9.14.2007

Healing Prince: I'm Super! Thanks for Asking!


Good Morning folks and welcome to another installment of Healing Karazhan!

Today is time for the total whore, Prince Malchezaar! I'm really not going to bother with a strat to this guy... well, ok, I lie, but this fight has a huge, mega, retarded LUCK factor to it.

I don't care if you have the DPS of GOD, unless you're a GM who just /kill mobs, you're probably going to wipe your first time on this SoB.

I hate luck fights.

This is a one tank job. So if your OT is prot s/he may want to bring his DPS gear to help out. You don't want anyone taking aggro from the tank in this fight. This too will cause a wipe. This fight also is prejudice against melee DPS. Not sure why, I mean Prince must love to take it from behind (srsly, watch him patrol, he prances... it's funny XD)

Anyway! Ok, here's the skinny on his abilites:

Enfeeblement/Shadow Nova - This is something that's going to give you a panic attack the first few times it happens. This randomly hits 4 to 5 people in your raid (never your tank UNLESS someone grabs aggro, in which case, insta wipe) This reduces peoples Health to 1 HP. Healing has NO EFFECT on them. Really stinky. A few seconds after he enfeebles he casts a Shadow Nova ability, which if any melee were in the way, get nailed and die since they were at 1 HP. Also why if your tank get Enfeebled, once he grabs aggro back, you can't heal him, and he gets nailed since he only had 1 HP. The bonus to this is after the Shadow Nova
, anyone with the Enfeeblement is healed to full, regardless of what their HP was before hand. So that's a tiny, itsy bitsy bonus. Also, he only does Enfeeblement during phases 1 and 2.

Shadow Word Pain - It's dispel-able, and for the first two phases, he only casts it on the tank. In third phase, he'll start casting it randomly, which is a pain, but with a Prayer of Shadow Prot up, its tics on your raid aren't ZOMG life threatening.

Infernals - Here's the luck factor folks. Others would call it the "DPS Race" meter, but you could have 2 shitty infernal drops wipe the raid right off the bat. Basically, periodically (not sure the timing, but I know it's consistent because Fio's DeadlyBossMods broadcasts a timer) Prince calls down an Infernal to randomly drop anywhere on the map. It has no aggro table, so where it drops and lands, it will start an AoE Hellfire that tics for about 1.5K on my clothie butt. Many a times we've had an infernal land on top of the ranged DPS's head or on top of the tanks and wiped us in a reposition. If someone is in range of an infernal while they're Enfeebled, consider them done.


AC's had 4 successful Prince deaths - 1 Tank, 2 Healers, 7 DPS. This was our group make up. One of the DPS has always been at least 1 boomkin, probably 2. We could only get him to like 1% when we had 2 prot warriors (1 in DPS gear) in that make up, then we get killed by the crazy infernals dropping like rain. Give it time, and we'll probably get him dead with both tanks in there.

Anyway, that was the the annoying bits, here's what your holy keister shall be occupying your frontal lobes with.

The Strat:

OK, your job here really is to just keep the tank up. Both you and your other healer will be concentrating on your Meat Sheild with gusto. Prince hits for a decent amount in his 1st Phase, but honestly, Frisbee, Renew and the periodic Dispel of Shadow Word Pain, and nothing to panic about. When ever your melee DPS gets enfeebled, just toss a Renew on them AFTER the Nova. It'll take care of the 3Kish Shadow Nova. Also, that Shadow Nova has a 30yd range. Sound familiar? Yea. Your dispel only works within 30 yds. I usually stick to the maxium edge of my healing range on the tank, and then when the SWP gets tossed on him, schooch up, Dispel, schooch back. Otherwise you get hit for 3K in the Shadow Nova and get knocked back a fair amount. Not fun.
Position is key really for this fight to work. Our tank is always tanking Prince in the opposite corner from the door (as shown, sorta, in the picture). As such, he can only see Prince's lovely loin cloth and not much else on his screen. We have 1 person watching out and calling out Infernal drops, while all the ranged DPS/Healers cluster near the door. This gives us as much Leeway as plausible for Infernal drops and repositioning if we need to.

