ICC - Blood Princes

[Squirrelnut]

As with some of the other ICC encounters I thought I would post some info I listed on my Guild's site for anyone interested

Here is some info on the ICC Blood Princes encounter. I highlight the basic info in as concise a manner as possible however it is definitely a good idea to watch the videos because it is easier to get a picture of how things should go when you can see it done.

TankSpot Guide & 25m Video: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/...d-princes.html
Wowwiki ability info: Blood Prince Council - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
Wowhead ability info: Prince Taldaram - NPC - World of Warcraft
TankSpot PTR Encounter Info: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f128/...encounter.html

Info

• 3 bosses, single health bar similar to Twin Val'kyr
• Darkfallen Orb will cause invocation of blood randomly empowering a prince causing them to become 'empowered' which allows him to be attacked but will also make the boss gain abilities/hit harder.
• 2 tanks, 1 ranged tank
• Prince Kelseth (left boss when entering, ranged tank)
  • Shadow Lance: shadow bolt type spell, doing about 17-18k damage
  • Empowered Shadow Lance: same as before but does about 85-90k unresistable damage to its target
  • Shadow Resonance - spawns Dark Nuclei: spawned around the room, normal threat rules, cause shadow damage every 3 seconds to target but channels shadow resonance which reduces shadow damage taken by 35% (stacking). Die on their own after some time so keep aggro but damage them as little as possible.
• Prince Valanar (center boss when entering, normal tank
  • Kinetic Bomb: summoned in the air, must be attacked to push it higher into the air because if it falls to the ground it damages everyone in the raid for about 12k and knocking them back before it bounces back up
  • Shock Vortex: vortex spawned near a random player, everyone must move away from it or they will be hit for 7k physical damage and knocked back
  • Empowered Shock Vortex (4.5 sec cast): shock vortexes will spawn near all players within 30 yards so everyone will need to spread out 13+ yards or run out 30+ yards away to avoid it completely. They each hit for 7k damage and will overlap
• Prince Taldaram (right boss when entering, normal tank)
  • Glittering Sparks: randomly targets a player and does a frontal cone ability applying a DoT to everyone it hits doing about 16k fire damage over 8 seconds and reducing movement speed by 20%
  • Conjure Flame: similar to Old Kingdom, summons a flame sphere that will fly to a random raid member. The longer the sphere flies the less damage it will do on impact (minimum of about 10k) so it must be kited as long as possible by the targeted player (it damages players in its path so be careful when kiting)
  • Conjure Empowered Flame: its impact damage is only reduced when it hits players along its kite path. Players should step in, take a hit and get out while it is being kited

Strat (more of a list of abilities that need to be handled correctly as they happen then a strat)

• Ranged pickup Keleseth, tanks pickup Valanar and Taldaram
• All DPS on Valanar, the only attackable boss at the start of the fight. Switch targets quickly whenever invocation of blood causes a different boss to become empowered
• Ranged tank keep 3+ nuclei at all times to prevent shadow bolt damage and ESPECIALLY when he is EMPOWERED because you will be 1shot if you don't have at least 3 on you at that time. Healers should rotate cooldowns on ranged tank to help with spike damage.
• Assign DPS to attack Kinetic bombs so that they NEVER reach the ground, they will de-spawn after being juggled for a while
• Whenever a shock vortex is created get away from it (looks similar to Malygos spark on the ground)
• Whenever EMPOWERED Shock Vortex begins cast (4.5 sec cast) everyone needs run out (30+ yards away) otherwise melee will be insta-killed. Raged especially should run out and be far enough away to not be hit.
• Whenever conjured flame targets a player they must kite it to remove all stacks and be 15+ yards from anyone else when it finally hits
• Whenever EMPOWERED conjured flame targets a player it must be kited while players step in to take damage and back out to remove all stacks (instead of just time like the non-empowered version). Everyone must be 15+ yards away from targeted player when it finally hits.

Notes

• Warlock tanking Dark Nucleus, must keep 3 on you at all times. They disappear over time so you have to pay attention and aggro another one as needed. If you have 3 you prevent the boss shadow bolt damage to you but ideally don't want more then that at a time because each one attacking you causes damage over time. However, when the boss is empowered you should try to gather as many Nuclei as possible and healers should rotate cooldowns on ranged tank as spike damage will be very large
• Kelseth does not melee unless you run up to him... so don't
• Empowered shock vortex requires ranged and healers to either be spread out or over 30 yards away. Melee as soon as he starts casting you need to run away (not all the same direction) otherwise you all blow each other up
• Empowered flame has stacks that must be siphoned off by hitting players. If it reaches its target without the stacks removed it will instantly kill anyone within 15 yards of it.

[Thegreatme]

one note is that when the range tanked boss gets empowered healers should rotate cooldowns on them. in general the healing on the lock tank is much more intensive but it is VERY spikey, try and make sure they get topped off inbetween each lance cast.

also you can mass dispell the glittering sparks.

