Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Blackrock Foundry - Slagworks LFR First impressions

What is it with Draenor and Slag? Isn't slag, like, the bad part of metal that you get rid of after you refine the ore?

The Slagworks is the first wing of Blackrock Foundry that you'll be able to do as of today on LFR. I would assume it's like Naxxramas' Spider Wing - the easiest wing. Anyway, it contains three bosses. In addition to choosing which wing you'd like to start at, you also get a choice of whether to do Gruul or Oregorger first. In fact, as far as I can tell, you might be able to go straight to the Blast Furnace, but where's the fun in that?

I actually wound up doing the bosses in kind of the reverse order of how I usually see them listed, as I got in on an in-progress run that was at the Blast Furnace and then went and re-queued, doing Oregorger and then Gruul (and then Blast Furnace again, because I don't want to be a dick to the next tank.)

But for the hell of it, let's go in the standard order - this will also be the order in which the difficulty seems to increase.

Initial Trash:

The first trash pull in the main hub (which I suspect we'll have to deal with in all of the wings) is pretty simple, but you'll want to be careful when you pull the Ogron that follows, as he has an AoE stun/debuff/big attack. Turn right when you get to the lower level and you'll be able to head into the Slagworks, where you'll find a catwalk with some Gronnlings that ends in a T-intersection and a path to your left that leads down to the Blast Furnace. Go right at the intersection to get to Gruul. There will be some Gronnlings and Orcs to deal with, but it's nothing too serious.

Gruul:

Gruul - another familiar face from Outland - has been enslaved by the Iron Horde and his hand has been replaced with a flaming hook. This fight is pretty simple, though its tank-swap mechanics are somewhat more complicated than the usual stacking debuff.

Essentially, one tank faces him away from the raid and physically dodges Overhead Smashes. The raid should group up with the other tank, and whenever he starts to cast Inferno Slice, the second tank should taunt, allowing the whole raid to get hit by the attack. This will split damage between them and apply a stacking DoT as well as a debuff on the tank. While on Normal this DoT requires the raid to split in two, I believe its duration is short enough that on LFR you can have a single group. However, with the Inferno Slice debuff stacking up on the off-tank, you'll need to switch after I believe three stacks. The only reason you don't have the Inferno Slice tank just tank him the whole time is that the Overhead Smashes would require the DPS and Heals to constantly dodge out of the way, which is less of a pain for a single tank.

Like the original Gruul, you'll get cave-ins that you'll need to not stand in, and various members of the raid will get hit by Petrifying Slam. Those affected need to spread out so that when they get shattered they will not damage nearby allies.

Periodically Gruul will go into a phase where he just does Overhead Smash over and over, so keep on your toes (this will thankfully probably allow the Inferno Slice DoT fall off the DPS and Heals.)

Trash before Oregorger:

Head back to the Catwalk and go the other direction. You'll encounter tons of Goren, many of whom spit acid everywhere. Try not to stand in it if you can, but at least on LFR the damage of the acid is healable.

Oregorger:

The ease of LFR made this fight less of a pain to execute, but it's got an interesting variation of the usual tank-swap mechanic (actually, so did Gruul.) In the main phase, there are four things to watch out for. The off-tank needs to stand between the ranged and the boss to intercept his acid spit ability. This places a debuff on said tank, so after each spit, they should switch positions.

Oregorger will also spew Blackrock oil at the ranged group, requiring them to slowly move forward so as not to stand in it.

He also has an interruptible AoE spell that melee should keep under control. And finally, he'll toss these pillars down that will stun anyone near them - so avoid those if it's possible.

Once he's been up long enough (I believe there's a purple resource meter that lets you know) he'll get hungry. He'll then start rolling around the room, hitting walls (dealing damage to the raid) until he's eaten up all the Blackrock Ore in the various paths. The Ore is found in crates around the room that need to be DPS'd open. While on Normal you'll want a set path for the opening of crates, on LFR you can basically just kill any you see, as the damage of his wall-hits are not too bad. Once he's eaten all the ore in the room, he'll revert to phase one.

Trash before the Blast Furnace:

There's one major trash pull before the Blast Furnace, which is a Rhyolith-style elemental. The main thing is that he'll toss down these volcanic bombs that create rock spires and then cast an AoE that can be avoided by hiding behind said spires.

Blast Furnace:

This is a three-phase fight that requires a little personal responsibility, but it's not too bad.

Phase One:

You'll have Forgemaster Felspar, some Engineers, and some Security Guards, as well as a couple ogron Bellows Operators. Tanks will need to pick up everyone except the Bellows guys, but should tank the adds near them. You might consider having one tank focus on Security Guards and keep them a little away from the others, as they will sometimes channel a protection spell that prevents damage to those within their purple circles. When they do this, pull the adds away (the Guards will stand still while they do this) so your DPS can kill them.

Bellows Operators will increase the heat of the furnace, making it deal more damage when it does "Blast," a raid-wide AoE. More operators will spawn as the phase goes on, which is why they need to die.

Engineers will put bombs on random players. These players should run to the Pressure Regulators on either side of the furnace and either let the bomb go off or use their extra action button to set it off. Doing so will damage the regulators. Engineers can heal them, so be sure to interrupt them if they start to do so. I believe that on LFR you only need to destroy one regulator. When the required number (one or two) of regulators are down, phase two begins.

Phase Two:

The Bellows Operators will now attack the tanks, and you'll want to clear away the remaining adds. However, you'll also get new Security Guards and a new type of add, which I believe are called Flamekeepers, which should be tanked. The main goal now is to kill the four Primal Elementalists surrounding the Heart of the Mountain - a massive fire elemental that is the actual boss.

As a tank, I didn't get to see if this was true for LFR, but I believe the Primal Elementalists need to be made vulnerable by having raid members with a debuff let it go off next to them. If this is not the case, just DPS the Elementalists until they're all dead to get into phase 3.

Phase Three:

With the Elementalists dead, it's time to take on the Heart of the Mountain. This is more or less a DPS race at this point. There is a tank-swap debuff, but while you'll be able to clear the "Heat" DoT he stacks on you, you'll remain Tempered equal to the number of Heat spells you've received, which increases the damage of subsequent Heats. So pop Hero and go to town on the guy and be sure not to stand in the fire.

With the Heart of the Mountain down, you'll have cleared one wing of Blackrock Foundry.

I believe we get another next week, and then it'll be two weeks before we get Wing Three and another two before we get Blackhand himself.

No comments:

Post a Comment