Hello guildies!
Congratulations! All that remains of our Elemental Progression is Plane of Earth, The Rathe Council event!
This event is probably the most involved and will require the most coordination of any raid we've done. However, I'm confident we'll get a win, if we know what to expect.
So here's a quick look at the event, and the strategy I plan to employ. Please chime in if you feel differently, or would like to offer a suggestion.
The Rathe Council Event
Plainly, the Rathe Council is 12 mobs that must be killed within 7 minutes of each other to spawn the Avatar if Earth. If we kill the Avatar of Earth, we win!
Sounds simple, but the problem is the 12 Councilmen have a lot of hitpoints, and killing them 1 by 1 will not be doable within 7 minutes.
The Councilmen
6 of the councilmen are mezzable
6 are NON-mezzable
Each individual councilman hits very hard, and casts Earthen Vengeance every 60 sec, an AE DD (1000 hp) and a DoT (100 hp/tick, slow etc).
The Strategy
Curing
One of the most important things to remember on this fight is that CURING is KEY!
You must cure the Earthen Vengeance as quickly as possible. Dedicated curers will be assigned to each group (depending on raid make up)
The AE is 4 curse counters. This means REMOVE Curse, Radiant Cure and Word of Healing can cure this.
Quicker casts are key. Remove Curse works instead of Remove Greater Curse (faster cast, less mana)
Curers: CLR, SHM, DRU, PAL, BRD.
Pulling
This will be one of the more difficult aspects of the fight. As the AE going off from many many councilmen will drop monks pretty quickly.
Mezzed Mobs will be pulled first. A Bard can be used to mezz one, pull the added mobs away, then fade. A separate puller can tag (and wake) the mezzed mob and pull it away single.
Unmezzables will be a slightly different process, but they will need to be pulled single, and offtanked individually by an offtank group.
As I understand it, this is the setup for the Mezzable versus Offtanked mobs...You can think of it like a clock. With 12 at North.
^ North
O 12
M M 11 1
O O 10 2
O M 9 3
M O 8 4
O M 7 5
M 6
Part 1: Lock down All 6 Mezzables at 5% each - DO NOT KILL
Once each mezzable mob is pulled to the raid, a tank will hold the mob, while the raid DPSes the mob down to around 20%.
At 20%, all major nukes will stop, and melee DPS will bring the mob down an additional 15% to STOP ALL DPS at 5%...
The Mob will be mezzed at 2% to 5% and held locked down. It's imperative that agro doesn't wipe (on mezz) so the mob regen doesn't kick in.
Once the mob is mezzed and locked, the next mezzable will be pulled and brought to 5%, until all 6 mezzables are locked down at 6%.
Part 2: Offtank the 6 Offtanked (Unmezzable) mobs to 5% - DO NOT KILL
Each mob will be pulled inidividually to a waiting, assigned offtank.
This offtank will have a support group as well (healer, debuffer and curer)
Each mob will brought to around 5-10% and HELD (no DPS) by a tank.
Part 3: KILL ALL Councilmen quickly, one by one.
MUST kill within 7 minutes from first death to last
DPS will Assist the Main Assist as we kill mezzables first, then offtanked mobs, ASAP
Part 4: Avatar of Earth
He'll immediately spawn after last councilman dies.
Hits about as hard as a regular council member, but casts a nasty AE (RGC - must cure) and a deggro mod on the tank.
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Seems like a pretty solid strat. A couple additional comments.
We're not (likely) going to have 7 sets of cleric+tank+curer for the umezzables+ the MA mob, but one tank can handle two of them since the AOE's don't stack, providing they're slowed. Tanks - use your shields until kill is called. No one's impressed by your DPS.
If it can be spared, it's nice to have a tank pre-taunting or (damage free) stunning the mezzed ones to keep aggro of the enchanters in case of a resist or when the raid goes to kill the mezzable one so the MT doesn't have to sit and wait for a successful taunt to break mez.
Likewise a shaman or two running around and keeping them slowed is nice.
When the first mezzable mob is being killed, probably OK to let everyone go ahead and DPS their tanked targets. Knights and warriors don't do huge DPS, but a couple % points won't hurt.
Once the call to finally kill them goes out, anyone in the tanking groups can go ahead and kill your tanks' target, then move to the next closest one (that's not mezzed). You don't necessarily have to switch over to the MA target. Likewise some of the DPS can go kill those too, particularly if you're DoT based, because you're not going to do much damage to a mob which 30 people are attacking which is at 10% health, but a mob only one group is attacking you can get most of your DoT damage in on. So Necros and Shamans (if they have mana) and druids (if they're not RC'sing) can run around and Johnny Appleseed all the tanked mobs with a nasty DoT once the final kill call is made. Just make sure it's a tanked mob, not one who's mezz broke for a second.
If you're not 100% sure what's OK to attack when then final killing starts - then just use the assist.
Have fun! It's one of the cooler EQ events.