Hellfire Citadel Notepod

[Kulldam]

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, these initial notes for all bosses are based on Heroic difficulty and thus some mechanical differences may be noted on Normal.

Hellfire Assault

This encounter is very much an add-based fight, with a goal of destroying the Siege Weapons and picking up the dropped Felfire Munitions, throwing them into the pair of Hellfire Cannons to destroy the main gate. Each Fellfire Munitions box contains 4 shots and the encounter ends once 24 shots have been fired, thus requiring 6 Felfire Munitions boxes total.

During this battle, the raid is assaulted by numerous adds, so most of the encounter requires proper prioritization and splitting of the damage, healing, and tanking we have available to handle the threats in a timely and efficient manner.

Many attackers will attempt to destroy the Hellfire Cannons, and if allowed to do so, will instantly wipe the raid.

 DPS should emphasize cleave/AoE damage specs, along with high movement abilites to traverse the room. The primary focus here is quickly dealing with the active Siege Weapon vehicle, then killing off the primary Gorebound Felcaster.

 Tanks: since Mar'tak uses Inspiring presence to buff nearby enemies, the tank dealing with her should split her away from the rest of the adds until she's dead/goes away at 50%.

Mob Types

Siegemaster Mar'tak

A mini-boss active at the start of the fight, the initial goal is to attack her to below 50%, at which point she'll leave.

Shockwave is cast toward a random player, creating a series of ever-expanding "circles" on the ground to indicate where the Shockwave cone will appear.

Solution: Sidestep the initial indicator to avoid the follow-up cone attack.

Howling Axe targets 3 random players, dealing heavy damage to the afflicted players and anyone within 8 yards.

Solution: Debuffed players should spread apart from other raid members (and one another) immediately and wait for the damage to be applied before moving elsewhere.

Capsule Reinforcements

When a series of capsules hit the ground, a set of these reinforcement adds will spawn and must be tanked and killed quickly: Gorebound Felcaster, Hulking Berserker, Contracted Engineer, and Iron Dragoon.

Gorebound Felcaster should take priority, with melee in particular focusing them. When a Felcaster reaches 40% HP it will use Metamorphosis and thus chain-cast Felfire Volley.

Hulking Berserker is the primary  tank swap mob in this encounter, casting Slam on the current tank and (potentially) requiring a tank swap.

Engineers will cast Conducted Shock Pulse that jumps between plays and applies a stun.  Healers should dispel this.

Siege Weapons

Felfire Flamebelcher: Throw a volley of Belch Flame at a random player.

Solution: Self-awareness and avoid the volley fire.

Felfire Crusher: Rush toward the Cannons using Crush on anyone in front while also casting Burn jets along the sides.

Solution: Melee attack from behind while ranged nuked it down, of course.

Felfire Demolisher: Cast Siege Nova at a random player location, indicated by a large red ground circle.

Solution: Like, totally avoid it and stuff. Stand further away from impact point to take less damage.

Felfire Artillery: Casts Artillery Blast that deals heavy damage to the Cannons along with players.

Solution: Murder it quickly before it fires too many times.

DPS Priorities

Generally our top priority is the Active Siege Weapon followed by the Gorebound Felcaster (or transformed Gorebound Terror if it already morphed).

Beyond that, cleave is likely sufficient to deal with the remaining Reinforcement adds.

Spawn Timetable

The Siege Weapons spawn one at a time every 60 seconds, beginning at 40 seconds into the encounter. The following shows the order of spawns. We have no current plans for this information as of yet, but once we see the encounter it may be useful to plan ahead in some way:


General Tips

Raid should remain spread throughout the encounter if possible to avoid spreading abilities like Shock Pulse and Howling Axe.

Watch feet/positioning to avoid the multitude of ground-based attacks.

---

Iron Reaver

A two-phase fight with (virtually) no adds. Generally this fight revolves around proper positioning and spread to deal with a number of avoidable mechanics in the Ground Phase and during the Air Phase, also avoiding mechanics will killing a small handful of Bombs that will spawn around the room.

 DPS should spec for single-target damage.

 Tanks should emphasize personal movement abilities as quickly running in/out is vital.

 Healers should plan CD rotations for Pounding.

Ground Phase

The boss begins at zero energy and gains energy over time. Once he gains 100 energy (after about 2:20 of fight time), he'll take off and begin the Air Phase.

The Ground Phase has a variety of abilities but largely dealing with them comes down to the same basic rules: STAY SPREAD AND SIDESTEP AVOIDABLE MECHANICS!

Artillery: This is the primary  tank swap mechanic, and is a debuff applied (during the Ground Phase) to the current tank. When it expires, it deals heavy damage to the entire raid, but this damage is centered on the tank's location and is reduced based on distance, up to a minimum of 40+yards.

Solution: When the  current tank gets Artillery the other tank must taunt the boss immediately. The Artillery tank runs out to the edge of the room at least 40+ yards from the rest of the raid to detonate, then rush back in.

Barrage: The boss will look toward a random player at begin casting Barrage. When the cast completes, a huge cone of fire will be shot outward in that direction, dealing very heavy damage to anyone hit and also leaving small patches of Immolation on the ground.

Solution: Everyone -- but ranged and  healers in particular -- should carefully watch during this cast and side-step to get away from his facing position to avoid the cone.

Blitz: The boss will charge toward a random player/direction(?) and "grab" anyone in the path. This deals moderate damage but also applies a dispelable debuff.

Solution: Prior to the cast (we know when it's coming roughly every time), everyone should ensure they're spread to reduce chances of being caught.  Healers should dispel the debuff if anyone does get hit.

Pounding: A common style ability we've seen many times before. Deals heavy damage over the duration to the entire raid.

Solution: Use a raid CD of some kind to reduce the damage/improve healing output.

Unstable Orb: Cast on 2(?) random ranged players throughout the phase, these players will take moderate Fire damage every second over 15 seconds. This will also hit anyone within 8 yards.

As an added bonus, these explosions will push away any existing Immolation patches that were nearby the impacted player(s). Note: Making use of this capability may not be required for Normal/Heroic, but I suspect in Mythic difficulty we'll need to get potential ranged targets that could be hit by Unstable Orb to stand near the outside edge of Immolation patches, so we can condense the affected area into a smaller space. This will likely be relevant in the Air Phase when we have to deal with additional swaths of Fuel Streak.

Solution: For Normal and likely Heroic, management is very simple. Both ranged and  healers should stay spread at least 8+ yards apart at all times during Phase 1.

Air Phase

At 100 energy, the Air Phase begins and tactics switch. The boss is no longer directly attackable (existing DoTs will tick though), so this phase is about avoidance and survival.

Artillery will be cast simultaneously on 3 random players instead of tanks.

Solution: Afflicted players must quickly spread apart from one another (and from the raid), moving to the outside walls of the room before detonating. These players must use a personal survival CD for the damage impact. Note: While it may not be too vital in Normal/Heroic, we'll likely want a WeakAura or another addon helper tool to quickly identify which "areas" or sections of the room each afflicted player should run, so there's no confusion or overlap.

Fuel Streak: Cast by the boss in a straight line covering roughly a 1/5 or 1/6 swath of the room, this stuff snares anyone that walks in it. Additionally, if any part of a Streak line is touching some existing Immolation Fire patches, the entire Fuel Streak will be set aflame.

Solution: Just be aware of the boss' location and thus where the incoming Streak path will be and side step it. Players can technically pass through a Streak with careful movement, but it's inadvisable once set on fire.

Firebombs are spawned and distributed around the room. These are attackable and killable but otherwise will explode after 25 seconds if not destroyed.

Solution: Roughly split the raid into quadrants of the room to properly disperse damage for handling these Firebombs.

Falling slam is cast by the boss at the end of the phase, dealing extremely heavy damage to anyone within the indicated circle.

Solution: Circle is bad, mkay?

---

Gorefiend

Another two-phase encounter but with some cool twists. The overall goal is to survive the onslaught of attacks while attacking Gorefiend himself on the main platform while dealing with a small handful of adds. However, frequently during the fight a selection of random players among various roles will be killed outright by Shadow of Death and instead of dying as normal, these players are teleported into the stomach of Gorefiend to deal with mechanics/adds below and get safely transported outside.

 DPS should focus primarily on single-target damage for this encounter (multi-dotting is also valid). Stuns are particularly useful for handling small adds in the Stomach phase.

Save burst cooldowns for the Feast of Souls phase where Gorefiend takes extra damage.

Additionally,  DPS should always prioritize adds before attacking the boss, as we will get a big active DPS period during the Feast of Souls phase mid-fight.

 Healers will want a /target Tortured Spirit macro for quickly finding targets in the Stomach. Healers will also want to save burst single-target healing throughput cooldowns for the Stomach phase to ensure they can quickly heal up the Tortured Spirits in time. Raid-wide/damage reduction cooldowns should instead be saved for the Feast of Souls phase.

 Tanks should ideally pool DPS/burst cooldowns for when they are transported into the Stomach, to quickly deal with their Spirit add in the 40-second time frame. It appears that generally one tank will be active on the boss with the other tank on the currently active Gorebound Spirit above (or active in the Stomach below).

Above Ground

While many of the mechanics that must be handled above ground are due to interactions that occur in Gorefiend's stomach, a few of them are standard.

Touch of Doom targets a handful of random players. After 8 seconds it will expire and deal heavy Shadow damage to the player and the rest of the raid, but damage is reduced the further players are from the explosion point.

This will also leave a permanent(?) pool of Shadowy shit on the ground at the detonation location, hurting anyone that stands in it.

Solution: Very similar to Sinestra and many other fights with similar mechanics, the idea is simple: Afflicted players should quickly run to the outside walls or otherwise near the edge of existing Touch of Doom puddles before detonating.

Shared Fate is cast on (3) random players and will attach or link (2) of the players to the third player who is rooted in place. All (3) players take damage over time while the buff is active and if it is not removed within 10 seconds, all (3) players take massive damage.

Solution: To remove the debuff, the (2) non-rooted players must quickly run next to the third, rooted player. Once all (3) are within 6 yards, the debuff is removed.

Crushing Darkness is cast by the boss and creates a neat circular pattern of shadow rings on the floor that will explode after a few seconds.

Solution: Standard stuff; move out of them before they explode.

Surging Shadows is cast very frequently throughout the fight and causes the entire raid to take minor Shadow damage but this damage is also a small-range area of effect.

Solution: The raid must be spread out 5+ yards at all times while above ground.

