As I’ve written about before, there are a lot of goodies for everyone in the new five-man instance, Trial of the Champion, and hunters are no exception. As such, I’ve ran it a lot on Tawyn and even more on Lunapike (at this point I’m running it for the gun. About a dozen runs and no gun so far. Our Pike is a Sad Pike. Marrowstrike, on the other hand, consistently and dutifully shows its face every other time. Too bad I got it on my first run…)
Anyways, I’ve ran it so much that I’ve got a good idea on what to do as a hunter. And since I figured there’s always new hunters out there who haven’t run it yet and will probably do so in the near future… here is a handy guide for you! ^_^ It is probably a little skewed towards Beast Masters but hunters of all stripes should find something useful here, I hope.
So here we go!
FIRST BOSS: WALL OF TEXT
It is an “intro” that introduces all the competitors and it crits you for eightmillion, every time, no matter what.
…
…
Okay, so it’s not really a boss. >.> Hey, you can’t blame me, I come from a background where we’d go “HEY GUYS CAN WE GET SOME TIPS, WE CAN’T GET PAST THE GONG BOSS” in Zul’Aman General Chat.
Aaaaanyways…
FIRST BOSS: THE JOUSTING THING
There are a bunch of guys who you will have to joust. I’d direct you to the Jousting movie I made earlier, but this is really quite different because there are four other people who will be doing it with you. The main deal here is to keep your shields up and charge when you can, and shield break between charges.
If you somehow lose your mount (you are unable to heal your mount during this), try to do it near the wall where you can hop onto a new mount very quickly. Otherwise, you may be trampled and stunned, oh, and for some reason it has this tendency to kill your pet. So try to avoid being dismounted for long.
After all is said and done your group is probably going to run out of the instance, because the transition to fighting them is… unpleasant. This is getting fixed in the next patch, but until then, you’re runnin’ out.
Once you run back in, you’ll have a little time to set up before fighting the three bosses. Don’t forget to unequip your lance in favor of whatever your Stat-Stick of choice is.
I open up with a misdirect on the tank + Multishot to help him grab early aggro on the three bosses. The main thing that you as a hunter need to know about this is that there is bubbly goo on the floor that a.) you should not stand in, and b.) your pet should not stand in either. The tank should be moving out of the way of the goo so your pet shouldn’t be in it for very long, so Mend Pet is probably all you will need. Just keep an eye on your pet’s health throughout the encounter, and you should be good to go.
FIRST AND A HALF BOSS: EADRIC THE PURE
You’re either going to get this guy or some other boss. Let’s talk about this guy first. He is, by far, the easier of the two.
Step-by-step instructions:
1.) Hunter’s Mark/Pet Attack
2.) Pewpew
…okay, so there are a couple things you need to be made aware of. The first is a thing where he yells out “HAMMER OF THE RIGHTEOUS!” and hurtles a hammer at you. Basically, it actually takes away all your abilities except for the hammer, and you have to chuck it back at the guy. Pretty self-explanatory. If you “kill” the guy with it you get an achievement, but don’t hold on to it for too long or about 90% of your health will go byebye.
The second thing is that he’ll do a big flash of light which will blind you for a few seconds and make you unable to attack. The easy way to get out of it is to spin around when you see the warning, watch for the light flash behind you, and spin back. If you miss it, it’s not a big deal, I just think it’s kind of fun to do.
It doesn’t effect your pet so just let him gnaw on the boss! Whee!
SECOND BOSS: PALETRESS
This fight is actually really difficult and is probably the first where I’ve developed a little huntery strategy for it. First of all, make sure you have full mana or close to it at the beginning. Viper on the mobs before it if you have to.
Okay, now, this is my strategy. Your mileage may vary.
Paletress will come out. Start doing your thing but don’t pop any cooldowns yet. Don’t Bestial Wrath. Don’t Kill Command. Don’t trinket. Don’t Rapid Fire. Because Paletress herself goes down like a rock without it anyway. Now…
…
She’ll summon something. Usually an old raid or instance boss. This isn’t as awesome as it sounds because instead of the old boss doing all their Old Boss Abilities, they just sort of sit there and smash on the tank and occasionally fear. So, it’s kind of a let-down.
But they’re really difficult to fight.
So THIS is when you pop all your cooldowns. You want that “Memory of [Whatever]” down as fast as possible. Not to mention, Bestial Wrath makes you immune to the fear (which is especially annoying because it also does damage).
Once the Memory is down it’s back to Paletress who once again goes down like a rock.
NOTE: I’m not sure how or why but my pet has this tendency to randomly take a lot of damage throughout this entire fight. I think Paletress and the Memory both have an aura or something that does damage. Anyways, keep a Mend Pet up and keep a close eye on your pet’s health.
