As we fumbled around with Al’ar for a day or so, we got our act together for another lead up to Kael’thas Sunstrider. We’re working on him now, and boy-o-boy is that phase 3 a tough one. Here’s a review of my battle with Al’ar.
Group:
- Warrior (protection)
- Druid (feral)
- Rogue
- Rogue
- Shaman
Totems:
- Windfury & Grace of Air Totems
- Mana Spring Totem
- Strength of Earth Totem
I also dropped Wrath of Air for the beginning of the fight so I could hurl better bolts of lightning at Al’ar. Before the Embers of Al’ar adds start coming, I just try to range damage the boss for a few moments before the melee hilarity begins. When the adds get to about 30% health, I run away from them and do more range lightning bolts so I don’t get punted from the death of the Embers by standing close to the adds.
This Al’ar battle I decided to use both Windfury & Grace of Air totems to show what happens when you twist totems. It’s easy and as long as you have plenty of mana regeneration (through Shamanistic Rage or Water Shield or both), it can be done during a long 10 minute fight. I do twist totems from time to time, but I wanted to record this fight and show you how it worked.
How to twist totems?
- Step 1: macro this and click it once at the beginning of the fight.
/castsequence reset=8 [combat] Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem
- Step 2: wait for a pulse so all the weapons of your party members get the weapon imbue (Windfury 5).
- Step 3: macro again to drop Grace of Air
- Step 4: count to 8 (repeat w/Step 1)
If you have Deadly Boss Mods addon, there is a nice timer to remind you to re-apply the Twist.
/castsequence reset=8 Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem
/dbm timer 00:08 Twist
I managed to get 700 dps and ranked 8th in damage output. I need to find out what I can improve for next time. So I read the stats report.
My summary of the fight stats below:
Post combat analysis key indicators:
- White damage: 39%
- White damage crit: 38%
- Windfury: 29%
- Windfury crit: 37%
- White Damage Miss rate: 22.7%
Overall, my output was mediocre and now I see that my miss rate was well above what I would normally like: 22.7% is a lot of misses. My +hit was a little over 100, so I can bump that up to +190 for the next round with Al’ar. Also, it seems my crit% is good, but I need more Attack Power. I hover around 2000 attack power, but I’ll need to gain more AP and less crit as we move into Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.
And thanks to Ashuna for this clarification on my Miss %. There were some parried attacks from Al’ar, mostly because the Flame Patches were just behind the big bird, so I could only melee from the front area near his beak. I was forced to fight this way until either the Flame Patches subsided or the tank re-positioned Al’ar to move so melee could attack from behind the tail-feathers.
See this pic below for the Overall miss % | Block % | Parry % | Dodge % rates.
Overall miss: 22.7%
Miss: 12%
Block: 0 %
Parry: 4%
Dodge: 5%
Judgement of Wisdom helped me get mana back so I could keep twisting totems for Windfury and Grace of Air. Ok. Fair enough, JoW 814 mana ain’t all that much, but it’s better than nothing. Shamanistic Rage gave back the most w/ 9,920 mana, Mana Spring Totem next with 4,380 mana.
Totem Twisting & Buffs Summary
Unfortunately, one rogue in my group died a bit early on (49% presence during fight). Warriors just love Windfury. See the warrior here got heaps of extra Windfury attacks: 29! The feral druid only gained additional Agility and Unleashed Rage, but nothing from Windfury Totem.
All group members details in pic below:
Next up: more Kael’thas attempts. We are working on perfecting each phase, so it may take another week or two to get it right.