Ooh, Your Stomach Acid Makes Me So Wet

As mentioned above, throughout the encounter the boss will randomly select players of various roles to be killed via Shadow of Death and transport them into the Stomach area. Additionally, any player that simply DIES normally while above ground will also be transported to the Stomach instead of truly dying (initially).

Once a player has been transported into the Stomach, he or she will receive the Gorefiend's Corruption debuff, which prevents being "saved from a death" while the debuff is active (and thus, the player will actually die this time).

As the fight progresses, a larger portion of the raid will be afflicted with Corruption, and therefore unintentional deaths can quickly cause future targets of Shadow of Death to already have Corruption active, meaning they instantly die instead of being teleported.

Digest is a debuff gained by Stomach-dwellers that lasts 40 seconds and forces everyone ported into the Stomach to exit before that 40-second debuff expires or they will be killed.

Solution: Everyone must exit the Stomach before the Digest debuff expires (likely run out with ~5 seconds remaining).

Bursting Ulcers also appear on the ground very frequently and deal moderate damage to anyone in the circle.

Solution: Circle bad, no stand.

Stomach Adds

All the adds that appear in the Stomach will eventually make their way to the central exit, causing them to spawn Above Ground and must be handled by the raid up top.

 Tanks will need to handle the Enraged Spirit adds in the Stomach. They will cast Fel Fury at their feet (which should be preemptively moved out of). They also cast Bellowing Shout which increases the Spirit's damage massively and must be interrupted by the  tank. Once the Spirit reaches 70% HP or lower, it will gain Gorebound Fortitude and drop threat, moving to the exit to emerge above ground. Tanks must push the Spirit to that 70% threshold before exiting.

 DPS in the Stomach must quickly kill Shadowy Constructs, which will spawn on the outside edge of the room and run toward the center/exit immediately. It's possible (though I cannot confirm) that DoTs are "retained" on Constructs that have traveled from the Stomach to Above Ground, but we'll need to test. It also appears stuns affect the Constructs, but also unconfirmed.

Solution:  DPS should utilize single-target burst and potentially stuns to quickly kill off select Constructs in the Stomach. There are far too many to get them all, so it is critical that players focus damage appropriately to ensure attacked mobs die (via single-target). Even if DoTs carry over, it's still in our best interest to reduce the number of mobs that transport to above ground anyway, because their management up top is far more cumbersome for the raid.

 Healers will need to spam heal the Tortured Essence spawns in the Stomach.

Solution: As mentioned above, I suspect a /target Tortured Essence macro will simply this phase a great deal. Spam single-target heals as an Essence that is fully healed will not exit the Stomach. However, even an Essence healed to 80% is better than nothing, as it will emerge above ground at the inverse health (so 80% below means 20% above).

Above Ground Adds

The Enraged Spirit from the Stomach becomes a Gorebound Spirit and must likewise be  tanked. These apply the stacking Fel Flames ability and are likely the primary  tank swap mechanic. They also cast Bellowing Shout just like before that must be interrupted.

Solution: Tanks may need to swap between the active Spirit and the boss, but otherwise management is much the same as while in the Stomach. It is possible that a  tank that was in the Stomach will need to purposely exit the Stomach when his or her active Enraged Spirit reaches 70%, thereby ensuring there is a tank available up top to pickup and handle that converted add Above Ground.

Shadowy Constructs from the Stomach become Gorebound Constructs above ground and immediately target a random raid member with Hunger for Life, which will instantly kill that player if the Construct reaches melee range.

Solution: Fixated targets must kite the Construct and potentially get assistance from other DPS. Ranged Dotters seem ideal for this.

Finally, Tortured Essences from the Stomach become Gorebound Essences above, spam casting Spirit Volley until killed which deals ever-increasing raid-wide damage.

Solution:  All DPS should likely prioritize these mobs (depending on the damage ramp of their Volley casts), though the ideal solution is for  healers from the Stomach to simply fully-heal these before they can exit at all.

Feast of Souls Phase

Once Gorefiend reaches zero energy, he'll begin channeling Feast of Souls over the next 60 seconds. During this period, everyone should stack and  DPS should Bloodlust/burn the boss heavily, as he takes double damage.

Throughout this phase, Gorefiend will suck Unstable Souls toward him. If they reach him, he will gain 10 energy and thus shorten the phase (bad).

Solution: To prevent a Soul from reaching the boss, any player can simply stand in the path which causes the Unstable Soul ability to be cast on the player, dealing moderate Shadow damage to the player and minor damage to anyone within 10 yards.  Tanks in particular should be able to spend this phase soaking these Souls before they reach the boss/raid, as it appears(?) the boss halts melee attacks in this phase (though even if that's not the case, one tank can still do it).

Meanwhile, the raid will be taking very heavy damage, so  healers should rotate damage reduction/heal cooldowns.

Once the boss reaches 100 energy, the normal phase begins again and the fight repeats itself.

[Aerro]

OMG COLORS.

[Kulldam]

Kormrok

Largely a single-target encounter that offers the raid some freedom in execution by forcing the boss to gain Empowerment from one of (3) pools around the edges of the room. Empowerments improve his base abilities in some meaningful way and thus the decision about the order of pools is likely critical to a successful kill.

Shortly into the encounter and then every 2 minutes thereafter, the boss will leap towards the nearest pool and become Empowered by it. He must visit all (3) pools once each before he can be taken to a particular pool a second time.

The raid must generally be spread out to prevent splash damage from the frequent casts of Pound used throughout the fight.

 DPS should focus on single-target damage, as 95% of the encounter is solely attacking the boss. DPS should save personal burst damage/AoE abilities for dealing with the Grasping Hands mechanic.

Both  DPS and  healers should spec into abilities that provide frequent self damage reduction, as (5) or so players will need to frequently soak Explosive Rune explosions that deal around 200k Fire damage.

 Healers should likely save raid-wide cooldowns for mitigating damage during Grasping Hands, particularly emphasizing cooldowns during overlap between Hands and the frequent raid-wide damage from Pound.

 Tanks should save personal reduction cooldowns for the big damage hits of Explosive Burst and Swat. Foul Crush also deals heavy damage but ramps up over time.

 Tank swaps should occur immediately when the current tank is afflicted by any of the above three primary tank abilities. In the case of Explosive Burst in particular, the boss should be moved at least 40 yards from the afflicted tank before the Burst explodes and hits the rest of the raid.

Shadow Pool

Fel Outpouring will cause the Shadow Pool to spawn a series of Shadow Globules that slowly traverse across the room. There doesn't appear to be much rhyme or reason to their pattern and they are various sizes and travel at different speeds.

Solution: Distance and angles are key, so standing far away from the Shadow Pool, perhaps even off to one side or the other, is ideal.

Empowered Fel Outpouring is of course the Empowered version of this ability, and instead of spawning globules from only the Shadow Pool, he will spawn Fiery, Toxic, and Shadow Globules from all 3 pools, respectively.

Solution: There are two possible methods for dealing with the Empowered Globules.

1. Position the raid in the southeast corner of the room, which provides the biggest "gap" between pools that is available and thus theoretically means most Shadow/Fiery Globules will pass in front of us harmlessly.

2. Stand close to one of the pools initially (such as Shadow) and quickly dodge/weave through those particular Globules and get "behind them" before enough time has elapsed where we need to worry about the Globules from the Toxic or Fiery pools.

I suspect option 1 will be easier generally speaking, but we'll have to test and see.

Swat is the Empowered  tank mechanic in this Shadow phase and deals massive damage to the current tank, knocking them back and dealing extra damage inversely proportional to the distance the traveled.

As with all the Empowered  tank-focused abilities, this applies a stack of Fel Touch when hit, so the a swap must occur immediately when the current tank is hit.

Solution: We'll need to test whether the knockback direction is based on position relative to the boss, OR simply based on the direction the  tank has his or her back. Either way, the goal for the  tank should be to have his or her back toward a far away wall that IS NOT situated above any of the Pools (as touching pools does damage).

Fiery Pool

(5) Explosive Runes are created in a ring around a particular location of the room. When a player touches a Rune, he or she will take 200k Fire damage and despawn the Rune. If a Rune isn't triggered in 15 seconds, it will detonate and hit the entire raid for ~280k Fire damage.

Note: There are records in the spell data of a version of Explosive Rune that increases damage taken from additional Runes by 100% for 2.5 minutes. I assume these are for Mythic difficulty, but in case the fight was changed since PTR, we may need to account for that by using rotating teams to handle them.

Solution: A Rune Team will be predetermined to spread out around the Rune ring and detonate the Runes individually, ideally using a personal cooldown of some sort.  Healers and ranged DPS will be ideal due to positioning.

Unlike the standard version, Empowered Explosive Rune does not disappear when initially triggered. Instead, the Rune is "pushed forward" in the direction that the triggering player was facing, roughly 20 yards or so. The Rune will respawn in that new position until removed inherently in one of two ways:

A) When two Runes would form roughly within a few yards of one another, one of them will not respawn.
B) If a Rune is the last Rune active, it will not respawn when triggered.

Solution: Similar to the non-Empowered version, we'll have the Rune Team spread out and push the Runes to the center of the Rune ring by facing that center point before triggering. This process must be repeated 2-4 times depending on the aim/distance before all Runes are dispersed, so players involved will need to use personal CDs and/or be healed between rounds.

The  current tank will be afflicted with Explosive Blast, which behaves nearly identically to Mark of Chaos: Fortification from Imperator, in that it roots the target in place and after 10 seconds, the tank explodes dealing heavy damage to anyone within 40 yards.

Solution: The afflicted  tank should use a self-teleport after rooted to move a bit further out away from the raid (if possible), but otherwise the  offtank must immediately taunt the boss and move the boss/raid at least 40 yards away (again, just like Imperator).

Toxic Pool

Grasping Hands is the primary ability here and will, as you might guess, spawn a Hand that clutches everyone in the raid, dealing 60k Physical damage every 3 seconds until the Hand is killed.

Additionally, upon spawning each Hand casts Grab, dealing 50k Physical damage to everyone within 4 yards.

Solution: There are a variety of methods to handle this, but due to the AE damage from the initial Grab, we'll need to spread out to some degree to avoid deaths right away and give us time to heal up.

While I'm sure an addon could (will in the future?) simplify this a bit, initially we'll likely want to form a simple cross pattern with a handful of players stacked on each of four or five positions, like so:



Each of the five positions would have 4-5 players stacked on it (depending on the raid size), such that when Grab is applied, each player takes a maximum of 200-250k Physical damage. Obviously cooldowns can and will be applied to mitigate some of the damage or help with healing afterward, but this is the simplest and easiest method I can come up with to get everyone within "AoE range" for the majority of player abilities without stacking so much that we die to initial Grab damage.

