Tanking the High Priest (LoA)

[MailFist]

<p>Hello chaps (and chappesses!) </p><p>My guild (casual not hardcore) was in Lyceum last night. Although we managed a full 24 peeps for the raid there was more than a few "mascots" or DPS toons lower than 65 <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</p><p>Got through until Gnorbl with no wipes (just the occassional wizzie sacrifice). Think we could've got the annoying eye with a little more discipline but we skipped it and went to the priest.</p><p>Wiped three times on the priest after having down to around 10-18% health (final stance).</p><p>I was sitting in main tank group with 63% mit and 61.5% avoid with 11.5K hp. I had templar, warden and mystic for heals with a coercer and assassin for hate (no dirge or defiler available). Outside heals were a 68 mystic, 70 fury (learning her class, inherited toon) and a 62 inquisitor. My KoS AA lines are STA with INT (for parry mainly since I can self buff cap in defense).</p><p>During the final stance I was only using the odd big CA and had auto attack turned off to avoid the nasty riposte type stuff. I had also a damage shield potion up etc for extra hate through the whole fight.</p><p>Holding aggro in the last stance was tricky but so was survivability. </p><p>I guess I have the following questions:</p><p>1) Were the wipes due to our set-up? Healers? Support classes? e.g. Is it nigh impossible without a dirge's hate and parry songs? Did we need a defiler?</p><p>2) I tried switching in a tower shield for the last stance on one fight. Is this worth doing or is buckler better since (I think) it has a chance of block/riposte outside of the usual avoidance check?</p><p>3) Is my adorned Doomrage with CoP up to the job? It was only when I stopped autobash that we had any real aggro issues. Do peeps just fight through the final stance?</p><p>Any thoughts on this or in the fight in general most welcome.</p><p>The Loon(tm)</p>

[FightGame]

Well, I've found that has worked best for me is to use a tower shield for atleast the last stance, since he is reposting 50% of all melee attacks.  With the buckler reversal and double attack, you will be getting hit very very often.  I think it's the first (maybe the second) stance where he also repostes 25%.  I also turn off both berserk procs, cause more haste will equal more repostes.  I look through my buffs and/or ask my group to turn any haste off.  No haste items.  Use the slowest weapon you have (the sword he drops is quite nice at 3.0 seconds).  Make sure that insolent gibe and rescue, and all your temporary defensive buffs are up and ready when he hits the last stance, and then start using the def. buffs as often as possible.  Everyone has to be real careful with their aggro when he hits the 25%, atleast until all the debuffs are back on him so that you can start hitting him harder and more often.  If someone gets aggro, it's very important for them to run to the tank, since he will reposte everything in front of him, and with all the melee'ers there, that will be very often and usually mean wipe if the person with aggro doesn't hurry.

[Jackula]

