Opera (all 3 fights)

[Lochart]

Opera (Required)
www.wowwiki.com/Opera_Event

The Opera is the first boss encounter thus far which is actually required to finish in order to reach bosses beyond it. The event can be one of three possible fights, random in each Kara. As such, it is best to be prepared for each fight, and all 3 are explained below. All of them, as you’ll note, are well known stories (not so) cleverly disguised to avoid copyright infringment.

Romulo and Julianne
www.wowwiki.com/Romulo_and_Julianne
This boss is actually similar to the Attumen fight with a bit of a twist. It can be divided into 3 phases.

Phase 1: Julianne

Julianne is a caster boss. She has a handful of abilities, all of which are dangerous, and all but one of which can be interrupted. Depending on your group make up, it may not be possible to interrupt all of her casts, so it’s important to know what to look for specifically. She can’t be silenced, but can be interrupted by Kick, Shield Bash, and Earth Shock.

Eternal Affection: A heal. If you only have one raid member capable of spell interruption, this is the one to hit, since it can heal for about 20% of her health.

Powerful Attraction: 6 second stun. Not essential to interrupt, but the stuns can be annoying on dps and devastating on healers, particularly during Phase 3.

Blinding Passion: Holy damage dot. Cannot be dispelled once cast, so it’s a good one to interrupt if you have the option.

Devotion: Increases holy damage dealt by 50% and increases spell casting speed by 50% for 10 seconds. It’s an instant cast and so can’t be interrupted, BUT, it can and should be removed by a myriad of things. Dispel Magic (priest), Devour Magic (warlock felhound), Purge (shaman), Spellsteal (mage), Arcane Shot (hunter), and Shield Slam (warrior). Mage’s spellstealing is the most useful for the increase in casting speed, but priests and shamans have the cheapest options in terms of mana, so if mana conservation is an issue, go with one of those two.

If you prevent Julianne from healing, she is relatively easy as long as the damage from Blinding Passion is either interrupted or dealt with by the healers.

Phase 2: Romulo

When Julianne goes down, Romulo arrives on the scene. He’s a warrior boss who does only melee damage and hits hard. His abilities are as follows

Backward Lunge: hits someone standing behind him, and does a knockback. Two things to note about this effect. One, rogues or feral cat druids will likely get hit, and healers should keep an eye on melee fighters. Two, because his knockback is aimed behind him, he should be tanked with HIS back to a wall, not the tank’s. So the tank should face the wall and Romulo should face out into the room to minimize downtime from the knockback effect.

Deadly Swathe: A cleave that can hit up to 3 targets. Given a choice between this and the Backward shot, melee are still at an advantage if they stand behind Romulo rather than in front to make things easier for the healers.

Poisoned Thrust: Stats of the affected player are reduced by 10%, and the effect can stack up to 8 times. However, this counts as a poison effect, and can and should be removed by druids and paladins.

Daring: His most dangerous ability, it increases physical damage dealt by 50% and attack speed by 50% for 8 seconds. All of the things that can dispel Julianne’s Devotion can also dispel Daring, and it’s crucial to do so to take the hurt off the tank and make the healer’s job easier.

Important note: Romulo is susceptible to disarm, and should be tanked by a warrior if possible, as this further helps mitigate his damage.

This is a more healing intensive phase than Julianne, because more people are getting hit, and debuffs need to be tightly controlled. But do that and Romulo will quickly follow Julianne.

Phase 3: Romulo AND Julianne

When Romulo dies, the duo will shout slightly altered Shakespear quotes and arise to fight the raid again, this time together. The fight mechanics remain essentially the same; neither gains new abilities. The difficulty comes in controlling both of them at the same time, and fighting them after the entire raid is lower on health and mana. The other problem is that the two must die within 10 seconds of each other, or else the slain one will rise yet again and continue the fight.

General strategies for Phase 3

A tank should be assigned to each boss.

A raid member (or two as a back up) should be assigned to each boss to dispel their buffs. This is in addition to interrupters on Julianne. Ideal assignments are a mage and a priest on Julianee, and a hunter and a priest on Romulo.

To ensure that the bosses go down together, there are two strategies that can be employed depending on the strength of the raid.

One is to divide the raid into ranged and melee dps; the ranged fight Romulo and the melee fight Julianne. Everyone must keep careful track of the health totals for this to work, and the dps must be very in sync.

