Dodge, Parry, Block

My raid hasn’t seen all the trash in the Firelands yet, so I’ll just talk about the ones we’ve encountered so far and add the rest later. Consider this a work in progress. Killing trash is a great way to gain rep with the Avengers of Hyjal, though it stops once you hit Honored. You can run it easily in PUG groups, as long as someone knows what they’re doing.

The first one you’ll come across is a Molten Lord. There are several of them walking around the zone, but they’ll always be solo. Stacks of Melt Armor means you’ll want a tank swap at around 4-5 stacks. Avoid standing in fire from his Summon Lava Jets and position yourself so that Flame Stomp doesn’t knock you anywhere you don’t want to be. You could also run out of range of it, but that’s not necessary.

Patrolling along the roads are groups of Flamewaker Cauterizers, Flamewaker Forward Guards, and Flamewaker Pathfinders. Cauterizers should be your first kill target because of Cauterize. The Forward Guards will Shockwave so face them away from the raid. Pathfinders tend to hang back and throw Flaming Spears and Ensnares.

Scattered around the place are also a Giant Fire Scorpion grouped with a bunch of smaller Fire Scorpions. In this pack, you want to AoE down the Fire Scorpions first. When they die they’ll splash Fiery Blood on everything around them including the Giant. This’ll let you kill the Giant quickly before it stacks Too Hot to Handle too high. The scorpions have finicky aggro, they’ll often wander out toward ranged but you can taunt them back toward you temporarily.

You’ll also see wandering Molten Surgers, they’re sometimes in pairs, though there are some that are alone. Raid should be spread out so his random Surges doesn’t throw people all over the place.

There are also Ancient Core Hounds lumbering around, you’ll want to pull these back away from other trash to avoid having someone run into adds due to Terrifying Roar. Face away from the raid for Flame Breath, and have a second tank ready to taunt when you get hit by Dinner Time.

The packs of Hell Hounds should be AoEd down quickly before you get too many stacks of Rend Flesh.

There are also some turtles along the edges of the platform. Personally I’d rather avoid them but if you really want to kill them, make sure you have plenty of room. The Patriarch Fire Turtle can be tanked, but watch out for Flame Breath. You’ll probably want to leave it for last because of Shell Shield and because the Matriarch Fire Turtle and Fire Turtle Hatchling are a major pain. They’ll both be using Shell Spin pretty often, knocking people all around. It can be interrupted by stuns though, so tank them apart and try to keep them locked down as much as possible.

If you head northwest toward Beth’tilac, you’ll run across Cinderweb Spiderling, Cinderweb Spinners, and Cinderweb Drones harassing various other trash. Usually the trash will die so you just have to worry about the spiders. There’s not much to them, though the Drone is another one you have to face away for Boiling Splatter.

Further in you’ll find Flamewaker Sentinels who’ll throw Flaming Spears as well as a Cauterizer that can cast Flame Shield.

Further east on your way toward Lord Rhyolith, you’ll come across Unbound Pyrelords. If they’re by themselves, they’re easy enough to kill. If surrounded by Unbound Smoldering Elementals though, you’re going to have to be more careful. When a Pyrelord’s health hits 80/60/40/20% mark, they’ll hit one of the smaller adds with Ignite Elemental. This removes their Unbreakable Shell but also makes them start using Blazing Flame. Since you don’t want multiple of these going off at the same time, you’ll have to DPS down one Pyrelord slowly until he Ignites, switch to the Ignited Elemental immediately to kill it, and then back to the Pyrelord until the next Ignite. And so on. We had one tank grab all the Elementals onto them, while two other tanks pulled the Pyrelords off to the side. Edit: Unbreakable Shell has been so nerfed that you can basically just AoE down the Elementals while killing the Pyrelords.

Once over the bridge, there’ll be a bunch of Flamewaker groups with a couple Hell Hounds here and there. Along with the Forward Guards and Cauterizers you’ve already encountered, you’ll be facing:

• Flamewaker Taskmaster have an Aura of Indomitability, so you’ll want to kill it first. He’ll also apply Mortal Strike.
  
• Flamewaker Overseer uses Flaming Cleave, so this one you actually do want to face them toward the raid.
• Flamewaker Centurion mainly uses Mortal Strike.
  
• Flamewaker Trainees have lesser versions of abilities you’ve already seen: Shockwave, Ensnare, Mortal Strike, Flaming Spear. Just AoE them down.
• Flamewaker Beast Handler comes with a single Hell Hound and throws Flaming Spear.
• Flamewaker Hound Master stands near a group of Hell Hounds and casts Release The Hounds! It’s probably a good idea to concentrate on AoEing down the Hounds first.

The ramp leading up to Lord Rhyolith is a gauntlet, where a seemingly endless stream of Unstable Pyrolords pour down. Just gather them all up and rush to the top, that’ll force Kar the Everburning, Firelord to retreat, and then you can kill the adds. Before you can fight Kar though, you have to deal with a pair of Unbound Pyrolords while dodging falling fireballs from the sky (don’t stand in the graphic). Kar himself Summons Lava Spawn and those Spawns will split into two more Spawns when they die. Try to stun them before they die to prevent it from happening. He also stacks a debuff on the tank so you’ll have to do a swap, and summons volcanoes that you need to pull him away from.

