Heroic Grim Batol Walk Through

This post will walk you through heroic Grim Batol and the boss fights.

You start by killing trash mobs so you can get to the drakes. Once you have the drakes free you use them to do a bombing run. It is very important to do a good job on the bombing run if you don't want to be in there all day. The bombing run softens up a lot of the trash you have to kill on the way to the bosses and if you don't do a good job you will end up spending a lot more time than is necessary on the trash. After the bombing run you kill the trash between you and the first boss.

The first boss is General Umbriss. He is the easiest boss. He has two main attacks, Blitz and Ground Siege.

Blitz will one shot you. When he is going to cast Blitz he will look at someone and begin to cast, all you need to do is move left or right to get out of the way, there is plenty of time to do this.

Ground Siege appears to be a targetless attack but you don't want to be in front of him when he does it as it is just avoidable damage and it will stun you.

Every so often throughout the fight, Umbriss will call on some Troggs to come help him. One Malignant Trogg and three Trogg Dwellers will spawn the first time. You will want to CC the Malignant Trogg, as opposed to killing it, if you can because if it does not die Umbriss will not summon more Trogg Dwellers, or another Malignant Trogg, otherwise the Trogg Dwellers will continue coming in groups of three every time Umbriss calls them. Trust me when I tell you this is the way you want to do it.

If you do decide to kill the Malignant Troggs, make sure you do it away from other troggs and the boss otherwise they cast an AoE of Modgud's Malice turning other nearby troggs into Malignant ones, and increasing the boss' damage by 100% if it hits him.

After Umbriss you will clear a little more trash until you get to Forgemaster Throngus. This boss walks a beat so keep an eye out for him when you are clearing the trash.

Throngus can be tough and you really have to stay on your toes to stay alive. He has three "equip" weapon attacks he does plus Mighty Stomp which will cause a cave in on top of random players, just move out of the way.

When Throngus equips his Mace he will become encumbered, which will slow him down, but deal a lot of damage. This is where the tank will want to kite him and stay out of reach. During the Mace encounter he will randomly pick a player and do Impaling Slam on them which incapacitates them. His mace will also drip lava while he is walking along so you want to stay out of that.

When Throngus equips Dual Blades he will start doing a lot of damage to the tank through attacks and a stackable DoT. The DoT is magic and can be dispelled.

When Throngus equips his Shield it shoots flames and he is only vulnerable from behind, you are going to want to make sure you are behind him during this encounter. When he is in Shield phase you will be taking a lot of AoE damage from unseen archers shooting flaming arrows, there is nothing you can do about that but heal through it.

Throngus will go through all three of these "equip" phases before he starts again so if the first one is Mace and the second is Dual Blades you know that Shield is coming next, what you don't know is what the fourth "equip" phase will be as they will most likely not be in the same order as the first time.

Some more trash brings you to Drahga Shadowburner. This is the hardest boss in there as far as I'm concerned. He alone is not too bad, but when he is on his dragon, Valiona, he can deal out a lot of damage. He will summon Invocation of Flame and they will one shot you and anyone around you so you will want to make sure to kite them if they are on you or burn them down if they are not. This encounter is in three phases.

In phase one you will want to concentrate on dpsing Drahga and killing the Invocations of Flame. Drahga's primary attack is a Burning Shadowblot that can be interrupted, so if you have an interrupt it will make your healers job a lot easier. Around 25% health Drahga will run over and jump off the platform, landing on a dragon, that starts phase two.

In phase two you will be fighting the dragon. The dragon he summons, Valiona, has an ability called Devouring Flames, a 180 degree frontal attack, and it does just what it says, it will devour you if you are in front of him when he uses it. This is a good fight for melee as long as the tank has the sense to move Valiona out of the stuff that gets put down when Valiona does Shredding Swipe and moves Valiona if an Invocation of Flame is spawning under him. The stuff on the ground slows everyone down who is in it and you don't want to be slowed down if an Invocation of Flame is after you. When Valiona does Devouring Flames you will want to get behind him. At about 20% health Valiona states "I will not die for you Drahga" and leaves.

This takes you to phase three where you finish off Drahga. Make sure to keep an eye out for the Invocation of Flames he will be summoning. With a good group that knows what they are doing it is actually pretty easy to down him.

