Refining Ragnaros Strategies

[redinter]

Thanks for the help guys.  We managed to take him down on our second attempt.  Rags was 41% pre-sons.
-MB
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Grats, its really a nice feeling when he goes down. 41% is pretty good too.

[castille]

I'm a moron and am directionally challenged -- that's what I get for posting at work earlier.  I found a picture of where I normally stand -- it's on the WEST side.  This was from our first Rag kill back in January, quite a bit has changed since then, but the position remains the same.

http://img95.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ragdead9ay.jpg

edit:  found a much better picture, this is my preferred spot.

http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image...ion6ba.jpg
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...can I borrow some gold O_O

[castille]

I'll show you the pic we used to refine our strat. Check out this page and go to the first pic on the site. This pretty much is what our setup looks like, with a few very small and not really noteworthy changes. If memory serves, the 'hook nook' that Castille (Genkar) is talking about is labelled with a blue "M-1" on the pic.
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Ah! Yes, that is right. M-1 is where I stand, just a bit to the right of center, and the rogues usually pull back to that tiny piece of rock that is just across the lava from it in our strat.

[Snowy]

...can I borrow some gold O_O
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Yeah, I keep forgetting to blur that out, people always wonder!

auctioneer + eye of shadow farming + ace of elementals farming ftw. :)

helps I don't really have any alts worthy of blowing it on too.

[Tuftears]

Congratulations! First Ragnaros kill is always a sensation. :w00t:

[MongoJerry]

I tried out the vamp embrace idea last night, and you're right, it works pretty well. Ragnaros just seemed so big and far away that I was always convinced that he was too far away for Mind Flay, and yet I could hit him from almost anywhere along the lip of the outer ring. My raid leader was a little hesitant to have me be responsible for healing a group of melee dps, but since we had a really wierd raid makeup last night -- 12 priests and 12 mages?! -- he relented. I think he told someone else to watch my group just in case, though. :-)

Anyway, yeah, I didn't have any problems keeping the melee dps folks up, but I ran out of mana about 30 seconds before the sons. However, I think I could afford to reduce my +damage/healing a little bit to boost my mana pool. My PvP configuration is designed for maximum +damage/healing and stamina and has mana as almost an afterthought, so that's not surprising.

I had fun, though, so thanks for the idea. Too bad that in a week or two, I'll be holy/disc again!

[Treesh]

Anyway, yeah, I didn't have any problems keeping the melee dps folks up, but I ran out of mana about 30 seconds before the sons.  However, I think I could afford to reduce my +damage/healing a little bit to boost my mana pool.  My PvP configuration is designed for maximum +damage/healing and stamina and has mana as almost an afterthought, so that's not surprising.
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Genkar also has the HYUGE benefit of blessing of wisdom and judgement of wisdom since he's alliance scum to help out with getting mana back. ;)

Very glad you had fun with it though. Genkar is one hell of a shadow priest who really knows what he's talking about when it comes to playing one. :)

[Bolty]

Very glad you had fun with it though.  Genkar is one hell of a shadow priest who really knows what he's talking about when it comes to playing one. :)[right][snapback]105408[/snapback][/right]

Seconded. I live vicariously through castille/Genkar when I want to get in touch with the Dark Side, and ask him questions about it. :)

-Bolty

[MongoJerry]

One other thing I've been having fun with is tanking the Flameguards in the three- and four-packs. Over time, I've been collecting some +fire resistance gear that most people in the guild now think are "junk," like that +30 fr robe in BWL, because people already have enough fire resistance to get the job done. So now, I have 300 fr when I have a fire resistance totem dropped for me. Well, our warriors like to dps and the elementals only do fire damage, so I offered to take over tanking duties and have been gladly given them. While in shadowform for extra damage/aggro, I Mind Blast the Flameguard in the pack to start off, SW:Pain, Vamp embrace (healing aggro while dps'ing -- woot!), and Mind Flay and Mind Blast away while the guild takes down the Firewalker. I have such a lead in aggro by that point that it doesn't matter what special tricks or trinkets people try to use at that point to pull the mob off me (well, except something stupid like Taunt). They're not going to pull the mob off. Kinda fun to shadow tank once in a while. My dream would be to shadow tank Onyxia at some point, but I doubt that it'll happen. Too bad.

