Hyjal Summit - Archimonde

[Shadowwolf]

Links:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Archimonde_%28tactics%29

Video:
[youtube=500,425]t2mv9spXVas[/youtube]

Abilities:

• Melee: 9000-10000 on a full T5 tank, never deals crushing blows.
• [spell=32014]Air Burst[/spell]: 6 sec cooldown, used randomly. 1500 nature damage 15 yard AoE centered on a random target. All affected players are tossed very high in the air (over 100% fall damage). [item]Tears of the Goddess[/item] must be used in order to prevent death.
• [spell=31970]Fear[/spell]: 8 sec AoE fear (entire raid), 40 sec cooldown, 1.5 sec cast time. Never used while players are still airborne from Air Burst.
• [spell=31972]Grip of the Legion[/spell]: Deals 375,000 Shadow damage inflicted over 5 minutes (2500 damage every 2 seconds) to a random player. Dispellable Curse
• Soul Charge: Once a player dies the entire raid takes a random effect. Inflicts either [spell=32054]Soul Charge[/spell] (50% more damage for 8 seconds), [spell=32057]Soul Charge[/spell] (4500 Nature damage inflicted over 8 seconds), or [spell=32053]Soul Charge[/spell] (silenced) depending on the player class that died.
• [spell=31944]Doomfire[/spell]: Trail of fire on the ground that does 2,250 fire damage per second on first tick and does less with every following tick. Fire resistance does not affect this effect.
• [spell=32111]Finger of Death[/spell]: Deals 20,000 shadow damage on a single target. If no players are in melee range, Archimonde will begin casting this.
• [spell=35354]Hand of Death[/spell]: Deals 99,999 shadow damage to everyone in the raid and all NPCs in the area. Occurs when he gets too close to the Well of Eternity. Also happens if Archimonde is above 10% total health after 10 minutes.

Preparation

Each raid member must acquire a [item]Tears of the Goddess[/item] from Tyrande Whisperwind in the camp. The tears expire after two hours, so remember to get new ones in time. All raid members should have one (three if possible) Healthstones and a few [item]Super Healing Potion[/item]s (even healers). Wearing extra Stamina gear is recommended for all raid members (a good idea is to use the High Warlord Naj'entus gear). No other special gear is required, the fire damage in this fight cannot be reduced with resistance. However, Fire Protection potions do help.

Everybody should turn off their vanity meters, and forget about them. Damage and healing done are of no interest - this fight is about individual player survival and nothing else. Think Shade of Aran, but much worse.

Positioning

Positioning, as with Kaz'Rogal, is flexible as long as you follow a few rules :

• Never turn Archimonde towards the raid.
• Stay spread out.
• Make sure to have decursers in range of everyone to remove Grip of the Legion as soon as possible.
• Make sure to have healers in range of everyone.

Archimonde is pulled simply by having your MT walk towards him. A hunter should Misdirect a few shots to the MT as soon as Archimonde has engaged.

[attachimg=1]

Suggested Strategy

Archimonde is facing the mountains, with the raid spread out behind him. If you're a DPS class you can run behind him while mounted, but healers should simply run on foot as the tank is very vulnerable during the pull due to receiving fewer heals when moving.

This is NOT a DPS fight. Let the tank grab some aggro, then you can start DPS.

Remember to spread out nicely, but never stand in front of Archimonde.

Soon into the fight, he'll cast his first [spell=31944]Doomfire[/spell]. As mentioned, it might either follow a player or move randomly, or both. If the [spell=31944]Doomfire[/spell] gets close to the melee DPS, they should move out of the way immediately. The tank should generally just stay in the [spell=31944]Doomfire[/spell] if it crosses him, but if he can move about 1-2 yards backwards and out of the fire, he should do that. However, if moving out of the [spell=31944]Doomfire[/spell] for the MT requires Archimonde to be turned or change his facing, the MT should just stay in the [spell=31944]Doomfire[/spell]. It's perfectly healable.

Sometime after the first [spell=31944]Doomfire[/spell] should come the first [spell=32014]Air Burst[/spell]. Make sure you're not too clumped up. A possible technique is to have the people in each group stand on top of each other. Thus, at any given time, only 5 people will be Air Burst-ed. However, it's not really needed, as long as you simply spread out. Melee need to move back from Archimonde when you see him casting the [spell=32014]Air Burst[/spell] so that a hit on you doesn't send the Main Tank into the air. Archimonde WILL continue to melee him while he's in the air, but the [spell=32014]Air Burst[/spell] will take him out of range of your healers and he will likely die.

