Warlocks of Draenor: Halls of Blood LFR

So the next wing is open. More chances to get evil books.

Hellfire High Council

Ah, a council fight. Our favourite. The best strategy is to get them all to about 50% as fast as you can (multidot as Affliction, make use of Havoc as Destro), then burn them down one at a time. Generally, you want to kill off Gurtogg Bloodboil first, then Jubei’thos, then Dia Darkwhisper.

Abilities of note:

• Dia Darkwhisper: Dia periodically casts Mark of the Necromancer, and her ability Reap interacts with it. If you have the debuff and she’s about to cast this, run as fast as you can to the outskirts of the room as she’ll plonk a big void zone beneath you. Wailing Horror hurts rather a lot. Avoid the ghosts!
• Gurtogg: Fel Rage sees him fixate on a player, increase their health, and pummel them. In difficulties OTHER than LFR, each time he hits you his attack speed increases. Healers beware! When he hits 30% health, he periodically casts Tainted Blood, which reduces your maximum health by 10%, which persists until you wipe or beat the encounter.. Smash him to bits before your health drops too low!
• Jubei’thos: Windwalk sees him vanish, replaced by numerous mirror images that periodically throw their swords around. It’s indicated by an arrow which way they will throw, so try not to stand in front of them. They vanish after 45 seconds, but killing them is probably quicker. The lower Jubei’thos’s health, the lower the health of the images. Avoid Felstorm when he spins around. He lugs his Fel Blade around a bit too, indicated by a yellow arrow again.

Recommended spec: Affliction SHINES in 3 target council fights, and this is a 3 target council fight.

Kilrogg Deadeye

It’s an add fight! Here’s the add priority!

• Blood Globule: These spawn from players hit by Heart Seeker. They move to Kilrogg, and if they reach him, they heal him and deal raid-wide damage.
• Salivating Bloodthirster: These run to pools of fel blood. Kill them before they get there, or they turn into…
• Hulking Terror: These should not face the raid.
• Kilrogg

Here’s where to stand. When you have Heart Seeker aimed at you, use the demonic gateway. Small adds spawn where the ranged stand, so DPS them down as soon as you can.

Notable abilities!

• Heart Seeker: The player affected by this should run like buggery as far away from everyone as they can, aided by a Demonic Gateway if possible. Melee, don’t stand where the arrow is pointing. Players hit by this spawn an add that is of the highest priority.
• Visions of Death: He places 3 circles on the ground that a healer and 2 DPS need to stand in. This whisks them away to THE DEATH REALM. Here, you kill things, interrupt Imps, avoid void zones left by dead Fiends, and don’t stand in front of the Mistresses! When you exit THE DEATH REALM, DPS get a large DPS buff, and healers get an ability that cleanses Fel Corruption. Oh! While we’re at it…
• Fel Corruption: Less an ability, more a consequence of. Hulking Terrors inflict you with this, it’s cleansed by healers who leave THE REALM OF DEATH, and at 100 it mind controls you.
• Death Throes: Avoid the spots on the ground. Don’t stop moving.

Recommended spec: Short-lived adds you can Havoc and Shadowburn? On-demand burst requirements? HELLO DESTRUCTION.

Gorefiend

Look at that stunner. 2 phase fight with occasional being eaten. What to watch out for?

Phase 1

• ADDS. Kill them. Gorebound Spirit is the highest priority, then Gorebound Essence, then Gorebound Construct. Big’un, lit’lun, skelly.
• Touch of Doom: You get affected by this? Get AWAY from everyone. You explode for big damage at the end of the debuff, which is reduced the further away from people you are, and leaves behind a void zone.
• Shared Fate: 3 players are linked. One of them is rooted. The other 2 need to run to the rooted player, or they all take massive damage.
• Hunger for Life: A Gorebound Construct will fixate on you. Run away from it.
• Shadow of Death: Gorefiend kill you and eats you. Now you get to run around his stomach, DPS Gorebound Constructs, heal Tortured Essences, avoid void zones, and interrupt and prioritise killing Enraged Spirits. If you’re in the stomach for longer than 40 seconds, he digests you. To avoid this, go to the pillar in the middle. Adds in this room are doing the same, and will appear in the main room if they reach it. Avoid void zones.
• Crushing Darkness: Spawns void zones that explode after a few seconds. Don’t stand in them.

Phase 2

• Feast of Souls: His energy has hit 0, and he wants to refill it. Raid-wide damage every couple seconds. Yawn. He also spawns Unstable Souls which float toward him and refill his energy when they get to him. You can intercept these to extend the phase, which ends when his energy is filled, or after 1 minute. During this phase, he takes DOUBLE DAMAGE, so save your DPS cooldowns for now! Everyone should stack near Gorefiend with the melee to help the healers. Yay AoE healing.

Recommended Spec:  Short-lived adds you can Havoc and Shadowburn? On-demand burst requirements? HELLO DESTRUCTION.

Whoa deja vu. Plonk a Demonic Circle down to aid you in running out the raid for Mark of Doom, and use the Glyph of Conflagration to assist you in slowing adds down.

