U10: Knock x3 Freya Hardmode

Knock Knock Knock on Wood

This achievement is earned by leaving each of the 3 Elder elemental bosses still alive when you engage Freya. Each of them grants her an additional power that makes the Freya fight much more difficult. You must still face 6 waves of the three types of add spawns, and there's still a major sigh of relief once you reach the end of the add spawns, but overall this fight is far more difficult and intensive for your whole raid.

Video:

Our MT and our warlock each frapsed it so you have choices on perspective: the prot pallie's video can be downloaded from filefront, while our warlock's is embedded below from YouTube (and may or may not be muted :( ).



Raid Makeup:
On our kill, we used:

• Prot Pally
  
• Resto Druid
• Holy Pally (with Aura Mastery)
  
• Holy Priest
• Fury Warr
• Ret Pally
• Feral Druid
• Frost DK
  
• Surv Hunter
• Destro Warlock

New Abilities

These are the powers Freya has gained over normal mode.

• Freya: +60% magical damage, +75% physical damage
• Adds: +60% magical damage, +50% physical damage

• Unstable Energy: don't go sunbathing here. These sunbeams are big and bright and can be easily moved out of, so make sure to watch out for them around all the raid's own AoE.
  
• Ground Tremor: raid-wide AoE that will also interrupt any spell being cast. It will eat a chunk of every player's health and spell-lock anyone too slow to cancel their casts as it goes off.
  
• Strengthened Iron Roots: these roots make druids jealous. They will root the target in place and do massive damage; they must be destroyed by DPS to free the player. Targeting macros can be made with "Strengthened Iron Roots," and "Iron Roots" can be added as a watchable debuff on your raid frames.
  

These powers will be used randomly and regularly throughout the entire fight.


P1: Adds

The spawn order of the packs is semi-random, just like Freya easy-mode. The first 3 spawns will be each of the 3 packs in any order, and the second 3 spawns will be a second wave of each of the 3 packs in any order. Thus, you will always see each type of spawn twice, and can usually guess which the third and sixth waves will be by process of elimination.

Ancient Conservator:

Mushrooms: All DPS should halt immediately and move to the safety of nearby mushrooms; melee should follow the tank, and healers should do their best to run to a mushroom within range of the tank's chosen mushroom. Avoid clustering too many people at one mushroom, as it will doom you to more damage if any of those players are hit with Nature's Fury or Unstable Energy. The raid leader can, at the start of this spawn, call out "Mushrooms!" as a reminder to healers who may be otherwise busily Gridlocked on their raid frames (it is a very healing-intensive fight!). As with normal mode, being out of range of the mushrooms or an Eonar's Gift will prevent the player from being able to attack or cast spells.

Wait until the MT is comfortably in place at her mushroom before beginning dps. A hunter can quickly misdirect the conservator to the MT upon its spawn, but both the tank and the hunter will still need to find a mushroom in order to really establish threat. Freya can easily wipe out a DPS who begins too quickly and gets aggro.

• Ranged DPS: You will be responsible for almost every Eonar's Gift tree that spawns during this add wave, so be sure to keep an eye out for them. You should also be dpsing any Strengthened Iron Roots that are cast during this phase, as the melee will have limited mobility in assisting this. Remember to stop casting when Ground Tremor goes off. Keep a constant eye on the growth of your mushroom and any new mushrooms growing nearby, as you will need to hop from mushroom to mushroom as they grow and die. If you get Nature's Fury on you, the most important thing is to run away from any players you may be hitting with it! Being in range to DPS the conservator is of less importance than making sure you aren't hurting the other players nearby, so if there are no free mushrooms, just run out in the clear spaces without them, as long as you are in range of healers. Also bear in mind that if a healer gets Nature's Fury while you're sharing a mushroom with them, it would be better if you moved away and left the healer to the mushroom by themselves, because silenced healers result in dead tanks.
  

• Melee DPS: As you will have limited mobility, you will be mostly focused upon the Conservator as you share a mushroom with the MT. It is of utmost importance that if you get Nature's Fury on you, or if the tank gets Nature's Fury, that you run away. You can sit out where there are no mushrooms if you have the lightening on you, as long as you are still in range of the healers. Otherwise, if there are any Strengthened Iron Roots or Eonar's Gifts spawning in range of your melee attacks while you are under cover of a mushroom (or Eonar's Gift), take them out quickly then return to dpsing the Conservator.
  

