Well, we're at the very end of the first week this was open, but I've also run this thing on... yes, every character I've taken to the Dragon Isles. I've been sick this week, with nothing to do really, so I've been going full altoholic mode (see the name of the blog) and running it on a grand total of nine characters.
While my main is a protection paladin, I've made an allowance for myself to run LFR as Retribution on the first week and not stress out about the complexities of tanking these fights until I've got a sense of how they work. It's been quite illuminating, even if I find myself sometimes frustrated that some tanks still can't understand how to do a tank swap, a mechanic that has basically been on every raid boss since... Wrath?
Anyway, let's look at these bosses!
Terros:
This enormous earth elemental is the simplest in the wing, but still requires a little attention. The key to the fight is managing the pillars that he conjures at the locations of certain players. The players who get this debuff (which happens around the same time there's a big "stack up to soak this" swirly circle) should clump up, in a line radiating from the boss if possible, so that the pillars are all near one another. The tanks will then periodically get a big line reticle on them for a big ability that will shatter any pillars that it hits.
The pillars will pulse raid damage, so you want to try to keep them minimized by shattering them with this ability. When they are destroyed, there'll be a brief period of increased raid damage for each pillar shattered, but this only lasts a couple seconds (way better than having them continue pulsing for the rest of the fight).
At 100% energy, the boss will do a giant 90-degree cone that puts a permanent damage zone where he's pointing. He'll turn about 90 degrees when you move out of it, so basically once he's done this four times, you've hit the enrage timer.
The rest of the fight is pretty straightforward, with obvious things to dodge.
Sennarth, the Cold Breath:
Terros was pretty straightforward. This fight is not.
When the fight begins, Sennarth is hanging from the ceiling and there's a big spider with a bunch of smaller spiders on the platform. The big spiders are the top priorities for dps, and you'll get a couple of them as you climb the room.
Yes, this fight is a big climb to the top of the spiraling path.
Sennarth itself will attack the tank and periodically spit webs at them as well as random players, which give you a DoT when you stand on them that stacks up. (On higher difficulties, this debuff is also necessary to avoid the thing I'll mention next, but on LFR you just want to avoid these as best you can).
Sennarth will periodically shoot strands of web at every raid member and try to pull them into the hole in the center of the room. You just need to run away from her when she does that.
What makes this all a bit more difficult is that the path up gets strewn with ice, which makes movement tricky - basically, it'll take a while for you to get up to full speed and it'll also take you a while to stop.
Sennarth herself moves gradually up the spiraling path. She also has an energy bar, and when it fills, she summons one of the big spiders.
These spiders have a cone attack and put more ice on the ground, and I think they also just pulse frost damage, so you want to burn them down asap.
The big spiders come with small spiders. These can basically die to incidental AoE, but if you have high stacks of the web DoT, you can stand in their green death-burst to instantly clear those stacks. (This is, I think, a more important mechanic in higher difficulties, where you need the web debuff to avoid getting pulled into the pit).
Eventually, when Sennarth makes it to the top of the path, she'll climb down to engage you directly. The entire floor here is icy, and rather than pull you, she'll periodically push you away, so you'll want to line up right in front of her and run forward when she does this. Here, it's a damage race, as the raid will get a stacking debuff that increase their cold damage taken. I recommend saving Heroism/Time Warp/Blood Lust, etc. for this phase. This phase will, however, go quicker the more damage you put on her during the climb, so your mileage may vary.
Kurog Grimtotem:
At any given time, this fight is relatively simple, but overall it's very complex. That's because there are a lot of abilities to deal with.
The bigger picture is that Kurog will need to be tanked in one of four quadrants of the room (never in the center, or you'll get a ton of raid damage and wipe very quickly). Each of these quadrants is affiliated with a different element. While he's in a quadrant, he'll get a stacking buff that increases the damage he does with that element, and he'll also have abilities that are associated with said element.
When he hits 100 energy, he'll go to the center and summon two big adds based on the two quadrants he absorbed the most energy within. You need to kill these adds to get him to come back.
So, basically, tanks need to move Kurog around in a big circle over the course of the fight. If he hits 100 energy a third time, he enrages.
Oh, and in all phases, Kurog periodically does a cone attack that you'll want to only hit one tank, and then have them switch. Try not to hit any of the raid with the cone.
First, let's talk about the quadrants, then we'll talk about the adds. Then we'll talk strategy.
Air Quadrant: This is often a good place to start. There will be pulses of nature damage to the raid, and sometimes he'll summon three little circles that a player will need to soak to avoid have the raid take a bunch of damage. I think that might be it for Air.
Earth Quadrant: Periodically, Kurog will create radiating concentric circles of earth, similar to the Khajin the Unyielding fight in Halls of Infusion, where you need to step out and then in to avoid getting hit. He'll also summon two earth elementals (not to be confused with the big adds during the transition phases) that need to be picked up, tanked, and burned down.
Frost Quadrant: To the best of my knowledge, the only major ability here to look out for is that he'll put a swirly "stack here" debuff on two random raid members. People should stack up to share the damage, but you want to do this in two groups so that no person is getting hit with both when they go off.
Fire Quadrant: While he's in here, Kurog will create pools of lava where some people are standing, and then periodically send out temporary blasts of fire to where every raid member is standing multiple times - you should run away from him when he does this and just avoid getting hit by any of the fire.
Now, let's talk adds:
Air Elemental: This guy's most annoying property is that he'll teleport around. He'll periodically zap a random party member with a channeled spell that deals damage to them and anyone standing near them. If you get this on you, you'll want to run away from the raid while healers put a little extra focus on you.
Earth Elemental: This guy will periodically pick a few random raid members and give them a couple seconds before they put a giant earthquake-like zone on the ground where they're standing, which does damage to anyone standing in it, and then eventually kind of detonates them to do a ton of damage to anyone standing in it. If you get this, run to the edge of the room to place the zone out of the way.
Frost Elemental: This one will periodically channel a big storm that does massive frost damage to the raid. However, if you stand near him, you'll take far less, so the raid needs to stack up on him when he does this.
Fire Elemental: I honestly don't remember what this guy does, but it's not as big of a deal as the others'.
Bringing it all together: So, yeah, Kurog's complex overall, but simple most of the time. The timing of the quadrants is mostly about which adds you want to get together. I recommend going with Air-Earth-Water-Fire, because both the Air and Earth adds on the transition phases have "spread out" mechanics while the Water (Frost) add has a "stack up" mechanic. On one pull, we got Earth and Frost together, which was disastrous.
Tanks will want to pull him from quadrant to quadrant, generally starting on Air/Storm and going clockwise. Pull him to the next zone when he gets to 50 energy, and then start in the next one after the first add phase.
And phew! That's six of the eight bosses in Vault of the Incarnates covered. This wing is definitely more complex than the previous one (though Primal Council might have the most potential for other raid members to drive you insane).
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