BFA LFR Soloing Tips
Now that Battle for Azeroth instances are on the Legacy Loot system, it’s time to farm ALL THE TRANSMOG, right? Well, maybe. BFA raid bosses are still pretty tough, and without the hidden legacy player buffs present in Legion and earlier, you might not get very far. My advice is to start farming LFR raids for relative ease of execution, the fact that you can queue for them directly without having to travel very far, and the ability to potentially skip problematic bosses via queueing. Here are a few general tips:
- You can queue for the desired LFR wing via an NPC in your faction’s BFA hub city (Kiku in Boralus for Alliance players, Eppu in The Great Seal for Horde).
- Your Heart of Azeroth abilities are usable while in BFA LFR, so go ahead and experiment with them if you’re feeling frisky.
- If you can survive an encounter for at least two minutes before dying, you’ll get a stack of Determination (5% increased damage done/healing taken and 5% less damage taken per stack, stacking up to ten times). Take advantage of this mechanic if you find yourself in need of some extra DPS or survivability.
- If you play a pet class (Hunter, Warlock) or have a way to self-dispel, many of these fights become MUCH easier.
- Most solo raid bosses have fairly consistent mechanics, regardless of the player’s spec. HOWEVER, there may be cases where a boss uses an ability on DPS/tanks/healers only.
- Update: now with more bosses and tips for higher difficulties!
Taloc
Not much to worry about here: stay out of Blood Storm pools (clear them with Cudgel of Gore if needed), and don’t get knocked off the elevator by a Volatile Droplet’s Combustible Fuel ability. Try to side-step Sanguine Static if you can, but don’t worry about it TOO much (it’s more of an annoyance). Don’t bother attacking Taloc while on the elevator, as he takes almost no damage until you’re all back on the ground.
- Heroic difficulty: the Blood Storm pools don’t go away when the elevator phase starts, and there are Uldir Defensive Beams to avoid while on the elevator.
- Mythic difficulty: all of the above, with more elevator beams to avoid AND massive damage from Enlarged Heart!
MOTHER
Side-step Sanitizing Strike (and subsequent Purifying Flames), run against Wind Tunnels so you don’t get pushed into the furnaces, switch rooms before their energy hits 100 (lest you be insta-killed by Cleansing Purge), and move through the gaps in the Uldir Defense Beams in the second and third rooms. Passing through the blue Defense Grid between rooms will spawn an add that you’ll want to kill, but it’s not a terribly high priority. MOTHER takes fifty percent more damage in the final room, so feel free to use all your offensive cooldowns in there if you’re worried about time; MOTHER becomes friendly once she hits ten percent health.
- Heroic difficulty: there are now two types of Uldir Defense Beams: horizontal (sweeping from one end of the room to the other) and vertical (descending from the ceiling to the floor). The two types alternate once the first one (chosen randomly) is cast.
- Mythic difficulty: Both types of Uldir Defense Beams will be active AT THE SAME TIME, and each room is filled by a lethal Cleansing Purge in 2 minutes rather than the 3 minutes given in easier difficulties.
Fetid Devourer
Malodorous Miasma is your main enemy, as it will eventually ramp up to lethal levels unless you have a way to drop the stacks. Focus the boss (don’t stand in Rotting Regurgitation!), kill the Corruption Corpuscles to prevent the boss from healing, and pop offensive cooldowns when it hits 50% health (it takes extra damage due to Fetid Frenzy).