I've only fought Vilucidae three times, and two of those times I was the MT.  The first time I tanked him I was warned about the final stance so I turned off my auto attack when he went into it.  I didn't have enough hate built up/hate transfer in my group, lost aggro and we wiped. The next attempt I decided to keep autoattacking through the final stance.  I had no aggro issues, and we dropped him.  The next time I came back to Lyceum I just kept fighting through the final stance again, and again no aggro issues.  From my experience I would say just fight through the last stance.  Warn your healers and anyone else with an emergency heal ability that your health may spike and to be on their toes.  Be ready to stop autoattacking in case your health is spiking bad (I didn't have this problem but it's good to be ready).  As to use buckler or tower, I swap between them as needed.  If the mob is well debuffed I am more comfortable bringing out the buckler.  If my health is spiking the buckler gets put away and out comes a more protective shield.  I prefer the buckler for the extra autoattacks, that's free hate, but watch your health and how your healers are managing.  If they are having a hard time keeping your health topped up don't use the buckler. A dirge brings many things to the MT group and I almost always have one for everything.  I love having a dirge, and one with good AA choices makes my life easier, but work with the classes you have.  Templars provide a stoneskin too, you could get a conj AA pet to help with that as well (I don't know the pet name but it looks like a Siren), and always have 2 or 3 hate transfer classes in your MT group. Adorned Doomrage armor should be more than enough to tank Vilucidae. Also, I don't know where you are fighting him.  I fight him at the top of the stairs right before the pit with my back to the wall (and standing on top of a chest because if I am right on the ground in the corner the chest has blocked line of sight to me for my healers).  We have one person down in the pit as a designated flower kicker.  We have a pet class get their own target on the High Priest, park their pet downstairs and come back as close to the top of the stairs as they can without losing their target.  It might take a couple of tries for them to find out how far back up the stairs they can come. The rest of the raid is at the top of the stairs just slightly off to the side. For this fight I take out my Inc! macro and switch in a /target Vilucidae macro.  Get the pet class to call out their pull, pet pull him and run back towards you.  Keep spamming your target macro as Vilucidae runs  toward the puller.  Once you have him as a target  turn on your ranged autoattack and  get ready to taunt him once he's in range.  Once you have him your pet puller and the rest of the raid force should be ready to engage him from behind.  Your raid's lone flower kicker downstairs might feel left out the fun but they have an important job and a good fast kicker will keep up with the flowers and knock the High Priest out of his stances quickly.  I found fighting him this way much better than fighting him in the pit.  My first time to LoA (I wasn't MT) we tried fighting him in the pit and it seemed like chaos.  The next two trips, the fights at the top of the stairs were perfect clockwork by comparison.

[TuHideous]

For the final stance try using the candy cane weapon. Works quite well. You can keep your haste on, just turnoff the damage sheilds. Multiple tanks spamming taunt with candy cane weps is a must. Just spread your casters around the pit and have them all kick the flowers as they spawn. Pretty easy fight even for a casual raiding guild. Just use the taunts to keep the hate and have your casters control thier agro.

[FightGame]

<cite>Jackula wrote:</cite><blockquote>I fight him at the top of the stairs right before the pit with my back to the wall. ...We have one person down in the pit as a designated flower kicker. </blockquote><p>If you pull him out of the pit and up the stairs, theres no need to kick flowers.  Kicking flowers only prevents being feared.  That one person kicking flowers is a waste.  Have them up there killing the mob.</p><p>Edit: I see you also said that kicking flowers knocks him out of the stances, and this is what we had thought too, but proved it wrong.  Flowers only affect being feared.  And if it did affect his stances, why pull him out of the pit at all?  In that case you should just fight in the pit, where you can have more than one person watching for flowers.  Even keeping all the flowers down within a couple seconds of them spawning, he will still go into, and sometimes stay in a stance for quite some time.</p><p></p><p>TuHideous wrote: </p><blockquote>Multiple tanks spamming taunt with candy cane weps is a must. </blockquote>lol no it's not.  He's been killed multiple times with one tank in the raid and using various weapons.

[Zo]

Have your DPS hard burn through first stance, coast and regen power through second, light burn through third, hard burn through fourth. Death saves, bolster, quick reapplication of debuffs, emergencies and temp mit at 25%.  Full hate from the tank - can't afford to lose aggro through the last burn.

[TuHideous]

<cite>FightGame wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><i><b>TuHideous wrote: </b></i></p><blockquote>Multiple tanks spamming taunt with candy cane weps is a must. </blockquote>lol no it's not.  He's been killed multiple times with one tank in the raid and using various weapons.</blockquote><p>Hehe- yet another genious in the bunch. I never said that the fight can't be tanked byonly one tank, but I read the first part of the OP post...</p><p> <i><b>MailFist wrote:</b></i> </p><blockquote><p>Hello chaps (and chappesses!) </p><p>My guild (casual not hardcore) was in Lyceum last night. Although we managed a full 24 peeps for the raid there was more than a few "mascots" or DPS toons lower than 65 <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</p>Holding aggro in the last stance was tricky but so was survivability. </blockquote><p>My recommendation was due to the information provided.  Take it or leave it your choice but I know it works.</p>