03-12-2015, 12:54 PM
Kromog is in the Black Forge wing of Blackrock Foundry. This is a single-target, single-phase encounter against a stationary boss. It will test our ability to avoid ground effects.
This is a very straightforward fight — it’s mostly about avoiding ground effects. The only unusual element of the fight is that at certain moments, raid members will have to willingly move into a damaging ground effect, because doing so protects them from the lethal damage dealt by another ability.
Abilities
* Stone Breath (tank stay in range mechanic): Whenever there are no targets in melee range, he’ll channel Stone Breath, which does moderate damage to all raid members every second. Even if a tank is in range, he’ll cast Stone Breath anyway about every 30 seconds.
* Warped Armor (tank swap mechanic): Stacking debuff. Reduces movement speed and increases physical damage.
* Fists of Stone (anti-tank attack): massive damage to target, which is split with the next nearest target within 15 yards to the main target.
* Slam (raid-wide attack): massive physical damage to entire raid. Damage is reduced the further you are away from Kromog.
* Rippling Smash (random cone attack). Casts wave of rumbling earth toward a random raid member, damaging any in its path.
* Rune of Grasping Earth (root attack): He’ll summon a large number of orange runes on the ground. A few seconds later, a HAND will spawn on each rune. This hand is an NPC that can be attacked and killed. If a player is standing on the rune, the hand will grab the player and hold him until the hand is killed. Only one player can be grabbed per rune. While the players are being held in the hand, they are immune to physical damage and can’t be knocked upwards. This ability interacts with Thundering Blows, below:
* Thundering Blows (massive raid-wide damage + high knock in the air): he’ll cast this shortly after casting Rune of Grasping Earth. It deals massive raid-wide damage over 5 seconds, and knocks players high in the air such that they take a lot of fall damage. This will effectively kill any players who are not held in place by a Grasping Earth hand.
* Rune of Crushing Earth (crushing hands attack): He’ll create 2 large stone hands on the floor of the room, some distance apart. After a short amount of time the hands will come together, dealing very high nature damage plus a stun to players who come into contact with them.
* Reverberations (moving ground effect): He’ll create a number of sonic disks that move around the room. These disappear after a short time.
* Shattered Earth: moderate nature damage to 4 random players.
* Frenzy: at 30% health, he’ll enter a frenzy.
Strategy
The strategy revolves around avoiding the damage from the various ground effects, and particularly, managing the Runes of Grasping Earth (the hands) and Thundering Blows (massive raid-wide damage + knock into the air).
Tanking
* Tanks must swap to handle Warped Armor.
* Tanks must stand on top of each other to split Fists of Stone
* Tanks must always be in melee range of Kromog. ONE EXCEPTION: when he casts Slam, tanks should run away from the boss too. They just have to run back in as soon as Slam is over. Alternatively, the tank can remain in melee and use a strong defensive cooldown to survive Slam.
* Tanks must handle the Runes of Grasping Earth and Thundering Blows like the rest of the raid.
Runes of Grasping Earth and Thundering Blows
As soon as the boss casts Runes of Grasping Hand, all raid members must move into the orange runes. Players must decide where to go on the fly so that each player must has their own rune. If players are not too clumped up it is possible for everyone to reach a rune.
After a few seconds, hands will pick up a player on each rune, trapping them and protecting them from the effects of Thundering Blows. The hands deal damage to the players, though, and keep them trapped indefinitely. Therefore, as soon as the hands spawn, all DPS players must switch to the hands and begin attacking them. The goal is to kill all hands after the Thundering Blows cast has ended, but not to get too carried away and kill the hands before Thundering Blows is done.
Players who have damage immunities can stay out of the runes and use their immunities to survive Thundering Blows, making it easier for others to find a rune of their own.
Avoiding Other Damage
* Stay out the Rippling Smash cone attack
* Get out from between the two hands of Rune of Crushing Earth.
* Stay away from the sonic disks of Reverberations.
Unavoidable Damage
* Shattered Earth: single target damage to random raid members.
* Stone Breath: raid-wide damage. Alternate healing cooldowns for this one.
* Slam: entire raid will take damage from this, but it’s possible to take less by running away from the boss. Healers and ranged are usually fine at max range. Melee and tanks will have to run out.
