Mythic Archimonde Help Requested

[Broccoliz]

We got about an hour in on mythic Archimonde and were only able to get to 70% - we were not quite prepared for soaking fires to be so insane J I have some questions to help guide our progression in the right direction, and would love for any advice on these or any other tips/suggestions you have for us.

We are 2 tanks (bear and warrior), 4 healers (disc, MWer, resto sham, resto druid – are trying to recruit a hpally). Regular spread of DPS, important to note are 3 hunters, 2 DKs, 2 mages. We are currently following the Big Dumb Guild start – fires on left and right of raid, pillars dropped diagonally from back of room to front of room, then bouncing from front to back of room to handle shackles).

Logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/TnQz3JbL28ZNfRMj/

QUESTIONS

1) What should we be aiming for in terms of # of doomfire spirits? Our DPS killed Manno with only 3 doomlords, but we are really struggling to phase him before the 4th doomfire…. I think one problem might be our soakers were originally hunters, leading to next question…

2) What is the best strat for soaking fires? I think what I want to swap to is first soaker disc, second soaker off tank (can someone explain what this means – does one tank have both boss and brand add, is that okay?), third is hunters rotating so they can use two deterrence per soak. Dedicated healer on the hunters, disc on himself, tank handle himself?

3) Related to soaking, I know the soakers really need to get their golden orb debuff from the broken pillar or else the fire + shadow damage is too much. I read that they should hit golden orb, absorb fires (at ~10 seconds til allure?), grab another golden orb, then poop their fire. Is that true? Previously we were having them get gold orbs, at the appropriate time get fire, then poop fire, then come back for another orb – I think that meant they were getting nuked by shadow+fire… is that a valid assessment?

4) Does everyone need the golden orb, or should only the soakers and tanks worry about it? I’m concerned people will take all the golden orbs leaving the soakers with nothing. I know in theory everyone will come in and hit the same orb, but that is proving challenging given we need to immediately spread out for the next doomfire.

5) Our plan for chains – Chain 1, all move to back of room. Chain 2, hold until after wrought chaos, then move to front of room. Chain 3, all move to back of room. Etc etc…. is this the best/easiest strat? We are in no rush to push DPS in this phase so I want to do the safest/easiest strat for progression.

6)Holy moly what is the best way to handle wrought chaos? Any super awesome video guides? Do you suggest using exorsus, DBM, weak aura? I have read all sorts of different methods, what is the best way to handle this?

7) When do we use the ring each time? When do we hero? I am fairly confident at current DPS levels we will be able to survive last phase without hero, so I am pretty sure we should hero on pull. Not sure on ring though…

8) I read that you should wait to phase to 85% until after the shadowfel burst. That requires a lot of dps holding with current dps levels, so I’m thinking we want to just burn through but please correct me if I am wrong. Is this leading us to get doomfires faster than we should be getting them? Cuz as mentioned before we are struggling to phase before 4th doomfire for some reason.

9) Random question on last phase, is it still necessary to sac a tank on the second push back crystal?

10) Does anyone have a working macro to help people target the priority add at any given time?

11) Is there an addon to help with the dance of last phase? It’s only 4 dances so I can memorize it easily enough but just checking J

Thank you so much for any and all help with this boss. I hope changing our soaker strat helps us see further into the fight, as we were just getting destroyed J Wish us luck!!

[Gaidax]

You need to burn through phase one, it should be done in two fires. 3 fires like you have is bullshit, make it 2 or wipe.

For handling Wrought Chaos and P3, go read Method guide, they have useful WeakAuras and such for that.

[Dracodraco]

1: 2 Doomfires if you're in +735 item level and not lusting P1. 1 Doomfire if you are lusting P1 (only do this if you can consistently pull off 1x doomfire. Else, just go with 2x and save lust for last phase).

2: Best soakers are disc+tanks due to Disc's natural 30% dmg reduc. You should really not be getting a third fire, but if you do, consider rotating immunities - on progress before Ilvl buffs, we used mages/mistweaver/ret paladin soaking the biggest stack (15 stacks) of fire, and using immunities to negate the dmg. There's no major reason to use hunters, it's not a ton of movement, and they can't DPS while sitting in deterrence anyway - might aswell use mages with a better immunity etc (it's also going to make P3 easier if hunters have both deterrences up, so they can solo soak marks/bait conduits during seething).

Tanks are fine to take boss+add, just plan cooldowns accordingly (externals are there to be used).

3: As long as the buff doesn't drop off, just do whatever works with the orbs. Debuff from soaking fire lasts 15 seconds, and orb 30, so getting an orb->soaking+dropping->getting another orb is entirely fine.

4: Everyone should be getting it. No reason not to. Have designated positions to stack (you should always spawn the same desecrates, so have 1x orb for the melee/tanks, 1x for the ranged, and like 6? for emergencies/fire soakers every pillar. No reason to gobble up 6 orbs).

