Midsummer Fire Festival

For an excellent general guide check out the Midsummer Fire Festival Guide on Wowhead.com.

But there needs to be a more in depth look at Ahune The Frostlord.

And you thought the cold shoulder your girl gave you hurt.

Many holidays have a special boss tied to them, for the Fire Festival Ahune is your big bad.  He has been updated to 87 and has a few new mechanics from last year.  A great relief since they didn't bother to make the fight any more interesting in the 80 version than the 70 was.  Well, sort of.

PHASE 1

Beginning the fight Ahune is still immune to almost all damage.  If you have 'extra' resources (Like mana) cast a damage over time on him to help wear him down a little.  Otherwise all he is right now is a big ice sculpture.

Ahune's Flunkies.  Click the pic for a better look.

Waves of elementals spawn and come after you. The ones to focus on are the big elite recolored earth elementals named Ahunite Hailstone.  They do area damage the group with [Chilling Aura] and need to be focused fired down.  In the runs I did as DPS roughly 60% of all damage taken came from that aura and I was off tanking some of the other elementals.

Then the little swirling recolored wind elementals called Ahunite Coldwave.  These normal mobs do a fairly potent  [Bitter Blast] and they hit decently but are really only dangerous in groups.

Then come the more normal recolored whind elementals, the Ahunite Frostwind.  With a weak [Lightning Shield] (Hit for 123 dmg) and melee.  Their not dangerous except for what seems to be some kind of push/pull effect.  If several of these stack up they start yanking you all over making good dps incredibly hard not to mention tanking and healing.

Spikes they be a comin'

Up up and away!

The entire time you need to be dodging little ice circles that appear on the ground, because they will shoot a spike of ice into the air, Called [Ice Spear] (Shows up as No One doing it in Recount), damaging you for about 21k and carrying you with them.  The falling damage is the big pain here - if you have a slowfall or levitate hit it on the way down to reduce your damage taken.  You can be knocked into the water by this but you get teleported back onto land.


After time has passed, he swaps into his vulnerable phase as a huge ice shard.  When I tested it my DoT stayed on him so you can load him up just before phase transition.

PHASE 2

Ahune turns into a crystal and sulks.  I mean he becomes vulnerable to attack as his form is disrupted by the Earthen Ring.  Drop what your doing and kill him.  Tanks should back over to him and dps him as much as you can.  healers, if it wont risk the group, do the same.  You have Shadow Word Pain, Moonfire, and the like - use them!  This is the time for Heroism/Bloodlust and other cooldowns.

Then its back to phase 1 but this time the adds are more numerous.  Thats the timer on this fight, how long you can hold out against the larger and larger waves.  Your average group will knock him down in 2 submerges.  Every one beyond that will test the tank and healer more.

Oh and if your wondering how I got the cool 'Go get him!' message that makes sure you wont miss your chance to beat his crystal, that is from an addon called Deadly Boss Mods - Their holiday pack.  Its an amazing addon for raiding, dungeon running,  All the cool kids are using, so try it ;)