We’ll bloodlust at 30%, when he goes into a Frenzy.
This is a very straightforward fight — it’s mostly about avoiding ground effects. The only unusual element of the fight is that at certain moments, raid members will have to willingly move into a damaging ground effect, because doing so protects them from the lethal damage dealt by another ability.
Abilities
* Stone Breath (tank stay in range mechanic): Whenever there are no targets in melee range, he’ll channel Stone Breath, which does moderate damage to all raid members every second. Even if a tank is in range, he’ll cast Stone Breath anyway about every 30 seconds.
* Warped Armor (tank swap mechanic): Stacking debuff. Reduces movement speed and increases physical damage.
* Fists of Stone (anti-tank attack): massive damage to target, which is split with the next nearest target within 15 yards to the main target.
* Slam (raid-wide attack): massive physical damage to entire raid. Damage is reduced the further you are away from Kromog.
* Rippling Smash (random cone attack). Casts wave of rumbling earth toward a random raid member, damaging any in its path.
* Rune of Grasping Earth (root attack): He’ll summon a large number of orange runes on the ground. A few seconds later, a HAND will spawn on each rune. This hand is an NPC that can be attacked and killed. If a player is standing on the rune, the hand will grab the player and hold him until the hand is killed. Only one player can be grabbed per rune. While the players are being held in the hand, they are immune to physical damage and can’t be knocked upwards. This ability interacts with Thundering Blows, below:
* Thundering Blows (massive raid-wide damage + high knock in the air): he’ll cast this shortly after casting Rune of Grasping Earth. It deals massive raid-wide damage over 5 seconds, and knocks players high in the air such that they take a lot of fall damage. This will effectively kill any players who are not held in place by a Grasping Earth hand.
* Rune of Crushing Earth (crushing hands attack): He’ll create 2 large stone hands on the floor of the room, some distance apart. After a short amount of time the hands will come together, dealing very high nature damage plus a stun to players who come into contact with them.
* Reverberations (moving ground effect): He’ll create a number of sonic disks that move around the room. These disappear after a short time.
* Shattered Earth: moderate nature damage to 4 random players.
* Frenzy: at 30% health, he’ll enter a frenzy.
Strategy
The strategy revolves around avoiding the damage from the various ground effects, and particularly, managing the Runes of Grasping Earth (the hands) and Thundering Blows (massive raid-wide damage + knock into the air).
Tanking
* Tanks must swap to handle Warped Armor.
* Tanks must stand on top of each other to split Fists of Stone
* Tanks must always be in melee range of Kromog. ONE EXCEPTION: when he casts Slam, tanks should run away from the boss too. They just have to run back in as soon as Slam is over. Alternatively, the tank can remain in melee and use a strong defensive cooldown to survive Slam.
* Tanks must handle the Runes of Grasping Earth and Thundering Blows like the rest of the raid.
Runes of Grasping Earth and Thundering Blows
As soon as the boss casts Runes of Grasping Hand, all raid members must move into the orange runes. Players must decide where to go on the fly so that each player must has their own rune. If players are not too clumped up it is possible for everyone to reach a rune.
After a few seconds, hands will pick up a player on each rune, trapping them and protecting them from the effects of Thundering Blows. The hands deal damage to the players, though, and keep them trapped indefinitely. Therefore, as soon as the hands spawn, all DPS players must switch to the hands and begin attacking them. The goal is to kill all hands after the Thundering Blows cast has ended, but not to get too carried away and kill the hands before Thundering Blows is done.
Players who have damage immunities can stay out of the runes and use their immunities to survive Thundering Blows, making it easier for others to find a rune of their own.
Avoiding Other Damage
* Stay out the Rippling Smash cone attack
* Get out from between the two hands of Rune of Crushing Earth.
* Stay away from the sonic disks of Reverberations.
Unavoidable Damage
* Shattered Earth: single target damage to random raid members.
* Stone Breath: raid-wide damage. Alternate healing cooldowns for this one.
* Slam: entire raid will take damage from this, but it’s possible to take less by running away from the boss. Healers and ranged are usually fine at max range. Melee and tanks will have to run out.
We’ll bloodlust at 30%, when he goes into a Frenzy.