Touf

Yeah, that's what happens when he charges you. We just don't rezz during phase 2.

 

Ryley

Apologies in advance if I come off as being rude, butI wasn't charged by the other flame. I was right next to the flame being killed, withen melee range. I died, waited a bit, ankh'd, started to bandage, and the flame while being right next to me, turned and melee'd me, and continued to beat on our druid tank as usual, with the other flame doing nothing unusual.

Sorry for the rudeness that might have happened, and the large amount of ,'s.

 

dakalro

As pointed to very early in the thread the flames don't seem to have a minimal range for some non-player objects on charge. Used to be true for totems but that got fixed. Probably for a short time your player object is not considered a player but still targetable so falls into the "I can always charge you" category.

 

Tyrian

Could that be related to the so-called hidden buff each flame gives u? Maybe it is only applied at certain intevals/every few seconds etc. So a freshly ressed person is without the buff, vulernable for a few seconds until they receive it again.

 

andastra

My guild just went ahead with the assumption that combat res in phase 2 causes them to kill combat ressed guy. We still call combat rezzes as normal but everybody is told to use them in phase 3 if they're called in phase 2.

 

Saethar

I believe there's some discussion on this topic at the beginning of this thread. That's how I see it as working as well. The buff "pulses" every few seconds, like Tremor Totem and the like.

We've never bothered rezzing anyone until the Phase 3 transition. No use chancing a second death and wasting a combat rez.

Might also explain why sometimes (very, very rarely) one of our tanks gets charged while seemingly in range of the Glaives. If he steps out of the aura for a second, it pulses and removes the buff during that time, and then steps back into the aura range, it'll take a few seconds before the pulse happens and rebuffs him, meaning he's a valid charge target.

 

Tyrian

Well, we got our first Illidan kill tonight on our first full night of attempts on him - so Id like to thank all the contributors to this thread for making it such an excellent resource... and share my thoughts on phase 2.

We found , as many people here said, ph2 is the whole fight. By the time your raiding-members have learnt Essence of Souls, Illidari Council, Bloodboil, Shahraz, Archimonde etc - your members already have all the experience and tools to make Illidan a very manageable fight (careful positioning, fast reaction to danger, executing class-specific roles and a responsibility for self-survival) - its just about actually trying him and the rest comes naturally. We killed him on the third time we got past phase 2. Really, bar some stupid mistake - the fight feels like its in the bag once you leave 65% cleanly (though of course, no reason to get complacent). We opted for a 4-group strat in Phase 2 as others have suggested, but more specifically I made this this picture which we use for our layout.

We had a FRAPS of our kill showing the whole fight, with vent. The Video (about 170mb) clearly shows 4-point Phase 2 group setup and group switching when cut off by blue beams etc: Illidan_Stormrage.avi - FileFront.com



* Note, the blue line (eyebeam) path isnt exact in the spawn points- but rather a general indication of the direction the beam heads and why the raid must stay in the centre.
** Groups 4 and 5(melee group) are interchangeable for the phase. If Group 5 is cut off from Elemental A with a blue beam they will swap. If Elemental A dies they also swap. Group 1+2 refers to the healers/range component of those groups (the 3 tanks are in these groups so it should only be 6-7 people, depending on how many melee we take)
*** Make sure all your assigned MT healers are either in Groups 1+2 or Group 3 so that they never have to move and can 100% focus on MT spamming the whole phase.
**** The kite path (red dots) is not fully accurate. I didnt realise until we did the fight its alot longer/little wider than I made in the picture.

To visually show how this spreads the raid damage heres the WWS of our kill showing Illidans phase 2 damage: Wow Web Stats

Scrolling down, you can see the fireball quite neatly hit ~5-6 people per splash (in the same group). It looks like we had some bigger 7-splash hits with melee/tank/clipping another group, so i'll fine tune that next week. We ran with 9 healers and heres how I assigned the healing for phase 2:

FR Tank 1 (Druid) = Paladin, Shaman, Paladin 2 (Dark Barrage Pally)
FR Tank 2 (Warrior) = Paladin, Priest
FR Tanks 1+2 = Druid, Druid (both lifeblooming)
Raid Heal = Shaman, CoH Priest

----
Handling Dark Barrage:

Dark Barrage instaheals= Both Druids and the raid healing shaman do Natures Swiftness/Swiftmend rotations.
Dark Barrage Paladin = This Paladin will heal the FR Tank 1 for all of phase 2, except when a dark barrage comes. Then he'll immediately switch to heal up dark barrage and return to FR tank 1 once it ends. His job is to provide strong pally single-target healing to the barrage after the NS/SW initial heal lands. Because FR tank 1 has 2 other full-time healers (and lifeblooms ticking) they will be fine while this pally changes to barrage healing.
Of course, that player being targetted must healthpot/healthstone as well.

