Things I Learned about Prince Malchezaar

So, I've talked about Prince once or twice in my blog. And I noticed that I may have "under-blogged" the necessity to have a really well geared tank. I think I've kind of taken that for granted. Of course, aren't tanks and healers always the unappreciated parts of the party? I'm certainly no tank. My range of tank alts is pretty low. I have a level 32 Druid that has pretty much done everything solo. I have a level 26 Paladin that has seen a few low level instances, and even tanked a few. And I have a level 19 Warrior. So, while I can't really give the intimate details of being a stellar tank, I have noticed a huge difference in different tanks that we use.

As with any class, there's two aspects of how well any toon will perform. First, there's the issue of gear. In my opinion, a warrior taking on Prince is probably going to want to have [Crest of the Sha'tar]. Yeah, it takes a bit of instance crawling in the Tempest Keep to make get the exalted rep required, but it's a guaranteed purple. No matter how anyone rolls, as long as you do enough Tempest Keep runs, this will be yours, guaranteed. For a druid, it's going to be [Earthwarden], which requires Coilfang Reservoir runs until exalted with Cenarian Expedition.

The next aspect, and probably more importantly, is the skill of the person actually playing that character. We often joke, sometimes more seriously than others, that certain PUG toons that we've run across got their accounts off of E-bay. It basically means that they didn't take the time to level to 70 (in the true literal meaning of it) or that they just didn't pay attention to how their class works or should work during those 70 levels. I have seen some exceptional players with mediocre gear pull off truly amazing feats.

Again, Prince Malchezaar needs both. The exceptional gear helps to absorb or mitigate some of the devastating damage that he does. But the tank also needs to know when to take potions or use trinkets, etc. It's a tough fight, and there's some luck that comes in as well. He also can proc Windfurry or something of that nature and do like 16K damage in less than a second.

So, what else have I learned? I've learned that his Shadow Nova, which is always a bad thing to take damage from, has a 30 yard range. Coincidently enough, my wand also had a 30 yard range. Luckily, my Scorch and Fireball spells have a > 30 yard range. So, if I can attack with my wand and I'm enfeebled, I'd better back up.

I've also learned to watch the comets that drop out of the sky and become Infernals. The comet always follows the same initial path, and then it will randomly turn once and follow that path until it hits the ground. It's a bit tough to figure out exactly where it will drop, but you can still get a pretty good idea.

Long story made short about last night: We attempted Prince a number of times. I think we got him down to 18% our first attempt, so we knew it would be possible. On the last attempt, his health seemed to sit at 1% for the longest time. Of course, most everyone was dead at that point because of all the Infernal spawns, so it probably did take a really, really long time. But, more importantly... when it was all said and done... Primogeniture had 2 (or 3) people standing over the Prince's dead body. I think it was the first Prince kill for about 7 of the people on the raid, so it was a great accomplishment.

Those are a few of my observations being a ranged DPS watching out for those darn Infernals. What have you learned from your experiences with Prince?