Vohbo

We completely ignore the traps, it works much better than all the pointless movement for marginal damage increases.

 

Machia

Not sure if it was mentioned somewhere in this thread (I did do a quick search) but you aren't able to use battle rez, soulstones, anhks, or pet summons during phase 2 as it will cause an enrage and charge of the affected person. Rather stupid imo. =/

 

Akron

Well, I use two water elementals and never seen a charge because of them. It's more complex than that.

 

◊ vorpalblade

Karazhan gives more per instance clear, but considering the shorter reset ZA gives more per week. Obviously if you're trying to get badge FR, you should be running both. But since You can do ZA twice in a week and Kara only once they are at least on equal footing as far as the rate of badge acquisition goes.

At the moment we're working on Phase 2, so we've been trying to do as many Badge-earning instances as possible, including handing the vial down to the FR tanks when possible.

 

cigar3tte

Highly doubt we'll ever run Karazhan for the sole purpose of badges, and ZA is very likely to happen due to possible upgrades.

 

Kuai

22 badges for 3 hours is a really good investment of time.

 

Alk

We killed illidan last night and I would like to thank everyone who posted constructive comments in this post.

First night we had serious issues in phase 2, our tanks were dieing too easily because I had shown them the instructional video. I knew that it would be np if they would simply go further on the sides, we worked on that and from that point, phase 2 was a breeze everytime.

Also a good trick is to have your tanks understand that if they dont ever want to get hit by eye beam, there is one place where he will never eye beam and that is at the crossing of the 2 beams but further out of the circle. Everytime there is an eye beam the tank can move over there quickly, let the elemental breathe a few times then come back into his regular pattern.

Phase 3-4-5 are supposed to be easier than 2 but that was not my experience. At first we were having deaths caused by the fireballs, so spreading was an issue. When that got better all kind of little mistakes were happening:

1. The tank rushed into a trap his back turned and got shear then insta killed
2. The warlock tank decided to move a few steps and his pally healer didnt pay attention, got hit by the aoe
3. After a trap some people stood in front of illidan, resulting in a heal from 18 to 25%.

Basically, phase 3 the pression needs to be kept down (The person I put in charge of RL doesnt understand that :P) and everyone needs to be alert, it's kinda of like an idiot check.

Oh, also, the demons got much easier once we tried the strategy where warlocks throw SoC's right before they spawn. It's dangerous because the warlocks have to move in closer but on the other hand if they got it right theres no way any demon will get on a target. I highly suggest that strategy for guilds looking for a first kill.

Anyway, thanks again!

 

Tojara

We just don't bother using traps anymore, unless they are really close to Illidan. The enrage is easily healed through without CD's being used, but you may want to use CD's anyway just to make sure. He should die after 2 and at the most 3 enrage anyway, unless of course people are getting draw soul.

The funny thing about the fight is it has the ability to spiral out of control more then any fight in the game. (except Archimonde). Its frustrating though, because unlike Archimonde the encounter is very long. Phase two you can have people die to Eye Beams and Blaze. Parasites can cause a wipe at any portion of the fight if people aren't paying attention. The biggest thing for us is the failure to understand the flame bursts and the entirety of the demon phase. People just fail to grasp that flame burst is an AoE splash damage attack that affects people within ~5 range and get themselves killed because of it. Some will run around frantically trying to kill the Demons without regard that they're standing on top of someone with the flame burst coming in 1-2 seconds lol.

That said we do use an AoE strat for the demons. Mages front load flame strikes and the Warlocks spam SoC ~2 seconds before demons, usually getting 2-3 of them off (atleast one from each, more depending on if Warlocks get a demons or not). We typically have no problems with this unless an earthbind was positioned wrongly or failure to lay any snaring items at all. Other then that range typically brings it home for us in the Demon Phase with the melee creeping up during flame bursts to help with the demons when they see fit. A good save was a sprint and cloak by me to save our Warlock tank who had a fast approaching demon. Luckily it was killed but we wiped later in the encounter anyways ;(

 

woo-haa

For us the melee are key to kill demons. It seems like the ranged don't have enough burst to kill the short ones. We do, however, not use AoE and we are standing a bit close. We actually had 3 demons on our warlock tank last kill. That was some epic BF-AR-CoS-Sprint action from our rogue. He even survived, that bastard.

