Welcome to Firelands – Ragnaros Edition!

Why hello there brick wall…

Ragnaros is the last boss in the Firelands raid. We found this encoutner to cause our team a significant roadblock in progression. We blazed through the rest of the bosses, but spent a few weeks and approximately 100 pulls wiping on this boss, we learned a lot in that time and I’m happy to share it with you.  With over 10 minutes length of fight-time, getting it down perfect is key. 

Next week, they’ll start with the raiding nerfs to prepare for patch 4.3, so if you want to get Raggy down before the nerfs here’s how! 

Looking for my Shannox guide? Look here. 

Looking for my Beth’tilac guide? Look here. 

Looking for my Baleroc guide? Look here. 

Looking for my Lord Rhyolith guide? Look here. 

Looking for my Alysrazor guide? Look here.

Looking for my Majordomo guide? Look here. 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic Concept

• 1 boss
• 3 phases
• 2 transition phases that are not easy
• 2 tanks required
• 2-3 healers, some teams prefer 2 for more dps and quicker phases. 2 makes the transitions much easier.
• moderate tank damage
• lot of movement coordination
• adds on transitions
• phase 3 is holyf-you-blizzard a shit ton of RNG
• OMG NO INTERRUPTS NEEDED? Yes, seriously.
• BUT now you have to stun! ROFL for realz!
• Bring a nice mix of melee and ranged plix.

Boss = Ragnaros

• 67M health
• stationary during the encounter
• he doesn’t move on normal mode

Encounter Strategy

This is a long fight, 18 minute enrage I believe most fights will last over 10 minutes. It sucks to get to phase 3 and wipe. It seems to take forever to get there again and get started back up. Here’s how to tackle the fight.

Disclaimer; there are lots of ways to tackle this fight, this is how it worked for us. Your mileage may vary. 

Phase 1

Here’s your positioning at the start.

What you ALL need to know.

• P1 lasts from 100% to 70% of Ragnaros’ health
• All ranged should spread out on the platform at minimum 6 yards from each other
• Tanks stand on 2 center “circle” on the ledge.
• Tanks will swap after 4 stacks of Burning Wound (please note that tanks can easily handle 10 stacks, but it causes avoidable healing)
• Melee stand at the circles next to tanks.

Three things will happen during this phase.

1. Traps

Raggy will throw a Magma Trap on a ranged raider. Traps look like this:

That raider needs to stop casting and move out of the trap immediately. Designate your “trap bitch”, we use a priest or mage but mage is best. This person will be in charge of triggering the trap (and causing a Magma Trap Eruption). Healers , be aware that the raid must be topped before this happens. It will cause a large AOE to hit the raid. In addition, the trap bitch will get thrown up in the air, the reason you chose a priest or mage is because the priest can levitate and the mage can blink each time that person triggers a trap, and take no damage.

Healing:  Damage is in general, moderate. Put 1 healer on each tank and 1 healer on the raid (if you are 3 healing) and make sure your raid healer communicates when it’s ok for your trap bitch to trigger the traps. Traps are the primary damage component and they affect the entire raid.

2. Knockback

Raggy will do a knockback called Wrath of Ragnaros on a random ranged raider, because of this be mindful that no one should stand on front of or next to a trap that hasn’t been triggered yet. If you are hit by the knockback you can trigger the trap at the wrong time by accident.

3. Stop! errr Move, it’s Hammer-time! (Gina breaks into dance)

Raggy will hit his hammer onto the platform with an ability called Sulfuras Smash. When this happens 3  Lava Waves will travel from the hammer to the lava in a predefined pattern every time. The pattern looks like this:

It’s imperative that the raid anticipates this happening and moves out of the waves. If a raider is hit, it will cause a big knockback, 100k damage plus leave a fire dot that does a 30k damage per second quickly to that raider. This can easily kill you.

The trick here is to stand diagonally from the hammer and you will never get hit. See the safe spots above!

Healers: make sure to dispel that dot IMMEDIATELY from any raider who “mistakenly” get hit by the waves.

Phase 1-2 Transition

At 70%, he’ll throw his hammer somewhere on the ground (Splitting Blow) and 8 adds called Sons of Flame will spawn around the platform. The adds have 166k hp each and their aim is to speed to the hammer. They are buffed with Burning Speed which makes it super important to dps them fast.  If they hit the hammer, they cause  Supernova. The goal of this phase is to put 1 dps + tanks on each add

The adds need to be killed FAST, they will quickly move toward the hammer and if they reach, the raid goes BOOM! Hear me?

If they reach the hammer your raid will WIPE!