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Warlocks of Draenor: Hellbreach LFR

On Tuesday in NA realms, and Wednesday on EU realms, the first wing of LFR opened, the Hellbreach! This sees you tackle the first 3 bosses of Hellfire Citadel, and let’s have a little overview of the bosses.

Hellfire Assault

This is basically an add fight. You defend two cannons, while defeating enemies that try to destroy it. When the fight starts, your first priority is to get Siegemaster Mar’tak to 50% health, whereupon she leaves the fight. Try and cleave other adds down at the same time to not get overwhelmed.

The rest of the fight is then you avoiding ground crap, and DPSing the correct targets, according to a priority:

• Siege vehicles: When defeated, they drop Felfire Munitions, which a DPS or a healer should pick up and take up the ramp to one of the cannons. This is how you beat the encounter: feeding the cannons enough ammo!
• Gorebound Felcaster/Gorebound Terror: These are probably the most damaging of the adds. Try and interrupt as many casts of Felfire Volley as you can. At some point, the Felcaster will cast Metamorphosis and turn into the Terror, you NEED to focus these down ASAP before they get too many (or any!) casts of Felfire Volley off.
• Hulking Berserkers: These focus on the tanks, but need to be killed relatively quickly lest they smash them to bits.
• Contracted Engineers/Iron Dragoons: Just AoE and cleave these down, maybe as you’re DPSing the other, higher priority, adds.

Recommended spec: Destruction with Grimoire of Sacrifice and Charred Remains. This is your strongest AoE spec, and also has the strongest on-demand single target burst needed for the vehicles and Felcasters.

Iron Reaver

Big robot. Mostly single target. Takes to the skies when her energy is full. What to watch out for?

• Blitz: When she starts casting this, move the hell out her way! She faces a random member of the raid, moves towards them, and takes anyone in her path with her. This silences, pacifies and deals a lot of damage. She then repeats the attack back to her tank (usually). When charging, she pushes the fire patches left by Barrage out her way.
• Barrage: Hits in a rather wide cone in front of her. Again, move. Leaves little fire patches on the ground.
• Pounding: This one’s unavoidable. Use Unending Resolve, Sacrificial Pact, or other damage-reducing cooldowns to limit the work your healers have to do. This ability moves the fire patches from Barrage away from her, so be wary of moving fire.
• Unstable Orb: Plonks a DoT on random raid members. If it’s on you, don’t be within 8 yards of anyone.

Over time, her energy bar charges, and once it’s full, she flies into the sky (obviously got the Draenor Pathfinder achievement). She reduces any damage dealt to her by 95% while she’s in the sky, and you have new things to avoid/kill.

• Artillery: Targets 3 people. Move!
• Fuel Streak: She jets across the field, leaving a large streak of fuel that she then ignites a couple seconds later. Don’t be in it when it ignites, it HURTS. Sticks around a little bit.
• Firebomb: Targets random raid members. Plonks a circle around them, which you have to move out of before she blows you up. Leaves a bomb behind which you NEED to destroy. After 25 seconds, the bombs explode dealing a LOT of damage.
• Falling Slam: Another targeted AoE. Easily avoidable, and heralds the end of the air phase.

So it’s basically avoid fire and DPS bombs. Simple.

Recommended Spec: Any, really. They’re all passable on single target. I prefer Affliction at the moment, due to all the bloody Haste gear I keep getting.

Kormrok

Single target. Single phase. Boss leaps around into pools of crap that make him stronger. Don’t go in the pools yourself, they hurt!

• Pound: Spread out 4 yards apart.
• Explosive Energy: If he has this, he leapt into the orange pool. He’ll place Explosive Runes onto the ground, which someone needs to stand on. If someone DOESN’T, the whole raid takes damage. Use a personal cooldown to mitigate the damage if you’re the activator. When empowered by the orange pool, the runes spawn in a circle, then respawn when triggered, in front of who triggered it. You need make it so the runes respawn on top of each-other in 1 big rune, which you then trigger and it vanishes.
• Foul Energy: He’s leapt into the green pool, and it powers up his Grasping Hands. This attack normally summons little hands that grab everyone bar the tanks. Kill the hands to free yourselves and others before the hands crush you to death! When empowered, the hands not only grab you, but drag you to the nearest pool of hurty gunk. Kill them even quicker! It also summons a hand that grabs the player currently tanking Kormrok, which needs to be killed ASAP.
• Shadow Energy: The purple pool, which powers up Fel Outpouring. Ordinarily, this ability makes large blobs spawn from the purple pool, which move across the room then disappear. Avoid them, lest you suffer heavy damage. When empowered, he summons blobs from all 3 pools, which move in lots of directions. Avoid them, lest you suffer heavy damage again.

Recommended Spec: Having attempted this fight on Normal, I’d definitely take Destruction with Grimoire of Sacrifice and Charred Remains again. Being able to DPS the Grasping/Dragging hands down ASAP is very very important, and with AoE Chaos Bolt that becomes a lot easier. Demonology has very good burst AoE too, so it’s viable here.