My first 25 man

[Tater]

Wow! Lurker is one mean SOB.

I have to say that why a group would take me (no epics) to SSC, I have no friggin idea. 9 wipes. Lowest we got that thing was 52% health.

It doesn't take but one little mistake to cause a complete wipe.

I had off island duty. Here are my mistakes:
Spouted on first round (1st wipe)
Freeze Trap resisted (3rd wipe)
Disco'd due to rainstorm (4th wipe)
Got spouted after 1st reemerge (5th wipe)
We changed tactics here (sheeping all 3 inner island mobs, we were originally trying to kill all adds prior to reemerging)
Got spouted again (7th wipe)

I was only in the last group to die 2/9 wipes.

I'd never been to an instance/raid where we weren't supposed to just kick ass and win. I was surprised to hear the raid leader say that 52% was a record. Not sure if it's just me but killing it would be the goal, not getting down to a certain % of life.

All in all, had a blast even paying the repair bill.

[Twoflower]

well, before you kill it you get it down step by step. for bosses with more than one phase it can even be a goal to reach the next stage with one person less dead, then again with one less dead person, then again and so on till all are alive for stage 2, then you go from there and try to reach stage 3 etc...

learning a boss is complicated ( well, depending on the boss of course ).

lurker is consideret the easiest boss in T5 instances, so you will have alot of fun ahead of you :)

[MoRRoW]

To me,
Void reaver is a lot easier than Lurker with the adds, the beams, etc.

Void, even if you get hit by that stupid arcane bubble, you can still manage to survive a few times...

But yeah, lots of fun ;)

MoRRoW

[clevins]

Well... Dying to spout 3 times means you need to work a bit on paying attention and/or have a boss mod that alerts you that it's about to happen. Then... GET IN THE WATER! This goes for the whole raid. There are other things you can do (you can run around ahead of it for example) but getting in the water so you're swimming is 100% guaranteed to have you not die.

Dying is unavoidable in WoW, but please don't be that person who dies repeatedly to silly avoidable things.

[Wintrow]

Reminds me of The Matrix:
"What if he makes it?"
"Everybody falls their first time"
(or something like that anyway :tongue:)

[Ash Housewares]

I was surprised to hear the raid leader say that 52% was a record.

hear? so you were in vent, then theres no reason for so many spout deaths, dang, you dont need epics to fall in the water on command, thats pretty simple stuff


keep the center adds sheeped imo

[Twoflower]

Dying is unavoidable in WoW, but please don't be that person who dies repeatedly to silly avoidable things.

dying unavoidable ? i cannot agree. there are only very very few situations where dying would be unavoidable, like in a raid where 5 of the 7 healers all a sudden have WoW crash.

if you know the boss tactic and have situational awarenes there is not much that can surprise you in wow.

[Tater]

hear? so you were in vent, then theres no reason for so many spout deaths, dang, you dont need epics to fall in the water on command, thats pretty simple stuff


keep the center adds sheeped imo

Yes, I was in vent. Yes, there was no reason for that many spout deaths. 2x I died, I was inches from the water and the other time there was no vent warning. There was the warning on the screen though so not having a voice warning was no excuse.

Our sheepers were dying pretty quick. We always lost 1 sheeper before the 2nd round of adds. One wipe, our tank died 10 seconds into the fight. It was chaotic but was fun. I'd look forward to doing another raid. Hopefully one a little easier if there is such a thing to get my feet wet.

[Cerberus]

I'm not even sure if Maulgar and Gruul are easier than Lurker and tbh I can't really remember as I've done Gruul and Maulgar in a pug, but not SSC. If you can do the trash on the way to Lurker you should be able to get him down really.

The things I can think off that typically would wipe people are

geyser- "Lurker targets a random player dealing 3238-3762 Frost damage as well as all players within a 10 yard radius while knocking them back 10 yards."

Caused by people being too close to each other. Even on the outer islands.

The adds that spawn on the inner ring have a powerful cleave. They need to be turned around so they have their backs to where Lurker spawns. Have a tank ready at each spot when they spawn. Nobody should be doing anything to them or be close to them before they are safely positioned. Never tried sheeping them but cleaves combined with shots from the other adds probably is what kills your mages.

The adds on the outer islands can be chainfeared while you kill them as they'll stay in place anyway. Sheep one and spam fear on the other one while you nuke it down.

You really have to avoid the spouts. There's no excuse for being hit. Jump in the water a bit earlier to be on the safe side if needed. If you're on an island simply step into the water and keep doing damage. You don't need to dive.

Get a boss mod if you don't have one. I prefer Bigwigs over Deadly boss mods. Killing all the adds before he reemerges doesn't require a lot of gear tbh. What people are doing and how groups are sorted is a much bigger factor than gear.

