Ghando

The only thing that really could use changing about Archimonde is removing the possibility of Air Burst/Grip (though it's still survivable most of the time with responsive decursers and consumable/timer use). The rest of the fight is totally controllable, and 95% of deaths come as a result of an obvious screw-up.

 

◊ Praetorian

Well, to be fair, I think a lot it has to do with the number of shamans you have. We have ~4 on every raid, often 5, no matter what we're raiding. That makes Archimonde easier for us. I think it's true that with enough shamans, player error really is the culprit most of the time.

However, if you lack shamans, other timers are finite, and if you have 2/3 or more of your raid being feared for the full duration every time, except for when they burn their trinket cooldown, a lot more messy scenarios will crop up.

 

D3cadent

Yep. It's just as I thought when I started this thread. We attempted him our first day with 0 shamans. Our second day with one. The results were disastrous. Without multiple shaman in the raid, the fight IS extended. And you're just creating more and more opportunities for those small things to go wrong.

It's an unfortunate fact, but like many encounters in the current end game, having more shamans in the raid increases your chances of victory dramatically.

 

◊ Praetorian

Well 0-1 shamans is really low. Good luck doing Reliquary with 0-1 rogues, or Morogrim with 0-1 mages, or Hydross with 0-1 warriors. I don't really think it says anything one way or another that having none or one of a crucial class for a given fight makes it exceedingly hard. That's unavoidable, unless you want all fights to avoid playing to the strengths of any particular class.

 

D3cadent

I take your point, however it wasnt a problem at all for any content prior. But, in any case, that's not the point I was trying to make.

We wont go to Archimonde with any less than two in the future. We've accepted that, recruited, and will happily take more once we have them attuned.

They are a large part of this encounter, particularly if resto, as they can fill two very important roles. Other fights dont see a class remove a boss ability which can otherwise hinder 90% + of your raid (tremor can help on healing, improve DPS and reduce the chances of people dieing to fires, grip etc). Other fights have roles that CAN be filled by other classes much more competently. I dare say the difference between 2 and 5 shamans on Archimonde is much bigger than 2 mages versus 5 mages on Tidewalker, or 2 warriors v 5 warriors on Hydross. You cant take a paladin instead of your 3rd shaman, and have her/him perform in the same way that a druid can step in and perform on Hydross.

I just dislike being pigeon-holed into raiding certain content when we have 35-40 capable raiders online, but not those 2, 3 or 4 shaman. It would be like making Hydross and his adds have an unhealable, but spell reflectable ability, removing druid tanks as an option.

Other fights allow us to make use of other classes in essential roles.

 

Natrozim

Well, we got our first kill on Archimonde today with 1 shaman and 1 dwarf priest. so its definitely possible to kill him with very low number of shamans. Obviously the more the better though


As a side note, I saw an interesting bug today, I got air bursted while running away from flames, on my combat log (sorry no screenshots... but probably happened to others and easy to reproduce) it shown me as air busted and as I got in the air, right on takeoff, the flames caught up to me and gave me doomfire.

The most interesting part is over the next 6 seconds while I was completely in the air I was taking FULL ticks of doomfire, it was somehow re-applying itself even though I was completely in the air. Obviously I died . I concluded my initial doomfire was server lag, that as I took off the fire caught up to me and the server din't have time to realize I'm a bit above the fire but the dot re-applying itself? very weird.

 

D3cadent

Oh it's definitely possible. Another guild in our battlegroup killed him with 1 shaman, no dwarf priest. However we probably wont take the chance of a massive headache by doing that. With only one shaman in your raid, if a few people decide to have a bad night... chances are everyone will have a bad night.

 

Stormheart

Out of curiousity, how many nights(4-5hrs) of learning did this encounter take most of you to get the first time, and would you say you stacked extra hp on while learning or not?

Basically after we get teron down next time we go to BT, it seems like archimonde is just too high valued to pass up now that we've cleaned out the 4 free loot bosses in hyjal, so I'm wondering how long it will take.

 

Pyrul

2 shot Arch tonight.

I think we had every single possible "worst-case scenario" happen to us. Air burst-> grip casted on same person, Air burst with fire debuff->land->fear into another fire, soul charge from grip death->silence-> killing enhance shaman with fire debuff. To top it all off, I had airburst TARGET and hit me on the pull, the MT, and lived through it from HoT's and tear.

