8a) Mimiron Hardmode

Meka's guide to firefighter

Introduction

This is going to be the hardest challenge in achieving your Heroic: Glory of the Raider. It has received significant nurfs recently and while this does make it quite a lot easier, the technical elements of the fight are still there. It’s without a doubt the favorite encounter of both myself and Ensidia as a whole. It’s something that challenges your entire raid rather than a few players in important roles. There is no better way to test the raid awareness of players and the ability to tweak your play to get out more dps and healing. This is a four Phase encounter, the first three are totally different from each other and the fourth combines elements of the first three. There is an enrage timer of 10 minutes that you need to constantly be aware of. To engage Mimiron’s hardmode you push the huge red button at the back of the room that says “DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON”.

Abilities
During all Phases fire patches that follow the nearest player (similar to Archimonde) will spawn continuously throughout the fight and need to be controlled.

-Leviathan MkII- (Phase 1)
Napalm Shell – DoT attack that targets one player but also hits anyone standing near them. Deals around 11-12k impact damage and ticks for about 6k (ticks 8 times). 2 second cast

Plasma Blast – Channeled cast on the current Tank and deals over 30k per second for 6 seconds. 3 second initial cast

Shock Blast – Deals 100k damage to anyone within 15 yards, 5 second cast and does not move while casting

Flame Suppressant – Leviathon will extinguish all fires in the room and debuff all players with 50% casting speed reduction for 8 seconds.

-VX-001 Anti Personnel Assault Cannon- (Phase 2)

Heat Wave – Initially hits for about 10k on entire raid and ticks for another 2k per second for the next 5 seconds

Rapid Burst – Targets someone in the raid (doesn’t actually show on frames who it’s targeting) and hits everyone in a cone towards that person for around 2k

Rocket Strike – Targets a location (orange/red target on the ground) and launches a rocket there doing 5 million damage. 4 second cast.

Spinning up – 4 second preparation to cast Laser Barrage

P3Wx2 Laser Barrage – Spams 20k damage shots within 80 yards in front of him, turns slowly clockwise while casting (think Dark Glare on c’thun)

Frost Bomb – Launches a large blue sphere that lands at a random place in the room (near fires) that after 10 seconds will explode dealing 50k damage and extinguishing all the fires within 30 yards


-Aerial Command Unit- (Phase 3)

Plasma Ball – Deals around 18k per hit to the target with the highest threat.

Magnetic Field – Casted by Assault Bot. Roost the target and increases their damage taken by 30%, can be dispelled and interrupted. As a side note Assault bots also drop the Magnetic Cores.

Bomb Bot – Explodes for about 25k Fire damage in a 5 yard radius.

Deafening Siren – Casted by Emergency Bot. Silences all players within 15 yards

Water Spray – Casted by Emergency Bot. Deals 20k water damage and has a 200 yard knock-back.


-V-07-TR-0N- (Phase 4)

Inherits Shock Blast from Phase 1
Inherits Rocket Strike, P3Wx2 Laser Barrage and Frost Bomb from Phase 2
Inherits Plasma Ball from Phase 3

Hand Pulse – This is a new ability in Phase 4 and is essentiall a higher damage Rapid Burst from Phase 2.

Preparation
Positioning will be included in The Fight breakdown in this guide since it’s hard to separate from the rest of the strategy.
First of all you need a good understanding of how the fire works. Fire can be kited or controlled in several ways but the best is essentially to keep each spawn to the size of 4 blocks of fire. This is done by allowing it to spread once and then moving around it 90 degrees every time it spreads, this ultimately keeps it fairly stationary and it overlaps itself. Controlling the fires during certain parts of the fight is a pretty important concept and will be covered in more detail in The Fight part of the guide.
Other preparation is as normal, you should have BigWigs or equivalent boss mod to monitor everything going on in the fight. You should always have a /focus macro with a large obvious cast bar for your focus target. This is especially important on this fight if you are a healer or in Phase 4 if you want to monitor the abilities of a section you are not targeting. All out on consumables is obviously a no-brainer with this encounter!
There are a couple of useful macro’s for Phase 3 targeting. You should also enable Free for All looting for this fight due to Phase 3.
/tar Emergency Fire Bot
/tar Bomb Bot

-Raid Setup-
Two tanks, once again it’s recommended to go for a Warrior and an Unholy DK simply because that’s what was used in formulating our strategy. The reason for the DK being Unholy is Mitigation of Plasma Blast in Phase 1, AMZ can actually be useful in reducing some damage in Phase 2 and good AoE threat/damage in Phase 3. The Warrior is great because of the usual Sundering + Spell Reflect in Phase 4. As a side note the Warrior should have 4 part Tier 8 to help mitigate spell damage in this fight (lots of it). You can use a Druid to replace the DK if you wish and it won’t have a huge effect, replacing the Warrior however will require a significant change in Phase 4 however. Feral Druids should be DPS’ing !

