Can you hear me now?

I first want to say: please make a Atramedes plushie Blizzard. I would buy one, maybe two, and love it oh-so-much. Pretty please?

This expansion's most adorable dragon has very few changes in heroic mode. You have less gongs to hit (essentially a soft enrage timer and less wiggle room to screw up) and things tend to hurt more and there are more bad things to stand in spawning during air phase.

The new mechanic is that little obnoxious adds spawn, monkey-themselves onto someone's back, and cast a spell appropriately called Obnoxious. Set DBM to announce when they spawn AND when they are actually targetable, as they'll be out for a few seconds before you can damage them. Once you can target them (having an addon like Tidy Plates is useful to see them) switch to them immediately and interrupt their casting as much as you can. They don't have much health so they'll die pretty quickly.

Of general importance: (1) pop shammy rage/stoneclaw totem on Searing Flame (2) ghost wolf during air phase, *especially* if you're targeted by his beam.

We tanked him in the back of the room and stacked in a straight line. This way Sonar Pulse always spawned and headed in a straight line and we could just strafe left or right. Similarly, a player targeted with Sonic Breath would always run left or right and we would know to run opposite. When the adds spawned we were also always close enough to kill them in seconds. Being this far back did mean our kitty druid or hunter would have to sacrifice some dps to run out to a gong from time to time (we used them up back to front), but it was worth it for the ease of dealing with the other mechanics.

This is the last of the heroic strats as 4.2 came out and we've been focused on downing the new stuff.

Mad Scientist, Take Two

Anyone who raided in ICC knows that any kind of alchemy/do-it-your-self-kitchen in the back of the room spells trouble for your raid. At some point the boss is going to throw something together and it's going to hurt. Maloriak is no exception.

As in normal mode you will rotate through red/blue and a green vial phase. The same strategy applies to them in heroic as it did in normal. Stack up during the red phase (unless you have have Consuming Flames on you) and  pop your damage cooldowns. Spread out in blue phase (just in melee ranged, don't make the mistake of running away). If you are the designated interrupted for either Arcane Storm or Release Aberrations, or the designated purger for Remedy, be on your game. Especially if you're on Release Aberrations, make sure you tell your tanks what order you're letting them out in, or ask them what they prefer. We usually kicked the first cast and let the next three go.

What heroic mode brings to the table is black phase. Maloriak will always start with a black phase and then cycle through the others. Thus black -> red/blue -> green -> black -> so on.

 In the black phase Maloriak will summon Vile Swill and the add tank will pick them up and kite them around the back of the room (usually along the walls from left to right). These adds must be AOE'd down. "Oh crap," you say, "not AOE damage. It takes forever to get flame shock rolling on 3 of them." Well, just be thankful, my young shamans, that you are doing this after the patch. At least now fire nova will refresh the shocks a bit. Get your flameshocks up - you'll need to be tabbing a lot anyway to avoid pulling threat off since it will be low from tank kiting - and drop magma totem constantly as you move.Use maelstrom stacks to throw a chain lightning off. The chaos that is our AOE dps only gets worse when you consider you have to be constantly dodging Dark Sludge pools which are sprayed by the blobs. This fight, more than any other, really makes me which we had some sort of cleave or fan of knives type attack. A whirlwind perhaps? We do need more wind based spells...

And no, you cannot just single target dps any of the swills because you *will* pull off the tank and die a horrible death. 

After black phase is over take a moment to wonder why you've just pressed 8 bajillion buttons and your aoe dps does not seem to reflect all that effort, then move on with the normal phases.

There is the option of switching to a spellpower (flametongue enchant) main-hand and just standing with the ranged while keeping up a fire nova/chain lightning rotation. I happen to refuse to do this because if I wanted to use spellpower weapons I'd roll elemental. However, for this fight especially, your dps would benefit some and so if you feel so inclined, go for it. Remember to switch back after black phase is over. .

A note on managing adds during the normal phases: our dps got to the point where it was high enough that we had times where we had to stop on Maloriak or risk pushing him into phase 2 early, so we would let the first 3 casts go and kick the last, giving the ranged time to focus the adds for a bit of pre-green phase nuking.

Remember to dodge the falling ice in Phase 2 and you'll be all set. Happy Raiding!

Wormzilla vs. the Robot Gang

Hey all - figured I'd plunk out Heroic Magmaw and Heroic Omnitron before I get too far into Firelands and forget all the 'old' stuff.