Now, at 66%, Prince ramps it up a notch and heads into Phase 2. During this phase, he summons two axes, still casts Enfeeble/Shadow Nova and SWP, but now, he's Sundering the Tank, and Cleaving any forward DPS. ZOMG HARD HITS! This is going to be a very intensive healing phase. Prince could well 3 shot your tank if you and your other healer isn't on the ball. Toss your Frisbee for that 1.5K oomph, but make sure you're casting your GHeals here. And not like it should be a huge issue, but watch your aggro. Mine's never really shot beyond the tank or anything here, but it will shoot up and gets kinda nervy (damn Omen and it's flashy red %'s XD)

This will probably be your most mana intensive phase since you will not get a chance to cuddle with 5SR. Its ok, you have a Fiend, and pot as soon as you can fit it in. Did I mention? He's still tossing Infernals, so hopefully you won't have one drop on you or the Tank during this phase. This is the biggest wipe risk factor here because you can't really afford to run around since your tank is going to need that 2.5 GHeal STAT and you need to be standing in one spot to do that. You get a bit of a reprive when he's casting that Shadow Nova, but it's not much. Def the suckiest part of the fight (other than the Infernals).

At 33% Prince stops hitting like a nuke and goes back to Phase 1 damage, but those axes of his have a life of their own and start hitting others in the party. Here's where the awesome that is being a priest REALLY shines. If someone's getting hit with the axes, make sure your tank is ok FIRST. The axes don't hit that hard (unless that craptastic Amplify Damage has been cast, then well, they might hit a little harder) so you can make sure your tank is not in PANIC NEED HEALZ and toss a renew on the axes target. If they're taking a bit more damage than that, toss your tank a heal, then toss them either a FHeal or a GHeal (use your judgment on how much time you can leave your tank a lone, and also say something to your other healer so they know you're focus is shifting to heal X party memeber). No matter what, you always want to have 1 healer on the tank at all times. Are there a few people down on health because the axes/SWP/whatever has decided to crap on them? If they're in your party /cheer Prayer of Healing! (Make sure before you start you're in a group with mostly Ranged, your melee DPS are too far away for your PoH, but if you're a Circle of Healing Priest, well, then they'll get a smidgen of AoE healin' lurv too I guess XD)

Also, during phase 3, Prince starts casting SWP on anyone who strikes his fancy. So that can get a little hectic. BTW! If the Axes start attacking you, Fade actually helps deter them for a moment or so (at least it has for me). But if they're getting really annoying, bubble to stop the casting interuption they're causing you. Trust me, they won't stay on you or a single target for too long. Its great when they aggro on something in ranged, then you Fade, and they decide the rogue waaaaaaaaaay back at Prince was much more tasty. (The rogue has Quick Recovery right? ;D, they'll be fine.)

By the way, those Infernals? Still dropping. In fact, in this phase, they're on double time, so you gotta be STUPID quick in killing him or else you're going to get a 1% surprise infernal on your head, and that Blue Diamond WitchWand, while pretty swank, does not kill 5K HPs (Prince at 1% T.T)

As long as you pot early and often in this battle, you should be good to go on mana.

Now that he's dead, /cheer and Celebrate your T4 Helm token (or don't in my case, since it has yet to drop /shacks fist.) Honestly, at this point, I'm waiting till all my tanks/druids have their head tokens before I nab mine. My Whitemend set is still doing me some good. What you should be pining for is Light's Justice. It's a very, very, very (did I mention Very!) nice healing mace. And I wants one. O.O My Gavel is great. But Light's Justice is a huge freakin' upgrade. Though I will say, if you've got the Nightstaff of the Everliving off Nightbane, I, personally, will let my pallys/shammy's get it first. We can equip staves without getting a gimp (Pally's can't equip staves, Shammy's don't get their swank shields XD.)


And that's it folks! Opera coming soon! ^.^

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear you're doing well at least according to your post title.

Nice post. Although it does require actually getting into Karazhan, god willing it will happen someday. Granted I'm not doing the healing but its nice to know that when I drop to 1hp early on I shouldn't be too concerned about that or floating attacking axes.

