Reliquary of Souls

[Nortibiry]

Discussion thread for RoS, looks like it'll be an interesting one :)

wowwiki (http://www.wowwiki.com/Reliquary_of_Souls)
bosskillers (http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild/index.cgi?action=view_guide&guide_id=134)

[Tierran]

Hrm, the idea of having rogues evasion tank the enrage in phase 1 appears to be the best for that part. Seems silly to have warriors do it when they have no armor and no defense. At that point it'd even be better to have a SL lock with a voidwalker out tank her, though we do still have a good amount of health, and Nort will at least have avoidance as well.

[Assault]

I wanted to make a post about how the first phase of this fight is going to work so ensure that we're all on the same page.

Haythan runs in and aggros the boss, then he can run to max melee range of the dude or let the RoS come to him, or whatever. The important point is that Aurorawind is standing in the center of the RoS within 5 seconds after Haythan aggros.

Five seconds after Haythan aggros Aurorawind will get fixated. At this point Haythan run away to dps as normal, Aurorawind runs to max-ish melee range and the rest of the raid goes to stand in the middle of the RoS within 5 seconds.

Five seconds after Aurorawind gets fixated someone else will get fixated. Aurorawind will run away to dps as normal, that person will run to max melee range and we repeat over and over. Whoever gets fixated will run to max melee range, then run away after they are no longer fixated.

It is imperative that you DO NOT RUN OUT OF MELEE RANGE WHILE YOU'RE FIXATED. If you do the boss will move to chase you and the rest of the raid will no longer be standing in the middle of the RoS, and the attempt will probably be fucked. When you're fixated, as long as other people are closer to the center of the boss than you are, you're in a good position.

The only other thing is that me, Jackal, and Wildeyez(?) will be ready to take the fixates while the RoS is enraged. I'm not exactly certain how this is going to work, like whether the timer will be exact so we know exactly when the enrage is coming or whether we'll have to react after the enrage hits, or what. But when the enrage is theoretically about to come, everyone else will run away and me, Jackal and Wildeyez will be ready to get fixated during the enrage and take THREE fixates in a row while having our evasion or +dodge trinket or whatever up.

The only other note about this phase is that of course there is no healing. Priests can PW:S (and I read that this can be particularly helpful during the enrage?) but that's it. Everyone should dps as much as they can, even if they're a healer. Please blow your entire mana bar because you get all the mana back before the next phase starts.


On the next phase it seems like the key point is interrupting EVERY spirit shock and trying your best to NOT interrupt Deaden so that Nort can spell reflect it. Also the Rune Shield needs to be removed (preferably by felhunter's devour but also with spell steal and presumably also dispel/mass dispel or purge..?) as quickly as possible by whoever can make it happen. I think it might be a good idea for the warlocks to immediately start summoning a felhunter as soon as the ghosts appear after phase 1 so the felhunters are all ready to go to eat up that Rune Shield. Though I don't wanna micromanage them since I don't know how to play a warlock, and it could be that only one or two felhunters is necessary (or potentially none at all are necessary).


Third phase seems to be a straight dps race which I don't think we'll have much trouble with, though the healing looks like it'll be difficult and it may take the healers several tries to figure out how to most effectively keep people up. The DPS also need to do their absolute best to help out the healers by using healthstones and health pots toward the end when the Aura of Anger ticks get really high.

[Wenge]

This is the strat from Chrysalid, whose strats I find to be the most readable with the least bullshit:

Guess i've been lazy the last few months and never bothered finishing off the strats to the rest of BT. And here ZA is around the corner and Sunwell in 3 months (yeah, knowing bliz, maybe longer).

So, RoS Phase 1:

Bring at least 2 rogues, i recommend 3 or 4 for learning. Rogues, bring agi/dodge gear. Hunters with deterance are ok also.

There are many methods of dealing with phase 1. I like to send 2 or 3 (or however many hunters are on the raid) in first. Let them tank till they are 50% hp, then they can just focus on dps for the rest of the fight. There is a photo up in the photo section explaining how fixate works. Basically the closest target infront of RoS will be fixated for 5 seconds. Every 5 seconds RoS looks for a new closest target infront of him. Infront is pretty key. To take a fixate you want to stand between the center of the red targeting circle under RoS and the guy currently being fixated.

Every minute or so RoS will enrage and hit very hard. Rogues using evasion in agi/dodge gear can tank a full enrage. In phase 2 you will need pro interupts. This means 2 rogues will have to camp their kick timer. This will nerf their damage anyways. So might as well put these two rogues in solid agi/dodge gear to ensure easy enrage tanking in phase 1.