Dragging Hands is the Empowered version and works identically, except once applied, the Hands will begin to drag everyone towards the nearest Pool. Touching the Pools deals massive damage, so obviously the Hands must be killed before this occurs.

Solution: Positioning would be the same as above for the standard version. Due to a higher DPS check,  DPS players should likely utilize burst damage cooldowns for these Empowered Dragging Hands casts, though we'll see how the health levels of the Hands are on live (I couldn't locate a single video from PTR that was even remotely close to a kill, even from top 5 world guilds, so clearly the fight was overtuned at that time).

 Tanks will deal with Foul Crush, which again is the primary tank swap mechanic but in this case also applies an ever-increasing DoT on the afflicted tank until he or she is broken out of the Hand that is grasping them.

Solution: Outside of the immediate  tank swap,  DPS should quickly kill the Hand holding the tank (after breaking themselves out if raid Hands are still active).

Enrage

Around 5:40 into the fight, the boss will Enrage and will gain Haste, increasing his damage to the tank and also greatly improve the frequency of ability usage.

Solution: Bloodlust, potions, and saved  DPS cooldowns should be utilized to burn him down before his abilities overtake us.

Pool Priority

Generally it seems to me that the difficulty of handling the mechanics from easiest to most difficult is: Fiery > Shadow > Toxic, so we'll want to start with pools in that order, repeating throughout the fight.

[Kulldam]

Kilrogg Deadeye

An add-focused encounter that requires the raid to manage a variety of adds with high priority before they can reach the boss and/or front of the room and do terrible things. Occasionally, Kilrogg will allow a handful of players to be transported into his eyeball (ouch) and deal with numerous demons inside, gaining stacking buffs that increase damage or healing and allow the raid to better deal with the Fel Corruption stacks that have been applied throughout.

 DPS should prioritize: Hulking Terror > Salivating Bloodthirster > Blood Globules > Kilrogg. Every cast of Vision of Death will require 1 or 2 fresh DPS to stand in a single ring and be teleported into the Eye realm. Additional healing cooldowns will be useful in that realm to prolong survival time and increase the beneficial damage stacks that are gained.

Melee DPS should remain behind the boss (with backs roughly to the pool/platform). Grabbing extra personal damage reduction cooldowns will be useful for dealing with frequent, heavy damage of Death Throes. Melee must also assist with interrupting the frequent Rending Howl cast from the Hulking Terrors, which double their cast speed every attempt.

Ranged DPS should remain positioned with the healers, alternating between the left/red marker and the right/green marker, moving when the Death Throes projectiles force the ranged camp to move as a unit.

 Tanks will alternate between tanking Kilrogg and the next upcoming Hulking Terror, swapping shortly after each Hulking Terror has been killed. Kilrogg is tanked at the blue marker with the tank's back to the ranged group while the Hulking is tanked at the orange or yellow marker facing away from the raid, and whichever happens to be opposite to the ranged group at the time. The Kilrogg tank will also need to use an active mitigation ability for every cast of Shred Armor.

 Healers should mimic the positioning between red and green markers that the ranged players perform. Healing cooldowns should be used for Death Throes, and later into the fight we'll start sending (1) healer into each Eye realm to help gain output stacks to counteract the increased Death Throes damage.

Salivating Bloodthirster

About every 75 seconds throughout the fight, (3) Salivating Bloodthirsters will spawn around the room. If and when a Bloodthirster touches the main gooey platform, it will transform into a Hulking Terror.

Of the (3) initial spawns, one of them will automatically spawn on the pool and become immediately transformed into a Hulking Terror and  must be picked up by a tank immediately.

Meanwhile, the other (2) spawns appear toward the back sides of the room and will begin slowly walking toward the goo pile, trying to drink their fill and transform.  DPS must kill both Salivating Bloodthirsters before they are allowed to reach the platform.

Solution: Ranged DPS can quickly turn and burn the Bloodthirster that spawned on their side. Meanwhile the spawn on the other side can be handled in one of two ways:

A)  A Death Knight can run out and Death Grip the Bloodthirster that is furthest from the ranged as close toward the ranged camp as possible so they have attack range on it.

or B) A handful of assigned melee DPS can rush out and kill it off before it's a threat.

In either case, slows/roots seem to work (though I don't think stuns also work), so we shouldn't have any trouble getting them both down well before it's an issue.

Hulking Terror

As mentioned, a  tank needs to pickup the newly spawned Hulking Terror right away and face it away from the rest of the raid after moving it to the correct yellow or orange marker position about 15 yards out from the melee camp. These mobs are high priority (so long as we have enough damage to kill the incoming Bloodthirsters before they reach the pools).

Terrors will frequently cast Savage Strikes which is a cone attack that deals moderate damage and gives a decent chunk of Fel Corruption.

Solution: As illustrated in the positions, the Hulking Terror should be immediately moved out to the yellow or orange position  by the current Hulking Tank, whichever is opposite the ranged camp at the time, and faced away from the raid to prevent Savage Strikes from hitting anyone else.

Rending Howl is an interruptable yet very frequent cast that deals minor initial damage but also applies a 10-second DoT to the entire raid that deals 28k Physical damage per second.

Solution: It appears this can be cast as frequently as every 6 seconds, and every time it is interrupted, the cast time is reduced from the original 2.5 seconds by 50%. This means the cast time goes: 2.5 > 1.25 > 0.625 > 0.3125 > ...

While we could probably interrupt a 0.625 second cast if we had enough people trying, it's not something we want to rely on, so in order to skip that chance we want  DPS to heavily focus the Hulking Terror so it dies ASAP.

Additionally, we want to ensure melee DPS aren't forced to remain in melee range when the Terror actually dies, so depending on our kill speed, we'll likely want to have melee interrupt the first 1-2 casts and then leave the third cast to be handled by ranged and the  Hulking tank.

Note: I suspect it won't be necessary on Normal/Heroic, but I wouldn't be surprised if on Mythic we aren't better off allowing the first cast to go off and just soaking/healing that damage. This buys us an extra 6-10 seconds of kill time since we don't want to start the interrupt rotation until we're certain we can kill it before an interrupt has to be missed.

Fel Rupture is cast instantly when a Hulking Terror dies, dealing heavy damage to anyone within 10 yards and adding +30 Fel Corruption.

Solution: Since this is an instant cast, it almost certainly must hit the  tank, but we'll want to try to have melee DPS run away from the Terror when it is close to dying (20% HP or whatever) to avoid this explosion. Again, we'll need to adjust timing and health levels based on our kill speed which is currently unknown, but preventing any extra damage (and especially Fel Corruption) throughout the raid is good practice, particularly as we transition into Mythic.

Fel Corruption

Fel Corruption is an alternate energy gained from Hulking Terrors which causes increasing DoT damage and upon reaching the max of 100, permanently charms the player via Demonic Possession.

Fel Corruption is applied mostly to the  current Hulking Terror tank from basic melee hits as well as Savage Strikes.

Solution: Proper positioning of the  tanks, the Hulking Terror facing, and of course the melee DPS will prevent unnecessary Fel Corruption from being applied.

Heart Seeker & Blood Globules

Heart Seeker is cast roughly every 30 seconds and targets a random ranged(?) player. There is a green arrow from the boss indicating the direction of the targeted player. When the 5-second cast completes, Kilrogg throws his knife at the player, hitting the player and anyone in the trajectory of the throw as well, dealing 180k Physical damage initially and 33k Physical damage per second for 30 seconds.

Additionally, when a player is hit by Heart Seeker they will spawn a Blood Globule mob at their current location, which attempts to move toward Kilrogg. If it reaches him, Blood Surge is cast, dealing 150k
Shadow damage to the raid.

Solution: When a ranged DPS or  healer is afflicted by Heart Seeker, he or she must immediately run out to the southern/purple marker and await the throw and subsequent Globule spawn, before moving back into standard position.

Meanwhile, ranged DPS should quickly attack and kill the Blood Globule spawn before it can reach the boss. Slows/snares appear to work as well.

While it shouldn't occur if we handle our positioning properly and only the targeted player actually gets hit by Heart Seeker, in the event that a player with Fel Corruption is hit by Heart Seeker, a Fel Blood Globule will spawn instead of a normal one.

Solution: Again, simply not getting hit by Heart Seeker unless you're the sole target is the best defense, but should one spawn, it needs to be killed ASAP by  ALL DPS, or it will heal the boss for 15% of his HP if it reaches him.

 Tanking

Every time a fresh Hulking Terror has been killed, a  tank swap should occur on Kilrogg (and thus the subsequent upcoming Hulking Terror). This will give plenty of time for the  tanks to make the transition and ensures that each new Hulking Terror is handled by a tank without any (or at least very low) Fel Corruption.

Additionally, the  tank currently handling Kilrogg must be careful of Shred Armor, which has a short cast time and increases damage taken by 40% per stack, but can be avoided by having his or her active mitigation going at the time of the cast.

Solution: Keep an active mitigation ability "banked" and ready for each Shred Armor cast.

Vision of Death & Kilrogg's Eye

Infrequently Kilrogg will cast Vision of Death, which creates (2) rings in front of him (all PTR videos I've found show 2 pools, but some info suggests 3 so we'll adjust as necessary). When his cast completes, a single player standing on each ring will be transported into Kilrogg's Eye and along with Khadgar, will fight off waves of various demons.

Eventually the adds will overwhelm the pair of players and they will "die", which will transport them back out into the normal realm. However, each demon that was killed while inside applies a stack of Undying Resolve or Undying salvation, increasing damage or healing respectively by 10% per stack.  Healers also get Undying Salvation that removes Fel Corruption from nearby allies (in a very obvious glowy ring around the player).

Once a player has exited the Eye, he or she gains Defying Death which prevents entering the Eye realm again until it expires.

Solution: Assuming we are limited to only (2) players per Eye phase, we'll probably want to send in  (2) DPS for the first couple rounds, after which we'll start sending a team of  (1) healer and  (1) dps so that our healers have some output buffs needed to deal with the higher damage of Death Throes later in the fight.

Death Throes

I cover it a bit in the positioning section below, but frequently Kilrogg will channel Death Throes for 6 seconds, dealing heavy damage to the entire raid (lowered the further from the boss you are), while also shooting projectiles at the positions of random ranged players that deal very heavy damage. Additionally, each cast increases the damage of future Death Throes by 12% and it stacks, so as the fight progresses, the damage taken from this will start to ramp significantly.

Solution: Initially melee can likely afford to stay in during these casts even without cooldowns, but as the damage continues to ramp later in the fight, melee DPS will need very strong personal cooldowns to survive the damage, otherwise they must back out to mitigate the damage (ala Garrosh and his spin to win).

