We have our shamans/druids use an NS rotation for dealing with barrages. The initial burst is definitely a bit scary at times, but a quick NS should prevent early deaths, at which point in time your other raid healers should have more than enough heals incoming to hold out through the rest of the barrage.

We got our first kill last night. Some of the worthwhile changes we made were using the 4 groups layout in phase 2, this makes CoH priests far more useful since an entire group gets hit at a time. We also used the seed of corruption strategy on the demons in phase 4 which helped a lot as well, we had 3 locks and 3 mages and with blizzard, slowing trap, shadow priests and seed of corruption the adds were dying sometimes before they got out of SoC range.

We got our first kill with two feral druids (including myself) tanking the flames. Crit immunity is certainly important, but most ferals should be able to accomplish that with a bit of regular tank gear and one or two PvP pieces -- we both use S3 hats and pvp bracers, for example.

However, as much as the flame's own attacks hurt and would hurt a lot more if they were to crit, I think the majority of the damage taken will be from the breath and blazes, so max FR and stam are probably even more important. This is probably obvious but the Chromatic Wonder flask truly is wonderful on this fight.

Our kill this week was particularily interesting:
at 12%..

12/5 21:18:55.312 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Grem for 4681 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.312 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Tilade for 4621 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.312 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Hamomine for 4552 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.312 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Deep for 5408 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Grondo for 5481 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Eirmad for 4521 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Grotz for 5055 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Kraj for 4695 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Yibn for 5100 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Noonsire for 5329 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Rokabud for 4659 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Narcoleptic for 4654 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Flateous for 5076 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.328 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits you for 5206 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.531 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Bakatora for 4468 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.531 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Limarah for 5288 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.531 Illidan Stormrage 's Draw Soul hits Logikz for 4856 Shadow damage.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Grem 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Tilade 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Hamomine 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Deep 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Grondo 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Eirmad 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Grotz 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Kraj 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Yibn 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.843 Rokabud 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.859 Narcoleptic 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.859 Flateous 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.859 Your Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.859 Bakatora 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.859 Limarah 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
12/5 21:18:55.859 Logikz 's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 100000.
And we're back to 37%!

Note: Of all the people to run out early .. our MS warrior. Not his fault he did the right thing, just sucks.

This was followed up by a 15% MT death (44k dmg in 2 seconds.. non-enrage) and some cloth-FR-geared ferals tanking him to the end. Definitely a unique and memorable kill. Not often you see a 10m dmg Illidan kill.


About the p2 stuff - yea.. feral/warrior works nicely. We use 2 ferals due to not having a 2nd prot warrior.. but idealy you'd have feral on the 1st flame, prot warr on 2nd flame.

I'd love to see the combat log or wws of Illidan doing 44k damage in 2 seconds.

06:21'03.796 Illidan Stormrage's Draw Soul hits Mcgash for 6596 Shadow damage
796 Kogumai's Lifebloom dot heals Mcgash for 855
06:21'04.156 Mcgash's Earth Shield heals Mcgash for 962
156 Mcgash's Drawn Soul heals Illidan Stormrage for 32767
156 Kogumai's Regrowth crit heals Mcgash for 3377
156 Cheroba's Swiftmend heals Mcgash for 3765
609 Mcgash's Heroic Strike hits Illidan Stormrage for 294
609 Mcgash's Devastate crits Illidan Stormrage for 483
796 Illidan Stormrage's Melee hits Mcgash for 4923 (415 blocked)
796 Illidan Stormrage's Melee hits Mcgash for 12139 (415 blocked)
906 Mcgash gains Regrowth
906 Mcgash gains Devotion Aura
921 Mcgash's Judgement of Light heals Mcgash for 95
921 Mcgash's Improved Leader of the Pack heals Mcgash for 774
921 Mcgash's Judgement of Light heals Mcgash for 95
06:21'05.000 Thosin's Holy Light heals Mcgash for 4276
000 Eirmad's Holy Light crit heals Mcgash for 7416
312 Cheroba's Regrowth dot heals Mcgash for 469
343 Mcgash's Vengeance hits Illidan Stormrage for 71 Holy damage (22 resisted)
343 Mcgash gains 1 Rage from Shield Specialization
359 Mcgash's Reflect hits Illidan Stormrage for 25 Fire damage
359 Mcgash gains 1 Rage from Shield Specialization
359 Mcgash's Reflect hits Illidan Stormrage for 24 Fire damage
421 Tilade's Greater Heal heals Mcgash for 5294
718 Cheroba's Lifebloom dot heals Mcgash for 748
750 Flame Crash's Melee hits Mcgash for 4230 Fire damage
843 Mcgash's Heroic Strike misses Illidan Stormrage
843 Kogumai's Lifebloom dot heals Mcgash for 856
968 Kogumai's Rejuvenation dot heals Mcgash for 962
968 Illidan Stormrage's Melee hits Mcgash for 12482 (415 blocked)
968 Illidan Stormrage's Melee hits Mcgash for 4920
06:21'06.281 Mcgash's Devastate hits Illidan Stormrage for 241
515 Mcgash dies



