So for those following my guild's progress, 2 weeks ago we were asking about Vael. We downed him. Then we went and one-shot Broodlord the first time we saw him. That was followed by 14 wipes on Firemaw on Sunday. We got him down to about 54% on our best attempt.
I know most of you think of BWL and just yawn, but this is the first time we've seen this content so it's damn exciting!
I'd love it if the community could throw out the KEY elements they feel are unavoidable to this fight. In otherwords, what must a guild learning this encounter ALWAYS do?
We found that Gurgthock's recommendation of Stoneshield pots on Vael was very, very helpful. Seeking similar advice on Firemaw.
If you're still learning Firemaw, flask your tanks.
Make sure your tanks have something like Natur EnemyCastBar to see the Wing Buffet countdown. Timing is essential, and seeing a visual indicator of when to have your OT taunt and take the buffet is vital during the learning process : http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/a...mycastbar.html
Firemaw takes a few tries to figure out, the hardest things to learn are healers getting proper LoS, Melee dps have to know when to when to run out, and having off-tanks know when to taunt Firemaw to "eat" wing buffet.
Since you are still learning, have the dps heal themselves, so mana can be saved for healing tanks.
Good you found Inner Sanctum, they have written good guides.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Where is it falling apart for you? I would assume you have the positioning correct if you are getting him to 54%, so something else is causing you problems.
Stacking debuff possibly? Make sure your MT and OT have max fire resistance, usually if the MT pops a firepot when he stacks too high he can wipe the debuffs clean. Have your offtank run out of LOS when he gets stacked up to about 10 or more buffets on him. Are your melee running out of LOS in time to clear their buffets as well? Are the caster's making sure to get out of the doorway to clear buffets and avoid the shadowflames?
Explain a bit where things are going wrong because we can only make assumptions based on the percent of where you wipe. Sounds just like execution.
The enemy cast bar mod is *incredibly* helpful for this fight. Firemaw stalled us for longer than any other boss in BWL I think, and even after beating him was still one of those bosses you always dreaded. With this mod, it's all a lot easier now.
Also, have your DPS just go all out to the max in FR gear. This isn't like Vael, where theres a balancing act. As far as we can tell, its a case of the more FR gear you have, the more damage you will do, flat out.
I think the biggest problem we're having is the LOS issue with healers-on-the-current-tank and Firemaw still getting LOS on the healers and debuffing them.
If you look at the Inner Sanctum guide, technically the current tank should be able to maintain a position where the healers can hide around the doorway, maintaining LOS on the tank but keeping themselves hidden from Firemaw.
In practice, we didn't execute this very well. Tips relating to this?
The enemy cast bar mod is *incredibly* helpful for this fight. Firemaw stalled us for longer than any other boss in BWL I think, and even after beating him was still one of those bosses you always dreaded. With this mod, it's all a lot easier now.
Also, have your DPS just go all out to the max in FR gear. This isn't like Vael, where theres a balancing act. As far as we can tell, its a case of the more FR gear you have, the more damage you will do, flat out.
If you are really desperate go get the UBRS fire buff. Back when my old guild was first doing it, we went and used it to compensate for the gimped melee DPS in fire gear. You'll wantto eventually ween yourself off it if it works for you, but you will see substancial DPS gains.
As far as your LOS issues. For the most part the MT should never move during the fight. The healers should easily be able to get themselves into a spot safe of LOS while being able to heal the MT before you even pull. If for any reason the MT gets moved a few healers are going to have to go into LOS for a few seconds to keep him up til he can get repositioned. This really only happens if Firemaw positions bad or the MT gets hit weirdly by a wing buffet. Unfortunately I cant see the inner sanctum strat from my work but I assume its the tried and true one most people use.
For OT healing, there is a little sweet spot between the alchemy lab table and the lip of the door healers can stand to heal the offtank. Its like a step of different between LOS of the tank and Firemaw and has to be figured out after the pull, but its not too hard to find.
This is yet another fight that it's just rare that you recover from the MT dieing, and even if you do, you probably burned a lot of mana in the process. The problem we had was the MT surviving the Shadowflame over and over. Our solution was to just have several people start casting a heal right when the "incoming shadowflame" warning appears, and time it best you can. Also have 1 priest be the designated shielder for the shadowflame too.
