04 - Brackenspore
Mehguy — Sun, 08/24/2014 - 14:37
Brackenspore is the 4th encounter of the Highmaul raid.
For a more detailed view of his abilities, please view the dungeon journal in-game, or click HERE to view it at WOWHEAD.
Brackenspore is a fight that, to me, takes parts of Freya, along with an aspect of H Ragnaros to make it very interesting.
You begin this fight next to the Zangar Sea. And the primary "mechanic" of this fight is called Creeping Moss. This is moss that grows in moderate sized patches from the sea, the walls, pretty much everywhere and works its way to the middle of the room. This will deal dmg to any player who touches it, and reduce their movement speed by 50%. In addition, this will heal all fungal creatures (including the boss) for 2% of their max health every 2 seconds. To counter this, there will be Flamethrowers at the entrance to the zone that selected players can pick up and use to run around and burn the Moss away by hitting your extra action bar. While using the flamethrower, you cannot heal, dps, or anything else besides move. The Flamthrower can "overheat", and when it does, you cannot use it for 10 seconds. Its a crucial aspect to the fight to ensure the Moss is contained as much as possible. Players may consider this a DPS loss to have to do this, but you will also gain a Burning Infusion buff that will increase your dmg/healing done that lasts for a short time. So after spending time burning the Moss, you can get a little buff to help yourself keep up with the rest of the raid.
Overall, Brackenspore himself doesnt have a lot of abilities, but there are various forms of Fungus that spawn throughout the fight. Some are "Harmful", some are "Helpful".
Brackenspore abilities
- Rot - Nature dmg dot applied to tanks. Stacks, requires tank swapping after so many stacks (ie however high the tank/healers are comfortable with, or base off when the debuff falls off, etc)
- Necrotic Breath - Frontal conal breath, deals moderate nature dmg every sec. Also reduces all healing done to the affected player (should only be the tank) by 99% for the duration of the breath. Tank should be topped off before this hits, and utilize a personal defensives to stay alive.
- Infesting Spores - raid-wide aoe. 4k nature dmg per sec for 3 secs, stacks up to 10 (so it will end up at 40k per sec for 3 secs at the end). So use raid-wide CDs or utilize the Living Mushroom to heal through the dmg.
- Spore Shooter - a random spawning fungus that targets players and shoots an exploding spore at them, dealing moderate dmg to all players within 8 yards. Damage can be intercepted, so best to ahve a ranged stand in front of them to take the dmg so it doesnt splash on a stacked raid. DoT to kill.
- Mind Fungus - Fungus that when spawned, will reduced casting speed by 75%. Should spawn on a player, and since raid should be stacked during most of the fight, have melee switch to burn it quickly
- Fungal Flesh-Eater - This is a large add that should take priority over everything (except the Mind Fungus). He needs to be tanked as he gains a stacking buff which will increase dmg dealt, cast speed, and attack speed by 10%. This is important because he will cast (almost spam) Decay, which deals 100k raid-wide dmg. It can be interrupted, but require several dedicated interrupters to counter. With the stacking cast speed, if interrupts are not done, he can wipe the raid.
- Living Mushroom - when fully healed, will initiate Living Spores, which will heal all players within 20 yards for 20k+ every second. Use this to counteract Infesting Spore from the boss. The mushroom will wither away and despawn over time.
- Rejuvenating Mushroom - when fully healed will increase haste of all nearby players by 30% and give massive mana regeneration (essentially you cannot go OOM). Should be stacked upon and healed immediately. Also withers away over time.
Paladin thought
Elapsed — Sun, 11/02/2014 - 20:44due to how the damage comes out on this fight, it would seem to me the best talent for a paladin would clearly be Hand of Purity to help the tanks with the stacking DoT on them (so they could take more stacks, or for when the debuff doesn't fall off the other tank at the right time and they have to hold the boss longer)