Blood Council/Princes

Straight from Elitistjerks, with some addendums that seem worthwhile (if I find any):

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ICC Crimson Hall-Blood Princes

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The first encounter in this wing is an execution check with a very cyclical nature. The purpose of this thread is to explore the mechanics for the many abilities present and to discuss optimal ways to address them. While many guilds have downed this encounter with few major issues, proper understanding is crucial.

In 25 man, it appears that three normal tanks are optimal. In 10 man, use your typical MT and OT, assigning the MT to the two physical princes and your OT to Keleseth. Six healers make 25 fairly easy, and with no hard or soft enrage, this seems the safe route. Five healers should be completely doable. In 10 man, three healers feels warranted, though 2 can be used with adequate gear/experience.

The normal and empowered abilities of this encounter are well-documented. There are a few mechanics which are not quite clear, which I will touch on below.

Tank Positioning

In 10 man, it is recommended that you tank Valanar and Taladram on top of one another with the same tank, to keep Vindication/Demo Roar/Demo Shout up and significantly reduce tank damage (thanks Redcape). Positioning is flexible and some report success at the top of the stairs or against a wall. Keleseth is mobile, and will follow his tank.

In 25 man, it is recommended that you tank Valanar and Taladram separately, due to Shock Blast. Assigning a tank to Taladram who can reduce AP will significantly decrease tank damage. Again, Keleseth will remain mobile.

Empowered Abilities

Prince Valanar will empower first, and Empowered Shock Vortex seems to be the hardest mechanic to learn. Ideally, all healers and ranged will be over 30 yards from Valanar and can avoid this entirely. Melee should be assigned to run in different directions, to ensure they are all 13 yards apart after the 4.5 second cast. Keep in mind the Keleseth tank will be running around collecting nuclei and may be hit by this ability.

Prince Taldaram will empower second and cast a stronger version of his flame sphere. In 10 man, this hit everyone within 15 yards of the target for 20-25,000 damage. We simply shielded the target and ignored it. In 25 man, it is beneficial to run away from the sphere, since it is more likely that there are others within 15 yards of the target.

Prince Keleseth will cast a stronger version of his shadow bolt. By the time these start hitting, the ranged tank should have at least 3-4 dark nuclei on him. The shadow damage reduction is multiplicative, using the formula 1-(0.65^N) where N is the number of nuclei (see Ciopo's post on page 2). This gives a reduction of:
1 Nuclei: 35% shadow reduction
2 Nuclei: 58%
3 Nuclei: 73%
4 Nuclei: 82%
5 Nuclei: 88%
6 Nuclei: 94%

The tank can expect to consistently keep 4-5 nuclei.

Other Annoying Abilities

Prince Valanar will cast Kinetic Bomb, which must be periodically dpsed to keep it floating. Some have reported a bug where it might be possible to launch it high enough to aggro Blood Queen Lana'thel. Three bombs can be active at a time, in both 10 and 25 man, and bombs can spawn anywhere in the room. Dps should be assigned to monitor areas of the room. Frost mages and hunters seem to be best at this. With 3 bombs, 2 dpsers are occupied nearly full-time. This unfairly affects 10 man.

Prince Taldaram will cast Glittering Sparks periodically. A random target will be chosen and those nearby will be affected. The damage from this ability is significant, and the movement speed debuff makes it hard to spread out for Empowered Shock Vortex. However, this ability can be dispelled/cleansed, and should be quickly.

Mechanics to Address

1. Nuclei aggro: It appears that nuclei will latch on to the target that last hit it. The are immune to AoE, but can be affected by abilities which hit multiple targets (multi-shot, chain lightning, etc). See Adana's research on page 2. It is possible to take a nuclei to your Keleseth tank and have him pull it off.

2. Keleseth tanking: Currently, concensus favors a normal tank. The increased health pool is very advantageous. Warlock or other caster tanks are certainly viable, particularly since the hotfix removing Keleseth's ability to melee.

