Blood Pact: Warlock guide to surviving Trial of the Crusader, part 2, page 2
by Dominic Hobbs 
Sep 28th 2009 at 11:00AM
Twin Val'kyr
This is quite possibly my favourite fight in the instance. I've always liked the shared health-pool concept and all the other fight elements make this encounter really work for me. Four things to look out for:
- Portals that buff you with Light Essence or Dark Essence.
- Concentrated Light & Concentrated Darkness. These are little orbs of light and dark that float about and either buff or damage you.
- Light Vortex & Dark Vortex. This does a load of damage to everyone with the opposing buff.
- Shield of Lights & Shield of Darkness. A bubble on one of the bosses that absorbs damage protecting them while they cast a heal.
The whole fight is about the opposites of light and dark. Fjola Lightbane is essentially a creature of the light so being dark-buffed means you do more damage to her. The opposite is true for Eydis Darkbane. So if you are dark-buffed you want to be on the side that is damaging Fjola.
The orbs will hurt or buff you depending on their color – opposite color to your buff means damage to you, the same color means a stacking buff which when it reaches 100 gives you a haste boost. On the whole these can be ignored, but if you take too many of the wrong color you will need to watch your health until it's recovered. This mechanic means you have to pay closer attention to your health so you don't Life Tap at the wrong time.
The vortex is pretty nasty and so you want to ensure that you have the correct buff to match the color of vortex being used. If you do then you will take no damage from it and actually gain more stacks of Powering Up. If you don't, then get over to a portal to swap over for the duration of the buff then swap back. All this moving about means Demonic Circle can be handy but as there's hardly a time where you can't DPS you might lose as much in setting it up as you gain from using it.
The Light damage in the fight is actually fire, and the Dark (unsurprisingly) is shadow damage. Bear this in mind if you do find yourself light buffed with an incoming Dark Vortex as you can use Shadow Ward in a pinch.
The final thing to look out for is the boss bubbles (Shield of Lights & Shield of Darkness). When one of them gets this then they are about to heal themselves for 20% of their health pool (now 50% in heroic). You need to burn this down quickly so that someone can interrupt the heal. If the bubble is on your current target then just keep nuking. If it's on the other target then swap quickly. You can also change buffs to boost your damage but unless this can be done very quickly it's often not worth the time lost – just get with the damage as soon as you can.
Twin Val'kyr loot
- 10 man - Sandals of the Grieving Soul, Illumination, Darkbane Amulet, Looming Shadow Wraps, Lightbane Focus
- 25 man - Cry of the Val'kyr, Mystifying Charm, Dark Essence Bindings, Skyweaver Vestments
They say that after a nuclear war cockroaches will "inherit the Earth", well, if Anub'arak is any measure then nerubians are looking good for Azeroth. No matter what we do to this guy, he just won't stay dead.
The first two phases of this fight are fairly straight forward. Phase one: the boss is up front and you need to do a load of damage to him. There are adds that join the fight and will be off-tanked. Your raid may call for you to kill some of these but may also just look for all damage to be done to Anub. Phase two: The boss is underground sticking spikes up through the surface and little adds start scuttling about the place. This is time to clean up any adds, starting with the Burrowers. The Swarm Scarabs shouldn't be tanked so if you can't handle having one hit you then kite it (again, Demonic Circle can help). It looks like Anub will wipe his debuffs when he burrows but DoTs remain, so pile them on before he digs.If you are being pursued by Anub'arak in phase two then you need to get onto a patch of Permafrost. These are formed by bringing down the Frost Spheres floating above the room. You may be asked to help DPS these things but as they are constantly moving (out of range) they are not great for casters to deal with. If you have a hunter then they can do the job more efficiently.
So you alternate back and forth between phase one and two a few times until you have brought Anub'arak down to 30% health. At this point you enter phase three. No more burrowing and (normal mode) no more adds. The big deal in this phase is his new ability of Leeching Swarm. This will take 10% of your health and give it back to Anub. This then becomes a big DPS race to finish him off before your healers run out of mana.
As you may have guessed the DPS race is easier if the raid has less health – the more health you have the more he heals and the more damage is required. He will never leach less that 250 health so it is still possible to die from this effect but the less health you have the less damage you take. Many guilds look to keep people's health low to manage the healing he takes, others heal like crazy and put the strain on the DPSers to overcome the healing he takes. Both methods are viable but on hard mode current DPS levels will struggle.
Leeching Swarm has a significant impact on warlocks. If we don't have a nice health pool to play with then before long we don't have a mana pool to play with. It's important to enter phase three with a full mana pool so you minimise the number of times you have to Life Tap. Keep an eye on your health, if you get a big heal then tapping will not only give you a mana boost but also take your health down again without healing Anub. You may also want to think about down-ranking Life Tap for those OOM moments.
Anub'arak loot
- 10 man - Belt of the Eternal, Perdition, Robes of the Sleepless
- 25 man - Lurid Manifestation, Bindings of the Ashen Saint, Handwraps of the Lifeless Touch, Breeches of the Deepening Void, Boots of the Icy Floe , Reign of the Dead
Blood Pact is a weekly column detailing DoTs, demons, and all the dastardly deeds done by Warlocks. If you're curious about what's new with Locks since the last patch, check out the Patch 3.2 Warlock Guide or find out what's upcoming in Cataclysm from the BlizzCon 2009: Class Discussion Panel.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Vandersveldt Sep 28th 2009 11:16AM
So.... you're advice to the warlock is... if the resto druid gets out a couple of DoT's, it's okay, the awesome-sauce mage will be there to spell-steal them?
