Post by EmoXXXKid on May 27, 2015 13:53:46 GMT -5
Talents and Specs
When it comes to talents, the default choice for Arcane is going to look like this:
and for Fire, like this.
Make a personal decision whenever you think you can make use of Alter Time. Otherwise go for Ice Barrier or Flameglow.
Flameglow will work better on some mechanics of the fights, for example Phase 3 of Blackhand and probably the whole fight of The Blast Furnace. Ice Barrier however will give you the absorb when you need it, that's why I'd felt to somewhat generalize this decision.
Tier IV is the tier where you're going to have to make a personal decision for what works best for me, in combination with how much "potential" do Greater Invisibility have. If you don't see any reason to go with this talent, use Cauterize.
Regarding specializations...
If you want to play Fire during progression, go for it. But keep in mind that we will most likely be playing Arcane for the majority of Mythic progression. For this sole reason we should continue to opt. and improve our Arcane play and use Fire on bosses where Arcanes strengths is no longer a necessity.
You will shift talents in between bosses as Arcane and are therefor marked with orange.
I will only discuss the tier V, VI and VII talents. This will go for both Arcane and Fire but as it looks "right now" we are going with a set somewhat Fire specialization with just a few alternations.
And since I don't believe that I can't stress this enough. This guide will not cover "How to play the different specs" in general (there are other guides for that), just the talents of choice, reasoning behind it and boss mechanics.
This guide is mainly pointed to players who wants to come prepered to this new, awesome looking instance and who also frankly doesn’t give a damn about other roles (other then healers, healers are your friends). Even though I mention some of the most basic mechanics when playing as a Mage, I feel like some of y'all might appreciate just that and if there is something that I have missed, feel free to mention it down below
. I also wanna point out that alot of encounters doesn’t have abilities that you can "manage" in any extra ordinarie way, that's just how !@#$ is.
Coin List
If you've defeated some bosses in Highmaul Mythic, great you got some progression and hopefully some epics aswell. And with the +685 loot from Highmaul Mythic being better then some slots that drops from Blackrock Foundry Heroic I could only really pin down the general... that T17 Heroic pieces is still gonna rock out our Highmaul Mythic loot.
Click here for more information about the new T17 Arcanoshatter gear.
The whole document containing all classes and specs.
So this list is really only suggestions, if you have a +685 weapon in your main hand, great. You don't have to roll on certain bosses. But as weapons and trinkets are generally the best rolls, I kinda feel like I have to mention them.
With that out of the way, here are the bosses I would suggest to Bonus Roll on.
Gruul: Inferno-Flame Staff which is going to be the Best in Slot Weapon for Arcane Mages.
Oregorger Drops Goren Soul Repository which is going to be the Best in Slot Trinket for general Fire Mages.
Beastlord Darmac Darmac's Unstable Talisman which is going to be the Best in Slot Trinket for Arcane Mages.
Flamebender Ka'graz: Chest of the Iron Vanquisher.
Operator Thogar: Shoulders of the Iron Vanquisher.
The Blast Furnace: Leggings of the Iron Vanquisher.
Kromog: Helm of the Iron Vanquisher.
Iron Maidens:Gauntlets of the Iron Vanquisher
Blackhand: Essence of the Iron Vanquisher, Blackiron Micro Crucible which is going to the Best in Slot Trinket for both specializations during progress. Also drops Blackhand Doomstaff which is going to be general BiS weapon for Fire Mages.
Gruul
Type of Fight: Single
Specialization: Arcane
On Gruul, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output.
Talents:
V : Supernova
VI : Rune of Power
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Supernova will be used due to highest DPS output on single target.
Rune of Power will be the best choice here due to the low level of movement required.
Prismatic Crystal will be the default choice due to the boss being in a static state during the entire fight.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
You’re going to make sure you stay with the group that you’ve been assigned to.
If you get targeted with Petrifying Slam make sure you stay atleast 8 yards away from the rest of the group to avoid damage from Shatter to hit other players.
Move from Overhead Smash, this is a frontal cone that Gruul will cast frequently.
Don't stand in Cave In.
Mythic Changes:
Your talents are going to be exactly the same as for Heroic mode.
Apart from continues dodging of Overhead Smash and avoiding of Cave In, you also have to move from Flare's at ALL cost. These will spawn from the edges of the room and if collided with, will apply a ticking damage over time effect and also increase your fire damage taken by 20%, which is the same school of element as Inferno Slice.
Other then that there is really not that much that more that you can contribute with. Your tanks is basically going to do all the hard work so what's left for you is to deal as much damage as possible. Gruul will enrage after six minutes of pulling him so the fights is quite tight.
Tips & Tricks:
I’d suggest using Glyph of Momentum to use Blink sideways with eas.
This way of positioning your Rune of Power’s (RoP’s) is the (for this fight) geometrically correct way of placing down your RoP's. With this method you are still going to be able to move out of Overhead Smash horizontally, while having alot of somewhat neccesary vertical space to dodge Flare (these balls of fire are kinda huge).
Oregorger
Type of Fight: Single
Specialization: Arcane
On Oregorger, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output.
Talents:
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow / (Rune of Power)
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Supernova will be used due to highest DPS output on single target.
I haven’t gotten to try this out for myself but by the looks it, you might be able to use a single Rune of Power in a horizontal lane. But due to the high movement duing the Feeding Frenzy phase. It might just be plain better to go for the safe choice and use Incanter's Flow.
Prismatic Crystal will do wonders during his static phase, and will by the looks of it… only delay the second crystal with about 30 seconds which won’t result in the most dramatic loss of DPS. But if you don’t feel like waiting and just wanna use Overpowered and have all that unlimited power up for alittlebit longer, I’m sure you’re going to do just fine with that.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
During Phase 1: Satiated Slaughter
Make sure to stick with your assigned group to not %^&* up Retched Blackrock. You wanna get those pools down nice and tight.
If you’re playing with a bunch of slacking melee’s, interrupt Blackrock Barrage.
Don’t stand in Explosive Shard since it will not just damage you, but also stun you, making you lose DPS.
During Phase 2: Feeding Frenzy
The only thing you have to look out for in this phase is to not get neither rolled over or be stading where he is about to collide with a wall. And obviously DPS the crates which will spawn.
Mythic Changes:
The talents is going to remain the same as it is for Heroic mode. If your raid leader are fine with you standing in the back, apart from the other preassigned groups, you can certainly pull off Rune of Power.
This fight on Mythic is much like on Heroic. The only real exception that you have to take into account is the Unstable Slag Explosion's. Which basically is a 3 (4-1) cross way wall of fire that will go through the lanes and dismiss when collided with a wall. These walls doesn't deal "too much" damage and doesn't apply any nasty debuffs so taking one of these is not devestating. You should obviously try your best to avoid these and if you somehow get trapped in between these, use some sort of defensive cooldown.
This fight is executed very differently from guild to guild and the order in which the crates are destroyed is utterly important. Make sure to pay attention to your raid leader and kill the correct target. These crates have like in Heroic mode very little health and if you notice your whole team of DPS is damaging the ones in a certain lane, there is really no point in starting to cast AB's on that target because you are likely not going to get the cast of anyway. So just go to another lane where you are safe and start damaging (not killing) another crate since this will be a more effective way for you to contribute.
Tips & Tricks:
Worth mentioning is that the piles of dirt(?) which the crates spawn from is not completely solid, by that I mean that you can stand behind an edge and be (technically) -/-LoS of the boss but still be in LoS of it, if that makes any sense.
This does not work for Prismatic Crystal with this method though and will still require you to be in a traditionall LoS state.
During Feeding Frenzy, you can actually see which direction Oregorger is going to roll to. Since he will never roll back the same way that he came from, he will either roll left or right. He will be facing the direction he is about to roll to for about two seconds before he actually gets the feel for it. For more information, click here to check out Zhengma's awesome work on how Oregorger will behave during Feeding Frenzy.
Beastlord Darmac
Type of Fight: AoE
Specialization: Fire
On Bastlord Darmac, you’re gonna want to go with Fire as the default choice of spec with an unglyphed . This is due to Darmacs ability Call the Pack which will frequently be spawning fresh trash for you to burn to the ground.
As he will cast Call the Pack every 30 seconds I, recommend unglyphing Combustion for a 45 + ( -1 * crits) CD using Kindling. This enables you to use Combustion on every pack.
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling
Talents: Arcane
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Arcane Orb
Living Bomb will be used as it is the most efficient talent to use for plain AoE.
Incanter's Flow will be used because of the high movement that this encounter requires.
Kindling is our go-to talent for this last tier as we want to have Combustion up as frequently as possible.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
This boss has what you could call three differnt phases, with a corresponding animal to match. I will go over the three differnt animals (Phases), which are totally dynamic. Meaning that you can choose what phase you want to do first, secondly and last.
Ironcrusher
Use Greater Invisibility when Tantrum is being channeled.
If Ironcrusheris uses Stampede and is running towards you, don’t hesitate... use Ice Block to hinder damage towards you + avoiding a harsh knockback.
After Ironcrusher dies, Beastlord Darmac will recieve the ability Tantrum which he will be casting frequently thoughout the fight.
Cruelfang
The only this you as a Mage has to make sure of is to be spread out atleast 7 yards to avoid Rend and Tear to hit multiple targets.
After Cruelfang dies, Beastlord Darmac will recieve the ability Rend and Tear which he will be casting frequently thoughout the fight.
Dreadwing
Don’t stand in Inferno Breath, a frontal cone which you can predict via. checking where the boss is facing
If you get targeted by Conflagration make sure that you stay atleast 8 yards away from other players while waiting for a Dispel.