As a healer, I also liked it when someone announced that the flame buffet and shadowflame were about to overlap. This means your offtank is about to take a huge hit, so healers in the lab can start their heals early.
Other than that, it's just a matter of your tanks getting good at eating the buffets, and the next tank being able to step up if any OTs die.
For OT healing, there is a little sweet spot between the alchemy lab table and the lip of the door healers can stand to heal the offtank. Its like a step of different between LOS of the tank and Firemaw and has to be figured out after the pull, but its not too hard to find.
Wow...we've gotta find this spot. Also...why wouldn't you put all your healers here?
Wow...we've gotta find this spot. Also...why wouldn't you put all your healers here?
Not all your healers, just the OT/melee dps healers. The majority of them are inthe suppression room healing the MT.
On a side note, when I was working with my old guild on Firemaw I was not aware of the spot in the lab room to heal the OT, so we had one group designated to run in and out of LOS in the doorway to heal the offtank. We kept that strategy til the day I left, but I loved being in the "suicide" group that ended up eating more shadowflames than anyone when Firemaw positioned weird.
I'd say after vael, Firemaw is the hardest boss in BWL. There's just so little room for error on that fight. My guild got him down about 2 month ago, he went down consistantly after that. But one night, the server decided it didn't like us. Poor latency will fuck up this fight more so than any other(at least in my experience, up to Huhu). Vael isn't as susceptable because most of the time you're casting the same spell over and over.
Other than that, it just takes practice. The biggest problem, from my point of view(dps warrior, occasionally OT on this fight), is that the healers on the melee side aren't to adept as to who is bandaging. I've started bandaging, and then 5s later someone heals me for 3k, kinda pisses me off. The other problem is that the OT can stay out too long. We rotate OT's during the fight, but even then, they sometimes stay out there for up to 8 debuffs. When the debuffs last only 20s, and he buffets come every 30s, I think that's plenty of time to get out to let them fade.
The first thing you need to do is fix the tanking spot. If positioned properly, your healers should never be taking the fire debuff. Some of this could be the healers, but if they are making proper use of their strafe button they should be able to adjust, as long as the tanks position is correct.
I know we use the gate just through the doorway to tank firemaw, but it isn't really that easy to test LoS since firemaw keeps wandering through the instance. Our move lately has been to pull firemaw with the trash (unintentionally claim the hunters), which invariably ends up in the first wipe of the instance.
If your tank is undergeared, definately use a flask. We had a slightly ungeared tank get nearly one-shotted by the shadowflame. Also on our first kills we had a ton of trouble with healer mana. We didn't heal any DPS, and most of us were using a number of potions.
Also, as was suggested, GFPP's are your friend. If the tank gets a big stack, once there are ~8 seconds left, just pop a potion and the debuff will reset.
Also, as was suggested, GFPP's are your friend. If the tank gets a big stack, once there are ~8 seconds left, just pop a potion and the debuff will reset.
Good advice, we'll use this. Probably start with Stoneshield pots and then have them pop GFPPs as needed. Sounds like Distilled Wisdom for healers might not be a bad idea, as will assigning strict targets (you heal this tank and no melee, etc).
I don't know if a similar thing is true for alliance, but for horde using tauren warriors tends to make LoS issues easier because of their model size. Using a gnome tank might add unneeded difficulty, for example.
You don't need FR gear on your healers at all BTW. Don't put them in it, as it's probably the longest sustained healing fight in BWL, they need all the regen and + to heal they can get. If they are being hit by the debuff more than once, it's a wipe anyway.
Its the one fight in BWL we still use heal groups on, even though we probably don't need to.
You don't need FR gear on your healers at all BTW. Don't put them in it, as it's probably the longest sustained healing fight in BWL, they need all the regen and + to heal they can get. If they are being hit by the debuff more than once, it's a wipe anyway.
Its the one fight in BWL we still use heal groups on, even though we probably don't need to.
Red is your MT. Dark red is your OT. There's a small lip that someone mentioned where your melee DPS (yellow), OT healers (blue, behind Firemaw), and OT (dark red) can go to and wait out debuffs. When your OT goes to take a buffet, the OT healers can take a few steps to the right and heal from there.
The green lines indicate LoS.
The MT healers (the blue dots with green lines to the red MT) should never get any debuffs as they are clearly out of Firemaw's LoS. Your ranged DPS (purple) can easily take a few steps towards the right and hug the wall to wait out debuffs.
