Alysrazor and the Flying Hunter

Let's be clear: Dwarves like to be on the ground.  Being thrown is right out. Flying is almost okay. It's really the domain of Goblins and Gnomes though.  You know; The little people.  If there's a short mage then this should be their job.  Unless they are scared of heights.

We've been hitting Alysrazor since I got back from vacation.  I guess this is the third time we got attempts in.  Past nights, we had just about every typical problem happen and some weird ones too.

If you're not flying, then you're DPS'ng and interrupting the caster adds and helping the tanks, then running with the cyclones, and then contributing considerable DPS on the boss.  Then you do it two more times.

If you are flying, then you're flying through hoops while DPS'ng the boss, running with the cyclones, and then contributing massive DPS on the boss.  Then you do it two more times.  If you're doing it all night from various wipes ... well insist on a bit of a break between attempts to stretch your hands and brain.  It's a bit like doing the Heigan dance in 3D.  The fire cyclones are often the relaxing change of pace.

Flying means you really really want to get every flame hoop acknowledged as having gone through.  I've gone through them too fast and not gotten the little fireworks effect.  I had the camera following my feet through the ring and nada. So pass through it and linger on the other side until you get the effect.  Move as soon as you get the firework effect in anticipation of a new hoop appearing.  They disappear quite quickly.  If they disappear just after you go through it you probably wont get credit either.  They can appear quite far to the side or be obscured by the flak.  Don't go into the flak.  It's easy not to.  When Alysrazor drops down to shed more feathers, you'll have rings above her.  She'll molt twice and then the third decent will be to start the cyclones.

Try to keep a reasonable dps rotation going.  While flying you can do Aimed Shots.  Think of it as Aspect of the Fox with a triple espresso.  It's a nice shot to reach for while you're paused after a hoop.  You really can't afford to miss more than one hoop in a row.  You want to be at 25 stacks of the hoops ASAP.  This gives you a +75% crit buff.  If you do the hoops correctly, you'll be at 25 when she comes up from her second molting.  Again remember that you can see yourself go through the ring but not always get the buff.  And if you miss three or four in a row, your flight wings will disappear and you'll plummet to the ground.  Death is bad.

When you land, you must land close -- but not too close -- to the center.  If you land in the second-to-outside or outside cyclone lane you will take a insta-kill shot for being "too far".  Even though you really aren't.  Go figure.  To counteract that from happening, I land towards the middle and have a /cancelaura macro for my wings.  I suspect landing more centrally than outwardly is the key.

After landing, you need to run with the cyclones and you really want to crab a ring or two.  They will appear on the ground.  Don't die to get them, but if you can get one or two it will refresh your crit buff time and leave you sitting pretty for the P3 burn phase.  Summon your pet if they despawned, click your rapid fires and pot and lay into her after the cyclones end.  Here's what I got last night:

You'll notice the DPS drop just before the spike.  This is the cyclone phase and mostly just auto-shots ringing.  Then following the cyclones is the burn.  I was "only" doing 60K the first time around.  I think this is because I was doing a fairly normal DPS rotation.  In the second and third burns, I was laying in as many "hard-cast" aimed shots as possible.   I don't have the cast time of them, but it felt like it was 1 second if not trying to be less. While "focus" is not specifically mentioned as a refund item, focus was hardly ever any sort of problem, so I suspect it is refunded at a fantastic rate.

After Alysrazor gets up to 50 focus she'll get up and start tossing some serious damage.  You should be grouped up and getting AoE heals.  She wont still have her burn phase debuff, but you will still have some of your buffs.  Crank what you can.

Then repeat all this.  Three times.

That means you roughly want to take her down 1/3rd health each round.  If you're MM, you'd ideally like to have her at less than 66% if you're the one flying.  You do a lot more damage to her when you're in the careful aim range.  Ideally, you'll have her down below 93% health before even the first cyclones.  Toss in a hero on the third time through the burn phase and you probably want her around 63% health at the end of the first round.