After Dreadwing dies, Beastlord Darmac will recieve the ability Superheated Shrapnel which works more or less exactly like Inferno Breath but also leaves a trail of fire behind.
WHILE doing all this the boss will be casting an ability called Pin Down. Which is an avoidable ability, but if for some reason someone were to get hit by this. You should immediately start damaging and eventually killing the Heavy Spear in order to release them.
Mythic Changes:
The talents is going to be the same as it is on Heroic mode.
What Mythic Beastlord Darmac brings is basically an extra phase, with a extra variable to his already existing last phase. After you have defeated all the three beasts that you do on Heroic mode, Darmac will mount Faultline and during this particular phase there are two things you are gonna be watching out for. Firstly you are going to want to move out of Cannonball Barrage. These balls are small but comes in very high quantities, effectivaly making the area ALOT bigger, avoid stacking in order to decrease the chances of a ball spawning underneath of you. The second thing to look out for is Epicenter, these are bascially giant fields of death in which you just don't wanna stand in. These fields will spawn directly underneath the boss and will also be the ability that Darmac grants when his companion falls. As ranged you don't need to care for this too much, just take into account that if your DPS is low, the room will be filled by these and will most likely whipe you.
Tips & Tricks:
If you progress on this boss and find that you lack damage on the boss, definitely go for Arcane for this fight. The adds will die anyway by classes that have generally "better" AoE then Mages have. By better I mean that they require less single target output to be sacrificed while still putting out decent area damage.
You preferably want to use Combustion with a high Ignite + Pyroblast crit when Darmac casts
Call the Pack.
Make sure to utilize Ice Floes to avoid Pin Down.
The most dangerous ability during this encounter will be Inferno Breath aka Superheated Shrapnel. Don’t forget to Greater Invisibility or Ice Block if you get hit by these.
Flamebender Ka'graz
Type of Fight: Single/Cleave
Specialization: Arcane / Fire
On Flamebender Ka’grazl, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output and decent cleave potential. But, due to it being a cleave encounter Fire with Kindling do show promise. I imagine the two to be relatively close with Arcane pulling slightly ahead due to the almost one and a half minute downtime on otherwise potential cleave.
Talents: Arcane
V : Supernova / (Nether Tempest)
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Meteor / (Kindling)
As the adds that comes with this encounter, Cinder Wolf’s is most likely to be tanked almost on top of the boss. Nether Tempest will come in handly as it has more damage then Supernova has for continues cleaving. If Cinder Wolf’s for some reason are tanked somewhere where your Nether Tempest won’t reach, go for Supernova.
This encounter comes with alot of movement, so it would be a disaster to go for anything else then Incanter's Flow.
Although you probably won’t get alot of rest the boss itself sure do. Staying still the whole encounters makes Mage dreams come true. Prismatic Crystal is an obvious choice here.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Throughout the fight Ka’graz will frequently cast Lava Slash which works just like a Chain Lightning. She will cast it on an initial target and it will chain to every player who stays within 7 yards. So basically just stay spreaded the whole fight.
Early in the fight there will be an add called Aknor Steelbringer which will jump around and do unavoidable knockbacks while also channeling devestating frontal cones which are totally avoidable. Stay spread 10 yards while Aknor Steelbringer is alive to prevent that more then one player gets knocked back. When Aknor is dead, you really only have to be spread 7 yards.
Make sure to not stand close to the Weaponry that Ka’graz spawns, since they will frequently cast Unquenchable Flame which you don’t wanna stand 6 yards or less within.
If you get targeted with Molten Torrent, make sure to either.
1. Blink into an empty corner and use either Ice Block or Greater Invisibility (This is obviously the best choice for your raid)
2. Bunch up with a group of players to share the damage from Molten Torrent. (This is if you want to be a douchebag and continue DPS instead of mitigating incoming damage).
When the two Cinder Wolf’s have spawned, one of them will fixate on a random player and create a Fiery Link between the them. This link will deal damage on contact and should be kited according to plan.
If you get targeted by Blazing Radiance, make sure to stand atleast 10 yards away from other players. Use Greater Invisibility here if you still have it left for DM.
The last thing you have to remember is that the two wolves has to die shortly within each other, otherwise they will heal back to full.
Mythic Changes:
Use the Fire specialization for this encounter and preferably use Kindling as your level 100 talent of choice.
The biggest change to this fight is that there will be spawning four Cinder Wolf's instead of two. The second mechanic
is Empowered Armament, which you will just ignore by having the fixated people go into melee range (where there shouldn't be any weapons), but make sure you don't take repeated attacks from the wolves while kiting in as mentioned... melee range. That's basically it, this is in my opinion the easiest boss in the whole instance.
Make sure to have Combustion up for both waves of Cinder Wolf. I.E, if you have it ready and the wolves are spawning in 25 seconds, stall it.
Use mitigation when the duration of Molten Torrent is at approximately one second. That last second + travel time will give you more then enough time.
Tips & Tricks:
You’re main goal during this fight is to kill second wave of the two Cinder Wolf’s before Ka’graz reaches 100 Fury and starts casting Firestorm. Therefor, use Prismatic Crystal on the wolf that is placed close to boss for maximum DPS.
Generally stay spread 10 yards while Aknor Steelbringer is alive and 7 yards when he is dead.
Cinder Wolf’s move fairly slow for being wolves, so don’t be to worried about making contact. I highly recommend Glyph of Momentum for this encounter. Not just to kite the adds sideways but also if you for some reason have to use Blink to pass over Fiery Link.
Use Glyph of Slow to further slow the wolves during their fixating phase.
Hans'gar & Franzok
Type of Fight: Single/Cleave
Specialization: Arcane / Fire
Talents: Arcane
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Prismatic Crystal / (Overpowered)
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling / (Meteor)
Supernova will be the go to choice here due to the not consistent cleaving potential.
Use Incanter's Flow as this is one of the most hectic and dynamic fights in Blackrock Foundry.
Even though these two goofs jump around like crazy they gotta rest relatively frequently. Place down Prismatic Crystal when you know that either Pulverized or Searing Plates is not coming up the next 10 seconds.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Avoid standing in Pulverized at any cost, these plates of doom will come in different patterns and will most likely one shot you.
Watch out for Disrupting Roar, this is a 2.5 sec cast that Franzok will cast from time to time. If they are under the effect Pumped Up the casting time of this ability will be reduced.
Be very careful to not make contact with the Searing Plates that will spawn at the back edge of the total of five conveyer belts, as these deal an immense amount of damage. There will always be atleast one convery belt free from Searing Plates
Make sure to not be standing in Scorching Burns during that particular phase.
Try to not be standing near the one targeted by Body Slam as one of the brutes will hurl themselves towards that target. Hans’gar & Franzok will target the player furthest away from their current location.
Although if you do get targeted by Body Slam, make sure to use Blink to prevent others players from getting hit from this ability.
Mythic Changes:
For this fight you are going to want to opt. for the Fire specialization. Using the same talents as on Heroic difficulty.
The only new mechanic for this fight is Smart Stampers, which basically is an "enhanced" version of Pulverized. These Stampers will sense where players are standing, and will smash the area after approximately eight seconds. So what you are going to want to do is to stay with your assigned group (either melee or ranged) and move as one unit in order to save up as much space as possible. These phases will occur at 100%, 70% and 40%. Just make sure to follow your raid leaders instructions and you'll be fine.
The usual Pulverized phase will also occur, and the reason I mention this is that directly after one of those phases have passed, the boss will then begin a phase of Smart Stampers and there is a possibilty that a few Stampers have stayed down from this previous phase but don't worry. This is just a visual bug and you can walk right through them without taking any damage.
If you are furthest away from either of the bosses they will use Body Slam on you. If you don't stand within a group to share the damage, you must use some mitigation in order to survive.
The fight is really easy, if you can manage to not die from the various mechanics that will occur throughout the encounter, this should be another cake walk.
Tips & Tricks:
Remain ontop of safe areas (area inbetween belts) while the conveyer belts are moving and continue to avoid certain mechanics by walking about ½ yard to either direction.
During Searing Plates, you can still remain within safe areas (stripes between Conveyer Belts). Make sure to be standing as close to the middle of these stripes, or more safely... move back and forward with small movements to be absolutly sure that you don't touch Searing Plates .
During Pulverized, stand at the intersection point of where to safe area (stripes) go together, to easily move to one of the areas where Pulverized is not going to land. Note: as I previously mentioned, Pulverized will come in different patterns so be aware of that.
Inbetween the converyer belts there will be a static strip where you can stand completely still and cast you spells. Use these to your advantage.
Use either Greater Invisibility or Ice Block if somehow managed to get stuck under Pulverized. NOTE that using Ice Block under this ability will knock you back quite far.
Use Glyph of Momentum to Blink sideways to the safe area during Searing Plates.
Try to be standing relatively close to boss to avoid as much movement from Body Slam as possible, as Mages are not the best when it comes to constantly moving.
When playing as Fire for this boss, note that you can spread your debuffs while either one of them is in air if they still remain close enough to the main target. Making this fight "more or less" a 2-target cleave encounter all through.
Operator Thogar
Type of Fight: Aoe/Single
Specialization: Fire / Arcane
On Operator Thogar, you’re gonna want to go with Fire as the default choice of spec with an unglyphed . This is due to the great amount of adds that will spawn frequently during the whole encounter.
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling
Talents: Arcane
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow / (Rune of Power)
VII: Arcane Orb / (Prismatic Crystal)
Living Bomb will be used as it is the most efficient talent to use for plain AoE.