Meanwhile, as illustrated below in positioning, ranged DPS and  healers will avoid the projectiles by moving as a group starting on the far left or far right position and moving across to the opposing position during the channel. Similar to Blackhand Demolition stuff, we'll likely want to have  healers rotate cooldowns for this ability, particularly later in the fight.

Moreover, as mentioned above once we find it's dangerous, we'll start rotating  (1) healer into each Vision of Death/Eye phase so that we can always have 1-2 healers with an extra 100%+ healing output to help mitigate the Death Throes damage.

Positions

The basic positions we'll utilize can be seen below:



At the top we Kilrogg and  his current tank with all the melee DPS stacked behind at the blue marker.

For the  Kilrogg tank, the tank should keep his or her back toward the ranged camp at the time, so in the diagram above the ranged are currently on the left side so the  Kilrogg tank has his or her back toward the ranged. This is to ensure that the rings created by Vision of Death, which spawn in front of Kilrogg, are always emanating out toward the ranged camp.

Meanwhile there are two more raid markers along the connecting lines between the blue Kilrogg melee camp and the two ranged camps at red/green: Both the yellow and orange raid markers should be about 15 yards out from the blue raid marker, and these are the positions for the  current Hulking Terror tank to move out with his Hulking Terror. This provides enough distance for everyone in the raid, particularly melee, to avoid the explosion of Fel Rupture when the Terror dies. The  Terror tank should also keep his or her back away from the rest of the raid to prevent the cone attack Savage Strikes from hitting anyone except that tank.

Ranged and  healers perform a simple alternating movement pattern. Starting on the left/red position as seen above, they can remain stacked throughout the fight until the boss uses Death Throes, at which point the entire ranged camp moves together to the right side/green marker. The goal is to arrive at the far marker shortly after the 6-second Death Throes period has ended, to eliminate unnecessary movement.

Regardless, by sticking together, we manage this mechanic similar to Molten Seeds from Ragnaros (and many other examples) since the ground-effects target ranged player locations, we can ensure they never threaten to hit anyone by moving as a unit.

Note: We may need to adjust the movement path somewhat, depending how long it takes the group to move from one side to the other. We'll need to test, but in the event we aren't taking long enough, we'll just elongate the movement path in some simple way (similar to how we modified our Heroic Garrosh movement pattern for Phase 1 Demolition).

Meanwhile, the bottom/purple position is directly in line with the boss/pool position at the top, but very far away. This is where the ranged player that is targeted by Heart Seeker must run before the debuff expires and a Blood Globule is spawned. Once spawned, the player can move back in position, but otherwise ranged DPS should be in position to attack and kill it right away.

[Kulldam]

High Council

A three-boss council fight, the focus here is on proper positioning and correctly focused DPS when and where appropriate. Like many council fights of yore, this encounter becomes far more difficult once we push/transition any particular boss below a 30% life threshold, but because we're allowed to decide the order and timing, it's critical to make that transition at the appropriate moment and to the correct target.

Generally speaking, the encounter does not become anymore difficult over time prior to pushing a boss to 30%, so the goal will be to get all (3) bosses to around 50% HP, then focus burn down the bosses from 50% to dead in order: Gurtogg > Jubei'thos > Dia.

Melee should stay positioned at the north spot and focus cleave damage on both Gurtogg and Jubs, with a slight emphasis on Gurtogg as he's our first "kill target".

Ranged should stay positioned at the south position roughly 40 yards out from Gurtogg/Jubs. When one player is fixated via Fel Rage, immediately rush forward and stand on the standard tank spot while attacking Gurtogg as much as possible.

 DPS should focus on single-target damage, as outside of two-target cleave at the start, the important moments are all single-target burn/burst. DPS should also try to keep the boss health levels roughly equal until 50%, at which point all focus is put onto Gurtogg until he dies, then Jubs until he dies, then finally Dia. We cannot push one boss below 30% while another boss is our primary target, so watch DoTs/cleave damage once we elect to burn Gurtogg down (or then Jubs afterward).

 Healers should communicate and avoid unnecessary dispels for Mark of the Necromancer. Cooldowns should likely be rotated during Dia's Wailing Horror ability.

 Tanks will be split into assigned positions, with one tank on Gurtogg+Jubs and the other tank on Dia.

Gurtogg Bloodboil

Both Gurtogg and Jubei'thos will be  tanked by one single player.

Acidic Wound is the primary tank mechanic that applies stacking DoT damage to the current tank.

Solution:  No tank swap is required -- instead, the stacks are dropped due to distance and time when the tank moves away from the boss 25+ yards during Fel Rage fixation.

Fel Rage is cast on a random raid member and behaves very similar to the mechanic Gurtogg had back in Black Temple: he fixates that player for 30 seconds and while that player has increase defenses, Gurtogg's damage also increases over the 30 second duration.

Solution: As illustrated below, no matter who is fixated by Fel Rage, that player must immediately run to the standard tank position to keep Gurtogg in roughly the same spot at all times during the fight.  Healers should focus spam heals on the fixated player.

Bloodboil is cast about every 10 seconds and deals damage to the (5) furthest players from Gurtogg at the time.

Solution: As mentioned below, our strategy is Mythic-focused when this debuff actually stacks, but mechanically it's just damage to be healed through on Normal/Heroic.

30% Ability

At 30% HP Gurtogg starts casting Tainted Blood over and over, reducing the health pool of the entire raid by 10% per stack.

Solution: Once we're ready to push Gurtogg over this 30% transition, the goal is to burn him ASAP.  DPS should save appropriate burst cooldowns to limit our Tainted Blood stacks to 2 or 3 at most.

Blademaster Jubei'thos

Jubey (or Jubs as I'll likely call him cause fuck that gross Troll name) is the most simple of the bosses and thus quite easy to handle.

Felstorm is one of this common abilities, which will cause him to spin in place and deal moderate damage to the entire raid.

Solution: Nothing can or should be done; heal through the damage.

Fel Blade is cast toward a random direction and creates a large green arrow indicating where Jubs is about to throw his blade, dealing 100k Fire damage to anyone in the path.

Solution: When the cast is happening, closely watch for the arrow and sidestep it. The key is that it appears the direction he throws is truly random, so having most of the raid stacked means fewer movements are required by most people.

30% Ability

Jubs will chain cast Wicked Strike, which deals 75k Fire damage to half the raid on cast. This ability is cast roughly every 12 seconds (if nothing else is happening such as his Heroic ability) and each subsequent cast increases the damage by 5%.

Solution: No real fancy tricks here. While initially I had planned to have us prioritize killing Jubs first before Gurtogg, because Wicked Strike continues to be cast throughout the remainder of the fight even after Jubs is dead, eventually the stacking 5% boost would cause the hits to "out damage" the effective health loss of Gurtogg's Tainted Blood stacks.

Therefore, our best course of action is to simply do our best to have Dia's health pool relatively low (40-50%), such that once we push Jubs to below 30% and then kill him, we won't spend any extra time than necessary in the fight getting additional Wicked Strike stacks applied to us before the encounter is over.

Dia Darkwhisper

Void Haze is constant and will cause Dia to shield damage dealt to the other bosses within 25 yards of her.

Solution: Dia will be  solo-tanked by herself off to one side (see diagrams below), ensuring she's roughly 30 yards away from both bosses at all times.

Nightmare Visage is the primary  tank mechanic for holding Dia and causes her to deal very high single-target damage to the  tank following the cast.

Solution: The  Dia tank should use a personal CD/mitigation to help with the damage spike. A  absorb healer may also be warranted to focus absorbs on the Dia tank during this time.

Mark of the Necromancer is easily the most complicated/interesting mechanic in the fight. She'll apply this increasing DoT to a random player and as the damage per tick increases over time, the icon changes appropriately from normal to yellow and eventually to red.

 Dispelling this DoT removes it from the afflicted player, but instead causes it to replicate and jump to two nearby players at the base level and start increasing over time on them.

Solution: We've seen mechanics like this on Sinestra and elsewhere and they're always (generally) about one goal: Waiting as long as is safely possible to dispel. It won't matter too much on Heroic and certainly not in Normal, but for Mythic (due to damage and also due to mechanical changes) we'll need to delay the dispels as much as we can, so best to start practicing now.

Ideally we'll likely want  (1) healer assigned to each active Mark. That player can be in charge of keeping the person healthy and once appropriate (like after it transitions to the red version), they can be dispelled.

We'll cover the exact timing a bit more after we talk about...

Reap is cast roughly every 60 seconds throughout the fight and has two effects: It will remove all active Mark of the Necromancers debuffs from the raid AND it will cause a shadow pool/explosion to occur at the location of all Marked players.

Solution: While I suspect the number of initial targets is based on raid size, it appears that Mark of the Necromancer is initially applied to (2) players. It also appears that once the fight is well underway, we get one fresh cast of Mark only a small time before the upcoming Reap to clear it.

We have to assume the timing of these has been changed since PTR, since otherwise the mechanic is largely ignored after 70 seconds into the fight, so let's assume for now that a new Mark of the Necromancer is cast immediately after the previous Reap, giving us roughly 60 seconds of Mark time before the next Reap clears it.

Based on this, we should plan to  dispel the two initial Marks roughly 40 seconds after they are applied, then ignore them. This would keep the intial Marks on two individuals for the longest duration, focusing our healing on those two people easily until about 40 seconds of duration, at which point we dispel both and new Marks are applied to (4) total players for the last 15-20 seconds of time before the upcoming Reap clears them all.

This also means that only (4) people must worry about/move out of position for the Reap cast to drop puddles/explosions.

30% Ability

Instead of gaining a new ability, when Dia hits 30% she immediately casts one final Reap and then applies Mark of the Necromancer to half of the raid at once. She will no longer cast Reap sub-30% nor after she's dead of course.

Solution: Since we have no way to get rid of Marks once Dia reaches 30%, the goal is to ensure Dia is the last boss kill target so we're dealing with all these Marks as little as possible, and otherwise we need to burn her down ASAP.

 Healers can freely dispel during this phase, as it will generally be less mana intensive to heal everyone in the raid with a low Mark damage stack than to heal most of the raid with low stacks and a handful at very high stacks.

We will also want to stack the entire raid at this point after Gurtogg and Jub are dead, since there's no longer any downside to being close to one another. This will allow  Shadow priest DPS to use a Mass Dispel at some point to reset all Mark stacks on us.

Heroic Abilities

About every 60 seconds throughout the fight, (1) boss will use his or her Heroic ability. While all bosses are active, they will rotate through their abilities one at a time, but once one boss is dead, the rotation continues but alternating between the two remaining bosses instead.

