Shade of Aran

I want this fucktard (excuse the horrible language) dead by this time next week so everyone look over this video to get a good idea of what to do. I think we should try, instead of nuking the adds, to keep them feared and banished so ideally the party will have two warlocks. This will also help in keeping the dps concentrated on Aran to bring him down quicker.

I'd also like to try some reshuffling of the groups if that turns out to be ok with the raid leader so that we put those with the lowest HP in a group along with myself or another druid in ToL form so they benefit from 25% of my spirit (100 or 250 or so when procced which is rather often) as additional healing. It may also be useful to put all the healers in this group to keep them up and designate certain targets for each healer so we aren't blindly over healing which I think we are doing an awful lot of on Aran.

If the raid leader agrees I'd also like to go for him at the start of the week thereby giving us something easier (the bosses at the start) as somewhat of a "treat" towards the end - if this is even possible. If not I never suggested the later.

These are his abilities:

* Frostbolt - Three second cast, 3500 to 4500 frost damage and four second slow. Interruptible.
* Fireball - Two second cast, 3910 to 5290 fire damage. Interruptible.
* Arcane Missiles - Five second channeled, shoots five missiles each dealing 1260 to 1540 arcane damage (6300-7700 total). Interruptible.
* Chains of Ice - Ten second root, does not break on damage. Dispellable. Appears to be a chance on hit with frostbolt, similar to mage's Frostbite.
* AoE Counterspell - Ten yard radius AoE around Aran, occurs very often. Locks out schools of magic for ten seconds.

As well as his big spells which we should ALL be aware of now.

We should be interrupting the first two spells at all possibilities so he keeps his mana up and doesn't cast polymorph. Casters and healers should stay far back so as to avoid the effects of Counterspell.

Is it possible to lock out his schools of magic at all? Stoping Arcane Missiles would make life a hell of a lot easier since we could interrupt the the fire and ice spells.

So my proposal is this:

1. We need two warlocks - Beck was mentioning that "12 %" today. Well here it is. Its what we were using on those bloody elementals. Lets CC them instead.
2. Reshuffle healers / squishies before Shade - to make use of ToL aura for those with less health.
3. Designate specific healer targets so to conserve mana and have more efficient healing - We've been overhealing and OOMing too much.
4. Fix the above and kill him.

I'll see about rustling up some frost resist potions for the phase with the elementals and we will all take these then.

WE NEED TO AVOID BRINGING BOTH POLYMORPH AND ELEMENTALS ON TOGETHER. DO THIS AND YOU'VE GOT A WIPE

I'm posting this as a reply so people go "oooh, posts" and hopefully read it. Sly I know but hey. Something I noticed when doing my homework on this old fud was that you can use "Insignia of the Alliance" to get out of the Polymorph and interrupt his Pyroblasts. So lets try that as well. Three people equip their Insignias so they can use and interrupt his "ZOMG 7K PYRO TO THE FACE" attack if we get Polyed.

Actually I'm hearing conflicting info on the Insignias. Still worth a try or of course any druids could try shape shifting out.

Heres what interrupts:

* Rogues' Kick
* Warriors' Pummel and Shield Bash
* Shamans' Earth Shock
* Druids' Feral Charge
* Mages' Counterspell
* Warlocks' Spell Lock

Lets work out a plan or rotation for using these.

Good news for hunters as well. Pets don't trigger flame wreath. More dps to help that extra "12%".

does slinecing shot work?? not really bother on russ but it might be worth knowing for any MM hunters (if we hae any?)

No silencing effects work but they can act as interrupts on Shade. Also, from what I've read the insignias don't work but Druid shapeshifting does. But you don't have anything that will interrupt him do you Cicc? At least you can get out and start casting HoTs before the blast goes off.

Also, he doesn't start casting until AFTER you're unsheeped which gives a few secs to prepare. I'm going to try a macro that shields and mends myself (to make sure I survive it!) then starts casting my group heal so that it goes off just after the blast. Should save at least the people in my group. If you can unsheep yourself and HoT up your group we can do this.

DOWN WITH SHADE!!

