Blood-Queen Lana'thel Encounter

[Spiritus]

Hello, and welcome to Tankspot's written pre-release strategy guide on the Blood-Queen Lana'thel Encounter in Icecrown Citadel. My name is Spiritus and I will be going over the abilities seen on the PTR for this fight, as well as some basic speculative strategy on how to approach your first attempts.

BIG NOTE: As always, this is all speculative, but well researched. Nothing is ever certain until launch day, and even then the fight mechanics can change overnight. If I feel dodgy on something, I say so. First capture is the first live kill recorded, only back half of the fight however. Second video is from the PTR:

Environment, Positioning, and Pull:

(1) BQL's room is a (*gasp*) circle and has one entrance, which becomes gated once the encounter starts.

(2) Two tanks are needed for this fight as there is linked damage and a possible tank swap.

(3) You thought the DPS requirement for Rotface was tight?

(4) This fight is about judicious use of the Essence of the Blood Queen mechanic, proper execution of tank switches (possibly), big spike raid heals, and hot, nasty bad-ass deeps.

(5) I am suggesting tanking her where she stands, leaving the middle of the room open for dealing with pact of the dark fallen.



Boss/Environment Abilities:
There really isn't all that much new to this fight, and besides Essence of the Blood Queen, you have encountered all these mechanics before.

<---Blood-Queen Lana'thel--->

62.54m HP
Yup, you saw that number right. Fortunately, there is a mechanic that drastically will increase your rDPS. Unfortunately, it is that same mechanic that will make you wipe.

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Vampiric Bite
Instant Cast. Cast once by BQL approx 15sec into the fight [or possibly if there is no-one with Essence of the Blood Queen].
Deals 13875 to 16125 damage to the target, granting them...

Essence of the Blood Queen

Instant Cast. Duration 60sec [75sec 10man].
You are infused with the blood of the Vampyr Queen. Damage done increased by 100%. Attacks heal recipient [speculative 10-15%]. Attacks cause no threat. At the end of the duration, target gains Frenzied Bloodthirst (See below).
This is the keystone mechanic for this fight. Approx 15sec into the fight, BQL will bite a random raid member, causing them to become a Vampyr. The fledgling Vampyr raid member will deal double damage for 50sec, and have the bonus of healing a percentage of each attack. Sounds great right?

Not so much. At the end of the 60sec duration you gain...

Frenzied Bloodthirst

Instant. Duration 10sec.
The caster must satiate their need for blood, otherwise they will lose their will to Queen Lana'thel.
Basically, after 60sec of being awesome, your hotkeys will change allowing you to only use Vampiric Bite (as seen above). You cannot bite other Vampyrs. If you bite someone not infected, you will get a new 50sec duration on Essence. If you fail to bite anyone in 10sec, you get to become MC'd by BQL, gaining...

Uncontrollable Frenzy

Instant.
Charmed. Increases damage done by 100%. Health increased by 300%. Increases healing done by 1000%.
This is bad.

So in essence (get it?), with perfect execution of the mechanic you have until the 5:40min mark until seven raid members are forced to become MC'd. This is why it is imperative that your highest DPS get bitten as soon as possible, and why healers and tanks should be last to be bitten. You need every drop of DPS for this. Save hero/bl until the 4:30ish mark, or until most of your DPS are bitten.
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Blood Mirror
100% of damage done to you is dealt to the linked source as shadow damage. Linked source will be whomever is closest to you upon application of Blood Mirror.
One of two abilities that require two tanks. This will only be cast on the highest aggro target. Tanks must be standing on top of each other at all times.

Delirious Slash
Instant. Frequency Unknown.
Inflicts 50% of weapon damage to an enemy and causes it to bleed for 5,250 to 6,750 damage per application every 3sec for 15sec.
Live ability. Placed on both tanks. Non-stacking.

Pact of the Darkfallen
Instant.
Deals growing Shadow damage to you and 2 other non-linked allies. This effect expires when all linked targets are within 5 yards of each other. DOES DAMAGE TO OTHERS IN A CLOSE RADIUS
Remember Yoggy's Brain Link? Red beams are bad, yellow beams are good. Same thing, except it dissipates after all 3 linked raiders are within 5yds of each other. Have the middle of the room open for the 3 Pact'd raiders to meet.


Swarming Shadows
Instant.
Swarming shadows inflict 2775 to 3225 damage every 1 sec for 6sec.
Remember Lord Jaraxxus' Legion Flame? Same thing except purple. Execute as you would Legion Flame.

Twilight Bloodbolt
Instant Cast.
Hurls a bolt of dark blood at the target, dealing 12,025 to 13,975 damage to the target and surrounding allies within 6 yards.
Presumed this is cast only at people outside melee ranged. The fight path is the same as a shadow crash, except that you cannot run away from it. Staying at 6yd intervals should be very easy.