Gurtogg will cast Demolishing Leap, causing him to leap around the room to random locations after a short windup animation. This deals heavy to moderate Physical damage to the raid, reduced based on the distance a player is from the location.

Solution: Since the jump positions are random around the room, often players will simply not have to move at all. However, obviously if he does land nearby, sidestepping away from the location is ideal.

Jubs will use Windwalk, which causes him to vanish for up to 45 seconds and instead spawns a number of Mirror Images around the room. These images are stationary but will use both his primary abilities (Felstorm and Fel Blade), albeit slightly weaker versions.

Solution: These copies spawn with health totals proportional to the remaining health of Jubs when he cast Windwalk. Therefore, it's in our interest to get Jubs' health somewhat lower than the 100% he starts with such that Windwalk casts after the fact are easier to deal with. Otherwise,  dps should quickly burn down all the adds that spawn during this period, being sure to watch for the arrows from these indicating where Throws are occurring.

Dia will cast Wailing Horror which causes the room to darken and deals heavy Shadow damage to the entire raid. Additionally, a series of spirits to fly across the room at various angles, dealing heavy damage to anyone in their path.

Solution: During this period, the raid is free to move as they will to avoid the Spirit flights. Zooming/aiming the camera properly will help seeing the angles much faster.  Healers will likely want to rotate cooldowns during this period.

Standard Positions

Note: I misunderstood the standard mechanic of Bloodboil when first devising strategies for this (thinking it was a stacking debuff even on Normal/Heroic), and thus my strategy is intended for Mythic. However, I figured there's little reason to get used to something different on Normal/Heroic when we can just start practicing for Mythic right away, so we'll just go with it. ><

The following is the basic positioning layout we'll utilize for the majority of the fight.



As usual, the boxes are enemies: Purple box is Dia, red is Gurtogg, green is Jubei'thos.
Circles are friendly positions: Blue circles are  tanks, orange is melee, teal is  healers, and green is ranged.

The positioning is meant to account for a handful of basic abilities:

Dia's Void Haze requires she be kept 25+ yards away from the other bosses at all times so the damage they take isn't soaked. We can see that she is only within 25 yards of a boss during a brief transition period when they cross the center of the connection line between the  tank and ranged positions (top and bottom).

When Gurtogg uses Fel Rage he'll fixate on a random raid member and during this period, the Gurtogg  tank needs to position himself somewhere that is 20-30 yards away to safely provide distance for Acidic Wound stacks to fall off. This positioning is illustrated below:



When Fel Rage is used and Gurtogg fixates a random raid member, that player immediately runs into the standard tanking position to keep Gurtogg at the top position as seen above. At some point before the Fel Rage ends, the Gurtogg  tank moves to the south position with most of the healers/ranged to provide that necessary Acidic Wound drop distance. Once Gurtogg breaks his fixate, the time/distance required for the  tank to break Acidic Wound can be determined by that  tank player.

This position during Fel Rage also ensures that the south-most ranged camp remains the furthest player position from Gurtogg, which is crucial to the entire strategy throughout the fight due to Bloodboil, which hits the (5) furthest players from Gurtogg. This is cast roughly every 10 seconds and is even cast during Fel Rage, so maintaining a static position of players that are always the furthest from Gurtogg is crucial to our success, particularly as we move into Mythic.

Again, it won't matter for the time being while we aren't in Mythic difficulty, but when that time comes this positioning strategy will easily allow the ranged camp at the bottom to contain a rotation of 10+ players that can move from the outward most ranged camp when their Bloodboil stack gets too high forward a few yards until their stack drops, then step back into the ranged camp position and repeat. Meanwhile, due to the measured positions of others such as the  Dia tank off the side, no one else is threatened by being among the furthest 5 players from Gurtogg.

[Kulldam]

Shadow-Lord Iskar

Please download this addon: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/iskar-assist

A two-phase encounter that revolves around the possession and management of the Eye of Anzu, which is passed among friendly players using the ExtraActionButton. A useful macro for passing this via mouseover without requiring targeting is:

/target [@mouseover]
/click ExtraActionButton1
/targetlasttarget

As only one player can hold the Eye of Anzu at any given time, yet it is required to cancel out numerous abilities throughout the fight, it will be critical that everyone in the raid handles this effectively and efficiently. It will be very similar to the Transfer Light mechanic for Heroic Sha of Fear, except this will require everyone in the raid to handle it at one time or another (RIP my sanity).

Note: Passing the Eye of Anzu does not interrupt spellcasting nor is it on the GCD, so there is never a reason to delay this passing if the next target is known.

Ground Phase

The fight begins with Iskar in his Grounded phase where we battle him directly. During this period there are (4) abilities to contend with, (2) of which require the passing of the Eye of Anzu.

Fel Chakram is the most common ability and has a 4-second cast time, during which time (3) players are randomly selected from among the (3) standard roles: (1) ranged DPS or  (1) healer, (1) melee DPS, and  (1) tank. When the cast completes, the boss throws a Chakram that bounces between the (3) selected players before returning to the boss. It deals moderate Fire damage to the entire raid on each bounce, reduced by the distance between the bouncing player and the rest of the raid. It also deals damage to anyone that is not targeted by the Chakram passes through.

Solution: More detail can be found in the positioning section below, but the basic idea is we have 3 raid markers forming a triangle far away from the standard raid positions, each of which represents a particular player role to run toward. Ranged DPS or  healers run to the left toward green, the melee DPS run forward toward purple, and the  tank runs (to their left) toward red. Once the Chakram throw has occurred, the players can move back into position and proceed with the fight.

Fel Incineration is also cast quite frequently and targets a random ranged player, chasing them with a laser of burning fire and leaving patches on the ground. Note: I am unable to confirm exactly how much damage this effect deals, but it seems that temporarily walking through it isn't deadly at the very least.

Solution: From the standard positions (see below), the targeted ranged player simply runs out of the group toward the right to kite the laser and fire away, and returns to position afterward. If there is no free space to the right, going backwards behind the group is also possible.

Note: It appears that the laser isn't 100% accurate, meaning it probably targets specific "blocks of space" nearby the player rather than following their exact path (for technical reasons I'm sure). This means that sometimes the laser will pass over a position where the targeted player didn't exactly run, thereby forcing the raid to adjust our standard positions during the phase until that particular patch of Fire despawns. This isn't a big deal, we just need to communicate when/if to move positions.

Eye of Anzu Affected Abilities

Phantasmal Winds targets a handful of random raid members and begins to push those players slowly off the ledge (located opposite the raid position). This pushback becomes stronger over time until eventually normal movement or even sprinted movement speed cannot outrun it.

Solution: Receiving the Eye of Anzu will immediately remove the Phantasmal Winds debuff, so obviously this means we must quickly pass the Eye of Anzu around the raid to effectively remove this before anyone is at major risk.

Phantasmal Wounds also targets a handful of random raid members and deals 120k Shadow damage upfront then another 40k Shadow damage every 2 seconds until it is removed or expires (after 60 seconds).

Solution: This can be removed in two ways: A) The afflicted player can be healed above 90% HP (which is certainly the likely method we'll see in Normal and maybe even Heroic), or B) The player can receive the Eye of Anzu, immediately removing the debuff.

Air Phases @ 80%, 55%, and 30% HP

Once the boss reaches 80% HP (or 55% or 30% also) he'll take off toward the edge and be unattackable. Instead he'll summon a series of adds that require additional Eye of Anzu coordination and prioritized DPS to defeat.

Focused Blast is cast a few times in the phase, cast by Iskar himself, which creates a beam of energy targeted toward the current Eye of Anzu holder and splits a massive amount of damage among everyone in the path.

Solution: We must keep the entire raid within a small corridor/line (generally indicated by the pathway on the ground) such that no matter who is holding the Eye during the phase, the Focused Blast will split among most if not all the raid.

Air Phase #1 @ 80%

The boss will summon (1) Corrupted Talonpriest and a handful of Illusionary Outcasts that must all be quickly picked up and  tanked.

 DPS priority:: Talonpriest first, to ideally kill it before it casts more than one Obliteration.

Phantasmal Obliteration is cast by the Talonpriest which causes (5)? Phantasmal Fel Bombs to be spawned on random players. After 5 seconds if not removed, these bombs explode and deal 120k Fire damage to anyone within 5 yards.

Solution: If a  healer is holding the Eye of Anzu, he or she can "see" which of the (5)? bombs is actually a Fel Bomb and the  healer can then dispel it, automatically dispelling all other active Bombs in the process.

We will want to have one assigned healer that is in charge of receiving the Eye of Anzu (typically thrown from  one assigned tank who had it) when Phantasmal Obliteration is being cast, and this person then has that 5-second window to identify where Fel Bomb is, dispel it, and quickly throw the Eye of Anzu back to the correct follow-up player (usually the previous  tank).

Air Phase #2 @ 55%

 DPS priority:: Talonpriest > Shadowfel Warden > Outcasts

In addition to the same mobs we saw in the first air phase including the Talonpriest, this time we also get a Shadowfel Warden. Again these must all be quickly  picked up and tanked near the raid.

The  "Eye of Anzu" tank should be sure to pickup and tank the Warden during this phase (and the last Air phase also) to make his job easier.

Fel Conduit is the new ability this phase, cast by the Warden, which enables the Warden to chain-cast (lulzpun) Fel Chain Lightning dealing 140k Nature damage per cast and jumping among (5) players.

Solution: Fel Conduit can be interrupted by a player holding the Eye of Anzu. In this case, the  Eye of Anzu tank will be holding the Eye and can interrupt the cast before handing the Eye off to the predetermined  healer to dispel the Fel Bomb from the Talonpriest.

Air Phase #3 @ 30%

 DPS priority:: Talonpriest > Shadowfel Warden > Fel Raven > Outcasts

For the final Air Phase we get everything from the previous phase, plus also a Fel Raven.

 The "Eye of Anzu Tank" should grab both the Fel Raven and the Shadowfel Warden while the  other tank gets the Talonpriest and the smaller Outcasts.

Phantasmal Corruption is cast by the Fel Raven and targets the current  tank, causing Phantasmal Nova pulses to deal 75k Fire damage to everyone within 15 yards.

Solution: If the  Fel Raven tank is currently holding the Eye of Anzu when the spell is cast, that tank is immune to the application. Therefore, as mentioned above, the idea is to ensure that the  Eye of Anzu tank is tanking both the Fel Raven and the Shadowfel Warden. This will allow the tank to be immune to the Corruption cast while also being able to interrupt the Fel Conduit cast of the Warden.

