Leotheras 11-8

[Starslayer]

Thought I'd share some thoughts on our Leo attempts last night. Overall it was a brilliant effort - had we a little more time I reckon we could have had him.

Biggest aspects to work on in my opinion are killing the inner demons and me staying alive in the final 15%.

This thread is a good general read - it's starts off specifically talking about tanking Leo, but veers off into general tips.

Inner demons

It looked like those that were having the biggest issues with their demons were our Prot specced warriors and our hunters (possibly resto druids and others, feel free to correct me). For tanks and healers mixing in a bit of dps gear should help with killing the demons without hurting tanking/healing ability too much (can also swap to damage weapons as needed). I'll try to itemise some tips from reading through the EJ threads (correct me if any are wrong):

Tanks:

• Wind fury in the tank group apparently helps
• Warriors max out their rage during demon form until whispers are out, then blow it Leo or their inner demon
• Warriors can spell reflect the bolts, knocking off 33% health

Healers:

• A paladin with concentration aura is a big help to healers nuking their demons
• Priests spamming smite should get them down without much issue
• Resto druids are best off using caster form rather than feral

Hunters:

• From the EJ thread: drop Immolation trap in preparation for demon, wing clip and get range, serpent sting, arcane shot, concussive shot, ... (see here)

Keeping the demon tank alive

I'm currently on 9738 health unbuffed with my fire resist gear on. I think I can squeeze another 1410 hp with some better gear choices. It's less than ideal, but I think we can manage with it. Healers did a great job keeping me alive and not neglecting my pet. I didn't end up calling for Divine Intervention as I wasn't sure when the correct point would be. In our 6% attempt, I died because he split during the demon phase and I had the debuff up already - I should have called for DI during the split - when I died I think I had 7 debuffs up. I daresay on our next attempts we will need another lock available to reapply SS in the event of demon tank's untimely passing.

General musings

From what I could see, it looked like most people had the threat wiping mechanics sorted out. It did take some effort at times to peel aggro off the tanks when demon form started - with better timed Dooms this may be less of an issue. Everyone just needs to remember to stop dps when there is around 5 seconds left of whirlwind.

A healer can chime in about this, but it looked like we had the whirlwind avoidance pretty well covered as well.

If we can manage it, we should try to time the 15% phase just as he starts demon form. If he goes into this phase in demon form he is damageable while he does his speech (this does not happen if he transitions during human form). If we time it to go off at the start, we shouldn't get inner demons to contend with in the final phase.

Big thing to remember about the 15% phase - don't panic! It's not a zerg phase where everyone goes all out ignoring threat/whirlwinds/etc. It's exactly the same as the human phase with the exception of the demon tank and three healers being indisposed.

A tip for me to remember and any other demon tanks - according to the EJ thread, time CoD when there is 13-5 seconds left til demon->human transition. This way it should go off early in the next demon phase. I should also remember to DoT up Leo before the human->demon transition.

I've probably forgot a bunch of stuff, so I may add more. Awesome work everyone.

Discuss! 

[Easypeasy]

Was a great effort - I fraps'd it and rendered it last night.

Few things I noticed slowing down the video:

• We can spread out more in a circle type arrangment as we had ppl standing behind / in front of each other such that he would whirlwind path through ppl and damage / kill them (we wernt taking advantage of the space on the ramp)
• Our control was good however damaging can be seen just as / after he transitions hence some of the agro pickups - best to stop (this includes hots as I could see Hanu for example get agro from my renew tick) earlier as when controlled we didnt really seem dps challenged. Once hes agro'd the group he is very difficult to pick up as he move that fast and is more often than not out of intercept range
• Although this is meant to be somewhat cotronlled it does have the appearance of being very out of control towards the end so stay calm and follow the transitions (as Star said)
• We only had one hunter to assist with transitions and Noobina with his shield thingy (avengers shield?) if we happen to have more hunters it will only make it smoother

NB: By transitions i meann all human/demon/ww

Cheers
EP

Edited - sif bullets no work

[dahplagus]

on a note for the shamans, that where there AND thoes that wern't

Totems:
dropping the searing totems in the tank spot BEFORE he goes into Whirlwind seemed to work really well.
after he came out of whirlwind phase he seemed to always run for the searing totems first, pulling him back into the center, killing one totem (was hitting mine for between 5k and 11k) and allowing valuable seconds for a tank to pick him back up.
(not to mention the totems adding an extra 50-200dps depending on your spell damage.)

