Ulduar Mimiron (Hard Mode)

[Ciderhelm]

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Welcome to the TankSpot Ulduar Raid Guide. This is Ttocs, and this video will go over a strategy for Firefighter, Mimiron's Hard Mode.

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Hard mode is accessed by pressing the Red Self Destruct button in the back of the room, which will automatically start the encounter. Before we push the button, we group up near the button, so we can keep the first fires out of the way. Fires will spawn on a particular member in the raid, but will follow whoever is closest to them. When the first fires spawn, we spread out to begin phase 1. We drag Mimiron to the outer edge of the room to minimize the effect of Shock Blast. We then drag him clockwise around the room, moving him away from mines, and whenever Shock Blast occurs. As a result of pushing the button and activating the room's self-destruct sequence, Mimiron and his adds gains an Emergency Mode buff that increases his health and damage by 30%.

Everyone must be aware of fires following them and remain spread out, as multiple people getting Napalm Blast could lead to an early death. This includes melee, when they spread out for shock blast.

To prevent Napalm Blast from spreading to the tank, only healers should stand in the path where mimiron will be dragged, and they must maintain a safe distance from the tank. He performs all of the same abilities in each phase as he does in normal mode, with one extra ability per phase to extinguish the fires. About halfway through this phase, he will spray a flame supressant, extinguishing all of the flames in the room and increasing the cast time of spells by 50% for 8 seconds. He will only do this once in phase 1.

After that, it's rinse and repeat. Continue to watch for fires that spawn and spread, and watch out for mines, Shock Blast, and remain spread out for Napalm Blast.

During the transition between phases, the raid must group up to control the fires. This is done by having a the entire raid group up on one side of the room. If you picture the room as having 3 parts to the room separated by the spawn points of the phase 3 adds, we have the raid group up next to the fire on the 3rd of the room with the most fire at the end of each phase. We try to fill in as much of this third as possible with fires before the next phase. We try to work from one side to the other, but we may wind up standing between two areas of fire, and filling in as much of that third of the room as possible. Running through a little fire is OK, as it deals about 5000 damage per second, but be aware of fires stacked on top of each other. When there is about 10 seconds left on the Phase 2 timer, we set up for Phase 2, spreading out on the remaining two-thirds of the room.

Controlling the fires between each phase is extremely important, as it gives your raid more room to maneuver at the start of each phase.

In this phase, Mimiron will regularly extinguish fires in melee range, slowing their attack speed, and every minute or so will summon a frost bomb in a random area that's covered in fire. After a few seconds, this Frost Bomb will explode for 50,000 damage to anyone within 30 yards, and extinguish all fires in that area. Everyone must be made aware of its position, should the melee need to run out, or the ranged groups need to adjust. When the fires are extinguished, the ranged groups can spread out and make use of the extra area if they need to, especially after a Laser Barrage.

The three ranged groups are assigned a holy priest, all 3 of which must be appropriately spec'd and glyphed for Holy Nova. These three priests are marked, and they are responsibile for positioning and healing their group this phase. The groups must communicate with each other when to adjust their position to minimize gun damage. Holy Nova is key here for keeping the ranged groups alive on the run. Melee are usually healed by the remaining healers from range. If there are fires in melee range when he starts casting Laser Barrage, the melee have to be aware that things can get a little tight, as he doesn't extinguish fires while casting.

Depending on the timing of the frost bombs to when you finish the phase, you might find yourself fire capped. You'll see the explosions, but fires won't appear from those explosions, nor will the current fires grow. If not, continue to control the fires for the next phase, as shown here.

In phase 3, Blue Beams will appear where Emergency Fire Bots will spawn. These have a Deafening Siren ability that silences everyone within 15 yards, and they have a water spray that hits anyone in it's range for 20,000 damage, knocks them back 200 yards, and puts out any fire in it's path. Any of these that are in danger of being near the raid must be killed immediately. One plate DPS, such as a Death Knight, is responsible for taunting the bomb bots away from the raid and blowing them up. Even without a cooldown, they should not one shot a plate DPS, as they hit for about 20K Fire Damage. Junk bots are picked up by the Assault Bot tank wherever possible. During this, all DPS is focused on killing the firs two assault bots that spawn and assigning someone to loot both cores.

