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Comment by Nzall

This boss is the first boss released with Baradin Hold, the new raid in Tol Barad.

Judging from several Youtube videos, this boss looks like a combination of Brutallus (boss in Sunwell Plateau) and Ick (boss in Pit of Saron).

you'll need 2 tanks, 2 healers and 6 DPS for this boss on 10 man normal mode. The raid should split into 2 groups, with 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 DPS in each group. each group should stand in melee range, on opposite sides of the boss. this is due to a meteor slash that deals 200K fire damage, shared to all targets nearby. this is enough to oneshot a tank. tanks should taunt after each meteor slash, since it leaves a debuff that increases fire damage taken (like the brutallus mechanic, but stronger).

Argaloth puts a debuff on 3 random raidmembers that should be dispelled. it's a magical debuff, so all healers should be able to dispell it. it deals around 3K shadow damage every half second for 15 seconds (so 90K total). it's easier to dispell it, especially considering healer mana.

at 33 and 66%, he starts to rain down a fel firestorm, leaving patches of fire on the ground. don't stand in it. after that, return to your original location. a bit like the ick encounter, except these aren't charging mines, but patches of fire. it's currently unclear whether these patches only spawn beneath players, or at random in the room. judging from the Phoenix kill, they appear to prefer spawning under players.

overall, a pretty simple boss. he drops T11 gloves and legs, and season 9 trinkets, necks and belts. your average PuG won't have much issues killing him.

edit: forgot to mention his enrage timer. Argaloth currently has a 5 minute enrage timer (300 seconds). he has 21,473,000 HP. this means you need 72,476 raidwide DPS on 10-man. assuming 6 DPS and 2 tanks (each half a DPS), this is 10,353 DPS per player. this should be easily achievable in 10-man with appropriate raidbuffs, since many players are currently doing much more than that in ICC10, even accounting for the buff. this is a fight that can be compared to marrowgar concerning DPS capabilities (periods of standing mixed with short periods of moving and lower melee DPS) and even the weakest specs currently are pulling 10K DPS when accounting for the 30% buff.

Comment by 87957

Maybe this means that they will put in different types of bosses with each raid tier. Like the various prisoners in Violet Hold, except in raid boss form.

Maybe a pit lord for the first tier, then a lich for the second, then a dragon, then an elemental! Or something like that...

Comment by neoscorpio

This guy has the same model as Brutallus. Isn't Brutallus supposed to be a unique Pit Lord with his wings chopped off and having blades in place of his arms? Or does this guy have a back story for having those features? Blizzard could have re-used Magtheridon's or Azgalor's model instead.

Comment by remikskr

He dropped 6 items in 25m mode for us yesterday.

Comment by heartless8604

It shall be awhile before I or many other people have the chance to take him on as on my server since launch of cataclysm Tol Barad has yet to change factions.

Comment by jGarand

The strategy that we used to successfully PUG(10) him last evening (12/11) was such:

2 Tanks, 3 Heals, 5 DPS(9-15k)
Originally had 2 Heals, 6 DPS but when the Shadowpriest pulling 6.7k said he was usually Holy, he was promptly role-changed.

Positioning:

One group on each of the 2 front corners of the square dias on the floor of his room, about 40% ajacent to each other

.......................|..******..|
.......................|.BOSS.|
.......................|..******..|
.................G1..------------..G2

Mechanics:

Most Critical element: Dispelling Consuming Darkness immediately.
Each time he casts Meteor Slash, the damage will be spread out betweenthe 5 group members in front of him, reducing it to a very manageable level. He does not do a Physical cleave, so it is thoroughly acceptable to remain grouped at all times.
Fire Phases: Stay out of it : Nuff said.
Fireballs will only land where someone WAS, so a "stand, shift, stand, shift" strategy works well here.
Be sure to return to original positions as his cast ends.

Our "limiting factor" was healer mana. Having a shadowpriest for an extra Hymn of Hope, and a Balance Druid for an Innervate will help tremendously, although they are not required if fire phases are managed well

Comment by orestes9

Dropped an Alliance pvp trinket tonight in our Horde raid. Hopefully this is just a bug and will be fixed soon, currently have a ticket in to exchange the trinket.

