Please post your tips below and I will do my best to update the OP so people don't need to keep reading the whole thread to keep up to date.
My guild is still progressing HC (and yet to attempt Archimonde on normal) so I am looking to the community to help here rather than rely on my experience. I am pure Arcane at the moment so I would love any Frost and Fire tips you have. If your tip is for countering a mythic mechanic, please highlight this as being the case so that I can make it clear in the OP.
Last Updated: 12 Oct 2015
Boss: Helfire Assult
General:
- Take Incanters Flow due to the high level of movement. Especially in Mythic where the raid will be splitting in to two groups.
Arcane:
- Arcane Orb is very powerful here. It allows for excellent AM generation if you have the PoF trinket as well as extra cleave and movement with being able to use ABarr and then the Orb to get back up to 4 stacks again.
- SN is also very strong for the same reasons and can also be used to interrupt.
- Arcane Explosion can be used during movement so you don't need to reset stacks with ABarr if you are not ready too.
- Your burn phases will be shorter (if you are more concerned with meters than priority targets) so that you can cleave more with ABarr.
Fire:
- Go with kindling and living bomb, you want combustion up as much as possible and use ignite to spread living bomb to all of them.
Frost:
- Thermal void lines up perfectly with Martak, and both artillery. Avoid PC because this is technically not an AoE fight. Either Nova or UM should be fine here. Possibly have to glyph elemental, mine kept dying on heroic. UM/IF/TV
Boss: Iron Reaver
General:
- You can use Ice Block to soak an Artillery Shell without moving out of the raid (you don't take damage and neither does the raid from your shell).
- You can blink out of his charge ability (Blitz)
- Use Alter Time before double blinking away with Artillery debuff. Use it again to get back in place and with your original health.
- Greater Invis. removes the Immolation and Unstable Orb debuffs.
- Evanesce is insane here, definitely the to-go talent for this fight, dodges artillery and barrage allowing u to stand still n dps whole fight, then blink around to avoid blitz. (Does reduce movement during P2 as you cant cast and move but if your guild is killing the boss before P2, who cares
)Arcane:
- SN is very strong on Bombs, especially if there are multiple bombs in cleave range.
Fire:
Cold snap; Blast Wave; Incanters Flow; Prismatic Crystal.
-stick to reinforced bombs, using DB and BW for burning/quickfuse
Frost:
- UM, IF, PC, possibly nova if your having trouble with dps on bombs.
Boss: Kormrok
General:
- If taking PC, wait until after the tank has finished positioning the boss after absorbing the first pool otherwise the boss will jump part way through your Crystal uptime.
- Mythic: Use Alter Time in your soaking spot and abuse Ice Floes to have 100% uptime on the boss during the first jump.
- Save two charges of SN/BW/IN for the hands.
- Try to position your self to the side of the hands group to hit more people with Cone of Cold (Glyphed).
- Evanesce works on everything, but is best used to soak empowered runes. It lasts long enough to run into the first one and the second that spawns from soaking the first. If everyone does it perfectly that should be good enough, but you can save ginvis as a backup in case something goes wrong.
- You can use Evanesce just before the channelling of Dragging Hands ends. You will not get caught by the hand.
Arcane:
- Glyphing Arcane Explosion will help clear the gripping hands faster by extending range.
- Overpowered & Supernova recommended for this fight. Pop AP 1-2 seconds before the 1st hands show up, use both SN and finish with AE (while getting into position for Pound) finish your burn. You should be Evocating some time during Pound to make sure you don't get out of sync.
Fire:
Cold Snap; Blast Wave; Incanters; Meteor.
-you can Combust before he jumps with meteor. so that you don't have to place PC without proccs. being a short fight, maximising the opener seems worth it for me.
-use Cold snap for the double DB on the Hands. (instant 2M dmg)
-meteor lines up with the hands perfectly. with combustion up no hands, without combustion its hands. (burn dmg dot +Gaze, yummie)
Frost:
- Evanesce works well on runes, especially if frost because you are already highly mobile and don't necessarily need ice floes
- Take ice nova, IF, PC. Have two charges of nova, frozen orb, and PC up for empowered hands. Glyph double blink if on rune duty.
