Had some pulls, learned a bunch of stuff not to do. The double and triple pools of slime are dangerous. Occasional tank gib to worry about.
Not much discussion of this fight to share. Some groups are doing 2 egg groups, some just one. Some ignore the double nest ("oh, is that where those birds came from?").
The way we did it this week (First week on it, 5 shot it in about 40 min) was we sent 2 dps and a disc priest Smite healing to the nests. We only did the first 3 bottoms then the first two tops. After that, everyone on the boss and burn. He doesn't have that much HP, so he died pretty quickly.
I kinda like that quote you posted. Maybe that group is better geared than us, but it still sounds worth trying. Especially if that means we can just have one group handle all of the nests.
We can definitely have 1 group do all the nests, we will just have to be constantly on the move. I was worried about falling from the final upper nest, but since we don't take falling damage, it should be good.
So we'd lose Rom and I on the boss, but gain Luv and Blue 100%. I would also suggest Muta be the nest healer, as he can atonement heal us while helping dps down the eggs.
I realized the reason I was failing at the jumps was the snare from Kil'jaeden's Cunning. I'd have no problem making the jump in practice, but during the fight would always fall short and that's why.
I'm simply going to have to resist my conditioning to "never stop casting" before making any leaps.
I have seen some vids where one group just flies from nest to nest and it seems to work out. If we do decide on a cut off to burn the boss, though, it would be nice if as many of the dps as possible had a chance to get some stacks of Primal Nutriment.
Tankspot 25 man video and writeup
Not much that we haven't discussed and the 25 man tactics don't match but there are some nice nest location diagrams and a bit of discussion on cooldowns for second rake, etc.
Thanks for the posts!
I think we should go with one group to hit all the nests. Two DPS and one healer. Agreed that the healer should probably be Mutagen. I'm interested to see how well it would go with Shadow spec though. Serelyn could help with heals on Quills and the extra DPS would be fantastic. If it doesn't work out, Disc with Atonement healing would be a good boost too! I'd probably swap Romulus to boss duty and send myself off to help with nests full time. Few different reasons for that. For one, Serelyn and I synergize a bit better. Serelyn is all magic damage while Romulus is all physical. If I go along, I could at least bring the magic damage debuff, among other things.
I noticed last time that I was able to refresh my Wings buff on the second nest because the first one died so fast. The same would be true for the third nest, if the second dies fast enough. I'd rather not though. It's a better plan for the "Nest Group" to refresh their feathers on the third nest. The feathers on the second nest can be grabbed by DPS on the boss to grab the Feeding buff. Here's how the Nest Group should go:
Nest 1 - Jump down, kill, grab Feather, fly to Main. This leaves 3 flight charges.
Nest 2 - Fly down, kill, IGNORE Feather, fly to Main. 1 charge left.
Nest 3 - Fly down, kill, get new Feather, fly to Main. 3 charges left.
Nests 4-6 - Fly up, kill, JUMP down. 1 charge per nest, just enough. Zero left.
Nest 7 - Jump down and repeat.
That leaves four Feathers on Nest 2 plus an extra on Nest 1 and 3. That's actually enough for all three Boss DPS and even both tanks. Feather management will be very crucial for this One Group strat to work. You can't waste any feathers. You could conserve Feathers by jumping off the Lower nests to get back to the main platform, but I think that's a waste. Proper feather management will work out better. We can also go straight from one nest to another if we are behind.
If someone in the Nest Group accidentally grabs a Feather on Nest 2, then you need to be very careful with Feather usage. That gives you four charges for four nests with no refresh (probably). So to get off of Nest 2, you'll need to jump and be carried back by the wind. Same for Nest 3. Unless you fly directly to the next nest, but going from 3 to 4 may be too far of a trip.
So long as we have good Feather usage from the Nest Group, this should go well. The main platform just needs to do good DPS then. :) We should be able to stop and burn her somewhere during the Nest 7-9 range. Since 9 is the "double nest" activation, that's the latest we should go. Kill nest 9, ignore nest 10 and we'll have a couple birds flying above doing extra damage. Heroism at this point. Earlier if the boss gets under 30%!
