Valithria Dreamwalker

[Spey]

Been reading some forums on Val - this from EJ, mostly relating to the portals and how often to take them and who should take them. The consensus seems to be that the holydins should always take them so your stack never falls off and continues to build (stack will fall off if you remain outside of a new portal for 5 sec after it spawns). These are from a paladin forum, but many remarks carry to all classes as well.

"Finished healing this fight without beaconing Valithria. I should have tried.

Finished with 14.5k hps so definitely a fun encounter. We tried 2 healing it like we do every boss but we ended up killing it with 3 healers.

Lesson learned: Beacon Val, hit raid with ridiculous heals. You don't have to go in every portal though, we beat it with me and a resto druid rotating every 2 portals. Our third healer the holy priest just stayed out and covered raid."

My note - I did bacon Val and it did work.

This is reply to above:
"As a Paladin you should be going in every portal and not letting your debuff drop. There is no reason to never go in as your buff should be expiring within 5 seconds of portal spawn. Reaching a 30 stack is easy enough and should allow a paladin to reach 22k+ HPS.

From my experience is it best to have the same healers go in every time.
This will allow them to stack the buff higher and higher, while if you only went every second portal, it would drop off every time."

And another poster:
"I agree, the main paladin of your group should take all of the portals. The other night on our attempts I was able to get upwards of 30 stacks, and was healing for about 80-100k on each holy light. Make sure your raid healers and other dreamwalker healers know and have their rotation down for when they go in to the portals. work with the priest in your group so that she always has GS up on her, and pop your wings/Divine Illumination at the start of the fight, so by the time you get your stacks rolling you have your CD's back up.

Another trick that I learned was to make sure I got a cloud right before the portal phase ended, if I didn't it became very hard for me to refresh my stacks, also try to end the phase as close to the front as you can, you do not want to have to run to the front of the room."

Looks like a fun fight for healers for once!

Cheers
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Spey

[Rothpada]

General info:

http://www.wow.com/2010/02/02/icecrown-citadel-bosses-and-information-frostwing-halls/#dreamwalker

[Spey]

In my post above, it was recommended that one healer always takes the portal so your buff does not fall off - the gain from the buff far exceeds the time lost in the dream. On the other hand - whatever works!!

Cheers
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Spey

[Rothpada]

Yes, that's what I've read and what we wound up doing on our last attempt. We had Um doing that, though the link I posted suggested tree is preferred over a priest oddly enough!?! (Well, obviously a paladin is ideal but...) We only tried two or three times so the next time will tell us more. Have you tried that one a number of times? Or, just starting on it too? Seems like it will be fun.
m
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[Spey]

I think we did one or two attempts on the tail end of a night the first week she was up and have been kind of in and out since - hopefully next week! And yes, I think it looks like a fun encounter for healers!

Cheers
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Spey

[Elena]

[Rothpada]

Makes sense. I guess I always think of priests as tank healers, but of course that's because I'm so used to thinking of trees as raid healers.

So, I'm guessing the strategy for a tree (in 10-man) would be to get as many stacks of the buff while maxing the number of HOTs on Val so as to get the most out of nourish spamming and then do nothing but heal Val? I haven't read anything about that perspective yet. (Our ten-man usually has a (disc/holy) priest and two tree/boomkins.) Then have the priest (and the other tree?) staying out of the portal and keeping the raid up.
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[Elena]

If you have two droods and a priest I'd suggest giving it a try to see if the priest can keep the raid up while both droods go in the portal. If they can then both druids can keep their hots on the boss while one focuses fully and the other helps out with the raid between portals.
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Shiann: 80 Undead Shadow Priest

[Rothpada]

Cool! Thanks for the suggestions. I'll post and let you know how it turns out.
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[Torquemada]

It's also fun to pop Lay on Hands on Valithria as a tank and watch it crit for around 115-120k. Those are good times.

In 25 man all 4 doors open, and you generally want to tank each side separately by where the Suppressors group up, with the focus of fire being Skeletons, then Archmages, then Suppressors, then Zombies, then Aboms/worms. You need at least one ranged to kite the Zombies when they come out, as they explode when they die so no one wants to be close when that happens.

On 10 man only one door opens on each side, and we've found it best to group up adds that come out in front of the dragon's face, to focus all dps in one area instead of spreading out too thinly. Dps will want to do all they can to interrupt Archmages, as Frost Resist Aura only stops so much damage, and the frostbolt volley damage is preventable.

Not sure about other tanks, but I use Seal of Command on this fight as 1) adds die quickly and Seal of Command is better on fights where you wouldn't get 5 stacks of Blood Corruption up, and 2) Seal of Command cleaves the Rot Worms and helps me pick them up/keep them.

In general, you want to avoid all damage you can, such as not standing in the frost traps that knock you up and have you take fall damage, the large purple AOE spots on the floor, and standing in front of the aboms and taking a gut spray(Unless you're tanking), so make sure the tanks face the aboms away from the rest of the raid.

Also from what I hear(As I haven't healed it), it's important for the healers who are going into the dream to keep their stacks up. Generally you have about 6, 6:30 tops to finish the fight before you're going to get a soft enrage from adds continually spawning too quickly.
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[Spey]

A couple tips from our experience for those taking the portals. First,the portals themselves. She says something about helping us and these small green lights will appear in front of her or off to front side. After a few seconds, they will get bigger and glow and if you mouse over them you will get a mounting icon, not a gear. Jump in and immediately fly up.

Second, while in you will not be able to see anyone who is not in there with you. Just swim through the green clouds, no need to dps them. However, it may take a second or so for the cloud to explode - if you swim through and it does not explode, you will not get the stack. So make sure you get the stack before moving on. Also, they respawn fairly rapidly so don't head off in one long direction to get one that is way far away. Be sure to fly your way back toward the front where they spawn before falling out of the dream. You will take no damage while in, and if the raid wipes while you are in, you will survive!

There really is not a lot of time between portal spawns, so if you got a stack before falling out and get right back in quickly, your stack should not fall off.

I did not do as well as I had hoped - maybe only 20 stacks or so. Some of it is just not making sure I get the cloud before flying on and other times it is because a portal disappears and I need to run to another one. Does anyone know if the portal despawns after someone takes it? If that is the case, we want to be sure and spread out and not have healers stacked on just one portal. Also when you go in, you lose anything like a target or focus, so I am making macros to target her and heal her so I do no waste time clicking on her.

Hope this helps some healers. Feel free to ask me questions!

Cheers
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Spey

[Elena]

[Hunter]

Yeah there is a limited duration on the portals so it is extremely important to jump in it as soon as you can. One thing to help out is for all the healers to quickly move on top of the green orbs when they come out so there is no mistake with people taking each others portals. Once you see the green arrow jump in and get the first orb to keep your stacks from falling off. Keep in mind that the portals can spawn in the back of the boss as well, these are also fair game and can often times keep you out of harms way for the most part, just be aware that if you are hurting you may need to heal yourself.

[Nordockt]

Hey Torque - you said tank the Suppressors?

In 10-man we just have me whack them and we were trying to have me on one side and Sounder on the other doing pure DPS (except when they grouped up on one side, the bastards).

Are they actually taunt/tankable? They seem to ignore aggro and head straight for the boss.

oh...and we still miss you two!!!!!!!!!
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[Spey]

I posted in the paladin forum some questions I had from last night. If anyone would care to take a look at that and suggest what might be going wrong, I would greatly appraciate it.

Thanks
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Spey