Hellfire Citadel Notepod

[Cutsman]

Did anyone get Tectus/Twin Ogron camera issue vibes from Fel Lord Zakuun? I soaked a few of the puddles getting the debuff so spent a good deal of time hanging out near the right wall and had some issues seeing the waves due to the wall/overhang. I wonder if spawning the pillar and putting the debuff stack point along the front or back rather than the right wall would solve that.

I remember having camera issues with one of the fights and I think that was the one. I stood near the left wall, towards the corner opposite where the pillars spawned. There is a gap in the wall that was messing up my camera a lot.

Side note on that fight, there was an instance where I was going to soak a pillar but that pillar was going to be closest to our pillar pile so I moved out. You guys may remember that one in particular as the pillar where the shadow appeared but not the pillar itself. Anyways, at the time I thought I got out in time, seeing as how I didn't receive the "you are now a pillar" debuff. Thinking back on it, I know I used deterrence, and the timing was tight so I wonder if I did soak the pillar with deter and avoided getting the debuff because of deter. Did Aelloon try this with a pillar or a rogue maybe with cloak? If not it could be worth testing as that should reduce PlayerPillars which may increase dps overall.

Also I've had cat sounds in my "rapid fire ready" and "bestial wrath ready" weakauras for several tiers now. Thinking back it was a mistake to not include that on my app. It might be worth adding that to the raider application template. Either that or "how do you min/max your pizza toppings and pizza theorycrafting?"

[Kulldam]

Archimonde

A three-phase encounter that requires a great deal of raid movement and  DPS prioritization for the frequent adds throughout.

Phase 1 (100% - 70%)

Doomfire is cast about every 45 seconds during Phase 1 and causes a Doomfire Spirit orb to spawn nearby a random player.

Doomfire Spirits immediately cast Doomfire Fixate on a random ranged player, creating a slow-moving wave of Doomfire patches along the ground from the Spirit toward the Fixated player. All generated Doomfire persists throughout the remainder of the encounter.

Solution: As illustrated in the positions below, the basic rule of thumb is to have the entire raid move with the boss to the next position a few yards away from the spawned Doomfire Spirit. The Fixated ranged player moves outward, away from the boss and the raid while  ALL DPS quickly focus and burn down the Spirit to prevent it from casting multiple sets of Doomfire.

SINCE DOOMFIRE IS PERMANENT, DOOMFIRE SPIRITS ARE THE TOP PRIORITY AT ALL TIMES!

Allure of Flames is also cast every 45 seconds and when the cast completes, pulls all existing Doomfire toward a handful of randomly selected player locations, where it is quickly redistributed.

Solution: Since the initial creation of Doomfire from the Spirits is moved out of the group by the fixated individual, the raid as a whole must only worry about Doomfire during this Allure of Flames cast. Therefore, we'll simply move the entire raid when this is cast to the next rotated position to keep the Doomfire somewhat controlled and now spread in our previous positions.

Druids should also probably rotate Savage Roar for each Allure of Flames cast.

Archimonde starts casting Desecrate after reaching 85% HP and will then cast it about every 35 seconds thereafter. This creates a large pillar a nearby location to a random player and after a few seconds to spawn, will deal 200k Physical damage to anyone within 10 yards. Once it has spawned, it will deal 50k Shadow damage every 3 seconds to everyone for the remainder of the Pillar's lifespan. Additionally, this ticking damage is increased by an unknown percentage for each additional Desecration pillar that spawns.

Solution: While the damage across the raid from the ticks is quite significant, the best tool we have comes from the Pillars themselves. A few seconds after they spawn, Exarch Yrel will destroy the pillar and cause (5) Light of the Naaru orbs to spawn around the edge of the Pillar. Stepping into one (or within 15 yards of one that has exploded) will give a 25-second debuff that prevents all Shadow damage and increases movement speed.

Therefore, as illustrated in the positions below, we'll want to move the entire raid near the edge of a spawned Pillar, such that when it is destroyed and the Naaru orbs emerge, everyone is already within 15 yards of at least one Orb and we can quickly trigger them and get back to regular positions.

Shadowfel Burst is cast once a minute and targets a random raid member, hitting the targeted player and anyone within 8 yards high into the air. Upon impact, the player(s) knocked up will land and take about 650k Shadowflame damage, split among all players within the 8 yard circle on the ground.

Solution: I cannot recall if dual-element damage (such as Shadowflame) is in fact resisted by or absorbed by immunity to a single element of those two types. If it is, a large part of the mitigation for this ability will be in having Light of the Naaru on everyone.