I was getting 4500tick parasited at the time, but the damage was pretty silly. (It was a little over 2 seconds, but 45,290 damage.) He was clearly enraged at the time, but I believe there were no traps up, and he wasn't red---but tito might remember better than myself.

We had something equally weird for this week's kill. Maiev dropped the trap right on Illidan, Illidan gets trapped and we dps him. He then exits out of trap and proceeds to Enrage. Thankfully, he transitioned to Demon form 5 seconds later and we had enough healing to keep our MT up without burning shield wall since the next trap was dropped on the wall and our MT had to burn shield wall there.

I had always thought Illidan had to be enraged before the trap triggers, but I guess not.

Just had our third Illidan kill tonight and we never used traps - but reading this makes me wonder if we somehow rely on luck when I just tank through the enrages? I don't blow my shieldwall or even last stand. I pop a iron shield pot from p3 and onwards and make sure the healers knows the enrage is comming and that's about it. Maybe we run with too many healers (8-9 normally) or maybe we've just been lucky so far.

To me it seems like the danger is much higher trying to move him to some akward placed trap than just dealing with the small extra damage output if he's debuffed properly.

It's healable allright, it's just a lot less fuss to use traps if they are somewhat near. It's not so much the tank damage, it's the extra flames/parasites damage and frequency too. And you get to pretty much guarantee only 1 demon phase during p.5 and a faster death is almost always better.

We use a rather undergeared tank for Illidan. The damage that he took will be higher than most illidan tanks, but still. Even if he was taking 10% less damage from the melee attacks - that would have been over 40k in 2.2 seconds.


I looked at the logs more closely and figured out (roughly) what happened:
around 20:15 he came out of demon form (first few melee hits on him by the tank)
I find it hard to believe that no one in the raid noticed him go red - it was ~40 seconds after he transitioned phases and he wasn't all red. His first several attacks we relatively low (ok, aside from the 4k).. one of them even under 2k. Then he just exploded. McGash took an average of 5300 dmg per attack with 62.7% avoidance on that fight. Max hit was 12482. figures.

At any rate - note it as a weird oddity or perhaps we just got SUPER unlucky (followed by a super lucky sheared-bear tanking illidan thru an enrage about 2min later). Yes, our tank is less geared than most.. but we make due. From other posts, it seems we weren't the only ones to have weird stuff happen [this week].

Oh and Kraj..
06:20'53.125 Illidan Stormrage's Parasitic Shadowfiend dots Kraj for 3000 Shadow damage
06:20'55.296 Illidan Stormrage's Parasitic Shadowfiend dots Kraj for 3000 Shadow damage
06:20'57.140 Illidan Stormrage's Parasitic Shadowfiend dots Kraj for 3000 Shadow damage
06:20'59.125 Illidan Stormrage's Parasitic Shadowfiend dots Kraj for 3000 Shadow damage
06:21'01.109 Illidan Stormrage's Parasitic Shadowfiend dots Kraj for 3000 Shadow damage
...
06:23'31.359 Illidan Stormrage's Parasitic Shadowfiend dots Kraj for 4500 Shadow damage
06:23'33.468 Illidan Stormrage's Parasitic Shadowfiend dots Kraj for 4500 Shadow damage
06:23'35.531 Illidan Stormrage's Parasitic Shadowfiend dots Kraj for 4500 Shadow damage
06:23'37.453 Illidan Stormrage's Parasitic Shadowfiend dots Kraj for 4500 Shadow damage

Debuffs and/or Ironshield probably expired.

