Magmaw wipes - can't deal with the adds

[Glanmorial]

We have the DPS ignore the adds completely on our attempts. they stack in tight to the boss and focus entirely on the boss.
We are fortunate enough to have a Frost DK in our group, who with Blood Aura, kites the adds around the back of the room for the whole fight (Howling Blast, D&D to keep aggro). The Priests will drop light wells out for him to click every once in a while, but it is important to heal him as he will take splash dmg. If everyone is in tight, and the columns only appear on him, we have a free reign to tank and spank magmaw, meaning the fights are much shorter.

It is doable with a Prot Warrior too, using Shock Wave and Thunderclap, but he will take more dmg so will need a dedicated healer (harder for 10-mans no doubt). Our Warlock CO recons it could be done with a Range DPS if their dmg was high enough to counter any healing aggro, but the DK is so successful we have run with that each and every time

(I should say we are a 25-man guild, but this tactic worked in 10-man last week with Alts, so will be good for if your gear is not quite up there)

[-Atlass-]

Fire mage speaking here and let me beat the dead horse. Arcane is crap AoE, so is spriest.

We downed him the other night for the first time, during our first try at this raid. Our setup was (dps wise):

Afflic Lock
Fire mage (me)
Surv Hunter
Shadow priest
Boomkin
Assassination rogue

Pally tank
Druid/Disc/Holy priest healers

Fire is by far the best AoE spec. Lock spamming Seed of Corruption and boomkin blasting starfall/hurricanes with typhoon (i think thats what its called) knockback. The priest AoE is trash, especially here because the adds will rarely stay stacked on each other.

Hunters should just be doing the normal multishot AoE stuff and our rogue never left the boss. With decent AoE the adds should go down like bricks. They barely have over 100k health so 2-3 strong AoE's will knock them silly. I would definitely start by having your mage learn fire.

[Wilderness]

Unfortunately, it looks like everyone needs to step it up. The fight is not really a gear check, its easily doable in blue heroic gear if everyone executes properly and you certainly have the right comp to do some pretty good AoE to the adds.

Multiple people have already mentioned, but your mage really needs to be either Fire or Frost. Arcane isn't terrible on a stand-still fight, but pretty much every fight this tier has movement, adds, aoe or all of the above. Arcane is bad at all of these things. Fire will provide you the best AoE while Frost will give you a lot more control by adding a slow to his Blizzard. As Fire its so easy to rock that fight - save combustion for the adds (it'll be up every other time), cast LB on one add, hardcast pyroblast, hit combustion, blastwave to force impact proc, then spread that to the other adds and watch them start dying. When you don't have it up you can still get LB/ignite on one add and spread it as well.

I don't know how to play either hunters or locks, but both should be doing much better on that fight. They are in a good spot right now dps-wise and even with the gear you said your group has they should definitely be doing better on that fight. Going the tank route can definitely be a good solution if you have a 3rd tank or your healers can heal through the one tank being eaten but even if you do it that way you should have your players spend some time on EJ or other places to improve their play.

[Escapist]

First off your mage should not be arcane. It's by far the worst mage spec, and seeing how you also have a ret paladin to provide the 3% damage buff, it's just hurting your raid comp to bring both. Have him go fire, the aoe will help a ton if you're killing the adds. Between the mage (changing specs) aoeing the adds (have him spread dots via impact and spamming blast wave/flamestrike), the hunter doing what he's doing, and your warlock helping (he can go demo if you still need help, it has better aoe), the adds should die fine.
If you are STILL having problems with killing the adds you can just kite the worms the entire fight. You dont even have to kill them. For the most part, most classes can kite them, doesnt have to be a tank. Death Knights are the best for this, just have him drops DnD where the pillar of flame lands and then kite the adds around the room. Can turn and hit them all with howling blast to hold aggro.

[AvA-LaND]

Pro-tip - Kite the adds with a DK for epic lols. Ensures maxium DPS time on boss for massive damage!

[stgeorge78]

Pro-tip - Kite the adds with a DK for epic lols. Ensures maxium DPS time on boss for massive damage!

We don't have a DK.