Once the interupt has occurred, the  Eye of Anzu tank passes the Eye to the  healer for Fel Bomb dispel before the Eye is returned to the  Eye of Anzu tank and the process repeats (if necessary).

Eye of Anzu Management

Holding the Eye of Anzu will build up stacking damage taken via Radiance of Anzu. Therefore, it is generally in our best interest to have a single, high damage reduction player be the "default holder" of the Eye when it's not in use/being passed around.

In our case, the default player will be the  "Eye of Anzu tank".

This means that when we have completed a series of passes to deal with any given mechanic (such as Winds), we default to passing it back to that assigned tank until the next mechanic comes out that must utilize the Eye.

All  healers and  DPS in the raid should, similar to Sha of Fear management, get in the habit of "good practice" with the Eye:

1. Since the addon linked at the top allows it, ideally we want to be passing the Eye rapidly in alphabetical order to appropriate targets.
2. This means that when dealing with something like Winds that afflicts (5) or so random players, if you are among those afflicted, you can look at the alphabetized list and quickly determine which afflicted player is next after your name and start attempting to cast on them (using your mouseover macro or spamming left click on the assist addon above).
3. This will ensure that the moment the player ahead of you in the order (that is, the person before you alphabetically that was also afflicted) receives the Eye and he or she throws it to you, you'll near-instantly throw it onto the next afflicted player in the list.
4. If done properly, this "preemptive casting" of the Eye will dramatically speed up the process and ensure that mechanics are handled effectively and efficiently.

Ground Phase Positioning



The distances between markers it not so relevant, what is important is the direction and orientation.

The boss is tanked along the central line of the room toward the opposite wall away from the "ledge" where we're tried to push off. The [tank]tanks[/tanks] are stacked facing the boss toward that ledge on the blue marker. All melee are stacked as normal behind the boss around the yellow marker and all ranged DPS and  healers are stacked a few yards behind melee at the orange marker.

We also have (3) additional markers forming what looks a bit like a large tree stemming from the boss position: green to the far left, purple to the top, and red to the right. These are the directions/positions that the (3) Fel Chakram targets will run to: When Chakram targets a group of players, the ranged DPS or  healer runs to the left toward green, the melee DPS runs forward toward purple, and the  tank runs (to their left) toward red.

The markers will be placed far enough out that not everyone will be capable of reaching the marker before the throw occurs, and that's intentional, since the more distance created between the players and the raid, the less damage we'll take. Once the targeted player has been thrown at, they can turn around and return to the standard position.

Lastly, when a random ranged or  healer is targeted by Fel Incineration during this phase, he or she should immediately run out of the raid group to the right or backwards until the laser is complete and then return to the raid position. The fire eventually despawns, so we don't need a ton of space for this, but ideally we can keep the left-side path clear for people running out for Chakram.

[Kulldam]

Socrethar the Eternal

A mechanically simple fight whereby the raid attacks a Soulbound Construct until it forces Socrethar himself to emerge, at which point we take control of the Construct for use against the boss and his adds in the second phase.

Everyone should quickly run out if targeted by Felblaze Charge.

 DPS in Phase 2 should prioritize: Sargerei Dominator > Sargerei Shadowcaller > then the boss. Melee DPS will also need to form (3) pairs of two people each to rotate interrupts in Phase 2 to stop Exert Dominance casts.

Ranged players targeted by Volatile Fel Orb should quickly run forward and to the side at least 10 yards from other raid members then allow the orb to explode on you. Use a personal CD if available.

Ranged players should also stay stacked and move immediately to the right when Fel Prison is cast, just like Mines for Imperator Margok.

 Tanks must take turns in Phase 1, swapping after every 3 casts/stacks of Reverberating Blow / Shattered Defenses. Each cast should be facing the boss toward one of the (3) "camps" as illustrated in positions below, starting with ranged camp first, then melee camp #1, then melee camp #2 before a tank swap occurs and the process repeats. Tanks should also move the boss along the wall when necessary to keep roughly "in line" with the ranged camp in Phase 1.

 Healers should focus individual heals/cooldowns on Volatile Fel Orb targets in Phase 1 and use raid-wide cooldowns in Phase 2 for Apocalypse.

Soulbound Construct

Reverberating Blow is cast roughly ever 15 seconds and creates a large cone attack that deals 240k Physical damage to everyone inside the effect. Additionally, it applies (3) stacks of Shattered Defenses, split among the (3) nearest players to the boss that were in the cone.

Solution: As illustrated in the positions below, the goal is to have (3) unique "camps" containing a split of the raid that the  current tank can rotate between every (3) casts, splitting the damage and stacks so that only the tank will ever receive more than (1) stack of Shattered Defenses. For our current plan, the  current tank starts by placing his back to the ranged camp, then for the second cast toward the melee camp on the right, then finally toward the melee camp in the back, after which time the  offtank will taunt and repeat this process himself.

Felblaze Charge targets a random raid member (even tanks it appears) and the boss will rush toward their location, dealing moderate Fire damage but also leaving a path of Felblaze Residue that deals 80k Fire damage per second and slows players inside by 75%.

Solution: The player targeted by Charge must immediately run out of the raid toward the west (left for ranged, forward or right for melee) so the Felblaze leftover doesn't hinder us.

Fel Prison works similarly to Destructive Resonance/Mines from Imperator Margok, in that it targets an area near a random ranged player and activates after a few seconds. Anyone that steps in this circle after activation becomes stunned and the prison itself must be attacked/killed to break free.

Solution: The entire ranged camp will behave just as they do for Imperator MArgok, moving immediately when the cast occurs.

Volatile Fel Orb also targets a random ranged player and an orb will chase them. Upon reaching their location, it detonates dealing 200k Fire damage to the player and anyone within 10 yards.

Solution: We cannot outrun the Orb, so the best option is for the targeted player to immediately move forward and to the right so the Orb detonates quickly and out of 10 yard ranged from anyone else in the raid, then move back into normal position.

Socrethar the Eternal

Once we have defeated the Soulbound Construct, Socrethar himself will emerge out of it and the Construct becomes usable by a single raid member for the remainder of the fight (or Phase if we're bad/slow).

Exert Dominance is frequently cast by Socrethar in this phase in an attempt to destroy the player-controlled Construct and end the Phase. If the construct is killed, we must repeat Phase 1 over again.

Solution: This ability has a 3-second cast time and is interruptable, but is cast very frequently. We'll therefore need (3) pairs of interrupters assigned to handle this mechanic. As usual, melee are ideal but if we can ensure every possible interruptable cast is stopped, we'll virtually never be at risk of entering Phase 1 again before the fight is over.

Apocalypse is the other main ability from the boss in this phase and deals 40k Shadow damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds to the entire raid.

Solution: Most of the raid will be stacked up the entire Phase, so healing this shouldn't be difficult.  Healers will likely want to rotate cooldowns to help mitigate this damage or improve healing, however.

Construct Control

Since there is no need for  tank swaps during this second phase, a  single tank will control the Construct during this Phase, providing the raid with the majority of the abilities that were used against us in the first phase, which must now be used to attack the boss along with a series of small adds that spawn from portals around the edges of the room.

Blue Portals will spawn a set of about (6) Haunted Souls, which fixate on random raid members via Ghastly Fixation and if allowed to reach them, will explode, dealing damage and fearing players.

Solution: These should primarily be killed via the Construct's Fel Blaze, which just as it did against players in Phase 1 will slow and deal damage to the Souls. Since these fixate and move toward current player locations, it's critical that the raid be stacked up tightly so the trajectory of all the Souls is the same.

Purple Portals will spawn a Sargerei Shadowcaller, which casts Shadow Bolt Volley dealing damage to the raid and Shadow Word: Agony which applies a stacking DoT on a few random raid members.

Solution: As with the other adds, these should be killed to reduce the damage the raid takes most readily. Beyond that,  healers can dispel the Agony ability, but should likely only do so when a dangerous stack count is reached (3+ perhaps?).

Red Portals spawn the most critical mob in the phase albeit rarely, the Sargerei Dominator. Once spawned, this mob will keep Fel Barrier active on the boss, preventing all interrupts and damage and therefore causing a massive amount of unhealable damage to the Construct.

Solution: Since interrupts are no longer possible while it's active,  ALL DPS should immediately switch to a burst down the Dominator as soon as possible before getting back on the boss.

Gift of the Man'ari is also cast by the Dominator on a few random raid members, causing them to deal 64k Fire damage to anyone within 10 yards over the course of the 2 minute duration.

Solution: Outside of killing the Dominator extremely quickly, the application of this cannot be prevented, so afflicted players need to simply step out of the raid and remain a few yards out while the debuff is active.  Healers may need to focus heals on these players due to the extra damage they're taking, particularly during Apocalypse.

Phase 1 Positions

Initially we'll start off as seen below with the boss near an outside wall (far left or far right). The ranged camp are facing that outside wall toward the boss, with the ranged stacked roughly 15 or 20 yards out from the boss.

Meanwhile, melee DPS are roughly split half and half, one half behind the boss and the other half to the right, while the  offtank is alone to the left of the boss.



These positions are intended to deal with all the Phase 1 mechanics as efficiently as possible.

Shattered Defenses lasts 45 seconds and hits (3) people in total each cast with a recast time that is (generally averaged) above 15 seconds, we'll plan to use [e](3) sets of soakers.

These positions are indicated by the numbers in the initial positions above.  The current tank manages the facing/positioning for all (3) Reverberating Blows casts, after which time  a tank swap occurs and the order and process repeats itself.

Thus, the  current tank will aim his or her back toward the ranged camp for the first cast, then toward the right-side melee camp for the second cast, and finally to the back-side melee camp for cast the third, after which time the  offtank taunts and faces the boss toward the ranged camp, waiting for the triple-cast process to repeat.

This ensures that no one outside of the  current tank ever receives more than one stack of Shattered Defenses, and eliminates (as much as possible) the movement or management of this mechanic for most of the raid.

Meanwhile, the arrow in the first diagram illustrates the movement pattern of the entire raid when necessary based on the Felblaze Residue left from Felblaze Charge and the Fel Prison rings that spawn near ranged.



When Felblaze Charge targets a player, he or she immediately moves toward the west side (left for ranged, forward/right for melee) so the Felblaze paths as seen above can be kept to the one side of the raid.

Similarly, when a Prison is cast, the entire ranged camp can move together (just like Imperator Margok) toward the right and keep the positions roughly in tact.

Lastly, when Volatile Fel Orb targets a random ranged player, he or she can quickly run out to the east/right and let the orb detonate before moving back into position.

