Heroic Atramedes

[Ciderhelm]

Hello and welcome to the Blackwing Descent raid guide! My name is Aliena, and in this video I'll show you all you have to know about the heroic version of Atramedes. I'll assume you know how to defeat the normal encounter and will only go over what changes for the heroic mode. We defeated this fight with 1 tank, 6 healers and 18 DPS, but similar raid configurations may work just as well.

There are definitely different approaches that can be taken to heroic Atramedes. I'm going to show you the strategy my guild uses and that works well for us. The biggest difference in the heroic version is that you only get 7 gongs in the whole encounter. Why? Every time you click a gong during the ground phase, Nefarian will destroy another. Since you want to use a gong for each Searing Flame, that means you get at most 3 1/2 ground and 3 air phases to kill him.

Also, occasionally an add called Obnoxious Fiend will spawn and attach itself to a random raid member's back much like the Snobolds on the first encounter in Trial of the Crusader. These guys however, will not interrupt their host, but instead cast a 1.5 second long spell that will give the affected raid member 10 additional sound. The cast is called "Obnoxious" and can and should be interrupted. Fiends have approximately 240k health and always take priority, so make sure your DPS take them out as soon as possible.

To counter phase 1 without racking up much sound and avoiding people getting breath, we actually use a strategy similar to the normal version's. Our ranged are all grouped up in one spot and so are the melee. When Atramedes spawns discs, everyone moves from them together. We start on the left, then move a few steps right when discs come out, and left again when another set spawns.

The breath is always kited into the direction we're already in. If breath happens while we're on the right, the kiter will run further right while the rest of the raid moves back into the left position. If the breath happens while we're on the left, the kiter will move left while everyone else runs back into the position on the right.

That way, unless the kiter makes a crucial mistake, the breath will never hit anyone.

The air phase also has one difference. The Sonar Bombs that Atramedes throws at people come down MUCH faster than they do in normal mode. While it shouldn't pose a huge problem, you should organize your raid so everyone has their own little designated spot that they can move back and forth in. What you absolutely want to avoid is people cutting into each other's paths and running into someone else's Sonar Bomb. They add 36 sound when touched, so that can easily be a death on top of some unavoidable Modulations.

If you have high latency, you might want to keep moving continuously during the air phase. If you don't, you can just start moving right before a Bomb comes down and then stop for a second.

The air phase flame breath will also move very fast, so you want to try and apply a speed buff to a kiter such as Body and Soul. If it'a a rogue, druid or someone else with a class speed buff that gets targeted by the breath, you're all set already. We kite the breath down to where Atramedes spawns, then have a rogue hit a gong and have him kite it along the outside of the room for the rest of the phase so the fire isn't completely obstructive.

That about sums up the differences in the heroic Atramedes encounter. I've attached footage of the whole encounter so you can see how we dealt with the various mechanics in detail.

[Rennadrel]

This really is a straight forward encounter, barring people don't herp derp it up and mess up the breath. I found that stacking up in the back by where the big bell is and moving from one leg to the other works just as well, though fire can sometimes drop if someone builds up too much sound and gets blown up by the boss which is a problem.

[Illuminate]

The problem we're having with the ground phase is that we're getting the flame breath immediately after the rings before the raid moves over to the other spot. At this point it's impossible for the raid to avoid getting hit by the fire because if the targeted person continues to run with the raid then the raid gets smacked by the fire and if he does a 180 he'll have to run through the fire and in the process get hit. What did you do to counteract this?

[Blacksen]

The gong logic is completely incorrect.

There are 10 gongs.

Nefarian will destroy an additional gong for each gong used in the ground phase. Air phase gongs don't consume an additional gong.

This gives you 4 ground phases and 3 air phases. You will die very quickly in the 4th air phase.

For a dps "pace," 25% per ground phase is the mark you're looking for.

[swills]

I am a big fan of Tankspot guides in general, but confidently telling people you only get 4 gongs instead of 7 is a pretty ridiculous error. I'm sure it's probably a miscommunication (Aliena asked someone how many Gongs and they told her '4' when they thought she meant 'gongs for ground phases' or something) but you really need to re-do this video so it is correct.

