Divine Intervention: Mimiron Recommended Strategy Guide

Pesky mechanics got you down?Get the right info to oust this 4 phase epic battle.

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.

Please referance this Tankspot video for a detailed live explanation of the fight

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 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 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. 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 and applies a debuff that inflicts 4,000 damage 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.

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.

Heat Wave
- Every 30 seconds, Mimiron will send out a Heat Wave that deals ~2,000 damage to everyone in the raid, and an additional 2,000 damage 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 over 3 seconds (this is 6 "bursts" of ~3,000 damage each) 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.

Phase 3 - Aerial Command Unit

For the final 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.

Plasma Ball
- Mimiron fires a Plasma Ball at his primary target, dealing ~15,000 damage 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 and melee for ~3k on a plate tank. 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 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 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 670k hit points and are essentially untankable - they deal ~40k damage 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.

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.

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.

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!

Use this video as reference only.Implementing your positioning will be crucial to the success of of surviving this brutal 4 phase fight.