12-04-2013, 07:58 PM
The fiight against Siegecrafter Blackfuse is a single-phase fight. We'll fight Blackfuse and several types of adds.
The room is important: there are TWO conveyor belts, one located at each end of the room where we fight Blackfuse. At regular intervals throughout the fight several INACTIVE adds will be carried into the room on the north-western conveyor belt. Raid members can move up onto the conveyor belt and can attack these adds, but only ONE can be killed. Once one dies, the others become immune. Soon after that, the remaining adds roll out of sight, then appear again on the north-eastern conveyor belt, where they can't be attacked. From this conveyor belt they use their abilities against the raid for a certain amount of time.
Take-home message: We can eliminate ONE add by killing it as it rides by on the NW conveyor belt. We will then have to deal with the abilities of the remaining adds when they become active on the other belt.
THE ROOM and THE CONVEYOR BELTS
The fight occurs on a large, circular platform that is surrounded by lava. There are two conveyor belts in the room, one along the NW wall and the other along the NE wall, respectively. Because of the lava, we can't run and jump onto the conveyor belts, but the NW one can be accessed through a system of TRANSPORT PIPES. These pipes are located on the main platform next to the conveyor belt, and players just jump into the pipe to be transported to the belt.
Players who use the pipes get a debuff called Pattern Recognition which prevents them from using the pipes to the conveyor belt again for 60 seconds.
On the conveyor belt itself, several things happen:
* The conveyor belt is constantly moving forward, which causes the players to move along with it. Players can "run against the current" in order to slow the rate at which they are moving and thus prolong the time they can spend on the belt.
* Damaging beams of fire, called Matter Purification Beams, are located along the belt. Coming in contact with them deals a massive amount of fire damage. It is possible to avoid them, however.
* Several adds ride the conveyor belt. They are harmless, and raid members can kill one of them. The remaining ones become immune when one dies.
When players are ready to LEAVE the conveyor belt, they must jump into another set of pipes located at the other end of the conveyor belt, which take players back to the main platform. The Pattern Recognition debuff does not affect these pipes.
ABILITIES
Siegecrafter Blackfuse has several abilities of his own:
* Electrostatic Charge: anti-tank attack that applies a stacking debuff to the tank. This ability requires a tank swap. Note: the debuff increases damage taken from Electrostatic Charge (by 100% per stack), but ALSO causes the tank to deal 200% damage to any targets that have Reactive Armor -- one of the adds has the Reactive Armor buff.
* Protective Frenzy: buff that Blackfuse gains whenever one of his adds is killed. It's a 10-second buff that increases his attack speed by 100%.
* Launch Sawblade: Attack that happens every 10 seconds. This ability places a spinning sawblade at the location of a random raid member, which deals massive damage & a knockback to any player that comes into contact with them. The sawblades ALSO damage one of the adds -- the Automated Shredders. The sawblades last indefinitely, but one of the adds has an ability that removes them.
* Automated Repair Beam: automatically heals any damaged Automated Shredders or Crawler Mines located within 35 yards of Blackfuse.
* Energized Defense Matrix: buff that Blackfuse gains if the raid fails to kill any of the adds during one wave of the conveyor belt. This buff lasts for 20 seconds and reduces damage Blackfuse takes by 90%.
THE ADDS
Automated Shredders
30 seconds into the fight, and about every 2 minutes after that, Blackfuse summons an Automated Shredder add. These are NOT conveyor belt adds, they are summoned automatically. These adds have several abilities:
* Reactive Armor: buff that reduces their damage taken by 80%
* Death from Above: Shredder leaps into the air then lands, dealing a massive amount of physical damage to players in a 15-yard radius. After landing, the Shredder is stunned for 5 seconds, during which it takes 200% increased damage.
* Overload: raid-wide damaging spell. Deals lots of damage and causes the Shredder to gain a permanent stack of a buff that increases its damage by 30% per stack. Players on the conveyor belt are not damaged by Overload.
