BRF Black Forge (Hans & Franz, Flamebender, Kromog)

[Edalia]

Black Forge bosses:

Hans'gar and Franzok: http://www.wowhead.com/guides/raiding/blackrock-foundry/hansgar-and-franzok-strategy-guide
Flamebender Ka'graz: http://www.wowhead.com/guides/raiding/blackrock-foundry/flamebender-kagraz-strategy-guide
Kromog: http://www.wowhead.com/guides/raiding/blackrock-foundry/kromog-strategy-guide

[Leah]

Hanz and Franz is the most fun I've had doing a boss fight in forever. That is all.

[Honorata]

Would you say you were pumped up?

[Honorata]

Kromog (normal)

So, the pug I was in found that with this positioning:

(tanks are red, melee is blue, green is ranged)

Melee were able to stay on the boss for slam instead of having to run out. Not sure if this is a bug or if the location of the "caster" (ie. Kromog) is considered to be his cute lil face instead of his whole big fat body for purposes of figuring out how close the target is to Kromog.

Paladin tricks: I found with Unbreakable Spirit I was able to Divine Shield the first Thundering Blows, HoP the second, and have Divine Shield up again for the third. The fourth you won't be able to cheese, unfortunately. (Wasn't able to see if with Clemency you could go Shield - HoP - HoP - Shield, but may science this.)

[Honorata]

Flamebender Kagraz
The big difficulty I saw with my pug was handling the dogs & dealing with other aspects of the fight (particularly the meteor) during dog phases. We had the melee as the group point for meteors, and you may want to mark a melee for easy clumping. This may not be ideal in heroic as it's very easy for the tank to get clipped by this and take extra damage.

Personally, I saved my immunity for if I was targeted by meteor while dogs were up.

You will likely want to designate a spot (we chose the middle of the room) as a place where you want to kite the fixated dog. I believe the fixated dog can be slowed/snared. I did not check to see if it could be stunned.

[Honorata]

hans & franz
even if you don't normally watch videos, i'd recommend finding one for this fight just to see the stamping press in action. it's a lot easier to see the patterns to it when you're watching someone else's pull than it is when you're trying to do your thing and running all over the place.

other than that, the main thing is keeping your tanks alive through suplex; they will probably need externals. (i don't 100% understand the mechanic here, but it also sounds like tanks also want to make sure they're second on the aggro table of the guy they're not tanking, as i've seen several pulls where we lost melee dps to suplex.)

[Edalia]

For H&F, Suplex works such that tank gets picked up and thrown at the other tank (probably second on aggro), which deals a massive amount of damage to both tanks. This damage used to be equal to the maximum health of the tank being thrown, but now it's a base amount of physical damage per difficulty.

[Marco]

The movement requirements for Hans+Franz can be a little confusing:

* There are five conveyor belts and six median strips around them.
* The belts alternate between stationary and moving.  When you are on a moving belt, you generally have to be running against it to avoid being carried to the ends (which do damage).
* The median strips do not move, so are the preferred places to stand while the belts are moving.
* Searing Plates can be dodged without leaving the median strip.  Just stand on the far edge of the strip from the plate.
* Stamping Presses affect the median strips on either side of the belt segment.  They must be dodged by moving onto another belt segment.
* Stamping Presses never affect the same belt segment twice in a row.  After each press, run to the median strip next to a segment where a press landed to guarantee that you have a segment to dodge into.  If you don't do this, you can get trapped between a pair of incoming presses and not have enough time to move away.

This is a seven-phase fight.  Phase 4 is the hardest, with stamping presses and moving belts.  Contrary to the wowhead guide, the belts were stationary during the last phase of the fight when I did this with BCP (in normal mode), making it a pretty easy phase.  Perhaps it's different on heroic, although that's unusual.

[jsoh]

Pending 6.1 change for Hans und Frans: Tanks are now able to use abilities and cooldowns while grabbed by Hans’gar or Franzok's Crippling Suplex.

[Marco]

Oh, right, I meant to talk about that.

Suplexes hit both tanks for a fixed amount of damage (the dungeon journal currently says it's the max health of the other tank, but that's out of date).  They typically require cooldowns to survive.  There are only three of them during the fight, at 85%, 55%, and 25% boss health.  The suplexes alternate which tank is picked up and which tank is thrown at:

Prior to 6.1, you have to set up your cooldowns as follows:

Suplex 1: externals on tank 1, personals on tank 2
Suplex 2: personals on tank 1, externals on tank 2
Suplex 3: externals on tank 1, personals on tank 2

Tank 2's personal cooldowns will come back up between suplex 1 and 3, as will the externals used on tank 1.  The externals used on tank 2 may need to be from a different set, depending on what cooldowns are used.  (For example, hand of sacrifice has a 2-minute recharge which is probably longer than the delay between suplexes 1 and 2, but because it starts at two charges, you should be able to use it once for each suplex.)

After 6.1 you have more flexibility, but you still need to somehow coordinate about 50% damage reduction on both tanks for all three suplexes.

[jsoh]

Hand of Sac only has 2 charges when the Clemency talent is taken.

[Fernia]

If Fernia is in disco mode we can treat Pain Suppression as an additional tank CD.
Just need to arrange it so that I am in range if you guys call it out.

[Honorata]

Was in a pug that killed normal Kromog tonight; 5 healers for 14 people. A couple of the healers were on the weakish side, but it definitely seems to be a fight you load up on heals for -- not sure how tight the DPS check is on heroic, but it's quite lax on normal. Some groups also/instead run 3 tanks to cut down on the # of stone breaths (since one tank has to run out for slam).

[HeidiB]

Was in a pug that killed normal Kromog tonight; 5 healers for 14 people. A couple of the healers were on the weakish side, but it definitely seems to be a fight you load up on heals for -- not sure how tight the DPS check is on heroic, but it's quite lax on normal. Some groups also/instead run 3 tanks to cut down on the # of stone breaths (since one tank has to run out for slam).

On LFR, this fight definitely felt light on healers.  Interesting tuning problem there...

[Honorata]

It's also quite possible we were doing the fight wrong.