Since I’ve done Siege of Orgrimmar LFR Part 1 now roughly 8 times on several toons, I decided to write up my experiences as a DPS, both ranged and melee, on how I handled each fight. I will cover Part 2 once I have more experience, although I think I have a pretty good handle on that section as well.
When you first zone in, you’ll face several groups of trash mobs. The ones you need to watch out for are the big water elemental guys. The two things you need to avoid are: 1) the big circle thing and 2) the lines of water that rise up. Simply move out of the way when the water elemental guys do either and make sure you don’t pull additional adds by staying to the left side of the corridor.
The first boss you encounter is Immerseus. He’s a large water elemental type of entity. People have said that by targeting him you can aggro the boss. Once you enter his chamber, you’ll want to spread out evenly, hugging the walls to get to your position. There are six quadrants, I believe, in the room. I think most tanks end up taking the quadrant facing the entrance. You’ll probably want to evenly spread your healers, ideally having one healer per quadrant.
The fight has two phases. One is where Immerseus is fully formed and one where he splits. In many ways, this fight resembles Ichoron in Violet Hold where the boss constantly splits then reforms. While he is fully formed, you pretty much will just focus on the boss as no adds will spawn at this point. As a melee, I tend to get close to the edge where the pool of water forms then strafe towards the other end, avoiding the puddles forming underneath me. Once one row of puddles are formed, I create a new row and continue, avoiding puddles where I can. As a ranged, I hardly worry about that aspect and focus more on avoiding the pools that can knock me up. Those won’t kill you, but they work like an interrupt. So make sure you stay clear is key. When he starts Swirl, you’ll see a tidal wave approaching. You can try to avoid it by moving back or forward. But it’s more of an annoying knockback effect that won’t kill you here.
Once you get him down to 0 health, he’ll transition and you’ll see those puddles that were forming around the front coalesce towards him. You still need to avoid these. But you’ll want to move towards the back of the room as two types of adds will spawn. One is a dark pool where DPS needs to bring down quickly. And the other is a blueish pool that healers need to top off. The dark pools can be slowed so you should use things like traps to prevent them from overwhelming your DPS. Hybrid classes with healing abilities should help their healers, especially if the group is spread too thin in this regard. Since the types and number of pools differ per area, you should never depend on your comrades to handle everything so help out as much as possible in this phase. The reason is that once these puddles reach the center, they’ll explode and cause damage to the raid. So minimizing the number of puddles exploding will help save your raid. Also, consider using personal defensive cooldowns like healthstones, potions, etc. to help out your healers.
Once you finish this phase, the fight will resume with Immerseus having less health. You’ll continue to repeat this process until he’s down. It will become more frantic over time and I believe the number of blue pools that spawn in phase 2 increase, making it harder for your healers to keep up. So again, emphasize helping out your healers when possible. Also, don’t be afraid to switch quadrants if you can see the areas nearby appearing overwhelmed.
The next part is the Fallen Protectors fight. It’s what’s known as a “council” type of fight, meaning you’ll fight several members (three actually), who must be killed almost simultaneously. You will fight Rook (monk/warrior), He (rogue) and Sun (priestess), which is the priority list in terms of DPS for 60% and 30%. Hopefully, your raid leader will mark the priority during this fight as people who have tunnel vision can royally screw this encounter up.
When you start, you’ll want to focus on Rook. The tank should face him away from the raid as he has a small cone affect. Once he hits 60%, the fight will transition where you then must focus on three adds. The adds are Sorrow, Gloom and Misery. Again, that is the order in priority. Sorrow does a meteor type of strike where someone will have a reddish glowing circle under them. You need to stack up for this as the damage is shared. If you do not stack up for this ability, you be most likely be one shotted once it hits. Gloom’s spell inflicts a great deal of damage but isn’t shared so you need to spread out for that. After getting Gloom down, you’ll focus on Misery, whom the tank should have picked up. He does a cleave so again you’ll need to avoid his front.
