More Ragnaros Thoughts

[Rinnhart]

Last night the Avarice Alliance had its third meeting against Ragnaros, wherein we were spanked most mightily but had fun.  Some notes:

Issue 1) Ragnaros' AE knockback doesn't just knock you back.  Sometimes it knocks you sideways.  The mages in my group didn't have the advantage I had - I planted myself against the back wall of the ranged DPS group area.  They had to move up some to get in range of Ragnaros, and that made them vulnerable.  So just about every AE knockback, one of them would get flung sideways across the room - I could not abandon my post and had to leave them for dead.  There's only two solutions I can think of:

A) Will better fire resist actually help against this knockback?
B) All ranged DPS'ers need to be VERY aware of the AE knockbacks and move back against the wall when the CTRA warning goes out.  This means probably interrupting whatever attack you're doing and haul butt.

With my rear firmly planted against the ranged DPS wall, any knockbacks that flung me sideways would bump me up against a crop of the wall and put me back down safely (sans the huge fire damage, of course).

Everyone needs to be aware of the knock backs and everyone needs to be able to respond quickly. Fast blinks and timely heals save lives.

Issue 2) We need to get more DPS on Ragnaros, and I have no idea how.  I hear of experienced guilds getting Ragnaros down to 40% health before the first Sons of the Flame spawn, and notice that we're only getting Rag down to 70-75%.  It can't solely be gear, there's something we're not doing "right" and I can't figure out what it is.  Perhaps too many of us are dying too soon.  More fire resistance on DPS'ers will help with that, of course.

It is very, very difficult to fight through two waves of sons. The guilds with the FR, mana pools, and tanks to manage a two sons fight generallly off Rag before the first sons even spawn. ~40% before the first wave is really the minimum as you will always burn most of your mana, and probably lose several DPS people, on the sons.

Issue 4) Sons of Flame.  Ergh.  Even with the collapse, the fact that these buggers spawn all over the place wreaks havoc.  Ones that spawn near the main tank/main tank healer groups can be picked up pretty easily, and Gnollguy did that extremely well on the 2nd attempt last night (I know this because I was healing him until I ran out of mana - could we get some Priest drops to help with that, Blizzard?).  But there are "straggler" ones that spawn way out on the west side rim, between where we had the melee DPS and ranged DPS groups.  Those are going to head straight for the healers and there's no tank around to pick them up, so what happened both times was Priests/Mages/Warlocks trying to keep them rooted, banished, or feared.  No caster would survive long enough to drag one of them to the tank, and the healers are very busy just trying to keep people vertical and get those Sons off of them.  Maybe we can designate someone in the melee DPS group who has very high fire resistance (Quark?) as the temp tank to drag one of those to the real tank - or else arrange to have those straggler Sons banished the moment they appear.
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The Sons are what make the fight difficult. "Rag's a newbslice and his sons are makin' daddy proud by kickin' way more ass than he ever could." The transition from fighting rag to fighting the sons is what makes or breaks a raid. My guild's been killing Rag for a couple weeks and we live or die based upon the success of the collapse.

Practice it a couple times before you spawn him. Make sure everyone is aware of the Sons' AE manaburn. Make sure your rogues are aware that they're tanks for this part of the fight. Make sure your rogues and warriors, even if they're on DPS duty, are wearing as much FR as possible. The sons hit hard, but it's all fire damage. Banished Sons still have their manaburn aura.

MT's need to be at or near 315 FR when buffed and they'll still die to big crits (which is why you have two MT's). Do not be shy about going to BRS and getting the FR buff from the orcs, there.