If the Naaru buff doesn't prevent the damage, then the required course of action (and what should be practiced anyway to prevent avoidable knockups) is to spread the entire raid 8+ yards apart a few seconds before the Shadowfel Blast cast. Once the cast occurs, players from the nearby group will stack under the landing position to help soak the damage, after which the fight proceeds as normal.

Phase 1 Positions

There are two key components that dictate our positional strategy in Phase 1:

1. Making use of Light of the Naaru orbs that spawn around Desecrate pillars.

2. Generally being stacked to control positioning of Doomfire when Allure is cast, except when Shadowfel Burst forces us to be spread.

Furthermore, since Allure of Flames continues to be cast into Phase 2, this means we do not need to concern ourselves about where Doomfire is positioned relative to the rest of the room during Phase 1 (so long as it doesn't hinder our own movement).

To meet these goals and allow us to perform as indicated above, we'll try something like the illustrated examples below.

Initially we're in our (3) standard clumps all within melee range or close to it of the boss:  tanks in front, melee behind, and ranged to the side.

Once the first Desecrate is cast, then we start our standard positional rotation, which effectively revolves clockwise around the outside edge of the most recent Desecrate pillar:



The goal here is to position the boss (and thus the (3) raid clumps) a few yards away from the edge of the pillar, as illustrated above.

This allows us to be very close and ready to move into a nearby Naaru orb when the time is right, but also ensures we manage our space and movement properly to deal with the other mechanics in Phase 1.

For example, when Doomfire is cast an a Doomfire Spirit spawns, the Fixated player runs away, opposite the direction of the "active" Pillar to generate a line of Doomfire that doesn't threaten anyone else.

Meanwhile, the  tanks and most of the ranged rotate clockwise to the next position around the Pillar, while both the ranged and melee DPS quickly switch to and kill the Doomfire Spirit, with melee ensuring they are positioned on the inside track so as not to be threatened by the Doomfire patches (ala Tectus):



Shortly thereafter when Allure of Flames is cast, it will automatically select the current position of the raid, and thus we'll simply rotate around to the next position and repeat this process until a new Desecrate Pillar is available or is required.



Shadowfel Burst

When Shadowfel Burst is about to be cast, the entire raid spreads 8+ yards and awaits the Shadowfel Burst cast to complete.

Once the cast is complete, the nearest group (i.e. either ranged or melee) stacks up inside the Shadowfel Burst landing zone to split-soak the damage.

The raid should re-stack afterward.

Light of the Narru

I didn't illustrate which Naaru orbs we'll be soaking up because it won't be an exact science, but the goal of these positioning practices is to ensure we're always within relatively easy reach of an orb when the timing for the group is most convenient. Since the effect is a 15 yard radius, it should be quite easy to get everyone buffed using 1 or 2 orbs at most, and since they last 25 seconds and new Desecrate pillars appear (and are thus destroyed) every ~35 seconds, that gives us an average of (1) new orb every 7 seconds in the worst case.

Moreover, while being this adamant about Orb use is likely irrelevant for Normal and perhaps even Heroic, it's certainly going to be a requirement to have near-100% uptime on this buff across the raid, so this strategy should give us ample practice for Mythic down the road.

 Note: The potential exception to these standard methods are the tanks, who may at times require a personal Light of the Naaru refresh to ensure survival from the add damage. We'll see once we get some practice in, but in such a case it should be quite easy for the current add tank that requires a refresh to run off to the opposite side of the Pillar and snap a solo Orb.

 Phase 1 Tanking

Death Brand is cast every 45 seconds (again), which deals 430k Shadow damage to the  current tank and also deals 90k Shadow damage per second as long as the spawned Hellfire Deathcaller is active.

Hellfire Deathcallers must be tanked and will chain cast Shadow Blast hitting  their tank and a handful of other random raid members for 100k Shadow Damage and increasing Shadow damage taken by 25% per stack.

Solution: A  tank swap should occur immediately when Death Brand is used, in addition to heavy personal mitigation for the tank taking the Death Brand hit.

Beyond that, prior to the boss hitting 85% and giving us access to Naaru buffs, a  tank swap between the Deathcaller and the boss should occur round every 3 stacks of Shadow Blast to keep the stacks low.

Once the boss reaches 85% and Desecrate pillars start to pop out Light of the Naaru buffs for the tanks, this Shadow damage is entirely mitigated. Therefore, we can safely always try to keep the Death Brand cast and subsequent Deathcaller add on one tank (likely Kull due to movement for Orbs) and keep Archimonde on the other tank (Doug).

