Around Azeroth: Meet Al'ar
by Elizabeth Harper 
Oct 16th 2007 at 10:00AM
Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wow.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world!
Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Shadows Oct 16th 2007 11:55AM
"and does not take kindly to visitors"
Well you can run anywhere in the room without aggroing him (her? it?) so he doesn't seem to upset by visitors unless you open fire on him...
Hextoras Oct 17th 2007 9:55PM
Said to a friend in guildchat: Soon our guild will rise from the ashes like a beautiful phoenix of progression. then we'll kill that phoenix and take its loots.
Salty Oct 16th 2007 12:15PM
Funny that you should post this today. My guild just took its first whack at Al'ar last night.
It's strictly a coordination fight with two phases, almost everything is quite predictable. The melee/tanks and healers are dancing the whole time and it's really a matter of people not getting themselves killed. The tanks have a huge responsibility around positioning which keeps them on their toes the whole fight.
In phase one, he travels to 4 fixed points in a regular succession (35-40 seconds apart, clockwise) on an upper platform where tanks will be waiting in melee range. After the first position change, it is an unmitigated DPS race as there is no pulling threat from whomever is standing at the fixed spot. After the 4th position, he flies into the air and bombards the upper platform and tanks must jump down. Afterwards, the tanks must charge him at one of two possible fixed positions at the top of the ramps at both sides of the room and resume rotating positions. Rinse and repeat until he dies, ending phase 1. Every time he changes positions, he spawns a low HP add that must be tanked away from the raid and explodes upon death (7000 damage). Because Al'ar during phase 1 is very melee unfriendly, melee will typically be responsible for fighting the adds and must run out well before it dies. At any time if Al'ar is not in melee range of someone, he blasts the whole raid with fire damage (2000 per tick), which is really only an issue after he returns from nuking the top platform and the tanks have to get back into position, which is enough time for him to deal >6000 damage to the raid.
When you "kill" him, he will resurrect, starting phase 2. From what I've read about this phase, he will be tanked on the bottom floor. The platform tanks converge on Al'ar, build threat and keep an eye on each other, as he will occasionally melt away 80% of the main tank's armor, requiring an off-tank to taunt very quickly and become the new MT while the debuff fades on the original MT. He spawns fire pools on the ground which must be avoided by everyone including the tanks (if you aren't good at moving out of death pits by now, there's something wrong with you). And every now and then, he flies in the air, casts a meteor on a random raid member (5000 damage), spawns two of the same old adds at that spot and then lands at that spot. Basically a tank needs to get there ASAP, because while he is not in melee range of someone he ticks 2000 damage to the raid every couple of seconds. The two adds need to be picked up and moved away from the raid each time, then summarily killed in a controlled fashion - towards the end they may begin to add up. Killing a spawn in phase 2 removes 3% of Al'ar's health.
With a little practice and no flaky tanks, this fight seems like it could go very smoothly. There can be horrible luck: Meteor is 5000 damage to a random target, when there is no melee on Al’ar the 2000 damage tick is raid-wide about every 2 seconds, and spawns dying blow up for 7000 AoE damage so it’s plain to see that the crew handling spawns is quite vulnerable to spikey damage.
robodex Oct 16th 2007 12:35PM
Whoops, it turns out when I submitted this I forgot to put my name/realm... But I submitted this :)
Too bad the guild I took the shot with is no longer around.
Seleen Oct 16th 2007 5:48PM
We just got this bird down last night for the first time after an 11, 9 and 3% wipe :(
But, an awesome fight nevertheless and a very beautiful screenshot. He seems a bit arrogant though. Glad we smacked him in the face for that attitude :P