Post by Lochart on Feb 22, 2008 12:12:36 GMT -5
The Shade of Aran (Optional)
Officially optional, but there is so much trash tied to the Shade that it’s worth killing him. Further, when you do kill him, the doorman at the front entrance of Karazhan (Berthold) allows you to teleport directly into the Shade’s room, which saves considerable walking.
Aran’s lesser abilities:
Aran has control of all 3 schools of magic: arcane, fire, and frost. From the start of the encounter he throws out fireballs, frostbolts, and arcane missiles constantly.
He is untankable. He has no aggro table, so every normal tank character should switch to an offtank set: dps or healing.
He is immune to silence effects, but his “normal” spells can and should be interrupted by the normal methods: rogue kicks, warrior shield bash, mage silence, feral druid charge, etc. Ideally you want to interrupt as many spells as possible to limit damage and make him conserve his mana. But depending on the group makeup, you may not be able to interrupt everything.
Fireballs and frostbolts are good to interrupt because Aran doesn’t use mana to cast them until the cast timer is actually up. Arcane missiles on the other hand uses mana as it is cast. So even if you interrupt it, mana is still spent. If you are limited in interrupt abilities, fire and frost are the two to look out for, and you should let arcane missiles go.
There is another reason to interrupt as many spells as possible, which will be discussed in a minute.
Two other minor abilities:
AoE counterspell with a radius of 10 yards that he casts almost nonstop, so casters have to remain at range to be of any use.
Chains of Ice: like the mage’s frost nova effect, but doesn’t break with damage. This is dispellable, but unless people are stuck in blizzard or have to move to escape the arcane explosion, there’s no real reason to worry about it.
Aran’s greater abilities:
Aran also has 1 major ability in each school of magic. These cannot be interrupted, and must instead simply be dealt with. He casts one randomly every 30 seconds, but never the same one twice in a row.
Arcane Explosion: Aran pulls the entire raid to him, casts slow on everyone, and then casts Arcane Explosion. If hit, party members will take 9-11k damage. The spell reaches the entire room, with the exception of 4 nooks around the room. These are the places everyone should head for. A priest should be designated to cast mass dispel on the raid to get rid of slow, but the cast time of Explosion is so long that everyone can make it to the nooks even with slow. But, as with several other bosses in raids and instances, you only will make it if you stop what you’re doing and run. Don’t finish casting, don’t bandage. Just stop and run away.
Blizzard: Aran’s blizzard covers roughly half of his circular room, and actually moves once it’s cast. If hit, party members take about 1500 damage every 2 seconds and are slowed by 65%. There is a small blue cone which designates the front of the Blizzard, and you can see it as it moves. Safe spots from the blizzard are the center of the room where Aran stands, or the far side of the room from Blizzard, which is the better option for casters, because his aoe counterspell will still be going off near the center. It does mean you have to keep moving as the blizzard does, but the safe zone is large and totally free once you’re there.
Flame Wreath: Aran’s most unique ability; there is no mage equivalent. 3 party members are surrounded by a ring of fire. If anyone crosses the fire ring, everyone in the raid takes 3-4k fire damage, with crits up to 7k. So the rule for the Wreath is, once it gets cast on ANYONE, no one moves until it is gone. This is actually the easiest one to deal with because melee fighters should be standing near Aran to be able to hit him during the Wreath anyway, and all ranged characters can hit him from anywhere anyway.
Things that do not trigger Flame Wreath: Pets can move anywhere. Rotating in place is fine (either to turn or while channeling a spell), and on the off chance a hunter is caught within melee range of Aran, laying a trap down will not trigger it either.
Things that DO trigger it include: moving, jumping, accepting a battle ressurection, using a soulstone, pally bubbles, rogue Cloak of Shadows, mage Blink, and druid shapeshifting.
Aran’s benchmark abilities
In addition to the above abilities, Aran also has 2 major triggered abilities when he hits certain levels of health and mana.
40% health: At 40% health, Aran summons 4 water elementals which cast waterbolts constantly, and have roughly 13000 health. They despawn after 90 seconds, but can be devastating to the raid if left alone. They are susceptible to everything a normal elemental is. The easiest thing way to handle them is have 2 warlocks in the raid. The warlocks can each banish one and fear one constantly until they despawn. If you have two warlocks, the elementals should be no problem. If you only have one or none, you’ll have to be more creative: use stuns, other fears, and in a real pinch, take one or two down if you can spare the dps.