The key? 5 shamans, 9 healers, 5 decursers. Fear was basically non-existant and raid bars were much more stable. Although we did play exceptionally well and adjusted to all the deaths. I don't think this fight is as unforgivingly random as I once did. Looking forward to Shahraz , or not.

http://www.nascentguild.net/

 

Jogwe

tbh, it is like most posts says here.. it is mostly about your setup. You will understand the whole fight within 2-3 trys maybe.. People need to learn click the feather on the way down. Not to early and not to late. You have to spread out your decursers. Try to have shamans in the none UD groups if you not lacking in shamans here. IMO if you dont have a really good geared tank, don t think you have it if you havent been really lucky with the loot from the bosses. Anyway, you need like 3 healers dedicated to spam the Tank with quick heals. Ofc other healers should always have him as Prio 1 in healing aswell. Because you will for sure see the nice combos with 8k+8k just like that on the tank(because of the parry shit). If you have a smart tank he should also maybe go with some dodge trinkets that he can use when the fear is happening. Because at the fear time most of the healers wont be able to heal even if they want to :>

Bloodboil is a less random fight, that is all about getting bloodboil groups to understand what they are suppose to do. And get the healing fixed for Phase2. But you probly will learn and understand Archimonde fight alot faster then bloodboil, even if Archimonde is a random fight.

 

◊ Quigon

I think people are overstating the uncontrollable death issue. It can and will happen once in a while - not every attempt (and often it'll spoil a kill attempt). But the randomness of the fight is what makes it suck... Even if the deaths are in a perfect world: manageable, you're going to wipe sometimes. And the nature of this fight means a lot of deaths that even controllable, will happen barring some luck to avoid those circumstances of that person, at that place, at that time. Coupled with disconnects, the punishing mechanic, fears through the world, double priest soul charges, and just soul charge itself, it can turn what was otherwise a 1-2 shot into a 4 hour epic marathon.

I just don't see anything redeeming about this fight. Its outdoors - thats about it.

Fix the timers, make it so doomfires 65 yards from the boss do not cause doomfire damage (or don't spread beyond that range). Maybe make him crush and adjust accordingly. I love hearing about feral druids tanking and getting 3k hits, being healed by 1 player.
Fix the priest bug, fix being feared through the world, fix the parry mechanic - anyway, we've been over this shit before. These types of issues tend to snowball in MMO's, and Archimonde isn't even the worst of it in TBC when it comes to random and uncontrollable stuff.

Anyway, it is certainly easier to come on these forums and post about epic 1 shots, but I can assure you for every 2-shot there are dozens 20-shots. Anyway, I'm not sure what the point of anecdotal testimony is anymore; I'm just not looking forward to "farming" archimonde for the next 6 months for all the reasons already stated many, many, times above...

From what I can tell though very few people have much to contribute here beyond "its okay, learn to play" or "Its too hard/random/qq, fix". If you have some killer strategy that prevents you from being feared in mid air (another bug), or being air bursted, gripped, and landing in a doomfire behind you, then being feared away from a healer, that isn't already discussed, then please! share.

Heres a fight that benefits hugely from 5 shaman stacking, (preempting the next post: whether you decide to or can use it or not) fear ward, random elements affecting difficulty, berserk timers, has punishing mechanics for single mistakes that often mean a wipe. Is that not many of the worst aspects of encounter design? If archimonde was a gnome inside a BWL-like room and was named "BossThree" I'm not sure he'd get the same reception - and no, because he's the final boss doesn't mean he should suck in a random way... afaik most people seem to like Illidan just fine, cthun, kt, nef, rag, vashj, kael... good fights basically.

 

Dragooner

We finally downed him last night, 18th attempt of the night, I think 54th overall. 2 nights of learning. Pretty much went as described in this thread, 90-65-80-55-60-etc. could be any random number between 50-100. Then suddenly, click, its over, archimonde down, scooping the loot. Had only 3 shamans, even had a paladin die at 17%, but we somehow held it together. 54 Attempts for an end boss seems reasonable, I guess? I think sadly most of us are dreading next week when we have to try and repeat.