Once all three adds are down, you’ll need to switch to He. He is basically a rogue that will go from spot to spot hitting people. The two things to worry about are a poison he spawns on the ground (it looks like an olive green splotch) and gouge. Just avoid the poison on the ground. For gouge, you need to face away from him or be stunned. This mechanic is more for tanks but needs to be noted.
Once he reaches 60% and 30%, an add will spawn that will create a Mark of Anguish on a player. The Mark of Anguish will add up over time, so you’ll want to swap it onto another player. I’ve read that you can put it on a tank in LFR, but it’s up to you. I’ve heard some people will do things like Iceblock once they get it so you can put up some defensive CDs if you receive it. Main thing is that you’ll see the extra add button appear which will allow you to pass it once it starts to get high.
Lastly, there’s Sun. The main thing to look out for is Shadowword: Bane. People need to cleanse this immediately or it’ll jump to other players and cause a great deal of damage. Calamity is just raid-wide damage and cannot be avoided. Like the other two Protectors, Sun switches once she hits 60% and 30%. She’ll spawn a bubble for which everyone needs to run in. Adds will appear inside and out of the bubble. Range takes out the external adds and melee should AoE the adds inside the bubble.
After you go through two of these transitions, you’ll need to evenly bring down the health of each Protector. The main thing is making sure they die within 15 seconds of each other, or they’ll respawn. I would suggest popping lust when they’re near that mark. Smart groups will attempt to bring them together and cleave/AoE them down. If not, you’ll need to watch each one to make sure their health is roughly the same towards the end. DoT classes will have a ball on this fight as you can focus just on DoTing up all your targets and gaining free procs. For myself, I had a blast on my Shadow Priest and wished I had run this fight on my Balance Druid.
After you complete the Protectors, you’ll need to head towards the mine. Along the way, you’ll see numerous sha type of creatures patrolling around. Most parties head towards the right side. There are a couple of mini bosses, but only one is required to down. You should be mindful at all times of the adds around the area and I would go as far as to suggest just cleaning up things along the way, since most likely there will be a butterfingers who’ll trip up the adds and end up bringing them to the group.
Eventually, you’ll run into a mini boss (Zeal) blocking the entrance to the mine you need to enter. This boss is like Qiang the Merciless from Mogu’shan Vaults Part 2. He has a frontal cone called “Sha Smash” which everyone needs to stack up to avoid people taking too much damage. Tanks can rush in (not really advised) as this ability is channeled. Be careful of other adds in back, especially the slightly larger Sha manifestations. Those will have a Sha Nova that stuns people. So if they are in this group, you’ll probably wipe unless you have people interrupting them.
After defeating Zeal, you’ll make your way through the mine into the chamber where you’ll meet Norushen. He’ll engage you in a “test” where you need to Amalgam of Corruption to get purified. The Amalgam of Corruption fight is primarily an add fight. You’ll see a bar with four boxes. Each box represents how much corruption you have and each also represents how much less damage you do. You start at 75% and must eventually pass a personal test to reduce the amount of corruption you have.
When you start off, you’ll simply DPS the Amalgam of Corruption. Shortly thereafter, members of the raid will be randomly picked (I read it’s some sort of priority system) to enter into a personal test. As a DPS, you will fight four adds. Three are smaller ones and there’s a larger one. I recommend saving your cooldowns for this part then nuking the hell out of the big one first. He has a cone ability so you’ll be constantly running around if you don’t kill that one first. Once you take the big add out, you can turn your attention to the smaller adds. These have a shield which will prevent you from doing any damage. So you’ll need to move behind them. You can interrupt these adds and stun them, but you only get a minute to complete this part. As you kill each add, they’ll spawn in the raid. Once you complete the tests, you’ll be cleansed and can do full damage.
Of course, one tank needs to pick up the bigger adds. The smaller ones should be interrupted but do not require a tank. However, the larger adds will spawn a pool of corruption that the tank needs to absorb to prevent too much splash damage from affecting the raid. What makes this fight difficult is that the number of larger adds spawning can overwhelm the raid towards the end, especially with the splash damage going out. So you don’t want to just down all the big ones at once. Also, you’ll have a Durumu-like beam that will not one shot you, but do a fair amount of damage. It moves slow enough to be avoid. So the easiest thing to do is just run around the boss either clockwise or counterclockwise during most of this fight will downing adds then switching back to the boss during the moments where adds won’t spawn. The other issue is that he has a short enrage timer so people really need to complete their test successfully to do enough damage and prevent the timer from being set off. All in all, it’s not a terribly difficult fight, but you do have to watch out for things as they build up.
