Sunday, July 26, 2015

Halls of Blood DPS Perspective

I've now taken my Death Knight into Hellfire Citadel's second (of five) wing. Right now, I think that Kilrogg Deadeye will be the LFR-killer until people get more used to the fight's mechanics, whereas the Hellfire High Council is pretty easy. The Gorefiend is sort of in the middle - you might occasionally wipe on it, but you're far less likely to than on Kilrogg.

Hellfire High Council:

The council has a simple kill order: Gurtogg, Blademaster, Dia. DOTers might want to light up all three, but killing Gurtogg Bloodboil first is a high priority, as the debuff he slowly stacks up lasts the rest of the fight - killing him quickly means that you'll only be set back by 10 or 20% of your health. Melee can get some nice cleave on the Blademaster while working on Gurtogg, but you should still prioritize single-target damage. When Gurtogg fixates on you, be sure to run away from his tank - not only is this the way you avoid, you know, getting killed, but you also give the tank time for his or her stacking DoT to fall off. The fixate doesn't last quite long enough for this to happen if he can just go back to the tank immediately, so try to draw him back to the other end of the room (though not to Dia Darkwhisper.)

If you get hit by Dia's debuff, be sure to run to the edge of the room, away from the raid, so that you drop the void zone out of the way of your fellow raiders.

Blademaster what's-his-name is relatively easy to deal with. Basically you'll just need to burn down his multiple mirror images when he pops them out.

Kilrogg Deadeye:

The name of the game here is Adds Adds Adds. Also, Visions of Death.

Let's talk Visions of Death first. Periodically, Kilrogg will create three runes near him in a line. You need one person to stand in each rune - which will cause them to light up, a handy little hint to help you make sure all of them are covered. If you don't have all three runes covered, it doesn't count, and when the spell expires, the raid will take damage (though on LFR it's kind of slap-on-the-wrist damage.) The main drawback of failing to do Visions of Death is that you lose out on a massive damage buff.

If you successfully pull off the mechanic, the three people on the runes (if there are extras on each rune, you might just get left behind) will be transported to what is ostensibly a vision of their own demise, standing in Stromwind Keep (or Grommash Hold, I'd assume, for Horde) as waves of Imps and Azzakel-style fire demons come in. Kill as many as you can before you die. If you survive long enough to kill 20, Khadgar (in the vision) will set off a massive explosion to take out the demons attacking and go out in a blaze of glory, ending the vision and returning you to the boss chamber.

For every demon you kill during Visions of Death, you'll get a 10% damage buff, meaning that with all 20 stacks, you'll be doing three times your normal damage. Healers will also get an aura around them that I believe heals everyone standing near them (and presumably get a healing buff rather than a damage one.)

Now, as important as that mechanic is, it's not the only one.

There are four types of adds you'll need to deal with. Periodically, regular orcs will charge toward the blood fountain where Ariok is chained up. If they reach the fountain, they'll transform into dire orcs, which are a pain. These orcs can be slowed and knocked back, so do what you can to keep them from getting to the fountain.

Sometimes, even if you've been good about taking out the regular orcs, some will jump directly into the fountain and transform before you have a chance to stop them. These guys should be picked up by the tanks and DPS'd down quickly. They have a shout that should be interrupted. Tanks can switch off on these guys. These guys will give players Fel Corruption, which honestly is a mechanic that I don't quite understand, but doesn't seem to be super relevant on LFR except as a reason to keep the big adds off the blood fountain.

Kilrogg will frequently pick out a random raid member and prepare to throw a knife at them. You'll see an arrow on the ground that shows which way he'll be throwing. If you're not targeted, make sure you're not in the knife's path. If you are targeted, run as far away from the boss as you can. When the knife lands, a little blood glob will form. Everyone should kill the blood asap, as it will damage the raid and heal the boss if it gets to him. Sometimes the globs will be fel-corrupted, and I believe become more dangerous.

The key to the fight is taking down adds and using Visions of Death. It can be a long slog, especially if you allow the blood to heal him, but if the raid focuses on those adds, he'll go down.

The Gorefiend:

The Gorefiend has two alternating phases. You'll be doing way more damage to the boss during the second phase, so you'll want to prioritize killing adds in phase one.

When you get marked with the shadow of death, you'll eventually get sucked into his stomach. Kill adds that you find there - using snares to keep them from exiting if you can. You have thirty seconds before he digests you, so give yourself 25 seconds to kill adds and then run to the center to get the hell out of there.

Of course, some of the adds will escape. There are slow-moving melee adds that fixate on people that you should kill or kite if you're the one they've fixated on. Casters will stand and spam AoE spells. And occasionally you'll get a tougher one that needs to be tanked. I believe these are top priority.

You can get some damage in at the boss during this phase, but for the most part you should focus on knocking down those adds. Save your big cooldowns for phase two.

Once he depletes his energy, Gorefiend will do Feast of Souls. You'll want to burn the boss as much as possible during this time, as I believe he takes something like two or three times as much damage. If you can, try to absorb the spirits that come toward him (they look like big sparks.) You'll take a bit of damage, but you'll slow down the rate at which he recovers his energy.

Rinse and repeat and he'll go down.

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