The one you never win
by Allison Robert 
Jul 2nd 2008 at 3:00PM
Yep. Easy.
We can't do it.
The guild's been farming Black Temple for months and most of the usual roster is rocking at least 3 or 4 pieces of Tier 6 -- yet the vast majority of our Supremus fights end with more than half the raid taking a dirt nap. We've reached the point where even this is still usually a one-shot, but it's more than a little disturbing. How can you one-shot Illidan with 24 people still alive...and somehow fail to steamroll the giant McLootLoot?
To be fair, it's not just raids. I've seen players break out in a cold sweat over Talon King Ikiss on heroic Sethekk (which always confused me; the great secret of the fight consists of tanking him in the doorway). Others cite Grandmaster Vorpil, the event before the second boss in Blood Furnace when you don't have a Paladin tank, or Warbringer O'mrogg on heroic Shattered Halls (actually, all of Shattered Halls can pretty much bite me. I hate tanking that place). My own personal nemesis is Vexallus on heroic Magisters' Terrace. I've even taken a group with two mages and a rogue in T5/T6 here and wiped 3 times. What gives?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Raiding, Bosses
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Jonathan Jul 2nd 2008 3:05PM
We are having trouble with archi. Our best attempt is down to 26% (SO CLOSE ARGH) one night we got about 30 attempts in on him. I think our best attempt that night was at 50%.. We just cant seem to click with the fight. And it was different things happening every time that caused the wipe. It wasnt one person consistently causing it. I think everybody died to something dumb (forgot the tears, got airbursted and landed a doom fire with low health..you know stuff like that).
Well get him...its just maddening.
Allison Robert Jul 2nd 2008 3:42PM
Archimonde is famous for causing that kind of headache - it's one of those random-but-not-really-random encounters that seems incredibly simple when you describe it, with the real difficulty lying in having to execute it perfectly. It's one of the very few encounters in the game with real collective responsibility.
With more experience on the encounter it gets easier to see how "random" deaths are usually the fault of the player concerned (e.g. getting Cursed then Air Bursted out of range of your decurser/healer because you weren't facing the same direction they were is a big one), but sometimes you'll still get an awful alchemy of Fear/Curse/Doomfire/range with everything on cooldown. To make things still worse, it's an *awful* fight for new people.
Hang in there. Archimonde will click all of a sudden, and luckily you only have to get him to 10%. :)
Heilig Jul 2nd 2008 4:51PM
If you think that's weird, try being 4/9 BT and 4/5 MH and still not being able to drop Vashj.
The worst part? We get through Phase 2 EVERY TIME. For some reason people just can't avoid the bat shit. You would think that if the nasty squelching sound you hear when you get hit with it didn't clue you in, the giant green puddle on the floor would let you know that you need to move.
I can see why they removed MH and BT attunement. Clearly, Vashj and Kael were major artificial roadblocks to raid progression. We're only after her for the rings anyway, since we're all exalted with Scale but can't even get the ring quest yet. Good thing "Champion of the Naaru" sounds a lot cooler than "Hand of A'dal."
Oh well.
Siggy Jul 2nd 2008 3:09PM
Hydross.
Yes, Hydross. I'm entirely serious. We're on Kael and Vashj now, downed him AGES ago, he should be complete and utter cake-But for some reason, we keep wiping. He transitions too early, tanks get screwed over by adds of the wrong element-It makes absolutely NO SENSE.
Allison Robert Jul 2nd 2008 3:49PM
Hmm. Is anyone pulling aggro on him? If he transitions between the platforms when he's not supposed to and reverts to frost/nature form ahead of schedule, you'll get a whole new bunch of adds to deal with, usually while the tanks are still trying to control the other ones.
We generally didn't have many problems with Hydross after one early fight when our raid leader "strongly reminded" people that tanks in resist gear = crap threat generation and that if anyone was going to pull aggro you'd better do it while standing on the platform Hydross was already on.
Siggy Jul 2nd 2008 6:04PM
This is a Retadin speaking with a Paladin frost tank and an AMAZING Warrior nature tank, so no, aggro generation is rarely a problem-More often than not, it seems to be add control or the occasional lack thereof, not to mention those elementals' tendency to go straight for healers and not stop whacking on them-Eventually, we lose both MT healers, healing gets too stretched out, and a tank dies-When a Hydross tank dies, we have only recovered maybe once or twice from it.
Early transitions are very rarely a problem, but they have been known to cause mayhem more often than not.
TobiasX Jul 3rd 2008 3:51AM
Check if anyone's using the DoT trinket from MgT, the random shadowbolt caused us to wipe many times until someone said "Hey, how're the Mages using Shadowbolt?"
SeanOr101 Aug 20th 2008 4:56PM
I'm sure some fights can be frusterating for certin group set-ups, But i don't understand why you all are dying on supremus. Does everyone understand the fight?
My personal grievence is with Prince Malc. That fight can seem so annoying sometimes when the infernal drops on the tank for the third time in a row.
