Illhoof strategy: Ignore Kil'raek

[roderick]

We're having a ton of trouble with Ilhoof so I'm interested in trying this strategy and potentially others if folks have thoughts. We're not on farm mode with Kara though we did down Prince last night. Our DPS could stand to be better (we tend to PUG several folks) and we have lots of trouble downing the chains fast enough.

In the past we've had a kill order of: Chains > Kil'rek > Ilhoof

Our one warlock has ignored the chains and focused exclusively on the imps with seed. We all stand in the green circle pretty much. As far as tanking I tank Ilhoof and the OT (also a paladin) heals (we run with 2 dedicated healers only). Typically a melee DPSer is focused on Kil'rek when he's up (but everyone tries to burn him down). What invariably happens is:

1. Warlock dies from imps while seeding them
2. The priest dies while in chains
3. Someone else (DPS) dies in chains

So I'm wondering, can I hold aggro on the imps and let our warlock stop "tanking" the imps? I'm thinking his seed would blow away anything I do save a constant holy wrath. Holy wrath sounds great but getting it off with folks beating on you is nearly impossible. It also seems that the imps don't always get within range of my consecrate. If I back up then Ilhoof is out of the green circle and our melee DPS has trouble getting back to the chains.

I like the idea of just ignoring kil'rek and having me tank the imps (either solo or with someone else tanking ilhoof). Split tanking would address the consecrate range problem I mentioned earlier. So is this strategy meant for out-geared Kara groups or for folks not on farm-mode like ours? Are we doing something else wrong?

Thanks,

-Roderick

[Quean]

If your dps is lacking, definitely try it. Basically, if you DO kill the imp, you have to make up the dps you lost from killing him during the time before he respawns. Otherwise, you just wasted time.

As far as consecratetanking the imps, I'd say either do that, or let your OT take care of them and Kil'rek...let him just pick up kilrek and if after a chains when people are switching targets and the like kilrek is low, get everyone to finish him off and then continue as normal. He should be consecrate spamming, and have your locks throw out a few seeds every minute or so to clear out the imps so that you don't have too many beating on your OT.

GL

[Yeti]

I tanked Illhoof and his imp friend the other nite, and picked up initial aggro on the adds via consecration. Kil'rek died a couple times to the seeds/AoE going on. All dps is going to Illhoof (or the chains) but you get the bonus damage every once in awhile when Kil'rek dies as a side effect.

Ignore him, or tank him with Illhoof. Don't bother killing him separately.


...

[Stylaan]

Honestly, SoC, Blade Flurry, Whirlwind, etc will all kill the imp fairly quickly.

[Mellithe]

I thought we just tanked everything as the DPS went to town Aoeing and killing the imp, demon chains and illhoof?

Never knew there was another way to do it.


Ironically sunday we did it and I forgot to put up Righteous Fury

still slaughtered him

[Everlight]

So I'm wondering, can I hold aggro on the imps and let our warlock stop "tanking" the imps? I'm thinking his seed would blow away anything I do save a constant holy wrath.

You don't have to strictly keep all the imps on you. All you need to do is hold them long enough for the Warlock to cast a couple of seeds uninterrupted. So this means that Consecrate spam will grab them as they come out, and if you chain taunt off the Warlock you'll hold them all long enough for him to blow them up.

The easiest way to make sure all the imps are in Consecrate range is to make sure all players are in Consecrate range. Sometimes the imps run around a bit, so if everyone's nice and close the imps stay close too.

With Kil'Rek, I still prefer him off-tanked, I don't like getting Amplify Flames on me or the Warlock seeder. It tends to hurt.

[gwayne]

Ok this is what I would suggest:

You tank Illhoof and keep consecration down to help pick up the imps. Keep up JoW so you don't run out of mana. All your healers should be meleeing him too to get some mana back since there's no reason for them not to. We usually have a dps warrior or feral druid pick up kilrek and nuke him down in the aoe. He doesn't hit hard so a shield isn't needed.

The most important thing is killing the demon chains. If your dps arn't doing this you will fail. He heals while someone is being sacrified so just healing through it doesn't help.

Oh and if you don't have a lock it's pretty easy to replace them with an arcane mage or warriors using WW.

