Blackrock Foundry Notepod

[Kulldam]

I'll continue adding onto this over the next few days, but let's get started!

Gruul

A fairly simple Patchwerk-esque fight. Gruul frequently cleaves the target tank, splitting damage to other raiders inside thus requiring stacking groups. He also utilizes the old Petrify effect from his original incarnation, requiring afflicted players to move out of the raid before Shattering.

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Inferno Slice is used approximately every 17-18 seconds on the current tank. It has a 2-second cast time, after which it inflicts massive damage to all players in front of Gruul. Also applies a 30-second stacking fire DoT and debuff that increases damage taken from Inferno Slice by 20%.

@Tanks: Gruul can be taunted mid-cast of Inferno Slice, and he will use the ability on the new tank at the end of the cast. Moreover, because the cast frequency is over 15 seconds, taunt DRs will not apply if no other taunt periods are required.

Overwhelming Blows is also a cone attack used on the current tank, dealing damage to those in 10 yard and applying a stacking debuff for future Blows. Ideally this ability combined with Inferno Slice debuff will dictate the tank swap requirement.

The raid will be positioned into 3 positions forming a triangle in melee range:

        TANK

        BOSS

CAMP A       CAMP B

@Tanks should utilize a rapid pre-/post-Inferno Slice taunt tactic, to ensure more reliable avoidance of Overwhelming Blows for non-tanks and to simplify management of Inferno Slice damage distribution:

1. Tank A starts on the boss in the TANK position, while Tank B is designated as the Slicer Tank and starts in CAMP B.
2. When Inferno Slice is cast, Tank B (the Slicer Tank) has the 2-second cast time to taunt the boss, forcing Inferno Slice to cleave himself and CAMP B raiders.
3. Immediately following the Inferno Slice cast, Tank A taunts Gruul back to himself.
4. The fight continues as normal for another ~15 seconds in which time the Slicer Tank has moved over to the other side in CAMP A.
5. After the 15 seconds pass and Inferno Slice #2 is cast, the Slicer Tank taunts once again during the cast, with Tank A taunting back right after.
6. This process repeats perhaps 1-2 more times, until just before Tank B has a dangerous stack count of the Slice DoT/debuff.
7. Once a tank transition is required, the same pattern begins on the next Slice cast, where Tank B as the Slicer Tank taunts the boss mid-cast. However, this time Tank A does not taunt back.
8. Instead, immediately after the Slice hits the current CAMP position, Tank B rotates back to the front TANK position and holds the boss from that point on, switching roles with Tank A (who has now become the Slicer Tank). The entire process repeats back and forth, every 3-4 Slice casts as necessary.

Overhead Smash is used frequently and targets a random raid member and smashes the ground in their direction. Simply sidestep to the left (clockwise) to avoid the attack, then move back into the original position.

Petrifying Slam is cast frequently and will target a handful of random raid members, Petrifying them over a short period before Shattering anyone in 8 yards. This ability simply requires afflicted players to spread out in the open space around the room away from others, using personal CDs if necessary to soak the damage.

Rampage is used infrequently, where Gruul will use multiple Smashes in rapid succession. As before, these should be avoided, but always being sure to move in the same direction (left/clockwise by default) as the rest of the raid group to avoid them.

Oregorger

On a personal note, this looks like a unique and fun fight. Oregorger has essentially two alternating phases, going from standard tanking method in the first to rolling around the entire room in a crazy frenzy looking for ore to gobble up in Phase 2.

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Standard Phase: 100 to 0 Mana
Oregorger will be tanked with melee behind the boss in two equal groups (standard triangle formation with tanks), tanks in front, and ranged/healers 25+ yards out behind the tanks:

MELEE A    MELEE B

       BOSS
   CURRENT TANK
     OFF TANK





      RANGED

Oregorger uses a handful of abilities in this phase, all of which cost him some of his mana. When he reaches zero mana he transitions into the Roll Phase. Since this Standard Phase is easily the simplest phase in the fight and allows for the most DPS time, it is in our best interest to reduce the amount of mana he spends, thereby prolonging the phase.

Every ~20 seconds Oregorger gains a 3-stack of Blackrock Spines, at which point he can (and often will) immediately cast Blackrock Barrage, a 2-second interruptable spell that deals moderate damage to the raid and reduces his stack of Blackrock Spines by 1 for each cast. Since he gains a 3-stack every 20 seconds, but once that stack is gained he can chain cast Barrages back-to-back, we need at least (3) assigned interrupters to stop each Barrage cast from going off. Since each successful cast costs him 5 mana, allowing any cast to succeed will shorten the length of the phase significantly. We'll likely want to have (3) pairs of two players, just in case one person misses his or her cast in the rotation.

