Throne of Thunder: Mage Tactics & Tips

[Jaylol]

One thing I would like to add is for Iron Qon. You can alter time from the back of the room right before her windstorm. AT >> Windstorm sucks you to mid of the room >> POP you are back to the outside of windstorm. Evo yourself to heal while you wait for people to run.

Unless you fail horribly at tornadoes, I personally wouldn't waste AT on that.

[royals]

Just a tactic, not neccisarrily a dps maximizing tool. Which I would say definitely falls under the spirit of this thread.

[Emage]

This hasn't really been said in the whole ice block vs greater invis argument for Jin'roch but if you glyph ice block you don't have to sit in ice block as long since you receive a 3 second immunity to spells after you cancel ice block, so at four seconds till ionization you can pop ice block/ cold snap, then cancel it moments later and not worry about getting ionization, and since you used coldsnap before ionization you will have time to iceblock the 3rd ionization, all while not having to move out of the puddle to dispell.

[awildpidgeyappears]

Horridon
Be sure to check out the general guides to the boss first:
Icy Veins Strategy Guide
Fatboss Video Guide (normal)
Fatboss Video Guide (heroic)

Mage Tactics
Your role is to get adds down as quick as possible while also doing damage to Horridon when you can.

(HEROIC) The Pink Dinosaur that follows you can be kept away from you by setting your water elemental on it.

Maximising DPS
1) Some adds can be frozen (1st and 3rd door), use pet freeze.

2) (HEROIC) The Pink Dinosaur that follows you can be kept away from you by setting your water elemental on it.

3) He takes 200% more damage after headbutting door. Good time to get a hefty combustion off.

For number 2, for the two specs that aren't Frost, I suggest a macro like

/target Direhorn Spirit
/cast Nether Tempest
/targetlasttarget

You will use it liberally throughout the fight (especially in the last phase).

Number 3 is not quite right. Cracked Shell is a stacking debuff that Horridon gains each time he crashes into a door (50% increased damage per door x 4 doors). He'll be at 200% by the end of the fight, but not each time he crashes into a door.

Also, Temporal Shield (and Greater Invisibility) are great for mitigating the damage on Dire Call.

To maximize DPS on the fight, keep Nether Tempest up on Horridon throughout.

[Shangalar]

The problem with Direhorn Spirit is that it doesn't react to the entire duration of the dot, but only to the first tick. So I typically use Arcane Missiles for it as it gets knocked back twice from them (first and fourth/fifth wave of missiles)

[awildpidgeyappears]

I can see how AM would be useful as Arcane. As Fire, NT is pretty much your best bet (and I can see it being beneficial for Arcane, as well, at least during the doors phase), because it's instant cast and you don't have to be facing in the direction of the Direhorn to get it off (compared with, say, Scorch).

[Deleted]

I find Vox Immortalis guides to be much more informative than FatBoss!

Jinrohk: Combustion CD lines up nicely with the pools so wait until then to use it.

Horridon: Greater Invis can be used to remove 2 stacks of dots from yourself - extremely usefull.

Tortos: Spread Combustion to the turtles as they pass under Tortos, 800+k DPS peaks are possible here, especially at the start if your group uses Hero there.

Jikun: If you can get a feather on any of the first 3 nests it is worth holding off on combustion so you can do double damage with it using the Primal Nutrient buff.

Twins: Ask tanks to taunt red twin in when she appears during the 1st phase so you can spread combustion to her.

[cecild]

I'm unsure as to whether this is a good tactic to use. It does lots of damage and all but the risk is that if the mobs are frozen and the tank runs slightly out of their hitbox they will target anyone else in their range; if that is a melee dps then they're probably going to die.
Even if you time it perfectly, there's still going to be a fraction of a second where you're putting your melee dps'ers at risk.

