Hellfire Citadel: Hellfire Ramparts

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Level Cleared - Group Composition - Short Comment

Level 61 (Paladin) - 60 (Shamans) - 1x Paladin and 4x Shaman - See Tips and Tactics

Level 63 - 1x Paladin (Tank), 1x Shaman (Healer), 3x Mage (DPS) - 3x Sheep made this run pretty easy... except for the dragon boss. See tips and tactics.

Level 65 - 5x Paladin (Ret) Due to RAF and lack of AOE protection, unable to do full clear until level 65, your results may vary depending on gear and skill. Fire Aura and Reptence CC. See tips and tactics.

Level 64 - 1x Paladin (Prot), 2x Shaman (Resto+Ele), 2x Mage (Fire) - Killed all but the final boss at level 61, but didn't get the gear+strategy to take the dragon until 64. Assuming the occasional fireball goes to the tank, 2 grounding totems (refreshed every cooldown) are enough to keep your other 4 toons from ever getting hit by a fireball.

61 (5x Shaman) - The key to making it through this instance is to make sure the defense on your shamans is decent, and make SURE they all have a shield on - first boss is almost impossible without a shield - if you need a 1H mace get the earthcaller's mace from the maghar outpost questline - one of the first HFP quests gives you a good spell damage shield. Final boss is fairly easy with a special trick in the tactics section. Also helps a lot to do arazzius first to get your spell damage trinket prior to coming here.

60/61 (dinged inside) - 5x Shaman - My defense is crap, below 150, most packs were easy, usually one melee. The dog packs I insta gibbed the dogs (their stacking hurts), and with a full melee pack, I earthbind kited some. Bosses were easier then trash.

62/64 - 4x Death Knight 1x Shaman - Took several clears to finally down Nazan

Tips and Tactics

Shamans x4 and Paladin tank: (See below for 5x Shamans)

Some easy tips as how to I get these bosses down with little effort (from lvl 61 for the pally and lvl 60 for my shammies, this instance was easy enough)

Ramparts boss 1:

Make sure you cleared all the mobs around the boss, the bastard bumps you up in the air and you do not want to attract more attention then you bargained for.
He has 2 adds, which heal him, kill them first
If you can (or want), sheep both adds, then kill the boss. Resheep if needed, after the boss goes down take out the adds.
Tank and spank the boss down, he doesn't hit particularly hard, just the annoying bump

Ramparts boss 2:

Setup your guys with some distances from each other, he does a nasty aura curse which makes you aoe your party (decurse if you can, my shamans and paladins couldn't :()
Grounding totems, are your friend, they suck up his bolts of shadow
Kill the hounds he spawns, they do a nasty mana burn
Burn down the boss, but always take the hounds first, and always keep up the groundings

Ramparts boss 3:

3 phase fight, 1st stage you take out the 2 guards. 2nd phase you take the dragon rider. 3rd the dragon himself. The dragon lands when his rider is almost dead. When the dragon lands he has 0 threat, be very cautious with healing up your tank. Your healer will take agro if he heals the tank without him agroing the boss, watch your threat meters.

Fire resistance aura and totem.
My 140 fire res total (incl aura, easy to get from ah)
Grounding totems
I take a major fire prot pot just for when the dragon lands for some extra time without healing
Little trick for this boss when running shamans and a paladin setup, grounding totems and blessing of salvation!
With my Paladin, 3 Mage, Shaman setup, I took the rider down as fast as possible. As soon as the dragon lands, my Paladin starts attacking the dragon, the Mages continue to take down the rider, then starts attacking the dragon after the Paladin gains enough agro.
Keep an eye on where your main and your alts are standing and move if you're on fire.