 DPS should focus on Deathcallers as priority if no Doomfire Spirit is currently active.

Phase 2 (70% - 40%)

At 70% HP Archimonde begins Phase 2 and no longer casts Desecrate, Doomfire, or Shadowfel Burst.

Wrought Chaos is cast every 50 seconds and targets a ranged raid member. Additionally, one other raid member is targeted with Focused Chaos. A directional arrow indicator will emanate from the Wrought player toward the Focused player and after 5 seconds, a beam of light will fire from the Wrought player toward the Focused player, hitting anyone in the path for 200k Fire damage.

Upon firing, a stack of Wrought is removed and the Wrought buff will jump to the previously Focused player, while the Focused debuff will now target a new random player, and the process repeats until all stacks are gone.

Shackled Torment is the other new ability from the boss in Phase 2 and is cast every 40 seconds. This debuffs (3) random raid members and deals 25k Shadow damage per second while the debuff is active. This damage increases by 10% every second as well.

To remove Shackled Torment, an afflicted player must run at least 30 yards away from their original affliction location, which causes the entire raid to take 100k Shadow damage.

Solution: Since there are (3) Torments active at one time, it is in our interest to stagger their breaking to some degree (or use cooldowns to mitigate multiple simultaneous explosions). Since the damage ramps up on the individuals quite quickly, we cannot delay too long, so it's likely best to have one assigned player --  ideally a healer -- communicate over Mumble when and who should break their Torment so the healing team can appropriately deal with it. Once broken, the previously afflicted player can move back into standard position.

Phase 2 Adds at 55%

The boss begins to summon Felborne Overfiends and Dreadstalkers at 55% health and  all DPS should prioritize these adds over the boss at all times. Ranged DPS should generally focus on Dreadstalkers while [melee]melee DPS[/e] focus on the Overfiend, due to the short-range silence ( Consume Magic) cast by the Dreadstalkers.

If a Dreadstalker approaches the ranged camp and casts Consume Magic, the ranged player should simply move (along with the rest of the raid) to the next rotational position while quickly killing off the add.

 A tank must pickup the Felborn Overfiend and keep it in melee range for standard attacks and cleave. Melee DPS will need an interrupt rotation to cover the heart of Argus casts, which occur once every 25% health of the Overfiend and deal very high Fire damage to the raid.

Solution: Ranged kill the Dreadstalkers and melee and  tanks kill and interrupt the Overfiends.

Death Brand continues to be used and the subsequent Deathcaller will spawn, requiring  frequent tank swaps at the standard (3) stack of Shadow Blast and heavy personal cooldowns.

Solution:  DPS, particularly melee DPS, should prioritize Deathcallers above the other adds in this phase.

Phase 2 Positioning

Unlike in Phase 1 where sometimes we have to spread for Shadowfel Blast, in Phase 2 there is zero reason to be spread apart except for those few dealing with individual mechanics such as Shackled Torment or Wrought Chaos.

Therefore, the general rule of thumb is: Maintain our standard (3) clumps within melee range of the boss, and keep him along the outside edge moving clockwise around the room as necessary to avoid ground-based attacks.



As illustrated simply above, when a pair of raid members are targeted by Wrought Chaos and Focused Chaos the management is quite simple: The Wrought player (or source) moves slightly out of the pack from the rest of the raid (to the right in this case for melee or to the left for ranged), while the Focused player (or target) moves BEHIND THE WROUGHT/SOURCE PLAYER.

The above illustration indicates the Focused player is much further behind the Wrought player than I intend or is required, but it's just for illustration purposes. The key here is simply the angles, not the distance.

Once the ability has fired and now the previous Focused player is the new Wrough/Source player, he or she simply moves forward a few steps into the previous Wrought player's position, while the new Focused target moves out behind the Wrought player and the process continues to repeat.

It's very similar to Ra-den from Throne of Thunder for those that experienced that boss. Any given Focused player moves through (3) basic steps:

1. Move behind the Wrought/Source player for hit #1.
2. After the first hit move in to the old position closer to the boss.
3. After the second hit, move back to your standard melee or ranged stack position with the raid.

Other than dealing with Wrought, most of this phase is positionally simple and similar to Phase 1. We move (as a group) when something forces us to do so, such as Allure of Flames or Consume Magic.

Phase 3 (40% - 0%)

At 40% HP Phase 3 begins and the boss will no longer spawn Deathcallers or use Allure of Flames, so this is why we're positioning ourselves against the outside wall throughout Phase 2, so that Doomfire will be left along one edge for the remainder of Phase 3.

