On this and the following pages you will find a guide to the Rift of Narz Ghashu. It will contain a detailed walk-through, images of events and opponents, maps and stats. Thus, if you want to enter this instance and find out things for yourself, this certainly is the wrong place to look. If you want a detailed manual on how to do what, then read ahead.
Everyone of the group should have:
In addition to above a (superior) repair anvil is of great use, especially if you plan a long run (more than three bosses).
Highlight the raid chat. You can do this by going to the options panel (ctrl-O), choose the "chat" tab, scroll down where you see the "raid" on the left side. Change the color of the raid to orange. It is also of great use to change the text size to 20px (18px also possible, but 20px is much easier to read, at least on my screen). Play a bit with the settings to get the best visibility for yourself. I cannot stress enough how important this is!
Make the raid assists visible. This is done by going to the raid panel (Press 'O', then chosse 'raid'). In the lower section is a button called "raid assist window". Click it and you can see the raid assists and their targets. Click on the target of the raid assist and you will target it. If the button "Raid assist window" is disabled (grayed out), raid assists have not yet been set up. Either remind the raid leader to do so or wait until he is done doing it. The check back and make the window visible.
Although every group is free to choose their own combo, if they so desire, I strongly suggest to use GGGBBB in any situation. The G part should be the ones who need the health most (tank, melee), with B reserved for the healers, casters and hunters.
Notice: As of the writing of this guide, group manouvres in the Rift are extremely bugged. It happens that you get "invalid opponent", just cannot press the button or any other error. This happens, accept it. But be aware of that before calling people noobs!
Trash mobs in this instance (all parts of it) are very difficult and have to be approaches with the correct tactics. Otherwise wipes are programmed. For details on trash mob tactics, please see below.
The troll cannot be damaged until his keeper is dead. As long as the keeper is in the vicinity of the troll, the troll does considerable damage.
Tactics: Kill the troll-keeper first: Main tank tanks the troll and tries to pull it away from the group. Off-tank and main-assist attack the keeper, all assist main-assist. When keeper is down, switch to troll and kill it. Drain the troll power during this phase to avoid him summoning a second troll-keeper.
The hillmen-slave is a healeress. She keeps the hillmen healed, which in opposite protect her, in fact making both invincible.
Tactics: Main tank aggros the Orc Master and drags it off the fight. Loremaster/Burglar immediately mez the hillman-slave (target before fight starts!). Off tank and main assist go for the hillmen. All assist main-assist during whole fight. When all hillmen are down, kill the Orc Master. At last kill the hillman-slave, while draining her power.
An orc master with his miner slaves. Two of them are elite (hillmen), the rest are normal mobs (pale folk).
Tactics: Kill the miners first (preferable non elites first, but take what you see), while keeping the master mezzed (or tanked by the MT). You can use AoE nukes on the miners. Pretty straigt forward fight.
This group consists of one or two Orc summoners with their fire worm pets.
Tactics: Bring down the summoners first, otherwise they will summon more fire worms. Drain their mana during the fight.
Trash mobs will drop barter items, Obsidian Rock Shards and Scraps of Rift-Iron Ore. These items can be traded at the "barter giant" in section two for rift coins. These rift coins can then be traded at the ranger camp near the rift entrance for various rewards, among witch are consumables and a two-pice armor set.
Bosses drop gems. Or the games are stowed away in chests near the boss, which can be opened after the boss is defeated. These gems can be bartered at the ranger camp for a seven piece, class specific armour set ("Rift Set"). Note that these gems are bind on acquire, so pass on gems for which you already have the armor piece.
| Gem | Drops off | Armour piece |
|---|---|---|
| Near Perfect Sapphire | Barz and Zurm | Boots |
| Sparking Diamond | Fruz | Gloves or Gauntlets |
| Glinting Amethyst | Zogtark | Leggings |
| Glowing Red Ruby | Narnulubat | Chest |
| Pristine Opal | Thrang | Helm |
| Dazzling Emerald | Thaurlach | Shoulder |
| Firey Quartz | Thaurlach | Weapon or Shield |
Yes, both Barz and Zurm drop the same gem. Yes, the balrog drops two gems. And yes, Shadow-Eater does not drop any gems (confirmed by turbine, as they do not qualify this encounter as a boss encounter).
In this first part of the Rift instance you will fight agains hillmen, orcs and trolls. You also meet your first fire-giant, whom you have to defend against the forces of Angmar. To gain the trust of the giant you have to kill the bosses Barz and Zurm, after which the giant will grant you access to the next part of the instance.
You will encounter this fire giant "boss" when you descend from the ramp. He is unkillable and will help the raid further on. When speaking to him, orcs will spawn and attack. He can easily manage them, no assist needed.