LAST BOSS: THE BLACK KNIGHT
This guy is also pretty difficult. There are three phases to this guy, and here’s the lowdown:
1.) Pop everything you’ve got on the first phase– you might as well. Unless you’re a Marksman, Rapid Fire probably isn’t up yet from the previous fight, but don’t worry, it’ll likely be ready for the last phase.
2.) Second Phase! The Black Knight is apparently a Death Knight and summons Army of the Dead. You can AoE them but I’ve found that it’s often best to just focus fire down the Black Knight himself as fast as possible. If you do choose to AoE then keep your pet on the boss while you volley the adds.
The adds will probably be running around so Feign Death/trap to keep them out of your hair. With some luck this phase won’t last that long.
There are green circles on the ground, don’t stand in them. /mock stern face
VERY IMPORTANT: Once the Black Knight himself is down, all the adds will explode. One time I was in the middle of the adds when they did so. I died. Please do not stand near the adds!
3.) For the third phase, the Black Knight turns into a ghost and it’s back to a tank-n-spank. I’m not sure if there’s a threat wipe or not but I always misdirect the tank at the beginning of this phase, just in case. The main twist here is that there’s a bunch of random damage being dished out to all the party members so this is mostly a healer fight. Don’t be afraid to use things like healthstones, Lifeblood, Gift of the Naaru, or health potions here to help alleviate the healer’s woes a bit.
Just get him down fast– most of your cooldowns are probably back by now.
And that’s that! ^_^ Happy loot-diving~
Just a note for Paletress, if you have a Shaman, they can make the memory part of the fight sooo much easier by dropping their fear-breaky totem thingy.
Also a note for Paletress – whenever I tank the fight and have a hunter in my group, I’ll ask them to use tranquilizing shot to dispell the renew that Paletress casts on the Memory she summons. Makes the fight go so much faster!
@Figworth – you can do that? Awesome! *will try it next time*
Nice trick at the p1 Death Knight not needed but still makes impression on other party members – put frost trap at the unlucky guy corpse so than he will be ressed as zombie he will get insta trapped.
The random damage your pet is taking in the Paletress fight is most likely from her using Smite and Holy Fire. She doesn’t have an threat table at this point so she spams them all over the place.
Non-BM hunters who don’t mind the loss of their pet can set it to growl and set it on her because she will spam the pet between spamming everyone else if they’re growling and it takes some pressure off the healer.
Nice guide, I have a couple notes to add:
Faction champions – The bubbly goo only shows up with the rogue (undead if you’re alliance) and is definitely painful. We usually take this guy down first unless the tauren shaman is there, because he’s heals. My usual group has a pretty clear hierarchy of who goes down first: shaman>rogue>warrior>hunter>mage, but others might do it differently.
The Black Knight – I never pop cooldowns on the first phase, it’s a fairly simply tank and spank and he goes down quickly anyway. I do set my pet on the add and burn that down first just so it doesn’t bother the healers or clothies.
Everyone seems to have a different way to do the second phase – some stack on the tank and AOE then run away before explosions. One thing to take note of is that while you are burning down the boss some of the ghouls will still explode – they will do this one by one, and you will know which one is gonna blow cause a big hunters mark (!!) will go over his head and it will grow bigger. Run away from that one or your healer will be angry! Another fun thing to do is try to get the achievement where no one gets hit by ghoul explosions… but you’ll have to dismiss all pets and shaman cant use any totems (unless this has been changed). 🙂
Third phase is when I’d recommend blowing cooldowns – it is healing intensive, but for us it is pretty much a dps race. The shorter the phase, the more likely everyone will come out alive.
Overall I like this instance, even through its bugs it’s still fun to formulate plans and strats for the encounters. 🙂 Write on, Pike!
Another note to add to the jousting phase of the fight. You can get a new mount before your current ones dies. So if your health is low, run over to a mount, click on it and you will automatically switch to a new one. No dismounting necessary.
A nice summary of the instance Pike. 🙂
/resume pew pew
I like the guide, and I’m glad to see you’re getting in some quality time with ToC!
I do have to second Reanda’s point that the third phase of Black Knight is the best time for cooldowns since the sooner he dies, the less stressful it is on the healers.
The second thing is that he’ll do a big flash of light which will blind you for a few seconds and make you unable to attack.
From where I come from, we call this “Fisher Price My First Lunatic Gaze”.
Once you get to Yogg-Saron, you’ll get it. 😉
Random damage on pets during the Paletress fight is largely due to her random smites as somebody else already said. Sometimes people also forget to immediately pull their pet off of her when the memory spawns and then it might kill itself since her shield is reflective and does damage to attackers. (Setting your pet on her intentionally as someone suggested above is bad advice I think, it will just die very quickly.)
Also, during p2 of the Black Knight it’s helpful to drop a frost trap near his feet, as that slows the adds and makes it easier for the tank to keep them close or for ranged people to kite them when/if they get aggro.
