Leading them to slaughter! (of Mimiron)
I was pretty optimistic going into last night about our chances with Mimiron. We did pretty well on Wednesday, pushing Mim to P4 with ease at the end. I thought maybe after an hour of wipes maybe we’d be able to down him. Hell, we had at least three hours to plink away at him. And yet, the unexpected happened…
We one-shot him.
It was a pretty incredible kill (which I’ll detail in a moment) and more so because Mimiron25 was supposedly an impossible boss. He was clearly nerfed into the ground, but I thought that’d be mostly affecting the normal mode, not heroic. On Wednesday when I made the command decision to divert our efforts on Thorim to Mimiron I was accused in officer chat of “leading the raid to slaughter.” It couldn’t be done, they clucked. Now: sweet, sweet vindication.
But I digress–here’s how we tanked it.
Phase 1
Demo main tanked Mimiron while I stayed prot spec and built second threat. The priests rotated through their various cooldowns while Demo did the same to get through the first three Plasma Blasts. Unfortunately a quick snafu hit and Demo died while running out of a shockwave that was happening during a Plasma Blast, so Mim ran over to me and I tanked him in the middle. At this point Mim was at 10% health and we easily push him to phase 2.
Phase 2
Demo was brought back up and everyone was topped off for phase 2. Because there isn’t any threat on this phase the trick is to minimize raid damage by not standing in front of the boss if possible. I spent the majority of this phase running through the boss, Hammering, Shield Slamming, Judging, etc. Just weaving in and out of his LOS (keyboard turners are at a natural disadvantage here).
A key, key talent in this fight is Divine Sacrifice. The most critical aspect of this phase is to limit raid damage and get through it as fast as humanly possible. Taking 30% of the raid damage off the top was a big boon to the healers, I felt. I just wish the other three pallies in the raid had DivSac as well so we could layer them for some serious damage reduction.
If you can make it through Phase 1 and 2 with the entire raid intact then you are very well set up for the kill.
Phase 3
At this point Mimiron takes to the air, so the tanking of the head falls to a caster or some other ranged dps. Usually Cendra (hunter) takes care of this, but last night a warlock was particularly insistent he have the opportunity this time around so he took over that role.
What this phase does have for you to tank are two different things. One is the Assault Bots, which are heavy-hitting robots that like to cast a magical debuff on their tank that increases damage taken by 30%. This can be cleansed off though, which makes a pally ideal for tanking them. The other mob that needs to be controlled are the Bomb Bots which spawn under Mimiron’s head and bee line for a random raid member, to explode and do heavy damage. To control these guys we had Demo stand under Mim’s head and just taunt them as they spawned, and soak the damage from their explosions.
Also, if you’re tanking the Assault Bots, keep an eye out for red columns of light. Assault Bots spawn from these and if a squishy is standing next to their spawn, they kill them in short order before you have time to react. I warned the clothies and others to move away if a red column popped up next to them, and ran over to pick up Assault Bots the moment they spawned. (You have a second or two to grab them before they officially “activate”.)
Phase 4
Because Demo died in P1 I had aggro on the bottom third of Mimiron in this fight (the head and bottom keep their aggro tables from their respective phases). I tanked it in the center and just worked through my rotation keeping mind of the various danger moments the boss likes to throw at us. Ran out of shock, rotated the bottom so the middle wasn’t facing me for the spin-up, and kept an eye on nearby mines. Rockets didn’t seem to big of an issue because they favor ranged and people were a bit spread out.
Tanking in this phase isn’t particularly hard at all, it’s just being careful not to get shockwaved or shot by a super laser of some kind. Just stay on your toes and hope everyone else can manage to stay alive.
I think the best part of the fight was when I realized all three parts were at around 100k health each, and it clicked that we might actually kill Mimiron. Suddenly people were cheering in vent, giving the fifteen or so of us left the confidence to keep going. And finally we prevailed, and Mimiron’s creation slumped over defeated.