I love the suggestions players mentioned on using 4 groups and glad we took it on board. It makes CoH amazingly effective.

All in all its a great fight (Phase 2 and 4 mostly), but a small part of me likes the Archimonde fight more. The reason is, after ph2/65% on Illidan - I feel very safe for the rest of the fight that we'll kill him, barring a drastic mistake/error (Since we're all so focused for illidan, not many people make nub mistakes) . On Archimonde, we can be perfect but still spiral out-of-control in seconds at any single point in the fight - and that really keeps me on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Its great how Blizzard has designed the final two bosses of the current game. Both require lots of concentration and co-ordination - have varying consequences for player mistakes - but go about it in different ways. The fortitude Illidan requires for a long ~20 minute session is what makes it epic, whereas Archimonde is epic for his exaggerated and brutal raid-wide punishments for small, individual player mistakes on a 6-9 minute fight. Illidan has a standout phase 2. The boss is above us, the raid is trapped - the eyebeam is coming up behind you, the blazes are everywhere, players are getting barraged for dirty amounts of damage, the raid is copping lots of fireball damage - it feels awesome and very exciting to he literally in the centre of all that. Definetely a fight design that does justice to a character of his calibre.

 

hellenkeller

Our guild got him for the first time tonight. Luckily, our shadow priest frapsed the kill with vent. Phase 2 movement and vent communication can be analyzed, as can the rest of the kill. Overall it was fairly sloppy and you can tell given the vent communication. But its pretty cool to get lucky with a fraps on a first kill and vent that late in the game, I guess.

Here is the raw footage to those who may benefit from it.

Stage6 · Optimus Prime (Kel'thuzad Horde) vs. Illidan Stormrage*-*Video and Download*·*StaticStatic

 

◊ Klasto

I really don't get how people claim that once you get past phase 2 the fight itself is a piece of cake, we got past phase 2 with all players alive for 3-4 times now but we are getting absolutely cratered during demon phase, melee just can't dps the demons and help not dying, the fight has a lot of things going on that can make you lose control of it, it's far from free kill once phase 2 ends in my opinion.

Oh well, we will see after our christmas and new year break it seems.

 

world

Although I would agree that its not a 'free kill' after phase 2, in my opinion its still the hardest phase to learn. We went through many wipes before we were getting into P3 consistently with everyone alive. Once there though, its really just a matter of learning the mechanics, and not panicking. Melee are fine to run in and dps demons, but they MUST be spread out when the flame burst hits - and theres mods/timers to enable you to do this. Really its just a few simple rules to follow - spread out for flame burst / agonizing flames, and back up to give yourself room as hes casting the Shadow Demons.

 

Tyrian

For what its worth, we have all the melee form big semi-circle arc around Illidan and move to the closest demon life-line when they spawn. This tries to help them avoid all choosing the same target and converging together. We just told them: no more than 2 melee on a single shadow demon, if theres 2 on it - go find another one (could say 3, but triple flame burst+ with agonizing flames ticking might kill you, so its a little risky). It really shouldnt have a problem, especially when Deadly/Bigwigs give you the Flame Burst timer anyway.

 

• Latito

He goes into demon phase..
Everyone spreads the hell out, preferably at grate or further. Earthbind + Frost trap at illidan
*flame burst*
Everyone backs up to the wall, ~5 yards from each other (helpful.. gives you ~15+ second life-lines)
slowly start to move forward, STAYING SPREAD OUT
*flame burst*
dps demons
"Flame Burst in 5 seconds!" called on vent
melee spread..
*flame burst*
Back to Illidan...

While its not a "free kill" like p1.. it really shouldn't take you long for players to get a grasp of the fight, see stuff with their own eyes and just.. not die. No doubt you've killed Archimonde already.. survival is the most important thing. After your first kill, you really shouldn't be wiping after p2 more than once every now and then. Hell, if you look up several pages you'll see my post about a kill with Illidan getting a 25% heal from Draw Soul at 12%, and then an MT death (only prot warrior) at 15%.. feral druid tanking with some sheer dodging and sheared-enrage tanking.

