Tojara

If it can target corpses that would fully explain why we didn't get any agonizing flames on our only phase 3 attempt with nearly half of the raid is dead. I wonder if it can target totems as well, similiar to how fatal attraction will often times select one for a port.

 

Buiden

I've never seen it target a totem, for what it is worth.

 

Phantasie

When he goes into demon phases, at what point is the aggro reset? When he starts the animation? End? Somewhere in the middle?

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....it&s4=&s5=&v=2

 

◊ Praetorian

When he starts the animation (crouches over, etc.).

 

Russta

I got hit with Agonizing Flames last night as I tried to reposition him while he was casting Flame Crash. I'd guess I'd moved outside of his "minimum range" while he was up in the air. I've also often seen him switch to corpses but never really given it much thought until it reading this thread some more. It makes sense now that he's trying to put Agonizing Flames on them, not that that makes any sense in itself.

 

Whiteknight

The reverse transition appears to be the same - threat is reset at the beginning of the animation when he shrinks back to normal size. He's wailing around and thrashing for a bit on the ground not beating on anyone and your tank can build a little hate before he goes off and starts hitting people.

 

OnTheHissay

I was gonna post this question in a "Illidan" thread, though I couldn't fine one, but since the question is about Flames of Azzinoth dps - this thread will probably work as well.

How do you keep up melee dps on the Flames/P2? I've been checking a lot of WWS reports and those where the melee (rogues mostly) are on par with top damage dealers (mostly warlocks) they have done about 200k to the Flames. On our kill today we had no melee over 20k damage on the Flames. This because we stand in four groups, and we can only dps the Flames when the tanks drags it right across our spot (if we move too close to the other groups we chain the aoe fire). And half the time the tank will walk the Flame on the outside of a fire line and we can't walk through. The only time we can move in to dps is when he passes our group position in the "inner" circle of his path. When the first Flame dies we swap postions with the group across from us, so that we can get some dps on the other Flame.

Since this was our first kill we were very cautious though, so we might be able to move closer into the flames on the ground and dps it, but I'm not sure.

What do you do to maximize melee dps on the Flames?

 

Skizzilini

The flame elementals are difficult, so here's another question that might end up benefitting everyone if they are not still bugged regarding totems. Would it be possible for them to be tanked temporarily by Fire Elemental Totems? The totem pet is (to the best of my knowledge) immune to fire damage. A few hunters could misdirect the pet, generate threat for it for a few seconds, and help mitigate alot of damage for the next two minutes (the pets life span). Just a wild idea. Thanks.

 

Junpei

If it deals fire damage, then it won't be able to generate threat for you to DPS it at all since the Flames are immune to fire damage afaik.

Maximising melee damage on the Flames is all about your kiting path, by creating a path that uses a large initial kite path (I use the outer circle on my initial pass) and by kiting so the Blaze is always either directly in line with your kite or to a degree outside it, you can keep melee on a Flame until a beam happens or it dies. The only risk usually comes when turning around to go back, but a quick call in vent or /RW usually helps

 

Whitemane

We use 3 groups, all position straight in a line running parallel to the kite path of the flames. That gives melee plenty of space to run around and melee the flames. When they need to run from one side to another, they have assigned groups to run through so we don't have 5-6 melee running through one group and getting bombed.

 

Foofer

It sounds like you're requiring your melee DPS to stay in one of your camps. If that's wrong, please correct me. Otherwise, I think most guilds have their melee ignore the camps for the most part and follow the first flame tank's path (standing behind it and avoiding the flames, obviously). For us, if one tank is behind the flames, the other tank's mob is usually in a spot where melee can still DPS it. The only time our melee DPS start worrying about not chaining damage between camps is when both elementals are out of range of melee (as in, the tank is stuck behind the flames on the ground).

They wouldn't be able to generate any threat after the misdirects, so your healers would probably pull it off of the elementals before they disappeared. It'd also be very hard to control where the mob is facing, so you may be putting the raid at risk of the frontal damage from the flames.

 

Highfather

Has any tank tried a passive crushing immunity set against the Shear?

...and I shall never find Solace for I was born Restless...

 

Dots

It doesn't work too well because Shear can't miss, which means you need another 13-15% to completely cover it.

 

Pyria

It's probably less than optimal (and we've only killed Illidan twice), but since our tanking tracks don't lend themselves to melee friendly trails I've taken to just sitting in the group for CoH and keeping a very close eye on Illidan himself for Eye Beam and Barrage announces. Ranged tend to be just a second slower on announcing beams due to having aggro and DPS to worry about fulltime, and if you watch Illidan's model you can catch the Dark Barrage animation before it goes off and announce it 2-3 seconds ahead of the actual hit.