When learning RoS your dps may not be stellar. Thus for phase one you may want that 3rd and 4th rogue, incase you find yourself experiencing a 3rd enrage. Or incase a rogue gets low while taking an enrage and another rogue has to tank part of that enrage after the first rogue gets BoP'd to prevent his death.

Jobs in phase 1:

Paladins: dispell people, in phase one a 2500/tick dot randomly is cast around the raid. Since healing doesn't work during phase 1, your job is to be super duper fast on dispells.

Priests (holy): PW:S, be fast, soon as someone takes a fixate, PW:S them. Camp your PW:S CD (6 seconds). Fixate changes every 5 seconds, thus every 5 seconds someone new needs a PW:S. Dispell while PW:S is on CD or wand or just keep assist targetting.

Rogues: 2 of you will be assigned to kick shocks in phase 2. If you get this job it is because you have the most stable connection with the least lag and are trusted to be the least likely rogue to newb up the job. Smart lag-free rogues make or break the RoS encounter. So if you know you are kicking in phase 2 anyways, you might as well just stack agi/dodge and tank enrages in phase 1. The rogues who are there as back up (this means you rogues are precieved to be more newb than the 2 pros who are kicking), you guys can wear regular dps gear and just focus on dps assuming you don't newb up and die in phase 1.

Everyone else: In phase 1 if you have 100% hp at some point you should tank RoS for a bit (when he is not enraged). In phase one since healing is impossible, everyone might as well get in one round of tanking while they dps. Any class (yep, even mages) can tank a fixate and still have more than 50% of their HP left. So might as well spread the damage around. Nobody should have to let their HP get under 50% and thus risk death to a dot that is not dispelled promptly.

Managing enrage: Get Bigwigs. Lets face it, odds are if you are at RoS it is because your guild makes use of some sort of raid timer mod. I recommend Bigwigs, personal preference. So you will know when the enrage is coming. Enrage has a 3 second casting timer. As soon as RoS finishes casting he will search for the closest target and fixate that target. What does this mean? If you are a mage and you are tanking and you see the cast bar start, continue tanking. Do not worry, cause here is what is going to happen: The rogue is going to stand infront of you directly between you and RoS. And everyone else is going to step back so they are not possibly going to be targets for an enraged RoS. Soon as enrage stops casting, if that rogue is in the right spot, RoS is going to fixate the rogue and he is going to evasion tank. Now, if the rogue is for some reason not in the right place, a paladin is going to BoP you. So don't panic. Unfortunately RoS does have an agro list. If for some reason someone needs to be BoP'd, RoS will fly across the room to whoever is highest on his threat list. Thus if your rogues can keep themselves highest on threat, life is easier. If not, odds are he will chase down a lock/mage/hunter and things may get out of hand. So hopefully your rogues are pros.

Raid set up:

MT=healer A, healer B, healer C
Kick rotation=pro rogue A, pro rogue B
Enrage tank rotation=pro rogue A, pro rogue B, rogue C, rogue D
Group1=healer D, Group2=healer E, Group3=healer F, Group 4=healer G, Group5=healer H

Yep, recommend 8 healers. However, if you have multiple shadow priests in the raid you can scale back healing requirements, because VE owns for this fight in phase 2 and 3. So if you have 6 healers and 3 or 4 shadow priests, that will work well also, infact probably better than bringing 8 healers and 1 or 2 shadow priests would.

Phase 2:

Half of all damage you deal to RoS will be dealt back to you. Every 15 seconds RoS casts a dispellable 40,000pt shield on himself. Dispell this or rogues won't be able to kick shock. Shock = stunned tank = owned raid.

Phase 2 is a dps race. You have 180 seconds or so until your mana = 0. So, dps goes all out, without pulling agro. Use Omen (threat meter). Rogues kick all shocks. Every 30 seconds or so (it's on bigwigs) RoS will cast deaden on the main tank. It is very important that rogues kick shocks and DO NOT kick deaden. Deaden needs to be spell reflected by the tank back onto RoS. This then causes RoS to take double damage. This will take a lot of practice till your rogues stop newbing this up. On your first kill, given the gear your raid likely has if more than 1 or 2 deadens are missed you will fail phase 2.

Phase 2 tricks: Warlocks, bring 2 or 3 of these. Felhunter pet is the own. Have warlockA summon his felhunter and put it on RoS to auto eat the 40k shields it casts on itself. Before the warlock's mana pool gets so small that it is impossible even with full mana to summon another felhunter, have WarlockB summon a felhunter and put it on RoS. This way the 2nd felhunter's mana bar will still be full when the rest of the raid has no mana. Thus shields will continue to be eaten even when it is impossible to dispell due to 0 mana.