Acid Torrent is the most interesting ability of the phase and is used about every 12 seconds. While this ability also costs 5 mana for Oregorger, it cannot be interrupted. Instead, Acid Torrent targets a random ranged player and shoots a bolt toward them, hitting the first player it contacts for very heavy Poison damage. The bolt "splashes" or spreads off the initial target and hits all players behind the initial target for reduced Poison damage, where the damage reduction is based on the mitigation and possibly absorption of the initial target. The initial target is also afflicted by a 20-second debuff that increases future Acid Torrent damage and thus is the primary @Tank swap mechanic.

When the Current Tank is in front and Acid Torrent is being cast, a personal or outside CD (including absorb shields perhaps?) should be used to dramatically reduce the initial hit damage, and thus reduce the subsequent hit to the ranged behind. Afterward, the Off Tank moves in and taunts and the tanks swap positions/roles for the following Acid Torrent, and this pattern repeats throughout the phase.

Explosive Shard is another mechanic used less frequently but is also uninterruptable. When used, a random @Melee has a Shard thrown at their location, dealing a small amount of damage and knocking players back in a short radius. After 3 seconds, the Shard will explode, dealing heavy damage to anyone in range.

Therefore, this is the reason we'll form two equal melee groups, positioned in the opposite, back sides of the boss. When the MELEE A group is selected and knocked away, they then move into the other MELEE B camp temporarily until the explosion goes off, after which they move back to their original position in preparation for the next Shard cast. This should allow us to avoid all explosion damage and only have half the team afflicted by the initial hit/knockback.

Retched Blackrock is the final ability in the Standard Phase and simply throws a pool under the feet of a random ranged raid member. Since ranged will generally be stacked up due to Acid Torrent positioning requirements, the group will simply move out of a pool to the next safe location for each cast.

Roll Phase: 0 to 100 Mana

Once Oregorger eventually reaches zero mana he'll be like, "Zomg, I'm like super totally hungray and stuff!" and begin rapidly rolling around the room in short spurts, attempting to feed off the ore stashed away in the chests in the area.

Any player standing in Oregorger's path will take massive damage and be stunned, which is bad mkay? The top-down view of his room shows five "islands" with everything in the room being equidistant from opposing matching objects and made up of exact square bricks. When Oregorger chooses a path to take, he can only ever start in the a direction exactly left or exactly right, and will follow a standard path from that randomly chosen direction until he hits an inner wall, at which point he pauses and repeats the left/right choice.

Below you can see the rough diagram of his room. Blue bricks represent "stopping walls" or areas he cannot move through, red circles are his potential stopping points, and white lines are his potential paths from those stopping points:



Since Oregorger is always facing the inner wall from each stopping point, it's clear to see where his next path will take him whether he chooses to go right or left.

Note: I cannot confirm from footage, but it appears there may be a completely safe location from his charging around in the very northeast corner of the room.

Meanwhile, while Oregorger is charging around, the raid must quickly destroy the attackable Ore Crates around the room (these may spawn in the same pattern/location every time?), allowing Oregorger to pickup the Ore and gain back some mana when he passes through. Once we locate where the destructible crates are located, it'll likely be worth assigning players to various crates so we can quickly destroy them at the start of the phase.

That's it. Standard and Roll phases alternate until he dies. It's also worth noting that oregorger may have a Frenzy mechanic of sorts where he chain casts Earthshaking Collision when reaching low health percent (10%?), but the available footage shows it is bugged at best and is not increasing in damage over time.

[Takaoni]

Zomg you obviously enjoyed writing that Oregorger section and I enjoyed reading it

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

[Klik]

Explosive Shard is another mechanic used less frequently but is also uninterruptable. When used, a random @Melee has a Shard thrown at their location, dealing a small amount of damage and knocking players back in a short radius. After 3 seconds, the Shard will explode, dealing heavy damage to anyone in range.

Therefore, this is the reason we'll form two equal melee groups, positioned in the opposite, back sides of the boss. When the MELEE A group is selected and knocked away, they then move into the other MELEE B camp temporarily until the explosion goes off, after which they move back to their original position in preparation for the next Shard cast. This should allow us to avoid all explosion damage and only have half the team afflicted by the initial hit/knockback.

From watching a melee player test this fight, I saw they could stack their melee and move back and forth as a group on a timer (I think it was a custom timer?) to avoid the initial hit/knockback in addition to the explosion damage. I imagine Kull or someone else skilled with weak auras could write an aura similar to the Imperator Mine aura to trigger on the line in the combat log that indicates Oregorer has chosen the location for the explosive shard.