Boss: Helfire High Council
General:
- Alter Time to get back to your position after dropping reap.
- Mythic: Flameglow is viable. Great for soaking Bloodboil Debuff and Mark of the Necromancer and Bladestorm damage.
- Mythic: Greater Invis. will drop the Bloodboil Debuff
Arcane:
- Crystal will give you more overall damage
- Overpowered will be better for the Gurtogg burn.
Fire:
Cold Snap; Blast Wave; Prismatic Crystal;
-Incanters over RoP here, since we have to move in for the DB, but I guess with good planning you can prolly bring in a very good RoP uptime
-basically useless for the mirror images, just hit something else and use BW/DB for Images
Frost:
- If you're chasing every last bit of DPS a mouseover macro for IL can boost DPS while you're focussing Dia. Throw your IL's at Bloodboil.
- UM, RoP, PC
Boss: Kilrogg Deadeye
General:
- Don't use Cauterise if you are being sent into the Visions realm. As you have to die to exit the realm, this will trigger Cauterise keeping you in the realm longer (which you don't want if you are already at 20 stacks) and it will mean the ability is not available for later in the fight when you might need it.
- Don't use Alter Time while in visions unless you are very careful. If you die while it is up, you will be send back to the original room and when AT wears off you are taken back to the visions room and stuck there for the rest of the fight with nothing to do.
- Alter Time before Bloodseeker so that you can get back to your post quickly after soaking the blade.
- Iceblock will prevent Heartseeker debuff application, blood will still spawn. (Insanely good on Mythic)
- Greater Invis will remove the Heartseeker debuff. (Insanely good on Mythic)
- RoP is viable.
Arcane:
- Use Glyph of Slow to help slow adds before they get to the boss.
- Supernova & PC if you are going inside.
- Evanesce is superior here because it takes no dmg from heartseeker and you receive no debuff, globule still spawns
Fire:
Cold Snap; Blast Wave; RoP; Prismatic Crystal
-you are basically a melee on this fight. (you hit the same targets as melee and stand in melee camp behind boss)
-the +%dmg is REALLY good for fire, since combustion.
Frost:
- Only used UM, but Nova could be better with the 2 sec root on adds. UM/RoP/PC
Boss: Gorefiend
General:
- If using PC, delay putting it down the 2nd time and wait for feast of souls. You also want to delay using it on pull until you know you are not in the first wave to go into his stomach. If you do go in, wait until you get out and use it ASAP so your CD's are available during Feast of Souls.
- Use Alter Time before the Mark of Doom falls off. Run over an existing pool to save space. Don't bother with the running off the edge trick as the pool spawns on the platform after 10 seconds anyway.
- Ice Block will remove the Mark of Doom debuff without dropping a puddle. Useful for saving floor space.
- Mythic: Un-equip your PoF trinket if you have it so Soul Fragments can be killed in a controlled manner.
- Mythic: Alter time is useful during the Feast of Souls Mythic. E.g. Alter Time, Blink and soak a soul, Alter Time back.
Arcane:
- SN is very strong on burst DPS for the skeletons.
- Glyph Slow to help slow the skeletons from reaching their focus target.
- Glyphed Arcane Power will not be back up in time for Feast of Souls (if used on pull) so either un-glyph AP or save for feast of souls.
Fire:
Cold Snap; Blast Wave; Incanters; PC
-dont play Fire on Gorefiend.
Frost:
- Ice Nova could be better than UM to kill constructs.
Boss: Shadow-Lord Iskar
General:
- Use Alter Time to avoid running during wind phase and to get back into position after Fire Fixate / Chakram.
- Don't use Greater Invis to try and remove the Phantasmal Winds debuff from yourself. The debuff is removed but the push back is not so unless you vocally tell someone to throw the orb to, you will not show up on raid frames (or the Iskar addon) as someone that needs to the orb.
- You can Greater Invis off the Fel Chakram which causes it to not go out - similar to people smoke bombing it until it got hotfixed.
Arcane:
- Arcane Orb is great for the waves of adds.
Fire:
CS; LB; IF; Met
-LB cleaves back, giving you quite good dmg on the focustargets in the transitions.
-Met afterburn hits like a truck on so many adds
-double DB for the first and third transition.
