We could certainly cut one healer off for each of our fights, but it works for us. I think the best part would be to shave time off our trash clears, but we're down to 6 hours of BT, which isn't *too* slow. I definitely prefer the extra buffer in case something goes wrong.

Question about Gurtogg. We've heard that having all mages spec frost for this and being in the same group (say 4 of them) to iceblock, coldsnap iceblock out of it will work to alleviate the strain of healing substantialy? Since we raid with only one shadowpriest (thanks to three of them being without houses/internet) it seems like a plausible/smart idea but I'd love some feedback on it.

It does work, but isn't nearly required. 4 mages will make it a lot harder as well since they are the worst possible target for felrage.

Just bring a few holy priests, and innervate them at sensible times so they can sync innervates with a trinket click.

Well 3 then, we always bring 3 mages and 3 or 4 warlocks to our raids. Last night on kaz'rogal we actually had 4 mages which was kinda bad, warlocks lifetap > mages on kaz'rogal :P Anyways I'm still wondering if Im gonna have the 3 mages we will bring to Gurtogg respec frost for iceblock or not.

If you are struggling immensely, then sure it would probably help. I don't think it isn't anywhere close to required though, and you'll have a lot easier time if you bring multiple rogues instead, if that's an option.

Something absolutely obvious but that not a lot of people do is to ALWAYS put paladins in the double bloodboil groups, since paladins will get an insane amount of mana from getting healed through bloodboil.

Wow Web Stats

Check out this kill, it is only our 3rd kill, and look at how much mana the paladins gained from getting healed.

I see, I'll remember the palidantactic! Regarding rogues, we usually bring 3-4 and yes we could probably bring more but we are a guild that likes to progress together and we very very seldom swap core-players out for stacking raids in a spesific way. In our core we have 3 mages, 3 warlocks etc. I'm not sure why I'm worrying too much about the encounter before we even see it, we have in the last 8 days downed 7 new bosses in hyjal/bt without much problem, so I'm sure we'll tackle him when the time comes. But it looks like a very hectic and hard fight so I'm as always trying to find ways to alleviate stress/problems and increasing our chance of success without leaving anyone behind or screwing people over :P

We went Rage -> Naj'entus -> Supremus -> Akama -> Anatheron -> Teron Gorefiend -> Reliquary of Souls -> Kaz'rogal.

two hardest fights there were probably kaz'rogal and ROS. Yes I think Kaz'rogal is harder than Teron by far :P Maybe cause we went with only medallion of karabor, priest shadow res buffs and nothing else.

I see, well you might be right we'll find out =) Oh and no, our mages would NEVER want to sit out instead of respeccing, atleast not in progressionraids or in uppercontent. SSC/TK sure :P

My guild is facing the decision whether to kill Archimonde or Illidan first - in both instances that is pretty much what is left. I know that my guild wants to do Illidan first because of a potential server first, yet, if Archimonde is easier by far I think it might be a better choice to do him first.

So could you give me a difficulty rating for Archimonde/Illidan if - say - I use the following scale (higher = harder)

5 : X?
4 : RoS
3 : Bloodboil
2 : Naj'entus
1 : Akama/Winterchill

I found Illidan to be the easier and more controlled fight. Once we've killed Archimonde quite a few times now it's feeling very easy, but the initial 80+ attempts were very frustrating.. while Illidan was fun learning. Illidan really comes down to phase 2 tanks learning to dodge beams, after that it should be smooth sailing. Fear ward for all priests now and the change so feared tanks don't lose aggro should help on learning Archi now too though.

The catch with Archimonde is that it seems to be a less demanding fight in terms of healing & damage. This is actually a pretty big shift from a lot of fights up to that point. Given that most players have been conditioned to squeeze out that last bit of dps, or to land that heal no matter what, trying to get them to switch into a "just survive" mode is pretty difficult. The most frustrating aspect of Archimonde isn't really the fight itself, it's going through attempt after attempt waiting for people to finally "get it" so to speak.

Bloodboil & RoS are much more "stat fights", healing & dps respectfully. I think by deciding to do Archimonde first you'll give yourself a little more time to gear up via Najentus->Teron & Hyjal, which should get you the gear you'll need. Not to mention the hearts for Mother Shahraz.

Consider that Illidan has far, far superior loot too. Get started on those warglaives ASAP!

This is what impressed me most about the fight and its innovation in terms of the philosophy it forces you to adopt (aka 'just survive').

Personally I think that guilds that just kill Kael should kill up to Azgalor (wont take long) +Akama then go directly to Archimonde. The catch is, of course: whether you have fast/slow success on Archimonde is hugely dependant on the strat you adopt and your players skill+learning curve for the fights survival-mentality.

If you have good players and a solid strat, id recommended trying to kill Archimonde ASAP. His loot is still excellent and your raiders will be happy there is an 'uber loot farm boss' killed weekly as you shift your new direction to Illidan.

