Heroic Magmaw Tips

[HonneurVilified]

I have three questions regarding H Magmaw.

1) Is there a good way to avoid player deaths upon Magmaw exiting the exposed phase? He starts meleeing our DPS instead of the tank coming out of it. Is the only option to move away from him as the exposed phase is ending?

2) How exactly is the placement of pillars/Constructs decided? I could have sworn it had something to do with having at least three people at ranged, but every so often we will have a Construct spawn directly on the tank or (even worse) in the raid group, which makes things pretty hectic if it doesn't lead to a quick wipe.

Most of our wipes are caused by the above two problems; very few of our deaths are caused by the constructs being out of control or anything like that.

My third question is really, any tips unrelated to the above that you would suggest? Our raid comp is:

Holy Pally
Holy Priest
Resto Shaman

Bear Tank
Pally Tank

Combat Rogue
Arcane Mage
MM Hunter
Frost DK (has the job of kiting the adds for us with little trouble)
Enhancement Shaman

We're not having any trouble with DPS'ing down constructs. We keep the MM Hunter, Frost DK and Holy Priest away from the group; the MM hunter and Holy priest DPS/heal normally, except having to dodge/MD constructs and pillars. The Frost DK kites the adds; he manages to kill or weaken them pretty effectively so I'm optimistic that he might be able to help with DPS in P2.

[eskimoman]

1) yes just have everyone that isn't melee take a step backwards till she is on the tank again, thats how my guild handles it and it works quite well
2) I recall reading that they PREFER ranged, so that would mean there is a small chance that one will land on the tank or melee stacked raid

To be honest though the best tip I can think of is that all your raiders need to be more aware of their surroundings and less tunnel vision. If a pillar is under the raid it really isn't hard to get out of in time and if your raid doesn't have the ability to execute that, you're going to have ALOT of trouble in the future

[HonneurVilified]

1) yes just have everyone that isn't melee take a step backwards till she is on the tank again, thats how my guild handles it and it works quite well
2) I recall reading that they PREFER ranged, so that would mean there is a small chance that one will land on the tank or melee stacked raid

To be honest though the best tip I can think of is that all your raiders need to be more aware of their surroundings and less tunnel vision. If a pillar is under the raid it really isn't hard to get out of in time and if your raid doesn't have the ability to execute that, you're going to have ALOT of trouble in the future

Thanks for your reply and for the clarification. I agree that some of them need to pay more attention. We had a bit of bad luck when our melee DPS who jumped on Magmaw were actually dropped off of Magmaw into the Construct meteor's fire, but in general they are indeed very easy to dodge (I'm the MM hunter and have to dodge 80% of them, so I am well aware of that).

[eskimoman]

Yea no problem, I don't know if theres anything to be done about being dropped off onto them, that's just terrible rng you gotta work past

[Taalyn]

Pillars will always target a ranged but Constructs can land anywhere, they prefer ranged. You can still get pillars in the melee if your raid isn't clumped up enough. We've had people just a few steps behind everyone else in melee and they were targeted with a pillar.

[kerwyn]

I have zero 10man experience, but I kite on 25's.

Your frost DK won't kill the parasites. They continue spawning into p2 (only constructs/meteors stop). He might bring down more than I do (I regularly hit the maximum number that can be active at once) but he won't be DPSing p2.

If there are people at range, you should never get meteor or pillar targeted in melee. If this happens your melee group is out of position or your ranged group is too close.

As for threat after an expose phase, we use 3 tanks on 25 man so I can't really give any advice here. Just make sure you're taunting the second he becomes active again. I guess you could have your Enhancement shaman do an unleash elements with rockbiter to taunt the mangle, then use shamanistic rage(30% damage reduction) to hopefully not die. Since this is a short cooldown he could do this every time. If you get him a crappy/decent tank shield for more health/armor, he could do some sort of equipment swap macro to put on a weapon with rockbiter and the shield.

Your healers would have to bomb the shit out of him so that he doesn't die, but this might be preferable to having everyone back out of melee range and potentially eat a meteor or having someone potentially get gibbed when magmaw becomes active again..

e: It may be worth getting your holy priest to respec discipline for Power Word: Barrier. Greatly reduces the damage you take from lava spit. Make sure your resto shaman is using spirit link on lava spits alternating with the paladin's aura mastery. Not sure of the timing, if there are 3 lava spits between head phases then having a disc priest would greatly help you. If it's only 2, then meh, you've got all the raid cooldowns you need. While you may think you can just heal through these and not use raid cooldowns, the point is to save as much healer mana as possible for p2, as it can get quite insane. You also may be able to position people so that 2-3 could stand in spirit link and not splash shadow barrage. Although, a lot easier on 10man since there's next to zero chance of shadow barrage ever splashing. Hell, there'll be so few people in the room your kiter will never have to worry about taking splash.