Yes ToL is resistant to the polymorph (strangely enough its the only druid form that is) so I could start popping a few quick HoTs before the blast and use Tranquility after. Tranquility does only affect my group though so if possible one healer of each group should have an AoE heal.

Unfortunately, the only canceling effect is buried 15 points or so into the Feral tree and, imo, those points are wasted on a raiding resto druid. I could try cyclone on the off-chance but I doubt it will work.

Its good that we're getting tactics or ideas like this worked out. Should make dealing with Shade a lot more pleasant.

im allowed to use my pet now, we should do Shade of Aran this time especially with the people we had yesterday

Strategy
The problem in this fight is that the whole raid must learn to avoid damage. The Shade of Aran's basic attacks are not very dangerous, but the special attacks are deadly. Each raid member must pay attention which attack is upcoming; nobody can sit back and just do their usual routine. Once everybody learns how to move (or when not to move), the fight actually becomes rather easy.

In order to avoid the Magnetic Pull/Arcane Explosion everybody must run to the outer wall of the room, the Blizzard forces people towards the center (or the other side of the room), and Flame Wreath inhibits movement. Beyond this, casters want to stay outside the AoE silence and classes with spell interrupt abilities want to concentrate on what he's casting.

The encounter cannot be reset.

Gear
Aggro is of almost no relevance, because Aran chooses his targets semi-randomly. Hence it is important to remember to replace all threat reducing buffs, such as the Paladin's Blessing of Salvation, with something offensive instead. The tanks should don damage-dealing gear. If the raid chooses not to interrupt arcane missiles, some arcane resistance can be useful. Everyone in the group should strive for at least 8,000 health after buffs. More is better. Even healers and ranged damage-dealers must be able to survive a wave of arcane missiles (7,000 damage), and everybody must be able to survive the Pyroblast (7,500 damage).

Interrupts
Aran's standard attacks (Fireball, Frost Bolt and Arcane Missile) can all be interrupted. By interrupting his spells, the raid can influence how fast Aran spends his mana. This is important, because the Polymorph/Pyroblast (at 20% mana) and the Water Elementals (at 40% health) must not occur close to each other. When either health or mana reach the critical percentage, the other must be clearly away from the threshold.

For a raid new to this encounter (with comparably low damage output), it is advisable to interrupt only Arcane Missile, and let him freely cast Frost Bolt and Fireball. This will maximize Aran's mana usage, and thus the Polymorph/Pyroblast occurs early, well before he reaches 40% health. After the Pyroblast, the raid can interrupt any of his spells, to minimize damage taken.

If the raid's damage output is high enough that Polymorph/Pyroblast and Water Elementals happen close to each other even though only the Arcane Missiles are interrupted, it's time to switch to letting Aran cast the Missiles freely, and interrupting Fireball and Frost Bolt. This conserves his mana, so that the Water Elementals occur first. If damage output is really high, the Polymorph/Pyroblast does not occur at all.

Fireballs and Frost Bolts should be interrupted near the end of their casting time, because he expends mana only at the end of the cast and does nothing else for nearly two seconds. Arcane Missiles should be interrupted early, as he spends the mana upfront anyway, and early interruption reduces the spell's damage output. It is useful to assign each player with an interrupt ability one type of spell. This avoids everybody interrupting at the same time and, therefore, having nobody left available to interrupt the next spell.

The following abilities interrupt a Shade of Aran cast:

Rogues' Kick
Warriors' Pummel and Shield Bash
Shamans' Earth Shock
Druids' Feral Charge
Mages' Counterspell
Warlocks' Spell Lock
The Druid, Mage, and Warlock abilities have long cooldowns, and are thus not very effective. Note that the Shade is immune to the silence, daze, and root effects of some of these abilities, so casting them produces an "Immune" message. However, the abilities still interrupt the spell cast.

Particularly for Healers: To save mana, it is generally a good idea to understand when an interrupt is successful and a heal is not needed. There are two ways to achieve this:

Watch Aran's cast bar
Listen to distinctive sounds of interrupts: this is good if visually you have to pay attention to other things.