Healing wise you can either go with 6 or 7 healers. This is going to entirely depend on the classes of healers you have available and or if you are behind on the enrage timer. Priests and Druids are once again the best due to the large AoE healing requirements so at least 4 healers should be priests or Druids if you can manage it. At least one Paladin for buffs and a Divine Sacrifice is nice. Apart from that it’s up to you, Shamans are pretty poor in Phase 2 but good in all other phases.

DPS wise it’s good to have a nice mix. Feral Druids and Blood Death Knights are usually going to put out the most Damage if played correctly. There are very few “bad” classes on this fight however so it’s recommended to bring a good mix. Two Melee groups that include the 2 tanks and then 3 ranged groups including the 6 to 7 healers will be an excellent setup for this fight. Ideally above all else you want to bring players that don’t fail rather than players of a specific class.

-Group Setup-
A small note here on how to setup your groups. What we have always done is have 3 ranged groups, each one containing 2 healers and a mix of dps. Each of these ranged groups is assigned to one of the 3 slices of the pie (look at the floor of Mimiron’s room). Decide on approximate positions within your group and have the two healers each slightly to one side of the pie. Try and stick to these rough positions through most of the fight (not Phase 3) as best you can. I’ve added a screenshot that shows this group setup and people standing in the pie slices, (2,4,5 are ranged) remember these are rough positions and note that there is a 7th healer in group 3 who’s position is free.
http://www.ensidia.com/media/upload/bossguides/firefighter1-thumb.jpg

The Fight

-Phase 1-
First group up all together at the start and refresh Commanding Shout on the whole raid (Your tank should rebuff this on all players every phase switch, take some fire damage or mines if you need rage). Spread out and group up at the very edge of your section of pie with the rest of your group. Melee can just pick any slice to start in, it’s not important where they start as long as it is not alone. The reason for this initial grouping up is so that the fires will initially be at the edges so that they are easier to control and are far away from the melee. If you have bad fires in melee it is highly likely to reduce your dps a lot or kill melees. Once the first fires hit you can run into position and engage the boss. During Phase 1 your healers are going to control fires. The reasoning behind this is that if a dps’er has to do it then they will most likely lose damage by moving. Druids and Priests make the best initial kiters because they have to move less than Shamans or Paladins but ultimately all healers will probably have to control the fires. Healing is relatively simple, just make sure that you can see Napalm shell on your raid frames. Always throw an instant first if you can before you start a casted heal otherwise they could die from the initial damage + 2 fast ticks. The only other healing thing to worry about is the Plasma Blast, tanks will require a lot of healing here so if you don’t have someone requiring Napalm healing in range then spam the tank.
Doing DPS here is relatively simple. If you are a ranged all you need to do is not stand on anyone else so that you don’t risk more than one person having Napalm Shell at the same time. Other than that just go all out on your damage but be very careful not to “steal” fires from healers by going to close to them. As a melee it’s somewhat more difficult (a theme in this fight), you must dodge mines and any fires that spawn in the melee. On top of that you need to watch out for Shock Blast, always have a route planned so you can safely run away through the fires/mines to avoid it. When you are running back into the boss after a Shock Blast try not to be right ontop of each other because it’s the only time that the melee can get hit by Napalm Shell.
The last thing to look at is how your tanks are going to manage the Plasma Blast. You get a good warning cast so you know when that damage is coming so really it’s just 2 concepts to cover. The first is that the tank without aggro should taunt the boss when the other is hit by Plasma Blast, this is so that they do not receive melee hits on top of the Blast. The second concept is how you manage your cooldowns, we usually use this rotation. Warrior takes the first with Last Stand, Shield Block (set bonus), Enraged Regen and Anti Magic Zone from the DK. This is probably the hardest one to heal of the Blasts because there isn’t as much damage reduction as using a cooldown like Shield Wall. On the second one your DK can just use Icebound Fortitude with Anti Magic Shield. The 3rd will be taken by the Warrior using Shield Wall and Shield Block. If you get a 3rd then your DK can take it with cooldowns (3.1) or Pain Suppression (3.2) with Anti Magic Shield.
As you transition into the next phase, do not stand in open spaces and spawn fires there. Control the fires and have your raid near to existing fires to enable them to be picked up and controlled in a similar position.

