Heroic Archi - Viable to send all but 1-2 dps down?

[Broccoliz]

As is true of a lot of guilds right now, heroic Archi sub 25% is kicking our butts. We are debating sending down all but 1-2 dps (out of ~20 raid size) along with one healer to quickly nuke and get out to handle infernos.

Currently we are dying second round of infernos because one team isn't back yet so they enrage and AoE kill us all. If we send almost all dps (leaving 1-2 hunters to handle shadow fiends) would they all be out in time? Is this feasible? Haven't read of it being done and not sure why. The phase would go by so fast the dot would never get high enough to be an issue. We're talking about slowing and ignoring void star, nuking and getting out.

[Youn]

You have to send 3 down or the boss heals 5%. We were sending 5 down each time at 22 people, but strangely got our kill when I failed to make the second portal. The result was I spent more time killing shadows while the group inside still made it out. Not the optimal way to do it, but it worked.

[Deleted]

We did it a bit different than other guilds. We were 22 people. We sent 4 people + tank down with the first group to get the mob to around 20%, so that when the second group comes down it is still alive and both can be teleported up to have full dmg during 25% phase. You want to stop dps on Archimonde so that you dont bring him to 25% before the second group isn't up. The 3rd and 4th group are sacrifice groups, so you will need 3 tanks for this strategy.
Here's a Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OalTVZbYLgs

[Broccoliz]

I am familiar with both of those strats. The first one mentioned is what we are doing now that isn't working. The second one we have read can be very buggy and to be honest we are concerned it's an exploit? But how do you determine that, who knows. Not saying it is but that's why we're not currently doing it.... I also think having three tanks is overkill and unnecessary, dragging the fight out a lot more?

Specifically I would like to know what the cons are to sending ALL your dps, leaving 1-2 hunters to handle the shadow fiends. Any thoughts on specifically this strat and why it isn't done?

[Deleted]

Did you try to do the opposite perhaps? Send a minimal amount of people down or save your legendary ring for this exact moment, the people downstairs bursts down the mob with the ring and upstairs the infernos (at least one of them) gets one shotted.

[Broccoliz]

Yep, we tried sending small and medium groups. Only thing we didn't try was sending everyone Since everyone is down there the boss ideally won't phase so in theory it sounds like it should work. I just have not heard it before.

So just to clarify again ... I really really appreciate the tips! I am very specifically asking only for thoughts on sending ALL dps down. There are other forums on the other strats. I specifically want to discuss this strat

Is it viable? Why aren't people doing it this way? Etc Etc.. We are going to give it a try next week, just wanted to research ahead of time.

[Vathral2]

In my guild, I opt to have everyone (of the dps, we only send 1 healer here, myself) except 2 hunters + 6 people (tank/healer + 4 dps) for the first portal (we do it with 30) which means there's 1 tank, 6 dps (2 being hunters), 4 healers up on the first banish. We then send the same 5 people (and then 1 tank each time for the second/third portal) and we lust as the second group goes down (so that they can re-lust for themselves) whenever they need it (whether they come up and lust or whether they go down the second time and lust to try to get out faster).

It's worked every time for us (as the boss is basically dead for us as the third portal spawns now).

[Deleted]

Yep, we tried sending small and medium groups. Only thing we didn't try was sending everyone Since everyone is down there the boss ideally won't phase so in theory it sounds like it should work. I just have not heard it before.

So just to clarify again ... I really really appreciate the tips! I am very specifically asking only for thoughts on sending ALL dps down. There are other forums on the other strats. I specifically want to discuss this strat

Is it viable? Why aren't people doing it this way? Etc Etc.. We are going to give it a try next week, just wanted to research ahead of time.

Going to assume that people dont do it because as soon as you hit the 25% phase, Infernals come on a timer and not on health percentage, if Infernals come when people are in the nether banish then things will go badly. And other than that, unexpected things could happen, going out of the nether with lets say 15 people means that 15 people will be stacked around the portal area which does damage and if its timed badly with a demonic feedback then too many people could get hit and one shot eachother. It could get messy..

[Broccoliz]

Yep, we tried sending small and medium groups. Only thing we didn't try was sending everyone Since everyone is down there the boss ideally won't phase so in theory it sounds like it should work. I just have not heard it before.

So just to clarify again ... I really really appreciate the tips! I am very specifically asking only for thoughts on sending ALL dps down. There are other forums on the other strats. I specifically want to discuss this strat

Is it viable? Why aren't people doing it this way? Etc Etc.. We are going to give it a try next week, just wanted to research ahead of time.