As the second assault bot is about to go down, the ranged tank must move the Aerial Command Unit to a safe spot, if necessary. When we have two cores, we bring him down, bloodlust, and burn cooldowns. When he comes up, he'll spawn a bomb bot that must be dragged away from the raid. If necessary, we quickly move the Aerial Command Unit to another safe spot and he's brought back down again. At this point the Aerial Command Unit should be below 15% health, and now the ranged stay on the head to finish it off, while the melee clean up the remaining bots. When the Aerial Command Unit is about to die, the Main Tank is to taunt the head, so he gets aggro at the beginning of phase 4. If we have a hunter tank the head in Phase 3, they can then Feign Death, or if we use a warlock, they can Soul Shatter to drop their threat after the taunt.

During the transition to phase 4, clean out the remaining bots while controlling the fire. Plan out in advance where you're going to put him initially. In this phase, the only extra ability he retains is frost bombs, and you must pay attention to those at all times. The ranged groups set back up again and act much like they did in phase 2. You're to keep DPSing and healing while moving the groups to minimize hand pulse damage and avoiding fires, rockets, shockblast, frost bombs, proximity mines, and laser barrage. This is another burn phase, and you'll likely run into the enrage timer on your first kill. When it enrages, the room self-destructs, dealing 12,000 damage every second, only giving you a few more seconds on the boss while survival cooldowns are still up.

Overall, Mimiron Hard Mode will test your players' ability to perform their best while consistently moving. There is a high DPS requirement that is very well-tuned, but more importantly, there's a lot to be aware of. Situational and Encounter awareness from all of your raiders are key to this encounter.

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[Ciderhelm]

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[ttocs]

Extra notes/Q&A For this video:

What was your group composition?

We used one tank (in this case, it was a Feral Druid, but any class works), and 6 healers - 3 holy priests spec'd and glyphed for holy nova. The only difference between the classes is how you're going to plan out external cooldowns in Phase 1 for Plasma Blast.

Aside from the range tank, the only semi-offtank role was dragging the bombs out of the raid. A DK is an easy choice for this, as you can AMS one bomb, then IBF the second, leaving you to only eat one bomb without a cooldown. If you don't have a willing or capable DK, you can have a DPS warrior slap on a shield and pick them up. Just make sure you're in the appropriate stance/presence.

Why did you have the tank taunt at the end of Phase 3?

A plasma ball + a hand pulse (the VX-007's attack in phase 4) will likely kill any ranged DPS trying to tank the head in Phase 4. A tank doesn't have this issue. Each class has a method of holding aggro (Warriors can Spell Reflect, DK's can Pestilence/Howling Blast, Druids can Swipe, etc.) on the head, which should be enough. The head has less HP than the other two parts in phase 4, but if someone rips, they have methods of dropping aggro.

The DPS requirement is really tight, and you don't want to have to sacrifice DPS by having one of them go in PvP gear. Our first two kills were after the enrage timer, and even so much as a 500 DPS loss would have likely cost us a kill.

Is this a Melee-Unfriendly fight?

Not really. They have parts where they may take a little more damage because they're in melee range, but it's offset by the fact that they can more easily avoid gun/hand pulse damage in phases 2 and 4, and they can DPS the boss easier during Laser Barrage. Typically, we bring 10-11 melee, including the tank. In the video, we had 10. Specific composition doesn't matter, as long as you have all of your raid buffs/debuffs covered.

[Krenian]

Gah, what a mess. So much fire >< Great movie thought Ttocs however I am saddened by your DPS placement

[ttocs]

It was far from my best, even for doing bombs phase 3.

[Lga45]

Thanks for this video & also the Alg10 video. I'm most appreciative that you're using tanks other thank prot warriors to demonstrate fights. I stopped reading TS for a while because, as a non-prot warrior tank, I felt kind of alienated.

Keep up the great non prot warrior tanking work

[Whrym]

Thanks for the guide

[Kazeyonoma]

awesome!

[cudmaster]

Why are you having the tank taunt at the end of phase 3?

The Leviathan (bottom) agro carries over from phase 1 and head agro carries over from phase 3 independently; so unless you are trying to get a warrior tank to tank the bottom and the top (with spell reflect) or something, it is really just making your lives more difficult since whoever is going to tank the head in phase 3 will need to pull agro off the MT.