So, be aware which dps is on each add. Bringing the adds below 50% will slow them to a crawl so you can get them down in time.  The adds can also be stunned, and should be to buy your dps more time to get them down.  It’s KEY to make sure they die fast.

Healing:  Damage is in general, very light here. Healers use your mana regen, pop Divine Plea, to prepare for Phase 2.

For this fight with 3 healers, I glyph Holy Wrath and I always handle 3 adds myself with stuns. I am asigned an add to stun with Hammer of Wrath (for a dps without a stun like a DK). Once I stun my target that I move to the adds that are quickest moving the hammer, likely from ranged and I use Holy Wrath on them to help with another short stun.

This phase lasts until all the adds spawned during it (Sons of Flame) are dead, but no longer than 45 seconds. If adds are up after 45 seconds, they will EXPLODE, wiping your raid.

Phase 2

We found the hammer difficult to handle in our group, so we use this tactic. Here’s your positioning at the start, all move to purple and spread out. (note: melee should spread more than my diagram, everyone should be spread but on one side of the platform.)

What you all need to know:

• Tank swaps will take place
• Hammer with lava waves continues throughout the phase
• Start SPREAD OUT at purple mark on the right (see above)
• Molten Seed will spawn, at that moment the entire raid runs to the ORANGE CIRCLE.
• Molten Inferno will spawn, AOE them down.
• When adds are dead, raid moves to Purple on the left and spreads.
• Rinse and repeat.
• Avoid waves and new Engulfing flames

Buttom line =

Right spread -> seeds spawn -> raid runs center top-> aoe adds use cds -> move to left and spread -> seed spawn -> run center top -> aoe ads rinse and repeat….

Several things happen during this phase that you need to be aware of.

1.  Hammer-Time!

It’s even harder to move out of it because of the movement from left to center to right and back. But this will wipe your raid.

2.   Engulfing Flame  – yay new thing!

This will spawn on 1/3 of the entire platform and one shot you. Move out of it.

It looks like this, hard to miss

3. We can haz adds! Moar aoez!

Molten Seed will spawn, at that moment the entire raid runs to the ORANGE CIRCLE.  Molten Inferno will spawn, and they need to be aoe’d down. Healers should use rotate raid cooldowns like bubble, aura mastery, spirit link totem, etc.

Phase Two lasts until Ragnaros has 40% health.

Phase 2-3 Transition

At 40%, he’ll throw his hammer somewhere on the ground (Splitting Blow) again and the same 8 adds called Sons of Flame will spawn around the platform. See above for how to handle the first transition.

If they reach the hammer your raid will WIPE!

So, be aware which dps is on each add. Bringing the adds below 50% will slow them to a crawl so you can get them down in time.  The adds can also be stunned, and should be to buy your dps more time to get them down.  It’s KEY to make sure they die fast.

In addition to these adds, we have 2 new adds that the tanks need to pickup, Lava Scions. DPS should focus them down after the Sons of Flame are down.

Healing:  Damage is in general, very light here. Healers use your mana regen, pop Divine Plea, to prepare for Phase 3.

The Second Transition Phase lasts until all Sons of Flame are dead, but no longer than 45 seconds.

Phase 3

Yay, RNG!

What you all need to know:

• we put our group1 on the left side of the platform
• we put our group2 on the right side
• we use 1 healer on each group
• we designate 1 ranged on each side to handle the new mechanic, Living Meteor (it can’t be killed it has to be controlled and NOT hit anyone)
• we bounce the meteror(s) from each group, if it hits it will  Meteor Impact and kill the person.  You don’t want this! 

• Glyph Holy Wrath, even healadins can help with adds on transitions and p2!
• You can use Divine Plea lots on this fight, time it well.
• You should take advantage of your Avenging Wrath, you can use it 5 times during this fight.
• Use Aura Mastery resist during a flame wave, trap aoe, adds and seeds on p2, add hitting the hammer
• You can use bubble twice during the encounter, if you get hit by waves dont hesitate to use it to save you. 
• Consider taking the first trap with a bubble to let the dps you know, dps more. 
• Divine Protection (glyphed) is helpful on this fight, I use it on traps to reduce damage, and every time its up on p2 for each movement when seed spawn. It helps reduce damage and get me into place quicker, avoiding seed damage. 
• Save up 3 HoPo WoG charge for tanks during movement on P2, you’ll need it.  Using that with HS will keep them up until you are safely in position. 
• Remember that kingsy dude we have as a cooldown? You can use him twice, don’t forget to (like I normally do shhh)

Have fun healbots!