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Thwak
2006-05-01, 08:09 AM
Found this on the web -


Ragnaros

Ragnaros is the final boss in Molten Core. He is a huge fire elemental that is summoned by Major Domo in the center of a rock and lava spiral room. He is also one of the hardest Bosses in the game to defeat.

Ragnaros's Abilities

Ragnaros has several abilities that he uses in the fight. They are as follows:

Wrath of Ragnaros - Melee Knock back - When this ability is used characters in melee range are sent flying and knocked down, Ragnaros will call out "Taste the Flames of Sulfuron!". It will take a several seconds to get back up from this ability and you then need to run back into melee range as you can be sent flying very far and end up in awkward positions. Very often you will come down in lava and have to find a way out fast or die due to the lava damage. It is resistable and your tanks should have high fire resistance stats (250+) so they can resist it most of the time. It hits for 1000 damage and is on a 25 second cool down timer. The melee DPS characters (rogues) should back away before the timer goes off to avoid the damage and thowback.

Ranged Knock back - Ragnaros can effect a player that is at a distance with a ranged knock back. This will knock them back as well as knocking down and damaging other players around the player. The area of effect is fairly small so with proper spacing no more than one player should be knocked down. The target is picked by random. This attack happens every 20-30 seconds and will be announced by Ragnaros saying "By fire be purged!"

Lava Splash - At various times a lava splash will be triggered which cause large damage to all those hit. It will effect anyone within close proximity to a lava flow. With decent fire resist (150+) it should be resisted most of the time. Damage is reduced by fire resist and normal damages related to fire resist are: 0FR/800, 100FR/400 and 200FR/200.

Elemental Fire - This is a debuff that Ragnaros puts on whoever has aggro. This should always be seen on the main tank, if its not someone is doing too much aggro and should slow down. This does several thousand damage over a period of time, so the main tank must be healed constantly to prevent this from killing him.

Magma Blast - If no one is engaged in melee with Ragnaros he will start throwing magma blasts at random characters. This ability hits for 4000-6000 damage so can kill most non tank players in 1 hit. It is easy to avoid though, always have someone in melee range of Ragnaros!

Melt Weapon - A very nice gold sink that Blizzard implimented is that every time you hit Ragnaros your weapon is damaged. The only way around this is to be prepared, if you are melee bring spare weapons and ensure the raid has a repair-bot for between every few attempts.

Summon Sons of Flame - After 3 minutes of combat Ragnaros will summon 8 Sons of Flame. After 1 1/2 minutes or once they are defeated Ragnaros will reappear. If you or Ragnaros is not dead after a further 3 minutes this process will repeat until your group or Ragnaros is dead.

Sons of Flames Abilities

Mana Burn Aura - This has a fairly small radius but still covers 5 - 10 yards. It converts mana to damage for everyone in the area at a very fast rate. Casters and players with mana need to clear the area FAST.

Strategy - Ragnaros

Ragnaros is fought by himself other than when his Sons of Flame are summoned. While they are summoned, he retreats and is not involved with the fight.

There are a few basic strategies to use with Ragnaros before dealing with the major ones. The first is to make sure you are spread out so that his ranged knock backs do not take out large groups of players. The second is to not fight too close to the edges of the walkways in the area. You can be knocked over into the lava flows and killed. Some lava flows are very difficult to get out of as they have few access points. Also while fighting Ragnaros as with most bosses in the Molten Core it is critical to be buffed for fire resistance. A lot of the damage caused is fire based and can really be cut down on if you have the proper buffs and auras up.

On the topic of fire resists, all members of the raid should have at least 100 fire resist. The ideal mix seems to be 100-150 for casters and ranged support (Hunters and healers), and 200+ for melee and close support (Paladins). Also your main tanks that will be holding aggro should have at least 250 and ideally over 300 to have a reasonable chance to resist the knockback attack. A tank with 300+ fire resist would be able to resist the knockback at least 75% of the time.

For Ragnaros you will need the main tank and an alt holding aggro with several healers healing them. You will also need a 3rd tank waiting just outside of melee range so that when Ragnaros uses his melee knockdown ability they can step in and grab agro while the main tanks recover (if they are not lucky enough to resist the knockback).

After the 3 minute point in the fight with Ragnaros, he will disengage and summon 8 Sons of Flame. These are mobs that must be dealt with before Ragnaros will re-appear. Please see the following strategy section on them. Once they are killed you return to using Ragnaros strategy.

