Manny and Joce return to a regular episode this week after taking last week off for Thanksgiving. They cover the latest Q & A, as well as the story of Stormsong Valley and its dungeon, Shrine of the Storm.

As always, don’t forget to write in to fazpodcast@gmail.com, or let us know your thoughts over on Discord at bit.ly/fazdiscord . You can support the show at https://patreon.com/FAZ

Blizzcon Schedule Announced

The full schedule has been posted for this years Blizzcon!

Battle for Dazar’alor Raid Testing

On Monday October 8th Blizzard tested two bosses in the upcoming raid

  • Ra’wani Kanae/Frida Ironbellows
    • Paladin boss with adds. The paladin switches between seal of reckoning and seal of retribution which forces you to switch between the boss and her adds.
  • King Grong/Grong the Revenant
    • Dirty monkey that seems to be a dps check that requires you to quickly force the boss to phase before he builds high energy.

Tides of Vengeance Twitch Q&A

Yesterday, Ion and Lore conducted another Twitch Q&A. This time all about the upcoming patch.

  • Azerite Armor
    • A 5th Ring (which is the new outer-ring) with spec specific traits
    • There are no plans to make swapping traits cheaper, and Ion offered the advice to choose generic traits instead of constantly switching between the most optimized trait for each spec, or to have two sets of gear
  • Nerfs to DK and Brewmaster tanks, as well as potentially Disc Priests. Shamans can expect buffs, along with PvP focused buffs coming to Unholy DKs and Affliction Warlocks
  • Warfronts will run at the same time, with one faction attacking one and contributing to another
  • You can’t queue as a raid into a warfront because they can’t balance a coordinated effort
  • Legion Allied races will have their world quests rep rewards doubled to help people unlock these races faster
  • The raid still isn’t named, but Battle for Dazar’alor is the latest iteration
  • The “flashback” to the opposing faction bosses may not happen at the end for both sides. Both sides will have different mechanics. They aren’t concerned with balance for the World First race, they’re concerned with providing interesting content and think the community will figure it out themselves
  • They are going to continue to iterate on Island Expeditions to add more interesting encounters, things like point control objectives
  • RP servers aren’t sharded together except in War Mode and current content
  • https://www.twitch.tv/videos/321244461

Shrine of the Storm

  • Aqu’sirr
    • 2 phase encounter in a small platform
    • Knockback effects can send you flying to your death
    • Tank needs to stay in melee range or Aqu’sirr will do party wide damage with Sea Blast.
    • Watch which direction the boss is facing and side step out of the way of Surging Rush
    • Rush against the push back of Undertow. Healer should spot heal the target.
    • Dispel choking brine and avoid the splash when it is dispelled to avoid spreading new applications
    • Grasping Tentacles will spawn and root a random player dealing damage during the 20 sec duration. Burn down the tentacles quickly to release the player.
    • At 50% Aqui’sirr will enter phase 2 and split create 3 smaller Aqualing copies which have the same abilities at reduced damage.
    • All 3 need a player in melee ranged or they will cast Sea Blast.
    • The smaller copies should be prioritized and killed one by one.
    • After the 3 Aqualings are killed Aqu’sirr respawns at 15% and returns to phase 1 until defeated.
  • Tidesage Council
    • 1 phase encounter with 2 bosses with separate health pools.
    • Brother Ironhull
      • Only the tank should be in front of Ironhull to avoid Hindering Cleave. Anyone hit by Hindering Cleave will have their movement speed reduced by 70%
      • The Tank should kite Brother Ironhull whenever he gains the Blessing of Ironsides which doubles his damage but halves his speed.
      • At full mana Ironhull will cast Reinforcing ward at Galecaller Faye’s location. The ward reduces the damage taken by both the bosses and players within its radius by 75% and removes any debuffs of any character entering into it. Use this to remove the Hindering Cleave snare effect.
    • Galecaller Faye
      • Interrupt Slicing Blast which deals nature damage and then applies a stacking debuff increasing the nature damage the party takes by 20%. Enter the Reinforcing Ward to clear the stacks.
      • Blessing of the Tempest causes any interrupt to spawn a tornado, deal some damage and knock back the player.
      • Swiftness Ward increases the haste and movement speed of everyone within the effect. It also makes those within its radius immune to movement impairing effects. Keep Brother Ironbull out of this buff and try to move into the buff yourself for increased output.
  • Lord Stormsong
    • 1 phase encounter that involves repeated movement and target switching
    • Void Bolt is the interruptible tank damage spell.
    • Waken the Void will spawn orbs that fixate on a player chase them down and explode for burst damage and a 5 sec stun. The stun can be dispelled.
    • Mind Rend will be applied to a random player which applies a 50% snare and does damage over its 10 sec duration. Dispel ASAP as it will be difficult to avoid orbs while under the effects of the snare.
    • The Ancient Mindbender will attach to a player and after 20 seconds mind control them. However, before the 20 seconds are up, the affected player can be released by being damaged to 50% health or less. During this time the player should plow through the orbs to damage the Mindbender and clear the room.
  • Vol’zith the Whisperer
    • 2 Phase encounter which has a number of quasi-enrage mechanics in both phases.
    • The limiting factor in phase 1, is Yawning Gale. Vol’zith will spawn a large void area which damages and silences all players within it. These should be positioned to minimize the amount of space they take up.
    • Throughout the fight Tentacles will spawn near players and cast Tentacle Slam towards a player. Sidestep out of the slam.
    • While active Vol’zith will cast Whispers of power. This will increase damage and healing by 20% but prevents the target from being healed above 90% of their maximum HP. Each stack further increases output by 20% but also further reduces the percentage of health they can be healed by an additional 10%.
    • At 100% energy Vol’zith will cast Grasp of the Sunken City and transition the fight into phase 2. During this Phase the party will lose their breath (even undead) and this works as a pseudo-enrage mechanic for this phase.
    • The tank and healer will be placed into a phase with a Sunken Denizen Add. This add moves slowly but deals high damage. The tank should attempt to kite the Denizen when the healer need to stabilize their health and both should attempt to dps whenever possible.
    • The dps will be together in a phase with two Forgotten Denizens. These adds chain cast Consume Essence which will deal damage to the party and heal itself. This damages both the dps group and the tank/healer group in their own phase and must be interrupted.
    • When one group kills their adds they will be phased in to help the other group. Once all adds are dead the fight will transition back to phase 1.
    • Upon re-entering Phase 1, a swarm of Manifestations of the Deep will come from the water and move towards the boss. If they reach Vol’zith the will explode causing damage to the entire group and gaining Vol’zith some energy. These adds are susceptible to many kinds of crowd control and should be killed to extend phase 1 as long as possible.