Note: Automated Shredders can be damaged by Blackfuse's sawblades, and by several other things too (see below).
Conveyor belt adds
Every 40 seconds a wave of adds will enter the fight on the NW conveyor belt. THREE different types will enter the fight each time, chosen randomly out of four total types. When they're on the NW belt, the adds are deactivated (or disassembled). In this state they can be attacked and killed (once one is killed the others become immune). The adds that aren't killed come out the NE belt a few seconds later. At this time they are activated, and cannot be killed. These remain on the NE belt long enough to cast their ability once (they each have one ability, and after using it once they disappear). The exception to this are the mine-like adds that jump down on the platform and must be killed. Here are the four types of adds:
* Activated Missile Turrets. These use Shockwave Missile against the raid. Shockwave Missile creates three damaging, circular waves of "seismic energy" centered on Blackfuse. The first wave strikes a small area around Blackfuse. The next one consists of a ring-shaped area 15 yards wide centered on Blackfuse. The next one is a larger ring, and so forth, until the wave reaches the edge of the platform. Each wave has an orange warning animation that gives players 2-3 seconds to get out of the affected area. Anyone standing in it takes a lot of Nature Damage. Automated Shredders ALSO take damage from Shockwave Missile.
* Activated Laser Turrets. These use Superheated against the raid. This is a laser beam that follows a random raid member for 10 seconds, leaving damaging void zones at the point of impact. Players who stand in the void zones get a stacking DoT that does a small amount of fire damage per second. Automated Shredders ALSO take damage from these void zones.
* Activated Electromagnets. These use Magnetic Crush against the raid. This attack pulls all players AND sawblades towards the electromagnet over the course of 10 seconds. Players can resist the effect by running in the opposite direction, but all the sawblades make their way to the elecgromagnet and are removed from the fight. Any players or Automated Shredders that come into contact with the sawblades take damage from them.
* Crawler Mines. These jump down from the belt, fixate on random raid members, and move towards them. When a mine reaches its target it casts Detonate, self-destructing and dealing a lot of fire damage to all raid members, knocking them up in the air. For the first minute after spawning, the mines are debuffed with "Break-in Period" which renders them vulnerable to root, snares, and stuns. After 1 minute, this debuff is replaced by "Ready to Go," which removes the vulnerability and increases their movement speed.
GENERAL STRATEGY
* Tanks perform a tank-switch on Blackfuse and the Automated Shredders. Keep the boss 35 yards from any adds to avoid them being healed. The shredder's tank will be killing the shredder.
* We will assign certain players to go to the NW belt each time a new wave of adds spawns there. They will kill one of the three adds in that wave.
* DPS Blackfuse while avoiding the damage from the adds.
Tanking
Tank Blackfuse at the edge of his platform, right next to the NW conveyor belt. This will make the waves from Shockwave Missile easier to avoid, and gives the raid the greatest possible distance from where the Crawler Mines spawn (they spawn next to the NE conveyor belt).
Blackfuse and the Shredder must be tanked by different tanks, as Blackfuse would heal the shredder if it's within 35 yards. The tanks must keep them 35 yards apart.
A tank switch must be performed on Blackfuse due to the Electrostatic Charge debuff. Normally, the increased damage done by the Debuffed tank on the shredder is enough to kill the shredder by the time the next one spawns. So the tanks can swap when no shredders are up.
Blackfuse's tank must be ready to use a defensive cooldown whenever an add dies, since the boss buffs himself when this happens.
The shredder's tank must be careful not to get hit by the shredder when it casts Death from Above (the leap and crash down attack). It may be necessary to drag the shredder into the various abilities that damage it.
Conveyor Belt Assignments
Waves of adds spawn every 40 seconds, but due to the Pattern Recognition debuff players can only travel to the belt every 60 seconds. Therefore, we will need two different teams to handle the conveyor belt. These teams will alternate.