Strategy - Sons of Flame

The sons spawn from around the spiral that Ragnaros is along the west, north and east side, and then rush south to meet the raid. The sons damage is entirely fire based, so with decent fire resistance you will take very little damage from them.

The Sons should be tanked and banished while one is being dealt with. It is important to always have at least one that is not banished at a time, as sometimes when all the remaining live sons are banished they count as being dead and Ragnaros will re-appear. If this happens you are very likely looking at a wipe. Also you must deal with the Sons quickly as Ragnaros will surface after 1 1/2 minutes if they are dead or not. To accomplish this every MUST be assisting one person that is picking targets. If attacks are spread out they will take to long to kill. With all DPS on one Son you should be aiming to drop one every 10 seconds or less.

When you are nearing the 90 second point in the fight it is critical that you send the main tank, secondary tank and their healers back to engage Ragnaros when he re-enters combat. If the tank is not there Ragnaros will start throwing Magma blasts. Once the rest of the group has killed any remaining sons they should re-enter combat with Ragnaros.

Strategy - General

Setup is very important in the fight. All melee and close support need to be on the inner ring engaging Ragnaros while he is up. All the healers and ranged support should be on the secondary ring away from Ragnaros. They must also stay away from the lava flows or they will be affected by the lava splashes. Also all players should spread out so that they are not knocked back and damaged when Ragnaros uses his ranged knock back ability. This means that melee should be around Ragnaros generally on the south, west and north parts of the inner ring, and the ranged is on the south and west portions of the outer ring.

We have also created a position guide as a basis for the Ragnaros fight.

http://wow.tentonhammer.com/files/RaidPics/ragfight.jpg

When the Sons are about to spawn it is important the the ranged collapse and set up back from the lip of the southern outer ring. This is where the Sons of flame will rush to. Just before Ragnaros submerges melee should collapse to the center of the outer southern ridge, to be ready to engage the Sons. Once Ragnaros submerges the main tank and his healers can head there to help as well.

In general you need to get Ragnaros down to roughly 30-40% before the first wave of Sons to have a legitimate chance of defeating him before a second wave spawns. This is the ideal way to defeat him. If a second wave spawn it is much harder to survive as you have likely lost many players by this point. If a second wave does spawn and you had gotten Ragnaros down to less than 5% health your main strategy should be to delay the spawns (trap, banish, kite, etc) for the 1 1/2 minutes and then kill Ragnaros when he resurfaces. Over all though your best plan is get enough DPS on him in the first 3 minutes to drop him below 40%. Two waves of sons is an excellent recipie for a wipe.

Lastly, from the time you get Domo to summon Ragnaros you have 2 hours to defeat him. If you do not he will submerge and you will have to go and defeatl Domo again to summon him.

Skydog
2006-05-01, 08:30 AM
The information on the web link below on how to kill Ragnaros is similar to the previous post, but has a few more recommendations that should make this fight easier for us!
Check it out at: http://pacifistguild.org/ragnaros/

Good trys last night, but we all need to do our homework on Rags. An Alliance friend of mine says Fire Resist equipment is important, but positioning is the key to the win. Check out the maps on these two posts and let's take him down soon!

Sky

Myrkris
2006-05-01, 08:43 AM
Good info. We definitely need to mess with group composition to make this work. We probably need more healers on the MTs than they use in the guide Sky linked, until we get more practice at the encounter and better FR. Other than that, all melee need a shaman in their group for the totem and we can probably afford to spread out the priests more than we were last night.

Kul
2006-05-01, 09:11 AM
Video reviews

Good views from melee, caster views: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ragnaros

BloodLot
2006-05-01, 09:12 AM
I will record one of our Rag fights on my other server and link it for you. We do MC every weekend, so I should have it available for you by Sunday morning.

I will show in the video the positioning [note, we are alliance on that server], I will record Vent so you can hear me going off about needing more dot's :cussing: and will note the healing setup.

You will also see how I setup the warriors and the MT list for CTRA...
I will also display our FR... But please note that while FR is needed in some areas [Tanks, Rogues, Shammys that are close to the action, etc], depending on how you position, some people can get away with little FR.

If anything, I hope it will help you with downing Rag next weekend.

Sol
2006-05-01, 10:47 AM
we got rags down to about 65% health on our 3rd try. we were doing it without the BRS buff, which i think hampered us a bit. The third try was the best for a couple reasons. The Melee Dps were learning their positions, the healers on me (Mt1) had an easier time because I didn't get punted that third try.

the bad? we had about 22 people dead by the time the sons spawned, i don't know what would be acceptable casualty rate, but I am positive 20 is too high.

