Hey, look! It's the Illidari Counc...err, Blood Princes!
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After going toe to toe-like appendage with Rotface for an extended period of time, TDC decided to take a break from The PlagueWorks and go check out the Blood Prince encounter, newly opened in the Crimson Halls wing of ICC. This encounter is similar in many ways to the Illidari Council encounter in BT, but does provide some new twists, resulting in a satisfyingly challenging encounter.
The encounter begins with the 3 Blood Princes on the floor. Each of them must be tanked (two normally, one by a ranged dps'er - we chose a Warlock) and share a health pool. The Princes alternate an "active" buff, making only one of them susceptible to damage at any one time. As you might imagine, each of them have different abilities that require the raid to react differently in order to survive. Valanar is all about electricity (which we all know Muddy Waters 'vented), and summons but a Shock Vortex (must be avoided) and Kinetic Bombs (which we decided to pet-tank). Taldaram is the fiery one of the bunch, conjuring both Balls o' Flame and Empowered Balls o' Flame (which require the targetted raid member to kite the ball through the raid, thus depleting damage). Keleseth is the Prince that needs to be range tanked; he specializes in shadow magic, which the tank mitigates by collecting Dark Nuclei from around the room.
While the numerous mobs and different abilities make this encounter sound chaotic, it's a very manageable fight as long as raiders don't get tunnel vision. This encounter is about everyone doing their job, and ensuring that all the pieces of the encounter fit together. TDC made quick work of the Princes, setting up a future confrontation with the Blood-Queen herself, Lana'thal