Circular Blizzard
This special attack materializes as a blue, translucent cloud on the floor that slowly moves clockwise along the outer perimeter of the room. It is trailed by a damaging Blizzard which fills up to half the room. The cloud and the Blizzard snare anyone caught in them. The Blizzard does not affect the center of the room.

Players in melee range to Aran do not have to worry about the blizzard, so long as Aran stays in the center of the room. Ranged fighters and healers should always keep a lookout for the cloud and run away clockwise from it (but avoid running into the tail of the blizzard). Players caught in the Blizzard get snared, and cannot outrun it. Instead, they should immediately turn to cross through the safe center of the room. This will likely expose them to Aran's silencing counterspell, but is still the lesser of two evils.

Flame Wreath
[I will not move when Flame Wreath is cast, or the raid blows up.| ]“ I will not move when Flame Wreath is cast, or the raid blows up. ”
file infoIf Flame Wreath is upcoming, the whole raid must immediately stop moving, simple as that. People must wait until the auras are clearly visible, and may only move again when they are sure they will in no way come near one of them. Meleers have a few seconds to move into melee range of Aran from the second Flame Wreath is announced and until he casts it, however this requires some practice and careful timing.

The effect is triggered by the following:

Player character movement
Paladins' Divine Shield (prior to 6-March-2007)
Rogues' Cloak of Shadows (prior to 6-March-2007)
Accepting a resurrection (Rebirth or Soulstone)
Mages' Blink
Druids' shapeshifting
The following do not trigger the effect:

Spell casting
Movement resulting from a spell cast (like Mind Flay or Aimed Shot/Steady Shot for Hunters)
Warrior's Whirlwind
Nether Protection
Pets
Companions
People who trigger the Flame Wreath effect are often subjected to a torrent of verbal abuse by the rest of the group. Flame Wreath is confirmed to crit, having an estimated critchance of 10-15%, dealing 7.000+ damage to the target.

Magnetic Pull / Slow / Arcane Explosion
The Arcane Explosion does not reach the outer edge of the room. To deal with it, simply run to the edge of the room immediately after the Magnetic Pull. No turning or finishing up an attack. Just run. Even slowed characters can reach the wall before the Explosion.

The Slow can be broken by the usual abilities and spells that remove magic and and snare effects. Abilities that increase movement speed also help. Priests and Paladins should keep an eye out for slow reactions (or anyone in Chains of Ice), since the slowing effects can be dispelled.

Mass Dispel is an invaluable tool here: one priest in the raid should be assigned the duty of casting this spell. Center its effect on Shade immediately after Magnetic Pull, and it will remove the slow debuff from the raid members who are furthest from the wall and help ensure they do not take damage. It will also take care of any Chains of Ice.

Water Elementals
Warlocks are invaluable here, because the Water Elementals can be banished, stunned and feared, and are susceptible to Curse of Tongues. The Elementals should be banished, feared, tanked, and killed ASAP. It helps a lot if the tank wears frost resistance gear. The Elementals have roughly 13,000 health, so they can be burned down easily. The Elementals despawn after 90 seconds; a single warlock can keep one feared and one banished the entire time.

The Elementals can be a problem if they spawn simultaneously with a special attack of Aran where everyone is too distracted to deal with them properly. It is a good idea to wait until the right moment, then bring the Shade's health down to 40% at a time when there is no risk of a Flame Wreath, Blizzard, or Polymorph / Pyroblast.

It is a good idea to use trinkets and abilities with cooldowns when the Elementals spawn.

[edit] Polymorph / Pyroblast
If the raid's DPS is high enough and the interrupts work well, this phase may not occur. If it does, the healers have to be on their toes to heal the raid very quickly after the Pyroblast (preferably using AoE heals). The Polymorph breaks as Pyroblast is cast, so you have the spell's travel time to cast something before it hits (HoTs, Priest shield, Paladin bubble, Mage Fire Ward and Ice Block, Shaman Fire Resistance Totem, etc.); this is effectively only possible if you are outside melee range. After the blast, raid members should use health potions and Healthstones to heal quickly.

This Polymorph works on characters who are normally immune. However, druids in Tree of Life form are not valid targets for the Polymorph, so they can cast spells in preparation for the Pyroblast.

