Firelands Raid Strats

[Holyssa]

Like my Blackwing post, this'll be filled with vids, and strats collected for all of the new bosses in Firelands. And again, if you have changes or contributions, feel free to add onto the thread

[Holyssa]

Beth'tilac (OH GOD, SPIDERS...on FIRE!)

Video:

(Pseudonym vs Beth'tilac)

(Tankspot)

Strat/ideas:

General Boss Information:

This boss is a 2 phase encounter.

She summons adds and sprays fire/magma to try and kill the raid

It is a fairly simple encounter and mainly just a gear check

Boss Abilities:

---Phase 1: (Not % based)

Upon engaging Beth, she retreats to her canopy and begins casting a magma spew that damages all members of the raid until a player goes to the canopy with her... which is reached by mounting on the remaining webs of dead spiders.

Shortly after engaging, she will spawn groups of adds...

1 Cinderweb Drone

A large spider that needs to be tanked

He does a frontal cone AoE magma spew, so turn it away from the raid

Also casts Burning Acid on random players

We had our rogue on this add the whole time with help from everyone else when there was nothing to do.

4-6 Cinderweb Spinners

These are medium sized spiders that dangle from webs, and will remain there until taunted down.

They don't do much damage and have ~230k HP

Also casts Burning Acid on random players

Once these spiders die, their webs can be used to reach the top of the canopy... We usually send the tank first, followed by a healer and then 1-2 DPS.

We had our hunter solo these during this phase

15ish Cinderweb Spiderlings

Run around casting Seeping Venom if they get too close to a player.

Have very little health and can be AoE down easily

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These adds will spawn as groups with the numbers stated above. You will get them after each Smoldering Devastation, which she will cast once her mana reaches zero.

You want to make sure that the people going up jump down through a hole in the canopy as she starts casting this ability. While up top, all you have to do is DPS and watch out for the Meteors that she casts. There is an effect on the ground and it's pretty easy to avoid

Smoldering Devastation will happen 3 times before entering Phase 2

---Phase 2:

Phase 2 starts after the third Smoldering Devastation cast.

Make sure the adds are dead when she enters P2 because she will consume them and get healed up.

This phase is 100% a burn phase.

Have everyone in your raid stack, except for the 2 tanks. This is due to The Widow's Kiss. When this happens, tank swap.

Alongside the kiss, Beth will begin to slowly enrage by casting Frenzy every few seconds. This stacks indefinitely until the end of the encounter.

Finally, the hardest part of P2 is Ember Flare, which is cast periodically and hits the whole raid. Stack up and use CDs to survive the latter part of this phase

Tips:

Send as much DPS up top as you can to get as much damage on her as possible without getting overrun below.

Execution is key, but fairly easy... just kill what you need to and avoid meteors

Don't be bad.

Edited July 3, 2011 by Holyssa

[Holyssa]

Lord Rhyolith (WTB the Anti-christ like name from PTR back ))

Video:

(Tankspot)

Strat/Ideas:

The fight starts when players cross the bridge onto Rhyolith's platform. When engaged he does not need tanked as rather than attack players directly he begins walking in a straight line from one end of the platform to the other. Players need to steer the boss by attacking either his Left Leg or Right Leg, both of which are targetable. Attacking the Left Leg makes the boss turn left and attacking the Right Leg makes the boss turn right. If Rhyolith reaches the edge of his platform he drinks from the lava surrounding it and kills everyone.

Phase 1

During the course of the first phase Rhyolith stomps on the ground, inflicting fire damage to everyone and knocking back players within 20 yards. The stomps also spawn two to three little volcanoes around the platform, which are activated over the course of the fight. When a volcano is active it does a small amount of unavoidable damage to random players, also randomly stacking a debuff on your raid that increases your fire damage taken. This debuff can stack up to 20 times. Your dps must attack Rhyolith's legs in order to force him to walk over these active volcanoes, which will cause them to become craters. Once a volcano becomes a crater it stops causing fire damage and applying debuffs to players, and it also reduces Rhyolith's stacks of Obsidian Armor by 10. The lower his stacks of Obsidian Armor, the more damage Rhyolith takes.

When the boss is marched over a volcano there is a chance that he will cause lines of lava to blossom from it in multiple directions. If you are in the path of a line of lava as it grows you will take a large amount of damage. When the lines have finished growing they explode, which will also cause a large amount of damage and throw your character into the air.

Also throughout the first phase of the fight Rhyolith will summon adds to help him. There are two different types; small adds and large adds. The small adds, Fragments of Rhyolith, have fairly low health, but are also quite dangerous. If not killed within 30 seconds, these adds will explode, doing damage equal to the amount of health they have left to a random player. They spawn in groups. The large adds, Sparks of Rhyolith, do an AoE fire attack similar to a warlock's Hellfire. They also have a buff that increases the damage the Sparks give and receive, making them more dangerous as time goes on, but also easier to kill. These adds spawn one at a time.