Edit: Regarding the boxes, I can confirm that the boxes do spawn in the same locations each time. We had specific box assignments when we were doing this.

[Kulldam]

Blast Furnace

An interesting 3-phase fight that focuses on killing adds initially to rapidly destroy the Furnace in Phase 1 to reveal the Heart of the Mountain, destroying Elementals to cease protection of Elementalists in Phase 2, finally releasing the Heart itself to battle in the DPS burn of Phase 3. This fight requires heavy target switching and prioritization, frequent interrupts/stuns, offensive dispels, and heavy healing.

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Heat & Blast

Before discussing the goal of Phase 1, let's go over the Heat mechanic and how that causes Blast casts.

Blast is used very frequently throughout the entire fight and is the primary source of damage the raid will take. It deals heavy unavoidable Fire damage every few seconds, but the rate at which Blasts hit the raid is determined by the Heat level of the Heart of the Mountain. Specifically, the Heart gains Heat only during Phase 1, and only while the a Bellower ogron is alive.

While a Bellower is active, it increases Heat by (2) every 5 seconds.

Like virtually every add in this fight, Bellowers spawn in pairs, one on either side of the Furnace. Bellowers spawn every 60 seconds during the fight, except the first pair appears just 20 seconds in.

Meanwhile, as Heat increases within the Furnace, the frequency of Blast usage increases. You can see the full details here, but this table shows the various Heat levels and subsequent Blast intervals associated with each:


Thus you can see that when the fight begins and Heat is at nothing or low, Blast is used every 25 seconds, but it jumps up to every 15 seconds at 25+ energy, then every 10 at 50+ energy, and so on.

I've also added the damage calculations into this, to see how the various energy levels impact the damage dealt to the raid from Blast only. (Note: The above chart is for Heroic difficulty using 20 people, but it's a good baseline to measure).

I'll talk about the timing and kill priority stuff later, but you can clearly see from the table above that while the jump from the first bracket to the 25+ bracket is a decent 67% increase, the real crazy jump is going up to the 50+ bracket, where damage over the original (unavoidable) rate is a whopping 150% higher. Therefore, as we'll see below, I believe it is an ideal to devise a strategy that allows us to finish Phase 1 before Heat levels exceed 49.

Engineers & Bombs

The actual goal of Phase 1 is to destroy the pair of Regulators on the sides of the Furnace, and doing so requires players afflicted with a Bomb to run nearby and use their ExtraActionButton to detonate the bomb, dealing 100,000 damage per explosion.

Each Regulator has 1.191 million HP, and thus it requires a total of 12 Bombs per Regulator (or 24 total) to end Phase 1.

Obtaining & Using Bombs

You can get a Bomb in one of two ways:

1. The standard method is when an Engineer dies, it will leave a pack of Bombs on the ground. It can be clicked on by a maximum of 3 players, each acquiring a single Bomb with a now active ExtraActionButton ability. These Bombs have a maximum duration of 10 seconds from when the Engineer dies (regardless of when players pick them up).
2. The second, random way is while active, an Engineer will occasionally cast Bomb on a random raid member. This ability is not interruptable (though like most adds Engineers can be stunned). The randomly targeted player will receive a Bomb and extra action just as if they had picked up a normal Bomb from the pack on the ground, and have 10 seconds before it expires to get next to a Regulator and use it.

Once a Bomb is obtained, the player must run within 8 yards of an active Regulator and use the extra action to detonate the Bomb, dealing 100k damage to the Regulator (along with him or herself and any other player in range).

The "extra" Bombs generated by the random target cast from Engineers DO NOT appear to come out of the total (3) pack when the Engineer dies (that is, it's entirely possible to acquire 4+ Bombs from a single Engineer if the randomly targeted players react quickly enough).

That said, because the randomness is tough to rely on, for now we'll plan/assume we only get the standard 3 Bombs per Engineer[/B].

Phase 1 Timings & Priorities

Below you'll find a spawn table outline, indicating the timestamps of various add spawns during Phase 1:


Keeping in mind every "set" spawns in pairs (one on either side of the room), the basic information we can gather from this is:

• We begin the fight with (2) Engineers and (2) Security Guards.
• The first spawned set of Engineers appears 20 seconds into the fight, and then every 40 seconds thereafter.
• The first spawned set of Security Guards appears 20 seconds into the fight, and then every 45 seconds thereafter.
• The first set of Bellowers appears 20 seconds into the fight, and then every 1 minute thereafter.

Now we know that each Engineer provides (3) Bombs and it requires a total of (12) Bombs to destroy the Regulators (again, per side). This means from purely a baseline Engineer perspective, we can plan to have enough Bombs available after Engineer #4 is spawned and killed.

