by Mjöl » Mon Aug 15, 2011 2:40 pm
Name: Baleroc
Phases: 1
Setup: 2 Tanks, 5/6 Healers 17-18 Dps
Enrage Timer: 6 Minutes
Hitpoints: Baleroc has in 25man normal 133 Mil
General:
Its a 1 Phase fight, there are no adds.
It will constantly increase the Hp of the main aggro target, while also increasing own damage done. The boss has 2 categories of abilites, 1 will do massive damage along with buffing the tank, the other will buff the healers to be able to heal. Overall Baleroc is considered as one of the easist encounters in Firelands.
Abilites:
Blaze of Glory: around all 10 seconds Baleroc increases the tanks max hp by 20% as well as their physical dmg taken by 20%. This is a stacking debuff. The buff stays also after death, so tanks can be bressed.
Incdendiary Soul: Each time Baleroc casts Blaze of Glory, he buffs himself with this, increasing fire dmg done by 20%, stacking.
Inferno Blade: all 60 Seconds the bosses weapon will infuse for 15 seconds, leading to him not doing melee attacks, but using inferno Strike, causign 100000 Dmg.
Decimation Blade: All 60 Seconds, the bosses weapon will infuse for 15 seconds, leading to him not doing melee attacks, but using Decimating Strike, dealing 90% of the tanks Hp, but at least 250.000, which cant be mitigated. While decimation blade baleroc will have 50% slower attack speed.
Shards of Torment: roughly all 30 seconds, Baleroc summons 2 Shard of Torment. Existing Shards despawn around 5 seconds before new Shards are cast. The Shards are Stationary and not attackable. They cast Torment on a player nearest within 15 yards, and does 4000 dmg every second, and stacks also each second. The debuff is undispellable.
Tormented: A debuff applied to a palyer whose stacks of torment wore off. It increases shadowdmg taken by 250%, redueces healing done by 50% for 60 seconds.
Wave of Torment: Raid wide aoe dmg if nobody is within 15 yards to the shards of Torment and wipes the raid.
Vital Spark: Each time a healer heals a raid member affected by Torment, the healer gets a stack of Vital Spark. For every 3 stacks of torment on the target, the healer gets 1 stack vital spark. (for example a player with 12 torment stacks gives the ehaler 4 stacks vital spark) The buff has a 60 second duration, and is refreshed every time a new stack is gained
Vital Flame: When a Healer with stacks of Vital Spark heals a player (the tank) with Blaze of Glory, their stacks of vital sark turned into vital flame. That vital flame is a buff that lasts 15 secodns, icnreases healing done on players with blaze of glory (tank) by 5% for each stack of Vital Spark consumed. When the effect ends, the vital spark stacks are restored.
Strategy
The entire fight the hp and damage done to the tank will be increased. Due to that 2 tanks should be used.
To keep up with healing the tank, healers need to stack vital spark by healing players with torment. Healers need to take turns on healing that players, and need to switch then to healing the tank to use the Vital Flame. The rotation should be such that a healer with a higher Vital Spark stacks will always replace a tank healer, so that they can be healed through the increasing damage.
Because of the tormented debuff neither healers or tanks will EVER want to have the shard of torment buff. That should be only dps.
Basically there are 3 roles in this fight:
Tanks:
2 tanks, the idea is to have 1 tank take enough stacks of blaze of glory to survive decimation blade (more then 250.000 hp, which is 2-3 stacks). The other tank should take all remaining stacks.
So therefor, the decimation blade tank taunts the boss when the dec blade is cast, will only take 250.000 dmg, and for the rest of the time the other tank takes the boss.
Healers:
Never be targeted by Torment (50% healing reduction).
Build Vital Sparks contiously. Because one cannot gain new stacks of vital spark while vital flame is active (for 15 seconds after having healed a tank) healers need to rotate who is healing the tank and who is building stacks of vital spark.
Therfor, always 2 healers should be on the tank, and the rest of the healers on players affected by torment. The tank healer can only keep up with the tank dmg for a certain time, so he needs to be replaced idealy by a healer with the highest number of vital sparks. At this switch the previous tank healer should once the vital flame buff has dropped off heal players affected by torment to stack up again on vital spark. This contiues the entire encounter.
DPS:
Simply dps Baleroc the entire fight. Addign to that is the duty of soaking the damage from shard of torment. The duration of tormented is 1 minute, so that needs a proper roation, where the affected player will always be replaced by a dps without stacks of torment or tormented debuff. Players that know they will be next in line should be already in place, close enough to take over.
The soakers should aim to reach 12 stacks of torment before moving away. If low on hp, players should move away sooner, but also, with full hp, you can stay a bit longer, also damage reducing cds can be used like Anti-Magic Shell, Dispersion, or Barkskin.
Some rules for the Dps when soaking Torment:
Never should be no one within 15 yards to the shard or its a wipe
Never should a tank or healer be the closest player
Never get new torment stacks when you have still a tormented debuff
Learning the Fight
While Baleroc does have an enrage timer, which will require reasonable DPS to meet, when learning the fight we advise you to ignore DPSing the boss while making sure that a proper rotation of players taking Torment is established, and healers become accustomed to healing the tank.
Final Considerations
Baleroc is an extremely interesting healing encounter, and while it may take your raid several attempts to distill a proper strategy for your own raid, we have no doubt that your healers (and tanks) will have a great deal of fun in doing so.
Very Short recaps of all tasks:
Tank: Make sure 1 tank takes the decimation blade, the other one all other stacks. Make sure the blaze of glory stacks are applied even on both tanks
Healer: Make sure to have a working rotation of 2 healers healing tanks, others stacking vital spark buffs, and that this is switched corretly.
Dps: Dps down the boss, and make sure that the 2 shards of torment are rotaed through all dps in a correct order.
Thanks to the Themark for my avatar ! (Breast and Arms on Pic not edited, only Hair photoshopped. Seriously.)