And don't listen to people who say you need a OT capable of dps and only 2 healers. We ran kara for months with only 5 dps and never had problems with enrage timers after the first couple of kills. Illhoof is one of the fights where 3 healers really helps. A single healer at the right gear level is unlikely to keep the MT, imp tank and sacrifice up if it's on the other healer.

[Altare]

We do this two ways - if we have a prot specced OT, we have the OT take Illhoof, and I take kilrek and aoe the imps, while helping to take the chains down when necessary. This helps out a little with sacrifice as I can then break the chains immediately should I get sacrificed. This obviously can't happen if I MT. We pay little attention to Kilrek, other than me just keeping him occupied, and he goes down after the second sacrifice. Option two is when we have an off spec OT, and I will tank Illhoof and Kilrek and AoE the imps, while the OT uses DPS gear and concentrates on Illhoof. Kilrek goes down somwhere between 2nd and 3rd sacrifice.

Either way, Kilrek's really not considered to be a target, and we have always taken him down in one attempt.

[Gryfalia]

Last run I convinced the guild to just let me AoE tank it all.

Went like a charm, one death right near the end, but except for Kilrek coming back after dying and me having to RD the AoEer he jumped on, it went really well...

[Herbe]

This method produced our first and all subsequent kills as well. I just switch targets every time Exorcism is up, running my usual threat rotation. The 'lock seeding really helps as well, between that and my rotations, we usually down Kil'rek 3-4 times. I'll also keep my rotation going on Kil'rek if he happens to be close to death.

As long as you are positioned roughly in the middle, you'll find a few spots where your consecrate can pick up the vast majority of the imps coming out of the portal, and often will catch Kil'rek in it when he re-pops. 1 seeding lock can keep the imps at more than managable levels.

[Lumenactio]

We don't kill any imps at all, including Kil'rek.

We just zerg down Illhoof. I think our best kill was 2min and 15s. He sacced 2 people in total. It was a joke.

Square room. Ilhoof tanked near the sac spot. Imp behind him. Healers standing with me.

I just rank 1 consecrate spam the whole fight. I ended up with around 50 imps on me, FR aura up. Minimal healing issues with 2 healers.

Thing is... he dies so fast that the healers mana never becomes an issue. Its much smoother I find.


We used to AoE the imps. Then one day we found outselves without any casters at all. We were going to skip him... and I thought it was worth trying in the above manner. It worked a treat. Became our new standard even if we have a caster.

[Korath]

Lumenactio that sounds like an interesting strat, may be worth trying next time we have a melee heavy group.

Strat we are using at the moment that seems to be working is Druid tanking Illhoof, me on Imps and Kil'rek in the middle of the room. Ignore Kil'rek, everyone on illhoof / chains, lock seeding everything.

[Igrado]

(side note: Did this fight this week with 0 warlocks, 1 mage, 1 balance Druid (hurricane ftw), and 4 Paladins. Consecrate = pwnage.)

Our guild DPS' Kil'rekk down, but I rather wish they wouldn't. Unfortunately it's very hard to convince people with a set pattern to try something different, and they do down him consistently so there's no real motivation to change anything.

[kywirelessguy]

I like the one tank plan better. Nobody touches kil'rek. All out dps on Illhoof and the fight ends pretty quick.

Consecrate makes this fight a joke as long as its hitting all the little imps. We did have a lock tossing around some seeds, but he wasn't really on them the whole fight.

Piece of cake and it allows your OT to do some dps.

The fight is complex enough with the chains, the less stuff other people have to worry about the better.

[Erendis]

Our guild has just been DPSing Illhoof and off tanking Kilrek. We did it last night with only two healers but since both were pallys they could bubble out of the chains.

The smoothest way we could do it is have one tank on Illhoof and the off tank on Kilrek. We have a pally tank so he keeps consecrate up and the warlock spams seed of corruption on Illhoof.

DPS goes to town on Illhoof. We have Deadlyboss mods giving warnings for chains and one person designated to call out targets over vent.

we require everyone to have the following macro on this fight

/target Demon Chain

When chains show up just hit the macro and start DPS. If we get on the chains fast we can finsh this fight with no deaths and no problems.