Archimonde Heroic thoughs?

[Deleted]

Hello
Last sunday we reached Archimonde hc, but I seem to have a hard time even sustaining 40k dps which aint really that good.

My tactic is just to pre-havoc and chaosbolt the adds and snipe shadow burns.

I here have some logs from our tries, I am the warlock named Nomfa.
I would like to hear other thoughts on this and maybe someone could give a few tips on what I could do better in this fight.


https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/GRfhXQz1wpkbqxd4#

Best regards Nomfa


EDIT: I tried on a pug to use the Dark Soul glyph to have higher uptime on the adds.

[Ruhka]

I found heroic Archimonde to be pretty rough as well for my dps until I got the archi trinket and 4pc. On our best attempts at heroic I've been ending up middle of the pack overall, but I am consistently really high up on boss damage and quite a few of priority targets damage.

One of the biggest DPS gains I found was actually running KJC. Archimonde can have some serious movement going on and destro really really struggles with it. It lines up really well allure movement and can help a lot on progression when movement can be sketchy.
Rain of Fire is really worthless and I only ever cast it if I have run from things like allure of flames and dont have KJC up. Almost never worth the GCD if you have anything else you can do.

Just going through your logs and comparing them to my own, you actually look to be suffering a lot from movement. At first i thought you were just wasting some embers, but you simply arent generating as many as I am because are casting almost half the incinerates as I did and you casted a lot of immolates.
Also, your whole raid's DPS seems to be lacking a fair bit, however that may end up being resolved as your team gets more attempts on him.

Best of luck with him though. He's very much a tough cookie! <3

[Deleted]

Hi man, I actually made an account just to reply to you to help you My best on Arch HC is around 70k, this was in 710sh gear and my ilvl was abit lower than my actual ilvl as I don't use the class trinket on this. I'll play with GSR from BRF and DSI from Council as my trinkets; the best way to start this fight is to continue your opener as normal, pre-havoc onto archi, blow a few CBs into the spirit and make sure you've got an ember to Sburn it at the end. Then havoc onto the deathbringer or w/e it's called and play as normal. Once the adds come, just pop undending resolve and turn FnB on, just make sure you're ready to sburn snipe everything. Other than that there isn't much else to say, good havoc usage and ember management is key to this fight. If you've got any other questions feel free to give me a shout

P.S - Logs are private otherwise I would've linked!

[Gaidax]

You are clearly not using Shadowburn well at all, only 27 casts over 9 minutes, when you literally are constantly swarming with adds there, is nothing. Also, you barely even cleaved it too, which is the whole point of it besides getting free embers.

At that encounter you should easily have same amount of Shadowburn casts as Chaos Bolt casts and almost double the hits... like think you had 27 Shadowburn casts and 30 hits? Instead you should aim to have have like 50 casts and 85 hits at minimum.

You lost insane amount of damage just due to that.

[Ruhka]

Hey Tayys, Im curious why you dont run class trinket? I find it very strong for boss damage on this fight and my raid already have massive amounts of cleave damage and padders who just want to destroy everything, so adds die super quickly.
The only time I find it tough to keep the debuff up on archi is when the dogs come out in phase 2 and I start focusing on them.

[Deleted]

It really depends on your raid and I play to meet the needs of the raid; For pure ST damage on the boss the class trinket is undeniably the go-to option. I sacrifice some boss damage to destroy the adds, with FnB where possible and havoc cleave - keeping the debuff up 100% of the time isn't going to make a difference if you're swapping from Archi and not havoc-cleaving onto him,then switching back instantly. So yeah, short answer is I sacrifice the boss damage loss for superiority on the adds and the embers I gain from this will be used on the boss anyways, so isn't much of a big loss

[Gaidax]

Hey Tayys, Im curious why you dont run class trinket? I find it very strong for boss damage on this fight and my raid already have massive amounts of cleave damage and padders who just want to destroy everything, so adds die super quickly.
The only time I find it tough to keep the debuff up on archi is when the dogs come out in phase 2 and I start focusing on them.

I find the trinket to be a terrible junk there, adds there have higher priority in almost all the cases and if executed correctly all those adds should explode before you would even be able to stack debuff 3 times.

The huge flaw with the trinket is that it does not come with passive stat on it, so effectively you could see it that almost any other trinket causes all your spells act as if they have already 2 stacks of debuff applied, just thanks to passive int/mastery they have propping up your spells by default.

So in other words, when you have 2 stacks of debuff on your target it's not a bonus - it's merely covering up for what all other trinkets give you already passively and if you don't have those 2 stacks then it's a pure and significant loss. Even 3 stacks is not a gain, because other trinkets have active boost too besides passive int. Basically unless you can guarantee your spells have 4+ stacks most of the fight - it's not worth it.

[Deleted]

You are clearly not using Shadowburn well at all, only 27 casts over 9 minutes, when you literally are constantly swarming with adds there, is nothing. Also, you barely even cleaved it too, which is the whole point of it besides getting free embers.

At that encounter you should easily have same amount of Shadowburn casts as Chaos Bolt casts and almost double the hits... like think you had 27 Shadowburn casts and 30 hits? Instead you should aim to have have like 50 casts and 85 hits at minimum.

You lost insane amount of damage just due to that.

I know the most optimal way of using Havoc is Shadowburning stuff, but in my raid when the stuff comes under 20% hp it just dies so fast, because of everyone focusing the adds. In other words I am lucky to get 2 shadowburns off.

But still thanks for pointing it out!
It is all appreciated!