Resto & Demons:
i might be mistaken but from what i could see last night, the resto shamys didn't have a problem downing their demons in time, but the best rotation to use should you find yourself in trouble would be to drop a searing totem, Earth shock, Chain lightning, Lightning Bolt, Earth shock, ect ect. keeping to the nature only spells will help killing them quick with the extra damage they take from that school.
if you find yourself taking too many interrupts, drop an earth shield on yourself, as there is no current tank in the WW phase, just remember to replace it when your demon is down and WW is over.

on a side note, if your finding yourself having a sec or too free in healing on demon phase, dont be afraid to chuck a Flame shock on the mob, as CoE (Curse of Elements for us nature folk) will be up on the mob already increasing its dps,  and Flame Shock takes 67% of your spell damage bonus, while Earth and Frost Shock only takes 41%.
again even more so with a fire mage in the raid who has stacked scorch.
while it may be only 2-4k damage, every bit counts.



 A side note to all the healers, Especially the HoT classes. Dont forget that the WW has a DoT attached to it! i did notice a few people get healed to full health after the WW direct damage, and then die from the dot. the Dot does 12,500 PHYSICAL damage over 15 secs so people will be taking damage from this even after WW is over.

[Mulgrub]

Indeed a great job by all.  Provided we hunters can beat our inner demons then a few more would be useful for the MD's to help the tanks pick up on the phase change.

If we can't beat the demons then it becomes a drain on the raid as we have to be taken out.   A few more practice goes with everyone fine tuning their roles will see us own him in no time.

[Zurgug]

4/4 in the killing of inner demons as a resto shammy.

Once we get everyone being able to kill them, less bunched raid setup "chaining" WW onto people and less panic during final split we will have him easy.

The 6% wipe was unlucky. As Star said we got the split while he was in demon form with debuffs already on the lock tank and I had a demon and was one of his healers, not sure about the others.

[Zurgug]

Looking more closely through the logs in Star's WWS alternate site most of our deaths are from:

1) WW dots. This can be "solved" by the spreading out and some adjustments to healing I am sure.

2) MC'd people. This only occurs when people do not kill their inner demons. We really need to work on getting them down. Each time someone does not kill theirs we lose a player from the raid, lose some DPS time on the boss (not a lot), take extra damage across the raid (pulls heals off where they are needed) and reduces the number of players that do not get a demon next time (more chance of required healers getting them).

[Soddoff]

Query re the Whirlwind....

I found that if I got hit by the whirlwind I and did not have my ice block to remove the dot i died from it. Healthstones and pots kept me alive (just) for a second WW. I was fubar on the third though.

This could have been becasue the healers were too bust keeping other more important targets alive, or because I had run too far away in my attempt to avoid the WW.

The random agro of the WW makes it very difficult to have a strat...sometimes he would head towards me and stop near the edge of the 'cricle' and then go after someone else...sometimes I would blink and run past the pilliar almost in to the corridor and he would still be following me.

What do our healers recommend?

Running as far as possible and just avoid the WW...
or
Not getting too far away and trust the healers to keep you up...

[dahplagus]

With the Whirlwind it will ultimately come down too you looking after yourself.

Sadly as i stated before, the WW debuff lasts for 15 secs and give ~ 12,500 damage, and after the WW phase its a total agro dump, preventing the healers with a threat problem in getting off heals. one soluition might be to Salv the healers.

For the bulk of it though, its up to the DPS to move out of range and bandage / pot / HS / anything you have got to look after yourself.

[Lucifear]

Hey guys grats on FLK and by the looks of it, Leo very soon!
Keep it up, feeling pretty bad I missed it all though

See you soon!

[hharumlil]

Query re the Whirlwind....

I found that if I got hit by the whirlwind I and did not have my ice block to remove the dot i died from it. Healthstones and pots kept me alive (just) for a second WW. I was fubar on the third though.