3. Kinetic Bomb: This must be kept in the air, due to high raid damage and a wide-ranging knockback. It is not clear if they despawn on landing, but this is not believed to be the case. Up to 3 can exist at any given time, even in 10 man.

J

Edit 1:

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Kinetic Bombs

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The amount of boost a kinetic bomb gets from a hit appears to be independent of damage done. So a faster spammable spell will get you more lift-per-unit-time than a slower but more damaging spell.

For example, Arcane Barrage doesn't seem to push the bomb up any higher than Ice Lance per cast, but Ice Lance is spammable on GCD.

Also, a water elemental can keep a Kinetic Bomb up indefinitely (if it stays alive). Presumably an imp could do the job too.

It has been my experience that the wand is the best option for me as a priest, although the above two capabilities are CERTAINLY things to consider for the raid, if we have a mage/warlock.

I'd appreciate it if everyone called out the bomb locations this time, using clock positions (Blood Queen is 12 o'clock high), and NEAR/FAR to indicate proximity to the center of the room. I think we had 3 bombs up ONCE during all of our attempts, and no matter how fast I am with the wand...I can't be everywhere at once.

For consideration regarding off-tanking:

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Honestly, you're bringing three tanks for many of the fights in here, you should use them all on this fight. Ranged tanking just leads to gibs and wipes.

I tanked Keleseth with my paladin today. After generating some initial threat, I spent a considerable amount of time collecting Dark Nuclei and spamming Hammer of Wrath on Keleseth.

If a dark nucleus is not attached (targeting) another player, any offensive action should get it on you. For that purpose, I used Hand of Reckoning. The Nuclei were immune to it, but they aggro'd me nonetheless.

If a dark nucleus is currently attached to another player, you must damage it. I used exorcism and avenger's shield to great effect. Melee range abilities also worked, obviously.

After generating initial threat, it becomes a game of picking up new nuclei. If you have a comfortable amount of nuclei on you (3), you should continue generating threat during non-invocation periods. Again, Hammer of Wrath is excellent for this purpose, but every tank has little tricks to help them with various components of tanking Keleseth.

Nuclei will often aggro onto other players, likely due to AOE. They sometimes aggro onto healers, which may or may not be related to the current health of the nucleus. I will not speculate further. Regardless, you must either grab them back or collect new nuclei. Collecting new nuclei is preferable as they tend to stick to you a lot longer.


Ranged tanking works, but I would strongly suggest not doing so.

Another paradigm for this fight:

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We found the best method in 10 man to be:

1 tank holding Valanar and Taldram in a corner (we used the door up to Lana'thel on the right)
1 DPS holding Keleseth near the middle of the room (obviously though he'd move to pick up Nuclei)

We had our second tank spec DPS and used 3 healers (resto Druid, resto Shaman, Disc Priest).

Had 1 hunter cover all the Kinetic Orbs, it was relatively easy and some boss DPS time was still definitely manageable.


Our kill was just under 3 minutes and was drastically easier than when we tried 3 tanks because it allowed the 2 healers to focus on the 2 tanks and the druid could toss around Rejuv on the raid when needed.

Wall positioning also worked well because having the mobs stacked allowed faster target switching.

huh, may have to give that a try, 2 tanking...though jp will need a little learning curve but I think 2 tanking is a great idea that gets warrelf on the orbs with his bow instead of your friggin wanding and gets both of you time on target still...

The biggest reason I want to try something like this, is even on our best attempt by my napkin art math, we would have downed them in roughly 9:30, that's 30 second from enrage with all dps still up...that's...dangerous.

Anyway we'll discuss further tonight.
JJ

Again, just giving some options...I had no granularity on the napkin math, just seemed like we were long in killing any boss...but my dumb shadowy ass was just running around avoiding shit with my 15% damage avoidance buff and uber l33t wand skillz.

Besides, the focus needs to be on the blood bitch following. More momentarily.

J