Having someone think they shouldn't even attempt this because they don't have the DPS to kill him in 4.5 minutes, when in fact they have more like 7.5, would be bad.

I can also understand the desire to post videos ASAP but you should also consider having a second person fact-check the videos before posting them in the first place.

[Aliena]

Doesn't have anything to do with getting stuff out asap, we've been killing it for a month or two. Does however have to do with me not doin' any gongs, ever. Corrected, anyway. You guys don't have to freak out cause I'm not perfect. =P

[Blacksen]

Not freaking out, just making a suggestion :-P

Also, one thing I highly suggest is Atramedes Shield Clicker for your ground-phase gong clicker. It places a frame on your screen about ~5 seconds before Searing Flames. The frame doesn't allow mouse-clicks through it, and it disappears the instant that Searing Flame is cast.

This allows you to spam-click the gong, and as soon as Searing Flame is actually cast, the frame disappears. Effectively, this eliminates any needed reaction time on the part of your clicker.

[Ackis]

I didn't really see in the video, nor hear how the ads were dealt with. It just looked like a non-heroic fight with a harder soft enrage.

[Rennadrel]

The problem we're having with the ground phase is that we're getting the flame breath immediately after the rings before the raid moves over to the other spot. At this point it's impossible for the raid to avoid getting hit by the fire because if the targeted person continues to run with the raid then the raid gets smacked by the fire and if he does a 180 he'll have to run through the fire and in the process get hit. What did you do to counteract this?

It's very easy actually. Dodge the sound rings and the person who gets tracked by the breath moves the opposite way of the raid. So if you are behind the boss and the sound rings are coming at you from the right side, your group moves left and the person tracked should move right. Better to get hit by a couple of sound rings then blow up your raid with a breath. You can't move too early either, don't be so preemptive to get away from the rings cause that will cause a lot of problems.

I will admit that when I did this on heroic, we got a flame breaths that forced the targeted person to move left and hug the wall while running towards the bosses head as he was tanked facing into the room while the raid stood near the big gong in the back of the room. It means minimal raid movement during the important DPS portions of the encounter. I don't think there was a flame breath that was cast that forced someone to move to the right side of his body on our kill, if there was it was only once.

[Daimon]

The gong logic is completely incorrect.

There are 10 gongs.

Nefarian will destroy an additional gong for each gong used in the ground phase. Air phase gongs don't consume an additional gong.

This gives you 4 ground phases and 3 air phases. You will die very quickly in the 4th air phase.

For a dps "pace," 25% per ground phase is the mark you're looking for.

Wait, 10 gongs total, so every ground phase you lose 2, one by you one by Nefarian, that left only 3 ground phases with 2 air phases in between, assuming you use 2 in the air phase:
1st Ground: 1raid+1Nef
1st Air 2Raid
2nd Ground: 1raid + 1Nef
2nd Air: 2raid
3rd Ground: 1raid + 1Nef
Total=10
So you need to drop him 33% each ground phase since I only few classes are able to move and cast during the air part. Its quite a gear check, unless the DPS requirement is insane for the boss health and the raid has to manage with only 1 per air phase, which makes the fight very class dependant. It is possible in the future including the health of these bosses in heroic modes, in 10 and 25; I haven't seen that info much lately.

[Aliena]

I didn't really see in the video, nor hear how the ads were dealt with. It just looked like a non-heroic fight with a harder soft enrage.

That's basically what it is. The adds are killed when they're out, since they only have 240k health, they die real quick.

[Blacksen]

Wait, 10 gongs total, so every ground phase you lose 2, one by you one by Nefarian, that left only 3 ground phases with 2 air phases in between, assuming you use 2 in the air phase:
1st Ground: 1raid+1Nef
1st Air 2Raid
2nd Ground: 1raid + 1Nef
2nd Air: 2raid
3rd Ground: 1raid + 1Nef
Total=10
So you need to drop him 33% each ground phase since I only few classes are able to move and cast during the air part. Its quite a gear check, unless the DPS requirement is insane for the boss health and the raid has to manage with only 1 per air phase, which makes the fight very class dependant. It is possible in the future including the health of these bosses in heroic modes, in 10 and 25; I haven't seen that info much lately.

