Heroic Majordomo

Heroic Majordomo Staghelm is the opposite of normal. In normal mode, the goal is to take as many cleaves as possible. The goal of heroic is to take as few as possible and stay in cat mode as long as you can.

Raid cooldowns are saved for cat phases (usually taken to 7 or 8 except for when orbs are out, in which case 4 or 5).

We would only take one cleave in scorpion phase – and only the tank would actually take the cleave. That is because we didn’t want anyone else getting damaged and losing the attack buff. There’s a couple ways to make sure the tank can live through this. We worked with a paladin tank:

• Have the tank and a priest alternate between Guardian King and Guardian Spirit.
• Have a shadow priest stand with the tank and use dispersion.

Obviously this will be different with warriors or druids, just need to tweak cooldowns as necessary or have the raid eat a cleave and lose DPS if absolutely necessary.

All paladins should bubble the top DPS going into a seed phase. That way the highest DPS don't have to run out/get damaged and lose buff and can keep wailing on the boss while everyone else is dealing with the debuff. 

As enhance shamans, our focus is usually on the adds. Damange cooldowns for orbs and don't forget Fire Elemental if you get more than 2 out. Also: if the raid is in a pinch, you can sacrifice yourself and eat a cleave to keep the tank alive if only lesser tank CDs are up. Reincarnate and keep going. Just hope nothing else screws up…

 

Swag : Gloves and Shoulder Tier

Heroic Baleroc

In H25-man, just as in normal, there are two crystals. Melee assigned to one, ranged to the other. You could try to assign who takes the torment-beam when, but it will almost always get screwed up as torment spreads. We ended up not assigned roles but just relying on two different vent channels to call out who was taking it real-time. Melee also had one big rule: if you weren’t tormented, stand as close to the boss as possible. If you were tormented, max melee range for you!

Don’t gravitate too much to the outside of the boss. It’s tempting to run out to the corners because you’re less likely to infect someone, but it means the shard could spawn in the corner, quickly shoving the entire raid into one corner and trapping people.

At intervals there is a linked attack (Countdown, much like Blood Queen in LK). Both linked people have to run close enough to each other to cancel the spell. Theoretically you can be close enough to drop Countdown, yet far enough to not spread Tormented, but I have never, ever seen that happen. Tormented always jumps. ALWAYS. 

Once you figure out a communication style that works for your raid, to ensure people always know who is taking the current shard, you’ve got the fight. The key is really keeping from tormented spreading needlessly.

Re: communication and vent. We had a melee channel and a ranged channel. Healers and officers put a shadow in one or the other. That way 85% of the raid could only hear what was important to their group. If melee were shouting to someone to take the crystal, ranged was free to shout the same in their channel with no interference. 

I’m going to be honest, we never did get heroic Baleroc in 25-man, only in 10-man. I think sometime after the 80^th wipe we switched to 10, at which point it was like archiving a zen state and the fight became super easy. Suddenly there was all this room to move. Before, you turned your camera to the left and infected four people with tormented. Now, now you could dance the hand jive around the boss and never touch another person.

Swag: Gatecrasher!

Heroic Beth'tilac

Party up top: We had four melee go up (myself, 2 rogues, and a DK). Our composition was based on what groups had the most self-healing, since we only have one healer go up. The 4 melee we send up can pretty much avoid/heal/mitigate incoming damage, leaving the healer free to heal the tank and conserve mana. Wolves, stoneclaw, shamanistic rage, even the occasional MWx5 chain heal, are all recommended. On the last descent I run towards the spiderlings to kill them before Beth follows me down.

Frenzy on the bottom: I fell off the web on two different attempts just so I could experience the bottom level. It had nothing to do with the fact that I stupidly avoided one lava puddle by jumping straight into another. Nope. It was all for science! For melee on the bottom, stick to the drone like glue. The drone will occasionally fixate on someone. Whoever that fixated person is must run to the drone tank. Help taunt the spinners down in the beginning. Ranged will be managing the exploding spiders.


Phase 2: Stack on butt. Pop dps and dmg cooldowns. Pray your healer’s mana lasts long enough. Save your lock cookie for that last 20 to 10%. We found Beth needs to be at 80% or lower before Phase 2 for a successful kill.

