Archimonde

[Nortibiry]

Archimonde discussion thread

Bosskillers (http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild/index.cgi?action=view_guide&guide_id=119)
wowwiki (http://www.wowwiki.com/Archimonde_(tactics))
EJ discussion thread (http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t13964-archimonde/)

"four corners" picture in EJ thread linked above (http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t13964-archimonde/p30/)

As always post additional links/videos/information.

[edit] mentioned in the wowwiki article and kind of obvious, this fight is all about survivability. PLEASE take the time to set something up so you can analyze how and why you died. If you are having trouble with this talk to me in game and I will walk you through it.

[edit] while it's on my mind, maybe it'd be a good idea for people to make time this weekend to zone into hyjal and practice the slowfall item while we have a cleared instance. Take ten or so jumps off the cliff and get a feel for the mechanic so we can hopefully avoid spending raid time on it. (Wenge suggested this earlier but I was too eager to pull :))

[Rild]

I really like the idea of trying to get to the enrage timer with 25 people alive. Im working on some rough ideas for group layouts and will post them when I get it figgured out.

[Nortibiry]

I, for one, am pretty excited about learning this fight. We've had three mini-sessions with Archimonde so far without any real changes in strategy, so I'd like to solicit input, since I haven't seen a lot of discussion:

1) Does anyone see any fundamental flaws with our current strategy, either in principle or in implementation (such as specific group composition, positioning, placement of Archimonde)?
2) Does anyone have any aspect of the fight that is giving them in particular trouble, that they'd like to bring up and discuss? I'm not trying to point anyone out, nor do I think anyone needs to be pointed out, just open the floor and trade ideas between people with different perspectives.
3) Does anyone have any tricks or tips that they've figured out, that may not be immediately obvious to all involved?

Personally I'm not unhappy with how I've been doing. I'd like to not get run over by fire, but don't know if this is possible, so may need to work on avoiding it (which is tricky when it spawns ten yards behind me and does a u-turn). I should probably stop messing up the stance dance :) And I've debating popping an avoidance trinket on the pull, just to reduce the chance I take several large hits in a row, the downside being it won't be available down the road (which is perhaps not as big a downside as risking botching an attempt). This is as good a time as any to remind the healers that my gear is sort of a balancing act between mitigation and avoidance, and I'm always happy to adjust in either direction if it would help on a particular fight.

[Vand]

This fight is all about survival. Everyone survives = win. One of the main components of survival is speedy decursing. When we first set up positions and decursing assignments, I was assigned to decurse the melee, who stand behind Archimonde.

Equally important to speedy decursing is everybody staying out of the fire. The time when the fire is most dangerous is during a fear. One of the best ways to increase your liklihood of survival, if you are lucky enough to be in a shaman group (as I am with Attic) is to be sure you are near his tremor totem when the fear goes off. That usually gets you out of fear well before you are in danger of running into a fire, assuming you're not standing too close to a fire to begin with. When the tremor totem fails you for some reason, you've got your trinket as backup. Fortunately, the CD on the trinket is short enough that it is almost always available when the tremor totem doesn't work.

My dilema is that my group is stationed in front of Archimonde. Unfortunately, due to Archimonde's hit box being so large, there is no way that I can be in range of both the melee and Attic's totems without getting perilously close to Nort. I can always station myself near the melee, but that leaves me totally vulnerable to fear, whereas the melee have Kub's totem to keep them safe.

I have also noticed that there is some other decurser in range of the melee. I do not know who it is, but at least half the time that I try to decurse one of the melee, somebody has beaten me to it by less than a second.

I know that it is possible to survive this fight without benefit of a tremor totem. But I would really like to be able to do my job as a decurser while taking advantage of Attic's totems, which not only make me more likely to survive, but also increase my DPS. Given that another decurser is obviously in range of the melee, it seems like it might be best if I stay close to Attic while focussing on decursing people in that vicinity. But I am very open to suggestions as to other ways to address this dilema.

[Nortibiry]

I've wondered in the past if it would be wise to replace one of the group five warriors with a decurser for this fight, to take advantage of the tremor totem (and leave one in there to battle shout buff the rogues), since the odd warrior out can just break the fear on their own. If we're really tight on spots we could shift them both out, the downside being lower overall dps.