First clean the whole room from trash mobs. You can pull them in single groups, no need to aggro all of them. Then the raid will go to the east side of the room, opposite where you came down the ramp, on the tunnel that leads to Barz. Main tank will go and talk to giant, and immediately after dialog rans back to raid. This trigger the orc event, where orcs spawn and attack the giant. No need to help the giant, as he can easily handle them all by himself.
Barz is the boss which you (normally) kill first in the rift. He as a special attack for which you need to look out, otherwise you wipe. So have a close eye to the chatlog and listen to what Barz says.
Off tank engage Barz at (near) the spot where he spawns. Healers and ranged move into position marked on map, all others (except main tank) will engage Barz. Main tank will move to the "Add spawn" place, to ensure that he will draw aggro from adds first. Main tank will stay at this position during the while fight, even after adds are defeated, to wait for the next wave of adds.
At various points (95K?, 70K?, 50K?) adds will appear at the location marked on the map. These adds are the trash groups as described above, so use the same tactics (OT will stay at boss). So all rush over to the adds, bring them down as fast as possible (by assisting the main assist) and switch back to Barz.
While adds are present, the off tank will draw Barz away from the group. There are two ways to do this: Either kite him around the structure following the orange path as described above, or draw him to the far corner. When kiting, it greatly helps if a loremaster puts some sticky tar on the norther stair (hunters can use snar too). After adds are down, bring him back to the "spawn place" for combat.
There will be exactly three waves of adds. First wave is troll with troll-keeper, the other two waves are hillmen with healeress (remember to mezz healeress).
During the whole fight watch and listen for the AoE emotes, especially for the "I will gnaw on your bones". If you hear them, move away from Barz! And stay away until he stops his smashing. Sometimes Barz triggers two special attacks at the same time, then you will only audibly hear one of them. So make sure that whenever he says something, check the chat log and if you see "I will gnaw your bones" there, run away from him!
Zurm is the second boss you have to defeat in the rift.
Move the whole raid to the "Boss fight" spot, as far back in the "cavern" as you can. Then have the OT pull Zurm to the "Zurm fight" place. During the pull, noone will attack Zurm until he is in place. Let the loremaster "anti-stun" buff the puller. When Zurm is in place, raid is taking positions: Healers and ranged move to "ranged fight spot" and MT moves to "add fight" spot and DPS on Zurm will begin.
When adds will spawn, MT will announce it and they are engaged on the "adds fight" place (where MT will stay all the time). Immediately attend to the adds and bring them down. When they are down, switch back to Zurm, except MT will stay on the "adds fight" place.
Adds will come in exactly three waves and when Zurm is at about 90, 70, 50K. The first wave is the troll with his troll keeper, the other two waves are hillmen with their healeress (remember to mezz the healer). After third wave is down, MT may join Zurm fight.
A side note for healers: As his two special attacks almost always occur together (first then knockback, then the throw), be ready to heal someone fast and for considerable damage after a knockback occurs. If the group is knocked back and someone already is at very low health, heal him up quickly.
A side note for lore-masters: Use your "stun-cure" to unstun the target of Zurm's special attack, as the stun is quite long. Preferably coordinate via teamspeak.
In this second part of the instance you need to further assist the fire giants in pushing back the forces of Angmar. Right after entering the instance you meet your fire giant friend, which will lead you to a platform with other giants, who will give you quests. There is also a fire giant barterer on the platform. On him you can change for rift coins. Further down the dungeon you will encounter Fruz, whom you have to defeat to get access to the next part.
You should not barter these coins until you have cleaned this part of the instance, otherwise you might get caught by adds. Note that even after you cleared this part, the orc encounter will still continue, so keep an eye out for them!
Three giants sitting around a fire, who will fend off waves and waves of orcs coming from the south.
When entering this part of the instance, immediately move up to the giants and get whatever quests they offer you. When you have the quests, quickly move to the north end of the room. The whole raid has to wait here until a group of orcs appear from the south, who will be enganged by the fire giants. Do not assist the giants, instead move along the wall to the hallway south of the giants and clean off the stationary groups there. If you chew off more than you can bite, run back to the giants.
Note that the orc coming from the south is on a 6-8 minute timer. So do not linger longer than 5 minutes in the hallway. Move back to the northern wall if the timer expires and you have not reached the southern hall by then.
The suggested strategy to move trough the hallway is as follow: Wait until the orc wave comes and the giants encounter them. Immediately after this, run down the stairs to the first hall and engange the group down there. After this fight, head back to the hall and wait at the northern wall until the next orc group arrives.
When the orcs arrived, move trough the hallway. When coming through the small hallway you enter into a bigger hall. When, entering the bigger hall, immediately stand still at the entrance. There are two summoner patrols. Pull them to the entrance one by one and elimintate them. After this is done move to the northwest corner by jump over the pile of broken stones close to the wall. Clean the rest of the hall from there by having a constant lookout for the orc group. Be patient, better to wait until they passed than risking a wipe.