Incanter's Flow will be used because of the high movement that this encounter requires.
Kindling is our go-to talent for this last tier as we want to have Combustion up as frequently as possible.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Make sure to not stand at any track with a train incoming, as Moving Train will oneshot you. Ice Block might work here. Trains come frequently.
You’re going to want to get out off Prototype Pulse Grenade as fast as possible.
When the train with the Iron Gunnery Sergeant spawns, start damaging him immediately, this target is the highest prioritize due this his ability Delayed Siege Bomb.
If you get targeted with Delayed Siege Bomb make sure to get to a predetermined position where the raid is not located to place bombs, if a bomb manages to be put where the rest of the party is located…make sure to not stand within 9 yards of it.
Make sure to prioritize killing the Grom'kar Firemender since they are the biggest threat with their burst damage and their healing.
AoE the rest but try to keep Grom'kar Man-at-Arms in check, preferably kill them fairly quickly since their rush will not only make them go down slower, but also deal AoE damage to the raid.
Mythic Changes:
This fight may possibly be the best in the whole instance, a **** ton of stuff is going on and requires each player to execute their objectives to near perfection.
Make sure you have downloaded the addon "Thogar Assist" in order to keep track of where it is safe to stand and where it is not.
I will not go through exactly where to stand at a certain point in time because that would just be crazy. But I did write down our assignemtns that we used to kill this encounter (don't know where we got it from but creds to them). Link to that here. (The markers on the side is just to visualize where the double packs of adds will spawn (purple and white) and the grey and orange marker indicated where you are going to stack up before you go through some of the Deforester's).
Looking at the assignment, what you need to pay attention to is the Deforester's which we as Mages can handle extremely well, just use Blink through the fire to avoid getting the Burning debuff. Otherwise just makes sure to save Combustion if you can for the double pack of adds, since this is the only real DPS check for the encounter. Make sure you are not standing in the OBLITERATION circles and to kill Iron Gunnery Sergeant's as quickly as possible.
Tips & Tricks:
The addon Thogar Assist will help you greatly with avoiding trains, giving you just a little bit more attention to deal further damage.
On this encounter Blink comes in more handy then ever. Make sure to use Blink to not only get out of Prototype Pulse Grenade but also to place Delayed Siege Bomb's with proper placement.
Be sure to make use of Glyph of Dragon's Breath. I personally did not find double Blink very helpful.
The Blast Furnace
Type of Fight: AoE/Cleave
Specialization: Fire / Arcane
On The Blast Furnace, you’re gonna want to go with Fire as the default choice of spec. This is due to the immense amount of adds that will spawn frequently during the entire encounter.
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling
Talents: Arcane
V : (Nether Tempest) / (Supernova)
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Arcane Orb
Living Bomb will be used as it is the most efficient talent to use for plain AoE.
Incanter's Flow will be used because of the high movement that this encounter requires.
Kindling is our go-to talent for this last tier as we want to have Combustion up as frequently as possible.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
During Phase 1: Sabotage
Spread atleast 5 yards to aviod Electrocution bounces.
Prioritize killing Furnace Engineer’s and Foreman Feldspar. The Engineers are going target players with Bomb’s which will detonate after 15 seconds. Other then assigning Bomb’s to random players, Engineers will also drop a cask of bombs once killed. Players can click this cask to retrieve the Bomb debuff but also with the choice of dropping the bombs on certain locations. These locations of interest are going to be one of the two Heat Regulator’s which are located at both sides of the opening of the furnace.
Furnace Engineer will also try to use Repair on the heat regulator's. This ability should not be a problem since they are they are highest on the list over kill targets, but if an Engineer manages to make it to one of the regulators, be sure to interrupt this ability.
Foreman Feldspar will periodicly spawn Rupture under a random players feet, move out of it instantly. Foreman Feldspar also casts an interruptable spell called Pyroclasm. Make sure to interrupt this.
During Phase 2: The Heart Exposed
If you get Fixated by Slag Elemental, get immediately ontop of the assigned
Primal Elementalist and be sure that you really stand ON TOP of it. The blast from the "for now" dead Slag Elemental will temporarily disable the Elementalist’s immunity barrier.
In this phase there will spawn Firecaller's that casts both Cauterize Wounds and Lava Burst. If your melee's are not interrupting these, make sure you do.
If you get targeted by Volatile Fire, make sure to not stand within 8 yards of other players.
After all four Primal Elementalist's are dead, Phase 3 will start.
During Phase 3: Freedom! / (Blazing Race)
In this Phase, make sure to be located ontop of your assigned ranged positioner. The point of this is to make sure to place Melt in corners to not block off any walking path. Melt will spawn regularly and the boss will have to be moved from one corner of the room to the other. Eventually if the boss is not dead before the whole room is covered in molten pools, raid whipe is assured.
If any adds still remains when Phase 3 has begun, cleave them down while continously damaging the boss and spawning Slag Elemental's.
Tips & Tricks:
If your raid lacks essential single target damage to bring down certain adds, I'd recommend going with the Arcane specialization... using the talents above.
Just before the boss’s heat meter reaches full, you wanna use Alter Time to quickly get back to full health.
Make sure you use Ice Floes to continue DPS'ing while moving youself over to one of the Heat Regulator's when you have a Bomb attached to you.
Kromog
Type of Fight: Single
Specialization: Arcane
On Kromog, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output.
Talents:
V : Supernova
VI : Rune of Power / (Incanter's Flow)
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Supernova will be used due to highest DPS output on single target.
Rune of Power will be the best choice here due to the semi-low level of movement required.
Prismatic Crystal will be the default choice due to the boss being in a static state during the entire fight.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Move out of Rippling Smash, this ability will slowly move towards you from the boss.
After casting Rippling Smash Kromog will spawn Reverberations which are vortexes which will move slowly towards raidmembers. Avoiding these are easy.
Kromog will cast Rune of Crushing Earth frequently, which will spawn a red mark on the ground with two stone hands on the side. Don’t stand in between these hands.
Kromog will also cast Rune of Grasping Earth which will spawn smaller yellow markers on the ground. One player will each take one yellow mark and get put into a stone grip which will deal periodic damage to each player. Players will be forced to do this to completely avoid Thundering Blows which will otherwise deal massive amounts of periodic damage and also fling you up in the air.
To get out of the grip players must damage the stone fists, this sequence should be timed so that when Thundering Blows is about to expire, grips should be released.
At 30 % Kromog goes into Frenzy which basically gives him more damage and also makes him cast all his abilties more frequently.
Mythic Changes:
You're going to want to opt for Arcane as the main speciailization for this encounter, BUT, if you find that you somehow lack damage during Rune of Grasping Earth, Fire is going to work decent here.
Kromog on Mythic difficulty will bring a whole new mechanic to the fight, namely Rune of Trembling Earth. Kromog will one after another, spawn three pillars of stone. These pillars MUST BE destroyed in order to avoid Call of the Mountain. Your raid leader will most likely call out where melee / ranged goes but generally DPS the first one that spawns, then switch to the second for about two-three casts and then switch to the third one that spawns and kill this one. If the pillar that you damage primaraly dies first, obviously help get the other ones down as you need all three to be shattered. During this phase certain areas on the ground will start croumbling, move out of these and preferably have Hunters chain Aspect of the Fox for this phase. Once all the pillars have been shattered, Kromog will start casting Call of the Mountain for five seconds, when this cast is finished, anyone that doesn't stand out of line of sight from Kromog (using the remains of the pillars as objects) will be killed instantly. Note that in between every Call of the Mountain, Kromog will use Rippling Smash on one of the three pillars, crushing them and making them disappear. Therefor you will have some time (7-8 seconds) to DPS the boss inbetween. You can use mitigations to avoid the damage from this spell but I'd suggest only using it if you somehow have failed to move to the next pillar for some reason. You will likely need the damage mitigation sub 30 % as this part of the fight will hurt as hell.
Other then that the fight rolls on as usual, the only other thing I want to mention is to be careful with using two Supernova's on the same target during Rune of Grasping Earth. If you end up playing Fire for this fight, make sure to focus on spreading your dot's to as many players as possible, rather then getting this huge Ignite and then spread.
Tips & Tricks:
*Mythic* - place your Prismatic Crystal so that it only hits the pillars during Rune of Trembling Earth.
Use Blink with Glyph of Momentum or Ice Floes to avoid Rippling Smash.
If you somehow fail to get in one of the yellow markers during this face, make sure to use either Alter Time or Blink to remain steady down on the ground, since you don't want o be thrown up into the air *duh*. As you will now start to take severe physical damage, use Greater Invisibility or Ice Block as DM.
Iron Maidens
Type of Fight: AoE
Specialization: Fire / Arcane
On The Iron Maidens, you’re gonna want to go with Fire as your default specialization of choice. Due to the constant two target (possibly three target) cleave
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling
Talents: Arcane
V : Nether Tempest / (Supernova)
VI : Incanter's Flow / (Rune of Power)
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Living Bomb will be used as it is the most efficient talent to use for plain AoE.
Incanter's Flow will be used because of the somewhat high movement that this encounter required later on in the fight. You might be able to pull of Rune of Power, but I'd go for the safe bet with Incanter's Flow.
Kindling will be used for Iron Maidens due to the long fight with consistant cleave.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
All of the Maidsen will recieve new abilities during the progression of the fight. Once at 30 Fury and for a second time at 100 Fury. The turn out of the fight will depend on which of the three maidens you decide to take down first. Even though I don’t see it likely to send up Mages to any of the boats I figure I’ll list what you need to know if you might decide to conquer a ship!