Yes! I knew it! Mage superiority ftw!
duffry Sep 28th 2009 11:51AM
Hmmm... I was thinking more "If you want to let a few HoTs out then the squishy mages might manage to make it to the end of the fight". Either way if the mage lives long enough to help get me my loot, I'll endure his continued existence for now, and even throw him a bone now and then.
:oP
malaika Sep 28th 2009 11:21AM
Great Warlock goodness (with mage bashing cherry-on-top)!
One note: In my raid, we warlocks dismiss our minions in phase 3 because the leech from them is probably greater than the DPS they provide.
duffry Sep 28th 2009 1:41PM
I'm pretty sure that pets don't take damage from Leeching Swarm so you should be fine to leave them up for the duration.
socklet Sep 28th 2009 11:31AM
"The orbs will hurt or buff you depending on their color – opposite color to your buff means damage to you, the same color means a stacking buff which when it reaches 100 gives you a haste boost. On the whole these can be ignored, but if you take too many of the wrong color you will need to watch your health until it's recovered."
Not entirely correct. 100 stacks gives you Empowered Light/Darkness, which gives you a damage boost. The haste effect is gained by simply colliding with the orbs. Also, you ought to be advocating that even on normal players actively pursue appropriate orbs within a short radius of themselves - Empowered Light/Darkness with trinkets and bloodlust is a massive, massive, massive DPS increase.
sephirah Sep 28th 2009 11:28AM
You forgot Reign of the Dead/Unliving in Anub'Arak loot... BIS Trinket!
Oh wait, maybe some mage is reading this...
Reign of the Dead/Unliving sucks for dps!
duffry Sep 28th 2009 11:36AM
I did indeed, thanks for pointing it out. :o)
Updated.
Eternalmagic Sep 28th 2009 11:29AM
Kirin Tor was here.
Scott Sep 28th 2009 11:42AM
It's great reading a well-delivered Blood Pact. Thank you.
Vanyl Sep 28th 2009 12:10PM
Just a side note: the hots like renew and shield that the faction champs cast, can't be spell stolen. They don't register as 'magic' in a way that spell steal recognizes.
duffry Sep 28th 2009 12:27PM
I was lied to by a mage? That's entirely possible.
I know that they can steal Thorns and Hero/Bloodlust, I only have anecdotal evidence of the heals though.
Vanyl Sep 28th 2009 1:19PM
Well I'm a mage and a lock. Both 80, both belf and both played equally almost every night. Hate the mage me, and love the lock me, whatever you choose. Bloodlust/Heroism is stealable. Thorns is, as well. I'd have to double-check Earth Shield, but I know Renew, PS: Shield (so maybe not Earth Shield), and all heals that are hots, they're a no-no. Not sure on dispells (level 80 priest too but she's never seen the Trial yet), though I speculate mass dispell might get the pally bubble.
As per Wikipedia:
The four healers are a restoration druid, a restoration shaman, a holy paladin, and a holy priest.
* The restoration druid casts Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Nourish, and Regrowth. Two of these can be interrupted, and three of these must be dispelled.
* The restoration shaman casts Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave, Earth Shield, and Chain Heal. Three of these can be interrupted, and one of these must be dispelled.
* The holy paladin casts Flash of Light, Holy Light, Hand of Freedom, Divine Shield, and Hand of Protection. Her Divine Shield will be cast when she is at around 25% health and should be broken swiftly (by Shattering Throw, Mass Dispel) so the Holy Light which she inevitably starts casting afterwards can be interrupted. She will similarly cast Hand of Protection(which can be broken by Shaman Purge) on other low-health NPCs, often the first dps target.
* The holy priest casts Greater Heal, Flash Heal, Renew, and Power Word: Shield. Two of these can be interrupted, and two of these must be dispelled.
I guess you can full on hate mages and transfer the love to priests when/if they dispell those hots. Warlock pride!
Vanyl Sep 28th 2009 1:22PM
Hmm, though you could pretend to tolerate mages for Counterspell, which will work (especially on the pally, yay school lockouts).
korruptor Sep 28th 2009 12:31PM
use demonic circle for quick escape from melee, have healthstones ready, dps main raid target but always have focus on healer/caster for curse of tounges and fear/deathcoil interupt. If there is druid don't be afraid to throw about 2 banishes on him. pretty much lots of arena skills here to manage who to burn and who to cc. We usually place dps over cc because of diminishing returns so cc isn't a priority as much as surviving. If you have shadowfury its a great aoe stun when your running away from the pesky melee.
korruptor Sep 28th 2009 12:34PM
oops that last post was just meant for faction champions and we actually burn the caster mage when my guild does it. yay for killing mages!
Al in SoCal Sep 28th 2009 12:36PM
2 pages - AND macros! Hooray!
O.O Sep 28th 2009 1:23PM
10/10 dominic.
Eff mages.
salaam.dune Sep 28th 2009 3:10PM
It was a pleasure to read this! Thank you for making blood pact a must-read again for locks.
Cyanea Sep 28th 2009 5:01PM
So the Valkyr fight is Ikaruga.
Got it.
Viper007Bond Sep 28th 2009 5:42PM
I would STRONGLY recommend a Felhunter for all classes, even Destruction. DPS is not the most important thing in this fight, stopping heals is. When you burn the first DPS down (rogue usually), having your puppy sitting there purging heals is incredibly helpful to your raid.