Another boss you have to defeat to further progress in the rift. This fight is not a really tough one damage wise, but it requires enormous discipline and patience.
Start with cleaning the surroundings. Take care that you do not get caught by the orc partol. When cleaned, move the raid to the spot "Fruz fight". While moving in, hug the wall and do not get anywhere near Fruz, or you will start the encounter. Stay as close to the corner as you can. You are now in a room with three gates (which will close soon) and a broken stair on the southern side. Adds will arrive on top of the stair and jump down. They will then immediately head to Fruz and heal him. You need to block them with any means and do not let them heal Fruz. To do so, assign each add to a person. Best suited are Loremasters, hunters and champions, as they can root and stun. Note that the adds cannot be "blocked" with damage only, you need to stun, block, root or slow them.
After adds are assigned, the tank will pull Fruz to the "boss fight" spot and try to keep him there. The healers will head over to the "healers" spot and the "add blockers" will head to the "add fight" zone. Now the fight splits into two sections: "add blocking" and "zurm figthing".
Fruz fighting: All but the "add blockers" will dps Fruz. Do not let him get anywhere near the fire in the middle of the room. If he does so, he will do (additional) fire AoE damage. When Fruz is down to about 30K, he will start "shooting" random people around. You can somewhat prevent this by keeping him off the fire. If you get aggro from Fruz, do not run to the south part of the room or anywhere near the fire. Instead, run to the north wall/gate and stay there and have the tank pull aggro off you. In genereal, all should stay as close to the northern wall as possible.
Add blocking: The "add blockers" will rush to the "add fighting" zone just in front of the broken stair. Immediately start to lay down traps, roots, tar and whatever means you have to stop the adds. Once the adds pop up on top of the stairs, target them. You cannot harm them right now, but acquire your target! They will move down and when they are about to jump, you can damage or cast spells on them. Hold them with any means you have: root (already on the stairs), mez, thorn-shot, stun. Again, you cannot hold them back with damage only! Once you have their attention, dps your target down and help the others to do the same. When one wave is down, immediately prepare for the second wave, as they will come with quite short delays. If for any reason you get aggro of Fruz, run to the north wall and stay there until the tank has aggro off you. Then return to your spot. It might be tempting to help the other group to dps Furz in between waves. Do not do it! The damage you can cause in that short time can never compensate for the heal Fruz will get if you miss your add!
Note that it is inevitable that some of the adds will reach Fruz and heal him. This is due to resisted spells, and other reasons. If this happens, accept it but take the add back to the south section of the room asap. Do not have him stay near Fruz or the other group, get it back and kill it.
Obeservation: It seems that the adds are "determined" to head for Fruz for the first 3-5 seconds after they jumped down, no matter what you do to them. So in this phase the only method of stopping them is to "immobilize" or slow them. After this period, you can draw attention same as from any other mob (e.g. damage).
This is a very small section of the Instance. As you enter you will soon encounter some trash mobs, whom you need to defeat. After clearing the hall and deafting the two fire drakes and the boss Zogtark, you can proceed to part 4 of the Rift instance.
Three drakes will be flying in the boss room. You cannot hurt them, but they will damage you with a fire debuff if you are below them. Best is to ignore them, but watch out if you are at very low health that they dont give you the death blow.
It is essential to completely clean the room first, otherwise leftover groups will join the fight. Zogtark will not enter the fight until the drakes in the north are aggroed, so you can get in his vicinity to pull any groups from the far west corner.
After cleaning the room, place the raid on the balcony on the east side, up the stairs, next to the chest. Melee classes will stay at the foot of the stair. The healer should be positioned on the stairs so that they do not have line of sight problems. Mark the two dragons with raid markings, one with a skull, the other with crossed swords. The MT will tank skull, the OT will tank swords. Now have MT and OT charge towards the drakes and engange them in combat. The whole raid follow, with healers and ranged dragging a bit behind, but still in range. After the drakes are "woken", fireworms will spawn. These fire worms have to be brougth down first, while the MT and OT still tanks the drakes.
When all fire drakes are down, the whole raid will assist the MT on skull. After the drake reaches about 20K health, it runs towards Zogark and then soars up in the air. When this happens, the MT will switch from skull to the boss. He will pull the boss towards the stairs and tanks him there. It is of highest importance that the boss is kept away from the drakes, otherwise he will heal them and it is nearly impossible to kill the drakes.
When first drake (skull) takes off, all with any noteworthy ranged attacks stay on the drake (skull). It will land again when it reaches about 5K health. If he does so, zerg him down asap. If the second drake (swords) is still ground (what is unlikely), dps him until he takes off to. While in the air, concentrate DPS on him to force him to land at about 5K too. Zerg him down too.
When both drakes are down, switch to boss and finish him off.
A word of warning: While the drakes are in the air (or not in melee), they will spit fireballs for about 2K damage. So it is very important to melee them and while they are in the air to get them grounded as fast as possible again. Otherwise they will wipe they healers with their ranged attacks!
