|
 |
 |
| Permalink to this page |
Hodir (25 Man) Strategy Guide |
| by Jackmason |
| This is the main guide for this boss. We will attempt to keep it up to date, so feedback is appreciated. This is copyright material. Please respect the work of the author and ourselves and do not copy it. |
|
Hodir is one of the four Keepers of Ulduar, the lord of winter, and the father of the Frost Giants from the Storm Peaks. Now under the domination of Yogg-Saron, the raging Hodir is a formidable opponent to those who enter his frozen sanctuary.
Raid Composition & Gear Preparation
The "easy mode" of the Hodir encounter is a test of your raid's skill at avoiding damage and environment effects. As such, no special gear is required to survive the fight - a standard Ulduar raid outfitted in Naxxramas level gear should have no trouble beating Hodir. Strong healing is the biggest gear requirement of this encounter - if your healers are weakly geared, consider bringing extra to compensate for the large amount of raid damage (and potential spike damage on the main tank). A standard raid loadout of 6-7 healers should typically be fine for Hodir.
The encounter requires only one tank - the rest of your raid composition should be DPS classes, evenly mixed between spellcaster classes and melee damage classes. Hunters suffer in this fight due to how the NPC buffs work - if you are trying to min-max your DPS, consider dropping hunters before any other DPS class.
In early versions of PTR testing, melee were heavily favoured on this fight, but that difference has been somewhat mitigated by the addition of more Starlight and Toasty Fire buffs (which are described in detail below). Most of the reports of melee DPS doing far more damage than ranged DPS were from early PTR versions that don't reflect the current fight - kills on the live servers reflect a much better balance of ranged and melee on the damage charts.
Also, guilds just learning or struggling with the encounter can consider crafting frost resistance gear (the same used for Sapphiron in Naxxramas) to mitigate the area of effect damage present during the fight. The DPS check on the basic fight is not very stringent - Hodir has 32.9 million hit points but a 10 minute Berserk timer, which means the encounter requires approximately 55,000 raid DPS to complete successfully. Giving up some DPS for frost resistance gear is a good trade while learning the fight for the first time. Frost resistance on the tank is a good idea if your healers are having difficulty with the spike damage from Frozen Blows or if the MT is under geared. It's by no means required, but can help a guild just learning the fight for the first time mitigate one of Hodir's most dangerous abilities.
10 Man Notes
Preparation for the Hodir fight 10 man is much the same as for 25 man. Frost resistance gear can help and a balanced raid is worthwhile. The encounter requires only one tank and can easily be healed by two healers. One strong raid healer (druid or holy priest) is preferred due to the damage from Frozen Blows, but this is not essential.
 Hodir's Abilities
Hodir has 32.7 million hit points on heroic mode (25 man) and 8.1 million hit points on normal mode. He swings for between 15k and 20k on a well geared tank in 25 man, and 12-15k in 10 man. Hodir swings with around a 2.3 second swing timer.
Biting Cold - This is a defining element of the fight. Similar to Keristrasza, the last boss in The Nexus, Hodir creates a stacking frost damage aura on all players in the room. The effects of this aura stack once every 2 seconds, dealing exponentially larger amounts of damage as the stack size increases. The formula is truly exponential: Damage = 200*2^[Stacks], meaning that the damage dealt looks like this:
1 Stack: 400 damage/second
2 Stacks: 800 damage/second
3 Stacks: 1600 damage/second
4 Stacks: 3200 damage/second
5 Stacks: 6400 damage/second
6 Stacks: 12800 damage/second
..and so forth - the ability obviously becomes deadly fast. Unlike Keristrasza's debuff though, Biting Cold requires continuous movement to "shake off" - one jump usually only removes one stack, so if a player lets the debuff stack to a high number, it will take a lot of movement to get rid of all the stacks. Little bits of continuous movement can prevent any stacking at all and so all players should be continuously jumping or moving side to side to avoid damage from this ability.
Freeze - Hodir occasionally casts a targeted frost nova called Freeze that roots players for 10 seconds or until dispelled. He will randomly cast it on any target within 55 yards. The nova has a 10 yard radius and inflicts about 6,000 damage to all targets it hits. This Freeze will prevent players from moving, meaning that they will have 3-4 stacks of Biting Cold before the Freeze ends unless they are dispelled. This ability is very dangerous and needs to be dealt with quickly - Mass Dispel is helpful along with normal dispel/cleanse spells. Freeze has no fixed cooldown, but seems to be cast every 25-30 seconds.