Swag: Widow’s Kiss, I guess. Shoulders, if you’re desperate.

Heroic Alysrazor

Heroic Alysrazor's changes come in the first phase. The adds still come, but with more health, and are a bit more staggered out. Meteor's also drop into the middle and must be stopped (i.e. killed by ranged) before they reach the walls and explode. The meteor is crucial because after a few seconds Alysrazor will cast a giant firestorm, and you have to hide behind the meteor to avoid it.  It goes:

Add 1

Add 2

Meteor

Storm

Add 3

Meteor

Storm

Add 4

Fiery Vortex

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

With 4 melee to an add (in 25m) they all drop in time. However, depending on your DPS and how well all 4 are paying attention and not trying to chase the hatchlings, Add1 and Add2 can cause some problems. We had to assign a hunter to get the first interrupt off Add 2, because Add 1 was just barely dead and none of us could make it over to the second in time (not even with ghost wolf...though it helps).

If you don’t kill Add 2 before the meteor drops, it’s not the end of the world. They won’t cast Fireball while Firestorm is going on. Just make sure you kill her ASAP after the storm is over.

Don’t know what side to hide behind? Follow the crowd. Angle your camera up and make sure the rock is between the fiery bird and you.

Fire tornadoes still hurt. I drop stoneclaw as a precaution. We pop hero as soon as the tornadoes are in, because it usually lasts longer than the down phase does.

As long as the melee can manage adds, and the ranged can handle meteors (plus help on the hatchlings from both when appropriate. Read: when neither adds nor meteors are up) Alysrazor will go down.

Swag: Pants!

Heroic Rhyolith

Planning on knocking out my remaining Heroic FL guides this week so I can dive right into DS guides.

H. Rhyolith: Ugh. This guy is the bane of my existence. RNG-determined  volcano spawns suck. Weird turning mechanisms suck. Even after we had him on farm I cringe every time he's up.

This is another heroic fight that changes for ranged, but not so much for melee. There are more adds to kill, including little gray blobs that increase Rhyolith’s armor if they get close enough for him to absorb them. I don’t want to encourage too much melee cleaves – since, while damage on the adds is good, it could influence turning (or lack thereof). I did get in the habit of having earthbind hot-keyed for this fight. It did seem effective in giving the ranged (or the arms warrior that cleaved anyway) just enough time to kill some of the adds.

Again, have one person designated to call out directions. For Normal we had our raid leader calling turns out, for Heroic the melee leader (me) does it, since ranged and heals have a lot more of their own stuff to worry about. Try to keep him going straight for as long as possible after he crushes a volcano, so that you can respond to him activating the next, wherever this might be. Obviously if he’s near an edge you can’t do this, so you just have to turn him in a direction and pray it’s the right one. Even if it’s not, never change direction. It’s faster to force him to do a complete circle than to make him reverse. Also (and I learned this the hard way) call out straighten several seconds before you need it. Nothing sucks more than having him miss the volcano you aimed him for because he’s just a little too far right.

Phase 2 is different. Now there are dancing lasers! Do your best to avoid them, while still sticking behind and to the middle of the boss as much as you can to benefit from AOE-heals. Shamanistic Rage, Stoneclaw, and eating your lock cookies, are key here. Several of our wipes were just because we got flattened by his first phase 2 stomp + lasers. The goal is to stack everyone up for heals in the beginning, yet far enough apart, quick enough, that lasers won’t cut a path through half the raid.

Swag: Dreadfire Drape

We did him on normal last week, just to get the achievement. I may or may not have been yelling "DANCE YOU ANNOYING ROCK DANCE" as he spun around in all-right circles. May have.

Heroic Shannox

For this boss, everything is exactly the same as normal, only we will now waste a global CD every 10 seconds to replace our totems, since we’ll be chasing the boss all over the map. 

No really, that’s it. 

Our overall strategy is to have everyone attacking the boss, except for one arcane mage and one hunter, who are responsible for breaking Facerage and for leading Rageface into a trap.

Shannox’s tank keeps him in constant motion 1) to avoid melee traps 2) to give Riplimb’s tank the max distance possible to run and trap. 

