Heroic Altairus

[Zeffin]

I've had a very rough time with this boss. I'm getting conflicting information. Some people are saying the key is getting people upwind. Some people say the key is avoiding the tornados.

In the times I’ve done this about 4 times only one group downed him. We focused only on avoiding the tornados. But with other groups they want people to move upwind and for me the tank to move the boss to make it easier to keep people upwind. I’ve had a hard time with this. The more I move to a position the more I seem to hit tornados or others in the party get hit by them.

Also early on in the fight it’s tough to generate agro as I’m moving to avoid the tornados. For this fight I turn off camera movement so that I can get a good picture. Most times I can avoid tornados, except for the start as they just appear and I can’t seem to figure out where they will be.

What is the key to this fight? How should it be tanked?

Thanks,

Zeffin

[Llirk]

I've tanked this now 4 times in heroic. The first two times it went smoothly with no wipes and my guild was thinking of this as a pretty easy boss. I got aggro at start, turned him and even with one or two times being bounced in the air as long as I kept myself central I wasn't blown off. However the last two times have been a nightmare, enough that we ended up discussing last night if something had changed in the fight or if the fight was just down to luck. One nightmare we wiped about 10 times before getting the kill, what was strange was the kill seemed back to being fairly easy. The second nightmare we wiped again a lot of times and eventually gave up.

In terms of tactics I'm don't feel I have a strategy which is a consistent kill or which even gives much control but I can't see much alternative. First as a tank is establishing some aggro at start, I don't usually have trouble but it may be worth asking the dps to tone it down at the start. Second, I turn the boss as this does not seem to affect his breath going onto people. I stand as close to him as I can as close to the middle as I can so that turning him can mean moving very little. But this all depends on the whirlwinds and usually I end up moving about quite a lot to avoid them. The boss seems to be hard to get to move once he's landed and seems to just turn on the spot so I don't charge him but heroic throw, then taunt and try to drag him to the middle straight away. From then on it's just hoping for good ww positions. Dps are certainly taking a lot more damage than on early attempts lately, which I'm not sure if positioning is bad for them. I also have difficulty when the wind is blowing in seeing the ww's and positions. If anyone has a graphics setting or a camera position that helps then I don't have a good one. So this is what I do but it's certainly not perfect and isn't leading to a consistent kill.

We had one wipe when a ww spawned underneath me, then bounced me straight into one ww and then another and then outside so that I was one-shot. So there's definitely luck involved but if anyone has any improvements I could do with some as well.

[klausi]

Highest priority: avoiding tornados at ALL cost. Having an unavoidable tornados chain of 2-3 bumbs will most likely cause a wipe.
If your dps feel comfartable they can run around and stay in upwind (but should watch out for their threat) most of the time.

I regulary keep him in the middle of the plattform so i can turn him away from most of the group if he's breathing at me and strafe to the side while he's breathing at others behind me. Always run around him in a circle until i get into upstream if there's no way a tornado can possibly hit me in the next few seconds.

The fight has some horrible design issues - the pull is a lottery of staying in a spawning tornado but after that they are totally avoidable and it really comes down to spread your group out and having a healer that can move around while watching several health bars, boss breath targets and have enough mana to keep everyone alive as long as it takes.

[chisuki]

I've tanked him a few times as well. not so hard if your party pays close attention to the tornadoes, just like klausi said. if everyone feels comfortable with avoiding the tornadoes you can move the whole party according to upwind, with you facing the opposite direction, but it's only really required if your healer runs into serious mana problems.
keep in mind that everyone should spread like a half circle, two camps or something like that behind altairus, so that not everybody will be hit by the breath...
The targeted person should not move because of the breath, because he will be hit anyway...
as far as the camera goes, I felt most comfortable looking straight from above with a slight angle...

Don't know if that helps, but that's what I figured out works easiest...
p.s.: some classes classes like warriors (heroic leap/charge) have ways to get back on the platform if they act fast enough ^^

[chisuki]

The fight has some horrible design issues - the pull is a lottery of staying in a spawning tornado but after that they are totally avoidable and it really comes down to spread your group out and having a healer that can move around while watching several health bars, boss breath targets and have enough mana to keep everyone alive as long as it takes.

They should handle this like they did with the first boss' wall of fire in the deadmines, first harmless small tornadoes, which will turn into havoc creating tornadoes after 2 secs or so

[Balgur]

DPS here and we've never moved him.