Zek’voz
There are no adds in LFR (unless you stand in a big ol’ Ominous Cloud after your Roiling Deceit debuff falls off, spawning a Guardian of Yogg-Saron), which makes things a bit easier. In Phase One, you’ll be dodging infrequent Surging Darkness rings and taking damage from the Void Lash/Shatter combo; Void Lash isn’t too bad, but Shatter stacks and can get pretty painful if the phase drags on for too long. Once Zek’voz hits 65%, it’ll transition to Phase Two, in which very little happens (no Void Lash/Shatter combo) and you focus on burning the boss. At 30% health, you enter Phase Three, where Zek’voz will spawn an Orb of Corruption and the Void Lash/Shatter combo returns. You’re supposed to soak the Orb and bounce it to another player, but since you’re solo, doing so will cause you to gain Corruptor’s Pact and an eventual reset caused by Will of the Corruptor. If you don’t soak the Orb, it deals increasing AoE damage. My advice is to ignore the Orb and focus on killing the boss before you die from orb/boss damage. If you’re feeling frisky, go ahead and run over the Orb when the boss is around 10% health and you can burst it down with the help of the damage buff.
Vectis
Phase One: You can’t avoid contracting Omega Vector so you’ll be taking a LOT of ramping damage from a combination of Lingering Infection stacks (which never fall off), Evolving Affliction, Contagion, and Gestate (which also stuns you and spawns a Plague Amalgam add). Plague Amalgams will periodically reduce your self-healing by casting Immunosuppression. After ninety seconds, Vectis will Liquefy and Transition to Phase Two.
Phase Two: Plague Amalgam adds will spawn from unsoaked Plague Bombs (you don’t WANT to soak them, as that just adds more damage to the pile), while Vectis constantly shoots Blood Geysers at you (these hurt AND apply more stacks of Lingering Infection). After thirty-five seconds, Vectis will re-emerge and start Phase One again.
This is both a DPS race and a survivability check. I suggest ignoring the Plague Amalgams until the intermission phase, since you can’t damage Vectis anyway until the phase is over. In case you were wondering, owl juice (the Kyrian Phial of Serenity) doesn’t remove any of the nasty DoTs and debuffs in the fight, even though they’re all disease-themed.
Zul, Reborn
Unless you have a way to dispel yourself while mind-controlled, the fight will reset in Phase Two due to Deathwish.
Mythrax the Unraveler
You will be unavoidably charmed almost immediately by an Oblivion Sphere, resetting the fight.
Champion of the Light
Kill the adds (making sure to look away from the Darkforged Crusader before it finishes casting Blinding Faith), move out of Wave of Light, and drag everything out of Consecration if needed. If you’re fast enough, you can outrange the boss and drop your stacks of Sacred Blade periodically to greatly reduce your damage taken.
Jadefire Masters
For this encounter, you’ll fight a fire mage and a monk; their names and races change based on your faction, but the mechanics are the same. Normally, you’d want to DPS them evenly due to the Harmonious Spirits aura on the monk, but it’s not really necessary and it’s simpler to focus on one of them. Here are the key abilities to deal with for each of them:
- Mage: DPS to break shield and interrupt Pyroblast, stand in melee range of Living Bombs and kill them (unless you’re OK with taking Explosion damage throughout the fight). You’ll be taking some damage from increasing Rising Flames stacks, so keep some mitigation abilities handy if needed.
- Monk: interrupt Whirling Jade Storm with a melee attack, play the Multi-Sided Strike mini-game and face the spirit monks to gain a short-lived buff.
At the midpoint of the fight, both bosses will teleport behind a barrier and place a maze on the ground (well, it’s less a maze and more a winding path); make your way through it and destroy one of the barrier orbs to re-engage the bosses. The orbs have a LOT of health, so expect this part to take a while. Once the bosses are back in action the fight continues as before, with an added twist: when they hit 100 energy, they’ll transform into a dragon or phoenix and start doing more damage. It’s not much of an issue, but I have noticed that the monk will start spamming Multi-Sided Strike, severely limiting your DPS time on them.
Grong the Revenant/Jungle Lord
This fight is mechanically the same for Horde and Alliance players, though the abilities and adds have different names and appearances depending on your faction (death-themed for Alliance, nature-themed for Horde). Here’s a rough breakdown:
- When Grong hits 100 energy (or when you use a Necrotic/Apetagonizer Core after killing an add), he’ll cast Death Knell/Tantrum.
