Now, it’s time for Halls of Flesh-Shaping. Let’s get started.
The first thing is that you’ll be faced with a bunch of swamp like-monsters circling around a platform. As you DPS down these foes, occasionally you’ll be ported over into a purplish-maze and must fight a tiny creature. Keep in mind how this maze-like prison works as it’ll play a significant role in the upcoming boss encounter. Once you down the three bog creatures, portals around the room will open up, where giant versions will appear. Your tank ought to pull one at a time (for a total of four). Lots of AoE damage will go out and you’ll be forced to find a hidden add that you need to down quickly to prevent more AoE raid damage from going out. Once the fourth large add goes down, move back towards the entrance (or at least get out of the center of the room) to face one of the most difficult bosses in LFR to date:
Durumu the Forgotten
Quite honestly, this boss has been nerfed significantly to the point where groups can now one shot Durumu. The fight is really easy at this point except for a single phase. Despite all of this, people can still screw up because they’ll most likely panic and do something stupid. The first thing to know in this fight is that the shit on the ground is always going to be bad. So avoid it at all cost as much as possible.
Next, you might occasionally be targeted by a Lingering Gaze effect. If that happens, run out of the center to drop a puddle of purple stuff. Along with that you’ll see some purplish stuff from the “Force of Will” cone that looks similar to the maze formation you might’ve witnessed earlier. You need to get out asap or you get knocked off the platform.
Sometime after, you’ll see three distinctly covered beams that may or may not target you. If you’re targeted, run in a circle around the room to uncover adds. There will be three adds that will spawn once you uncover them. When you find them, nuke them down. If you’re not focused, DPS the boss until the adds are uncovered.
Lastly, is the most infamous mechanic of any fight that I’ve seen that has caused a great deal of grief to LFR and required all the nerfs just so the people in LFR can survive. It’s the maze/Disintegration phase. This phase is the raid wiper and has garnered an enormous amount of hate. At the same time in it’s current format, you can still one shot the boss (I’ve seen it where we only had a single death, which might be an LFR record). So let me get into this aspect.
Once Durumu starts the Disintegration phase, you must run to the guide. Someone might have a marker to indicate being the leader. The most important aspect to this phase is surviving. Forget DPS unless you know the mechanic. You have two options in this phase, an inner group or outer group. I highly recommend the inner group because it’s easier to navigate. Most people will gather up in one spot, which I believe is near or under where the beam will spawn (but it won’t start dealing damage). Once people are gathered, you need to navigate through the maze. The maze will deal damage if you hit it and if people weren’t careful in dropping off their purple puddles, you might step in some. Some people might blow defensive cooldowns while healers try to drop as much healing as possible. The thing is that the openings to the maze (i.e. clear/safe spots) slowly. So don’t panic and move through as much as possible without taking damage. You must avoid the eye beam at all cost though as it can one shot you.
If you manage to survive the eye beam phase and most of your raid is alive, then burn the boss as fast as you can. With the exception of Lingering Gaze and Force of Will, you can ignore the other mechanics in this fight (i.e. the add portion). Just make sure you nuke Durumu down before he goes back to the maze phase.
In general, the two things I focus on are staying alive during the maze aspects and DPSing the boss down as hard as possible. Blow your cooldowns at the beginning including Bloodlust. You want to make sure Durumu is nuked down as fast as possible before the maze phase since there’s no guarantee how many people are left.
If you succeed in killing Durumu, then LFR for the most part will seem pretty easy from here on out with a few smaller hiccups. After that, you’ll face another add gauntlet. Your tank will pick up these red oozes. Don’t DPS them until he stops. Eventually, he’ll gather a large group up along with a Malignant Ooze. Now, you’ll have to be a little careful here because upon killing these oozes, they explode causes a great deal of raid damage. So just mindlessly AoEing them might destroy them fast, but you’ll still face the risk of killing your raid (unless your healers are superior). I tend to go single target for these to bring down the risk.
Eventually, you’ll end up in another chamber where you face Primordius.
Primordius
This encounter is fairly simple but it can be confusing the first time through. The thing is that you need to wait for your tank to pick up Primordius and then waiting for these red oozes to spawn from around the room. Focus on killing these oozes. Once they die, stand in them to receive a buff. You need 5 of these to become transformed for which you can start nuking Primordius. Your tank will kite Primordius in a circle so it’s important to keep up as much as possible.
While that is most of the fight, you have to pay attention to your buff. Once it goes away, you’ll need to pick up another 5 stacks. I’ve heard that you don’t need all 5 but it’s probably easier just to keep the transformation aspect up. So you might have to kill more of the oozes. But keep on the look out for the remnants of other oozes. You will want to pick them up before Primordius as they can buff him instead. Also, you’ll want to be wary about the raid wide damage going out. The other thing is to avoid purple puddles as these are considered bad. Overall not a hard fight but most of it is just environmental awareness.
The next part is a few simple add packs. The two guards at the door are simple. Just make sure you attack from behind because they can stun you. Then you will fight a group of Dark Ritualists. Honestly, there’s not a lot which makes this fight special except that they have a buttload of life and it feels unnecessarily long. There is a Dr Who culture reference in the achievement but that’s not important.
Dark Anus….I mean Dark Animus
Before I talk about the strategies of this fight, I want to share this little anecdotal on one of my LFR encounters.
Raider1 (right after porting in): “Which boss are we on?”
Raider2: “Dark Anus”
Raider3: “That’s what she said.”
Me: “LMAO.”
Sorry, I can’t call this encounter Dark Animus anymore after hearing that. Heck, even typing Dark Animus out, I’m always tempted to change the “i” to a “u”. That said, after dealing with this hectic fight, there’s good reason to call this along the lines of the rectum. The fight starts off chaotic but slows into a boring tank and spank. So what to do?
The first half of this encounter involves three types of adds where you face four sets of golems that start off in great numbers and are smaller, leading to activating Dark Animus. The first set of golems (Anima Golems) will spawn on two sides of the room. Most times the tanks will split up, each one taking one half of the golems. People might focus on one group of golems while the other tank holds their half of golems. Single target these smaller golems so that the Large Anima Golems will be activated.
Large Anima Golems are what end up causing wipes. The thing is that if you kill too many of them quickly, a large number of these guys will spawn. But the problem is that they have an ability called Crimson Wake, which causes these puddles of red on the floor. Quite often, the uninitiated will leave tons of these Crimson Wake puddles around and people will stand in them, causing chaos and the raid to wipe. If you get targeted by Crimson Wake, you need to find a corner of the room to drop it off.
The object of that phase is to eventually activate the Massive Anima Golems. Usually, what I’ve seen is that once one group is activated, people keep switching to the next bigger group, up until Dark Animus. With the Massive Anima Golems, the only thing you need to deal with Matter Swap. That’s more of a healer mechanic, but you might find yourself slightly discombobulated when you switch spots with the furthest person in your raid. But just DPS these until Dark Animus is activated.
Once Dark Animus is activated, focus all your attention on this thing. Pretty much at this point things become a tank-n-spank encounter. Avoid casting when Interrupting Jolt hits or you’ll be silenced.
Next I’ll cover the last part of Throne of Thunder.