Emerald Nightmare Tips & Tricks

[Chev]

Ok, so the race is over. Time for the community to come together as it always has and share your Mage tips and tricks for the current raid tier.

If you could keep your tips and ticks in the following format so that the moderating team can easily keep the initial post up to date allowing members to easily find tips for specific fights without needing to read every post.

Boss: <Boss Name>
Spec: All / Arcane / Fire / Frost
Tip: <Your Tip>

Thank you in advance to all those who share.

[Chev]

Boss: Nythendra (Mythic)
Spec: All
Tip:
Ice Block does not prevent you from gaining, and will not clear, stacks of Infested! What this means is:
a) you can use Ice Block to safely gain a lot of Infested stacks shortly before Infested Mind is cast if you're trying to force it out, or
b) you can accidentally end up mind controlled when you're trying not to be, if you're trying to avoid damage from (or safely place) Rot or Infested Breath.
Keep an eye on those stacks and know when you can Ice Block appropriately.
Tip:
Be careful with projectile spells on mindcontrolled targets, they will still travel after a person has been freed. Especially relevant as Arcane with Missiles (You can easily kill someone with a rule of threes proc).
Tip 2:
Make sure to remove Ice barrier if you are about to get mindcontrolled. Don't make it harder on your group to free you.

Spec: Fire
Tip:
Don't use combustion when freeing mind controlled people - the high ignite ticks are likely to kill people. Also be careful with using Flamestrike, being slowed in a puddle can cause deaths.
Tip:
Living bomb + Kindling allows you to easily oneshot half of your raid during the 2nd mindcontrol - if that is your goal. Expect less than 6 minute fighttime, use RoP+ Cinderstorm + Dragonsbreath + Phoenixflames for each Mindcontrol. Combustion can be used safely slightly at the end of Heart phase.

Spec: Arcane
Tip:
Being arcane on this fight was really nice. Cooldowns line up with boss abilities and there is not a whole lot of movement (ice floes / shimmer covers pretty much all). And since you know when the mind controls are coming you can free people right away with 4-stack arcane explosions and a barrage.


Boss: Ursoc
Spec: All
Tip:
For this fight you do not need Shimmer. Although Cauterize is always an option, consider running Cold Snap. You can soak your group's charge, then the next group's with Iceblock, then your group's with another Iceblock and finally just return to the normal rotation. Just be aware he charges every 32 seconds, so the timing is a bit tight.


Boss: Il'gynoth (Mythic)
Spec: Fire
Tip:
Run UM/Cinderstorm on use trinket. This fight is either very hard, or you kill eye in one go. Make sure you perfect your 55 sec duration in this case. Kindling is useless on this boss since they only dps which matters is dps on the eye. Also I'm in the middle of investigation of that but looks like popping Potion of Deadly Grace AFTER popping cds makes it do way more dmg. So make sure you pop cd and potion after instead of earlier.


Boss: Cenarius
Spec: Arcane
Tip:
Remember that the Cleansed Ancient periodically cast a spell that returns 30% of a players Mana if they are standing near him. This is intended for healers but obviously has great benefits for you!


Boss: Xavius
Spec:All
Tip: Should you find yourself at 100 Corruption, you can CC yourself right when you're about to get mind controlled by casting Ice Block at the very end of Descent Into Madness. This gives the raid up to 10 extra seconds to focus Xavius down before they have to kill you. This is especially helpful when Xavius is close to dying.
Arcaneor][/b]
Tip:
Whether or not you go insane while in the dream-state, when it ends you come out with full Mana and cooldowns back up (although you lose your quickening stacks). Use this to your advantage as you can create many more burn phases.

Spec: Fire
Tip:
Run kindling,
when you enter dream, be vigilant in your corruption soaking duties. You should be able to push yourself to 100% corruption 20~15 seconds before dream debuff runs out, use this to do a big combustion. In my experience, with kindling things line up really well for this. Remember you can do another combust as soon as you come out.
Don't go to ridiculous lengths to hit 100% corruption though, just go for it if you are already 80%ish.

[fieryphoenix]

Boss: Xavius
Spec: Fire
Tip:
Run kindling,
when you enter dream, be vigilant in your corruption soaking duties. You should be able to push yourself to 100% corruption 20~15 seconds before dream debuff runs out, use this to do a big combustion. In my experience, with kindling things line up really well for this. Remember you can do another combust as soon as you come out.
Don't go to ridiculous lengths to hit 100% corruption though, just go for it if you are already 80%ish.

[Darehjil]

Boss: Nythendra mythic
Spec: Fire / Arcane
Tip:
Don't use combustion when freeing mind controlled people - the high ignite ticks are likely to kill people. Also be careful with using Flamestrike, being slowed in a puddle can cause deaths.
Being arcane on this fight was really nice. Cooldowns line up with boss abilities and there is not a whole lot of movement (ice floes / shimmer covers pretty much all). And since you know when the mind controls are coming you can free people right away with 4-stack arcane explosions and a barrage.

