Vael is rape!

So we got Razorgore down and moved on to Vael who is proving to be quite the difficult bastard. I know he shouldn't be that bad Alliance side b/c of BOS but damned if it isn't hard.

Right now we're putting all the rogues in between his front and back legs on Vael's right side(Vael is facing north towards the stairs). All casters are along that right wall behind the rogues. The blow up spot is down south near Vael's tail. Our 3 Tanks(besides the one who starts with aggro) are on his left side. We keep MT healers with the rest of the casters but closer to the front so they can get range on all the tanks.

We Send 2nd tank in after 5 seconds, 3rd in at 10 seconds, 4th at 15 seconds and DPS turns on at 15 seconds. Rogues vanish right at 45second mark for first tank switch. Guy tanking Vael stands at right peg of the staircase bottom. Tank on deck moves up near Vael's front left leg to be rdy to take over when MT dies. Once he gets it he runs to the right peg of staircase bottom and tanks there while next warrior on deck moves into his slot and so on.

First: we're having trouble keeping our Tank alive. Should tanks be wearing full FR gear for this fight? Like what they wear for Ragnaros? Our warriors seem to take extreme damage. Do we already need Flask of Titans? I don't think most guilds use them for Vael...

Second: Tank transitions aren't going very well after first one. Usually a mage or priest pulls aggro. We only have 2 warriors with defiance and none with full might for Sunder Threat bonus. Should we "recommend" all our warriors get defiance or should it not be needed?

Third: Is there different positioning you guys would recommend? Or better ways to get our tank order set up?

Any help is appreciated.

I do this fight as a priest, so my suggestions will be oriented as such.

Assign a couple healers specifically to handling the OTs. Keep them capped at all times. You will need priests spread out throughout the groups for Prayer of Healing. This is most important in MT healing groups (shammy/paladin and druids), so that they don't have to concern themselves with their own health.

Send your other tanks in almost immediately after the MT draws aggro. They are losing aggro to DPS/healers because they are missing out on that extra time to build aggro at the beginning.

Keep your rogues away from the MT. It sounds like you have them positioned correctly. Cleave can be an immediate wipe, and I've been told it is a chain reaction type thing. On a similar note, keep your rogues up at all costs. They are responsible for a ridiculous amount of the DPS in this fight, and you need to unload as much as possible before your 3-minute buff wears out.

I'm not sure as to the gear for the MTs, but the issue is more likely your healing. Your druids and shammy/paladin MT healers should turn off CT Mana Conserve, as mana isn't an issue, and just spam the crap out of their shortest cast heal.

As for transitions, I think a number of guilds have coordinated which warrior gets aggro, in what order. I think we half-ass that, but just pay attention to the main-tank target.

Other than that, it's a learning experience on each member's part. This fight is vastly different than anything else you've faced so far, and it takes a while to get it down.

this guy tore my guild to peices


we're still rebuilding because of frustration of not beating him made many people leave, although we were clearing mc in 3 hours flat and 1 shotting rag with no potions every week

MT's need at least 275 FR (buffed) to think about MTing the fight. The flame breath does 5000 damage, so if you're not resisting ~50% at least you'll drop like a rock. Healers need to be on the ball, down past like 8% they should almost forget about the mages, hunters, locks, and all that jazz, and focus on keeping the MT, OT's, MT healers, and rogues up in that order.

After 19% the tanks should be SPAMMING execute to tank, it takes a bit more healing but 700 executes every 2 seconds is aggro second to none.

DPS him down.

The key to Blackwing Lair is tank transitions. The healing/dps people should learn really quickly what the line is they have to walk between DPS/healing and Pulling Aggro. Once they have this down, it's up to the tanks transitioning properly. We've killed Vael quite a bit (13 times, maybe) and we can still have a bad night where the tanks aren't transitioning properly and the raid wipes for a few hours.

Priests keep groups up, other healing classes spam mt. Best thing to do is have a macro that assists vael and casts the heal you're using. For instance, as a druid rank 10 regrowth is the best since all that matters is casting time.

All your tanks should be in off the start. Just do white damage if you're paranoid, but they need to be in there. We had an expected order for tanks to get agro, but it may be better for all tanks to go hard and everyone of them be ready to shift into the right position.

Most of your strat sounds pretty solid.

However, dont have priests heal the tanks just have them keep your groups alive with PoH and make the druids + shm/pallies spam fast heal on the tanks.

If priests still pull aggro it means that the people in that priests group have shitty fr and are taking too much damage. Everyone should have atleast 150 fr. If there are gimpy people with bad fr spread them out amongst the groups so that they are not all getting healed by the same priest. Priests do not get any aggro from over healing so the only way they get aggro is if they are doing more actual healing on people with bad fr.

I would also recommend tossing around some battle rezzes if your first couple burning adrenalies go to priests.

Best case scenario is your first 2 burning adrenalines go to like a warlock and a hunter.