Edit: Here's our last WWS from Illidan with regards to demon: Shadow Demon - WWS

 

Copernicus

We stand really far away from Illidan and use traps to slow the demons down. Each melee gets assigned a demon for crippling poison/hamstring and then the ranged kills them. The length of the fight means it's not worth it to us to risk having people get killed by the demons by using flamestrikes or other things that require them being within 30 yards or so of Illidan.

I think the most important thing for us was spending 5-10 minutes just figuring out where everyone should be standing in all the phases before doing the actual fight. Considering how easy it is to kill 2-3 other people due to bad positioning (Flame Burst or Phase 2's Fireballs) and how important it is to spread out the DPS in the shadow demon phase, we went from consistently failing on the post-phase 2 phases to an easy kill.

 

Furio

I can't agree more. The initial twenty minutes or so I spent taking the time to spread my raid out into post-Phase 2 positioning and practicing the transitions between the phases was by far the most beneficial twenty minutes spent learning any encounter in TBC. While there is still some confusion (specifically from people not present for most of our initial learning), quick communication over Vent and through in-game chat solves the positioning problems and helps keep the stress level down.

One other suggestion with regards to learning positioning:
I have our raid stand in their initial Phase 2 positions while we buff before each pull. Initially it made it easier to notice positioning mistakes and ensure the four squads have similar numbers of people (we use a N,S,E,W four squad strategy). Now, though, despite only two kills under our belt, the positioning is second nature for my raid.

 

Quim

during our Illidan kill yesterday, our MT managed to put him in a trap at the 1st enrage, then full dps on him, then Illidan decided to draw soul the entire raid for a second healing him back to 36% just before switching to his demon form, we still managed to kill him but that was pretty close ..

can anyone confirm this is NOT working as intended ?


we also had someone with a parasite when maiev arrived, but the parasite did not spawn

 

Lazhar

Same thing happened to us a couple days ago but we had a ms warrior not watching aggro during the trap to blame.To me it seems to be working fine: Draw Soul CD is ready and for the split second Illidan is neither trapped nor changing form he decides to use his ability. It would have been manageable too since a melee can just turn him around...you have to expect it though.
It seems this was implemented with 2.3. The despawn happened twice on our second kill while on our first the week before the parasites just kept attacking until the transition was completed.

 

Zindel

It's related directly to aggro. Usually he'll get a split second where he can do one random thing (melee/shear/draw soul) on whoever has the highest threat after the trap before transitioning to demon form. It'd help to have whoever is at 70% or more of the tank's threat monitor their aggro during trap and move to face Illidan away from the raid in case of a draw soul.


In my experience only a recklessness executing warrior has a chance of pulling hate and since they're melee they can just turn Illidan around with no problem.

 

Zaran

We are about a week, possibly 2 away from illidan. I had a couple questions regarding phase 2.

Now we have had a couple our or prot tanks move on from the game in the last few weeks and may not be able to replace them by the time we get to Illidan so...

Can feral druid and prot paladins tank the flames (yes I realize warriors are far more ideal but we may only have one warrior capable of doing so)?

Def cap and FR cap are both important, but again shit happens, we may not have quite those stats, would 350ish FR and def cap be acceptable?

If not to the above perhaps I could get a gear list of ideal FR gear per slot for the tanks. So far the list I had (feel free to correct me in any way here)

Heroic boots 45 FR
Heroic chest 60 FR
Heroic gloves 40 FR
Heroic legs 55 FR
JC crafted neck 30 FR
Old TK key reward ring 30 FR
20 FR to a tanking helm 20 FR

Total 350 with the paladin/shaman buff.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Xav

Feral Druids and Protection Paladins are both very capable of tanking the flames, and I've seen it done, so yeah.

Reaching crit immune is more important than FR cap, however yes you do want both. Investing in Chromatic Flasks is very worth it and will let you reach the FR cap rather easily.

 

Whitemane

The only thing that a warrior will have that is really valuable for tanking the flames is shield wall as it lets you negate an eye blast, other then that feral druids are just fine and we've been tanking one flame with one ever since we started learning him. I've got no experience with protection paladins, but I guess it's the same.

Actually neither of our tanks are crit immune, close though, and I think they're just around the FR cap. They do get crit once in a while, but usually survive it.

Earlier in this thread there was a comment from a person that had their MT equip some FR gear, aka quite below the FR cap, and still handle the flame tanking. The flames do not hit that hard that the FR is really necessary, the FR is necessary for the blazes and demon fires. So if your tanks are a bit undergeared for the job, they can mostly perform their way out of it or stack a healer or two extra to get through it.