Things to worry about on the main platform:
Don't die to green puddles. If you keep dying to them, just stop standing in them. It's not that important. If you do stand in one, be VERY careful that you only have ONE dot on you. If you have two or more, GET OUT.
If Ji-kun can't melee, she'll cast extra Quills. Tanks need to get back fast. There is a slight delay after a Down Draft before she does an extra Quills, but anyone getting in melee range will turn that "off." A pet for example. >.> Pets don't get pushed back, so she'll turn and melee the pet right away, kill it and Quill the raid. If I'm flying that won't be an issue, but anyone else with a pet will need to be careful. Bluepea if he uses a melee pet or Darkguns with his ghoul. If the tanks want, they can jump down to the lower nests and grab a Feather. You can then use the Feather to negate the wind!
Other than that, tanks need to not die to the second Talon Rake. We should be able to keep two healers on the boss at all times, so this should be a minor problem.
That's more typing than the effort it will take to make this all happen in the fight. I'm confident we can get her down this week!
For Science!
Great job last night on a few short attempts to kill this guy and for not stopping at the 4% wipe to wait until Monday! Also Kul....I tanked 2 new bosses this week that we killed for the first times......ha! Go Go DK Tanking hehe now get back here so I don't have to anymore!!
Darkguns - Level 90 DK
Autogun - Retired Lock
Wilygun - Druid Extraordinaire
Shamgun - Shaman fun!
Bumping for Heroic Mode info
FatBoss
Icy Veins
Ji-kun has one major difference in Heroic mode, aside from the standard "everything hits harder." Some of the Nests spawn an extra add called a Nest Guardian. This is in addition to the normal egg spawns. The Nest Guardians melee fairly hard and cleave, so they must be tanked and killed. Yes, this means tanks need to fly. If a Nest Guardian is ever NOT tanked (unable to melee someone) they will cast Screech, which does a ton of damage to everyone in the raid, anywhere in the room AND interrupts casts AND slows casting speed. Blizzard REALLY wants us to tank these!
There is also one minor difference in Heroic mode: the Feathers only give 3 charges instead of 4. Not that big a deal, just gotta be more cautious with the charges. The debuff that prevents you from getting another feather is unchanged, it is still one minute. The upper nests still do not give feathers.
The nest activation order is exactly the same, but here are the nests that spawn Guardians:
Nest 2 (lower)
Nest 4 (upper)
Nest 8 (lower)
Nest 12 (upper)
Shouldn't be that hard to deal with. The fight may well last longer than usual due to extra boss HP and other factors like flying tanks. If we go for a "burn" phase, we MUST be sure no Guardians are coming soon or we're gonna wipe at very low %.
Since there are no Guardians on the "dual nest activation" (9th and 10th), we should be fine with just one nest group so long as we can figure out the tank flight.
Quick note for Feather usage: With only three charges, it's unlikely you can use one to get "off" a Nest. Either you need to fly straight to the new Nest or jump off to the Main platform or let the wind carry you back up.
So the biggest trick is working out which tank flies when. They may have to rotate, I'm not sure yet. Other than that, it should be very similar to Normal mode. Just longer. Oh and Quills hits really hard.
For Science!
A-ha!
Serelyn and Darkguns were entirely correct and Icy Veins is WRONG. Nest 10 does NOT have a guardian, only 2, 4, 8 and 12. That's fine, makes this a lot easier!
The strat from last night was working pretty well, so let's make a few tweaks. First, we only really need ONE nest group. Serelyn, Dark and I can handle killing all the little birdies. We will try just ignoring the 10th nest like we do on Normal mode. That means two birds WILL hatch and do some raid damage, but hopefully it won't be a problem. We might also go our Normal route and just burn the boss after nest 9 anyway.
One thing that I'm seeing is highly suggested is that DPS and even a tank get feathers from the 2nd and 8th nests. So they can get food buffs and do a lot more damage. I think that's a great idea. It should get Ji-kun lower than 40% by nest 9 and then we can just burn her down.
One other note: Try to avoid Caw damage! It's a spell with a cast time, but it will hit the spot you were standing at when she starts the cast. (I think.) So if you see the cast, move! That will help our healers out.
We can definitely kill this Heroic bird on Monday! :D
For Science!