[Donkeypuncher]

First off, lets stop with all the Arcane hate. It's not what this thread is about. Yes, they have shit aoe(almost non existent) but I'm arcane, and have yet to see a single fire/frost mage out dps me on any fight. Why, b/c I'm good...and they are shit(most arcane mages are too, now you can say you know one who isn't)

[Banzhe]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...pes&boss=41570

Can anyone analyze this and provide suggestions on how we can deal with the adds better? It seems like our raid AOE is just not up to snuff. Any ideas? We can never get the adds down more than half-health before they jump all over the group near the boss. We're having our hunter stay out alone, but the spriest grabs aggro rather quickly and they slowly head to the melee group and eventually hit everybody.

Put all your ranged out at 30y (give or take) from Magmaw, closely together.., as soon as you see the parasite pool / pillar of flame patch every ranged moves as a unit to the other side while nuking them down, make sure that group is starting at the far left / right, so there's room to move on if needed.
Call the fight a gear / brain chk, no reason what so ever to have ranged stacking on melee n' risking parasites on melee also.., this tac provided a 20% wipe the 2nd reset of Cata followed by a kill, reset after it was a farmboss with the achievement.
If slowing is really needed you can always use CoC from mages in turn, parasites will follow that group and they will stay nicely clumped if your ranged group does the same.

[Deleted]

I'm arcane, and have yet to see a single fire/frost mage out dps me on any fight. Why, b/c I'm good...and they are shit

Thing is, if THEY were good, you would be left back in dust. That's why arcane is terrible - it needs an extraordinary player to perform as good as any tard facerolling better spec.

[Furious01]

First two kills my guild did was have the rogue (me) put crippling poison on my range weapon and tricks of the trade onto the warlock(doing most AE dmg). After the pillar drops I would run in and FoK a couple times to slow them all with crippling and then run back to Magmaw.

[Hahn1800]

it seems you are getting hit by lava parasites and pillar of flame too much. You need to move before the pillar of flame goes off, and then nuke down the adds before they reach anyone. Also, don't forget that he lava parasites DO have an aggro table and that it is possible to pull aggro and they will then come chase and eat you.

[bwonsamdi]

My guild just completed our second week of full-guild runs and this was our comp:
Tanks: Prot Pally (also feral druid, but not for Magmaw)
Melee: Frost DK (myself), Fury warrior
Ranged: Fire Mage, Boomkin (ferals OS), Surv Hunter, Shadow Priest
Heals: Holy Priest, Holy Pally, Holy Pally

We originally completed Magmaw with myself as the primary kiter. Frost DKs are SERIOUSLY good at kiting for this. As a goblin, i was able to Hungering Cold them at first to allow people to range the adds, run away myself and keep aggro with D&D and Howling Blast. If they got too close, I was lifegripped or Rocket Boosted. With more range, it is much easier and allows more melee DPSTB time. Surv Hunter with entrapment is critical if you can bring one. Also a frost mage if you can bring one of those. Always prioritize the adds, it's too much strain on the healers if people start getting parasites on them and blowing everyone else up. Good luck

edit: If you were able to get Halfus down, imo you have the gear to do so as the beginning of that fight can be very intense, especially on healers. Just keep at it

[morts56]

We all stack right up against Magmaw (melee range), except for the one hunter (used for pillar placement). When the pillar comes, the hunter moves across from where he is, drops frost trap, then we immediately aoe down the worms. I use 1 or 2 earthquakes (ele shammy), and we usually have a mage freezing them, as well as a boomkin and/or lock aoe'ing. Very rare we even get 1 worm within our melee range. I usually take off my glyph of thunderstorm for the knockback if needed.

[addonex666]

Demo locks do not have to be in melee range to aoe. Send in the Felguard and have him Felstorm. I run around the room casting Hellfire (40Yard range until 4.06 drops). Hunter frost traps them and the rest of our range helps. They get destroyed withing 15 seconds. We had problems with them until I re-specced demo and that did the trick for us. After the 4.06 aoe nerf who knows but for right now demo locks do quite well on this fight.

[ezek]

Can anyone analyze this and provide suggestions on how we can deal with the adds better? It seems like our raid AOE is just not up to snuff. Any ideas? We can never get the adds down more than half-health before they jump all over the group near the boss. We're having our hunter stay out alone, but the spriest grabs aggro rather quickly and they slowly head to the melee group and eventually hit everybody.

The way my guild downs him is by having everyone in melee range of magmaw, yes even range, then we have 1 hunter out 15 yards, we do this is lessen the damage done by pillar of flame, its easier to have 1 person move than 4. when adds come out, she frost traps, and I, the assassination rogue, tricks the tank and FoK them, giving them crippling poison while they get aoe'd down. rinse and repeat, its been flawless for my runs. give it a try.

