Heroic Archimonde Help

[TeamC 6]

My guild is about two nights into Heroic Archimonde, and while I generally feel like my own survival is fine (only really dying once the pull has gone to hell, can survive down in the Nether Banish with no healer), I'm curious what people who have done this fight successfully have been gearing towards:

 

1) Defile vs. Breath of Sindragosa

 

2) Mastery vs. Multistrike

 

3) Trinket use/suggestions

 

My Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/windrunner/Cyanni/advanced

 

I've got Rumbling Pebble equipped in that snapshot just because I was seeing what it bumped MS/Mastery/AP numbers to, then logged out. It's not indicative of what I typically wear.

 

I also have a MS-heavy set of gear for BoS use. It gets to roughly 60% raid-buffed, so it's not ideal. This is just a rough estimate of what I'm working with gear-wise. 

 

For trinkets I've been primarily using upgraded heroic EDH and Discordant Chorus, mostly because on the stuff we're doing I never feel like I need BA trinkets like Anzu's or Blast Furnace Door. I have available:

 

- normal Anzu's Plume

- heroic Blast Furnace Door

- heroic Empty Drinking Horn

- normal Discordant Chorus

- heroic Tyrant's Decree 

- normal class trinket

- normal Unending Hunger

- heroic warforged/socket Rumbling Pebble

- mythic Tablet of Turnbuckle Teamwork

 

Any tips here are appreciated.

[simpetar 12]

If you have no problems with survival and can do everything a tank is assigned to do, the next step would be obviously to dish as much damage as possible. If you can get away with EDH and Chorus, go for it.

 

BoS can be nicely sustained with 60% MS on fights like Archimonde, especially when you use AMS smartly. I use BoS on that fight most of the time, unless having a significantly lesser geared co-tank - it can cause threat issues when you use ring + BoS "burst" (lasting 40-50 seconds or even more) and they cannot take aggro no matter how hard they try.

 

Archimonde is a fight with lots of high priority targets that spawn regulary - Deathcallers, Doomfire, Infernals, Shadows etc. Defile would make more sense intuitively to take them out fast, but the problem is that you need to move a lot and so does everything else. It is better to have BoS move with you, than waste Defile´s offensive and defensive potential.

[TeamC 6]

Thanks, Simpetar. You've confirmed a lot of what I was doing already, so that at least makes me feel like i wasn't completely off-base in my approach. 

 

I've been primarily leaning on BoS as well, but I'm running into a situation like the one you've described where I'm running with a bit of an under-geared, inexperienced Bear tank. So I'm periodically ripping both with BoS and now and then just through DS/BB spam. 

 

Biggest issue I'm facing in the fight is timing of CDs for optimal use. Particularly when it comes to the Deathcallers + Death Brand. Do you think it's better to use AMS to absorb the big initial hit of the Death Brand, or use it after it's up to mitigate the dot while the Deathcaller is pounding on you? 

[simpetar 12]

It depends on the situation. In the middle of maintaining BoS when the initial hit is going to come, I just use AMS to soak it, it gives big chunk of RP. In other situations, I find it better to use 1 charge of Rune Tap and Death Strike afterwards. Then save AMS for Allure Flames, because getting fire stacks is just annoying and DKs are notorious slowpokes.

 

Deathcaller´s pounding after the first hit is hard but predictable and you usually have some healers keeping an eye on you. If it gets too hard, don´t be shy to use some CD such as VB. Deathcallers in that phase are high priority targets right after Doomfire, you should not have one on you for too long.