[Deleted]

I have zero 10man experience, but I kite on 25's.

Your frost DK won't kill the parasites. They continue spawning into p2 (only constructs/meteors stop). He might bring down more than I do (I regularly hit the maximum number that can be active at once) but he won't be DPSing p2.

If there are people at range, you should never get meteor or pillar targeted in melee. If this happens your melee group is out of position or your ranged group is too close.

.

I used to do kiting as frost DK on 10m heroic, told everyone to back off and mind their own business and I had killed all the parasites before the next wave spawned most of the time, it is a non-issue (this was before the extra ez-2 death runes we got this patcH). That and any decent DK will just pop his HB's and use his RP/leftover runes to DPS construct or boss while adds are being slow/kited. I rerolled and am now kiting as survival hunter, same thing, adds are long dead before next batch is up.

As for the range meteor thing, above guy is right. Melee range = MELEE range, not 'close to boss' range. You are still to far away and thus can get a meteor.

Head smashing melee, move out beyond the spike before head comes up, only way we've managed to guarantee no deaths. You can still dps the head way past the spike though, so no DPS is lost (especially since melee can just dps on the run).

[Floross]

I have three questions regarding H Magmaw.

1) Is there a good way to avoid player deaths upon Magmaw exiting the exposed phase? He starts meleeing our DPS instead of the tank coming out of it. Is the only option to move away from him as the exposed phase is ending?

I do this fight on 25man but the same concept should work on 10man. Have your offtank taunt the boss right before Mangle happens and your MT gets eaten. That way Magmaw will target your offtank for that split second rather than any of your dps. The MT can taunt back once he comes out - a good bonus is that he doesn't lose his threat from the OT taunting.

2) How exactly is the placement of pillars/Constructs decided? I could have sworn it had something to do with having at least three people at ranged, but every so often we will have a Construct spawn directly on the tank or (even worse) in the raid group, which makes things pretty hectic if it doesn't lead to a quick wipe.

Once we put around 6-7 in range we never got any pillars in melee. For 10man keeping 4 should do trick. Since you don't have a problem with dps you could try putting the mage out as well.

Most of our wipes are caused by the above two problems; very few of our deaths are caused by the constructs being out of control or anything like that.

My third question is really, any tips unrelated to the above that you would suggest? Our raid comp is:

Holy Pally
Holy Priest
Resto Shaman

Bear Tank
Pally Tank

Combat Rogue
Arcane Mage
MM Hunter
Frost DK (has the job of kiting the adds for us with little trouble)
Enhancement Shaman

We're not having any trouble with DPS'ing down constructs. We keep the MM Hunter, Frost DK and Holy Priest away from the group; the MM hunter and Holy priest DPS/heal normally, except having to dodge/MD constructs and pillars. The Frost DK kites the adds; he manages to kill or weaken them pretty effectively so I'm optimistic that he might be able to help with DPS in P2.


A good trick to go into P2 is to make sure you do make an exposed head ~31% then destroy him so you end up spending less time with the AoE shadow bolts from Nef.

Check my edits

[kerwyn]

I used to do kiting as frost DK on 10m heroic, told everyone to back off and mind their own business and I had killed all the parasites before the next wave spawned most of the time, it is a non-issue (this was before the extra ez-2 death runes we got this patcH). That and any decent DK will just pop his HB's and use his RP/leftover runes to DPS construct or boss while adds are being slow/kited. I rerolled and am now kiting as survival hunter, same thing, adds are long dead before next batch is up.

Ah, well, on 25man at least, killing them is completely out of the question for me.

It's not that I don't try to, it's that they have entirely too much health for it to be possible.

[Deleted]

Just move away a little after the exposed phase.
Our hunter's kiting and killing the adds, usually there's never more than one stack of the parasites on the ground. Heck, he's even dps-ing the head because he doesn't have to kite since they're all dead.

You're pretty melee-heavy ... any problems because of the meteors / constructs spawning in the meleecamp?

[Deleted]

Your questions have been answered more or less already, but for what it's worth:

1) Have everyone take a few steps to range after the expose. You'll want this both for the melee hits, as well as pillar/add spawns right after an expose

2) You need to have three people in range. If you get any adds on the melee group/tank, then they simply did not stand close enough to the boss. We have a frost dk kite the adds at range, one ranged dps to stand in range, and the add tank moving to range before an add spawns, pick it up there, and bring it back to the melee.