This means melee is in almost constant motion. Now I don’t know about you, but I put my extra talent points in slots other than Totemic Reach. And even if you did spec into it, you’ll still be moving so much that you will have be constantly reapplying totems so that they don’t get out of range. So hotkey that totemic call button and get ready to dps on the run. Heroic Shannox will be down in no time. 

(Hint: If Riplimb’s tank dies around 20% or less. DON’T STOP! Treat it just like Chimaeron. Sure he’ll go down the threat table killing off DPS, but you should get Shannox before Riplimb gets you.) 

Swag: Helmet, Tier Pants Token

Ragnaros

This is one of those fights that is really about repetition. Do each of these phases enough times and you WILL get it down. The only problem is in player consistency. Rag is very much a patterned fight. Which is dangerous. You can be lured into a false sense of security and then completely not notice that Engulfing Flames is spawning under your feet. Having all DPS alive is a big priority in the last phase, so even losing just one or two - even in 25man - will pretty much guarantees a wipe (except not really anymore, thanks nerfs).

Ragnaros can be broken down into five chunks: Phase 1, Transition A, Phase 2, Transition B, Phase 3.

Phase 1:
Run in (not before the tank, though if you have nice healers you will live through one stack of Burning Blood. Not that I speak from experience...) and plant yourself as close to Rag as you can get without swimming in the lava. My fellow melee and I stack together, which makes the placement of Sulfuras Smash predictable thus much easier for the ranged to dodge the resulting shock waves. Because you are hugging the front edge of the platform, you will always be in front of Sulfuras Smash and will never have to worry about getting hit by it.
Fire traps are put down, but let those ranged with fall mitigation deal with them. They always are placed on ranged, so you should never touch one.
The only thing we really have to worry about this phase is his knockback ability. Sometimes you resist it and stay where you are, other times you get knocked back into the middle of the platform. This is dangerous because it can knock you into the remenants of Sulfuras Smash or - rarely - into the waves themselves. To avoid the first pitfall, just move/angle a bit to the side after he smashes. To avoid the second, make copious offerings to the luck gods.
At 70% Ragnaros hits his first transition phase.

Before the fight starts you have to assign transition positions. These small flame adds can be stunned, but not slowed. Healers and tanks with stuns should use them as well as all DPS. Knockbacks also work (just make sure your Boomkin and Ele Shaman know how to aim) Once the adds HP is under 50% they move at a crawl. They CANNOT reach the hammer. Remember, if your add is moving slow at low HP it's probably safe to move off it for a bit and help DPS another down.

Phase 2:

Three things will always happen in this phase. 1/3 of the platform will engulf in flames. Sulfuras Smash will drop. Searing Seeds will plant themselves where raid memembers stand. These three things may seemingly come at random, but there's actually a set pattern.

After the transition phase everyone should stack to one side. Immediately after Sulfuras Smash hits, Molten Seeds will plant themselves where everyone is. The exact second they appear everyone must run to the opposite side of the platform, because the seeds grow and do a distance-based AOE explosion when they blow-up. In 10man it's easier to be standing far enough away from each other, yet still firmly on the side, to avoid two seeds coming down on each other. In 25m you have to be a little more careful that you spread enough to ensure the seeds (which do distance based damage before they explode) don't kill those nearest, but remain close enough to the side that you don't have exploding seeds reach you when you shift. Melee is especially infamous for causing role-wide death with seeds. We like to stack on each other, it generally means we're in the right place. But having six melee stacked with seeds dropping = dead melee and angry raid  leader. Spread out! Rag has a GIANT hit box so you can pretty far into the middle of the platform and still be hitting him.

After the seeds explode, little adds come out of them and converge on the raid. These need to be AOE'd down fast. I'm going to be honest here...I don't touch these adds. My AOE contribution is neligible and I lose a ton of DPS on the boss if I try to switch to them. The adds just die too fast to really make use of multiple flameshock + fire nova.  Of course, I can really only get away with tunneling in on the boss because I have a solid group of other raiders that can pull the AOE needed to down the adds. If we struggled a bit more with DPS on them I would switch to them. Luckily that's not the case (and now with nerfs!...).

After the adds the floor will spontaneously combuts. This can happen in front, middle, or back. If it happens where you are standing, move. You can still hit Rag from the middle (just barely) and there is enough warning time between the charred, cracked floor visual and the actual floor-of-pain that I could run out of there backwards and still make it in time.