If you head back and follow the road northwest, the trash to Alysrazor consists of several Harbingers of Flame and two giant Blazing Monstrosities. Once you engage the Harbingers, the Monstrosities will stand up and start spitting fire on the ground,  you’ll need to have two people rush forward and mount them to direct their fire. It can be a little tricky since the mounting icon only shows up a little ways up near their heads, but once there you can direct the fire away from the raid and toward the two egg piles on the sides. Destroy those to stop Smouldering Hatchlings from spawning. Meanwhile, the Harbingers’ Fieroblast and Fieroclast Barrage should be interrupted. Once the all the eggs are gone, you can turn the two Monstrosities onto each other. Majordomo Staghelm will show up in the nook near the back, but don’t engage him unless you’re prepared to fight Alysrazor.

Keep going on the road northwest and you’ll come across a Flamewaker Subjugator watching over several Flamewaker Animators. The Animators won’t attack when you engage the Subjugator, so feel free to kill him first. He stacks Blistering Wound on the tank and will also use Burning Motivation on each Animator, removing their Defensive Casting (which means you need to keep him alive long enough to cast it on each Animator). Kill each Animator when their shields comes down, you can leave the Subjugator until they’re all taken care of because the longer they’re casting the more damage the Unstable Magma will be doing once it’s free.

Past the northern gate is Baleroc‘s trash. There are two groups of two Flame Archons, and two Molten Flamefathers. Face the Archons away from the raid for Flame Torrent and watch out when they start casting Fiery Torment. You might want to have a few melee run in closer than you to take one or two tics of it so you don’t take the entire damage. The Flamefather’s Earthquake can be negated by jumping as the cast ends, but what you need to watch for are the Magma Conduits, they’re small volcanoes that need to be DPSed down as soon as they spawn. Otherwise they’ll constantly spit out Magmakins that’ll run toward random players and Erupt.

Once all the other bosses have been killed, you’ll be able to cross the bridge to Majordomo Staghelm. You’ll need to deal with several Druids of the Flame first though. One of them will be constantly casting Kneel to the Flame! until you pull, but you can avoid this damage by /kneeling or /sitting before the cast goes off. Ranged should spread out in a loose circle around the melee because the Druids in Cat Form will be doing Reckless Leaps all over the place (they target the farthest person in the group, and you can move out of the way when you see them coming). Since the Cats are initially shielded with Reactive Flames, DPS down the humanoid form Druids first, and that’ll also stop their constant Sunfire spam.

Shannox is the third boss we took down in last week’s trip to the Firelands, and is another two tank fight.

He patrols along the circular pathway in the center of the zone, and comes with two Hellhounds named Rageface and Riplimb. You’ll want to clear out a sizeable area before pulling him, our raid picked the west side of the first fork in the road. Be careful when clearing though or he may run right into you.

Because of how Shannox and Riplimb’s abilities work, you’ll need to tank them apart at least 60 yards (but not more than 80 or so yards or you’ll trigger Separation Anxiety, which caused Shannox to hit me for roughly 90k in a single hit, sorry Jadiera!).

The reason for this is because Shannox will use Arcing Slash on you, stacking up Jagged Tears (while Riplimb will also be stacking Tears on the OT with Limb Rip). He only applies this when he has his spear though, so when he Hurls Spear toward Riplimb there’s a chance for the stack to drop off both tanks. The longer it takes for Riplimb to fetch the spear and return it to him, the better. So, tank Riplimb 60+ yards away from Shannox, and when the Spear is thrown there’ll be a huge graphic on the ground indicating where it will land. It’ll also be the center of a wide swirling pattern of fire that needs to be avoided. Drag Riplimb away from it (usually toward Shannox) forcing him to run back toward the spear, then across the entire 60+ distance back to Shannox. If that’s not enough for the stack to drop, you might have to move Shannox back a little further to gain a few more seconds, or the OT can try moving away from the spear landing area faster.

Shannox will also toss down Immolation Traps and Crystal Prison Traps on top of people occasionally. Move out of them while attempting to lure the two hounds into the crystal trap, it helps a lot. If a raid member gets caught by it though, break them out quickly. If you’re on Shannox, you can try to move him sideways if you see a trap close by to force Riplimb to run across one. Just make sure no one’s behind you that’ll get hit by Arcing Slash.

Rageface cannot be tanked, so we initially focused DPS on it to kill it first and quickly. His Face Rage ability can be interrupted by doing 30k/45k (10/25) damage in a single hit. Shannox gains a stack of Frenzy for each hound killed, so be prepared for it. Once Rageface is dead, Melee concentrates on Shannox while Ranged works on Riplimb. The Ranged and Healers should be in a loose cluster in the area between the boss and Riplimb, increasing the chance of a crystal trap dropping in Riplimb’s path.

Both hounds gain Frenzied Devotion when Shannox’s health reaches 30%, so you’ll want to time it so that Riplimb dies before that happens. Shannox will then have two stacks of Frenzy, so it’s another hard burn phase from that point. He’ll also cause a Magma Rupture instead of throwing his spear now, causing the same swirling pattern of eruption, but centered at him this time. Stay alive and move as necessary to avoid the numerous Immolation Traps that are going to be all over the place.