An improvement to above is, that if the first drake (skull) lands, all ranged (hunter, lore-master) will immediately switch to 2nd drake (swords) if it is already in the air, while melee dps stay on skull. Use this at a very good coordinated raid only!
This is a small, but very diffictult section. If you do not take here, you wipe again and again by the urfons and the orc adds.
Fumaroles: Fumaroles are little volcanos that spawn on the islands once you get near them. Fumaroles are susceptible to fire damage, so use fire damage to down them as fast as possible. They will not do any damage by themselves, but as long as the fumarole exists, it will spawn two urfons every 10 seconds. Fumaroles are marked on the map above with red circles. It is important to down them as fast as any possible.
Urfons: Urfons are spawned by the fumaroles. Like the swamp mosquitos, they react on movement and will start follow the one they spotted. Urfons will do constant fire damage to anyone near them. There is no way to avoid this. So if you have a couple of them between your group, this damage will bring you down. Rumors exist that they will also reflect damage back to anyone who damages them, so you should avoid area damage as much as possible as this will be reflected manyfold to yourself! Use direct damage to bring them down. Urfons are undead, so loremasters can use their undead stun to buy some time when push comes to shove.
After zoning into the instance, immediately stand still behind the door. Wait until the first orc runs over the bridges and islands (they spawn near the boss), and fight it. Then move the raid "Island 1". Stand there somewhat on the south east corner. Never ever stand on the bridges, as you will get constant fire damage from the lava (heat) there! Wait until the next orc comes and fight it on the island. In no case cross the bridge. If the orc is ranged, put it down with ranged damage or run back to door.
Before proceeding to the next Island you need to clean the hidden fumaroles on it. So if the orc is down, have the main tank carefully lead the raid to "fumarole 1". Do this slowely, step by step, and stay away from the middle of the island (hug the "border" of the island). The rest of the raid virtually stands "on top of" the tank, even the hunters. When the first fumarole spawns, everyone will melee the fumarole, while still standing on top of the tank! The fumarole will start spawning urfons. Ignore them until the fumarole is down, then kill the urfon while still not moving around! If another orc comes during this process, mezz it and keep it mezzed until the fumarole and the urfons are dead.
Once the first fumarole and all its urfons are down, move back to "Island 1" by again hugging the beach and kill any remaining orcs, while staying on "Island 1" (possibly by moving back to the door if they are ranged). Then repeat this with the second, the third and the fourth fumarole in this island.
If by any reason you spawn two fumaroles, first rule is: do not panic. Bring down the first fumarole, then the second fumarole, then the urfons, then move back.
In no case move to "Island 2" until all fumaroles, urfons and orcs are down.
After you have killed all four fumaroles on "Island 2", move the raid onto "Island 2". Then use the same tactics as described above to clean "Island 3". There are two fumaroles on "Island 3".
Here the last fumarole spawns. Same tactics apply.
This tactic is easier to coordinate, but much harder to survive and you should prepare for one or two wipes.
Devide the raid into two groups. "Group volcano" will kill the fumaroles and consists of hunters, loremasters and champions. Have them agree on a primary assist whom all the group will assist. They will kill the fumaroles, one by one, by assisting their PA. The second group, "group urfon", will kill the urfons. Again, do not use AoE damage. After all volcanos are down, "group volcano" will kill urfons do. Either mezz or kill any approaching orc.
The main goal is to bring as many fumaroles down as possible before you wipe, so that you can clear the island in the second attempt. If you wipe, have the raid assemble outside the door of this section. When all are ready, enter the section again and fight any orcs and/or urfons who are waiting for you before proceeding to the island.
When you come down the ramp, you will the two bosses, Ever-Seer and Narnulubat. Ever-Seer will vanish when the event is triggered and only Narnulubat will stay behind. There are also six healers on the platform, who will be stationary (will not move) during the fight. They will heal the boss. Once the event is triggered and the big boss leaves through the door, a vortex will open in front of the door. In addition to that, shadows will spawn opposite of the stairs and move towards the vortex. If they reach the vortex, an ??orc elite master?? will step out of the vortex and join the fight. So it is crucial to intercept all shadows before they reach the vortex.
Have the raid staged at the bottom of the ramp. Assign two pairs of players to intercept the shadows. Best suited for this is a hunter coupled with a dps, captain or loremaster. One pair is assigned the left side of the ramp, one will be stationed on the right side of the ramp, between stair and shadow spawn point.
The MT will start the fight by approaching the bosses and trigger the event. He will draw Narnulubat to the "boss drag" spot. While he does that, the "interceptors" will move to their spots, the healers will go to their position in front of the door and the rest of the raid will bring down the hillmen healers, one by one. As said above, the healers are stationary and do nothing else but heal (no damage). So all assist the PA and take them down one by one.