 

Zaran

Ah good info there guys, thank you very much for the info

 

Junakit

[Amulet of the Torn-heart] is an alternative to the JC neck. Personally I use the blastguard leather set and have season 2 pvp gear for shoulders + chest - really easy crit immunity for a druid, coming via resilience, and a bucketload of stamina to boot.

As our last kill (wws) shows, a feral druid does take more damage (well, duh, no def stance) -- but we've found that having me tank one flame means DPS can open up immediately. Just looking at Omen, our prot-warrior-in-FR's threat climbs nowhere near as steeply. It's a nice tradeoff IMO.

 

Tojara

We typically lust our tank group (consisting of our feral druid) at the start of phase 2. Allows us to open up right away and the flame will die really quick (assuming you either stack range, or have no bad eye beam placements on the side you're dpsing first).

Feral Druid is fine and like others mentioned is a nice trade off. More damage taken, but you can open up on the feral druid target a lot quicker which is probably more important anyway. The quicker you get one flame down, the easier it is on healers and well, the easier phase 2 gets

 

Sproutie

Yes. Im a feral-druid who tanks the flames. My gear is basically:

4 FR armour parts, obtained from heroic-badges (100 badges)
Al'ar cloak with 15 FR enchant on it
Necklace with FR, obtained from a quest in either SV or Karazhan (I forgot, its blue)
Crafted blue belt (Blastguard belt or smth)
Onyxia trinket (....)

With the Fire-resistance aura from a paladin and a Flask of Chromatic Wonders I reach 389 FR, which is more then you need. Also did it with a flask of defense, giving me only 354 FR which also works fine.

You can 'easily' slack abit on defense and compensate with resilience. I use the exalted keepers of time trinket with stamina and resilience, PvP-bracers and thats basically it

 

• Falk

You really don't need to do anything uber-funky to get to the FR cap. Four epic FR pieces (with an FR patch on the boots - toss up between boots and gloves, but 15agi on gloves is more useful than 12 stam on boots), [Blastguard Belt], [Phoenix-fire Band] and [Amulet of the Torn-heart] from the TK attunement line is 292 FR.

As an added bonus, the two gem slots on the belt help fulfill meta requirements, especially if you're a wacko like me and have 12agi/crit - I've got a green and purple in my Blastguard Belt.

As mentioned, resilience stacking from PvP items are a fast way to get crit immune, and they have amazing stam values generally. Probably should be mentioned that [Signet of Eternal Life] is the singular best item to get for any resistance fight, period. :P

 

Vanesco

We've had 1.5 nights worth of tries on Illidan now, and we've gotten phases 1 and 2 under control so we usually reach phase 3 without any casualties.

We use a prot paladin on one of the flames with success.

Our next step is to get the positioning for the remaining phases in order so people dont get all crispy from standing to close.

51% was our best attempt i think

Very cool fight so far!

We also had issues with keeping people with dark barrage up. Global cooldown + the time it took to target the person getting bombed and fire of a heal, he'd already be dead or close to anyways. But raid healers simply "slack" a bit just before the timer so they're ready to rescue that person.. but damn you need to be on your toes.

Any tips on this, besides from people saving healthstones and pots (and remembering to use them)

 

KamPa

Shield and Mending are both instant and can cover first 2-3 seconds(people should have at least 9k hp at this point of game), after that, you should have raid healers spamming that person with 1.5sec heals. There's no raid damage to heal at that point, so you can focus just on this. Now, you could in theory have people bubble/iceblock, but that just means he will fireball faster. At worst, just res the person, it's not like he will Barrage more than 3 times, and if you're fast, first barrage will come after you already kill one Flame.

A question of my own - is there some sort of timer on trap debuff? Didn't look like Bigwigs is detecting it, I heard DBM doesn't either, and it's kinda hard to tell how long it's left on it. As such, I'm kinda reluctant to have people dpsing during that time, as threat becomes a problem and I can't reliable tell when to stop to prevent him Drawing the raid.

 

Vanesco

Thanks for the reply,
We had more than a few times where we were still busy healing people up from the aoe damage, so i started flash healing immedietly when they got the barrage.. and it's not like we lost many during the night, but i guess it's another case of L2REFLEX!

And we aim for around 10k hp on that fight, without gimping stats too much.