The 2nd shift will always have a Sulf Smash right after. Just know that on that 2nd shift you should all stack up front. I usually have shammy rage up when I can, and I drop stoneclaw at the beginning of every shift (before shifting into ghost wolf) for a bit of a buffer while I run.

At 40% you begin the second Transition. Remember your positions, they don't change from Transition A. Kill the little adds, just as in the first one. However, there are now two big adds on screen. They should get picked up/misdirected to the tanks and then ignored. Kill all the little adds but one and switch to the scions. Have ranged ready to kill that last little add when he gets too close to the hammer, but not before. This is so that you have max dps time on the scions without Rag up.

You might get Blazing Heat put on you. If you do, you should run to the outside of the platform and away from everyone else. This is both to 1) not light your raid on fire and 2) not heal the small adds with the fire, because it will.

Phase 3:
When Ragnaros emerges your tanks should drag the remaining scion(s) to the middle. Once they are dead it's a full out DPS race on Ragnaros.

About 30seconds into this Phase the first meteor will come down. It WILL try to land on someone so make sure everyone is paying attention. If you get hit by a meteor in any fashion (it lands on you, it's fixated on you and catches up, you're standing in it's path, you sneeze near it) you will die. The meteors can be slowed, and upon damaging them (only when they're lit) they will be knocked back.

If everyone goes about hitting the meteors, they will be knocked back willy-nilly into the raid. This is bad. The person who the meteor fixates on should run from the middle to the back sides of the platform, once there the person angles themselves so that the meteor is knocked off the edge. From there on out the meteors new target should always be able to turn and knock it back out.

I have F4 bound as my "rotating use key." Some fights it's Purge. Others it's Grounding Totem. This fight it's Frost Shock. If I'm being targeted by a metor I will run angle it so that the knockback puts the meteor into the boss and use frost shock to do so. Yes I lose a shock cooldown, but this way I slow the meteor, I don't have to waste a MWx5 Lightning Bolt, and I don't have to wait for Flame Shock to tick.

If you're not being targeted for a meteor just make sure you're not in their path. They are hard to miss, so it's very easy to sidestep out of their way and continue DPSing the boss. Once everyone understands how to handle the meteors they become far less threatening. Admittedly the first time I was fixated I panicked and managed to drag the meteor through three of our healers, taking them out like a bowling ball to pins. Not my proudest moment.

At 10% the fight is over! Congrats. You scared Ragnaros into hiding.Only on heroic will that last 10% mean anything.

Spoils of war: Matrix Restabilizer. DROOL. Choker of the Vanquished Lord . 

The Blooper Reel:
1) Never have a priest lifegrip someone during smash. Biggest heart attack I have ever have. Died, ahnked, was immediately lifegripped into an oncoming wave. I lived, but it scared the crap out of myself and the other 5 healers who saw my health go from 100% to 2%.

2)If you're going to wipe anyway, make sure you go by smash. There's something satisfying about that giant hammer just smooshing you in one blow. Like some old school arcade game whack-a-raider.

Majordomo Staghelm

Majordomo Staghelm! Finally we get to pay him back for the countless bundles of Morrowgrain we collected on his behalf. The traitor! I didn't even play until Wrath, but I was adamant about doing every quest I was offered, so I too collected waaaaay too much of the stuff until I was told there was really no reason. Fun fact: I thought his name was Stranglehelm for a good year or so.

There are 4 distinct mechanics you will need to worry about in this fight.

1. Scorpion Phase. This will be your opening phase, and will start with everyone stacked up in the middle, in FRONT of the boss. The reason we all sit up front is to share the damage from his cleave. During scorpion phases it is all damage cooldowns, all the time.
1a. Eventually Domo's stacks of Adrenaline get too high and he's insta-cleaving the raid. At this point the raid spreads out to trigger the next phase. Even though we are melee, I suggest hurtling yourself out from the boss as well during this transition. If the transition is triggered too slowly Domo could get another cleave off, killing the tank and whatever melee are left.

