Hellfire Citadel Mage Tips

[Frosted]

Archimonde:

Ginvis breaks shackles, very bad (mythic). Use Ice Block instead.

Use ice block to solo a mark of the legion (mythic P3) - must be block'd before the explosion occurs, be away from people.

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.


Mannoroth:

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.

IB can be used to solo soak all 4 wraths, run 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.

Use IB to solo-soak gaze (best applied in the later phases of mythic when over soaking can insta-wipe you). Cold snap, again, is useful for this. Make sure to yell at your raid you are doing it so you don't IB it and insta-gib someone else.

[Frosted]

Tyrant:

Run Evanesce + Ginvis. On mythic 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.

Frost -> UM_IF_TV.

Fel Lord:

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.

[Kweli]

Does Ice Block remove the Dark Binding chains?

[Frosted]

Does Ice Block remove the Dark Binding chains?

I don't think so

[Rinoa]

Neither Ice Block nor Greater Invisibility removes them. I have not tried Evanesce, but it seems unlikely that it would work.

[Embers]

Isn't the trick to chains, like the hands on Kormrok?

You cannot remove them with an immunity, but if you are in an immune state when they go out, they don't actually go out, because you're immune.

[Wilderness]

Isn't the trick to chains, like the hands on Kormrok?

You cannot remove them with an immunity, but if you are in an immune state when they go out, they don't actually go out, because you're immune.

Since its cast on 6 people, if that did happen wouldn't that leave someone without a partner to clear from? Or if one of those 6 immunities it none of them appear? If the latter is the case then I guess I can see why people would try it, but I'm pretty sure that strat would be all over the place if that was true. The whole mechanic is easily avoided with rings and blowing up the add before it casts each time so trying to cheese it seems unnecessary.

[Embers]

The chains connect you to other people right? I mean, how could you get chains without anyone to connect them to? I don't think an odd number of people would work because what would the last person be chained to?

[Searix]

Most guilds single target down the phantasmal before he casts a single dark binding. 0 dark bindings the entire fight, completely cheeses it

[Curnivore]

You know what might be useful to be included in the OP of threads of this nature? A metric of some sort about what spec is most viable for each fight, because it's one of the first things one wonders about when reading about a boss for the first time, if he's into playing multiple specs, and most raiders play multiple specs. It is subjective, however, consensus might be clear in some cases, or, the lack of consensus is also information in itself, or, the exclusion of a specific spec but the other two remaining viable is also useful information.

I currently look at warcraft logs and posts of people in forums to derive the best viable, however it's getting too cryptic in some cases. For instance I was almost convinced Arcane is perfect for Hellfire Assault but then I figured it's too messy of a fight if I don't know it well already to use fully the predictability-loving nature of that spec.

It would need a voting of some sort though. The opinion of a single person would not be very useful for several reasons. Caveats of the subjectivity of it should be included (for instance "viable if you have this role to play") but it can not be discarded and in some cases the cases are very clear (e.g. fire being just bad in some fights).

[Laodi]

A vote is difficult. There are to many sidethings which would derail the vote.
Even on progress it often times comes down to:
What does my raid/guild need?
Which spec am i better playing?
And after that on farm people tend to "cheat" in logs to get better rankings. Looking at the toplogs you only see 2 things:
1.) People with insane luck
2.) People/Raids cheesing mechanics or helping players to get into ranking by doing unusual things.
In the end imo at this point in progress and the fact that the difference between frost and arcane is more then small its really more a question of "Which spec can i play better" then "which spec can do the best dps at this boss".

[Curnivore]

The vote shouldn't be public. Mainly moderators and regular theorycrafters the OP chooses. Ideally it would be something like "1 arcane theorycrafter, 1 frost, and 1 fire (at least an off spec fire)" + raiders they know personally.

[Embers]

Most guilds single target down the phantasmal before he casts a single dark binding. 0 dark bindings the entire fight, completely cheeses it

I think I just misunderstood. I thought we were talking about Empowered Chains on Xhul'horac.

Yeah, we've never seen the mythic mechanic on Iskar because the Phantasmal add dies before it can do anything.

[Thisgame]

A vote is difficult. There are to many sidethings which would derail the vote.
Even on progress it often times comes down to:
What does my raid/guild need?
Which spec am i better playing?
And after that on farm people tend to "cheat" in logs to get better rankings. Looking at the toplogs you only see 2 things:
1.) People with insane luck
2.) People/Raids cheesing mechanics or helping players to get into ranking by doing unusual things.
In the end imo at this point in progress and the fact that the difference between frost and arcane is more then small its really more a question of "Which spec can i play better" then "which spec can do the best dps at this boss".

This is all pretty true. A good example is personally i prefer the consistency of frost but I know there are fights where Arcane burst timing lines up with a mechanic or lust or something better, or like on HFC you need to burn Gurtogg at exactly 30% which in our raid lines up exactly with my Crystal/AP so I play Arcane, even though you can technically get higher overall numbers as frost. At this point in progression it's mostly preference and what you need to focus on in your raid.

Honestly, I'd vote for frost on almost every fight because dealing with Mark of Doom randomness gives me a miniature aneurysm every single night.

[Chev]

I avoided having a line of "Recommended spec: ..." because like DPS charts, people tend to follow them literally and all of a sudden "recommended" becomes "compulsory". By leaving it as is, it allows people to play what ever spec they want and pick up tips from other players playing that spec. There are guides all over this site which explains which specs suit which fight style so I leave it to people to make up their own mind for what they want to play / their guilds tactics suit.

[Sturmcantor]

Gorefiend: Doesn't seem to have been mentioned so far, but you can Ice Block off the Mark of Doom debuffs and not drop a pool to save on space and raid damage.

[Kirielle]

On Xhul'horac, Greater Invis removes Void Surge/Fel Surge debuffs without dropping fire on the ground.

As a note for Archimonde, on difficulties other than mythic, using Greater Invis to break your shackle is a *good* thing.

[Carwey]

Fel Lord:

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.

Curious about this interaction. If you have seeds and invis/Evanesce, do you not send out any waves? Would rather confirm just to be sure I don't blow up the raid trying.

[Wilderness]

Curious about this interaction. If you have seeds and invis/Evanesce, do you not send out any waves? Would rather confirm just to be sure I don't blow up the raid trying.

No, I believe that statement is assuming you don't get picked with seeds. I know GI won't stop seeds from sending waves if you have them and I assume Evanesce doesn't either since it doesn't stop the waves from when you come up from the shadow realm. If you get picked for seeds you'd need to move to wherever your raid has dedicated for that.

[Chev]

The OP has been updated with the new tips. Thanks for the contributions.