5: If at all possible you want to be at the gate when you hit 55% on the boss. Time your chains around that - it'll depend entirely on your dps if you need to start at the gate or in the middle to accomplish this. If you're at the gate when adds spawns, they'll all bunch up fairly easily for AOE as they're spawning, and the overfiend will be easy for tanks to pick up (VS everything running in from behind as wroughts are going out when you're in the middle).
Else, yes, back and forth moving once per chains is ideal.

6: Exorsus raid tools work best for me. DBM is way too flashy and has information overload in my opinion.
Best way to handle them is just spread around the boss. When 2 seconds are left (5 sec between each pulse) stop all movement. If you're getting hit by 2x beams, pop a CD. Moving last second is a no-go.
Incidentally, moving with the wroughts, try to move along your beams path - that way it won't change direction at all, so nobody else has to adjust to your movements, but you will move out of other beams. Shuffling from side to side is faster for you, but causes a chain reaction for the entire raid.

7: Ring on pull. Ring 2 minutes in (either to push boss before fourth doomfire, or to add dmg to boss in P2). Ring 4 minutes in if still in P2. When you hit P3, save ring for second and fourth wave of infernals (2 minutes apart), or first and third - depending on what works. They are your biggest issue progressing.
Lust is either used in P1 to push 1x doomfire and skip pretty much all of P1 in 40 seconds. If you can't do this, use it in P3, on whatever wave of 4 infernals you do not have ring for (3 or 4) - this will mean having 2x major cds up for the hardest parts of P3, and ensure better success rates. If you desperately need P3 damage to push before fifth infernals (you really shouldn't), you pop lust right after first seething ends in P3 along with rings, where people get the most uptime on standing still. That means ring is saved for fourth infernals (and you have to brute your way through third infernals with nothing, which is hard).

8: Waiting with phasing will give you an additional 10-15 seconds before the fourth doomfire spawns. Your current dps doesn't matter. Think of it this way - 100-85 is irrelevant. It's pushing 85-70 before the fourth doomfire that matters. Holding back dps above 85 is fine, as long as you get the push later because of it. Hitting 85% after the burst means that he will spend 10 seconds animating a desecrate before he spawns a doomfire, pushing the next 2 spawns back 10 seconds.

9: You never sac'd dps on crystals. You sac'd tanks. And if you want a progress kill, then yes; Every time you can sac a tank in P3 instead of killing the source, you gain what amounts to about 10M more damage on the boss. Do it 4 times through the last phase and you've gained 40M damage. It's very significant (and very dumb that it's not been fixed).

10: Wat.

11: No. There's only 4x patterns and they can be entirely recognised by the two front plates:

If left plate is free and right is lit up, the order is: Left-Right-Left.
If right plate is free left is lit up, the order is: Right-Left-Back - there are two variants of this. Middle back, and left back, but saying "back" should be enough for people to get to the correct one as they're next to each other.

If both plates are free, the order is: Left-Left-Right.

[Broccoliz]

You need to burn through phase one, it should be done in two fires. 3 fires like you have is bullshit, make it 2 or wipe.

For handling Wrought Chaos and P3, go read Method guide, they have useful WeakAuras and such for that.

Phase one being 100-70% correct? Not 85%. I don't understand how we are struggling so much when we surpassed the dps requirement to get only 3 doomlords on Manno....

So just to confirm the goal is lust on pull, don't hold dps, and get him from 100 to 70% before 2nd/3rd doom fire? That seems nuts haha. Do you ignore the tank add and burn boss only?

[Smitus]

If you're willing to 3 heal and hero on the pull and your comp is decent+, it is very viable to get 1 doomfire in p1. If you push first pillar before first doomlord it's very difficult/impossible to get a 2nd doomfire.

[Broccoliz]

If you're willing to 3 heal and hero on the pull and your comp is decent+, it is very viable to get 1 doomfire in p1. If you push first pillar before first doomlord it's very difficult/impossible to get a 2nd doomfire.

We tried three healing and hero on pull but still were unable to get to 70% before second doom fire. Think we even got a third. We must be doing something wrong XD

[Deleted]

Phase one being 100-70% correct? Not 85%. I don't understand how we are struggling so much when we surpassed the dps requirement to get only 3 doomlords on Manno....

So just to confirm the goal is lust on pull, don't hold dps, and get him from 100 to 70% before 2nd/3rd doom fire? That seems nuts haha. Do you ignore the tank add and burn boss only?

Looks like people are dpsing the Deathcallers rather to push boss to P2. Boss is priority in P1, as long as Deathcallers die before a new spawn (you have orb buff).

[Broccoliz]

Looks like people are dpsing the Deathcallers rather to push boss to P2. Boss is priority in P1, as long as Deathcallers die before a new spawn (you have orb buff).

Yes that is definitely it, thank you! I did not know death callers were able to be ignored but duh, orb.... derp de dur. Thank you so much!

Draco thank you for the awesome answers, will reply more when I am not on my phone lol.