Also a side note, I think that spirit of redemption no longer gives a second soulcharge, I could be wrong, but I did die twice last night.

 

Ophilicus

As a healer, having 8 or more total, and 3 or more shamans make the fight as controllable as it can possibly be. The chances of getting those sure-death combos like grip + air + potion fail won't happen every attempt. Although the fight entails some bit of luck to be on your side, if the raid composition is built around classes that are heavily relied upon, the easier it is to be consistent in downing him in less than 5 attempts each week.

Our most recent kill was plagued with mishaps and whatnot, but we won nonetheless. I'm not ashamed to credit the kill to "stacking", as we were loaded on shammies and decursers. At the same time, people learned to live through situations where we had wiped countless times to on our first week of killing him. I took the liberty of singling out people and remind them to pop pots, break fears etc etc. Last thing I remember, it was looting time.

 

Melador

Random screwage notwithstanding, I think this fight is by far the best in Hyjal. Maybe not for all classes, but it's a total blast as a druid. I'm running around staying away from fire, decursing, keeping as many HoTs as possible up on the MT, running back and NSing emergency folks, zooming back into the fray after being flung, only using my PvP trinket when I absolutely have to, etc. It's really dynamic, interesting, exciting fight.

As others have said, if I had one tip for people, it would be to stay away from the fire. Even if that puts you way away from your home base, stay away. I think we three-pulled him last night, all reasonably good pulls (8 healers, 4 shaman IIRC), and I never had to use my trinket at all. I probably got tremor totemed out of less than half my fears, but if you're conservative with your placement it's not a huge concern. 90% of the time that I've seen people eat a doomfire it was because they were way closer to it than they should have been or didn't respond quickly enough to it spawning or zigged when they should have zagged.

I'm not sure if people are overstating the "you lose" combo odds, but in probably 50 total pulls now I've never personally been air burst/gripped or air bursted into a doomfire. It really feels to me that "you lose" combos happen considerably less than 50% of the time, which isn't all that bad really.

 

Zalera

Personally, for a guild with 1 Archimonde kill and currently on Reliquary in BT, I just don't see it as worth it for us to continue attempting to kill Arch for the loot when we have BT progression to do. I agree that it's the best fight in Hyjal, it's by far my favorite boss encounter there, but there's no denying that the fight can be a major pain in the ass. My guild doesn't have the ability to stack shamans (killed with two, raiding currently with one available), and while the loot and fight is pretty amazing, I just don't see it as being worth it for the time investment it'd take us.

It's really unfortunate because like I said, I think the fight is amazing, especially the ending; it's just a shame that such a great encounter has such flawed design that you need x amount of x to have a chance. I agree that even without shamans it's very doable just by great play and a little luck on purification pots, but I don't think you could realistically expect to get such a stellar level of play from all 25 people in the raid for the entirety of the fight every single week, it seems like it'd just be grossly inconsistent which is what makes it not worth doing, in my eyes.

 

Sebudai

We were fortunate enough to one shot him this week. I'm not sure if it was the constant reminders of how important Doomfire avoidance is, or if we just got a little lucky, or if it was a combination of the two, but we ended up killing him with 0 deaths on our first attempt of the night. Of course our raid was pretty ridiculous with 5 shaman, 10 healers and 7 decursers(We make our feral druids respec restoration for this fight.)

The fight isn't too far away from being 'fun'. Fun is within its grasp. I think a little tinkering with Doomfire could make a big difference, especially for guilds that aren't fortunate enough to have 5 shaman every night. Like I've said before, I believe Doomfire causes almost every wipe.

 

Crazytrucker

Well we've been attempting him for about a day and a half and one thing I notice. If you calm your raid and top everyone off you can usually live through a soul charge. We have had a few unfortunate deaths (paladin/hunter) and both times we were able to keep the other 24 up. Minor run speed is also a huge help for this fight. Hopefully we get him tonight ^^. Got him went great today, 12% chain deaths and we got him to 10, biggest thrill in TBC, still very annoying of the randomness though =/.

