MOMiT's Strategy for Assembly of Iron Hard Mode
First things first, it's worth pointing out that MOMiT raids 9 hours a week. Therefore, we don't tend to be at the cutting edge of gearing or content when these things come up. So we thought it might be useful to outline our strategy for some of these hard mode fights, under the assumption that there are other guilds out there who can't count on all your DPS being decked in Hard Mode loot either. :)
Tanks: We use one tank for Steelbreaker, one for Molgeim, and a DPS-geared and specced DK for tanking Brundir in Phase 1. Brundir hits like a chump; I'd imagine this strategy would be just as successful with a DPS warrior, cat druid, or ret pally.
Healers: We run this entire encounter with five healers. It is stressful, and we'll discuss later in the article how tightly assignments need to be handled. But without significant hard mode (or ToCr) gear in our raid we find that the Phase 3 timer is too punishing for our DPS. So, we have two healers who excel at their DPS dual-specs on this encounter.
Phase 1: Steelbreaker, Brundir, Molgeim
The major abilities in this phase include:
This part of the fight is going to be exactly like your regular mode encounters. You'll want to position your Steelbreaker and Molgeim tanks somewhat away from Brundir so that you reduce the number of people who need to move during Brundir's Overload ability. The Steelbreaker tank will need to be alert and move Steelbreaker out of any Runes of Power that Molgeim might put down. Also, this tank and his or her healers will need to watch for Fusion Punch and quickly dispel it.
The remainder of the raid is spread fairly haphazardly through the room, avoiding Brundir's area.
DPS needs to remember that this phase is not a race. Conserve trinkets, long cooldowns, and mana for later phases. The Shield of Runes does need to be purged or dispelled.
We choose to kill Molgeim first. We find that in Phase 2 his death rune is large enough, and ticks for enough, that raid members without a speed boost will quite often die before managing to flee the area. To reduce some of that unpredictability, we leave Brundir up for Phase 2.
Phase 2: Steelbreaker, Brundir
The major abilities added in this phase are:
When Molgeim is about 10 seconds from death, we call for the raid to collapse into an area. The Steelbreaker tank moves close to the Brundir tank, and positions his target about 10 yards from the other boss [need clarification here]. All ranged DPS except for specially designated Soakers then collapse on the far side of Steelbreaker. If your tanks are positioned correctly, ranged should be out of the effect area for Brundir's Overload.
This puts the majority of the raid within melee distance of Steelbreaker. Steelbreaker likes to choose ranged targets for his Static Disruption, so this reduces the number of people who will get the debuff. Note that he will cast it on a person in melee if no one at range is clear of the debuff -- thus, you'll need at least three Soakers to ensure there is always someone away from the raid who can take this damage.
We use hunters for our Soakers, simply because they can do very little DPS in melee range. If you don't have three hunters, Warlocks and other self-healing/high stamina classes also perform well in this role. Soakers need to be positioned at least 8 yards away from each other to ensure that no more than one at a time gets the debuff.
At this point, healing assignments begin to become more crucial. You're going to see steady damage on all of the raid from the High Voltage aura, spike damage on your Soakers, and spike damage on your Steelbreaker tank.
Phase 3: Steelbreaker
Steelbreaker gains several abilities in this phase:
This is a DPS race. Your tanks will have 30 seconds from the time the Overwhelming Power debuff is placed on them to when they will die from Meltdown. Electrical Charge ensures that ONLY your tanks can die in this phase if you have any chance of success, and at a certain point even too many tank deaths will wipe your raid.
We've found that we can do approximately three tank rotations -- once the fourth tank death occurs, Electrical Charge has stacked to the point where Static Discharge is one-shotting our soakers. So you have approximately 90 seconds to complete this phase. One of our raid members wrote a MATLAB script to model the damage needed for three tank transitions.
Healers will be facing one of their hardest challenges so far in Ulduar. We distribute one healer to Soakers -- it helps to put them in the same raid group for maximum Prayer of Healing effectiveness. We have one healer on the raid at large, and the remaining healers attempt to keep the tanks alive until Meltdown. If you have a Paladin, Beacon of Light can count as a tank healer in itself which allows you to get some extra insurance on Soaker healing. Fusion Punch dispelling is crucial - you can't avoid the initial damage, but even one tick of the DoT can be catastrophic.
We have any boomkins in the raid drop a tranquility after each tank death. You may also lose some DPS or healing to a battle rez (preferably glyphed) after the first tank dies. It may also be worth battle rezzing the second tank -- there's not a ton of purpose to having the second tank take another rotation, but s/he may be able to do enough DPS in that last phase to put you over the limit.
We experimented with having a ret paladin bubble and Divine Sacrifice after the second tank death; however, there remain some significant glitches with the mechanic which cause insta-death for the paladin in question. (The combat logs for this effect are bizarre, so you'll know it when you see it.) Since any non-tank death is a wipe, we decided to forego the extra healing help.
[eventual conclusion]
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