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Mimiron (25 Man) Strategy Guide |
| by Jackmason |
| This is the main guide for this boss. We will attempt to keep it up to date, so feedback is appreciated. This is copyright material. Please respect the work of the author and ourselves and do not copy it. |
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 Mimiron is the master inventor of Ulduar and one of the four Watchers who once kept Yogg-Saron's prison. Now corrupted by the Old God's influence, Mimiron, and his creation, the V0-L7R-0N combat system, are formidable opponents to anyone who enters the Corridors of Ingenuity. Mimiron is by far the most difficult foe out of all the Watchers of Ulduar, and probably the most difficult boss in the instance except for Yogg-Saron and Algalon the Observer.
Raid Composition and Gear Preparation
As Mimiron is one of the most difficult bosses in Ulduar, raid composition and gear are more demanding than previous bosses in the zone. A raid should be composed of just one main tank (MT), one warlock tank specced for range tanking, 7-8 healers, and the rest DPS classes, with bias shown to ranged DPS classes if possible. At least one hunter and one restoration druid are highly recommended for the kiting and rooting of adds in Phase 3.
The raid should be significantly better geared to kill Mimiron than they were when they entered the zone: by the time you fight Mimiron you should have killed all the prior bosses (including the other three Watchers) at least once if not multiple times and the loot from those kills is very helpful - almost necessary - to defeating Mimiron. Every little bit counts.
10 Man
While Mimiron is the most demanding of the Keepers of Ulduar on Heroic Mode, the Normal Mode version of the fight is not tuned to be as difficult and should not inspire quite the same trepidation to 10 man raids that it does to a 25 man. In addition, very little about the fight is changed from the 25 man version; everything hits for much less damage, but the fight is functionally identical.
A 10 man raid needs the following setup to defeat Mimiron:
1 Main Tank - For tanking Leviathan in Phase 1 and in Phase 4, and Junk Bots in Phase 3.
2-3 Healers - See description of Phase 1 for details on the most difficult part of healing.
1 Ranged Tank - For tanking the Aerial Command Unit in Phase 3 and Phase 4
1 Assault Bot Kiter - This not strictly necessary as it is in the 25 man version. See the Phase 3 description.
The rest of the raid should be composed of DPS classes, with ranged classes being slightly preferred.
Fight Overview
Mimiron is a 4 phase encounter that can take between 10 and 15 minutes to complete for a new raid. Each phase involves Mimiron using one part of his ultimate creation - the V0-L7R-0N Combat System - and fighting the raid with new abilities in each phase. The fourth and final phase combines all the parts into the fully constructed robot and the raid has to deal with each part at once.
For the sake of clarity, this guide is split into four parts corresponding to the four phases. The abilities of each boss-vehicle are listed in the relevant section and described along with the strategy for that phase of the fight. In each case, Mimiron is driving the relevant vehicle for each phase and is not targetable himself. If the guide refers to "Mimiron" what is meant is the vehicle he is driving during that phase.
 Phase 1 - Leviathan Mk II
For the first phase, Mimiron boards the bottom section of his grand robot creation, a moving tank-like base that is a miniature replica of the Flame Leviathan with very different abilities. This boss has 6.7 million hit points (1.74 million hit points in 10 man) and swings for around 10k on an average plate tank. He has the following abilities:
Proximity Mines - Every 40 seconds, Mimiron will fire a batch of 10-12 Proximity Mines around him (about 20 yards out) in all directions. These land in a circular pattern in random spots around him and if walked upon will explode, dealing 20,000 damage (15,000 in 10 man) to all players within 3 yards of the mine. It is important to observe the "gaps" between mines so that the tank and melee DPS players can escape when Mimiron casts...
Shock Blast - Every 30 seconds, Mimiron will cast a spell called Shock Blast. The cast takes 4 seconds and cannot be interrupted. The spell deals 100,000 nature damage to any player caught within 15 yards of Mimiron. All players, including the MT, need to run out of range for this ability, making sure to avoid Proximity Mines as they do so.
Plasma Blast - Every 45 seconds, Mimiron will cast Plasma Blast at his tank. This puts a debuff on the MT which cannot be resisted or dispelled and deals 30,000 damage per second for 7 seconds (20,000 damage per second for 6 seconds in 10 man). This is incredible spike damage and healers and tanks should be prepared with large heals and defensive cooldowns to survive each Plasma Blast. A high DPS raid should have to deal with at most 3-4 of these blasts, meaning that basic tank cooldowns, shields, and cooldowns like Pain Suppression and Blessing of Sacrifice will be sufficient to prevent the tank's death in spite of the very large damage.
Napalm Shell - Every 5-10 seconds, Mimiron will shoot a fiery shell at a random member of the raid. He will target players at range before melee with this ability. The shell deals 10,000 fire damage on impact (8,000 in 10 man) and applies a debuff that inflicts 6,000 damage (4,000 in 10 man) every second for 8 seconds. The impact affects anyone hit by the explosion, which has a 5 yard radius. Since there is no cast time on the shell, it is nearly impossible to avoid this ability and the damage must be healed through.