[Forminasage]

Boss: Nythendra (Mythic)
Spec: All
Tip:
Ice Block does not prevent you from gaining, and will not clear, stacks of Infested! What this means is:
a) you can use Ice Block to safely gain a lot of Infested stacks shortly before Infested Mind is cast if you're trying to force it out, or
b) you can accidentally end up mind controlled when you're trying not to be, if you're trying to avoid damage from (or safely place) Rot or Infested Breath.
Keep an eye on those stacks and know when you can Ice Block appropriately.

[skiz]

Boss: Nythendra (Mythic)
Spec: Fire

Living bomb + Kindling allows you to easily oneshot half of your raid during the 2nd mindcontrol - if that is your goal. Expect less than 6 minute fighttime, use RoP+ Cinderstorm + Dragonsbreath + Phoenixflames for each Mindcontrol. Combustion can be used safely slightly at the end of Heart phase.

[Falq]

Boss: Il'gynoth (Mythic)

Spec: Fire

Tip:
Run UM/Cinderstorm on use trinket. This fight is either very hard, or you kill eye in one go. Make sure you perfect your 55 sec duration in this case. Kindling is useless on this boss since they only dps which matters is dps on the eye. Also I'm in the middle of investigation of that but looks like popping Potion of Deadly Grace AFTER popping cds makes it do way more dmg. So make sure you pop cd and potion after instead of earlier.

[Kanariya]

Boss: Xavius (Any difficulty)
Spec: Any

Tip: Should you find yourself at 100 Corruption, you can CC yourself right when you're about to get mind controlled by casting Ice Block at the very end of Descent Into Madness. This gives the raid up to 10 extra seconds to focus Xavius down before they have to kill you. This is especially helpful when Xavius is close to dying.

[Curnivore]

Kindling is useless on this boss since they only dps which matters is dps on the eye.

Can you elaborate on that claim?

[Rumstein]

Kindling is useless on this boss since they only dps which matters is dps on the eye.

Can you elaborate on that claim?

It makes sense to me - since the heart phases are at least 2 minutes apart, you can hold combustion for those phases anyway, whereas if you use kindling it just means you are holding onto combustion for a longer time, or you use it during adds and don't have it up for heart.

[Falq]

Well fight was hotfixed so this statement is no longer true. Before hotfix in this fight the only hard thing was to kill Il'gynoth in one go. So you look at this fight as 55 second max dps fight. There is no way you could reduce combustion cooldown for 2 minute to ~45 second so this talent made no sense. Outside the eye you had to stop dps most of the time because of stacks from adds. Nowadays since damage on Il'gynoth does not matter at all (dps requirement to do it in one go is twice as high). This makes kindling actually the best choice. Cinderstorm may hit small oozes and good cooldowns on big adds are useful.

In the past you entered Il'gynoth around 4:40 into the fight and had 55 sec to kill boss. After that either you or him dies.

[Curnivore]

Kindling is useless on this boss since they only dps which matters is dps on the eye.

Can you elaborate on that claim?

It makes sense to me - since the heart phases are at least 2 minutes apart, you can hold combustion for those phases anyway, whereas if you use kindling it just means you are holding onto combustion for a longer time, or you use it during adds and don't have it up for heart.

I'm pretty sure Kindling is more convenient at that attribute and makes it possible to have combustion both in and out. If you hold Combustion in order to have it in, it would be a major DPS loss. Mages should pick the talents that give the highest amount of combustion/least amount of time of holding onto it unused with the least possibility of being detrimental to strategy and a mage that tries to hold combustion for a burn phase compared to someone doing slightly lower overall dps in exchange of not waiting at all is clearly worse-off (waiting on the CD unused).

update:

Well fight was hotfixed so this statement is no longer true. Before hotfix in this fight the only hard thing was to kill Il'gynoth in one go. So you look at this fight as 55 second max dps fight. There is no way you could reduce combustion cooldown for 2 minute to ~45 second so this talent made no sense. Outside the eye you had to stop dps most of the time because of stacks from adds. Nowadays since damage on Il'gynoth does not matter at all (dps requirement to do it in one go is twice as high). This makes kindling actually the best choice. Cinderstorm may hit small oozes and good cooldowns on big adds are useful.

In the past you entered Il'gynoth around 4:40 into the fight and had 55 sec to kill boss. After that either you or him dies.

I get that it was a minor benefit inside - if the sims prove it, they don't in some cases - but I doubt it was worth it. Kindling makes it possible to have combustion both in and out and I doubt it makes it better to have a small benefit inside (again, in some sim setups it might not even be true). But of course all that is irrelevant now in terms of that fight.