- Grong will periodically cast Deathly/Reverberating Slam, leaving a damaging pool on the ground that explodes after a short time.
- Using a Core will damage Grong for five percent of his maximum health.
- Inactive adds will periodically launch projectiles at you, dealing damage and leaving large pools on the ground.
The basic strategy is as follows: DPS Grong, dodge pools on the ground, kill adds, use Cores as soon as available. Grong has a lot of health and the enrage timer is pretty short, so using Cores ASAP is crucial to defeating the boss in time.
Opulence
Unless you’re playing a pet class AND are very good at managing your pet through complex mechanics, you won’t be able to do the split hallway mechanic. Instead, you’ll have to just run to the main arena and engage Opulence there. Doing so will give the boss a MASSIVE HP and damage buff from Hoard Power, but it can’t be helped. Once engaged, you’ll spend most of the fight kiting Opulence around the room to avoid Molten Gold pools (formed at your feet when the ever-present Liquid Gold debuff falls off) and Gold Burst swirlies from the Spirits of Gold adds. Try to kill the Spirits in the corners of the room while kiting, as it makes things a bit easier. Oh, you’ll also want to have some powerful defensive cooldowns handy for each Wail of Greed. Opulence has a hard enrage AND two soft enrages: Wail of Greed will eventually increase in power to the point that you won’t be able to survive it, and the floor will gradually fill up with nasty gold puddles.
Conclave of the Chosen
This fight starts out easy: burn the Loa Aspects one at a time (they heal and get a buff when one of them dies, so cleave damage isn’t very useful) and kite when possible to reduce the effects of Loa’s Pact. I prefer to kill Pa’ku first, causing Kimbul to enter the fight. Killing either Gonk or Kimbul will summon Akunda, which is where things get dicey. Akunda has an ability called Mind Wipe that will render you useless for 30 seconds; since Akunda casts this ability every 30 seconds, it’s pretty much the end of the fight for you. UNLESS you have an instant-cast persistent ground-effect AoE ability (something like Ravager, Ancient Aftershock, or Spear of Bastion), in which case you can start spamming it when Mind Wipe is about to expire; if you’re fast enough (and fairly lucky), you’ll be able to drop something nasty on the ground and Akunda will take some damage. It’s slow and tedious, but it’s possible to win if you killed the previous Loa Aspects quickly enough to leave lots of time before the enrage. It helps to DPS the two pre-Akunda bosses down evenly, so that the one left standing when Akunda joins the fray is already almost dead.
High Tinker Mekkatorque
This is a weird fight. You’ll spend the entire time kiting Mekkatorque and an army of little Spark Bots around the area (if you don’t, they’ll chain-stun you with Spark Pulse until you’re dead) while taking rapidly increasing damage from Electroshock Amplification. You’ll also get Shrunk periodically, during which time you do virtually no damage but take a LOT. All you can do while Shrunk is run away and enter one of the Spark Bots, which will reset the fight. The Shrunk cycle wastes a lot of valuable DPS time, so I try to get some stacks of Determination to help (resetting via entering a bot during or after the second Shrunk will end the fight quickly without ruining your gear’s durability).
Stormwall Blockade
See that giant seaweed monster in the water? Its name is Laminaria, and you can’t kill it yet; in order to do so, you must first engage and kill the two Kul Tirans on the ships on either side of him. Once you’ve started the fight, they’ll begin channeling energy to Laminaria; if the kelp fiend hits 100 energy, it will cast Catastrophic Tides (a guaranteed wipe). So, here’s my strategy:
- Phase One: Hop on the rightmost Pterrordax to engage Brother Joseph. Kill him ASAP but keep an eye out for his Sea’s Temptation cast, which summons a Tempting Siren to one of the sides of the ship. Kill the siren IMMEDIATELY lest you become charmed and walk into the sea (resetting the fight). If Joseph lives long enough to put up a Tidal Shroud and starts channeling Storm’s Empowerment, you need to DPS his shield and interrupt his cast. Once Joseph is dead, hurry over and click on the Translocation Pedestal to fly to Sister Katherine’s ship. This is where you’ll want to pop some offensive cooldowns and burn Katherine down FAST, since Joseph’s ghost is standing on the other ship funneling energy to Laminaria. Once Katherine is dead, use the pedestal to fly back to the dock where you’ll engage Laminaria.