This phase is a fairly simple introduction to the overarching theme of the Mimiron boss fight: Stay alive, avoid damage, and do some DPS to the boss in the meantime. This is a control fight and the first phase is just a taste of what is to come.
The Pull
The raid should run into Mimiron's room and take up positions according to the Phase 1 diagram. Mimiron will give a short speech as he jumps into the Leviathan Mk II, and should be Misdirected to the MT as soon as he becomes active. The MT should already be in position against the edge of the wall and as soon as Mimiron is in position DPS can begin.
Positioning
The Phase 1 diagram shows a few things:
1) The tank should tank Mimiron against a wall, and move between Proximity Mines to a safer area whenever Mimiron throws out a new batch of mines. The line on the diagram indicates this.
2) The raid should stand mostly in the centre of the room as Mimiron is moved around the edges by the tank. This keeps them safe from mines and from Shock Blast.
3) Melee should always be observant and ready to find a safe path to run out from Shock Blasts without getting hit by mines. (Note the multiple green paths in between the example land mine layout.
 Phase Strategy
DPS should kill the Leviathan Mk II as fast as possible, but keep in mind that their higher priority is to stay alive. Always be aware of Proximity Mines and be ready to run out for Shock Blast (while avoiding mines) each time it is cast. The diagram shows how this works out in practice, as described above. Ranged DPS and healers merely have to watch out for the occasional Proximity Mine while healing through some Napalm Shell damage and keeping the tank alive, especially through Plasma Blast. While learning the fight, it is useful to assign a rotation of healer cooldowns for each Plasma Blast - Pain Suppression, Guardian Spirit, Blessing of Sacrifice are all useful for keeping your tank from randomly dying since Plasma Blast is dangerous even to an incredibly well geared tank.
Once the basics are learned, this phase of the fight is quite simple and the Leviathan Mk II will easily fall. Once reduced to 1 hit point, Mimiron will drive the Leviathan off into an alcove of the room and Phase 2 will begin.
10 Man Notes
This phase is the same as on Heroic Mode except for the damage values involved. In particular, the only thing which makes this phase more difficult is the strength of the Plasma Blast compared to Heroic Mode. Note that while the number of healers present has been reduced by about 60% (going from 7-8 healers to 2-3 healers), the damage done by Plasma Blast has been reduced by just 33%! This makes healing the tank through this the most difficult part of the fight. Plan for the tank to use defensive cooldowns on each Plasma Blast and aid him with damage reduction cooldowns such as Hand of Sacrifice, Guardian Spirit, or Pain Suppression. With good DPS you should only have to deal with 2-3 Plasma Blasts in this phase; use whatever it takes to help the tank survive each one!
Phase 2 - VX-001 Anti-Personnel Cannon
For the second phase of the fight, Mimiron raises the central section of his robot into the middle of the room. For this portion of the fight, Mimiron has no tank and is fixed into the centre of the room - the VX-001 is a rotating turret which is unable to actually move. The turret randomly chooses targets and uses its several abilities without regard to a threat table. It has no melee attack whatsoever. Like the Leviathan Mk II, the VX-001 has 6.7 million hit points (1.74 million in 10 man).
Heat Wave - Every 30 seconds, Mimiron will send out a Heat Wave that deals ~3,000 damage (2,000 in 10 man) to everyone in the raid, and an additional 3,000 damage (2,000 in 10 man) per second for the next 5 seconds. This effect cannot be outranged and hits the entire raid.
Rapid Burst - Mimiron's standard attack targets a random player and deals ~12,000 damage (9,000 in 10 man) over 3 seconds (this is 6 "bursts" of ~2,000 damage each (1,500 each in 10 man)) to that player and anyone standing "nearby". In this case, "nearby" is not a specific radius, but rather a 30-degree arc around that player's location from Mimiron's spot at the centre of the room. The thin green slice on the Phase 2 diagram illustrates the width of the Rapid Burst beam if centered on the green dot player. This ability is re-cast constantly unless Mimiron is charging up or using his Laser Barrage.
Spin Up - This ability charges the dual cannons of the VX-001 for 4 seconds before he unleashes a Laser Barrage.
P3Wx2 Laser Barrage - The PewPew Laser Barrage! Yes, this is the ability's real name. After charging up the guns, Mimiron will start Laser Barraging the raid in the direction he was facing while Spinning Up. The Laser Barrage itself is a 30 degree arc of damage that slowly rotates 120 degrees in a clockwise direction from his starting angle, covering a third of the room with the Barrage by the end of the ability. Anyone caught in the Barrage takes ~80,000 damage per second - this will kill anyone incredibly quickly, and players should never be caught in it. Move out of the way! The purple arc on the Phase 2 diagram shows how much of the room this ability covers. Melee should move behind Mimiron when he Spins Up and ranged DPS and healers should either run in front of the arc the Laser Barrage sweeps out or move counterclockwise out of the arc before the Spin Up finishes.