In addition to continuing to cast Wrought Chaos and Shackled Torment, we also see the new Nether Banish ability, cast every 60 seconds on the  current tank. After the 8 second duration, the afflicted tank and anyone within 8 yards will be teleported into the Twisting Nether realm to fight off a variety of adds (more on this in the Twisting Nether section below).

In the main realm when Nether Banish is cast, a large Nether Tear is created, dealing damage to anyone that touches it. Most importantly, this Tear will frequently spawn Living Shadow adds that will fixate on random raid members. If allowed to reach melee range of the fixated player, they will cast Devour Life, destroying themselves but dealing 270k Shadow damage to the player and reducing all healing by 40% for 45 seconds in the process.

Solution: When a Nether Tear appears, the  non-afflicted tank should quickly taunt and move the boss (and thus the raid) to a new position a decent distance away. From there, the ranged DPS can quickly turn and kill all Living Shadow spawns that emerge from the Tear.

Demonic Feedback is also cast by the boss every 45 seconds which deals 75k Shadow damage to the entire raid and is also a AoE attack, dealing the same damage to anyone within 6 yards of another player.

Solution: Similar to dealing with Shadowfel Burst in Phase 1, the raid must be spread out 6+ yards prior to Demonic Feedback being cast. Note: While we won't plan for such things at present, I suspect it's likely we'll need to communicate our timing for the Twisting Nether team preparing to exit the Nether, such that those team members aren't coming back clumped up just as Demonic Feedback is being cast (assuming they return in one clumped position, which may not be the case at all).

Rain of Chaos is the last mechanic which we see at 25% HP on Archimonde. This is cast once every 60 seconds and creates a series of large meteors around the room that deal massive damage (reduced by distance as usual) and also spawn a set of (3) Infernal Doombringer adds.

These Doombringers will deal normal melee damage at first but are also buffed by the Eternal Flame aura, causing them to heal each other by 8% per tick if within 15 yards of another Infernal.

Solution: Since there are (3) Infernals at first, it's likely best to  tank split them, such that (1) Infernal plus Archimonde is handled by one tank, and the (2) other Infernals are handled by the other tank. During this initial split,  ALL DPS when possible, but melee DPS in particular who aren't dealing with Living Shadows, should focus the Infernal on the Archimonde tank/nearest to melee.

Once the first Infernal dies, the Archimonde tank taunts another one over and the process repeats, until finally only the third and last one exists on the offtank who brings it into melee range and the DPS finish it like the rest of them.

If any given Infernal is not killed within 45 seconds, it will start to cast Hellfire, dealing 65k Fire damage per second to the entire raid.

Solution: We cannot allow this to happen, as even if we are close to a kill on the boss himself, this ability alone from even one Infernal will wipe us in a matter of seconds outside of chaining cooldowns. Now it's technically not the entire raid that is afflicted as it only has a 40 yard range, so in theory we could buy some time at the end of a kill by running the  tank with all active Infernals to one far side of the room with a suicidal  healer, but this is a poor solution at best and not a goods strategy.

Instead, the rules from above still apply:  DPS priority is paramount, as is effective and efficient  tank swaps when one Infernal is dying or about to die to get the next one in position. Given that they spawn in a staggered fashion, it should be quite simple for the  Archimonde tank to quickly identify and agro the first Infernal so DPS can start on it right away, while the offtank picks up the second and third spawns to keep them out of heal range.

The tricky part is how all this timing fits with the frequent tank portals into the Twisting Nether. It's also worth testing to see whether a plate melee DPS could temporarily tank an Infernal long enough to kill it off, in the even that tank timing doesn't allow immediate pickup or management by both tanks.

Twisting Nether

A pre-determined Twisting Nether team consisting of (1) healer and (3)? DPS will stack with the afflicted tank to be teleported into the Twisting Nether.

Inside, the  tank must immediately agro the Shadowed Netherwalker add which frequently casts Touch of Shadows. This should be interrupted by the  tank and any melee DPS or perhaps the  healer in the realm as well.

Void Star adds will Void Star Fixate on random raid members and will increase their movement speed rapidly over time.

Solution: Ranged DPS should quickly kill off the Void Stars before they get too fast and catch up to the fixated player(s).

Nether Corruption is a constantly ticking debuff for players in the Nether that deals 10k Shadow damage every 2 seconds and stacks, increasing damage taken by 8% per stack.

Solution: Heal the damages. We may need to adjust the number of players in the Twisting Nether team to ensure the phase is completed in a timely manner before this damage gets too high.