Since both Engineer #5 and Bellower #3 spawn simultaneously at 2:20 into the fight, we can then further assume that Phase 1 will end prior to Bellower #3 being active. This means we can plan our Bellower DPS and timing such that the total Heat provided from Bellower #1 & Bellower #2 is kept at below our 49 Heat goal.

Since we know Bellowers generate Heat at intervals of 2 Heat per 5 seconds and that there are (2) Bellowers in each spawn set and thus (4) Bellowers total before we reach our Engineer cap:

We can allow a maximum of (12) 5-second intervals, or a total of 60 seconds of active Bellower time before we meet or exceed our 50 Heat danger zone (48 Heat / 4 Heat per interval = 12 intervals).

Technically we actually get a maximum of 34 seconds each for each pair of Bellowers, since all the matters is not hitting that next interval at 35 seconds, but for simplification the goal is: Each Bellower must die within 30 seconds!

Positions and Team Distribution

Since the room is fairly large and everything about Phase 1 occurs in pairs on either side, we'll likely split up the group into roughly equal halves. Below is the rough diagram of Phase 1 positions I'd like to try:



The dark gray is the Furnace itself, with both Regulators on either side marked by red (and showing the valid Bomb drop location radius around each).

Each side has a small team of approximately 3 melee DPS (orange circle) that will move the Engineer ("E" square) near the Regulator while killing it. These three can then quickly pickup and rotation using Bombs on the Regulator before returning to help attack the Bellower ("B" square).

Meanwhile, any remaining melee DPS (bottom orange circles) are attacking the Bellowers, as are all the Ranged DPS and healers from their positions slightly off center but near the middle (white circles). This should give the opportunity for both ranged DPS and healing to overlap onto both side if necessary.

Finally, the tanks are further south than the Regulator position, holding their Security Guard mobs away a bit (as well as the single Foreman that may be need to be tank swapped at some point due to high Melt Armor stacks). However, the primary reason to keep Guards away is because of their frequent use of Defense Zone.

Special Note: This plan assumes that Engineers can be "tanked" by non-tank DPS (plate melee) until they are killed. Given that they can be stunned I suspect this is possible, but if not we will change the plan accordingly.

DPS Priority

Bellower > Engineer > Foreman Feldspar > Security Guards

As long as the Engineers are not allowed to cast Repair, there is no downside to allowing an Engineer to live a bit longer while we focus down a Bellower. Since Bellowers must die within 34 seconds of spawning, they will likely take priority.

Phase 2: Elementalists

This phase actually simplifies things greatly. Once we destroy the second Regulator the phase begins and the Heart of the Mountain will appear in the center of the room but be stationary and immune. He is protected by (4) Elementalists that have an immunity shield. To break the shield, we must kill Slag Elementals on top of the Elementalist, giving us 15 seconds to damage and kill the Elementalist before it re-shields.

Generally we'll want to stack raid on top of or near a single Elementalist. The Slag Elementals will Fixate on random players, and thus it's important the Fixated target can be on top of the desired Elementalist when the Slag Elemental is about to die so the shield can be broken.

Once the Elementalist loses a shield, it will try to heal itself with Reactive Earth Shield, which must be purged by a Shaman, Priest, Hunter, etc.

Additionally, there are Firecaller adds that will cast Volatile Fire on random raid members, forcing that player to move out of the group before the 8-second duration ends and they explode. Firecallers also use a heal spell via Cauterize, which should be interrupted by 1-2 assigned DPS

Security Guards will continue to spawn (I didn't test their frequency in this phase as it doesn't matter as much, but it's assumed to be the same 45 seconds as Phase 1). Since they will cast Defense at their location, we can handle this in one of two ways:

A) Stack the tanks with the group and use stuns when Defense is cast.
or
B) Keep the tanks (and thus the Security Guards) away from the raid a bit. This will prevent Defense from shielding our primary targets (namely Elementalists and Slag Elementals), but will reduce damage on the Firecallers and Security Guards somewhat.

I'm leaning towards the second option for now, but we'll experiment a bit.

Finally, it is worth noting that this is the time @Priests can utilize mind control to take control of a Security Guard. Doing so allows the use of Slay Elemental, increasing damage dealt to the targeted Slag Elemental by 50% for 20 seconds. Given the significance of this damage boost, it's almost certainly worthwhile to have a DPS Priest (i.e. Klik) do this during Phase 2, and depending on our heal needs perhaps also Vikwin even as a healer. It also appears that the Guards have a constant aura called Elemental Slayer, which increases their own regular damage to Elementals. From the wording, it may also deal extra damage to the final boss in Phase 3, who almost certainly qualifies as an Elemental. The question for this technique in Phase 3, however, is whether the Priest can afford to remain stationary (due to ground effects) and even if so, whether the pure white hit damage from a Guard is better than the Priests' own damage.