Rocket Strike - Every ~25 seconds, Mimiron will launch one of the rockets on the turret's back towards a random player in the room. A glowing large bright red targeting reticule will appear under the chosen player. That player and anyone else in the targeting zone need to move away immediately, as when the rocket lands it will deal 1.5 million damage to anyone within 3 yards of the impact point. That's right: 1.5 million damage. Don't get rocketed. This is especially dangerous for melee, who can sometimes find it difficult to see the targeting reticule on the ground and should pay close attention and call a melee-targeted rocket over voice comms or in a raid warning. The reticule appears just before the rocket launches off of VX-001's back, giving the targeted player and nearby raid members about 4 seconds after it appears to move away.
The Pull
Mimiron's VX-001 Antipersonnel Cannon rises up out of the centre of the room after the Leviathan Mk II parks itself at the end of Phase 1. The entire raid should reposition according to the Phase 2 diagram (spread out all around the room) while this animation plays out over 20 seconds. As soon as the VX-001 is targetable, DPS can begin immediately - there is no aggro table during this phase and all VX-001's abilities are randomly targeted.
Positioning
The positioning diagram simply indicates how a raid should spread out throughout the room, making use of all available space while keeping healers (the blue dots) spread out throughout the whole room so that no one is ever out of healing range. Everyone will take Rapid Burst and Heat Wave damage during this phase and so healers need to be in range of everyone. Assign healer locations or areas of the room so that no healer clumps accidentally form.
The positioning diagram also shows a small green arc representing the width of a Rapid Burst, and a large purple arc representing the sweep of a full Laser Barrage. These are not the fixed locations of these abilities, but rather just examples of their size. Those two abilities are randomly targeted and can appear anywhere, not just the locations shown on the diagram.
 Phase Strategy
Like the first phase, this phase consists simply of DPSing the VX-001 down to 1 hit point while staying alive. Everyone in the raid has the priority task of staying alive by avoiding Rocket Strike and moving out of the sweep of the Laser Barrage while Mimiron casts the initial Spin Up. If every single person in the raid does this successfully but takes their time DPSing Mimiron, then you will succeed at this phase. Staying alive is the priority.
Once everyone has mastered the idea that staying alive is their first job, they can work on actually dealing damage to the VX-001. Mimiron's incarnation in this phase also has 6.7 million hit points and can be burned down relatively quickly once the raid is comfortable with the fight. Healing is somewhat demanding during this phase due to constant Rapid Burst damage combined with Heat Wave on the entire raid, but if healers are spread out (as described above) then it shouldn't truly challenge you. Heal through the raid damage and burn the VX-001 down to win! Once you have reduced the VX-001 to 1 hit point, it will slump over and Mimiron will hop out, declaring this phase of his "testing" complete.
10 Man Notes
This phase of the fight is 100% the same as on Heroic Mode; burn the APC down while avoiding rockets and the Laser Barrage and healing through Heat Wave damage. Since the raid has so few players, it is advisable to all stand closer to the APC (in the center of the room) than normal. This way the entire raid is in healing range of every healer, and it is easier to run out of Laser Barrage since your radial distance is lower (the closer you are to the center of a circle, the faster you can make a complete circuit of the circle!) This single adjustment really makes this phase trivial to heal and to finish easily.
Phase 3 - Aerial Command Unit
For the third phase of the fight, Mimiron will board the flying Aerial Command Unit, a floating gnome-head helicopter that summons various robotic adds to assist him and who must be range-tanked, ideally by a demonology or destruction spec warlock with the relevant tanking talents. The ACU itself has 4.7 million HP in 25 man and 1.2 million hit points in 10 man.
Plasma Ball - Mimiron fires a Plasma Ball at his primary target, dealing ~15,000 damage (10,000 in 10 man) on a 2 second cast time. This is Mimiron's only actual ability during this phase and he casts this at his warlock tank constantly, who needs to be treated as if he were the MT and healed appropriately.
Summon Adds - Mimiron will also constantly summon adds which are profiled below:
- One Junk Bot is summoned via the green transporter beams every 10 seconds.
- One Bomb Bot is dropped by the Aerial Command Unit every 15-20 seconds.
- One Assault Bot is summoned via the orange transporter beams every 25 seconds.
Junk Bot
These small robot adds have 190,000 hit points each (63,000 in 10 man) and melee for ~3k on a plate tank (2k in 10 man). They appear every 10 seconds in a green beam on one of the 9 teleporter pads in the room. They should be tanked by the MT from Phase 1 of the Mimiron fight (who has no other job during Phase 3). Eventually they will be AoE'd down, but a large number can be tanked pretty easily without being any danger to the tank. They have no other abilities.