• Healers: HoTs on the MT will help a lot as you and the other healers find yourselves a safe mushroom. If at all possible, select a mushroom that is within range of the tank but not being shared by other players, to reduce the impacts of a sudden Nature's Fury. If you get Nature's Fury on you and have no other mushrooms to run to, use your judgement based on the number of other healers sharing your mushroom: if it's just dps, tell them to go away and leave the mushroom to you :) The important thing is to keep healers and the tank alive and unsilenced, so healers have priority on mushrooms! Keep a constant eye on the growth of your mushroom and any new mushrooms growing nearby, as you will need to hop from mushroom to mushroom while the dps works down the conservator.

The Trio:

This pack can instantly wipe out a player who is caught near them as they spawn. There is no real difference here from the normal-mode, except that they deal far more damage than before, so all players must be especially aware of staying out of range of the Snaplasher (once it is rooted), and interrupts should be on the Stormlasher. Our lock died on the kill because of doing a flying-tackle-hug into the Snaplasher ;) He's not gonna live that one down for a while. <3


Detonating Lashers:

This is the group that gave my guild the most trouble.

When they spawn, the entire raid should move in on Freya, circling the area in a small ring with the lashers in the middle. The ring should be about the size of the typical AoE attack, so that all AoE can readily hit the lashers evenly. You don't want to be too close together, or the sun beams will make short work of your group. The raid leader can call out when a sun beam forms, so that DPS can note it and move away from it, rather than mistake it for friendly AoE.

Once the Lashers are AoE'd down to around 20% HP, DPS needs to STOP and the group needs to spread out. At this point, there should be a cooldown timer up on your boss mods regarding the next Ground Tremor: wait for it to cast, and then wait for the healers to catch up on raid heals. Only then should your DPS be allowed to continue: they then pick a single target of their own and dps it down. When the Ground Tremor cooldown is up, all DPS should STOP again and wait for the healers' "all clear" signal before continueing again.

It is your own DPS that can wipe the raid on this pack.

• Ranged DPS: will be in charge of killing any Eonar's Gifts that spawn away from the group during this pack, while melee can easily take care of any Strengthened Iron Roots. Stop all AoE when the lashers reach about 20%, then spread out so that you don't take all of the detonations when the lashers begin to die. Wait for ground tremor to be safely out of the way and for the raid to be moderately healed up before beginning single-target dps on a lasher of your own choosing. If at any time you hear a stop/hold on DPS, then STOP.

• Melee DPS: you will likely be in charge of killing any Strengthened Iron Roots that spawn in the group during this add wave. Stop all AoE when the lashers reach about 20%, then spread out so that you don't take all of the detonations when the lashers begin to die. Wait for ground tremor to be safely out of the way and healed up before beginning single-target dps on a lasher of your own choosing. If at any time you hear a stop/hold on DPS, then STOP. If you have a taunt/death grip, you can use it to pull a near-death lasher away from a healer or other squishy before it explodes. Avoid clustering too closely with other melee while killing lashers.

• Healers: call out for DPS to stop if any players are near death. This add pack is the easiest to wipe to, and wipes are by your raids' own hands and claws. The Ground Tremors just complicate things all the more. Move out of sunbeams, call out if you have roots on you, and move away from the pack when the lashers reach about 20% health and the dps starts single-targeting them. HoT up as many people as possible.

Holy Pallies: akin to Vezax hardmode, you may want to pop Divine Shield and then use Divine Sacrifice on the raid (holy pallies may want to thus pick up Divine Guardian in their spec for this fight). If there are multiple pallies available to do this, then one can use their sac on the first lasher pack, and then the second on the next lasher pack. Also, if your raid is having particular difficulty with this add pack, you can spec into Aura Mastery to add a click-use buff for your FR aura.

Resto Druids: Keep rejuvs and WG rolling as much as possible, and use swiftmend/NS+HT to quickly pop someone up who is close to death. Keep regrowth and a lifebloom or two running on the MT, as they will still be tanking Freya.

P2: Just Keep Killin'

Grats, you're almost out of the woods now! Just like in easy mode, most of the trouble stops once the 6th wave of adds has been defeated. Kite Freya to move the raid out of the exploding cabbages, stay out of the sun beams of unstable energy, free those caught in the strengthened iron roots, and stop casting when ground tremor is about to cast. Compared to juggling all of this when there were adds up, this is a victory lap.

At about 1%, Freya is once again knocked to her senses, and she will gift you with extra goodies for not killing her Elder buddies.

"I'm just going to keep kiting, kiting, oh hey a tree.... SWEET, I FOUND A TREASURE CHEST UNDER THE TREE!!!! Were we fighting something?... meh"