The good? we cleared sulfuron, golemagg and domo in under 90 minutes, granted there were no surgers or hounds around last night.

That is some cooking. I am optimistic that we could full clear to Rags in just about 3.5 hours with our current pace.

BloodLot
2006-05-01, 12:30 PM
I wouldn't worry about the BRS buff to be honest. I would also suggest that no pots are used until you can get him to 45% or less before the first spawn of suns. Once you know you have the DPS for that, you know you can start using the pots to boost it a little more.

Pots:
Mongoose: Hunters, rogues, DPS Warriors
Fire Pots: 2 for all [may only use one]
Mana Pots may [should] be needed for hunters, mages and warlocks. [Healers as well, but I am looking at DPS right now]

Ok, lets go through this...

I would suggest at least 3 tanks. [not DPS warriors, TANKS]. One MT, one OT [in case the MT gets punted] and then one tank that will be your Main Assist for sons.

In the MT list for CTRA, I set them up like this.

1. MT
2. OT
3. [Blank]
4. Sun Assist Tank
5. [Blank]
6. Me [Main assist through out MC]

(Blanks are used for easy selecting by the main assist and for the raid as a whole)

Ok, positioning... From the image posted in this thread, we do about the same thing except a couple things...

1. Hunters: Spread out away from people the best you can while still being in range of a healer.

2. We have designated healers for ranged DPS. so they will need to be all in range of eachother. Normally it is either a druid or a pally [shammy].

But other then that, make sure that your OT is in a spot to where he can pick up Rag fast if the MT gets booted [no one should be too close to the MT]

The common theme to most raids is this... Healers heal the tanks, everyone else bandage. Well, you can't do that from here on out. It does work for most of the bosses in MC, but this is a different kind of fight... It is timed...

With getting that theme out, you will need to heal DPS [ranged and up close]. So make sure you have healers set to do that. Make it their jobs to take care of them.

Now then... Lets look at the fight...

Stage 1: [Summon]
MT starts his "Hey ugly!" act and ALL RANGED GOES NUTS!!! During this time your rogues and DPS warriors are either getting into position, or they are starting their DPS out slow then picking it up after a few seconds. [Melee [up close] needs to watch their aggro]

Once again, ranged is going NUTS! Hunters shoot their first shot and then burn rapid fire. [Hunters, never FD... You can't get aggro from ranged]. Same with mages and warlocks... Go freaking NUTS!!! [and don't stop, ever]

Ok, so ranged DPS is doing their thing... The other VERY important thing to remember is DoT's... Some of you may have seen some of my posts about this, but I really can not stress it enough... Full DoT's, all the time. So warlocks and priests will be doing a lot of this.

[STOP! What?!?! Priest heal? No damage!... No, it takes them nothing to SWP Rag... So all priests DoT too!]

It will be up to the raid leader, or someone, to watch the DoT's and to call out for them when they start dropping off. People are busy so they will need a reminder.

So now you have crazy ranged DPS, DoT's like mad, and up close melee watching their threat to make sure they wont pull aggro. [Rogues know their skills, use them to stay low on the threat list]. With all of this, you have some great DPS going with ranged DPS using mana like mad. [Hunters, Mages, Warlocks]

If people are spread out pretty well [hunters, etc] they will not get knocked back... Remember, the person next to you gets hit by the fireball, everyone around that person goes flying.

Healing - Well, heal everyone! Do not let people bandage. Time is not on your side like all the other MC bosses.

Edit: Rag should be at 45% or lower before the first spawn of sons.

Stage 2: [Spawn of Sons]
When CTRA says that the sons are going to spawn in 20 sec, get all warriors [besides your MT] to the edge of the lava where the picture shows your ranged DPS [hunters, FD and let things get under control]. The warriors will form a human shield and taunt all of the sons onto them.

Have your tank that is assigned as the MA for sons target one. Everyone then focus fires on that one to kill it fast. Tank then picks another and the raid continues this till they are all dead.

Warriors!!! Keep the sons away from the casters!

Casters!!! Get back away from the tanked sons!

When you have 2 sons left, your MT, OT and their healers need to get back into position. [Remember, if there is no one in melee range of Rag, he starts shooting people with his "one-shotter of doom" blast...]

Stage 3: [Should be final stage]
Same as before... Get back into positions... go crazy with DPS... Hunters burn rapid fire again... And for the love of Pete!! MORE DOTS NOW!!! [aka, full dot's all the time]
Keep people healed, do the DPS, watch the mace fall...