Frost:
- Depending on DPS you may need to save PC for the first air phase. I currently can frozen orb and as soon as its off CD he goes to air phase so using PC at the start would be bad for me.
- Save IV for 1st and 3rd air phases.
- I've found frost bomb works well on the first air phase, not as good on the second, and just slightly better on the third. I tend to still take UM in this case.
- UM/RoP/PC
Boss: Fel Lord Zakuun
General:
- I will use RoP and PC as other than avoiding the waves, there is little movement.
- If soaking the waves Greater Invis is recommended.
- Evanesce can be used to soak a wave in every other set of waves.
- Using one mage alternating Evanesce and Greater Invis simplifies Cavitations a lot. You can never soak a pillar but
you free up someone else to do so at any time.
- Glyph of Ice Block enables you to soak a wave even if you have latent energies - without triggering and explosion or taking damage even a few seconds after Ice Block expires / is removed. Useful in emergency situations, especially at enrage.
Arcane:
- Try and get the job of soaking Cavitation as this will mean you get to stand on one spot all fight and turret (unless you get seeds in P2).
- Even if you are not soaking cavatation, run evanesce + Ginivis. During seed phase (only real movement in the fight) just stand still and evanesce the first seed explosion. Ginvis the second. You never have to move, and if you are positioned well you also help soak waves. You can literally stand still for the entire fight.
Fire:
Frost:
Boss: Socrethar the Eternal
General:
- If using PC, do not put PC down while the boss is immune (or be very careful with its placement) as the damage is still split between the boss and the add but the boss is immune so you waste 1/2 of the damage.
- IF here because there is the potential to have to re-cast multiple times. E.g. On pull, stacking on the boss when going into P2. If you get the debuff and need to run out. If there are not enough interrupts and you go back into P1 (so you have to move away from the boss).
- Glyphed Counterspell is good for the caster adds as it prevents them casting forcing them to run into MDPS range without costing a GCD.
Arcane:
- SN is strong for this fight as you will probably be taking PC but also if some of the adds get past the construct it can be used to burst them down.
- Take Arcane Orb if you are put on Ghosts.
Fire:
CS; LB; IF; Met; no combustion glyph
-you can essentially solo the ghosts with this in 20m, with only the fire to support you
CS; BW; RoP; PC
-maximum Boss dps.
-Double DB at pull and third (?) Dominator
Frost:
Boss: Xhul'horac
General:
- Greater Invisibility if you have been given fire clean up duty.
- Greater Invs removed the Void Surge / Fel Surge debuffs without dropping coloured fire on the ground.
- Mythic: You can Evanesce the cast of Fel Chains and Empowered Fel Chains if it's targeted on you, causing chains to not go out (need to be the furthest away to force chains to be targeted on you).
Arcane:
- SN is strong on this fight as it will interrupt multiple Imps at the same time as well as the cleave damage.
- Arcane Orb because there are so many adds.
Fire:
CS; LB; IF; Kind
-maximum dps throughout p1-3. quite low on 4 though. p4 no imps.
-swap out LB for BW or UM if you have problems finishing the last phase before raid cds run out.
Frost:
- Frost Bomb is very good for the imp waves if you've pre planned each wave beforehand with some IL's.
Not sure how this affects your Lanceweaving as I don't have trinket.
Boss: Tyrant Velhari
General:
- Not Mage specific but it is possible on only move twice during Infernal Tempest in P1. Allow two fire pools to spawn under you. Immediately as the 2nd pool spawns, move out. When the 2nd pool explodes, move back to where you were as that area is now clear again.
- Evanesce. During Infernal Tempest, move after the 2nd pool spawns and then use Evanesce to soak the next two without moving (this will reduce DPS in the last phase as you have nothing to help with movement).
- RoP if you can convince your raid leader to let you stand next to one of the existing pools in the last phase and not follow the group around the room otherwise IF.
- PC is viable. In P3, put the crystal ahead of the boss and let him move through it to maximise up time.
- Greater Invis will cancel the fire cone (Annihilating Strike) ability.
- Save 3m CDs for the start of P2.
- Mythic Run Evanesce + Ginvis. There is always 1 edict that is total AIDS (usually the last one in P2 when you have low HP), ginvis the second hit, Evanesce the third and trivialize the mechanic.
