There is simply nothing like killing a new boss.

Heroic Al’Akir

A controversial boss to be sure (one that I wrote about way back in the day). Al’akir is a boss that you either love (or mostly) hate. The loot isn’t the best and the encounter heavily tests your personal coordination skills. With our progress winding down in Tier 12, we decided to try and put a check in one of the few remaining boxes we have left. Assembling a 1 tank, 4 healer, 4 DPS composition was the easy part. Maneuvering through the much more tightly tuned Al’akir was the hard part. The placing of raiders on the platform, deciding when to hit heroism and the strategy for flying through phase 3 are fundamental. Two things you might not read in your favorite guide:

1. Preparation
2. Acceptance of Failure

Prep

Each of the players attending the scheduled 10 man raid knew that they would be facing Heroic: Al’akir. They prepared accordingly. Videos were watched. Strategies on blogs and forum posts were read and scanned for tips.  There are small “gotchas” on almost every boss. You can’t see them on the ability list, but you find them after a dozen or so learning attempts. Knowing them ahead of time is a big help.

The biggest contributor to defeating Heroic Al’Akir in a mere 22 pulls was this preparation.

If you are Just-A-Raider, you’ve heard about reading ahead and getting ready for a boss fight numerous times. Don’t just watch a video and throw out the “I need to learn by doing the fight!” and let it go until you get to the instance. It’s true that some folks don’t translate what they see or read into action as easily as others. If you fall into that category, approach the fight like you  are the raid leader. Twenty-four (or 9) people are counting on you to know what’s going to happen. The more prepared you are going in, the less you have to absorb and the more you can simply focus on your phase-by-phase set of fancy dance moves.

Being of aware of what an ability is, how it is triggered, and the best way to counter it, can all be learned before you step one foot into an instance.

You Failed, Get Over It

There are no acceptable excuses for Phase 1 Al’akir failure.

He will screw you over. True. You will be put in some terrible situations. True. You will likely make the wrong snap-judgement. True. You may get clipped by a Squall Line and get carried off. True. None of those are Al’akir’s fault (“THE SQUALL LINE SPAWNED ON TOP OF ME!” “I WASN’T EVEN IN THAT!” I’ve heard them all). They are your fault. If you can make it your personal battle to beat Al’Akir at his own game, you’ll be just fine for the whole 2 minutes you need to spend in Phase 1.

How We Did It

1 Tank (Paladin), 4 Healers (Druid, Druid, Shaman, Paladin), 5 DPS (Moonkin,Frost,BM,Mutilate,Affliction).

Our hunter took care of the adds (with dots from the others). I think our best set of Feedback stacks was 8, and we were able to complete Phase 2 with plenty of time to go on the enrage timer. Phase 3 was an adventure. We did the standard Top-Down-Down-Bottom-Up-Up-Top movement and managed to finish the last 8-9% with only 2 DPS left alive. Heroic gear is nice, but a fancy new title cannot be beat: “of the Four Winds.”

Nefarian on 25 man is next.

4.2 is coming

Hullabaloo about the Valor Points aside, Firelands should be a very interesting instance to work this summer. Only 7 bosses means there will very likely be time to go back and knock off a couple of the achievements that we won’t have time to finish in Tier 11. We fell short of our goals this patch, so there is work to be done in Tier 12 if we don’t want history to repeat itself.

I’m definitely not looking forward to another daily grind (and heroic grind), but I think the lore side of things will help that out substantially.

Matticast Notes

Some technical difficulties (power loss at Brian’s house!) prevented us from recording our 22nd episode this week. Our thoughts on 4.2, Putting WoW on Your Resume, and Officer Chain of Command will be the topics. If you have ideas for discussion topics or questions that you would like answered, tag them on twitter with the #Matticast hashtag or email them to us (podcast ‘at’ worldofmatticus.com).

Blog Notes

I’m continuing to update and massage the layout of the blog as I use it more. If you’re browsing from your phone you’ll notice I now have mobile reading enabled as well as a couple tweaks to the full-browser layout. Hopefully I’ll get to use some of the newer styles soon. My blogroll (‘Friends’) is quite limited, so any suggestions for more active raiding-centric blogs would be great (self-promotion is welcome!).

Coming soon, A Podcast Link!