Ready Check: Razorscale, Ignis, and Deconstructor, Pt III
by Michael Gray 
Jun 26th 2009 at 4:00PM
XT-002 Deconstructor
XT-002 Deconstructor is the final boss in the SIege of Ulduar. And it may be suprising, but he's not actually that difficult. In terms of understanding a boss, positioning a boss, and dealing with his attacks, ol' Deconstructor is fairly straight forward.
Deconstructor actually really only has a few things to worry about. We'll cover those first, and then go into managing his phases.
Tympanic Tantrum is the first of Deconstructor's tricks. You can't miss the visual effect or cast bar when it starts. It hits everyone -- everyone -- in the raid for 10% of their total health every second for 8 seconds. That's when your healers have to be on the ball, and start getting heals out to the raid. If you have a cooldown that helps you mitigate damage, this is what you want to use it for.
Deconstructor's second significant trick is his adds. Periodically, little Scrap Bots, Bomb Bots, and Pummelers will come from the corners of the courtyard. Which corners they come from is random, and obviously more come during Heroic raids than during normal. Pummelers are your standard melee mob, and can be easily tanked. Scrap Bots will heal Deconstructor if they reach him, and Bombs blow up for AE damage when they reach the boss.
Deconstructor also uses "Light Bombs" (actually called Searing Light) and Gravity Bombs. These are raid killers, if the people who get hit by these abilities don't get away from the raid. If you get a Light Bomb, you need to be 10 feet away from anyone else, or you'll do periodic damage to them. If you get a Gravity Bomb, you need to be 30 feet away from anyone else when the timer is finished, or you'll drag everyone to you as if you head a multi-target Death Grip.
The last thing about Decontructor you want to know ahead of time is that he occasionally "powers down," and lowers his heart out of his chest. You can target it as a separate mob. When this happens, hit his heart -- it does a lot of extra damage when Deconstructor returns to his normal phases. That's the target you want to use your offensive cooldowns again.
So, let's bring this all together. When you enter the room, it's basically a big square. Have your tank hold Deconstructor up against the stairs, facing away from the raid. Blow him up. Have your melee clump up immediately behind him, and your ranged clump up a little further away. If someone gets a Light or Gravity bomb . . .get away from the raid!
When adds come, have your ranged characters kill them. Obviously, keep a distance from the Bomb Bots. Your offtanks should grab the Pummelers, and return them to the "melee" area. If you have sufficient AE melee fighters using things like Consecrate and Whirlwind, that "splash" damage and the damage from the offtank will kill them easily.
When the heart drops, kill the heart. When the Tympanic Tantrum starts, throw raid heals.
This fight can take a little practice, because people who get hit by the bombs need to get a little practice in getting the heck away. But other than that, this fight is pretty much cake. I actually found it much easier than Ignis, which required a lot more raid-as-a-whole movement.
Good hunting!
Ready Check is here to provide you all the information and discussion you need to bring your raiding to the next level. Ready Check appears twice a week, with writers Jennie Lees and Michael Gray.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Guides, Ready Check (Raiding)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Heilig Jun 26th 2009 4:14PM
Don't tank XT on the stairs. He spawns adds from the 4 junk piles in the corners, but there's a minimum range for spawns. If you tank him on one of the walls in between two junk piles, you won't get adds from those piles. It gives you a lot more time to deal with the adds, as well as more dps time on the heart before you have to worry about scrapbots.
Chris M Jun 26th 2009 4:16PM
For the record, tanking XT at the stairs is really unnecessarily complicating the encounter. His add-spawns during heart phases have a minimum range to the piles, so if you tank him on the left or right hand side between the two piles there, there will be no adds from those piles- and you can concentrate forces on the left two.
Just an addendum! :D
Doctus Jun 26th 2009 4:38PM
Agree on above for tanking XT on the left or right far walls.
Ignis is all about killing the constructs quickly get three up and things start to get shaky if you don't have amazing healers. Also, if you OT's tell you they can crit for 5k and kill they construct, pat them on the head and tell them "of course you can", but have a ranged dps do it anyway. Boomkins are amazing on construct duty.
Wyred Jun 27th 2009 9:22AM
I disagree, unless you get an unusual amount of pummelers they can safely be ignored and OT's kept up by one healer. The only exception to this is if you *do* get a lot, in which case put a couple of ranged on it, or if the OT gets one of the bombs step up the healing. Either way, paying too much attention to pummelers won't help with the enrage timer.
I'd agree with the tanking strats mentioned above, not by the stairs, but one thing to make sure of if you do this. When dps go for the bots, make sure the death-wish idiots stay in range of the healers. Far too many times someone will get gung-ho and run off to kill the bots and get a light bomb that won't be healed through, or worse, a tantrum will hit. Stay in range of your healers people.
