The Stonecore
General Observations
Lots and lots of ground clutter effects going on.
Sparkly Dust things to move out of.
Black holes to avoid.
Purple patches to run out of.
Anub’arak type spikes to not be caught in.
Pillars falling from the sky.
Concentric bands of light!! Removed in patch 4.0.6
An example of what I mean by Sparkly Dust. There is a LOT of it in Cataclysm...
Corborus
Gyreworm, Blizzards newest favourite mob type
Ability
Visual Effect
Hard to screenshot properly but this is the visual effect of his Dampening Wave. Dispel!
4.0.6 Update: I couldn’t find anything in the patch notes about it, but I did notice when I was last in Stonecore that he doesnt do the Dampening Wave anymore… Or maybe its just less frequent…
Strategy
Tank and Spank for Phase 1. Players need to move when crystal shards are being cast under their feet.
When he burrows, it is important to stay mobile. Corborus digs through where the party stands and if a player doesn’t move away from the debris it kicks up, they take damage and get knocked back. The adds are fairly insignificant. Aoe them down. Repeat Phase 1 once he resurfaces.
My take
Basically keep moving all the time. Dont stand in bad dust ever. Run away from adds that aggro on you, preferably towards someone who can kill them. Dispel the dampening stacks.
Slabhide
Stone Drake
Ability
Visual Effect
Lava Pool — Deals 5000 Fire damage per second to all enemies with 5 yards. Lasts 10 sec.
Strategy
While on the ground, Slabhide randomly casts Sand Blast on the tank, and Eruption on random party members (who should move before the Lava Pool spawns). Periodically, he will fly up into the air, causing stalactites to fall from the ceiling; falling stalactites cast shadows on the ground; avoid standing in those. In heroic mode, Slabhide will also cast Crystal Storm a short while after landing; use the stalactites to get out of line of sight to avoid taking damage.
My Take
Falling stalactites show up as a dark circle on the ground where they are about to fall. Move! Try to stay in as open area as possible while dpsing/tanking/healing as the pillars also LoS healer from you.
HC version: Crystal storm hurts so bad. Dont be caught in it. LoS the drake behind the pillars he drops.
Also drops nice shiny drake mount! (chance to anyway)
Ozruk
Stone Giant
Ability
Visual Effect
4.0.6 Update: There is a good visual dust patch around Ozruk now showing how far his Shatter extends. (Screenshot to follow when I get one.) The cast time of Shatter has been increased to 3 seconds up from 2.5, making it easier for lagging tanks like me to get away from it.
My Take
Tanks and melee get moving, no standing still here. Try to tank in the passage where he stands, back to one wall then another. Dps him during Spike and Bulwark (healers too, you need to damage him to avoid being stunned for 8 secs in his paralyse phase, which is only in hc. A single moonfire or other DoT type damage from a healer cast on Ozruk when he has his shield up will suffice.) After paralyse, run away from him as he does his 8 yard aoe one-shotter straight after. he will also occasionly do anub type spike shooting out from himself in one direction, you dont want to be standing in their way.
High Priestess Azil
Human
Ability
Visual Effect
Strategy
She will cast energy shield any time she is flying or up on the ledge. Ranged can still DPS her, but damage is greatly reduced.
Throughout the encounter, adds will join the fight in packs of 3. They have very low HP and hit for almost nothing, so they aren’t too much of a threat.
When she is on the ground and engaged, the tank will spend most of his/her time force gripped. When not grabbed, the tank should keep clear of the dark areas on the ground. DPS are encouraged to interrupt Force Grip.
The rest of the group should attempt to position themselves so a Gravity Well is between them and the add spawns, so that the adds are easily kited into them and die almost instantly.
Periodically, she will fly back up to the ledge and begin throwing rocks at players. It takes her a long time to throw one, and there is a large puff of smoke on the ground indicating where it will land, so it isn’t too difficult to dodge.
My Take
This boss was a serious anticlimax after the other bosses on heroic. We oneshotted it with no difficulty in our first heroic clear after taking 2 hrs to clear the other bosses. >_<
4.0.6 Update: The cast time of Force Grip is now 1.5 seconds, up from 1.
The size of the warning visual for Seismic Shard has been increased to more accurately reflect the area it affects.
Certain strats taken from Wowpedia and quoted here. My own notes are added.
- posted on 15/05/2012 17:36:03
- posted on 15/05/2012 17:27:27
[...] case you missed it, there’s a nicely laid out rundown of the Stonecore instance on The Dragonslayer’s [...]
Heya … got here from Bigbearbutt. Azil’s force choke can be interrupted by various spell interrupt methods. I know a shaman’s wind shear will work from experience.
You can LOS the little mooks into her black holes for much friendly fire amusement. Throw something to get their attention, stand on the other side of it and they troop right into it. /point /laugh.
Haven’t done it on heroic yet (JUST hit where I could do heroics at all.
)
Shame you can’t interrupt her ‘holding huge boulders over my head’… “Fools! I will — (windshear) (wet squishing noise)”
@ Kenomojin: Yes indeed the force grip is interruptable, and should be interrupted to help your healer out, esp on heroic mode. Any interrupt will work, wind shear, kitty and bear interrupts, pala interrupts, those I know from my own experience too.
I usually swipe the adds then run behind pools, works too tho I might take a few hits to irritate the healer, depends on who is healing
And yeah, pity you cant get her to kill herself, that would be pure win ;-D
Excellent guide
The shatter on Ozruk now has an added graphic so you know how far to run out.
On High Priestess Azil I usually get the healer to kite the adds into the wells. They have the aggro anyway so I can focus on tanking just Azil and DPS can as well. Phase 2 as a tank you’ll start having to pick them up as you get periods of time where adds are up but no wells are.
Good thinking on the Azil adds. Will update the Ozruk guide with the new graphic when I get it, haven’t been into Stonecore since the patch
Thanks for the visit Ara
Might be worthwhile to give a warning about some of the trash mobs in this instance and their ability to maul any melee dps lol, for example the Earth Shapers which turn into huge spinning elementals, Crystal Flayers when they do ‘flurry’, the Ogres (possibly called brutes) when they jump to the ranged people of the grp then turn back to the tank and cast ‘shockwave’ (I have seen this 12 shot Elu several times :p) also the rock elemental/giants that spawn the crystals that explode in melee range. These guys do a stomp which can be avoided by jumping at the end of their cast. Theres a few other types that arent worth mentioning much.
oh and those really annoying litte spider things that spawn endlessly on the way down to slabhide……they bug me
Methinks the small spiders stop spawning when you kill the flayers and ‘mentals in their area. Possibly not worth killing the ones you can skip, and tis always amusing to see healers running round panicing because a little non-elite has found them