Comment by jjuurriijj

Just wanted to share that DKs can avoid meteor slash debuff. So if you are a DK tank and the other tank dies but his group is still alive, you can tank up to 2 meteor slashes, the second will kill your group. The other tank's group can keep DPSing so you can maybe still make it.

Comment by 535439

so, the real reason i'm here...

Is this like VoA in the way that when the battle starts you are ported out of the instance?

Comment by twistedsuffering

Unsure which dps to go by. Earlier this site said 5 dps popping 9k dps average, and now it's saying 6 dps popping 10k dps on average?

Comment by antiflag

Can someone explain why we split into two groups? I know the idea is so no one has to deal with the debuff, but:

The slash does 200,000 dmg split up. (Using 10 man numbers for ease)
Split between 5 people that is 40,000 dmg to all.

If everyone just stacked in one spot,
400,000 dmg (because the debuff increases fire dmg taken by 100%) split between 10 people is 40,000 dmg to all.

Does the debuff stack? If so, than yea this wouldn't work at all. I mean, I've only done this fight once, today, and it was easy as hell for me as the healer. I'm sure there is a reason why everyone agrees this is the way to do it. I just want to know why.

Comment by JKilled

Really easy fight. Everyone is saying you need everyone at 10k+ dps for the stuff witch isnt true.
Our fight consisted of 2tanks 2heals 6dps like everyone els of corse.
Tanks - Both pallys (pulling 4.5-5kdps)
Heals - Pally / Druid
Dps - Hunter 13k
Ele Sham 10k
Boomkin 8.7k
Feral 8.2k
Shadow Priest 8.1k
Fire Mage 6.1k

Poped Hero right after the 2nd firestorm.

Comment by malminos

I just ran this today, was really a lot of fun. We one shotted it with a pug, and it's as the OP says. Just stay clustered into 2 groups, hunters stay clustered but near the back of groups. Ungroup during the fire phase then quickly get back into your old groups/positions when fire ends.

Pretty easy IMO, and great loot for the current time in the game.

Comment by Naturebearer

My guild dropped him last night the we had 2 pally tanks trading off the slashes and only two healers but we did have a shaman in each group dropping the healing rain after each slash to help with the damage if your a healer and having a hard time conserving mana i can give you this tip use the time his back is turned to your group to heal everyone and use the time the tank is fighting to regen mana because up until that meteor slash the tank is taking minute damage my lifeblooms were enough to keep the tank alive plus i was getting mana back then he slashes and still the tank was kicking then he would turn around and i would heal the group with cheap heals i also used the fel firestorm to regen mana just by putting a lifebloom on myself for the replenishment buff, so as long as your group doesnt do anything stupid you can conserve just by knowing when to heal

Comment by Apollyonus

You can used a well-timed Divine Shield to nullify one of the slashes, and most tanks should be able to survive a single meteor slash by themselves if they blow their strongest defensive cooldowns. Useful if you need to keep your last few DPS alive if you're just a few percent away from a kill.

Comment by 293216

Yeah, real straight-forward.

Comment by 261700

Hey all. Tried to 2 heal this a couple of weeks ago and found it too difficult to both heal and dispel the debuff. 3 healing was much more doable, but we were just barely going over the enrage timer. Any tips to dispelling and healing with 2 heals? Ideally 2 healing with a shadow priest mass dispelling would make this a lot simpler. Does dispelling with a warlock through their pets work? Thanks.

Comment by enojy

Can anyone confirm or deny that Argaloth drops PvE gear in 10-man? I've only done the 10-man encounter, but after having killed him for my fifth time, have only seen PvP gear drop so far.

Don't want to jump the gun and buy my T11 gloves and/or leggings if there's a chance it can drop in 10-man. My guild hasn't/doesn't run the 25-man yet.

Comment by 544891

I am going to go ahead and say that this is exactly like VoA. I'm not knocking it though. It provides a very easy fight and good gear with a super low drop chance. But since it looks like there is only going to be 3 bosses im going to go ahead and assume there is only going to be 3 major content patches before death wing. Same happend with VoA and a new boss every content patch untill and encluding 3.3.3.

