I think this was mentioned elsewhere, that PVP relics/libram/PVP/TOC10 gear of ilvl 232 causes problems. There are only two ilvl 232 items from Ulduar that fit into the ranged slot, a wand and a gun. Blizzard might code the achievement by itemtype used, instead of a flat ilvl per slot. That would explain why a ilvl 232 Gun/Wand might be fine, whereas the Libram might not be - despite both using the same slot.

Your safest best is just to say this:

- Mainhand and/or offhand weapon only, 232 or under, but only if said weapon came from the the Ulduar instance (Normal 25 or heroic 10)
- Everything else, including ranged/relic slots, 226 or under. (With two allowed exceptions: Petrified Ivy Sprig or Magnetized Projectile Emitter)
- (This means no TOC gear at all)

The achievement wording is still open to semantic interpretation, despite however many revisions it went through on the PTR.

There was also some mention of ilvl 232 Arena weapons (last season 1800 rating) bugging the achievement, I'm unsure if this is fixed. However, it's better to be safe than sorry - for our achievement we had those raid members who had the pvp weapons using alternate 232 (or lower) weapons rather than the pvp ones.

The 232 arena weapons have always worked for the achievement correctly. The issue was with the 232 armor pieces bugging the achievement.

I can verify now that TOC 10N weapons and shields are fine for herald, so I would imagine any 232 items in these slots will work fine. I can't comment on ranged/special, since none of our raiders had anything that was above 226.

I can verify you that any 232 item in a non-weapon slot will not grant you the achievement.
We did a run with a TotC belt on our pala - did not get credit.
Same run, same people next week, no belt - achievement granted.

Alright, been reading this thread since the start and we've attempted Algalon 10-man 2 hours total with a 38% as best try (which was somewhere between 2nd and 3rd BB, can't recall exactly where) which I consider pretty decent.

Anyway, our biggest problem is how to handle the constellations. I'm usually the one killing the stars and after reading people's posted graphs here of how/when to kill them I think I've been somewhat successful killing just 2 before they respawn, then 2 again before the first BB. So far, so good. The problem however comes when kiting constellations into the holes. What we usually do is have the MT (after he switches with the OT) to grab them and start kiting them but according to him, he's having trouble to get more than one in until he has to go back to Algalon and tank again because they move so slowly. Then the OT takes the constellations and get 1 in. Then, it's BB time.

As you can see, there's always at least 1 constellation up and I don't know how many times we've wiped because it closed a black hole just as we were entering it. If the OT is not quick enough, we got 2 constellations left which makes it even harder.

Are we using the right strategy? I've always thought that this was the way; the tanks pull them in, but some other people have used healers to kite in. Wouldn't that make it extra stressful considering how intense the healing already is? Is a DPS supposed to kite them in? One thing we tried as a last resort was have the MT take the 1st, the OT the 2nd and the hunter the 3rd, but that seemed to make things much more messy than they need to be.

Delete please.

You're over-thinking things. The tank who is currently not tanking should taunt living constellations to bring them into black holes, most likely closing 2 before the first big bang. To keep it simple, have each tank close one black hole. As long as the tanks are vocal about which ones are being closed, there should be no issues with dps/healers being unable to make it to one of the safe black holes.

The other two will likely have aggro on a healer (paladin using RF works fine). All you need then is for your raid members to pay attention and see if they have aggro on them or not. If they do, they should wait until near the end of big bang's cast before entering.

I think part of your problem here may be that people are running right into the middle of the black hole void. You only need to stand on the edge of the black ground patch to port down. Our issues with a hole closing when the kiter took the port immediately ended once we got people to do this. We also try to leave two black holes up at a time to give people options (at the cost of more raid damage).

Or you could have dedicated person responsible for stunning Constellations as people enter. Shadowfury and you're safe.

This.

Mage novas Constellations coming towards the Black Hole. Never had a problem.