Icicle - Hodir constantly causes icicles to fall from the ceiling of the room. When they impact the ground, they deal approximately 14,000 damage to any player within 7 yards of them, and knock all those players back 33 yards. Icicles spawn a snowfall effect above where they are going to land, and a small blue rune effect on their impact point. Players need to watch for these effects and evacuate the landing area so they are not hit by the icicles and knocked all over the room. Icicles initially target a player or friendly NPC - you will never see one land where nobody has been.
 Flash Freeze - Every 50 seconds Hodir will cast Flash Freeze. This ability has a 9 second cast time and freezes the entire floor of the room (and anyone standing on the floor!) into blocks of ice! These blocks have 100,000 HP (40,000 HP in 10 man) and need to be destroyed to free the players and NPCs trapped within. In addition, if anyone is still trapped in a Flash Freeze ice block from the previous Flash Freeze, the new Flash Freeze will instantly kill them. While casting Flash Freeze, Hodir will drop 3 Icicles that are identified by a large blue rune effect on the ground (this contrasts with the normal small blue rune for normal Icicles). These icicles create a Snowdrift effect on the ground which will protect players from the Flash Freeze. The entire raid should look for these runes when Hodir begins to cast Flash Freeze and - once the Icicles fall! - move on top of those Snowdrifts to protect themselves from the Flash Freeze effect. Pets need to be recalled to the Snowdrifts also or they will be frozen just like everyone else. The following is a timeline for the Flash Freeze sequence:
1. Hodir begins to cast Flash Freeze. 1-2 seconds into the cast time, three large blue runes appear on the ground. Players should move out of those runes, standing on the edge, as they wait for those Icicles to fall.
2. Six seconds into the Flash Freeze cast time, the special Icicles will impact, dealing normal Icicle damage (with knockback) and creating a large Snowdrift effect on their impact point (these are the same as normal Icicles except for the much larger blue rune effect on the ground).
3. In the remaining 2-3 seconds of the Flash Freeze cast, players should move on top of the Snowdrifts, which will protect them from Flash Freeze when Hodir's cast time finishes.
Frozen Blows - Immediately after finishing each Flash Freeze cast (i.e. once a minute) Hodir gains a buff called Frozen Blows. This buff has three effects: first, it deals 4,000 frost damage per tick to all players, pets, and NPCs in the room. Second, it reduces Hodir's melee damage by 70%. Third, his melee swings now deal an additional 40,000 frost damage (31,000 in 10 man) per swing (think of it as an incredibly deadly Frostbrand weapon proc). This means the tank will be taking incredible spike damage at the same time that the entire raid is taking a total of around 40,000 damage per person. Frozen Blows lasts 20 seconds before Hodir returns to normal. This is a very healing intensive portion of the fight, and the most challenging for guilds learning the encounter.
Your Frozen Allies
The Hodir encounter starts with eight NPCs frozen in Flash Freeze ice blocks in front of Hodir. These allies can be freed by breaking their ice blocks, and consist of two of each type of: priests, moonkin, fire mages, and elemental shamans. Each of the NPCs will attack Hodir, help the raid, and provide incredible raid buffs if used properly. Unfortunately the NPCs do not know how to avoid Flash Freezes and will need to be freed from their ice blocks after every Flash Freeze cast. This is a list of the NPCs and their buffs:
 Amira and Veesha Blazeweaver - Fire Mages
Fireball: This is their primary damage spell. It deals 3.5-5k damage and is cast on Hodir.
Melt Ice: This deals 50,000 damage to an ice block over 10 seconds.
Toasty Fire: Creates a fire on the ground that prevents Biting Cold and the Freeze (frost nova) spell from Hodir. Toasty Fire will be extinguished if an Icicle falls on it! The Toasty Fire's aura has a radius of 10 yards and each mage will cast 1-2 fires per 1 minute phase.
Singed: Players who stand near a Toasty Fire and cast spells at Hodir deal an extra 3,000 fire damage per cast. Additionally, Hodir becomes Singed and takes an extra 2% damage from spells for 25 seconds. This debuff stacks up to 30 times, meaning a full stack of Singed will cause Hodir to take +60% damage from all magical effects.
Spiritwalkers Tara and Yona - Elemental Shamans
Lava Burst: This is their primary damage spell. It deals 5-6k damage and is cast on Hodir.
Stormcloud: The Spiritwalkers, when freed, will buff a player in the raid with a Stormcloud. This cloud enables the player to buff up to 6 other players (4 players in 10 man) with Storm Power by walking next to them. Each shaman casts one Stormcloud per 1 minute phase.
