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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Random Heroic: The Forge of Souls

Lately it seems like I've stopped churning out articles about random dungeons that I've been running with the new LFG tool. In fact I've been diligently running at least a random daily heroic, for the 2 Emblems of Frost that are awarded for the first random daily run.

This is in fact the 3rd time I ran Forge of Souls but only the first time I managed to complete it and get the achievements. This is one of the new 5-mans introduced in patch 3.3 and it's tougher than the previous heroics I ran. The trash is tougher and nastier. The bosses (although only two) have new mechanics.

For my first run, I found myself in a group with a neurotic healer who was constantly spouting rubbish and urging the tank and everybody to gogogogo! When we got to the first boss, Bronjahm, the tank stepped outside the ramp and fell to his death. For some reason the psycho healer started to pick on me, telling me that if I don't jump after the tank I'd be kicked from the group. I laughed it off and just to mess with him (note to self: don't tease crazy people in the future), I said I would pull the boss. So I got kicked from the group.

My second run was not too good. I had studied the strategy for the two bosses but it was my first time so I was a bit nervous. We beat the first boss but wiped at the second. We attempted it again and two of us died but I got the credit for finishing the dungeon, just not the achievements because I was dead when they finished him off.

So here's the strategy that we used for these two bosses, from a DPS point of view.

Bronjahm

The fight starts as usual. During the first phase, the boss will start channeling a purple tendril at a random player and yell something to the effect of "I will drain your soul". When that happens, the player who's being channeled needs to move as far away from the boss as possible (while still inside the circular room). A "soul" will spawn at the player's location and start slowly moving toward the boss. This "soul" is an elite with about 60K health.

At this point two things need to be done: 1) all DPS switches to the soul to burn it down as fast as possible; 2) the tank must kite the boss around the room as far away from the soul as possible. If the soul reaches the boss, it will heal him for a very high amount. On my third group we wiped the first time because some of the others didn't know the strategy and the boss healed repeatedly, slowly draining the healer's mana. In the end he couldn't heal us and we reached the second phase where we died.

The second phase of the fight is when he reaches 30%. He will teleport to the center and start channeling a swirling maelstrom of energy around the room. Everyone needs to move to the center right on top of the boss and melee him. Even ranged classes. Anyone caught inside the swirling energy will take massive damage and die quickly. At one point he will fear a random player and cause him to run through the energy field. At that point the healer needs to be on his toes and heal the hapless player.

Devourer of Souls

This one is the last boss and looks like a giant floating face. Ugly face.

The strategy here, from my understanding, is more chaotic. What I got, in summary, is this: avoid the spirits, avoid the purple patches on the ground, stop DPS when he casts Mirrored Soul.

What this means is that he will summon a bunch of floating spirits that move slowly toward players and do very little damage but are not targetable and there's lots of them. This fight keeps everyone on their toes because you need to run away a short distance whenever there are too many spirits on your ass.

The purple patches are something that the boss will cast at a random player, while teleporting on top of that player but they are pretty bright and not hard to avoid. He casts a bunch of them around the room and they persist to the end of the fight.

Mirrored Soul is the ability that he casts at a random player and apparently everyone needs to stop DPS, or the player will take all the damage.

Toward the end he will cast another spell that sweeps about a quarter of the room from a random player's position. Massive damage if caught in it. I was fortunate (I guess) not to experience this so I can't say more about it.

Yeah, I realize these strategies aren't exactly word of gospel but they should give you a general idea of how to handle these bosses. Additional tips and suggestions are always welcome. I advise you, of course, to read more under Wowhead's entries for each boss. Again, these are not extremely tough fights, provided that everyone knows what to do.

Here are the two achievements that I got:

The Forge of Souls
Heroic: The Forge of Souls

7 comments:

Shannara said...

Thats ironic, I was in a group as a priest healer, and the bear tank fell off the ramp by the first boss, I just left the group then though ..

What battlegroup are you in?

Anonymous said...

Wait, they wanted you to jump off the ramp to your death, or you'd be kicked?

On the second boss, the final big beam ability starts pointing at a location and then sweeps around the room, so everyone should run behind the boss and then keep moving so his back is always to you. That way you can never be hit by the beam.

Cale said...

I thought this was the hardest dungeon in the game, until I ran Halls of reflection. Compared to this FoS is a walk in the park. :D

Thanks for the tip on the last boss, he always gets me in the end... :)

BTW, I'm from Argentina and also a solo player. I follow your blog for some time now.
Keep up the good work!!
Bye.

Lani said...

Acutally, If you stand >just< inside the swirling vortex, you will be able to range dps Bronjahm. It works fine as long as your camera is pointing down. Once you figure out what the pattern on the floor looks like, you won't have to point your camera down anymore. :)

Darth Solo said...

@Shannara it wasn't you, trust me. The healer was a real jerk and the tank was a warrior. It was the healer who kicked me out of the group. I assume they just found another DPS... easily.

@veliaf only the moronic healer. The other guys were silent throughout the whole episode. Correct about the last boss. I've been reading some more strategies and you just have to be behind the boss.

@Cale big shout-out to Argentina! Thanks for following my blog man!

@Lani thanks for the tip, I'll be sure to try it out next time.

Anonymous said...

From a healer:
Don't DPS on mirrored souls because it's usually the healer who takes all the damage.

Darth Solo said...

@Anon, which boss? If it's the first one, I meant the "soul" thing that spawns from the player that the boss channels on. The one that heals him. If it's the second boss, then yes, stop dps.