Heroic Magmaw

There are two major changes for heroic mode: (1) There are blazing skeleton adds that spawn one at a time. They must be tanked and it is usually the melee's job to kill them. You have to have a fair amount of dps on them otherwise at 20% they start casting an uninterruptable Armageddon and will deal massive raid damage if they don't die. (2) At 30% the adds will stop spawning and Nefarian will start throwing shadow damage at the raid. It hits random sections of the room so everyone spreads out to lessen the chance of getting hit. I usually sit in the middle, pop shamanistic rage, drop a glyphed Stoneclaw totem, and wail on him. 

If this is 10m it's most likely that it will only be you and another melee on the adds (along with a tank). I've been paired with a warrior, a rouge, even a shadow priest, and we've never had any trouble getting the add down. The add crashes down as he spawns, but it should be in ranged. He spawns fire with him, but it shouldn't wander into melee, just keep an eye out if it does. However, it is also melee's job to jump up on the head and chain Magmaw to the spike. This is priority number one! Drop everything and jump on that head the second the vehicle command becomes available. Be sure someone calls it out too because ranged will have to switch to killing the skeleton add because Armageddon almost always occurs 2 seconds after you can jump.

I'm assuming that if you're on H.Magmaw you've been on chain duty for normal mode. It's the same deal. Hope up. Press 1, aim green circle on spike, click, chain, profit. If for some reason you're not on chain duty, for the love of loot, do not try to jump up. You can glitch it and throw the designated jumper off. This makes for a very, very unhappy raid. 

Basically the only time you're dps-ing Magmaw is when his head is down. The goal is to have Magmaw down to 35% after so many mangles (around 3 maybe?) so that when he is spiked that next time you can pop hero and get as much damage on him as possible so that the Shadowflame Barrage phase is short. When you're on that last dps-race you can ignore the skeletons and just focus on the boss until he's down. 

Other than the above, it's the standard fight. Save your wolves for the spiked phases, use damage cooldowns when appropriate (sometimes not needed but your healers will thank you).

Heroic Omnitron Defense System

If you thought normal mode had a lot going on, it only gets worse. Welcome to the cluster---- that is Heroic Omni.There are still two robots up at any time, they still do all their normal skills. However, because Neferian's only entertainment seems to be making raiders lives harder (really, can't the guy read a book or something?), now all of the skills have a chance to do something extra. 

Arcanotron: Power Generator now has a chance to swell and blow up. If the circle is growing, GTFO! (And laugh at the mage who dies because he "thought he could blink out in time")

Toxitron: Neferain can choose to drag the entire raid into Chemical Cloud. Run out, but make sure not to hit any adds on the way.

Magmatron: When he "acquires a target" and hits them with Flamethrower, there is a chance that the person will be rooted in place. If your raid is used to the targeted person removing themselves from the group, now is the time to learn to remove yourselves from his presence instead. Just pop one of your damage cooldowns and pray your healers focus on you.

Electron: Lightning Conductor will sometimes turn into Shadow Conductor. With lightning conductor you want to be spread out, but it's the opposite for shadow. Once it turns, everyone should stack in on the affected person to mitigate the raid damage. 

Neferain only tampers with every other attack. So if Magmatron and Arcanatron are both up, and Magmatron's spell was just buffed, Arcanatron's pool should be normal. The key to this fight is just learning how to deal with all the buffed spells.

As in normal it will be your job to interrupt Arcane Annihilator whenever Arcanotron is up. If you have a mage in your group - one that you trust - you can play the very dicey "let Converted Power stack a couple times then have the mage spellsteal it." We do that and it makes my mage very, very happy. It gave me heart-attacks the first few times because I wasn't sure I could get all the interrupts. If you and the mage work well together, go for it. If not, I wouldn't risk it. On 10man I can get every interrupt, on 25 the tank and I swap them. 

That's all for now - I'll probably update with some doodles later. Everyone's favorite mad scientist (no, not Professor Putricide, the dragon-looking one) up next.

H. Chimaeron

While looking up reference pictures for the intro bit, I learned that Chimaeron has 3 arms and may in fact be the ugliest boss in BWD. Maloriak included. Of course I had never noticed this before because I spend 90% of my time tucked right between his tail and his leg. Best. Spot. Ever.