Shroud of Sorrow
Permanent Aura.
An aura of sorrow and despair emanates from the caster, inflicting 4500 Shadow damage every 2 sec. to nearby enemies.
Constant, unavoidable raid damage... and Trees everywhere rejoiced.

Presence of the Darkfallen [?Unconfirmed/Heroic?]
The presence of vampyr kin infuses Queen Lana'thel, increasing the power of her Shroud of Sorrow by 5% (Stacks to 25).
I have not been able to directly observe this. If this goes live, every bitten raider will add 5% to her damage aura, up to 125%. That's 10,125 shadow damage every 2sec. Of course, at that point each DPSer/Tank bitten will be healing 10-15% damage done, which will help. It will still be a raid healing bonanza.

Bloodbolt Whirl
Summons a maelstrom of whirling bloodbolts for 6sec.
On a timer, which seems to occur about 2min into the encounter, BQL will move to the center of the room, fly into the air and rain Twilight Bloodbolts down on the raid. Melee must spread out at least 6yds apart to negate unnecessary damage on the raid. This is just a heavy raid healing ability that cannot be avoided. This should only happen twice in the fight.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

(1) The key to this fight is prioritizing Essence to your (top)DPS first. Even with this, the DPS requirement for BQL is insane. Healers must be prepared for both heavy spike damage and constant raid wide damage.

(2) Two tanks are needed.

(3) Red beams are bad, yellow beams are good. Make your healers happy and move to the center ASAP when linked.

(4) Don't stand in Legion Fla... I mean... Swarming Shadows. Purple fire bad.

(5) Set up your bite priorities. You'll be able to choose your first bite approx 1:20sh into the fight. That person should be your top DPS. After most DPS are bitten, drop Hero/BL. After approx. the 5:35min mark, you will have seven MC'd players. They must die ASAP, or CC'd if possible. If you aren't about to drop BQL by this point, you most likely have wiped.


This encounter is a huge test on DPS and raid healing.

As always, feel free to add info to this post that will further everyone's understanding of the fight.

Good luck on the Blood Queen Lana'thel Encounter and clearing the second limited attempt boss in the third wing of ICC! Stay tuned for strats on the Frostwing Hall.

[Futton]

If I read and understood correctly, the following occurs (This assumes the absolute maximum 10 seconds is used before each bite takes place, in reality obviously a second or so would be cut short in each case)?

00:00 - Lana'thel creates Vampyr 1.
00:30 - Lana'thel creates Vampyr 2.
01:00 - Vampyr 1 bites, creating Vampyr 3. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 4.
01:30 - Vampyr 2 bites, creating Vampyr 5. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 6.
02:00 - Vampyrs 1, 3 and 4 bite, creating Vampyrs 7, 8 and 9. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 10.
02:30 - Vampyrs 2, 5, and 6 bite, creating Vampyrs 11, 12, and 13. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 14.
03:00 - Vampyrs 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 10 bite, creating Vampyrs 15 to 20. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 21.
03:30 - Vampyrs 2, 5, 6, and 11 bite, creating Vampyrs 22-25. Vampyrs 12 and 13 cannot bite and become mindcontrolled.
04:00 - Vampyrs 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 are forced to become mindcontrolled, pretty much guaranteeing a wipe.

I mean, I'm unsure if I understood right, but would the above model be approximately correct, essentially giving a raid around 4 minutes to defeat the boss, or am I being remarkably stupid here somehow?

[mnemosyne]

Anyone knows if you can Battle-rezz bitten Raidmembers if they got MC'd? Or will the debuff stay on death like Saurfangs Mark?

[Djtk]

So Frenzied Bloodthirst happens more than once to the same person?

[Futton]

So Frenzied Bloodthirst happens more than once to the same person?

It seems so (you can see it happen to the same person at 2:06, 3:02 and 3:54 in the video roughly).

[Djtk]

I didn't watch the video and given that on the normal viewing, the quality isn't all that great, its a bit hard to see exactly the small stuff that goes on.

The encounter seems fun and the mechanics seem cool. Always been a vampire fan myself, so its nice to see this.

At least she doesn't sparkle XD!

[Proletaria]

Seems like two or more members being MC'd would force a burn-or-die phase of the encounter. I've noticed that (of the few videos floating around the interwebs) none of the guilds got that terribly close to downing her, but perhaps she is meant as a harsh dps check.

Unless the MC prefers to target dps or something, the RNG of certain key raid members getting mind controlled could make this encounter quite bothersome.

[Djtk]

So there's no way of knowing yet how she chooses her first bite victim?

[saedo]

Likely random non-tank, non-blood mirrored OT, though can't be sure of that either.

[Spiritus]

Ok. Maybe I wasn't very clear on the mechanics on the bite/MC mechanics.

