Thursday, July 28, 2011

Lord Rhyolith


Lord Heavyfeet is simple in design, exasperating in execution. 

The idea is that, by attacking his feet, you steer Lord Rhyolith away from the lava at the edges and into active volcanoes. Upon crushing the volcanoes 10% of his armor falls off, eventually removing all his protection and leaving his fiery core exposed. 

The actuality is that we all run around the map in chaotic fashion, praying he'll turn the way we want him to, while struggling to remember that all-important lesson from Kindergarten: Left vs. Right.

The melee should be split evenly between the two feet. If you're attempting this in 10m you probably don't have four melee. Even if you do, it may not be enough dps to turn him quickly. Ranged will have to switch to force hard turns. In 25man this is a little easier and we usually only had to have one ranged switch just to be safe.

Once assigned to your foot, you are always to attack that foot. UNLESS your steer-person calls out for a turn. To turn him right, you attack the right foot. To turn him left, you attack the left. So if "Right Turn" gets called, ALL melee switch to the right foot. When "Straight" is called out, the melee assigned to the left foot return to attacking it. 

The most frustrating part of this whole fight is having "TURN HIM RIGHT" screaming across vent, you pounding away on the right foot (even popping your wolves in desperation), and still seeing the boss rumble right into the lava. This is when Recount became my best friend. By looking at time spent attacking stats you can figure out who did or did not switch correctly. Oftentimes it's ranged forgetting to pull their pets off, but sometimes it's that darned ret pally who just sits on his assigned foot no matter what. 

FYI: Searing totem doesn't like to switch feet either so I just re-drop the totem when I switch.

Have one person, and ONLY one person, designated to call out the turns. We usually have our raid leader, a hunter, do it. Being ranged he has the added benefit of being able to see the entire floor. While he may not always be on the feet himself, it's still easier for him to determine where the boss should be steered rather than one of the melee, since all we can see are giant feet.
Do not pick an indecisive steer-person. I guarantee by the time they've said "get on right! er...left foot, no no - right foot!" Lord Rhyolith is already in the lava and drinking from it, happily wiping the raid.

Supposedly there are other things happening at this time. There are small and large adds coming out, but they will never be your priority. I admit I get so tunnel visioned during this fight that the first few attempts I didn't even realize there were adds. At all. You do, however, have to watch for the jet streams from squished volcanoes. I find the frantic screaming of my healer "MELEE MOVE JET STREAMS RWLGALH!" to be most helpful in pointing them out. If your healers are less outspoken, or perhaps don't enjoy constant heart attacks (why would they choose to be healers then?), its best to watch your feet and just side step the lines as they approach.

The boss also tries to crush you under foot, as signified by him lifting his foot menacingly into the air.  There are rumors going around that if you jump at the right time, or in the right place, or in the right zebra-print dress while singing your ABC's, you might be able to avoid this attack. Ignore them. You can fully resist the attack, but that's up the RNG, not you.

As for when to use our cooldowns it's really up to you. I tend to pop shammy rage when it's up just to mitigate stomp damage. I find there isn't really time for stoneclaw, especially when trying to turn the boss, so  I don't drop it unless I'm getting low on health and am out of lock cookies. Wolves can be used to get extra damage on the foot to ensure faster turns, just make sure they're up for the burn phase. Hint: Hero is for burn phase too.

After stomping on eight volcanoes Lord Rhyolith's armor finally begins to crack. He isn't fully vulnerable until 25% health, so there will be a bit of a lull when you still need to steer him but his armor is down. 

Phase 2 is just a stack and burn. It's mercifully quick and he'll be a molten pile of goo before you know it. We enhance shamans are rewarded with the beautiful Dreadfire Drape. See all that hit and mastery? Scrumptious.

4 comments:

  1. Awesome!! I haven't been able to raid the last 3 weeks due to being away on military training, but I'll get to give this a shot next week. Really lookin forward to this fight. It seems pretty straight forward as Melee, minus making sure DPS is coordinated on swapping legs as needed. Did you manage to nab that cloak?

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  2. Once everyone is coordinated the fight goes pretty smoothly. Hope that's true for you when you get back to it.

    As for the cloak, no, not yet. There are a bajillion (ok, four) hunters in our raid and as an officer I generally pass until the others that need it have it.

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  3. So I saw this fight tonight. Your drawings make it seem a little more friendly than the actual fight is. How deceiving! haha just kidding. We didn't get him, but only because it was at the end of the night, but we got close. He'll die tomorrow. I'll share my new cloak with you.

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  4. Heh, ya, it being the end of the night definitely has an effect on the raid. I know when I'm tired I'm liable to hit the wrong thing waaaay too often. Hope you got that cape =D

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