I hope this makes sense and I apologize for the shitty MS Paint drawing. :)
I say this with a lot less experince (in a relative sense) than a lot of people on this forum, and my guild does this fight in an odd manner. It is, however, a very simple and repeatable one which involves nothing more or less than proper positioning.
Please forgive me if I repeat information you already know.
We fight him in the doorway from Supression to his room. Here is a (horrible) diagram:
Sorry I suck at ascii art.
MT == Main tank
FM == Firemaw
OT == Offtanks (2, on this in a moment), melee dps
R == MT healers, duck point for range dps
RDPS == ranged dps
OH== Offtank healers, duck point for melee dps
The Gear:
MT in full FR with a lot of HP (flasks often do not suck while learning)
OT in heavy FR with a lot of HP (usually not flasked even for learning)
DPS (ranged and melee) in heavy FR, Ony cloaks.
Healers in standard healing gear (less brave in ony cloaks).
The Pull:
MT pulls him, simple as that. 2 healers may have to eat a few flame buffets to ensure the MT isn't killed instantly, but since they won't be in LOS of firemaw for the fight, whatever.
The Fight:
Pretty simple. Where the raid healers stand they can get LoS pretty easily on the MT while trivially avoiding it on firemaw. The ranged dps run in, tag firemaw a few times, then duck out, keeping in mind he does -zero- damage if you're not in LOS, and so some of our ranged dps have entirely forsaken FR. Due to some positioning wierdness shadowflame has killed ranged dps recently, so I'd suggest ony cloaks, but these come at much lower priority than melee/mt/ot. Physical dps runs in and out similarly, while the offtanks stay in LoS (it helps a lot to have a 3rd offtank ready to swap in if the flamebuffets stack too high on the OTs).
The MT healers need to make sure the MT is fully healed before a shadowflame. The OTs are the wingbuffet eaters- when Wingbuffet is incoming, both offtanks taunt. The momentthat they are hit by it, the MT tags with a taunt (most recent taunt overwrites previous) and firemaw does not even budge. The offtank/melee healers can trivially top up melee and offtanks while never stepping into LoS themselves.
No strategy is without it's issues. One possible problem is if the OTs miss/misstime enough wingbuffets that they get aggro- then you're healing a MT without as good gear (possibly?). This one's pretty easy to solve- the MT can buld up threat and the OT eats a WB, firemaw tends to jump right back to the MT. Moderately often, firemaw will shadowflame in close conjunction with wingbuffet- melee just needs to get to thier bandage corner (where thier healers live), but you'll lose people as they learn this. The biggest (and thankfully rarest) issue is when the MT's taunt is resisted, and firemaw decides that he just 'can't reach' the main tank. While normally even after tossing the oTs like leaves in the wind and chasing them, he'll turn back around and return to the MT, every once in a while he'll turn around and port the MT. This isn't as big an issue as it sounds- the OT/melee healers just flip over into MT healers, eat the flame buffets and butch up while the MT hauls ass back to his (very easy to find) tanking positioning.
Overall, I like this strategy a lot, and it has been adopted by a friend's guild (they oneshotted him after I hopped into thier BWL and showed them what I was talking about, after a night of wiping, and I don't belive they've wiped to non-lag issues since).
As with a number of fights in BWL, suit to taste- there are dozens of way to approach various fights. This one relies on dps being mostly self-sufficent, MT healers trusting the OT healers, on the ball OT healers, on the ball OTs, and a very on the ball MT.
Good luck, and grats on Vael and Brood! Don't get discouraged if you wipe occasionally on Vael, he's pretty random till you get a good handle on him.
Originally Posted by bartolimu
It makes me want to hit Marge Thatcher on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Since im a mage ill tell you what theyre supposed to do. You have FR gear on, and after the MT has a decent amount of aggro you strafe left and either cast arcane missles(uninterruptable) or frosbolt if you have fire ward/frost barrier up. After you have about 5 debuffs you strafe back and bandage if needed and wait for debuffs to go away. Rinse and repeat until hes dead.
I agree entirely with that. I've tried to balance my FR/dps set many times over many fights and Firemaw is still the only fight (well, other than latenight low-pop Ony runs) where I use full FR. Even sacrificing a ton of +damage gear for minimal FR gains is wise as ranged dps.
08/10/06, 12:17 PM
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