by In Amirdrassil the WoW developers also adhere to the principle that the first boss of a raid has only a few mechanics and rarely poses serious problems to any player raid. If he opens his eyes occasionally and doesn’t constantly stay in the fire, then Gnarled Root should be defeated after a few tries.
But first you need to decide whether you prefer to use your talents for massive area-of-effect damage or pure single-target damage – both are important in this fight. You’ll want to design at least a handful of damage dealers exclusively for single-target damage. These should definitely have their cooldowns ready at some point, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
If you prefer a video guide, check out Stankie Gaming’s tactical video, also based on PTR test results.
Phase 1 – Garden of Despair
The first phase of the fight is rather relaxed. Drag the boss to the edge of the area and have him face outwards. The reason is the SHADOWFLAME SPLIT, which hits all targets in front of him. Tanks are also hit with the TERRIBLE FIRE BATTLE debuff, forcing them to switch regularly. Your healers must deal with the HORRIBLE SCREAM. The entire raid receives high initial damage and further damage over the course of ten seconds, which cannot be avoided.
With FLAMING PESTILENCE the boss throws small areas of fire around him that you shouldn’t let hit. This also creates many adds called Tainted Whip. In normal mode these are immediately vulnerable. Give your tanks a moment to pick them up and then quickly bomb them. Not only do they leave a nasty hemorrhage on their targets, but they constantly buff each other. Therefore they are not allowed to live too long.
In heroic mode, adds are initially inactive and cannot be attacked. This is where CONTROLLED FIRE comes into play. Several player characters will be given this ring of fire and will have to move away from the group. If the circle explodes after a few seconds, it causes damage to all players in the circle and leaves an area of fire behind. This in turn activates the adds in heroic mode so you can attack and kill them. Pro Tip: If you tank the boss near existing fire areas, the adds will spawn partially inside the fire and will be activated immediately. And you want to activate it, otherwise you will have problems in phase 2.
The second phase ends when all the roots are destroyed. To do this, in normal mode, players must get to the roots with fire rings. In heroic mode you have to absorb the impacts and then get to the roots.
Source: polished
Phase 2 – Agonizing growth
When the boss reaches 100 energy, he moves to the center, creates a deadly pool of poison beneath him, and begins phase 2. He lets some large roots grow outward from him, cutting off your line of sight. Position yourself around the boss so that there are multiple players in each resulting area.
Any Tainted Lashers that you didn’t activate on Heroic Difficulty in Phase 1 will now awaken and attack you. The more you played before, the easier it will be for you now. But it can also be a good tactic to ignore them in phase 1 and now let everyone team up to KO them. But this requires heavy area damage and good coordination of your mass stuns. We therefore do not recommend it.
The boss itself will now take almost no damage, but will hit you with high area damage. Several players are marked with a circle of fire and must stand near the emerged roots to light them. The other players should not be in the circle. In heroic mode, things work a little differently. Here the fire circles are just lying around and you have to intercept them in order to use the next debuff to destroy the roots for a few seconds.
Once all roots are removed, the boss falls into ROOTLESS AGONY for 20 seconds. He takes double damage and deals immense AoE damage himself – the perfect moment for heroism/bloodlust. It then powers up 10% and starts phase 1 again. This switches back and forth until you or the boss is down.