Edit: Oh yeah, if you do not down him with only one spawn of sons, going through a second spawn will be OK as long as it can be controlled. You will lose more people, but you should have Rag low enough to kill him fast when he respawns.

The key to Rag is mass DPS and DoT's. You should not have but a couple deaths in stage one, and you WILL have a couple deaths in stage two. [would not be an epic battle if everyone lived :wink1: ]


I think I need to put this as my sig :)
[This is the way we do Rag on another server. This may not be a way you can do it. All strats need to be "tweeked" to your guilds needs. You know your strong points and week points. This is just a view to how we do it.]

I will record us fighting rag and show you how this strat works.

Thwak
2006-05-01, 12:40 PM
very nice writeup. now that you mention it i do remember reading that ranged can "go nuts" with no worry of aggro. nice reminder. i am excited at the prospect of being able to do as much damage as possible without worry of agg.

Sol
2006-05-01, 01:04 PM
very nice, thanks bloodlot!!

what are the "minimal" MT stats you think are needed? Also, there are a lot of people who really hype the BRS buff, why is it not so necessary? I know we have a lot of people who are struggling to get 100 FR. That is why i mentioned we may want to get it done for Melee at minimum.

I personally have decent FR but need more, and am easily highest of the tanks. I do sacrifice about 1k Hit points and quite a bit of +def to get there.

BloodLot
2006-05-01, 01:36 PM
Trying to think of what we first starting doing Rag with... I know some of the hunters went a little overboard but then went back to 100 FR to get more DPS.

Warriors, started tanking Rag around 200-250 FR. [We made a lot of DI helms, boots and more if we could] They then got the bracers from BRD and other things here and there. [Like the AD resist for shoulders]

Rogues, well we have all killed our share of core hounds, so we have made many boots and belts for them. They should be close to the 150 area.

Everyone else, can stay around the 100 mark... Now, we have had people in there with as low as 30 FR and they made it, but they got a little talking to about it later due to the extra healing love they needed. :)

We are one guild and we do our loot very strict. So I don't know how you guys currently handle it. But it was an understood thing. MT/OT's got FR gear fast from cores... Rogues were second... Healers third, and then everyone else.

As for the buff, the reason why we never used it was due to time. Right now we clear all of MC in around 5 hours. So at the end, people just want to get it over with. We looked at that and the fact that we were able to do well enough without it and just never got it.

What showed us that we were fine was when we got Rag to 45% and then wiped at 1% with no pots. A lot of us laughed, we ran back in there, passed out some pots and downed him.

From what I am seeing so far, work on making sure everyone knows how they can do DPS. Work on your transition to phase 2 to control the sons... From there, you guys will have it...

If there is anything I could suggest is that core/boe runs get setup... Don't touch the bosses... [Save that for the raids] But get about 20 people together and go kill trash mobs for cores... Then gear people up with FR...

When you get to BWL, FR will be a must just to get past Vael. Gearing up now while you are still working/farming on MC is well worth it for overall progress of the Guild/Alliance.

Cynic
2006-05-01, 01:40 PM
Perhaps due to time it may be worth it to run a group with some of the melee dps in for the brs buff and let the rest fend for themselves. Really, outside of getting a direct hit from rags on the fireballs or not getting out of the way of a son fast enough, ranged dps shouldn't be taking fire damage. So I'd think anybody pulling around 100 FR as a damage reducer should be fine. I know I didn't take any hits in stage 1 other then lava when I got bounced. Oh, and the one half sec that I tanked rags when I got punted right into him.

Mak
2006-05-23, 05:02 PM
This made me chuckle:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=971560532210103841&q=Ragnaros+Speed+Kill

Sol
2006-05-24, 07:47 AM
that is just awesome.

Sol
2006-06-05, 09:45 AM
I wouldn't worry about the BRS buff to be honest. I would also suggest that no pots are used until you can get him to 45% or less before the first spawn of suns. Once you know you have the DPS for that, you know you can start using the pots to boost it a little more.

Pots:
Mongoose: Hunters, rogues, DPS Warriors
Fire Pots: 2 for all [may only use one]
Mana Pots may [should] be needed for hunters, mages and warlocks. [Healers as well, but I am looking at DPS right now]

Ok, lets go through this...

I would suggest at least 3 tanks. [not DPS warriors, TANKS]. One MT, one OT [in case the MT gets punted] and then one tank that will be your Main Assist for sons.