Bomb Bot
These bomb shaped bots have 100,000 hit points. They are summoned by the Aerial Command Unit every 25-30 seconds, and drop from the ACU down onto the ground when cast. They fixate on a specific player in the raid and pursue them until they either reach melee range or until 15 seconds (10 seconds in 10 man) have passed (Bomb Bots will not fixate the Aerial Command Unit's warlock tank. If they fixate the Junk Bot tank he can simply take the damage - he should have more than enough HP and is receiving enough heals to easily cover the ~20k damage that a tank will take from a Bomb Bot). Once they are in melee range or their "time is up" they explode, dealing ~25,000 damage (10,000 in 10 man) to anyone within 5 yards. These bots need to have their targets called so that the pursued players can kite them out of the rest of the raid. With everything else going on during this phase, it's fairly difficult to control these, so players are advised to use healthstones or HP pots if they get Bomb Botted and are low on HP. Priest and paladin shields can also help immensely with survival here - if you see a player about to get exploded by a Bomb Bot, save them!
Bomb Bot - The Bomb Bot explodes on melee contact with the target or after 15 seconds of life, dealing ~25,000 damage to all players within 5 yards of it.
Assault Bot
These bots are summoned every 25 seconds by an orange beam on one of the room's transporter pads. They have 630k hit points (190k in 10 man) and are essentially untankable - they deal ~25k damage (+20k damage in 10 man) per swing to a well geared plate tank and need to be kited by a hunter with assistance from the rest of the raid. They are slowable, rootable, and stunnable and all of these things need to be used. There is more on this below; kiting and killing Assault Bots is the heart of this phase of the fight.
Note that Assault Bots can be tanked instead of kited, but this is not recommended unless you are attempting the hard mode (see below).
Magnetic Field - While moving, Assault Bots can channel this ability on a random target within 30 yards for 4 seconds, immobilizing the targeted player and increasing damage taken by 50% (this can be very deadly in conjunction with a Bomb Bot; watch out!) This shows up as a magic debuff on the targeted player and needs to be dispelled. The Assault Bot can also be stunned to break the Magnetic Field channel.
Magnetic Core - Assault Bots drop a Magnetic Core that can be used to drag the ACU down to the ground for 15 seconds. There are details on this later.
Assault Bots in 10 Man
These bots hit fairly hard still, but can be tanked by a good plate tank (rather than being kited as on Heroic Mode). Either method is viable, and the same tank that tanks Junk Bots can also pick up Assualt Bots no problem. If this method is chosen, at least one healer should be assigned to solely heal the Assault Bot tank.
The Pull
There is no pull to speak of for this phase. The Aerial Command Unit floats down from above the centre of the raid and Mimiron boards it. Once the ACU is targetable, the warlock tank should immediately pick him up and drag him backwards away from the centre of the room. Ranged DPS can start attacking the ACU immediately.
Positioning
There is no set positioning for this phase - everyone will be moving around constantly in order to kite and DPS down each successive Assault Bot. All raid members should be flexible as they avoid Assault and Bomb Bots and follow their assignments, detailed below.
Phase Strategy and Assignments
Assign two healers to the warlock tank and two healers to the Junk Bot tank (the MT from Phase 1). Other healers should be responsible for raid healing in case of Bomb Bot damage and any druids should be aware of extra Assault Bots that need to be rooted (this should be quite rare, but since healing in this phase is comparatively light, they should be free "just in case").
Assign 5 ranged DPS to ACU duty. Their full-time job is to DPS down the ACU all the time while the rest of the raid is primarily focused on Assault Bots.
One hunter should be assigned to Assault Bot duty (hunters are best for this due to their high burst damage combined with Concussive Shot, Frost Trap, and their Distracting Shot which is now a full Taunt ability). Their job is to get aggro on and kite each Assault Bot around the room while the melee DPS and the rest of the ranged DPS slow, stun, and DPS the mob down. Melee should only use "good" stuns such as Hammer of Justice, Maim, or Kidney Shot to stun the Assault Bots, and keeping Hamstring or Infected Wounds on the Assault Bot is a big help - they normally move much faster than players and need to be constantly slowed or stunned for a hunter to successfully kite them. Each Assault Bot should be killed with a few seconds to spare before the next Assault Bot spawns - during this time, the rest of the ranged DPS can switch targets to the ACU.
If your raid's DPS is high enough, consider moving more than 5 ranged DPS to full time ACU duty. Make sure, however, that you always have enough DPS to kill each Assault Bot before the next one spawns. Keeping the number of Assault Bots to 0 or 1 at all times is key to controlling this phase of the fight. Again: treat the fight as a control fight and don't try to mindlessly deal as much damage as possible.
Keep repeating this sequence of Assault Bot kiting/killing and ACU DPS until the ACU reaches 1 hit point and you enter Phase 4.
Once the transition to Phase 4 begins, you have about 20 seconds as Mimiron combines the parts of his greatest creation! During that time, finish off the final Assault Bot (if there is one) and then turn to AoEing the pack of Junk Bots that have built up over the course of Phase 3, freeing up your MT for taking over tanking the Leviathan Mk II during the fourth and final phase.