Tactic

The tactic we used (in 10 man) was to put two melee on the legs full time, with one of them calling out on Vent which leg to attack. With one person in charge of where to steer the boss the volcanoes become a lot easier to get rid of. We used only one tank for the encounter, having him tank the Fragments in the first phase, and had two ranged take care of the Sparks (hunter and warlock), the hunter kiting the Spark away from the rest of the raid.

When only one volcano was active the healing was pretty easy, but if a second volcano popped up before the stacks from the previous volcano dropped off, the healing became much harder. The rest of the dps attacked the legs as directed and helped on the Fragments when they spawned.

Having the ranged stack up together helped with the healing, and it also made it easier for the tank to pick up the Fragments, as they mostly went for the healers just after spawning. Just make sure that if you do stack your raid up that everyone stays over 20 yards away from Rhyolith; a knockback from the stomp at the wrong time could leave you standing on top of a line of lava that's about to explode.

Phase 2

Rhyolith needs to be picked up by the tank and the last 25% of his health burned off. Save Bloodlust/Heroism and some personal cooldowns for this phase, stack the raid up away from the boss to avoid the stomp and help with the healing and cycle through raid wide healing/defensive cooldowns to make it to the finish line.

[Holyssa]

Alysrazor (Reserved till more 10-man info surfaces)

Video:

(Echoes vs Alysrazor, it's PTR so kill/strat methods may vary.)

Strat/ideas:

http://www.wowhead.com/npc=52530#comments:id=1455609 <-- applies to 25-man, but still somewhat insightful.

[Holyssa]

Shannox (Release the hounds!)

Video:

(Tankspot)

(A two-tank approach to Shannox and the dogs. Personally, I would not mind trying this.)

Strats/Ideas:

Regarding Spawn Methods:

-He spawns after a certain amount of trash has been killed (I don't know the exact details yet, just kill things until the hunter's horn emote has happened 3 times).

-He can be tanked anywhere you want, he doesn't leash to any specific area. Make sure you have a large area of trash cleared, you could easily use a lot of space fighting Shannox.

-He pats around the main ring road. Watch out for him while clearing trash!

-Make sure you're ready to pull when you see him coming, since he takes a looong time to do a full lap of the road, so if you miss pulling him into your trash-free area, you'll be waiting a while.

Kill related:

1. Start the pull, but put a 55-60 yard separation on Shannox and Riplimb. Exceed 60 yards and they both enrage.

2. Kill Rageface first. The Shannox tank gets hit much harder as a result, but it's easier to deal with that than whatever Rageface will dish out.

3. AFter Rageface dies, melee go to Shannox while ranged go to Riplimb.

4. When Shannox throws his spear, the Riplimb tank immediately runs towards Shannox. This causes the spear and Riplimb to be 30 yards apart when the spear lands, so Riplimb has to run 30 yards just to get to the spear, then another 60 yards to get back to Shannox. If you can slow Riplimb, or even get him in a crystal trap in the path he takes to run to the spear and back, will give both tanks enough time to lose their debuffs. In the event that the Shannox tank doesn't lose his debuff completely, he should still be able to survive until the next spear throw

5. DPS Shannox down to 35%, then DPS Riplimb down to death, then kill Riplimb, pop Lust and cooldowns, and kill Shannox.

[Holyssa]

Baleroc (FFS, just call it a Balrog)

Video:

(Tankspot)

Strat/Ideas:

http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?76470-Baleroc (Applies to 25-man, not much 10-man info out there just yet)

[Holyssa]

Majordomo Staghelm (TOO SOON, STAGHELM!)

Video:

(Tankspot)

Strat/Ideas:

http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?76466-Majordomo-Staghelm (Tankspot, 25-man)

General Tips:

Fandral transforms into a Cat when his enemies are not clustered together or into a Scorpion when 7 or more of his enemies are clustered together. On every third transform, Fandral briefly pauses in human form.

When switching. from Scorpion to Cat Have players use Blink, Disengage, heroic leap, Demonic portal to spread out instantly. This is especially important during the first scorpion phase where you are likely to push Staghelm to 10+ stacks and the flame Scythes will come fast and furious.

Similarly when going from Cat to Scorpion have players start moving in as his energy passes85%. you can get most of the way in while he's still in the air without risking him leaping on someone close.

If you are having difficultly with enough room for seeds in the second scorpion phase make sure during the preceding cat phase that players stay well outside the circle center of the room, and if a Leaping Flames void zone is within 10-20 yards of you be sure to stand near the edge of it to overlap the void zones as much as possible.

Regarding Burning Orbs 2 people are generally sufficient to control an orb. the Orbs usually last until around the 6th leap of the corresponding cat phase. As you approach the fifth and sixth leaps you will likely have void zones on the Orbs and it will be harder to control who they are hitting. During this time Remember that abilities like Deterrence, Cloak of Shadows, and Iceblock can clear and/or prevent new stacks from applying if a player gets caught tanking two, or goes much above 5 stacks.

This fight is won or lost with how fast you can stack up and spread out so make sure your raid knows at which points to do each, and it will die fairly quickly.