[Tierran]

Another, don't know if it'd be easier or not, solution would be to flip Archimonde so that his back is to Attic, if that's where Vand is supposed to be. If it's the fact that his hit box is so large that he can't reach the melee on the other side of the boss, this would, in theory, fix that problem. Just a thought.

[Assault]

I don't think it'd be a bad idea to take both warriors out of group 5 in favor of two people who can benefit from the tremor totem. The problem could potentially be finding two people who would care to stand close enough to Archimonde to benefit from the totem though, obviously. I think the lower raid-wide DPS by decreasing the buffs on the melee would be a non-issue because it seems pretty clear that this fight is not a DPS race.

[Vand]

I would not minding being put into Group 5 so that I could stick close to the melee. I would prefer to stick in Pika's and Attic's group because I really benefit from their other buffs, but the most important thing to me is surviving to do my job of DPS and decursing, and that means being withing range of a tremor totem. I kind of like the idea of pivoting Archimonde 180 degrees, but I am not sure of what the other ramifications of that would be.

Let's not forget that there is at least one other decurser already within range of the melee. Given that the curse is cast less often than I think many of us expected it to be, perhaps the simplest change would be to reassign somebody to the melee who is already in range and have me decurse people in front of Archimonde. I know that Chasidy is already in front of Archimonde, but we don't really seem to be suffering for lack of decursers, so maybe it would not hurt to have a bit of duplicated territory.

[Nortibiry]

I can flip him around, just bear in mind that he can be a bit twitchy on the pull (for some reason he keeps looking at healers in the back for a second right as I run in, fortunately it hasn't been a big problem yet but is the source of some of the slightly off positioning), so it'd be best if we wanted to do this if melee didn't attack for 3 or 5 seconds while I got him situated.

I think it is important to remember that while Attic or ranged decursers may be in range of the melee a lot of the time, they can not be depended on to be in range, as they may have to flee the doom fire or get air bursted. This is the entire point of breaking into self contained groups and spreading out the decursers. If our strategy relies on a ranged group being near the melee, our strategy will not work.

[edit] Err, if our strategy relies on a particular ranged group being in a particular position... clearly we're hoping that at least one or two is in range to heal at any point in time :)

[editedit] I'm poking around on the EJ thread which really is an amazing resource, everyone should read a few random pages of it, and numerous people are talking about the doomfire getting hung up on "the stump" and looping back onto the melee group. Based on this we may want to reevaluate where we're tanking him. Seriously I link to page 30 in my initial post GO READ THAT PAGE and then hop around in the second half of the thread a bit. Also looking late in the thread it appears that purification pottions do remove the grip curse, I'm not sure anything gets rid of the doomfire debuff.

[Mithwen]

I can flip him around, just bear in mind that he can be a bit twitchy on the pull (for some reason he keeps looking at healers in the back for a second right as I run in, fortunately it hasn't been a big problem yet but is the source of some of the slightly off positioning), so it'd be best if we wanted to do this if melee didn't attack for 3 or 5 seconds while I got him situated.[/b]

Conversely our group could move to be behind Archimonde? Swap with another one?

Pika.

[Assault]

so it'd be best if we wanted to do this if melee didn't attack for 3 or 5 seconds while I got him situated.[/b]

I think any melee who attacks within the first 3 to 5 seconds on any boss is kind of..foolish is the nicest word I can use. Case in point me jumping the gun on Lurker the other week by trying to garrote before I get knocked out of stealth from the whirl, then getting to spend the entire fight dead. Starting to attack that early has way too high a risk of pulling aggro by having a lucky string of crits or you having a string of misses or some combination of the two, in my opinion.

[Nortibiry]

There is some nice doomfire discussion on page 33/34 (and perhaps beyond) of the EJ thread that I'm just reading through now, for anyone interested.