Raid comp:
Assassination rogue
SV hunter
resto druid (occasionally)
resto shammy
holy pally
kitty druid
dk tank
destro lock
fire mage
spriest

[Zero_Caliber]

My guild was having the same issue with aoeing down the adds, so we use a second tank for the fight to tank the adds in one spot. Now the fight is just a complete fucking joke.

[Wilderness]

First off, lets stop with all the Arcane hate. It's not what this thread is about. Yes, they have shit aoe(almost non existent) but I'm arcane, and have yet to see a single fire/frost mage out dps me on any fight. Why, b/c I'm good...and they are shit(most arcane mages are too, now you can say you know one who isn't)

You being a good player (according to you) while playing against bad players doesn't mean anything about Arcane versus Fire and Frost. Good players will always beat bad players, even with an inferior spec. Bad players will beat even worse players. You only need to look at websites like WoL to see how bad Arcane really is right now - it has terrible AoE and movement kills it. Well that eliminates pretty much all raid encounters this tier.

[Calon]

If you're doing the melee-range strat, here's some suggestions:
Leave your OT out with your hunter. If your hunter is Surv, ensure they have at least one point in Entrapment (that will help while learning he fight). When the adds spawn have the OT pick them up and tank them while everyone AoEs them down. We routinely defeat the boss with ease, while only having a Destro Lock, Arcane Mage, and Surv Hunter for AoE.

The downside to this is your OT will be afflicted with the debuff, which isn't too bad, considering it spawns one add that does very little damage to a tank.

[Zaelthras]

The Spriest cant do anything about it but reroll another class for the moment

Don't listen to this guy. I do 17k-20k sustained DPS on this fight as a Shadow Priest. That's with killing adds.

(I'd post a link here but mmo champ wont let me without more posts Just look up Ex Cinis on WOL and find our magmaw encounters at the end of January.)

I'm going to be quite honest, Cata raids(especially 10 mans) are pretty unforgiving when it comes to what you bring and their spec. I think some of your guys bringing the wrong spec is hurting your dps for that fight. Not only does it hurt their individual dps but also the raids dps if they aren't bringing the right buffs.

In the current gear your guild has, I would expect everyone to be hitting 10k dps, if they aren't they need to do some serious reading on their class. A lot of things have changed and what they were used to before in WOTLK may not apply anymore. Players just need to learn to evolve. Being versatile, especially in a 10 man group is going to be key in progressing in this content. If your Mage isn't familiar with Frost, He should get familiar. Same goes for all of your players regarding different specs. Your players should have a dual spec setup so they can change on a whim for a particular fight.

That and just being super quick on the ball with aoe is what will make or break this fight.

Also Check out mmo-champions Raidcomp tool (Just google Raidcomp mmo champ) and see what buffs and debuffs everyone is bringing to your raid. Different specs = dif. buffs. Adjust accordingly.

Take care,

-Zaelthras (GL of Ex Cinis)

[bloodwine77]

To be honest I first went and looked an your argaloth kill. If you are in avg Ilevel350 or so based on the gear you said you guys had...your dps is garbage(sorry) Warlock as destro doing 14.8k in full heroic gear is god aweful I was doing about 19k in full 346 blues, that hunter should be doing at least another 5k more dps. The mage is arcane which means he has no clue how to even play since it isnt even viable unless you get sinestra trinket. The dps warrior is cleaving single target fights..derp derp.

Sorry to say, but your raiders are kinda weak at their classes and that is why you are failing at magmaw...they need to read up on their classes to play better.

I looked at your guild's World of Logs parses and I've noticed two things:
1. Your guild raids in 25-man vs. OP's guild who raids in 10-man. There is a DPS difference when in a 25-man vs. a 10-man.
2. I looked at your parses from first of January to until now. The earliest parses your guild's warlocks were doing roughly 17k-18k DPS vs. the warlock in the OP's guild doing 14.8k DPS. I wouldn't call that garbage DPS in a 10-man.

I agree that the DPS is a little low in the OP's logs for Magmaw, but if they are just learning the fight and don't have a good parasite strategy down then they might be engaging in more movement than needed hence hurting DPS.

I wouldn't call their DPS garbage, though, or that their players are weak at playing their classes.