When the [spell=32014]Air Burst[/spell] hits, the few affected people will be thrown very high and very far back into the air. Just a few moments before you hit the ground you must use the [item]Tears of the Goddess[/item] to prevent dying from the falling damage. Mages and Priests can use Slow Fall, Blink, Ice Block and Levitate to avoid the falling damage if they are having trouble using the Tears. Paladins can use Blessing Of Protection/Divine Shield, Warriors can Intervene on someone else close to the ground.

It is IMPERATIVE that you land safely. Dying from fall damage will give Archimonde a Soul Charge. If it's the silence (purple) Soul Charge, that's pretty much a dead main tank. Whatever the effect of the Soul Charge, it's very prone to killing at least one or more people. Very often, one death will trigger a chain reaction of multiple deaths due to the global and nasty effects of the Soul Charges.

Use everything you can, but do not die from falling damage. A dead person can wipe the raid in a second.

Soon after the first [spell=32014]Air Burst[/spell] should come the Fear. This is a very tricky moment, as if everyone uses their PvP trinkets / anti-fear tools on one fear, and you have none ready for the second, the probability of the tank dying is very high. Thus, as mentioned above, pair up healers and have the first healer pair trinket/racial/talent out of the fear and focus their healing on the MT.

As the fear is a 1 second cast spell, the main tank should be ready to quickly switch to Berserker Stance and use Berserker Rage to counter the fear. Otherwise, if he gets feared, Archimonde will simply turn to the un-feared healers or to anyone who resisted the fear, or to simply the next target on his aggro list.

If you get feared and see yourself running towards a [spell=31944]Doomfire[/spell], you have to use your trinket/racial/talent to get out of the fear in order not to run into the fire and risk not only your death ( and thus the death of the whole raid due to consequent deaths from the generated Soul Charge), but also make the job of the healers a lot tougher, as there'll only be 2 of them not feared.

Once the fear goes down, the next one should come in about 25-30 seconds or more.

The key to the fight is surviving Archimonde's abilities and not letting anyone die. While you can survive a Soul Charge's effect, it will often lead to many more deaths in a domino effect, and so a wipe.

When Archimonde reaches 10%, he will return to the World Tree Nordrassil and resume draining it (this has no effect on the fight, it's just an animation). He will not use any of his abilities during this phase. Tyrande will then cast a buff on you (displayed as a debuff) which makes you immune to EVERYTHING (even heals) and lasts 1 minute. You must kill Archimonde in that one minute. DPS go full out: Recklessness, Cooldowns, even healers go all out DPS. If you do not manage to kill Archimonde in that 1 minute, you lose the fight. Taking down this last 10% of Archimonde's health isn't hard at all, thus this 10% phase is often considered the "free kill" phase.

Class Comments

Tank
"Stance dance" to get out of the fear or prevent it affecting you at all. People tend to be trigger-happy at this encounter so don't lose aggro. If you get in the Doomfire try to move out of it as fast as you can since the damage is quite considerable and can often kill you off during a fear or an unlucky Air Burst. When Archimonde reaches 10%, Execute him.

Melee DPS
Stand behind Archimonde and, whatever you do, don't die, or over-aggro (which will be an instant death). If you see the Doomfire going close to the main tank, run back until the fire disappears or your position around Archimonde's feet is clear. When you see the Air Burst coming, move a bit back in order not to risk the main tank being struck by Air Burst. When Archimonde goes to 10%, go nuts. Rogues can use Cloak of Shadows if they somehow get into the Doomfire.

Ranged DPS
Stand behind Archimonde and again, whatever happens, don't die. Run away from the Doomfire if you see it closing on you and stay spread out. If you're a mage or a priest, you can Slow Fall/Blink/Levitate to negate falling damage, in addition to using the Tears of the Goddess. Don't over-aggro.

Healers
The main tank will be taking quite significant burst damage, so while he'll be parrying/dodging a lot of attacks, keep precasting so that he doesn't die in an unlucky burst. Move out of the Doomfire. Pair up in pairs of 2, and have each pair of healers trinket/talent/racial/ability out of the fear to heal the main tank. If you're Alliance and have Fear Ward, just use it on 2-3 healers and maybe a decurser. If you're a priest you can use Levitate to negate the falling damage from the Air Burst. When Archimonde reaches 10%, go nuts and do DPS on Archimonde; everyone is immune to your healing in this stage.