Admiral Gar'an
If you get targeted by Rapid Fire, make sure to kite the shells to where none of your partymember will take any damage from them.
At 30 Fury Gar’an will gain Penetrating Shot
If you get targeted by Penetrating Shot, make sure to line up the big red line with others players standing on top of it, this is to to share the damage.
At 100 Fury Gar’an will gain Deploy Turret
Gar’an will place a turret at a somewhat random position near a player, this turret will pulsate small fiery globes in a circular pattern which if made contact with. Will apply a stacking debuff.
Enforcer Sorka
Make sure to stay spread by atleast 8 yards to minimize the damage made by Blade Dash.
At 30 Fury Sorka will gain Convulsive Shadows
Sorka is going to place Convulsive Shadows on a random player, starting at five stacks and decaying with one stack per tick. This debuff will deal a fixed number of damage times the number of stacks. Dispelling this debuff will deal a higher fixed number of damage times the number of stacks to the target. It will probably be easiest to just let it pass through.
At 100 Fury Sorka will gain Dark Hunt
If you get marked by Dark Hunt you wanna make sure you have some sort of DR to fuse when the debuff expires as it will deal a high amount of damage at the end of the duration.
Marak the Blooded
Marak doesn’t have abilities that affect ranged in general, except for her ability which she gains at 30 Fury.
At 30 Fury Marak will gain Bloodsoaked Heartseeker
Marak will throw her dagger Bloodsoaked Heartseeker towards three marked players. The damage the blade deals depends on how far the knife travels, longer the travel… lesser the damage. How you wanna deal with this ability is to simply spread out from the players that also got the debuff.
Another aspect of the encounter, which I got into abit earlier is the several ships you are going to deal with. The layout of the ship depends on what maiden you decide to kill first.
If you decide to kill off Admiral Gar'an first, your ship assignment will contain the following adds.
Uktar: Will fire his rifle in a cone like attack, spread out around Uktar to minimize the damage dealt by this ability.
Battle Medic Rogg: Will cast three differnet abilities. Earthen Barrier, Protective Earth and Chain Lightning. You wanna set up an interrupt rotaion and interrupt each cast with high priority on Earthen Barrier and Protective Earth.
What your raid is going to want to do is to kill off Battle Medic Rogg first, since Uktar doesn’t really do that much.
Recommended setup to send up to ship: one healer and five DPS.
If you decide to kill off Enforcer Sorka first, your ship assignment will contain the following adds.
Gorak will throw Deadly Throw which will be soaked by the closest target to him. Preferably the Tank. Gorak will also spawn adds that will fixate onto players, these adds don’t have alot of health and shouldn’t be a problem.
Recommended setup to send up to ship: one tank, one healer and four DPS.
If you decide to kill off Marak the Blooded first, your ship assignment will contain the following adds.
Uk'urogg: will spawn Corrupted Blood which are pools of blood that spawns underneath each player on top of the ship every two seconds. Other then that just kite and kill Uk'urogg.
Recommended setup to send up to ship: one tank, one healer and four DPS.
Down on the main land one of the three maidens will frequently decide to jump on top of the ship to start fire bombs at the raid.
Bomb Impact will deal damage to players and knock them back. Try to not stand stacked for this phase.
Some of the bombs will then turn red and begin casting Detonation Sequence, these bombs are the dangerous ones and you have to stay atleast 7 yards away from them.
Tips & Tricks
Like I previously mentioned, I wouldn’t suggest putting Mages up on ships since our kit isn’t the best fit for the different assignments.
Use Greater Invisibility to mitigate the damage by Dark Hunt. That is if Admiral is not up. Suggested to ask for a external here.
Use Blink in order to quickly spread for Bloodsoaked Heartseeker.
Use Greater Invisibility to cancel and negate all damage from Penetrating Shot.
Use Greater Invisibility to cancel and negate all damage from Blood Ritual. This is not recommended to do while Adrmial is alive.
Blackhand
Type of Fight: Single
Specialization: Arcane
On Blackhand, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output.
Talents:
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Prismatic Crystal / (Overpowered)
Supernova will be used due to highest DPS output on single target.
Incanter's Flow due to the high movement required during this encounter.
Prismatic Crystal will be the go-to choice here since he the boss itself is not moving regularly. Overpowered will do for those who doesn't feel sure about usingPrismatic Crystal.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Phase 1: The Blackrock Forge
Molten Slag will immensely heat up the ground floor, starting from the edges of the room and slowly move towards the center area. If made contact with, will apply a stacking damaging Fire debuff.
Blackhand will hurl his hammer in the ceiling and cause Demolition and Massive Demolition, Demolition will be shown as smaller lighter markers which will deal damage if you stand in them/near them (damage is decreased based on the distance from the center of the impact point).
Massive Demolition will be shown as bigger darker markers, these will basically work as Demolition but will deal alot more damage and you wanna make sure to either stay as far as possible from the impact of these chunks, or have assigned healing cooldowns which you should participate in.
Massive Demolition also causes Debris Pile's to be spawn at the impact points, which are basically piles of junk which works as physical objects. These will come in handy for Blackhand's next ability Marked for Death.
Blackhand will mark a player and after 5 seconds throw Impaling Throw. A deadly spear that will be traviling in a straight line between Blackhand and the marked target. This ability will collide the FIRST OBJECT that it hits. Players might hide behind Debris Pile's and use them to soak the damage from this deadly spear.
Blackhand will also frequently use Throw Slag Bombs relativly close to himself. (Which in later parts of this phase, will be in the ranged camp aswell due to Molten Slag). These bomb will detonate after 3 seconds or by being hit by Molten Slag and deal a massive amount of damage if stood within 10 yards of the blast area. Slag Bomb's will also cause the debuff Slagged which will increase your damage taken by 100% for 15 seconds. This is really something you don't wanna stand close by.
At 70% Blackhand will enter Phase 2.
Phase 2: Storage Warehouse
During this Phase, Blackhand will continue to use Throw Slag Bombs, you deal with this mechanic like you do in Phase 1 except for blowing up on contact with Molten Slag, these will instead blow up when made contact with a Siegemaker.
Siegemaker 's are huge vehicles of death that Blackhand will call on repeatatly throughout this Phase. Siegemaker's will fixate on the closest enemy too them while using Battering Ram constantly. The Siegemaker's also have an energy bar that goes up to 100. When a Siegemaker gains full energy it will fire Mortar at a random player. Creating a spreading Blaze around the impact area. After casting Mortar the Siegemaker will go into Overdrive, reganing energy rapidly.
During this Phase, Blackhand will continue to use Marked for Death and use Impaling Throw with the same core mechanics as in Phase 1. But this time instead of hiding behind piles of junk, you wanna line the spear up so it will hit the currently active Siegemaker. This is both to negate the damage that you or another player would take, but also to remove Blackiron Plating, which is a 90% damage reduction buff that the Siegemaker's will be spawning with.
You want to start damaging the Siegemaker once his reduction have gone down totally. You preferably don't want two Siegemaker's active at the same time.
Players might also be stacking on Shattering Smash in order to get sent up to the side balcony in order to deal with Iron Soldier's. But this is not recommended as a Mage as out kit doesn't fit for the high movement that is required for this particular assignment.
At 30% Blackhand will enter Phase 3.
Phase 3: Iron Crucible / Blazing Race
During this phase, all of Blackhand's abilities will get some sort of enhancement.
The first thing you need to know during this phase is that you will take periodic Fire damage from Overheated all the time.
Instead of casting Throw Slag Bombs, Blackhand will instead cast Attach Slag Bombs, which will attach bombs to "a few" players that will explode after 3 seconds and deal damage to anyone within 10 yards. The bomb will also apply Slagged and create a slag hole which I will be talking about shortly.
Marked for Death will do the same thing it has done in the previous two Phases... with a slight difference. When Blackhand throws Impaling Throw, it will not only hit the first object it comes in contact with, this time it will literally impale and go through EVERY target in the line formed between the marked target and Blackhand.
Blackhand will also cast Massive Shattering Smash on the tank which will, either be soaked by a single tank using some sort of DR or being soaked by a group of players. (this "might" include you so I felt I should mention this) This ability also creates a slag hole.
Lastly Blackhand will use Slag Eruption, causing every non active slag hole to erupt molten lava, which will hit and deal damage to players standing close by.
As this Phase has somewhat of a soft enrage between how much room you have left combined with Overheated. You should try to save your abilities if they just come back just single percentages before Blackhand reaches 30%.
Tips & Tricks:
Use Blink to get out of Blaze. This will come as previously mentioned, after Mortar has hit the ground.
In Phases 1 and 2: If you get targeted by Marked for Death. Make sure to use Blink to get behind the objects that can protect you from Impaling Throw, namely the Debris Pile's and Siegemaker's.
In Phase 3: if you get targeted by Marked for Death. Make sure to use Blink to get out of the raid group and prefarably use Ice Block to mitigate both the initial damage but also the applied DoT effect. If Ice Block is on cooldown, use Greater Invisibility and always make sure to not be standing on the edge of the platform since this will then knock you out of the area and kill you.
In phases 1 and 2: Make sure to not place Prismatic Crystal 10 seconds before Blackhand uses Throw Slag Bombs
In Phase 3: If you get targeted by Attach Slag Bombs, make sure you use Blink and put it as far away from your raid before the 3 second duration expires so that when Blackhand uses Slag Eruption, it won't hit your raid.
When it comes to talents, the default choice for Arcane is going to look like this:
and for Fire, like this.