[Kulldam]

Tyrant Velhari

A three-phase encounter that revolves around the boss applying a unique phase-based aura that hinders the raid in some unique way: Aura of Oppression, Aura of Contempt, or Aura of Malice.

Each of these Auras will increase in power throughout the Phase, which acts as a sort of soft-enrage mechanic for the Phase and the fight as a whole, requiring the raid to push the next phase before the Aura becomes too overwhelming.

She also has a personal generator/spender mechanic, in which each phase she has one generation ability that she'll use three times, at which point she'll spend her Corruption resource on her spender of the phase and repeat this process over and over.

Lastly, once during each phase (also based on her health percentage) she'll spawn a single, unique add that must be dealt with appropriately.

 DPS should cleave in Phase 1, and prioritize killing both adds in Phase 2 and Phase 3.

Melee DPS will need to setup an interrupt rotation in pairs of players to interrupt Harbinger's Mending from the Ancient Harbinger add in Phase 2.

Ranged players afflicted by Edict of Condemnation should run into melee range to ensure the explosions are shared. Use a personal survival cooldown if necessary, particularly while moving in during Phase 1.

 Healers must spam/focus the player afflicted by Touch of Harm throughout the fight. Cooldowns are also vital for Infernal Tempest in Phase 1, Font of Corruption Phase 2, and Gavel of the Tyrant Phase 3.

 Tanks should generally swap the boss after every "generator" ability during the phases, or based on the loss of their own Seal of Decay stack. The  Ancient Enforcer tank in Phase 1 should be sure to face the mob away from the rest of the raid.

Basic Abilities

Outside of the phase-specific abilities, the boss has a handful of things she'll do throughout the fight.

Edict of Condemnation targets a random ranged player and creates a giant Shadow circle around them that follows their movement. Every 3 seconds, this deals 700k Shadow damage split among everyone within the area of effect circle. The circle radius then shrinks down dramatically and the next tick occurs 3 seconds later, until the final tick after 9 seconds.

Solution: While there may be some classes/specs that could theoretically immune this, attempting to do so due to the very large radius of the initial explosion in particular is very dangerous. Instead, it's safest to manage it exactly as we do Molten Torrent from Flamebender Ka'graz, by having the afflicted ranged player move into melee range until the debuff expires.

Touch of Harm is primarily the focus of  healers, in that it targets a random raid member and absorbs all healing on that player, up to the maximum of 1.36 million before it is removed.

Solution: Nothing special can be done to remove this, so we simply must heal through the damage quickly yet efficiently. This debuff can be dispelled if the target desperately needs actual healing to be applied, but dispelling this simply causes it to jump to a new random player (the remaining absorb value remains in tact).

Seal of Decay is a stacking debuff on the  current tank and is the primary tank swap mechanic. This causes the tank to receive 10% reduced healing per stack and lasts 18 seconds.

Solution:  Tanks should swap the boss frequently, taunting every time their own stack falls off.

Oppression Phase (100% - 70%)

Aura of Oppression is the active Aura here and it deals damage to everyone in the raid anytime they move. Note: There's also indication in the spell data that  healers may drain 1% of their mana from casting with Aura of Oppression. I cannot find confirmation and this may be old or Mythic only, but it's worth considering if we see something fishy.

Solution: Obviously, try not to move too much!

Annihilating Strike is Velhari's generator ability in this phase, which causes her to slash an arc targeted at a random raid member (and indicated by a red arrow from the boss), dealing 190k Fire damage to anyone hit and spawning a Searing Blaze at their location (dealing damage and knocking the player back).

Solution: The initial target of the Strike cannot avoid the damage, so he or she should remain stationary to allow others to side-step the arrow and incoming cone attack (similar to Blackhand and others). Once the Strike hits, the player should quickly move out to avoid extra damage from the Searing Blaze.

After 3 casts of Annihilating Strike, the boss will cast her spender Infernal Tempest, which causes the entire raid to deal minor damage to both themselves and anyone within 2 yards for each of the (4) ticks of damage. Each tick will also spawn a Searing Blaze at the player's location.

Solution: This ability in particular requires diligent movement patterns so the raid doesn't take too much damage from the Aura of Oppression while avoiding the Searing Blaze pools. The best course of action is to recognize that each cast of this ability will cause (4) total ticks and thus (4) total pools to spawn under your feet. If you're careful, you can spawn a pair of (2) pools in one location, then sidestep before the detonate and spawn another pair of (2) pools, before moving a second time. In total, everyone should be able to deal with this by moving only twice total, and only for 1 second or so each time.

Ancient Enforcer (90%)

The add for this first phase is an Ancient Enforcer that must be [tank]tanked and faced away from the raid[/tanked]. The Enforcer frequently casts Enforcer's Onslaught in the direction he is facing, spawning a Roaring Flames orb that will traverse outward until it hits a wall then back toward the add.

 DPS are free to cleave the Ancient Enforcer but do not need to focus it down until we've pushed into the Contempt Phase at 70%.

Contempt Phase (70% - 40%)

Aura of Contempt is active in this phase and reduces the maximum health of players (effectively, the max they can be healed to anyway) to 80%. This value is also lowered by 5% every 13 seconds or so.

Solution: Nothing can be done about this one either, although  absorb heals are extremely effective of course to provide extra effective health.

Tainted Shadows is the frequent generator for the boss this phase, which debuffs the  tank and a handful of random raid members, dealing 70k Shadow damage to themselves and anyone else within 5 yards.

Solution: Stay spread to avoid splash damage, particularly if you are afflicted with Tainted Shadow.

Font of Corruption is the spender of this phase and debuffs a number of random raid members for 50 seconds, causing those players to also be hit by Tainted Shadow damage whenever it is cast. However, these Font of Corruption players are immune to the area of effect portion of the Tainted Shadows.

Solution: We will have a designated position in melee range where all Font of Corruption players will stack. This should improve  healing output on those players while continuing to provide soaking capability for Edict of Condemnation. HOWEVER, it is critical that players in this stacked position quickly move out when their Font of Corruption debuff is about to expire (<3 seconds or so), otherwise the next Tainted Shadow tick will cause them to take AoE damage for which they're no longer immune.

Ancient Harbinger (60%)

The Harbinger must be  tanked as normal on top of the boss, but this mob's special ability is Harbinger's Mending, which tries to heal the boss initially as well as over time (ala Regrowth).

Solution: I'm unable to confirm how frequently this is cast, but we'll certainly need pairs of melee DPS to rotate interrupts to prevent this from going through. In the (hopefully rare) event that a cast completes, an offensive dispel must be used immediately to purge the HoT on the boss.

Unlike the first add,  DPS should prioritize killing the Harbinger to reduce the number of interrupts we need (and because we'll also want to ensure nothing extra is active entering the final phase).

Malice Phase (40% - 0%)

Lastly the boss uses Aura of Malice which increases both the damage the raid deals and the damage the raid takes, increasing by 10% every 5 seconds.

Bulwark of the Tyrant is the frequent generator cast by the boss this phase, which targets the  current tank and a few other random raid members and spawns a Despoiled Ground shadow pool at their locations.

Solution: While it's possible to have ranged players spread out or far away from the boss during this phase, because of the interaction with Gavel of the Tyrant, it's likely simplest to have the entire raid stacked up or at least somewhat close to the boss. We'll kite her around the edge of the room similar to Protector Kaolan in Terrace of Endless Spring (and many other bosses), moving each time Bulwark of the Tyrant is cast.

Velhari's spender this last phase is Gavel of the Tyrant, dealing minor damage to the entire raid and knocking everyone back a few yards as well as causing a bit of ticking fire damage.

Solution: While the on-paper damage is minor, it's important to remember we're going to be taking 100% (or more) extra damage in this phase, so  healer cooldowns will likely be critical for this ability.

Ancient Sovereign (30%)

The final add spawn of Ancient Sovereign will immediately cast Sovereign's Ward, reducing the damage the boss takes by 90%.

Solution:  DPS must immediately burn the Sovereign add down ASAP so we can get back on the boss.  The offtank at the time should move it into melee range to maximize damage output, even though we won't be attacking the boss while the add is alive.

[Cutsman]

Edit: I had written a thing detailing how my previous guild had handled passing the light on Sha of fear (which is similar to passing the Eye of Anzu), but I posted it before reading what Kuldam posted . I realized a few points were duplicated so I will trim my post down a bit.

Without going into too much detail on the Sha of Fear mechanic (in case anyone reading this didn't see it), it was basically a debuff that both (1) did damage over time and (2) incapacitated whoever it affected. It would affect three people in a ten man raid, though it couldn't be cast on tanks, but it would go out during times when spiking raid damage was going on. Similar to passing around the eye of anzu, it could be mitigated by passing around "the light". We determined a priority for most to least important raiders to be broken out was 1. Healers (to mitigate high raid damage) 2. Other DPS 3. Hunter/Warlock (because passive damage reduction/high health pool) and finally lastly 4. Tanks ("lowest priority" because they couldn't even get the debuff). We thus arranged our raid frames as such:

ntKO8tI.png

As you can see we are arranged from highest to lowest priority. This effectively accomplished one thing the addon will allow us to do, which is the pre-emptive casting that Kulldam talked about. The other thing it allowed us to do was to set our own priority. I haven't used the addon so I don't know if this is worth considering or not, but the addon page description does say you can sort by group number instead of alphabetically. Thus, if the mechanic gets deadly enough to warrant such micromanagement, we could arrange the groups in such a way that it was ordered from classes with high mobility cooldowns to classes with low mobility cooldowns. This might be helpful, but it also might not be worth taking the time to do if our damage is high enough that the mechanic never becomes very dangerous to begin with.

[Kulldam]

Fel Lord Zakuun

A crazy looking single-target encounter with very few mechanics but requiring high awareness and constant re-positioning by the entire raid.

The core mechanic are series of purple Wake of Destruction waves that fly across the room and deal moderate damage to anyone they hit before dispersing. The goal of the fight is to prevent both spawned Pillars and players afflicted by Latent Energy from getting hit by incoming Waves.

 Tanks should keep the boss as near as safely possible to the chosen Pillar quadrant and remain stationary and stacked on one another anytime the boss is Disarmed and using Heavy Handed. These Disarmed phases are the best time for personal mitigation cooldowns. Tanks must also take turns entering the Shadow Realm, dodging all Waves and jumping over Rings while inside, then ensuring they emerge in the corner of the room opposite the chosen Pillar quadrant area.

 DPS should focus solely on single-target damage, as there are zero adds in this encounter.

