Magister's Terrace - What weve learned

[Arcdelad]

I thought it might be a good idea to start a forum post about various tricks and tactics weve learned in magisters terrace so far...i think we all have a trick or two, so if we pool them here maybe we can make everyone's lives easier.

My miniscule contribution:

- If you die on Kael'thas but others are still up and fighting, RUN BACK FAST...zone in, heal yourself if you can, then be ready becuase the next time he casts his zero gravity spell hell teleport you right to him from anywhere in the instance. As soon as you walk in youll get a blue beam attached to you (doesnt do any damage). Allo was solo fighting kael'thas yesterday for awhile and i thought maybe i could get in there and throw some hots on him, but to my suprise it ported me right to him and we finished him off even though it looked like a wipe for sure.

- Any priest can be DEADLY in there...Shadow was able to bring her disc priest even though we already had Goss healing, and she was able to mind control a bunch of BE's to not only take away a mob from the group, but also to add some hefty damage (like 4k crits) AND give our groups some nice beneficial spells.

- She wasnt able to MC any of Delrissa's add's though.

- Delrissa sounds like she is speaking out of a tin can.

[usonian]

Vexallus sounds like Daniel Day Lewis in There Will be Blood when he says,

"DRRRRAAAAAAAINAGE!!!!"

[Melonni]

On heroic mode, it seems like the Warlord naga add in the Priestess fight is of high(est) priority to be CC'd, due to his Mortal Strike spam and ~3k hits on cloth (+stun/snare = short work of clothie)

According to comments on WoWhead, warriors can spell reflect Kael'thas' fireballs during phase1 for some damage reduction / additional DPS.

Trees, priests, and brainhealers seem to be optimal healers for Kael'thas on the Gravity Flux due to the room-wide DoT, and/or having someone OH if possible.

[un4]

Kick interrupts fireballs in phase one on Kael, as well.  Improved kick, stuns, gouge, blind, and garrotte have no effect... as usual.

[Air]

Saw this on the RnD forums.

Magister's Terrace: A Guide for the Average Pick Up Group

Magister's Terrace is one of the tougher 5 mans. While epic gearing can help, with skill and care it is doable in standard blue gear and quest reward items. "Optimal" class makeup is also helpful, but a good group can accomplish it with little or no CC.

Here are some keys and tips to help you pull it off.

Trash Mobs:
Physician - Poisons and melees, kill late
Blood Knight - Pally, heals slowly, preferably CC, or kill early
Warlock - Immolates, has Imp Pet (easily killed), can be killed late and left un-CC'ed
Mage - Has a stacking cast speed buff, kill early
Naga - Casts Chain Lightning, can be killed late
Succubus - Casts Seduction, kill early or CC
MageGuard - Has a ~2K knockdown AE throw, kill early or CC
Ethereal - Teleports and AE's, preferably CC, save stuns to stop the AE

Boss 1 - Selin Fireheart
Kill the crystals when he channels them. After the crystals are killed or he finishes channeling them, he will AE the party for about 1K per tick until he is OOM. Be ready to heal it and it should be easy.

Boss 2 - Vexallus
He spawns adds with extremely low hp. The simplest method is to have your tank quickly kill each as it spawns. Killing an add gives a debuff that boosts damage and does damage to you over time. By keeping this debuff only on the tank, healing is simplified. Save cooldowns for the end, he starts AE'ing. Tanks use the 'v' key to quickly spot adds.

Boss 3 - Priestess Delrissa
This fight is really a 5v5 arena match. All mobs are un-tauntable and do not keep threat tables. They will kill whoever they feel like. Your tank should put on dps gear and prepare to be on interrupt/dps duty. Have all your ranged stand far back, and have the tank pull and dodge behind a pillar to pull the group back. Focus fire down any healers first, then clothies. Crowd control the MS warrior if you get him. Fear, snares, and burst are key. Be sure to have someone to interrupt any un-CC'ed healers in the group.
The clases of the NPC's are fairly obvious and the abilities they use match. Their shaman is resto, not elemental.

Boss 4 - Kael
Kael is both interruptable and his fireballs can be spell reflected. Reflect and interrupt as available.
Move out of the AE when you see it coming. There will be a giant fiery aura. The area is unsafe for about 6 seconds afterwards.
He will spawn a phoenix after about 20 seconds. All ranged DPS should kill the phoenix while keeping distance to it. It blows up on death. Kill the egg it leaves or it will be reborn.
Do not push Kael past 50% until you have killed the bird. If you are too slow pushing Kael to 50% after the bird is dead, he will spawn another.
At 50% everyone gets lifted into the air and takes 300 damage per second, nonstop. 3 giant orbs slowly chase party members, doing 3K or so damage every second they hit you. Upon this stage beginning, everyone should immediately fly to the back of the room. Heal, hang out, and avoid the orbs carefully. After a little while Kael will tire and drop you to the ground. He takes 50% more damage during this time. DPS him down more, heal up, and prepare to be floated again. Repeat.