- Phase Two: DPS the heck out of Laminaria, staying in melee range to prevent it from casting Reaching Attack. You want the boss to die as quickly as possible, since you’ll eventually have to deal with Sea Swell, which will spawn multiple adds that will cast Energizing Wake once they reach Laminaria and hasten the energy gain needed for Catastrophic Tides.
Lady Jaina Proudmoore
Commander Sivara
Sivara is a simple boss, with few mechanics to worry about. You’ll be assigned a debuff (Frost Mark or Toxic Brand) at the start of the fight that will be your constant friend until you or Sivara emerge victorious. Depending on which debuff you have, Sivara will constantly apply damaging stacks of either Rimefrost or Septic Taint (luckily the stacks cap at 20); you can drop the stacks by putting some distance between you and the boss during Overwhelming Barrage, but be aware that doing so will drop a puddle of ice/poison at your feet. You’ll frequently get hit by a minor knockback from Crushing Reverberation, but the damage and knockback are quite minor.
Blackwater Behemoth
Make sure to interact with the Oxygen-Rich Membrane before you enter the water-filled tunnel leading to the boss, or you’ll drown. The boss fight itself is quite simple: DPS for 90 seconds, swim through the jellyfish to the next platform when it retreats, interrupt Cavitation, and repeat. Once the big fish is parked on the third platform, it won’t leave for the remainder of the fight. You’ll be unable to heal due to the Darkest Depths debuff, which lasts the entire fight; if you REALLY need the ability to self-heal, killing a Shimmerskin Pufferfish then swimming through the resulting cloud will temporarily grant you Bioluminescence.
Radiance of Azshara
This fight alternates between a boss phase and an add phase. For the boss phase, avoid the Arcanadoes that will spawn underneath you and get back to the boss quickly after each Tide Fist knockback. During the transition to the add phase, the boss will create several walls of orbs (Squall Traps): break through them to reach the large Stormwraith add and interrupt Focus Power. Stay in the safe zone and kill the Stormwraith while cleaving down the small Stormling adds; the phase will end when the Stormwraith is dead (though any small adds will remain until you finish them off).
Lady Ashvane
What a messy fight. Ashvane starts the fight with Hardened Carapace, which is essentially a large absorb shield that you’ll have to break before you can actually damage her. While you’re busy burning down her carapace you’ll need to move out of the large Cutting Coral patches created each time Ashvane hits you with a Barnacle Bash, soak all the bubbles from Rippling Wave (they originate from the large coral growths and inexorably move to the boss, regenerating part of her carapace if they make contact with her), avoid Upsurge zones, and somehow keep from being stunned inside a Briny Bubble. Avoiding the Briny Bubbles is the trickiest part: I’ve found that some immunities will work (a warrior’s Bladestorm will negate the effect if you’re spinning when the cast finishes), and the bubble can be broken by persistent ground-effect AoEs (Ravager, Ancient Aftershock, Spear of Bastion, and similar abilites will work). Once Ashvane’s carapace is broken, you have 70 seconds to damage her before she puts up another shield with 150% of the strength of the previous one. Unless you have some super-elite DPS, you probably won’t have time to get through more than two shields before hitting the enrage timer.
