8.23.2007

And Aran, Aran So Far Away...


So, twice I've seen this guy kiss dirt. Both times was a nightmare! But if you want heart pumping, edge of your seat excitement.... yea, this fight will give you this.

The Shade of Aran is a fun fight. He's a whore, he has NO aggro list, so heal to your hearts content, but be careful. He loves to target people with low HP so he can finish them off with his Arcane Missiles of DEATH or Fireball of FOOSH. He also has three special abilities:



Blizzard - covers half the room, slows people down and damages them (ranged only really)
Arcane Explosion - he pulls the entire raid into the middle of the room, casts SLOW, then has 10secs of casting of an Explosion that does about 10K on plate... so yea, RUN.
Flame Wreath - DON'T MOVE! I'M SERIOUS! This is cast around three people in the raid, if they or anyone in the raid even TURNS SIDEWAYS... then the entire raid gets hit for about 4K worth of fire damage.

So yea, three different schools of magic. During the entire fight, he's casting something from each: Fireball, Frost Bolt, or Arcane Missiles. You have your raid interrupting 2 out of the three schools so he doesn't run out of mana too quickly... because... if he does... (this is funny) he Mass Polymorphs your raid, creates some water and sits to have a drink, getting his mana back up to full. Then, after he's had a nice cool refreshing mana drink, he does a PYROBLAST VOLLEY to the entire raid. It hits me for about 7K, and I usually die. Also, as if this guy didn't have enough annoying abilities, at 40% health, he summons 4 water elementals. They last for 90seconds or until your raid can kill them and not die while Aran is merrily casting away on anyone who strikes his fancy.

The Strat:

THIS IS A HEALING NIGHTMARE! But it's fun too.

This fight tests how on your toes you can be. Your normal routine of Frisbee, Renew, GHeal, lather rinse repeat on your MT is thrown right out the window, into the pool, to stew for a little bit.

Instead, you're healing anyone who needs it. This could be the other healer, the DPS, yourself, ANYONE. Renew helps, but if you need that Oh Sh!t heal, go with a shield on your target and be ready. If you have a pally backing you up in this fight, awesome. Also!

(I need to switch PCs.... so yea, I will finish this soon!)

Ahhh! Posting while at work! Anyway! Also! Aran's has about a 10 yard Counterspell Aura around him, so you don't want to be standing near him (if you noticed in the video... I was standing in the CS aura... bad Stephi. But I lucked out because I was casting in the middle of his cool down for it... Yes for living dangerously!)

Also, you'll notice in the video too, if your interrupters for the fight happen to miss a beat and block all three of his schools... he starts running around punching people. This is bad! When he's in the center of the room, you can pretty much gage where his CS aura is. When he's running around batshit crazy, not so easy to tell where the aura is.

Depending on your DPS, and how well your raid has done the interrupts, either Aran runs down to 20% mana (Polymorph time) or 40% health (Elementals). Hopefully not both at the same time. If so, you may want to tell your DPS to hold up, so that the polymorph comes, you get a little time to recover and then you can deal with the elementals.

During the elemental stage, your MT and OT will be tanking elementals while the raid burns them down. Here you can sorta get back into your normal swing of things, just be aware of what major spell is coming (hopefully not Flame Wreath since those stupid elementals do ranged T.T) and also I hope you have a warlock in your raid. There are 4 elementals, so the lock can Fear one and Banish another, while your raid takes out the other two.

There is very little time in this fight to chat with the 5sec rule... which makes me a sad panda, but my best advice here is pot often, and pot EARLY. And most of all... have fun! Cross your fingers for the Boots of the Incorrupt, Aran's Soothing Sapphire to replace your Signet of Unshakable Faith from Moroes, or Formula: Enchant Weapon - Sunfire if you're an enchanter ^.^ (which Doom, the sweetie, let me take on our last run!)

Toodles for now!

~Cay

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not just pot early, pot often. You've already taken down Aran twice, but remember to blow healthstones following his Poly/Pyro combo.

I like what you have here and I will be reading ;).

Tami Parker said...

Woo, nice. I think you should compile a "how to heal Karazhan from Attumen to Nightbane" list of links!

Anonymous said...

I fully support the idea of killing the elementals, but make sure you keep your interrupters on Aran. If you have enough healing power, you can send one tank after the two elementals not being warlocked and heal through their damage for 90 seconds, which is what we do. I wouldn't recommend this strategy always. You definitely want 3 healers for that method, and for the Nightbane fight in general i know we were glad we had 3.

Stephi said...

Matt - Yes! Healthstones! I forgot about those. If you have two locks who have different types of health stones (one specc'd, one now) than it's even better! Though for my poor Cay, I still seem to die after the Pyroblast, stone or no stone. /sigh

Ego - Egg-sellent idea hun! I think I'll get right on it ^.^

Mel - If we have the chance to have 3 healers, we could try it. But so far, sending the OT/Feral after one, the MT after another and the lock on two, it seems to be working ^.^

Anonymous said...

You can also get off your PW:Shield in the moment between coming out of sheep and before the pyro hits you. So if you're dying to the pyro, keep that in mind.

Anonymous said...

Oh my god, I just realized you made a flock of seagulls reference. *sigh*

Anonymous said...

Oh my god, I just realized you made a flock of seagulls reference. *sigh*


lol I just finally realized that myself... you woulda thought the pic was a dead give away ;)

Anonymous said...

1. Only arcane missiles should be not interrupted (it means 2 interrupters enough - fire and frost).
2. Every healer heals person who is hit by missiles using 1 small (2-3k) heal. No heal over time.

This way he is not nightmare for healer anymore. ;)

And just fun - if you try not kill him but allow him cast everything and burn his mana this way. Then he will drink a pot and have his mana restored. :D