Good luck on your next advenures :)

[clevins]

Twoflower - you're right. I meant, in general, that you die in this game, esp as you learn how to deal with new things - it's not a huge deal as long as you learn.

OP - Spout has an animation. You can SEE it. Once you know that you want to be in the water when spout is coming your way then.. get in the damn water when it starts! Yes you take water damage... big deal. Bandage yourself and you'll mitigate most of that. You can continue to dps even - all that you have to do is hop into the water...

BTW - grats on the first 25 man. They're very different than kara and five mans and a lot of fun. But you WILL wipe and die a lot if your raid is learning the boss. Be prepared for that and don't let it get you down.

[Tater]

We had alot of problems. We changed people out a few times.

One problem we had was the inner adds were breaking sheep and as soon as they did, a clothie would go down whether it be a healer or mage. We weren't doing very well at getting people back up mid fight either.

People standing too close together was another problem.

At least I wasn't responsible for those screw ups. Felt like a total noob for spout dying 3x.

[semiiramiis]

To me,
Void reaver is a lot easier than Lurker with the adds, the beams, etc.

Void, even if you get hit by that stupid arcane bubble, you can still manage to survive a few times...

But yeah, lots of fun ;)

MoRRoW

Loot Reaver is a pain. Lurker is yawn mode, but as the op said, he had no purples, so he would not survive arcane orb attacks.

1. Lurker. Need to have that DBM warning spouts. Jump into water. Go pretty far down. Stay there for awhile. Swim back up... get back in spot. You can still dps Lurker, and heal tank, while you're underwater, get your shamans the reagents for underwater breathing so they can cast it on the party. Invest in water breathing pots. Do whatever it takes to keep from drown panicking and coming up again too soon. Stand on the very outer edge of the platform and you'll avoid most of the knockbacks. The adds always come from the same place, be certain that your squishies know NOT to stand there when they spawn. The largest problem I've seen with this fight is too much dps on the adds before they're controlled, either by cc or tank aggro.

2. Void Reaver. (His room full of blade throwing mobs are worse than he is but...)
How we do it since DBM stopped calling out incoming Arcane orbs...
Tanks, melee, and healers pile underneath his feet. This means that all of them have to have the minimum hp to survive his pound attack. Ranged dps camera tilt up towards the ceiling, you'll be able to see the orbs coming and run away from them. Run straight forwards, or straight back. Do not back up, that's too slow. Do not strafe, because you'll be pathing in front of other raid members.

[clevins]

You don't need to be underwater to avoid spout. You just need to be fully in the water, i.e. have the swimming animation going (Unless this changed in 2.4). What catches some people is that some of the platforms have underwater ledges so you step forward are anre in the water... but standing on something. Get in the water so you're toon is treading water and you're fine.

[Cattleya]

You don't need to be underwater to avoid spout. You just need to be fully in the water, i.e. have the swimming animation going (Unless this changed in 2.4). What catches some people is that some of the platforms have underwater ledges so you step forward are anre in the water... but standing on something. Get in the water so you're toon is treading water and you're fine.

You do generally need to be underwater to continue to heal and dps without LoS issues. (Which I assume is where semiiramiis's advice was coming from.) However, you really don't need to do either during spout. It's generally easier to see when the spout passes over you if you are just swimming on the surface, and you aren't worried about a breath bar. Save swimming down during spout for after you get him down regularly and are just looking to speed up the kill time. As a priest healer, I enjoy the regen time out of the 5 second rule. :D

I don't know if it's just our server, but SSC seems to be laggy as hell, and framerates plummet. (We also have people with otherwise normal internet connections randomly DC in there.) For that reason, we generally don't mess around with spout. He emotes, we all get in the water. Trying to cut it close is just asking for a nice little lag spike. Also, you don't want anyone too close to where the main tank is standing. He starts the spout there, and the closer you are to it, the less time you have to react if he spins in your direction.


We don't sheep the adds in the center, we just have tanks pick them up. (Everyone needs to know where they come up, so that the tanks can get them and no one else is anywhere near them until they are in position.) We have at least 2 ranged dps in charge of the adds on each outer platform, and the melee run around the center platform taking out those adds one by one. You can assign a healer to each add tank, as well as a healer for each set of ranged dps.

[clevins]

Oh, interesting. I've only done it as melee (rogue) and I just stand behind him on the inner platform. Spout starts, I hop in the water and continue to dps from the surface. I'll have to remember that if I ever dps him on my spriest.

[bloog]

A Shadow priest with Unending Breath is easy mode at the Lurker.

[zodiac66]

I mean no offence, but you were actually able to join a 25 man raid with NO epics? Every one I have ever been in, if you were not dripping in purple would not have anything to do with you.