[Deleted]

Yeah, i somehow have the same problem. 3 hunters, 2 warriors, 2 shadows... everything dies instantly in execute range. No way for me to SB there.

[Deleted]

Yeah, i somehow have the same problem. 3 hunters, 2 warriors, 2 shadows... everything dies instantly in execute range. No way for me to SB there.

4 hunters
2 Warriors
1 SP
2 Destro

I will say i consistently get two SB's and more often than not get three. (ph2 only)
The spare charge/stack of havoc i immo on a deathcaller to keep it rolling on Arch easier.


Regarding movement, i have little issues with this using the ping pong tactic.
I gateway the first Allure and self portal the 2nd (Portal is also in a perfect place for the spread)
Rinse and repeat.
However if i get unlucky with shackle then its a whole different ball game and my DPS does suffer.


Another tip, although it may be obvious to most, is to havoc the infernals and cleave SB off the boss for max damage.
Then you just need to snipe a couple to max your embers once more.

[Deleted]

4 hunters
2 Warriors
1 SP
2 Destro

I will say i consistently get two SB's and more often than not get three. (ph2 only)
The spare charge/stack of havoc i immo on a deathcaller to keep it rolling on Arch easier.


Regarding movement, i have little issues with this using the ping pong tactic.
I gateway the first Allure and self portal the 2nd (Portal is also in a perfect place for the spread)
Rinse and repeat.
However if i get unlucky with shackle then its a whole different ball game and my DPS does suffer.


Another tip, although it may be obvious to most, is to havoc the infernals and cleave SB off the boss for max damage.
Then you just need to snipe a couple to max your embers once more.

Its probably just me not being used to playing Destruction, i rerolled recently. Thanks for the input, ill try to SB more. Btw, has anyone tested if you can pre-Havoc, CB and then havoc again for Shadowburns? I didnt have that many tries and forgot to check it. Again, not being used to the spec goes a long way.

[Gaidax]

Yes you can and should.

[Zerach8]

Dont forget about Immolate uptime...ofc its not worth missing shadowburns, but try to keep it up on Archimonde and Deathcallers...

Also dont dismiss Affliction if u have the gear to play it... overall it does more dps than destro, but in very different places, it will do very well on boss and is exeptionally well in the sub 20% phase of the fight where u really need to burn the boss...and damage on Deathcallers wont be bad as well as long as u get the dots on him asap. You can also do very well on doomfire spirits if u use soulswap (which u can since u will get the shard back when it dies).

Both specs perform well on the fight but they do good damage in a bit different places...play what u can and what your raid needs.

[Deleted]

Pre-Casting Havoc is like the bread and butter for destro.
9/10 if you see another destruction warlock doing low DPS vs you it is because they arent managing there Havoc correctly.

Although in the scenario you are mentioning i would guess you are not going to get three shadowburns off on the 2nd havoc so it may be better to just use CB and snipe it afterwards (unless you think you can get 2?)



Regarding Aff i agree it is the strongest on this fight if you are trying to push the boss sub 25% as its execute with all CDs + Lust + DG is some pretty strong deeps.

[Proxeum]

My role when on heroic Archimonde is just to kill the adds, i use all of my resources on them and when it comes to phase 3 i'm on living shadow duty, my damage on archimonde is low but on priority adds i'm either first on second, obviously i try to maintain boss damage where i can and make use of havoc. It just depends on what your raid requires.

[Deleted]

Hunter with 4 piece and boomies seem to be pretty strong on the shadows.
IMO everyone should be focusing adds(excluding shadows) unless they have been told to focus the boss. Not the other way around.

The most important phase is the last, the rest is trivial.

[Astynax]

I found that using a focus macro has been helping my DPS. Normally E is my havoc hotkey, and Shift+E is my cast havoc on focus target.

Before the fight starts set Archi as your focus target and when hitting adds you dont even need to mouseover havoc, just hit the havoc on focus and continue to wail on add normally. Faster than even mouseovers to do it.

I use the same havoc focus on Iskar, Gorefiend, Kilrogg, Xhul, and basically any boss with adds. Can havoc normally when I dont want to hit the boss with E mouseover havoc

[Deleted]

Could Demonology have great potential on Archimonde? I mean with demonbolts for spirits/Deathlords and HoG for dreadstalkers and so it gains so much fury you maybe won't be suffering so much from movement since you can Touch of Chaos?

Maybe be great for kiting infernals too?

What do you guys think?

[ziir]

What does precasting havoc mean? My dps on normal Archimonde is super duper low too, barely breaking 40k and most of the time I'm like 35-40k. My guild isn't at Archimonde yet so I need to pug him and well, sub 40ks get kicked very often. I have 2+2 piece and no class trinket, surely getting the 4p can't make that huge different can it? When the dogs come out, how do I handle them? Immolate each one and focus on one at a time? FnB aoe? The shadow fiends and void stars in banish, since they need to die ASAP I'm chaos bolting them even without procs up, is this a bad move?

[Deleted]

Pre havocing means that you havoc your prime target (boss) before the add spawns, then when the add comes out , you chaosbolt it and by the time it reaches execute, havoc is ready again and you can shadowburn it 3 times.

Thats in an ideal case. Tried Destro again this week, i honestly start to dislike this spec on archimonde. No fucking way for me to shadowburn 3 times, not even twice. I dont know what it is, but as soon as the add hits <20%, puff, gone, cya. I guess ill just go Affli and tunnel boss, dotting up the big adds as much as i can (or feels worth it). Affli single target is really nice and as long as the adds are dealt with, ill go affli.