Decursers
Stay spread out evenly around the raid so that everyone is in range at all times, and there's always a few decursers on the ground unaffected by Air Burst. If someone has the Grip of the Legion during a fear, by all means one decurser can trinket/ability out of it and decurse them.

Mages
It is possible to Blink early in the Air Burst, and thus teleport right back to your spot while taking minimal fall damage and avoiding the need to run all the way back to it. However, while using this method be careful not to land in a Doomfire, or land near one just as the Fear is about to go off. Another risk of this method is that if someone with a Curse on him gets Air Bursted and there's no druid or mage being knocked back with him, the player could die from the curse and thus cause multiple other deaths.

[Air]

From what I found out for Archimonde fight:

We move groups around, 4 range groups and 1 melee group. Range groups having 1 healer and 1 dispeler.  This way when a 1 group gets air bursted the all move together, and get healed and dispelled.

When a doomfire comes towards your group, move far away from it.  Having a spot for each group to run to would be a good idea.  Reason for this that doomfire is random can do crazy things.   It can arc around killing your melee group.

Have a group leader for each group so that group will know when to move in and out.

[Lynette]

Please review before tonight's attempt on Archi.  This is a tough fight and will require all 25 raiders to be on their toes the entire time.

One thing to emphasize for meelee ... "When you see the Air Burst coming, move a bit back in order not to risk the main tank being struck by Air Burst"

He remains the last big obstacle for us (not counting Sunwell) so let's get him.

[Arcdelad]

.

[Drygioni]

I spoke to a friend today and he said that an OT can kite the fire around the log by Archi. He didnt say how, but that its the trick.

[Xpresso]

I spoke to a friend today and he said that an OT can kite the fire around the log by Archi. He didnt say how, but that its the trick.

If that the case Archimonde will go down very fast because it is the biggest issue to that fight

[Arcdelad]

i would say people not landing correctly was also a culprit....and people should not be using slowfall, but using the "Paladin Nerf Tears" instead...

[usonian]

If you had a problem dying in the fire last night I would suggest you zoom your camera all the way out so you see it coming.  It moves so slow that nobody should be hit by it if they aren't either 1) falling after being knocked in the air or 2) feared into it. 

I would also suggest equiping your pvp trinkets to use if you are too close to the fire and get feared.  Don't use it if you are a safe distance from the fire because the cooldown is 2 minutes; use your judgement if you think it will save you from wandering into the fire.  We can do without one damage trinket for this fight guys - if we were making it all the way to his enrage then I would suggest reevaluating our damage but that isn't the issue here since we aren't even surviving past 45%.  Let's work on survival then we'll look at damage.

This applies to healthstone and pot usage as well.  Don't worry about one of these taking a cooldown from a mana gem because your mana is no good to us when you're dead.  I think we would be better off seeing our mages wanding and avoiding the fire than dying halfway through the fight.

As far as the Tears of the Goddess usage is concerned, nobody should be dying from fall damage.  These things work like a short-duration slow fall that make you float for about 2 seconds.  Wait until you are close enough to the ground to take advantage of the effect but not so long that it doesn't activate before you hit.  This should be on your hot bar so you can easily activate it and you should always check to make sure the duration remaining on it is enough to get you through the fight.  If it is about to expire, destroy it and get a new one before we make another attempt.

If you don't already know, everytime someone dies he gains a soul charage that he can release on the raid at anytime.  So the more people die, the more he uses these abilities and it's just a chain reaction as we all become ghosts and wisps.  The #1 thing on everyone's minds here should be staying alive.  Surviving to his enrage timer and THEN wiping would be making more progress than wiping over and over for the same reasons.

[Lynette]

Uso brings up some very good points. 

DPS have it easy here - just play very conservatively.  Close recount, save your CDs (for the final 10%), and just dps him slowly while you focus on staying alive.  More important than your dps is for you to stay alive, as 1 or 2 soul charges seems to start a domino effect that leads to a wipe.

Healers have the real challenge, as they need to be rotating (amongst themselves) when to use their trinkets to pop out of the fears so as to keep the ML alive, staying in range to as many players as possible (tough if they get airborn), AND keeping themselves alive as well.

Another thing worth repeating is the doomfire debuff.  It can hit you even if you don't think you're in it, as it is wider than the graphic image on your screen.  I found this one out the hard way .