After all are down, focus all damage on the boss and bring him down too. The "interceptor pairs" will stay at their spot during the whole fight, until the boss is down. If a hunter (or other ranged) is part of the pair, he can shoot the healers/boss if there is no shadow present, but immediately turn back to shadows should one spawn. Again, it is crucial to not let them reach the vortex.
A very small section - more or less only a hall with a hallway leading to it - but with stunning looks of a lava stream pouring down one corner. Kill some trash mobs and you are at the boss.
The key to this fight is to bring both bosses down at approximately the same time, as when they die they spawn "followers" which can cause havoc in your raid if the second boss is still at high health.
Start this encounter by placing the raid near the northern entrance. Do not get near the gate in the fence, as this will start the boss encounter. Clean the room of any trash mobs first.
Once trash mobs are cleaned, the MT will tank Stone-Biter and the OT will tanks Shadow-Eater. Both will run towards the gate (while the raid still waits at the staging area) and each will pull their bosses to the indicated spot on the map. After this is done, the raid will join the OT on the Shadow-Eater - on command of raid leader. When Shadow-Eater is down to 10K, stop dps and switch the whole raid to Stone-Biter (except OT who will stay on Shadow-Eater). Do not kill Shadow-Eater yet. Pound down Stone-Biter now and kill him. Immediately after Stone-Biter is down, switch back to Shadow-Eater and kill it too.
When Stone-Biter is down (and thereafter, when Shadow-Eater is down), "followers" and shadows will spawn. Ignore them until both bosses are down! After the bosses are down, kill them off by starting with the shadows.
This is a small, arena like area where the Eldgang will learn of your true intentions and where you face the last enemy before the balrog. When you enter this zone you will see the Ever-Seer talking to the giant down below in the arena. After starting the fight the Ever-Seer will leave through the door and the giant will be left behind. The floor is made of lava with islands of stone. Alhtough the lava is not an instant kill like the water in Carn Dum, it will badly hurt you when you step into it. So avoid the lava whenever you can by simply jumping over it.
First thing to know is, that the giant is not the enemy you need to defeat. However he is still hostile towards you during the first phases of the battle, so you need to tank him. It will be the off-tanks job to do this. Agree on an island that you want to use for tanking the giant. Best is one near the stairs, but not right below the stairs. The off-tank healer should then stand at the island on the stairs to have the off-tank in range, but can also assist on the adds fight.
Start the battle by having the OT get close to the giant and pulling him to the agreed island. Again, you do not have to kill the giant, just tank him. Now adds will spawn on top of the stairs and come running down to you. Place a tank (or champion) on the bottom of the stairs, to draw aggro first. The waves are:
After the summoners died and the giant is no longer hostile, Thrang will enter the arena through the portal on top of the stairs, accompanied by four shamen. Thrang will go to the platform on the middle of the stairs and stay there until the summoners are killed. He has a very powerful ranged attack which you need to avoid at all cost. In addition he has a sort of fire shield enshrouding him, which reflects damage back to anyone who attacks him. The shamen will place powerful HoT (Heal over Time) spells onto each other while they are close together (in line of sight). In addition to this, on the floor of the arena fumaroes (volcanos) will spawn which will explode when you get near them and doing fire damage to everyone within explosion range. Avoid these fumaroles and do not stand near them.
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With this buff Thrang is protected while the shamen are alive. So do not attack Thrang during this phase with heavy damage. If you need to attack (e.g. clobber strategy), use a trash sword. |
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Thrang is protected by this buff during the second phase, when the shamen have been killed. It absorbs most of the damage, but not all of it! This buff can temporarly be replaced by a "Vulnerable" debuff by luring Thrang into a fumarole explosion. |
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Thrang has a ranged attack with which he has a chance to apply this buff. It is wound based and has to be removed immediately either by the Lore-Masters Leechcraft spell (trait required) or by a potion. Mind that Thrang does not need a line of sight for this, so it cannot be avoided! |
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This debuff is applied to Thrang when he stands in the explosion of a volcano. It makes him vulnerable for 15 seconds. During this period you can damage him normally, meaning his "Tempered by Flame" buff is gone. |
Before the fight the raid had been arranged into two groups, a so called staging group and a combat group. The staging consists of one healer, one tank and one lore-master. The combat group is made up by the rest of the raid. It is vital to know what group you are in!
Immediately after the last summoner is down, the groups will run to the location lined out on the map. Normally the raid leader will shout something like "HIDE" or "into corners". It is important to stick into the corner, as close to the wall as possible, otherwise Thrang will pick you off with his shots and AoE damage. Shamen will run down the stairs, two on each side and aggro on the group next to the stairs. First they will start to shoot you from range. Try to lure them in by taunts, shots or spells. Never ever leave the corner though! The role of the staging group is, to keep the two shamen on their side busy until the combat group has killed their two shamen. The combat group will thus kill the shamen, one by one. After both are down, combat group stays in place and staging group runs over to combat group. Now kill the remaining two shamen.