[Vand]

In reading the EJ thread, I came across this recent video (http://files.filefront.com/archimondewmv/1;9536490;/fileinfo.html). It is a strategy that greatly minimized doomfire issues at the cost of somewhat worse airburst issues. The strategy involves having most of the raid stand up on the mountainside (like where we usually all go to wait for Nort's pull). The doomfires seem very reluctant to go up there, and even when they do, they are forced to take a fairly long path, making them much easier to avoid. It reminds me of the heroic Mech fight where you fight on the stairs to avoid the bombs. The drawback is that people are more clumped up, making them more likely to be airbursted.

Some people on EJ questioned whether this was an exploit. In fact, somebody recounted a conversation with a GM, after which he reached the conclusion that it was not an exploit, even if it is not exactly how Blizzard intended the encounter to be fought.

I know that we tend to be pretty conservative and want to do things "the right way," but at the very least this is entertaining.

[Mithwen]

There is some nice doomfire discussion on page 33/34 (and perhaps beyond) of the EJ thread that I'm just reading through now, for anyone interested.[/b]

I read this. It had a cartoon. I liked it.

Pika.

[Vand]

I am not sure whether Lyre being ret is a long-term change, but as long as she is, we probably want to think about putting her into Group 5 when fighting Archimonde to benefit from Kub's tremor totem. In reading through the EJ thread, a recurring theme is that you take a huge risk bringing melee who do not have a tremor totem within range (not counting DPS warriors who can get themselves out of fear). Being within melee range on Archimonde puts you so close to fires that you must have a good way to get out of fear more often than the trinket will allow. I would have died more than once tonight if it had not been for the tremor totem.

Since this is a test of survial and not of DPS, would it be a good idea to swap out Tier and let Lyre have his Group 5 place? Maybe this has already been resolved...if so, ignore everything I just said. =P

[Lad]

I believe she is in group 1 with that totem.

[Wenge]

The bonkadin thing was Etri said something vague and so Lyre thought he wanted her to go ret, which isn't the case, so she's back to holy.

[Vand]

The bonkadin thing was Etri said something vague and so Lyre thought he wanted her to go ret[/b]
Something like "Gosh, it sure would be nice if some pali could actually judge wisdom"? Foolish Etri!

[phewl]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rRkQ7zmjMQ
Tonight!! lets do it!

[Etrigana]

His death animation wasnt nearly as cool as in WC3. I still think the Grom Hellscream (http://youtube.com/watch?v=luuUE0x7-TY) and Thrall video against Manaroth was the best cut scene though. Archimonde is just a chump. Not enough throaty man-screams.

-Etri

[Vand]

One of the posts I remember reading in the EJ Archimonde thread mentioned that it takes most guilds a whole bunch of wipes to get Archimonde down for the first time, quite a few wipes the second time, and improving after the first two. That got me to wondering how we have progressed, so I looked through our WWS and came up with some pretty impressive numbers.

First Kill: 40 attempts
Second Kill: 20 attempts
Third Kill: 8 attempts

That's what I call good progress! Prediction: Next week, we kill him with enough time left to go kill Naj'entus and maybe Supremus. Too bad that will be our last time there.

[Mithwen]

Hyjal with Jaina the mage who pyroblasts CCed targets, its marathon trash sessions, and its mail healing gear can all rot in a box for a while, imo. Thrall can come with us to BT, though. Can we get him a permanent spot?

Pika.

[Nortibiry]

Hyjal with Jaina the mage who pyroblasts CCed targets, its marathon trash sessions, and its mail healing gear can all rot in a box for a while, imo. Thrall can come with us to BT, though. Can we get him a permanent spot?

Pika.

Only if he installs Omen, dude needs to learn to watch his threat.

[Rild]

oops wrong thread

[Nortibiry]

A little late but http://irtguild.net/downloads/Archimonde_Still_Alive.mp3

[Vand]

Here's a peek at Archimonde post 2.4.2:

* Fire will now spawn -much- closer to Archimonde, and the pathing is entirely random.
* Fire can target and chase Melee. Never possible pre 2.4.2.
* Archimonde's hit box size has been increased
* MT's are now able to be targetted by Air Burst.

Let's just say I'm glad we're done with him.

[Raptace]

See, but now I'd like to go back just to make sure we can do it! lol