Throne of the Four Winds: Al'Akir

[Whitey]

wowwiki:Al'Akir
[video=youtube;neDeFX4iyNk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neDeFX4iyNk&feature=player_embedded[/video]

Originally Posted by Aliena

                                         Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Throne of the  Four Winds Raid Guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll show  you all you have to know about Al'Akir, the final boss in this new raid  instance. We completed this fight with 1 tank, 3 healers and 6 DPS, but  similar raid configurations may work just as well.

This encounter is split into three phases. The first one's fairly short,  it lasts from 100-80% of his health. The second phase is the longest,  it lasts from 80-25%, and you only have to endure the third phase for  the last 25%. For once in a fight, the first phase is actually the  hardest one you have to deal with!

In the first phase, Al'akir is firmly rooted in the middle of his little  platform, and if his main threat target is not in his melee range, he  will instead Electrocute it, which is a channeled spell that deals  massive amounts of damage. To counter this, always stay below the tank's  threat and don't "accidentally" pull the boss, okay? Okay. Also, any  caster should stand towards the back of the platform, since he will  randomly interrupt spells cast close to his body.

When you reach the platform, have your raid spread out over at least  half the platform, each person on their own or in groups of 2 if you'd  rather. Do make sure that 2 healers are in range of your tank, and every  DPS is in range of at least 1 healer. If you're doing this in 25-man  mode, utilize the whole platform and split your raid up into  self-sufficient little groups of 3-4 people with a healer each.

This is because of Al'akir's Lightning Strike, which is basically a  Chain Lightning except it chains to everyone in a huge cone around his  target. The markers on the floor are a huge help here - if each group  stacks up on a little marker, you'll never chain Lightning Strike to  another group.

His second ability is Ice Storm, which spawns a Blizzard that moves  rather randomly around the platform. If you stand in it, you get slowed  and take damage. This is not a big issue by itself, but you'll notice  that Al'akir tends to put the storm right in the middle of the platform,  and this tends to get annoying due to his next two abilities:

Wind Burst and Squall Line. Squall Line is basically a line of Tornadoes  he summons that have a random "hole" in them. If you've done Sartharion  in Wrath, it works like his Flame Wall. To avoid getting picked up by  the Squall Line and potentially die, stand in the opening until the  tornadoes pass by. Al'akir will always have one of these active and  moving around the platform. When the Squall Line is about to disappear,  they'll kinda fizzle out - at that point they won't deal damage anymore.  

Wind Burst is a spell with a 5 second cast time that he'll approximately  use twice per minute. When the cast is finished, everyone on the  platform will get knocked back a considerable distance, and if your raid  is not extremely close to his body at the point it goes off, they'll  likely get blasted off the platform. You don't die when this happens,  but you'll be out of the fight for at least 10 seconds and if you get  unlucky, you'll get picked off by tornadoes right when you land. To  avoid this, run towards Al'Akir when he's casting Wind Burst.

The tricky part is the timing of Squall Line and Wind Burst together -  make sure you're safe from any tornadoes when Al'akir is about to cast  Wind Burst or else you might get blasted into one and die. Also, account  for increased run times if you have an ice patch on your part of the  platform. It's most important that no raid member gets picked up by  tornadoes, so if it comes down to you having to choose between getting  blasted off the platform or getting picked up by tornadoes, pick the  getting blasted off. It's worth noting that you can currently life-grip  people out of tornadoes should you absolutely have to.

Thankfully, when his health hits 80%, phase 2 starts, and this one is  considerably easier and.. more boring. You still have to deal with the  Electrocute, the spell interrupt close to him and the Squall Line in  phase two, so make sure to look out for it and preferably call new  tornadoes and their openings out on vent.

Phase 2 has a soft enrage mechanic called Acid Rain, which makes your  raid take increasing nature damage every second until you bring Al'Akir  down to 25%. The new mechanic this phase are Stormlings - little  electric adds Al'akir will summon every 20 seconds. They deal nature  damage to everyone within 20 yards of them, so have your ranged members  stand in a separate pile away from your tank and melee whenever you  don't have to deal with a tornado.

When a Stormling dies, Al'akir receives a debuff called "Feedback".  Feedback makes him take 10% more damage for 20 seconds, and this stacks  with every new Stormling that dies. However, keep in mind that Feedback  only lasts for 20 seconds, so you need to time your Stormling kills just  right to avoid losing the buff.

If you have very high DPS in your raid, you may choose to only have a  few people on Stormlings to avoid killing them too fast and creating a  gap between killing one and having the next one spawn. However, most  people that are just starting to raid will want the majority of their  DPS on the Stormlings when they're out. Try to find the right balance to  always kill a Stormling right before another spawns, that way you  should keep stacking up Feedback on Al'akir and get him to 25% before  the increasing damage from Acid Rain kills your raid.

Once you do hit 25%, phase 3 starts and Al'Akir will lift your entire  raid up into the sky. For the rest of the encounter, you fight him in  3-dimensional space! This phase is also a bit of a soft enrage timer,  since eventually you'll run out of room to move. To give your raid the  most amounts of space, have everyone fly to the very bottom of Al'akir  as soon as the phase starts - fly as far down as you can without  touching the lightning at the bottom.

