Shadowfiends on the MT could be problematic.

Threat for ranged dps. No need to do it anyway, it's a trivial part of the encounter...

Most ranged boss abilities have a check for this. Usually if there are no targets that are the required distance away, a boss will pick a random target. I can't confirm that this is true with agonizing flames--but it is my suspicion.

He probably will target someone in melee if everyone is in melee range. It's like Patchwerk's hateful strike, you couldn't pull everyone out of melee to "remove" hatefuls, he just targeted the MT instead.

We've only just started attempting Illidan with a full night's worth of attempts last night and were able to get a fairly clean phase 2 by the end of the night (one Barrage death, and a rogue played with fire). Unfortunately, we didn't spread out well enough for Flame Burst and died to the first Demon phase :P

The one thing I'm still not clear about after reading this thread is Charge/Enrage mechanic of the Flames. Early in the thread, people were echoing the Bosskillers description of the Charge/Enrage with regards to the tank, say that they should kite similarly so that they're not too far away from the other Flame.

By the middle of this thread, there were posts that state as long as you stay within 20-25 yd of either of the Glaives in the ground, the Flames won't charge and enrage. I tend to believe this since we can safely kill one Flame without worrying about the other Flame charging.

Does the relative positioning of the Flames matter at all? Or can the Tanks move independently of each other as long as they stay in the safe zones granted by the Glaives so that they can avoid Beams and Blazes?

Correct.

No.


Keep in mind that if you cross from 1 blade's aura to the other, in the split second you do so you can be charged.

The flames just behave like anything else in the game - you take damage, but the flame stays there. So no, there would be no benefit from having anyone try to "clear the path", so to speak.

My guild killed Illidan for the first time last night. Our kill was also the first time we had seen phase 5 (the enrage/trap phase). Consequently, we still don't understand all of the mechanics.

Specifically, Maiev laid two traps (one before each demon phase) but we could not get Illidan trapped. Each trap was clearly visible, not in any object, and about 10 yards from our MT (although they were both placed in blue rings of fire from Flame Crashes). Our MT dragged Illidan on top of the traps, but reported that he was not receiving the gold "gear" icon and could not interact with the traps. Several other melee also attempted to activate the traps by clicking on them and reported the same result. Fortunately our healers kept the MT up through the enrages and we completed the subsequent demon phases. While it's certainly possible to ignore the traps, we would like to have the option to use them. Any advice, suggestions, or further details about the trap springing mechanics would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: typo

No you can't "consume" the flame, but the blue flame damage is really, really trivial (600/tic I think). Compared to the Blaze damage which is 1300+ (stacking if you keep the flame in one spot too long). Your tank can basically stand in the blue flames for as long as necessary, just don't get hit by the initial beam.

The traps no longer have to be clicked. Sometimes they don't work right away though, just keep walking him over the trap and it will trigger eventually.

They tick for 2k and 5k unmitigated, respectively. They can also tick more frequently than once a second.

We have yet to get into phase 5 (did 1 night of attempt, got trought phase 2) but I would like to know if that strategy would work:

It involves getting the boss into the traps

1. whoever is closer to the trap gets on it,
2. everyone else around him goes away
3. the mt intervenes that person

Seems to me like a good idea for the traps that are far away or when we spot it late.

Er, sort of. The way the fire works is it is several 2-3 yard circles connected with overlap as it lies on the ground. Each segment of the line is its own "NPC" -- this was more obvious when you could spell reflect and kill the beam. What this means is that you can stand in up to 3 segments of the fire at once if you are positioned exactly between the segments. So yeah I guess it can tick up to 3 times a second, if it is simply move and you'll tick for 1-2 instead.

If the trap is too far away for the MT to get to it by himself without causing too much chaos then just don't use it. Shield wall, or last stand, evasion trinket, etc. The enrage is really, really weak. Anyway, when you get to phase 5 traps should be the slightest of your concerns so try not to overthink things. Other than that, yeah you could use intervene as mentioned above but I wouldn't really worry about it.

We had something interesting happen to us in p5 today. Maiev popped her trap, Illidan was dragged into it, he got beaten on and went through demon phase as usual, but when he went back to elf form he enraged immediately with no trap in sight. Our MT was mercifully fast on the Shield Wall button, but it was a nasty shock regardless.

I suspect this happened because he didn't manage to enrage before he was in the trap, but I can't confirm since WWS doesn't seem to have logged Enrage. It definitely isn't handled through cooldowns, because the second enrage + trap happened on schedule ten seconds later.

Something to watch out for if you get a really fast trap in p5, I suppose.

I've seen it happen once, that time he went enraged twice before going into demon form which was fun. Didn't use a trap though since 90% of the time Maiev puts her traps far behind the snakey pillars or far in the middle of the room for us.

We tried that once, it resulted in a dead MT (due to his back being towards Illidan while intervening?), some funky shit doing 20k damage in a very short period of time.

It is also very much possible for a properly geared arms warrior to tank Illidan. We had three days off, only Illidan left in BT.

While Illidan is talking to akama... someone goes on our vent:
"Why is Tzorn missing HP?"
"oh shit.. I know why... I forgot to respec"

An excellent way to gear up your badge tanks is to run ZA and only award the quest item from Zul'Jin to tanks gearing up for resist gear.

Armor is irrelevant as it's elemental damage, but yes, you will need the heroic pieces to have cap FR, cap defense, and still have solid stamina. Creative use of resilience can get you there with a piece or two short, but you'll drop some HP doing it.

The quest item from Zul'jin isn't repeatable afaik, but if you're say 5 weeks from seeing Illidan and run each 10-man once a week, you'll end up with 175 badges which is enough to buy your pants and all the FR gear by then without any additional heroics or ZA clears.

So def is still needed? The heroic pieces all have 0 def and the Flamebanes have some, but very little stamina.

Yep, the Flames can crit, and while it's probably less important than high HP, you can and therefore should prevent crits. The heroic pieces have more FR, so you lose defense in fewer slots. Without the full badge set it's quite difficult to get uncrittable since half your gear will have no defense at all.

You still need to avoid crits, so yes - def is required.

It's much better to just run Karazhan, right now it's the best badge farming instance in the game. ZA with the extra 10 badges in the end, yeah - that'll top it, but only once. Also assuming that you can do it without wiping much.