Another tip for Paletress – Snake Trap during the memory phase.
The little snakes have a chance of soaking up a smite, saving a bunch of work for the healer.
@ Renada and Neil – If I use all my cooldowns on phase one, they are back by phase three anyway, is sorta my reasoning =X
I’ve done this both as DPS (BM Hunter) and Tank (Prot Warrior)…
(1) Joust… ugh. Much suckage for the tank. Yes I’ll be glad when they fix it.
Hate levels carry over from the joust to ground phase. Which is why most everyone runs away currently to force a reset. Unless the Tank is doing the bulk of the damage during Joust phase it’s a pain to pick them up.
Careful about losing your mount mid-field… They don’t just trample you.. they have all the same attacks that you have. And since you’re not shielded their Charge will do 20k damage, lancing you is 8k… and they can “triple strike” (shield break, charge, lance) for a 30k total.
IMO: Shaman > Mage > Rogue > Hunter > Warrior. Healer, Sheeper, Poisoner, Annoyer and Free Ride. 😉
(2) Priest, Paladin, Monk is the kill order for the packs, kill from Left side (Horde side of room) to Right side. Once you drop the last pack then the NPC will walk forward and become active.
Paladin (Eadric): Tank & Spank. Turn 180 when he starts to glow to avoid the stun. Hammer of the Righteous will ONLY be caught if (1) you’re stun immune (Beast Within) or (2) the stun is dispelled BEFORE the hammer goes into the air (~2 sec cast time). Once caught you only have one button on your bar… “Return the serve” so to speak. 😉 If you kill him with it, congrats, you’re a Face Roller!
Priest (Paletress): She comes out, you beat on her and then she goes immune and heals to full. Once she summons the Memory she will be immune to all damage, but continue to randomly serve up Holy Fire and Smites. Since she is immune you can’t stop her casting so the Healer has to be on the ball. The Memory will have a varying amount of HP (depending on which memory she summons) and will be one of the NPCs that the person she has targeted when the summoning starts has killed (Haven’t killed Ony? She won’t summon Ony). Look at the achievements to see the various things she can summon. Largely Tank & Spank for the Memory, occasional fear but no aggro wipe. Beat it down, then beat her down.
(3) Black Knight. He’s a total jerkwad.
Phase 1: Tank and Spank. Only thing to worry about is the Ghoul. It spawns randomly in the room, aggros to someone. Either Trap or MD to tank. Don’t waste CDs here. It’s too easy.
Phase 2: If you have good DPS you can blow CDs here. He will summon an Army of the Dead. If you have a DK in the group, they can pop AoD and the fun begins. 😉 If not you can either Volley/Kite things around while the group deals with him (if you want to attempt the achievement) or you can just burninate the Knight… Any Ghouls alive when he dies however become explody… just FYI.
Phase 3: This is the deal-breaker here. If you blew your CDs for Phase 2 then you’d better have good DPS. He’s going to come up with an aura that stacks damage on the whole group. He’s going to cast a debuff on a raid member at random (and yes, this CAN hit the tank) that DOUBLES the damage a party member receives. This is where you want to omgwtfpwn him. Usually Shamen will pop Heroism so if you have one in the group you’re pretty safe to blow CDs in Phase 2. Unload it all, enjoy your “Better Than Naxx 25” loot.
Good luck hunting the rifle down! I got it on my 2nd or 3rd run through. It’s too bad they’re nerfing ArP next patch seeing as how that rifle has a lot of it.
Dark Knight Phase3: You need a good healer, but the most important thing is dps who can down him before he deals more damage than is healable. If damage is too slow, no amount of healing can help when he’s oneshotting people
Some things that I’ve discovered about this instance:
Eadric: You don’t have to turn all the way around, you can just turn to the side. That way you can turn back that much quicker. Also, since your healer can heal while facing away from the group so they don’t have to worry about turning around.
Paletress: If you have a pally or a priest with you, shadow resistance helps A LOT when it comes to the damage caused by the memory’s fear. I’ve actually seen it prevent wipes.
Black Knight Phase 2: I concentrate on keeping the addons preoccupied so they aren’t beating on the healer or any other squishie. I can usually take on 2 or 3 at once before the damage is too much. Sure I do less DPS overall but we all survive in the end.
And if someone dies early on in the fight, they can release and come back fairly quickly. We’ve had to do that a couple times with some of our less geared healers.
Indigo Haze already mentioned it, but this bit is really important: when you are fighting Eadric and Hammer of the Righteous is announced, there’s a debuff on the said member of the party. If this debuff is somehow removed, the hammer is caught; in other case hammer really hurts. And same person can get it twice in a row.
Never seen anyone die from this 🙂 But it is that hidden trick, that rules WoW fights.