In the MT list for CTRA, I set them up like this.

1. MT
2. OT
3.
4. Sun Assist Tank
5. [Blank]
6. Me [Main assist through out MC]

(Blanks are used for easy selecting by the main assist and for the raid as a whole)

Ok, positioning... From the image posted in this thread, we do about the same thing except a couple things...

1. Hunters: Spread out away from people the best you can while still being in range of a healer.

2. We have designated healers for ranged DPS. so they will need to be all in range of eachother. Normally it is either a druid or a pally [shammy].

But other then that, make sure that your OT is in a spot to where he can pick up Rag fast if the MT gets booted [no one should be too close to the MT]

The common theme to most raids is this... Healers heal the tanks, everyone else bandage. Well, you can't do that from here on out. It does work for most of the bosses in MC, but this is a different kind of fight... It is timed...

With getting that theme out, you will need to heal DPS [ranged and up close]. So make sure you have healers set to do that. Make it their jobs to take care of them.

Now then... Lets look at the fight...

Stage 1: [Summon]
MT starts his "Hey ugly!" act and ALL RANGED GOES NUTS!!! During this time your rogues and DPS warriors are either getting into position, or they are starting their DPS out slow then picking it up after a few seconds. [Melee [up close] needs to watch their aggro]

Once again, ranged is going NUTS! Hunters shoot their first shot and then burn rapid fire. [Hunters, never FD... You can't get aggro from ranged]. Same with mages and warlocks... Go freaking NUTS!!! [and don't stop, ever]

Ok, so ranged DPS is doing their thing... The other VERY important thing to remember is DoT's... Some of you may have seen some of my posts about this, but I really can not stress it enough... Full DoT's, all the time. So warlocks and priests will be doing a lot of this.

[B] [STOP! What?!?! Priest heal? No damage!... No, it takes them nothing to SWP Rag... So all priests DoT too!]

It will be up to the raid leader, or someone, to watch the DoT's and to call out for them when they start dropping off. People are busy so they will need a reminder.

So now you have crazy ranged DPS, DoT's like mad, and up close melee watching their threat to make sure they wont pull aggro. [Rogues know their skills, use them to stay low on the threat list]. With all of this, you have some great DPS going with ranged DPS using mana like mad. [Hunters, Mages, Warlocks]

If people are spread out pretty well [hunters, etc] they will not get knocked back... Remember, the person next to you gets hit by the fireball, everyone around that person goes flying.

Healing - Well, heal everyone! Do not let people bandage. Time is not on your side like all the other MC bosses.

Edit: Rag should be at 45% or lower before the first spawn of sons.

Stage 2: [Spawn of Sons]
When CTRA says that the sons are going to spawn in 20 sec, get all warriors [besides your MT] to the edge of the lava where the picture shows your ranged DPS [hunters, FD and let things get under control]. The warriors will form a human shield and taunt all of the sons onto them.

Have your tank that is assigned as the MA for sons target one. Everyone then focus fires on that one to kill it fast. Tank then picks another and the raid continues this till they are all dead.

Warriors!!! Keep the sons away from the casters!

Casters!!! Get back away from the tanked sons!

When you have 2 sons left, your MT, OT and their healers need to get back into position. [Remember, if there is no one in melee range of Rag, he starts shooting people with his "one-shotter of doom" blast...]

Stage 3: [Should be final stage]
Same as before... Get back into positions... go crazy with DPS... Hunters burn rapid fire again... And for the love of Pete!! MORE DOTS NOW!!! [aka, full dot's all the time]
Keep people healed, do the DPS, watch the mace fall...

Edit: Oh yeah, if you do not down him with only one spawn of sons, going through a second spawn will be OK as long as it can be controlled. You will lose more people, but you should have Rag low enough to kill him fast when he respawns.

The key to Rag is mass DPS and DoT's. You should not have but a couple deaths in stage one, and you WILL have a couple deaths in stage two. [would not be an epic battle if everyone lived :wink1: ]



I will record us fighting rag and show you how this strat works.
I was going to post a big long message describing what we need to do, but I realized that bloodlot already did it for us.

Last night we missed a couple key tactical points from Bloodlot's and from the http://pacifistguild.org/ragnaros/

guides.

Hit the link for pictures. View Bloodlots Post for key points I bolded.

wooti
2006-06-05, 11:39 AM
[STOP! What?!?! Priest heal? No damage!... No, it takes them nothing to SWP Rag... So all priests DoT too!]