Storm Power: This buff is given by the player with the Stormcloud buff walking next to (within 4-5 yards of) other players, which will share the buff. This buff increases critical strike damage of the affected players by 540% for 30 seconds.
Battle-Priests Eliza and Gina - Holy Priests
Smite: This is their primary damage spell. It deals 3.5-5k damage and is cast on Hodir.
Dispel: Battle-Priests dispel Freeze (the frost nova effect) from affected players.
Greater Heal: Battle-Priests will heal NPCs below 50% life for 70-100k health.
Tor and Kar Greycloud - Moonkins
Wrath: This is their primary damage spell. It deals 3-4k damage and is cast on Hodir.
Starlight: The moonkins will often cast Starlight, creating thin pillars of light at completely random points in the room. They appear to cast 2-3 Starlights each after being freed from each Flash Freeze and continue to cast them throughout each 1-minute increment of the fight. Players standing in the Starlight receive +100% attack and casting haste as long as they stand there. The beams last 60 seconds and have about a 3 yard radius - simply stand in the light to get the buff!
10 Man Note
The Hodir encounter has only half the number of NPCs as on Heroic: you only get one fire mage, moonkin, elemental shaman, and holy priest instead of two of each. Their abilities remain (almost) precisely the same - there are simply fewer of them to free and fewer to assist you (and give you the essential raid buffs) during the fight. This means, in particular, that Toasty Fires are rarer and harder to find (though Starlight should still be obvious and there are always several columns of the light available even on normal mode).
Overall Raid Strategy
1. The Pull and Positioning
The beginning of this fight is incredibly simple. The tank should have Hodir pulled to him by a Misdirection or can simply pull Hodir from his starting spot himself. Once Hodir is positioned in the centre of the room (see diagram) and the NPCs have been freed the first time, DPS can begin on Hodir. All DPS classes can run in with the tank, as Hodir is on the far side of the room and will not be aggroed as the rest of the raid arrives at the ice blocks in the centre. DPS should take that initial pull time to begin breaking NPCs out of their ice blocks immediately while Hodir moves to the tank's location, though they should not DPS an ice block until Hodir has been aggroed, as otherwise they will aggro him themselves.
Positioning during this fight is flexible. The diagram shows a raid evenly spread out around Hodir at the beginning of the fight, but this will (and must) change rapidly as NPC buffs are laid down, Icicles begin to fall, and players reposition to get NPC buffs and avoid Icicle damage. The raid should be 100% flexible in their movements during this fight - positioning is not important as long as everyone remains in range of healers and doesn't get hit by Icicles. Stayed buffed and avoiding falling Icicle damage is more important than adhering to any specific positioning pattern.
The Hodir fight can be thought of as proceeding in 1 minute increments defined by each cast of Flash Freeze. The first minute doesn't start with a Frozen Blows duration, but all the following ones do. Follow this approximate strategy for each repeating minute of the fight:
2. Breaking the Ice
Immediately after the pull or each Flash Freeze, ranged DPS should break NPCs out of their Flash Freeze ice blocks. The faster this is done, the faster NPC buffs can be arranged.
3. Frozen Blows
About at the time the ice blocks have all been broken and the NPCs are starting to buff, Hodir will gain Frozen Blows. Now is the most healing intensive portion of the fight and players should be alert to avoiding Biting Cold and Icicles especially carefully. Be sure to use healthstones or a health potion if needed to keep yourself alive during this time.
4. Spread the Love
During Frozen Blows, the MT should reposition Hodir to near a Starlight if necessary for the melee DPS. Whichever players receive Stormcloud should buff the nearest group of players (the melee DPS if possible) and ranged DPS should group up in small clumps at each Starlight and Toasty Fire.
5. Burn It Down
Once Frozen Blows has expired, all buffs should be in position and you have approximately 30 seconds of time before a new Flash Freeze cast begins. Use this time to maximize your DPS with all of the NPC buffs - use your class DPS cooldowns, trinkets, and so on right now. Use Bloodlust / Heroism during one of these periods to boost the interaction of the haste effect with the NPC buffs.
6. Rinse, Lather, and Repeat
After 50 seconds Hodir will begin to cast Flash Freeze again. As described above, find the bright blue runes on the ground and wait for an Icicle to drop onto them. Once the Icicle has fallen, run on top of the new Snowdrift to be protected from the Flash Freeze cast. Once it finishes, return to step 1 and repeat this strategy for as many minutes as it takes to kill him. Specific raid role assignments are below.
