Heart of Fear: Garalon (10)

Garalon is a single-phase fight where you must kite the boss for the duration of the encounter however 2 tanks are still needed.

Garalon fixates on a random raid member and move towards them. Who he fixates on is determined by a debuff which can be passed between players. Therefore, you can control who the boss is following although one player cannot have the debuff all the time because it deals increasing damage to them.

Garalon's legs can be attacked and killed and doing so slows Garalon each leg slows him down more and makes kiting him easier and ensures that the kiter does not get hit by very damaging abilities that Garalon uses. 

Garalon will periodically revive his legs, so killing them is something that must be done throughout the entire fight. Killing the leg also hurts Garalon by the same amount of health the leg had.

The tanks' only role in the encounter is to soak the damage from a frontal cone attack that the boss does and that needs to hit at least two players.

Pheromones Debuff

Garalon will cast Pheromones on the player that pulls him, he casts this debuff once, but it remains active for the entire duration of the fight. Pheromones has several effects.

Every 2 econds, Pheromones deals a small, increasing amount of Nature damage to the entire raid and Garalon fixates on the player who is currently carrying Pheromones and chases them.

The Pheromone afflicted player receives a stacking debuff, Pungency, which increases the damage that Pheromones deals to the raid, by 10% per stack. Pungency lasts for 2 minutes and a new stack is applied every 2 seconds. They also leave a trail of damaging void zones behind, Pheromone Trail.

Abilities

Pheromones is passed to a different player, by coming within 2 yards of the carrier and this also resets it to its base value. So, the damage the raid takes has a predictable low > medium > high > low > medium > high cycle.

If, a player who already has stacks of Pungency takes the debuff, Pheromones will deal damage based on their stacks of Pungency.

Pungency also persists through death so someone has to move over to the corpse and take the debuff from them just as they would if the player were alive.

Crush is a raid-wide damaging attack that deals a high amount of damage to the raid and an extremely high amount of damage to any raid members who are under Garalon. It is cast when the Pheromones debuff passes to a new target and when a raid member is under Garalon. Needless to say nobody should EVER go under Garalon, the area to avoid is indicated visually by a circle on the ground, under Garalon.

Furious Swipe is a frontal cone attack cast roughly every 8 seconds. This attack can be avoided but if it doesn't hit at least two players Garalon gains a stack of Fury, which increases Garalon's damage and movement speed by 10% per stack.

Garalon's Legs

Garalon's legs can be targeted, attacked, and killed. Each time one of Garalon's legs is killed, Garalon takes 3% of his maximum health in damage, and receives a stack of a debuff that slows him for 15% per stack, stacking up to 4 times.

Killing the legs is made easy by Weak Points, a buff that players receive when they are within 12 yards of one of Garalon's legs. This increases the damage that they deal to that leg by 100%. Players who are in the 12-yard radius around a leg must be careful not to accidentally move under Garalon. There are also visual aids in place to help players see the exact range of Weak Points and are visible only when near one of Garalon's legs.

Tank Duties

Tanks must always be in front of Garalon to soak the damage of Furious Swipe, the damage is no problem unless they are low on health.

As Garalon changes direction based on the location of the Pheromone carrier, tanks must pay attention to the carriers is and make sure they adjust their position accordingly.

Managing Pheromones

This is the key to victory. Your goal is have to have the debuff passed among players as few times as possible. The debuff carrier should pass it on at 20 stacks (approx 40 seconds) which is a damage tick of 45k every 2 seconds. This means that you will need to pass it between 4 players before the stacks wear off.

Because the player who is carrying it has to constantly move it is best to assign mobile classes hunters, tanks and healers are the preferred options.

The first player who receives the debuff will be the player who is nearest to Garalon when he is engaged, so you can easily control the succession of players who get the debuff.

Kiting Pattern

The player who is carrying the Pheromones is going to be fixated on by Garalon. This player must kite the boss, so they are far enough away from Garalon that his frontal cone attack will not hit them (15-20 yards) and move in such a way that the Pheromone Trail that they leave behind does not affect the raid's movement and positioning.

Ideally, Garalon should be kited around the outer edges of the room. The first target should go to one corner of the room, wait until Garalon is near, and then begin moving along the side of the room.

To minimise the amount of space void zones take up the player should move only enough to be out of it and should stand at the edge of the zone until a new one spawns so the void zones partially overlap.

Healing Concerns

The tanks will regularly receive large hits, so they must be at or close to max HP at all times.

The whole raid takes a varying amount of damage every 2 seconds. This damage is rises to a peak until after a Crush when it then drops to almost nothing before rising again. The pattern is predictable as long as Pheromones are handled properly.

The only other healeable damage source is from players who stand in or walk through the void zones.

Killing the Legs

DPS players will have to kill Garalon's legs whenever they are up, maximise DPS by standing in melee range of the target leg to get the 100% damage buff but avoiding being under Garalon, failure is penalised by Death, the ultimate DPS loss.

Combat Rogues, Arms Warriors and Fire Mages can damage the boss while attacking his legs resulting in a large DPS increase. Maximising damage in this way will make it considerably easier to beat the enrage timer. Sadly Splash Damage is NOT affected by the Weak Points buff.