You're using 2 gongs per air phase? Completely unnecessary.

1st Ground: 1 used by raid, 1 destroyed by Nefarian, 8 remaining
1st Air: 1 used by raid, 7 reamining
2nd Ground: 1 used by raid, 1 destroyed by Nefarian, 5 remaining
2nd Air: 1 used by raid, 4 remaining
3rd Ground: 1 used by raid, 1 destroyed, 2 remaining
3rd Air: 1 used by raid, 1 remaining
4th Ground: 1 used by raid, 0 remaining

Any rogue or warlock should be able to individually handle air phase gongs (rogue spring, warlock soulburn demonic circle). Make sure you don't pop any speed boosts until the beam actually targets you. There's an 8 second delay between hitting the gong and it chasing you again.

[Kazeyonoma]

you can use shamans using ghost wolf or basically any class that can move really quickly to buy yourself enough time for the gongs during airphase too. Hell I did it when our rogue died as a warrior by abusing heroic leap and intervene. Still no kill though =( BUT THIS WEEK!

[Kidder]

Noticed that the flames he spits when a gong is used land where players were when gong was used, so when a gong is hit if everyone moves no flames hit anyone and some more sound is avoided

[klausi]

/2 wts [Swiftness Potion] pst

That item trivializes the air phase completly, every class can run with it for at least half of those 30s. Most important thing is to run before the actually tracking starts or you're dead in a split second. Pop the potion or your racials/abilities when you're tracked and have your raid don't plant Sonar Bombs in your route.

Kill the add ASAP, they also spawn at the end of a ground phase and avoid discs/bombs at highest priority. If someone can't handle them due to latency or slacking at movement, replace him/her. Their spot is wasted and they will most likely die during the first searing anyway. Dps requirements are fairly high with failbobs if you run melee heavy, we had only ~200k rdps on our firstkill (way over 8 minutes with 7 healer).

[giry]

Hi Aliena and thanks for the nice video , i have a question if you can answer or any around here , we have a problem with the add not being marked , what addon are y using , i don`t see dbm doing it or maybe i miss some setings , an answer will be much apreciate and keep up the good work

Thanks,
Giry

[Aggathon]

To mark the add we use a target macro with the skull script:

/target Obnoxious Fiend
/script SetRaidTarget(“target”,8);

If you want to set it as something that DBM doesn't use (like circle in this case) then instead of "8" in the macro, put "2"

I usually bind a target macro similar to this to my capslock key so that I can very easily target and mark the add.

[giry]

Thanks alot i`ll try that next time

[smep]

as of patch 4.1, this fight is ridiculously easier than it used to be. Much smaller learning curve than even HM Halfus.

seriously, if you're at 12/12 or 1/13, do this boss next.

If your guild is currently doing normal mode and executing the sonic breath flawlessly along with getting searing breath with less than 2 ticks, this is a very very easy kill for you. Farm some swiftness potions and use them for backups if your sprint/dash/engineering belt/worgen sprint/etc are on cooldown.

boomkin solar beam works amazingly for the Obnoxious Fiends, so do glyphed strangulate and improved CS.

do this boss... it's a not-so-HM-HM now.

[Giliandrix]

What was changed in 4.1 might I ask?

Just this stuff?

Atramedes
Searing Flames now causes a 6-second cooldown on Modulation.
Searing Flames no longer increases Sound on players.
Players should no longer be able to avoid the first period damage tick of Searing Flame, and Searing Flame now ticks every 2 seconds. The damage of Searing Flame has been increased to compensate for it ticking less frequently.

Hmmm I wonder if my guild should start trying it again. We downed it pre-patch and never wanted to go back.