Raid Role Assignments
Tanking
Hodir requires only one main tank. There are no adds or other tanking requirements for the fight. As such, all off tanks should switch to a DPS or healing spec for the fight. Hodir can be successfully tanked by any of the current tank classes, however if tanks are not fully geared out, we suggest using a Death Knight tank so they can use their large number of tanking cooldowns to mitigate the once-per-minute Frozen Blows spike damage.
Hodir should be tanked approximately in the centre of the room as the fight begins, as noted in the diagram. However, the MT needs to be aware of three important things:
1) Melee benefit a lot from having access to a Starlight beam. If the Greycloud moonkin NPCs don't spawn a Starlight beam nearby, move Hodir close to at least one so that melee can stand in it and gain the +100% haste buff.
2) The MT needs to watch out for Icicles about to fall on or near him. An Icicle falling and hitting the MT will knock him across the room, add additional potential spike damage, and cause Hodir to pursue him, hurting DPS as the rest of the raid is forced to reposition.
3) The MT needs to avoid Biting Cold stacks just like the rest of the raid. Make sure to jump a lot while tanking! Extra Biting Cold stacks can easily be the extra spike damage that causes the MT to die during Frozen Blows.
Ranged DPS
Ranged DPS have lot of different things to pay attention to in this fight. Here are their assignments:
1) Ranged DPS should be responsible for breaking NPCs and player pets out of ice blocks after each Flash Freeze cast. They don't have to move to do this (or not as much as melee) and are ideal for this assignment. Player pets shouldn't get caught in Flash Freeze regardless (since players should recall them to the Snowdrift for each cast) but if you are just learning the fight, it is probably worth it to break them out of the Flash Freeze unless Hodir is nearly dead.
2) Ranged DPS should stack up on the closest available Toasty Fire or Starlight (or both!) This allows them to stack up the Singed debuff quickly, dealing massive amounts of extra damage to Hodir while (hopefully) taking advantage of +100% hasted spells.
3) However, note that stacking on these buffs will cause more Icicles to fall on that particular spot (since the Icicles target players). This isn't a reason to not stack on the buffs - ranged DPS simply need to be aware of this side effect and be watchful and ready to move if an Icicle falls on a buff stack. This is especially true for the Starlight buff; with Starlight obscuring the ceiling and the ground, the signs of a falling Icicle can be very difficult to see.
4) Make sure to keep moving! Biting Cold is much more difficult to avoid as a ranged caster since jumping or constant movement is much more damaging to your DPS. Most ranged DPS classes probably will find it easier to take quick sidesteps than to jump, as this takes less time - but with less time spent moving, it is also harder to get rid of a Biting Cold stack this way. This is one of the most difficult parts of the fight for ranged DPS, and keeping your Biting Cold stack down while doing good damage is something that needs a lot of practice and will improve markedly over time.
Melee DPS
Melee DPS have a difficult job avoiding Icicles in this fight, but otherwise are able to deal tons of damage to Hodir. Here are assignments:
1) Melee DPS should always be damaging Hodir unless they need to run to a Snowdrift to avoid Flash Freeze.
2) Stormclouds should be used to buff the melee DPS. Since all the melee are stacked up behind Hodir, it's fastest for the player with the Stormcloud buff to run to the melee stack and give them Storm Power all at once.
3) Melee need to jump all the time to avoid Biting Cold, while also watching carefully for falling Icicles. The small snow piles on the ground that signal an incoming Icicle can be difficult to see in the midst of the melee stack - don't get iced!
4) Your tank should move Hodir to a spot close to an available Starlight buff. Stand in it, even if it ends up being in front of Hodir. The +100% haste buff is worth it.
Healers
Healers are the lynchpin to this fight. Here are some quick notes:
1) Be spread out throughout the room, as shown in the positioning diagram. Healers bunched up will all have to move for Icicles at the same time, reducing a lot of outgoing healing at once. More importantly, as positions shift throughout the fight, make sure to stay spread out and not all end up near one another, causing a random DPS class across the room to end up dying from lack of heals.
2) Like everyone else, be careful with Biting Cold! Keep moving in little chunks to keep the debuff off and don't try to heal through it even though you have healing spells.
3) Assign 3 healers to the MT and the rest to healing raid damage. All healers need to be ready for the massive raid damage dealt during the 20 second duration of Frozen Blows.
10 Man Strategy Refinements
This fight remains basically the same between normal and heroic mode. The sequential progression of the fight remains the same as above, except there are simply fewer buffs to coordinate, fewer NPCs to free after each Flash Freeze, and fewer players in the raid.
