So far, I like Hellfire Citadel. It looks cool, I like some of the bosses and I don’t absolutely hate any of them (yet). We’re 7/13 Heroic in Group #1 half mains, half alts, and 6/13 in Group #2, similar comp.
Hopefully your experience in there hasn’t been too bad, either! I’m gonna take a look at the next 3 heroic bosses as quickly as possible.😀
As before, clicking on the boss’s name will take you to the video.
Kilrogg Deadeye
We’ve had our eye on this guy since the beginning of the expansion… >.>
Okay, seriously though, here’s what you need to know:
- Heartseeker is a projectile launched at a player. It displays an arrow targeting the person, then a few seconds later it travels to the chosen target, doing damage to and spawning a Blood Globule add on anyone in the path. We just split the raid on two sides and had the person targeted run to the middle of the room as far back as they could go.
- Blood Globules will explode if they reach the boss for a ton of damage, so don’t let them.
- Salivating Bloodthirsters are adds that spawn throughout the fight, 2 toward the back of the room and one in front. If they reach the pool at the front of the room, they become Hulking Terrors. The one at the front will always transform but the two in the back should be killed before making it to the boss.
- Hulking Terrors need to be tanked and interrupted when they cast Rending Howl.
- Death Throes is a raid-wide AoE that does less damage the further from the boss you are while also launching fire around the room that you should avoid.
- Shred Armor does damage and causes a stacking tank debuff. The debuff will not be applied if the tank has active mitigation running when it casts.
There’s one other very important mechanic to know about: the Visions of Death.
When Visions of Death is cast, the boss will place 3 glowing rune circles on the ground in the direction he’s facing. One player needs to stand in each rune, and these players will be teleported to a second realm where they need to kill adds and survive.
As players kill adds in the realm, they will receive a stacking buff that increases their damage for 1 minute. The goal is to survive and kill enough adds to get to 20 stacks. When players die in the realm, they are transported out to the main room, at which point they should use their CDs to pump out damage with the active buff.
We sent in 2 alternating teams of 2 dps + 1 healer each and getting the 20 stacks was not a problem.
Handle mechanics, kill the boss, it’s really not more complicated than that.
Kormrok
Okay, this guy is big and ugly and whatever.
Abilities:
- Waves – He spawns waves from around the room (how many depends on where the boss is at and which pool he has most recently jumped into). Just dodge these. They’re a little obnoxious when empowered (coming from all 3 sides), but even hitting a wave won’t kill you. Hitting 3 or 4 of them probably will.
- Grasping Hands – Similar mechanic to Kromog, but you don’t have to stand in them, they’ll grab you automatically. Stack up before they come out and AoE them down. When they’re empowered (green pool), they will drag you towards the closest pool, so kill them ASAP.
- Runes – These runes explode on the raid if left to their own devices, so players need to pop a cooldown and run over them, soaking the damage and preventing the explosion.
- Explosive Runes – These have to have their own category because there’s a trick to dealing with them. After Kormrok jumps in the red pool, the next runes will be empowered, and when a player runs through a rune, it will spawn a new rune directly in front of that player. Handling this: Have a team of players prepared to handle runes. These players will walk through the runes while facing the middle of the room, forcing the runes to spawn towards each other. When the runes get close enough to each other, they will start canceling themselves out until there’s only one rune left (you can see how this is handled at 4:57 in the video).
- Pound – Unavoidable raidwide AoE that can be mitigated by spreading out 4 yards from other players and requires a healing cooldown.
- Tank Junk – Tanks in this fight get knocked back (Swat), grasped by a big hand that must be targeted down (Fel Crush), stunned and forced to explode on the raid like Mark of Chaos (Explosive Burst), and be taking increasing magic damage (Fel Touch).
Honestly, the fight itself is pretty straightforward, and the execution isn’t terribly difficult. Ezpz.
Gorefiend
This fight has a lot going on, but you can break it down pretty easily, I think. This guy, though; dat belleh.
The Main Room
- Spread Out. You’re constantly doing damage to each other, so stay spread 5 yards.
- Touch of Doom targets a player with a debuff that will explode when it expires and leave a puddle at the player’s feet. Move to the edge of the room before it expires.
- Shared Fate connects 3 people by beams of light. One of them is rooted, and the other 2 players must run to them to free them.
- Kill/Kite Adds. Adds spawn throughout the encounter. If one is attached to you, run away from it, otherwise kill the adds quickly.
- Don’t Stand in Swirls. Purple swirly circles spawn on the floor in a spiral shape, don’t stand in them.
The Belleh
If you die in the main room, you aren’t immediately killed; instead, you’re sent inside Gorefiend’s stomach. Some players will be debuffed with Shadow of Death, as well; which will kill you and put you in the stomach.
While there, your first objective is to kill adds (or if you’re a healer, heal the friendly NPC) before they get to the middle. Roots and knockbacks work, as well.
Your second objective is to run to the center when your debuff is about to wear off so you don’t die inside. If you die inside you’re really dead.
Also, if you die shortly after coming out of the stomach, you die permanently.
Feast of Souls
This is like the boss casting Evocation. During the channel, he takes 100% more damage. He also spawns adds that move toward him and will explode for aoe damage upon touching a player.
- Stack up together in the middle of the room in melee range.
- Assign soakers (we had tanks and warlocks doing it) to catch the adds that are going to attempt to blow up on the raid.
- Pop CDs and go as hard as you can.
- Healers will need to have healing CDs planned for the entirety of Feast of Souls.
It sounds complicated, but once you see it, it’s really not.
We’re doing flex tonight (Thurs 6/25) for fun and tier, then Heroic again Sunday @8pm Eastern on twitch.tv/ambermist.😀
Let’s go ahead and say what most of us are thinking, shall we? PLEASE MASTER PLAN & GARRISON MISSION MANAGER, WE NEED YOU! How many of you, like me, didn’t realize how good you had it until it was gone? I want them back and fully functional, please and thank you.
We killed Blackhand on a Monday night. The Sunday previous, I’d started having lower right abdominal pain. I took some ibuprofen and pressed on. Monday was miserable, but I sucked it up, a little more ibuprofen, and we killed the boss.