For my money it is best to have the two parts tanked by separate folks.

Also note that if you baby spice 2-3 sections melee can dps the head in phase 4 (if you are melee heavy that might be good, but in hard mode you really shouldn't be bringing much if any melee), which means that potentially you can have a plate tank tank the head in p4 as well if that is your aim.

[Squirrelnut]

GREAT!! My guild is working on this right now, perfect timing

[Krenian]

(if you are melee heavy that might be good, but in hard mode you really shouldn't be bringing much if any melee)

This comment right here? Disturbs me. Greatly.

[Warlikes]

It is kinda hard to tell on the video. Did you guys use only one tank?

[Darksend]

Why are you having the tank taunt at the end of phase 3?

so unless you are trying to get a warrior tank to tank the bottom and the top (with spell reflect) or something, it is really just making your lives more difficult since whoever is going to tank the head in phase 3 will need to pull agro off the MT.

For my money it is best to have the two parts tanked by separate folks.

(if you are melee heavy that might be good, but in hard mode you really shouldn't be bringing much if any melee)

maybe in non hard mode but in hard mode a hand pulse plus plasma ball will one shot any range tank.

Swipe hits all 3, as does thunderclap, I think paladin's shield hits all 3 if you target it on the middle one, dks can pestilence.

Any tank is able to tank the head in phase 4 and keep agro.

as to the melee comment don't worry tony, melee do just fine on this I am not sure where this person got his info that you should not bring melee to firefighter

The bottom and middle have 8712000 hp while the arial command unit only has 5808000 hp (assuming the arial command unit retains the same HP pool, the tank and middle definitely do.)

It is kinda hard to tell on the video. Did you guys use only one tank?

It looks like it, the most common tank setup for this is a main tank then a dk or druid on bombs in phase 3. Some guilds have a dk or druid in dps gear as dps spec tank junk bots in phase 3 but in the video the main tank is getting them and the DK is solely doing bombs

[cudmaster]

as to the melee comment don't worry tony, melee do just fine on this I am not sure where this person got his info that you should not bring melee to firefighter

I'm certainly not saying don't bring melee, the encounter was designed for a normal raid group and melee being somewhat more limited / taking more damage is part of the fight (typical: exploding guys on yogg, rubble on the Kolo, the lightning guy on iron council, etc), what I am saying is that if you are having problems, ranged dps has more movement options to help them dps and not DIAF when melee would be standing about doing no dps or be taking a bunch of damage themselves in order to do damage at some points in the fight.

Also I'm trying to unpack the "get's his information" comment and decide if it was you trying to be insulting and imply that I clearly read it somewhere and just passed it on without thinking about it, or if it is because YOU yourself "get your information" somewhere and take it as truth without considering other options and just think everyone is like that...

I assure you the vast majority of my "information" comes from actual experience, and while we have not yet done mim25 hardmode (because we haven't tried) we didn't use a single melee dps for mim10 hardmode and got it done pretty much instantly, where as with the melee in we were having problems keeping everyone alive.

Maybe in non hard mode but in hard mode a hand pulse plus plasma ball will one shot any range tank.

Isn't the whole point of raiding to kill your warlocks as frequently as possible? (Cider should back me up here.)

I'm sure there is another one right behind the first on threat anyway so it'll be fine and if you are extra lucky they will both die and have to be brezed and die a few more times.

Of course you could have them put on some pvp/stam gear and/or assign a disc preist to keep pw:shield up on them if you love them so much.

I've seen ranged "tanks" die to the hand pulse + plasma ball combination even on normal mode, there is a bit of RNG and healers being awake helps too, but honestly putting melee hits + plasma ball + possible hand pulse on the MT seems way more dangerous since the way my healers feel about warriors is very similar to how I feel about warlocks.

I mean if having your MT take that damage too works for you thats fine, I just don't think it is the only way nor imho the best way, and I've never considered these tutorials to be above questioning even if they are very good and quite helpful most of the time, for example didn't the first vid on tankspot for Vezax advise a kite method? How popular is that method now? Is kiting him wrong? No, it still works just fine for some guilds.

[Kazeyonoma]

Deaths in hardmode = no hardmode.

