Thorim is a somewhat complicated fight that is all about correctly dividing up your raid. After the initial pull, half the group is going to the hallway while half stays in the arena. In 25 man, we took 10 to the hallway, in 10 man we took 4. The hallway group consists of an AOE tank – most pulls are 3 adds, ranged dps – in order of selection: warlocks, hunters, mages, druids. Warlocks due to the fel armor contribution end up ripping aggro in the arena side just by existing due to healing aggro of their dots and armor and are better suited to the hallway. We also took 1-2 healers on 25 man, 1 on 10. The more healers that can be spared for the arena, the easier this is.
Melee dps tends to stay in the arena along with all the leftover ranged. There will be a debuff in the arena that increases cast speed so healers with HOTS are preferable. The Arena group is playing a survival game until the hallway group manages to make it through the gauntlet so while it is important to stack dps in the hallway to expedite the process, too little dps in the arena will result in that group getting overrun. If either the hallway or arena group wipes, the rest of the raid will end up dying shortly afterward.
The initial pull is 1 Jormunger and a bunch of smaller adds. One tank takes the jormunger and faces him away from the raid as he has a frontal poison spray that needs to be avoided by as many people as possible. Once he is down, AOE the adds until they are all gone.
NOTE: We ran into a lot of people disconnecting at the beginning of this fight after the initial pull on 25 man. One thing that seemed to help is those that had a history of DCing would either wait a few seconds for the pull to begin, walk in backwards or a combination of both. The timer does not start until all the adds are down. If you lose people, people DC etc, you can CC one mob until they are back online. We would drag one of the adds out and sheep, seduce, frost trap it until all our members were online and ready to go. When there are only 1-2 adds left, one member of the hallway team needs to go hit the level to open the door to the hallway – this is not active until the last mob is down. We usually had this be the healer for the hallway team. This is a long channeled opening so the sooner this starts the more time you have before the mobs hit the arena and the more time you have for the 5 min gauntlet timer.
Arena:
The way we had the most success was to stack up in the center of the arena on the brown circle. We had 2 tanks in 25 man, 1 in 10 man. Along the upper edge of the arena are the mobs. Once the event has started, mobs will jump down from this upper ledge to join in the arena. Evokers and Champions are the most deadly. They need to be immediately picked up by the tanks and burned down. Evokers heal, champions have a whirlwind. Champions need to be pulled to the far edge of the circle, evokers can stay a little more central. Once the tanks have picked up the mobs, AOE can help burn down the commoners and warbringers after the champions and evokers have been single targeted down. Warbringers can be CC’ed, trapped, rooted if things get too chaotic. Waves will keep coming. Its up to the tanks to try and grab as many of the adds as possible Rogue’s tricks of the trade, hunter’s misdirects can help with this.
Gauntlet:
There are 2 pulls of 3 before you hit the Runic colossus. The healer is always the center of the 3 and his Greater Heals can be interrupted. He can be CCed. We used the warlock succubus and/or fel hunter and a Mage’s counter spell to prevent the heals from the Dark Runed Acolytes.
After he casts the ball of flame he will immediately begin charging a new one. Sometimes this is on the same side, sometimes not. The gauntlet group will be switching sides left and right to avoid these. Once you pull the colossus there is a chance he will still be charging. If he is, stay away from that side, he will still fire off the flame on the side of the original cast. Even though the tank may grab him and swing him to face the door, the flame will go off on the side he was charging before as if he is still facing the raid.
Engaging the colossus is simple – a quick tank and spank. We had the MT face him to the door and everyone stacked behind him on his backside to prevent the charge. As soon as the colussus is down, the door behind him opens, the tank picks up the adds and we sent a pet after the next boss which is up the stairs to the right while the rest of teh dps and tank focus on the adds. A hunter’s cat is ideal as they have a sprint but any pet will do as long as the owner stays within range.
Note: A felhunter’s auto cast tends to be his spell interrupt. The second boss is immune to this and will not engage if this is the attack used. Once the pet has pulled the boss, the dps finishes dpsing down the adds which are the same as the initial pulls. We pulled the boss back into the same room where the first boss was – in the exact same spot. DPS spread out around the room – similar to KT – 10 yds between everyone. Acolytes are targeted first as they will heal up their fellow adds. Once the adds are down the raid burns down the boss. He has a stomp which will stun everyone in a 10 yd range as well as a runic detonation. If boss mods are running this will put a skull on that person and they will be frozen in place. If people are not already 10 yds away, they need to get there quickly to avoid the damage.
Once the boss is down the gauntlet team runs up the stairs and takes the first right.
As you turn right you must stay to either side of the room. There are 2 big circles in the center of the floor which will kill you if you step in them. Stay to the sides.
Once you pass Thorim, jump down and land on the arena floor and help finish off any remaining adds from the arena team. Thorim will shortly join and the tanks need to pick him up and spread out in the center of the room. The tanks need to watch for Unbalancing Strike. This removes 200 defense rating from the tank that was hit and the OT needs to immediately taunt until this debuff wears off (15 seconds).
Keep an eye on the walls – There will be a string of chain sparks that reach out to one of the pillars. This is a sign that the lightning charge is coming.
The lightning charge will hit pillars on both sides of the initial chain of sparks. DPS & heals – melee and ranged – need to move out of this area. It’s roughly 1/4 of the room. Anyone in this area will be hit by chain lightning which increases in damage the more players it hits.
This can occasionally be tough for melee to see so it helps having this called out as to where it is.
Summary:
Arena and gauntlet need to be well balanced so both groups stay alive
Ranged tends to be on gauntlet, melee in arena
Arena – kill evokers and champions first, then aoe rest down
Gauntlet – avoid the fire in the hallway, kill the Runed Dark Acolytes – the healers, first. Avoid circles in the hallway when running to thorim
Spread out, avoid chained lightning
Tanks work out a rotation for taunting when Unbalancing Strike hits
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