Anyway, Phase 2 just repeats itself, killing each Elementalist in turn until all (4) are dead.

Phase 3: Buurrrrn Baby, BUUURRRN!

We now face the Heart of the Mountain, and shortly into the phase he will gain the full 100 Heat, so damage from Blast will be very significant. Obviously this is our DPS burn phase, so other than finishing off any existing adds, we'll want to kill him ASAP.

The phase is fairly simply and is very much like the Elemental Monstrosity/final phase from the Ascendent Council fight in Bastion of Twilight. Melt patches are cast under random players and expand over time, thus there's a soft-enrage in that the entire room will be full if DPS isn't high enough.

We'll generally want to begin the fight pulling the Heart to one wall and stacking the raid in melee, then moving as a group around the edge each time Melt hits our location. This will improve our healing output significantly, which will be required to deal with the heavy damage.

[Kulldam]

Hans'gar and Franzok

Another early boss in the respective wing, this encounter is appropriately simple in terms of mechanics, and focuses on dealing with both Franzok and Hans'gar simultaneously. The primary challenge is the environment of the fight, which places the raid on a large array of moving platforms, dodging multiple patterns of Searing Plates and Pressing Plates, appearing based on the shared boss' health pools.

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Basic Abilities

Body Slam is often cast by Hans and targets a series of random ranged players one after the other, generally those further away from the boss at the time. If targeted, this ability cannot be dodged, so the best course of action is to ensure that targeted players move away from others.

Being hit by a Body Slam during the encounter applies Shattered Vertebrae, increasing physical damage taken by 40% for 60 seconds (Note: The duration is uncomfirmed. Tooltip says 8 seconds but footage obtained from beta shows 60 seconds).

Body Slam is used at a variety of times, but primarily targeting far-away ranged players in his series of leaps, or targeting the tank after returning to the main platform.

Disrupting Roar is used by Franz and as expected, interrupts casts when it completes.

Skullcracker is also used by Franz and targets random players with a single-target 125k Physical damage hit.

Rage

Both bosses start with zero Rage, but as they lose health, their Rage increases proportionally and inversely (e.g. 30 Rage at 70% HP, 50 Rage at 50% HP, etc).

This Rage increase also increases the effectiveness of their Pumped Up, increasing their damage dealt, haste (for casting, Disrupting Roar), and most importantly, the number of special attacks in a series for both Body Slam and Skullcracker.

In other words, as their health decreases, Hans will leap to more targets in each series of Body Slam and Franz will select more targets per cast of Skullcracker.

Treadmillin' Erryday: 80-70% & 25-15% HP

The most interesting aspect of the fight is the entire room is one large, 5x4 grid of conveyor belts, with small non-conveyor sections between each column of belts.

Frequently throughout the fight, the belts will activate (pulling players standing on them in one direction) and a series of either Searing Plates or Pressing Plates will appear and must be avoided.

Searing Plates

Singlet Pattern

The simplest of the two conveyor belt mechanics, Searing Plates will initially emerge from one of the walls (north or south) one at a time along one of the (5) possible conveyor belts, randomly chosen. The next Searing Plate will emerge 2.5 seconds later, along an adjacent conveyor (or opposite if the adjacency would "loop" around to the other side).

Once a direction is chosen, the initial set of (5) Plates will emerge one after the other every 2.5 seconds until a Plate has been along all (5) conveyor belts.

A 5-second delay will be given to prepare for the next pattern, which is now very much the opposing mechanic.

Row Pattern

Searing Plates will emerge in entire rows, with only one safe gap/opening in a random initial location. Just as with the previous pattern, the direction and initial "safe gap" location is randomly selected, but once the direction for set #2 is chosen, it will continue in that direction.

However, unlike the case of the Singlet Pattern where the next upcoming "column" can "loop around" to the opposite side, for the Row Pattern when the opening gap hits a wall and the direction would normally carry it that same direction and "loop" to the opposite side, instead the opening slot "bounces" off the wall and begins to go back the other direction.

Here is just one example of a series of Searing Plate patterns:



The key to remember about Searing Plate patterns is that they are not set in stone. A only statics are that the pattern always begins with a Singlet series of (5) followed by a Row series of 5. Otherwise, the starting position for either the Singlet Plate or the opening gap in the Row is random, as is the directionality they choose.

Handling Searing Plates

The simplest method is to position near the center of the room (along the edge of the central conveyor column) and watch closely to where the first two Plates appear, which will indicate the direction and let you plan for the remainder of the Singlet Pattern.

