Blackrock Caverns is a new dungeon that is part of the Blackrock Mountain complex. It is a dungeon designed for 5 players from levels 80 to 81 so it will be one of the first you do when the expansion begins. It is one of the most difficult heroic dungeons in Cataclysm. All encounters require a lot of coordination and there are some tough DPS tests that you will have trouble with if your gear is low. I recommend doing it in one of the last places.
The dungeon consists of a series of tunnels created by Deathwing and intended to link the Mountain with the Twilight Highlands. The Twilight's Hammer is transporting their supplies from the Highlands and they perform dark activities with dragonkin. The ascendant Lord Obsidius is the boss of the area and the last encounter we will have in it.
Players must be level 80 and have discovered the entrance to Blackrock Caverns in order to use the Seeker and find the dungeon. The entrance is found following the lower entrance of Black Rock.
In this guide we are going to see all the encounters and any remarkable details about them both in normal mode and in heroic mode.
Blackrock Caverns / Blackrock Caverns Entrance
Rom'ogg / Rom'ogg Bonecrusher Bonecrusher
"Salud": 893,580 / 4,564,670
- Level: 82 / 87
- Skills:
Call for help: Rom'ogg calls the monsters that are in the room once the fight begins.
-
Tremor: Deal 3,000 Physical damage every second to all players within 40 yards of Rom'ogg for 3 seconds.
-
Wounding blow: Deals 125% of weapon damage to current target and reduces healing received by 25% for 8 /10 seconds.
-
Chains of tragedy: Summons a chain of tragedy around all players, preventing them from moving for 20 seconds or until the chains are destroyed. Start casting the Skull Buster right after.
-
The Skull Buster: Deals around 100,000 points of shadow damage to all players within 15 yards of Rom'ogg. It takes 12 / 8 seconds to launch.
The Bone Crusher is in a large open room with many groups in the area. We will see how the boss moves around the area, making facing a group dangerous because we will have to prevent the Bone Crusher from joining the party.
To avoid greater evils, it is 100% advisable to clean the first half of the room before facing the boss to prevent him from calling them (he has a knack for it).
It is a really simple combat but it needs a certain control of the healings to prevent the tank from dying. Grom'ogg usa an attack It reduces healing received by 25% for 6 seconds (making it harder to heal).
From time to time he will use Tremor. This ability will leave a "dust cloud" under the players that will do a lot of damage so we will have to move out of the cloud if we don't want to take enough damage.
Finally, his most important skill, at 66% and at 33% he will cast Chains of tragedy all the players, luring the players to their feet with some chains. As soon as he has everyone at his feet, he will start using the ability to The Skull Buster. To avoid being caught by the blow of this ability we will have to break the chains. It is advisable to mark them one by one as they die quickly. Once the chains have fallen, you have to move about 15-20 meters to avoid certain death (even the tank).
This is all combat. Repeat this procedure until it drops.
Differences in heroic mode
Apart from the increase in damage and salute, the difference with the normal mode is that after using the Tremor, 5 monsters from the clouds will appear (they appear even if you move from the clouds). These monsters hit the tank pretty hard.
There are two ways to deal with this:
The first option we have is to kill them, making all DPS focus on them. This is the recommended option for less experienced tanks and healers since the damage the tank will take is really high and there should be a special ability active (cooldown) by the tank to try to mitigate the damage it will take while they are alive.
The second option, only suitable for the most intrepid, consists of holding them alive until Grom'ogg uses the chains and later The Skull Buster, as this will cause the monsters to die. Doing so will earn the achievement 'Crushing Skulls and Smashing Bones'.
Video of the meeting
Corla, Herald of Twilight / Corla, Herald of Twilight
"Salud": 1,340,370 / 5,394,610
- Level: 82 / 87
- Skills:
-
Acceleration Aura: Increases movement speed by 50% and attack speed by 20% / Present in several = 100% of all Twilight Cultists within 50 yards of Corla.
-
Dark order: Inflicts 5,000 / 7,500 points of shadow damage every second to a random player and causes them to flee in terror. Lasts 4 seconds.
-
Lethal attraction: Attracts a nearby player towards Corla.
-
Drain essence: Corla drains Essence from the nearby Nether Drake, transferring it to the three Twilight Zealots causing them to begin to acquire Evolution.