Once you get him down, you can turn your attention to the next room which contains the Sha of Pride. Before entering, you’ll face a fairly chaotic trash encounter where you’ll see small puddles on the floor. Naturally, you’ll want to avoid these. Most tanks will attempt to gather up the adds so people can AoE them down. However, the main thing to monitor is the ticking timebomb that stacks up. You’ll have this splashing effect surrounding you, which you’ll want to dump away from the raid. In some ways, this part is like the large Anima add phase on Dark Animus. So you’ll guarantee a wipe if everyone stacks up with this debuff.
After cleaning out the room (which possibly you’ll do a circle around), you’ll face the Sha of Pride. The DPS and healers will stack up on the opposite side of where Norushen is at, near the axe on the ground behind the Sha while the tanks will take the area where Norushen is located. The objective of this fight is the slight opposite of the previous fight; you must monitor your pride bar and prevent it from reach 100%. It’s what is being called a “personal responsibility” type of fight.
Once the boss is engaged, you’ll go through several situations. The first is watching for Self-Reflection. It looks like a purple pool that’ll spawn under people. When this occurs, the best thing to do is spread out as it will cause damage and add pride. Adds will spawn and should be AoE’d down asap. You will also be on the look out for Corrupted Prison. This causes two players to be placed into one of two corners in the room. There will be this glowing yellow quarter circle surround the player that two other players need to run to in order to release the player. Leaving the player inside the prison causes that player to gain pride and take damage. For players near the tanks, you have a few options like having the tanks help out or getting people with teleport abilities (such as blink or a warlock’s Demonic Gateway) to quickly get people in and out of the prisons on the far side.
Next, you’ll have a Manifestation of Pride that will spawn in the back of the room. Optimally, a death knight will Death Grip him towards the back of the party so melee won’t have to run towards him. Interrupt his Mocking Blast as this ability, upon hitting someone, will give them 5 pride. This add does not have great health and need not be tanked.
After the Manifestation of Pride goes down, the Sha of Pride will cast Swelling Pride (actually this occurs every 60 seconds, but roughly after the Manifestation of Pride dies). For people with less than 25 pride, it adds 5 pride to your bar. For those with 25-49 pride, you’ll want to spread out as a zone will form under your feet that will cause damage, explode and increase pride. 50-74 pride will spawn a zone with a green arrow pointing to it. You must run to that area and stand in it or it’ll cause raid wide damage within 8 seconds. 75-99 pride again causes AoE to other players. Just spread out for this. And 100 pride causes you to be turned into a Sha-like manifestation, giving you a slight buff, but you’ll get mind controlled on the next Swelling Pride. In general, the best thing to do during Swelling Pride is just spread out. Since you’ll gradually gain pride throughout the encounter, just make sure that when you hit 25, you move apart as a safety measure, except for the Projection, which requires you to stand in.
Lastly, you’ll need to look for Gift of the Titans buff, where five players will receive a mini lust type of ability. However, to utilize this buff, they must stack together. Since this buff can occur during any of these situations, you will want to stack the entire time. This means for the prison and Manifestation of Pride, you will want to stay with the group and let someone else handle that, especially if the Manifestation of Pride isn’t gripped into the group.
The good thing is that your pride will be reset at 30%, which causes Unleashed and kills Norushen. That means, you no longer will receive Gift of the Titans. Here’s when you want to use your bloodlust and focus on nuking the boss. You still need to follow the other mechanics. Usually, during this phase the most difficult aspect is the adds that spawn after Self-Reflection. I’ve seen quite a few pop up. I think if you’re close enough to the boss, you can AoE/cleave them all down for maximum efficiency.
At any rate, this wing isn’t so bad at this time. So give it a try.