Serpentshrine Cavern - Lady Vashj

[Air]

Here's a picture that might help with coverage on elementals.



Have two range dps and one healer for each of the three areas.  We should have better coverage with this.  Just need to make sure that dps stay in there area and not deviate from it.  Also, dps should stand at the middle or base of the platform to have more dps time on the elemental's.  Having a bm hunter and affliction warlock working together is best.  Warlock can dot multiple elemental's and bm hunter with pet can finish most off fairly quickly.

Also going to need 4 people near the generators to use the tainted cores, and continue staying near them until all 4 generators are down.  Should make moving the cores around alot easier with this.

[Air]

This is a bunch of info I gathered from various posts made into a tailored made strategy for us and our raid composition.  Ill try modifying this post for any extra information I missed, particularly the kiting

To make it easier to know where tainted elemental's, naga's, and striders are.  Have people call these out via 12 hour time, like strider at 2 o clock.

3 Elemental Group (2x ranged, 1x healer)

Spread out on the edge of the outer ring to cover the elementals/tainted on the stairs. Hunters and Locks need to dot up the striders when they are kited past, and DPS striders if need be before the second one spawns. In that case the melee classes on the naga pick up any elementals that get by. Palis and other range stand at the top of the stairs (except when a range goes to loot the core). The pali's are the middle men for core tossing, and used for elemental groups so that they are spread out and can hammer striders when they go by. If your locks are Affliction/Dot/CoEx or low on the burst, you can swap them with ranged from the Strider killer groups (like hunter/mage)

1 Paladin/1 Boomkin/1 Hunter
1 Priest/1 Mage/1 Hunter
1 Paladin/1 Warlock/1 Hunter/1 Rogue (Far side group, use Rogue to help out far side)

Paladins should stun striders as they come by to help kiter with threat

(10 players)



If you look at your minimap, you'll see where north is. Its close to the collapsed rock which rests on the outer circle. The spawn rates directly north & south are the worst, so 12:00 and 6:00 in your system

As you face the platform from the bridge north is to your left and south to your right, both marked by collapsed pillars

North is 8, south is 2, east is 11, west is 6

It's been shown that spawn rate of elementals differs widly around the platform.

The most severe spawns come from sectors 2 (south) and 8 (north), then you have 7 (NW) and 9 (NE) at medium severity and 3 (SW) and 1 (SE) with infrequent spawns.

1 Strider Kiter Group (1x ranged)
We put one on east side and one on west side to ensure easy strider grab when it spawns. We've had the most success with Elemental Shaman + 1 kiting (usually a CoEx lock but wasn't on, so we used a hunter), Frost Shock is high threat, slows, and they have earthbind in case of a Shock resist. We put the palis in the elemental groups so they are spread around and can hammer the strider as it goes by

1 Affliction Warlock

Need for person to be dropping nets here
Soulstone the strider kiter, if he dies and resses have another warlock soulstone him again asap.

(1 Player)

1 Strider Killer Groups (5x ranged)

Put all SP on Striders so they can Flay for snare, use nets, etc. The SP also use SW:P/VT/VE on Naga to help heal through Forked Lightnings, 1 even specced Imp VE for it, and strider killers help with naga with the time between strider's death and the next spawn. We always made sure to only have one strider up ever and switch all elemental killing ranged to the Strider and melee to any loose/close elementals if another Strider is about to pop. Can easily dot up the first naga since it spawns before the strider

2 Shadow Priest
2 Mage
1 Hunter (1 Hunter helps clean up any elementals at top of platform, elementals > striders)

(5 Players)

Need for people to be dropping nets here
Syngery with Warlocks and Shadow Priests, should help increase dps and threat.
When strider goes down, strider group helps kill nagas until next strider pops.

1 Naga Group (2x Tanks, 3x melee)

MT stays in the middle and the other 1 tank pull naga to the MT in the middle, calling out when moving it if need be so that people, i.e. generators healers and squishy strider killers, watch out for cleaves. Strider Ranged (i.e. SP) keep the Nagas dotted with VE up as well, and strider DPS switched to naga if there is time before the next strider spawns.

1 Prot Warrior (helps pull naga to MT, DPS Naga and close elementals between Naga spawns)
1 Prot Paladin (Multi-tanks the naga's, taunts off of Warrior)
1 Feral Druid
1 Dps Warrior
1 Rogue

Before 4th tainted core is used, Paladin taunt naga's off of warrior to let him tank vashj.

(5 Players)

1 Generator Healer Group (4x Healers, one on each Generator)

Need to watch for Cleaves from Naga that are getting pulled into center. Forked Lightning + Bad Cleave = Dead healer

Set raid icons on these four people

2 Priests
1 Resto Druid
1 Resto Shaman

(4 Players)

Macro (Added focus target to it)

Code Select Expand

/target focus
/use Tainted Core
/run f=SendChatMessage w="WHISPER"c="Tainted Core"t="target"u=UnitName(t) if (IsItemInRange(c,t)==1) and (u~=nil) then f("You have the "..c,w,nil,u)f(u.." has "..c,"RAID")elseif (u~=nil) then f("Get closer for core!",w,nil,u)end
/focus

Observations (Not my own, someone else's but I thought it was good)

The biggest thing I noticed in this fight is the need for everyone to stay alive, and what seemed to help a lot was cutting down on unlucky burst combos that can easily gib people. Things like Multi-shot when static charged, some combnation of Forked Lightning, Tainted Poison Volley, and an unlucky cleave, combos that can nearly insta-gib most classes. Things that helped with that were SPs using VE, or even Imp VE on all adds in P2 to help heal through Forked Lightnings, and Vashj can be taunted so threat isn't really an issue, and VE can help heal through static charge. Generator and Elemental Healers also need to watch out when stuff spawns, especially the elemental healers, so they don't agg a naga and get 1 shot before it can be picked up. It wasn't an issue with Generator healers that can be easily intervened.

Being able to switch targets and get in a rhythm to pick up slack efficiently was a big help too. Knowing what needed to go down and in what order, and when to shift rolls. Like when ranged from the elemental group would DPS striders as they walked by in order to get it down before the next one and the naga melee picking up the elemental slack (Naga were our lowest priority compared to Close Elementals and Striders). Or the strider killers DoTing and DPSing on the Naga while they wait for another strider.

Getting the last core in before a fresh strider spawned helped a lot too. We also never had more than 2 naga up at any time. If Strider goes down early Strider groups switches to Naga.

[JohnnieRat]

There's seriously getting to be wayyyyyyyyyyy too much strat posting on here. I don't even read them anymore to avoid getting really confused. We just need to let the chief pick one and we all go with it on the same page and be good little indians. There's pictures and horses and a man on fire... and massive walls of text.

[Shadowwolf]

Yea I can see where it has become somewhat confusing at this point. What I will do the next time we give her a whirl is Ill post a basic rundown of what we will try and go from there. Till then though its a good idea to read through this stuff as its all useful information.

[Shadowwolf]

Any macro posted here works, however this is the recommended one to use:

Code Select Expand

/use Tainted Core
/run f=SendChatMessage w="WHISPER"c="Tainted Core"t="target"u=UnitName(t) if (IsItemInRange(c,t)==1) and (u~=nil) then f("You have the "..c,w,nil,u)f(u.." has "..c,"RAID")elseif (u~=nil) then f("Get closer for core!",w,nil,u)end