A little more trash will bring you to the last boss, Erudax. This boss has a few moves. One is Binding Shadows. This will root you in place and heal the boss. If you see him target you move to the side. This debuff is magic and dispellable but why heal the boss? The next move he has is directed towards the tank and it is Enfeebling Blow. It will knock the tank back and put Feeble Body on the tank, just wait for boss to walk back up to the tank.

One of his major moves is Shadow Gale. When the boss casts this you will see a vortex looking circle on the ground, get into it. It is like the eye of the storm. Everyone needs to get into the "eye of the storm" including the tank. Directly after Shadow Gale he will summon two Faceless Corruptors. Everyone, including the tank, will need to dps these down very fast. They will be trying to hatch the eggs along the side of the room which will spawn Dragonkin Hatchlings that will dps the group and heal the boss. You will go through this process several times before the boss is finally down.

I used to think this heroic dungeon was next to impossible but after doing it a few times it is really not that bad. You will need to have a fairly decent geared group that can work together to get through this without too much trouble. I wouldn't attempt it with a group of people with a 329 item level but a group with 335+ item level and up you shouldn't have much trouble.

Good Luck

-Wrann

More Random Heroics - Grim Batol - 3/18/11

I have been doing my random heroic dungeon every day on my Hunter Brieanna to get Valor Points. You spend the Valor Points on level 359 gear from the Valor Vendor. I think I will be getting the cloak first. I am over half way through revered with Baradin's Wardens on her and will be getting my 359 trinket soon too. One of my guild mates made me a Dragonkiller Tunic the other day which is a 359 chest piece. I have noticed an improvement in my dps since I started wearing it. My dps is improving every day.

Today my random heroic dungeon was Grim Batol. Grim Batol is the hardest of the Cataclysm heroic dungeons and it took us a while to get through it today. It was also my random heroic dungeon yesterday too but we got through it a lot faster.

The first boss in Grim Batol, General Umbriss, is not much different on heroic than it is on normal, he just hits a lot harder with his blitz, hard enough to kill you in one shot if you do not get out of the way. He might call out a few more troggs too.

The second boss, Forgemaster Throngus, is a lot tougher on heroic than normal. On heroic he leaves behind pools of molten lava when he has his mace equipped and is being kited. When he equips his shield he shoots fire from it which he does not do on normal and changes direction a lot so you have to stay on your toes.

The third boss, Drahga Shadowburner is the worst boss in there on heroic in my opinion. He calls his fire minions in heroic just like he does in normal but in heroic they will one shot you and anyone around you while in normal they hit for around 60,000 dmg. He seems to call a lot more of them in heroic too, there seems to be one up just about all the time. His primary method of attack is a shadow bolt, he throws a lot of those at you but they are not too bad. Another thing he does in heroic when he is on the dragon is the dragons fire breath attack. He does it in normal but at best it just knocks you down, on heroic it hurts. A lot. It fans out 180 degrees in front of him and you have to get behind him fast. That was the problem we were having. If there was not a minion out we were dealing with we all had no problem getting behind him, if there was a minion out we were wiping. What you do when the minion comes out is kite it while the dps kill it. If you are involved in that and he pulls the fire breath thing it is hard to kite that, kill it, and get behind him all at the same time. We had a Mage that thought he would be smart and just ice block himself when the minion came after him instead of kiting it. Well, the minion exploded and the Mage was alright because he was ice blocked but it killed 2 dps and the healer so it was not a very smart move after all. After 5 or 6 wipes we finally got it down and got by him. Unfortunately, because it was a pug, we will never be together in that same group again so next time it will be starting from scratch again.

The last boss Erudax is not too bad. Like normal, heroic has the Shadow Gale that you will need to get out of. Shadow Gale is like a vortex and you will need to get into the "eye of the storm" to avoid damage. Most of the damage is directed at the tank but he does do binding shadows that will bind someone in place and causes damage to them. After he does Shadow Gale there will be 2 adds that need to be killed, unlike normal where there is only one add. It is very important to kill these add(s) before they can hatch an egg. If they hatch an egg it releases a dragon whelp that flies around and dps' the group while healing the boss, very important that doesn't happen especially on heroic. On normal you can usually get through it if only one egg gets hatched but not usually on heroic.

And that was my random heroic two days in a row now, I can only hope it won't be three days in a row. I am ready for one of the easier ones now like Halls of Origination or Lost City of the Tol'vir.