Shade of Aran - Revisited

There seems to be a recurring theme whenever we've stepped into the room that houses the Shade of Aran. No, I'm not talking about last week's fiasco when somebody kept moving. This theme goes even further back then that. Yes, this is probably review for a lot of folks, but I know it's important.

I'm not sure what the most important thing is when fighting Shade. There probably isn't one single thing. Keep the Fireballs and Frost Bolts interrupted. Run away when he sucks you in in preparation for the Arcane Explosion. Move in a clockwise motion to stay away from the Blizzard. Don't move, change direction, or switch forms when Flame Wreath is up. Those are all important. People generally seem to remember those quite easily, and that's probably due to the fact that they happen throughout the entire encounter.

But what I want to talk about are the elementals that spawn at roughly 40%. First rule: You cannot ignore them. Every single time I've tried to kill Shade and somebody wants to "just burn him down" when the elemental spawn, I know it's going to be a wipe. Banish them, fear them, make them scream like little girls, tank them... something has to be done. Furthermore, something has to be done with all of them. If you ignore them, they will quickly single-target the healer with the highest threat, and destroy him quite rapidly. I did mention that all of them need to be picked up in some form or another, right?

Last night we pretty much went straight to Shade (Moroes, Opera, Curator first, obviously). We started a bit late, but one-shotted all the bosses before Shade. We only had time for 2 (or was it 3?) attempts on Shade. The first time, our warlock died in the first Blizzard with some Arcane Missiles on the side. (Oh wait... that's what I thought happened, but it was never clear exactly what went down.) Then the next time, we were doing great at the beginning. Once the elementals spawned, things went South real quick. The plan was to banish one, then kill the rest individually. I don't think we were very good at single-targeting, nor were we good at picking them all up. Sounds like one of our healers got pummeled by 2 elementals. Go figure.

At any rate, now that we know what's wrong, it should be an easy walk in the park tonight. Keep in mind, that a lot of the new people we have, haven't run these instances before. It's one thing to explain fights, it's another to see it in action and actually do them.