The third wing of Castle Nathria on LFR is the "stone" themed one - we fight Shriekwing, the blind stoneborn... bat-gargoyle thing? She's followed by Sludgefist, a "biggun," and then the Stoneborn Generals, giving us a thematic throughline of creatures all made of earthen materials.
The odd thing is that in the regular raid (as I understand it,) Shriekwing is actually the first boss - we've run through her room several times while running the other wings of the raid. So here, after many weeks, we finally get to see how the raid actually starts.
You'll notice that there's very little trash in this wing. Before Shriekwing, there's some RP between Denathrius and Renethal, and the four gargoyles on the tops of the (very important) pillars will animate and then fight us (you actually don't have to fight all of them at once.) This room will be the setting for the first two fights.
I've run this on a Protection Paladin, Blood Death Knight, and Havoc Demon Hunter.
Shriekwing:
This and Sludgefist are both relatively simple, but with some deadly mechanics. Shriekwing will put a debuff on the tank that requires an immediate taunt from the off-tank (it's a frontloaded debuff that starts to diminish over time). The big thing in her main phase is that you need to use the pillars to break line of sight with her when she does her big shriek ability - you have 6 seconds to do so, so as long as you position yourself carefully, it's not going to be too bad.
Ranged characters will get a debuff that drops a patch of blood on the ground - you want to get out of the raid and drop that to the side to make things easier. Meanwhile, melee will want to dodge a cleave she does periodically.
When she hits 100 "blood" (her power bar fills,) she'll begin to stalk around the room. Anyone who is caught near her when she does this will be insta-killed, so you want to open up some distance and keep that distance. During this time, she'll keep doing that shriek attack, so you want to use the pillars to hide. She'll also send out bouncing "echolocation" circles, which will horrify you for a couple seconds if they hit you. Dodging these will be tricky (especially if the raid's dropped a lot of blood on the ground in the middle of the room) but it'll be important to allow you to get out of line of sight and to run from her.
After a while of stalking around the room she'll reset to phase 1. Rinse and repeat.
Sludgefist:
Sludgefist, given where he is in the dungeon journal, probably doesn't normally show up until you clear the other wings of the raid. But in this wing, he shows up after Shriekwing dies (there's some more Denathrius/Renethal RP) and you fight him in the same room.
This one's largely on the tanks. First off, there's no taunt-swap, but Sludgefist will smack both his current target and the closest target within 5 yards of it for a lot of damage with each hit, so you want the tanks to stack up. Sludgefist will periodically stomp the ground, giving you time to get out of the way before it goes off. I'm not sure if it does this on LFR, but it seems this stomp can destroy those pillars, which is very bad as you'll need them.
Ranged will sometimes get debuffs that drop a patch of nastiness on the ground - you want to move those to the walls (anyone else remember when we always called them "void zones?")
The really key mechanic here is that he'll periodically (when he reaches 100 energy) target one of the tanks with Hateful Gaze. That tank needs to book it to one of the pillars and ensure that when Sludgefist charges, he'll hit the pillar, and not the walls. Also, players need to get out of his way or they'll be trampled (I think the damage is something like 100k). Regardless of whether he hits the wall or the pillar, he'll be stunned for a couple seconds. However, if he hits the wall, the raid will take massive raid-wide damage that will almost certainly one-shot you. If he hits a pillar, the pillar gets destroyed and he takes double damage for the duration of his stun (it's not super long, but it'll help getting him down.)
Anyway, given that there are only four pillars, this gives him a kind of soft enrage. He also has a literal enrage once he gets down to low health.
Stone Legion Generals:
After using a soul mirror to get to the ramparts of the castle, you find Draven and Renethal holding off a bombardment of anima-bombs. Then, there's some stoneborn trash to deal with, and then the penultimate fight of the raid, against Generals Grashal and Kaal.
There are three phases to this fight. And it's a lot more complicated.
You'll fight Kaal directly first. You want to group up so that those who are targeted with the thrown blade attack can get out of the raid and not bounce it around. Players hit with this will get a permanent bleed. Likewise, the tanks will also get a permanent, stacking bleed from some of Kaal's attacks. The key to surviving this is that Grashal will cast Crystallize on a random player. They'll have a ring around them, and when the debuff goes off, the target and anyone near them will be stunned for two seconds. However, this also clears any bleeds they have on them, so tanks and anyone with the bleed will want to stack up on this person to clear their debuffs.
After Kaal gets to 50% (I believe) she'll get a big damage reduction shield, and adds will start to show up. Draven will also be taking out other stoneborn above, while Renethal is trying to gather the mana to cast a spell that will break the shield. DPS should focus on gathering anima spheres and bringing them to Renethal. Once he has enough, Renethal will break the shield and do some light raid damage.
When Kaal is low enough (I want to say 30%) you'll instead get Grashal. He has a more conventional tank-swap debuff (with a knockback) while Kaal will keep throwing her glaive at raid members, causing that bleed. The big new thing is that Grashal will leap to a marked players' location after a bit and leave a big rumbling circle of bad stuff. Each time he does this, if there isn't a player standing in each one of the circles he's created, the raid will take big damage, so you want to have players running into soak them (actually, to be honest, I'm not sure if this mechanic is in LFR.)
Grashal will have his own shield phase where you need to bring anima to Renethal, and then Kaal will land and you'll fight them together. This is basically where all the mechanics just stack on top of one another, and you want to kill both of them around the same time, as killing one enrages the other.
And with that, you have finished the penultimate wing of Castle Nathria LFR. The Stone Legion Generals drop 197 loot instead of 187, which is pretty cool.
I have to say, I'm a pretty big fan of this raid so far. There are a lot of interesting mechanics, and while I don't know if it quite nails the "Dracula's Castle" vibe that they pitched it with (which is really just that it's far too populated - haunted places like Karazhan and Black Rook Hold feel like they hit that a bit better) it's a cool instance with a lot of really fun fights.
I can't wait to find out what comes next.
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