Similarly, when the Row Pattern is about to begin, being positioned along the central column ensures the maximum movement distance required to reach the safe gap is ~2.5 squares.

Under Pressure: 50-40% & 15-0% HP

Instead of traveling along the conveyors similar to Searing Plates, the Press Plates emerge from the ceiling overtop individual grid squares in short patterns.

You can see below all the possible patterns (or what I'm fairly certain is all of them):



North is always the top in each diagram and of course yellow indicates where the Press Plate is coming down in that set.

As with the Searing Plates, Presses emerge every 2.5 seconds while within a pattern, and there is a 5-second delay between each pattern change during the phase.

I gave them rough names just to make referencing simpler, which you can see on the top left of each row set: Straight Corners, Chevron (North), Chevron (South), Checkerboard, Snake, and 96.

Special Note: Both the Chevron patterns can "spawn" in any starting configuration along their respective pattern series. Once it starts however, it will always continue in the displays pattern, moving along the northerly or southerly pattern as shown.

Handling Press Plates

We'll certainly start to develop better pattern management as we get some experience in this fight or begin to analyze, but my own initial analysis is that the safest positions during the Press Plate phase will be along the central column gaps to either side, or along the gaps on the far left/right column, but in the middle of the rows:



Obviously this isn't to scale, but the green shows the optimal positions, while yellow shows suboptimal but still technically passable positions. Any position not marked there is red or considered asking to die.

The reason the green positions are the safest is because across all possible patterns or configurations of Press Plates, those positions always offer an opening or safety position in at least (1) of the (4) possible plates which have corners touching that position. In other words, it is impossible not to have a safe escape within just a few steps from those 4-corner positions marked in green.

The yellow positions are nearly as safe, with the exception of during the Straight Corner pattern, where at some point those positions will be completely surrounded by Plates and thus require movement of at least one full row/column to escape. However, because the Straight Corner pattern is the only threat in this way, and because that pattern always seems to begin with a straight line first, if quick to react, a player starting that pattern in a yellow position could immediately begin moving toward a middle-column (green) position once the Straight Corner pattern is detected.

Between Conveyer Gaps & Safety

In spite of misinformation around the web, it is in fact safe to stand on in the "between gap" that separates each column of conveyors when trying to avoid a nearby Searing or Press plate. It simply requires that the player take care to move to the outside, opposite edge of the gap from whatever he or she is avoiding.

You can find numerous examples of this, but this video probably has the most frequent uses of this technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SrnCmrjN-A

General Movement Tip

When dodging Searing or Press plates, never move north/south if it can be helped. Instead, try to always be moving side-to-side (east/west). This will prevent you from attempting to move "against the grain" of the active conveyors, which will often lead to your inability to get where you are trying to go. Since east/west movement isn't hindered, avoiding plates with that style of movement is much simpler.

When you do need to move north/south during a Plate phase, always try to run along the gap between two conveyors. This will allow you to run at normal speed (and is also inherently safer should you need to quickly react to any form of Plate nearby).

[Vikrum]

Hans'gar and Franzok

This is just going to be the best boss fight ever.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/4184

We want to pump...YOU UP!

[Kulldam]

Flamebender Ka'graz

This encounter is very much an empowerment battle, whereby Flamebender gains energy and thus additional strength and abilities throughout the fight until he reaches his pinnacle ability at full energy, after which he resets back to zero and the process repeats itself. Strategically, this fight will be mostly about proper positioning and movement for ranged DPS/healers.

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As mentioned, Ka'graz has a few basic attacks and then as his energy increases, he gains more abilities.

Base Abilities

Lava Slash targets a random ranged player and hits that player and anyone within 7 yards for moderate damage, along with creating a straight line of fire from the boss to that player.

Solution: Spread out around the room without any players in front or behind each other (see Positioning).

Armaments (aka weapons) are summoned at the location of random ranged members as well. These will remain in place for the entire encounter and will deal moderate damage every 3 seconds to anyone within 6 yards of the weapon.

Solution: Spread out around the room, against walls wherever possible (see Positioning). Note: This method preemptively plans for Mythic changes to the encounter.

25 Energy

Molten Torrent targets a random ranged player and applies a 6-second debuff. Upon expiration, deals 650,000 damage split among all targets within 8 yards.

Solution A: Targeted player must run into melee range to split the damage among tanks and all melee DPS.
Solution B: Immunities or 90%+ self-cooldowns can be used when it expires instead, mitigating the damage so long as the targeted player isn't near anyone else.