Orgozoa
Don’t try this fight as a tank: you’ll die once you get 10 stacks of Desensitizing Sting. Orgozoa only applies this debuff to tanks, so if you’re in a DPS spec you’re safe. Throughout the fight the boss will spawn Zoatroid adds, which spawn swirling Amniotic Splatter pools when they die that need to be soaked or they time-out in a lethal explosion. I advise ignoring the adds if possible, as soaking just one Amniotic Splatter will be ALMOST lethal and will just dely the inevitable. You’ll need to avoid taking damage from Dribbling Ichor by standing in the small safe zones between the large blue circles, and Incubation Fluid will be an unavoidable source of minor but constant damage. When Orgozoa reaches 40% HP she will run (or rather, float) away down a long ramp; you must follow her without hitting the eggs or getting hit by Hatchery Moulting circles (they hurt and do a large knockback) and interrupt her Massive Incubator cast before it finishes (thus avoiding an insta-wipe). Once you’ve done that, the fight continues as it did upstairs.
The Queen’s Court
You can’t damage either boss thanks to Separation of Power, and the fight will reset when you acquire 10 stacks of Pashmar’s Touch. Don’t bother with this one.
Za’qul
Za’qul is a very complex fight, made less complex since you won’t be doing a lot of realm-hopping. here’s a breakdown of the phases:
- Phase One (100-85%): kill Horrific Summoners and cleave down the adds they spawn.
- Phase Two (85-70%): Kite Za’qul into Maddening Eruption zones, and he’ll take increased damage for a while after it explodes via Punctured Darkness.
- Phase Three (70-50%): you can’t enter the Delirium Realm by standing in the eyeballs on the floor, as it takes three people to do so.
- Phase Four (50-0%): you CAN enter the Delirium Realm now, so do so ASAP by standing in a Caustic Delirium circle. You’ll get a MASSIVE haste buff that’ll help you burn down the boss. Za’qul will periodically put up a shield and start casting Dark Pulse; you can try to burn through the barrier and interrupt the cast if you feel like it, but it’s non-lethal if you fail so the choice is yours. You’ll take some stacking damage from Hysteria, but it’s a fair trade for the haste buff.
- All Phases: Avoid getting hit by Crushing Grasp (watch for the ominous shining portal to form on the edge of the platform, and don’t stand in front of it), try to have a way to break Fear available for Dread/Manic Dread, and don’t leave the platform lest you take massive damage from Dark Beyond.
The last wing of LFR Ny’alotha (The Waking Dream) has an interesting quirk in that you MUST have your BFA legendary cloak equipped to queue for it; this is to prevent the instant-insanity mechanic from activating the moment you enter the instance. It’s a big item level drop, but it can’t be helped. However, you do NOT need to have your Heart of Azeroth equipped to use the magic sanity button during the N’Zoth the Corruptor fight, so wear your current neck for that one.
Wrathion
Wrathion is an alternating two-phase encounter: Phase One has you dealing with Wrathion himself, while Phase Two is a race to destroy as many burning rock spikes as possible. Here’s what to expect:
- Phase One: you’re going to take a lot of damage from Searing Breath and the stacks of Searing Armor it applies. Incineration is another source of unavoidable fire damage. After blasting you with several Searing Breaths, Wrathion will cast Gale Blast; move out of it to avoid damage and a big knockback, or stay inside to get some extra DPS on the boss. Post-Blast, Wrathion will turn into a wisp of flame and fly to an edge of the room; try to run to the opposite edge and look for a safe spot to stand in during Burning Cataclysm. Once everything explodes, Wrathion will be attackable again and the cycle repeats. After two Burning Cataclysms, Wrathion becomes immune to damage and we enter Phase Two.
- Phase Two: get close to Wrathion and soak one of the falling Scales of Wrathion to gain the Burning Madness debuff, which allows you to destroy five Crackling Shards by simply running through them (tip: you can DPS any Shards within melee range while waiting to soak a Scale). You have one minute to destroy as many Crackling Shards as you can before returning to Phase One; every Shard left standing will create a pool of fire at its location and give you a stack of Rising Heat, which will quickly become your primary source of incoming damage.
