Terenas - Lord Valthalak

[Concillian]

We have quite a few people up to Lord Valthalak but have never really made a serious attempt on him.

I was thinking tomorrow may be a good time, perhaps Sunday, but with the strong ZG showing lastnight, people will likely prefer to make progress in ZG.

Anyway, I think we're going to plan on an UBRS run Tuesday, and if we get enough of the right people, we should make some serious attempts on Valthalak. I expect to be online around 8pm server, but there's no reason a smaller group can't start clearing to Rend as early as 7-7:30. As long as someone is on who can open the door.

One thing I learned that should help is that you can log out an alt who can res in the room adjacent to the beast's room. This person can logout of the dead toon, then login with the resser and res people. So respawns, soulstones, and ankhs need not be a serious concern. I can use my priest in that role.

If we don't get the right mix of people for Tuesday, please use this thread for alternate proposals on times we could try this

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A quick rundown on Lord V:
Phase 1 - Valthalak spawns shades that will channel a spell on people. If the channel finishes it's insta-death. The shades are killed ASAP with what DPS can be spared going to Val.

Phase 2 (40-50%-ish transition) - Valthalak pulls out a shadow staff that does shadow damage equivalant to 1-2x the physical DPS he's already been doing (and continues to do). This staff can be disarmed.

Phase 3 (20%-ish) - Valthalak adds in AoE shadowbolts, and disarms have probably worn off, so tank is likely taking lots of damage here. Unverified if mana drain has any appreciable impact on shadowbolt ability.

Phase 1 is all about learning to handle the adds quickly. 2 and 3 are a pure DPS race while healing mana is available.

I have read that he will attempt to heal himself ONLY if there are any mana users within "range", dunno what "range" is, but probably 25-30ish yards. He also has a chain lightning effect similar to Venoxis, so either melee range or caster range, nothing in-between.

[PapaSmurf]

On our previous attempt that I attended we had a serious lack of physical DPS. It was exceptionally difficult to kill all the adds in phase 1 and keep sufficient mana for the subsequent phases. I am encouraged, however, that we can field the necessary physical DPS between geld, wimpy, conc, marn, benn, and the rogue twins. Most of the threads that I saw that successfully killed lord V used many rogues to accomplish it.

[Concillian]

On our previous attempt that I attended we had a serious lack of physical DPS. It was exceptionally difficult to kill all the adds in phase 1 and keep sufficient mana for the subsequent phases. I am encouraged, however, that we can field the necessary physical DPS between geld, wimpy, conc, marn, benn, and the rogue twins. Most of the threads that I saw that successfully killed lord V used many rogues to accomplish it.

GG has said he's not going to be too available this week, but I'm guessing we should be able to at least have 2 warriors, 1 rogue, 1 hunter. I imagine Xame would be playing his mage rather than his rogue. I'm a dark rune or two short from being able to make another shadow resist item, but I still have decent Shadow resist gear and umm... either Wimpy or Jester has better Shadow resist than I do.

I have read many viable strategies. One was just to have 2 DPSers in Phase 1 on Val and everyone else in the raid deals with the shades ASAP. One had druid healers in catform doing DPS in healer gear just to help deal with the shades since healing is not a major concern in Phase 1 if the shades are dropped very quickly.

[Gorthag]

A quick rundown on Lord V:
Phase 1 - Valthalak spawns shades that will channel a spell on people. If the channel finishes it's insta-death. The shades are killed ASAP with what DPS can be spared going to Val.

One thing I found during my Valthalak attempts that was useful is that priests casting "Shackle Undead" on the shades will interrupt their channelling, and they seem to take awhile to start casting again (cooldown maybe?). When we had a priest focus on trying to stop their channeling, things went much smoother.

I have read that he will attempt to heal himself ONLY if there are any mana users within "range", dunno what "range" is, but probably 25-30ish yards. He also has a chain lightning effect similar to Venoxis, so either melee range or caster range, nothing in-between.

As far as I could tell his "chain lightning" is actually a "chain life drain", so just avoid bridging it from melee to ranged folks and he won't heal much.

[Treesh]

I'm there for Val. I want my upgrades now that I've finally got the damned hat to drop! :)

[Kevin]

I should be there for Val. Would be nice to finish the questline just so I can DE all the gear. :) Though now that Marn has 2 18 slot bags. :)

[vor_lord]

I'd love to be there as this is one of my pre-BC goals:

1. Collect at least 3, hopefully 5 pieces of transcendence
2. Kill Lord Valthalak (I think I've been at that stage for... 3 months?)
3. Kill Nefarian


If I am able to come, it will likely be somewhat late. Did a lot of playing the last couple days (bye-bye Chrommie!) so I think I may be unable to make it tomorrow.


edit: I like the shackle tip Gorthag! BTW -- did you move along to AYCE with most of the rest of DL?

