...got pwnd!
Well, barely. Took us a bit but I think we finally have the formula to take down Venoxis. On our second to last attempt we got him down to 8%. I think our main problem was lack of ranged DPS. That and we need to execute a little better.
For those of you from HE, AAF, and CC, it's my custom to post a long-winded write-up of the previous day's major encounters. I normally do this on the HLS listserv but, hey, what the heck? Why shield our sister guilds from the verbosity that is Warcaster! ;)
This boss is tricky. He's got 26,200HP so just that alone would take some time to burn down. He's also go 4 60-elite snakes for bodyguards that have to be dealt with.
What worked best for us was to give Darkkwing a dedicated healer and have him pull Venoxis down to the main floor and tank him by the bonfire. Everyone else is on the 4 guards. With two druids sleeping and my sheep we were able to keep from fighting more than two at once. They burn down pretty quick with that much focused fire.
When the bodyguards are gone we switched over to Venoxis. The first part of the fight is your standard tank/dps variety. When he gets down to about 45% health (some of the guides said 55% but he was lower each time I saw the transformation) he goes into this snake form that is just insanely nasty. He emits this green cloud of AE damage that drops players like bugs to a can of Raid. Fortunately it's static and you can move him out of it. At some point in the fight Venoxis goes beserk and starts whacking on the ranged DPS. I don't know if he's scripted to drop tank aggro like some of the MC bosses or if it's just because the ranged DPS is finally moving up on his hate list. Either way, it hurts. I'm leaning towards thinking the ranged DPS is blasting him off the tanks since in almost every case he came after me first. Although, on the very last fight I completely stopped nuking him after he switched forms and he still came straight to me. The first time he killed me I got hit for 5,600 in one shot. Since I only have 4,100HP with MoW, Fort, AND the imp buff no amount of healing, potions, or health stones was going to save me. He then goes around to all the DPSers and does the same thing. An he's fast! He went all the way across the courtyard before I could pop a mana shield. Sol also said he was out of range before he could get a taunt off. Once the DPS was down it was only a matter of time. Just for illustration, check out the following pictures:
http://www.maassfamily.net/wow/scree...rcaster_01.jpg
http://www.maassfamily.net/wow/scree...rcaster_02.jpg
Note the red and green numbers up by my portrait. The red is the incoming DPS I took at the time of death.
We never did finish him off but I think we now know the basic tactics that will work.
After we ported back to org we were discussing it a bit more over Vent. Sol had a great idea we should try next time. Because Venoxis moves so fast and got out of range before Sol could taunt, he suggested keeping a warrior in with ranged DPS to pick him up when he goes for the casters.
In addition to his frightful damage to cloth and leather wearers, the green AE cloud was a major source of problems for the melee classes. It's very similar to the disease cloud from the plauged ghouls in Scholo but MUCH more intense. There is a short cast animation just before he spews it but most people weren't picking it up. Heck, even when I was dead and had nothing to do but watch the fight it was still hard to see coming. As a result we had people standing in the cloud too long and dying very quickly. For this portion of the fight the tanks are standing toe-to-toe with him and keeping him stationary, then moving when someone calls out that the cloud has been cast. Here I'm wondering how feasible it is for the tanks to keep him moving throughout the fight. Maybe work him in a big counter-clockwise circle around the bonfire? I'm woefully ignorant of the mechanics of a tank's stance dance so I'm not sure if that's possible. If we can, it would ensure that no one was in the cloud for more than a second or two.
Anyway, I thought the instance went pretty well up to Venoxis. And, heck, I even had fun fighting him despite the wipes. We had 2 druids, 1 priest, and 3 shaman. Being the sole mage and sole priest was a little rough on the ol' reagent supplies and mana since we each had four groups to buff after each wipe. The cost is trivial but at 3400mana/buff and the fact I went through 30 arcane powder means I spent 102,000 mana just on buffs. That's a lot of butt-time. We could have used one more priest and either more rogues or mages. The warlocks CoE and CoS helped a lot, too. As did the new 16-slot debuff change in 1.7. Oh, and Rawz' repair bot was sorely needed so thanks for bringing one!
GG, though. We'll get him next time.
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