"This Polymorph works on characters who are normally immune. However, druids in Tree of Life form are not valid targets for the Polymorph, so they can cast spells in preparation for the Pyroblast."

Unfortunately this isn't true as I still get polymorphed even in ToL.

I found this guide which may help. Introduces some new ways of dealing with the adds.

The Shade of Aran is a boss in the abandoned tower of Karazhan. He is the spirit of Nielas Aran, the father of Medivh - the previous occupant of Karazhan. He is located in the Guardian’s Library. After Aran’s dead a teleport to his room becomes available from Berthold the Doorman, and all trash mobs from the Curator to Aran (excluding one pack outside Illhoof’s door), will cease to respawn. The packs above his library are linked to Netherspite.

Shade of Aran’s Abilities

* Aran does not have a controllable agro list, he rarely melees and his spells lock on to random target players. Aran?s health must stay below his mana, if he runs out of mana before killed he will polymorph the entire raid and kill everyone, fortunately being a caster physical damage is incredibly effective against him.
* Aran is an Arch-mage and casts spells from all school, his basic Fireball, Frost Bolt, and Arcane Missles can be interrupted or counterspelled. This will help in reducing his damage output as well as stopping him from using mana.
* Aran has 5 special abilities that he can cast at anytime, they can not be stopped.
o Flame Wreath - when he casts this spells a targeted player will be surrounded in flames, no one can move in or out, if he casts Flame Wreath nobody moves until it is gone.
o Blizzard - a large AoE Blizzard that rotates clock-wise around the outside of his room, the center of the room where melee is will be unaffected, ranged and casters can run around clockwise to avoid it or if all else fails run to the center where it will not affect.
o Arcane Explosion - Aran will summon the entire raid to him and slow everyone, this slow debuff is removable. Everyone must run to the wall to get out of the way of his explosion, it is a 10 second wind up; even slowed players if they move immediately will get out of its range in time.
o Counterspell Aura - Aran spams an AoE counterspell that affects everyone in melee range, it may be an Aura.
o Chains of Ice - 10 second root, can be dispelled.

Defeating Shade of Aran

Phase 1
During the initial phase, Aran is a surprisingly easy encounter. The main importance here is to be fully aware of his Abilities (see above) and for the Raid Leader to communicate over your guild’s voicechat what the raid should do. Simple commands such as “Blizzard”, “Stand STILL”, “Move OUT” should suffice during this phase. Make sure the interupts are top-notch and that nobody gets caught by the Arcane Explosion, and you will burn through this phase without any trouble.

Phase 2
At 40% health Aran will summon 4 Elite Water Elementals, they can be feared and banished, after 90 seconds they will despawn, during this time all DPS remains on Aran as he will remain unchanged.
By far the easiest way of dealing with the Elementals is by assigning a Warlock to banish 1 and fear the other. If you have 2 Warlocks in your raid, perfect. If not, let a Warrior pick up 2 of the Elementals, he only has to keep them busy and this is not a hard task. If you have no Warlocks at all, your raid set-up sucks. (Illhoof) Nevertheless, let your tanks pick up the Elementals and you will do fine. Remember, Aran does not need to be tanked.
Additional Tips & Strategies

Basically you can just start the fight with crazy DPS, you want to get him down as fast as possible. Your tank can also wear DPS gear because he won’t be tanking. Also everyone should have AT LEAST 7500 hp for this fight and bring pots and healthstones if you have a warlock. Throughout the entire fight he will use his primary abilities and use his special ones in random intervals. The important thing is just keep EVERYONE topped off at full HP and be paying attention to what moves he is using. Have 2 people assigned to interrupting each normal spell cast he has, so like the warrior and a rogue to intterupt his fireball and a shaman and a rogue to interrupt his frostbolt. I would let him cast his arcane missles as it takes more time and is easier to heal. You can pretty much lock him out of casting frostbolt and fireball.