After the third Phase Two, Wrathion will enrage and quickly annihilate you, so plan accordingly.
Maut
DPS boss. Ignore adds. Step into a Devoured Abyss zone before Maut finishes casting Stygian Annihilation. When Maut moves to the center of the room and gains Obsidian Skin, there’s nothing to do but wait it until the non-lethal Obsidian Shatter finishes casting; any damage you do to the boss during this time is reflected back at you, so you’ll quickly kill yourself if you try to do this part of the fight “properly”. You can intercept the blue orbs if you like, to stave off boredom.
Dark Inquisitor Xanesh
The trash leading up to Xanesh is more of a pain than the boss itself! You can ignore almost all of the mechanics, though you might want to have minor defensives available for when the orbs crash into Azshara (triggering a Dark Collapse) or Abyssal Strike stacks get high.
Vexiona
Vexiona is a three-phase fight, alternating between the first two phases until she hits 40 percent health. You’ll be dealing with stacks of Void Corruption throughout the fight; the only way to clear this DoT is by killing Void Ascendants and using the Gift of the Void orbs that they drop.
- Phase One: Twilight Breath is unavoidable and gives you stacks of Void Corruption. Despair does the same. You’ll also be hit with Encroaching Shadows fairly frequently, which causes you to drop damaging void puddles when it expires. Fun! Also, there are adds, lots of them. I’d wait to deal with them until Phase Two, as you’re going to need as much DPS time on Vexiona as possible.
- Phase Two: Avoid the Twilight Decimator blasts by watching Vexiona as she flies to the ends of the encounter area (she nukes a third of the area at a time, and it’s always the one you were standing in when she starts the attack), and try to kill as many adds as possible. You can pick up and use Gift of the Void orbs if you NEED to drop Corruption stacks, but I prefer to save them for Phase Three.
- Phase Three: Terrifying Presence sucks, no doubt about it. Your abilities take FOREVER to become available, and you can’t avoid getting feared by Heart of Darkness.
The Hivemind
Tek’ris and Ka’zir MUST be killed within 10 seconds of each other due to Dark Reconstitution. Thanks to Shadow Veil, you can only damage the bosses (and adds) when Tek’ris is in control (since you can’t keep them 20 yards apart for Ka’zir’s portion of the fight). This means you’re only doing damage for half of the fight, while avoiding mechanics throughout. Some of the fun mechanics include:
- Sidestep Tek’ris’ Nullification Blast frontal cone
- Interrupt Ka’zir’s Mind-Numbing Nova
- Kill the drone empowered with Volatile Eruption ASAP
- Avoid the rolling Acidic Aqir adds
Ra-den
Il’gynoth
Shad’har the Insatiable
Unless you’re a pet class, you’ll always have stacks of both debuffs (Crush and Dissolve), so effective damage mitigation is the key to victory. There are Living Miasma adds that will fixate on you and are SUPPOSED to explode when they touch you, but since you’re a tank they get a bit confused and follow you around throughout the fight like slimy little puppies. Avoid Shad’har’s breath attacks when you can (they’re supposed to target your position from the START of the cast, but every time I’ve tried to get out of the way the boss will pivot at the last second and aim it right back at me anyway).
Carapace of N’Zoth
This is a DPS race, with a bit of a survivability check due to the stacking damage from Mandible Slam/Black Scar. I found it best to ignore the gigantic tentacle in Phase One and just burn the boss; don’t waste time using the cloak unless your sanity gets REALLY low, because it’ll get filled up when you transition to Phase Two. In Phase Two, pick a side and kill all the Synthesis Growths (the Mycelial Cysts will slow you down in a very annoying fashion), use your legendary cloak to refill Sanity and conveniently port to the middle of the room, clear the other side, drop down/use cloak, and burn boss while avoiding Occipital Blast. Phase Three is incredibly simple: stand where you entered N’Zoth’s chamber and burn the boss; the tentacles won’t hit you and the add is inconsequential. If you have enough DPS to beat the enrage timer, it’s no biggie.