[Zka]

I have three questions regarding H Magmaw.

1) Is there a good way to avoid player deaths upon Magmaw exiting the exposed phase? He starts meleeing our DPS instead of the tank coming out of it. Is the only option to move away from him as the exposed phase is ending?

Stand a bit back at the end AND START of expose phase. Really. Sometimes he does that instagib thing even at the start. Believe me, my priest got 1shot a couple times already :/

[ice216]

We were having a lot of trouble with constructs spawning on melee as well. I would just call for a swap over to the tank side, since most of the dps were on the construct anyways magmaw being able to parry didn't matter much. Once the fire was gone we would hop back and keep going. If your able to see it and move as fast as you would for massive crash you should be fine.

[Tingol]

I have three questions regarding H Magmaw.

1) Is there a good way to avoid player deaths upon Magmaw exiting the exposed phase? He starts meleeing our DPS instead of the tank coming out of it. Is the only option to move away from him as the exposed phase is ending?

2) How exactly is the placement of pillars/Constructs decided? I could have sworn it had something to do with having at least three people at ranged, but every so often we will have a Construct spawn directly on the tank or (even worse) in the raid group, which makes things pretty hectic if it doesn't lead to a quick wipe.

Most of our wipes are caused by the above two problems; very few of our deaths are caused by the constructs being out of control or anything like that.

My third question is really, any tips unrelated to the above that you would suggest? Our raid comp is:

Holy Pally
Holy Priest
Resto Shaman

Bear Tank
Pally Tank

Combat Rogue
Arcane Mage
MM Hunter
Frost DK (has the job of kiting the adds for us with little trouble)
Enhancement Shaman

We're not having any trouble with DPS'ing down constructs. We keep the MM Hunter, Frost DK and Holy Priest away from the group; the MM hunter and Holy priest DPS/heal normally, except having to dodge/MD constructs and pillars. The Frost DK kites the adds; he manages to kill or weaken them pretty effectively so I'm optimistic that he might be able to help with DPS in P2.

1) The only way is to take few steps back untill he is on tank... but keep an eye on the pillar timer as you have to hug him before it

2) In my experience (7-8 kills) the only way for meteor to fall at melee group (assuming you have atleast 3 ppl at range) is if someone takes a bit of range by accident. It has never happened to us if all are hugging correctly.

About the add kiting... in 10 man (im in 10 man guild) I would personally go with killing the parasites with mage + hunter since this way you will have 20% of your total dps not doing anything to boss in last phase... which will 100% cause you troubles. Its doable that way but you need really good dps

[erwindra]

Make the tank stand right up against the edge of the ledge, If anyone else is closer than the tank they will get melee'd before he is tauntable.

[frester]

We've had people just a few steps behind everyone else in melee and they were targeted with a pillar.

this is quite important, if you don't stack properly then this will happen and it's not nice at all

[Deleted]

1) Is there a good way to avoid player deaths upon Magmaw exiting the exposed phase?

If you rotate tanks (1 with armor debuff tanking adds, and tank w/o debuff is always on boss), make sure the other tank is 2nd on threat. He can taunt boss from a distance ~10 sec before mangle while still tanking adds. Boss will continue attacking his current tank and after recovering from the impale phase will attack the new tank automatically (providing he standing in melee range)

as an option, let everyone step back before nuke phase finishes.

ask tank to make macro:

/targetexact Magmaw
/cast <his taunt ability>

and spam it at the phase change.

2) How exactly is the placement of pillars/Constructs decided?

pillar is placed on ranged target if there is at least one.
Construct spawned on ranged target if there are at least 3 (10 man) - similar way as Festergut or Vezax were choosing targets for their aoe abilities. Make sure those who are supposed to stay in melee range are really standing in melee range - not like 1-2 yards further back.

[Tharkkun]

If the melee stand on the spike which he gets impaled on you should be safe when he comes back up. That's far enough out and shouldn't cause parasites/constructs to spawn on you.

[madmessias]

You mentioned something about people dying after getting of the head (impaling him) too avoid that, never have blazing bone constructs spawning close to the spike, since thats where you will always get after you were up on the head.

[edanna]

1. If you tank taunts him as he coming up problem solved or if dps back up
2. When 3 people are at range he will ALWAYS pick range atleast from the last 100000 times its never been in melee