First and most imporant role here is (as in the whole rift): Do not rush things!
After the last shaman is down, the whole raid runs to the western stair and stays on the lower section of it. The main-tank will now aggro Thrang, noone else will do anything (except healing). Let me repeat this: It is important that the main tank now gets aggro as soon as possible, so do nothing to interfere with this, only healing is allowed. When tank has aggro, lead Thrang down to the bottom of the stairs and keep hitting him to build up aggro for some time (30 sec or so). You may also lead him into a fumarole if you want to. Also here it is important: Do not join the fight before tank has good aggro. Wait until the raid leader says that you may join.
After tank has stable aggro, he will start leading Thrang to a fumarole. Tank will stand there with Thrang and wait for the fumarole to explode. This will apply the Vulnerable debuff (icon: foot pierced by an arrow) to Thrang. Once this happend, ranged classes open fire on thrang and melee classes run towards Thrang and damage him for as long as the debuff lasts. When the debuff is gone, all (except tank) cease fire and run back to stairs. When all are back at stairs, tank looks for the next fumarole and leads Thrang there. Only pick fumaroles near the stairs. If none are their, wait for them to spawn. At fumarole, wait for the explosion, dps Thrang, rinse, repeat until Thrang is dead.
If for some unlikely reason the tank loses aggro, say so in raid shout and stand still until tank has drawn Thrang off you. Give tank some time go gain aggro again. Do not join fight after you had aggro for a minute or two.
In short:
Things to know and do:
You made it, you are about to face the final boss of The Rift now, the fearsome balrog Thaurlach. This fight takes very long, needs good preparation and an experienced group. Most parties will do this fight on a separate run, so that you can prepare for the fight.
This fight needs preparation, mostly by bringing along the required items and slotting the correct traits. If only one member of the raid does not have this, you risk a wipe, so you must follow this guideline!
Every member of the raid must have these items:
Required traits which need to be slotted:
Recommanded raid layout:
The area at balrog is divided into different rooms, which needs to be turned to in different phases of the fight. To the very west is the entrance room, where you start the encounter by talking to the elf lady. You then need to clear the NW-room and SW-room to help the lady purifying the waters. After that is done, wheels in the NE-room and SE-room have to be turned to cleanse the water the balrog is standing in. Next, you head to the east room to fight the everseer. And finally you will fight the balrog Thaurlach in the middle of the room.
Before you start, you have to assign the roles to the people. For a description of what exactly the roles do, see further in the guide, I just post a summary here:
Place the raid to the east side of the room, but avoid coming near to the elf lady in the south part of the room. Then start the encounter by getting close to the elf lady. She will then start a dialog and tell you about the story of the balrog Thaurlach. This is a good time to refresh all your buffs. A token is not necessary now. Stand near the gate and wait for her to open the gate. After the gate is open, immediately enter the main room, as the gate will fall shut shortly after and all who remain outside will have to stay there until either the balrog is down or the raid wiped (with the second option more likely...).
After entering the Balrog room, immediately turn to your left (north) and run to the NW-room. Run along the west wall and do not touch the green water, as it will kill you instantly. Also avoid the fountain, as it is filled with green poisonous water too, which also kills you instantly.
Healers and ranged have to stand on the spot marked, so that healers have LoS to both the room and the hallway, and ranged can shoot adds which crawl up on the hallway. This is also the main duty of the ranged (hunters): Kill the darklings crawling up on the hallway! The rest of the raid will stand in the middle of the room.
After a short while darklings will spawn and crawl towards the middle of the room. Kill them as soon as you see them. After the first wave of darklings is down, the elf lady will have arrived in the room and World-Eaters spawn on the spots marked. Tank will tank the one in the middle of the room (west one), and lore-masters keep the east World-Eater stunned until the first World-Eater is down. The elf lady will asssist you in this fight.
During the whole World-Eater fight, darklings will spawn in one of the four corners and will come creeping along the hallway. These darklings are your primary target. Nothing is more important (beside keeping the World-Eater stunned) than killing these darklings. Actively look out for darklings to kill. When no darklings are around, assist on the World-Eater. When the first World-Eater is at about 2K, wake the second World-Eater and have it join the fight. This will prevent the lady from starting cleaning the fountain too early, which buys you some time after this encounter. Kill second World-Eater now.
During the whole fight, watch out for wound debuffs on yourself. They do not occur very frequent, but will happen. If you see a debuff on yourself, use a potion to remove it. If you see one on anyone else, announce it in voice or /raid chat. Just type 'W' for speed. If you see someone saying 'W' in raid-chat, check your debuffs and lore-masters will try to clean (or use a potion yourself if low on health!).
