Wintrow

Relevant Strategies
Wowwiki – Archimonde
Bosskillers – Archimonde
Archimonde Video

I strongly encourage everyone to watch this video after you’ve read up on the fight, our strategy and your individual roles. A few things to watch for in the video:

• Observe how the pull works. Everyone will initially be at his front and will have to move into position behind him and spread out. He is engaged by the MT getting in range, followed by a hunter Misdirect.
• Observe the frequency of Fears. You may also observe certain players breaking out of the fear early when they are headed towards a Doomfire. Doing this is a critical part of this fight and is why the [Medallion of the Alliance] is essential.
• Observe how the Air Burst works. The rogue in this video gets tossed away several times in this fight. You can see in his scrolling combat text when he uses his [Tears of the Goddess] from Tyrande to slowfall right before he hits the ground; it is essential that you pop this item when he does so you don’t die from fall damage.
• Observe Archimonde’s health bar throughout this fight. It goes down slowly and steadily; this fight is not a DPS race, but requires patience and attentiveness throughout to keep everyone alive.
• Observe how quickly the rogue dies when he is hit with the Grip of the Legion curse. About mid-way through the fight, the rogue gets cursed and immediately gets hit by Air Burst, throwing him out of range of all decursers. While this is a very unlucky series of events, it goes to show the priority that all Mages and Druids need to give to decursing. You will see that the rogue dies before he reaches the peak of his Air Burst from the Grip of the Legion DoT.
• Observe how the Doomfires work, especially once the rogue dies and gives us an overhead view of the entire fight. The Doomfire always seems to spawn in front of Archimonde, though it can then take a life of its own and start growing back towards melee or ranged DPS. The initial animation of Doomfire spawning looks kind of like a Mage Flamestrike (I think). You will also see the MT shift slightly to get out of the Doomfire when it spawns on him; you never see him move more than a couple of steps though. Notice that there are roughly 2 Doomfires up at a time that everyone will need to stay far away from. You should also be able to see how the raid reacts to the Doomfire, running far from it before setting up again to resume DPS; it is not enough to simply strafe out of the way. Everyone must always put significant distance between themselves and the Doomfire due to the Fears.
• I noticed a few Soul Charges used by Archimonde during this fight that this group was able to recover from with strong heals. We should expect to be cleaner...

Strategy Breakdown

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Boss

As you can read in the linked strategies above, the Archimonde encounter is all about survivability. DPS should be considered secondary to keeping yourself alive. This is not a DPS race, despite the fact that he has a 10 minute enrage timer. We will have no problem getting him down in time. Our individual group makeup will be designed with maximum survivability in mind this time rather than in an attempt to maximize DPS.

This fight is incredibly unforgiving; one single death in the raid will trigger a series of events that will likely wipe the raid several seconds later. If we lose the MT, there will be no pickup; we will wipe and start over. If you space out for a second and forget what is going on around you, you could very easily wipe our raid. If you aren’t quick to react, you could very easily wipe the raid. Please keep this in mind when you are studying and preparing yourself for this fight; I will tell you right now that I will not hesitate to replace those that repeatedly demonstrate an inability to stay focused and attentive to their surroundings.

Below are the details that you should individually and collectively be aware of and prepared for:

Main Tank: We will only have a single MT for Archimonde; all other tanks will either support the raid as melee DPS or as healers. We will be using a warrior tank as MT given that Archimonde does not deal crushing blows and warriors can stance-dance to counter Archimonde’s Fear. I also anticipate the need for pally support on healing. The MT will be the first to engage Archimonde, followed by a Misdirect to help establish aggro. The MT will have to back Archimonde up into position and always keep him faced away from the raid. You must be attentive to Doomfire when it spawns nearby and strafe out of it if needed. You can be healed through it, but if it is possible to avoid with minimal adjustment you should do so. You absolutely must watch for the Fear to be cast (1.5 sec cast time) and stance-dance to avoid it; failure to do so will mean Archimonde is likely to get out of position and start one-shotting the healers that break out of Fear early.

Melee DPS: You will be positioned closest to Doomfire given your proximity to Archimonde and the fact that they seem to spawn in front of him. As such, it is important that you stay at max melee range the entire time and be prepared to use your [Medallion of the Alliance] if headed towards Doomfire. You should also be sure that you are spread out from one another to minimize the number of you thrown by a single Air Burst. You also must always keep distance between yourself and the MT so you don’t chain an Air Burst to him as well.

Rogues: Be prepared to Cloak of Shadows out of Doomfire if you can’t avoid it through normal means.

Ranged DPS: Stay spread out at all time while DPSing and stay far from any Doomfire.

Mages: Your priority in this fight will be decursing. Make sure you have whatever mods you need to quickly identify and decurse raid members that are in range. You should interrupt your spell casts to decurse if necessary; the only reason you will DPS is if no one is in range of you needing to be decursed. The curse ticks for 2.5k every 2 seconds for 5 minutes so we need to get it off people immediately. As a decurser, you will also be raid marked before the fight and have certain people assigned to stay close enough to you to be in range for decurses.