Make a personal decision whenever you think you can make use of Alter Time. Otherwise go for Ice Barrier or Flameglow.
Flameglow will work better on some mechanics of the fights, for example Phase 3 of Blackhand and probably the whole fight of The Blast Furnace. Ice Barrier however will give you the absorb when you need it, that's why I'd felt to somewhat generalize this decision.
Tier IV is the tier where you're going to have to make a personal decision for what works best for me, in combination with how much "potential" do Greater Invisibility have. If you don't see any reason to go with this talent, use Cauterize.
Regarding specializations...
If you want to play Fire during progression, go for it. But keep in mind that we will most likely be playing Arcane for the majority of Mythic progression. For this sole reason we should continue to opt. and improve our Arcane play and use Fire on bosses where Arcanes strengths is no longer a necessity.
You will shift talents in between bosses as Arcane and are therefor marked with orange.
I will only discuss the tier V, VI and VII talents. This will go for both Arcane and Fire but as it looks "right now" we are going with a set somewhat Fire specialization with just a few alternations.
And since I don't believe that I can't stress this enough. This guide will not cover "How to play the different specs" in general (there are other guides for that), just the talents of choice, reasoning behind it and boss mechanics.
This guide is mainly pointed to players who wants to come prepered to this new, awesome looking instance and who also frankly doesn’t give a damn about other roles (other then healers, healers are your friends). Even though I mention some of the most basic mechanics when playing as a Mage, I feel like some of y'all might appreciate just that and if there is something that I have missed, feel free to mention it down below
. I also wanna point out that alot of encounters doesn’t have abilities that you can "manage" in any extra ordinarie way, that's just how !@#$ is.Coin List
If you've defeated some bosses in Highmaul Mythic, great you got some progression and hopefully some epics aswell. And with the +685 loot from Highmaul Mythic being better then some slots that drops from Blackrock Foundry Heroic I could only really pin down the general... that T17 Heroic pieces is still gonna rock out our Highmaul Mythic loot.
Click here for more information about the new T17 Arcanoshatter gear.
The whole document containing all classes and specs.
So this list is really only suggestions, if you have a +685 weapon in your main hand, great. You don't have to roll on certain bosses. But as weapons and trinkets are generally the best rolls, I kinda feel like I have to mention them.
With that out of the way, here are the bosses I would suggest to Bonus Roll on.
Gruul: Inferno-Flame Staff which is going to be the Best in Slot Weapon for Arcane Mages.
Oregorger Drops Goren Soul Repository which is going to be the Best in Slot Trinket for general Fire Mages.
Beastlord Darmac Darmac's Unstable Talisman which is going to be the Best in Slot Trinket for Arcane Mages.
Flamebender Ka'graz: Chest of the Iron Vanquisher.
Operator Thogar: Shoulders of the Iron Vanquisher.
The Blast Furnace: Leggings of the Iron Vanquisher.
Kromog: Helm of the Iron Vanquisher.
Iron Maidens:Gauntlets of the Iron Vanquisher
Blackhand: Essence of the Iron Vanquisher, Blackiron Micro Crucible which is going to the Best in Slot Trinket for both specializations during progress. Also drops Blackhand Doomstaff which is going to be general BiS weapon for Fire Mages.
Gruul
Type of Fight: Single
Specialization: Arcane
On Gruul, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output.
Talents:
V : Supernova
VI : Rune of Power
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Supernova will be used due to highest DPS output on single target.
Rune of Power will be the best choice here due to the low level of movement required.
Prismatic Crystal will be the default choice due to the boss being in a static state during the entire fight.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
You’re going to make sure you stay with the group that you’ve been assigned to.
If you get targeted with Petrifying Slam make sure you stay atleast 8 yards away from the rest of the group to avoid damage from Shatter to hit other players.
Move from Overhead Smash, this is a frontal cone that Gruul will cast frequently.
Don't stand in Cave In.
Mythic Changes:
Your talents are going to be exactly the same as for Heroic mode.
Apart from continues dodging of Overhead Smash and avoiding of Cave In, you also have to move from Flare's at ALL cost. These will spawn from the edges of the room and if collided with, will apply a ticking damage over time effect and also increase your fire damage taken by 20%, which is the same school of element as Inferno Slice.
Other then that there is really not that much that more that you can contribute with. Your tanks is basically going to do all the hard work so what's left for you is to deal as much damage as possible. Gruul will enrage after six minutes of pulling him so the fights is quite tight.
Tips & Tricks:
I’d suggest using Glyph of Momentum to use Blink sideways with eas.
This way of positioning your Rune of Power’s (RoP’s) is the (for this fight) geometrically correct way of placing down your RoP's. With this method you are still going to be able to move out of Overhead Smash horizontally, while having alot of somewhat neccesary vertical space to dodge Flare (these balls of fire are kinda huge).
Oregorger
Type of Fight: Single
Specialization: Arcane
On Oregorger, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output.
Talents:
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow / (Rune of Power)
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Supernova will be used due to highest DPS output on single target.
I haven’t gotten to try this out for myself but by the looks it, you might be able to use a single Rune of Power in a horizontal lane. But due to the high movement duing the Feeding Frenzy phase. It might just be plain better to go for the safe choice and use Incanter's Flow.
Prismatic Crystal will do wonders during his static phase, and will by the looks of it… only delay the second crystal with about 30 seconds which won’t result in the most dramatic loss of DPS. But if you don’t feel like waiting and just wanna use Overpowered and have all that unlimited power up for alittlebit longer, I’m sure you’re going to do just fine with that.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
During Phase 1: Satiated Slaughter
Make sure to stick with your assigned group to not %^&* up Retched Blackrock. You wanna get those pools down nice and tight.
If you’re playing with a bunch of slacking melee’s, interrupt Blackrock Barrage.
Don’t stand in Explosive Shard since it will not just damage you, but also stun you, making you lose DPS.
During Phase 2: Feeding Frenzy
The only thing you have to look out for in this phase is to not get neither rolled over or be stading where he is about to collide with a wall. And obviously DPS the crates which will spawn.
Mythic Changes:
The talents is going to remain the same as it is for Heroic mode. If your raid leader are fine with you standing in the back, apart from the other preassigned groups, you can certainly pull off Rune of Power.
This fight on Mythic is much like on Heroic. The only real exception that you have to take into account is the Unstable Slag Explosion's. Which basically is a 3 (4-1) cross way wall of fire that will go through the lanes and dismiss when collided with a wall. These walls doesn't deal "too much" damage and doesn't apply any nasty debuffs so taking one of these is not devestating. You should obviously try your best to avoid these and if you somehow get trapped in between these, use some sort of defensive cooldown.
This fight is executed very differently from guild to guild and the order in which the crates are destroyed is utterly important. Make sure to pay attention to your raid leader and kill the correct target. These crates have like in Heroic mode very little health and if you notice your whole team of DPS is damaging the ones in a certain lane, there is really no point in starting to cast AB's on that target because you are likely not going to get the cast of anyway. So just go to another lane where you are safe and start damaging (not killing) another crate since this will be a more effective way for you to contribute.
Tips & Tricks:
Worth mentioning is that the piles of dirt(?) which the crates spawn from is not completely solid, by that I mean that you can stand behind an edge and be (technically) -/-LoS of the boss but still be in LoS of it, if that makes any sense.
This does not work for Prismatic Crystal with this method though and will still require you to be in a traditionall LoS state.
During Feeding Frenzy, you can actually see which direction Oregorger is going to roll to. Since he will never roll back the same way that he came from, he will either roll left or right. He will be facing the direction he is about to roll to for about two seconds before he actually gets the feel for it. For more information, click here to check out Zhengma's awesome work on how Oregorger will behave during Feeding Frenzy.
Beastlord Darmac
Type of Fight: AoE
Specialization: Fire
On Bastlord Darmac, you’re gonna want to go with Fire as the default choice of spec with an unglyphed . This is due to Darmacs ability Call the Pack which will frequently be spawning fresh trash for you to burn to the ground.
As he will cast Call the Pack every 30 seconds I, recommend unglyphing Combustion for a 45 + ( -1 * crits) CD using Kindling. This enables you to use Combustion on every pack.
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling
Talents: Arcane
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Arcane Orb
Living Bomb will be used as it is the most efficient talent to use for plain AoE.
Incanter's Flow will be used because of the high movement that this encounter requires.
Kindling is our go-to talent for this last tier as we want to have Combustion up as frequently as possible.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
This boss has what you could call three differnt phases, with a corresponding animal to match. I will go over the three differnt animals (Phases), which are totally dynamic. Meaning that you can choose what phase you want to do first, secondly and last.
Ironcrusher
Use Greater Invisibility when Tantrum is being channeled.
If Ironcrusheris uses Stampede and is running towards you, don’t hesitate... use Ice Block to hinder damage towards you + avoiding a harsh knockback.
After Ironcrusher dies, Beastlord Darmac will recieve the ability Tantrum which he will be casting frequently thoughout the fight.
Cruelfang
The only this you as a Mage has to make sure of is to be spread out atleast 7 yards to avoid Rend and Tear to hit multiple targets.
After Cruelfang dies, Beastlord Darmac will recieve the ability Rend and Tear which he will be casting frequently thoughout the fight.
Dreadwing
Don’t stand in Inferno Breath, a frontal cone which you can predict via. checking where the boss is facing
If you get targeted by Conflagration make sure that you stay atleast 8 yards away from other players while waiting for a Dispel.
After Dreadwing dies, Beastlord Darmac will recieve the ability Superheated Shrapnel which works more or less exactly like Inferno Breath but also leaves a trail of fire behind.