Finally, there is some luck involved here (similar to Prince).  Timing of events can quickly trigger deaths, as I know several folks got feared into doomfire then hit with a soul charge at the same time.  We just need to continue to learn and we'll get him soon enough.

[Emmalina]

I feel like I really struggled to be effective during the Archie fight, so talking through strategy is helpful.

Similar to the Supremus fight and other encounters that take place in a big, open area, especially with a large boss, I had lots of issues with range. To get in range I would be in a spot that pretty much seemed like melee range. Healer spread is especially important in this case since a healer is not going to have everyone in range all the time. Even with good spread, it's likely that one healer will be Air Bursted and another one or two will be dodging fire, so it's especially important to avoid all damage since there's a chance you won't be getting a heal for a few seconds.

Also, with regards to the fire, I noticed that you have a split second where, once your character starts burning, you can get out of the fire and you will not receive the DoT. It's not much time, but if you react fast enough you can avoid it.

The only technique I worked out for dodging fire, and I really only see it working for healers because of facing issues, was to get myself in range, turn around so I was facing away from Archie, then turn my camera back around facing Emma and the raid. This way I have my normal view of everything happening, but as soon as I see fire I'm already on track to run straight out. This works since you don't need to face your healing target.

[usonian]

Here is an interesting strategy suggested when someone said, "It's just the ranged dps and doomfires we cannot seem to solve" on elitist jerks (http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t13964-archimonde/p38/):

But thats the whole fight! Your constant use of 'behind' the MT leads me to believe your setting up your raid poorly - even if you are using '4 groups'. How exactly are there 4 groups positioned? It sounds like you have archimonde against the mountain with 4 groups like this:

---1
2
---boss
3
---4

The pic above is a bad 4-point setup open to many problems. Instead should try the setup below:

1-------2

--boss

3-------4

Try that instead. If you spread the raid/ranged/healers evenly around the boss, there is no 'behind' or 'in front of the mt' really - it doesnt matter where doomfires spawn as the raids effectively split up into 4 self-sufficient groups who can react and function independantly of each other.

You could not have '5 fires up at one point'. There are 2 doomfires up at a given time and the third doomfire spawns just as the first doomfire begins its despawn (which takes several seconds). So you really only have 2 active doomfires at a given time.

Is the doomfire in any way, shape, or form controllable? 

Short Answer: Yes

Long Answer: Sortof. The doomfires appear to have a 'follow a player' component and a 'move in random direction' component and alternate between them at will. Thats why you see some doomfires obviously-following players and others mindlessly going off into the distance. You can, therefore, control the doomfires when they are following a player. You do this usually by kiting the doomfire away from archimonde (depending on your guilds strat) while it follows you.

This "4 corners" strategy seems like it is the best way to take advantage of the open area we're fighting Archimonde in.  Essentially you break the casters and healers into 4 groups that are spaced evenly around Archimonde so you have a minimum amount of peolpe affected by doomfires when they start to spread and everyone is in range of heals and decurses.  If those 4 groups can try to move together I think it might solve our doomfire problems.  What do you guys think?

[Shadowwolf]

Make sure when you are moving away from a fire, you stay as far away from them as you can. If you do that, you shouldnt get feared into fires. If you cant manage it, use your PvP trinket to save yourself if its that often but moving to a spot where there are no fires, you should be absolutely fine during fears.

[Carysa]

As i saw into yesterday's fight, the bigger issue for that fight is getting fear into fire, and it did happened to me every try we've made on him. If we can have enough shamman, one in each group, that can put tremor totem, that can help, cause if it wasnt that fear i would have done much more dps on him. That is very frustating not able to do something, i've used my ''Every man for Himself" spell, but it as a cd of 2 min. Is Tremor Totem very usefull for that fight?

[Geos]

Having a tremor totem in the melee group helped us out a LOT, i didnt get feared into a fire as long as our groups shaman was up.

[Grendeel]

A tremor totem in every group would be very useful, however having 5 shamans on one run really isnt realistic.   So we have to manage the fear in another way.

First thing to mention is watch where you are being feared.  If its not going into a flame then dont use your trinket or racial talent.

Second thing is bigwigs gives a warning of the fear cooldown.  Watch for it.   When it is close to being up, make sure u get far away from any flames that might be on the ground (even if that means running backwards out of dps range).  Like its been stressed before, doing dps is not as important as staying alive, so dont worry so much about the damage you are doing.

Lastly, im not sure what potions are available or what they do, but maybe one like a free action potion would be viable for this fight.