Hard Mode Havoc - Thorium

We spent four hours wiping on Thorim Hard mode tonight, with two less than 10% wipes. While I admit my fair share of stupid mistakes (bad tunnel vision), there's still that element of raid leading that promotes said raid mistakes. If you don't ask questions of your raiders, if you yell at them and call them names instead of making sure they are secure in their movements, then you're equally as responsible for their "badness".

This is not a fight where you can run anywhere you want to get out of AoE. I hate AoE - if you read this blog, you know I can't stand remaining in unnecessary AoE - so I move out as quickly as possible to the nearest open location. This is not good. As one of the raid leaders said, "You are adding more entropy to an already chaotic fight." So the fight was set up like this:


This set up makes movement only necessary for one reason: Lightning Charge. If the Charge comes up for your group, run behind the group next to you - if Blizzard is there, run behind the group in the other direction. If you only have one way to run (the groups right next to his pedestal), and blizzard is directly behind the group you would normally run behind, then run to the group itself, and deal with the chain lightning. Else, the chain lightning only hits each group, and life is grand.

Other tips for hunters:

• Watch your Volley! We were pushing Thorim into the arena about 45-seconds before Sif would disappear. Regardless, pay attention to when he enters the fight so you don't Volley him and pull aggro. I died twice this way >_<
• Mana issues: I was in the arena with all the melee, and there wasn't a sole replenishment in the group. My duties included Misdirecting extra threat to the tanks, laying down Frost Traps, and Volleying. The majority of the time, I am OOM by the time we turn into Phase 2. Don't Viper and loose DPS! Pop up a Viper Sting on Thorim, go through your normal rotation once, then pop Serpent Sting in place of a Steady Shot GCD. That puts my mana back at a managable level, and I never go OOM again.
• Use Rapid Fire only after you've reset your position. Like most chaotic, movement intensive fights, you have no idea when you will move again, so don't just stand there spamming away just because you've popped it, so use it at the time you will get the most of it regardless if you might have to move again soon afterwards.
• This is a TERRIBLE fight to pull aggro on because of the delicate positioning of the boss, but you shouldn't have to worry about it with the controlled taunts going around by the tanks. Don't tunnel vision anything, regardless. You want your eyes on the area around your group (i.e. your toon) the entire time, not your GCD, Omen, and definitely not Recount.

After all this hard work, he had better drop the bow (and then drop it twice in a row after that).