Well, as it stands, we have a choice as we have Azgalor down and Council should die this week. I'll probably do Illidan first (yes, Warglaives ) and then go for the survival boss.

Thanks for the help.

It's funny how different guilds react differently to encounters. We pretty much killed the first 4 bosses in MH in a row without giving it a second thought. Actually the hardest part in MH before Archimonde was figuring out the Kazrogal trash (especially the gargoyles at the back), but Kazrogal itself seemed really easy, we wiped only once on him overall and it was our first attempt. We also use only the Medaillon and priest buff. On the other hand Teron caused us quite a few problems and we haven't approached Gurtogg or RoS yet. I think the other similarly progressed Horde guild on our server killed the first 4 bosses in their first couple of nights there, so I would really advise guilds starting in t6 to go this route - MH is quite easy, quite enjoyable, nice loot, and better start with the rep grinding as soon as possible.

I see where you are coming from though. Yea I agree hardest part of kaz'rogal was learning trash we killed him third attempt we got to him and ye we only used medallion and priest buff but we did get NPC's involved (thrall and warstomp warriors).

The reason we went teron and ros before kaz'rogal was mainly cause it was just easier to get to them, we just couldn't be arsed learning trash but teron was quite a simple boss, ROS wasn't very hard either just required us to optimise each phase accordingly. I think we are going to focus on az'galor now though before we attempt Herr Gurtogg.

Using the right combination of mana potions, gems, evocation and a shadowpriest I rarely go out of mana during Kazrogal. We found the fight to be pretty easy, like the rest of Hyjal (with the exception of Archimonde). We are at 5/5 Hyjal and 7/9 BT now, hardest fight to learn was RoS Phase 2. With Archimonde it just made "click" at some point and after many 80% wipes we went down to 27% and a kill. When we came back the next week Archimonde died within 3 pulls.

It's worth learning the first four Hyjal Bosses before entering BT. They are easy to do (even Azgalor if you have good healers). Afterwards you will be able to do them within 2-3 hours and Najentus, Surpremus, Akama (possibly Gorefiend, he was easy enough for us) will die in quick sucession. Doing Hyjal also yields a decent amount of hearts of darkness.

Edit: Fixed some tpyos. I am way too tired.
Edit 2: q.e.d.

Yeah well, you're a mage. On the first few kills I did our Spriests did go OOM e.g.

I read many pages of this thread, yet I don't have a clue where to go next.

My guild now is 4 weeks into t6 content. We cleared MH up to Kaz'rogal first. Last ID we one-shot Winterchill, Anetheron and Kaz'rogal and went into BT for the first time the next day, easily killing Naj'entus, Supremus (and Akama). Yesterday we went for Azgalor (only tried him once before and unprepared) and he went down on the first try.

But what to do now?

I consider going for Archimonde, because of no trash and better loot, but am in fear of maybe demoralizing the guild with too many wipes. On the other hand I don't know, how hard Teron or Gurtogg would be.

Honestly, archimonde is probably the most frustrating experience out of everything in those 2 instances. It's a flip of a coin, if your raid members get a couple good days they will take him down and everyone will be happy, if someone's having a bad day or chain dc's or has lag or his cat lands on the keyboard or his little brother shoots him with his water pistol or various other things I have heard from raid members, you are about to enter a world of pain.

Teron is certainly easier, RoS has a longer learning curve but it's also much easier, gurtogg is not as difficult, but difficult in a different way. In retrospect, we did only 1 archimonde kill before Illidan and I think it was a mistake to even do that as it just took us way too long. I would leave him last honestly. His no downtime/no trash recovery is a bait to lure you into his trap of frustration!

There are some pros and cons to attempting Archimonde. We were 4/5 and 4/9 (Teron is quite easy but can be frustrating if the first 2-3 persons called don't manage clean kills of ghosts) and we went for Archimonde, spent 4 nights on him before getting the kill. I don't imagine we will really get him on farm status due to the nature of the fight (but maybe we will, too early to tell) but I think it was positive for the guild. MH/BT was a bit "easy mode" up to that point, and Archimonde was a good challenge at that point. The satisfaction of killing him, of getting access to a second piece of t6 gear and of clearing a new instance was really good. Gurtogg seems much easier, for example, but killing an end boss in t6 has nice motivational side effects.

Moreover, the time investment was really important, but otherwise it's fine - just flask and die in doomfire and the cost of wiping repeatedly will be minimal.

I'm looking at this for our guild at the moment as well - I'm sorely tempted to stick to Hyjal through to Archimonde even before setting foot in BT precisely to avoid the hell that was Vashj & Kael back to back.

We might be turning down 'free kills' early in Black Temple, but at least we'll be pacing progress so that we're not banging our heads against a wall for potentially weeks on end. It's not as if we're in a particular hurry at this stage of the game anyway - we're a loooong way from server firsts, and I'd rather make the journey as fun as possible for our raiders.