The other is to smash one boss down to around 15%, switch and kill the other one, and then finish off the first. The best kill order is to start with Julianne, switch and kill Romulo, and then finish off Julianne. Here more than ever it is CRUCIAL to stop all of Julianne’s heals, but that should be made easier by having the whole raid on her at one time, giving you multiple chances to interrupt in case one misses. Imprtant for this strategy is that ALL dps switch targets together; if even one person is still attacking Julianne while Romulo is going down, she may die too quickly and she will reset.

[Lochart]

Big Bad Wolf
www.wowwiki.com/Big_Bad_Wolf

The BBW event is the strangest and perhaps most amusing Opera event. There is only one boss, but the coordination of the raid group is of paramount importance.

The Wolf has 3 abilities to worry about

Little Red Riding Hood: Every 20 seconds, the Wolf selects a random party member and morphs them into LRRH for 12 seconds. Armor and resistances are reduced to 0, you cant’ attack or cast, and run speed is increased by 50%. The Wolf then puts LRRH at the top of his aggro list, and pursues her until she dies or the buff wears off. Because this can hit anyone in the raid, EVERYONE must be familiar with how to deal with it.

Wide Swipe: A 4 second stun that hits the Wolf’s current target. For tanking, it’s not a problem, but if this hits LRRH, she will die for sure. Which just makes it important to stay out in front of the Wolf.

Terrifying Howl: An AoE fear lasting 3 seconds. There’s no real way to avoid it except stay at range. Another way that LRRH will die if she gets caught in it. For the normal tanking portion of the fight, it doesn’t matter too much.

Strategy for the fight:

While technically only one tank is needed because the boss is a lone Wolf (oh man, that’s terrible), if the tank is targeted and dies during LRRH, that’s a wipe for sure. So in my opinion, it’s best to have two. This also provides another source of high threat to keep the Wolf off the dps group. But, whatever you’re group is comfortable doing.

The general set up is to have the tank(s) keep the Wolf at one corner of the stage with the melee classes, then all healers and ranged members in the other corner on the same long side of the stage. So either both front corners of the stage, or both back corners. The gives the ranged and healer players a little extra reaction time if they are transformed.

The tank(s) get initial aggro and should build some up before dps goes in. The biggest problem with aggro is that melee classes have to keep up with the Wolf during LRRH or they will lose aggro to the ranged classes, who can dps the entire fight nonstop. As soon as LRRH dies or loses the buff, if the tanks have lost aggro then at least one dps will almost certainly be killed right away. To avoid this, have hunters use misdirect on the tanks as often as possible, and have other dps ease off dps during the LRRH phases. Pay VERY close attention to the threatmeter for this encounter, or your dps will be wiped out when your tanks lose aggro.

For LRRH, there are several things to know.

First, run around the edge of the stage. You are faster than the Wolf on straightaways, but he can cut corners faster than you can. To utilize this, run in a SQUARE rather than a circle. But beware; if you run into a wall, you will slow way down, and even half a second is enough for the Wolf to catch and kill you.

Second, the Wolf actually chases a spot about 5-10 yard in FRONT of LRRH. Which means that even if he’s right on top of you, you are still all right. So even when you’re AT a wall, he’s chasing a spot through the wall, so you have time to turn.

Third, if you are a ranged or healer class, let the Wolf run at you before starting your laps; if you don’t the Wolf will just cut you off and kill you.

Fourth, you be LRRH two or more times in a row. So be ready.

Lastly, there is some scenery on the stage. Intentionally or not, the Wolf can run THROUGH the scenery, but it slows him down. So if you can get him to cut through scenery, you will gain a few strides.

There are several class specific tricks to help mitigate the LRRH debuff. However, I have not tested these myself yet and am unsure if they work (on account of they're all spells and the LRRH buff silences you). But here they are:

Hunters: you can use Feign Death the entire time you are LRRH. Just leave it on and the Wolf will ignore you, then pop up after it's over.
Rogues: you can Vanish to lose LRRH aggro. However, you must remain stealthed the entire time you have the buff or the Wolf will hone in on you again.
Mages: you can use Ice Block to survive. Because it doesn't last as long as the buff itself, you have to time this right to make the most of it. Also of note: this encounter is entirely physical damage, so be sure to put Amplify Magic on everyone to assist with healing.
Paladins: you can cast Blessing of Protection on LRRH (confirmed). Again, the Blessing doesn't last as long as the debuff, so be sure to time things correctly to make the most use of it. Also be aware that this drops aggro from the normal table too, so it's best not done on a tank.
Everyone else; you're on your own

If you can keep at least a few dps alive through LRRH, and keep aggro on the tanks, this fight is no problem.

[Lochart]

The Wizard of Oz
www.wowwiki.com/Wizard_of_Oz

This event the most fun Opera event, and the easiest as well. However, it has the largest number of bosses, and everyone has a very specific role to play.