Ranged and  healers must be dilligent about their own positioning throughout the fight, spreading around the room at least 6 yards apart to reduce splash chance from Foul Explosion.

Ranged or  healers should individually soak (3) (or so) of the Fissure pools that are not located near the designated "Pillar quadrant" of the room, allowing the final Fissure that is nearest to that quadrant to spawn on it's own. These players that DO soak a Fissure will be debuffed with Latent Energy.

Those players that have Latent Energy active should move to the "Latent Energy group" position, indicated by a raid marker we'll designate once the fight is underway, typically somewhat near the Pillar quadrant. It is critical that these people never get hit by incoming Waves.

Everyone that is not afflicted by Latent Energy should always be diligent about soaking incoming Waves that threaten to hit active Pillars OR Latent Energy afflicted players.

Players affected by Seed of Destruction should immediately run out of the raid toward the opposite corner of the Pillar quadrant, spreading apart 20+ yards from one another along the walls before exploding, careful not to touch their own Waves.

No one should ever stand between the boss and an existing Pillar, eliminating the potential for waves from Cavitation to threaten the Pillar.

Wake of Destruction, Latent Energy, and Unleashed Energy

As mentioned above, the goal is to prevent Waves from any source (via Wake of Destruction) from coming into contact with any target that is afflicted by Latent Energy.

If a Wave touches a target with Latent Energy, Unleashed Energy is triggered, dealing 105k Fire damage to the entire raid.

Latent Energy Targets

Rumbling Fissures is cast by the boss and causes (approximately) four green Fissure pools to spawn in random locations around the room. After 10 seconds of formation, any Fissure that is currently not occupied by a player will spawn a Fel Crystal (aka Pillar) that persists for 90 seconds.

Stepping into a Fissure applies the Latent Energy debuff to the player.

Finally, every set of Fissures will always create a minimum of one Pillar even if all Fissures are soaked.

Solution: The goal of the Fissure spawns is to quickly communicate and have all but one particular Fissure be soaked by an individual player. By choosing which of the Fissures we elect not to soak, we can roughly decide whereabouts in the room we wish the newly created Pillar to be located, which is critical for keeping waves from it.

Wake of Destruction Sources

Cavitation is a frequent cast from the boss that creates a series of Wake of Destruction waves emanating from the boss.

Solution:  Tanks must keep the boss positioned near the existing Pillars quadrant as illustrated below. Additionally, no one in the raid should ever position themselves between the boss and an active Pillar. Lastly, 1 or 2 ranged players should always be standing between the boss and the Latent Energy Group position to soak a potential Cavitation wave that might be coming in toward them.

Seed of Descruction is cast during the Disarmed Phase and targets (5) random raid members, causing them to explode after 5 seconds and creating a Wake of Destruction at their current location.

Solution: As illustrated below, the best course of action is for afflicted players to move toward the quadrant opposite our selected Pillar quadrant and spread out from one another against the walls roughly 20-30 yards apart. For Latent Energy Group players, the same basic rule applies, but it is critical that once these people get in a far position away from the Pillar quadrant, they do not move right away after the explosion, or risk hitting their own Waves.

Phases & Additional Mechanics

Armed Phase

This is the primary phase where we'll see Rumbling Fissures and Cavitation.

 Tanks should watch for Soul Cleave in this phase, which causes the current tank to gain Disembodied and be teleported into the "Shadow Realm", where he or she must dodge numerous Waves and jump over Rings of Destruction as well. Soul Cleave is also the primary  tank swap mechanic in this Phase.

Every time a  tank exits the Shadow Realm, he or she will spawn a new Residual Energy orb in the Shadow Realm that will cause additional casts of Waves and Rings for the next tank to enter the realm, increasing throughout the fight.

Additionally, when the  tank exits the Shadow Real, he or she will cause a Wake of Destruction ring to appear from their current location in the normal realm that the raid must deal with.

Solution: The  tank that enters the Shadow Realm must be quick to dodge everything in the realm for the duration of the phase. Once the Phase is about to end, the Shadow Realm tank should position him or herself in the corner of the room opposite where the Pillar quadrant is located. This will ensure the created Wake waves do not threaten to hit the existing Pillars outside in the Normal Realm.

Befouled is also cast on random raid members, absorbing a huge amount of healing until eventually the absorb is removed and the player explodes via Foul Explosion, dealing 250k Shadow damage to anyone else in 6 yards.

Solution: As illustrated below, the basic rule of thumb is to remain spread apart at least 6 yards throughout the fight, so thinking about this danger is largely eliminated. For Latent Energy afflicted players, it will be important that those with Befouled move away from the rest of the pack briefly while the debuff is active.

Disarmed Phase

The boss will throw his axe on the ground and during this phase it will pulsate Fel Explosion, dealing 60k Fire damage every 3 seconds to the entire raid.

Solution: This damage is unavoidable, so in spite of where the axe appears, just ignore it.

The boss also gains Disarmed,  increasing his damage output on the tanks significantly, and also uses Heavy Handed, striking the current tank and the nearest ally with each attack (ala The Butcher and many bosses before that).

Solution:  Tanks must be certain to remain stacked tightly on one another this entire phase. In spite of what else may be going on, the job of tanks during this is to remain stationary with each other and mitigate the massive incoming damage from the boss.  Healers may also need to utilize targeted cooldowns or spam heals on the tanks in this phase.

Seed of Destruction is also cast in this phase, which we already covered above.

Enrage

At 35% HP, the boss gains Enrage and effectively combines abilities from both phases.

Solution: Mechanically nothing changes for the raid, we just need to maintain our diligence with positioning, soaking Waves, moving out for Seeds, and absorbing the correct Fissures spawns.  DPS will certainly want to blow Bloodlust, pots, and burn CDs to push the boss as fast as possible at this point.

Rumbling Fissures & Latent Energy

It appears that the only method for a player to gain Latent Energy is by soaking a Rumbling Fissure spawn.

Now because Rumbling Fissures occur twice per Phase and Latent Energy has a 90 second duration, after the second Rumbling Fissures cast the raid will have a minimum of (6) active Latent Energy debuffs at all times. This also assumes perfect Fissure soaking, in that one and only one player is standing within each of the (3) non-spawned Fissures and the raid ignores the assigned fourth spawn as needed.

This is particularly important because the only real way to wipe spectacularly on this encounter is for a player afflicted with Latent Energy to accidentally soak multiple Waves at once, hitting the raid with Unleashed Energy over and over in rapid succession.

One possibility to help manage the number of Latent Energy debuffs we have active is to run a simple test. We know that from the tooltip description of Latent Energy, "entering a Rumbling Fissure unleashes this energy," or in other words causes a Unleashed Energy explosion. The question is: Does this explosion occur once and only once the moment of entry into the Fissure, or is it a constant tick sort of mechanic?

If it's a one-time explosion, then it's entirely possible we could reduce the percentage of players afflicted by Latent Energy during the fight by as much as 50%, simply be "reusing" already debuffed players that have Latent Energy to soak future Fissures. It would depend also on whether we could deal with the damage spike from multiple explosions or not, but reducing the number of Latent Energies in the raid would dramatically reduce the chance of a mistake dodging waves by someone and thus wiping the raid.

Positioning

These positioning diagrams look like a bit of a mess but there are really just a few key components to focus on.

The overall goals of the positioning in this fight is to prevent two possibilities: A Wave touches a Pillar or a Wave touches a Latent Energy-afflicted player. If we can prevent both of those things from occurring, the fight will be defeated without too much trouble, so our positioning plan outlined below focuses on those two goals.



First we have the 8 raid markers evenly distributed around the room: four in the corner, and four along the wall halfway between corners. This is purely because there are random elements in the fight, namely the Fissure spawn locations, that may alter where we "setup" for the remainder of the encounter and wish to do our business, so to speak.

For this example, we can see that we've elected to spawn Fissures/Pillars in the northwest corner of the room, toward the blue raid marker. Since Pillars have a duration of 90 seconds, we will only ever have (2) Pillars active at any given time if we soak them properly.

With the Pillar quadrant of the room selected, we can then have the rest of the raid positioned appropriately to help soak and intercept incoming waves as needed. As mentioned above, there are two potential threats: A) Waves hitting Pillars, or B) Waves hitting Latent Energy players.

While active, a Pillar will deal heavy damage to anyone "near" it (unable to determine that distance and can't find it in spell data so we'll have to test), but as illustrated the idea is to position the boss in the "Pillar quadrant" as close as we can safely get to the existing Pillars.  Tanks and melee DPS will be nearest to the pillars and provide a "final line of defense" for waves attempting to connect with the Pillars themselves.

Another key position here is along the north wall right -- effectively at the yellow raid marker -- is where we have all the Latent Energy-afflicted player. Obviously being against a wall eliminates 180 degrees of potential danger right away, and then behind that we're placing them as near as we safely can to the Pillars since we're killing two birds with one stone by blocking waves that approach either the Pillars or the Latent Energy players here, preventing hits on either entity.

Meanwhile, the ranged and  healers are dispersed around the center of the room, spread out appropriately to help mitigate various AE abilities such as Befouled, but most importantly to provide that necessary shield for incoming waves. In the top diagram we see examples of where the (4-5) incoming Wave sets from a cast of Seed of Destruction should ideally emanate, with the afflicted players dispersing toward the walls/corner opposite the Pillar location. Using raid markers is perhaps useful but the key part is not stacking too close to one another but most importantly, being along opposing walls from the Pillars and Latent Energy players.



Now in the second frame we can see that while the majority of Waves were dispersed and are irrelevant or don't take trajectories that matter, those that threaten the Pillars or the Latent Energy players can easily be soaked in these positions by ranged or even melee by side-stepping slightly to the right.

I can absolutely foresee utilizing a pre-determined Rogue, or other player with near-immunity, briefly rushing through nearby incoming Waves following a nearby Seed cast that might threaten the Latent Energy group.

Additionally, when a Latent Energy player gets Seed of Destruction, he or she should be able to move out to the nearby corner (in this case the green marker) before detonating.

These positions also play around Caviation, because the Waves from Cavitation move toward existing player positions. Therefore, so long as no one ever stands between the boss and the Pillars (as illustrated above), no Cavitation waves will ever threaten the Pillars. Furthermore, by having enough space between the boss and the Latent Energy Group at the top, 1-2 ranged players can be positioned between the boss and the Latent Energy Group to soak the single Cavitation wave that might threaten them.

Lastly, by keeping the boss,  tanks, and melee as the nearest players to the Pillar quadrant we automatically enforce the ease and need of soaking new Pillars that are not in our designated quadrant, as ranged players will already naturally be in those areas.