[Vathral2]

Yep, we tried sending small and medium groups. Only thing we didn't try was sending everyone Since everyone is down there the boss ideally won't phase so in theory it sounds like it should work. I just have not heard it before.

So just to clarify again ... I really really appreciate the tips! I am very specifically asking only for thoughts on sending ALL dps down. There are other forums on the other strats. I specifically want to discuss this strat

Is it viable? Why aren't people doing it this way? Etc Etc.. We are going to give it a try next week, just wanted to research ahead of time.

To answer you, for us its worked just because that we know we don't have to worry about adding anyone else to the 2nd/3rd portal banish group and can freely push the boss as needed after we send the numbers I mentioned in an earlier post. It let us easily plan our lust and the burn (before everyone had rings) and just beat the dps check.

The goal with our strat is that we don't care if the group we send a second time into the 3rd portal lives because we have so much damage on the boss already. On our first kill, we needed a 4th portal and sent 2 random people (1 healer/dps) to suicide with the tank just so that he didn't heal.

[Wilderness]

Yep, we tried sending small and medium groups. Only thing we didn't try was sending everyone Since everyone is down there the boss ideally won't phase so in theory it sounds like it should work. I just have not heard it before.

So just to clarify again ... I really really appreciate the tips! I am very specifically asking only for thoughts on sending ALL dps down. There are other forums on the other strats. I specifically want to discuss this strat

Is it viable? Why aren't people doing it this way? Etc Etc.. We are going to give it a try next week, just wanted to research ahead of time.

Well, its hard to discuss a specific strat without knowing what the problems were with other strats you've tried. It may be that if you just fixed some other issues, they would work and that those other issues would prevent this from working even if it is a viable strat.

We just send down 2 rotating groups so I don't pay super close attention to the banish/infernal timers but I'm pretty certain that at least one of the times my group goes down literally as the infernals are spawning. So that's going to be a problem if you're sending down all or even most of your dps.

[Broccoliz]

Well, its hard to discuss a specific strat without knowing what the problems were with other strats you've tried. It may be that if you just fixed some other issues, they would work and that those other issues would prevent this from working even if it is a viable strat.

We just send down 2 rotating groups so I don't pay super close attention to the banish/infernal timers but I'm pretty certain that at least one of the times my group goes down literally as the infernals are spawning. So that's going to be a problem if you're sending down all or even most of your dps.

The intention of this post isn't to get help for my specific guild with Our specific problems. The point of this thread is solely to discuss whether sending all dps is viable. If I were to post asking "hey what is the best way to do this phase, my team is sucking at it" then these responses would be great but like I said there are already 10+ threads discussing that.

I am simply curious if anyone has tried it before. If you haven't, I appreciate the feedback but I don't want the intention of this post to be derailed or I won't ever get my answer lol.

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In my guild, I opt to have everyone (of the dps, we only send 1 healer here, myself) except 2 hunters + 6 people (tank/healer + 4 dps) for the first portal (we do it with 30) which means there's 1 tank, 6 dps (2 being hunters), 4 healers up on the first banish. We then send the same 5 people (and then 1 tank each time for the second/third portal) and we lust as the second group goes down (so that they can re-lust for themselves) whenever they need it (whether they come up and lust or whether they go down the second time and lust to try to get out faster).

It's worked every time for us (as the boss is basically dead for us as the third portal spawns now).

Can you re-explain this? I am interested but it is worded difficult to understand. You say you send everyone but two hunters, a tank a healer, and four dos. So you only leave one healer outside the first banish? But then later you day there is 6 dps and 4 healers up on the first banish. Then you say you send the same 5 people down, what 5 people? AH I'm so confused. Are you sending all or just 5?

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Alright, I made a graph to compare timers of each spell and what would be feasible. Here is what I figure...

Nether banish is once every 65 seconds after 40%. Demonic feedback every 20 seconds. After you hit 25%, infernos spawn every 62 seconds give or take.

I assume with 11 dps going down the nether realm would last 10-15 seconds.

So, nether banish 1 he's at 40%. Go in, kill boss, get out spread for demonic. Have 50 seconds to burn him to about 28%, do not phase. Get nether 2, same thing. Come out burn him to 25%, handle infernos with entire raid, and get boss to ~15%. Nether banish 3, same thing, and come out burn boss. Second infernos will spawn 40 seconds after that realm starts. Plenty of time to get whole raid back out to handle second round of infernos. From this point, boss can be burned and fourth nether realm is a sac group.

So it would require not phasing to 25% until after second nether realm. Demonic feedback timer would need to be watched before coming out of nether phase but it should be good unless it takes longer than 20 seconds in the realm (which it shouldn't with all dps).