2. Cat Phase. In kitty form Domo will leap onto various ranged raid members and leave giant fire pools on the floor. Don't worry about them, as you should be sticking squarely in the middle (having run back in after ensuring a good transition). On every leap fire cat adds are summoned and picked up by the tank. It is melee's job to kill them ASAP.All melee need to switch to the adds, period. Just like with the scorpion, Adrenaline stacks will build and Domo will leap quicker and quicker, meaning you can easily have two adds up at once before transition. If not all melee are on the ball, you might end up with three or four, overwhelming your tank.
2a.Everyone runs back in, triggering Domo's brief human form during which he will stun you and casting Searing Seeds on everyone in the raid. Make sure debuffs on you are easy to see. The debuff timer could say anything from 5 seconds to 55 seconds. At 5 seconds run out of the raid, and not towards anyone else running out or in. At 1 second pop shammy rage, the seed will explode, then you run back in to help eat cleaves with the rest of the group. If you explode you seed in group, you will wipe the raid. End of story.

The raid will eat 5 or 6 cleaves then transistion to cat. Then back to scorpion, then back to cat. On this transition Domo will go human and summon Burning Orbs, which look a lot like orange alien plant pods. In 25 melee usually don't worry about these. In 10m one of the orbs might show up in the middle and then it's like Baelroc. You take orb damage for as long as you can then switch with someone else.

Tip: We find the Burning Orbs cat phase really hard on the healers, so we usually only go to 4 stacks and then switch back to scorpion. At this point flaming sycthe cleaves hit really hard but we usually only have about 15% to 10% to go. If you have a priest healer or a paladin tank you can have the tank run through the boss and eat one cleave solo. This is because both these classes have an ability that also for the tank to basically be saved from a killing blow. Just make sure the tank runs through Domo, and doesn't just try to turn him. This boss turns at the speed of molasses. A normal turn will just result in taking half the melee out.

All in all, I find Domo a lot easier than a boss like Lord Ryoltih, because this fight just requires good situational awareness, there are no random elements involved. As long as you understand the phases it's a cinch. Though I will admit this fight does require a high level of personal responsibility, especially with searing seeds.

Alysrazor

 You know, every time  I type out this boss's name  I have to mentally think "Aly's Razor," very slowly, in order to spell it correctly.

Quick Version: There are four phases to this fight. You will cycles through all four at least twice.

1. While some ranged are flying through hoops and chasing the boss, we melee are on the ground taking out evil druid casters.
2. Alysrazor crashes to the ground and you run around avoiding vortexes.
3. The boss is pooped, so she lies there vulnerable while evil druids try to reenergize her.
4. Flame on! Alysrazor is back up and ready to go. She’ll try to take out the raid before she heads back up. 

The battle always begins with a knock back and AOE damage. When the pull is signaled I drop stoneclaw and pop shammy rage and end up with little to no damage taken. (If this is the first pull, wait till after the dramatic intro to use them). 

Phase 1:
In 25man you need at least 3 DPS on each initiate side, but it’s probably safer with four. In 10man you need two. The casters fly down as fire birds then transform into druid-of-the-flame form and start casting. They will always start with an uninterruptable Brushfire, followed by Fieroblast, which can and must be interrupted. Even without talents we can usually interrupt every cast of Fieroblast. I say usually, because about 10% of the time, for no apparent reason, they’ll double cast. If this is the case you can drop grounding totem or have one of the other melee get it. I’ve had grounding totem miss, but I think it was a range problem.

The reason you need more than just yourself on the casters is because they come down at a preset time. You need enough DPS on them to kill them before the next lands.The always come down in this same order:

Stay out of the middle to avoid her frontal attack when she sweeps through the center. As for feathers – pick up a feather or two if you can, but wait until the second or third molting. Healers and flying ranged have priority.

There are worms. The tanks will be dragging the ugly hatchlings around to get them to eat the worms. Watch out for them, as at least two will always spawn in your way. The brilliance of wind shear is that it’s a ranged interrupt so just step back to avoid the worm’s flame.

After your caster dies there should be roughly 20 seconds left before phase 2. Pick the nearest hatchling/tank combo and start wailing on it.

Phase 2:
This phase is singularly responsible for 85% of our wipes. Either half the raid ends up dead because of the vortexes, or we use up all our battle rezes and then the tank dies. Long story short, learn to run in a circle and you will not wipe the raid.

