Elemental Shaman and ICC: A love Story (Part 2/12)

On to part two of the ICC and Elemental Shamans, the never ending story of life and love. Or loot pinata:

LADY DEATHWHISPER

I’m not sure if this was intended or not, but the only raid boss in this instance that has the Lady title is a chatterbox. She keeps yapping about how the LK is the savior and you are doomed and about apple pie recipes. Or something like that. After the first time you fight her you sorta zone out while she blabbers and go on a mental afk.

Remember the room heading up to Blackheart the Inciter, In Shadow Labyrinth? It’s about the same, with nasty ass mobs that you need to kill plus two priests on the sides. Word of warning:  while it is possible to AoE the trash here, be careful not to pull one of the priests as well, they have a nasty AoE and do a bomb-type thingy on a random player (this time it can be a tank too) that will act like a DoT and explode after a few seconds. Once you have this, and if you’re using DBM you’d have to be legally blind and deaf not to notice, move away from the raid, 20 yards will do. Once you explode you can go back and hit that if you want to. You might get it twice or more in a row so look out for it!

The fight itself is not a lot different than the M’uru fight. It boils down to managing adds as soon as they spawn and dropping them, if possible, where they stand, and then on to phase two and kicking the oh, so honorable lady’s behind. Also known for us shamans as the BL BL BL BL BL BL phase. You’ll get it.

First phase:

This begins when somebody throws a random punch or kick or spell at the good lady. She will be so afraid of the lot of you that she will immediately shroud herself in a mana barrier. The faster you DPS it down, the faster you push onto phase two.  Mind you, this phase is not a DPS race. You have to take care of the spawning adds and then, until the next wave spawns, go for her shield. If you have a very good group with lots of people dishing out insane amounts of hurt you can have one or two people DPSing her shield at all times. Not recommendable tho, it can all go to hell in a hand basket really quick if the adds are not controlled.

For the 10 man version the adds will spawn alternatively from your left and right, in this order. On 25 they spawn both left and right with a couple thrown from behind for some surprise buttseckz if your tanks aren’t paying attention.

There are two types of adds to begin with, Cult Fanatics and Cult Adherents. Usually you’ll set your melee DPS on the Adherents and Spell Flinging DPS on the Fanatics. Don’t fret, if their names are just as I’ve written them above you can actually use Chain Lightning and Magma Totem freely. The problem becomes when Lady D. brings one back to life. Now if you’re not careful you can haz a cup o’ death by 1 shotting yourself. The assignments above, melee-> Adherents, ranged ->Fanatics are in placed because at this point they will be almost immune to spell respectively melee attacks.  Their names will change to Reanimated Fanatics/Adherents and your sole concern is to down yours. They hit twice as hard as well, as an added bonus. You might also encounter the Deformed A/F, just as deadly and just as almost immune to specific damage. They deal thrice the damage but have their speed cut in half. All fanatics hit like Mike Tyson so melee (and you, if you had to go Enhancement for this one) will need to be behind them while someone kites them.

Be careful with the buffs they get. Your priority, the Fanatics, get something to further boost their damage done by 25% so Purge it immediately. For this fight I have my Purge button bound to one of the side mouse buttons, just like for the Jaraxxus fight if you don’t have a couple mages handy. Be on the look-out for Curse of Torpor, which is cast at random by the Adherents on a healer/caster DPS. If you get it stop casting and wait for it to be removed, it’ll make your GCD some 8 seconds and you don’t want that. The boss will cast at times Death and Decay on the ground so MOVE! ASAP, it ticks for some 4-5-6 k and will get you killed din no time flat if you’re not paying close attention.

Time the death of the adds very well when the the Lady’s shield is low so there aren’t any adds up when you move on to

Phase two:

At this point it becomes a DPS race, albeit not a very challenging one after a while and some 6 K DPS raid average.  You will only have Death Yeller, erm, Whisper to handle.

You will get Raid Warnings, Whispers, Yells and so on telling you to BL! Do it! Watch the boss’ cast bar, she will only cast Frostbolts which ARE interruptible. If you see nobody else is doing it, go for it. Even if you see somebody else kicking go for it, they deal a decent amount of damage and can cause death when combined with:

a)      Death and Decay, which she will continue casting at random

b)      Ghosts

Yes, Ghosts! They will spawn at a random location and target a random player, to explode on impact for some 10-12 K-ish AoE damage.  When you see them just run for the hills, they don’t have a very long life and move slower than you do. After they explode go back to DPS-ing and barring any tanks not switching when their debuff hits the mark and/or healers dying from Frostbolts/ Ghosts you should get a kill.

And that will shut her up! Or at least until the next week, that is.

Totem Choices:

Earth Totem:  Stoneskin is your best choice in this fight hands down.

Fire Totem: You might want to start out with ToW and after Lady D’s barrier is down switch to Fire Elemental Totem. If you have a Demo Warlock with the right speck you can go Searing instead in P1 and Fire Elemental in P2.

Water Totem: Unless you absolutely must use the MP5 totem, go with Healing Spring.

Air Totem: Haste, pure and simple.

What the 25 version brings, besides from more adds, is that Lady Deathwhisper will periodically Mind Control a random player (not a tank but I could be wrong here). Do NOT kill him, CC his ass instead. Frog him! Go on! Do it! You know you want to!

This is, at least for PuGs, the make or break fight. A lot of 25 man pugs can’t manage the adds and disband. If you’ve leading said raid try to assign people to sides. It should go something like:

3/4 Ranged + 1/2 Melee on the left + Tank

3/4 Melee + 1/2 Ranged on the right + Tank

At the back you only need a tank, really, because what spawns there is random. If you feel like it then assign somebody, otherwise after side adds are down the respective DPS should switch there and the rest go on the Mana Barrier.

And during P1 always know how much of the mana shield is left. Trust me, it’s important!