Players with healing (minstrels, captain, lore-masters) need to have an eye on the elf lady. Keep her health up. If she dies, the whole raid dies too. This actually counts for the whole fight, until balrog is down!
After all enemies are dead, elf-lady will start cleansing the fountain. Protect her from any darklings which spawn during this phase. She will then go back to the main room and cross over to the SW room. Do not stay behind her, because a gate will fall shut and lock you in for the reminder of the whole encounter if you fail to get out before the elf-lady!
Let me stress one thing for this encounter again: Your main targets are the darklings! Actively look for them. Only assist on the World-Eater if there are no darklings around! Time is of no essence in this fight. If it takes 15 minutes, it just takes that. What wipes you here are the summoned World-Eaters which spawn when you do a bad job on the darklings, nothing else! So it is much better to stand around doing no dps but looking for darklings, than dps'ing the World-Eater and miss a darkling!
After the elf cleaned the fountain in the NW room, you run into the NW room. The fight is very similar to the one on the NW room: First a wave of darklings spawn, then the elf-lady will arrive and two World-Eaters spawn. Tank the one in the room and mezz the one on the east. When first World-Eater is at about 2K, wake the second World-Eater and finish him after the first one.
The difference to the NW room is, that no darklings will come from the hallway. But still the healers and ranged are located on the spot marked, while all others will be in the middle of the room, killing darkings as first priority and helping dps on World-Eaters if no darklings are around. Let me stress here again: Darklings are your main priority!
When the second World-Eater is down, you all gather around his corpse to pop a token. Now, that all World-Eaters are down you can safely ignore all darklings for a second, important now is that all gather around the corpse and receive the token affect. The people assigned as "TOKEN 1" will pop their tokens now, upon command of the raid leader. After token is up, kill the remaining darklings and wait for the elf-lady to clean the fountain.
During this phase (elf-lady claning the fountain), you will get out of combat! Use this phase to rezz any dead (if there are any), (re)summon your pets and do whatever else you only can do out of combat and has to be done. It is also advisible to not resurrect non-key members during this fight and wait until this phase to save combat rezzes.
Please see above at NW room.
When elf-lady is done with cleansing the fountain, the fountain and the waters will clear up and can be entered. At that moment, the raid leader will announce "SPLIT" by voice or in /raid chat. Now the "NE group" and the "SE group" will go to their spot marked on the map. Everyone else (not assigned to a group) will go to the white sigil, in the room with the balrog, in front of the balrog and stand on that sigil. Again remember to leave the SW room before the elf-lady does or you will be locked in here.
NE group: Run to the spot marked on map. You will now stand in a room, with a closed door on the north side. You also will be briefly out of combat, so you might use this. The burglar needs to hide himself. Wait here until the gate opens, which will be after a couple of seconds. After the gate opens, four World-Eaters will spawn inside. The tank and the captain will draw the aggro of these and will run them back to the main group. Do not fight them in the hall, just make sure you got aggro (shoot with bow, taunt, spell, whatever) and run them to the sigil. Take care to not fall into the water when running to sigil, as it will still be poisonous. When all mobs are gone, the burglar goes to the wheel at the very back of the room and turns it (by clicking on it). It will have an activation time, thus you can be interrupted at doing this. That's why it is important that tank and captain draw the mobs out of room. When wheel is turned, immediately run back to sigil too, as the floor of the room will collapse.
SE group: Run to the spot marked on the map. You will be in a room with a closed gate to the south. You will be briefly out of combat now, so you might use this. Tank will stand close to gate, hunter a bit north of the tank and lore-master at the very back. When the gate opens, a World-Eater and three darklings will spawn. The captain will aggro the World-Eater (taunt) and immediately run it back to the group. Then the hunter will shot the two darklings to draw their attention. If once shot and having aggro, run back to group on sigil too. Lore-master will then run to wheel and turn it. If one darkling should pick aggro (which should not happen), send the pet on the darkling to avoid interrupts. After turning the wheel, run back to group too, as also here the floor collapses.
Remaining group: Stay on the sigil and wait for the groups to bring the mobs from the side rooms. Do not damage the Balrog.
While standing on the sigil, you will be in the heal-aura of the elf lady. She casts a very powerful AoE-heal when you are near her. It might seem to be an overwhelming fight now, but have full trust in the elf-lady, as she will keep you alive. Fight the mobs you lured out of the rooms while standing near the lady (on the sigil). It is recommanded to not refresh hope if one gets a hope wipe. If your hope is wipe, stay down with damage with damage. Kill all the mobs to advance to the next phase.
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Something important to know: It is not the sigil that heals you, it is the elf-lady. It is recommanded to stand behind the lady (having lady between yourself and the balrog), to avoid the swings of the balrog. But use the white sigil as a visible marker to know where you have to stand. |
Nothing special, use your normal class abilities to kill.
