My guild is sort of the clean-up crew. We go into raids that have been cleared by the hardcore, where the organized but perhaps not intense raiding guilds are working on the final bosses, and we start to work on the first few.
So it's very possible that this is all old, old information to you. But for those of you who have been sticking to LFR, you might be curious, you know, how those fights are actually supposed to work, rather than the zerg-fest that Raid Finder difficulty has become (as it should - who wants to have wipefests like we had in Siege of Orgrimmar?)
This guide assumes you've tried the bosses out on LFR and have the general gist of the fights, but perhaps don't know what that one debuff or another is for.
Kargath Bladefist:
Like a lot of these fights, Kargath doesn't really do much that's actually new, but you will need to engage a bit with his mechanics. The only really new feature is the presence of Tiger Pits. If you fall into these pits, there's a good chance that the tiger who's waiting there will insta-kill you. I have seen people who fall in and get out in time, but it's something you'll need to really try to avoid.
The real defining ability here is Chain Hurl.
Adds in the audience will throw things at you during the fight. Iron Bombers (Orcs) will toss bombs that can't be avoided and potentially stack up DoTs on random raid members. Drunken Bileslingers (Ogres) will create green patches of nastiness on the ground that will make life a lot harder.
Before you start the fight, designate one of your tanks, three DPS who can do AoE on the move (so probably melee) and a healer as the Chain Hurl team. If you have a larger raid group, it's possible that you'll need more to go, but in all the sizes I've tried, it's been five people.
Tanks will then coordinate so that the designated one will always be the one tossed up. Have the tank who is not in the Chain Hurl group pull Kargath first. Every time he Impales the tank, the other tank will taunt. Impale is one of those self-buffing abilities - the debuff it puts on the tank will only affect them if they get Impaled twice in a row. What this means is that even if the tank in the arena get the debuff, they can still continue to tank Kargath until he's ready to use Impale again.
Kargath will use Chain Hurl after every other Impale. What this means is that you'll want the Chain Hurl tank to take the Impale that comes right before Chain Hurl so that he or she can harmlessly let the debuff tick down while up in the stands.
When Kargath begins to cast Chain Hurl, he'll knock everyone back a bit. Those who are in the Chain Hurl team should run back forward while the others should stay back, as he'll grab the five nearest players (again, I'm assuming this is regardless of raid size.)
While Kargath swings these players around, look around the arena for Iron Bombers (they'll be larger Orcs who have explosive barrels on their backs) and, after the first Chain Hurl, Drunken Bileslingers. You'll be thrown into the middle of the grandstand, with the option to run left or right. Pick whichever size has more of these important adds, and try to round up all of the ones on a given side and then AoE them down. The bombers will explode after their death, which can hurt your team but also will help clear away the unimportant Orcs. Bile slingers have a cone breath attack, so face them away from the group. When one side is down, run to the other side and pick up the rest of the important adds.
If you down all of them (there will be a counter at the top of the screen,) you can feel free to hop down from the stands (you might need to jump from the first or second step up, as the wall is a bit high.) If you're still up there after long enough, a big ogre will run through and knock everyone back into the arena.
Beyond this, the only other thing to remember is to run Kargath through one of the Fire Pillars if he fixates on you, and try to position yourself so that when the Chain Hurl knockback doesn't knock you into the fire or the Tiger Pits.
The Butcher:
The Butcher is simple, kind of. It's partially a healing check, but I like to call it "The Tank's Revenge." Essentially, the DPS now have to deal with something resembling a tank-swap.
Positioning is crucial here. Before you pull, create four marks. Three should be surrounding the boss in melee range. A fourth should be far away, opposite the tanks, which is where the healers will stand, plus a ranged DPS if you have an odd number. I believe that some people just have the healers stand with the DPS, but this is how we did it.
The tanks will stack on top of each other. It's a basic tank-swap here, but there are actually two debuffs to watch out for. The major one to worry about is the Tenderizer, but basically you'll just want to taunt when you're free of any debuffs.
Now, the DPS have the real challenge here. The two groups on either side of the Butcher will need to stack up and not move. These two groups must be of equal size.
The reason is that the Butcher will Cleave on the biggest group of players within reach, stacking up a bleed that will instantly kill anyone with 5 stacks. To manage this, you'll need to manage how big your groups are by having one of the ranged DPS (preferably a hunter, as they can shoot on the run and have Disengage to get out of there fast) move out of one group while the other moves back in.
For example: Say you have eight DPS. You'll have four of those guys stand to the Butcher's right and four to the left. You have, say, a Hunter in Group 1 and a Mage in Group 2. When the fight starts, you'll have everyone in Group 1 stack up together, and you'll have everyone in Group 2 except the Mage stack up on the other side. When Group 1's debuff gets high enough, the Mage will stack up in Group 2 and the Hunter will back off. This will cause Group 2 (which is now a full 4 stacked up instead of 3) to start getting the Cleaves while allowing Group 1's bleed to fall off.
It's not as complicated as it sounds.
When the Butcher does his Bounding Cleave, he'll knock everyone back and leap at the healer group. But this should be the only damage they take at all during the whole fight, so they'll be ok. Just get back into position and don't chase the boss. And if the healers are directly behind the boss, he'll run right back into position as long as the tanks go back to their marks.
One last note: at 30%, the Butcher enrages, so blow Time Warp/Heroism/Bloodlust/Ancient Hysteria when that happens and pop some defensive cooldowns. If you can get the Group-switching, this is really just a gear-check.
Next time on Handling Highmaul: Brackenspore, once we get him down!
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