 

Dawme

When guilds that reliably kill a mob use 5 people (shamans in this case) to basically negate one of the mob's ability, maybe it's time to review the ability ?
I mean, the problem is not the doomfire in itself, it's obviously the ae fear. It's nice and all for some guilds to be able to stack 4/5 shamans in their raid and simply remove the ae fear from the fight, but you can't expect every guild to be able to provide those shamans (we have 2 shamans guilded, we killed archimonde twice pre buff, too busy with bt progress since then).
Anyways, if you want to make archimonde a funnier fight, first thing to tweak is the fear. Decreasing its duration to 4 sec would be a good start. Don't let archimonde cast grip less than 3 sec before air burst, increase a bit the fear cast time (not everyone plays with less than 500 ms ..). Or, if they want to keep this aspect of randomness, modify soul charge because it's way too harsh if random deaths are intended.

 

heel

The new version of the fight is agony with only two shamans. Much, much, much harder than Illidan, and not at all easily repeatable for us.

 

Jager

11% Archimonde wipes really suck =/

 

• Karakas

The thing that has helped me the most on Archimonde is just focus on surviving. Even as a healer, as long as you err on the more healer-heavy side of things for this fight, it's usually all right if 2-3 healers aren't focusing on the tank and are instead focusing on minimizing damage to themselves.

 

Khlysti

I would say this version is far far easier than the previous. It is now impossible for melee to be hit by fire on spawn, so melee dps is higher and the fight is shorter. For ranged the fight is basically the same as before, move if there is a fire nearby, always keep in range of a decurser.

We have always used a spread around him, so our ranged are used to having to actually move from fires. Clearly stacking shaman will make the fight easier, but whatever number of shaman you use, this version is easier in my opinion mainly due to doomfires spawning behind melee/tank rather than on them.

 

TheDooft

I agree with that, beginning our first attempts this week, i'm disappointed how this final boss is. I don't understand why they put the AoE Fear as the key mechanics of the fight. Testing the tank skill as stance dancer ? Like Magmadar (Archimonde is just a reskinned Magmadar with curse and burst), Onyxia, Nefarian, Nightbane, Sanguinar, and those i forget... whereas other way can be found, like archi(with more hp) casting a +x% dmg on MT, then reflection should be used with the risk of taking more dmg but if succesful it bring more dps.
Testing the rest of the raid ? If they can click at the good moment on pvp trinket or wotf ? There is allready air burst for that (and we got suckers blowed up :/). Positionning ? Doomfire and air burst are allready positionning issue.
Testing if the guild can stack shaman/FW priest ? probably...

I'm not complaining because of wiping on him having 2 shamans, looking at our attempts it's obvious there is a way to down him soon. I'm just disapointed by the lack of boss design, especially for a final boss. Soul charge is fine, dying by missing tears of the goddess, slacking on decurse, lack of healing, bad raid positionning, inattention of doomfire pop and move should be hardly penalized. But for example, on a 'perfect' try : a warlock, far away of a doomfire, run directly in while doomfire snaked to him, taking the doomfire at the 6th second of the fear (no sham & not ud) and air burst at the same second. He receive HoTs&mending at liftoff, take healing pot, stone and land far away (72fall dmg). Then archimonde grip him and whisp him 'owned' (healing pot take purification cooldown). 6sec silence, try again. I agree Soul charge can be subdue, but the 6sec silence one, without heal and decurse, you're just lucky if you don't get another dead.

A way to improve is to remove ae fear, replacing it by another challenging ability that dont require sham stacking to avoid it. Or modify the range of fear to a shortest range, in that way MT should stance dance, FW and tremor are usefull, but on less people (melee) so the result is same but it dont require stacking.

 

• Playered

Alternativly they could just lower the cooldown and give it a small cast time which can be interupted, thus providing abit more to be 'controlled' and if you miss it once or twice? oh noes... but the other 5+ times you wont will be much appreciated.

AoE Fear is the most retarded weapon in Blizzards generic boss armory of abilities, its fair(er) enough on fights where its a fear... your tank has to stance dance and you need hots on him or find another way to keep him healed and thats it... but the doomfire factor is just silly.
They might aswell make doomfire spawn directly ontop of someone if they are adamant that players are ment to get the debuff from it, and remove the fear completly.

 

Glayde

I can't imagine how much easier it is having two fear wards in the raid, one for the MT and one for a shaman.

Our 11% wipe was MT dying at 15% to a horribly long fear before the tremors caught it.