True, i forget we are spoiled with having only one melee

[reflection]

Maybe we could also add what does NOT work. Because sometimes this is also not very clear. One thing that wasn't mentioned comes to my mind:

Ice Block does not remove the debuff the ma'lak casts while empowered (the one where 2 other people have to join you to minimize damage), but it does mitigate the damage. So it's ok for emergency. But you can remove the debuff when he is not empowered with Ice Block. Maybe greater invis will also work because it's some kind of a dot. Never tried that.

Somebody else already mentioned that ice block or invisibility are a bad idea as long as you have an add on animus (nearly produced a wipe last time I did this oO)

Iron Qon: You can multidot Qon each time he gets off a quilen and do some damage

[Libretto]

Greater invis does not remove frost king's debuff when empowered.

Blazing speed is the best option for that and most ToT fights.

[Deleted]

You can actually iceblock Frostbite from Ma'lak when he's empowered, you have to do it when you get the blue arrow above your head and before the debuff is applied on you. Might not be worth bothering with in normal but in HC it hits like a truck and you have the body heat shit to worry about so it's definetly a good thing to do.

[Hasufer]

Aye, Palla's can do the same thing with bubble, just for the record (but think it was mentioned in another threat as well somewhere)
If you are lucky u can completely avoid the first 2 frostbites, thus making the start of the fight SO much easier.
Avoiding just 1, makes it equally easier. Be sure u got an IB/stopcast macro rd for it, as u need to be quick u got like a gcd to react once the blue marker above ya head occur. With other stuff going on at the same time, it can be half a second determing if u get the debuff removed or not.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cancelaura Ice Block
/cast Ice Block

works good for it click it to apply ib, click again to remove.

[Ledonn]

Only read the first bit, but the ionization thing is incorrect. You can use alter time just fine.

Ionization doesn't actually have to be dispelled off. You can also allow the debuff run out. What I do is 4-5 seconds before the debuff ends I blink out and stand still, away from everyone, and as long as you don't move, you do not take damage from it. It'll actually save your healers from having to dispell and also save your defensive CDs for lightning storm.

[usiris]

Do mirror images benefit from the water buff on jin-rokh?

[Jaylol]

Do mirror images benefit from the water buff on jin-rokh?

Not sure, I would guess so though.

[Deleted]

From my personal experience as a Frost Mage (3HC):

Jin'Rokh Heroic
-Pop cooldowns in the pool
-Move to the side when plenty of procs are up
-I prefer to get out with 3 seconds left and use Greater Invis. Why? After Ionization you have to get out anyway for the Lightning Phase. The difference with the Cold Snap tactic is utterly minimal.
-I generally don't have issues with avoiding the sparks, but I prefer to have Ice Block ready just in case.
-Blazing Speed for quick repositioning/running out.

Horridon Heroic
-Make 2 macros: the Direhorn Spirit NT macro and a Horridon NT macro.
-Use NT on the big priority adds (don't bother dotting the small adds up), and focus them down.
-I'm on Dinomancer interrupt duty, so I use a stopcasting CS macro.
-Save FO for when the second wave of balcony adds jump down.
-First and third gate have adds that can be frozen. Use your pet here.
-Glyph of Remove Curse if your other decursers are outright slackers.
-For the love of god, don't use Invisibility if the Direhorn Spirit is up. I prefer to take Cauterize on this fight, even though I've never needed it on a kill. You could use Greater Invis to dispel poison dots if you have no Direhorn I suppose.
-Pop BL and everything else on Wargod, don't forget to keep a NT on Horridon at all times. Use your NT macro to keep the Direhorn away. Yes you'll have to use it every 3-4 GCDs, that's life. I prefer to have my pet sit on Horridon at all times.
-Temporal Shield every Dire Call.

Council
-Outside of burning Sul I just dot them all up and go on the priority.
-Pet freeze the loa spirits followed up with a DF, makes up for your other DPS who will be tunneling the bosses (and they will be).
-Iceblock Biting Cold off.

This is a really basic fight overall when it comes to what we can do. Just don't stand in shit basically...