Comment by 362949

He can drop x2 of the SAME item. Dropped 2 pairs of the Rogue PvP legs for us in 10 man. The only class we didn't have in the raid, go figure.

Comment by 491046

For this boss, the best tactic is to try to keep the boss in the middle and two tanks on the sides, when one tank gets hit by Meteor Strike, the other should immediately taunt until they get hit by a Meteor Strike and repeat, what I find is that you should be careful about the ending phases of Fel Firestorm, and be careful to keep the boss (as a tank) keep him in the middle, since its basically a :
Tank swap fight, when one tank gets 'this' other tank taunts.
And two 'stay out of the fire' stages.

Comment by 367704

You get 70 Valor Points same like every raid boss

Comment by 685952

A pit Lord underground in his prison.. totally didn't see that one coming...

Comment by 715577

In 10 man, you can still survive quite easily the meteor slashes with only 3 or 4 people tanking them. With that in mind, you can assign some melee to stay behind the boss in order to avoid parries thus increasing their dps by a few % (or way more than just a few % for feral druids and assassination/sub rogues).

Comment by Dariex

Successfully tanked this boss for the first time last night with a pug, and I must say, I was scared. I havent even tanked heroics yet, still getting used to regs, and I thought I would dps, but my group couldnt find another tank, so I volunteered. Following the simple strategies in above posts, I knew what to do, and it went well. Downed him the first time. Just some things to note...

If you are a massive aggro hog of a tank, even when the other tank is better geared than you, make sure you slack off on generating threat for the Meteor Slash swap. Eating 2 in a row can hurt alot.(this was a personal experience from a previous pug the day before)

Make sure you can easily get back to your positions after the firestorm. It hurts your dps, and you dont want someone ending up not stacked during the Meteor Slash.

Comment by 473830

Healing this on a paladin is fun. Melee range, so a lot of crusader strikes = free LoD.

Comment by towa1

Do you get Valor or Justice Points for killing Argaloth?

Comment by 306144

I'd like to add something about his name:

'Arg' - a - LOTh this should keep you amused during any fail pug.

Comment by 771790

Has anyone seen any PvE loot actually drop from this boss? My raid group has done him 5 times and every time nothing but PvP stuff.

Comment by 247802

This can be solo tank by a DK using AMS to remove the meteor slash debuff. The maximum number of stack you should have while tanking this is 2.

Comment by 787871

Pugged this last night, my first time.

Had to get a guildie to link me the ach to get into the group, but I was easily the best DPS in there with 13K. (I'm a fire mage)

Comment by 410773

Video guide for this fight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTJrHmdBKL8

Comment by 539542

Can you run it in 10 man and 25 man in the same week? Or you get saved for both if you run it once?

Comment by 689829

If your group can't quite make the enrage timer, spread out just before he goes berserk, and he will take a few extra seconds to finish you off. I tried this on a guild run in which some members brought their alts, and managed to kill him a few seconds into his berserk, with two out of ten people left alive. Then again, if everyone is doing more than 10k DPS, it's unlikely to come down to this.

Comment by 693377

It seems now that people are getting heroic gear and a few epic gear pieces , PuG success rate is very high on Argaloth (even on my lowly server). The problem I find now is if you miss a Tol win on Tuesday or Wednesday and put off BH till Thursday, Friday, or the Weekend it is tough to find a PuG that hasn't already done it. Which brings me back to criticizing Blizz for changing the 10/25 lockout system. I am sure on high pop servers, or servers where you happen to be on the high pop faction, this isn't a problem.

Apart from my BOO HOO'ing, does anyone know if you can do this on Heroic?

Anyone want to speculate what kind of Demon the next boss in here will be?

I am kind of hoping for a Dreadlord look, like Malganis or something.

Comment by Taenamyr

Normally he will drop a tier piece and a pvp one.... in our guild's run this week we had 2 of the same pair of warrior pvp pants drop. They can be disenchanted to Maelstrom crystals.

Comment by 338957

It seems that Argaloth drops cloth wrists but no leather/mail/plate wrists. I wonder if this is intentional or an oversight.

Comment by 515213

Brutallus 2.0?