Everyone should be at roughly the same altitude, but do make sure to  spread out horizontally since Al'akir uses a chain lightning and an  ability called Lightning Rod, that will cause a random person to emit  lightning in a pretty wide area. The animation is very obvious and  anyone affected by lightning rod needs to make sure to get away from  anyone nearby.

The reason your whole raid started out at the bottom of the area is  Lightning Cloud, which Al'akir summons at the altitude of a random raid  member. This will look like a gigantic cloud that spans the whole area,  and after 5 seconds the cloud will begin to emit lightning to anyone at  the same altitude. When a cloud spawns, your entire raid needs to move  upwards out of the affected altitude, since being in a Lightning Cloud  will kill you within 2-3 seconds.

Al'akir uses Wind Burst in this phase, which is now instant. When you  get hit by it, just return to wherever you were before. If you're too  far away from him at the time he casts this and get knocked out of the  Eye of the Storm, you might find yourself getting thrown around a wind  hose for 6 seconds. This is usually bad news, since there's a high  chance that it'll pop you out into a Lightning Cloud, so try not to move  too far from Al'akir when you can avoid it.

That however concludes his phase 3 abilities, so if you burn him down  quickly enough and everyone moves out of the Lightning Clouds, this  phase should not cause an issue for your raid. As always, good luck and  have fun! I've attached footage of the whole encounter in case you'd  like to see how we dealt with the various mechanics in detail.

[TeaLeaf]

Bump to prep for this.

[TeaLeaf]

After Cho'gall drops on Tuesday, we'll be heading to Al'ikir, so read up on it, watch the vids, be prepared.

[TeaLeaf]

After Cho'gall drops on Tuesday, we'll be heading to Al'ikir, so read up on it, watch the vids, be prepared.

QFT.  Cho'gall is down, so read up on this fight - it looks to be a bunch of fun!

[TeaLeaf]

Bump..

[TeaLeaf]

As I've been asked for it, here's my boss cue card for Al'Akir.  Hope it helps.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]685[/ATTACH]

[Grimnar]

Melee point of view:
 
I think we have it very simple on this fight. I loved being on the side as then i could use "sometimes" all my attacks and could see most things comming quick enough to react to it, even to warn players.
 
ph1: i found little problems in that phase, movement was sometimes a bit tricky but didn't find it difficult to survive etc. Worked my movement also out with a jump over the icepatch so that i only took 1 tick from the icepatch that only hurts me for 7k.
 
ph2: the most simple phase a melee could get on this boss. Stay away from tank was easy, avoiding clouds was easy and loads of time to dps boss do a innervate, battleress one etc. etc.
 
ph3: I had only the problem staying on 1 line with the healers, i lost track of where the line was quickly but i knew i wasn't to high or to low on the line and had nothing to move away from (damage wise). But a bit more into this phase would clear everything up for the whole fight i think.

[TeaLeaf]

Not had time to do a full log analysis yet, but here's some thoughts on the damage we were taking:

Ice Storm - not worried by these numbers, you sometimes have to move through it and the numbers seem pretty consistent across the raid.

Lightning Strike - after a few examples of people running sideways and not back/forwards we seemed to get on top of this, so I am not worried by this chaining to others now as we seem to have it sorted.

Wind Burst - not worried by the damage taken either, it happens and numbers are consistent across the raid - but we are having people punted off far more often than is needed.  We need more knockbacks that land on the platform, not knockbacks off the platform and into the 10 second 'floating in the wind' phase.
-a knockback from the very edge of the boss throws you about 75% of the width of the platform.  
-if a squall line is coming and the gap is mid/ranged then use the knowledge of how far you get knocked back to get Wind Burst kicked into the Squall Gap.
-watch the cast bar not the cooldown timer!
-if you will not make the appropriate range for wind burst and then get hit by squall, be smart and make the decision to jump off the platform and lose 10 seconds instead of your life.
-make wind burst HELP YOU (ie don't plan to take a knockback that lands you in squall or an ice storm, use it to miss the ice storm or land you in the right area for the Squall gap!)

Squall Line - this is the area where we are sucking hard at the moment.  For whatever reason, we need to get better at this, a lot better.
-make sure camera is scrolled out far enough to see them coming
-make sure you have your head on a swivel to see them inbound
-make sure camera angle is correct to identify the gap and make sure you are positioned in it
-make sure you know the wind burst timer in relation to when squall will reach you AND that you then make an informed choice as to what to do

Stormlings - this is easy damage to avoid unless you are the tank.  When you see an add spawning, use the 5 seconds it takes for the add to become active to move the heck away from it.  If you stand next to it you will take damage!  Let Whitey pick it up, then the assigned dps burn it down.  Nobody but Whitey should take damage from this unless we happen to need to move for Squall Line with the tank, but we can still chose to move laterally to avoid using the gap at the same time as Whitey & the add, so move and avoid it!

