Healing Heroic Shannox (video guide)

I finally got some video that I’m comfortable sharing with you for our heroic Shannox kills.  It’s not our cleanest kill, to be perfectly honest, but I decided if I waited much longer trying to get a “perfect” shot, the guide would be obsolete.  In all honesty, some of the trouble I have had with getting good footage is because in our first two kills I got myself trapped.  I really struggled with that mechanic of the fight while leading the raid – and ultimately had to take a step back in the “leading” part to fix my performance.  That’s not to say that I trapped myself every time we pull this fight – in fact, 95% of the time I am fine.  But those first couple of kills I managed to plant right into one like a champ.  In fact, our third kill, the guild was convinced we wouldn’t win unless I trapped myself and tried to convince me to do just that (I refused!).

Needless to say, you can’t get a very good feel for healing the fight from inside of a giant block of amber 😉

In this particular pull, there are still a few mistakes we make as a raid.  We have a little bit of trouble resetting Rageface’s stacks early on and lose a couple of people as a result.  We also lose our riplimb tank at 8% – from rewatching the video it looks like his heroic leap didn’t update his positioning in time and the game registered him still in Shannox’s spear throw.  Regardless, I do feel that it’s a good representation of the encounter.

Please note that this will be best viewed in one of the higher resolutions.

A Few Notes!

• The Healing – We use 7 healers for this encounter, but in all honesty we do not need that many.  In fact, we’ve been discussing cutting it down two 6.  However, since our DPS is comfortable enough with the fight and we don’t have issues getting him down timely it’s not problematic to bring in 7 and gives everyone some face time and a chance at loot.  We put 3 on the Shannox tank, who move with him when he kites.  We put 2 on the Riblimb tank who move with him as he moves the dog around the room.  And we put two on the rageface targets/raid.
• Dealing with Rageface at high stacks – It will happen that you don’t get rageface’s stacks reset and they grow unwieldy.  When they become too high face rage will become almost impossible to heal, and raid cooldowns should be utilized to help keep the target alive.  A hand of protection will clear it completely, while a pain suppression, guardian spirit or hand of sacrifice will likely save someone’s life.  Ultimately, the best option is to get him into a trap ASAP and for everyone to get away from him and kite him upon being freed from the trap until his stacks reset.
• Communication! – This is one of the encounters where communication is key.  The Shannox tank needs to be clear about when he’s going to have to kite, so that healers can be in position to heal him as he moves.  The riplimb tank needs to be clear about communicating when slows should go out.  The rageface DPS needs to communicate about if kiting is needed when rageface comes out of a trap, and when rageface has high stacks and his targets will need extra healing.  And, lastly, the raid as a whole needs to communicate the location of crystal prison traps, and to call out if immolation traps need to be disarmed.
• Rageface – We use an arcane mage and a moonkin on rageface to help break face rage.  I honestly have no idea what magic they use to make it happen, but they work very well together and it’s rare for a face rage to last longer than two seconds.  If anyone is interested in how they achieve that, let me know and I can ask them!

Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have questions!  Good Luck!