Post by Thror
Hi Gorefiend. Let me write a short guide to Stonecore Heroic for you, from the view of a fellow Feral Tank. So...
General Trash:The only trash that appears in the entire instance are the Stonecore Flayers. They should not be much of a problem. When they cast the Flay ability, you can jump behind them to receive zero damage, but the Flay generally does pretty pitiful damage to the tank. There is one yummy pull with 3 Flayers, which is pure Berserk material. They die
fast.
Trash up to 1st boss:There are 3 groups consisting of these enemies:
Stonecore Warbringer - simplest melee adds. They follow you around, and do not do much melee damage.
Stonecore Berserker - complicated melee adds. They charge at random targets, and have a whirlwind that damages the melee.
Stonecore Earthshaper - dangerous caster adds. They cast an ability called Call of Earth, which transforms them into an earth elemental form. In this form, they deal MASSIVE AoE damage. This ability has a fairly large CD, and can be interrupted. When CC fails for some reason, your highest priority is to keep these guys from casting that ability.
Millhouse Manabonk - A caster that casts some AoE spells. He runs off at low hp.
The tactics to these packs... do CC the Earthshapers, always. I usually mark Manabonk as skull. He does not really need to be tanked, just tell your DPS to interrupt most of his spells, and he is harmless. He runs away after you beat him a bit. The Warbringers are nice simple guys that follow you around and are easy to tank. The Berserker is a little nasty, you can CC him if you want, but i never do that. To reduce the damage taken further, you can root one of the Warbringers, the one that is further from Manabonk is the best (so he doesnt hit the melee DPS when they charge Millhouse). The berserkers are the best target for a Mind Control, imo.
1st boss:Does three things.
- Dampening Wave: a debuff that absorbs healing... pretty simple really, never caused a wipe.
- Crystal barrage: he starts spitting crystals at a random party member, Archavon style. But the crystals become adds afterwards. And not just any adds, they are adds that explode on impact. Their HP is extremely low. What i do is, i tell everyone to stand close to the worm, and when he finishes casting the crystals, i run into them, and Thrash > Swipe. That makes them all drop to like 10-20% hp, and if someone simultaneously uses an ability like Flamestrike, Whirlwind, or Divine Storm, they die. So you can dispatch of these adds in 1.5 seconds.
- Underground phase: pretty simple too. Do not stand on shifty sandy ground... and kill adds. When underground phase ends, he usually starts with the Crystal barrage right away, so make sure you have your Thrash and Swipe CDs saved for that.
Trash up to 2nd boss:Crystalspawn Giant. Does two things... firstly, a Quake. It has a cast time, and damages everyone who stands on the ground when the cast finishes. That means... you have to jump when he is about to finish the cast. Ding, zero damage taken. Second, he spawns red crystal thingies. These pick a target and stalk it around... can be killed from range or kited... they explode on impact, or upon death, and debuff everyone who is struck with the explosion with a 50% damage taken increasing debuff. You do not want to eat that as a tank. So kite the golem accordingly to never get hit by a crystal, and jump out of quake. It is quite common that the entire group wipes on this guy, and the tank finishes him off. Do use your CDs to mitigate his melee damage.
2nd boss:Easy... just keep a few things in mind:
- Do not stand on a swirly shifty ground, or if you are slow, in the orange pools of molten rock that spawn afterwards.
- Do not stand on black circles, rocks are about to fall there.
- Do not turn the boss in the healers direction... frontal cone breath attack.
- When the boss casts Crystal Storm or something like that, break LoS with him using a stone pillar. It is not good to hide behind the pillars that are right underneath, or very close to the boss... run a little further and hide there to be 100% safe.
- When the boss is in the air, or during a Crystal Storm, you can use one or two of these abilities: Tranquility, Rebirth, Healing Touch, Regrowth, Rejuvenation. I strongly encourage their use, esp. when your healer is weak. And it makes you look like Chuck Nourish.
Trash up to 3rd boss:Is the meanest. Here, i have drawn a map for you:
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/4686/stonecoretrashmap.jpgSo. There are three dangers on this trash.
Blue dots - the big guys. In certain intervals, they always jump at random party members. They always jump three times in a row. It is good to spread up, so they do not hit more than one person with their jump AoE. They also do a shockwave, make sure to stand behind them (if you are not a tank, of course. you do not really mind the shockwave as a tank). It is kinda common that someone dies on these... but they can generally be beaten down easilly.
Red dots - consist of Warbringers, elementals, and Rift Conjurers. All of these at once generally are not all that dangerous, and i never bother with CCing these packs. The elementals cast an AoE that can and should be interrupted. I generally kill the elementals first, Warbringers second, and Rifters last, but doesnt really matter. Berserk works wonders on these packs, use with fervor.