Piper Jun 26th 2009 4:46PM
Don't kill the heart unless you want to go into hard mode.
yokumgang Jun 26th 2009 5:43PM
Indeed. If you're afraid of killing the heart, tell people to stop dots at about 10%.
Wyred Jun 27th 2009 9:23AM
If you've got the dps to accidently kill the heart you probably should consider doing hard-mode.
Azurogg Jun 26th 2009 5:23PM
I think XT sounds like Martin from the Simpsons.
Aeonis Jun 26th 2009 5:11PM
You may want to be a bit more specific with how the heart phases work. For example, to someone who has never done the fight before, they would assume -- by the way the guide is worded -- that the adds just come periodically throughout the fight, or that the heart might be on a timer, or that these things are on separate phases.
Of course, if anyone's serious about learning the fights, they would read more than just one guide. :D But it's something to consider.
iansbucket Jun 26th 2009 5:42PM
Yeah I'm sorry but thats a horrible guide to XT. The others aren't bad (you skipped Ignis's adds and the flame ones (memory fail) are pretty significant even post nerf) but the XT one was poor. Here's my thoughts based on how we've done both regular and hard 10man. I've only done regular 25man but the strats basically the same.
a) adds only come out during heart phase
b) have an OT tank the pummeller(s) for the rest of the fight.
c) have aoe dps drop the bomb/scraps before the hit the boss (bomb dmg's the raid, scraps heal the boss). Better to have ranged aoe do it so they don't get out of range of healers if tantrum/light bomb hits.
d) tank on the left or right between the piles, not by the stairs.
e) gravity bomb does no dmg on normal but does on heroic
f) during heart phase there's no bombs or lights (only those already ticking) and no tantrum so have the healers dps too once the raid is topped off.
g) If you can get the heart really low in phase1, he'll come out near 50%. If you're quick you can trip him into next heart phase (50%) and get a bunch of dps on the heart before the adds get too close. have ranged aoe clear both sets and he'll be somewhere around 38% before you've blown heroism. Blow hero once the adds are gone and he'll be in the last heart phase before you know it.
Hard mode (easy to get into since the nerf bat)
exact same fight except for:
a) 25% dmg increase to tank (I think it affects tantrum too but don't recall)
b) no more heart phase or adds
c) health resets and goes up (total of 7.25million? in normal)
d) gravity bomb causes void zone on finish (we stack them to the left)
e) light bomb causes life spark to appear when finished (we have a melee grab em while dps burns them (50k health so they drop quick)
f) It's a dps race at this point before the enrage hits
iansbucket Jun 26th 2009 5:46PM
I probably should have mentioned the heart phase kicks in at 75%, 50% and 25% of his health.
winterhawk Jun 26th 2009 6:03PM
If you've got a reasonably decent group (read that: solid tank, high DPS, and on-the-ball healers), the hard mode in 10 man is actually easier than the easy mode. Once the heart comes up just burn it down fast. Don't worry about the adds--let the scrapbots heal him, then kill the pummelers and bombbots fast. For the rest of the fight the only thing you have to worry about is DPSing XT...with two exceptions. Light Bombs spawn a small add called a Life Spark that your DPS must kill whenever it's up, and Gravity Bombs spawn a void patch (like the one Auriaya's Feral Defender leaves) when they go off, so if you get one you have to run back away from the raid so it doesn't become a problem.
Other than that, easy fight.
bob Jun 27th 2009 10:54AM
Yes, tanking on the stairs makes the fight harder than it needs to be. We go to the far right of the room between the two junk piles. This makes the adds appear from the far left side, which gives ranged a LOT more time to deal with them.
Another tip: have melee fight XT's right foot. If they get the light bomb, they can just run over to the other side of the left foot, where they'll still be able to dps, but they'll be the required 10 yards away to avoid damaging the raid. If they get a gravity bomb though, they have to get 30 away, and won't be able to dps. Communicate with your raid. Let them know where to go when they get bombs so they don't go out of healing range. We also recommend that everyone (with DBM) type "/range" to bring up the check window, which will show you how far away you are from others.
Aenokhe Jun 27th 2009 1:24PM
Excellent guidelines. The only fight I've personally deemed vitally hard is Ignis, because of the constant, quite hard damage on the tank -and- across the raid.
And XT is just lovely!
frdmg Jul 7th 2009 9:54PM
and you suggest "clumping up" as ranged...not a good idea...just have the raid spread out as far as possible but still be in range. This way there is no lost dps time for moving when you have a light bomb or gravity bomb. as well, if everyone is spread out there wont be that initial damage from the bomb on everyone else...less healing.