 

Lymmel

We just tell melee to ignore the groups and go for them. I think the extra healing is outweighed by how much faster the elementals die. The group method isn't a mandatory tactic, we randomly spread on our first kills and even if it was more hectic, it was 100% doable.

 

Whitemane

It's not very friendly to CoH though. If you have CoH priests they can do tremendously well on raid healing if you stack up in 3 groups of 5-6 people.

 

woo-haa

We stack in 4 groups in direct N/S/W/E positions. The N/S each have a full group with a priest. Then we have 2-3 in the W/E positions which move into the middle if needed. Then we have some in the middle, often hunters due to range and druids which heals both tanks. Melee run around as needed.

This has the following benefits:
- Group stacking, easier to heal for priests
- N/S groups don't need to move at all during fase2. This means 10 people that don't need to pay attention to beam.
- S/E groups might have melee on top, but they these groups only have 2-3 to begin with.
- A group in middle if Beam or range should be a problem.

We never lost anyone to random fireballs after switching to this setup. We used 3 split and controlled chaos in the start.

 

Cybelirrae

We have killed him 4 times now and have kept melee completely out of the action for phase 2. We have generally run a ranged heavy raid for Illidan (3-4 each of mages and warlocks, 3 shadow priests), with extra healing support (9-10 healers where we typically run with 8) and only 1-2 rogues plus a fury warrior and sometimes a ret pally. I made this decision after a few times learning phase 2 when all seemed chaos for the Flame tanks. We used the N, S, E, W groups position to minimize flame splash damage.

I would like to get melee involved on phase 2, but am concerned with the blazes on the ground. The initial kite path uses the inner circle and then goes out and thus I was concerned that melee would get lost in the flames and people would not see to heal us or we would get destroyed by the blazes on the ground. Any additional tips for involving melee on phase 2 would be greatly appreciated.

 

Junpei

Here's an older picture of my kite path:

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/1278/kitepathah3.jpg

Basically, melee will able to attack the Flame for the entirety of your kite path barring a beam or two. There northern and southern apexs are a bit dangerous for beams since they will form around 10-15 feet away and usually proceed through the lower kite area fairly quickly. By the time you've got back to your starting area, nearly half the blazes are gone since it is a fairly long kite path.

You can flip the image and it's almost exactly the same for the other side. The 2nd tank usually has an easier time of kiting because they only have to worry about beams, if you are including melee then trying to maximise melee and watching for beams can be fatal : b

 

Tempestra

For our first kill last week we ran relatively balanced raid, if trending slightly towards ranged (1 rogue, 2 dps wars, 1 enhancement shm - 4 mages, 3 locks, 1 spriest, 1 hunter).

I basically have our melee engage when we're first starting Phase 2 - there aren't many blazes, and the kite path our druid tank takes allows them to stay on the edge of the grate for the first pass. The main danger during this time isn't blaze, but rather a melee falling asleep and getting destroyed by a tangential eye beam. After the first pass, they're kind of out of luck unless blazes clear up and they can get a few hits in. Ranged do most of the work in P2, for sure.

I think not letting your melee get into the fray at all in P2 is a mistake, as they can easily add some damage up front before both sides get covered in blazes and eye beams. Certainly towards the middle portion of the phase, they're pretty useless. However, if you get lucky and the eye beams are on the opposite side, they can certainly help shorten the phase for you.

 

Jagiya

Thanks for that idea, makes alot more sense now.

 

Zindel

There is no way you can heal melee standing in Blaze, and if they get one tick of blaze, they'll risk dying to a fireball before they get healed. One thing that helps melee dps there is to start the kite path on the outside circle. That way melee can dps through one full kite circle, and when it's time to kite on the outside again, the flame should be close to dead anyway.

Melee are close to useless on the second flame, but that's not a big deal because P2 is much eaiser after one flame is down.

 

Whitemane

Then you need to tell your melee to get more hitpoints, that's only 8.5k damage and should be pickep up by your healers really quick.

 

Trouble

Is there any reason why the entire raid can't stand just behind Illidan during human phase and not get agonizing flames? I also noticed it never hits melee and I can't think of any reason you can't theoretically just put everyone on his ass.

 

woo-haa

I think it's wiser to tell your melee to not get hit by Blaze at all. Blaze ticks each second and there can be overlaps. You could literally die in 0.5 seconds from Blaze alone, not to mention Fireballs. Just remember to stand at max range and that the Blazes is put where the tank is and you'll be fine.