Sentries - these are not marked on the map. There is a bunch of them patrolling around. When they see you, and they have a rather large LoS range, they run to nearby trash packs and alert them. The Sentries only have like 11k hp, so they can be killed instantly once they stroll further away from trash groups. If a Sentry pulls another pack, it usually means a certain wipe. In that case, my advice is popping all cooldowns, and trying to kill every Sentry you can possibly find nearby. They will not bother you on your second attempt.
Now to the individual packs...
Pack 1 - has a Sentry next to it, it can be killed easilly, and is not really dangerous. First pack is easy, nothing is nearby.
Pack 2 - make sure the big guy is not near them when you pull these. You can LoS pull them, but i usually do not bother with that much. Just charge in and AoE them all. You only need to make sure none of the DPS runs too far in any of the bad directions.
After Pack 2, kill the first blue dot big guy patrolling around.
Pack 3 - is actually only a single Rift Conjurer, who walks around. He can be pulled separately from Pack 4. LoS pull this guy, using the green location i have marked for you, behind the crystal. He will run to you cluelessly, easy kill.
Pack 4 - Also LoS pull these to the green location. Kill elementals first, otherwise, easy pack. They have a sentry nearby, so kill the sentry first.
Pack 5 - is the easiest. Three melee guys and one Rift guy, no elementals. I usually tell someone to silence or counterspell the rift guy, and pull them back to the place where pack 2 stood, or so.
Pack 6 - same as pack 4. Make sure the big guy is NOT standing in the pack when you pull them.
After Pack 6, kill the second blue dot big guy patrolling around. You can now proceed to the boss.
3rd boss:
Has a few gimmicks, and can be kinda complicated.
- Firstly, Paralyse. It Paralyses everyone in the group for like 8 or 9 seconds, and the only way to break it is receiving damage. There are two ways that can help the group memebers break paralysis. Firstly, he has a buff or something, that makes the melee bleed when they attack him. That means the melee usually shrug off the paralysis instantly. Its more complicated for the casters. The boss casts a spell reflecting shield, that makes you reflect a spell at yourself. However, you can not cast spells once paralysed. That means you need to DoT yourself, using this reflect. I do not know how Holy Paladins do this, but all the other healers have an easy DoT at hand to get out of Paralysis instantly.
- Secondly, Shatter. This is an ability that deals MASSIVE AoE damage, and has a 15 yard range. You can also avoid it by breaking LoS with the boss. For this, i have marked two crosses on the map. There is a huge crystal in the passage where the boss stands. I tank the boss at the location 1, next to the crystal. When he casts Shatter, i run to location 2, hiding behind the crystal. This way, i can avoid the Shatter damage with a 100% success rate. I am very certain that if anyone dies to Shatter while attempting to break LoS, he is doing it wrong. The melee can do this as well, but they should hide on the other side of the huge crystal.
- Last... Ground Slam. Casted ability, does insane damage in a frontal cone. You want to jump behind the boss when he casts it. When you tank the boss at the location 1, the boss should be facing south (on the map), and the rest of the group should stand north from the boss.
Trash up to 4th boss:Is pretty easy. Flayers can be avoided... the only thing you really need to know is that it is easy to underestimate the non-elite guys, while they really should not be underestimated. Not like you can not survive 60 of them at once, but hey, be careful. Only kill 5-6 at once if you can. Some retarded DPS will think they can run forward and spam Fan of Knives and survive. They won't.
4th boss: Pretty simple... spawns huge ass black void zones. The void zones kill the adds. The healer should always stand behind the void zone (the adds are coming from one direction. Standing behind a void zone = standing on the other side, opposing the direction the adds come from). The void zone does not do TOO much damage... so when the adds start to be a problem, you can stick them to you with Challenging Roar, and just run into the void zone... to kill all the adds. Once the boss shields up, and ports away, make sure not to stand on shifty sand, for a HUGE ASS ROCK is about to fall there and instantly kill anyone standing in there. Make sure to NOT dps the boss when she is shielded. It is very tempting when she shields at like 10k hp, and she can even be killed while shielded... BUT she tends to bug, and her corpse disappears. So yeah... do kill her when she is on the ground, fighting normally.
Oh, she also does an ability that picks you into the air, and smashes you against the ground. This is fairly heavy damage. This ability can be interrupted twice. When she casts it, and when she channels it. The cast time is rather fast, but you can indeed interrupt it as a tank. Once you are in the air though, it is up to someone else to kick her.
Notable loot: Neck from 3rd boss, Head from 4th boss, Trinket from 4th boss.
4 pages in Word lol. Also, there has been a power outage after i finished typing 3rd boss, so i had to type that part TWICE. DURRRRRRRR.
I hope this helps.