Magtheridon ads/elementals

[YamahaGuy]

Is magtheridon possible without "4 locks 4 hunters" as done typically?

Does everyone just banish / CC elementals until they despawn? Or do some people burn them down?

Another guild also said they drag the two first ads together with a bear tank, and have rogues kick heals.

Has anyone else tried that? Then, if you did, would the MT stand around and wait for Mag, or would he be on ad #3 praying the DPS downs it in time?

[ocellaris]

Perfectly doable without 4 Locks and 4 Hunters. I have done this with 3 total Locks and Hunters. You only need to keep the adds busy for two minutes so as long as people pay attention its not too bad. I can't imagine the fight going well if you tried to burn down the adds. Once Magtheridon is released, if you are not close to killing the 5th add you are in trouble, so you can not really waste DPS chasing around adds.

Also if we have a person tank two adds, we do the 2nd and the 3rd add. This way they have time to build threat on both mobs. If one person tanks #1 and #2, DPS innevitably needs to hold back on #1 a bit or they will pull aggro. The #1 tank for us is usually the Feral Druid that MTs Mag as well, since he can put out good DPS on adds 2, 3, and 4 then get into position to grab Mag.

How far into the fight are you? I can give you much better advice with some more info on your current progression on it.

[YamahaGuy]

Wow, you have all the ads down by the time hes released? =/

At best we've seen 2-3 down, mag being tanked while the dps works on the last 2. But the elementals get their occasional "pot shot" here and there on dps/healers before the locks / hunters pick them up, and they die

So, BECAUSE you burn the adds down so fast, do they even have time to summon 2 elementals each?

[The Grailmaster]

We run 5 tanks(3warrior, 1 druid, 1 pally), 2-3 locks and 2 hunters. Hunters misdirect the first two adds we are gonna kill on to the corresponding tank. Ranged stands near mags tail while he is banished. Rogues kick the shadowbolt volleys, while our Shadow priest and mages take care of silencing/counterspelling the heal they cast. As the first mob is almost dead, 1 rogue runs to the next one we are gonna kill as the tank drags him closer to the entrance. This is done so he can kick a shadowbolt volley if it is cast before everyone else is there. We do this for all the 5 adds. We have the locks banish & fear, and the hunters trap the elementals. We usually have the last add down under 15% or dead as Mag releases. The MT pulls him into position while clickers get ready. As soon as the hunters have misdirect off cooldown they each dump them on the MT to help with the threat ceiling. Everyone has 2 lockrocks, HP pots and bandages. We have 3 healers on the MT, and 2-3 on the raid crosshealing. We stop putting up dots at 38%, stop all direct damage at 32-33% to let any remaining dots tick off. While we then wait for the blast nova, everyone bandages/gets healed to full. As soon as that is interupted by the cubes, we burn him down past 30%. Everyone takes a lockrock after taking the 6K damage from the ceiling falling. After that we just burn him down.

Key points are getting the shadowbolt volleys interupted and the heals interupted on the 5 mobs. If this is done efficiently, then melee can do more dps, without having to backout for emergency bandaging, and healing priests will have a little mana they can use to throw up a SW:Pain on the 3rd, 4th and 5th mobs along with the locks, at the beginning, to help take some of the pressure off as Mag gets close to releasing.

[YamahaGuy]

Well, some problems, on first click

Is that if an assigned clicker has died during the ads, they arnt there to click for that first blastwave too... that and people getting to the clicky device. Theres gotta be a better way than assinging inviduals; anyone can click that cube =/

Again the ads are a problem; warriors fear them when they pop up, but they often come back, and sack a healer or w/e

Once any healer is down, a tank usually dies shortly after

Volleys are tough; is not bad for the tanks to bash if just shield blocking, heroic strike so that bash is never on cooldown

A big problem is since rogues / mages are "babysitting" global cooldowns for the heal/volley, they DPS is gimped from what it could be. And if they go all out they miss the kick =(

[wesje]

completely ignore the adds, just banish fear and trap them. they are not the thing u shud worry about in that phase. its the pickup of maggie, the volleys and the nukin that sets the pace

[The Grailmaster]

Well, some problems, on first click

Is that if an assigned clicker has died during the ads, they arnt there to click for that first blastwave too... that and people getting to the clicky device. Theres gotta be a better way than assinging inviduals; anyone can click that cube =/

Again the ads are a problem; warriors fear them when they pop up, but they often come back, and sack a healer or w/e

Once any healer is down, a tank usually dies shortly after

Volleys are tough; is not bad for the tanks to bash if just shield blocking, heroic strike so that bash is never on cooldown

A big problem is since rogues / mages are "babysitting" global cooldowns for the heal/volley, they DPS is gimped from what it could be. And if they go all out they miss the kick =(

The elementals can be a problem, thats why locks need to banish, hunters need to trap, hell, even mages can frost nova or rank1 frostbolt them to slow them down.

As far as the clickers go ... we assign 2 teams of 5 for the cubes and one backup for each team also. If a member of team 1 dies the backup knows what spot that person had and moves there. If they backup dies as well, we assign someone on the fly. chances are if you have more than 2 peopledead during phase 1 your not gonna make it anyway, and you might as well wipe to save time. The other part is to make sure everyone is communicating on vent if they die or if an elemental is running free. Too many guilds get in a mode that no one talks but the raid leader/assistants. While people shouldnt just BS during the boss, encouraging people to communicate will help tremendously. My guild has downed Void reaver in The Eye, and Hydross and Lurker below in SSC with morogrim to 48%. All those fights require active communication from everyone.

With the mages/rogues and interupts of the heal/volley--remember they don't cast a heal till they get below 50%. The mages work out a rotation for counterspelling. That means all the mages go all out on the first 50% of each caster, then the mage that is up in the counterspell rotation just has to pay closer attention to the target casting bar. Once you try it a few times, you will see it isn't that hard to do. With the rogues, we run with three(im one of the 3), and kick is on a 7second cooldown. All rogues should kick everytime they see the volley being cast. The reason they should do this is chances are the caster wont get a second one off before it is dead.(the only way the caster tries to cast 2 volleys, is if it casts 1 while we are on the way to it and then another as it is near dead).

Try it and you may see that it works quite well. Of course it will take some practice and a few wipes. but how many times does a new technique guarantee a 1shot.. very few in my experience, because everyone has to see how the timing and movement plays out.

[YamahaGuy]

I understand. And communication? Seems like if more people are talking / coaching than leader/assistants, you get 10 people all shouting / calling out the same thing, for every little thing, and its chaotic

And theres lots of little messups in most encounters, often like (example)

A trap was resisted so a hunter died.
A resisted fear... or a broken banish... or... or... or whatever else.

Talents into traps and spellhit on gear.. so what more can you say?

And ya wanna pull your hair out sometimes

Then I CRINGE when I hear "unlucky". Its how you handle what the game has given to you >.< traps/fear will resist and banishes will break... how did the team handle what the game gave them?