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How RNG reliant is this?
Virtually none of this achievement is based on the RNG for a guild that is actively attempting to complete the achievement. This achievement is exponentially more difficult than "Undying," but, with the sole exception of Thaddius, every possible problem can be accounted for by creating redundancies -- including player disconnects. In other words, any player that tell you that this is "based on the RNG" or that it's "easy, the only thing stopping guilds is lag," will likely never get the achievement unless they're carried (or they're making excuses for having bad players in their raids).
Basically, Immortal is to your Healers what 6 Minute Malygos is to your DPS. The largest burden of this achievement rests on healers. However, you also are very unlikely to get this unless your entire raid can be relied on to live.
Once again, to clarify: This is not an RNG dependent achievement. Bad luck will not ruin this for you -- player error or lack of planning will. Keep in mind that only a very short list of guilds have actually completed this, none of them accidentally, and the great majority of these are accomplished guilds with worldwide standing.
(As a side note, anyone who's said that top guilds are only where they are because of time, not skill, this is your chance to prove it!)
Guardian Spirit & Divine Shield w/ Divine Guardian Talents
By far the two most important abilities in a successful Immortal clear are Guardian Spirit (Priests) and Divine Shield w/ Divine Guardian talents. The first is your safeguard against disconnects, and Priests who are on their game can singlehandedly prevent an Immortal failure. The second is a raid-wide Shield Wall, which will virtually guarantee your players cannot be killed during Kel'thuzad Mind Controls. Have these in your raid.
Skilled & Experienced Players
This achievement requires the most player skill of any achievement currently in the game. Unlike 6 minute Malygos or similar achievements, you don't get to wipe on this until you get it right. You only get one chance.
For this reason, you have to be upfront with your raiders. While we were still experiencing heavy lag on our server, we began a policy which helped us refine our roster -- we would not invite players back if they died on a Naxxramas clear and we determined it was their fault. My first concern was 'this could be rough if people start dropping like flies,' but people stayed on their game. We did still have a couple players with problems and it helped to have stated this rule upfront so they understood why they were not on our Immortal run.
We had been working on this achievement for several weeks in advance, knowing we could not do it because we literally could not compensate for Earthen Ring and Garrosh' disconnects on Thaddius and other encounters. Our preparation, however, allowed us to pick it up immediately after 3.0.8 was released and the lag cleared up.
Kel'thuzad
Kel'thuzad is the keystone encounter for this achievement, by far the most difficult encounter. Making it to him without any deaths, even without adjusting raid strategies, is relatively easy -- but pulling him once and not having a single death is not something you want to leave to chance. Impress the importance of this specific encounter to your raiders and why you need to adjust your strategy, because this is where mistakes will be the most likely and the most disheartening.
Notable Strategy Changes
There were several strategies that we changed specifically for this Immortal run, and had practiced in the weeks preceding our clear. Here's a list of what differs from our original 10-man videos:
- Razuvious had a backup Feral Druid tank ready to taunt and gain Guardian Spirit in the case of a mind control break;
- On Four Horsemen, we took Zeliek about twice as slowly as we needed to and made sure only a small number of players were in range to reduce potential Holy Wrath chains;
- on Anub'rekhan, our tank used his 15 second Shield Wall from the 4-piece set bonus while kiting to add extra insurance;
- We used Divine Shield through two of the web wraps on Maexxna;
- We had two tanks on Noth the Plaguebringer dedicated to picking him up after the blink;
- We used flares on Heigan to make it extraordinarily clear where each quarter began and ended;
- We had two tanks on Grobbulus slimes and we stayed away from clouds after Grobbulus died;
- We had a Feral Druid tank all of the Zombie Chow as they spawned on Gluth instead of kiting;
- We had Positives and Negatives fully spread out through the room after Thaddius died to avoid a player death from charges after Thaddius himself died;
- We had Guardian Spirit ready if anyone DC'd on Sapphiron and we used both Tranquility and Divine Shield through air phases to top people off;
- We cycled Divine Shields through each Mind Control on Kel'thuzad and had two full rings of CC capable classes and cross-healers to cover every quadrant of the room; we also had four tanks building cross-tank aggro on enemies.