The Blizzard can be easily avoided, just look where he is casting it and follow behind it. If you get caught in a blizzard run through the middle and get out of it, you can not outrun it since it moves. The flame wreath just means DO NOT MOVE…at all. Do not jump, twitch, turn, anything. You can cast, but that is it. If he does a flame wreath and a blizzard after one another still don’t move. Call out that you are stuck in the blizzard and the healers will act accordingly. His Arcane Explosion move is RIDICULOUSLY easy to dodge and if you get hit by it you need to be removed from the raid. He will pull everyone to the middle and as soon as this happens just start running to the walls. As the healers are running take this opportunity to cast HoTs on people and PoT or bandage once you get to the wall as he does no DPS during this. Also, dispell anyone who is chains of iced needs to be dispelled.

Keep everyone topped off and keep the DPS up until 40%. At 40% he spawns 4 water elementals which can be completely CCed. I reccommend having your tank pick one up, fear and banish 2 if you have a warlock, and rogues can stunlock the last one. Hunters can also trap and priests can fear. They are affected by silence as well. Healing gets a bit intense here but just last for 90 seconds of this and they despawn. Once they despawn it is the same thing as before they spawned and you can just DPS him down. I would reccommend saving cooldowns for after the adds so you can DPS Aran down quicker as your healers should be close to running out of mana.

Also if Shade of Aran gets to about 30000 mana he will do an AoE polymorph for about 10 seconds and then pyroblast everyone in the raid for ~7k. You can line of sight this so when he gets close to 30% mana everyone run to the wall and use the bookcases to line of sight him can avoid the sheep and AoE allowing you time to regen. Top everyone off before this so in case someone gets sheeped they don’t instantly die from the pyro. If you get hit with the pyro IMMEDIATELY use a potion or get a heal. Before you go into this fight you need to make sure you equip some stam gear and get above 7200 hp with buffs so that if you get hit by the Pyroblast you won’t die.
Key Notes

* LISTEN and PAY ATTENTION, I can not stress this enough. Basically if you move with a flame wreath up, you wipe the group. Also you are a moron if you die to the arcane explosion. Just run when he draws you near him.
* Get out of the blizzard, do not try to outrun it just run through the middle is the best way. You shouldn’t ever get hit by it cause it moves and you can just follow behind it, it always moves clockwise.
* If you get hit by a pyroblast IMMEDIATELY potion or get healed. Same thing applies if you combat rez or ankh, Aran has a semi smart aggro in which if someone is low on HP he will target them and try to burn them down.
* The adds can be completely CC, forget DPS on Aran when they spawn as CCing them and waiting to DPS is much easier.
* Pay attention to his mana, around 30% run to the sides and line of sight him, just heal people till he does his sheep and take the moment to regen.
* Set up good spell interrupt rotations and let the arcane missiles be the move he casts, they are the easiest to heal through.
* Save cooldowns for after his adds despawn, then burn him.
* If you ankh or get combat rezzed immediately pot or ask for a NS heal before the rez as you will most likely die as soon as you resurrect if you don’t get a heal.
* Make sure to have 7200 hp so that you can live through a pyroblast if it hits you. Just get topped off IMMEDIATELY once it goes off. Healthstones and Pots help a lot, just pop them as soon as you are hit and you don’t have to worry.




I think we should try a group that is mainly meele (sorry casters) along with two locks since physical damage is especially effective against him.

Aran isn't hard, and we showed that yesterday. If people know the tactic so is he piece of cake. Good job guys, finally we got him down.

Yeah, I really can't praise who were in that party well enough. You all did an absolutely excellent job and worked very well as a team. Lets hope we can have a few repeat performances as nubbins here forgot to hand in his quest before the reset... >.<

Crap, me too! After Illhoof went so terribly I completely forgot and just logged out. All the more reason to kick Aran's ass again. And again. And again. No more Aran wipes.

Oh, and comletely unrelated. Get this! My work is very dependent on the market and our clients (I work in financial PR) so it's either extremely busy or I have nothing to do. I asked my boss if I can bring my laptop in and get on with 'private work' (in other words Wow ) and she said that's fine.

Woot!

Fermin wrote:Oh, and comletely unrelated. Get this! My work is very dependent on the market and our clients (I work in financial PR) so it's either extremely busy or I have nothing to do. I asked my boss if I can bring my laptop in and get on with 'private work' (in other words Wow ) and she said that's fine.

Woot!

any jobs going??