Players on the belt do not take any damage (unless they fail to avoid the beams) so there is no need to have any healers up there. There is no need for tanks, either. So only DPS players will be assigned to go. In a 10-man, 2 DPS per team is enough. In a 25-man, 4 players are assigned to each team.
Which adds are killed depends on the raid's own strengths and weaknesses. But in general, the Disassembled Crawler Mines are a high priority target as they are very disruptive to the raid. We will need to allow a Deactivated Electromagnet to pass every now and then since we need the magnet to clear the sawblades.
Main Platform
On the main platform, the raid will be DPSing Blackfuse while surviving all the effects. The raid must stay away from sawblades, when they're stationary and when they're pulled towards an electromagnet.
Players must avoid being hit by the shredders when they do their leap attack. Healers must react to the raid damage from Overload. The shredders' damage increases the longer they are alive.
Raid members targeted by the laser beam must kite the beam and its void zones away from the raid -- don't lock players between the sawblades and the void zones.
Crawler mines are particularly challenging. Fixated players must kite them around, and the mines must be killed before they reach their target. The raid should take advantage of the mines' break-in period to snare, stun and root them while killing them. Don't kite them next to Blackfuse as he will heal them.
Avoid the ring-shaped shockwaves from the missile turrets. If players stand about 15 or 30 yards away from Blackfuse they should be close to the edges of a wave and can thus avoid them. Hunters' deterrence prevents damage from this ability.
Use Bloodlust at the beginning of the fight.
SUMMARY
Tanks
* Perform regular tank switches on Blackfuse and the Shredders
* Tank the shredders at least 35 yards away from Blackfuse
* Watch out for increased damage from Blackfuse for 10 seconds after an add is killed
Healers
* Beware of increased tank damage whenever an add dies.
* Beware of raid damage from the Shredders' Overload
DPS
* DPS Blackfuse when no mines are active. Otherwise, DPS the mines.
* If in the conveyor belt group, go to the NW belt and kill the designated add.
Everyone
* Avoid the ground effects
* If fixated by a Crawler Mine, don't let it reach you. Don't kite them within 35 yards of Blackfuse.
The room is important: there are TWO conveyor belts, one located at each end of the room where we fight Blackfuse. At regular intervals throughout the fight several INACTIVE adds will be carried into the room on the north-western conveyor belt. Raid members can move up onto the conveyor belt and can attack these adds, but only ONE can be killed. Once one dies, the others become immune. Soon after that, the remaining adds roll out of sight, then appear again on the north-eastern conveyor belt, where they can't be attacked. From this conveyor belt they use their abilities against the raid for a certain amount of time.
Take-home message: We can eliminate ONE add by killing it as it rides by on the NW conveyor belt. We will then have to deal with the abilities of the remaining adds when they become active on the other belt.
THE ROOM and THE CONVEYOR BELTS
The fight occurs on a large, circular platform that is surrounded by lava. There are two conveyor belts in the room, one along the NW wall and the other along the NE wall, respectively. Because of the lava, we can't run and jump onto the conveyor belts, but the NW one can be accessed through a system of TRANSPORT PIPES. These pipes are located on the main platform next to the conveyor belt, and players just jump into the pipe to be transported to the belt.
Players who use the pipes get a debuff called Pattern Recognition which prevents them from using the pipes to the conveyor belt again for 60 seconds.
On the conveyor belt itself, several things happen:
* The conveyor belt is constantly moving forward, which causes the players to move along with it. Players can "run against the current" in order to slow the rate at which they are moving and thus prolong the time they can spend on the belt.
* Damaging beams of fire, called Matter Purification Beams, are located along the belt. Coming in contact with them deals a massive amount of fire damage. It is possible to avoid them, however.
* Several adds ride the conveyor belt. They are harmless, and raid members can kill one of them. The remaining ones become immune when one dies.
When players are ready to LEAVE the conveyor belt, they must jump into another set of pipes located at the other end of the conveyor belt, which take players back to the main platform. The Pattern Recognition debuff does not affect these pipes.