I think the luck part adds some intrigue as most bosses have a strategy that too me would seem to make going against them boring at times. Though my feelings on this could change drastically once I actually do it.

Fiordhraoi said...

@ Sonvar

The problem with this luck factor is that there is really no way to counter it after the first or second bad infernal drop.

You're getting about 1 infernal every 45 seconds. They do despawn after ~5 minutes, so that means you've got an ever-increasing number of them.

When they land, they've got a nice wide 30 yard (I'm guessing here, but that's what it seems like) range in which they do their AOE.

The arena in which you fight him is small enough that 3-4 infernals can box you in completely and leave you absolutely ZERO outs.

Now, I don't mind a luck factor making a fight harder. I do mind it when the luck factor is so great, that if you get a bad break there is virtually NOTHING you can do to counteract it.

Anonymous said...

@fiordhraoi
I can understand what you mean. It at least sounds like the setup Cayleigh talks about for grouping is probably going to be the best at least early on.

Mera said...

Give it to a shaman? Or a Paladin?

NEVER!

Give it to a druid if you really dont want it - it's much better for a druid than paladin / shammy.

Anonymous said...

I have seen prince a few(6) times and downed him once. Near the end we learned to reposition ourselves as best as possible where the early infernals dropped…..after they dropped there. Its random but it seems…note the word SEEMS….that they tend to fall more in the top section in the beginning of the fight. If there is a cluster in the top side already they tend to fall in the bottom later. We were able to move slowly up to where the ones were already and then all the other ones fell where the concentration of infernals was less.

This is not guaranteed, but check it out and see if you noticed what we noticed.

Anonymous said...

What if I told you that there was a sweet spot on the map where your raid group and tank can stand and NOT get hit by ANY infernals AT all whatsoever?

The next time you engage Prince, bring up a stealthed druid or a rogue to help spot for you and set you up accordingly. The location you're tanking him right now appears to be on the right side of the map as you walk in.

Send your stealther to the LEFT side of the map hugging the REAR wall. Have him look for two dents or cracks in the wall along that LEFT side. It should be near the back. The crack that is further away from the REAR wall should be where your MT is. The crack closer to the REAR wall is where the raid should be.

The position must be precise for this to work properly. Everyone must literally stack on each other as there is very little margin for error. If positioned right, no infernal should ever land on you. Your raid needs to stick near the crack enough that the infernals can't land on the group. At the same time, they need to stay further away so that the healers have line of sight on the tank. The worst that could happen is that an infernal drops in between both groups and your melee are rendered useless.

If you don't get it right the first time, be patient. It will take a little massaging to ease into. But once you find that sweet spot, Infernals will never be a problem.

You don't have to use this method, but I wanted to offer it to you as another option.

Good luck, and excellent work both in game and out!

Trite said...

I've used the spot that Matticus described, and can vouch that if the groups are positioned correctly neither will get hit by the abyssal hellfire. If your group is melee heavy though you may want to reconsider this as he said that one abyssal that splits the groups pretty much ruins melee dps.

Also, the hellfire effect has 2 graphic components, both the actual pulsing hellfire, and a ground effect (kind of like a red consecration). To my knowledge as long as you're not standing on the ground effect, you won't be taking damage (the hellfire pulses past the ground effect fyi). There have been several times i've been standing in the hellfire effect, fully expecting to take damage without taking any.

One final thing to clarify too. In terms of enfeeblement, it will always hit 5 people, but it will not hit the person with the highest THREAT, not aggro. This is a very important distinction, as aggro is pulled at 110% (melee) and 130% (ranged). So for example, your tank may have 1,000 threat and be holding aggro, but if that mage has 1,002 threat it allows the tank to be enfeebled.

Anonymous said...

We actually tank him in the middle of the long wall to the left of the door.

From here your tank can move either way along it to reposition from infernals. (This is not much diff from moving him from the corner).

But. Your ranged have a 180 Degree arc to reposition in, rather than the 90 degree if hes in a corner.

Might take some of the luck out if you have more space.