-
Evolution: The target (player or Zealote) in the course of the nether beams, they gain a dose of this effect every second that they are in the beam. When Evolution reaches 100 doses, players are affected by Twilight Evolution and Zealots become Evolved Twilight Zealots.
-
Twilight evolution: Transforms the player into Zealote and comes under the control of Corla.
- Evolved Twilight Zealot: Twilight Zealots evolve upon reaching 100 doses. They use Blast of force, Gravity Blow, Painful whirlwindand Shadow strike (must be interrupted).
Corla is one of two optional encounters in this dungeon. Before arriving we will see several dragonkin called Twilight Zealots and, as you can see, they hit pretty hard. Before starting the fight against Corla it is recommended kill the patrol and the two groups to have ample space.
When we start the fight, the dragon hanging from the ceiling will launch a ray to the three Zealots. These will begin to gain doses of Evolution and, once they reach 100 doses, they will transform into the dragonkin we have talked about, and you will find yourself in serious trouble. To counter this, players must face the lightning, preferably ranged DPS and even the healer. The problem is that you will start to gain doses yourself and if you reach 100, you will become Zealots and you will lose control of the player.
Skills like Ice Block or Paladin's Pomp reset Evolution doses to 0.
There are two ways to carry out this encounter.
The first requires that there be at least two ranged DPS (plus the healer) and that go interrupting the beam. When they reach about 80 doses of Evolution, they must move away and wait for the doses to be removed and then put back on.
The second is to let a single Zealote evolve until we finish with those that are necessary to end the encounter without complications. For this, the tank should be placed close to one of the Zealots so as not to have many problems when grabbing it since its damage is quite high. It should be noted that the Zealots have an ability called Shadow strike that, if not interrupted, will do a lot of damage to a DPS although it should not be a problem because the priority of the DPS has to be to kill him and, therefore, they will be aware of what he throws.
Whatever we do, Corla will use 2 abilities to make the match a bit more difficult. The first skill is Lethal attraction and works exactly the same as the Death Knights, it will do some shadow damage and attract a random player to its feet jeopardizing the continuity of the doses of Evolution. The following ability is even worse: Dark order It will make all players run in terror, terrified with fear. We have to interrupt it or else counter it with some skill like Tremor's Totem.
Differences in heroic mode
There aren't any new mechanics in Heroic mode but Zealots do a lot more damage and have a lot more health so making one of them evolve is really dangerous and has a huge DPS requirement to prevent it from becoming a problem. If we are careless with the skill Shadow Strike, we will find ourselves with 70,000 points of life less at once which can mean the automatic death of a DPS.
Video of the meeting
Karsh Steelbender / Karsh Steelbender
"Salud": 1,340,370 / 4,979,640
- Level: 82 / 87
- Skills:
-
Mercury Armor: Reduces all damage taken by 99%.
-
Superheated mercury: Increases damage taken by 5% per dose. Karsh's melee attacks deal 1,000 / 2,000 fire points per dose to each player. It lasts 12 seconds and they refresh with each new dose.
-
Crack: Deals 110% of weapon damage to players in front of Karsh.
After defeating Corla, we will face Karsh Doblacero which is a quite complicated encounter and that requires a lot of coordination on the part of the tank to be able to carry out the encounter correctly. This draconid has a shield It reduces all damage it takes by 99%. To reduce the defenses of his shield, we must put it under the jet of lava that is in the center of the room which will melt his shield. The longer you are in the lava, the more damaged your shield will be and the more damage you will take.
Easy, right? Not so much. The more doses he receives from the lava spout, the more damage he will do to players due to the overheating effect. All his attacks will have an added fire damage and also has an area damage that affects everyone and all increases depending on the number of fire charges they have. It should be noted that you gain a dose for every second that remains under the jet, so you have to be very fast and be vigilant to avoid excessive damage.
The key to this combat is to maintain an adequate number of charges to be able to survive without taking a lot of damage, while dealing damage to the boss. Around 5 or 6 marks is acceptable.
Also, Karsh has an attack of riven frontal so melee DPS do to avoid standing in front of him so as not to take any additional damage. The group must be placed in the inner circle without stepping on the grid since, every time the doses of the molten Shield are removed, flares will appear that will make it more difficult. One tactic is to make Karsh have only a dose, when there are 3 seconds left, we put it back in and it takes a second and so on, in this way the damage to the group is reduced (thanks to @killer for the contribution).