ABILITIES
Siegecrafter Blackfuse has several abilities of his own:
* Electrostatic Charge: anti-tank attack that applies a stacking debuff to the tank. This ability requires a tank swap. Note: the debuff increases damage taken from Electrostatic Charge (by 100% per stack), but ALSO causes the tank to deal 200% damage to any targets that have Reactive Armor -- one of the adds has the Reactive Armor buff.
* Protective Frenzy: buff that Blackfuse gains whenever one of his adds is killed. It's a 10-second buff that increases his attack speed by 100%.
* Launch Sawblade: Attack that happens every 10 seconds. This ability places a spinning sawblade at the location of a random raid member, which deals massive damage & a knockback to any player that comes into contact with them. The sawblades ALSO damage one of the adds -- the Automated Shredders. The sawblades last indefinitely, but one of the adds has an ability that removes them.
* Automated Repair Beam: automatically heals any damaged Automated Shredders or Crawler Mines located within 35 yards of Blackfuse.
* Energized Defense Matrix: buff that Blackfuse gains if the raid fails to kill any of the adds during one wave of the conveyor belt. This buff lasts for 20 seconds and reduces damage Blackfuse takes by 90%.
THE ADDS
Automated Shredders
30 seconds into the fight, and about every 2 minutes after that, Blackfuse summons an Automated Shredder add. These are NOT conveyor belt adds, they are summoned automatically. These adds have several abilities:
* Reactive Armor: buff that reduces their damage taken by 80%
* Death from Above: Shredder leaps into the air then lands, dealing a massive amount of physical damage to players in a 15-yard radius. After landing, the Shredder is stunned for 5 seconds, during which it takes 200% increased damage.
* Overload: raid-wide damaging spell. Deals lots of damage and causes the Shredder to gain a permanent stack of a buff that increases its damage by 30% per stack. Players on the conveyor belt are not damaged by Overload.
Note: Automated Shredders can be damaged by Blackfuse's sawblades, and by several other things too (see below).
Conveyor belt adds
Every 40 seconds a wave of adds will enter the fight on the NW conveyor belt. THREE different types will enter the fight each time, chosen randomly out of four total types. When they're on the NW belt, the adds are deactivated (or disassembled). In this state they can be attacked and killed (once one is killed the others become immune). The adds that aren't killed come out the NE belt a few seconds later. At this time they are activated, and cannot be killed. These remain on the NE belt long enough to cast their ability once (they each have one ability, and after using it once they disappear). The exception to this are the mine-like adds that jump down on the platform and must be killed. Here are the four types of adds:
* Activated Missile Turrets. These use Shockwave Missile against the raid. Shockwave Missile creates three damaging, circular waves of "seismic energy" centered on Blackfuse. The first wave strikes a small area around Blackfuse. The next one consists of a ring-shaped area 15 yards wide centered on Blackfuse. The next one is a larger ring, and so forth, until the wave reaches the edge of the platform. Each wave has an orange warning animation that gives players 2-3 seconds to get out of the affected area. Anyone standing in it takes a lot of Nature Damage. Automated Shredders ALSO take damage from Shockwave Missile.
* Activated Laser Turrets. These use Superheated against the raid. This is a laser beam that follows a random raid member for 10 seconds, leaving damaging void zones at the point of impact. Players who stand in the void zones get a stacking DoT that does a small amount of fire damage per second. Automated Shredders ALSO take damage from these void zones.
* Activated Electromagnets. These use Magnetic Crush against the raid. This attack pulls all players AND sawblades towards the electromagnet over the course of 10 seconds. Players can resist the effect by running in the opposite direction, but all the sawblades make their way to the elecgromagnet and are removed from the fight. Any players or Automated Shredders that come into contact with the sawblades take damage from them.