-Phase 2-
Resume your approximate positions from Phase 1 so that you are nicely spread out. Fires will affect this obviously so just do it as best you can. There is nothing complicated about this phase all you can do really is follow a few basic principles. The way Rapid Burst works is that it targets someone and shoots at them (doesn’t show as target on frame though), it damages everyone in a cone to and around this person. Melee should be constantly moving to try and make sure that they are behind the guns so that they do not get hit by all the Rapid Bursts. Ranged should try not to be too packed up as to avoid massive Rapid Burst damage, if it’s obviously not targeting you but you are in the cone, try and move away so you don’t get hit. Dodging Rocket strike is now extremely easy because the travel time is so long, if you are having trouble with this you should not be doing hardmode. The next thing to tackle is the Frost Bomb. It will always land near fires, sometime you get lucky and sometimes you don’t. If it lands somewhere that forces melee to move or generally forces people into similar positions, now is the time to use Divine Sacrifice to limit that Rapid Burst damage. Bad Frost Bombs that cause packing are certainly the best use of this cooldown for this fight as beating Phase 2 with everyone alive is the first major hurdle. The last thing is just the spinning up, you should be on top of this from normal mode but just to highlight, you really want to pump damage at this point because you don’t have Rapid Burst to worry about.
This is really a good test of your healers. AoE healing plays a huge part but awareness of the Rapid Burst and who is going to be dipping before they actually dip is very important. It’s also vital that you make sure you stay in range of a healer, perhaps mark then with a raid icon so that your raid can easily see them. Do not die with your Healthstone unused in this phase, it’s a life saver! As a side note healers should make sure they have the boss in focus, there’s a lot to manage and a good focus cast bar for Frost Bomb and Spinning up help a lot.
When transitioning into phase 3 it’s a very similar deal. Stand near to existing fires and try to leave a good sized area open for when the phase begins. This is also a good time to get a Soul Well up so that everyone can get a new Healthstone.

-Phase 3-
Make sure you have Free For All loot on.
The last fires should land about 10 seconds before Phase 3 begins. Once those fires have hit it’s time to move into position using the space that you hopefully left free of fires. Let your Warlock tank stand out in the middle of the open area so that they aren’t forced to move around to dodge fires. The rest of your ranged dps should position themselves near existing fires on the edges of the free area with healers trying to control them spreading. This is to keep as much space free for your melee to fight and your Warlock tank to not have to move. Not only is it good for fire control but this should give u a broad coverage of the room for killing the Emergency Fire Bots.
Once the fight becomes live, give your Warlock some time for threat and then ranged can start on the Aerial Command Unit. Your ranged dps should try and instakill any Emergency Fire Bots that spawn (blue light beams), use the macro mentioned earlier to target them quickly. Your Warrior tank should now be picking up the Assault bots (red beam spawn), as soon as they are picked up your Melee can start killing them. Remember that the bot needs to be stunned or interrupted if they start to cast the stun on the tank. If you feel you need to kill them faster then ranged can help out also (this will depend entirely on your own raid). Loot the first core and then go directly onto the second Assault bot without using it. Once this second Assault bot has been killed and the core looted you can bring the boss down. Make sure that he is in a good spot so that Melee will be able to dps (no fires) and pop Bloodlust as he is coming down. As soon as he is going up again you use the second core to bring him right back down in the same place. The reason behind this is that you have a huge damage buff at this point so it’s an extremely efficient use of Bloodlust. With any luck you can kill or almost kill the Aerial Command Unit after these two cores saving you a huge amount of time overall.
During this entire time your other tank (DK usually) will be collecting all of the Junk Bots that spawn (green beams) and also taunting the Bomb Bots and taking the damage. You can in theory kill the Bomb Bots but it seems like a waste of dps when a tank can easily take them and raid damage is generally very low in this phase. The junk bots tanked by this player should be killed off once the phase has ended.
Much the same as the other phases, control fires as you transition and make sure that you spawn new ones near existing ones.

-Phase 4-
http://www.ensidia.com/media/upload/bossguides/firefighter2-thumb.jpg
As you start Phase 4 you should try to return to the original group positioning that you have been using during Phase 1 and 2. The basic concept of the Phase is actually very similar to Phase 2 but the AoE damage is significantly less. Start the fight with your Warrior tank picking up the bottom part of the newly formed boss and your Warlock tanking the head. After around 5-10 seconds of threat building the Warrior can taunt the top part off the Warlock and just spam Spell Reflect for the entire fight and that will secure the threat. This also means that tank healing can always be directed on only one person.

Shock Blast (Phase 1), Proximity Mines (Phase 1), Spinning up (Phase 2), Rocket Strike (Phase 2), Frost Bomb (Phase 2). All these Abilities have the same mechanic as in their original phases. Hand Pulse is just a slightly altered version of Rapid Burst from Phase 2 and should be handled in exactly the same way (spreading out). There really are not a lot of new concepts in Phase 4, it’s just that you have to combine them all at the same time! The main new concept is that you can move the boss and will need to because of fires. This means that everyone need to be adapting to the new positions all the time. As an extra reminder always keep one eye on the ground because mines could be in a lot more locations rather than the static locations in Phase 1.

So the last aspect is really just how you split your dps. Remember that your melee can only attack the 2 lower sections. You should begin with all single target casters on the head, Shadow Priests should dps all three. Then just split up your melee and Hunters between the other 2 sections. Hunters can switch to the head if it’s behind on dps, generally you need to be very aware of what % each section is on. Get all of them to around 3% and then kill them at the same time. You need to take extra care to make sure that all possible debuffs are on all the different sections (sunders, curses etc). It’s a challenging phase but if you have mastered all the concepts in the other phases and you have enough time left to beat the enrage you should be fine.

Enjoy the best encounter in Ulduar!

or just dont stand in fire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jee971qfSMQ

Tankspopts narrated guide, threy have a different way of handling teh firez