[Kulldam]

Bah silly wowhead finally got rid of the ptr. subdomain. All the ability links have been updated.

[Kulldam]

Hellfire Citadel WeakAuras have been updated, including many for the Archimonde encounter as well as cleanups for a few existing Displays (such as Kilrogg's Heart Seeker).

If you already have one of these groups installed, you must delete the group and all children before importing again (right-click the Group Display > Delete group and children), then you can freely import again.

http://voximmortalis.com/wiki/weakauras_hellfirecitadel

[Boggyb]

In case nobody else wrote it down, the Archimonde teams were:
Team 1
Nephani
Citruss
Aelloon
Rhokk
Fendo
Blynks
Gabrielx

Team 2
Crimson
Shaylana
Dustbone
Takaoni
Cutsman
Cascadia
Vultz

[Kulldam]

Notes for Shadow-Lord Iskar:

I'd like to try a slightly different positioning strategy for this encounter next time. The primary reason is that it turns out Phantasmal Winds doesn't simply push you toward the nearest outside edge, but instead it tries to push the player toward the central line of the room, THEN towards the outside edge. For this reason, we can make better use of the space in the room to allow our ranged group in particular to have more space to work with for laser management. On top of that, we can also reduce the overall movement requirements for handling Chakram positions when the trio are targeted for this ability.

As you'll recall from the first post and from our fight, our initial positions were toward the "back side" of the room, as seen below:



Instead, we're going to try holding the boss in the center of the "crossroads" with the range stack down the left pathway, as seen below:



When a ranged player is selected for Phantasmal Winds, they should be pulled "east" (in this diagram) toward the melee camp before then being pulled north toward the ledge of the room.

Beyond that, these positions allow the ranged camp more space to run Fen Incineration out of the group. They can go left ideally as illustrated above, but in a pinch behind the group and also to the right is perfectly acceptable if needed.

The reason for this extra movement is because of the shortened travel distances we're using for Fel Chakram. The biggest difference is having the targeted ranged player simply step forward a couple yards toward the green marker (or otherwise just toward the boss). The Chakram will exit the boss directly west toward the ranged player then bounce south toward the melee player who is behind the boss, then finally looping back to the  tank on the east side before returning to the boss.

Now I realize that Chakram increases in damage the closer other players are to the individual hit by the blade, but even on Heroic the damage seems quite low and manageable, so I'd like to give this method a try. If we find that the damage is a bit too spiky, we can easily adjust these positions slightly by keeping everything exactly as it is, except rotating the angle the boss is facing (and thus the melee position behind him) slightly counterclockwise, and then have the ranged player who is targeted by Chakram run out to the right instead of moving forward. This would ensure that the throw angles are the same, but would maximize the distance the ranged player has from the raid group by the time the blade actually catches them (since they'd be running AWAY from the boss during flight/travel time).

Anyway, some small changes but mostly hinging around the behavior that seems to be how Winds interact with the room layout that didn't expect/realize at first.

[Klik]

Made some major updates for my T18 weak auras http://pastebin.com/e7T6JUQN

[Boggyb]

Your boss mod will tell you that you have it, but a weakaura for Gift of the Man'ari wouldn't be a waste.

[Shaylana]

Your boss mod will tell you that you have it, but a weakaura for Gift of the Man'ari wouldn't be a waste.

Yeah, standing behind the raid worked well to keep those adds running through fire. It means you can't target those adds, but you can hit the boss. So I think it's a decent tradeoff.

[Kulldam]

Notes for Xhul'horac:

Don't have time right now for a full write up, but thought I'd jot a few things down so I don't feel totally lost on this fight this week.

Fel Surge and Void Surge are the most common debuffs on random players that lead to creating Chaotic Felblaze and Creeping Void patches, respectively.

Solution: I've created a few helper WeakAuras to alert players of these important debuffs. We'll also aim to always run FEL SURGE/FIRE effects to the left/west side and VOID SURGE/SHADOW effects to the right/east side.

Chains of Fel links people together.

Solution: Run away from each other.

Wild Pyros cast Fel Orb that creates a Fire Patch if not intercepted by a player.

Solution: Interrupt the adds from casting if possible, otherwise ensure any random player intercepts the orbs.

Black Holes created in Phase 2 cast Singularity on the first player to enter, dealing damage to them and anyone within 11 yards.

Solution: With a warning WeakAura, we can have everyone stay away from Black Holes and have 1-2 assigned individuals to solo-soak them with a personal CD/immunity (Hunters, Shadow Priests, Monks, and so on).