WHILE doing all this the boss will be casting an ability called Pin Down. Which is an avoidable ability, but if for some reason someone were to get hit by this. You should immediately start damaging and eventually killing the Heavy Spear in order to release them.
Mythic Changes:
The talents is going to be the same as it is on Heroic mode.
What Mythic Beastlord Darmac brings is basically an extra phase, with a extra variable to his already existing last phase. After you have defeated all the three beasts that you do on Heroic mode, Darmac will mount Faultline and during this particular phase there are two things you are gonna be watching out for. Firstly you are going to want to move out of Cannonball Barrage. These balls are small but comes in very high quantities, effectivaly making the area ALOT bigger, avoid stacking in order to decrease the chances of a ball spawning underneath of you. The second thing to look out for is Epicenter, these are bascially giant fields of death in which you just don't wanna stand in. These fields will spawn directly underneath the boss and will also be the ability that Darmac grants when his companion falls. As ranged you don't need to care for this too much, just take into account that if your DPS is low, the room will be filled by these and will most likely whipe you.
Tips & Tricks:
If you progress on this boss and find that you lack damage on the boss, definitely go for Arcane for this fight. The adds will die anyway by classes that have generally "better" AoE then Mages have. By better I mean that they require less single target output to be sacrificed while still putting out decent area damage.
You preferably want to use Combustion with a high Ignite + Pyroblast crit when Darmac casts
Call the Pack.
Make sure to utilize Ice Floes to avoid Pin Down.
The most dangerous ability during this encounter will be Inferno Breath aka Superheated Shrapnel. Don’t forget to Greater Invisibility or Ice Block if you get hit by these.
Flamebender Ka'graz
Type of Fight: Single/Cleave
Specialization: Arcane / Fire
On Flamebender Ka’grazl, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output and decent cleave potential. But, due to it being a cleave encounter Fire with Kindling do show promise. I imagine the two to be relatively close with Arcane pulling slightly ahead due to the almost one and a half minute downtime on otherwise potential cleave.
Talents: Arcane
V : Supernova / (Nether Tempest)
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Meteor / (Kindling)
As the adds that comes with this encounter, Cinder Wolf’s is most likely to be tanked almost on top of the boss. Nether Tempest will come in handly as it has more damage then Supernova has for continues cleaving. If Cinder Wolf’s for some reason are tanked somewhere where your Nether Tempest won’t reach, go for Supernova.
This encounter comes with alot of movement, so it would be a disaster to go for anything else then Incanter's Flow.
Although you probably won’t get alot of rest the boss itself sure do. Staying still the whole encounters makes Mage dreams come true. Prismatic Crystal is an obvious choice here.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Throughout the fight Ka’graz will frequently cast Lava Slash which works just like a Chain Lightning. She will cast it on an initial target and it will chain to every player who stays within 7 yards. So basically just stay spreaded the whole fight.
Early in the fight there will be an add called Aknor Steelbringer which will jump around and do unavoidable knockbacks while also channeling devestating frontal cones which are totally avoidable. Stay spread 10 yards while Aknor Steelbringer is alive to prevent that more then one player gets knocked back. When Aknor is dead, you really only have to be spread 7 yards.
Make sure to not stand close to the Weaponry that Ka’graz spawns, since they will frequently cast Unquenchable Flame which you don’t wanna stand 6 yards or less within.
If you get targeted with Molten Torrent, make sure to either.
1. Blink into an empty corner and use either Ice Block or Greater Invisibility (This is obviously the best choice for your raid)
2. Bunch up with a group of players to share the damage from Molten Torrent. (This is if you want to be a douchebag and continue DPS instead of mitigating incoming damage).
When the two Cinder Wolf’s have spawned, one of them will fixate on a random player and create a Fiery Link between the them. This link will deal damage on contact and should be kited according to plan.
If you get targeted by Blazing Radiance, make sure to stand atleast 10 yards away from other players. Use Greater Invisibility here if you still have it left for DM.
The last thing you have to remember is that the two wolves has to die shortly within each other, otherwise they will heal back to full.
Mythic Changes:
Use the Fire specialization for this encounter and preferably use Kindling as your level 100 talent of choice.
The biggest change to this fight is that there will be spawning four Cinder Wolf's instead of two. The second mechanic
is Empowered Armament, which you will just ignore by having the fixated people go into melee range (where there shouldn't be any weapons), but make sure you don't take repeated attacks from the wolves while kiting in as mentioned... melee range. That's basically it, this is in my opinion the easiest boss in the whole instance.
Make sure to have Combustion up for both waves of Cinder Wolf. I.E, if you have it ready and the wolves are spawning in 25 seconds, stall it.
Use mitigation when the duration of Molten Torrent is at approximately one second. That last second + travel time will give you more then enough time.
Tips & Tricks:
You’re main goal during this fight is to kill second wave of the two Cinder Wolf’s before Ka’graz reaches 100 Fury and starts casting Firestorm. Therefor, use Prismatic Crystal on the wolf that is placed close to boss for maximum DPS.
Generally stay spread 10 yards while Aknor Steelbringer is alive and 7 yards when he is dead.
Cinder Wolf’s move fairly slow for being wolves, so don’t be to worried about making contact. I highly recommend Glyph of Momentum for this encounter. Not just to kite the adds sideways but also if you for some reason have to use Blink to pass over Fiery Link.
Use Glyph of Slow to further slow the wolves during their fixating phase.
Hans'gar & Franzok
Type of Fight: Single/Cleave
Specialization: Arcane / Fire
Talents: Arcane
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Prismatic Crystal / (Overpowered)
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling / (Meteor)
Supernova will be the go to choice here due to the not consistent cleaving potential.
Use Incanter's Flow as this is one of the most hectic and dynamic fights in Blackrock Foundry.
Even though these two goofs jump around like crazy they gotta rest relatively frequently. Place down Prismatic Crystal when you know that either Pulverized or Searing Plates is not coming up the next 10 seconds.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Avoid standing in Pulverized at any cost, these plates of doom will come in different patterns and will most likely one shot you.
Watch out for Disrupting Roar, this is a 2.5 sec cast that Franzok will cast from time to time. If they are under the effect Pumped Up the casting time of this ability will be reduced.
Be very careful to not make contact with the Searing Plates that will spawn at the back edge of the total of five conveyer belts, as these deal an immense amount of damage. There will always be atleast one convery belt free from Searing Plates
Make sure to not be standing in Scorching Burns during that particular phase.
Try to not be standing near the one targeted by Body Slam as one of the brutes will hurl themselves towards that target. Hans’gar & Franzok will target the player furthest away from their current location.
Although if you do get targeted by Body Slam, make sure to use Blink to prevent others players from getting hit from this ability.
Mythic Changes:
For this fight you are going to want to opt. for the Fire specialization. Using the same talents as on Heroic difficulty.
The only new mechanic for this fight is Smart Stampers, which basically is an "enhanced" version of Pulverized. These Stampers will sense where players are standing, and will smash the area after approximately eight seconds. So what you are going to want to do is to stay with your assigned group (either melee or ranged) and move as one unit in order to save up as much space as possible. These phases will occur at 100%, 70% and 40%. Just make sure to follow your raid leaders instructions and you'll be fine.
The usual Pulverized phase will also occur, and the reason I mention this is that directly after one of those phases have passed, the boss will then begin a phase of Smart Stampers and there is a possibilty that a few Stampers have stayed down from this previous phase but don't worry. This is just a visual bug and you can walk right through them without taking any damage.
If you are furthest away from either of the bosses they will use Body Slam on you. If you don't stand within a group to share the damage, you must use some mitigation in order to survive.
The fight is really easy, if you can manage to not die from the various mechanics that will occur throughout the encounter, this should be another cake walk.
Tips & Tricks:
Remain ontop of safe areas (area inbetween belts) while the conveyer belts are moving and continue to avoid certain mechanics by walking about ½ yard to either direction.
During Searing Plates, you can still remain within safe areas (stripes between Conveyer Belts). Make sure to be standing as close to the middle of these stripes, or more safely... move back and forward with small movements to be absolutly sure that you don't touch Searing Plates .
During Pulverized, stand at the intersection point of where to safe area (stripes) go together, to easily move to one of the areas where Pulverized is not going to land. Note: as I previously mentioned, Pulverized will come in different patterns so be aware of that.
Inbetween the converyer belts there will be a static strip where you can stand completely still and cast you spells. Use these to your advantage.
Use either Greater Invisibility or Ice Block if somehow managed to get stuck under Pulverized. NOTE that using Ice Block under this ability will knock you back quite far.
Use Glyph of Momentum to Blink sideways to the safe area during Searing Plates.
Try to be standing relatively close to boss to avoid as much movement from Body Slam as possible, as Mages are not the best when it comes to constantly moving.
When playing as Fire for this boss, note that you can spread your debuffs while either one of them is in air if they still remain close enough to the main target. Making this fight "more or less" a 2-target cleave encounter all through.
Operator Thogar
Type of Fight: Aoe/Single
Specialization: Fire / Arcane
On Operator Thogar, you’re gonna want to go with Fire as the default choice of spec with an unglyphed . This is due to the great amount of adds that will spawn frequently during the whole encounter.
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling
Talents: Arcane
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow / (Rune of Power)
VII: Arcane Orb / (Prismatic Crystal)
Living Bomb will be used as it is the most efficient talent to use for plain AoE.
Incanter's Flow will be used because of the high movement that this encounter requires.
