Lately, we've been encouraging guild members to plan far ahead and start collecting badges for (an inevitable resistance fight) a time they'll be necessary on a fire resistance fight. We assume this is primarly for Al'Ar, the phoenix first boss in Tempest Keep.

But some questions remain. How much is needed? Can you get away with decent blues? Does only a few tanks need Fr or the whole raid? Do you really even need it in the first place? People are still concerned with the nature sets from AQ/silithus - alot of that crafted stuff turned out completely un-necessary to make and ultimately useless for alot of classes. The difference here is your fire resistance set will be the result of hundreds of hours work - something you won't want to just buy mindlessly with your hard earnt badges. So I think its a fair question for people to ask 'why do I need it?'

In an effort to answer guildie questions I tried to search for some info on Al'ar and only came up with one spell he has: http://www.thottbot.com/s34121

So it basically looks like a fight with a huge stacking firemaw type pulsing aura. People have confirmed he turns into an egg when killed and is reborn. Going on warcraft 3 lore, you can only fully kill a phoenix when you destroy the egg, which itself only lasts for a few seconds vulernable before the phoenix is reborn.

From this spell, my guess is the fight involves simply several cycles of killing the phoenix to make him vulernable as an egg, dps'ing his egg (which would have tons of hp and require more than one cycle to fully kill) and repeating the process several times until you can finish off the egg - before the fire debuff stacks too high. Thats just a guess.

However, id love to know if anyone here has some other confirmed/solid info on the fight. I dont want strat or anything, just an idea of what abilities this boss might have. Is it just a pulsing vaelastrasz type aura? Does he shoot fireballs etc etc?

To help spur people along to work on collecting 100 badges over a few months, id like to be able to say people why exactly they will be so important by referencing the fight mechanics themself - and why simply having 'some blue resist gear' might not be acceptable. At the moment, I can understand peoples apprehension when we suggest you will need 100 badges of justice for an epic fire resistance set on a boss we 'barely know anything about'.

Anyone got some info that could help?

Disclaimer: No I of course have not done the fight, but risk posting anyway because I doubt anyone that has will reply.

That said, I would imagine the fight would be survivable with blue FR sets, but you would not be able to burn down the egg fast enough due to having to wear more FR to hit max resist instead of dps gear. Hence the need for epic.

The ability you listed doesn't require you to have any FR.

Normally I'd dismiss a thread like this with "until you've tried the encounter, don't speculate, guess, or even post" but I do agree with the badge sentiment. I think it's telling that Void Reaver was killed, and Al'Ar was skipped for the time being.

As for fight details though, too early for that. You're going to have to zone in with a 25 man raid and try it for yourself I think -- even if it's something where you die quick a la Sapphiron with no FrR, you'll find out quick enough.

It's logical to assume at some point that FR gear from badges will be needed, so instead of actually spending the badges, just have people save the badges for now?

Have everyone gather the badges, look at the encounter and then decide if you need the fire resist gear *winks suggestively*

You're going to need the FR for something. If it's not Al'ar, it may be Kael, or something else entirely. They didn't put all that gear in for nothing.

Hmmm...I really can't think of anything in the game right now that stands out as needing fire resistance other then Al'ar and Kael...something in MtHyjal? Anyway, the hording of badges for the gear is NOT a bad idea, and I know it's the only stuff I am spending them on, since I don't have time for enough heroics =\

I think it was mentioned in the nihilum interview. Awake just said he doesn't like to die and turns into an egg after you bring him down but nothing was told about having multiple faces to down the egg though.

At 1% p2 starts, pretty sure it's actually 1% and not 0%, but same thing anyway. I did not see any egg gfx, for me he just vanished and came back in the same form with 100% hp, doing different stuff then in p1. In any way there's no event-kind-of-thing like cthun's phase switch, at least nothing I got aware of.

There's a myriad of arcane resistance with no real purpose.

heel did you down Void Reaver yet? If not, consider revising your post.

No one needs arcane resist for Void Reaver. I could see a few melee using some, but it's definitely not a requirement.

There isnt a myraid of arcane resist either. There's fire, and fire only.

Personally I believe firemaw was the most retarded combat design ever made, just because it required maximized fire resist on the main tank no matter how good your gear was. After the taunt changes it became less demanding. You fight Alar with no chance to los the buffet, that on every member, yeesh... However, epic fire resist gear is somewhat cheaper than epic frost or nature resist gear which is a good thing at least.

IF you do it right, the buffet doesnt happen.

Oh please explain the correct way to do firemaw to not get the flame buffet on the MT like the above poster was talking about. Completely irrelevant to current content, but I'm still curious.

he's talking about Al'ar not Firemaw...

True, but what are the chances that they put it in for some big annoying "haha everyone needs FR before you can progress" fight, and then change it so that it's no longer the case once they have more content in the game/enough people complain?

I have my FR stuff already, and a couple I know do too. But the whole guild would take a rather long time. Most of them/us have no need for heroics at all, besides a few crafters for nethers, and without a definiate need for FR gear they're no going to start running them to get badges.

Along that line, I can't see them getting away with a "everyone in the raid needs epic FR or you fail" fight, and unless someone can point out otherwise I wouldn't be expecting everyone to go out farming it.

I believe you're underestimating what Blizzard is capable of doing. You substitute what you wrote with "everyone in the raid needs epic FrR or you fail" fight and you've pretty much described Saph. Thinking back to our Saph kills, I believe everyone wore at least one piece of epic FrR gear. The real telling point for now is whether you need the epic stuff, or if you can get away with the crafted stuff plus a piece or two of epic stuff.

http://www.wowhead.com/?search=plans+radiant

Uhh, that's shadow resist (for the first boss) and nothing else required elsewhere.

Ok, now who's not contributing anything to the discussion :frown:

Anyone can say, "I'll bet you need it for something." But the OP, like many other people (including me), wants to know: how much? On what classes? Is it just to improve effiency, or will you be unable to even work with the fight below a certain level?

Evidently, some of the people on this thread can provide at least some information here.

People in many guilds aren't just going to produce 100 badges for no tangible reason. That's long-term preparation, and has to be addressed on the same time scale as getting people attuned in the first place.

What he's saying is basically this, you WILL NEED IT. Think about the last time this much epic resist gear was put in. Got it in your head? Ok now, what classes needed it, and how much? Great, now we're getting somewhere.