Differences in heroic mode
In Heroic mode, whenever flames appear in the center of the outer circle, fire elementals will appear. If we ignore them completely, the tank will be overwhelmed and will die. In addition, the area of fire that it makes is much more deadly so it is necessary to avoid exceeding 3-4 marks.
If we follow the tactic of @killer Indicated for normal mode, we will prevent the fire elementals from appearing, greatly simplifying combat.
Video of the meeting
beauty
"Salud": 893,000 / 1,340,370
- Level: 82 / 87
- Skills:
-
Raging charge: Charge a random player for 8,500 / 17,000 of physical damage knocking it down.
-
Flamebreaker: Inflicts 5,500 / 12,000 points of fire damage to all players within 10 meters by knocking them down.
-
Magma phlegm: Deal 4,000 points of damage to a random player and another 4,000 every 3 seconds for 9 seconds. Explodes when eliminated.
-
Terrifying roar: Causes all games to flee in terror for 4 / 5 seconds.
Bella (the companion of The beast) is the other optional combat in this dungeon. It is very simple in both modes. Once we get to her we will see that there are two puppies by her side. If we kill them all, the fight against Bella will be impossible to do since she will enrage and we will die irretrievably. What we will do is kill two of the cubs before starting the fight and, once they are dead, we will start the fight against Beauty keeping the other cub alive. If we leave them both alive it will be quite a challenging match.
Bella will charge a random player from time to time with Raging charge. Besides, his Terrifying roar will cause players to run out of fear for 4 seconds. It is advisable to use Totem of Tremor or some other ability to protect ourselves from fear.
His most dangerous ability is Magma phlegm that inflicts some fire damage initially, then periodically and whether it ends or we dispel it, the player will explode throwing 4 fireballs around him, damaging the rest of the players.
It has no major complications and there should be no problems in ending it.
Differences in heroic mode
In heroic mode, we won't be able to start the fight against the puppies without Bella coming to their aid. Our first priority will be to finish off two of the puppies and then go on to finish off Bella.
The combat, as you can see, becomes quite chaotic as many of the skills they use throw players backwards and, many times, end up out of range.
Video of the meeting
Ascendant Lord Obsidius / Ascendant Lord Obsidius
"Salud": 837,000 / 1,072,296
- Level: 82 / 87
- Skills:
-
Stone onslaught: Deals 150% melee damage and knocks the target down.
-
To thunder: Inflict 12,000 to all players around Obsidius. Additionally, it reduces the movement speed of all players hit by 50% for 8 seconds.
-
Twilight corruption: Deals 4,000 / 8,000 points of damage every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. It is a magical effect.
When we reach the ascendant Lord Obsidius we will see that it has 2 shadows that accompany it. These shadows work in a similar way to the Dark Cores of the battle against the Blood Princes in Icecrown in terms of threat, that is: They will attack the last player who attacked them. Shadows leave an effect on the player they are chasing, mitigating 99% of the healing they receive. That is, if they are tanked by the tank you will not be able to heal him.
In order to finish the match, we have two types of strategies to follow.
The first and easiest is to make the tank grab everyone and, when it is about 50% health, a DPS "calls" the Shadows, allowing the healer to heal the tank without problems.
The other strategy involves the DPS more actively and is that their mission will be to "kite" the shadows so that they are not near the tank. I say "kite" because a DPS would be killed by shadow hits. These are immune to full crowd control like Stun or Polymorph but can be slowed and even rooted, preventing DPS from being hit and even being healed.
Aside from Shadows, the boss will occasionally use the ability To thunder slowing down almost all players since their range is very large. This makes it a bit difficult to kite the shadows. In addition, it will use the Twilight Corruption ability on a random player, those who can remove this magic effect should do so as it is an unnecessary damage and unnecessarily complicates the combat.
Finally, the boss will change from time to time with one of the shadows resetting the entire threat. This ability makes the strategy of entertaining the shadows more dangerous since at the moment of the exchange, one of the DPS could be compromised and die almost instantly. If there are no slow abilities or the like, it is better to use the other strategy to avoid surprise kills.
Differences in heroic mode
In heroic mode we will find 3 shadows instead of two. This makes the strategy of keeping the shadows entertained very difficult since it would occupy all the DPS in this task and there would hardly be time to dedicate to the boss.
Video of the meeting
[notice] In this dungeon there are achievements that can help you get a Volcanic Stone Drake. If you need a little help to make the achievements, do not hesitate to visit our Cataclysm Hero Guide. [/ notice]