[Snowy]

I tried out the vamp embrace idea last night, and you're right, it works pretty well.  Ragnaros just seemed so big and far away that I was always convinced that he was too far away for Mind Flay, and yet I could hit him from almost anywhere along the lip of the outer ring.  My raid leader was a little hesitant to have me be responsible for healing a group of melee dps, but since we had a really wierd raid makeup last night -- 12 priests and 12 mages?! -- he relented.  I think he told someone else to watch my group just in case, though. :-)

Anyway, yeah, I didn't have any problems keeping the melee dps folks up, but I ran out of mana about 30 seconds before the sons.  However, I think I could afford to reduce my +damage/healing a little bit to boost my mana pool.  My PvP configuration is designed for maximum +damage/healing and stamina and has mana as almost an afterthought, so that's not surprising.

I had fun, though, so thanks for the idea.  Too bad that in a week or two, I'll be holy/disc again!
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Yeah - I change the gear a little bit. I swap out sash of whispered secrets with girdle of propehcy, I would switch out my deadwalker mantle for mantle of prophecy(until I got my blackwing cabal mantle finally - yum!) I found that as long as I ended up with 6500-7000 mana buffed up, I had no problems running out of mana doing swp/mind flay through the sons while quaffing one mana pot. If I'm not lazy, I go farm some demonic runes too. Those are VERY nice for us shadow priests, since we're going to heal the damage we take back up anyways. I also compensate for any loss of dmg gear by using arcane elixirs, shadow power elixirs, etc -- stuff I wouldn't use while pvp'ing. So it all evens out.

During sons I just regen, and since usually we have 15-25% left on Rag, I regen more than enough mana for him.

[Snowy]

One other thing I've been having fun with is tanking the Flameguards in the three- and four-packs.  Over time, I've been collecting some +fire resistance gear that most people in the guild now think are "junk," like that +30 fr robe in BWL, because people already have enough fire resistance to get the job done.  So now, I have 300 fr when I have a fire resistance totem dropped for me.  Well, our warriors like to dps and the elementals only do fire damage, so I offered to take over tanking duties and have been gladly given them.  While in shadowform for extra damage/aggro, I Mind Blast the Flameguard in the pack to start off, SW:Pain, Vamp embrace (healing aggro while dps'ing -- woot!), and Mind Flay and Mind Blast away while the guild takes down the Firewalker.  I have such a lead in aggro by that point that it doesn't matter what special tricks or trinkets people try to use at that point to pull the mob off me (well, except something stupid like Taunt).  They're not going to pull the mob off.  Kinda fun to shadow tank once in a while.  My dream would be to shadow tank Onyxia at some point, but I doubt that it'll happen.  Too bad.
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I'm pretty close to attempting this actually -- I figure with lung juice and flask of the titans + imp buff, I'll be over 7k hp. My FR with a totem will only be around 200, but our tanks dont even bother with FR gear anymore. I'll probably just use greater stoneshield potions during it to help mitigate more dmg.

I never thought about trying that tanking with the flameguard... gonna have to try that!

[Tharn]

I see your mages are doing fine, but I'd add a few points.

i do not play a mage, but from what i hear talking to our mages fr isn't vital for a mage in this fight. 60 should be enough. Take a fire protection potion before the encounter and all should be well. Most of our mages are either arcane power/frost or arcane/iceblock skilled. It seems to be a matter of feeling whether you think you need iceblock or want to go maxdmg.

I prefer to max my fr on Rag, it's 160 unbuffed atm and I hope I'll be able to put libram on head soon. In my opinion and experience more fr allows you to use less healing consumables and do reliably more damage. I don't say having 315 buffed should be goal, but once I put on my big fr pieces and then exchange the rest with stuff with only a small tradeoff, it just works much better for me.

Mage damage on Rag is a big function of luck. If you get grenaded or someone who stands near and you get flying. If you get flying, especially in lava, it means:
- you take some 3K damage, meaning you must chug one another GFPP
- you often get swimming, eating more damage, which is good if it's getting resisted
- even if you don't get swimming, you have to reposition
=> The 3-4 frostbolts you can do in that time will often make more damage than you would get with added +dmg
=> Reduces risk of dead mage, and dead mage means no DPS

As for spec, we have mages of all specs and while frost mages generally do somewhat better, it does not matter that much. AFAIK no one has pure-raid spec, all did it for all-round/PvP.