Heroic Chimmy is a lot like normal Chimmy. If you're an enhancement shaman anyway. Tanks and heals will be busy freaking out, your job is to whack away like you normally do. All the regular tips apply: don't throw your totems down till a few seconds in or Searing Totem might take a break and screw up the break-tank's timer. Do stack in for feud, do pop shamanistic rage during feuds when it is off cool-down, do throw out an extra chain heal or healing rain if you think your healers need the help or you see someone around you not going to make the massacre 10k cut off. Do drop your earth elemental during Phase 2, that extra 3 seconds he gives you before dying might be important.

The only thing you really need to watch out for is that your raid leader may call for everyone to switch to white hits only (where you just hit the boss, don't use any abilities) or to stop attacking completely. This is because you want to enter Phase 2 right after a feud phase, that way everyone is topped off and you have as much health/time as possible to bring Chimaeron down. This means bring up searing totem. You don't want to push the phase before the raid is ready and searing totem can accidentally do just that. Sure you can trying to blame it on the mages "searing flame is totally a mage attack, what are you talking about?" but I don't think your raid leaders will buy it for long. The reason being topped off is so important is that Neferaian joins the party and casts Mocking Shadows that inflicts a shadow DoT on everyone in the raid. You've got to get Chimmy down before the DoT brings the raid down. Do try to save ankh for Phase 2 - though with the shadow damage coming down you might die too quickly to be any help reincarnating - unless shamanistic rage is back up. Then you can pop it and live long enough to get a few good hits off.

That's all there is to this fight. We're rewarded with Chimaeron Armguards , our only wrist option. Hopefully you'll be luckier than I am and not have a hunter in front of you in the loot pool. Curse you hunters. Curse youuuuu!

Happy Raiding!

P.S. don't be that person who clicks the boss and starts the fight early. "But I was alt tabbing, it's not my fault -" no. Just no. Don't click the boss. End of story.

P.P.S. Does anyone else get possessive of their designated Chimaeron spot? I'm fairly attached to my spot right behind his leg, but I'll move if I have to. However, we've got a healer in the raid that refuses to start unless he is in His Spot.

Heroic Halfus

Ah good old Halfus Wyrmbreaker. This fight is very, very simple on enhance shammy for one reason: Shadow Nova. Thanks to our wind shear we can kick Every.Single.One. And we should! That's it, there's the fight! 

Ok, ok, there is a bit more you can do. 

1. Unless Storm Rider comes out super-duper-immediately the first Shadow Nova will still be a fast cast. We have all our melee count to 4 or 5 and then start kicking and it catches the cast about 90% of the time. In the beginning I didn't go for this first kick in fear of screwing up my wind shear cool down, but once you've done the fight a few times you get a sense for the timing of the first cast and you can kick as well. 
• It's important that the first kick does land, especially if your guild is new to heorics as the tanks may not be able to survive a nova + damage from the drakes/whelps.
2. We pop heroism at the beginning to ensure extra-quick-whelp-death. Usually it's a mage pretending they're as cool as us shaman's and popping timewarp, but if you happen to be mage deficient in your raid then it falls on you to use bloodlust.
3. I assume whelps are being aoe'd down. I like to drop my magma totem for this part just to throw a little extra damage their way since dps on Halfus isn't really important at this stage. Just make sure you throw searing totem back on when you're done.
4. In the beginning everyone will be crowded in the middle, and even if they're not, their aoe's are (especially if your graphic settings making everything the warlock does look exactly the same!), so trying to dodge the fireballs is a bit hard to do. This makes it a good time to pop shamanistic rage so that if you happen to eat a fireball your healers won't hate you as much (but don't worry, they'll still hate you a little). 
5. Once whelps/storm rider are down it gets a little less crowded and you should be dodging fireballs like you're a rouge with evasion on. 
6. As for feral spirit, I pop it once in the beginning and then it's up again in time for any of Furious Roar/push to the end.
7. Furious Roar is definitely a good time for shamanistic rage. Make sure you're aiming and jumping even as you're knocked back so you don't get stuck in a fireball.

If you want to be super pro, there is the option of setting Halfus on focus and dpsing Storm Rider along with the rest of the melee, using a macro to interrupt your focus. However, between lag and the off chance that the tank has moved Halfus and you're suddenly facing away from him, I'd say it's far better to just stick on Halfus.

As long as you are getting Every.Single.Kick. and pushing your dps as much as possible around it, this fight should go quickly. Make sure you've got Deadly Boss Mod warnings for Shadow Nova turned on - but don't rely on the sound alone as it can sometimes lag behind.