[Squirrelnut]

Is that still the case even when they have 3+ nuclei on them? We didn't get much time on this boss last night.

[Thegreatme]

Is that still the case even when they have 3+ nuclei on them? We didn't get much time on this boss last night.

absolutely. also when ever that boss gets empowered the lock tank should be purely focusing on getting nuclei and not making threat. if they go down to two stacks even with healer cooldowns they will get one shot.

[Squirrelnut]

Thanks for the info, updated note on that

[squats]

We also had a few deaths where Kelseth would decide casting wasnt effective so he just ran to the ranged tank and one shot him

[Squirrelnut]

We also had a few deaths where Kelseth would decide casting wasnt effective so he just ran to the ranged tank and one shot him

owned

[Zoal]

Is everyone still using a ranged tank on 10man?

2 normal tanks + 1 ranged tank + 2 healers?

[shadouchan]

When he's empowered, if the range tank is busy getting nucleii, how do you keep aggro on him? Everyone's gonna be dpsing him, surely you'd lose your threat and he'd turn shadowlance onto someone without the orbs.

[felhoof]

You have a 60 second window of building aggro on him. He always is the third prince who is empowered. If your ranged tank can't do enough damage to hold aggro against dpsers when they've been shooting the guy for 60 seconds, I guess you have bigger problems.

If it's that much of a concern, ToT and MD should suffice.

[shadouchan]

You have a 60 second window of building aggro on him. He always is the third prince who is empowered. If your ranged tank can't do enough damage to hold aggro against dpsers when they've been shooting the guy for 60 seconds, I guess you have bigger problems.

If it's that much of a concern, ToT and MD should suffice.

I'm hoping that I build enough threat in that 60 seconds - I play a shadowpriest, and our top dps pull enough threat to make me worry.

Guess we'll see how it goes.

[tuffmuffin]

You have a 60 second window of building aggro on him. He always is the third prince who is empowered. If your ranged tank can't do enough damage to hold aggro against dpsers when they've been shooting the guy for 60 seconds, I guess you have bigger problems.

If it's that much of a concern, ToT and MD should suffice.

He can be the second Prince to become empowered unless they changed it between yesterday and today.

[shadouchan]

Just to affirm - does pvp resil help here?

[Proletaria]

Just to affirm - does pvp resil help here?

No, but the stam on pvp gear is nice to have on a ranged tank.

[saedo]

When he's empowered, if the range tank is busy getting nucleii, how do you keep aggro on him? Everyone's gonna be dpsing him, surely you'd lose your threat and he'd turn shadowlance onto someone without the orbs.

What we did is have our mage collect the nuclei (a quick ice lance) and brought it to our ranged tank. He'd just dot em up to get them on him.

[Proletaria]

What we did is have our mage collect the nuclei (a quick ice lance) and brought it to our ranged tank. He'd just dot em up to get them on him.

We did this in 25 and it worked like a charm.

[felhoof]

Okay, but even if he's the second prince empowered there's still a ton of time to build a threat lead, and if you're really concerned ToT and MD should secure your spot safely.

[shadouchan]

In every pull on our 10man Keleseth (including our kill) was the last empowerment of the first wave. I'm a shadowpriest and I tanked it without much issue... here are my notes, what I noticed:

- The orbs get in your face, and make it hard to see. Watch out. :|
- They also tend to spawn way the hell away from you. Be ready to have your healer run with you.
- When he gets empowered, make sure your dps knows to watch their threat and the healers know to rotate their CDs on you. I had a pally and a priest rotate divine sacrifice and guardian spirit.

- He WILL pin you in corners. Try to not get stuck in a spot where he can melee you if you have to move.

- I maintained about 6-7 stacks of the resonance on me; I had about 25.5k with a stoneblood in 10man, and was only taking about 3k hits. It's easiest on the healers when you have as many nucleii as you can stand.

- On the threat issue: I had enough time to burn him, and by the time he was empowered had a 100k TPS lead. It only grew as the fight wore on, as I kept him dotted as I collected nucleii.



Other than that, it's hard to watch for fire balls and whatnot. My healers are strong enough to heal us through me having to take damage from stuff like that when it's necessary, but be aware that even in 10 there's a lot going on.

[Darksend]

You have a 60 second window of building aggro on him. He always is the third prince who is empowered. If your ranged tank can't do enough damage to hold aggro against dpsers when they've been shooting the guy for 60 seconds, I guess you have bigger problems.

If it's that much of a concern, ToT and MD should suffice.

sorry kal but this is just not true. We had several wipes to keleseth being second and only having 2 orbs up at the start of the empower.

[felhoof]

K. Like I said, it was what I saw.

And it's still not a big deal in terms of threat; having a 30 second lead + ToT & MD should suffice. Though I'm more a proponent of a ranged tank if at all possible.