Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Heroic Twin Val'kyrs



OK this is a bit of a weird one.  I refuse to tell you about the door strat - I think it is cheating and if you ever want to do tribute runs, it requires reliance on RNG far too much.  This strat will give you a one shot kill every time once you get it right.

Twins is a total noob check.

Please have a look in the comments by clicking through to the article for some role specific information - links to DK information, and comments from the below badger about RLing and feral tanking the twins together.

Shopping list:
1 Hairy Badger MT
3 "soakers" in Shadow resist gear
6 healers
DPS to taste


So what do we do?
The gist of this fight is pretty simple, everyone DPSs one target, then changes foot aura as soon as they know they need to change targets.  The entire raid then moves when they are safe to do so to the opposite portal.  There are soakers on the outside of the raid protecting them from the wrong colour orbs.

Main Raid Movement
Start the event up but do not pull it yet.

I am going to start with the raid in white feet, but this is a completely symmetrical fight, you can start however you like.  So, get your MT and the raid in white feet, soakers also in WHITE (edit, I stuffed this up).  Now, everyone needs to go stack near but not on the black portal.  And you need to stack as tightly as possible (MT included).  Basically you need to position yourself so you can clearly click the donut shamed click area without anyone being in the way, or having to move at all.  Practise this before you pull if you need to, make sure everyone knows where to stand.  Soakers should read the special soaker section below for your positioning.

Now, RL calls out on vent to colour change (this will mean a target change) and make sure everyone is capable of clicking the darn portal within a split second.  One person screwing this up can cause a wipe.

Next, RL calls out that the raid is moving to the opposite colour portal.  Everyone needs to move together in a bunch to the white portal.  Make sure everyone knows which two portals you will be alternating between.  Again, like you are a mirror of yourselves, stack up near but not on the black portal.

Go through the motions again, clicking the portal, moving as a group to the white portal again.  Rinse repeat until everyone in the raid knows what they are doing without thinking too much, and that they get used to the calls.   This is vitally important to success.  I cannot stress how good it is to practise this in a dry run.

Make sure that your raid only changes aura when you tell them to.  This is really important because the boss mods will probably tell raid members otherwise.  Please make sure your raid knows to never do anything with auras that the RL does not tell them to.  If they get a debuff, the healers will heal them through it.

The last really important thing is you do not start moving until the ability is over.  It will completely screw you up if you move the raid and the ability comes up half way between 2 portals.  Bad Bad Bad (trust me, we did this, the results were wipetastic!)

Once you are confident of your raid's movement, you can start the fight.

The Pull
MD both the twins to the tank and start smashing the crap out of your current target.  Your current target is always the opposite colour to your feet.  DPS be very careful that you don't pull aggro on the opposite colour target with AoE abilities.  If that means waiting 10s before starting DPS then you wait 10s.  You can't DPS dead.  MD/tricks on the tanks as often as possible.

Soakers
You guys sit with white feet the entire time because you will have a full Shadow Resist set on.  You are immune to EVERYTHING!  Ok, not immune, 10 balls to the face might kill you, but you can confidently take many and stay alive.  Pop tanky CDs if you need to or if you get trapped.

The soakers need to make sure none of the wrong colour orbs get to the raid.  If that means you need to take 4 balls to the face, then you do it.  The healers will keep you alive.  So spread out around the raid, and make sure 360 degrees are covered and you are not within AoE.

And listen hard to the calls - you need to be on the ball with clearing up the right colour.  Try and let as many of the right colour hit the raid as possible (because the power up is necessary to get the twins down in time), but its better to let fewer through than too many.  As you get better at it, you will make better choices.  Don't expect to be perfect every time, the healers can probably heal through a ball or two in the raid if you warn them.

Abilities
The abilities are the same as in normal, but are basically wipe mechanics in Heroic.
2 shields, 2 vortexes, one of each colour.

Here is what you do with each one:
If the shield is on your current target, or the vortex is for your current foot aura, stay on target and DPS the crap out of it!  You are lucky!
If the vortex is the opposite colour, change feet and tagets and keep going, moving to the opposite portal after the event is finished.
If the shield is the opposite colour to your current target, pop BL/hero, change feet auras and DPS hard!  This is where quick changeovers are really important.  As you are still trying to get the hang of this fight those precious seconds of target changing and clicking the portal might mean the difference between a 50% heal and a kill.  Again, move to the opposite portal when the event is finished.

RLs it is possible to know what is coming up if you keep careful track of what abilities have been used.  As soon as you can determine that the next event requires an aura change, call it.  Getting everyone on the correct target with the correct feet as soon as possible is the best way to get this done.  DPS with ramp up times will love you (especially if you know the next ability is the opposite coloured shield).

Healing
The raid should not be taking lots of damage.  If everyone is doing their job there should be time to drop spare heals on the MT.  Make sure you get healers allocated to just the soakers.  If they die you are quite likely to wipe.  The other thing to watch for is the debuff - these guys are marked with symbols, pay them extra attention until the debuff wears off.  If you need, allocate a healer or two to do it.  Keep your camera panned out and watch for stray balls to the raid of the wrong colour.

Moving from side to side is the most dangerous time.  Be prepared to GS the MT or a soaker, drop a tranquility or a divine hymn to ease the pain.  Pallies with aura mastery help as well - fire and shadow, and pop AM when you are likely to take damage from the opposite colour (ie shadow AM when moving with white feet and fire AM when black)

Ok we are doing all that, why are we wiping?
Is everyone switching feet in a timely manner?
Is everyone DPSing the correct target at the correct time with the right foot aura up?
Are the soakers doing their job efficiently?
Are there not enough "correct" colour balls getting through to the raid to boost DPS?
Are the healers struggling at all?
Are there too many "wrong" colour balls getting through to the raid?
Are you getting onto the shields as fast as possible?
Is anyone having FPS/Lag issues?
Is everyone moving in a group to the opposite portal?
Is the RL making clear decisive calls?
Is anyone else making calls apart from the RL (if so tell them to shut up)?
Is everyone 100% clear on how the movement works?

That's it!
When you break it down, it really isn't a difficult strat.  I think the worst part of it is going and farming BT/MH for the shadow resist gear if you sharded it (like I did!).