Mages: If you are faster than the felpuppy you can spell steal the 40k shield RoS casts. This will greatly improve your dps for a while until it runs out since you will no longer suffer from spell pushback nor take damage in general.

Priests: save your inner focus. When the raid runs out of mana, if for some reason the felhunter fails, you will have to inner focus + dispell the shield or rogues won't get to kick = shocked tank = wipe.

Warlocks: You can soul stone a paladin. Then just before mana hits 0, while the paladin still has mana, he can DI someone, die, use the soulstone and come back with mana and thus continue to heal the MT. If the paladin DI's a druid while the druid still has mana, the DI will take the anti mana buff off the druid. The druid can then innervate himself or the paladin + pot and this will buy the raid a lot of fighting time. The raid can be at 0% mana with RoS at 20% hp and by doing this you can still kill RoS with felhunter pets summoned late still eating the shield, and druid + paladin still healing the tank.

Raiders: When the raid runs out of mana you will no longer get heals. When your HP is low (because half of all damage you deal is dealt back to you), bandage and health pot and health stone, whatever you need to do to continue dps'ing.

So, recap: Dispell shields asap always (RoS gets a big purple round solid shield around him = dispell/spell steal immediately, 15 second CD). Kick shocks. DO NOT kick deaden. Spell reflect deaden. Never SW:D while RoS has deaden, you will one shot yourself.

Phase 3:

Phase 3 starts with seathe on RoS, this causes 200% threat to all damage dealt. It is important that nobody dps's during this time. Healers, continue to heal as per normal. Hunters, omg MD rocks during this time. So soon as you see Seathe on RoS HunterA=MD MT, call on vent when done, HunterB=MD MT. If you are pro, in 10 seconds 3 hunters can MD the MT for 200% threat each. At this point unless the MT is bad, there is no way anyone is pulling agro. Soon as seathe ends, raid go all out dps.

A stacking dot has begun, every 3 seconds it ticks for more damage. After 30 or 40 seconds it is ticking for 3000 dmg and the raid is going to wipe. As it ticks for more damage, it also buffs the damage players do. Such that towards the end seeing 30,000pt fireball crits and executes is pretty common. Infact, in the last 20% of the fight warriors do so much damage with execute spam it is stupid. Their rage bar will always instantly refill due to the 20,000 dmg swings they are landing.

Also, during this part of the fight, a shadow priest who has spec'd into VE will jump to 1 on the healing meters as their VE heals 12,000 hp a second spread across their group, near the end of the fight. Once again, in phase 3, never ever use SW:D, you will crit yourself for 25,000 dmg and look like a giant newb, and then your group won't have a healer.

It is recommended to bring a nature cauldron to RoS raids. During Phase 3 RoS tosses out a dot at random, it deals 10k damage or so. Use a health stone + Nature protection potion. The dot is called Spite. When you see this, pot and health stone. Spite + the raid wide dot is pretty aweful.

During Phase 3 it is important that the MT spend all his rage always. This will be hard to do since as Phase 3 progresses the amount of rage the tank generates is insane. But it is important to spend the rage as fast as possible. RoS has a frontal attack (which is why never ever face RoS towards the raid) that converts mana/rage/energy into damage on the person that that rage belonged to. If the MT has a full rage bar and RoS uses his frontal attack, a full rage bar = approx. 12,000 dmg to the MT. This can lead to massive damage spikes which often lead to a dead MT in phase 3. Thus, MT, always spend your rage as fast as you can.

That is pretty much it. Once your raiders understand the fixate concept and how range works and how to stand infront of the target between the target and the red target circle on the ground, phase one will go easy.

While learning, expect 2 or 3 enrages in phase 1, plan accordingly. Once gear improves, you can end phase 1 in 1 or 2 enrages.

In phase 2, while learning expect that you will need to reflect every deaden to succeed at phase 2 the first time. Your rogues completely make or break this fight.

Oh yeah, guess i should explain the run in. Hug the right wall on the way in. Cast detect invis on your raid. The tiny red invis guys respawn every 30 seconds. They detonate if not killed fast enough dealing 2000 dmg in a 20 yard radius. The purple guys respawn every 45 seconds and the big blue guys respawn every 60 seconds. So hug right wall, kill stuff, move, kill stuff, move to wall above ramp without going down ramp. Soon as things are low hp head down ramp and finish them off, sit, drink. If someone is slow and stays up the ramp, odds are little red things will spawn on them keeping the raid in combat and you will start phase 1 with little mana. Yell at the newb, mana pot, don't panic, and do phase 1. NP.