At the start, Dorothee, Roar, Strawman, and Tinhead are on the stage. They become active on a slight delay, but for all intents and purposes, you have to fight them all at the same time.

Dorothee summons Tito immediately upon becoming active. She casts waterbolts at random players constantly, cannot be tanked or interrupted, and does an occasional aoe fear. She is by far the most dangerous boss and should be taken out immediately by all available dps.

Tito is Dorothee’s dog and should be killed second. If he is killed while Dorothee is still alive, Dorothee will enrage and do substantially more damage. This should be avoided. Just stick a tank (or even a boomkin, just something with high armor) on Tito to keep aggro, then ignore him until Dorothee is down. Then destroy him.

Strawman is extremely susceptible to fire damage, and has a very high chance to be stunned by fire damage. This means that a mage can essentially “tank” Strawman solo, and should be able to down him. Warlocks can assist with their fire spells if needed (including the imp’s fireball!), and the rest of the party can dps Strawman if he’s still up after Dorothee goes down. But for the most part, a mage of any spec should be able to handle Strawman.

Roar can be tanked right away depending on the make up of your group, but is susceptible to fears of any type, and can easily be controlled by it instead. A single warlock is enough to chain fear Roar until the above bosses are down. If your party doesn’t have a warlock, you can either tank Roar immediately, or use priests and warriors to fear him as much as possible to mitigate damage.

Tinhead is the only starting boss who immediately must be tanked. He hits like a truck, but that’s about all he does. However, as the fight goes on, he rusts, which slows his movement speed 10% per application, up to 8 times. By the time he’s fully rusted, he moves so slowly that the tank can simply kite him around the stage without taking any damage, until dps can switch to Tinhead to assist.

So, for dps that isn’t occupied with a specific boss (rogues, hunters, shaman, shadow priests, etc.) the kill order should be Dorothee, Tito, Strawman (if he’s still up), Roar, and then Tinhead.

All of the bosses are fairly straightforward, and as long as the healers can keep up with healing needs of the parties, the fight is lengthy, but relatively easy.

After Dorothee and her ensemble all die, the Crone spawns.

She is a caster type and doesn’t hit particularly hard, and can essentially be called a tank n' spank boss. Her only real trick is spawning tornadoes around the stage, which move in random directions. The tonadoes can throw players up in the air, and eventually cause fall damage. However, instant cast spells and abilities can still be used (tornado doesn’t count as a stun, just moving around) so even if you DO get sucked up, you’re not completely useless. The best thing to do is just avoid the tornadoes because they move so slowly around the stage that there is no reason to get caught.

After the Crone dies, her body contains the loot for the encounter.

[Lothnar]

Hello again, it's time for another installment of Lothnar Knows best...

Todays post is about the Opera. As told from Griefmonger's (BE Pally) perspective as usual.

All in all the Strat's are preaty strate forward as you've just undoubtably read. To find out what you've got; just have one person strip down and activate the event and follow the anouncer in to see which one it is. Just make sure he dies on the out side of the curten so you can get him up quick. After that you know which fight to prep for and what's involved.

Big Bad Wolf: Only thing to be aware of is some times the wolf doesn't follow "Little Red" correctly and will cut the house all together and be with in striking distance while your running along the back wall. I keep my Blessing of Protection on hand just in case I see this happ'n and cast it on Little Red to keep her alive through his inevitable attack. Also Pally self bubble works as well and just skips the Little Red fase.

The Star Crossed Lover's: Strate up an easy fight. Just make sure to cleanse the poison fast, or you'll be sinking a lot of mana into healing spells. Also Our Magi love spell stealing from Juliet instead of simple interupting. But that's just for fun, since they are all uber now, just make sure she's interupted or she'll gets big heals on her and Romulo.

Finaly my favorite "THE WIZ" (how many have seen that rendition?): The strat is right in line with how we do it. We go the fear route to control ROAR, but it's extreamly important for the Loc to stay on top of him cause he's one shot'd clothies before when we were first learning the fight.

Also, because of my awsome use as a Pally, my job is to keep everyone alive till the Tin man is left. After which I run behind him while the tank keeps the agro and whack him with Seal of Wisdom, and keep it active. This alows all casters/hunters to wand/shoot at him to restore their mana. Shammy and Dru'dads need to make sure ther have no damage increasing buffs up at the time and just auto attack beside the pally to get their mana up. So when Ol' Tinny finaly dies, everyone is at full mana for the witch. Also, just watch the floor to see where the Tornato is, and you'll do fine.