@Futton: First bite should occur approx 30sec in, not 0sec. Other than that you got it spot on, except that both you and I forgot that bite 14 will also be left out @ 4min mark, meaning you should have 4 MCs at first. If I am correct in my understanding of the mechanics it should look like this:

00:00 -
00:30 - Lana'thel creates Vampyr 1.
01:00 - Lana'thel creates Vampyr 2.
01:30 - Vampyr 1 bites, creating Vampyr 3. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 4.
02:00 - Vampyr 2 bites, creating Vampyr 5. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 6.
02:30 - Vampyrs 1, 3 and 4 bite, creating Vampyrs 7, 8 and 9. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 10.
03:00 - Vampyrs 2, 5, and 6 bite, creating Vampyrs 11, 12, and 13. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 14.
03:30 - Vampyrs 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 10 bite, creating Vampyrs 15 to 21. Lana'thel creates Vampyr 22.
04:00 - Vampyrs 2, 5, 6 bite, creating Vampyrs 23-25. Vampyrs 11, 12, 13, & 14 cannot bite and become mind controlled.
04:30 - Vampyrs 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, & 22 are forced to become mind controlled, pretty much guaranteeing a wipe.

@Djtk: Once bitten, you will be buffed for 50sec. After the end of 50sec, you have a 10sec period which you must bite someone else or you will be MC'd. After biting someone else, you get a fresh 50sec of Essence. As far as I can tell, there is no way to force her to bite anyone in particular.

@Proletaria: You have some measure of control over the first three MCs. Given a 30sec timer on bites, the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 11th, 12th, 13th, & 14th must bite approx. at the 4min Mark. Of these 7, the 2nd, 6th, & 14th were random, meaning you really only have control of the 5th, 11th, 12th, & 13th. Now, you really are talking about living w/o 3 raid members for 30ish seconds. Given the DPS needed for this fight, you want to maximize this, meaning you should weight this importance. If you pick numbers 11, 12, & 13 to be your MC'd folks (worst dps), they will DPS @ double damage for 1min (3:00-4:00). The "better" DPS that you passed over for bites 15-20 will also have 1min (3:30-4:30). I'm not certain if this is the best course of action, but it is one none the less.

TL;DR-- yes you have some control, but there is some randomness sprinkled in.

[Ventfou]

so i guess that 10 man version will be the same except with lower hit number. I'm mean the time she bit and time of abilety shouldn't change!

so my question 2 or 3 healer for this 10 man?

[Spiritus]

They could do a bunch of different things to balance 10man.

(1) She bites only one person ever.
(2) Her bites are more spread apart (ie- every 1min).
(3) She has DRASTICALLY less health.
(4) The duration of Essence is drastically increased (ie- 1:40).

Put it this way, if all the timers on the bite mechanic stay in place, you wipe in 3min on 10man. Something has to give.

[Rennadrel]

Sounds fun but complicated, very technical.

[Proletaria]

Thanks for the clarification on the bites.

One other question: are we aware at this time if there will be limited attempts on the Queen similar to what we're now seeing on putricide?

I'm sure it's probably common knowledge that i missed somehow, but i'm trying to schedule next week's raids accordingly. I tend to leave the limited attempt stuff for later in the week pending possible bug fixes.

[Djtk]

Yes. When the gate opens, you will have another 5 attempts in total for a total of 15 attempts iirc.

[Ventfou]

They could do a bunch of different things to balance 10man.

(1) She bites only one person ever.
(2) Her bites are more spread apart (ie- every 1min).
(3) She has DRASTICALLY less health.
(4) The duration of Essence is drastically increased (ie- 1:40).

Put it this way, if all the timers on the bite mechanic stay in place, you wipe in 3min on 10man. Something has to give.

Well thanks for the info on 10 man spiritus. I didn't think about timer with less pepole in the raid. my bad.

[Proletaria]

Yes. When the gate opens, you will have another 5 attempts in total for a total of 15 attempts iirc.

Ah, so it is additive and the same across each of the limited attempt encounters?

I assumed it was going to increase for putri but start at 10 for the new lockout. Guess I need to stay current on these things. Where did you get this info?

[saedo]

Putricide will become 15 attempts. Blood Queen will start at 10 attempts. Each new gate adds 5 more attempts to the existing bosses.

[Djtk]

I believe you are incorrect. You will have 15 attempts overall. Each boss does not have their own attempts.

This is quoted from Blue Dev Daelo:

The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana'thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/21038229051-icecrown-citadel-raid-access-progression.html

Granted, they upped the inital attempts from 5 to 10, but the point stands. There will be 15 overall attempts once this gate opens, not 15 for Putricide and 10 for QBL.

[Proletaria]

I believe you are incorrect. You will have 15 attempts overall. Each boss does not have their own attempts.

This is quoted from Blue Dev Daelo:

The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana'thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/12/21038229051-icecrown-citadel-raid-access-progression.html

Granted, they upped the inital attempts from 5 to 10, but the point stands. There will be 15 overall attempts once this gate opens, not 15 for Putricide and 10 for QBL.

Blast, that is worse than i had expected!

Thanks again for the correction, I would have been in for a terrible suprise.