[carigan]

Hey guys I found what was really easy from a tanks point of view and I really didnt get any negative feedback from the rest of party. Was when i entered the room which he is at i got agro and straifed into the pillar to the right of him placeing my back against it. what this did was it made it so i wasnt hit by tornados and the dps and healers had nearly the entire room to use. As far as the buff goes IMO is that the dps and healers need it for a fast cleam win.

[Kurosuki]

When pugging I always tell dps to ignore Upwind / Downwind mechanics and just focus on the tornadoes ...

2 elements are key : 1 spreading so the breath attack doesn't hit unnecessary people and 2 avoiding the tornadoes

the buff they get from upwind can make for a faster kill but tbh I rather take extra 30-50 seconds to kill the boss then risk seeing yet another dps tumble out of the platform ...

[Zeffin]

Hey guys I found what was really easy from a tanks point of view and I really didnt get any negative feedback from the rest of party. Was when i entered the room which he is at i got agro and straifed into the pillar to the right of him placeing my back against it. what this did was it made it so i wasnt hit by tornados and the dps and healers had nearly the entire room to use. As far as the buff goes IMO is that the dps and healers need it for a fast cleam win.

With this method do you just stand there and let the tornados hit you and heal through it? Or do you move if a tornado is coming your way?

Overall I'm taking the feedback that it's the tornados, tornados, tornados. I also agree with chisuki it would be nice if the tornados started out doing no damage and 2 seconds into the fight did damage. It would give time to get out of the way rather than have them spawn and throw me at the start. It's that more than anything else that makes starting aggro tough. I have been using Heroic throw at the start rather than charge to get the boss to the middle.

Thanks all for the advice. Please if people have more advice please post it.

Zeffin

Also I used charge a couple of times in this fight and both times I hit a tornado and got tossed. So I've avoided that.

[uglie]

I've found that the breathe targets are just random and not too dangerous. Every time I've done it with pugs and guild. Everyone watches out for tornadoes and keeps their back to the wind including the tanks and the healers. The dps do not need to be directly in front of him just to his side so that they can still hit the boss when he's their side. Problem I've found with ignoring the wind mechanics is the loss in dps/healing/ threat from tank through damage. Once you start getting into a rhythm with the tornadoes it because quite easy.

Key to this fight is avoiding tornadoes above all else and trying to follow the wind mechanics.

[carigan]

The Tornados do not hit me when i am tanking the boss with my back against the pillar at all. Yes the breath mechanic just targets random people.

[Zeffin]

OK can you clarify which pillar. There are 4. The one to the right of him fartherest away from where you come in? Or the one Cloest to where you come in? I tried a pillar over the weekend but I got hit by a lot of tornados so I wanted to clarify.

Also after a number of more attempts on this guy I have learned to dance around the tornados really well and it seems easier then when I first attempted him. So practice does help.

Thanks,
Zeffin

[TitaniumGene]

as far as the camera goes, I felt most comfortable looking straight from above with a slight angle...

I find this the most helpful. It gives you more accurate locations of where the tornadoes and wind are. In order for this fight to be successful, everyone in the group needs to know what to do.

[Quinafoi]

Most of the time that I've done the instance it has been as a healer and I can say that healing the damage of the breath or direct damage on the tank are not a big deal, even if my casting speed is slowed. Honestly if you want to make the fight considerably easier on yourself, pick a general direction and stay in that general position. If you dodge tornados fine and people are spread out around the boss so that not everyone is being hit simultaneously by the breath, the fight becomes relatively trivialized. Granted you won't kill him as fast as you would capitalizing on the buff, you pretty much minimize incoming damage on the party to the point where the healer could effectively keep the group up indefinately.

From a healing perspective I generally think of this instance as one of the easiest heroics.

[junialum]

Keep people around the middle spread out in a semi circle so nearly everyone gets upwind. Being in the middle means more room if u managed to be hit by a tornado.

The person whom Altrius is targeting while casting his breath attack should face Altrius away from the group. Usually healers have issues if the breath consistently hits too many people.

[Errvalunia]

Breath can be a killer. And one thing that helps (a lot!) esp on guild runs is to be on vent and call out when you're upwind. Instead of figuring out where you're supposed to run, you hear your GM go "good buff on me" and you run towards the boomchicken; you hear your tank say "good buff on me!" and you run towards your tank.

The tornados are not nearly so deadly as the breath unless you actually fall off the side (which has never happened to me, even though I get hit with tornados A LOT cause I seem to be a tornado noob, though I have fallen slightly off the platform and had to run up and around to get back into the fight)

However, you do NEED to stay upwind or you just won't have enough DPS to kill the boss before your healer weeps from OOM. And your healer won't be able to heal because that %@%@ makes your heals cast super slow (lame!)