ICC 10 - Meta Achievments

[swelt]

We had something very similar to Mattyplo - a very late portal as the boss was at 90-something% was missed. It's a human error not a bug, so as long as you stay alert and ready to click those portals until the very end, it's not a big deal.

On the various gunship strats, I don't see why you ever need to send a healer across. Simply drag the opposing captain to the edge of the boat so you can be healed from your own, keep debuffs up, chain defensive abilities towards the end. Did this in heroic mode the other day for someone that missed it, was just as easy as the 'normal' way.

[mattyplo]

Definitely not the case. Having done this achievement several times, I can say that you must have lost it somewhere else.

The achievement is lost whenever a portal closes it its own and not due to a player.

I know without question that we hadn't lost it before that point - the other 9 people in the group had all done it before, and the three people I had assigned to portals all knew what they were doing. Perhaps the issue was that one of the 3 final portals *was* actually taken, while the other two portals *weren't* taken, even though they never closed on their own. (That is, maybe one portal being taken triggered something that made the game expect the other two to be taken, but because they weren't - even though we finished before they closed - it triggered a fail.) All I know is we did everything right to that point, and had done it before, but the timing was really odd on that try, so I wanted to caution folks to the potential. It's just safer to make sure the portals spawn and are taken, rather than risking not getting it just because a final set spawns while you're topping her off. =P

[Benza]

This achievement was, far and away, the biggest thing my 10 man was worried about towards getting our Drakes. We did HM Sindy a couple weeks ago, and I think the control we developed learning her hardmode really made the achievement a cakewalk. (On the flipside of course, the control you learn from the achieve will make the HM easier...) When we got to it, I think it took us just 8 attempts, with several screwups sub-5%. Just a few tips I have for anyone trying this achieve:
1. Go download an addon called Smorgasbord. It will alert the raid whenever someone gets a 6th stack. This is an absolute lifesaver when your OT gets a 6th stack at 3% and everyone is so focused on other things they might not notice without the fail message in raid chat.
2. If you normally do this with 3 heals (as we do; we have a disc and holy pally as our main healers, and an ele sham who goes heals when we need, and typically does for Sindy), try it with two as long as you have a hybrid who can help heal if you get unchained on one healer and iceblock on another in p3. The added DPS makes the whole thing go so much faster, which means less time for screwups in p3.
3. Use hero when Sindy hits 40%. She seems to skip a blistering cold if she's transitioning to ground phase around the same time, so we seemed to get the most hero uptime using it at 40%, and we had her down to sub-30% before the first iceblock was even out, which gave us a very nice jump.
4. Assign *one* melee to break blocks, with a second dps as backup *only if* the main block breaker is tombed. Use absolutely no dots on the blocks - just direct damage, so you have the most control.
5. As the first block is going out, have the OT get back behind where it's going to land, so they only have to make slight adjustments to drop stacks. Doing this, my OT was able to drop his initial stacks and come taunt before I even hit the 4 stack mark.
6. Leave the first block up until the first tank also drops stacks behind it. After that, have the tank that's dropping stacks call out when they're clear, and then break the block they were behind. The timing is such that you're best off leaving the first up a little bit longer to ensure the tank gets stacks dropped, but from there it's tank drops stacks -> break block.
7. Tanks need to leave the block as soon as their stacks tick to 1 second and go taunt. Don't wait for them to fall off, or a second longer. As soon as you know they're going to drop, go relieve the tank so he has time to drop stacks, even if there's some bad RNG.
8. Casters/healers should just drop stacks on every block, to be absolutely certain they don't get too many, in case there's a blistering cold. They should be able to jump behind with 3 seconds left, stay until the stack hits 1, and then be fine.
9. This is mainly for warrior tanks, but I highly recommend making a charge/intercept macro for getting out to blocks. Normally, charge is enough, but it sucks when you charge and then immediately get pulled back in by blistering. Macro it together with intercept, so you can pop right back out if you're pulled in. I also use an intervene focus macro on that fight, to get out during the start of air phases, but it can also be very helpful for quickly getting out to blocks.
10. Also for tanks - make a macro for taunting Sindy and taking over. It's *way* too easy to inadvertently still have an iceblock targetted and "taunt" it when you think you're taking Sindy. Taunting iceblocks was the cause for two of our fails, lol.

All in all, it's not a bad achieve to do, but I found it *extremely* stressful for myself and the other tank. We were the fails on I think 5 of our 8 attempts, and it was almost entirely due to just getting a little off on timing.

I have to agree with you on this one but, the only thing in my head that keeps me from playing it through is the first tank switch.
To clarify:
1st block is kept up at around 20-10% to have first the raid(including OT) drop stacks
2nd Block raid runs behind and MT drops stacks while Ot is on Sindragosa. Mt than goes to Sindragosa taunts OT goes to 2nd iceblock and drops stacks with the rest of the raid while ranged kill the first one while all this is happening.
No more two iceblocks up at a time?

The thing that gets me is if there is anymore than 2 Ice blocks up at a time like at the first tank switch or does it go back to one each time after the 3d iceblock....? Sorry for my confusing piecing but its the best way i could write it down.

[mattyplo]

I have to agree with you on this one but, the only thing in my head that keeps me from playing it through is the first tank switch.
To clarify:
1st block is kept up at around 20-10% to have first the raid(including OT) drop stacks
2nd Block raid runs behind and MT drops stacks while Ot is on Sindragosa. Mt than goes to Sindragosa taunts OT goes to 2nd iceblock and drops stacks with the rest of the raid while ranged kill the first one while all this is happening.
No more two iceblocks up at a time?

The thing that gets me is if there is anymore than 2 Ice blocks up at a time like at the first tank switch or does it go back to one each time after the 3d iceblock....? Sorry for my confusing piecing but its the best way i could write it down.

Just to clarify how it worked for us:

1. First iceblock goes out headside. Raid + OT drop stacks behind it. (MT is around the 2-3 stack mark when the OT drops stacks)
2. OT goes out to take over (this was happening for us before the 2nd frost beacon had gone out.)
3. MT drops stacks behind the *first* iceblock, which is right around when the 2nd iceblock is happening, tailside. MT calls for first block to be broken as he goes and takes over.
4. OT + raid drops stacks behind the second iceblock. Calls for it to be broken as he goes and takes over.
5. MT + raid drop stacks behind third iceblock, headside. Calls for it to be broken...etc etc

What we found is that our OT was able to drop stacks very quickly behind that first block, as he was already in position to LoS as soon as it formed. That meant he was on Sindy and the MT was clear to drop stacks before the 2nd block was even going out, so having him use that first block as well put us in a good rhythm. We still had time to break the first block as the 2nd block was forming, and then it just became current OT drops stacks -> calls for that block to be broken for the rest of the fight. There was maybe a tiny bit of overlap where there were two blocks out at the very start (if the MT had to wait an extra cycle to drop stacks, the 2nd block may already be formed), but that was it, and for the rest of the fight there was only ever one block up - the current OT should have stacks dropped and be calling for a break and running in to take over right as the next beacon was going out.

Also - we tried the strat where you flip Sindy 180 each switch, so the OT is taking over at the end of her closest to the block, but that actually caused us some serious problems with one of the tanks getting smacked by her tail and stunned, delaying dropping stacks. I could see how it could work, but it caused us more trouble than help, so we just kept her faced in the same direction. Our double warrior setup may have helped here, with the usefulness of charge/intervene/intercept and all the in and out movement.