[Zhek]

in regards to the rune sheild thing, if its a felhunter assigned to dispeling it, it will be dispelled like a milisecond after its put up, so that would be the best bet, depending what the timer is like one felhunter might be abel to handle it.

[Tyrnian]

Yo, Assault? I hear you're big on personally taking care of the "kick deadens" approach, and was wondering how that was working out for you since we aren't pro enough to try that strat.

~Tyr

[Tyrnian]

You may also want to consider a nature protection pot cauldron thingy to drop between phases 2 and 3 (if you don't plan to already). Using it when you have spite can keep people alive longer.

Edit: Wenge included this in his strat. I lose.

[Tierran]

Basically the closest target in front of RoS will be fixated for 5 seconds. Every 5 seconds RoS looks for a new closest target in front of him. In front
is pretty key. To take a fixate you want to stand between the center of the red targeting circle under RoS and the guy currently being fixated.
...blah blah blah...

That is pretty much it. Once your raiders understand the fixate concept and how range works and how to stand in front of the target between the target and the red target circle on the ground, phase one will go easy.



Just wanted to reiterate the parts in bold, this is why RoS kept moving last night. Piling together in the middle of the red circle is not good, you need to at least be on the side of the circle that the boss is facing. I know that's difficult, but there is some leeway, you don't have to be RIGHT at the edge of the circle to keep him from moving, it's possible to be 1-2 steps back from that, I checked last night, it didn't move. Obviously the IN FRONT part is key for that reason, and I don't doubt that if people read this strat, that they could have easily overlooked, or forgotten that one detail.

[Wenge]

I''m not convinced having the entire raid stand on a postage stamp is ideal, either; I think there should be a few people on the spot and we rotate the standers through the entire raid. This is shockingly similar to the netherspite beams.

[Nortibiry]

I was wondering to myself last night if we'd be further ahead to have "super action teams" again, something along the lines of group 1&2 after aurora, everyone out for enrage tanking, groups 3&4 for after the enrage, everyone out for second enrage, group 5 and whoever still has health left, etc. Obviously this would have to be refined to make sure we actually had enough people to get the job done over each time period but it might cut down on the clutter.

Also it might be cool if we could paint the fixate target somehow... anyone know a mod writer? :)

[Wenge]

Hmm I think I know someone who could write a mod like that.

[benseac]

Would it be prudent for warlocks (at least the non-succubus sacrificing ones) to use their felpups even in phase 1? Here's why I ask.

Last night, I heard something about using felhunters. Due to the volume being low, I didn't hear the entire thing. So, I asked if we should be using them and I was told yes.

Due to me not reading this strat, I didn't realize that they were to be used for phase 2. I summoned mine right away for phase 1. What I found handy about him is that he can eat the soul burn (or whatever the heck the nasty debuff is called) from me or anyone else. It does have an 8-second or so cooldown but it could help with cleansing in that phase, especially if we're running low on cleansers.

[phewl]

it would be nice, but my guess is it would be just as hard to do it to other people(you would have to do it manually) as it is having the paladins remove it from other people. so the warlocks doing it would likely not be able to take part in helping tank fixations and would likely be dropping their dps substantially. also the added health of the imp could be the difference between doing another fixation or not. i think in time the paladins will get better at it and we have to remember we went without lyre last night.

unless it becomes such a issue that we can sacrifice the affliction warlocks tanking fixations, possibly a bit of their dps, and the added HP of the imps i dunno if the trade off is worth it. Personally i don't think i could handle watching debuffs and staying in to tank fixations, which is why we have paladins out. Being affliction it might not hurt your dps as much, but the time spent watching debuffs and using the felhunter would distract you from max dps i would imagine.

[Wenge]

What do the locks think about not having the felpuppies remove the rune shield in phase 2, and leaving it for the mages to spellsteal? The shield absorbs a ton of damage and prevents spellcast interruptions, which means we'd get a little bit more.

[Vand]

I was wondering to myself last night if we'd be further ahead to have "super action teams" again
That seems like it could be a better plan than what we were doing last night. One problem I was having is that, being vertically challenged as I am, I had trouble seeing exactly where I was standing amidst all the mass of other toons. Having just a few people in there at any given time might make it significantly easier for everybody to stand where they're supposed to. The only downside I can see is the added logistical headaches from having to organize several different groups, especially when you consider such things as somebody who has not yet taken a fixate being unable to do so due to taking a few soul drain ticks prior to his "team's" turn.