- Alternatively, if you have the edict, on the last tick (which kills people) -> Evanesce + blink out of the raid. You solo-soak the entire thing. Blink back in after it is over (because you are running double blink, right?). RIP edict.
- Evanesce also lets you avoid the P3 gavel knock-back (first one), Ginvis the second one. GG trivialize that mechanic.
Arcane:
- SN if you have selected PC.
- UM & OP if you have the class trinket.
Fire:
CS; BW; IF; PC
-Hit boss for maximum profit (cleaving on to adds)
-Hold on to your 2nd PC until the 2nd add comes out, for maximum combustion dps. (also your guild is probably using the ring and lust used here)
Frost:
- This fight is funny because the first 1/3 you are not moving at all, and the last 1/3 you don't stop moving. I still think MI is lackluster and tend to go with the safe bet of IF. The only reason I use TV here is because of the craziness of P3 and the boss moving around so much.
- UM/IF/TV
- IV is very useful not only cause all movement in third phase as the first post says atm - if you have T18-4set you can use water jet as opener and pop IV when you got 4 stacks of FoF, then continue with generating for procs until water jet has ended and after that frozen orb and then water jet is off cooldown. If you are lucky you still have iv up when water jet is up a third time. I've had iv up for atleast a minute this way and sometimes even 1.30 minutes. Iv is usually up until the first add is almost dead. Though - note that i dont have the mage trinket, which means i dont alternate frostbolt (this might mean that extending iv for this long is not optimal)
Boss: Mannoroth
General:
- Crystal is great for the 35% burn.
- You can Ice Block the fear, but is especially useful if saved for the final phase. very useful in Mythic (just make sure your raid knows you are going to solo it otherwise you will kill someone.
- Ice Block can be used to solo soak all 4 wraths if you take Cold Snap.
- Alter Time probably the best talent here. Run under the boss right before empowered shadowforce, pop AT, get pushed back, pop it again and you basically trivialize it AND avoid all the damage done during it.
Arcane:
- Lots of adds so I run with Arcane Orb.
- I also Glyph Arcane Explosion so that I can use that while moving.
Fire:
CS; BW; IF; PC
- Unfortunately IB doesn't expand around Mannoroth. Don't expect to spread dots from Mannoroth onto anything that isn't directly underneath him.
Frost:
- If Infernals aren't a problem swap UM for Ice Nova for good burst on Imps.
- Run IN_IF_TV as Frost. Bank 2xIN for imp waves, make sure you're syncing ring explosion to get all that AoE dmg empowered into the ring explosion.
Boss: Archimonde
General:
- Due to movement, take IF.
- Don't try and Blink the knockup to save falling damage as you will one shot yourself.
- You can solo soak the knockups with GI or Ice block.
- Double blink is handy to quickly reposition when the fire is being moved onto the raid.
- You can soak and blink the knock back from the orb inside Nether Banish. You have to time it right and might need a bit of practise, but doable.
- Another way of dealing with Stars is to Alter Time it.
- Alter Time before breaking chains so you can double Blink away and then use AT to get back in position with original health.
- Greater Invis will break your Shackle without needing to move. Not recommended for Mythic.
- GInvis will NOT remove the debuff applied by standing in Fire.
- Mythic Ginvis breaks shackles, very bad (mythic). Use Ice Block instead.
- Mythic Use ice block to solo a mark of the legion (mythic P3) - must be block'd before the explosion occurs, be away from people.
Arcane:
- Glyph of Slow is also useful here for the Shadowfiend things that spawn if you're assigned to them and they're not getting one shot.
- OP if your raid is not having an issue killing priority adds as this allows strong burns and target switching.
- AO if your raid is not killing the adds quick enough as this allows for extra cleave and more AM generation.
- SN as this allows for AoE burst as well as giving you something cast when moving if Blink is on CD.
Fire:
Frost:
- 2nd doomfire is probably going to line up poorly with WJ. Delay WJ for a second or two to let the doomfire spawn, and FO -> 2xIN it instead. WJing on CD will just mean you're forced to swap off the boss as 2nd doomfire spawns, wasting the WJ. Alternatively, delay WJ a bit on the pull and just subside off FO / IN on the pull.