Key areas groups fail:
- AE tanking is essential here. I can't speak for pallies and druids, but I'll recap the keys for a warrior tanking it. On each pull, immediately run to a corner to pull all un-CC'ed casters into melee range of you. Use Thunderclap every time it is up. Use spell reflect every time it is up. One free mob can easily tie up your healer, and you are taking a LOT of damage, so you can't let that happen. If you quickly get all mobs into melee, you should be fine if you keep up your ThunderClap spam.
- Stuns and interrupts are very helpful here. Ask your dps to err on the side of caution, and exercise special control. The amount of magical damage is very high, and thus anything that decreases it will make a big difference.
- Mark intelligently. Don't just sap any old humanoid, pick a plate healer or someone who AE's. Who you CC, and how, will be key to keeping each pull controlled.

Magister's Terrace is a short dungeon, but it's pulls are large and tricky if you don't overgear it. It can be done, but you cannot have any unattentive or sloppy play. Goodluck!

[Grendeel]

Keep in mind on Kael'thas you can conceivably lose out on the loot.  My one attempt on him we killed him but i had released and couldnt loot the head.  According to the gm i ticketed, releasing runs the risk of losing out on the drops.

[Darkstar]

Well Arc, Tonight we were fighting Kael and cy and nas both released to zone back in (me panz and dem were trio'in him) however, it would not allow them to zone in due to an encounter already in progress.

I'm not sure if this is a fix, or you were just allowed in due to a fluke. Granted this was on heroic so it might be different.

[Nasanna]

We also could loot our badges but not the items he dropped after we released during the fight.

[Darkstar]

As for Kael on heroic, it is almost impossible to burn down his shield as he is casting pyroblast.  For you paly tanks, the best bet is to Bubble through this.   He casts it at 60% so do not burn your avenging wrath on the initial pull as you WILL take 45k dmg from this pyro.  Unfortunately the grounding totems do not absorb this from what I saw.  I am curious as to if it is possible to reflect it back upon Kael for the warrior tanks.  And yes, it is an absolute must to stay away from the orbs. Do this and the fights in the bag.

The second boss is rather difficult on heroic as well.  He spawns 2 adds every 15% you down him. (85, 70, 55, 40, 25) at 20% he will overcharge and start hitting the entire party with Lightning.  You have to burn him down during this 20%.  When you kill an ad you get a debuff that increases your damage by 50% but also causes arcane damage every tick. The debuff lasts 30seconds.  We tried to slow DPS the boss, kill the adds, and wait for the debuff to wear off before killing the next set of adds.  This allowed minimal healing on the rest of the party.  It also helped we had two mages that could IB if too many charges were up twice. If the adds are not downed fast enough they AoE the entire party for arcane damage.  Make sure to bring your AR gear for this fight, especially the tanks bring some.  His melee hits are pure arcane damage and can be resisted for less damage, otherwise get prepared for 3-4k arcane swipes.

[Air]

The ability Kael does is called Shock Barrier http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=46165.  The 5 man version has 10,000 health.  The 25 man version has 80,000 health   Not sure but a warrior might be able to spell refect the pyroblast.  The main strategy is to burst down the shield and interrupt his pyroblast asap.

I agree Pally's have it the easiest    I was planning on using a macro like this:

/cancelaura Divine Shield
/cast Divine Shield

[Vengeance]

After many deaths and wipes, me (tank), mach (healer), gren, JR, and esy (OT) managed to complete it with next to no CC.

My advice? Dont try this.

[Arcdelad]

you tanked? lies!

[JohnnieRat]

Also found that if you are melee on Phase 2 of Kael... it's best to not even try and DPS. Just swim like a crazy person and stay in range of the healer (or heal yourself if you're a ret pally) and unleash hell on him when he stuns himself between levitates. He takes 50% more damage during this time and you can really lay on the hurt. Oh yea... don't land during the float either lol.

[Belandand]

If this will help but:

When I ran H MGT (for that damn trink and shoulderpiece), everyone in the group but the tank would split into two groups along each side of the hallway right before Vexallus was pulled. I had to get the first 2 adds so I just stood back and used my tthrown weapons. When the adds spawned, I ran up and targetted them both and hit tagged them with shiv (do this quickly because for some reason they shrink and after a certain point I was unable to target them). After, quickly switch to the boss and dps for a few seconds. After, use Clos and just stay on boss. The two other dps members (2 mages) then took the adds. On the last wave of adds before Vex went down, we had the tank grab two and we left them on him till Vex died.

For the Prince: His casts are interruptible. During gravity lapse, STAY AWAY from him unless he's at 5% or lower (in which case get to his front and burn him). It's easier to stay in the air because if you land, he'll toss you back up after a second or two.

On a final note, if you're a rogue in here...WORK for your two pieces. Stun gouge or blind as necessary to keep the mobs from running to the healer. If absolutely needed, evasion tank a caster to take some heat off the tank then vanish when the tank has regained their bearings.