The intention of these rules is to give everyone a chance to get decent loot for every run he or she participates, but also give people who join more often a good chance to get the full rift together. This will in turn enable us keep on higher and tougher monsters (and other instances), so the whole alliance should profit by this.
You may not loot (win) more than one gem or cyan (light blue) item per run. A run is an "evening", not the complete instance. E.g. you may loot a gem on Thursday and Sunday, but may not loot a two gems on Thursday (or a gem and a cyan item).
Barter items can be exchanged for coins which again can be exchanged for potions and two-piece armour sets. You may roll "Need" on them.
What qualifies for "Need"?
What does not qualify for "Need"?
Note: You may always ask the winner if you may have the item if you e.g. need it for an "Alt" or otherwise. In most of the cases the winner will be happy to give it to you if you ask nicely and can explain, why you would like to have this item.
Here are the guidelines I am using to select raid particpants for the raids led by myself (currently the weekly rift raid). As the headline already says: These are guidelines and not rules or laws.
It is important that you sign up. On the one hand for me to plan the raid, but also for yourself so that we can get started as soon as possible and that you know early if you have a fixed spot or not. Do not hesitate to sign up even if there are already numerious sign ups of the same class. First, you never know if you get chose nevertheless, second I will be aware of you and can consider you for further raids. So I cannot stress it enough: Sign up and you will (eventually) get into the raid!
Another important thing is reliability: If you signed up, be there at raid start or let me know before that you cannot make it. Stay until the end of the raid (it will be posted how long raid will last).
As we already have very late starting times - most of our guild members have jobs and family - it is important to get the raid started as close as possible to the starting time.
I will publish the list of participants around the closing times. All people who have signed up so far will be considered, regardless of when they signed up. Closing times for the weekly rift raid are:
This list will contain the names of the signed up together with a an abbrevation of their status. Stati are:
Please note that it will not always be possible for me to exactly meet these deadlines, as I have a live beside LotRO too (argh, Uzu sneaked in!)
The guideline already says it: Sign up on time and you will (almost certainly) have your spot.
This happens if e.g. three lore-masters have signed up, and there is only room for two in the (perfect) raid setup / class mix. It is hard to define the perfect mix for the Rift, as it varies between early and later phases. Early phases can be done with a more "relaxed" class mix - esp if we have exprienced raiders in the raid -, while for the later parts we need a good class mix. I would define the mix like that:
What I would like to build up is a so called "core team" for raiding. This "core team" will be outfitted better (more joins -;> more drops), thus enabling us to take on tougher and tougher bosses and to take along more and more inexperienced raiders, as they can make up with their superior gear and knowledge of the instance for the logical weaknesses of the new raiders. A "win-win" situation for the whole alliance.
As a side note: This will also include pickups to a certain degree! If (like we have it now) alliance healers cannot participate and we have a reliable non-alliance replacement, this one will get a call first. Even if he did not sign up (he cannot sign up on our boards). I expect this to happen very rarely though and will vanish completely once we have more level 50. Another example would be a LRM, as we currently lack these too.
When people signed up I expect them to be online (in time) and stay until the posted closing time. If someone repeatedly signs up to "reserve" the spot but has no idea if he can make it, I will remember that. Again: There is no problem if you signed up but cannot make it due to various reasons. We all have a life beside the game and not everything can be planned. But I at least expect you to leave a message on the board (or in game) that you cannot attend the raid (no reason or excuse required).
If you signed up in time, you should have a good chance to be in the raid. So I try to get all people who signed up in time on board, by assigning them to random spots and even spots reserved for other classes. This is not always possible (e.g. there is no point in taking four LRMs), and I will not "destabilize" the raid with this (aka there still need to be a good class mix).
If you did not sign up before closing time, it still makes sense to sign up before the raid starts. This makes organizing the raid much easier for me, as I know who wants to attend and we can have an early start. Again, I can only take people who fit into the raid setup.
Immediately after raid start time and inviting all the people according to the previous guidelines, I will start looking for classes to fill the open spots in kin and alliance chat. First to raise his or her hand will be invited. If someone who signed up shows up after raid start time and we already have taken a replacement, the signed up will not have any rights to get his or her spot. But he or she might still get in if we have an open spot and the class first, according to this guideline.
Same as above, but now also asking for members via local and global lff channels.
There might be various reasons why people could not make it in time and that just would not be fair. In addition in my opinion this "rule" would be too close to "the strongest gets it", a rule I strongly despise.
I strongly believe that also inexperienced players must have a chance to build up their skills and have the right to join. We are not elitist!
Exception: On unknown bosses/instances I first raid with skilled players to get the layout and tactics. Once we get it, skill does not matter anymore for the pick!
Sign up for the raids and be there in time. Currently we are almost never full, but even if we are it will be seen that you are online and will get picked eventually. In addition, other players will drop out, as they e.g. already have all the particular items of a run and then you have your spot. I will try my best to give everyone a chance and rotate them in.