Kindling is our go-to talent for this last tier as we want to have Combustion up as frequently as possible.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Make sure to not stand at any track with a train incoming, as Moving Train will oneshot you. Ice Block might work here. Trains come frequently.
You’re going to want to get out off Prototype Pulse Grenade as fast as possible.
When the train with the Iron Gunnery Sergeant spawns, start damaging him immediately, this target is the highest prioritize due this his ability Delayed Siege Bomb.
If you get targeted with Delayed Siege Bomb make sure to get to a predetermined position where the raid is not located to place bombs, if a bomb manages to be put where the rest of the party is located…make sure to not stand within 9 yards of it.
Make sure to prioritize killing the Grom'kar Firemender since they are the biggest threat with their burst damage and their healing.
AoE the rest but try to keep Grom'kar Man-at-Arms in check, preferably kill them fairly quickly since their rush will not only make them go down slower, but also deal AoE damage to the raid.
Mythic Changes:
This fight may possibly be the best in the whole instance, a **** ton of stuff is going on and requires each player to execute their objectives to near perfection.
Make sure you have downloaded the addon "Thogar Assist" in order to keep track of where it is safe to stand and where it is not.
I will not go through exactly where to stand at a certain point in time because that would just be crazy. But I did write down our assignemtns that we used to kill this encounter (don't know where we got it from but creds to them). Link to that here. (The markers on the side is just to visualize where the double packs of adds will spawn (purple and white) and the grey and orange marker indicated where you are going to stack up before you go through some of the Deforester's).
Looking at the assignment, what you need to pay attention to is the Deforester's which we as Mages can handle extremely well, just use Blink through the fire to avoid getting the Burning debuff. Otherwise just makes sure to save Combustion if you can for the double pack of adds, since this is the only real DPS check for the encounter. Make sure you are not standing in the OBLITERATION circles and to kill Iron Gunnery Sergeant's as quickly as possible.
Tips & Tricks:
The addon Thogar Assist will help you greatly with avoiding trains, giving you just a little bit more attention to deal further damage.
On this encounter Blink comes in more handy then ever. Make sure to use Blink to not only get out of Prototype Pulse Grenade but also to place Delayed Siege Bomb's with proper placement.
Be sure to make use of Glyph of Dragon's Breath. I personally did not find double Blink very helpful.
The Blast Furnace
Type of Fight: AoE/Cleave
Specialization: Fire / Arcane
On The Blast Furnace, you’re gonna want to go with Fire as the default choice of spec. This is due to the immense amount of adds that will spawn frequently during the entire encounter.
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling
Talents: Arcane
V : (Nether Tempest) / (Supernova)
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Arcane Orb
Living Bomb will be used as it is the most efficient talent to use for plain AoE.
Incanter's Flow will be used because of the high movement that this encounter requires.
Kindling is our go-to talent for this last tier as we want to have Combustion up as frequently as possible.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
During Phase 1: Sabotage
Spread atleast 5 yards to aviod Electrocution bounces.
Prioritize killing Furnace Engineer’s and Foreman Feldspar. The Engineers are going target players with Bomb’s which will detonate after 15 seconds. Other then assigning Bomb’s to random players, Engineers will also drop a cask of bombs once killed. Players can click this cask to retrieve the Bomb debuff but also with the choice of dropping the bombs on certain locations. These locations of interest are going to be one of the two Heat Regulator’s which are located at both sides of the opening of the furnace.
Furnace Engineer will also try to use Repair on the heat regulator's. This ability should not be a problem since they are they are highest on the list over kill targets, but if an Engineer manages to make it to one of the regulators, be sure to interrupt this ability.
Foreman Feldspar will periodicly spawn Rupture under a random players feet, move out of it instantly. Foreman Feldspar also casts an interruptable spell called Pyroclasm. Make sure to interrupt this.
During Phase 2: The Heart Exposed
If you get Fixated by Slag Elemental, get immediately ontop of the assigned
Primal Elementalist and be sure that you really stand ON TOP of it. The blast from the "for now" dead Slag Elemental will temporarily disable the Elementalist’s immunity barrier.
In this phase there will spawn Firecaller's that casts both Cauterize Wounds and Lava Burst. If your melee's are not interrupting these, make sure you do.
If you get targeted by Volatile Fire, make sure to not stand within 8 yards of other players.
After all four Primal Elementalist's are dead, Phase 3 will start.
During Phase 3: Freedom! / (Blazing Race)
In this Phase, make sure to be located ontop of your assigned ranged positioner. The point of this is to make sure to place Melt in corners to not block off any walking path. Melt will spawn regularly and the boss will have to be moved from one corner of the room to the other. Eventually if the boss is not dead before the whole room is covered in molten pools, raid whipe is assured.
If any adds still remains when Phase 3 has begun, cleave them down while continously damaging the boss and spawning Slag Elemental's.
Tips & Tricks:
If your raid lacks essential single target damage to bring down certain adds, I'd recommend going with the Arcane specialization... using the talents above.
Just before the boss’s heat meter reaches full, you wanna use Alter Time to quickly get back to full health.
Make sure you use Ice Floes to continue DPS'ing while moving youself over to one of the Heat Regulator's when you have a Bomb attached to you.
Kromog
Type of Fight: Single
Specialization: Arcane
On Kromog, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output.
Talents:
V : Supernova
VI : Rune of Power / (Incanter's Flow)
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Supernova will be used due to highest DPS output on single target.
Rune of Power will be the best choice here due to the semi-low level of movement required.
Prismatic Crystal will be the default choice due to the boss being in a static state during the entire fight.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Move out of Rippling Smash, this ability will slowly move towards you from the boss.
After casting Rippling Smash Kromog will spawn Reverberations which are vortexes which will move slowly towards raidmembers. Avoiding these are easy.
Kromog will cast Rune of Crushing Earth frequently, which will spawn a red mark on the ground with two stone hands on the side. Don’t stand in between these hands.
Kromog will also cast Rune of Grasping Earth which will spawn smaller yellow markers on the ground. One player will each take one yellow mark and get put into a stone grip which will deal periodic damage to each player. Players will be forced to do this to completely avoid Thundering Blows which will otherwise deal massive amounts of periodic damage and also fling you up in the air.
To get out of the grip players must damage the stone fists, this sequence should be timed so that when Thundering Blows is about to expire, grips should be released.
At 30 % Kromog goes into Frenzy which basically gives him more damage and also makes him cast all his abilties more frequently.
Mythic Changes:
You're going to want to opt for Arcane as the main speciailization for this encounter, BUT, if you find that you somehow lack damage during Rune of Grasping Earth, Fire is going to work decent here.
Kromog on Mythic difficulty will bring a whole new mechanic to the fight, namely Rune of Trembling Earth. Kromog will one after another, spawn three pillars of stone. These pillars MUST BE destroyed in order to avoid Call of the Mountain. Your raid leader will most likely call out where melee / ranged goes but generally DPS the first one that spawns, then switch to the second for about two-three casts and then switch to the third one that spawns and kill this one. If the pillar that you damage primaraly dies first, obviously help get the other ones down as you need all three to be shattered. During this phase certain areas on the ground will start croumbling, move out of these and preferably have Hunters chain Aspect of the Fox for this phase. Once all the pillars have been shattered, Kromog will start casting Call of the Mountain for five seconds, when this cast is finished, anyone that doesn't stand out of line of sight from Kromog (using the remains of the pillars as objects) will be killed instantly. Note that in between every Call of the Mountain, Kromog will use Rippling Smash on one of the three pillars, crushing them and making them disappear. Therefor you will have some time (7-8 seconds) to DPS the boss inbetween. You can use mitigations to avoid the damage from this spell but I'd suggest only using it if you somehow have failed to move to the next pillar for some reason. You will likely need the damage mitigation sub 30 % as this part of the fight will hurt as hell.
Other then that the fight rolls on as usual, the only other thing I want to mention is to be careful with using two Supernova's on the same target during Rune of Grasping Earth. If you end up playing Fire for this fight, make sure to focus on spreading your dot's to as many players as possible, rather then getting this huge Ignite and then spread.
Tips & Tricks:
*Mythic* - place your Prismatic Crystal so that it only hits the pillars during Rune of Trembling Earth.
Use Blink with Glyph of Momentum or Ice Floes to avoid Rippling Smash.
If you somehow fail to get in one of the yellow markers during this face, make sure to use either Alter Time or Blink to remain steady down on the ground, since you don't want o be thrown up into the air *duh*. As you will now start to take severe physical damage, use Greater Invisibility or Ice Block as DM.
Iron Maidens
Type of Fight: AoE
Specialization: Fire / Arcane
On The Iron Maidens, you’re gonna want to go with Fire as your default specialization of choice. Due to the constant two target (possibly three target) cleave
Talents: Fire
V : Living Bomb
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Kindling
Talents: Arcane
V : Nether Tempest / (Supernova)
VI : Incanter's Flow / (Rune of Power)
VII: Prismatic Crystal
Living Bomb will be used as it is the most efficient talent to use for plain AoE.
Incanter's Flow will be used because of the somewhat high movement that this encounter required later on in the fight. You might be able to pull of Rune of Power, but I'd go for the safe bet with Incanter's Flow.
Kindling will be used for Iron Maidens due to the long fight with consistant cleave.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
All of the Maidsen will recieve new abilities during the progression of the fight. Once at 30 Fury and for a second time at 100 Fury. The turn out of the fight will depend on which of the three maidens you decide to take down first. Even though I don’t see it likely to send up Mages to any of the boats I figure I’ll list what you need to know if you might decide to conquer a ship!