It CAN, but considering the amount of acrobatics the tanks may have to do to avoid bad eye beams (plus the fact that that's when the damage starts heaping in) it's very likely that dipping outside aura range can be fatal.

Ok, so basically you put the two offtanks in two different groups?

Depending on how you position, having both of your OTs during P2 in the same group for FR aura from a single pally is fine. Pally auras have a RADIUS of 40 yards when talented, so it should never be a problem provided the pally is positioning him/herself in the middle of the grate.

Yes, we almost always use 1 paladin in the tank group providing the aura at both tanks. It doesn't matter if a tank gets out of the aura though, due to a recent absence of our usual fr tanks we have our mt in hybrid gear tanking both one elemental and Illidan and the reduced fr he wears still doesn't pose a big problem. Frees up one dps spot too!

Has anyone experimented with casting DI on the tanking warlock if it looks certain he won't survive a demon? We generally have him soulstoned, but I'm unsure of the mechanics regarding a quick cancel of DI regarding threat - does it wipe aggro? Are there any advantages compared to just using the soulstone quickly and trying to pick Illidan up again before the raid is obliterated?

I wouldn't recommend this as an option for guilds arriving at Illidan, since P2 healing is hectic enough. It also can hinge on the ability of the raid to take down that elemental -fast-, to minimize the amount of extra healing throughput and longevity needed. (For example, a really, really shitty first eye beam can completely screw over melee dps, and it's beyond the raid's control)

That aside, your point is taken. I guess I just feel a little touchy about the idea of not actually having the FR cap at some points, after lovingly putting together an FR set. :P

Edit: Wouldn't recommend = re: less than capped FR, not re: 1 paladin.

I'm playing around with a strat that requires everyone (except the tanking group) to group up 50+ yards away after the first flame burst as the demons are spawning. This would cause the demons to all head to roughly the same location...and allow for easier slowing and aeing. By grouping up i don't mean stacking...I just want everyone to be able to go against the back wall and not have to worry too much about being beside someone for the spawn.

So would you have enough time to group up in the back for the demon spawn and then spread back out to kill them before the next flame burst hit? From what DBM says you'd have 6 seconds to spread out.

Everyone but the people who got the demons would be able to spread. This will result in 4 ppl stuck close to each other, quite likely "splashing" each other.

Try and get as close as possible to each other and the back wall, while still being out of splash-range. You can get pretty close - 5 yards is about the distance I think. Use the entire back wall length.

If I just misread you and this is what you meant - then good.. thats what you should be doing.

I figure this is probably something that doesn't happen often, but curious if it happened to other people.

Last night in p2, everything was going smooth until I died in the blaze on one of the Flames (don't ask), I waited for the barrage, then ankh'd, and started to bandage. After one bandage tick, the Flame we were killing decided to turn around and smack me in the face for 8.7k~

Now for my question, has anyone else had this happened to him/her? It turned out to be a wipe anyway, but it was odd nonetheless. I wasn't even near the top of the agro list when I died, but then again threat meters could have been buggy.

Ankh and Battle res are sometimes buggy during p2, where you suddenly become a valid charge target and enrage the flames.



And on the topic of FR, we use two paladins on either side of the grate to provide FR aura for our tanks. A bad eye beam can leave one tank without FR aura standing in a blaze for 2 seconds.

I wasn't charged when I ankh'd, the flame we were killing at the time decided to just turn and smack me in the face, killing me again.

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WWS of it happening, for those who're curious.