This could have been becasue the healers were too bust keeping other more important targets alive, or because I had run too far away in my attempt to avoid the WW.

The random agro of the WW makes it very difficult to have a strat...sometimes he would head towards me and stop near the edge of the 'cricle' and then go after someone else...sometimes I would blink and run past the pilliar almost in to the corridor and he would still be following me.

What do our healers recommend?

Running as far as possible and just avoid the WW...
or
Not getting too far away and trust the healers to keep you up...

Range should never get hit by WW. Leo is essentially a control fight. And he will aggro a big list of people during WW phase only to change targets after 2-3 seconds. That's not a bug, that's just how it is. Your chance to pump out maximum dps is not during his human phase, but his demon phase where he essentially stands still and gives you a chance to nuke him all out. (provided your demon tank holds aggro well). Once you recognise that, you'll understand your priority is to avoid getting WWed during human phase, not risk the bleed trying to get that extra dps in. It will serve the raid no good taking that approach.

Mages are perfect for getting away from WW because 1.) as a fire mage, you have a 40 yard range. On my mage, I just throw fireballs at max range during WW. 2.) you can blink. If he shows any inclination to head your direction, blink away, run behind a pillar. He can't accidentally WW to you that way. I never need heals for this fight unless I get a shadow demon.

The fight requires 1 MT, 3 OTs (for the adds). All the mobs, including Leo hit like pansies. Usually, we use feral druids in dps gear as OTs and have non-tanking prot wars put on their dps gear. The MT wears a set of high SBV, high threat generation gear which also serves to burn down shadow demons efficiently.

[Starslayer]

Saturday's attempts were a learning experience, but there was definite improvements on each attempt, even if we didn't see that in closer finishes. Our WW evasion skills improved over the night with WW hits at 106, 126, 89 and 56 - keeping in mind that we hit the enrage on attempts 3 and 4. Browsing WWS, it looks like most other guild attempts have ~100 for a 10 minute attempt. It still can be improved, but our issues probably lie elsewhere.

We need to aim to eliminate all instances of consuming madness (not killing inner demon in time). How did everyone find the advice in this thread? Were there any other tactics that worked successfully?

How was our aggro management this time? The tanks are probably in the best position to comment on this (or anyone who pulled Leo onto them.

The final issue of note is Leo tanking. I made a lot of mistakes but I learned a lot as well. The first attempt I failed to realise that I had salv on me, gimping our DPS by my loss of aggro generation. I mis-timed two of my dooms during the subsequent attempts so that I pulled aggro during the human phase. I need to cast Doom with just under 13 seconds left of the demon phase so that it goes off just after entering the next demon phase. The first time I mistimed it due to an error message (spell already being cast or something) obscuring my timers, the second due to misreading the timers (looked at demon spawn timer instead of demon phase). Lesson learned: move my damn timers. Finally, I made a mistake in thinking that some buffs carried over when battle-rezzed. After I died, I lost my gift of the wild, putting me under the FR cap, making me more likely to die again. Next time I will have my felpup out instead of FG and therefore won't need any buffing to put me over the cap.

Good effort by all. I think we will see him down soon.

[hharumlil]

I think too many people were still getting WWed. Range should be attacking him at maximum distance during his human phase. When he changes to demon, the raid can move in safely to be in range for heals should they get the shadow demon debuff. But once demon phase is about over, spread out again.

Tanking-wise - Initially, I was afraid of eating too many WW bleeds myself, but my health pool and the presence of healers dedicated to tank healing means that I could stick closer to Leo during his WW phase. That helps in landing the first few hits on him and getting aggro after he comes out of WW. If healing is fine, that's what I'm going to do - stick closely to him during his WW phase. My ability to grab aggro when he comes out of WW should improve when I do that.

@Starslayer - I didn't notice any problems with how you grabbed aggro in the demon phase. After the initial hiccup, I think you had solid aggro all the way. And we can really push dps much higher than it is. At our gear level, we should make enrage timer even with 2-3 dead dpsers.

I also think that our positioning needs a little work, and the human phase tank should try and bring him back to the middle after every WW. This way, the raid has more space to spread out, but sometimes the time frame between the last WW and demon phase can make that difficult.