Here he is, the final boss of the Throne! Lei Shen, the Thunder King! It looks to be a truly fantastic fight with many ways to die horribly.
I'm inclined to do the same as Fatboss did. Blow up the East Chain Lightning conduit in phase 1 and level up the South Static Shock pillar in phase 2.
For Heroism, I'm thinking use it in phase 2, probably just after it starts. Otherwise we could use it in phase 3, but phase 2 sounds more dangerous. I could be wrong. ;)
Either way, let's get him down! :D
Maybe one thing we could do to ease the the transition into Intermission would be the people on the far quadrant stop dps at about 67% so they have time to run over and get into position. Maybe only keep the people in that color (That we're fighting the Thunder King) and 1 or 2 highly mobile dps to push him over the threshold while everyone else runs into place.
We did a lot of good work on him, and I'm sure once we figure out how to start Intermission without so many people getting stunned out of place, we'll be good! (For now!)
Funny you say that Ser, Kul and I were talking this morning and saying the same thing. Also In looking at a few videos the set up for the quadrents may want to be slightly different. I think the key will be to get as few adds as possible and staying alive.
A thought I had about the set up
2 Groups of 3 - 2 dps and 1 healer
2 groups of 2 - 1 tank each and Aanvil and Seralyn ( I say this because Aanvil has better survival CDs and Seralyn can better off heal 2 rather than 3)
That way the group of 2 can survive the overcharge and the tanks are spread as to be able taunt any adds we may spawn.
There are certainly ways to die during the three main phases, but it looks like the Intermissions are the most likely places to wipe. From what I've learned, during each Intermission, Lei Shen casts each of the Conduit abilities twice. They cast in pairs. Always the same pairs, always the same order. (This meshes with what we experienced.) The order is:
Diffusion Chain + Overcharge
Static Shock + Bouncing Bolts
Diffusion Chain + Overcharge
Static Shock + Bouncing Bolts
Chain and Overcharge should be fairly easy to handle so long as each group is roughly in the center of their quadrant. Spread out a little in that circle and stack up after the Diffusion hits. Simple enough. We do need to move groups out early when the phase is about to start so we're not caught out of position by the first one.
Static Shock plus the Balls is trickier because Static Shock can so easily kill people. As much as possible, each raid member needs to look at ways to survive one solo. Each group needs to be able to live through two of them. Not that each group will HAVE to, but each MIGHT. Tanks are not targets for...anything. They can't be hit by Static Shock, Diffusion Chain or Overcharge. Melee can not be targets for Diffusion Chain.
There are three possible set-ups. Groups of 2/2/3/3 or 4/4/1/1 or 3/3/3/1. Those 1 groups would be a solo tank. A tank in a quadrant by himself will get nothing except Bouncing Bolts. In that setup, it's very likely that a tank would end up with a Bolt add spawning since he wouldn't be able to soak two Bolts. Possibly two adds for two sets of Bolt casts. Each tank could probably survive this just fine, since the only damage they'd take is from those adds and the Bolt hits.
A group of 2 needs to be really good at surviving and/or healing Static Shock. The most dangerous moment for a 2 group (as Ardwen and I saw) is that each person may have to soak a Bolt at the same time a Shock is about to explode. Thus if you can't solo soak, you die. Worst case, you'd have to let one add spawn while catching the other and letting the Shock explode, then catch the other one at low HP.
To mitigate this, I am interested in the 3/3/3/1 set-up. This should reduce the danger of the Bolts + Shock combo while only spawning an add or two in the solo tank quadrant. I think I'd like to try that tomorrow. We can try 3/3/2/2 again if we have strong 2s, but 3/3/3/1 seems easier and more repeatable at first glance.
Quick last note: The conduit we blow up doesn't make any difference for the first Intermission, but it'll have a big impact on the second one. A lot of people still suggest Diffusion Chain, which is surprising. I like busting the Bouncing Bolt one, but I'm starting to lean towards busting Static Shock. With either Shock or Bolts gone, the second Intermission should be a lot easier (also only three quadrants to fill). The trick to the second one is that one Conduit will go up a level. I'm thinking the least damaging one to level up would be the Diffusion Chain. That wouldn't work well with blowing up the Bolts Conduit because they are across from each other. If we blow up Shock, then we can level up the Chain. If we blow up the Bolts, probably want to level Overcharge.
For Science!
There was a comment that a group was able to avoid leveling up a conduit by pulling the boss of the conduit for a few seconds and then going back, rinse and repeat, during the 2nd main phase.