As for Vexallus, he is a tricky one. There have been days where out group can down him first try on Heroic, and other days with the same group will take three or four times. He's is coin toss sometimes.
KillerKarl Jul 2nd 2008 3:15PM
Getting used to Thaladred in the Kael fight should have gotten everyone used to running away when they have Supremeus's attention.
We still have nights like that too, every now and then, when he gets about half the raid before we kill him.
PsychoChris Jul 2nd 2008 3:17PM
Well your H-Mgt problem is one that plague's many people. The trick there is have two people (ranged) picking up the ads and NOT DPSing the boss, and the tank and another DPS slowly ticking the boss down. Each "Pure Energy" phase will be split by your ranged DPS and then healed to full before the next wave comes. When he hits his enrage everyone opens up DPS and smokes him. Game over. You win!
This fight, much like the Time for Fun jerk off in Slabs, it is designed to work your uberness against you. Just take it slow and you will easily dominate.
garrett Jul 2nd 2008 3:25PM
totally. it really helps to slow the dps down, and those adds HAVE to die; plus they have very little HP.
Saiforune Jul 2nd 2008 3:43PM
I've done that boss many times and solo'd adds on my rogue. You can armoury my nub rogue too!
He's Saifblade on Azgalor-US
All of your problems stem from people not knowing what to do or how to play their class, or knowing their role int he fight. That's it. Nothing else.
All it takes is one person screwing up to wipe a group/raid. One person to forget to do something or one person to not be a dumbutt. The trick with that boss is to make sure the rogue hits Cloak of Shadows around the 4-5th debuff with your healer going crazy healing you. Usually that works but OCCASIONALLY i have died.
Seriously, people just need to honestly L2play their class.
brucimus Jul 2nd 2008 4:04PM
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Azgalor&n=Saifblade
The guy with a Blinkstrike is telling us how to play? I figured I would armory you and be rolling Warglaives
Nick S Jul 2nd 2008 5:03PM
my favorite way to do it is to have each of your DPS get a couple stacks of the debuff and then make vexallus ASPLODE.
Alkahn Jul 2nd 2008 5:34PM
If you're a tank, and your healer is half good, you can take this fight duo. Just make sure you kill all the sparks the second they spawn. Yes, all of them. If you want to, you can make the healer's job a bit easier by letting a rogue get a couple and cloak ,or a mage w/ iceblock.
The dmg isn't *that* bad to the warrior and you just blow the aggro cap right off the fight when you're devastating for over 1K non-crit. I usually use shield wall to make it a gimme, or last stand if it's not available. I imagine palis & druids could do this as well, but the damage will be a bit higher.
If you have arcane resist, all the better, but not required.
PS: Giant gnomes are made of win.
ErsatzPotato Jul 2nd 2008 7:17PM
The boss does *only* arcane damage. Nothing else, ever. Whether you space killing the adds (let the debuff wear off/rogues & mages clear them) which is the easy way, or do a full burn, if the tank is wearing stam & arc resist gear the fight is a joke. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=21868 cloth set and you're golden. Add a couple arc res greens and got to really try to have a wipe. The healer can take a nap or go make a sandwich.
None of that gear is required, but if you're hating the fight, worth paying the trivial gold. There's always some goofball trying to auction the arcanoweave, crafting it instead of AHing the raw mats worth several times as much.
Chris A Jul 2nd 2008 4:53PM
I'm a pally tank and find all the heroics at auchindoun too difficult. I breeze through coilfang and hellfire heroics, but auchindoun is brutal to me. Especially the talon king you mentioned. I just don't get the technique LOL.
Nick S Jul 2nd 2008 5:07PM
i'd call the auchindoun instances "touchy."
not super hard... but full of annoyances that have to be dealt with.
as for ikiss... i can't believe anyone has trouble with him. he warns you well in advance of doing anything dangerous. >.
Vektorix Jul 2nd 2008 3:18PM
Collectively, Archimonde is our nemesis, like Jonathan above. Same reasons - people doing dumb things, or just bad luck. I know we can do him, and I know it's not THAT hard a fight, but it's a wall we're banging against right now.
Personally? Teron Gorefiend. I literally dread that fight with all my being. Not only because I am, shall we say, less than stellar at being the vengeful spirit, but because of the fear every 30 secs of seeing my name or the name of someone else we know is not good at being a ghost come up. Give me Illidari Council or Archimonde any day of the week, just let me sit out Gorefiend!
Analeia Jul 2nd 2008 3:33PM
h-mgt - along with what was mention above about having your dps take the bolts, the mages should be running with their +resist shield (the name escaped me at the moment), and gather a few of the bolts then ice block from the debuff.
I run with a mix of S3 Arena gear actually, and as full frost can take all the bolts (i let my Water Elemental take a few, grab a few, ice block, ice barrier, cold snap, water elemental, ice block, ice barrier pretty much) I can still get about half of em on heroic, the healer just has to pay attention and heal the mage when they ice block really.