Tuning is so tight most of the time on these fights, risking the death of someone just to use your backup brez is silly. Guides aren't here to give you faulty "lol" ways to do fights after you've got it on farm, it's here to give you the clear cut answer to how 1 way of doing the fight is working.

[Darksend]

I'm certainly not saying don't bring melee

but in hard mode you really shouldn't be bringing much if any melee)

in fact, in 25 man you should have EXACTLY 25-(# of holy priests x 5) many melee. Unless you have 4 holy priests having less than 10 melee means you have ranged classes not being hit by holy nova.

when melee would be standing about doing no dps or be taking a bunch of damage themselves in order to do damage at some points in the fight.

The only time this happens is phase 2 during spinning up. The reason for this is because he does not do flame suppressant during that. In phase 3 melee always has something on the ground to clean up, or be focusing assault bots. In phase 4 no one should ever be in fire if you manage the frost bombs correctly.

I assure you the vast majority of my "information" comes from actual experience, and while we have not yet done mim25 hardmode (because we haven't tried) we didn't use a single melee dps for mim10 hardmode and got it done pretty much instantly, where as with the melee in we were having problems keeping everyone alive.

as does mine, and I have done 25 man. As I explained earlier healing this fight revolves 100% around holy nova. My group uses 4 melee and 2 ranged, a friend of mine did it with 1 ranged and 5 melee.

Of course you could have them put on some pvp/stam gear and/or assign a disc preist to keep pw:shield up on them if you love them so much.

You will never have a disc priest in 25 man. Holy nova and coh are far to important. Similarly as kaz already explained you will miss the enrage timer if even a single person dies. His enrage timer is so tight that the dps difference between a warlock in pve gear and pvp gear is enough to wipe to enrage.

I've seen ranged "tanks" die to the hand pulse + plasma ball combination even on normal mode

thank you for proving my point.

Also, AFAIK, hand pulse does not eat spell reflect if you are using a warrior mt. At first I thought it was just lag getting a hand pulse and a ball with 1 reflect but the next time I reflect 2 hand pulses and a ball with a single reflect. There is no way that occurrence was lag as it happened several times throughout the course of the kill.

[Squirrelnut]

Anyone have any info on recommended MT class for this fight? The vid obviously uses a Druid MT and I was just wondering if there are any serious problems presented by using a different class.

Also, how many tanks should be used? Is it really only 1 tank and then plate DPS picking up bomb bots and any smaller ads that get away?

I would likely be the MT for our guild doing this so any further info on how tanking both the bottom and the head as a Warrior in Phase 4 with spell reflect goes would be appreciated. Are there any agro concerns with just Spell Reflect and thunderclap hitting the head?

[ttocs]

We've used a Prot Pally and a Druid, I haven't MT'd 25 man so far (though I've done it on 10). It really doesn't matter which class you use, just be aware of what cool downs you need to use for each instance of Plasma Blast.

We've only used one MT, and I say in the video that the MT picks up junk bots if possible. It's not a huge deal if they run around and hit someone else here and there.

Spell reflect would be plenty I would think, if a ranged catches up to you in p4 most of them have ways to drop aggro.

[Krenian]

The reason I stated what I stated and quoted that was because the concerning idea that melee shouldn't be brought at all.

I've seen dumb ranged dps that have more 'mobility' die constantly to something silly. I seriously put a lot of effort of not dying often/at all to the asinine stuff so I'm not sure why the comment was made for you to have less Melee. I understand you didn't mean it out of spite but the fact remains that people stating that you shouldn't bring melee or a lot less due to 'mobility' is not an accurate statement. Some ranged individuals fail harder than some melee people. Yes, some things just make melee'ing a pain in the arse, but in the end, I find I do just as well in Melee that warrents my position.

Just comments like that are a little annoying to me because really, they're not right in their assumptions that more ranged will mean more success. Most ranged that must move end up having to stop DPS. While I'm in melee, I can move and still DPS just fine while hitting my damage tools. It's just getting your hands used to the movement + keybindings. Ranged have as much survivability as a good Melee does.

[Bihn]

Similarly as kaz already explained you will miss the enrage timer if even a single person dies. His enrage timer is so tight that the dps difference between a warlock in pve gear and pvp gear is enough to wipe to enrage.

No less than three people died in ttocs' video.