Action shot of how I took him down: [1]

As an alternative, easier approach to the last boss - simply stand at the top of the ramp far away from the area where the rider lands. Spread your guys out, bring one guy down and aggro the two guards and pull them to the top of the ramp. Zerg them down up there. When the rider lands, if you are far back enough, he will not aggro. At this point, you can walk down to the circle area, keep to the edge to avoid aggroing the rider, and dps the dragon from the sky. At 20% the dragon will come down and you need to zerg him fast. Once you are done, rez/drink/etc, then kill off the rider. It is a million times easier to do each separately.

5x Shaman:

Trash:

Only truly unique pulls in this instance are the 2 destroyers + 1 beastmaster pull and the casters at the top of the ramp surrounding the ripper. Not too difficult with 5 shamans.

For the first pull you have 2 options, both involve burning down the beastmaster first. The route I took was starting a LB + CL combo on the beastmaster when he was right next to the destroyers, following it up with another LB, which killed him, and both destroyers were already hurt, then another CL then LBs to take down the destroyers without losing anyone. Alternatively you could drop a few stoneclaw totems and then burn down each guy with regular LBs allowing your stoneclaws to tank shortly - either method should work if you have some decent Outland gear already.

For the casters + ripper, this is truly easy and doesn't involve running out of LoS or anything. I just run up to the top of the ramp, hugging the edge, bring my clones up right on top of me and turn everyone to face the casters. Drop Healing Streams plus Mana Stream, 5x totem of wrath, and 5x grounding, then target the ripper (melee). Start a lightning bolt followed with chain lightning, then LB him down until he dies. Your grounding totems will be absorbing magic like crazy - the mages will all be casting at the exact same time so 1 totem will usually absorb all the casts at once. Start burning down the mages and as you notice your grounding totem buffs down to 1, drop 5 more grounding totems. By the time they start to knock out the second group of them they will all be dead and you should have taken 0 damage.

Boss 1:

This fight is fairly easy if you have 5 shields, a damage trinket, and elemental mastery. Make sure to clear out all NPCs around the area where you're going to fight him - I always pull him at the very end of his path closest to the entrance. Position your shamans to where they can at least hit the closest healer when they patrol near you. Drop your standard totems (mine are 4x healing stream, 1 mana stream, 5x totem of wrath, 5x grounding for anything that might cast spells, an earthbind, 3 stoneclaws and a stoneskin).
Right before they finishing patrolling towards you, use elemental mastery (or just have it up already since it doesnt ever expire until you use it or its purged), and blood fury if you have it plus your spell damage trinket on all 5 shamans. Then, hit LB on the closest healer immediately followed by chain lightning - this will instantly kill the first healer and the second healer will be severely injured.
Target the second healer after all your toons are "casting" the chain lightning, and start spamming your LB button and the second healer will go down before he even reaches you.
Now, your main goal is to simply tank and spank. Its very hard to keep the boss aggro on one guy (thats why the 5 shields), so simply spam LB/CL and hit your chain heal macro every 2nd cast or so. You might lose someone but the boss will go down fairly fast/easy at this point. He did knock my guys back a few times but never to where they couldn't hit him. Note: I tried spreading my guys out the first time, but this actually made it worse because he would knock 1 or 2 back and go chase them, and then my forward guys wouldn't be able to hit him (also sometimes my other shamans would be out of chain heal range). Once I left my shamans all stacked together it was much easier.

Boss 2:

This guy is ridiculously easy with 5 shamans. I just use my spread out macro to spread out in a line in front of him, then dropped 5x totem of wrath, 4x healing 1x mana, 5x grounding, used elemental mastery + blood fury + trinket and went to town. I killed him at 61 before he even took out my grounding totems and before an add even appeared. Second time he created 1 add right before he died, which was easy to take out after I killed him.