You can also Iceblock out of the Doomfire DoT if necessary.

Shaman: You will need to keep Tremor Totem up at all times to help counter the Fear.

MT Healers: Archimonde melees for a substantial amount of damage, so he will be taking burst damage making precasting a necessity. Thankfully, he cannot land a crushing blow. That said, we need to focus on coordinating ourselves so that there are always MT healers in range to keep heals on the MT. We need to coordinate our control on Fears and stay spread out to minimize the number that get Air Bursted out of range. I feel that we’ll be able to counter the Fears pretty easily with a combination of (hopefully) 2 Shaman Tremor Totems and at least 5 Priest Fear Wards. With those and the PVP Trinket, we should always be able to guarantee at least 2 MT healers in range at all times.

Raid Healers: Your job will either be fairly simple or won’t be needed. If the raid is properly focused on survivability and decurses are happening as they should, you will be healing up little bits of damage on a few people (1-2 Grip of the Legion ticks). If the raid is taking a lot of damage, that means that they are running into Doomfire or our decursers are slacking; either way, a wipe is basically unavoidable.

That said, people will invariably run through a Doomfire and can be healed through it. They will take 20K damage over 45 seconds (front-loaded) so some solid heals early on and spot heals towards the end are all that's needed. We need to keep them alive.

You also may need to heal up the damage from a Soul Charge, which is roughly 4.5K (in different forms). If you are quick enough, we can recover from one of these.

Druids (resto): Your priority in this fight will be decursing. Make sure you have whatever mods you need to quickly identify and decurse raid members that are in range. You should interrupt your spell casts to decurse if necessary; the only reason you will doing anything except decurse is if no one is in range of you needing to be decursed. The curse ticks for 2.5k every 2 seconds for 5 minutes so we need to get it off people immediately. As a decurser, you will also be raid marked before the fight and have certain people assigned to stay close enough to you to be in range for decurses.

****All Raid Members**** - Spacing
Everyone needs to constantly adjust their spacing throughout the fight to ensure that:

• You are always in decurse range.
• You are always far enough from any Doomfire so you don’t get Feared into it.
• You are always roughly 15 yards from other players to minimize the Air Burst effect.

Please note that the above list IS in order of importance.

Spreading out does not just mean from ‘left to right’ but also from ‘front to back’. Look at the Bosskillers diagram and notice the multiple layers of DPS and healers arrayed behind Archimonde.

****All Raid Members**** - Air Burst
When you get hit with Air Burst, you must be prepared to use the [Tears of the Goddess] that everyone will pick up from Tyrande before we engage. You must also time your use of this item very carefully as it only slows your fall for a few seconds. Use this when you are close to the ground, not at your peak; be sure to adjust for any lag you may have. We may practice using these before the fight by jumping off cliffs to make sure everyone knows when to use them.

****All Raid Members**** - Doomfire
Avoid Doomfire at all costs. Everyone will be feared at roughly 45 second intervals, making Doomfire avoidance that much more challenging. Everyone will have their [Medallion of the Alliance] trinket equipped and ready to use. This is your safety net; use it if you are running straight towards Doomfire while feared. You must have the 2 minute cooldown trinket rather than the 5 minute one. If you are just being feared out in the open, don’t waste your trinket cooldown.

The other aspect of avoiding Doomfire is to be sure you are always far enough away from it. If it is creeping towards you, run away immediately; don’t wait until the last second and don’t simply strafe to the side (it can change direction at a moment's notice). If you find yourself standing too close to Doomfire, stop what you are doing and reposition yourself further from it. I expect that everyone plays with their camera fully zoomed out so you are able to stay aware of your surroundings.

****All Raid Members**** - Phase 2
Once Archimonde hits 10% health, we pretty much have a guaranteed kill. At this point, the entire raid gets an invulnerability debuff and Archimonde is no longer able to damage us. We are also unable to heal ourselves, so every single raid member should switch to whatever DPS they can manage to burn that last 10%. We have 1 minute to burn that last bit of his health (though Wowwiki does say that he dies anyway after that minute; I’d rather not test that out). Please be sure to use whatever special abilities you have earlier in the fight rather than waiting until 10% (e.g. Heroism, Shield Wall, etc.)

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70 Priest

Elminnster

From WoWWiki:
Other means to slow falling (like Levitate and Slow Fall) can be used too. Mages can also use Blink or Ice Block when they're near the ground.

Slow Fall has a 30 second duration, which makes it easier to time correctly. Levitate lasts 2 minutes, so I think it would work similarly.

I would save Ice Block for other cases, like having your Medallion on cooldown.

Wintrow

These are certainly viable alternatives, but you still want to avoid popping them too early. Doing so will cause you to float along your current trajectory, taking you much farther from where you need to be and taking you much longer to get to the ground. Play around with it; jumping off Aldor Rise is a good place to experiment.

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70 Priest

orion808

Heroism is suggested around 30%.

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