Comment by 321408

For clarification, Argaloth can drop:

Tier 11 Legs
Tier 11 Gloves
PVP Rings
PVP Amulets
PVP Boots
PVP Legs
PVP Trinkets
PVP Belts
PVP Bracers
PVP Gloves
PVP Cloaks

All PVP items are iLevel 356 and titled Vicious Gladiator whatever of that thing.
Also note the can: random drops are random and you may get stuff that isn't useful any raid member. It is randomly picked, so there is no one to complain to.

Comment by 112503

Raid Compositions

Group Setup (for 10 man)

2 Tanks
2 Healers
6 DPS

Group Setup (for 25 man)

2 Tanks
4-5 Healers
18-19 DPS

Comment by 338957

My group was able to engage him today with less than 5 minutes left on the TB timer. He did not disappear when TB started. We got kicked from the instance while rolling for gear and I wished that I had grabbed everything before calling for rolls, but we finished rolling outside and got a gm to distribute the loot.

Comment by Problimatic

The only ones this is really a gear check for is DPS. He has 21,473,000 health. This means with tanks doing 0 dps, the average dps would have to be 11,929 to beat the enrage timer. If the tanks re pulling around 5k (a reasonable amount for tanks to pull) the average dps must be around 10,262 for the dps. Of course there will be some high dps in comparison to this by some to mke up for the slackers however average dps must be around 10k to beat the enrage timer. Tanks, just taunt off each meteor slash. Healers be on top of dispels. I did this when my tank was barely heroic geared and did on my shaman this week as the healer with 334 ilvl few enchants, and only about 1650 spirit without wiping. It isn't too hard to heal provided you can dispel. (and dps don't think the fire gives haste buffs) So its a brain check for healers and tanks, a gear check for dps.

Comment by 772680

As our group members gain better gear, consequently raising our DPS and our damage mitigation and healing, we've started to allow one member from each group to DPS from behind Argolath, chiefly the people that we can count on to watch threat.

Usually those people in our group will still run back into the frontal cone just in time to help absorb the meteor slash, but it hasn't killed us when they don't. We're probably going to try a 3rd and possibly 4th person this next time, depending either on how quick they are with the meteor slash timing or how well our healers handle the damage. The only thing I'm worried about is having the debuff applied at the same time and it has to be dispelled while emergency healing is done. We'll see.

This really doesn't accomplish anything with the fight except to down him faster and make the fight less boring to grind. Just to show the difference, while hitting from the front, like normal, I do around 18K dps in 357 ilvl gear (on 10m). When I moved to the back last week, I did 25K dps (same on Halfus 10m). I wouldn't recommend doing this in PuGs, as you might anger your healers when you're not doing your part to absorb the slash.

Edit>> Also I think it's worth noting that I see a lot of players running around like chaos during Fel Firestorm. This isn't all that necessary. Once you get used to the timing and spread of the fire patches, you'll see that you can continue to dps Argaloth while you simply shift just in time for a patch. This won't be as easy for melee when fire forms on both sides of you, but you can get around it. Just pay closer attention to the fire. There may not be enough room for everyone to do this, but it's sure easier to me.

Comment by 663705

Well you sort of answered your own question.

The number of people stacked up doesn't change the amount needed to be healed, whether it hits 5 people or 10. Therefore its an easier fight if the raid as a whole only takes 200k a time instead of 400k a time.

Comment by patrick66

officialy 8 man able did it today with 1 tank running from group to group 2 heals and 5 around 355 ilvl dps

Comment by 578911

what is a average Ilvl for a healer for this ? :o ppl say that 350 is the minimum but i kinda dont believe its THAT high..

Comment by 618815

If you have a plate DPS in your group that's moderately well geared (ilvl 340 or so is enough), just have the plate dps taunt 2-3 seconds before the meteor slash on every alternate meteor slash in the 2nd group. They will be able to take a few hits from Argaloth. Have the MT taunt back immediately after the slash is cast on the other group - thus needing only 1 tank.

The plate dps that's taunting will have to watch their threat carefully however.

Comment by 326328

I have personally tanked this twice as a BM Hunter with my turtle.

Raid makeup was 2 healers, 8 DPS.

Positioning is similar to the regular method, except the entire raid is to the Left, and the pet going to the Right.