Just thinking..... could work well....

[Deleted]

The intention of this post isn't to get help for my specific guild with Our specific problems. The point of this thread is solely to discuss whether sending all dps is viable. If I were to post asking "hey what is the best way to do this phase, my team is sucking at it" then these responses would be great but like I said there are already 10+ threads discussing that.

I am simply curious if anyone has tried it before. If you haven't, I appreciate the feedback but I don't want the intention of this post to be derailed or I won't ever get my answer lol.

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Can you re-explain this? I am interested but it is worded difficult to understand. You say you send everyone but two hunters, a tank a healer, and four dos. So you only leave one healer outside the first banish? But then later you day there is 6 dps and 4 healers up on the first banish. Then you say you send the same 5 people down, what 5 people? AH I'm so confused. Are you sending all or just 5?

- - - Updated - - -

Alright, I made a graph to compare timers of each spell and what would be feasible. Here is what I figure...

Nether banish is once every 65 seconds after 40%. Demonic feedback every 20 seconds. After you hit 25%, infernos spawn every 62 seconds give or take.

I assume with 11 dps going down the nether realm would last 10-15 seconds.

So, nether banish 1 he's at 40%. Go in, kill boss, get out spread for demonic. Have 50 seconds to burn him to about 28%, do not phase. Get nether 2, same thing. Come out burn him to 25%, handle infernos with entire raid, and get boss to ~15%. Nether banish 3, same thing, and come out burn boss. Second infernos will spawn 40 seconds after that realm starts. Plenty of time to get whole raid back out to handle second round of infernos. From this point, boss can be burned and fourth nether realm is a sac group.

So it would require not phasing to 25% until after second nether realm. Demonic feedback timer would need to be watched before coming out of nether phase but it should be good unless it takes longer than 20 seconds in the realm (which it shouldn't with all dps).

Just thinking..... could work well....

this is similar to what we do and now we one shot it.

We send all except a hunter (for shadows), tank and 2 healers into the first 2 nethers. He is at 26% at this point. Then we hero and nuke HARD. In the 3rd banish we send 2 lowest dps and tank and the boss is usually down at 4th banish. Just in case u overrun by a few seconds before he is down, get the tank to move the banish over 2 dps dpsers so he doesnt heal while u kill him.

[Vathral2]

snip

Here, I'll write it out since I sounded confusing:

At 40% when the first Nether Portal comes out (we do this with 30 people, but it has worked with 20 for us as well)

1st banish: All dps except 2 hunters + a preassigned group (so this case 4 dps + 1 healer) are going down. We 5 heal with 30, so that means when this banish gets sent down, we ONLY have 1 tank, 4 healers, 4 dps (the 4 dps in the preassigned group) + 2 hunters as the only people up.

The group down below blows it up instantly and comes back up (we beat the demonic feedback easily and wrought chaos is always pointed away from the portal), and this allows us to group up into melee before the feedback to insta break torments with Barrier + spread out for feedback.

2nd Portal (the boss hits 25% for us in our most recent kill when this happened since we crush him now): We send the current tank going down + our preassigned group (4 dps + 1 healer) for both this AND the next portal while everyone else stays up for infernals. If the boss pushes 25% as this portal spawns, we lust AFTER these guys get banished, so the resto shaman in this group can decide whether they need/want lust for the 3rd portal (2nd time in a row they go down) or for boss when they come back up.

We use our raid cds such as tranq (our shaman's tide for the rain of chaos since he's going down in this banish), devo and rallies as needed for the torments in order.

3rd portal: The other tank that got banished + the same preassigned 4 dps + 1 healer go down again with the assumption that we don't care if they come back up or not at this point. Our last few kills have been that the boss dies as they are coming back up, so it doesn't matter at this point for us.

It should work fine for you guys, as this is what we've done to pug it on heroic when its about 30-40% guild (rest pug) a few weeks ago, so dps shouldn't be an issue. We anticipate a 4th portal just in case, so we send a random spriest + the 2nd/3rd portal healer with that current tank to suicide and afk so he doesn't heal if you need more time.

[Broccoliz]

this is similar to what we do and now we one shot it.

We send all except a hunter (for shadows), tank and 2 healers into the first 2 nethers. He is at 26% at this point. Then we hero and nuke HARD. In the 3rd banish we send 2 lowest dps and tank and the boss is usually down at 4th banish. Just in case u overrun by a few seconds before he is down, get the tank to move the banish over 2 dps dpsers so he doesnt heal while u kill him.

Perfect! This is exactly what we are wanting to do. I am glad to hear it has worked for someone... appreciate the feedback!