The main strategic refinement to make with so few players and buffs is to stack up! The raid should form three distinct groups: a melee stack, a ranged DPS stack, and a healer stack. These three groups should move together to avoid Icicles and to (in the case of the two DPS stacks) acquire Starlight and Toasty Fire buffs. The stacks also allow Stormcloud buffs to be instantly distributed to nearby players (and if a healer gets Stormcloud they can easily run to one of the two stacks rather than having to find scattered individuals).
Healing can be demanding during Frozen Blows, especially since guilds shooting for a fast kill (or the Hard Mode DPS timer) will only bring two healers. One healer should always be assigned to the Main Tank, while the other heals up incidental damage from all the various sources, especially Frozen Blows. Tank and healer cooldowns are especially useful for surviving Frozen Blows successfully, and everyone in the raid should have Healthstones and healing potions ready in case they get too low on health for any reason.
Wrap-Up
For a raid new to Ulduar with Naxxramas gear, seven or eight minutes (and repeats of this sequence) are pretty normal for an initial kill. Remember that it isn't truly a DPS race, but instead a fight where you are rewarded for controlling your NPC buffs correctly, avoiding Icicles and Biting Cold, and healing through the massive damage during Frozen Blows. Play Hodir like a control fight and you'll have great success beating this "easy mode" incarnation of the fight.
If you want to recover Hodir's Sigil to help unlock the Observatory, that is a different matter:
Recovering Hodir's Sigil: Hard Mode
Hodir's hard mode consists of nothing more than an incredibly extreme DPS check. In order to recover Hodir's Sigil, your raid must not just kill Hodir in under ten minutes - instead you must kill him in three.
How are we supposed to do this, you ask? Dealing 32 million damage in less than 3 minute seems impossible, and it is pretty close. Here is what you must do.
1) Gear. Your entire raid should be fully equipped in the best available Ulduar loot. Item level 226-232 gear in almost every slot is required for everyone in the raid, and not just DPS classes. Furthermore, no one should wear any frost resistance gear anymore. You should be good enough at the fight by this point that your healers don't need the help that frost resistance provides, and all your DPS should have a lot of practice at avoiding Icicles and keeping Biting Cold off while still doing maximum DPS to Hodir.
2) Raid composition. Bring as few healers as possible to this fight. With strongly geared healers you should be able to get by with as few as four or five healers. Assign two to your extremely well geared MT and the rest to raid healing. Again, for this to work, DPS need to be really good at avoiding Icicles and Biting Cold damage.
3) Ranged camps. Divide your raid into 4 groups: MT+melee, and three ranged camps of 3-4 people each. These ranged DPS players should stick close to one another and move together to Toasty Fire and Starlight buffs. With several clumps, the likelihood of a single Icicle landing on the entire raid is greatly reduced but several people can all take advantage of the same buffs.
4) Buff management. Make sure that the melee always have Storm Power on their camp. If the buff fades, melee should announce that they need it again and the next Stormcloud buffed player should run to them. Only if they have a decent chunk of Storm Power time left should a Stormcloud buffed player use his buff on a ranged camp. Also, make sure to always have Hodir near a Starlight buff so that the melee can take advantage of +100% haste.
5) Threat. You will find that it is very difficult for the MT to keep a good threat lead on DPS highly buffed by the combination of all the NPC buffs. Because of this, make sure to choose the tank in your raid who outputs the most possible threat. Your tanks should have good enough gear at this point that they can use a few "threat style" pieces of gear to increase their threat output while still being able to take the punishment Hodir deals. Finally, if you still see threat issues, then give your MT Storm Power as often as possible! (Note: If you never see any threat issues, it probably means that your DPS aren't getting the right buffs, or aren't doing as much damage as they should be to beat this encounter in hard mode.)
6) Buffs and Bloodlust/Heroism. Have one shaman in the raid be responsible for tracking the NPC buffs. Using Grid or raid frames with buffs specifically marked is a great idea for this. Within a short time after the first Flash Freeze, the entire raid should be positioned in Starlight/Toasty Fire, Singed should still be stacked up on Hodir from the previous minute, and melee should have Storm Power. As soon as everything is ready (this should be within 10-15 seconds of the Flash Freeze cast) use Bloodlust/Heroism. This should give you the full duration before everyone has to run to find a new Snowdrift for the second Flash Freeze.
Other than these notes, the fight proceeds as normal and the strategy is the same. Deal as much damage as possible before the third Flash Freeze.
|
|
|
|
|
|
<- Back to Thorim (25 Man) Guide By Nellorae
|