If you have a feather or two, get to one of the middle to outside rings. Wait for the vortex to spawn and just follow it. The vortexes don’t start damaging immediately and you’ll have enough of a run speed buff to always stay behind it.

If you don’t have any feathers, you still have ghost wolf. You can also alternate between two lanes. Follow one vortex to start out, when one passes you going the other way turn 180 into its lane and follow it. Then another 180 again and follow one in your original lane. It’s kind of like a NASCAR race. Left, left, left, left.

Once you see the trick to the vortexes, they’re actually quite easy. At this point you will no longer fear a fiery death and can happily dance back and forth between them collecting rings to up your DPS in the coming burn phase.

Phase 3:
Stack on her tail, pop wolves, pop hero, and start mashing buttons. The better your tanks are at interrupting the reenergizers, the longer the burn phase lasts.

Phase 4:
Once her energy restores to 50, Alysrazor will get up and start doing heavy raid-wide damage as well as nasty attacks on the tanks. These attacks have a huge cleave range so make sure everyone but the tanks is stacked well on her tail. This is a great time for shamanistic rage. I also drop a glyphed stoneclaw right before she hits 100 energy, so that I have a bit of a shield when she knocks everyone back.

After the knockback it’s back to Phase 1. The adds still spawn in the same place, you’re still interrupting, etc. When she finally drops from the sky you have a chance at Moltenfeather Leggings, or if your raid AND your roll is really lucky, Flametalon of Alysrazor.

Baleroc

YOU SHALL NOT PASS! Ahem. Ok, sorry. Just had to get that out of the way. We can move along now. Baleroc is a tank and spank fight with mechanics that make this the hardest spanking your tanks will ever receive. Your tanks will be split between the one tanking Decimation Blade and the one tanking everything else. Your healers will be rotating between healing the tanks and healing the DPS on Shards of Torment in order to get stacks of their much needed healing buff. DPS will be rotating on shards to manage stacks of the Tormented debuff. Handling shards is what we will be concerned with.

 For this fight there are two (10m) or three (25m) groups that will always be together. In this setup there are always 2 sets of healers on the tanks and one on the shards. In 25man it’s a little smoother because the groups will always be the same melee-ranged-healer. In 10man the healers have to rotate between 3 of them, but on two groups, so one healer won’t always be healing the same set of crystal-takers.The reason we have groups for DPS is because of the shard’s minute(ish) long debuff. The debuff drastically increase shadow damage from the shards and so it must fall off before that person can take any new stacks.

Everyone starts stacked in melee and ranged/heals on the left. When the first shard starts to spawn everyone BUT melee group one and ranged group one move to the right side. When the shard despawns everyone should then be on the right side. The next shard will then spawn on the right side (since it spawns on someone) and everyone but melee 2 and ranged 2 will move left. This pattern continues until the boss is dead.

Shards are always preceded by a beam of purple light (think alien abduction).

If you are melee 1A it’s your job to make sure you’re standing next to that beam when it appears. Once the shard forms, pop shamanistic rage then keep DPSing as normal. At around 12 to 13 stacks you move out to rejoin the rest of the melee and your partner, melee 1B moves in. I usually drop glyphed stoneclaw totem right before this move to give myself and the healers a bit of a buffer during the switch. 

As melee 1B, put melee 1A on focus. That way you can see the number of stacks on your partner. You should be standing close enough to the shard that when 1A moves out, you’re automatically the next thing the beam latches on to. Pop shamanistic rage and DPS as normal. Once the shard disappears, move back in with the other melee to ensure the next shard spawns on the correct side. 

If you’re in 10man, your will be taking every other shard. If you’re in 25man you will have 2 shard durations to just attack the boss before taking it again. 

PAY ATTENTION TO WHICH GROUP YOU’RE IN AND WHICH GROUP IS CURRENTLY UP.  I cannot tell you the number of times we’ve wiped because someone from Group 3 went when it was still Group 2’s turn, or someone from Group 1 forgot they were up again and the beam jumped around to five people in a flurry of “debuffs for everyone!”

