Patch 4.2 PTR Firelands Impressions: Lord Rhyolith
by Matt Low 
May 18th 2011 at 6:00PM
Again, spoiler warning on this one. If you don't want to know what's hot, just moooooove on.
Lord Rhyolith appears to be an elemental. Even though he starts with about 15 million health in 10-man, he's no pushover. For a raid composition, we went with one tank, three healers and six DPSers.
The big gimmick with Lord Rhyolith is that he doesn't technically have a threat table right away. He lumbers along in a straight line. You need to attack his legs in order to move him. The best way to go about is to use melee players for this task. They'll discover quickly that despite the size of the legs, the actual hit box is quite small (which I'm sure will be addressed in a future patch).
There is a new UI element in place that lets you see how tight of a turn Lord Rhyolith is making. The harder the DPS, the harder the turn. The green bar at the top is a customized version of it. The default version looks different.
Lord Rhyolith won't be alone, either.
Fragment of Rhyolith If not taken down in 30 seconds, they'll explode and deal damage based on the amount of health they have remaining. There are about five of these that spawn. They'll die really quickly. Use your ranged guys for these.
Spark of Rhyolith Deals pulsing fire damage to players within 12 yards. Your tank needs to grab them and yank them to the side. Make sure these are a priority as well, due to their Infernal Rage.
The mobs of Rhyolith are summoned in an alternate fashion.
Do not allow Rhyolith to hit the edge of the platform. If he does, he's going to Drink Magma. That's 35,000 damage to all players every second. It's certainly possible to live through it, but you'll need all sorts of defensive cooldowns to have a chance.
When Rhyolith's health drops to around 25% health, his armor falls off. He won't ignore the raid anymore, so your tank needs to drop everything and start gaining threat. This final phase is the burn phase. This is where your raid has to pop cooldowns and your healers need to stand on their heads. He'll deal pulsing fire damage to everyone in the raid until he's down for the count.
This was one of the more frustrating encounters for me. We didn't have the luxury of the Encounter Journal yet to really get a feel for all of the abilities and mechanics. I also didn't have any melee players at all other than the tank. I think I'd have had an easier time if I were in a position to DPS; that's probably more of a psychological aspect to make me feel more in control, though. Sometimes we would DPS too hard, and Lord Rhyolith would overcommit. There were other times when the DPS calls to switch came too late and his momentum would cause him to careen into the magma around the platform. After about 10 wipes, we started getting the hang of how to really maneuver the boss around.
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Revynn May 18th 2011 6:09PM
Sounds like an interesting fight. It's cool to see some fairly unique encounters coming our way beyond "stack, collapse, interrupt, burn adds, spread out, stack, spread out".
Alysrazor in particular looks flipping awesome.
dj.clayden May 18th 2011 6:12PM
I honestly can't decide if this is one of the coolest boss mechanics, or the most annoying mechanic I've ever seen. It'll likely end up being both.
Maybe it'll be hard at first but as people get used to it we'll be able to..
*sunglasses*
TURN the tables on him!
YEEEEEEEEEEAH!
...I know :( I'm rubbish.
Good write-up btw. Enjoy these articles :)
devilsei May 18th 2011 8:06PM
http://mirrors.rit.edu/instantCSI/
Awesome May 18th 2011 10:59PM
@ devilsei
I opened your link. Least to say, it was REALLY, FRIGGIN, LOUD!!
anbilow May 18th 2011 6:21PM
"Know what's hot."
Hah, I get it!
jfofla May 18th 2011 6:27PM
I vote for coolest mechanic, BUT EVERYTHING annoys the WOW community so I am sure much QQ to come.
anbilow May 18th 2011 6:57PM
Lol, i think the fact that you pointed it out, even if it was true, isn't going to help you.
Leto May 18th 2011 6:36PM
I smell a change in my guild's raid comp in the near future... seeing as we're almost entirely ranged dps. I think we have 1 melee that pops in from time to time...
Alex May 18th 2011 6:58PM
Damn. Can we trade? We've got 4 rogues and 4 DKs who all want raiding slots.
And we mostly do 10s. :\
jordan May 18th 2011 7:25PM
here's to hoping it can't be cheesed like the vast majority of melee niche encounters and you'll bring at least one
cronosvista May 18th 2011 7:40PM
So why exactly does it have to be melee? I don't quite understand.
Do the volcano things block line of sight? Or is his armor resistant to ranged? Or is it just easier to group people as melee?
I ask this because I originally thought ranged would be better since they could switch between legs quickly.
Zankoku May 18th 2011 7:59PM
Melee is preferred for the legs as ranged is optimal for the adds.
cronosvista May 18th 2011 8:08PM
I see. So would an all ranged group work with it though? If you designated specific ranged for the adds that is.
What i'm trying to get at is... are melee really that important for the legs? Personally, I enjoy the thought that both have their own needed roles in the raid but i'm just trying to grasp why it's important is all.
Revynn May 18th 2011 8:51PM
Melee are just at a disadvantage for the adds, which would require a lot more running around. Since the boss (I assume) moves a little on the slow side, it's easier for them to stick to his legs than to chase little guys around. Ranged doesn't need to do much moving and chasing in order to nuke something 30 yards away.
It's the same reason melee are most often assigned to Terrestra on Ascendant Council. With Arion porting all over the room constantly it just makes more sense to put ranged on one guy and melee on the other. There's nothing keeping you from sticking ranged DPS on the legs if you're heavy. There's also nothing keeping you from putting a DK on the adds, he'll just spend a good portion of the fight chasing stuff around rather than actually doing damage.
Izaach May 18th 2011 7:56PM
Glory of the Firelands meta achievement:
Not an Ambi-Turner
- Defeat Lord Rhyolith in the Firelands without ever causing him to turn left while his armor is intact.
That should be fun.
Task May 18th 2011 8:24PM
So he isn't that dextrous... Hmmm... very interesting...
/rubs hands together in thought
pancakes May 18th 2011 9:42PM
Rhyolith is so hot right now.
pancakes May 18th 2011 9:45PM
Could anyone tell me what that funky health bar addon is in those screenshots?
pancakes May 18th 2011 10:01PM
*Ahem* My awesome skills of reading the Alysrazor post's comments have allowed me to determine that the UI is a package called RealUI for anyone who's interested: http://realui.net/
Shrike May 19th 2011 2:33PM
It's not RealUI, unless TidyPlates is part of that UI package. What you're seeing is very definitely TidyPlates, and it looks like the ThreatPlates theme to me.