10 Man Note
Other than the potential strategy change from kiting Assault Bots to tanking them, this phase is exactly the same as on Heroic Mode. Alternate between killing Assault Bots and burning down the Aerial Command Unit, and then clean up by AoE-ing Junk Bots during the phase transition!
Important Note About the Magnetic Core
Players can loot an item called the Magnetic Core from each Assault Bot. Used below the Aerial Command Unit, it will drag the ACU down to the ground and cause it to take +50% damage for 15 seconds. This is an extremely effective way to get a lot more DPS on the ACU, but for a raid learning the Mimiron fight it is not recommended. Using the Magnetic Core and having all DPS switch to the ACU for that 15 seconds typically means that the raid gets behind on Assault Bot DPS, which makes the phase exponentially more difficult to control. This is only recommended as a tactic for a very experienced guild who are working on the hard mode of the fight. It will be discussed in a Hard Mode section of this guide.
Phase 4 - V0-L7R-0N Combat System
The parts of Mimiron's greatest creation have been combined and the final test awaits you. Prepare for the most intense (and occasionally hilarious) fight you have seen in WoW in a long, long time.
This phase sees all three of the previous vehicles healed to 50% of their previous HP and combined into a single unit which moves with the "base" of the Leviathan Mk II. However, each unit keeps most of their previous abilities and acts independently, retaining their own hit point bar and aggro table. In addition, all pieces of the V0-L7R-0N robot must reach 1% at the same time before they can be killed. If any piece reaches 1% before any of the others, it will begin a "Self Repair" cast which takes 10 seconds and heals it for 50% of its life.
Each vehicle's abilities are recapped below:
Leviathan Mk II
This starts with 50% of 6.7 million hit points. It still melees and is tanked as in Phase 1. It retains its Shock Blast and Proximity Mines abilities, but no longer casts Napalm Shell or Plasma Blast, which makes tank healing much less difficult.
VX-001 Antipersonnel Cannon
This starts with 50% of 6.7 million hit points. It still has no aggro table and randomly chooses targets. It retains its Rapid Burst ability (now called Hand Burst instead) and P3Wx2 Laser Barrage, but no longer casts Heat Wave. It still casts Rocket Strike as in Phase 2, but now casts two rockets per strike instead of one. Both rockets are launched simultaneously onto different targets and share the same cooldown. VX-001 is located "above" the Leviathan but can still be attacked by melee DPS if necessary.
Aerial Command Unit
This starts with 50% of 4.7 million hit points. It still needs to be range tanked by the warlock from Phase 3. It retains its Plasma Ball ability, but no longer summons adds of any kind. This mob is the head of the V0-L7R-0N robot and cannot be hit by melee.
The Pull and Positioning
The phase begins once Mimiron has assembled the parts of V0-L7R-0N. The base, Leviathan Mk II, controls the movement of the boss and should be picked up by the MT and dragged into position.
 Raid Strategy and Assignments
The essence of the fight here can be summed up as follows: "Phase 1 with rockets and lasers. Lots of lasers."
First of all, split up DPS into three nearly even groups: 6 DPS on Leviathan, 6 DPS on VX-001, and 4 DPS plus the warlock tank on the Aerial Command Unit. Next, assign 2 healers to the MT, 1 healer to the warlock tank, and the remaining 4-5 healers to healing raid damage.
The basics of the fight are a combination of the elements from the first three phases. Players need to avoid taking damage from:
Shock Blast
Proximity Mines
Rocket Strike
Laser Barrage
In particular, Shock Blast and Laser Barrage present a unique challenge for tanks and healers. If the MT is moving out for Shock Blast while VX-001 is casting Laser Barrage, the Laser Barrage is very buggy and tends to go crazy and spray all over the room at random. This is very bad. Because the first Shock Blast and Laser Barrage always overlap, that means that the tank should *not* move out of the very first Shock Blast but instead use tank and healer cooldowns to survive the 100k blast. A combination of Shield Wall, various DK cooldowns, Pain Suppression, Blessing of Sacrifice, Last Stand, or Guardian Spirit should be used to guarantee that the MT survives the Shock Blast without moving.
Meanwhile, VX-001 will be picking a specific direction and will Laser Barrage in that direction no matter which way the Leviathan base faces. This means that, once you see the starting point of the Laser Barrage, you can be sure that it will sweep out a 120-degree arc clockwise from that spot. This means that if the Laser Barrage is "on" the MT, he needs to flip the Leviathan base around and leave the Laser Barrage pointed away from him, probably against the walls of the room.
Laser Barrage can also bug out if it kills the person it was initially pointed out. If this happens, it will flip around the room randomly trying to kill everyone on VX-001's hidden threat list (normally VX-001's threat list has no effect whatsoever - just this unique bug appears to pay attention to it!) The only solution to this bug is to not die to the Laser Barrage in the first place. Nothing else can be done about it.