Lightning Clouds - early days for this as few tries went into P3, but I am already worried by these numbers.  I think we need to get way better at assessing height and positioning correctly.
-fly right down QUICKLY until just above clouds (if you too slow then next clouds appear too high and we run out of room or die)
-orientation is same as on platform if you fly directly down with no deviation
-central healer is marked and takes up a position
-2 wing healers position off central healer
-raid positions with reference to marked healers
-spread to minimise chain lighting
-lightning rod move out HORIZONTALLY not in the vertical plane (if you move up see the problems about clouds noted above)
-turn spell details up to MAXIMUM to see the cloud forming on your screen (I suspect if not on maximum then it is harder or impossible to see until lighting happens)

P3 is kind of easy so there is no reason we should not cake-walk to the kill once into it.  We've been there a few times now and should be doing this better.


All in all, we got to 12% or so and we hardly knew the fight, so this one is gagging to be killed if we actually focus up on our responsibilities.  The entire fight can be summarised as this:

P1: Calculate knockbacks to help, hit gaps
P2: Avoid adds & hit gaps
P3: Stay in the same plane as the marked healers, move up when clouds form, run out if a christmas tree

If we handle this simple set of rules then phat purplz are waiting for us along with another achievement for a new instance cleared.  Let's go do it.

[Slush]

Furthermore; Great tries yesterday - Something happened during the raid break that turned things in our favour. :-D I dont want to know what it was..
And I think we were all pretty good prepared for what was awaiting us.

-Jumping off the platform might sometimes be a good idea...  But... We are loosing valuable dps/time when you do, so please keep it at a minimum, and only when really really necessary.

-The AoE damage from the debuff called Acid Rain worries me. We have a couple of people standing outside the "Healing zones" while Acis Rain is ticking.. and it is ticking constantly in p2. If there is a Squall or Stormling close, you should move out of it, or to the edge of it.
But.. To minimize the direct heals we need to put on you, please use it as much as possble.
The blue healing zone (called Healing Rain) is particulary good for you.


Oi. 26 tries in one night. Thats alot. Easy place to ninjapull.

[TeaLeaf]

I'm guilty of standing outside the healing zone in P2, my rationale was that if I pull aggro on the add it comes ot me and only damages me not the raid.  Will do my best to stick closer!

[Grimnar]

I wasn't in it aswell, i tried to but only when whitey wasn't close to me. I had to stay away from tank and there was also the healing rings
 
I don't know what is best to do: stay away from tank and don't get any extra damage from add etc. or get healing and take the add damage.

[Slush]

Edge. Standing on the edge is enough.
Jas explained how he tries to put down his efflorence close to where the gap in squalls will be, and i did the same on the last tries.
If possible; Stand in it. If not possible, dont worry. But passive AoE heals are worth alot in the end of phase 2, where we have 75k (if 15 stacsks) damage taken on raid every second from this debuff alone. We are not prioritizing melee on our healing zones, as we are 7 ranged and 3 melees. I rather chain and hot melees/tank.

Edit: middle and end of P2 is where the AoE healing abilities of a shaman really shines. :-) Fun fight.

[Tanales]

The only big problem i saw is that we couldnt keep the Feedback debuff up enough in P2,
might be a good idea to do something like this:

To help the raid damage Al'Akir, Stormlings will spawn on a random raid member. The off tank should pick them up. Every time a Stormling is killed, Al'Akir is debuffed with Feedback  which increases his damage taken. This debuff only lasts 20 seconds,  but it also stacks. Keeping the debuff rolling by killing one right  before it expires is key to winning this phase; letting stacks fall off  will decrease raid DPS too much to win. In order to have enough to keep  rolling the stack, you will want to wait until the tank has three or  four Stormlings in reserves to kill one. After killing one, only kill another right before the stack of Feedback is about to expire.

[Slush]

We are awsome in p1 and p2!
Soooo... We did get him down yesterday, but in p3 we always mess up badly. :-)

-Start from top worked good.
-Always follow TS direction on going up/down
-I found it hard to get to the same level as everyone else. I think this is where we need to improve:
1. Look for MT, we all get to the same height as him.
2. Swim to middle after being knocked out.
3. Should we retake p1 positions in p3? Only difference is everyone more than 5yards apart from eachothere, and Xmas-tree runs out?

[TeaLeaf]

P1 & P2 simply come down to handling your business.  When we did it, we got good entry into P3 and he died.  
The bulk of our wasted tries were down to losing people in P1.

Tanales + a part-time Sheepy did enough dps to control adds in P2 and we stacked adds to 2 before killing an add to help retain the buff.
Pro-Tip was moving away from a spawning add - it reduced the incoming damage a shed load.

DG @ 30% from pala tank
Mana hymn from Priest 2 @ 30% followed by healing hymn
AM following DG
Mana hymn from Priest 1 @ 28% followed by healing hymn
....led to us rolling into P3 on almost full health for the kill.

Roughly P1 positions in P3 yes, but there will be variation - we practised it beforehand on the entry platform if you recall.

Farm.
Cloud layers despawn after a while, so height levels can be used more than once.   It was suggested by someone (I forget who) that instead of simply working our ay up level by level after reaching the bottom clouds, that we fly right to the top and then we get a clean run down again and the existing cloud layers will have despawned as we move down.