[Holyssa]

Ragnaros (By feet, be purged!)

Video:

(Tankspot)

Strat/ideas:(I'm not sure if this applies to 10 or 25, but it's insightful reading either way)

Phase 1

Ragnaros is two-tanked, and will put a stacking fire DoT on its current aggro target. Tanks must switch off near 10 stacks and use cooldowns towards the end of their turn.

Every 30 seconds, Ragnaros will cast Sulfuras Smash. He will face a random player and hit the area they were standing in after two seconds of cast time. The location of the smash is given away by three lava pools formed together on the spot. When the cast is finished, three lava waves will spawn and move in different directions. (one is in the direction the boss was facing, and the other two will be to the perpendicular sides.) The locations of these smashes will always be within an arc just barely past the edge of the platform in front of Ragnaros. They are easily avoidable by standing diagonal to the direction of the smash or close-up to the boss. Touching the lava wave will knock back the player and place a strong magic DoT on them which will kill them if not dispelled immediately.

Ragnaros will also randomly burst the entire raid, knocking them back a few yards. (Similar to Al'Akir's Wind Burst but without a cast time.) Players should not be near the edge of the platform or they will get knocked off into the lava. Players must also be aware of this knockback possibly due at the same time a Sulfuras Smash occurs so they do not accidentally get knocked into the lava waves or a trap. This mechanic only occurs during Phase 1.

Ranged must be fully spread out as a random ranged player will be targeted with a trap on the ground that will damage the entire raid when triggered. It will remain there for the entire fight unless it is activated by a player moving into it. Warlocks with Demonic Portals, Mages with Slowfall, or Priests with Levitate can trigger these without dying. However, they must be sure the entire raid is topped before doing so as this combined with Ragnaros' random burst will kill someone who is not fully healed.

Phase 1.5

At 70%, Ragnaros will face a random direction in front of him and throw down Sulfuras before submerging. Eight fire elemental adds will spawn in static locations around the perimeter of the platform.

If any one of these elementals touches Sulfuras, they will cast Supernova and blast your entire raid for a lot of damage. This will wipe your raid if you are not fully topped. They start with a movement speed increase which will decrease as their health lowers to 50%. All melee should be separated to their own assigned add to stunlock and burn it down while ranged finish off all adds prioritized by whichever is closest to Sulfuras. These adds cannot be rooted or snared, but they can be Death Gripped, and knocked back with Typhoon. When all adds have died or 45 seconds have elapsed in this phase, Ragnaros will reemerge.

Phase 2

Ragnaros uses a new ability which will also be used in Phase 3. Engulfing Flames will be cast for 3 seconds on a third of the room (separated in lanes: melee, middle, ranged)

Every 60 seconds, Ragnaros will spawn lava seeds on random players within the raid. All players must be spread out to avoid the splash damage these seeds cause when placed but remain on one side of the room before they are placed. After all seeds are placed, players must cross over to the other side immediately before these seeds detonate. Damage from all the seeds are based on proximity, so the closer the deadlier. After the explosion, adds will spawn for each one of these seeds and target random players. The raid must stack up to AoE all these adds down before spreading back out for the next wave of seeds. The raid can stack anywhere, but it would be easiest to do so on top of the tank at the very front of the platform to avoid being caught off guard by Sulfuras Smash. However, if any players stagger and are too far back they are likely to get instantly killed by Sulfuras Smash.

The biggest part of this phase is being in the right place at the right time. When a Sulfuras Smash or Engulfing Flames occurs, players must remain at least 6 yards away from each other when Lava Seeds are coming. These two abilities will also occur when players are stacking up to AoE adds so they must be aware of them coming. The abilities used in this phase are static and sequential, so it's easy to memorize what will happen when. (e.g. Every second lava seed spawn having a Sulfuras Smash happen right after the explosion)

Phase 2.5

Starts at 40% HP. The exact same as Phase 1.5 with the addition of two Lava Scions, each one spawning on separate sides of the room which must be tanked. All players must kill their elemental adds quickly as before with the exception of the furthest one to buy time to kill both Lava Scions before Ragnaros reemerges. Chain grips and knockbacks on the last add to use the full duration of the phase while burning down one of the scions to free a tank for Ragnaros in Phase 3.

Phase 3

Sulfuras Smash and Engulfing Flames are still used in this phase. Very large meteors will now start spawning as a soft enrage in this fight to chase random players. The spawn location is given away with a graphic similar to Hellfire which everyone nearby must move away from. They are extremely slow, and can be knocked back every 5 seconds by doing direct damage to them. However, it should only be hit if it's in danger of touching the player. Meteors do not stay on the same player and may switch to a different one at any time, so it's important to keep distance from all active meteors. Collision with the meteor will cause it to explode, killing the colliding player and everyone within 8 yards. As this phase persists, meteors will keep spawning and chasing more players so Ragnaros must be killed as fast as possible.

At 10% HP, Ragnaros dies instantly. No cutscene, no home-free burn to 0.

[Orcala]

Whats a training hall?