20% mana: At 20% mana, Aran does a mass polymorph. Everyone is sheeped, and Aran sits and drinks until he reaches full mana again. Upon reaching full mana, he then does an aoe pyroblast which hits everyone for 7500-8000 damage. There is no way to avoid the ploymorph or the pyroblast, so everyone in the raid must have at least 7500 health or they will be killed instantly. To deal most effectively with this, healers should toss hots on as many people as possible to get them up as quickly as possible, as well as using aoe heals such as tranquility and circle of healing. After the 20% mana effect, assuming your’e not close to 40% health, you will only have to deal with the interruptible spells and his once-every-30-seconds abilities which are easily avoidable, so you should be able to get the raid up in health with considerable ease.
If Aran hits 40% health and 20% mana at the same time, or even close together, you are virtually assured of a wipe. So depending on if your dps is strong or you have lots of interrupt abilities, it’s important to plan out how you are going to control his health and mana loss. It is actually possible to down the Shade without having him ever reach 20% mana and avoiding the polymorph effect entirely. But do not rely on having that not happen, because you’ll be destroyed when it does.
This is the reason you want your raid to interrupt as many spells as it can; to slow Aran’s mana use as much as possible. If you have 2 warlocks and understand the mechanics of the uninterruptible effects, Aran isn’t all that tough. But if spells are flying, someone gets caught in an uninterruptible effect, you have fewer than 2 warlocks, or you are forced to deal with the 20% mana effect, he can spell major trouble.
So in brief review:
-Interrupt all his normal spells to stop his mana use.
-Learn how to deal with his noninterruptible spells. Once you’re familiar with them, they should not damage anyone, let alone kill them.
-Have 2 warlocks to deal with the water elementals until they despawn.
-This way all dps can be focused on Aram the whole time.
-Avoid the 20% mana effect if you can help it with interrupts and fast dps. If you have to deal with it, everyone has to have at least 7500 health, healers have to hot everyone up and play continues as normal.
Officially optional, but there is so much trash tied to the Shade that it’s worth killing him. Further, when you do kill him, the doorman at the front entrance of Karazhan (Berthold) allows you to teleport directly into the Shade’s room, which saves considerable walking.
Aran’s lesser abilities:
Aran has control of all 3 schools of magic: arcane, fire, and frost. From the start of the encounter he throws out fireballs, frostbolts, and arcane missiles constantly.
He is untankable. He has no aggro table, so every normal tank character should switch to an offtank set: dps or healing.
He is immune to silence effects, but his “normal” spells can and should be interrupted by the normal methods: rogue kicks, warrior shield bash, mage silence, feral druid charge, etc. Ideally you want to interrupt as many spells as possible to limit damage and make him conserve his mana. But depending on the group makeup, you may not be able to interrupt everything.
Fireballs and frostbolts are good to interrupt because Aran doesn’t use mana to cast them until the cast timer is actually up. Arcane missiles on the other hand uses mana as it is cast. So even if you interrupt it, mana is still spent. If you are limited in interrupt abilities, fire and frost are the two to look out for, and you should let arcane missiles go.
There is another reason to interrupt as many spells as possible, which will be discussed in a minute.
Two other minor abilities:
AoE counterspell with a radius of 10 yards that he casts almost nonstop, so casters have to remain at range to be of any use.
Chains of Ice: like the mage’s frost nova effect, but doesn’t break with damage. This is dispellable, but unless people are stuck in blizzard or have to move to escape the arcane explosion, there’s no real reason to worry about it.
Aran’s greater abilities:
Aran also has 1 major ability in each school of magic. These cannot be interrupted, and must instead simply be dealt with. He casts one randomly every 30 seconds, but never the same one twice in a row.
Arcane Explosion: Aran pulls the entire raid to him, casts slow on everyone, and then casts Arcane Explosion. If hit, party members will take 9-11k damage. The spell reaches the entire room, with the exception of 4 nooks around the room. These are the places everyone should head for. A priest should be designated to cast mass dispel on the raid to get rid of slow, but the cast time of Explosion is so long that everyone can make it to the nooks even with slow. But, as with several other bosses in raids and instances, you only will make it if you stop what you’re doing and run. Don’t finish casting, don’t bandage. Just stop and run away.