Admiral Gar'an
If you get targeted by Rapid Fire, make sure to kite the shells to where none of your partymember will take any damage from them.
At 30 Fury Gar’an will gain Penetrating Shot
If you get targeted by Penetrating Shot, make sure to line up the big red line with others players standing on top of it, this is to to share the damage.
At 100 Fury Gar’an will gain Deploy Turret
Gar’an will place a turret at a somewhat random position near a player, this turret will pulsate small fiery globes in a circular pattern which if made contact with. Will apply a stacking debuff.
Enforcer Sorka
Make sure to stay spread by atleast 8 yards to minimize the damage made by Blade Dash.
At 30 Fury Sorka will gain Convulsive Shadows
Sorka is going to place Convulsive Shadows on a random player, starting at five stacks and decaying with one stack per tick. This debuff will deal a fixed number of damage times the number of stacks. Dispelling this debuff will deal a higher fixed number of damage times the number of stacks to the target. It will probably be easiest to just let it pass through.
At 100 Fury Sorka will gain Dark Hunt
If you get marked by Dark Hunt you wanna make sure you have some sort of DR to fuse when the debuff expires as it will deal a high amount of damage at the end of the duration.
Marak the Blooded
Marak doesn’t have abilities that affect ranged in general, except for her ability which she gains at 30 Fury.
At 30 Fury Marak will gain Bloodsoaked Heartseeker
Marak will throw her dagger Bloodsoaked Heartseeker towards three marked players. The damage the blade deals depends on how far the knife travels, longer the travel… lesser the damage. How you wanna deal with this ability is to simply spread out from the players that also got the debuff.
Another aspect of the encounter, which I got into abit earlier is the several ships you are going to deal with. The layout of the ship depends on what maiden you decide to kill first.
If you decide to kill off Admiral Gar'an first, your ship assignment will contain the following adds.
Uktar: Will fire his rifle in a cone like attack, spread out around Uktar to minimize the damage dealt by this ability.
Battle Medic Rogg: Will cast three differnet abilities. Earthen Barrier, Protective Earth and Chain Lightning. You wanna set up an interrupt rotaion and interrupt each cast with high priority on Earthen Barrier and Protective Earth.
What your raid is going to want to do is to kill off Battle Medic Rogg first, since Uktar doesn’t really do that much.
Recommended setup to send up to ship: one healer and five DPS.
If you decide to kill off Enforcer Sorka first, your ship assignment will contain the following adds.
Gorak will throw Deadly Throw which will be soaked by the closest target to him. Preferably the Tank. Gorak will also spawn adds that will fixate onto players, these adds don’t have alot of health and shouldn’t be a problem.
Recommended setup to send up to ship: one tank, one healer and four DPS.
If you decide to kill off Marak the Blooded first, your ship assignment will contain the following adds.
Uk'urogg: will spawn Corrupted Blood which are pools of blood that spawns underneath each player on top of the ship every two seconds. Other then that just kite and kill Uk'urogg.
Recommended setup to send up to ship: one tank, one healer and four DPS.
Down on the main land one of the three maidens will frequently decide to jump on top of the ship to start fire bombs at the raid.
Bomb Impact will deal damage to players and knock them back. Try to not stand stacked for this phase.
Some of the bombs will then turn red and begin casting Detonation Sequence, these bombs are the dangerous ones and you have to stay atleast 7 yards away from them.
Tips & Tricks
Like I previously mentioned, I wouldn’t suggest putting Mages up on ships since our kit isn’t the best fit for the different assignments.
Use Greater Invisibility to mitigate the damage by Dark Hunt. That is if Admiral is not up. Suggested to ask for a external here.
Use Blink in order to quickly spread for Bloodsoaked Heartseeker.
Use Greater Invisibility to cancel and negate all damage from Penetrating Shot.
Use Greater Invisibility to cancel and negate all damage from Blood Ritual. This is not recommended to do while Adrmial is alive.
Blackhand
Type of Fight: Single
Specialization: Arcane
On Blackhand, you’re gonna want to go with Arcane as the default choice of spec. This is due to the high single target output.
Talents:
V : Supernova
VI : Incanter's Flow
VII: Prismatic Crystal / (Overpowered)
Supernova will be used due to highest DPS output on single target.
Incanter's Flow due to the high movement required during this encounter.
Prismatic Crystal will be the go-to choice here since he the boss itself is not moving regularly. Overpowered will do for those who doesn't feel sure about usingPrismatic Crystal.
What you’re going to do/look out for:
Phase 1: The Blackrock Forge
Molten Slag will immensely heat up the ground floor, starting from the edges of the room and slowly move towards the center area. If made contact with, will apply a stacking damaging Fire debuff.
Blackhand will hurl his hammer in the ceiling and cause Demolition and Massive Demolition, Demolition will be shown as smaller lighter markers which will deal damage if you stand in them/near them (damage is decreased based on the distance from the center of the impact point).
Massive Demolition will be shown as bigger darker markers, these will basically work as Demolition but will deal alot more damage and you wanna make sure to either stay as far as possible from the impact of these chunks, or have assigned healing cooldowns which you should participate in.
Massive Demolition also causes Debris Pile's to be spawn at the impact points, which are basically piles of junk which works as physical objects. These will come in handy for Blackhand's next ability Marked for Death.
Blackhand will mark a player and after 5 seconds throw Impaling Throw. A deadly spear that will be traviling in a straight line between Blackhand and the marked target. This ability will collide the FIRST OBJECT that it hits. Players might hide behind Debris Pile's and use them to soak the damage from this deadly spear.
Blackhand will also frequently use Throw Slag Bombs relativly close to himself. (Which in later parts of this phase, will be in the ranged camp aswell due to Molten Slag). These bomb will detonate after 3 seconds or by being hit by Molten Slag and deal a massive amount of damage if stood within 10 yards of the blast area. Slag Bomb's will also cause the debuff Slagged which will increase your damage taken by 100% for 15 seconds. This is really something you don't wanna stand close by.
At 70% Blackhand will enter Phase 2.
Phase 2: Storage Warehouse
During this Phase, Blackhand will continue to use Throw Slag Bombs, you deal with this mechanic like you do in Phase 1 except for blowing up on contact with Molten Slag, these will instead blow up when made contact with a Siegemaker.
Siegemaker 's are huge vehicles of death that Blackhand will call on repeatatly throughout this Phase. Siegemaker's will fixate on the closest enemy too them while using Battering Ram constantly. The Siegemaker's also have an energy bar that goes up to 100. When a Siegemaker gains full energy it will fire Mortar at a random player. Creating a spreading Blaze around the impact area. After casting Mortar the Siegemaker will go into Overdrive, reganing energy rapidly.
During this Phase, Blackhand will continue to use Marked for Death and use Impaling Throw with the same core mechanics as in Phase 1. But this time instead of hiding behind piles of junk, you wanna line the spear up so it will hit the currently active Siegemaker. This is both to negate the damage that you or another player would take, but also to remove Blackiron Plating, which is a 90% damage reduction buff that the Siegemaker's will be spawning with.
You want to start damaging the Siegemaker once his reduction have gone down totally. You preferably don't want two Siegemaker's active at the same time.
Players might also be stacking on Shattering Smash in order to get sent up to the side balcony in order to deal with Iron Soldier's. But this is not recommended as a Mage as out kit doesn't fit for the high movement that is required for this particular assignment.
At 30% Blackhand will enter Phase 3.
Phase 3: Iron Crucible / Blazing Race
During this phase, all of Blackhand's abilities will get some sort of enhancement.
The first thing you need to know during this phase is that you will take periodic Fire damage from Overheated all the time.
Instead of casting Throw Slag Bombs, Blackhand will instead cast Attach Slag Bombs, which will attach bombs to "a few" players that will explode after 3 seconds and deal damage to anyone within 10 yards. The bomb will also apply Slagged and create a slag hole which I will be talking about shortly.
Marked for Death will do the same thing it has done in the previous two Phases... with a slight difference. When Blackhand throws Impaling Throw, it will not only hit the first object it comes in contact with, this time it will literally impale and go through EVERY target in the line formed between the marked target and Blackhand.
Blackhand will also cast Massive Shattering Smash on the tank which will, either be soaked by a single tank using some sort of DR or being soaked by a group of players. (this "might" include you so I felt I should mention this) This ability also creates a slag hole.
Lastly Blackhand will use Slag Eruption, causing every non active slag hole to erupt molten lava, which will hit and deal damage to players standing close by.
As this Phase has somewhat of a soft enrage between how much room you have left combined with Overheated. You should try to save your abilities if they just come back just single percentages before Blackhand reaches 30%.
Tips & Tricks:
Use Blink to get out of Blaze. This will come as previously mentioned, after Mortar has hit the ground.
In Phases 1 and 2: If you get targeted by Marked for Death. Make sure to use Blink to get behind the objects that can protect you from Impaling Throw, namely the Debris Pile's and Siegemaker's.
In Phase 3: if you get targeted by Marked for Death. Make sure to use Blink to get out of the raid group and prefarably use Ice Block to mitigate both the initial damage but also the applied DoT effect. If Ice Block is on cooldown, use Greater Invisibility and always make sure to not be standing on the edge of the platform since this will then knock you out of the area and kill you.
In phases 1 and 2: Make sure to not place Prismatic Crystal 10 seconds before Blackhand uses Throw Slag Bombs
In Phase 3: If you get targeted by Attach Slag Bombs, make sure you use Blink and put it as far away from your raid before the 3 second duration expires so that when Blackhand uses Slag Eruption, it won't hit your raid.