Explaining A Fight

Tonight I have so try and explain the Lich King fight to my guild and this is really my first big chore as a raid leader.  Since I became the raid leader most of the fights everyone knew to some degree already.  This fight no one knows.  Only a few in my guild have done it and maybe only 2 or 3 more have seen it.  I am guessing that tonight we will be running with no kingslayers and only 3 people that have seen it before.  Being I have never finished the fight myself it makes explaining it a bit harder.

That is where I think my make or break moment as being a raid leader will come.  Can I lead a group into battle when not even I know the battle?  I have to sound confident and sure of myself.  I need to convey the feeling that it is going to be easy and that I know everything that is going to happen.  Kind of hard being I don't.  I've seen, read and studied the fight many times which we were close enough for me to need a brush up on it.  So I know what is going to happen, I just do not know how it is going to happen.

I always say that you can see it a million times and you can read it until your eyes bleed but until you do it you will not actually understand it.  So for my own purposes I am going to list here how I plan to explain it to my crew so we can get this done.

I am going to leave my post open to go back to for reference so that way I do not need to go looking all over the place to find things when I need to.  I try to keep explaining fights down to a minimum.  The less information you throw at people that less likely they are to mess up.  No need to say this does xxx damage over xx time and blah blah.  Just tell them what to do with it if it happens.  Do not overload them with information.

Now, a reminder to anyone reading this.  I have never done this so how I plan to explain it might be wrong.  I am only doing it based on stuff I have read and seen.  I've only done 2 phases myself.  So this is about me pretending I have a clue what the hell I am doing and hoping I can convince them that I know what I am talking about.

This is more for me so I have something to come back to here to read during the raid.

This is a 5 phase fight.

Phase one will be tanking LK here. (will show them on the map)
All melee will be behind him.
All ranged will be here. (will show them on the map)
The off tank will tank the adds here. (will show them on the map)

Every 20 seconds or so LK will cast infest.  It is a DoT that can only be removed by healing people to over 90% health.  It will never drop the DoT if the infect does not drop people below 90% to start off with so keep people topped off if you can.

Adds will come out during the fight and the OT will pick them up.

LK will cast Necrotic Plague every 25 seconds.  Whoever gets it run over to the off tank.  Stand behind the big add the off tank is tanking.  You want to be closer to the add then to the tank.  When the disease is dispelled off you go back to your position.

The Shambling Horror is the big add the off tank will be picking up.  It enrages and does more damage but I will be handling the enrages so just pay attention to your job and do not worry about that.

At 70% phase one will end.

LK is going to run to the center of the room and we all need to run to the outer edge.
All ranged help the OT kill off any remaining adds.
Melee, stay away from there.
Once the adds are all dead the OT will have all the stacks of Plague on him.  Once he is dispelled and there is no one close enough to him for the plague to jump to it will disappear.

We need to stay on the outer edge to avoid LKs AoE pulse damage thing, remorseless winter.
When LK summons Ice Spheres all ranged need to kill them.
When LK summons a Raging Spirit they need to be picked up ASAP by a tank and tanked with your back to the edge so their frontal cone they do shoots out to nowhere.
The second Spirit will be tanked here by the off tank who should be clear of all adds by now.
The third will be picked up by the main tank and the first should be long dead by now.
After 3 of them are cast LK will begin to cast quake.
We need to start moving in.  Be sure to not go anywhere near Ice Spheres should there be any as we go in and tanks should try to strafe inwards to keep the spirit facing away from the rest of the raid.
Once quake is finished casting the outer ring will crumble and anyone left standing on it is dead.

Phase three begins with LK back as our main focus now.
Finish off the spirit if it is not dead yet before you move on to LK.
First thing to watch out for is Defile.

Defile will leave a pool of black stuff under your feet when it is cast. NOT when the cast starts, when it ends.  So if you are targeted stop what you are doing and run to the edge, do not worry about squeezing in that last hit, just move. Keep running so when it does finish the cast you are already running to get out the pool it leaves behind.

Be aware of your surrounding.  Help the person running by moving away from them if need be.  Because of this effect we should all be spaced out a little bit being the black circle leaves an 8 yard radius.  It only lasts 30 seconds but it is cast every 35.  So there will most likely always be one on the ground.

The tank can be the target so the off tank needs to be ready to pick up the LK if need be.

The LK will summon Valks this round.  They will pick people up and drop them off the edge.  Because of this when they pop out slow them however you can and burn them down fast.  If they make it to the edge we will be down one raid member.