Blizzard: Aran’s blizzard covers roughly half of his circular room, and actually moves once it’s cast. If hit, party members take about 1500 damage every 2 seconds and are slowed by 65%. There is a small blue cone which designates the front of the Blizzard, and you can see it as it moves. Safe spots from the blizzard are the center of the room where Aran stands, or the far side of the room from Blizzard, which is the better option for casters, because his aoe counterspell will still be going off near the center. It does mean you have to keep moving as the blizzard does, but the safe zone is large and totally free once you’re there.
Flame Wreath: Aran’s most unique ability; there is no mage equivalent. 3 party members are surrounded by a ring of fire. If anyone crosses the fire ring, everyone in the raid takes 3-4k fire damage, with crits up to 7k. So the rule for the Wreath is, once it gets cast on ANYONE, no one moves until it is gone. This is actually the easiest one to deal with because melee fighters should be standing near Aran to be able to hit him during the Wreath anyway, and all ranged characters can hit him from anywhere anyway.
Things that do not trigger Flame Wreath: Pets can move anywhere. Rotating in place is fine (either to turn or while channeling a spell), and on the off chance a hunter is caught within melee range of Aran, laying a trap down will not trigger it either.
Things that DO trigger it include: moving, jumping, accepting a battle ressurection, using a soulstone, pally bubbles, rogue Cloak of Shadows, mage Blink, and druid shapeshifting.
Aran’s benchmark abilities
In addition to the above abilities, Aran also has 2 major triggered abilities when he hits certain levels of health and mana.
40% health: At 40% health, Aran summons 4 water elementals which cast waterbolts constantly, and have roughly 13000 health. They despawn after 90 seconds, but can be devastating to the raid if left alone. They are susceptible to everything a normal elemental is. The easiest thing way to handle them is have 2 warlocks in the raid. The warlocks can each banish one and fear one constantly until they despawn. If you have two warlocks, the elementals should be no problem. If you only have one or none, you’ll have to be more creative: use stuns, other fears, and in a real pinch, take one or two down if you can spare the dps.
20% mana: At 20% mana, Aran does a mass polymorph. Everyone is sheeped, and Aran sits and drinks until he reaches full mana again. Upon reaching full mana, he then does an aoe pyroblast which hits everyone for 7500-8000 damage. There is no way to avoid the ploymorph or the pyroblast, so everyone in the raid must have at least 7500 health or they will be killed instantly. To deal most effectively with this, healers should toss hots on as many people as possible to get them up as quickly as possible, as well as using aoe heals such as tranquility and circle of healing. After the 20% mana effect, assuming your’e not close to 40% health, you will only have to deal with the interruptible spells and his once-every-30-seconds abilities which are easily avoidable, so you should be able to get the raid up in health with considerable ease.
If Aran hits 40% health and 20% mana at the same time, or even close together, you are virtually assured of a wipe. So depending on if your dps is strong or you have lots of interrupt abilities, it’s important to plan out how you are going to control his health and mana loss. It is actually possible to down the Shade without having him ever reach 20% mana and avoiding the polymorph effect entirely. But do not rely on having that not happen, because you’ll be destroyed when it does.
This is the reason you want your raid to interrupt as many spells as it can; to slow Aran’s mana use as much as possible. If you have 2 warlocks and understand the mechanics of the uninterruptible effects, Aran isn’t all that tough. But if spells are flying, someone gets caught in an uninterruptible effect, you have fewer than 2 warlocks, or you are forced to deal with the 20% mana effect, he can spell major trouble.
So in brief review:
-Interrupt all his normal spells to stop his mana use.
-Learn how to deal with his noninterruptible spells. Once you’re familiar with them, they should not damage anyone, let alone kill them.
-Have 2 warlocks to deal with the water elementals until they despawn.
-This way all dps can be focused on Aram the whole time.
-Avoid the 20% mana effect if you can help it with interrupts and fast dps. If you have to deal with it, everyone has to have at least 7500 health, healers have to hot everyone up and play continues as normal.