[h3]50 Energy[/h5]

Cinder Wolves are perhaps the most interesting mechanic and will spawn in pairs. At any given time, one Wolf will be Overheated and must be @Tanked. This Overheated version will cast a breath attack on the tank called Charring Breath that has a stacking component and may require a tank swap depending on DPS.

Solution: Tank the Overheated Wolf on top of the boss, but facing it away from the rest of the raid (toward the northwest corner, see Positioning).

Meanwhile, the other Wolf is Fixating on a random ranged raid member for 10 seconds. A Fiery Link line is created between both Wolves, Singing anyone it touches, causing an stacking 8-second debuff that deals 10,000 DPS per stack.

Fixate lasts 10 seconds, after which time it will select a new target player and the kiting method begins anew.

Solution: Spread the ranged around the outside of the room, along with melee DPS at an opposing angle to the ranged players, such that when a random ranged is fixated, he or she can kite toward the safety of the middle area of the room, never threatening anyone with Singe stacks (see Positioning).

When a Wolf dies, it attempts to revive itself via Rekindle, which requires 8 seconds to complete.

Wolves must be dead before 100 Energy/Firestorm, or they will also cast Firestorm.

Solution: Wolves do not share health pools, and thus must die relatively evenly (within 7 seconds of one another to avoid Rekindle). Generally speaking, melee DPS will attack the empowered/tanked Wolf and ranged DPS will attack the kiting/moving Wolf, adjusting as necessary.

75 Energy

Blazing Radiance targets a random ranged player (yet again, FFS Blizzard!) and debuffs that player for 10 seconds, dealing 40,000 Fire damage to anyone within 10 yards every 20 seconds (200,000).

Solution: As before, spread the ranged out around the room at least 11+ yards from others wherever possible, so the targeted player is not in danger of hitting others with the pulsing damage (see Positioning).

100 Energy

Firestorm lasts 12 seconds and deals 18,000 Fire damage every 0.5 second for the duration the every player, for 432,000 total damage per player, 36,000 incoming DPS per player, or 720,000 DPS for full raid.

Solution: Collapse the raid into the melee position for efficient healing and cooldowns. Ka'graz does not use other abilities during Firestorm channel, so this method is safe so long as positions are returned to quickly near the end of the Firestorm channel.

Positioning

Scanning through the mechanic list above, it's clear to see that abilities are largely focusing on two concepts: Targeting random ranged players and doing something bad within a small radius of those targeted players.

Additionally, Wolf Fixations (and subsequent Fire Beams) present a danger to improperly positioned melee since the targeted ranged player is forced to move around.

Initial Positions

Below you'll see the basic concept for initial positioning relative to the room.

The idea is simple: Place the boss in the center of the room, such that his position is around 35 or up to 40 yards distance from the corner positions at the southwest/southeast of the room. From there, arrange all ranged DPS/healers along the outside walls of the room, separated from one another by 11-12 yards wherever possible.



This type of positioning auto-resolves a number of mechanics innately:

Lava Slash - Straight line from boss to outside ranged player.
Molten Torrent - Ranged player has 6 seconds to move into melee group, OR can remain in position and immune/90% cooldown it if desired.
Blazing Radiance - Targeted ranged player is already over 10 yards away from neighbors, and thus can remain stationary for the entirety.
Firestorm - Ranged simply move into melee position in the center of the room. Warlock portals or personal teleports can speed this transition if necessary.

Wolf Fixation/Fire Lines - To understand this method, see the second diagram below:



Dead center we have the Overheated Wolf that is being tanked by the @Offtank and facing it toward the northwest where there are no other raid members so the breath doesn't hit anyone else. (Note that the boss is still here, in the same central position just not shown in the diagram.)

Now when the Fixating Wolf selects someone (in this case our ranged member near the northeast, marked in red with the letter "T" for target), that Fixated ranged player begins to move toward the center of the room or toward the largest "safe opening" that exists.

Meanwhile, the Fire Line between the two Wolves is never a threat to any of the melee DPS (who are positioned in the back triangle position, attacking the Overheated Wolf and cleaving the main boss).

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Now in the third Diagram, we see our Fixate Target player has moved toward the bottom center with the Wolf still chasing, where we finally see an illustration of how these positions serve to handle the final main mechanic: Weapon Spawns:



Notice in the bottom left one of the ranged players was randomly targeted by a Weapon at his or her original location. Since the Weapon only threatens that initial position in a 6-yard radius, the targeted player simply moves forward 7-8 yards to his or her new safe location and the fight continues as normal.