Keep in mind that, while the MT is moving Mimiron out of Proximity Mines and avoiding Shock Blast, and the rest of the raid is avoiding Proximity Mines and Shock Blast and Laser Barrage, there are still two 1.5 million damage rockets being fired at random players in the raid every 25 seconds. Watch for these and avoid the (still bright glowing red) targeting reticules on the ground.
While doing all of this, each DPS team needs to bring their relevant section of Mimiron down to 5-7% of it's life total and then help the other teams. Keep in mind that this can take a very long time and that is okay. The point of the fight is to avoid damage and control what is happening. Don't worry about doing maximum DPS.
Once all three sections are between 5-7%, Bloodlust / Heroism should be used and the raid should burn down all three parts as fast as possible to complete the encounter. If you do this successfully, each section will die once all the sections are at 1 hit point. Congratulations - you have saved Mimiron the Watcher and defeated his ultimate creation!
10 Man Note
This phase is the same as Phase 4 on Heroic Mode, except that all the abilities now use their 10 man damage values, as listed in the individual phase sections above. Each part of Mimiron's robot body starts with 50% of their total hit points: 870k for the Leviathan base and VX-001 body sections, and 600k for the Command Unit head section.
As with the Phase 4 fight on Heroic Mode, this is entirely a control fight. The fight could easily be beaten with five people: a main tank, ranged tank, and two healers could control the entire fight while a single DPS slowly killed each part of Mimiron's robot. With that in mind, realize that doing maximum DPS on this fight is not important. Staying alive, by contrast, is important. Each of the parts has very few hit points and reckless DPS usually will get people killed or bring an individual part down to 1 HP before the other parts are ready. Be careful!
Mimiron Hard Mode - Firefighter
Welcome to the most difficult-to-learn encounter in all of Ulduar. While the Algalon and Alone in the Darkness encounters are harder in terms of pure difficulty, Firefighter is an execution check rather than a pure gear and strategy check. The fight is both difficult to learn and difficult to repeat, and even the best raid guilds will be dreaming of rooms covered in fire before they beat this boss.
Firefighter is the name of the encounter created when a player pushes the Giant Red Button behind Mimiron, activating the Spark of Imagination's self-destruct sequence. This button "turns on" the encounter hard mode, giving Mimiron a 25% boost to the health and damage of all of his robots - the Leviathan Mk II, the VX-001, and the Aerial Command Unit. In addition, the self-destruct sequence is a 10-minute timer: after 10 minutes, the entire room will explode, killing the entire raid instantly. Finally, during the encounter the room is literally on fire - fiery explosions rock the room approximately every 20 seconds, creating patches of Flames that follow players and deal immense amounts of damage to anyone they catch.
To combat this turn of events, Mimiron puts on his Firefighter hat and has various tricks used to try to extinguish the room. Each phase has an added component that represents Mimiron's attempt to put out the Flames - with varying results. To beat this encounter, players will need to learn to avoid fire, learn how to deal with Mimiron's new abilities, and handle the new damage output and still do enough DPS to beat the very strict self-destruct sequence timer (most guilds will beat this encounter with 10 seconds to spare, or less).
Flames - Patches of Flames on the ground deal 10,000 damage per tick to any player standing in them. They are squares about 2 yards on a side, and can overlap, dealing double or triple damage if a player stands in a part of the floor containing multiple patches. They follow the closest player, with a new patch spawning out of the most recent old patch and creating a slow-moving trail of Flames along the ground pursuing the raid. A patch of flames will never despawn on its own, but Mimron has various abilities that remove them. The strategy for dealing with Flames differs by phase, but in general they are to be avoided. For details, see below.
Raid Composition and Preparation
It almost goes without saying that any raid seriously attempting Firefighter should be geared to the teeth. The DPS requirement is strict but the healing demands in Phase 2 and the tank damage in Phase 1 are just as bad; everyone should be as prepared as possible in terms of gear from prior encounters (and hard mode loot) in the zone. Firefighter is the penultimate hard mode; he must be beaten to access Algalon, but every other hard mode loot item in the zone can be acquired (including Yogg+1 loot) before attempting him. This is a good thing, too, because you'll need as much gear as you can get to make this fight easier.
The recommended healer composition for this fight is 1 shaman, 1 paladin, and then an even split between priests and druids. Some guilds use 6 healers and others use 7 - if you use 7, then a 3 priest / 2 druid layout is highly recommended. Healing in phase 2 is incredibly difficult and extremely rewarding for holy priests with Circle of Healing, Prayer of Healing, and Holy Nova all pulling overtime work in the ranged groups.
Phase 1 - Leviathan Mk II
Flame Suppressant - This is Mimiron's Phase 1 firefighting ability. Approximately every 60 seconds (the timing is not exact) the Leviathan Mk II will shoot out a wave of Flame Suppressant, extinguishing all fire in the room and halving the casting speed of all players by 50% for 8 seconds.
This phase proceeds exactly as normal in terms of raid positioning; the strategy for the fight's "normal mode" above was written with the Firefighter encounter in mind also.