Boss 3:

I tried this guy once the "fair way" at 61 and it didn't even seem possible, so I went back and tried it the "cheap" way and easily did it. Basically, you leave 4 of your shamans up at the top of the ramp behind where the ground is dark. Drop all of your totems up there, then take just your main shaman down and pull one of the guys. As you run back up you'll have to spin around and earth shock or chain lightning them otherwise they'll de-aggro. Once they're at the top burn them down and drop grounding totems just before the second guy dies.
Now the dragon will drop his rider, and he'll start throwing fireballs at you from way further away then you can hit him - don't panic - they won't do any damage to you at all if you have grounding totems down.
Wait for your grounding totem cooldown to be available again, and then move forward to the edge of the current grounding totem affect area. Drop 5 more grounding totems, and wait for your cooldown to be available again. Do the same thing over and over until you get to the very edge of the arena where you can be "in range" of the dragon. Just be careful not to aggro the rider standing there.
Now, drop another set of grounding totems when the current ones are almost gone, 5x totem of wrath, healing/mana, etc. DO NOT USE YOUR ELEMENTAL MASTERY TALENT OR BLOOD FURY OR SPELL DAMAGE TRINKET. If you do then the second part of this fight will NOT be easy.
Start spamming LBs on the dragon. If he moves out of range don't panic, just wait there, dropping grounding totems as needed to absorb his fireballs - DO NOT RUSH or you will make a mistake that will wipe you. If he flies out of range but to the other side of the circle, you can always move to the other side of the ramp closer to him and drop more totems there to get back in range, just whatever you do don't walk INTO the circle or you risk aggroing the rider.
When the dragon hits 40% he will land (and an announcement will be made). As soon as you see this announcement hit elemental master, trinket, and blood fury if you have it, then start spamming LB + CL - in my case he went down right as he reached me and didn't even have a chance to hit me at all. Should be cake to take him down with this method.
Now, if needed rest up, refresh your totems, and take down the rider - he will die right as he reaches you or after hitting you a couple times - either way hes cake. Keep in mind if you aggro the rider before killing the dragon, then the dragon will land as soon as the rider takes a certain amount of damage - at level 61 this is almost certainly a wipe for 5 shamans.

5 Ret Paladins - Added by HunterPriestBeast (HPB)

Very difficult for me at lower levels. I could only complete the first two bosses at 62. At 65, I am now able to kill the third boss. To keep the focus on my main (easier for me) I have her run Righteous Fury. Make use of your Auras! You've got the ability to run 5 of them. I have pseudo-aoe macros. AOE-Every Paladin casts Flash heal on herself. SH*T-Every Paladin casts Holy Light on herself. I also have a Flash Heal on Tank's Target's Target and a Holy Light on Tank's Target's Target macro set up. In total 4 healing buttons. With AOE you will need it.

Trash Keep up fire aura on one of your paladins at all times. It's not much but it helps. Be patient and don't pull too many at once (ie beware of the pats, mark if need be). Pre-target a few adds and repentence them from max range before pulling large groups. I prefer to reptentence the casters because the AOE rain of fire hurts like a SOB.

Ramparts boss 1:

Make sure you cleared all the mobs around the boss, when the boss throws your toons in the air, quickly spam your 'follow' macro and get everyone back in the fight.
Before the pull, I mark all 3 mobs, the boss and his 2 healers. This helps with repentence!
Pre-target manually the 2 healers with 2 of your followers. The rest will still have you targeted and won't use repentence.
As the targets come just into range, repentence both adds. Kill the boss. Kill the adds. As you just finish the first add, the 2nd may wake up. Kill the second add. Loot and move on.
Immediately hit the /focus/follow macro to get all followers ready to attack the boss who is now charging at your group.

Ramparts boss 2:

Total Tank and Spank. Judge, Crusader Strike, Repeat.
I have never even had the adds come out during this fight. He dies so fast. I guess if the adds start to come out, let your aoe kill them.

Ramparts boss 3:

Kill the 2 guards, fast and easy - as the first target gets low on health, switch to second and they'll both die from aoe at nearly the same time. Kill the rider, move during flames and refollow while moving. Run THROUGH the dragon and turn (turn followers manually to keep attacking after dragon starts spitting fire. You will take damage, no matter what you do, but try to avoid what you can to survive the fight.

Azeroth