In the case that something does screw up, your extra DPS should be prepared to stand in. However, this call should be made only by the person who screws up and no one else should have a say in vent. If you say “crap, I just took 2B’s and I’m supposed to be 3A, Warrior can you take the first of the next shard.” Then there’s a good chance the situation can be salvaged and rotations will proceed as normal the next time around. 

If, however, multiple people  screw up, or multiple people are calling out for someone to replace someone else, you’re probably just doomed. Wipe it and try again. Or get really lucky, somehow screw up three different times, having people randomly throwing themselves on the shards, and end up getting the achievement. You know. Potato, potahto. 

Once everyone understands their shard rotations this fight is very easy. For the DPS anyway. Expect wipes as your tanks and healers figure out how to deal with the extra high damage, extra high healing mechanics of the fight. 

The wait is worth it, as Baelroc drops our beautiful, beautiful Gatecrasher. 

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.

Raiding in Firelands: Shannox and Beth'tilac

Shannox

 Our setup: Melee starts on Shannox and ranged starts split evenly on the two dogs (usually with more hunters on Rageface to get the crits necessary to break Facerage). When Shannox is near 40% melee switches off and to Riplimb. We get Riplimb very, very low (like 5% or below), kill Rageface, and switch back to boss. It's then an all out burn on Shannox while Riplimb's tank get's him trapped as much as he can. When it becomes too hard, ranged kills Riplimb and it's all on boss again. 

This is not the only way to do it - just our way. Starting on the dogs and killing them in some other combination also works, it's just whatever your guild feels is easiest. 

The biggest thing about this fight for melee is not standing in crystal traps. Shannox will turn towards the person he is throwing a trap at. Deadly Boss Mods now announces who the trap is on, but the first week it didn't and I still find Shannox turning a good indicator. If he turns towards me I look more carefully, if not, I keep hitting. 

Things to watch out for:

• When Shannox hurls his spear little fire erupts in a spiraling circle. Usually we're on the boss and far enough away that this isn't a problem for the melee. However, if you're on the dogs or closer than normal, watch out for the little balls of fire and move before they 'splode on you.
• The boss's cleave. It's big. And it hurts. Stand on his butt at all times.
• Immolation traps - you can eat one with shamanistic rage on if you really need to. However this isn't a strategy to manage traps, just a tip if you find yourself having to. 

Shannox drops the Fireland's ugliest helmet but it's easier to get than our tier helm. Once your hunters are done squabbling over it, try to get it. This mace also drops, and is an upgrade, but Gatecrasher is sexier.

Beth'tilac

Giant spiders! I love giant spiders! They're fuzzy and kind of cute, and all of their icky-ness goes away because they're big. Which doesn't make any sense but all I know is that I'd take tarantulas over little spiders any day.

Upstairs: Luckily for me, I get spend quality time with Beth'tilac. At the beginning of the fight I put rockbiter on my weapon, taunt down a spinner, reapply windfury, and ride its webbing up. You can also have rockbiter on a weapon in your bag and just weapon switch. Avoiding the lava pools (signaled by a meteor hurling towards you) and jumping down at the right time are all that's required up here.  Beth does do a large AOE so I throw a couple stoneclaw totems and a shammy rage while upstairs. Make sure you jump down through the MIDDLE of her web. And by jump, I just mean run through. If you literally jump as you go down you can glitch it and not get the handy slow-fall webbing. If you fall through anywhere but the middle you will also take fall damage. Middle good. Everywhere else, bad.

Downstairs: Word of warning, I have never been downstairs. What I can tell you is based on helpful hints from a melee friends that have. Usually melee (espeically aoe poor ones like enhance shamans) will be focusing on the drones. Drop magma totem and earthbind totem if spiderlings are getting too close. (Edit: I fell through the web like a pro the other night, so I spent some time downstairs. Spiderlings die super quick so magma + singletarget + chain lighting with maelstorm proc will finish them off quick if your ranged let some through. Just keep your eyes peeled).

Burn Phase:  You know the drill - stack behind the boss, faceroll, collect loot. (Also, pop damage cooldowns, eat your lock cookies, stay alive).

Shatterskull Bonecrusher also drops off Beth as does this ring. The haste on the ring is gross but it's a base stat upgrade. It has less mastery than the Signet of the Elder Council though, so don't roll on it unless no one else needs it. And I imagine someone else needs it.