With the pets ability to completely ignore the bosses two AOE's, Meteor Slash and Fel Firestorm, no taunting is needed. Everyone stands there and dps's, with the healers dispelling and healing the pet. The healers said the pet was a little squishier than most tanks, but when I put my mend pet into my rotation (which has the same cooldown as kill command, btw) their job was lessened, and mana wasn't an issue.

While the boss casts Fel Firestorm the pet repositions to behind the boss, like any good pet. This means the entire raid, which should be running anyway, makes there way to where the pet was, and resumes dps.

Bloodlust after the second Fel Firestorm is the same.

Positioning the pet correctly was the hardest part for me. I had to keep mend pet up, and keep up with the dps on threat. I also had to give the pet 5 seconds to get aggro, and I misdirected to him to start with and then 30 seconds in. We had a mage that had an issue with aggro during the lead in, but he held off and let the pet get aggro, and let go after the first Fel Firestorm.

I had gear about ilvl 346 when I did this, and we got it down with only 4 wipes, which were more learning the fight issues than anything else.

I know that this kind of make up will only last till the next boss comes out in Baradin Hold, but it will be fun while it lasts!

This was done before patch 4.1, so I'm not sure if it is still viable. I will try it again this week and update.

Comment by 621991

Apparently horde gets less rep when they kill him, not sure if this is an error or bug, or intentional.

Comment by 809817

Don't really think the rep he gives matters all that much. If you care about it you're doing your TB dailies and reach exalted in a week or two any way.

Comment by helmates

As of 4.2 he no longer gives a VP reward :( only JP now it seems (unless it is a bug).

Comment by 857814

Maybe Argaloth IS Brutallus! (with a diff name)....wouldn't be the first time blizzard revived someone. lol.

Comment by Blacknny

So, as for now you can't down him right?...

Comment by citrique

For DK soloers seeking to kill this boss, you will need to do 71576 DPS to beat the enrage on 10-man.

With the way vengeance scales now and the buff to DRW damage amongst other things, it is technically possible to do.

Comment by Pzypro

Just solo'd him (as in only me: no dps or healers) and Occu'thar as a 515 blood dk tank using dps gear. Proper timing of cooldowns, especially AMS, and keeping conversion running pretty much the entire time seemed like a must. Tight but a lot of fun.

I'm sure that others have done this in much lesser gear so it's definitely possible now =). I'm not even half good lol.

edit: Alizabel just absolutely wiped the floor with me in about ten seconds though. Don't think it's possible but I'm not bothering with a 2nd go to verify.

Comment by Rithral

Solo'd the 10-man version as a 550 Destro Lock.

Pretty easy, my voidlord tanked it the whole time and barely took any damage.

The only thing to watch out is keeping enough embers to heal yourself after Consuming Darkness, since it will tick for roughly 70% of your HP at my ilvl.

Comment by imbam4g3

Easily soloable as an ilvl560-ish frostmage, have water elemental pull, pop mirror images and all cooldowns, nuke, ignore aoe, done :)

Comment by Alucarde

As of this patch, it drops 25 gold plus loot on 25-man mode.

Comment by HeKol

On an average of 10 runs Argaloth on 25NM rewards 111 gold, 15 silver and 4 copper after vendoring dropped gear.

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Argaloth

Baradin HoldArgalothOccu'tharAlizabalArgalothBaradin HoldStrategy

Argaloth is a very straight-forward fight. Split your raid in two equally-size groups, one on each side of the boss. You can use the metal grid on the floor to align the groups.

Every time Argaloth casts Meteor Slash, you want the tanks to switch. Half of your raid being stacked will help minimize the damage, and the tank rotation will make sure that nobody eats a second Meteor Slash while the increased Fire damage taken debuff is still on.

Consuming Darkness is a fairly nasty DoT that should be removed as quickly as possible.

At 66% and 33% Argaloth will start channeling Fel Firestorm. Simply run around (individually, not as a group) without stopping for the duration of the spell, making sure you are back near your assigned position when it's over.

Heroic		Mythic
Deadly		Important
Tank		DPS
Healer		Interruptible
Magic		Curse
Poison		Disease
Enrage

Argaloth

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