[elsegundo]

well tater, im so glad you're able to experience all of this well before me! and in blues/greens no less.
most of my gear is green, with maybe one or two blue items. and that's it. i wouldnt dream of going into SSC or even Kara, but you have and have gone far in the few months you've been playing this game.

dont forget that there is still zulaman, sunwell, hyjal, and a few others. i think you'll have a much better time if you go back to the other instances and do them in heroic mode, get some better gear, and then try doing kara and ssc again. you might find it more enjoyable--not that it wasnt a blast already.

good luck man, and glad things are going well for you. =]

[coani]

else: how's this for irony: I joined my current guild on a fully epic'd out warlock (crafted/kara/badge epics), and instead I got pestered to go on Vashj tries on my green/blue geared hunter "alt", who only had 2 epics to his name... one of them old BWL trinket, the other crafted axe.
And that's where I got my first 25man kill on the hunter (after we wiped a few nights on Vashj while learning).
Now my hunter is decked out in BT stuff while the lock is still wearing same gear as when I joined the guild... all but forgotten.

[Cerberus]

You'll need to swim out or go deep down to dps if you're on the inner island iirc. If you're on the outer ones you can just walk into the water and continue doing whatever you are doing.

[Tater]

I mean no offence, but you were actually able to join a 25 man raid with NO epics? Every one I have ever been in, if you were not dripping in purple would not have anything to do with you.

I'm with you man, I wondered the same but, I play on a medium population server so filling out a 25 man within guild can be difficult. We actually have allied with another guild to be able to fill out a 25 man regularly. We are an adult guild so there are often RL issues where not everyone is on. No one is allowed in the guild under 18. I believe I'm kind of an "Oh well, WTH" addition to raids. Our guild and allied guild also doesn't have many hunters (strange huh?). On a side note, we still haven't downed Lurker (30%ish is best so far but getting better). I screwed up the last one because I came in as a change out and didn't know the strategy and no one ever told me! It wasn't said in vent. We wiped 3 more times and no one ever said anything about me blasting the islands first when that wasn't the strategy.

But on a good note, I'm up to 5 epics after getting T4 (still don't know what T4 means) chest last night. I'll soon have another with badges and a 7th from Arena Points next Wednesday. We downed Mag on 3rd try and Gruul on first try. We are back on Lurker tonight, wish me luck! Personally, I'd rather just farm Mag and Gruul. They seemed pretty easy.

[Tater]

well tater, im so glad you're able to experience all of this well before me! and in blues/greens no less.
most of my gear is green, with maybe one or two blue items. and that's it. i wouldnt dream of going into SSC or even Kara, but you have and have gone far in the few months you've been playing this game.

dont forget that there is still zulaman, sunwell, hyjal, and a few others. i think you'll have a much better time if you go back to the other instances and do them in heroic mode, get some better gear, and then try doing kara and ssc again. you might find it more enjoyable--not that it wasnt a blast already.

good luck man, and glad things are going well for you. =]

Well, first I have to thank you for all of your awesome advice. That link you gave me in PM to gearing for Kara was great. I was 90% blued enchanted well before going but I think SSC was way over my head. Kara was ok but most of the time, we only get through the first 4-5 bosses and quit for the night. Last time I went, we tried Aran and got smoked.

I agree on heroic. I did my first heroic a week or 2 ago and it rocked other than it was a pug and we wiped 5x in first half (none in 2nd half). Great advice again! Thanks

[coani]

tater: T# is short for class Tier# sets/content.
Basically refering to what (progression) level gear it is.
T0 was the old dungeon gear pre-tbc, T0.5 was added later as upgrades to T0 through quests. T1 was obtained from Molten Core + Onyxia, T2 = Blackwing Lair, T2.5 (as it was called) was from AQ40, T3 was old Naxxramas.
Then in TBC we have was is refered to as Dungeon3 set (or D3, the class sets from the 5man instances), T4 = Karazhan/Gruul/Magtheridon, T5 = SSC+TK, T6 = HM/BT/SWP (though some refer to SWP as T6.5).

[Tater]

tater: T# is short for class Tier# sets/content.
Basically refering to what (progression) level gear it is.
T0 was the old dungeon gear pre-tbc, T0.5 was added later as upgrades to T0 through quests. T1 was obtained from Molten Core + Onyxia, T2 = Blackwing Lair, T2.5 (as it was called) was from AQ40, T3 was old Naxxramas.
Then in TBC we have was is refered to as Dungeon3 set (or D3, the class sets from the 5man instances), T4 = Karazhan/Gruul/Magtheridon, T5 = SSC+TK, T6 = HM/BT/SWP (though some refer to SWP as T6.5).

Great explanation. Thanks!...The Rift Stalker set looks pretty awesome. What Tier is that?