felt like we didn't even deserve the kill. Having one person at the end who can Res is not something I would like becoming a habit. Thanks for all your assurances.

[Invisusira]

Something to help stage 2 go faster is the "bear bomb" strat. Basically, you have your OT just tank the last 5 or so of the ads from stage 1 and aoe them down to like 20%. Then, once Al'ar pops in stage 2, you kill them. It usually results in a dead bear (soulstone ftw), but you instagib 15+% of Al'ar's HP. This can be handy; he enraged just as we killed him on our first kill.

[NarfJones]

Something to help stage 2 go faster is the "bear bomb" strat. Basically, you have your OT just tank the last 5 or so of the ads from stage 1 and aoe them down to like 20%. Then, once Al'ar pops in stage 2, you kill them. It usually results in a dead bear (soulstone ftw), but you instagib 15+% of Al'ar's HP. This can be handy; he enraged just as we killed him on our first kill.

I suggested this but our Raid leader just doesn't want to rely on killing someone. What I thought would actually be beneficial would be to just kill the adds in phase 1, as it only takes our melee to do so, and pull the soulstone trick half way through phase 2. They just don't want to. I can see where they are coming from, even though it's a pride thing. "Other guilds don't have to kill a tank to beat him, why should we?"

I guess the bottom line is that I could care less how messy it is as long as we get him down.

[Rasmfrackn]

Our first kill used the "me bomb" strat, holding all the adds from phase 1. I actually LIVED because the adds were at exactly the same health so the first explosion flung me clear, and they flopped in a heap.

We could never recreate it, though, so after 5 or 6 more tries we switched to killing all the birds. I just tank them and eat the explosions, though, to keep my mana up. We don't use a second tank. We do use a soulstone and battle rezzes, though. The main danger is if the ranged kills both birds at exactly the same time in phase 2.

[tofino]

Something to help stage 2 go faster is the "bear bomb" strat. Basically, you have your OT just tank the last 5 or so of the ads from stage 1 and aoe them down to like 20%. Then, once Al'ar pops in stage 2, you kill them. It usually results in a dead bear (soulstone ftw), but you instagib 15+% of Al'ar's HP. This can be handy; he enraged just as we killed him on our first kill.

This is what we do. The command is "OK, blow Ash up" and oh yes we do . Then SS and win.