Each time the tank moves the Leviathan out of mines, he should drag him to a new section of the room entirely - rotating through the three "pie slices" on the floor. As he does this, the raid will follow as a group, moving to a pie slice which currently has no fire. By the time the raid has returned to the first "pie slice" they were positioned in, Mimiron will have cast Flame Suppressant and cleared the room of all fire. The Leviathan Mk II should die sometime before the second Flame Suppressant is cast, leaving a room mostly full of fire. This is intentional, as described for Phase 2.
This diagram demonstrates one of these positioning changes. The raid starts positioned in the bottom left "pie slice". This is a fresh pie slice and there are no Flames here yet. Then, new Flames will spawn near raid members. These are shown by the translucent orange boxes (just a guess at locations; the spawns are randomly within 5 yards of a player). When Flames spawn, the entire raid shifts to the bottom right pie slice (positions shown by the translucent colors). The new Flames slowly follow the raid over to the new slice, but, by the time they arrive, the raid will be on the move again to the third pie slice. By the time the raid has made a full rotation, Mimiron will use his room-wide Flame Suppressant ability and the original slice will be clear to move into.
The main danger of this phase is Plasma Blast, which now deals 25% more damage to the MT (as do all of Mimiron's abilities). This means it deals 37,500 damage per second on heroic mode and 25,000 damage per second on normal mode. In any case, it requires the use of heavy healer and tank cooldowns to survive. The raid should construct a cooldown rotation using Hand of Sacrifice, Divine Sacrifice, Guardian Spirit, Pain Suppression, and tank cooldowns (many guilds use a death knight tank for this reason). The cooldown rotation should be sufficient to survive 4 Plasma Blasts; many guilds will kill the Leviathan in 3 Plasma Blasts once they have learned the fight, but 4 is more common.
Dealing with Flames in Phase 1
Flames spawn about every 20 seconds. The room shakes with an explosion and 3 new patches of fire appear randomly, each within 10 yards of a player in the raid. This means that, if a section of the room contains no players, then no Flames will spawn there. Every 4 seconds, a new patch of Flames will appear from the previous patch, becoming the new "head" of the Flames trail. This new patch *always* appears in the direction of the closest player. For this reason, the raid moves Flame Leviathan to a new section of the room every time he spawns new Proximity Mines. This brings the raid well away from each set of new Flames patches, meaning that they take a long time to reach the raid from their previous locations - and by the time they have "arrived" and started to cause trouble, the raid will be ready to move Leviathan again.
Phase 2 - VX-001 Anti-Personnel Cannon
Flame Suppressant - In this phase, Mimiron will continually extinguish all Flames within 10 yards of the VX-001 with his FLame Suppressant. This still causes an 8 second reduction in casting speed, which means that casters cannot simply stand in melee range. In addition, Mimiron casts this ability on a strange and variable timer - from every 5 seconds to up to 15 seconds between casts. This means that sometimes there will be Flames in melee range that must be dodged until he casts the Flame Suppressant again.
Frost Bomb - Approximately every 30-35 seconds, Mimiron will cast a Frost Bomb. This is a giant frost missile that lands on a randomly selected patch of Flames and creates a huge pulsing globe of water. After 10 seconds, the bomb explodes, dealing massive damage to anyone within 30 yards, extinguising all fire in the same area, and knocking players caught in the blast back about 30-40 yards. On heroic mode, this ability deals 40,000 frost damage, but on normal mode it deals only 10,000 (obviously these bombs need to be avoided in any case).
This phase also proceeds as normal except for the ranged positioning.
Rather than spreading out evenly throughout the room, all the ranged players should be divided into three groups and assigned to a single pie slice. These groups move together (and if possible, each group should have a holy priest). With this method, Holy Nova can be used on the ranged groups to help keep up with healing more efficiently - this means a few more Rapid Burst ticks will be taken, but the major source of damage in Phase 2 is the Heat Wave, and healing through all the raid damage efficiently is more important than a few extra ticks of the Rapid Burst. The groups can also move together to avoid moving Flames, Frost Bombs, and the Laser Barrage.
The key to this phase is on-the-fly maneuvering to avoid new Flames while healing through Heat Wave and evading the area of effect for Laser Barrage, Frost Bomb, and the occasional Rocket Strike. Experience is the key here; the majority of a raid's wipes will be learning Phase 2 and constant practice will improve the raid's ability to deal with and heal through the damage while avoiding all the instant-death abilities Mimiron has. For raid groups just learning this fight, Bloodlust / Heroism should be used during Phase 2. This is easily the most difficult phase of the fight, and getting through it quickly reduces the possibility of bad coincidences further.
The Phase 2 to Phase 3 Transition
During the transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3, everyone should group up in a single stack near the largest clump of fire in the room, wherever that is. If there is a large open space (and there probably will be from the last Frost Bomb), then avoid that space. During the transition to Phase 3, you want the entire raid to be near current Flames so that new Flames also spawn there. Slowly kite the Flames until Phase 3 is ready to begin. Only then should you move to the open spot in the room.