* Crawler Mines. These jump down from the belt, fixate on random raid members, and move towards them. When a mine reaches its target it casts Detonate, self-destructing and dealing a lot of fire damage to all raid members, knocking them up in the air. For the first minute after spawning, the mines are debuffed with "Break-in Period" which renders them vulnerable to root, snares, and stuns. After 1 minute, this debuff is replaced by "Ready to Go," which removes the vulnerability and increases their movement speed.
GENERAL STRATEGY
* Tanks perform a tank-switch on Blackfuse and the Automated Shredders. Keep the boss 35 yards from any adds to avoid them being healed. The shredder's tank will be killing the shredder.
* We will assign certain players to go to the NW belt each time a new wave of adds spawns there. They will kill one of the three adds in that wave.
* DPS Blackfuse while avoiding the damage from the adds.
Tanking
Tank Blackfuse at the edge of his platform, right next to the NW conveyor belt. This will make the waves from Shockwave Missile easier to avoid, and gives the raid the greatest possible distance from where the Crawler Mines spawn (they spawn next to the NE conveyor belt).
Blackfuse and the Shredder must be tanked by different tanks, as Blackfuse would heal the shredder if it's within 35 yards. The tanks must keep them 35 yards apart.
A tank switch must be performed on Blackfuse due to the Electrostatic Charge debuff. Normally, the increased damage done by the Debuffed tank on the shredder is enough to kill the shredder by the time the next one spawns. So the tanks can swap when no shredders are up.
Blackfuse's tank must be ready to use a defensive cooldown whenever an add dies, since the boss buffs himself when this happens.
The shredder's tank must be careful not to get hit by the shredder when it casts Death from Above (the leap and crash down attack). It may be necessary to drag the shredder into the various abilities that damage it.
Conveyor Belt Assignments
Waves of adds spawn every 40 seconds, but due to the Pattern Recognition debuff players can only travel to the belt every 60 seconds. Therefore, we will need two different teams to handle the conveyor belt. These teams will alternate.
Players on the belt do not take any damage (unless they fail to avoid the beams) so there is no need to have any healers up there. There is no need for tanks, either. So only DPS players will be assigned to go. In a 10-man, 2 DPS per team is enough. In a 25-man, 4 players are assigned to each team.
Which adds are killed depends on the raid's own strengths and weaknesses. But in general, the Disassembled Crawler Mines are a high priority target as they are very disruptive to the raid. We will need to allow a Deactivated Electromagnet to pass every now and then since we need the magnet to clear the sawblades.
Main Platform
On the main platform, the raid will be DPSing Blackfuse while surviving all the effects. The raid must stay away from sawblades, when they're stationary and when they're pulled towards an electromagnet.
Players must avoid being hit by the shredders when they do their leap attack. Healers must react to the raid damage from Overload. The shredders' damage increases the longer they are alive.
Raid members targeted by the laser beam must kite the beam and its void zones away from the raid -- don't lock players between the sawblades and the void zones.
Crawler mines are particularly challenging. Fixated players must kite them around, and the mines must be killed before they reach their target. The raid should take advantage of the mines' break-in period to snare, stun and root them while killing them. Don't kite them next to Blackfuse as he will heal them.
Avoid the ring-shaped shockwaves from the missile turrets. If players stand about 15 or 30 yards away from Blackfuse they should be close to the edges of a wave and can thus avoid them. Hunters' deterrence prevents damage from this ability.
Use Bloodlust at the beginning of the fight.
SUMMARY
Tanks
* Perform regular tank switches on Blackfuse and the Shredders
* Tank the shredders at least 35 yards away from Blackfuse
* Watch out for increased damage from Blackfuse for 10 seconds after an add is killed
Healers
* Beware of increased tank damage whenever an add dies.
* Beware of raid damage from the Shredders' Overload
DPS
* DPS Blackfuse when no mines are active. Otherwise, DPS the mines.
* If in the conveyor belt group, go to the NW belt and kill the designated add.
Everyone
* Avoid the ground effects
* If fixated by a Crawler Mine, don't let it reach you. Don't kite them within 35 yards of Blackfuse.