Tortos Heroic
-2 Macros again: a Tortos NT macro and a crystal NT macro. Keep NT on Tortos at all times.
-Save FO for when the Turtles spawn (we kick a Turtle in the turtle mass, vastly increasing the destruction of FO+IL spam). Dot them all up and focus the target down in chosen order. Once we have enough turtles down not to be playing catch up, I mostly just go on the boss :<.
-I suppose Incanter's Ward works here for Quake Stomps, still I run Invocation tbh. I have no trouble getting them off reliably.

Megaera
Not much to it really...
-Evocate after every head.
-Greater Invis at the start of every Rampage
-Scumbag NT the other head.
-Pray FO goes to the head, instead of going to damn Ji-Kun.

Ji-kun
I'm not on egg duty:
-I jump down to the second platform (since we use 4 people per egg group) and grab a feather for Primal Nutrients.
-Nuke. Don't bother soaking anything.
-Blazing Speed is great for Downdraft.
-Greater Invis on Quills.

Durumu


Dark Animus


Iron Qon


Twin Consorts


Lei Shen

I'll do the others later this afternoon.

[Kiry]

this 100% - "For the love of god, don't use Invisibility if the Direhorn Spirit is up. I prefer to take Cauterize on this fight, even though I've never needed it on a kill. You could use Greater Invis to dispel poison dots if you have no Direhorn I suppose."

I tend to use Greater invis on other fights, but this one I use Cauterize. I swear it seems like I get the direhorn at the beginning of the fight. It's best that you just not do it, too easy to lose track of stuff in that mess. IB does good with removing debuffs, take Cold snap if you prefer instead.

TS is very powerful for HC fights. I use it for both Jin-Rohk and Ji-Kun, and it doesn't use a GCD which is so needed when you are progressing.

[Markofcain]

I have read a number of guides on n-horridon. What im finding is that one site say frost bomb for this fight others including this one say NT is the way to go. From what ive observed is majority of adds cant be frozen so is FB really that good since you cant shatter combo? With NT the adds seem to die pretty so the uptime on NT is effected. Im running frost for this fight. I may be way off on some of this stuff since I just came back from a month long break. Any constructive is greatly appreciated..

[Malfecto]

Ionization doesn't actually have to be dispelled off. You can also allow the debuff run out. What I do is 4-5 seconds before the debuff ends I blink out and stand still, away from everyone, and as long as you don't move, you do not take damage from it. It'll actually save your healers from having to dispell and also save your defensive CDs for lightning storm.

Sorry, this is just not right. Yes, it does NOT have to be dispelled, it will naturally drop off after the time is up, but you STILL take damage that needs to be mitigated. Moving has nothing to do with Ionization. Your healers don't have to dispel you, but you need some form of mitigation.

I'm with the Greater Invis for Ionization/Save Iceblock for emergencies crowd. As soon as we can figure out where to go so our healers can somewhat plant and heal, we'll have him down. The ionization is a joke tbh.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 01:11 PM ----------

Unless you fail horribly at tornadoes, I personally wouldn't waste AT on that.

I've found what's best, at least with frost since you have the room in your glyph selection, is to take blazing speed and the blink glyph. A few seconds before windstorm, apply Ice Barrier if you use it, and after you come unstunned, watch the tornados for a 1 to 2 second window. A literal tunnel opens up typically with a straight line through directly in front of you. Blink and blazing you are practically 1 yard from the safe area.

[Deleted]

I have read a number of guides on n-horridon. What im finding is that one site say frost bomb for this fight others including this one say NT is the way to go. From what ive observed is majority of adds cant be frozen so is FB really that good since you cant shatter combo? With NT the adds seem to die pretty so the uptime on NT is effected. Im running frost for this fight. I may be way off on some of this stuff since I just came back from a month long break. Any constructive is greatly appreciated..

It's not because of the Shatter combo, but because you'll have 5-6 adds packed most of the time if done right. The downside is that you:
a) Have to hardcast it
b) Can't dot Horridon
c) Can't use it on your Direhorn
Plenty of reasons to take NT over FB.