Back up, spread out, profit.

 

• Playered

Have your warlocks casting SoC on Illidan around 2-4seconds before demons spawn, provided there is a frost trap/earth-bind totem close it should take a fair chunk of HP from all of them, if you have 4-5 locs you can even kill them all before the second flame burst (3-5sec after they spawn - so basicly they are insta-gibbed).

Just remember to stay calm once demons spawn, dont panic or move your melee through the raid untill 3-5seconds AFTER they spawn when the flames have gone. It was fun when the warlock tank got a demon and several people all rushed in bravely to save her, and killed off a fair chunk of the raid in the process, never again.

Just make sure you have a couple of people that can kill the tanks demon should it happen, standing closest to the front/near them (but not too close but the closest of your raid), sans its healer ofcourse.


Remember, Morph -> Flames -> Demons -> (3-5sec)Flames -> Kill demons -> Flames ->>


Also if you dont already, have all but 2 healers at the back of the raid so that you have close to all of your DPSers available to nuke incoming demons should it be required.


To be fair Illidan is depressingly lenient once you are used to it, I cant compare to Sapph or Kel'T but I believe C'Thun was harder over-all once you had completed it, you had to stay ontop of things constantly or you WOULD get overwhelmed.
Its sad how sloppy we tend to let things get nowdays, if that happened on C'Thun we would of wiped easily, but on Illidan it really isn't a huge deal if people die, or you get a small parasite infestation, or a group of people with agonizing flames etc...

 

Subject

Illidan falls over and begins to turn into his shadow form, hunters lay frost traps and shamans earth bind totems around him (depending how you tank him in phase 3 is how the positioning of traps and totems will be). I personally brought him to just a bit north of his original spot (towards the stairs you enter from) and moved him in a left and right pattern to generally keep him in the same area.

Dealing with the demons is fairly simple, your warlock can be kept up by 2 paladins and any others you have can holy shock and exoriscm any incoming demons, have your classes that can slow targets down spread out. Shadow Priests, Hunters, Rogues, DPS Warriors, etc.

My guild personally only ran with 3 rogues for melee DPS on the encounter the 2 kills we have had so that me be a huge plus, however spreading out and breaking up the melee you have is ultimately the best idea. Giving them all A and having them mark their own targets may work as well, so they don't all attack the same target.

Remember healing is light during that phase, so if a healer is avaliable to add a mind blast or whatever they should be doing so.

Remember to spread out, heal the people with the crashing flames debuff and don't freak out.

 

Akron

If you are having trouble with Demon phase, have your mages spec Improved Blizzard and Permafrost and let them spam it when the demons are incoming (they are on a reliable timer). As they spawn the demons will be slowed down by 75%. While they are slowed have your warlocks use SoC on Illidan. Our warlocks reported that they had the chance to proc SoC over three times while the demons were still in range of Illidan. Such a combination reduce their health significantly before they are even close to your raid and most times they just need to be finished off.

Otherwise, there isn't much to the fight after Phase2. Keep spreading out, keep calm -- double+ Agonizing or triple+ Flame Burst are the only things that can kill you. A Parasite invasion is another concern. Frost mages are very good at killing parasites because they can nova and use shatter crits to kill parasites very fast. Our mages are always on Blizzard duty in Phase4s and Parasite duty in Phases3. Between the two roles, there is hardly enough time to damage Illidan himself...but that is irrelevant as long as Demons/Parasites are controlled. Keep cool, watch your position. Spam the Main Tank, although he cannot crush Illidan still hits very hard. Make sure the 30% transition happens when your warrior is tanking. As for the enrages, we simply don't bother they are healable as long as you spam and your Main Tank can use abilities such as Dodge trinket / LS / Shield Wall / Insignia. If you have a Disc priest, you can use Pain Suppression which is also handy for the Dark Barrage in Phase2. Our MT survived without problems even without any cooldowns...Illidan will never one-shot the tank, you just have to spam heals in between hits. However, if a trap is close, just use it.'

Illidan's enrage is one of these two:

Enrage - Spells - World of Warcraft

or

Enrage - Spells - World of Warcraft

The only two enrages with a cast time. Either way, they are healable and with decent DPS you shouldn't need to live through more than 2-3 of them.

 

• Latito

Last Illidan kill I found:

12/19 21:14:46.062 Illidan Stormrage begins to cast Enrage.
12/19 21:14:47.687 Illidan Stormrage gains Enrage.