[Zilentification]

Boss: Nythendra (Mythic)
Spec: All
Tip:
Be careful with projectile spells on mindcontrolled targets, they will still travel after a person has been freed. Especially relevant as Arcane with Missiles (You can easily kill someone with a rule of threes proc).
Tip 2:
Make sure to remove Ice barrier if you are about to get mindcontrolled. Don't make it harder on your group to free you.

Boss: Ursoc
Spec: All
Tip:
For this fight you do not need Shimmer. Although Cauterize is always an option, consider running Cold Snap. You can soak your group's charge, then the next group's with Iceblock, then your group's with another Iceblock and finally just return to the normal rotation. Just be aware he charges every 32 seconds, so the timing is a bit tight.

Boss: Cenarius
Spec: Arcane
Tip:
Remember that the Cleansed Ancient periodically cast a spell that returns 30% of a players Mana if they are standing near him. This is intended for healers but obviously has great benefits for you!

Boss: Xavius
Spec: Arcane
Tip:
Whether or not you go insane while in the dream-state, when it ends you come out with full Mana and cooldowns back up (although you lose your quickening stacks). Use this to your advantage as you can create many more burn phases.

[LaplaceNoMa]

After ~80 wipes on Ilgynoth(M) and almost killing him, I'd like to disagree on Kindling.

I can use it THREE times before the first heart phase, and it's UP again on the heart phase itself.

First time on pull for 2 tank adds; second time when the first small tendons appear; third time when the small tendons and the flower overlap. Then the eye dies after a single small and then single medium tendons appear, at which point the combustion is up again, for the 4th time. This way it's also up when the small tendons appear for the first time on the 2nd cycle after the 2 big tendons die - which is also very important (without kindling, combustion won't be up at that point yet).

[Atomic]

Boss: Nythendra (Mythic)


Boss: Ursoc
Spec: All
Tip:
For this fight you do not need Shimmer. Although Cauterize is always an option, consider running Cold Snap. You can soak your group's charge, then the next group's with Iceblock, then your group's with another Iceblock and finally just return to the normal rotation. Just be aware he charges every 32 seconds, so the timing is a bit tight.

I'm assuming this can't work in mythic.

[Zilentification]

I'm assuming this can't work in mythic.

It works in Mythic.

If you don't want to soak other groups or risk any mistakes, just remember that Ursoc has a lot of predictable high damage hits, so running double iceblock is a large boon. Obviously shimmer is always going to help with DPS, but I generally don't find it "needed" on that fight.

Also if you get charged you can move behind your soaking group and Iceblock, then the boss doesn't run as far away allowing everyone to keep DPSing.

[Curnivore]

I guess he meant to ask it doesn't work in a way that negates the raid damage. I believe that can't be normally negated anyway on any mode. This is to negate the mage incoming damage only, correct?

[Zilentification]

Raid damage is reduced by the number of people that are "hit" by the charge. From our experience a full immunity seems to still count you as being hit. Meaning if you are able to throw yourself in a charge that you wouldn't normally be able to otherwise, you can reduce the raid damage by a small amount.

I will admit that our guild never did a scientific test on this, just our healers seemed to feel it did less damage when we threw some Bubbled/Iceblocked players in.

[Phasmo]

Boss: Ursoc
Spec: All
Tip:
For this fight you do not need Shimmer. Although Cauterize is always an option, consider running Cold Snap. You can soak your group's charge, then the next group's with Iceblock, then your group's with another Iceblock and finally just return to the normal rotation. Just be aware he charges every 32 seconds, so the timing is a bit tight.

Can anyone verify if this still works, or if I'm just doing it wrong? Tried a couple of times as I figured it would be a massive help in our roster, concidering we're running 4-5 mages. I experienced that when iceblocking I would remove the debuff, meaning this would be possible without cold snap. However I would not gain an debuff either, which makes me question wether or not I'm counted as a target when charged?

Video for reference, it should start at the relevant point; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUWfrxrFlKA&t=3m15s" target="_blank

Cheers.

[Xzaar]

Boss: Nythendra (Mythic)
Spec: All
Tip:
Ice Block does not prevent you from gaining, and will not clear, stacks of Infested! What this means is:
a) you can use Ice Block to safely gain a lot of Infested stacks shortly before Infested Mind is cast if you're trying to force it out, or
b) you can accidentally end up mind controlled when you're trying not to be, if you're trying to avoid damage from (or safely place) Rot or Infested Breath.
Keep an eye on those stacks and know when you can Ice Block appropriately.

I may be wrong but I think this may have been hotfixed. I used Ice block on our kill yesterday and did not gain any stacks from rot puddles on the ground as they were moving through me during her recharge phase.