N’Zoth the Corruptor
N’Zoth is a tricky fight, with fairly high DPS requirements and a LOT of sanity management. There are six “phases” to the fight: three in which you teleport into the mind realm to fight a giant Faceless known as Psychus, and three where you fight tentacle adds and N’Zoth himself. You have a sanity meter to manage: most attacks you take will reduce this resource, and if it gets to zero you do increased damage for twenty seconds via Gift of N’Zoth before becoming a Servant of N’Zoth, resetting the fight.
- Phase One (Psychus): make a mental note of where you entered the mind realm, as you’ll need to return to this spot and click on your unconscious body to exit once Psychus is dead. Upon entering N’Zoth’s mind, immediately run to engage Psychus: he has a lot of health so you need to debuff him with Synaptic Shock by dragging him around to the tentacle adds (Exposed Synapses) and killing them while he’s standing close by. Avoid the growing Creeping Anguish puddles and interrupt Mindwrack if you can, as this is the major source of incoming damage in this phase. Once Psychus is dead, click on your body to enter Phase Two; if you take too long (because you’re too far from your body or just can’t find it among all the void puddles), you’ll die from Collapsing Mindscape.
- Phase Two (N’Zoth): when you exit the mind realm, N’Zoth will be vulnerable for a short time from Shattered Ego; DPS him as hard as you can, then use your Heart of Azeroth to regain sanity when he puts his barrier up. A bunch of small immobile adds (Corrupted Neurons) will pop up on the floor; damage them to clear a path between N’Zoth and the edge of the room, then watch for the little void “arrows” that indicate which direction you’ll be pulled for the upcoming Mindgrasp. If the arrows point away from the boss, stay close to him; otherwise, hang out at the edge of the room. Mindgrasp will stun you and pull you in the indicated direction, which is why you want to clear a path so you touch as few sanity-draining void zones as possible. Once Mindgrasp is over, you’ll have various tentacle adds to deal with. Ignore the Spike Tentacles, kill Corruptor Tentacles ASAP to limit sanity loss via Corrupted Mind (which can be interrupted), and then kill Crusher Tentacles to prevent major DPS loss from Tumultuous Burst. Oh, and every add spawns a red puddle of Corrupted Viscera when it dies, so don’t linger in one spot! Forty-five seconds after the tentacle adds spawn, N’Zoth will open a Mindgate; you MUST enter it ASAP or it’s a wipe.
- Phase Three (Psychus): same as Phase One, but now Deathwing will be lobbing Cataclysmic Flames and Flames of Insanity at your feet, hurting you and your precious sanity.
- Phase Four (N’Zoth): same as Phase Two.
- Phase Five (Psychus): Same as Phase One, but Queen Azshara has graced you with a debuff (Tread Lightly) that inflicts frost damage when you move.
- Phase Six (N’Zoth): hardest part of the fight! In addition to Mindgrasp and tentacle adds, there’s a rotating beam of death (Stupefying Glare), Thought Harvester adds that will reduce your sanity to almost nothing via Harvest Thoughts if you can’t kill them FAST, and frequent unavoidable damage with bonus sanity reduction and void puddles from Evoke Anguish. The Thought Harvesters are TOP priority; they need to be killed before they cast Harvest Thoughts or it’s all over. Corruptor Tentacles are Priority Two, then Crusher Tentacles (the haste loss from Tumultuous Blast can make efficient Thought Harvester killing impossible), THEN N’Zoth. Use your Heart of Azeroth as needed to keep your sanity up, BUT if the boss is below 10% health and your sanity is low, you can try letting yourself receive the Gift of N’Zoth for the extra DPS if you think you can get him down to two percent health before you become his Servant.
This fight is TOUGH. I had to switch from tank spec to DPS spec to have a chance at killing Thought Harvesters fast enough, and even then I needed NINE stacks of Determination. Good luck!