Perhaps just as important, this setup will prepare us very well for Mythic, which adds a few critical changes:

1. Multiple small Fixating Wolves appear simultaneously. This may incline us to use a similar setup that only takes up roughly half the room (ensuring a kite space is always available in one direction or the other), but we shall see.
2. Touching an existing Weapon with a Wolf Singe Line causes the Weapon to empower, dealing 43,500 Fire damage every 0.5 seconds for 9 seconds to a random player. By keeping the weapons initially against the walls in even our Heroic method, we can all but ensure we don't empower them in Mythic and cause that extra damage.

Won't kiters be passing through Slash lines?

Yes, but even if that damage cannot be jumped over (unlikely but worth trying), the Slash line damage is only 80,000 per second. Since the Slash lines will always be created perpendicular to the kite path that ranged are taking, passing through them should only require one tick of damage at most.

Will healers have enough people in range?

Difficult to say, but if damage income is reduce significantly enough, it may not matter.

Still, if we find we are spread apart too much (or another possibility is there simply isn't enough room around the room to allow this strategy for all ranged players), then we're able to use the same positioning method with one exception: Every position has a pair of players instead of a single person on it. This would only require slight adjusments from the pair of players when one of them is afflicted with Blazing Radiance, and thus the non-targeted player must move out temporarily, but otherwise it would mechanically behave similar to the singlet positions.

[Kulldam]

Kromog

A very simple fight, focused around dodging a variety of random environmental mechanics and positioning tanks, healers, and DPS appropriately to break frequent Grasps that attempt to hold players in position.

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@Tanks should remain stacked on top of one another, far off to the right side of the boss. Stacking is required to split the Fists of Stone damage, and tank swaps are required for Warped Armor.

Solution: Keep non-tanks away and tank-swap when Armor stacks get too high.

Rippling Smash targets a random raid member and causes a cone of rocks to shoot out toward that player, hitting anyone in the path for 220,000 Nature damage.

Solution: Watch the direction the boss is facing when he casts then and sidestep to avoid it.

Slam hits the entire raid, but deals less damage the further from the boss you're standing.

Solution: Stand at maximum range or near to it if possible.

Rune of Crushing Earth targets a random player and creates a pair of stone hands that will smash together at the indicated Red Rune after a brief period (or perhaps when stepping into the rune?)

Solution: Don't be dumb; avoid going between the hands.

Rune of Grasping earth is easily the most interesting mechanic and creates a series of small Yellow Runes around the room over the 5-second cast period. After all Runes are active, everyone in the raid has ~8 seconds to find their own Rune and stand on it alone.

8 seconds after the Runes are spawned, Kromog will cast Thundering Blows repeatedly, dealing heavy damage and knocking anyone not caught in a Rune to be launched into the air and potentially die if no slowfall mechanic is available.

Solution: The raid should spread out around the part of the room we're utilizing and be quick to find and step into a Rune that each individual can claim for him or herself. Rune positions appear to be roughly static, and thus we may be able to utilize pre-determined raid markers and rough approximate positions around said markers for players to quickly find their own safety Rune.

Thundering Blows continues for 8 seconds, so players must remain inside their Rune for that period. However, all Runes with a player inside will be attackable and killing any Rune will release the player.

Solution: DPS should make an effort to push their own Rune down to low health (10-20%) prior to the end of Thundering Blows, and once the cast ends quickly destroy the remaining Rune to break free. DPS should then quickly rush around to help break other non-DPS players out (Healers and tanks) as necessary.

Stone Breath is a standard raid-wide attack if there are no valid melee targets for Kromog to attack, so it's vital that tanks are broken out of their Grasp Rune shortly after Thundering Blows ends to get back into position.

Finally, Reverberations are sonic projectiles seen in fights like Atramedes and Imperial Vizier, and in the case of Kromog will emerge from the boss after using Slam or Rippling Smash (thus, very frequently).

Solution: The Reverberations will dissipate after hitting a single target, so generally getting hit by 1-2 is acceptable and likely, but otherwise just stay max range and sidestep as appropriate to avoid them.

Frenzy - 30% HP

Kromog Frenzies at 30%, increasing his damage output and frequency of special attacks.

Solution: Bloodlust and burn him down ASAP at that point.

[Uluuru]

Do I understand correctly that we are to skip normal BRF? If so I'd like to invite others to join me tonight to clear as much of normal as possible to get familiar with the fights and mechanics before wed. raid

[Idtrapdat]

Do I understand correctly that we are to skip normal BRF? If so I'd like to invite others to join me tonight to clear as much of normal as possible to get familiar with the fights and mechanics before wed. raid

Kull (and officers) would know what is best suited for us. Kull has always indicated "gear trumps everything". http://www.voximmortalis.com/threads...r-Raiding-Plan

With that being said, I'm only referencing this post because the same topic came up when Highmaul opened up: http://www.voximmortalis.com/threads...-Normal-Heroic.