The Curator

Intro
This guild is well able to take all the bosses up to the curator without an issue and is fully behind getting Guildies spec'd up in terms of attunement runs and Rep runs and I hope to be fully a part of this process. The reason for this post is purely about The Curator, Blizzard designed this fight to be a test of how good the raid groups armour actually is. As Such, only the best groups in the Guild i.e. those with the best armour (all Epic or mainly Epic) can hope to defeat him, it is no use thinking tactics will help as there are no tactics which can help an underspeced group. Tactics only come into play once the Group is marginal, i.e. Can Get The Curator down to his Enrage Phase at 15% or very close to it. In my humble opinion (this is not necessarily the opinion of the guild nor has it been discussed in officer or guild meetings to my knowledge) it is pointless do to Curator runs with anyone less than the best in the guild. Other Group mixes should be tried, however, if after an attempt with everyone at reasonably full durability The Curator is not at 15% the Group Membership should be changed. I am not being negative, I am being realistic, it helps no-one to be going head to head with The Curator thinking it is a normal fight, it is no coincidence that he drops the Armour upgrade tokens, This Guild is more than capable of taking down The Curator but not everyone is able to be part of this process, as of the time of this post neither am I, I currently have 6 Epic items out of a potential 16 slots which could have Epics, this make me unable to attend Curator runs until I pvp reward myself up, I would suggest more people stop worrying about this particular fight until they are correctly Spec'd, Although it may be possible for a really top flight group to have 1 maybe 2 lower spec'd runners I feel this detrimental. (Once again My personal Feelings) It is better to run through the bosses through to Opera with a lower spec'd group and keep this as a potential source of epics and rep than to get stuck on The Curator . . . So Another Post for Positive tactics which follows . . .

The Curator - A unique Fight to Prove your Armour
As metioned this is for Marginal Groups (those who can get The Curator enraged - 15%) This is by all means not definitive and I welcome Posts from others with a wealth more experience than me, however, this hopefully will start people thinking.
Know your enemy - The Curator is Immune to arcane, bleed, poison and mana drain spells and effects, however, once tanked is out of the fight leaving around 5-7 People (2 Priests healing ofc) to do the most important job, Killing the Arcane Flares. It cannot be stressed enough - The Curator summons one Astral Flare every 10 seconds, at a cost of 10% of its mana. Each Flare spawns with about 1000 threat from a random, non-tank player character and advances in that character's direction while hitting nearby enemies with Arcing Sear. Each Flare must be destroyed within 10 seconds, before the next one spawns. Failure to do so will result in multiple Flares dealing damage at the same time - this situation will usually mean a wipe. It is not necessary to damage the Curator at all during this phase. Damaging the Curator is permissible, but only when no Flares are up (unless the raid has excess DPS: see Positioning below).

This cannot be over-emphasized: By far, the most important part of the fight is killing the Astral Flares as quickly as possible. Wipes on The Curator usually happen because the healers run out of mana. They run out of mana because the Flares live too long. The solution is almost always to kill the Flares faster. The faster each Flare dies, the easier the healers' job becomes.

Know your Flares - Health: 12000 HP Melee: none Arcing Sear: Rapid-fire chained attack which hits up to three targets within ten yards for 675-825 arcane damage each Immune to taunts, stuns, roots, and snares.
Each Flare spawns with about 1000 threat from a random, non-tank player character and advances in that character's direction while hitting nearby enemies with Arcing Sear. So it is possible to Tank flares by hitting them hard whch ups the threat from whatever char they picked at the begining. While it is not necessary to tank the Flares, doing so gets them to hold still and makes them easier to kill. A hunter pet buffed with Blessing of Might and specced for arcane resistance and stamina is ideal for this task. Warriors, Bear druids, and Enhancement shamans can do the job, too.
Now to the helpful tactics bit . . .

Helpful Tips - Getting the Curator Enraged
The best tactic for Marginal Groups in my opinion is to basically group in 3 rows, so from the front, Tank(s) go in and hold The Curator, between the tanking poition and the Clothies at the back the rest of the group, melee's and DPS form a loose row, the healers should be protected from any Astral Flares by the row of players and obviously the tank should be at the limit of the healers range not outside it. The middle group can then be either spread out (10 yards between players) in two triangles 1 close to tanks 2 further away to the left and right of Curator or bunched in the middle. Spread means less damage from chain tight means more damage but then chain heals work far better too, so either should be fine.
That's it for positioning, no-one moves once set and no Arcane Flare gets past the middle or lives longer than 5-6 Seconds especially the last one, ignore the Evocation KILL THE FLARES lol
Marginal groups must maximise Flasks, Pots, Elixirs and buffs for thier class and spec, thus no Curator run should go ahead without all of these things being available to all. Personally I can make (at this time) Flasks of pure death and Intellect, I will also make up Mageblood elixirs as this is a Mana Endurance test.

Threat is not an issue in this fight. Use buffs or totems that facilitate quick Flare-killing. Don't use buffs like Salvation that reduce threat.

The following simple macro is handy to help damage-dealers target live Astral Flares quickly:

/cleartarget
/target Astral Flare
/stopmacro [nodead, harm]
/target The Curator

# Using a Cauldron of Major Arcane Protection gives the healers a break at the start of the fight.
# Warlocks can cast Curse of Doom on the Curator somewhere between the summoning of the fourth and sixth Astral Flares. It's best to time it such that it goes off right at the start of the Evocation, so that it can be replaced by Curse of the Elements, Curse of Recklessness, or even Curse of Shadow when the the rest of the raid starts to deal damage.
# Priests can use their Shadowfiend during the Evocation phase. Due to the triple damage during Evocation, the Shadowfiend can completely refill the priest's mana.
# Shamans should use their Bloodlust or Heroism during the eighth Flare.

Well I been droning on for Hours so please put up any other helpful tips and solutions, feel free to critique this post but please keep it positive, we need to move forward not keep banging our heads against this particular fight
As for me, I will be pvp'ing like craaaazy Need all my slots epic, have fun, be good to each other and
Party on d00ds
Hugz Eraa xxxx[/u][u]