The reason for this is that Flames are capped at around 50 total patches on the floor. Once this cap is reached, Flames will no longer spawn new patches and the explosions every 20 seconds will not spawn new patches either. During Phase 1 and Phase 2 this cap is never really reached; but it is very helpful, as described below, to cap out the Flames before Phase 3. This leaves major sections of the room "open" with no danger of new fires spawning since there are no more Frost Bombs or Flame Suppressants.
Phase 3 - Aerial Command Unit
Emergency Fire Bot - These bots spawn, three at a time, every 30 seconds, from new blue beams on the bot spawning tiles in the room (the same locations where Assault Bots spawn from orange beams and Junk Bots spawn from green beams). They have 50,000 hit points on heroic mode and 12,000 hit points on normal mode. These bots run around and extinguish fire one patch at a time. They do not attack players and do not have an aggro table, but will deal ~15k frost damage to anyone hit by their water jet attack as they extinguish their chosen patch of fire. In addition, they have a 10 yard AoE silence aura (called Deafening Alarm) that follows them wherever they go.
As described in the Transition section, the raid should now be grouped up in the largest open area of the room and the Flames should be at their "spawn cap." This gives the raid a decent amount of room to work with to do Phase 3. Two main changes need to be made to the easy mode strategy however, as follows:
1. Emergency Fire Bots are the top DPS priority. Ranged DPS should kill Fire Bots that spawn away from the raid, and melee DPS should kill any that they can reach. Killing these bots is more important than anything else in Phase 3. This is done to prevent the silence and prevent the Fire Bots from actually extinguishing any fire. If this is done correctly the Flames will remain capped, leaving the current section of the room (where the raid is positioned) open.
2. Assault Bots should now be tanked, rather than kited. They hit extremely hard (especially on heroic mode) and should be tanked by the Junk Bot MT. Kiting them is simply not feasible thanks to the available amount of space. They swing for around 25k on a very well-geared plate tank and attack on a fairly fast swing timer. Since healing in this phase is otherwise light, pour heals into the MT.
Other than these changes, the fight proceeds normally and this phase is actually fairly easy after the chaos of Phase 2. If Fire Bots are killed in a timely fashion, then the ACU will be easy to DPS consistently and the phase will end quite fast. The main problem in this phase is if Fire Bots are not killed; then Flames begin to spawn anew and the raid must constantly avoid moving Flames and reposition, which makes Phase 3 take a very long time; so they then run into the self-destruct timer in Phase 4 (this is a very sad event, and the key to avoiding it is not letting Phase 3 go on forever).
Phase 4 - V0-L7R-0N
Flame Suppressants - These abilities (the large AoE from the tank and the small AoE from the turret) are not used in Phase 4.
Emergency Fire Bot - These bots do not spawn in Phase 4.
Frost Bomb - Mimiron uses this ability in Phase 4 the same as the VX-001 does in Phase 2. It randomly targets a patch of fire, lands there, and then explodes, clearing all the fire in a 30 foot radius and dealing 40,000 damage to players caught in the blast (just 10,000 damage on normal mode). This is the only method of "fire fighting" in the last phase of the fight.
After the previous three phases, you should be happy to learn that Phase 4 is widely considered the easiest of all of Firefighter. The fight ends up being a glorified combination of Phases 1 and 2, without the deadly abilities (Heat Wave and Plasma Blast) that make those phases so difficult.
The main keys to Phase 4 are as follows:
1. Stay alive. Avoid all of the things which can kill you:
a. Frost Bomb
b. Rocket Strikes
c. Proximity Mines
d. Laser Barrage
e. Shock Blast
f. Flames
2. Have enough time left on the self-destruct to beat the encounter. Guilds want to walk into Phase 4 with 3-4 minutes left on the timer in order to complete the encounter successfully. This is bound up with point 1 above: the more time you have, the easier it is to focus on staying alive rather than trying to do maximum DPS to the boss.
Beyond this, the only change from the easy mode strategy is in regard to positioning. During Phase 4, the room will be mostly full of fire from Phase 3. If you did a good job of killing Emergency Fire Bots, then the room will still be capped on Flames. If you didn't have a very clean Phase 3, then there will be patches of Flames scattered throughout the room. Regardless, Flames need to be avoided and it can be difficult (at least initially) to find a good place to tank Mimiron.
Thankfully, Frost Bomb neatly solves this problem. Every time a Frost Bomb explodes, it will clear out a large patch of the room. At the next Barrage or Shock Blast the tank can take the opportunity to move (with the rest of the raid) to this newly opened space, giving the raid a lot of "breathing room" to get some DPS in before they have to start avoiding moving Flames again. Phase 4 tends to go in waves because of this dynamic; lots of moving around and evading fire (by everyone) until a Frost Bomb explodes, and then a "clear space" where most of the raid can DPS until the new Flames spawn and start catching up to you.
As noted, the keys to this phase are simply staying alive and having enough time to kill Mimiron before the self-destruct sequence completes.
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