[Vand]

What do the locks think about not having the felpuppies remove the rune shield in phase 2, and leaving it for the mages to spellsteal? The shield absorbs a ton of damage and prevents spellcast interruptions, which means we'd get a little bit more.
Sounds good as long as we get to take turns stealing. :p

[phewl]

it would be interesting to try a coordinated attempt on phase 1 with a set group of people taking the fixate, maybe healers with heavier health could do it since they can't heal and have lower dps. I would be interested to see how fast we could get the essence of suffering down with all out "uninterrupted" dps on it. if we nuked it down quick enough, it might be easy enough to organize people to take fixates. this could also prevent all that crazy movement during phase 1.

I know personally i haven't been doing maximum dps because of all the movement and trying to get in to fixate range. All the time i spend trying to get it is wasted if i don't actually tank. that time in my opinion could be better spent dps'ing, and if i am called upon to take a fixate i can easily step in and take my turn. It might be worthwhile to still have 2-3 people stacking in the middle rather then risking 1 in and 1 out.

either way we aren't having that much of a problem with phase 1, besides rogues dying due to all that movement. it might be something worth trying.

[Nortibiry]

Just eyeballing the health bars at the end of phase 1 I think we need just about everyone to take a fixate, but using super action teams would give you at least a bit of time where you could ignore the mechanic and nuke. Of course, after being fixated, you should also be able to move to range, ignore the mechanic, and nuke... were people doing that?

Personally I'm optimistic we'll see better behavior out of RoS if people reread the fixate mechanic a few times, in particular the bits that Tierran highlighted. I know for me painting the current fixate target would help show where to stand (pro tip: between the painted dude and RoS) but perhaps this is not the case for everyone.

[Tyrnian]

Just eyeballing the health bars at the end of phase 1 I think we need just about everyone to take a fixate, but using super action teams would give you at least a bit of time where you could ignore the mechanic and nuke.

We have our clothies taking fixates, too, generally early so that our A Team tanks/dps warriors can step in, take a fixate, and save the day.

Our order is generally hunter 1, hunter 2, clothie, clothie, clothie (with tanks stepping in) until enrage, deterrence hunter, repeat (with rogues taking enrages from there on).

~Tyr

[Assault]

In retrospect I realize that I was fucking up the enrages, but me and Jackal discussed it and it should be fixed. However it'll also be much easier if everyone else knows how to take their fixates properly as well.

I like all the suggestions particularly painting the current target with an icon and Super Action Team organization of fixates rather than trying to make the entire raid do it at once.

I also think that at least for a few attempts maybe people, if they are still unclear on exactly how the mechanic works, should just take off DPS and pay attention to the mechanics instead. The last four or five attempts of the night I completely stopped paying attention to DPS when the enrage was about ready to go so I could pay attention to trying to get that right.

Our DPS is just fine on that phase, so I really think that we could do just fine with people paying a little less attention to DPS and a little more attention to the fixates and not moving the boss. It's more important to get everyone through that phase alive than to kill it 20 seconds faster, or whatever. Our DPS is plenty to be able to kill it before we run out of people who are able to take fixates.

[Rild]

I belive part of the issue is people are not understanding the movement mechanic, its not a boss mechanic just a game one. Go find a mob that is not going to kill you fast and play around with its hit box.

[Nortibiry]

I belive part of the issue is people are not understanding the movement mechanic, its not a boss mechanic just a game one. Go find a mob that is not going to kill you fast and play around with its hit box.

This is actually an excellent suggestion, it'll work extra well with a larger mob (maybe those giant lizards in Desolace or the Barrens, they're big and low level). If you play around you should find that it is possible to walk a mob backwards without ever turning your back on it, just by getting right up into the middle of it's hitbox and perhaps jostling back and forth a bit (mobs -hate- this). It is pretty likely anyone who only plays ranged classes hasn't had the chance to see this kind of behavior up close and personal before.

[phewl]

apparently phase 2 of this fight is currently bugged for alot of raids on live. little or no deadens and shields in phase 2, which makes dps very tight.

[Aurorawind]

Should we skip that one until it's the last one before illidan?

[Etrigana]

Cant

-Etri

[Boraa]

I'm thinking since there's no deaden's, is have the hunter(s) MD immideatly at start of phase 2 so people can get as much DPS as possible since we only have a limited time to get past phase 2, I dunno how well it will work, but just tryin to think of ideas to help us complete and push onward and down illidan

[phewl]

i was under the impression that the hunters were already doing that. i'm sure we can do it, it will just leave us alot less room for error elsewhere.

[Zhek]

nort doesent have any problems with threat in phase 2 from what i can tell

[Tyrnian]

pretty sure they hot fixed that bug, btw

[Lad]

Yeah we killed him without deadens last week, but totally demolished him yesterday with them.