[10/25]Archavon - brief overview

[Splug]

We got bored on Tuesday and decided to storm Wintergrasp and blow up the raid boss. After flattening the 10-man version, we called in reinforcements and did the 25-man as well. The abilities do not change from one version to the other; he just hits a little harder and has more health.

The fight requires two tanks, on either version. We used two healers for the 10-man and three for the 25, though more would probably have been better. (We also only had 17 people total.) Here are the highlights:

* 5 minute berserk: upon expiration of the timer, his attacks deal roughly 10x-20x normal damage. He becomes untankable with autoattacks in the six-digit range, but does not fire any zonewide AE's and thus can be kited for a short time.

* Random target rock throw: does some minor damage to a random target and everyone near them. The attack is roughly 4-5 pulses, and involves Archavon basically throwing stalagmites at the target.

* Random target leap: Archavon jumps to an arbitrary player and spawns a poison cloud under him. Standing in the cloud reduces hit chance and does damage over time.

* Primary target grab: Archavon will periodically stun everyone in melee, and grab the main tank, using them as a weapon to attack the raid. For this time, the active tank loses control of their character and is effectively removed from the encounter for about ten seconds. Archavon removes that player's threat entirely, and continues his attacks against the second player on threat.

Strategy: The fight is simple. Spread out, and don't stand in the poison clouds. When the stun/tank grab occurs, the second tank needs to either be #2 on threat, or ready to taunt and take over tanking. After the primary tank is released, he can either taunt and resume tanking or can prepare to become the secondary tank.

Loot: Archavon-10 dropped two random pieces of Hateful Gladiator's (S5) equipment. They aren't tokens, they're the actual gear - so we did end up with two tokens that weren't usable by any class in our raid. EDIT: It seems there are two drops, and it is random which of them are pvp S5 gear and which are pve t7 gear.

Archavon-25 dropped four random pieces of Deadly Gladiator's (S5) equipment. EDIT: Again, there are four drops, and it is random which of them are pvp S5+ gear and which are pve t7+ gear.

-Splug

[Panzerdin]

How hard does he hit tanks, and how hard is the enrage timer? Presumably, the answers are "not very", in both cases, since you 17-manned it with a week's reset worth of gear, but I think some numbers would be nice.

The gear/tanks you used would be nice as well, since all I can find of you on the armory is a level 70 warrior.

[Splug]

Ah, sorry; our tanks were Spyte (death knight), Moothora (feral druid), and Nomepunter (prot warrior). We were sitting in the ~25k-26k armor range buffed, and I believe I had ~28k health, Nome had ~31k, and Moothora had ~35k. The tank damage was slightly lower than Naxx bosses, closer to heroic boss level; I seem to remember a 7500 flashing by my screen.

The 25-man run we ended up losing a warlock early and actually killed him post-enrage. However, I think the warlock was the only person who died prior to enrage.

-Splug

[kylone]

* Primary target grab: Archavon will periodically stun everyone in melee, and grab the main tank, using them as a weapon to attack the raid. For this time, the active tank loses control of their character and is effectively removed from the encounter for about ten seconds. Archavon removes that player's threat entirely, and continues his attacks against the second player on threat.

Does anyone know if Stoicism (or talents like it for other classes) are useful at all in this situation?

[Panzerdin]

I don't KNOW, but it almost certainly will not, since this is not a stun mechanic (I think). Given how trivial this boss seems to be, it isn't worth respeccing for it in any case.

[Rorshach]

I can attest to the fact that this boss is trivial, having also tanked him in 10/25 man versions and being on the same server as Splug.

A random pug with 18 ppl successfully 1-shot the 25-man version of this boss in about 4 minutes.

One other item of note is that the dragon drops random Heroes and Valorous gear as well. On our first 10-man we got Rogue S5 Gloves and Shaman Elemental T7 gloves.

In the 25-man pug I was in (but got locked out of the instance because they started early) Paladin tank Valorous Legguards also dropped. GG to the two main-spec holy Pallies who were inside

Lastly the raid instance resets every three days like Onyxia, but you have to control Wintergrasp if you want to access it so keep watch for the crier in Dalaran to announce when the next battle for Wintergrasp is happening so your guild can go defend/take it.

[Splug]

* Primary target grab: Archavon will periodically stun everyone in melee, and grab the main tank, using them as a weapon to attack the raid. For this time, the active tank loses control of their character and is effectively removed from the encounter for about ten seconds. Archavon removes that player's threat entirely, and continues his attacks against the second player on threat.

Does anyone know if Stoicism (or talents like it for other classes) are useful at all in this situation?

For the actual grab, no. You enter a siege weapon, which happens to be the boss. On a side note, if the boss dies while you're being carried, you're still capable of looting him. I don't know if stun duration reducing talents/enchants work for the AE stun, but icebound fortitude did not prevent it so I assume not.

-Splug

[Deflect]

This is such an easy fight. I did it first one regular and then on Heroic; I pretty much just took 10/25 random people and pugged it. It seriously is too easy to get loot from this boss, but I'm glad it's there.

[semp]

not sure why blizzard decided to have this boss drop specific tier pieces and not the tokens. i can understand it dropping pvp gear as the raid zone is in wintergrasp, but the drops should at least be in token form.

[Markoh]

The reason is so that it is incredibly hard to get your full set (well the gloves, chest, and I think he drops legs too). This boss is so stupidly easy that if it dropped tokens you could gear as well as people doing a 7 day lockout naxx which is much harder than the 3 day lockout wintergrasp boss.

[Conaan!]

thanks for the post splug, i think i might take a raid in there and try it out


just one question, i cant seem to find this damned guy!

[Ewige]

Main building with the portal to him closes within 10 minutes of victory (maybe less). After you win just run up to the main building and the portal is inside.

We had our whole guild out for this and the fight was ferocious, horde breached the door and everything, we're tagging cappers as fast as possible for the last 5 minutes and winning.

Boss himself was a bit anticlimactic and nobody could use the rogue pvp drop :^/

[Skeezy]

Very simple fight, ran a group for the 25 right before the reset barely managed to beat the enrage though, gear/skill was pretty bad all around, it was kinda like, "Hey we won Wintergrasp.... Who wants to kill a boss?" People were opening their level 80 care packages before the pull -.-

[PsiVen]

25-man version has an asston of health now, so if you PUG it make sure to bring a full group. When he hits the berserk timer he will pretty much instagib the entire raid.

[amh]

Did he get buffed?

Also: you should use 2 tanks per trash-mob before the actual boss. They have this nasty little tank-killer ability: http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=60899

However you have time to counter it! Just watch debuffs on whoever is tanking. As soon as you see it (nothing else here gives a debuff), taunt it off or expect stupid repair-bills on trash.