[Tal]

I don't know if I can handle four nights in a row of late getting to bed and up early the next day. If I'm feeling full of P and V when I get home from work tonight I'll try to be there.

[mistique]

i hope to be there, have to see on wife.

Dont need lord V yet cause i STILL DONT HAVE THE DAMN HAT!!!..........though that's my problem.

Mist

[TheDragoon]

Well, I will have Adirra on tonight and I might be around Sunday if you would have me. If not, I'll continue on her quest to 60... level 58 and counting! :)

[Klaus]

I'm willing to help on Lord V if there's space, however:

1. I won't be able to make it on until around 8:15 or 8:30 ST (Wife is out tonight, so little one is my job)
2. I don't have the freaking bracers yet, so I wouldn't get credit. :(

[PapaSmurf]

I'm willing to help on Lord V if there's space, however:

1. I won't be able to make it on until around 8:15 or 8:30 ST (Wife is out tonight, so little one is my job)
2. I don't have the freaking bracers yet, so I wouldn't get credit. :(

How many do you need? Lord V is in UBRS and you can probably pick em up on the way.

[PapaSmurf]

Between ZG on sunday and a 3am night last night to do ST (Thanks again BM!), I'll have to pass on tonight to avoid wife aggro.

D

[Klaus]

How many do you need? Lord V is in UBRS and you can probably pick em up on the way.

1. I have none and so I need all 40 (or whatever the number is)
2. You can't get that many between the entrace and Lord V (although I expect we'd go kill Drakk first, anyway)
3. I can't make the start time they're talking about, so I wouldn't even get bracers from the first part of the instance, even if that would be enough to get them all before Lord V.

I always seem to be the last person on these various quests.

Sorry, I'm feeling kind of glum today for various reasons. <_<

[dawnstrider]

I am not yet ready for lord V. Though I can try and help if necessary.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet about the shades. You cannot take any action when you are a target of the shades channeling. Someone else will have to save you. Therefore, you need at least 4 people on shade duty so that if 2 of the shade killers get channeled at the same time, they can be saved.

Also, he does some attack which has hit me for 4K shadow damage before, but I'm not sure which one of the attacks you listed do this. I believe it is triggered from getting too close him or having too many people close to him at the same time. Whatever causes it you must not let it trigger as you'll begin losing people fast.

[Concillian]

I knew we had one more for bracers, and figured we could likely get them along the way. How many do you still need?

Anyway, we'll see how it goes tonight. It's kinda looking like a half-hearted attempt this week with the people who did Chrommie lastnight. We'll do what we can, and maybe next Tuesday we can pick up those who didn't have a shot this week.

[Concillian]

We seemed to have Phase 1 well under control for a while. 2 people were DPSing Valthalak while everyone else worried about shades. I was tanking him a bit too far away and a shade channeled on me and people couldn't get to it fast enough because of range issues. I went down and things went rapidly downhill.

Unfortunately both the soulstoned and the shaman got channeled and killed before they could get to a safe location, so it was only one attempt.

However we learned a couple things:
1) 2DPS on val works okay, he did very little healing of himself and he was dropping steadily
2) I need to tank him a little closer to the rest of the raid.
3) A level 58 shadow priest + Necrali's renew was enough healing in Phase 1 to last a good long while... not a lot of healing needed at all in Phase 1

I really thing a 2nd attempt would have seen him dead. I know we have the DPS and healing to JAM through Phase 2 and 3.

I will be planning on another attempt next week at the same time.

[TheDragoon]

One nit, I believe bullet #3 is better summarized as follows:

3) A level 58 shadow priest that is hot in her Devout Mantle and Tooth of Gnarr + Necrali's renew was enough healing in Phase 1 to last a good long while... not a lot of healing needed at all in Phase 1

More seriously, next time we should try to have a resurrecting class alt park outside of the Beast's room to be able to res people should that same sort of thing happen again. Also, I would hope to be level 60 (or getting close) by next week, so hopefully that would make me a bit better prepared to handle the healing/DPS duties of the fight if you'll have me along again. :)

[vor_lord]

More seriously, next time we should try to have a resurrecting class alt park outside of the Beast's room to be able to res people should that same sort of thing happen again.

If I had had a snowball... I could have interrupted Badhairday's hearthstone maybe...

[Klaus]

If I had had a snowball... I could have interrupted Badhairday's hearthstone maybe...

I was just thinking the same thing this morning. And I actually have snowballs in my inventory. But I think he was in the other group, so it wouldn't have made a difference. (plus, I was running back from Kargath at the time). :)