12/19 21:17:01.375 Illidan Stormrage begins to cast Enrage.
12/19 21:17:03.031 Illidan Stormrage gains Enrage.


This would be consistant with Enrage - Spells - World of Warcraft.
50% dmg increase, 30% attack speed increase.

 

Aereus

We have a hunter lay a frost trap down, but we don't have any earth bind totems. As a rogue I keep a spare weapon with crippling poison in my pack and shiv crippling onto each of the demons as a double precaution in case they slip out of the frost trap area. Then I move to a safe distance from everyone else for the incoming shadow burst.

 

BoinKlasik

Hey, Ive been wondering this for a while and as far as i know nobody has done it, why cant the elementals be tanked in the center with the raid then dodging the eye beams and the tanks resisting the fireballs in the middle. I know there must be something catastrophically wrong with this idea, but I can't think of it. Please point out what's wrong with this idea before I go nuts thinking this would be ezmode p2.

 

Tyrian

It comes back to this: What makes more sense, having 2 people have to possibly avoid blue beams of death - or 23 people?

I dont want healers in phase 2 to have to move or worry about beams at all, I just want them to spam the tanks/raid like crazy and concentrate on keeping the raid alive. Another thing. is the benefit being close-knit in the centre has for maximising the effectiveness of chain heal/circle of healing. If you use 4point group strat (like us) COH is supreme. Spreading out too much (especially if you do it outside the grate) makes it harder to keep tight control of healing.

 

Mearis

It would be harder for the entire raid to dodge eyebeam than for one person to do so, and the entire raid has to worry about not moving away from the glaives.

Unless your tanks are chronically retarded, dodging the eyebeam isn't particularly difficult after they get the hang of it.

 

BoinKlasik

But there are safe spots where the beams cross aren't there? if an X represented the beams, the right side between the lines will always be safe, and potentially a properly split raid would be able to heal from that maximum range. Your arguement does make sense, and I considered it before posting, but i figure that the tanks have far more to deal with in that the kiting path has its own set of complications. You would have more healers (in a potentially completely safe spot) on the tanks because only the melee/tanks would take damage during that phase.

 

Tyrian

You dont really want to split your raid into the two blue-beam safe spots that far apart tho. Its much safer for 23 players and more efficient for your healing - to be grouped up all within chain heal/coh range of each other in the middle. If you split the range/healer component of the raid into the 2 safe spots on either side of the X beam paths - you have potentially 8-10 people getting hit by a fireball splash at a time. If your in the centre spread out/4 point, it might only be 5-6. Your not really getting more healing on the MT - your doing the opposite, because theres twice as much raid healing required - they might end up getting healed less (or people start dying from raid damage).

 

Nuveena

Let me dig up a picture I made of P2.. Please ignore all the numbers and blue dots and such, it was made for a strategy discussion of ours. The essential parts would be the beam paths and the "safe" areas (red circles and purple bars across them).



It is perhaps a bit hard to appreciate how tiny the safe areas between the beam paths actually are. For instance, it takes a fair deal of practice to actually locate the ones near "2" and "8". So, if you wanted your raid camp out of the middle, you would likely position the raid at the nothern green dot and nearby. But the question is, what do you gain by doing that? The two tanks would then have to share the middle area, where the circles overlap, leaving them with less space to work with, and your raid split in two locations, some of them likely having range issues. A shadow priest, for instance, couldn't reach the southern flame from the northern location.

 

Tyrian

I just dont see the benefits (tho im sure it could work if people really wanted to try it this way) . The circle grate and marking arounds its perimeter are the perfect visual indicators for positioning, especially given that much of your screen view gets obscured from fire/flames etc. Yeah , the tanks have a very crucial perfect-execution-or-die job in phase 2 with the blue beams , but if your guild is raiding Illidan your tanks should be up to handling this sort of responsibility. During phase 2 everyone in the raid im the centre is quite safe. The exceptions are the dark barrage once in a while and the 2 tanks who are always in constant danger. Changing the positioning to possibly put in danger a much larger amount of people wouldnt make sense.

 

BoinKlasik

Hmm, I have never spent time outside the circle but I thought that he never spit fireballs outside of the grate area, I was only proposing this on the idea that the gain would be essentially no raid damage during p2 at the cost of raid dps overall, however your post implies that is not the case. Like i said, i knew there must be something wrong with this idea, i just needed to figure out what.