- - - Updated - - -

If we three heal to try and only get one doomfire, should we have our tank soak fire or still put the disc on it?

[Deja Thoris]

We tried three healing and hero on pull but still were unable to get to 70% before second doom fire. Think we even got a third. We must be doing something wrong XD

I think your shadow priest should look at his talents for the fight. Currently he is AS with insanity. At a basic level if you go AS then mindbender is the way to go. AS relies on long living adds and it has a decently large ramp up time. Meaning crap ring explosions etc. The way I see it, doomfires and deathcallers need to be gibbed. They aren't there to dot for procs.

With that in mind I'd go for clarity of power with insanity (it benefits the class trinket). It's far better "burst" and hits prio targets harder. AS has its place, its a more fun playstyle (for me) and I love it but its not the way to go on this fight imo.

[Deleted]

Have your dps focus Archimonde entirely. We tried messing around with 2 fires for 70-80 pulls, before simply switchnig to 3 heals, BL'ing at pull and burning him down. I don't know how you'll fare with a druid/warrior combo for tanks. I'm a DK tank and our other one is a warrior. I always get the Deathcaller and we ignore it entirely until P2 and the first Wrought Chaos. Incoming damage isn't really a problem since his constant hits/magic damage on me make it easy to keep breath up and let me push out something like 130k-140k hps on myself until the add dies. Coupled with a few CDs it's no issue (taking a second deathcaller in a row just before 40% does get a bit hairy though, I always save IBF for that).

In th end, you have to find the proper timing for your ring and go through your logs and find out how people can improve their damage. Getting him to P2 before the 2nd fire used to be a crapshoot, always depending on mage proccs etc., but since our kill it's always worked out, even though our gear barely changed. It's just a matter of routine.

[Deleted]

There's no major reason to use hunters, (...) so they can solo soak marks/bait conduits during seething

Bait conduits during seething? Are they targeted on players in some specific area?

[Dracodraco]

Bait conduits during seething? Are they targeted on players in some specific area?

No, they target any ranged player. When the Conduits come directly after/during a seething, classes with heavy cds or immunities (such as hunter's with deterrence) can walk into seething area with no conduits, giving other classes (such as boomkins, ele shamans, healers apart from paladins) more space to spread out in the very limited safe area. I always disengage in the exact opposite direction of where the raid's going for the last seething tick of the second seething, for example, giving other people more room/less chance of getting multiple people hit by a spawn.

[Deleted]

If you're willing to 3 heal and hero on the pull and your comp is decent+, it is very viable to get 1 doomfire in p1. If you push first pillar before first doomlord it's very difficult/impossible to get a 2nd doomfire.

i noticed deathcaller spawns at 15 secs and the ring explodes while he is casting it....if we precast ring before pull so the the explosion takes him below 85% before the deathcaller cast, this would delay the 2nd doomfire right?

[Broccoliz]

i noticed deathcaller spawns at 15 secs and the ring explodes while he is casting it....if we precast ring before pull so the the explosion takes him below 85% before the deathcaller cast, this would delay the 2nd doomfire right?

If this is true that would be awesome and a great benchmark to shoot for.

Also just don't want this question to get lost so re-asking,if we three heal and lust on pull and manage to get only one doomfire, who should soak fire, tank or disc?

[Marhault]

From a tank perspective, the heirloom trinket is insane for ignoring the deathcallers. We ring on pull, I pop both the trinket and guard right before ring ends for the massive shields, deathcaller spawns a few seconds later and those shields last into the orbs spawning. It's pushing out 180k+ hps during this time period. If both tanks have it, it's available for every deathcaller they are tanking and due to it's double effectiveness, it's a 1.6 million shield (800k roughly each) without having ring up. I ring for first and third deathcallers, as they aren't focused, with the second being focused, and we transition before the 4th spawns.

For the fire, we have our hpally pick them up. However your disc should be able to do that job easily. With lust+ring on pull, we skip the 2nd doomfire. If your disc is picking them up, you can use all externals on people with chains during wrought so they can't randomly just die as our strat means they tanks aren't needing externals since there is no double tanking.

[Broccoliz]

Marh, do you three heal it? Thanks for the great tips!

[Marhault]

Yep, HPally, Resto Shaman, MW. Tanks are BrM and Prot Pally. Both of us are running heirloom trinket + kilrogg, which is likely overkill but honestly the healers don't even look at us. Infact, I'm 90% sure I don't even get a beacon in that fight. I ended the fight as #2 healer (Just behind our resto shaman). Hand of Purity from our ret paladin, then the holy paladin pops divine protection so he takes very little damage while soaking.

[Broccoliz]

Does hand of purity still work? Someone said the fight got hotfixed to make it ineffective on soaking fire now. Not sure how true it is though haha.

[Marhault]

As far as I could tell it was working, his health was never really dropping.

[Octa]

Does hand of purity still work? Someone said the fight got hotfixed to make it ineffective on soaking fire now. Not sure how true it is though haha.

Hand of Purity still works on doomfire soakers.