Last thing of note for this round is for tanks.  LK will cast Soul Reaper on the tank.  After 5 seconds it hits for a huge amount so you want to switch tanks so you are not tanking when the 5 second debuff hits and the damage spike comes.

Okay, now to phase 4 which starts at 40%
Remember that outer platform that used to be there.  Well, it is coming back and we need to get on it the second it comes back.  Phase 4 is exactly the same as phase 2 was.  The only difference is there are 4 spirits this time instead of 3.  If we were capable of handing phase 2 then phase 4 should not be a problem.

Remember, when he starts to cast quake it is time to start moving in again because that outer platform is going to go bye bye again and anyone on it goes bye bye with it.

Now for phase 5 and what we have been waiting for.

LK will use the infest, reaper and defile just as before.  Same tactics as before on all of them.  Keep infests healed, tanks switch on reaper and run out for defile.

Now we need to look out for two additional things.  Vile spirits are one of them.  LK will summon a pack of Vile Spirits.  The will stay together for about 15 seconds before coming after someone.  Where ever they are summoned, we will move to the other side as a group. Ranged get on them instantly.  After 15 seconds they will start to come toward us.  If they reach us, they explode.  Explosions are bad.  Do not let them get to us.

The second is Harvest Soul.  Whomever it hits it will do huge damage too.  If that person lives, and I hope they do, they will be transferred to Frostmourne.  Inside Frostmourne you will see a friendly and an enemy.  The friendly will help you kill the enemy.  He does more damage with the more life he has so healers can heal him to get out quickly.  DPS need to burn the enemy.  Once it is dead you will be transferred out.

Two things of note.  If you die from Harvest Soul or in Frostmourne LK gets a buff.  So don't die.  And when you get transferred in tanks need to keep an eye on you.  If an add tries to follow you they need to taunt it off.  You do not want an add in there with you, you will not survive.

When LK reaches 10% he will cast the Fury of Frostmourne.

We will all die.  Do not release.  It is over, we won.  Sit back and enjoy. 

I think that works okay for someone that has never done it.  I'm convinced we can do it.  Lets hope they are.  Does that sound like I know what I am talking about?

It is a lot more information then I am used to giving.  I try to keep it short and sweet and this seems like a lot to feed people.  Lets just hope they all did their homework and watched the videos and read about the fights as well, that will make it a lot easier.  However, if they did that type of stuff we would have downed this fight 10 months ago like we should have.

People seem motivated now that the end is near.  Maybe that will help them make the effort to get better with this and make it so I don't feel like I am the only person that ever does their homework.  A few wipes are fine while learning mechanics, but a few wipes to mechanics you should have known if you ever looked up the fight before hand is getting on my nerves.

Here is to hoping that our healers do not get targeted.  That will be the downfall is they have to do most of the running.  Also, here is to hoping I do not have to end up healing this.  I really do not want to heal this even if my disc priest will help a ton of defiles.  I want this sucker dead on my main.

Now that I have this all here I am ready to roll.  When raid time comes tonight I just come here and read what I wrote.  It will make it sound like I know what I am talking about.  I think the success of this will depend on how capable I am of making these people believe in themselves that they can do it. It is not like leading a raid where everyone has done it before.  That is easy.

In truth.  If we get a second healer that is competent I know we can do it.  We have super DPS, two quality tanks and one super healer.  It is just that second healing spot that has been suspect and the reason I have been running my healer lately.  Not that I would mind doing it on my healer as well but I do not think a two priest setup is optimal.

Now, what pet to bring.  I need to find what buff we will be missing.  We should have a Hunter (me), 2 DKS (one tank), 2 Pallys (one tank), a Priest, a Warlock, a Enhance Shaman and then one open DPS and one open heal spot.  So I will work on my pet decision based on that. I want the DPS to be ranged.  Hell, on this fight I would rather go with all ranged.

Just wish that it were not so late in the expansion or we would have more available to us.  A DPS warrior, a tank Warrior, a cat/tree druid, a boomkin/tree druid, a second hunter and another priest maybe.  See, we always had the tools.  Just never tied it all together.  I think this set up puts us in a nice place heading into Cataclysm but we have some unfinished business to attend to now.  I hope I have some good news to post tomorrow.  If not, well, at least we will all have some more experience.  That alone will help us move along.  We still have a little over a month to get this done and I want to get it done while it is still the end game.