Lastly, a big grats to Demo on winning his t8.5 gloves and thus achieving his totally fair and balanced 4pc bonus. :P
Armory Feed
@iamapaladin
13 July 2009 at 5:05 pm #
Grats! I really want to kill him on 25s but I don’t have that privilege at the moment. I’ve only done him on 10s.
Could you imagine him on hard mode in 25s? Scary =X
I got a few questions about Mimiron tanking.
P1: Ok so i get what we do for those Shockwaves i know we have to run out then pull boss back to the mid. But what is Plasma Blast ? Is this the fire thing he shoots out that casts a damage over time he does randomly to the raid ? Will the rocket he shoots out also land in mlee range when we tank the boss and how big is the radius ? Do we need to face boss away from raid, or does it not matter.
P2: So all we do is stay behind boss and an Divine Shield then Divine Sacrifice ? ok got it.
P3: Either tank the big robots and grab small ones as well, or taunt the boombots when they appear. Ok i get that. But the way my guild did it, we had druids root the boombots then just ranged it. If you had a tank on boombots, how much damage is he taking from them i would like to know.
P4: So your saying threat for the bottom part is carried over from Phase 1? And ok the boss loses some of his abilities, and i get what you said, but do you need to face the boss away from raid or does it not matter ?
Gz!!!
Question completely off-topic though:
How did you get your interface that awesome? ^^ Me wants it too!
Grats on the kill! Just a few tankadin (but not Ulduar/Mimiron) related questions.
I’m doing my best to transition away from keyboard turning and clicking abilities. One, are there any action bar mods you recommend, and two, how do you backpedal and strafe, or are they keybound as well, just in a different place than usual?
Thanks
Muiran of Thrall
@Rhidach
14 July 2009 at 12:33 pm #
@Moogle: Plasma Blast is that massive dot he puts on the tank. Facing doesn’t matter. Rockets are in phase 2, but either way they favor ranged so it rarely goes in melee. The bomb bots do minimal damage to a well-geared tank. I think 1/3 of your health, typically. Easily soakable. In phase 4 the bottom and middle sections face independently of each other and it doesn’t matter where the bottom is facing, while the middle faces wherever it wants.
@CJ: Thanks! I did a post about my interface which lists all my addons. Lots of painful tweaking, haha. I can give you more guidance if you want to email me.
Muiran: Thanks :) I keybind strafe to my A and D keys, so I literally can’t keyboard turn. I use my mouse to spin around. S is still backpedal. I find that Q, E, 1, 2, 3, and F are awesome for keybind opportunities since they’re spread out around where your left hand already is. Hope that helps!
@PinkRaidFrames
14 July 2009 at 1:40 pm #
Congrats man!
I don’t think your experience is unusual. We spent 4 weeks dying to Thorim and downed Mim and General after 2 nights each.
If you’ve got a DK tank let him tank General and use IBF each CD. It will save you a ton of pain (and possibly the avoidance of the enrage timer).
~ Doxa
Man if your ret paladins aren’t speccing Divine Sacrifice…well, let’s just say they wouldn’t be raiding in my guild. Our Holy Paladins even flip to a 51/20/0 build for Mimiron. Using chain DS with chain Aura Mastery makes the fight so much easier (same for Hodir’s Frozen blows).
For P2 we stack up in the middle, this way all the AoE heals are more effective, and we just do a in/out when we see a rocket launch. Boomkins or spriests are ideal for P3 due to damage reduction. Our boomkin wears PvP gear so he has enough resil to be crit immune.
Grats on the 1 shot. I agree that using a DK on Vezack makes the encounter much more manageable (you can skip the kiting) – but we still rotate Sacrifice/Pain Suppressions on every nasty hit time.
Good Luck!
Here’s an interesting strat for P3, if you’ve got a Prot Warrior (as I see you do). The attack the flying unit uses, Plasma Ball, can be bounced with Spell Reflection. And it does serious damage and aggro. So of you have a Hunter use Misdirect on the Warrior and the DPS waits till after the first Plasma Ball, the Warrior can tank the whole P3. Which is a lot easier than having a squishy do it.