Sunday, July 19, 2009

A Resto Druid's Guide: Freya

.
Freya is kind of a pansy. But I don't blame her too much. If I were a boss who was getting killed all the time, I'd attempt to protect myself with absurd amounts of trash, too. Not that it helps her or anything. MWUAHAHAHA

Once you've gotten through all the trash, you're ready to take on Freya herself. She starts off with 150 stacks of Attuned to Nature, and the only way to reduce this stack to 0 is by killing all the mobs that she spawns.

Who's tanking?
You're going to have one tank on Freya, and two others to pick up various adds during the first series of phases.

Where should I stand? Pretty much in the middle of all the action, with a couple exceptions - until you get to Phase 2, with the seedling bombs. We'll talk about that later.

What's going to happen? Well, the first phase is made up of 3 mini-phases, that are repeated twice - so 6 mini-phases all together. These mini-phases can come in any order. The only thing you know is that each one will occur twice. They'll spawn every minute, so if you've got high raid dps, you might find yourself with a bit of time between phases. If your raid dps is a little low, you might find yourself overwhelmed with adds towards the end.

Throughout ALL of these phases, there are a couple things you should watch for: 1. You might hear your raid leader say "Tree in the raid" or "Tree near the river" or something like that - periodically, Freya will start to grow a glowing tree, which will have to be dpsed down as soon as possible, lest it heal Freya and her adds. It doesn't do damage to anyone, though, so as a resto druid you don't need to worry much about it. 2. Freya sometimes will Sunbeam someone in the raid. I'll be honest with you all, I literally just found out about this ability like, 3 minutes ago. I asked my raid leader to look over this guide to see if I missed anything and he was like, "Sunbeam!" I was like, "Sunbeam? Wtf is that." There's so much damage going out all over the place, that this sunbeam ability is just one more thing you have to heal through. Don't stress too much about it - you can't avoid it or stop it. When you see damage from it, just heal it on up.

Mini-phase 1: "It's the big guy, find a mushroom!"
Freya starts this phase by saying, "Eonar, your servant requires aid!" and a big Keeper will spawn (looks similar to the three you just killed during trash). When you hear this, you want to do a few things: 1. Look for a mushroom and get under it (you'll get the Conservator's Grip debuff that will silence you if you're not under a shroom), 2. Start hotting up the person who's tanking the big guy, and 3. Watch out for the Nature's Fury debuff. If you get it, throw a couple hots on yourself and run away from everyone else! Keep an eye on any other people who get it, too, especially those who aren't healers, and throw a few hots on them as well. Even just one rejuv or LB will help immensely. If they've damaged people around them, and quick WG works well too.

Mini-phase 2: "AoE pile, group up"
Freya starts this phase by saying, "The swarm of the elements shall overtake you!" and a bunch of little flowers will spawn. They don't have an aggro table, so there isn't a single tank you should be healing. The raid will want to group up and AoE the pile down to about 50%, at which point everyone should *spread out*, and the DPS should single-target assist the offtank. If all goes well, they'll take them down one by one. When the flowers die, they do AoE damage, so be ready for a lot of raid healing. I've found that rejuving the raid when the flowers are at 50% really helps. Once the damage really starts to go out, I use WG and Nourish to top off the raid.

Mini-phase 3: "Trio!"
Freya starts this phase by saying, "Children, assist me!" and three different mobs spawn: Snaplasher, Storm Lasher, and the Ancient Water Spirit. All three need to die within 12 seconds of each other, or else they'll rez. One tank will take Snaplasher, and another will take Storm Lasher and the Water Spirit. Every time anyone hits the Snaplasher, he gets a stackable buff that increases his damage by 10%. If this buff stacks too high, it is positively lethal to the tank on Snaplasher. Make sure you've got a healthy stack of hots rolling on that tank to ensure he stays alive. After the buff reaches about 30 stacks, ALL dps should stop hitting Snaplasher and move to another target. Once THAT target is low, they should move to the next target. Once all three targets are around 15%, the raid should be able to bring them together and AoE them down all at once.

Remember, each of these phases happen twice, and they can happen in any order, so be ready for any of them at any time! I *don't* think, however, that any given phase will happen twice in a row. So if you have a trio, you know it's gonna be either the mushroom guy or the AoE flowers next.

So what's phase two? After all the chaos of these mini-phases in phase one, phase two is pretty simple. Burn down Freya - she's got no more healing stacks on her. Woo! And pretty much just heal the tank. Easy! But she does this thing where she'll spawn little seeds right below your feet (they're called Nature Bombs). After 10 seconds, if you're near one, it will explode, doing a ton of damage and knocking you back. You want to avoid these! You want EVERYONE to avoid these! But if everyone is spread out doing their thing, then all the seeds will be spread out too, and it's pretty much impossible to dodge them.

So, as soon as the last mini-phase is over, all ranged dps and healers will want to group up on a designated person (it helps to lucky charm them). If you're all clumped up, then the seeds that spawn will be all clumped up, and you can all move over about 15 yards and eeeveryone can avoid them. The seeds will explode, no one will take damage, and then when the seeds spawn again, you just move over to your original spot and avoid them again. Flawless!

What healing do I do in phase 2? Hots on the tank, and be ready for a rejuv + swiftmend or a quick Nourish on anyone who straggles behind and gets hit by a Nature Bomb.

LOOT!

[The Lifebinder]
[Leggings of the Lifetender]
The token for [Conqueror's Nightsong Leggings]

.

6 remarks:

Aerivore said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Aerivore said...

Oopsies!

The group up method is really nice. I wish more people were aware of it - the first guild I was in, and even this one before we tried the group method, were running around like crazed chickens. It made healing fun... But hectic. Grouping = win!

Averna said...

@Aerivore: Agreed!! We used to run around like crazed chickens too.... now phase 2 goes reeeeal smooth. =D

Steven Casagrande said...

You're right when you said that no add group will happen twice in a row, and that each group will appear twice throughout the encounter.

Nice writeup!

Anonymous said...

Hemm, actually Belt of the Crystal Tree drops from 10-man council HM.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45455#comments

Thanks for the guide.

Averna said...

@Anon: Ah, thanks. Yeah, I don't know how that weaseled its way into my loot table there.