LoTH made it to Phase 3 comfortably a few times last night.

Phase 2 sucks ballz, but its a real good test and training ground for the raid. Banging our head on her massive boobs for 2 weeks already, 8-10 hours a week. zomg. wtb more vashj runs.

We put range on elemental duty, melee on nagas, mages and 1-2 locks on striders. Seems to work ok for us.

The key is not to miss the tainteds. Even if you miss 1 or 2 tainteds, its gg.

Downed Vashj for the 3rd time in 3 weeks monday night.

The key to this fight is ranged dps. Abundance of hunters and locks will make it easier, but any range class is fine imo.

For P2, we use 6 ppl, preferable all ranged, to control elementals + hunt tainteds. Save your best range dps to take up the 3 spots on east side where traffic is generally heavier. South side (as in S and SW) are usually quiet-er than the other 4 sides.

Place 4 healers, 1 on each side, N, S, E, W. Each healer should be looking after the dps'ers in their sector AND occasionally running close to the middle to get some quick heals off (the side dps'ers will only really need sporadic healing since the only dmg they are taking is forked lightning and the occasional poison bolt).

Kiter, LoTH uses a warlock (me). We experimented with everything. Shammy, Mage, Hunter, Lock, and found that lock searing pain spam with CoEx is the best bet. Very fast agro build up, and CoEx to slow. Besides the kiter, having at least 5 range dps on the strider is REQUIRED. Any less than 5 range dps on strider... and the kill is going to be too slow (do not forget there is a theoretical glass ceiling to the amount of dps possible on the strider = the amount of agro the kiter can realistically build while moving). Even if 1 of the range dps on strider dies early, you may as well call the wipe coz strider dps will just be not enough.

All other melee dps and tanks on nagas. In the last kill we used 1 feral, 1 ret pally, 1 rogue -- more than enough to kill a naga with help from the strider dps once strider goes down (we normally bring the strider down with 10 sec buffer before the next strider pops).

2 tanks play an important role. We have 1 holy pally RF healing in middle. This draws the striders/nagas away from side healers towards the middle. If tanks are not quick enough to pick off the naga from the RF pally, then RF pally will die. If warlock not fast enough to searing pain the strider away from RF pally, then RF pally will die.

We also have at least 2 pallies in the middle to get stun rotations on the striders when they come. This gives ample time for the kiter to build solid agro. All range dps stay on the nagas until the kiter calls for dps on the strider. Having 2 spriests on the strider is also very handy for slow and blackouts; one try we had, the strider was chain stunned with Blackout, and with a combination of HoJs, and nets, didn't move at all before it died. rofles.

During P3, most guides tell you to try to control the sporebats. LoTH generally doesn't bother. Just clean up the rest of the adds first (this gives time for the tanks to grab solid agro on Vashj). Elementals > Nagas > Strider > Vashj.

Then all out dps on Vashj, ignore the bats. Keep Vashj mobile. Tanks should NEVER stand still. Keep moving in a circular motion around the platform outer circle. BoF rotations up, Free Action pots for when BoF CDs. Healers remember to heal those with static charge.

Generally, at the 15%, she'll enrage. Then the poison starts getting really nuts. Once she enrages, we have about 90 secs left before too much poison is on the ground, and there is absolutely no where left to go. Therefore, we have 90 sec to burn 15% of HP. As long as the tanks and dps'ers stay mobile that's more than enough time to finish her. We normally do it with 5-7 deaths by the time she drops.

Misc tips:

1. All locks should be aff for this fight. CoEx is important for P2, 4 dots on elemental = 100% guaranteed dead in P2, dots during P3 is pwnage due to the movement issues.
2. Pallies take the imp BoJ talent.
3. More than 3 melee dps is... not very good.
4. Healers on side duty must help with tainted elem dps.

Hopefully this will help Syck out... haven't noticed you making many tries on Vashj lately...

7 dps'ers on strider and still no buffer before next spawn??

then something wrong with dps'ers... gear issue? lag? not taking enough pots? flasked or not?

we had 3 mages (2 frost, 1 arc), 1 ele shammy, 1 destro lock on strider duty + 1 kiter (me) during our last kill. Still managed 10 sec before next strider spawn...