Illhoof with no lock/mage

[Mishdorf]

My Kara group for Thursday night does not have a mage or lock in it, but comprises:

Pallytank (me) - MT
Warrior - OT (like all warriors should be)

Hunter - DPS
Hunter - DPS
Spriest - DPS
Rogue - DPS
Rogue - DPS

Pally - Heals
Druid - Heals
?? healer

We cannot really do this fight with only two healers (they're too undergeared) so we're stuck with 3 healing it.

What is the best strategy for downing Illhoof? Holding the adds will not be a problem for me, but downing them might be. With this group composition what is the best way of beating him? Any tips/tricks for the fight?

[inthedrops]

Based on the stats in your sig you should just tank everything. Let the dps kill the boss. You'll slowly weed away at the imps. I don't think they'll build up too bad at all. If they do, then just allocate one dps to single target imps.

[Snake-Aes]

You are a paladin. Tank everything.
Make sure kil'rek always dies(easy if the raid is above kara's level). It's more dps gains on Illhoof and less damage intake, since you'll have many imps on you.
The druid healer can do a storm if itgets too big, and hunters provide all the aoe you'll ever need on that encounter.

[Mordinm]

I've done well in warrior heavy raids by having WW and cleave keep the number of imps down. In that raid rotating Blade Flurry and Volley along with Multishot ought to keep the imps down to a reasonable number for you to tank.

[Mishdorf]

Thanks guys, I'm sure we'll find a way .

The stats in my sig are wrong, I'm now hitting 15k hp unbuffed with 400 spell damage and 49% pure avoidance.

I'm looking forward to the fight, though I'm not looking forward to netherspite without another spriest/lock.

[Rokh]

If you get a shaman healer, Fire elemenal totem handles imps just fine, also have your hunters drop snake traps, they will kill imps too. (off topic, but drop snake traps on eagle boss in ZA and the snakes run down the bird adds, its really funny and effective)

[Seloei]

Actually, the crossover point where killing kil'rek gives more "raid dps" is around 7500 DPS. Based on illhoof and kilrek health. That kind of dps you reach once you outgear the place by far (t5-6 level with 2 healing).

You've got 2 hunters, ask them to go banzai with multi shoting. It should help to weed out a few of the imps every now and then. Otherwise, just kill the boss and hope no healers get agro from bad imps.

[Niobium]

I generally just tank everything in Illhoof's room, regardless of the raid composition. If the OT is bored, he or she might decide to swipe Kil'rek from me. Even if we do have a lock with us, they don't usually bother to do their normal AOE thing, since it seems to be just a waste of time. The only time anybody bothers to do anything other than beat on Illhoof or Demon Chains is when one of the imps decides to stand outside my consecrate. When that happens, one of the DPS (usually a rogue or hunter) will kill the imp in question.

With everything beating on me, I never have to worry about mana and I can go absolutely nuts with threat. A good time is had by all, except maybe for the OT.

[Shirak]

Multishot will help alot and once in a while do a holy wrath.

Those are about your only options since you really don't have AOE on the run.

It can be done though, I've done it several times.

[Seloei]

don't cast a holy wrath, spell pushback opens you up to crushings and with that much incoming small damage, the 2s spell can easily take 8-10 seconds.

[Kelaan]

Make sure kil'rek always dies(easy if the raid is above kara's level). It's more dps gains on Illhoof and less damage intake, since you'll have many imps on you.

While reduced fire damage on you is a GOOD thing (assuming you're taking enough damage to get mana back from heals, which you probably are ), are the DPS gains on Illhoof significant? I think I recall reading some debate on whether it was worth it, from a dealing-damage-to-Illhoof perspective. I can't find it, so I will try to recreate it.

Spend 58,000 damage on Kil'Rek (say 60k, when you count people overdamaging or having spells canceled when he dies), and then have Illhoof take 25% more damage for ~45 seconds. Do this again 45 seconds later. 58k damage is 8.4% of Illhoof's life. By killing Kil'Rek twice as a proprity, instead of simply DPSing Illhoof, you are effectively increasing the boss's life by 16%.

Let's assume that your raid does 5000 DPS (2-3 healers, 2 tanks, 5 DPS who can do 1000 DPS each). This is a slight overestimate for early Kara level groups, I expect, but then tailoring robes, gladiator weapons for melee, and BM hunters generally being bundles of pure DPS mean that I'm probably not overestimating TOO much. I might even be underestimating, if you have 2 healers and 6 DPS. I hypothesize that the lower your raid DPS, the better off you are ignoring Kil'rek.

{Edit: I forgot that your warlock/mages will likely be doing AOE, so maybe ~3000 DPS is a better estimate. I'll do that as another case.}

Scenario A: Your raid DPSes Illhoof directly, and ignores Kil'Rek.

Time to kill = 690k / {dps}
5k dps: 138 sec
4k dps: 172 sec
3k dps: 230 sec

Scenario B: Your raid prioritizes killing Kil'Rek (58k health), and then does 25% more damage to Illhoof for 45 seconds. (I am assuming, possibly mistakenly, that Kil'rek is resummoned 45 sec after being killed.)

Time to kill Kil'rek = 58k/{dps}
5k dps: 11.6 sec
4k dps: 14.5 sec
3k dps: 19.3 sec

Extra damage done in 45 secs = 0.25 * 45 * {dps}
5k dps: 56,250 extra dmg
4k dps: 45,000 extra dmg
3k dps: 33,750 extra dmg

Damage/sec done to Illhoof per cycle of killing Kil'rek:
(includes time spent killing kil'rek!)
= (45 * 1.25 * {dps}) / ({ttk Kil'rek} + 45)
5k dps: 4970
4k dps: 3780
3k dps: 2630

If your raid can do less than 5150 DPS to Illhoof:
In the time it takes to kill kil'rek, and then DPS illhoof, your raid will do LESS DAMAGE to Illhoof than it would have if it simply ignored Kil'rek and nuked the boss.

If your raid does more than 5150 DPS to Illhoof, then nuking Kil'rek and then nuking Illhoof is a slightly superior strategy.

This also assumes that you kill Illhoof in an even number of cycles (e.g., just as kil'rek spawns again), which isn't going to happen -- and thus you'll waste some of those potential gains in damage, since he's already dead.

Back to the Original Poster's Question...

Without AOE damage dealers, you may be best off letting someone in the shadow priest's group (so they get VE healing) single target nuke down imps (or, maybe the hunter pets, if they get the SP). If it seems like at some point there are too many imps out, you could have the DPS spend 5-10 seconds thinning the herd. Between consecrate ticks having gone on for a while and such, the imps should be be at less than 4000 health, which means a dedicated effort should be able to work well.

I don't advise hunters multishotting unless you really have a good threat lead on the imps ... those things love to turn to face the hunters when hit by that. (and then they leave the AOE in order to run into fireball range of the hunter, which is bad). If their pets are put on aggressive from the middle of the imp pack, though, I'm pretty sure that would help (a) reduce the damage to you (since pets can stack FR) and (b) DPS down imps with minimal handholding. They'd need some heals though, I expect.

[Snake-Aes]

True, Kelaan, at an entry level killing kil'rek doesn't do much, if any.

[Mordinm]

When I was just started kara we used to let the AoE wear Kil'rek down. When he got below 20% or so we'd switch to him after the next chains to get the most time on Illhoof while weakend. Seemed the easiest way to get things done if you're not burning him down.